Just a Girl

My name is Frank. OK, it WAS Frank, until recently, when things...changed. Now, more often than not, I answer to Katie. I know, I know. Yes, I am a guy, technically, but, well...to explain, it's gonna take a story, a loooong story...but not a boring one, I promise!

I am a 33-year-old guy from Long Island. I have always been overweight, not great-looking, short, and very insecure, especially about my looks and attractiveness to the opposite sex. Girls have never been attracted to me (and I've always really wanted them to be, always sought approval from girls, which may have been part of the problem, since, as I know a lot better now, girls generally want to be the ones getting approval from guys and they view a guy caring too much about what they think as sort of wussy.

Ever since I was little, I have had thoughts about what it would be like to be a girl. I guess because I liked girls so much-the way they talk, walk, dress, act, everything-I became fascinated, almost obsessed, with femininity. I started crossdressing a little at home when my parents weren't around or, if they were home and I had the "urge", I locked myself in the bathroom to do it. I also started sneaking some of my father's Penthouse and Playboy magazines to look at. That part seems normal, right? Wrong-because the prettier one of the girls inside was, the more I wished I could be like her, be her, instead of being with her.

The part of the magazines I really enjoyed, though, were the "Forum/Letters" sections, where people wrote in to tell stories of encounters or fantasies they wanted to share. Again, I always imagined that I was the girl in the story, and I was especially taken with any story where the girl was shy and reluctant as sexual things were being done to her, which seemed to be the way it was in a good number of the stories. I found out eventually that a girl being this way, trying to remain a "good girl" while a male overpowered her and had his way with her, was called "submissiveness"...this was often painted as a fetish, or something kinky, but I figured out over time that even the most straightforward sexual situations, where there was no "scene" or 'kink" or such but that a girl was just being "taken" by a guy in whatever setting, featured this element.

I realized that most girls, deep down, in those secret places that they only share with their girlfriends and their diaries, were submissive, and both liked and sort of needed to be dominated by boys.

This began to explain somewhat my inability to make girls see me as anything other than gross or invisible. Girls wanted a boy who was confident, aggressive, a "bad boy". I was the furthest thing from this ideal, and this was confirmed repeatedly over the years. Sometimes girls who I was friends with ("just" friends, of course) would try to help me when I whined about my luck with other girls, and the advice was always the same-girls love confidence in a guy, you have to be confident, you can't be insecure. Well, sure, it's easy for the confident guys to be confident-they're, like, tall and cute and athletic and uncomplicated. I had no reason to be confident; confidence on my part would have looked even more ridiculous than my wimpy demeanor did-what girl is going to be swept off her little heels by a short, fat guy who everybody in school knows backs down from fights with other guys? Exactly.

I also now had a good understanding of why I identified so strongly with the girls in those naughty stories. How could I identify with the guys? I had nothing of what they had-I wasn't tall, strong or confident, I never took control of a situation, and girls never looked at me as someone they could be submissive to. God, what could I do? I was so into girls and their girlishness, and I found that whole dominant male/submissive female "dance" so intoxicatingly sexy, but there was no way I could ever occupy the male role in such a scenario, despite the fact that I was born male. So I did the only "reasonable" thing-I internalized the other side.

I began to inhabit the girl role, in my mind, in my dreams, my fantasies. I even learned to masturbate in a way that physically emulated the way a girl touches herself and couldn't get myself off in the "normal" way for years!

I had a few relationships with girls but things would get weird when my story, which I would try to repress, emerged. As much as some of these girls tried to deal with my gender issues, eventually they would need someone more masculine to satisfy them and things would end. I always thought that if, somehow, I ever met a girl who I could tell, for certain, was truly attracted to me (especially if she was someone I was really hot for as well), my need to be girlie would fade and I would realize my "normal", true maleness.

Well, back in 2001, it happened. I met JoAnnie, a brilliant, creative, deeply wonderful girl who also happened to be an incredibly gorgeous, feminine Latina (my #1 "type"). She was 21, she's 5'4", 122 lbs., with shoulder-length, dark brown hair, big brown eyes, pouty, pink lips, large, round breasts, and long, lean-but-not-skinny) legs. We hit if off great and within weeks we were hot and heavy, and it was clear, from things she said and the general way she interacted with me physically, that she found me attractive and perfectly normal in terms of sexuality. However, there would soon be trouble in paradise.

