The Secretary Experience

Chapter 1

I was a pudgy, straight A student all through high school and my good grades carried on into college where I was able to earn my four-year degree in less than three years. I thank my parents for my work ethic. Thanks to them I was able to put aside frivolity and focus on my studies. Thanks to them I was able to do what I wanted to do; thanks to Bonnie, I was able to be who I wanted to be. But I'll get to her.

I graduated from Auburn University -- go Tigers -- with a degree in business administration. It wasn't the most masculine of degrees, I didn't set out to become a high-powered lawyer or a top-notch neurosurgeon, but that was the point. You see, I'm a cross-dresser and have been most of my life, well at least the part I can remember following a lucky discovery when I was a much younger man, and I didn't want a stressful job. I wanted something far simpler. I longed for something different than most men I knew.

I guess I should back up a little bit and at least introduce myself. My name is George McNeill. Or at least that's my given name. George is the name I no longer use; I use the one Bonnie gave me. But I'll get to that in time, too.

I was born, to quote an old, bad joke, at a really young age. I grew up in southwestern Alabama near the Mississippi line. My mom was a housewife; my dad built ships in Mobile. I remember him coming home one day with a grin on his face and a bottle of champagne in his hand, boastful how he was working on the Navy's newest destroyer and how, thanks to him, the commies were going to be sorry. His smile was infectious, and I miss it.

My parents died in a car crash nine years ago. They were around to see me graduate from college and then, less than four weeks after that joyous day, a drunk driver sideswiped their car, spinning them around and sending them over a steep embankment. I got the call that I was an orphan the day after I was hired as a junior manager at a relatively large retail store chain. I wouldn't be working at the stores, not at all. I would do administrative work at the corporate office handling spreadsheets instead of customers; handling memos instead of sales. I didn't want anything more than that and after getting the news about my parents I didn't need anything more. I had a simple life doing a simple job that I handled with ease.

The death of my parents left me numb for about six months. For half I year I went through the motions of life. I woke in the morning, long before the sun came up. I went to work, not really caring how I looked or what the day would bring. And I would go home, fix me a peanut butter and jelly sandwich or a bowl of cereal or if I was feeling especially depressed, I would skip dinner entirely because getting off the couch seemed to take too much effort.

Work was simple but my heart wasn't in it. I was written up, twice, and then a third time. Then on a dreary Friday afternoon, Mister Howser, my immediate supervisor brought me into his office, told me how sorry he was about my folks and that I should take some time getting my head right. What did he know? Had his whole life changed with one single phone call? Had he ever had to answer the phone and hear a stranger apologize for the call and then receive news as tragic as anything written by Shakespeare?

"I'm sorry, George, but we're going to have to let you go?"

I heard what he said, and I understood the words, but I didn't really care. I think that was the point and that was probably why I was let go. I did not care. Everything I had cared about had been taken from me by a careless drunk moments after he reached for the warm beer in the cupholder, pulled it to his lips and took one long, disgusting pull.

The driver attempted to put his beer down, missing the designated spot and dropped the beer onto the floorboard on the passenger side of the car. "Shit," he said, slurring the words. He glanced at the road, not really seeing anything but his warm beer spilling onto the stained floor mat out of the corner of his eye. He reached down, cussed again, looked at the road one last time, and then fumbled for the beer can that was just out or reach. He turned the wheel, moving closer to the beer; closer to what he needed more than anything in the world. That's what was written in the police report. The officer on scene, the same one that had called to give me the heartbreaking news had penned the words exactly as the drunk had slurred them. That warm beer, spilling onto a beige carpet stained with old ketchup, mud, and booze had been what that careless driver had needed more than anything else. For that he took my parents and left me an orphan.

"George?"

I looked up, seeing Mister Howser wearing a sad frown. "Sorry."

"Look, I get it. But this is a place of business. I can't tell you what to do but if I can offer you some advice?" When I didn't say anything he continued, "take care of yourself. Do something for you. If you need therapy, get some. If you need to go away, then go away. You need to find something, anything, that makes you happy. Search for it. Find it. Latch onto it. You're not really living; you're just getting by. Try to find a life."

