Abby's Panties

I awoke Saturday morning feeling energized. My legs, still clad in the stockings from the night before, felt amazing. One breast had popped out of my bra. Had Abby ever had the problem. I suppose she had. Probably all women did. It made me grin that I did, too.

I stripped off my lingerie and my breast forms to take a shower. I washed my hair, my body, and my face. I took my time and shaved my legs again. Then I kept going. I shaved my armpits, then my arms for the first time. I shaved my chest, being extra carful around my nipples. I shaved my crotch, leaving me fully denuded from my nose down. Stepping out of the shower the room felt even colder than before. I had noticed it with my legs when I shaved them a few days earlier, but now, with no hair at all, the room was damned near arctic. Is that why women were cold all the time? Was it because they were missing a layer of insulation?

I washed my breasts before donning them anew, working the clear plastic band over my shoulder. As I pushed my arm through the gap, the straps ripped, flopping my right boob down against my stomach. "Shit," I said, my grin replaced by a disappointed frown.

Frustrated at the delay, I made my way to the kitchen. Using a pair of scissors, I carefully cut the straps away from the breast forms until only the twin breasts remained. My bra would have to hold them up. I made a mental note to browse for some better boobs. The clear straps had been a fine idea, but they hadn't held up to much use. If this new hobby was to keep going, I would need something better. The thought of shopping returned the smile to my face.

I put on black stockings and attached their lacy tops to the tabs of my garter belt. I pulled a new black thong and settled it into place, tucking myself as best as I could. I put on a black bra, this time filling the cups with the now standalone breast forms. The bra held them but without the clear straps they seemed to move too much. The wobble was more than nice, it was fun, but the to me they didn't fit exactly right. At one time they were spread to far apart and at another it felt like they were about to pop out of my bra. I amended the mental note to not only browse for new forms, but to actually order some. Some good ones.

I stepped into my heels, whistling a happy little song I'd once heard as a kid while vacationing in Disney World. I was in my own small world and I was having a ball.

It was time for some more fun. I grabbed my maids' dress. I stepped into it, wobbling slightly as I stood on one heel. I pulled it up my legs, trembling in excitement. I licked my chapped lips, failed to swallow the lump that was growing in my throat, then swallowed again. Better. I worked my arms into the dress then using the same trick as before I pulled the back of the dress halfway over my head to grab the zipper, then zipped myself up while sliding the dress back down. It was a little tight in the waist and even tighter at the chest. My boobs seemed to pop out of the thing. I followed the dress with a poufy petticoat, the white one I'd opened the night before, just to add a splash of contrasting color.

With the dress zipped up, I added the lacy apron. Stepping into the bathroom I gasped. I was a maid. My face needed makeup and I had to add my wig, but from the waist down I was the epitome of every slutty French Maid I'd ever seen or video, be it mainstream or pornography. I was a slut; I was a maid; I was turning myself on.

Hurrying, wanting to see it all, I made up my face. I added too much color and did not blend as well as I should have, but I did a passable job. I added color to my face before donning my wig. Stepping back, the illusion was complete. I looked like a tall woman. Only by studying myself could I belie the transformation. My Adam's apple was too prominent, and my arms looked a little too big, but other than that I was almost certain that anyone seeing me and giving naught more than a passing glance wouldn't consider anything amiss. And wasn't that the goal? To go shopping? To go out and blend and not be ridiculed. I wasn't looking for humiliation. I was just having fun, discovering a new fetish, and jumping in both feet, uncaring how far the dive was or how deep the icy water below.

Now, dressed as a maid it was time for me to do my duty. The duties of a maid. Sure, the outfit was far to decadent and impure to do any true work, but that didn't stop me. I started with dusting every horizontal and vertical surface I could find. I stopped whistling and started humming, some songs were well known, others known to very few. The songs didn't matter. There was music in my heart, and I had to let it out. Music caused by my newfound hobby.

