Changes Ch. 02

Notes to Reader:

(1) A lot of this is fiction; much is fact.

(2) Cross dressing in marriage is a difficult situation; acceptance of it comprises three entities: husband, wife, couple.

(3) Nobody CHOOSES to be a cross dresser, so please don't demean yourself (the reader) by macho dismissal and criticism. Lawyers, plumbers, truckers: anyone can be one. Most you will never see.

*****

And so my real story begins, the trips to the psychologist for counseling, and suggestions as to how to cope as a couple. I realize now that it was not just my story, but Sarah's too. I couldn't read her mind; it was only her actions and expressions that I could see, and I interpreted them as an intense interest in the study of me and my fetish. But I am not writing her story; I am writing mine. I can only speculate as to her motivations. Suffice to say, I should have been studying her while she was studying me.

I was a bystander during the following exchange. We should have discussed it in detail afterward at home, but we didn't. Actions multiplied, but conversation, not so much.

Psychologist: "Sarah, can you live with Steve dressing up at home when he feels like it?"

Sarah: "I find it weird. I don't know what I think."

Psychologist: "Well, how does it make you feel? How did you feel when you saw Steve dressed as a woman that first time?"

Sarah: "Correction: the only time. My emotions ran amuck, I would say. It scared me, not because of how he was dressed, but how it made me..."

Sarah paused, stared out the window, and then gazed at her hands in her lap.

Psychologist: "Yes, go on."

Sarah: "I didn't want change. It triggered something. It was (I can't believe I'm saying this) sexy in a bizarre way. I didn't want it to be sexy. That defined me as weird too. No, on the surface I just wanted him to stop."

Psychologist: "He can't stop. I treat cross dressers all the time. Many clinical methods have been tried and all have failed. Ever see the movie "A Clockwork Orange"? You should. It's not about cross dressers, but the analogy is there. If cross dressing is removed from Steve's life, Steve will not be Steve any longer. Watch the movie. Look, that's enough for today. Here's some literature on crossdressing, the suspected causes, the associated fantasies, why he can't stop. If you want to save your marriage, you have to at least understand the cross dressing."

During a week of reading, Sarah also began researching the topic on the Internet. She became a voracious learner, soaking everything up.

Several weeks passed. The psychologist was making money, and we felt like confusion had taken over our lives. It seemed like we had taken a step up the stairs but were stuck there. I wanted acceptance; Sarah was afraid of it. We appeared to be stalemated. I continued to dress up when Sarah went to work. The guilt began to slowly rise up and overwhelm me. Coming home at the end of one of those days, the silence in bed afterward was deafening. I was cheating. Sarah knew it. Neither of us liked it. And the more the stress built up, the more I dressed up, a gluttonous and vicious circle of deceit and self-loathing.

The anxiety in our relationship was palpable, a living breathing thing, permeating every nuance of our being, thickening the air we breathed until we both felt like we were choking. Something had to change. And one night in February, it did. Everything changed.

"Steve, we need to talk," she said abruptly. It was Friday night, and we were sharing a bottle of oaky Chardonnay with some penne.

The tone sounded ominous, so I made a feeble attempt to step out of the way. "We are talking," I said.

"No. No we're not. We're saying things, but they're not important things. Look behind the table; look beside the sofa; look in the bedroom."

"What are you talking about?" I said, bewildered.

"The elephant. We have to acknowledge it exists. We have to talk about it."

I sighed. "The cross dressing."

Sarah began with authority. "I've done a lot of research, and based on your choice of ladies underwear and the way you expect me to be the house maker, I think you have a 1950s view of femininity and what you perceive as womanhood. I'm going to use that and move on. By the way, the psychologist was right; we have to make this work or we'll lose each other. I can't take this anymore, the way it is now." Sarah took a deep breath and said, "I have a proposition for you."

I remember stifling my arousal and excitement as I thought she was going to say she would try to grow with me on the cross dressing fetish. "A proposition?" I asked.

"Yes. I've thought about this an awful lot and here's what I propose. You see, if I let you cross dress any time you like, I have to get something in return, don't you think?" She smiled a strange smile.

My heart skipped a beat. "I guess so. Like what?"

"I've already seen you dressed up, so it's not a total shock to me anymore. In fact the image of it is burned in my brain. So, here it is, if you want to dress up, then you have to do the following things." She handed me an envelope.

I was completely perplexed as I tore it open. There was a list after an opening statement. It went like this:

If you need to dress up, you can, but only if you agree to the following:

You do all the housework, wash all the clothes, iron them, prepare supper, and do the dishes, all while dressed as a woman. We'll see how you like that.

In return I will pick out your makeup and clothing until you can do it yourself, and teach you how to use it all properly. If you want, you can be dressed as a woman from morning to night.

I put the list down and said, "Oh my God. Are you serious?"

"Don't get too frigging excited," she laughed, "This is a tough step for me, believe me! I will not have a man in drag serving me supper. You're going to have to play the part, be the part. I know you dress up every day when I go to work anyway and I hate the deception. You peel it all off and are Steve again by the time I walk back in the door. Now that's going to change. Stay dressed; be Stephanie; you can make supper. And we'll see where this goes."

I remember staring at her in disbelief. I had been certain that our marriage was falling apart, that it was inevitable, and now I...we were thrown this lifesaver. I hugged her and kissed her until I began to feel foolish, like I had been granted life at the base of the gallows.

Sarah's demeanor had changed however. It was clear that she was not going to allow a slippery slope to develop, where I took advantage of her generosity. She was going to be in control.

"I take it you accept my terms?" she asked, smiling, "Then I'll go shopping for you tomorrow. We're about the same size, so it should be easy...except for shoes and corsets, stuff like that. We'll revisit that later. I'll get your basic wardrobe up and ready for you. You can start on Monday."

I laughed then and said, "Start? Ha...sounds like I've just been interviewed for a maid's job and I start work on Monday."

She snickered and said, "Yes, I suppose so. Who knows where this will go, eh? Actually, you just gave me an idea."

I clinked my glass to hers and said, "An idea? What about?"

She clinked my glass back and smiled conspiratorially. "You'll see," she said, "You will see many things."

I couldn't believe my ears and eyes. My wife...my WIFE Sarah, was not only condoning my cross dressing, but she seemed to be encouraging it. All I had to do was take over all the household chores, and try harder to look more like a woman. And corsets? What the hell had happened to her?

We opened another bottle of wine and celebrated a huge breakthrough. It was like a date with a new and wonderful person, and we talked and talked forever. We slurred words and told dirty jokes, a deluge of pent-up stresses pouring out of us as the wine was pouring in.

By midnight we had almost flared out. No amount of wine or coffee was going to change our condition and we went to bed expecting nothing but hugs; we were so drunk. As we undressed and crawled under the sheets I do remember Sarah saying the most bizarre things though.

She said, "The research I've been doing...is it true?" Then she burped.

"Is what true?" I asked, stifling a burp myself.

"Do you like bondage and humiliation, and being dominated by a woman? A lot of you people do, and how they explain it, it makes a lot of sense." There was a long silence and then she added, "So, do you?"

Up until then, I hadn't really thought about it much; yes, there were flickers of those fantasies, but mostly I just wanted to dress in girdles and bras and such. I said, "I don't know. Maybe. Why?"

But she had fallen asleep. Looking back, I should have pressed her for an answer.