You see, when JoAnnie and I met, I was at perhaps the happiest, most stable point in my life. I was away from the dysfunctional environment I'd grown up in, had a nice place in a nice town, a good job, and I was exercising and eating particularly healthfully, which had resulted in a weight loss that put me at an almost-OK size (these days I'm heavier than I've been in ages). So I was confident and carefree at that time, certainly contributing factors to how attractive she found me. Right around 9/11, however, things started to crumble. Much of my life to that point had been filled with abuse, hardship, and depression; now, it was heading back down that road-I lost several jobs, eventually lost my apartment and had to live in near-squalor, was unemployed and nearly homeless for months, and began eating poorly and gaining weight as well as getting sick a great deal. Relations between JoAnnie and me, needless to say, grew strained, and it became obvious that she was no longer terribly "into" me sexually.

Couple this with the fact that, quite frankly, she's model-beautiful and lived in New York City and was hit on daily by a variety of men who were any combination of good-looking, fit, tall, interesting, artistic, spiritual, and financially secure (not to mention the ever-popular "not making her miserable with their problems and insecurities"), and, well, what's a girl to do, you know? I guess JoAnnie could only resist so much before she was overwhelmed by how fun all the attention was, and she started to give in, to date and flirt with other guys. I was never sure how far she went, but it seemed from her demeanor with me that she was just having a bit of fun, not really getting too intense with any of these guys.

At this point I suppose you could say I reached a sort of crossroads. I still had an opportunity to assert myself and my manhood and make an all-out, unflinching bid to reclaim my girlfriend. But I found instead that the more I thought about what she might be doing while she was out on dates (she didn't tell me but I knew when she didn't call on a given night, because we always talked at night), the more turned on I would get. Not that I didn't feel jealous, because I certainly did, but it was a jealousy that existed in tandem with a feeling that there was nothing I could do, nothing that she could do, that it was only right that a sexy girl should be out playing with cute boys...and I obviously wasn't the cutest boy she could be playing with. I realized that, despite all the years of being resentful toward girls for choosing other more stereotypically macho guys over me and marginalizing me sexually, that, if I were a girl, I would do the exact same thing, especially if I were a girl in the 99 th percentile of attractiveness (i.e. JoAnnie).

So I started tentatively coaxing the details of her dates out of her, like how she dressed, how he treated her, whether he was a good kisser (if he kissed her) and, most crucially, whether he was aggressive with her. I don't know exactly why, but I guess it turned me on to hear about someone else making her feel the way I couldn't. [A note here: I could have broken up with her, yes, but I love her and wanted to try to make things work somehow. She said she did too but for now-which has "now" been at least 3 years-she was going to be dating other men.] JoAnnie was a bit taken aback at first, but for some reason she came around and soon was describing exactly what she did on these dates to me, sometimes over the phone, sometimes in bed with me. She wouldn't let me fuck her anymore, nor would she even think about going down on me, but she did let me go down on her, which is the one thing I do better than most guys-surprise, surprise-and she would play with my nipples (which makes me feel very feminine) as I jerked off as she basically let me know that I couldn't really make her feel the way these other guys did, and that she and her girlfriends had all been giggling and girl-talking for some time about what a sissy I was-because she told them-and encouraging her to go out with more macho guys.

Which brings us up to the present. We have been trying to stay together spiritually, but JoAnnie has continued to flirt and play and, well, it's gotten a bit more intense. In the last few weeks, her girlfriends Karina, Melissa and Kathy have been calling and coming over quite a bit, and whenever I see them talking to JoAnnie, they're whispering in urgent breathless bursts. I hadn't been able to catch what they were talking about for awhile-it was schoolgirlishly secretive-but I could detect the unmistakably gushing tone of girl-talk, and it didn't strike me as totally innocent. Then this past Friday, the girls called to tell JoAnnie that they were coming over and apparently asked her if I could give them a ride to the mall. I agreed and in about a half-hour we were on our way. The whole ride over they were giggling and squealing (JoAnnie included) like a hyper cheerleading squad; about what, I couldn't tell at the time because they took care to keep me from hearing. When we got to the mall, the four of them made a beeline for all the stores which carried the cutest, flirtiest clothes in the mall-Forever 21, bebe, Charlotte Russe, Delia's, and, of course, Victoria's Secret. I tagged along like a good boyfriend, trying to take in as much of them shopping (and checking out boys shamelessly) as possible but not wanting to look like a perv (or, worse, more interested in their girlie exploits than a "real man" ought to be). I noticed that JoAnnie was the only one among the girls who was actually trying on outfits, something I found curious.

