Glory Beyond the Hole

"Hey listen, as a lesbian I am as open as the next person is about LGBTQ stuff. I have no problems with transgendered girls. But I told you, I am lesbian. I like women."

"I am a woman," I said, but already my head was swimming.

"No. You're a man who wants to pretend you're a woman," she said and the tears came again. "You know I am a woman, how can you say that?" I asked. I had thought that a woman, especially my friend, a lesbian, would understand where I was coming from. But she didn't. If she couldn't accept me, then who could? Dave was right, I was absolutely repulsive.

"Listen, that was meaner than I meant it to be. We are still friends. And I am not going to say anything to anyone," she explained. Good, another reluctant secret keeper, "But that is all. I am sorry." She said. Not sorry for her behavior or lack of compassion. Sorry I had a dick. I got up quickly from the table.

"Omar," I said, barely able to make my voice heard. The owner/bartender looked over at me, "I quit." I said. And I ran out the door, and I never saw Rita again.

If only I had quit. Sure, I'd quit the job. But I hadn't quite given up on the idea of having a loving sexual relationship. I didn't know at the time that there were worse things than simple humiliation. I hated myself over Dave and Rita for another year or so. The same disgusts and fears as before crept into my brain, only this time they were confirmed. There was no doubt anymore. But I kept thinking that maybe there was someone out there for me, someone who, if given the time and effort, would understand me. I didn't think it would happen soon, but I thought it was possible.

And I met another guy and it felt a little more than possible. He told me he was a devout Christian and didn't want to have sex before marriage. I thought he was cute and sweet. We kissed a lot, held hands. I kept my secret. It seemed like that was what everyone wanted me to do. One night we went out drinking together and had a good time. We went back to his place and we started fooling around. Our inhibitions dropped, he didn't care so much about his vow to God and I didn't want to think about the devil between my legs. Over twenty years of sexual frustration was bound up inside of me. I thought that dating someone for six months would mean that he loved me. I threw myself onto the mercy of passion.

Black eyes. Broken bones. A long stay in the hospital. The trial. A sentencing hearing (thankfully I guess). Being outed in front of an entire community. Transferring to a different college to finish my studies. I don't really want to get into the finer details of how that relationship ended. Suffice it to say, I learned my lesson. There is only so many time that the universe can tell you that you have to build walls before you just do it. I promised myself that I wouldn't be vulnerable again. I would build an emotional barrier around myself and go out into the world.

When I first got out of (my second) college and got my current job, I thought it would be easy. My first wall was just avoidance. It was more of a picket fence really, not as stern and hard as a wall. I just got to work a little early so I was at my desk before the little morning conversations occurred, I stayed at work all day and avoided lunch engagements, then I went home. I acted like I was shy, but I was polite. I figured that eventually people would get the hint: I am not a social person. It was a lie, but that way I wouldn't have to interact with people. I knew myself. If I got to know people at work I would become friends with them, I would be attracted to some of them, and I would want to pursue a romantic relationship with a couple of them. There was no way around it other than to cut everyone out entirely.

Except I learned two things within the first year of working at my current job. The first was that when you are a pretty girl, everyone wants to save you from being shy. They will come up to you and offer to take you to lunch. You can blush and shake your head but they find it endearing. They promise they don't bite. You shake your head and say "no thank you." And they say that it is going to be a big group, no pressure or anything. And it goes on like that. And I think that sort of brings us back to where we started. Shy Rose disappeared and unholy bitch Rose made her appearance. It took everything I had and was totally against my nature to lash out at people. But it was the only thing that kept people away and protected me from my urge to interact with people.

However, I learned another thing about myself. I could bark at people who didn't deserve it, I could turn down dinner and lunch offers even when I desperately wanted to accept, and I could go home to my apartment by myself and find some small amount of comfort by myself. But I couldn't completely shut down my libido.

