Either Or Both free porn video

Don't read this if you shouldn't or don't want to. Either Or Both by Vickie Tern i. When they came back down from upstairs and settled themselves into the living room they were wearing strange expressions on their faces. I wondered why. Beth had taken them up to show them the just-completed massive renovations in our upstairs area, the two huge walk-in closets she'd carved out of adjacent attic space, the rather palatial bathroom, the new just-in-case guest suite, the intricately designed yet softly patterned wallpapers and drapes and curtains she'd selected. They'd stayed up there quite a while, maybe a half-hour. I supposed because after the walk-through -- how long could that take, three minutes? -- they'd just stood there and chatted about wallpaper and fashions and fixtures and contractors and the like. They all thought they could change the quality of their lives by re-upholstering chairs or relocating walls. You know women. Beth especially was deep into refurnishing and refinishing, improving her world and remaking her life by redecorating it. Had been ever since she came into her inheritance and realized she could now afford all sorts of changes. They were here supposedly to discuss arrangements for the annual Women's Club Benefit Dance. Beth is this year's President and she'd called the meeting in a series of endless hush-hush phone calls I apparently wasn't supposed to overhear. Secrets, they love them! Anyhow, they all arrived on time for once and were immediately ushered upstairs. First things first, and decor always comes first. Just the new crimson silk bedspreads Beth had bought for the new bedroom were reason enough to put the upstairs on exhibition. But one by one as they came down they looked at me or else avoided looking at me, staring past me as if fascinated by the blank wall behind me. Either way with half-smiles on their faces. "Ladies," I nodded at them. Then I called out, "Beth, I've set out the snacks on the kitchen counter and started the tea steeping." She was still upstairs with a few stragglers. "I'm off now." Whenever she held her Women's Club meetings I tried to be elsewhere, out of the house. I had a golf game scheduled today. "Stay a moment, would you, Darryl," Beth called back to me from above. "I'll be right down. I need to put a proposal to you!" So they'd been discussing more renovations? Further "improvements" some of the women had suggested? I guess. Well, all right. We'd come into considerable money with the death of Beth's father. When the lawyer revealed the extent of the legacy and we recovered from the weight of its numbers, Beth had vowed to use it to improve our lives "in every way imaginable," her words. "Now we can have everything our hearts desire," she'd said. "Be thinking about what you'd love above all else! I want the very best for you." The very next day she'd begun planning the upstairs renovation. I was pretty well satisfied with things as they were, so I had no suggestions. But what did I know? I waited for her to come down, wondering if I should bring in the tea and the cups and saucers and lemon and milk and trays of finger sandwiches and little cakes and so on, the nibble food women love while chatting sociably yet also resolving intricate organizational problems. They'd settled themselves comfortably in the various soft chairs and couches we had scattered all over, and they were looking up at me with pleasant expectancy in their faces. But they said nothing. Not even to each other. Beth finally arrived, still in some sort of non-consequential conversation with the last two women accompanying her. Then they too sat down. All ten of them were now comfortably seated, looking alternatively at Beth and then at me. "Will this take long?" I asked her, glancing at my watch and then at the door. I was already late for my Tee-Off time. Another few minutes and I'd have to call the guys and tell them to go ahead without me, I'll catch up, we can still bet on individual holes if not the whole round. "Shall I sit down?" "Oh, no, I'd rather you stand for this," Beth said. Her little joke. I was always telling her I wouldn't stand for this or that minor annoyance at work or at home or at the club, wherever. She knew that I never did anything about the things that irk me. I don't like making waves, and that sometimes annoys her. But then, I've never been forceful. I hate confrontations. I accept, adjust, get used to things. I rationalize that whatever it is, it's probably for the best, and to get along, go along. Usually things do turn out well enough, and if they don't, I change them by changing my mind about them. Beth is more stubborn, more hands on -- if it isn't right, change it or toss it. In this case it was wallpaper and walls. She sat down in the large winged armchair that overlooked all the other couches and chairs, her customary place as Chair of whatever club or committee was meeting at our house. It was a large house, and this was a large room, so her various organizations liked meeting here. The canapes and cakes she served were better than in most other homes, and there was always a choice of several teas. Now I was the only person standing, and the women variously arrayed around the room were watching me. Pleasantly enough. I suddenly came aware that they weren't any of them chatting or gossiping, finishing up the remnants of whatever the conversations they'd been having on their way down the stairs. They were waiting. Their meeting had already begun, in effect, and I was somehow in the middle of it. Somehow its subject? I turned to face Beth and realized that I was in the classic position of someone called on the carpet for questioning, I wasn't sure what for. Some inadequacy? Some malefaction or misdemeanor? Guilty, your honor, but I can explain. To ease my feeling that somehow a formal inquisition was about to begin, I shifted my weight casually to one foot. Then shifted back. Then placed one hand on a walnut cabinet next to me as if about to lean on it. That was better. Now I looked a little more at ease, I hoped. Or maybe I looked better-braced for some kind of attack? I couldn't myself tell which. "Never mind your golf game, honey," Beth told me in a kindly voice. "I've already called Todd and given him your regrets, and told him to tell the others you can't make it today. Nor next week either. Not for the foreseeable, not until things re-adjust." I nodded. This was irksome. I'd been looking forward to getting out into the open air and playing a round or two with the guys! And next week too? Without even consulting me? My ire began to rise, but in front of all her friends I couldn't show anger, no more than mild puzzlement. So I ignored it and only looked at her with one eyebrow raised. "Todd sends everyone's regrets. He's sorry you have to go away for treatment, but he hopes you'll be OK real soon. They all understand and send you their best." Baffling! I looked around for a clue in the other women's faces. Mostly non-committal, casually curious to see what I'd do next. They were all sitting there in their gauzy summer tea dresses and watching me. This was some kind of significant event. Matty, Todd's wife, never took her eyes off me even as she leaned over and murmured something to Melissa, who smiled and nudged her affectionately. Melissa, who'd just split from a mean-tempered husband she'd married for his money, now her money, looked at me with narrowed eyes as if a well-deserved vengeance were about to be inflicted on me. She'd declared herself off men for life, and it was obvious why. Alice, a kindly mother of four kids, at thirty the oldest woman on the Women's Club Board, was watching with sympathetic concern written all over her face. What in the world did she know I didn't? "Treatment? What are you talking about, Beth?" "Everyone