I did my housework, the office not even a fragment of a thought. I dusted the ceiling fans, uncaring that my feet were starting to hurt. I swept and mopped the floors, savoring the sound my heels made even as my toes began to complain. I vacuumed the bedrooms and the closets, missing the sounds as my feet hurt even more. I wasn't used to heels. Standing in them I felt where they pinched. My ankles stung; my toes screamed, but I kept my heels on. I would get used to them in time.

My house was spotless by the time I finished cleaning. I had two runs in my left stocking and three in my right, caused from when I'd knelt at the tubs to scrub them. It was the first time I'd ever damaged a pair of stockings. Abby had always carried a new pair of pantyhose in purse. I finally understood why.

My maid's outfit was soiled, and it gave me a perverse thrill to have to clean it as well. I stripped off the sexy parody of a maid's outfit, and after checking the instructions on how to clean it, I put it in the washing machine. As instructed, I used cold water and a delicate spin. While it was washing, I changed my stockings, wincing a little as I once again put my heels on my feet. In place of my maid's costume, I put on another new dress. This one was a deep burgundy color, like merlot spilled on a white carpet. It was stretchy and ended just above my knees. I liked how it hugged my fake curves and the elastic helped hide that most tell-tell part of me.

I touched up my makeup, taking the time I should have taken in the morning, smoothing the clumps and blending the colors. I thought I was getting surprisingly good at applying makeup. It was a skill I had never realized I wanted until I began to learn it.

I had worked through lunch, so I made an early dinner, grilling a piece of salmon and steaming some broccoli. I had to sit far too often because of how much my feet hurt but not wanting to remove my heels.

When the washing machine buzzed, I took the dress out and hung it to dry. I loved how it looked. And before doing the dishes, I was back online shopping for more maid's dresses. I was looking for real maid's dresses now, not the overly sexual one I'd worn during the day. I wanted one that true domestics wore. Ones that were designed to get dirty because of the toil done while wearing them. It didn't take long to find what I wanted. Less than twenty minutes after I began my search, I had four maid's dresses with all the accessories ordered and on the way.

Whistling as I did the dishes, I had the passing thought that I was in the wrong line of work. Maybe I should have been a maid.

It was the only thought of work I had all weekend.

Chapter 4

(i)

The next three weeks were surprisingly productive. Having an outlet in the evening to help me unwind, and equally distracting weekends, allowed my batteries to recharge in such a way that work stop being a chore and once again became something to cherish. Two additional regional airlines reached out, wanting us to help upgrade their entire flight plans and a third phone call, this one from Delta directly meant I would have to hire additional staff. In the span of a month I had gone from a shattered man focused solely on work, to a man that left on time, with additional employees to not only help with the new business but I hired an additional manager to take some of the more pressing matters off my plate. Work was no longer the only thing I lived for. It was still fun, and the profits were steadily rising, but now the time at the office was balanced with time spent at home mincing about in a growing number of dresses and higher and higher heels.

Life was fun again. There was a balance now, with work on one end of the scale and time away, pursuing my newfound hobby on the other.

I was getting good with makeup and I could walk in my lowest heels with nary a wobble. I no longer thought I would break an ankle and while my feet still hurt when I wore my heels for more than a few hours it was the kind of hurt that work out aficionados call a good pain.

Life was good.

It was about to get better.

(ii)

I met Theresa on a Friday night.

It was the second time I had gone into public dressed as a woman. The first time I ran to a local Walgreens to buy some tampons. I didn't need them but I had read that all women carried a few spare tampons in their purse so when I was looking to fill my new purse -- I had three of them now with one more on order -- I did my research. My purse was full of makeup, tampons, one container of breath mints and a small cylinder full of pepper spray. I bought the tampons as a diversion. I was a man dressed as a woman. The tampons were soft of a shield, a beard, if you will. What man would make such a feminine purchase? The tampons were as much a part of my disguise as the dress, the wig, and my new, bouncy, heavy, and very expensive breast forms.

I'd gone into the store feeling my pulse racing with the speed of a Nascar pit crew. The overhead lights had been impossibly bright, like they were looking at me in judgment. My heels seemed to echo in the cavernous store, calling even more attention to myself. I kept my head down, staring at the flowers on my dress, barely seeing over the mountainous swell of my faux breasts. I was certain that the few shoppers there were looking at me. How could they not in these lights?