Did my boss, my ex-boss, just tell me to get a life? "Uh huh," I said, sounding like a teenager even though I was twenty-two years old with a degree in business administration and a minor in law. He was right. I only lasted as long as I did because the work was so simple. Maybe the work was beneath my skills, but I looked at it as a steppingstone to something far greater and something far more desirable. I guess I'll get to that as well.

My boss shook my hand and wished me well. It was a final dismissal. I thanked him for his time. Another gift from my dead parents. Manners. It was something else I wished I could thank them for. As far as I could tell they raised me right. Only after they were stolen away had things turned wrong.

I left the office, giving the six-story building I'd worked at for almost half a year one final glance. The experience would look good on a resume, should I ever need one. Leaving work for the last time that day I didn't know that I'd have my own run in with a drunk driver and how my life would change again because of a can of beer.

*****

The light in front of me turned green. I looked left and right; a habit that had been amplified by the death of my parents, and moved into the intersection. I watched the road, looking for the disaster I knew had to be heading my way. Didn't tragedy come in lots of three? First, I lost my parents then I lost my job. Okay, maybe that was unfair as there had been a six-month delay between those two things but that was where my thoughts were spinning. I was expecting tragedy and if there is such a thing as a self-fulfilling-prophecy then Fate or God or the Universe surely had a great sense of comedic timing.

It happened in slow motion, as if time was a liquid thing that was slowly freezing. I was driving past a Walmart, the parking lot overly full, when I saw it. A large SUV, one of those black one you see in movies that the villains always drive, was coming towards me, bouncing over the median that separated our opposing lanes. The SUV bounced, scaping over the concrete curb, sending a spray or orange sparks flying from the vehicle's undercarriage. The metallic spray looked impossibly bright in the early evening gloom. The SUV kept coming. I heard a horn, another. I heard the brakes from some unseen car locking up as some driver tried to avoid was swiftly approaching.

I glanced to my right, at the lane next to me. I could see another car in my blind spot, casually oblivious to what was coming. I couldn't turn into them, not at the speed I was going. I braced myself, slamming on the gas. The SUV was close, too close. I thought if I hit the brake, like that unknown driver I'd heard a moment before, then the inevitable collision would be head on. No, I needed to go faster, to paint the rear of my Corolla as the target and not the part of the car where I was sitting.

I hit the gas, lurched forward and then felt the collision. The SUV struck the door behind me. I felt the lurch and spun to the left, my face inches from the terrified face of a young man with impossibly short hair. His eyes were wide and red, and his cheeks were as ruddy as Rudolph's nose on Christmas Eve. Our two vehicles spun in unison, locked together now as one large, clumsy unit. I felt a terrible agony in my right arm, hearing a bone crack. I could smell burning rubber now but couldn't tell if it was from the accident or from that earlier driver that had locked up his wheels to avoid the accident that I had seen coming both with my eyes and my prescient heart.

We kept spinning and now I was facing the wrong way. In front of me half a dozen cars were stopping but one wasn't stopping fast enough. I watched, trying to brace my arms against the steering wheel and failing when a fresh wave of agony raced along my broken arm, as another car moved forward, hitting mine head on. I lurched forward, feeling the seat belt crushing my ribs. I felt the steering wheel shift inward.

And then the world went dark.

*****

"Welcome back, mister McNeill," I heard a voice I didn't recognize. The words were muffled, like I was hearing them from someplace far away. "There you are," I heard, this time the words sounding clearer. Finally, they sounded normal, "do you know where you are?"

"Hospital," I said. "Not sure which one."

"That's good, that's very good. I'm doctor Raine and you've been in a terrible accident."

I tried to nod but couldn't seem to. My head felt at once heavy and light. I couldn't move it, but it seemed to be floating like that red balloon in that movie by Stephen King. The one with the scary clown. I shut my eyes, blocking out the overhead fluorescent lights that were far too bright. I could feel my nose wrinkle. My mouth tasted like charcoal left over from some holiday picnic. My lips were dry and cracked. My head hurt; my arm hurt more. I could feel it inside a cast. "How bad," I said, not surprised that it came out strained and weak and saddened by the fact that it did.