here knows, Darryl," Beth said. "Your secret life isn't secret any more. Most of them didn't believe me, but now they've all seen it for themselves. All the gorgeous clothes you've been accumulating for years, ever since you told me about your ... habit and I encouraged you to go with it, never mind what anyone thinks. All the dresses and gowns and skirts and things hanging in the back section of your new walk-in. And the bureau drawers full of lingerie, the panties and bras and teddies you love to wear and the darling little nothings I've bought for you to wear." "That Hilda Page tunic is absolutely stunning," a voice from way to my left burst in. Susan's, she was married to one of my partners at work.. "I just love it! You must tell me where in the world you found it." "Oh, yes!" another voice said. Tracy's. Tracy was the group's resident expert on hairdos, to judge by the always-fashionable pile on top of her own head. No matter how much money Mort earned, Tracy found new ways to spend it on herself. "And that red sequinned evening blouse, the one you have paired with your long black pencil skirt? Gorgeous! You must get all sorts of compliments whenever you ...." Before I could turn to stare at either speaker, Beth spoke. "No, he doesn't, Tracy, because no one ever sees it. Remember, that's the problem? Darryl will tell us where he got his beautiful clothes some other time, I'm sure. But first things first." Something in her tone of voice kept my head still from then on, looking straight at her. Meanwhile my stomach had bottomed out. This was the low point of my life. I knew now why they'd been upstairs for so long, what they'd been doing there, why all the women had come back down either amused or unable to look me in the eye. Beth had outed me. She'd shown them my stash. They'd been examining the closets full of women's clothes I'd accumulated over the years and worn whenever I could. Which was most of the time -- every evening, every weekend, whenever no one would see me dressed that way except Beth. No one had known. But now all these women knew, and I felt as exposed as if I were standing there naked. The word was out. Soon it would be all over town, and I'd be thoroughly disgraced, unable to show myself anywhere, ridiculed as an absurdity, a supposed man who likes to imagine he's a woman. 'Sissy' would be the kindest thing they'd call me. ii. Like most crossdressers I'd found I loved it when I crossed into puberty, and I'd eagerly, guiltily, secretly dressed up all through high school and college. After getting married I'd let it lapse for a while for fear of losing my wife's respect, then I couldn't help it, I'd resumed it secretly. I felt terribly ashamed and was terrified that I might be seen, yet I also felt exalted by each garment that clung to me or hung from me. I dressed as often as opportunity allowed. I hated hiding that part of myself from Beth and I admit it, I also hated the inconvenience of sneaking around behind her back. I wanted to look pretty, dainty, feminine all the time I was home. I wanted to be as girly with Beth as she was with her friends. So one evening, after weeks of hesitation, I bit the bullet, steeled myself, sat her down, and told her. I told her how much I loved it, that I'd loved it ever since I was a kid, that I felt deeply ashamed every time I yielded to the desire but couldn't help it, didn't want to help it, that I'd try to suppress it for her sake if it offended her, but I couldn't promise I'd ever succeed. I wanted to look like a woman every moment I was home alone. Every moment I was home with her. Every moment I was in bed with her. She'd stared at me impassively, listening, leaning back in her chair, not at all as puzzled as I'd expected but instead, thoughtful. Then suddenly her face had exploded into a brilliant smile. I was amazed! She was delighted to learn about my crossdressing, and she consented to it enthusiastically! "Oh, honey," she told me. "I just knew there was something extra-marvelous about you! We really are soul-mates! That's wonderful! Perfect! There's a woman's soul in you too! I'm going to love helping you enjoy it, and I'll love it too! From now on we'll be the dearest of girlfriends as well as the dearest of lovers!" She couldn't have been more enthusiastic. I was astonished. Then as I realized what she was saying I was elated. Blissful! She explained she was already familiar with that kind of thing, and that was why she was delighted to help me. It seems that all through high school she and her girlfriend Liza had taught Liza's brother Norris how to be a girl. It was at his request, maybe out of mere curiosity at first, but it soon became richly satisfying to him. Soon he was spending almost as much time as a girl as he was as a boy. The whole time, the summer he graduated from high school! They dressed him in their clothes and helped him shop for his own, and they'd shown him how to use make-up, how to do his hair, how to fling his wrists, how to do all sorts of things, and he'd loved it. They'd became a threesome, three girls who went everywhere together. They'd even triple-dated, giggling together like conspirators, competing to see how far they could go with their boys without going all the way, then laughing with each other all through the next day, telling each other everything. Yes, like any girl Norrie occasionally gave blow jobs and then told the other girls about it the next day. They all agreed, it was the least he could do, even if also the most. Though one night Norrie got into real trouble with a boy in a back seat and they'd had to rescue him. "He was so cute," Beth said, reminiscing fondly. "There he was, poor Norrie, pinned down under this boy, a tongue buried deep in his mouth and a pecker feeling its way past his panties to slide into a pussy that wasn't there. The whole time Norrie moaning for us to hurry and help him for God's sake, and the other boy thinking he was moaning to hurry and fuck him. The poor dear! You can bet he never went that far with any boy ever again! He did date lots more, sometimes even on his own, because it 'flattered his femininity' -- that was how he explained it. It helped him feel more like a real girl. But after that incident most boys got only a feel and a good night kiss. Well, maybe a really special date could cum in his mouth, but only someone really special." Beth smiled, remembering. "Liza told me about it the same day Norrie confessed to her that he was no longer a virgin. He was rather proud of the fact. By then we'd quit telling each other everything. The novelty had worn off, and after a certain age it doesn't seem right to kiss and tell. You know." I found this story exhilarating, an enormous relief. But it also made me uneasy, edgy. Did Beth assume that I'd also want to do things with boys? I didn't! I couldn't! She couldn't be assuming that! Anyhow, we were married! We should be faithful to each other! But I didn't dare ask her. Norrie eventually got married too, Beth told me. Just like me. With his wife's permission he continued to play at being a woman, now and then. In fact he was a man only when he had to be and her girlfriend otherwise. They went out together all the time to various women's events, to plays and restaurants and so forth, even to parties where they were both known -- their friends never knew if he'd be showing up as a respectable-looking man or as a charming woman, and learned to accept him either way. They also went to night clubs where neither of them were known, and flirted and danced with strangers for fun. Beth was a little vague about whether they ever had sex with these strangers afterward. She did say that they never openly double-dated -- they both insisted on maintaining marital propriety. There were obvious advantages for the wife, apart from the pleasure