Archive-name: Changes/trust.txt
Archive-author: Amy Matthews
Archive-title: Trust


The following story is a complete fantasy; the names do not correspond to
anyone who exists in real life.  It contains elements taken from my own
experience, of course, but it didn't relly happen, okay?

This story contains elements of cross-dressing, a somewhat dominant
female, and a rather submissive and effeminate male.  If such things make
you want to toss cookies, don't read it, eh?

This story also contains one fairly graphic scene of eroticism between two
consenting adults.  If *that* squicks you, what the hell are you doing on
this group?  Grow up and get a life.

Copyright (c) 1993, all rights reserved, Amy A. Matthews
(an5234@anon.penet.fi) The following text may  be
distributed electronically with no restrictions except that these warnings
and the attributions must be left intact.  Individuals may make a single
printout for personal use.  Hey, it's mine, okay?  If you wanna make money
off it, you gotta give me some.


                                   Trust
                          Part 1: The File on Lee

     I was pretty tired when I got to Nancy's.  Long day with the
little darlings (that's undergraduates to the uninitiated),
including some of those sessions where the pretty little
defenseless undergrad girl tries the old Higher Grades Through
Salt Water trick.  Tears, that is.  I hate that.  I hear that
they've nicknamed me "Old Stoneface," because I freeze up and
turn sour when the faucets start to leak.  Anyway, I was
definitely in the mood for a little sympathy.
     "Nance?" I called, as I entered.  And I owed her an apology
for being late.  I could smell food from the kitchen; we had an
agreement that we wouldn't fall into the stereotypical male-
female chore division, and tonight was my night to cook (So why
was I supposed to be cooking at her house, and why did we spend
90% of our time together there?  After all, she'd end up cleaning
up any long-term messes, and by default keeping the place up.  I
can hear you sneering.  Well, there *was* a reason.  Basically,
I'm a slob, and she hated it so much that she'd either have to
clean it up, or suffer.  She refused to do either, so except for
rare occasions when I got active and cleaned things up, we stayed
at her house).
     "There's some stuff for you on the couch!" she called back,
cheerily.  Sounded cheerful to me, anyway.  I felt warmed a
little; she sometimes bought things for me, totally spur of the
moment.
     I stopped cold when I saw what was on the couch, though.  A
pink satin little girl's party dress, the kind with puffy sleeves
and big white satin floppy bows on the skirt.  My heart stopped
beating for a moment, until I realized that it couldn't be for
me.  She didn't *know*, after all; she *couldn't* know.  She must
have bought it for herself.  Not really her style, of course.  I
noticed matching shoes, little pink patent-leather flats, with
white bows, and relaxed.  She was doing a Little Bo-Peep costume,
or something.  Not my concern.  Whatever she meant for me must be
somewhere else on the couch.
     So I stepped closer, and spotted it.  There were some
packages and stuff, but they obviously went with the dress.  The
stuff for me must be the stack of paper.  It was enormous,
too--at least a ream there, I guessed.  I picked up the top
sheet, and my heart stopped again.  I guess maybe it shouldn't
have started after the first time.
     I was still standing there, in shock, with the sweat pouring
down my face and my gut feeling as if someone had rudely used it
for batting practice, when her voice, behind me, snapped me out
of it.  "Are you going to change for dinner?" she paused, and
added, sarcastically, "Amy?"
     I blinked, letting the pain wash over me, and turned to face
her.  Gods, she was crying!  "I, uh, can explain," I began,
nervously, but let it trail off.  What was there to explain?
     She'd asked to use my computer that day, to do some project
involving graphics for her company.  My computer wasn't ideally
suited for graphics, but it was better than hers was.  However,
the graphics programs all ran under Windows.  Windows is a bitch
for security.  Judging from the stack of paper, she'd printed out
the contents of the \data\personal\stories\porn subdirectory. 
Which would explain the dress, alas.  The stories weren't really
porn, but most of them *did* feature a boy or a man wearing an
outfit like the one laying in front of me.  I glanced back at the
couch.  Yup.  The other packages were panties and stockings. 
Probably pink nylon with ruffles and white lace, respectively.
     That tableau held for perhaps three minutes, her crying
softly, me staring alternately at her, the couch, and the
printout of the first page of one of my stories.  She broke it
finally.  "Well?" she prompted.
     My mind raced briefly, testing and discarding dozens of
explanations.  But ... really, what was the point of denying it? 
I shrugged, letting the old emotional armor settle into place.  I
smiled, sardonically.  "I guess there *isn't* an explanation," I
said.
     Silence.  "You don't trust me," she accused.
     "Of course I ...!"  Pause.  "Umm.  No, I guess not."  Pause
again, and an olive branch: "*I* hate it.  I mean, I hate *me*
when I do it.  How could you not?  So, uhh, I tried to stop, and
... umm, write it out."
     "Cross-dress, you mean," she elaborated.  A bit
unnecessarily, to my mind.  That was what we were talking about
already, right?  "You like to dress up and look like a girl." 
She was taking this too calmly.  I was a little worried. 
Sensitive position, as a professor, you understand, and junior
faculty is not notoriously immune to being fired on moral
grounds.  They'd dress it up, of course, call it something else. 
I shrugged again, looking away from her.  "You want somebody to
dress you up and treat you like a little girl," she continued,
remorselessly.
     "No!" I protested, genuinely shocked.  My traitorous glands
did their trick, though, and my heart raced, my mouth dried, my
palms got moist, and my belly took the down elevator without
warning.  I had to explain this one.  "No, really!  I don't, uhh,
know *why*, and I've tried to stop--honest!" I emphasized as she
rolled her eyes.  "But it isn't, uhh, because I want to be a, a
girl!"  My face felt hot.  It got hotter when I realized that I
was blushing.
     She looked disgusted.  Well, wouldn't you have been?  I
would have, if I had been a girl and ... oh, never mind.  "Lee,"
she said, still much too calmly, "I read those stories."  I
glanced at them.  Not possible.  Hundreds of pages.  Skimmed,
maybe.  "The hero is always named Lee.  And Amy," she added.  "He
always gets forced into a dress like that, sooner or later.  And
likes it.  Then, poof, he's Amy for real."
     *Good synopsis*, my profesorial side commented.  I snarled
at him.  To Nancy, I smiled, mechanically, and replied, "Uhh,
well, hardly any of them even have *endings*, and I was going to,
uhh, turn him back, at the end.  Just, you know, let him have a
real experience of being a girl."  That was pretty weak, I
admitted to myself.  It was half-true, though.  None of the
stories *did* end, and I had always gotten stuck halfway through,
looking for a conclusion that was emotionally satisfying.  No,
not even that--just a *progression* toward an ending that was
emotionally satisfying.  Come to think of it, most of the stories
never even got to the sex-change part.  A little foreshadowing,
but it had only happened in two or three of them.  How had she
gotten the impression that it was universal?
     She cleared up that little question.  "Lee, dammit!" 