"You've been in a coma for three weeks. It was pretty bad." He went over my injuries, from the trio of broken bones in my right arm and the broken wrist in my left. He told me about the crushing injury I received in my chest as the head-on collision collapsed my steering wheel and airbag into my body. He told me of the lacerations on my face and how my head had sustained some severe trauma when my head snapped into the headrest of my seat.

"Three weeks?"

He shrugged, "Almost four."

A month. I'd nearly lost a month of my life because of some reckless driver. Somehow it made perfect sense. Tragic events happen in lots of three and this horrible accident completed my trifecta.

Doctor Raine was a thick man with even thicker glasses. He had short, gray hair that was spiked on top with a cowlick that he couldn't quite tame. His lab coat had a small mustard stain just above his name badge. I looked at the mustard stain, at its strange, odd shape and wondered if my car looked anything like that little, yellow smudge. "When can I go home?"

He gave a little chuckle. "We'll see. I'm keeping you here at least another two days. We've got to get your strength up. Do you have anyone who can help you at home." He nodded towards my prone form, "those casts aren't coming off for a few more weeks."

I thought of my parents, lying in side-by-side graves down in Alabama. I thought of Clark, my best friend, a guy I met in college. He lived in Idaho doing agricultural experiments on potatoes. I thought of my boss, Mister Howser, and how he'd apologized when he told me that he'd have to let me go. I didn't have anyone; I was alone in the world. That thought filled me with a claustrophobic sense of grief. Just thinking about it made me cry. I couldn't help it and I couldn't stop if I wanted to. I felt my head begin to hurt even more and my bruised ribs seemed to scream in agony as I hitched a deep, anguished sob. I shook my head, "sorry."

Doctor Raine said nothing. He flashed me a smile that I couldn't understand. Was he being kind or apologetic? Did it even matter? "We'll work something out. I'll send someone in to take your vitals. I can't sign off on solid food yet. Maybe tomorrow." He checked the machines that were monitoring my life. Everything about me was summed up by the little numbers and graphs on the small boxes hooked to my body. Is that all I was? Just a machine whose systems could be monitored like a gauge on a cars instrument panel. That thought depressed me even more, sending a few new tears falling from my dark green eyes.

I lay there feeling sorry for myself and feeling ashamed for breaking down in tears. I hadn't meant to, and I couldn't really say what prompted my emotional outburst. Was it the medicine they were feeding more or was it more than that? Was I depressed? I thought about what my doctor had told me; I'd been in a coma. Did the reality of that fuel my sorrow? I didn't know and lying there I didn't really care. I didn't care about anything.

And that was it. I recalled how Mister Howser told me to get a life, admittedly in a far kinder way. I thought of the life my parents lost and how mine was almost snubbed out as well. Maybe my boss had been right. Maybe I did need to find something more. Something that would make me whole and well. Something that I could look forward to and actively accomplish instead of going through the expected motions, not really caring about what I was doing. Hadn't just existing led me to getting fired in the first place?

A uniformed officer knocked on my door, interrupting my thoughts. "Mister McNeill?"

"Yes?" I said, licking my lips and trying to moisten my dry mouth. The officer was a large black woman. She looked to be about thirty, maybe thirty-five. She had dark black skin with even darker hair. Her teeth were arctic snow white and when she smiled her whole face lit up. She had a genuine aura of niceness about her, like she would give you the shirt off her back in the middle of a busy shopping mall even if she was naked underneath it. I smiled back at her. I couldn't help it. Maybe the same universe that laughed with comic timing, sending a car careening into yours, could send an angel just as easily. Just seeing her smile somehow lifted my spirits. "Can I help you?"

She introduced herself before saying, "I came here to get a statement about the accident. Are you up for it?"

I tried to nod, failed, and gave a wan little grin, "sure."

"Great!" She pulled up a chair. Somehow her face became even warmer, like that of a grandma seeing her granddaughter for the very first time. It was radiant. She pulled out a pen and paper and prodded me to tell her what happened.