of Norrie's company as her girlfriend. Since he enjoyed being a woman more than she did, Norrie took over all the traditional women's duties in their household. She never had to lift a finger. He even served as her maid, dressed appropriately, whenever she had friends in or held receptions or dinners at their home for her business clients. If anyone suspected he was male they were usually too polite to show it, but he didn't mind if they did. Mostly he looked so pretty it never occurred to them. Then afterward they'd chuckle together at the reactions of those who were deceived and those who weren't. He did look adorable, Beth told me, and men made passes at him all the time, which amused his wife. Women did too, which didn't amuse her at all. She insisted that he remain faithful, that he enjoy no intimacies with other women ever, and he was so smitten with her that he never did. Even when he learned that now and then she wasn't being perfectly faithful with men, not perfectly. In fact it gave him an extra thrill when she came home from a date and told him all about it. It made him feel like a teen who was sitting again in his sister's bedroom, wearing his pleated miniskirt and giggling with Liza and Beth about their most recent dates while meanwhile doing each other's hair. "Could you be my Norrie?" Beth had asked me. "Could we do all those things together?" She sounded so eager! I suppose she was curious to see if like Norrie's wife she'd lucked out. Or how far she'd lucked out. "Could we be girlfriends together? At least now and then? Go out, have fun that way? Not with men, not unless we both felt like it, but everything else? I'd love it, having you for my very best girlfriend." I'd had to disappoint her. Coldly and firmly I'd had to tell her no way! No way could I ever leave the house and go out with her looking like a woman! And meet other people? The very idea scared me to death! I couldn't bear it! Show my weakness to the world? It had taken me all of several years to confess it even to her! I was far too ashamed of this strange craving, for yielding to it as often as I did. I was always in deathly fear of making a humiliating spectacle of myself. Others might well see at a glance that I was not the pretty girl I liked to imagine myself, that I was only a man dressed up as a woman, an object fit for mockery. I was sure of it. This puzzled Beth. She looked at me as if I were explaining a perversion of some kind, at a loss how to respond. She sounded astonished. "You're ashamed of yourself?" she asked. "How can that be? You can be quite passable, I can tell that at a glance, not a great beauty but quite lovely, pretty enough to turn most heads I'm sure! And if you want to experience the full range of what it's like to be a woman as well as a man, what could be more admirable? Yet you're ashamed? Of your own desires?" No, I told her, I don't seek the full range of being a woman. I just wanted to look like one, because I love the look. I felt blissfully happy when I could persuade myself I'd succeeded. But I'd only cross-dressed alone. I just ... couldn't, not where anyone could see. I'd be mortified if others knew I had these desires. I was terribly embarrassed that even she knew. It was so ... unmanly of me! "Oh?" she said. "Well, let's see! Be an unman for me. Right now. I'll wait." Paralyzed with apprehension but telling myself over and over that this was what I'd wanted, so I'd better go through with it, I went to the back-room storage closet where I kept my stash and slipped into low heels, a padded bra, a denim skirt, and a sweater. Very simple. Then reappeared. "You need make-up," was what she said after a glance. "Never mind your own, use what's in my purse. It's on the table in the hallway." I did quickly, just her mascara and a little lipstick, and then reappeared a second time. It felt good to use her cosmetics. As if her desirability had become mine. "That's better, sweetheart," she said in a soft voice. "You don't walk as gracefully as you might, and that sweater isn't really appropriate. It's too tight -- decent women don't flaunt their boobs like that, they hint them. It's also a little too K-Mart, I suspect we're both Lord and Taylor women. But you're really quite presentable. Shall I prove it to you? Let's go to a mall and just walk around. They're all still open." "No!" I almost shouted, terrified, horrified, my face blanched pale! "No! I ... just can't! Please, please...don't...." Now near tears, I had no idea what I intended to say. I wanted to disappear! "Please ...!" She stared uncomprehending at me, then sighed, baffled. "All right," she said. "If that's how it is. I won't force you to do anything." She studied me a little longer, then nodded slowly, and gave me permission to dress myself whenever I chose. "Go ahead," she said with light sarcasm. "Disgrace yourself if that's what you think you're doing. I kind of like it. But in return, you will do the other things Norrie did, won't you? Take care of the house?" "Yes, I will," I said devoutly. "Yes! As long as no one else sees." She nodded, and that was that. I took over all the household work, free to dress as a woman whenever I chose as long as no one ever saw me. And that's what I'd done, happily. It was wonderful! At home I only wore women's clothes, changing into them the moment I arrived back from work. Our heavy cleaning was done by a woman who came in periodically for a few hours, but it was my responsibility to straighten up the house, make the bed, vacuum as necessary, plan, shop, cook, and serve dinners, clear the kitchen afterward, now and then run a laundry, put our freshly folded lingerie and blouses back into our respective drawers, hand-wash our panties and stockings, take our suits and skirts to the cleaner's, and so on. To do all the daily things women do. No complaint, I loved it! I loved pretending I was a woman. I did the housework in a washable domestic servant's dress, almost a uniform -- Beth teased me that I looked perfect for carrying around hot hor d'oeuvres at cocktail receptions, was I sure I didn't want to earn a little extra money by taking that up as a second career? I'd smile and curtsy and say "Thank you, mum," a little unsure whether she was jesting. I was even more unsure when one day she brought home as a gift a little frilly apron and cap to go with my maids' dresses. I hurried to put them on to show her, and she smiled, pleased that I was pleased, but thankfully she said nothing more about my wearing them when we were entertaining guests. When I expected her home I'd try to change into something more appropriate, something more like what her women friends would wear, something fashionable and seasonal. A dressy dress, usually, though sometimes only heels, designer jeans, and a midriff blouse set off with a gold chain necklace. Always something with flair. The last few years I'd made it my business to come home early enough to make myself really attractive for her. I couldn't wait to see her smile of appreciation when I greeted her at the door and she saw how lovely I looked, what a beautiful gown I'd put on, how slimming it was, the care I'd taken with my make-up and hair. I'd look forward all day to her delighted kiss -- lipstick on lipstick -- when she saw how I'd planned our evening, the cocktails I'd serve her in our living room and then the candle lit dinner I'd prepared or on special occasion, ordered in. She constantly reassured me that I looked fine, perfectly acceptable, just lovely, there was not the slightest doubt I could pass, no chance I'd be recognized, we really should try dining out now and then so I could enjoy being treated like a lady by other people, at least by bartenders and waiters and maitre d's. "It's another world, being a woman out there!" she'd say. "You'd love it, I know you