My mouth had never felt so dry. I trundled down one aisle after the next, far too nervous to look up and read the signs advertising the contents of each row. When I found the tampons, I didn't know what type I needed. I hadn't even realized there were different types. I grabbed a box at random, hating myself for being in the store and loving where I was. I was terrified. I was exhilarated. I cycled between wanting to run to the safety of my car and spending a few extra minutes looking at the makeup. When I finally settled on looking for a few new tubes of lipstick it felt like I'd won a war I hadn't even been aware I was fighting.

To my little hand held cart I added three tubes of lipstick, their colors a bit darker than I had at the house, a compact mirror, and a palette of eyeshadow that was somehow too light and too dark at the same time. The colors seemed to shimmer with some underlying phosphorescence that had me mesmerized. Everything seemed more vibrant. Every color was brighter; every sound more distinct and louder than the one before. I could smell the cleanser used to mop the floors and the bottles of perfume labeled "tester." It was at once overwhelming and I relished it. I felt alive in a way I had not felt since the day Abby and I wed and in the short limo ride to the reception we had consummated our marriage in front of the limo driver and the countless motorists in the cars that surrounded us.

At the checkout stand the young black girl, an apathetic smile on her face, didn't give any indication that she saw through my disguise. To her I was a fancy, middle-aged woman wearing a simple floral dress and black three-inch heels on my feet. "That'll be forty-one-twenty-three," she said, barely looking at me. Did she not care that I was a man in a dress, or did I look enough like a woman that I didn't need a second glance? Her indifference baffled me. I decided it didn't matter. She didn't cast a disgusted look at me and when she said, "thank you, ma'am," I took that as all the praise I needed.

The second time out, the night I met Theresa, I went to a local gay bar. It was called The Color Rainbow. They had a website that said they were TG friendly and I was studied enough to know what TG meant and that I fit the bill. I figured it would be a safe place to test how well I looked in a place where I wouldn't be mocked, judged, or ridiculed. I would be amongst similar people and there was comfort in conformity.

Before heading out, I had spent a good long time getting ready. I took a long shower, shaving everything from stem to stern. It took nearly an hour to get my makeup perfect even though by then it was mostly routine. I did not want anything to give me away. Sure, I wasn't going to full everyone, but the test was how many people would wonder? If one person was fooled then I thought it would be a good enough test especially since I would be amongst people there were used to seeing men in dresses, flamboyant or otherwise.

I felt like a woman as I surveyed my closet, unable to decide on what to wear to my debut. I finally settled on a little black dress. Maybe it was cliché, but isn't that what women wore when they went out on Friday nights? Would it help my disguise, or would it seem like I was trying too hard?

Every decision I made, from what I wore, to the height of my heels, to the choker I wore around my neck, caused my head to spin. That was another purchase I had made. I bought necklaces and clip on earrings -- I was far too terrified to do anything as permanent as putting holes in my head -- bracelets, rings, and even a butterfly broach. In my research I learned that anything that took the eye away from imperfections were damned near perfect. To hide my Adam's apple I bought some pearls, a thin golden chain with a small cross at the end, and a half dozen black, lacy chokers that stretched over my head. I liked them the most. They were eerily feminine and that seemed to suit my mood more than anything else.

Leaving the driveway, I was wearing my little black dress and the same three-inch heels I'd worn on my first trip to Walgreens, figuring that they were now my lucky shoes. I hadn't been made that first night so, like a baseball player working on a no hitter, I wore them again, figuring I would have the same streak of awesome angst-free avoidance. I had a simple black clutch purse that matched both my dress and the black lace choker around my throat. My makeup was flawless, or as perfect as my inexperienced hand could make it. The wig was coiffed, combed, and held in place by half a dozen bobby pins. Even with my critical eye I thought I was pleasantly passable.