After about two or three hours of this, the girls looked to be as "finished" as four girls with no particular purpose in mind can look. At least, I thought they had no purpose. Little did I know, but I was about to find out. They emerged from their last attraction, Victoria's Secret (I found this a bit odd as JoAnnie doesn't wear fancy underthings that often), muttering something unintelligible, save for the phrase "finishing touches", which I heard clearly.

Then I heard Karina insist, "Now you have to go out with him-otherwise the outfit is going to go to waste!"

That got my attention but I was still slow on the uptake, stubbornly assuming that "him" referred to me. Before I had much time to turn it over in my head, though, I got another eye-opener. Of a sudden, my girlfriend and her friends were being approached by a guy. A very good-looking guy. A very tall, well-built, confident-looking guy. A very...different-than-me-looking guy. His name was David, and he was 6' 2", about 200 pounds, with a physique that fell somewhere between that of a basketball forward and a football quarterback. He strode cockily up to the gaggle of young ladies, barely offering me a sidelong glance.

Obviously feigning surprise, Karina gushed, "Hi, David!!! What a coincidence, we were just talking about you-well, JoAnnie was doing most of the talking, actually."

All the girls giggled when she spoke, and JoAnnie began to blush a delicate shade of pink.

"What's up, Eni?" he inquired, calling her by the more little-girlish nickname that her friends and family used. "Doing a little-or a lot-of shopping?"

Suddenly my fairly-empowered, sophisticated girlfriend began to morph before my eyes into a boycrazy schoolgirl.

She looked at him shyly and replied, "Yeah, I guess", even more shyly.

He continued to chat her up as if I wasn't even there, really treating me like I might as well have been a girl, one of JoAnnie's girlfriend's, To be honest, I felt that way, too.

He then asked her if he could see what she had bought, and she immediately got very bashful, stammering a bit as she started, "I don't think I could, you know, and plus I'm with my boyfriend, so, um-"

But before she could protest too thoroughly, her friend Melissa interjected, "Of course you can see, David! But you don't wanna just see them in the bags, do you? I mean, unless you're like Frank."

She rolled her eyes at me petulantly as she said this last part, knowing that it would further illustrate the difference between David and me (and serve to empower him and disempower me in JoAnnie's eyes). With that, the girls led JoAnnie back into Victoria's Secret, giggling all the way. I was left to stand there next to David, which made me incredibly nervous, although I wasn't exactly sure why. He just chuckled to himself a bit as we watched them go, taking a seat on a nearby bench. I, however, stood like a statue at the entrance to the shop, looking in intently, waiting to see just what was going to happen here.

After what seemed like hours (but was only about 15 minutes), the girls emerged, with JoAnnie sort of hidden behind them. When they got to where David was, they brought her through the circle, and basically presented her to him. David stood up slowly, and though I couldn't really see JoAnnie yet, the look on his face spoke volumes. He began smiling in a self-satisfied sort of way, and I watched his eyes travel up and down my girlfriend's petite yet curvy body. When I finally glimpsed her clearly, I was stunned.

JoAnnie was wearing a very tight pink tank-top, really more of a camisole, which said "I like boys" in huge white letters across the chest. It didn't quite reach her waistline, and so a belly-button ring in the shape of a tiny set of handcuffs dangling from above her navel and resting in the recess of it was clearly visible. I didn't even know she had gotten her navel pierced! Next up on the ensemble as you traveled down was a baby-blue denim mini with a little white lace ruffle about the hemline. JoAnnie also was wearing shimmery, sheer, pink (!) stockings, and there was no naughty mystery as to whether they were thigh-highs or pantyhose, because the skirt was so brief that it betrayed her modesty and revealed her lacy, ultrafeminine stocking tops. As if this wasn't flirty enough, the girls had gotten her into a pair of hot-pink legwarmers and a little pair of baby-pink anklets with lace trim, leading her feet into 5-inch pink high heels that were open-toed and had a clear heel. I noticed then that the stockings were the newer kind that left the toes bare, so that a girl who wanted to be so girlie as to wear hosiery and show off her pedicure simultaneously could do so. JoAnnie's toenails matched her fingernails, which matched her glittery eyeshadow, blush and shiny, wet lipgloss-all a baby-pink that made her look about sixteen.