would!" Sometimes on impulse she'd urge me to leave the house just as I as, right now -- in my black tulle sheathe, for example, she still in the smart gray wool suit she'd worn to the office that day. "You're gorgeous!" she'd say. "You'll shame all the other women in the restaurant! Let's go!" And she'd open the front door and start through it. I'd want to oblige her, but past our front door lurked that terrifying, impassable abyss. I just couldn't. I'd try but my feet wouldn't budge. I'd stand there stock still. "It'll be so much fun!" she'd insist. But I never dared leave the house, neither alone nor with Beth accompanying me. Not even after dark, not even to clip clop in heels to a mailbox after midnight and then scurry back through the shadows to refuge and safety. Beth swore that if we went out together she'd stay close and manage any embarrassing situation that might arise, any threat to my real identity. She'd protect my secret. And I trusted her. But going out with Beth seemed to me even more dangerous than going out alone. I tried to explain it. She was well known around town. Others of her acquaintance, perhaps of our immediate circle of friends, might see her and recognize her and pause to chat, requiring that she introduce me to them, and then if they stared closely at me they'd know, they'd know that the woman she was with was really her pansy husband. Her faggot husband. My reputation would be ruined. "Perhaps," Beth replied. "Maybe my reputation would be ruined too, for tolerating such a husband. So what? Only people who don't matter would talk. People love to talk, but they never really care. It happens. For example people notice me now and then out lunching with a client, and malicious gossip gets back to me -- I'm surprised it doesn't get back to you." "What kind of gossip?" I asked. "That I'm seeing this man or that. I never am, so there's nothing to deny, so I ignore it and it dies away. You'd survive whatever people want to say. Everyone has secrets to hide, I know lots of them. If anyone ever attempted to injure my reputation or yours, I'd destroy theirs, and I suspect most people know this. So come to dinner with me, please, sweetie! Just this once? No one will ever know, brazen it out! Be a man! I mean, a woman! That dress is so fetching and your hairdo is so perfect, they're crying out to be admired! Show some courage! Let me respect you for once!" "No!" I'd say, regretting that my timidity was costing me her respect. That "for once" hurt especially. Or she'd try a different tack. "Not even the strength of character it takes to walk down the street and buy an ice cream?" she asked me whimsically. "You don't want to know how it feels when the wind blows a girl's skirt against her legs? There's nothing more feminine than that, sweetheart! Except maybe ...." And she'd smile and look at me slyly. I did want to, desperately, but I just couldn't! I couldn't! Once known for what I was I'd be forever afterward ... what I was, 'that sissy queer,' 'that absurd excuse for a man.' Even in my own eyes, my fears about myself would be confirmed by what other people thought of me. So I'd quail and beg off. Beth would end by turning away from me in contempt. But what could I do? Sometimes in earnest or jest she'd urge me to accompany her to an evening gathering where only she was known and she only had to put in a quick appearance. "No one will ever guess who you are. I'll introduce you as a cousin from Toledo, and I'll just talk to a few people, and you'll mingle and fight off the men who'll come sniffing around you. It'll be fun! Then we'll come home and laugh about it and make the most passionate love you've ever known. I promise you that." I'd stiffen and just say 'No!' yet again, my voice quavering, all the while my heart heavy with regret but also with fear that she might be serious for once, that she might force me, might perhaps deliver a do or die ultimatum. In the end she'd go out alone and then come back silent, and there'd be no love lost or found between either of us that night. I'd plead with her for understanding, but she had none to yield up. She was only perplexed. "You want to look like a woman," she'd say. "And you devote hours and hours to it, and you work hard at it, and you succeed at it and beautifully, too! You should claim the reward due any woman who puts that much time and effort into looking nice. You should enjoy being admired!" Sometimes though she was scornful. Sometimes she'd just stare at me and say in a withering voice, "Darryl, how can you be so utterly gutless? You are what you are! Where's your pride?" I had no answer. I was ashamed of what I was, and ashamed to be seen as what I was, and ashamed that I felt ashamed. I was a disgrace to my own manliness and didn't want anyone to know. I tried to call it shyness, or caution, and it may have been, but she was right. It was cowardice. My pusillanimity intruded even on simple activities. If she forgot a package in her car and asked me to fetch it for her, she was annoyed that I absolutely would not set foot past the front door, certainly not into the driveway, not without first running upstairs to change. Even though I was already wearing slacks, a moderately low heel, and pale make-up, even though I might well look to any neighbor's casual glance like someone else or else like merely me. Nor during the summer did I dare appear in our back garden wearing shorts and a halter, or perhaps a sun dress, despite the high walls preserving our privacy from most of the neighbors. When Beth wanted to enjoy a gin and tonic out on the back patio while watching the sun set, it was always alone. I was always too apprehensive to join her. I had to come out to hand it to her, that was my duty as her maid, after all. But I'd do it wearing a raincoat with a hood to cover my hairdo, then immediately scurry back into the house while she looked disgustedly at my retreating back. Mostly she merely felt exasperated, but sometimes she tried sympathetically to ease my fears. "At least let me ask take you to Elaine's for a proper hair styling," she'd say. "With the right cut you can wear your hair brushed out as men do, or else set it so it's unmistakably feminine. Either way would serve to keep anyone from tumbling to your dreadful secret, and I'm sure either way would delight you. Elaine can give you an absolutely ravishing look, a hairdo to die for. Don't you want that? Of course you do! Let me just talk to her about it! You can go dressed as a man -- I've seen men there getting their hair styled and their nails done, real men, heads of corporations with nothing to fear who simply want to look well-groomed. If you absolutely insist, I could have her do it here after work." That kind of proposal tempted me, yet also unnerved me. "Of course I want a real feminine hairdo," I'd tell her, near tears. "I dream of it. I'd be in raptures! But I don't dare! Maybe no one else would know, but Elaine would know, and I'd die of embarrassment just knowing she knew. Also, suppose a single curl of that hairdo showed up at the office, and the women there who know hairdos were to put two and two together!" "So?" Beth shouted, incensed that her well-intentioned offer had been so callowly rejected. "So what?" I had no answer. I was simply too scared. I was absolutely certain that if discovered, if "read" as the effeminate swish I was, a weak male who likes to imagine he's female, I'd never live it down. "You're only afraid to commit yourself," she said scornfully. "To acknowledge what you are. That's all. So you pretend you're even less than you are, and you end up a lot less than you could be." "I suppose," was all I could reply, unhappy that she was unhappy with me. She'd make lesser suggestions too, now and then. She proposed that at least I get rid of my beard, using lasers or