It seemed to be cyclical. I would repress any thoughts or feelings regarding sex. I would do anything to avoid even thinking about it. I took up knitting, I did puzzles, I read. But all the while images in my mind would start growing more and more graphic. I would feel myself getting flush, even at work. I would squirm uneasily in my seat at work. I would then start with watching porn. But as I did so, I would feel waves of anxiety and shame, leaving me completely unable to pleasure myself. But that would make me watch more. Finally, I would completely lose control of myself and do something crazy, something I was ashamed of.

I don't want to get too deeply into the details, but I did some dangerous and stupid stuff. The first time, I was so fed up with my inability to have sex in college that I hired a male escort. He came to my house, he generally worked for homosexual men so it didn't really bother him that much. But it was hardly passionate and made me feel disgusting. He didn't want me. He wanted money. So yeah, that's how I lost my virginity. At least it gave me some pent up aggression to release on the unsuspecting people at work.

Another time I went to a public park and walked into a small wooded area and disrobed. I watched people run and a group of women in an outdoor yoga class while I masturbated and felt sick to my stomach. I don't even know why I did that, it just made me feel like I belonged in the world. But the only way to do that was to be in a place where no one could see me.

I could go on I suppose, and describe some other actions from my early to mid-twenties that would make me shudder. But I think the point is made. I had successfully built my emotional wall, but there was a weakness in it, and I wasn't sure how to shore it up.

I hit my lowest point with respect to my loss of sexual control and utter alienation from the world just two weeks before my experience dressing down Dan to the delight of my co-workers. I found a guy on craigslist who said he wanted a relationship with a "shemale." He had a photo posted. Not great, but he seemed at least very open about it. I looked at his post for days, waiting to see if it disappeared. I wasn't particularly attracted to him and I knew that going to meet anyone would make me vulnerable. But I was nearing the fever pitch of my sexual frustration. One night, after work, I turned on my computer and, after telling myself I wouldn't do it for two hours, I'd agreed to meet him in at a bar located in the suburbs.

It was some chain place you've probably heard of. I walked in and saw him standing at the bar. He was about 20 years older and 50 pounds heavier than his picture. He had big, wrought iron arms. Suddenly, I felt absolutely certain that he was going to kill me. It was just instinct, but to this day I believe it was correct. What the hell was I thinking? Had I lost all sense? The danger I had just placed myself, as well as the overall pathetic nature of my mental state was almost overwhelming. I needed to get away from everything.

I hadn't sent him a picture so I turned and ran out of the place. I sprinted across the parking lot and ran into the first place I found. A dirty old pet shop. The animals looked bedraggled and they screeched at me the instant I walked inside. I didn't see an attendant. Something made me think the guy from the bar was still behind me, so I was glad I was off the street, but I wanted more cover. I ran into a door in the back of the place, thinking it was a store room. Instead, I found myself in a unisex bathroom. It was much cleaner than the rest of the place and I sprinted into the middle stall.

I sat down on the seat and put my hands in my head and just sort of rocked back and forth. This was my life? I'd left my parents' home when I was 18 full of optimism and a healthy sexual appetite. Now I was trying to hook up with craigslist creepers and crying in strange pet store bathrooms. I don't know how long I sat in the bathroom, it was longer than I think you'd believe. Near the end of my time there, I knocked my head three times on the wall of the stall. Then I paused for a few moments and hit my head harder one last time.

I didn't intend anything by that, honestly. I was just trying to get myself together, trying to prevent myself from crying. But, apparently, I had stumbled onto something. I don't know if someone was in the stall next to me during my entire breakdown or if a person had arrived while I was crying. But the fact remains that someone was there. And I had signaled them.

I leaned away from the stall wall just at the same time as a veiny cock poked through a hole located at about the same level as my breasts! I jumped in the seat but was too shocked to make a sound. I hadn't even noticed the hole there. It looked like it was carved with a pencil or something and the rough edges were covered in duct tape. The stall wall itself was very thin, not the inch thick piece of aluminum or plastic usually found, but like a thin sheet of steel. And there was a cock sticking through it! I could hear breathing. For a moment I just stared at the thing. Then I realized what was happening. I quickly stood up, bumping the cock as I did so. I heard a man groan. I ignored him and quickly opened the door. I ran out of the pet store, confused and vowing never to return.