I brought my arm up to dry my eyes, taking in the weight of my cast. It seemed heavy. Everything seemed heavy, from the blanket draped over my body to the sorrow I was somehow feeling. I used the blanket to wipe my face and coughed into the crook of my elbow. "I'd just been fired," I admitted, feeling a fresh bout of shame. Was getting fired another way of saying that I was a failure? I cast the thought aside; my mood was already low enough.

I told Officer Hutchins about the accident, how I'd seen it coming and how I spotted the innocent car in the lane next to me and knew I couldn't swerve into them. I told her how I'd braced myself for the impact, holding both of my fractured arms in the air for emphasis. I finished the admittedly short story with finding out that I'd been in a coma not ten minutes before she walked in.

She pulled out a photo. "Do you recognize this man?"

I did. It was the same man that had hit me only in the picture his cheeks were a lot less red. He was gray and lifeless. I nodded and this time my head did move. Not much, but surely more than it had when Doctor Raine had told me about my injuries. "Is he the one that hit me?"

"Yes. His name was Charles Lipman."

Was. I heard the word and matched it with the cold, gray face. "Did he die in the accident?"

"Yes. And now, thanks to you, we can close this case." She explained the accident and the outrageous blood-alcohol content of driver with the ruby cheeks and the terrified eyes that had targeted mine as our cars did a pirouette, locked together like fingers in a Chinese finger trap. She pulled two business cards. "If you should have any questions," she said, "you can reach out. And this," she pointed to the card on top, "is the number for Mister Lipman's attorney. There's a settlement set up." She gave another of her warm smiles. "It's pretty big."

I thanked her, holding the two business cards between a pair of fingers. With my casts, I couldn't hold them any better than that. My fingers would have to do.

"I'm glad you're okay, Mister McNeill."

I smiled and it was genuine. "Call me George."

She smiled again and gave me a little nod. "Thanks, George."

It was the last time I ever asked someone to call me by that name.

I lay in bed thinking about what Officer Hutchins said. I was to receive a big settlement from the accident. The money would be nice, but I really didn't need it. I guess that's a pretty good problem to have. After my parents died, I was the sole recipient of the half-million-dollar life insurance policy that my mother had on her and the two-million-dollar policy on my father. Couple that with being the beneficiary of my dad's retirement account and I had well over four million dollars in the bank. I didn't work because I needed to. No, I worked because I wanted to, and I had had a goal, one that was interrupted by the death of my parents and my ensuing depression. Now it seems I'd have even more.

"Try to find a life," my boss had said on the day he let me go.

Lying there in bed, my thoughts returned to what he said and what I had wanted to do for as long as I could remember. I think I've mentioned that I'm a cross-dresser. I love women, yes, and everything about them but I love their clothes most of all. From silks to lace, from skirts to heels. The more feminine the better.

I learned this about me a long time ago, well before I could put words to what it was that made me feel good. It was more than sexual, though that is a big part of it, probably the first part of it. The part that started it all.

Chapter 2

Three days after waking from a coma I walked into my house. It had a musty smell and felt overly hot and just a bit oppressive. I could feel the weight of the place, like it was scolding me for being away for far too long. If I had known how depressing the inside of my house would feel I'd have taken far longer to unlock and open the door, not that that had been easy with both of my arms in casts past my elbow. The Uber driver had offered to unlock the door, telling me on the drive how shitty I looked and that she'd be happy to help. Just that offer, tinged with some underlying pity had made me snap.

"I got it, thanks," I'd said, sounding every bit as harsh as I felt.

Now, standing in my kitchen I felt even worse. My house smelled stale and I could almost taste the thick air. I made me way from room to room, struggling to open every window. Fresh air rushed in and I was happy about that. Or as happy as I could be. Since being discharged I'd felt nothing but anger, frustration and sorrow, like I was living my parent's death all over again. I didn't know why. I didn't understand what was driving me down. I glanced at my imprisoned arms and thought maybe I had a reason to feel the way I did.

With the windows open and all the ceiling fans on as fast as I could get them to go, I made my way back into my kitchen. I leaned against the island and looked at the refrigerator, almost too afraid to open the shiny silver door. With how bad my house already smelled did I really want to open that icy prison and make it worse? No, I didn't. "Fuck it."