electrolysis. But I couldn't, for the same reason I couldn't go to Elaine's. Or that I pluck my brows to a thinner, more distinctly feminine arch, or let her do it. Or that I get a professional manicure, a simple man's manicure with clear matte polish. Or wear perfume. I couldn't. People might notice and ask questions, and then I'd blush and stammer, and my secret might emerge, and that would be unbearable. She thought my fears borderline pathological, and proposed that I seek help, get psychological counselling toward self-acceptance. But again, the thought that someone else knew my guilty secret, even a therapist, seemed intolerable. I wasn't ready for anyone to know. In fact Beth was quite right. If I went out dressed, the chances of my being read were slight. I knew how to look female. I'd gild the lily with facial expressions and mannerisms never before performed by any man anywhere, and I was confident that they stamped me "Girl!" at first glance. With my modest breast forms, I have to confess it, I had a rather attractive figure, and I loved showing it off even though only to Beth and to my mirror. "This notion that people who see you will think you're a man," Beth once told me. "It's ridiculous! The way you are, the way you behave, even I have trouble thinking of you as a man!" That remark hurt. Oddly, because I'd spent half the afternoon trying to make myself look like a woman, making myself pretty for her, and I'd been utterly delighted when she saw me and said, "Oh, sweetheart, you do look so adorable!" I always wanted to be a girl for her, not a man. I didn't want her to think of me as a man. Yet I did too. After a year or so of this, instead of trying to bring me out into the world as my feminine self she began proposing ways for me to enlarge and gratify my femininity privately. Understand, it wasn't power-tripping that motivated her, not some errant desire to dominate me or sap my masculinity. "I love you," she'd explained once when my refusal to peek past my self-imposed closet door had her at her wits' end. "To me you are the dearest person alive. I love your femininity, your softness, how pretty you look. I remember how much Norrie enjoyed himself as a girl, how he loved doing girl things with us, and I want that for you. I know you'd feel that way if you'd only let yourself. I hate to see you deprived! I want you to have everything your heart desires, and I know you want this!" "Half a loaf is enough for me," I replied, "Not for me!" she exclaimed devoutly. "Not when it's for you! If you won't be a girl for me out in the open then you'll just have to be more of a girl for me in private." She asked me to wear a sanitary napkin whenever she did, so I too could share in her experience of having a period. I obliged, but only after I came home from work, never in the morning when I was leaving for the office. I was afraid it might fall out of my boxer shorts, through my pants leg, and then lie there at my feet inexplicably for all to see. "A period is an all day thing!" she cried, exasperated. "And all night. If you're so afraid that a napkin in your shorts will be discovered, God knows how, then wear a tampon! See? You push it into your pussy and it stays there until you tug it out by this string! No one will ever look there! Or at least wear a pair of snug panties and pads with adhesive 'wings' that grip the crotch -- they never fall out." I couldn't. "What if I were in an accident and taken to the hospital?" I asked, I thought reasonably enough. "If that happened," she said, once again at her wit's end, irked by my timorousness. "If that happened a tampon in your ass or a pad in your panties would be the least of your worries!" But I couldn't see it. I sometimes couldn't tell if she was putting me on with her different proposals. "Honey," she said one night when she was gently guiding my cock into her quim and our two nylon nightgowns were rubbing seductively on each other's breasts. "Suppose each morning, when I take my birth control pill, you take yours." "What? My what?" "Hormones." "What for? So I won't get pregnant?" "No, to dress you up on the inside, so you'll feel more womanly inside yourself. More the way women feel. Also to make you prettier." "That's the problem," I said. "They might change the way my body looks." I decided she was pulling my leg, though at that very moment it was my cock she was pulling. "Look how they changed yours!" She looked thoughtful. I entered her and began to stroke in and out of her, in and out, slowly. "True, they might soften your face a bit," she said dreamily. "And your chest. I hope so. Oh, that feels so good, sweetheart! Then maybe you'd be less fearful about looking ... inappropriate." "They wouldn't only soften my face and my chest. They might soften my erections." She smiled, untroubled. "That's true. But we could call it a trade off, couldn't we, you getting more sexy above and less sexy below. Two for one, not a bad deal. You know those deep plunging necklines you like to wear? The ones too revealing to be worn even with a strapless brassiere? Don't you think your body needs to hint at a little cleft when you put one on? That's what they're for, after all." "Honey, I'd love to have breasts. I fantasize having them. But in any locker room the guys I'm with couldn't help but notice. I do shave my body hair and get away with it because they know I was once on my high school swim team and they think I still do high performance swimming. But a softer face? Soft bulges hanging from my chest? My friends, my so-called friends would walk all over me. Men are always patrolling the borders of each other's masculinity, you know that. Razzing anyone who even hints he's gone soft." "If your golf partners think you're less of a man, is that more important than my wanting you to think you're more of a woman? The fact that I love it when you look girly, the same way you do? That I'd love it if you were more of a woman? More openly a woman? More yourself?" I didn't answer her. Her desires meant more to me by far than the approbation of any of my buddies. But I couldn't conceive of life without the respect of my peers. I was a man, after all. My peers were men. I wanted her respect but theirs too. "I've put your first month's pills in the drawer on your side of the bed," she said. "They're a high-test formula, a kind that really floods your system. The first day or two you might feel nauseous, but after that you'll only look flushed and a little radiant. Enjoy them. When they're gone, I'll give you more. Now let's do some serious fucking!" And she wrapped her legs behind my back and drew me deep into her, and began to buck and pitch, and we fucked gloriously. Just thinking about my taking those pills and developing a woman's face and figure had turned her on. That was her kink I suppose. Mine too, I have to admit it. I wished I could dare oblige her. Now and then I'd pick up that wheel of potent blue pills and look at them wistfully. That may be all she really expected of me, to remain aware that my heart's desires were within my grasp despite my inhibitions and ambivalences. I didn't dare take even one -- she'd know from the empty space left on the wheel, and then the pressure on me to take another would become relentless. Even so, from then on, instead of taking her pill each morning as mindlessly as she scrubbed her teeth, she'd get my attention and then looking me straight in the eyes, place one on her tongue and deliberately swallow it. Taunting me. Challenging me. In a weird way, she made me feel like less of a man because I was not behaving like a true woman and taking my daily hormone pill. Not developing boobs. Some weeks later, I'd creamed off my make-up and was slipping into my babydoll for bed when suddenly Beth asked, "Darryl, do you like licking my cunt?" A no brainer. "I love