I didn't even think about the guy in the bar anymore. I stumbled, dazed, out to my car and started to drive. When I got home that night, I tried not to think about anything that had happened that day. I told myself it was a close call with some real danger and that I could put it in my past, a reminder on how important it was to never let my guard down in any way. But, every spare thought seemed to go back to that strange bathroom stall in the pet store. It became almost an obsession. I just couldn't stop considering the various angles of that place, the strange circumstances and...the opportunity. I of course knew what a glory hole was, but I'd never really thought about one before. If that place was what it seemed to be, wasn't it the sort of release I had been searching for? A place where I could indulge my sexual desires while being completely invulnerable? I could go there and no one would know who I was or what I looked like. I would still be me, but no one would have to know about it. Someone would want me, even if they didn't see the whole picture. And there was no pressure to reveal the full picture. Try as I might, I couldn't ignore the hold that place had one me.

This back and forth went on in my mind for the next two weeks. But finally, the relentless drumming of my libido overcame my defenses once more and I was going back. I didn't know if what I'd experienced was an aberration of if that pet shop was some sort of...hangout. But I had to find. (I would later look it up on the internet and confirm it was a well-known location for trysts, apparently it was the owner's actual purpose in opening the shop). Regardless, the interaction with Dan pushed me over the edge. Now it wasn't just my sexual anxiety, which, albeit, was intense. It was also the fact that every time I had to push the world away, it took an immense emotional toll on me. Despite what my co-workers might think, I did not like being an insufferable asshole. It ate away at me, it made me feel even less human. I couldn't stand the tension anymore; I needed some sort of release.

So, as soon as all of my co-workers were gone, I got up from my desk and hurried over to the elevator. I purposefully pushed all conscious thought and any apprehensions aside. Two weeks of internal wrangling convinced me that even the slightest doubt could push me away, send me back home for a quiet Friday night of intense frustration.

I have no actual memory of driving to the pet shop. It was about fifteen miles from my office building, which in Friday rush-hour traffic would take around and hour. But I don't remember any of that. I had complete tunnel vision. I don't remember anything except parking in the lot in the somewhat abandoned strip mall area where the pet store was located.

It is hard to describe what I was feeling at that moment. My muscles felt like jelly, each movement felt like it was taking up three times the normal amount of energy. My head was spinning, my stomach was knotted up tighter than I'd ever felt it before, and I actually felt uncomfortable by how fast my heart was beating. But the urge to go inside, now that I was here, could not be denied. I had to go inside, I needed slip outside the prison I'd built around myself, even if just for a few minutes. I turned off my car and stepped out into the parking lot.

I jogged inside. This time, there was an attendant sitting at the desk, a college-aged girl reading a romance novel. She looked up once and nodded, but didn't offer any assistance. I was happy about that. I looked around for a brief moment and didn't see anyone else in the store. When I was certain the girl at the counter wasn't paying attention, I slipped into the bathroom.

It looked just as it did two weeks earlier. I looked under the bottoms of the doors but then saw that they went all the way to the floor, which is sort of odd. My mouth felt dry and palms felt sweaty, but I pushed forward and entered a stall. Only now, I didn't enter the middle stall this time. The stall where my "visitor" had been hiding the last time. I quickly closed the door behind me. I locked it. I suddenly felt extremely peaceful, almost safe. My pulse slowed and my stomach loosened.

For a moment, I didn't know what to do. I knew from my own experience that the person in the middle was supposed to signal. But I tried anyway. I figured the sequence I'd tried before might work, so I tapped three times, paused, then once more.

Nothing happened. I didn't know if that was because no one was in the middle stall or if it was because that person was supposed to signal. I didn't have anywhere to be that night (the only benefit of having no friends), so I decided I would wait. If nothing else, it was exciting and naughty to just be here and ready.