To really put the proverbial exclamation mark on the sentence, she had done her hair up in pigtails, held by strands of pink (what else?) ribbon, and she was wearing around her neck a little pink plastic baby pacifier on a string. JoAnnie's outfit, all by itself, made her appear to be completely submissive to David purely by way of its incomprehensibly girlie nature. I could only imagine how it made her feel.

Everyone involved was silent for a long minute, until Kathy asked David, rhetorically, "So, do you like it?"

"Whoa. You look like an absolute doll, Eni, literally."

My girlfriend protested, "David, please don't call me Eni, I'm not a little girl."

I could tell she was trying desperately to maintain some measure of control now, but her plea came out sounding like nothing so much as whining-she may as well have stamped her foot when she said it.

"OK, sure, whatever, Eni!" he replied, teasingly emphasizing the fact that he intended to continue to do and say exactly as he pleased, especially if it made JoAnnie feel embarrassed.

David had essentially put her on notice that, in his eyes, she was, indeed, a little girl who had no power around him, no say. Knowing JoAnnie, I waited for her to assert herself against his cocksure swagger. What she did instead amounted to a turning point in my life and in hers. In rapid sequence, JoAnnie displayed the following repertoire of body language: she blushed, she giggled, she bit down on her lower lip, she pouted, she looked up at him with her big brown eyes (doubtless silently aware that, even in super-high heels, she had to look way up at boys like him because she was so small), she batted her long, mascara'd eyelashes at him, she fidgeted with the hem of her skirt, she adjusted her stockings, and, finally, she submissively put her hands behind her back and left them there for the rest of the time they spoke.

It was quite a tour-de-force performance of coquettishness, and the gesture it culminated with-Eni putting her hands behind her-was arresting on several levels. Firstly, it displayed her in a most fetching way, insofar as her tits were pushed out solicitously toward David while her shoulders and ass were pushed back, in an almost-frightened retreat which made her look like a little bunny afraid of a fox. Second, it sent out a strong, clear signal that she knew she was powerless to prevent David from doing to her whatever he wished, and that she wasn't even going to try. I mean, if a boy wants to kiss you, touch your breasts, undo your top, go up your skirt, etc., and your hands are clasped firmly behind your back, how on earth are you going to stop him?

David clearly enjoyed and picked up on all of JoAnnie's little signals, and once she put her hands behind her, I could tell that he felt-quite correctly-like he was in control of my girlfriend. At this point I felt like perhaps it was time I did something. I stepped up to him, trying to convey assertiveness as I said,

"Look , I don't know who you think you are, dude, but JoAnnie-that's her name-is my girlfriend and she doesn't want some jock like you ordering her around, and-"

David didn't let me finish my wussy tirade, pushing me to onto the bench with one strong motion and instructing me-warning me, really-to "shut up, you little bitch! I wasn't talking to you! Eni's little friends here told me all about you, how you don't know how to be a man, how to make a girl feel like a girl, how to take charge. They said even your own girlfriend-well, your ex-girlfriend, that is-says that you'd make a better girlfriend, that they all giggle and make fun of you when Eni here confesses to them how you never, ever tell her what to wear or what you want her to do! You can't even call her 'Eni', 'cause you think it's demeaning to treat her like a little girl, right? Right?!?"

I just nodded and murmured, "Y-y-yeah, I guess so."

He continued, "Well, some girls-most girls, actually-love it when guys-well, guys like me, anyway-take charge of them and treat them like little girls. That's why a girl who's already all grown up would dress up like a little princess-just to look pretty and submissive for cute boys, especially a bad-boy like me. Isn't that right, Eni?"