licking your cunt." "It doesn't make you feel you're less of a man when you make love to me like a woman, licking me?" "Men do that," I said defensively. "Men do all sorts of things that women also do. Men suck each others' cocks for example. Do you do that?" "No!" "You could. As a man or as a woman. Mainly, it's women that suck cocks. You like imagining that you're a woman. Don't you think you should try cocksucking? You might enjoy it." "No way, Beth!" "Then be a dear and lie down on my body with your head in my pussy the way a woman would. Show it all the affection you feel for me. I'll open my thighs wide so you can tuck between them and press your face deep into my slit. Pretend you're a woman, and suck on it and tongue it as if my cunt were absolutely everything you might ever want in the world." I did. And it was. Maybe because sixty-nining this way was her personal triumph of sorts over my male ego, Beth responded forcefully. gleefully, crying out aloud, writhing and twisting all over my face each time she had an orgasm. And she had them repeatedly! My hair was soon drenched in her juices. As her fourth orgasm mounted and then climaxed she reached to squeeze and pull on my "clit" as she insisted on calling it, and when it began to squirt she wrapped her lips around it and took it all into her mouth. Then, eyes gleaming impishly, she twisted around and gave me an open-mouthed kiss. My own jism quickly covered my tongue. The taste wasn't too bad -- lightly salty, lightly sweet. It seemed to melt in my mouth. "Yum," she said when she could. "Now swallow it all, sweetie. Girls should always swallow, it's a compliment to their men. Tuck that delicious sperm into your tummy as if you wanted to make babies!" I did, and she did too. "Now we're semen sisters," she said. "We've shared the same man." I nodded, by now so enamored of her that I was beside myself, my tongue delicately licking her closed eyelids. "Oh, Darryl, be a woman for me always when we're making love!" she cried out aloud as if in prayer. "All right," I said, pleased that she was pleased. The very night I'd first confessed my love for women's wear she'd asked me to come to bed looking beautiful, and we'd made such tender love that night, she'd enjoyed it so thoroughly, that she'd made me promise to come to bed no other way. I couldn't remember when I'd last made love to her as a man. "Always and only as a woman!" she said passionately. "Swear it!" "All right," I said again, seeing no harm in it. "I swear." I'd no idea she was serious! The next night, the same thing. I pretended I was a woman making love to her, and it was wonderful. Then the third night I kissed her and caressed her clit as always, then leaned over her and reached to insert my penis into her. She stopped me. She took hold of my wrist. "What's that?" she asked as the head of my cock pressed against the cleft between her thighs. "My cock," I muttered, shifting my body for better positioning. "Your cock? Women don't have a cock. You swore you'd be a woman for me always, at least when we're making love if not also everywhere else. So lick me, sweetheart. I want to cum all over your beautiful face! I want to caress your smooth, beautiful rear end while you're making love to my pussy." "But I ...." No use arguing. I did lick her that night, with the same glorious results as the two preceding nights. Glorious for Beth. Again my face was soaked in her cum, and wanting to get off I asked her to squeeze my "clit" like last time. She obliged, but this time she let my load shoot into the sheets. "We aren't semen sisters any more?" I asked, a little disappointed. "No," she said with a sly smile and a single kiss on my cum-soaked face. "For semen we need a man, and there's no man here that I can see. But maybe I can take care of that for us. Good night, honey!" And she rolled over and went to sleep almost immediately. A little uneasy after that last statement, the next day I decided to try seduction. When she came home that evening she found me in my long, yellow satin sheath with my hair piled up high and the eye make-up slathered on. "Oooh, I see we're going formal tonight," she said when she saw me. "Wait just a moment and I'll join you." I did, and when she came down she was stunning! A black sheath as sinuous as mine, and no bra! She kissed me, pressing her body against mine. I could feel her hardened nipples. "Are you sure you don't want to try the Pump Room's cuisine tonight?" she whispered. "Oh, do! We're both dressed for it, and they have a new chef, and tonight is Ladies' Night, no men unaccompanied by women, so it isn't likely anyone will hit on us despite our rather provocative appearance. Not anyone with a penis, that is. Though maybe you're interested in girls? It does seem so! So let's go!" She was teasing, as always. I smiled and shook my head. "The girl I care about is you," I said. "Though I do get the impression that you're also interested in girls." I loved it when she treated me like a loose woman. I'd already prepared Oysters Rockefeller for our main course and chilled a Veuve Clicquot, and of course I would never go anywhere public with her dressed as a woman, but otherwise I'd do almost anything to please her. I told her that. She smiled affectionately and said, "You're right, I am interested in girls, the one I live with in particular. I'd do almost anything to please her too. But it's so difficult. She won't reach out to seize her womanhood and live it!" She sighed with contentment when she saw the dinner I'd prepared, and we chatted about beautiful, trivial things while dining. Then after sipping our espresso I silently led her into our bedroom. We undressed together. I couldn't take my eyes off her. As we both reached nakedness, I took her in my arms, my swollen prick pressed against her belly. "That was so lovely, Darryl," she said in a low, satisfied voice. "You do take such good care of me. Never mind your tongue. Tonight I want to be fucked." "That's what I had in mind," I said. Triumph! "By a real man." This sounded a little dismaying. I was naked now, and real enough. What did she have in mind? "A real ...." I couldn't say it. "Yes," she said. "Or his nearest facsimile. So you'll need this, honey. When women make love, sometimes they use things like this." She reached into her bedside drawer and took out a box and opened it. There lying splendidly atop crumpled purple tissue paper was what seemed to be a massive cock. "It's unisex," she said. "Men can use it if their penises aren't up to the job, and women can use it when their partners want to be penetrated. So it's perfect for a woman like you to use on me. You won't need the harness that comes with it. Just push your clit into the hollow end, baby, and then come lie down on your back. I want to mount you. I'm already soooo very wet!" She handed it to me. I looked at it. It was stiff and huge and heavy, with realistic veins and a large, flaring, helmeted head. A cock as unlike mine as a yacht is to a row boat. I looked at its base. Sure enough, there was an opening, and the inside was lined with soft plastic ribs designed to hold a lesser cock in place gently and securely cushioned. I pushed it onto my semi-turgid penis and immediately felt swollen to my full size inside it, though I couldn't be sure. I was imprisoned deep inside a prosthetic penis that poked huge and obscene from my crotch. "Oh, my God, do lie down, Darryl! I want that thing in me the worst way!" came a cry from the bottom of my wife's throat. I did, and barely had time to see how that artificial cock pointed straight up toward the ceiling, high and thick, before Beth leaped onto me and then gingerly began to lower herself onto it. "Oh" she said as her pussy lips stretched taut, resisted, stretched further, and finally admitted the top of head. Not even the