Betrayed Ch. 06

Chapter Six: The Seven Levels of Hell

Monday was the most vile, loathsome day of my life – for no earthly reason other than having to beme. The first thing I had to come to grips with was who 'me' was that particular morning. 'Lance' had to put in an appearance at the office. Back to the old routine, go out there and make the big bucks.F Troop back to normal, Sir!Simple, right? After the most mind-blowing weekend of my life – as 'Lisa' – it was anything but.Identity Crisis?Don't even go there!This wasn't the Monday from Hell; thiswas Hell – all seven levels of it.

The First Level of Hell was waking up alone. I had taken my beautiful girlfriend back to her place after our erotic dinner.

"Baby, I have to go to work at the club," she had chided softly, "andyou have to work first thing in the morning."

I offered to accompany her, as I had done Saturday night. She just shook her head.

"Not this time," she demurred. "This is going to sound really evil of me, but I don't want you there getting hit on by guys. I didn't handle it well last night and I don't think I would handle it any better a second night in a row. I know I'm being such a hypocrite, but this –us- is as new to me as it is to you. Let me get used to the idea of you beingwith me before I have to reconcile you being... well, you know what I mean. Ipromisewe'll get together later this week, 'kay?"

She had had to return to her life, just as I now had to return to mine. To emphasize the point she considered my condo 'home', Dianna had neatly folded and stowed her purchased lingerie, stockings, and corset in her dresser drawers, then helped me do the same with mine. Her gown, sandals, and fur coat remained in my closet and her jewels were in my armoire. My lover admitted the special sense of sharing with me at such an intimate level – her things together with mine - gave her warm fuzzy feelings. She had gifted me the suede suit, blouse and mules, observing how good they had looked on me the night before and pronouncing them a small, inadequate token of her love for me, which paled in comparison to what I had lavished on her.

I did my morning roadwork on the empty, pre-dawn streets of Streeterville. Blocks away, Lake Shore Drive was already filling with the morning crush of traffic; the blue-collars who punched in at six and seven, as well as the workaholic white-collars whose ascent of the corporate ladder superceded a little extra shut-eye. The Japanese no longer had a lock on the 'salaryman' lifestyle – nor its killing results. I showered – equally alone, and feeling it – brushed my teeth, dried my hair, then sat down on my bed and faced the daunting prospect of the coming day.

The Second Level of Hell was dressing for work.A suit and tie? How... drab. The thought of a cotton T-shirt and briefs was just plain revolting after a weekend of something much smoother and softer nestled against my skin. There was also the issue of figure training for the fashion show Dianna and I would be doing in fourteen weeks. She had admonished me doing it right was a constant, everyday process, no different than my running. Dianna had agreed it would be best for now if I did not attempt to wear my breast forms under my suit. We would allow those around me time to adjust, even as my body adjusted.

The whole concept of me as a femme fetish fashion model had seemed such a ghastly joke when she and Paul had proposed it. Now, I hoped I would be ready in time. No one at the office will notice the black satin corset under my suit, right? Or the panties? Or the stockings? Or the silk chemise worn in place of the T-shirt? The suede outfit, plus Dianna's red gown, sandals, and fabulous Silver Fox coat mocked me as I dressed in my unflattering business attire. I stared wistfully at the suede mules, then slipped on my blackFlorsheimloafers.

The Third Level of Hell was my personal grooming. The earrings – all of them – had come out the night before. Dianna had filled the holes with tiny plastic training plugs to keep them open. With a little concealer, they weren't noticeable unless you were really up close and looking for them. My plucked eyebrows had to be replaced with prosthetics, attached with spirit gum. We had purchased both, plus the concealer, at the specialty theatrical makeup store. No matter how 'natural' they looked, it now felt unnatural to me to see the low, thick, shapeless male brows. The beautiful long nails, each attached with a drop of superglue, had been carefully pried off with an orange stick and put away in the vanity. The nails underneath were then lightly filed and buffed to some semblance of normalcy (Ugh! There's that word again).

