Consolidation Week One

Week 1

The last Wednesday of each month, we have an informal lunch gathering. We're all HR people and all roughly the same age and career stage, although some have moved up faster than others. We call ourselves the Humane Society. Someone, at some point, must have thought that was funny. Charlotte started the thing with a couple of other girls five or six years ago. Now there's a couple of dozen of us, although only half that number to make it to any given meeting.

Charlotte, I should explain, is my husband's boss's boss. I can't say that I like her. He (my husband, Robert), his boss (Anna) and Charlotte all started in HR at the same firm--a big accountancy--at the same time, but while Anna has done well and Charlotte has done very well, Robert hasn't, and I do partly blame Charlotte for that. She's a slippery one, no doubt about it. 'How is dear Robert?' she always asks, knowing perfectly well how dear Robert is. Dear Robert is mired in middle management, where she marooned him. He sits all day in a cubicle which she can see from her office, if she feels the urge. Which she clearly doesn't.

Anyway, on Wednesday the lunch-table chatter was all rather gloomy. One of the other big accountants had just let go a quarter of their HR personnel, and there was definite a chill in the air. The banks had finally brought inflation under control, but recession--the Second Great Recession, journalists are calling it--was on everyone's mind. The talk was all of industry-wide downsizing, outsourcing and adapting to AI. Every crisis has its buzzword, and ours is apparently 'consolidation'. So far it's all just rumours, but rumour has it that we're consolidating into a smaller, more tech-savvy and above all different kind of industry. And 'different' is a buzzword too: the one bright light, Charlotte assured us, is the options for LGBTQ+ hiring (a lively argument ensued over what counts as 'plus'). The word from above, she said, is 'Hire queer'. The whole industry is transitioning; the era of the midlevel, mediocre white male is over.

Hmm... who comes to mind as a midlevel, mediocre white male? A bit harsh, I suppose, because Robert's actually very good at some parts of his job, but apparently not good enough and not at enough parts to keep his place as the algorithms keep improving and bright young gender-fluid things come strolling along. This is worrying; extremely worrying. There's no good time for one's spouse to lose a job, but now would be particularly bad, as we confront the coming economic blizzard armed with a whopping new mortgage, depleted savings and alarming credit-card balances. And that's even before I bring up my anxieties about when we'll be able to afford to start a family. Robert just can't be consolidated.

I slept rather badly on Wednesday night, and was crabby with Robert all day Thursday. Apparently thinking it'd cheer me up, he tried to initiate sex, and I said some rather unkind things in declining his offer. I felt bad afterwards, but as we both lay in bed pretending to be asleep, a possible way to kill several birds with one stone dawned on me. I'd like to think that I would eventually have thought of it by myself, but it actually popped into my head as I was fuming about what Charlotte had said: hire queer. The whole industry is transitioning. So--why shouldn't Robert?

I should explain something else. Not many husbands will put on a frock or take hormones, let alone go under the knife, just to keep a job they hate, no matter how dire the economic forecast. But in a world that's rapidly becoming different, Robert has the advantage of already being a bit different. He has foibles, as I like to call them. He'd told me about these when we first started dating: how, in certain moods, he likes to get a bit girly. A little lace, a pair of stockings, maybe a dash of mascara. Now, I let him know in no uncertain terms that I had no interest in dating a pansy, and that unless he shoved his sissy alter ego right back into the closet, he'd need to find a less particular girl and raid her closet instead of mine. Not very woke, I realise, but I know what I want, and a fairy isn't it. Even on top form, to be honest, Robert isn't exactly a manly man, and in retrospect I never would have dated him at all if I hadn't been bouncing back from a very bad breakup with a more conventional muscle-bound bully. I did like Robert's gentleness and biddability, but not if it shaded over into transvestitism. I wanted a man, just one who would do what he was told. Is that so much to ask?

To his credit, Robert pulled himself together pdq, and since then we've heard nothing more about knickers. He even studiously avoids passing judgement on mine, although he's clearly fascinated by them. I've always indulged him in that area, at first because I foolishly thought that seeing me in my ribbons and bows would take his mind off putting on his own. Rather optimistic, I know. But still, I'm not a complete idiot, and I worked out early on that he keeps a secret stash of frillies, slipping into them to have himself a good old wankfest whenever he thinks he can. I even know where he keeps them. But marriage is built on love and compromise, so I turn a blind eye. And it has its compensations: Robert is the only husband in our set who knows enough about his wife's clothes to be trusted to do the laundry and ironing, and, since his idea of femininity seems to revolve around service and submission, he does both (and more) on a regular basis. We just don't talk about it.

