Changes Ch. 01

I used to be a part-time cross dresser, male in every physical way, but dressing up occasionally for the fetish fun of it. But now I wear panties all the time and I don't even own male underwear any longer. Actually it's way more than that now, and I feel like I am not in control of my own life at all any more. The evolution toward this started abruptly, but successive subtle changes after that resulted in burnt bridges behind me, and an inability to go back. When I think about it now it seems like the transformation to what I am now happened in the blink of an eye. But it didn't. And there were decisions and forks in the road in many places, choices that I could have made in other ways. But I didn't. In hindsight, I wonder if those choices were never mine to be made; I was simply sliding down a slippery incline with no way to resist.

I need to write this down and make some sense of it all. This is my story.

Friday had been a tough day. An email had been sent to everyone in the company at 9:00 AM sharp telling us to stay in our offices until further notice. We knew what was coming; the rumors had been swirling around the water cooler, but it was still a shock when the knock came on my door and I was told I had to clean out my desk and leave the premises. A huge shock. I had never been laid off before, and despite the generous terms triggered by my employment contract (two year's salary, or $300,000), it hurt me deeply that my work seemed to add no value to the company.

I spent the weekend drinking too much wine while my wife tried to console me. She said all the right things, "I love you honey; nothing can change that" or "I make as much as you do, so we'll be okay." It all made sense actually, and by Sunday night I had come around to the idea of taking some time off and not even searching for a new position for a while. I needed time to heal.

And so, on Monday morning, after Sarah left for work at 7:30, I sat in the kitchen reading the paper and drinking a coffee, alone, and getting more edgy by the minute. Stress always did this to me; I had to get dressed. By 8:30 I was sitting in the kitchen again dressed in a skirt and blouse, pantyhose and high heels, my eyelids heavy with mascara, and my lips tasting like cherry. I don't know what it is, but I love the feel of a tight girdle and bra, and I remember breathing the tightness in, like moist morning mist. I closed my eyes and said to myself, "Yes, this is what I needed."

Suddenly the near term future looked bright as I realized I could now dress up every day without Sarah ever knowing. It was perfect. As the freedom of that sank in, I decided to play an ABBA CD and just walk about the house, feeling uninhibited as the female that I wanted to be today, but was afraid to be in real life, and didn't dare to be outside, ever. The silicone breast inserts jiggled and bounced in my bra as I walked, and I even twirled so that my skirt flared out. I turned the music up louder. After the last three days of stress, it felt like heaven.

I saw myself in the mirror over the fireplace and paused to stare. The look wasn't too bad, I thought, shoulders a bit too wide maybe, but otherwise not too bad at all. I was a slight man of 30 then, five foot seven and about 135 pounds, with hair to match the blond wig I was wearing, and a face with delicate features. I would never be a manly man, and that allowed this clothing and makeup to "take" in an effective way. But my wardrobe was severely limited due to a lack of hiding places for my secret stash.

Sarah didn't know, and I decided years ago that I would never tell her. In fact, I couldn't tell anyone, not even my psychologist in my many visits to deal with recurring depression. The thought of anyone knowing about my deviant behavior would cause my skin to crawl and my gut to wrench itself into knots. Looking back on that time, I know that was the reason for my mood difficulties in the first place. Hiding in plain sight is an arduous and stressful task.

I sat down at the table in the kitchen once again, feeling that delicious coolness and tightness of the pantyhose on my legs. The nylon and Lycra hissed slightly as the second skin on one leg shifted across the other leg. It gave me goose bumps, and I shivered slightly. I reached for my still warm coffee, having to turn slightly. That was when I saw her.

Sarah stood at the entrance to the garage with an astonished look frozen on her porcelain face, like a wax figure in a chamber of horrors. "Steve?" she said weakly, "Whoa! I, uh, I thought maybe you needed company and TLC so I decided to phone in sick. You, umm, what's going on here? Why are you, oh Jeez...? What IS this?"