The Fourth Level of Hell would be making a conscious effort not to swish in front of my co-workers. I had toremember to move like a man? I had to concentrate onnotmaking those small, graceful gestures with my hands as I talked, or reach up to play with my hair or earrings, which weren't there anyway?Cross one ankle over your knee, sideways, Lance; not knee-over-knee, in-line. How funny is that? ThinkVictor, Victoria in reverse; a man, pretending to be a woman, pretending to be a man.

What was happening to me, to my confident self-image as a man? Had I been seduced so easily to "the dark side" by this beautiful, mysterious woman? Or had that image been yet another carefully-cultivated lie, and Dianna merely the catalyst to release my own latent childhood desires, just as I had told her she had merely been the catalyst for leaving my wife?Was my life falling apart – or at long last coming together?So many questions; so few answers.

Oh, I would put on a good show. That's exactly what it would be; a show, for the benefit of Management and my co-workers. I would be watching their eyes intently, looking for some glimmer of amusement, or realization, or... something. Hopefully, I would see none. Figure this one out; if I aroused no suspicion, I would feel relieved – and disappointed. Place index finger between lips, then thrum:beebeebeebeebeebeebeebee....

The Fifth Level of Hell was knowing the prospect of living this schizoid existence faced me day in, day out, for the indefinite future. Even as 'Lance' walked out the door, Lisa's memories of the night before were crowding out everything else. While we were making love, Dianna had played with my nipples with her fingernails. That had feltso good! At the same time, I had felt her breasts pressing into my back. In the throes of ecstasy, my mind had played a dirty little trick on me. In it, those beautiful boobies had passed right through my body and attached themselves tomy chest.

I thought back to our discussion of surgery, hormones, and other avenues of transformation used by T-girls to achieve their goal. Realistically, I couldn't consider getting a boob job or any other major, invasive procedure – at least, not under the rationale of looking more feminine for the fashion show. Memorial Day weekend was only fourteen weeks away. That 'hard ceiling' precluded the lengthy, involved process of consultations, lab tests, the surgery itself, then the long post-op recovery. Why was I even dwelling on it? A couple of weeks before, I would have labeled the notion 'absurd'. There was also the issue of what to tell my co-workers if I suddenly showed up for work as a very-obvious D-cupper – or more – not to mention the other work we were contemplating. Still, the idea was intriguing....

The Sixth Level of Hell had been waiting for me outside my office building when I arrived for work. Susan had already tried and failed with subterfuge, denial, badgering, threats and insults. Now, she was at her charming best. The short, tight suit beneath the open trenchcoat was just a little too revealing to be business-chic. The stockings and five-inch stilettos were a dead give-away. Jeff Spencer wasn't the only one capable of offering up the Big Play. The mercury-vapor streetlights on LaSalle Street were superfluous when my wife turned on her smile.

"Sweetheart," she purred, "how are you? I'm sorry to have to corner you this way, but you left me no choice. Look, I'm really sorry about all this. I never told you about my little... peccadillo because I knew how much it would hurt you. I didn't want to do that."

Funny; she didn't say it was wrong of her to have an affair in the first place. Nor did she indicate she was going to stop seeing Jeff Spencer.

"You made your point, Baby," she continued. "You are still just as attractive to women as the day I met you. What woman could resist you when you turn on the charm – especially when you start pampering them the way you have always pampered me? Let's face it; we are two beautiful people. We belong together, just as we always have. Can we please put this silly tiff behind us? Come home to me; I miss you."

She made it sound so reasonable – until you looked past the half-truths and misdirection. My lawyer had advised me about this possible scenario. Without re-hashing the Legalese mumbo-jumbo, it came down to this: if I were to take her back now, knowing what I knew, it would, in the eyes of the court, be a tacit acceptance of her infidelity. My iron-clad grounds for divorce would instantly evaporate, leaving me the untenable choice of allowing her to rape me financially in a continued divorce action, or reconcile and become her cuckold.

"I miss you, too," I admitted.

That wasn't a lie. It isn't easy to piss away eight mostly-happy years. Then again, I wasn't about to swallow this most egregious transgression on her part, whatever her rationale. I wasn't exactly facing my uncertain future alone, either.

"I promise I will give it careful thought for the next few days and let you know what I want to do," I finished.

She squeezed my arm and gave me a soft kiss on the cheek. I was glad she did not attempt to hug me. Even through the heavy overcoat, that could have led to a problematic 'discovery'.