But that Thursday night I decided it was high time that we did. I also decided that I was going to keep a diary of how things developed, since this looked likely to be one of those turning points. And when, this weekend, I decided to scour the internet for information on what we might end up doing, I discovered--lo and behold--an entire genre of absurdist fiction in which wives transform their husbands into simpering sissies. Socialist realism it's not, and few of the stories I encountered seemed to have even the loosest link to reality. They made me wonder, though, whether I might take my diary, turn it into continuous prose, with verbs, adjectives and all that other fancy stuff, and then publish it and sell it to perverts like you to read--if 'read' isn't too generous a word for what I imagine you're up to. I suspect that my readership is going to be limited, because this is likely to be a sex story without much sex in it. Also, given what a lengthy business transitioning seems to be, it's necessarily going to move along at a slow pace. But never mind. Hopefully you're here for the deep psychological insights, etc. Just keep your hands where we can see them.

Anyway, I decided that Saturday would be the day for Robert and I to have The Talk. He could make us a nice dinner, then after he'd cleared up he could bring me another glass of wine and I would tell him my idea. So that's what happened.

Robert sat up as stiff as anything (in fact, stiffer than certain things I can think of) when I said that I wanted to talk about his foibles. He had that deer-in-the-headlights look that a man gets when he realises that his wife is about to say something which could be really good or could be really bad, but won't be anything in between. I pressed on.

I told him that I know he still thinks about being girly and that I feel rather bad about shutting down that part of his life (no need to mention his secret stash at this point). He was already getting so excited that he was forgetting to breathe. I reminded him, and then brought him some way back down to earth by explaining that I still didn't want him flouncing around the house in a French maid's costume. However, I said, the world is changing. This was the point at which I dropped on him what Charlotte had said on Wednesday. He's just as well aware as I am how fragile his position at work is, and rather than belabouring the point, I just hit him with a line of which I'm rather proud: 'If the whole industry is transitioning, why don't you just transition faster?'

He was speechless for a moment, and I wonder whether he actually grasped what I was saying in that first moment; but then he did.

'Ah--ah--', he said, then 'ah' again. A regular Demosthenes. Then: 'You can't be serious'.

'Oh, but I can, Robert', I said, patting his knee as encouragement. I'd given quite a bit of thought to how best to pitch this to him. It's an intensely serious issue; the whole direction of our lives hangs on it. But making light of it, making it just a silly little thing, is often the best way to go with him--and then, if he tries to shrug a thing off because it's so trivial, he can always be wrongfooted by suddenly switching to making it a matter of life and death. Crying works wonders too. When he's off balance he usually does what I want. (Why did he marry such a bitch? I can only assume he likes being manipulated.)

'Robert', I resumed, with my best sharing-an-in-joke smile, 'you want to indulge your foibles. Charlotte wants to hire queer. Consolidation is coming--and we both know what that'll mean for us. But you can solve everyone's problems by just going to Charlotte or Anna or whoever and telling her you're transitioning. Who knows, you might not need to do much beyond just saying it--although then again, maybe you'd like to do something more! I won't object. I get to play the loyal little wife, standing by her husband as he becomes what he was born to be. They get to play a woke corporation embracing the fairies. You get to play around in knickers and makeup. And then come home to a warm welcome from a grateful wife! Win-win-win!' (At least, I said something like that. There were probably a lot of 'ums' and 'ahs' in it too.)

He looked like his head was going to explode. For a while, half-sentences were the only things coming out of his mouth, but eventually he managed to put his anxieties into words. He didn't want this. Hormones. Surgery. He didn't want to actually become a woman. And I'm sure he was being sincere, although I did also see his willy shift inside his trousers. Not time to play that card yet, though; for now, it should be just the facts. And facts I had, because this was a serious matter. If Robert made the right decision, house, careers, security and babies could still be ours; if not, not. So, you can be damned sure I'd done my research.

'No', I told him, 'I know you don't want to become a woman. And I don't want that either, and it's not going to happen anyway. What happens is that you tell the world you're a girl trapped in a boy's body. Then, you start seeing a psychiatrist to talk about your feelings and so on. You'll also get to wear girly things. It sounds like most shrinks expect you to go full en femme for an entire year before they'll say you're suffering from gender dysphoria. By then, though, our bosses will all have forgotten about LGBTQ+ whatever because the industry will be in a new fad. Let's face it, the shareholders don't give a shit. They just want to model the right brand. They'll move on to the next thing and you can quietly go back to a Brooks Brothers suit. If you want to'. Or something along those lines.