Finally a little emotion, something to understand.  "I read your
analysis, too!"  Analysis?  Oh, gods, that must mean the file
called 'anal,' where I speculated on commonalities in the stories
and possible reasons behind them.  Once I knew she had read that,
her earlier comment made more sense.  A quote, a direct cite from
that little bit of introspection.  The dry-voiced little observer
in my head commented that she probably hadn't gotten the joke
behind the name of the file--reference to my rather obsessive
need to categorize.  Christ, that damned file was written like a
scholarly article!
     I'd been so obsessed tracking down all those little
information trails that I hadn't answered.  She had crossed her
arms, was leaning against the doorframe, and the tears were
streaming down her face faster.  No mascara, I observed.  She
stifled a sob, and visibly gathered herself.  Here it came, the
ultimatum.  "Lee, either you decide you *trust* me, or get out." 
I must have looked puzzled.  She explained the part that didn't
need explaining.  "Forever."
     "I, uhh *do* trust you," I told her.  "And I *promise* I'll
stop, this time."  I actually had a plan, one that would probably
work, if she didn't stop me from doing it.  It had worked once
before, until somebody found out about it.
     "You *idiot!*" she shrieked, and sobbed some more, before
controlling herself.  I had taken a step closer, dropping the
page, then paused, uncertain if she would *accept* comfort from
me.  "You *can't* stop, you *know* that!"  As a matter of fact, I
had written something of the sort in that wretched file.  I lost
count of my attempts to stop before I got into grad school.  She
took a deep breath.  "So trust me, and get dressed, or get out."
     Get ... *Get* dressed?  It took me maybe thirty seconds to
figure out what she expected me to get dressed in, not because it
wasn't obvious, but because I simply refused to believe it.  My
fantasy come true?  And then the spanking?  No way!  My fantasies
were erotic; this was simply terrifying.  And I shook my head
sharply.
     Another sob broke loose, and then she whirled and left.  Out
of my sight, she could let herself cry more freely; I heard her,
from the bedroom.  Doing something.  I stood there, imitating a
statue (except for the lack of pigeons, but I felt I'd been shat
upon altogether sufficiently already).  She came back with a bag,
which she dropped by the front door.  "G-get your d-dress and g-
get out!" she said.  Oh.  My stuff, in the bag.  I flinched when
she called it 'my' dress, but not even the powerful yearning
within me was enough to convince me to touch the damned thing.
     I wanted to say something, but when she opened the door, the
choice was pretty clear.  Shame-faced, I slunk out, picking up
the bag on the way.  It occurred to me, then, with a sinking
feeling, that she must have cleared her stuff out already.  In
anticipation.  That brought it home to me: the relationship was
*over*.  I barely made it to my car before I started crying.
     It cleared my head a little.  It occurred to me that she had
a very complete file on me, if she wished to blackmail me, or
make me lose my job.  Junior faculty can wear long hair, and
maybe even get away with an earring (I'd waited until my first
year was over before putting an earring back in, and never wore a
pair, of course), but the only panty-clad faculty the
administration was interested in were those that would help the
Equal Opportunity statistics.  Transvestic faculty were possible,
I supposed, but only with tenure.
     It didn't occur to me until I got home that Nancy had been
wearing a black silk blouse and miniskirt, and wearing high
heels.  Not that I understood it, then; I thought it was another
taunt, a reminder of how the standard "accepting woman" of my
stories was always dressed when they met.  It wasn't her style. 
She might even have bought it that very day.
     When I got home, I discovered that she *hadn't* taken her
stuff away.  Oddly, though, she'd found my stash of stuff--which
was pretty pitiful, except for the lingerie, which was, umm,
extensive--and mixed it with hers in her side of the dresser.  It
had been there before we'd met; I'd had it hidden for the eight
months we'd been together.  It took me a while to disentangle my
stuff from hers.  I *had* to do that.  I'd promised myself that I
would *never* touch her stuff, except to take her out of it, and
I'd kept that promise.  It hadn't been easy; she was pretty
damned sexy, and just her clothes could push all my buttons.  She
tended toward indian print skirts, pants, and casual blouses, but
she had some really killer outfits, and after she had realized my
weakness for sexy lingerie, she'd indulged me by equipping
herself with some.
     I didn't bag her stuff up, though.  I bagged *mine* up
again.  I still ... hoped, you see.  Then I laid down on my futon
and cried and cried and cried.
     Well, the hope got dashed over the course of the next week. 
I gave her a whole day to calm down, then called her up.  It was
an awkward conversation.  Once we got past the preliminaries, she
asked me if I was willing to trust her, and when I asked,
clarified that that still meant wearing the damned ridiculous
dress.  Now, I admit I desperately wanted that dress, wanted to
wear it, wanted to play at being Amy for real ... but I was *not*
going to admit it.  I look *stupid* in a dress.  I mean, really
ridiculous.  Hairy legs, knobbly knees, big hands and feet.  The
mustache doesn't help much either.  Or the nose, I guess.  So I
refused, of course.  I mean, I *knew* that she would never be
interested in me sexually if she once saw me dressed, and I had
my pride.  The dregs of it, anyway.  And what she wanted, I
thought, was to try to humiliate me, to make me stop.  I asked if
I could have the stories back.  She said no.  But I could have
the dress.  We were both crying when we said goodbye.
     I tried again two days later.  It might have been the exact
same conversation.  We were both locked into our positions, and
couldn't budge out of them.  I wasn't going to be a party to my
own humiliation.  I didn't tell her that, but I did say that I
had stopped.  The only thing she asked to that, was whether I had
carried out a purge of my clothing, and she strictly forbade it. 
Anyway, she refused to return my papers again, and we were both
crying, again, and we said goodbye, again.  Except she added,
"Lee, don't call me until you're ready to trust me."  Which
meant, ready to be humiliated, I understood.  The last thing she
whispered I wasn't sure I'd heard, for months.  "I still love
you."
     I worried about her concern for a purge all weekend.  The
only thing I could think of was that she planned on exposing me,
and wanted that for evidence.  Well, I could get around
that--I've got lots of experience, lots of dodges.  I found a
self-storage warehouse place, and dumped a box full of clothes
and cosmetics into a five-by-five.  I wrote a careful note,
basically, "I'd really like to have the printout," put it with
all her stuff, and dropped it off at her house one day when she
wasn't home.  Left the key on top.  I suppose I could have
searched for it, but that would *really* have been a betrayal of
trust, and I shied from it.  I had to take her things back,
because I was getting tempted to wear them.  I admit, I sort of
hoped she would give me the dress when she gave me the printout,
but when the dress turned up, alone (well, with the accessories,
but without the printout), I realized that I didn't really want
it.  No, that's not right, either.  I realized that I wanted it
*too much*.  I put it all in the mail to her.  And then hoped
she'd mail it back.  But she didn't.