rest of the head yet! "Oh, God!" she said to herself, as if already exhausted and contemplating a long night of hard work yet to come. Then wriggling and spasming, eyes shut tight, she lowered herself onto it a little more, admitting a little more of it into her. Then paused again, gasping in pain or ecstasy, I couldn't tell which. Then a little more, grunting from the effort and the pleasure. This repeatedly until she'd squirreled maybe half of it into herself. I couldn't see how even that amount fit. It must have been like giving birth in reverse. She was now in part impaled by my cock, or rather, by the huge cock that I'd impaled. I was inside her, yet so insulated from her vaginal membranes that I could feel nothing, not even her body's heat. It was like being a privileged observer of someone else's sexual athleticism. She carefully lifted and lowered herself again, then again, and as she rose and fell her juices began to flow down the sides of that smooth, veined tower. And again. Each time she managed to cram a little more into her. Twice she paused, turned tense, then gasped and moaned before resuming, lost in an orgasmic euphoria. Then lifted and lowered again, pressing on. Finally, the insides of her thighs were settled squat on my thighs. That huge dong was altogether inside her somehow. She sat very still. "I've bottomed out," she told me. "I feel I'm penetrated by a telephone pole. Oh, God, it's glorious. Divine! You can't imagine! Is it good for you?" "I feel pressure," I said. "I feel the weight of your body on mine." "That's often all women feel when they're being fucked by small-dicked men. But you're inside me now, aren't you, sweetheart? Your little clit is fucking me, though with a rather massive assist. Let's see how it feels to go all the way with a man like this one." She slowly raised herself up. And like a long train slowly emerging from a tunnel that great prick reappeared. When she was high up on her knees, her torso erect, the monumental head appeared, and she began slowly to sink down until it disappeared again. Until the whole length of cock disappeared into her. "Oh God!" she exclaimed. And then and there she came yet again! Twice, at least twice, in chain succession! Her crotch rolled and writhed spasmodically, out of control, clamped tight to mine, her eyes tight shut, until suddenly she began breathing again. "Ohhhh, Gaahd!" she said again. "That was ...!" She had no words for it. Then without another sound she began again. She must have been well-stretched by now, much looser, because she moved more smoothly in a series of long rises and gradual downward swoops, pausing now and then to clench her eyes tight and grunt. Her body rising high and falling and twisting low on that monumental cock. Another orgasm. Yet another. And she rose and fell faster and faster. Finally, I was afraid she'd fly apart. Her breasts gyrated as if trying to tear loose, and she bounced on me furiously, moans ululating into screams and squeals and whimpers. I felt a dull but familiar sensation rise up in my groin and then realized that deep inside that artificial cock, heavily muffled, my real cock was finally pulsing and spewing sperm. Not that anyone would know apart from me, and me just barely. Finally Beth's body modulated its mad motion. "I can't take any more," she whispered to herself. And she collapsed on me. She'd actually fainted. I rolled over carefully until we lay side by side, then slowly slid down her body to disengage that huge dildo from her. I had to creep half way down before the head came free and I could pull the thing off my own cock. Sure enough, I was sticky. I'd had my own orgasm. Somewhere deep in the tunnel of that cock was a puddle of my sperm. I held the great penis close to look it over. It was an extraordinary likeness of a real cock, idealized the way Greek sculpture idealizes human images in order to portray the likeness of gods. A god-like cock. It had given my wife a taste of paradise, that was certain. Repeatedly. She'd said it. She'd never be able to feel me inside her ever again. Or want to. "I wish you could feel what I've just felt, Darryl," Beth's voice said dreamily alongside me. I saw she'd recovered her wits and was looking at me calmly, eyes a bit glazed. "I do so wish it. That was so wonderful! Wouldn't you like to have a vagina like mine so you can fuck a cock this big?" "No, Beth." Was she needling or teasing me? Was she sincere? "No one would know," she said. "Everyone would know," I replied. "Sooner or later." She looked disappointed. "You poor, dear, wimp. Always depriving yourself. I guess we'll just have to use what we've got. Your anus will need weeks of stretching, honey, little by little, before it can possibly accept this kind of fulfillment. But we can begin tomorrow, using graduated butt plugs and dildos. Toward the end we can bring in a well-hung man or two if you'll allow it. I know that eventually the woman in you will love it. But I have no hope at all that you'll cooperate with her." Suffused, sated, her face glowing with the pleasure she'd just felt, she was seriously proposing that I share it with her. That I get fucked by such a cock. "No," I said again. "I appreciate the thought, but no. Not even a small butt plug. Nothing that resembles a man." "No? A pity. We'll see. But now you can at least suck on this one. You can give yourself that kind of womanly pleasure." "What?" I asked, unsure I'd heard her. "I mean it, Darryl. This is a magnificent replica of manhood. The girl in you must be feeling awed by it. So pay homage! Suck on it! Here!" And she took that huge cock out of my hand and held the tip of it to my mouth. "Suck" she said in a low, intense voice. "Suck the cock that just fucked me!" As I hesitated, staring on the thing, wondering how I could possibly fit the head of it into my mouth, she added, "Do it! Just wrap that lipsticked mouth around it and do it! You want to experience the pleasures of womanhood? That's what women do! You ARE a woman, aren't you?" I tried to do as she asked, but something held me back. It seemed perverse. This was something a gay man would do. I didn't want to. I wasn't gay. "Darryl, for God's sake, do it! You're so foolishly inhibited! Let yourself go, be a woman! It's partly you now, you know! You wore it! You fucked me with it! It's your sperm! So what's the big deal? Suck all the sperm your woman's heart can possibly crave out of that little peehole in the head of it. At least kiss the tip and see where it goes from there!" As she watched me closely, I kissed it. Gingerly. "You're so timid about this, Darryl! Suck and be done with it!" I decided to take a stand. "Beth, for all my fantasying and dressing up, I'm still a man. I .. I ...." "If you were a man," Beth replied without missing a beat, "you wouldn't allow another cock to fuck me as you just did. A bigger cock, one you must know has just rendered your little one forever unsatisfying to me. If you were a man you'd certainly never kiss the very cock that just cuckolded you and -- may I remind you -- brought you off! Yet you refuse to honor it the way any woman would! I can't understand it. Stop this nonsense and take that cockhead into your mouth and suck the cum out of it and then let's just go to sleep." She was impatient and angry now. So I decided what the hell, and I did just that. I opened my jaw and stretched my lips painfully wide and filled my mouth with that cockhead and then sucked on it. The flavor was her flavor, the same as the two previous nights. "Suck harder", she commanded me. So I sucked harder. Now a different flavor insinuated itself. Lightly sweet and salty, and slick in my mouth. A man's cum this time. My own. But from the penis that had cuckolded me and ruined my wife for any other. "That's a good girl," I heard Beth say. "Suck it all