Like a child, I reflexively dropped down behind the counter and peered over it at her. For the first few moments I was speechless, and the moments following that I was little better, only mouthing, "Jesus! Oh God, Jesus, I, oh, no oh no, Jesus!"

"Maybe I should have stayed at work," she mumbled, "Oh my God; you're a transvestite then? I...Jesus Steve, help me here...are you a transvestite?" I could see the beginning of glassy eyes, watery tears, not sad tears, not happy tears, just female tears of shock and fear.

"Sarah, oh my God Sarah, I'm so sorry. I never wanted you to see me like this, ever!" I stood up and she observed me from head to toe. There was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, and I felt like a bad puppy that had just peed on the floor. "Shit!" I yelled.

After the initial shock of being caught, I had regained my senses, and now that I realized our relationship had changed in an instant, there had to be some sort of discussion and reconciliation here. "Sarah, can you come back in half an hour and we can talk?" I said. I needed time to get changed and collect my thoughts.

There were tears ready to plummet out of her eyes and down her cheeks. But in her eyes, I saw the first twinkling of anger as she said, "No, I'm staying right here, and you are too. What's going on? I asked you if you were a transvestite. Are you gay or something? And why the hell didn't you tell me about...about this?" Her eyes travelled the full length of my feminized figure in her visual description of "this".

I wanted to hug her, to quell her fears. That's what made this so difficult; my attire did not allow that. She was so beautiful, the love of my life, blonde like me, the same height and roughly the same weight, but the clear difference was that she was naturally feminine; I was not. Her breasts were real; mine were not. She carried herself in that mysteriously feminine way; I did not.

Her mascara and eyeliner were beginning to run away in tiny trickles down her cheeks and it broke my heart. "Sarah," I said, "I love you so much. I'm not gay. A transvestite? I don't know really." I searched for words and decided to just be direct and spill it all. "I like to wear women's underwear and clothes. I like the feel of tight clothes and lace and silk, and high heels, all of it."

"Why?" she asked innocently.

"Why? I don't know. Why do people like certain foods? Why do people crave sex? Why do..."

Sarah cut me off. "Wait, you compare this to sex?" she asked, incredulously, "Is this a sexual thing for you? Is this like sex?"

I froze. Then I answered with a single word, "Yes." I didn't want to tell her that it was a sexual fetish, that I often masturbated while dressed as a woman. I couldn't tell her that, and my single word answer made it unnecessary. She knew.

"Oh fuck!" she mumbled, and then she let out a big sigh before saying with resignation, "So, why the hell didn't you tell me, and where do we go from here?"

She was looking at me strangely, occasionally squinting her eyes as if trying to understand my fashion sense. "Your skirt is on backwards," she said, matter-of-factly.

"What?" It seemed so out of context to the drama unfolding between us.

"Your skirt is on backwards. The zipper goes at the back. It's not like pants you know; you don't need a zipper in front."

My turn to be incredulous. "What?" I said. Nonetheless, I instinctively rotated the skirt around so that it faced the right way. I straightened my blouse that had become twisted with the rotation of the skirt.

"Never mind," she continued, "I guess this explains the panties I found under the bed a few weeks ago. I thought you were cheating on me. I'm kind of relieved actually. But wait...come to think of it, you are cheating on me, but not the way I thought. This is weird. Really, really weird."

"Sarah, please...I'm, I'm still Steve."

She stared at me for a long minute and replied, "No, you're not. You're not the same Steve any more, not now. Stephanie maybe, but not Steve."

I asked the question for which I dreaded the answer, "Sarah, please don't...are you going to leave me?"

"No! What? Why would you even think that? I love you too you know! But I have to ask, umm, you do find me sexually attractive though don't you?"

"Of course I do! Jesus, Sarah, you walk into a room and I get excited; you go away and I miss you."

"But is this important to you?" she asked.

I squirmed with this question. It was important to me. I used it to steady myself in difficult times, to calm myself during good times. I looked down at the floor and answered, "Yes."

"Then we need help."