     A pair of months passed, and I spent Halloween at home, with
the lights out, pretending there was nobody there--and in boy
clothes.  We were coming up on the end of the semester.  I'd been
feeling truly wretched.  Other girlfriends had found out; I used
to tell them myself, in my college years.  In grad school,
though, one had broken up with me, using that for an excuse, and
my armor had gotten a lot thicker.  She had claimed that I would
eventually become a transsexual, and I suppose I had beenin
reaction against that ever since, refusing to admit that, at some
deep level, I *did* want to be a girl.  It was a hard thing to
figure out, anyway, since I knew, quite clearly, that I also
*liked* being a boy, that I loved sex, and that I was a pretty
good lover.
     I was using an old technique to avoid cross-dressing, one
I'd pioneered in college.  It depended on the fact that I smoked. 
Basically, it was aversion therapy.  I waited until I felt the
familiar signals--sweaty palms, dry mouth, empty stomach, racing
heart, and a fixation on pink, soft, and lacy.  Then I went and
got the one pair of panties I had left in the house, and put them
on.  And put out a cigarette.  On my arm.  Or sometimes my leg. 
The pain was ... extreme.  In college, a friend's girlfriend had
learned what I was doing (I told her, proud of myself for having
figured out how to stop), and she had had a fit.  She was angry
with me for hurting myself, not for dressing up.  This was the
same woman who had been angry with me, when I told her that I
liked wearing women's clothes, because I stole them.  On the
other hand, the one time that she had taken me shopping, she had
made me pay at the register, refusing to take my money and do it
for me, so I knew that she didn't *really* approve.
     But I finally stopped, and put the last pair in storage. 
I'd discovered myself contemplating the idea of putting the
cigarette out elsewhere.  And had also been contemplating filling
a hypodermic needle (I had them from when I had visited a third
world country, in order to not get an injection from a dirty
needle) with air and ending the pain.  I still hurt every time I
walked by a place that had been 'ours,' and I was paying less
attention to my courses than I should have been.  The semester
ended, and I found out how much less, from the student
evaluations.