up and swallow it down. That's what girls do. I did, feeling peculiar about it the whole time, yet also oddly excited and satisfied. I liked the idea that I was performing a sex act that girls do. Yet, since I was not a girl, by default it was a sex act that gay men do, and I didn't like that at all. I wasn't gay -- it was women I loved, women who enraptured me so much so I wanted to imagine myself one of them. Up to a point. Yet, during the next few weeks I allowed this scene to repeat itself many times. In a way, I realized, Beth was accomplishing many purposes at once. Above all she was enjoying enormously satisfying sex, fulfillment far beyond anything my merely average penis could ever provide her. But also she was cuckolding me, deliberately humiliating me for my timorousness, punishing me for ignoring her desire for us to go out and have fun together, for my refusal to fulfill myself in the world in womanly ways. She'd thought she had a girlfriend as well as a husband. She'd thought she'd lucked out like Norrie's wife. But her girlfriend wouldn't do what girlfriends do. Except for the sex. She was feminizing me sexually, using me exclusively for cunnilingus or else to penetrate her with a dildo, two things women do with each other. I refused a third, to be penetrated myself, as too queer, but little by little I became a skilled cocksucker, and even began to enjoy the challenges with a penis that huge, trying different techniques while Beth watched and praised me. She liked having the semblance of a woman in bed with her, making love to her and to her lover's magnificent member. She insisted on it. It crossed my mind that she might be bisexual, whether she knew it or not. Certainly she preferred sex with me as a woman. And no other way. "When will this end?" I asked her one evening while she was riding her dildo, my cock buried deep inside it and feeling nothing. By now her pussy was so stretched out she could slide comfortably onto and around it, and my own was useless. I'd asked to try riding me bare back for once, one evening, and she'd just looked at me and nodded. We did it. Neither of us felt anything. She'd then looked at me and nodded again. Did I detect amusement or pity in her expression? "When will this end?" she replied laconically, her mind obviously elsewhere? When you decide to go one way or the other. When you're no longer an effete man but a real one, or else when you're a woman courageous enough to explore the world of women with me as my girlfriend and companion, ready to live as a woman and enjoy yourself as a woman. I'll take whichever one. I'll take both. But at the moment you're neither." She was right. Then came her inheritance, more money than we would ever need. She asked me to quit work altogether and become her housekeeper and girlfriend full time. "Forget all those people at the office who might wonder why you're looking more and more girly. Dress to please me! You'd like that, wouldn't you, darling? You could wear only women's clothes, nothing but! At least then I'd know what you are!" I told her no. It was tempting, but how could I explain my total disappearance to all our friends? How could she introduce me to people she invited into the house? How could I ever leave the house? I couldn't, so no. She had no answers. A few days later she tried again. She asked if I was willing to pack some of my prettiest clothes and go away with her to a mountain retreat in the Poconos to help her celebrate this enormous infusion of money into our bank accounts. That, I told her, I was willing to do with her, delighted to do with her. But only as a man. She replied that was impossible, it was a lesbian resort hotel that welcomed transwomen, a place where I could live my womanhood and we could be as intimate as we wished, publicly or privately, with no risk of embarrassment or exposure. "Buy yourself a cute tennis outfit, honey! And a few swim suits -- you don't have any! Think of the two of us dancing to a live orchestra while surrounded by other women also dancing and loving each other!" Still no. My transvestism was a private matter, I told her. "You're missing out on so much, Darryl," she repeated. "We both are. I'm beginning to think I should take matters into my own hands." "I don't know what you mean," I replied. "But I think I'd rather you didn't." "You have been warned, lover," Beth replied. "You are such a wimp! I have never promised to keep this thing of yours as secret as you want it kept. I've respected your wishes, but I'm not bound by them. Radical problems call for radical solutions. I love you too much to let you do this to yourself." So she said. The moment for radical action, as she saw it, had come. iii. And at her very next Board meeting she'd done it. Outed me. She'd revealed my secret to the entire Board of her Women's Club. The wives of my friends and work associates, of all the men I knew who knew me as a man because that's what I was. I stood here in my own living room -- dressed as a man, thankfully, I'd been spared that humiliation -- but nakedly exposed in my shame. Not only that, the assembled women and my golf buddy Todd had been told I was going away for "treatment" of some kind. By now he'd told the other golfers in our foursome. "'Treatment'? What kind?" I asked her. "What for? Do you mean 'punishment'? For being ...ahhh... what I am?" I was turning bitter. Beth now spoke very gently. I detected regret and sympathy in her voice as well as determination. "'Treatment' is the right word, Darryl honey. I want to send you away to a Clinic that specializes in treating men like you. Maybe for some time. It may take three months, maybe as long as six months, I'm told. However long it takes, it's an investment in a lifetime, after all. We won't know how you'll turn out until they've examined you thoroughly and decided how to proceed." I launched right in. "Beth, you know there's no cure for ..." -- I glanced at all those women's eyes watching me, following the drama before them closely yet at the same time detachedly, as if they were uninvolved bystanders who had been asked to witness a fascinating ceremony, a wedding or a ritual unveiling -- "for what I do," I finished. I wanted to add, "Transvestism is like transgenderism or being gay or being left-handed, we deal with it as we can but there are no cures!" But I couldn't bring myself to confess that I was any of those things, not in front of all these respectable-seeming women with husbands who knew me as a man. And respected me as one of them, but now not for long. Yet, even though these women already knew of my weakness, had seen my clothes and accessories with their own eyes, and my elaborate make-up table in the guest suite, I still couldn't confess that I was an habitual cross dresser. The burden of shame was still too great. "Yes, of course I know its incurable," Beth replied. "I don't want to cure you, honey. I love what you are. It's you who don't love yourself! I only want to arrange things so you're less conflicted. So you can enjoy what you are all the more, that's all." She thought my enjoyment so important that she'd send me away for months and months? My career, my employment ended? What man who doesn't do something income-producing can ever be respected as a man? When someone asks me "What do you do?" could I ever answer proudly, "I'm a housewife?" "What do you mean enjoy what I am?" I asked her backing and filling, stalling for time until I could understand what was happening here. Melissa was directly in my line of sight, and at that point I saw her mouth crack into a grim smile that matched the gleam in her eyes. Whatever this was all about, she was certainly enjoying it! Watching the bug crawl helplessly round and round on a saucer. "May I?" Melissa asked Beth. "Please," Beth replied. And settled back in her chair,