"Thank you, Sweetheart," she cooed. "I know I can't ask more than that right now. You have always been fair. That is just one of a million things, big and small, I love about you."

Would someone please get me a shovel? This is getting really deep. She gently stroked my cheek with her hand.

"I'll be waiting for your call, Lover," she murmured, smiling.

I watched her strut regally towards the curb and her waiting Lexus. Knowing I would be watching, she tossed in an exaggerated wiggle that rivaled Dianna's. She stopped abruptly, turning her head to look at me over her shoulder.

"...and Lance?" she added. "She was lovely, whoever she was. Feisty, too. You always have had impeccable taste in women."

I wasn't sure if that last compliment had been intended towards Dianna or Susan herself. Either my wife was a very good actress or Jeff, as I had surmised, had not revealed Dianna's secret to her. The fact that Susan had referred to her rival in thepast tense was not lost upon me.Fait accompli; in Susan's eyes, the usurper stood no chance. Her towering arrogance, heaped atop her other faults, appalled me.

Why would she even bother with this charade in the first place? Together, the two of them would have everything she wanted; prestige, money, security, and a big dick. Was she trying to get me back just to prove shecould?I would contact my lawyer as soon as I got to my desk, inform him of this new development, and have him instruct the investigator to keep digging.

The usual suspects in the office extended their bright, cheery greetings. I walked into the wing that housed the offices of the firm's half-dozen heavyweight traders – myself included. My office was one of the middle two. Angie, our secretary, sat at a desk on the opposite side, facing my door. In the two years she had worked for our group, she had been one of the brightest spots in my business life.

To put it delicately, Angie was adish: a five-foot, six-inchLatina from the Northwest Side, with thick, wavy raven hair that shimmered with blue overtones when the light hit it. She possessed dark, expressive eyes and a voluptuous body that threatened to rip through whatever tight outfit she wore on any given day.

That she 'overdressed' for the office, or did her hair and makeup more expressively than most – by conservative, politically-correctAnglo standards – was a given, and a delightful daily distraction to the male members of the staff. If her overfull hips, tush and thighs (at least, the femaleAnglostaffers described them as such) swiveled a bit too much to be considered good office decorum, again, no one in our wing was complaining.

Employee Relations periodically made noises, circulating memos concerning "appropriate business attire and personal grooming" – no doubt egged on by unnamed catty co-workers. Nothing had ever come of it and nothing ever would on our watch. All six senior traders – with myself in the lead – had sent a memo to Management, threatening to walk outen masseif any action was taken against her without cause. Money talks louder than petty jealousy in our world and the noises stopped. We kept a close watch on Angie's performance reviews to ensure no 'cause' was ever manufactured. Call it pandering, chauvinism, or whatever you like; we protect our own, and we considered Angie one of us. How she dressed, what she did on her own time, and who she did it with was nobody's business but hers, as long as the work got done.

Although Angie flirted with all the men she worked for, she had always flirted with me most of all. I had always, in Bill Clinton's words, "lusted for her in my heart" and flirted back. What man wouldn't? In my devotion to Susan, I had always kept it at just that. When my rumored marital crisis had become fodder around the water cooler the previous week, Angie had taken it upon herself to distract me from my problems as best she could. Our secretary had been especially friendly and solicitous of me – and seemed determined to push the edge of the dress code 'envelope' to the breaking point. Her 'distraction' made me wonder if she might have more than business continuity in mind.

"Busy weekend, Boss?" Angie chirped.

It was impossible for my spirits not to lift in the presence of that engaging, infectious smile. The heart-stopping tease was dressed in a tight white suit whose skirt ended just below her knee. The tight skirt accentuated her narrow waist and hobbled her gait, causing her to undulate her tush in an exaggerated manner. The jacket had wide-spaced lapels. Beneath it, she wore a fuscia silk blouse that was unbuttoned to the "V" of her lapels. The obviously-braless DD-cup breasts jiggled sweetly as she moved. Her legs were clad in suntan stockings, dipping to fuscia ankle-strap pumps with five-inch heels. She placed her hands flat on my desk and leaned over, affording me an unrestricted view of her chasm of cleavage.