In fact, standing in the stall, waiting for someone to knock was sort of a turn on. I felt my body start to react to the anticipation, the nervousness, and the anonymity. I didn't so much make a decision as start to act. I slipped my work jacket off of my shoulders and hung it up on the peg on the back of the door. There were actually several pegs, as though it was normal for someone to get completely disrobed in this stall. I started to open my blouse, my fingers slipping around buttons from excitement. In a few moments, my shirt was open and I pulled the bottom out from the waistband of my skirt. I slipped it off my shoulders as well and hung it on top of my coat.

I reached behind my back, fiddling with the clasp of my bra. I almost giggled because of the trouble I had with it, I felt like a fumbling teenage boy. Finally, the hook came loose and I slid the bra down over my arms, catching it in my hand. I hung my bra up on one of the open pegs and looked down at my breasts. I always thought that I had beautiful breasts, they were my favorite feature. Back in the day when I allowed people to look at them, they had always commented that they were lovely. They were on the small side, as I said before, I but they looked perfect on my frame. They were shaped like teardrops, with a soft rounded bottom and a sloped top. The two angles met at my pink nipples. My areolas were around the size of quarters and my nipples were around a half inch long.

I moved my hands over my breasts, kneading the flesh and tickling my fingers across my nipples. I felt the electrical thrill of sexual arousal rip through my body and I bit my lip to avoid moaning. It felt so lovely I squeezed again. I couldn't remember the last time I felt such carnal fire without the attendant guilt and fear. I wanted more.

I started to sit down and then realized that I had no intention of slipping my shoes off. The floor was...less than pristine and besides, I am not that tall and the hole was kind of high. So I stayed standing and silently unzipped my skirt. It unzipped on the side and in a moment, I was pulling it around my high heels. I hung it up on top of my bra.

Now I was standing in the bathroom wearing nothing but a pair of red boy-short panties and black high heels. I looked down at my legs and feet. I always liked that I had very small feet and they looked cute in my favorite shoes. My legs were silky smooth (I was naturally hairless below my eyebrows) and they looked longer than they actually were with the combination of my shoes and my cute panties.

But I wasn't quite done yet. I needed to feel completely free. I slipped my fingers into the waistband of my panties. For the first time since I'd stepped into the stall, I felt the slightest tinge of nervousness. I was about to eliminate the last shred of my cover. But I was too excited, and far too deep, into this to stop now. She pushed down on the hem of my panties and wiggled my hips as the fabric slid over my ass and pooled on my feet. I bent over, picked them up carefully and hung them on the door as well. Even as I did so, my hands reached down between my legs.

I found the corner of the tape that I used to strap my cock down. It was something I'd done every single day since my long-ago date with Dan. I never wanted any accidental revelation. But now I picked at the tape until I got the corner up and then quickly pulled it away. As I said, I am naturally hairless so there wasn't pain. What there was a tingling feeling as my numb cock started to stir to life. My heart was pumping and blood started to flow to my member. I was so titillated that within a couple of seconds my cock was hard and standing up at full attention.

I looked down on it. The source of all of my misery, but also something that seemed to offer an eternal opportunity for pleasure. I always thought to myself that I hated it. But, if that were the case why didn't I just get rid of it? Lots of women in my situation had done so. It would solve all of my problems. I guess there were two reasons I didn't. First, fuck everyone who wanted me to keep this a secret. I was part of who I was and even though all I felt about it was shame I knew that I shouldn't have to feel that way. Removing it would have been to make my identity a permanent secret. I could be bitter and hateful, but I couldn't just... give up.

Second, I liked the way it looked on me, as strange as that sounds. As I stood in the bathroom stall in my high heels, I looked down over my body. There was the top of my chest as it sloped gently down to my breasts, my flat stomach, every-so slightly outie bellybutton, and my narrow waist that flared out to wide, feminine hips. Then, between my legs was cock. About five inches long and circumcised, with a smooth tip that looked like a large, pink grape and a largely vein-less shaft. As I said, my body was naturally hairless and even my balls, which were small and hung just slightly below my shaft, were smooth. From there, my body flowed down my legs. It all just worked together. I liked how I looked, maybe because everyone else found the thought of it so repugnant.