The Club of Fools Ch. 09

The elder Steele looked up from the wine menu and said, "Excuse me Miss, there seems to...wait, what?"

"It's me Dad." He didn't smile. He was afraid to.

His Dad looked around the restaurant, concerned at being identified with this shocking development. He laughed nervously and said, "What's this? Ha! Who put you up to this? Jesus, you look real for Christ's sake! Was it Freddie?" He laughed out loud then and said, "That bastard; I'll bet it was Freddie. Why the hell would he get you to dress up like this then?"

"Dad...Dad, it's me. Nobody put me up to this. I'm...I'm...I'm..." It just wouldn't come out. He couldn't tell his father that his only son, only child, was now his daughter, but he continued to try to utter the words. He tried a different tack, "I'm trans', Dad."

Steele squinted his wrinkled old eyes and said, "Trans what?" He could be so obtuse, like an old horse with blinders on.

Despite his age-old fear of the mighty and elder Steele, Janice was already becoming exasperated, like he had been on numerous occasions when he was a teenager. "Transgender Dad. I'm a woman now." There, he said it.

Silence and time were necessary to allow the fading of his Dad's smile. It was slowly replaced by a perplexed look of astonishment and denial. "Right," he said slowly, "You mean this isn't a joke. So, like Bruce Jenner then?"

"Yes. Like Caitlin Jenner. My name's Janice."

"Your name's Jason, son," he said softly, "It's Jason. And if you need some help, you know, a psychiatrist or something..." He looked gravely concerned for his son. As an afterthought, he said, "Jesus, do you, you know, still have your...?

Janice felt for him. This was hard. He spoke softly but firmly, "Yes Dad, I do have a penis. I will always have a penis. Dad, I've always worn or wanted to wear women's clothes, and I met some people...they've helped me to understand... I don't need or want psychiatric help. I was never happy until now, never. I'm happy Dad."

The elder Steele nodded his head, processing. "So, this is why you set up your own shop, why you didn't come to see us all this time."

"Yes. Dad, I'm getting married." He blurted it out without thinking.

His Dad breathed a heavy sigh and said, "Oh Christ! Who is he son?"

"It's a she, Dad. I'm not gay. Her name's Jodi. I guess that makes me a lesbian."

The shock was over, but the confusion was building. Nonetheless, he smiled and shook his head from side to side. "My son is a lesbian," he stated flatly, "I need something more than just wine I think. Should I get Mom to come down here?" He waved to the server and ordered a double scotch. Janice ordered a glass of Viognier. When the wine arrived Mr. Steele watched his son's long manicured fingernails wrap around the wine glass. They looked like they belonged. Jason looked like a woman. It scared him and he tried something desperate.

"Jason, you know I have a Trust set up for you. We can't allow this irrationality. Come to your senses...or you're out. Your mother would agree. It breaks my heart to say this, but you can't be my son if you carry this through."

Janice's eyes watered up with that. He said with a quavering voice, "I have come to my senses Dad. You can do what you want, but this is me. And you know very well Mom would be shocked but okay with this. You say I can't be your son if I do this. You're absolutely right; but I can be your daughter. Please Dad..."

It was a primal reaction. His Dad's heart broke and he reached across the table taking his daughter's hand in his and he said, "Please forgive me; I didn't mean that. I'm so sorry Jason; I'm so sorry. Janice. Janice." When he had finished vocalizing his name, he continued thinking it over and over in his brain. It would take a while. But it could be done. It could be done.

They held hands while they drank and talked. Janice went through his history lately without explaining all the bondage and kinky aspects of the bizarre switch in his life, how he had come to understand his longings. The lunch lasted most of the afternoon and a cab took them both to Janice's Mom, where the shock and denial and love came through once again. He phoned Jodi and explained what happened and that he was sleeping in his own bed at his parent's place that night, to be back with Jodi by 8:00 the next morning.

The jigsaw of his life was being solved one piece at a time. When he arrived at Jodi's the next morning he asked if he could make love to her. He needed some form of encouragement and commitment from her. She looked at him, so happy for his changes, so she said yes, after he showered and did his normal routines. What she didn't say was that there had to be rules. He was not to be allowed penetration until at least their wedding night, so while still in his corset and bra, she bound him in an arm-binder and penetrated him from behind with her strap-on instead, reaching around and allowing him at least an orgasm just when he thought she was going to tell him the lovemaking was over. Without being told to do so, he cleaned up his mess which had splayed all across the towel laid underneath him. It tasted salty and rich but too much was absorbed in the cloth. It would have been better on the bare floor.

Such was her expectation. Such was her control. And such was his love of it. It made him warm and fuzzy inside like freshly spun cotton candy, pink cotton candy.

Over the next while he met clients who were initially shocked, but were accepting of his change; he met new ones who never knew him as a male; he went to lunch at the local café, and no one noticed or commented about his appearance. Walking down the street in his high heeled boots, he felt a calmness and confidence he had never felt before. Men glanced at him, surveyed his shape and his legs, and passed on, some smiling and nodding, others opening doors for him. He wanted to whisper to them that he was a lesbian, but that was his secret, a secret held along with the man parts under his girdle and corset. The March days were cold but his chest was warmed by the silicone breasts glued to it, jiggling and bouncing as he walked.

In mid-March it hit him, those pre-marriage jitters, the doubts, the big ones. He bolted. Alone, late in the afternoon in his office, he suddenly slammed closed some files and left. His own house had not sold as yet, and he went straight to it, entering into it like a time traveller, looking suspiciously around, waiting for monsters from the past to hit him, bring him back to his boring sensible senses. By the time he got to his bedroom, he had been ambushed by so many memories of maleness, he had to retreat, going to the kitchen where he knew there was wine in the cupboard.

The second glass calmed his nerves and he ventured into the bedroom again. There she was...in the mirror. But she was different; there was something altered. There was a reality to the reflection; it was no longer fantasy. Pulling his dress up and his girdle down he tried to masturbate. The woman stared him in the eyes, daring him to, just daring. It wasn't working; he couldn't get hard until he reached between his legs and started to manipulate the anal plug. He fantasized Jodi penetrating him, pinning him to the floor, her breasts jiggling in front of his face while her hands massaged his own. Within seconds he spurted on the mirror and cried out. He closed his eyes tightly, remembering the shame of that, the vision that would have changed in the looking glass, the monster, the man in drag. He opened his eyes in dread, but she was still there, feminine and real. There was no man, no drag, just Janice. But now he felt guilt at having cheated on Jodi. He smiled and thought to himself that it was always good to have some guilt about something. Sex was better that way.

But the big guilt was gone. Now he was loved by others as he was and in fact desired by others as he was.

He spoke to her, "I am Janice. I am a woman now. And I'm getting married." Her lips moved and he heard her speak. He saw her smile.