"Yeah, Ang," I admitted. "I have to say it was a really good one, too."

"I'll bet," she giggled with a wink. "You have that just-fucked glow about you. A girl can tell."

I almost jumped right out of my chair on that one. Was I wearing a neon sign around my neck, or what? I decided her comment had been innocent enough.

"Ya got me, Angie," I confessed good-naturedly. "She was good, too. I should know better than to try to pull the wool over your eyes."

"Damn straight!" she expressed. "So, not the Ex?"

"No, Angie," I confirmed, "not the Ex."

"Goooood," she purred. "That means there is finally hope for the rest of uspeónes."

I reached across the desk, covered her hand with mine, and gazed into those big, expressive eyes.

"Whatever you may be," I intoned softly, "you arenot a peon."

Her eyes seemed to melt – then adopted a more serious appraisal of me.

"Are you eating okay, Lance?" she queried.

"Yeah," I asserted. "Why?"

"Oh, I dunno," the lovelyLatina teased. "It's just that you seem to have... lost weight."

I did flinch on that one. Her smile didn't lose an ounce of sincerity as she pulled her hand from underneath and placed it lightly atop mine.

"I mean, you still look good," she recovered quickly, "really,reallygood. I was just... complimenting you, is all..."

She stroked the back of my hand lightly with her perfect, polished fingernails.

"... and anytime you are ready tofind out 'whatever I may be'," she murmured, "just let me know."

She pivoted on her toes and made for the door. For the second time in twenty minutes, I was treated to the sight of a lush, undulating tush strutting confidently on impossibly-high heels. The fabric of the skirt was stretched so tightly across her rear end, I could plainly see the deep crevasse where her lush ass cheeks met. She paused in the doorway, gazed over her shoulder and winked.

"I'll be right outside your door, okay?" she purred. "But then, you already know that."

O – kaaaaaaaay! Well, I guess we cleared the air onthat issue. Now I had something else to occupy my thoughts.

The Seventh Level of Hell was the most daunting of all; attempting to reconcile Dianna's overtly-promiscuous lifestyle with her expressed love for me. Could I learn to trust Dianna, despite her multiple sexual partners – especially after Susan had betrayed my trust inher? It boiled down to the twin matters of honesty and choice. Dianna had been honest with me up front – almost brutally so. She had offered me a choice; accept her for what she was, or not at all. But did she acceptme?Suddenly Chantal's words popped into my head:

Dianna loves to fuck... but that is just sex. When it comes to love, Miss Dianna is a hard-core lipstick lesbian. That girl is crazy for you, Sweetie!

Having experienced that mindset from the other side and witnessing, first-hand, Dianna's poignant reaction to my 'date' with Daniel, I knew exactly what Chantal was talking about – more so than 'Lance' alone ever could. I had certainly been attractive enough to Daniel – and probably would be to other men as well. It was a 'trust' issue, all right; trustingmyself to be desirable enough that Dianna couldhave sex with someone else, butlove me and me alone. Ifanything was going to sabotage my relationship with her, it would be my own petty insecurity, not one of her anonymous sexual partners.

A cold chill gripped the pit of my stomach. Was I holding Susan to an unfair double standard? The circle came around once more to the issues of honesty and choice. Had Susan been honest with me about her needs, as Dianna had? Not even close. Susanhad, not an hour before, offered me a choice, but it was a choice in name only and only because I had forced her hand. Dianna had even predicted it:

And if she came to you tomorrow and said the same things we said tonight, what then? Better late than never.

Susan hadnot said the same things. She had dangled attractive bait before my eyes; what would, for her, amount to a get-out-of-jail-free card. Any 'contrition', it was clear, was expected to come from me, not her. She had not even hinted she would end her affair with Jeff Spencer.Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. If I gave her a taste of her own medicine, as either Lance or Lisa, she would likely turn around and divorceme – and take me to the cleaners.

Of course, STD'sare an issue when multiple partners are involved, but a manageable one if proper precaution is taken. Dishonesty isnot manageable. Lack of trust is a plague on all houses. Could I trust Susan again?No way, José. Could I trust Dianna? Trust has to be earned over time, but I perceived shehad been honest with me. That goes a long way towards establishing trust.