We went around the issue a few more times. He was clearly wavering, seeing the perverse logic of what I was proposing, and he's also just not being very good at arguing his corner. However, to my consternation, I realised as I listened to his half-thought-out objections, I was wavering too. He was actually raising very good questions, some of which I'd set aside too casually. What would it mean for our marriage? He knew I didn't want a sissy. What would we say to our parents? (Yikes!) All our friends? Even if he got boobies and everything else, he wouldn't pass as a woman. And if he didn't get boobies, he'd just look like a freak. God, that would be embarrassing. Was that really what I wanted? 'We're playing with fire', he said, and he was right.

For a minute or two I did wonder whether I should just concede that it'd been a stupid idea, and it was only while he was off in the kitchen opening another bottle of wine that I pulled myself together. The thing is, Robert's currently getting the worst of both worlds. He's a lovely man and a diligent employee, but he's not man enough to get ahead at work and earn a place at the top. Nor is he a woman; and everyone above him at work is a woman. I'd like to pretend that it's just reverse discrimination that's marooned him in rank while Anna, Charlotte and the rest have moved ahead, but it isn't. He's more than a bit dithery and a terrible politician. If he were more masculine, he'd probably be safe. However, if he were less masculine--if he were a woman, cis or trans--he'd probably be safe too. In the current environment, it's up or out, and right now, out looks most likely for him. So, status quo, lose-lose; change, win-win. Yes, there certainly is stuff about the idea that I don't like and stuff that's going to be difficult, but with this economy, this mortgage, these debts and our un-started family, it's actually a no-brainer.

And that's what I told him when he came back. I said that I loved him, that it was his decision and I would respect whatever course he chose--but also that not choosing at all was perhaps the worst choice of all, because change was coming whatever we did. I said that I knew that his best-case scenario was to be all masculine at the office and to flounce around in frillies at home, and that what I was proposing was far from optimal, since it would basically require the opposite; but I also pointed out that we'd need to be consistent, and so if he really did want to experience femininity, this was the chance of a lifetime. Him keeping his job will be a win for both of us; him getting to wear knickers will be a win for him; and I'll find wins for me as well. Here was one, I said--he can spend tomorrow in knickers under his boy clothes while I go out with friends, so long as I can come back to a sparkling clean house. All he has to do is tell Anna on Monday morning that he's gender dysphoric and so on and wants to transition--and then, voilà, knickers for Robert. So let's just get this done.

'Ok', he said. One tiny word, and that was that! Except, of course, it wasn't. It was just the beginning of something much more complicated. Immediately, I felt both excited and deflated, and I'm pretty sure he did too. Did I really want the house and everything else badly enough to risk everything else I'd got? I really didn't want to see Robert poncing around in a maid's outfit, and I was pretty certain that once I had the image of him in a frock in my head, I would have trouble seeing him as a lover. Would our marriage survive? Would I be able to look my family and friends in the eye? Oh, God. But then the counterfactuals: if we didn't do any of this stuff, would our marriage survive the consequences of Robert losing his job? Would we still love each other, or ourselves, if he failed us so badly? Hmm.

Robert wanted to make love after our talk. Of course he did. He was harder and more full of ardour than usual--but then, of course he was. He was making love inside his head, not to me, but to some vision of himself in a skirt. I've never come while having intercourse with him, and last night I wasn't even close. I wondered afterwards whether I should tell him that I wanted to forget the whole thing and just hope for the best. In his post-squirty slump, he might have been thinking much the same thing. But reality kept intruding. We actually talked for a while before he fell asleep cradled in my arm, and sort of agreed: this might not be a good plan, but it's the least-bad one we've got. Let's both pull up our big-girl panties and get on with it.

Yesterday morning (Sunday) we were both a bit awkward around each other--Robert, presumably anxious to get me out of the door so he could get those panties pulled up; and me, all too glad to let him get on with it, so long as I didn't have to see it. But two bottles of wine over lunch with my friends Clara and Peter took the edge off me, and being met at the door when I got home by a smiling Robert, smartly dressed in boy clothes and holding an icy-cold cosmopolitan, left my edges very smooth indeed. A foot-rub while I surveyed my shiny-clean kingdom was icing on the cake, and this time it was my turn to fall asleep first. No sex tonight, and none, I told Robert, until he's made some tangible progress. Ok, he said.