I stepped into The Color Purple. Purple Rain was ironically playing. The place was full of men and women and some crossdressers. I eyed the women more than the crossdressers, seeing if I could see through their ruse in the same way I was certain people would try to see through mine. I wasn't looking to shame anyone; I was looking for pointers. Anything that could help me with the charade I presented. My goal of going shopping was still paramount. The thought of stealing into the women's fitting room, not to ogle the other women, but to be accepted haunted my thoughts. Doing that successfully would be like finishing the ninth inning and seeing the scoreboard reading triple zero: no runs, no hits, no errors.

I spotted men in dresses, with no effort made to hide their gender. One man had legs as hairy as a spider. Another man, this one sporting a poodle skirt and white blouse had fake breasts as large as watermelons. Those two were the parody extremes of women, not hiding who or what they were. They were there to have fun and from the crowd of people with them, they were succeeding. I heard laughter, and one joyous squeal over the sound of Prince.

Focusing on the women in the place, my eye moved from one to the next. I spotted one woman dancing alone in the corner, sipping a bright green drink, the paper umbrella tucked into the hair above her left ear. A trio of women were at the bar, whispering conspiratorially, as they, too, eyed the crowd. Nine or ten couples were dancing on the dance floor. There were two women dancing together, their foreheads touching. A half dozen men were paired off, some dressed flamboyantly, others wearing the suits they'd worn to work, with only their ties loosened to indicate that they had begun to unwind from the day.

I approached the bar. Prince was replaced by Queen Latifah, crooning how the lady was a tramp. The bartender gave me a nod, "what'll you have?"

I ordered a light beer. It seemed appropriate for how I was dressed. I pulled a ten from my purse and set it on the bar. "Keep it," I said.

The trio of women eyed me. One of them gave me a smile. There was a softness in her gaze that soon became one of shock. Had she made me? Could she see that I wasn't a woman, but a man who had spent the last month learning how to look like one? There was a dawning comprehension in her lovely blue eyes. She left her friends to approach me. "Do I know you?"

It wasn't much of a pickup line. Or maybe it was because two hours later I went home with her. "First time here," I said. "What's your name?" It was hard to hear over Queen Latifah and when Elton John came on next it was even harder to hear.

She tilted her head. "Theresa," she said, holding out a hand.

I gave it a firm shake. "Lovely to meet you, Theresa," I said, hesitating at her name. "I'm..." I trailed off just long enough to add mystery. When I started to leave work early, Alice had asked, "who is she?" At the time I hadn't given any thought to what name I would use when out and about. Over the last month I had digested a few names, sounding them out. My hobby was new, my name would be, too. I wanted it to start with a J. My name was John, my sister Jennifer. It was a scheme my mother used even though she never told me why. "Jordan," I finally said.

"That's a lovely name," she smiled. She stepped closer. I could smell her perfume and was certain at that distance she could smell mine. "You're quite convincing," she whispered.

So, I had been made. I was disappointed and only a little surprised. I had thought with the time I've spent working on my makeup that I wouldn't have been discovered so quickly. But I was a man; I had more work to do. "Thanks."

She introduced me to her friends. "We're celebrating Carly's divorce," Theresa said.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be," Carly said, raising her fruity concoction to the music -- Achy Breaky Heart -- "He was an ass."

"Aren't they all," I said.

Theresa smiled. Carly said, "Damned right." The third woman, Marilyn, raised her glass in solidarity.

The four of us chatted with Theresa spending the most time talking to me. She told me about her job working with the city to program traffic lights. "It's a constant struggle, but I enjoy it. You can learn a lot about a city by the way its people move."

I told her about my job but only briefly. "It's funny," I said, revealing what I thought to be important, "work doesn't mean as much as it did." She gave me an incredulous look, "don't get me wrong, I'm good at it and I still like doing it, but I discovered," I ran a hand down my body to indicate what I was wearing, "a distraction of sorts and I learned that work is important but it isn't the most important thing." I leaned in. Lady Gaga gave way to Eminem, "I've actually put in less than forty hours at work for the first time since my divorce. That's unheard of."

"Think it'll stick?"

I smiled, "no doubt. I've," I gave a shrug, "delegated."

Mentioning divorce, Theresa asked, "The divorce? Was it her fault?"

I started shaking my head even before she finished asking her question. "Mine. Foolishly mine."