     The day after I got the evals, after much soul-searching, I
went and took everything back out of storage.  I needed it,
needed the release, in order to concentrate on my job.  About
half of it, unfortunately, had been ruined; it turned out that
the warehouse I had chosen had water and insect problems.  Some
of the clothes were hopelessly stained, and much of my makeup had
turned into puddles of goo.  So I had a sort of purge, if not a
voluntary one.  About a week before Christmas, the day before
leaving for my parents' house, I went shopping.  Christmas had
always been a pretty good time for me, since a man buying women's
clothes was actually common, at that time of year.
     I ran into her in the drugstore.  I had gathered some
foundation and blush, and had just picked an assortment of
eyeshadow, when Nancy's voice, behind me, remarked, "Those
*really* aren't your colors, Lee."
     I choked, looking around frantically, but no one else
appeared to be within earshot.  She'd gotten close to me because
I always kept my eyes fixed firmly on the merchandise, avoiding
the knowing looks of the other--inevitably female--customers. 
"It's not for me," I lied automatically.  And blushed.  Her face,
which had been open and amused, went closed and cautious.  Hurt? 
I don't know.  "It's for my sister," I added.  I did have a
sister.  "Christmas present," I mumbled.
     "I see," she said, coldly.  "Do you know what colors *she*
prefers?  What does she look like?  Green eyes, brown, curly
hair, high cheekbones?"  She raised a sarcastic eyebrow.
     "No," I replied, softly, feeling as if someone had taken a
knife to my gut.  "You've seen her pictures.  Sort of dirty
blonde, brown eyes.  I don't know about cheekbones, I never
noticed."  I was looking down.  I didn't want her to see how much
it hurt.
     "Oh," she replied, sounding disconcerted.  I still didn't
look up.  She released the basket I was holding, and I glanced
up, quickly, to see that she had a puzzled, worried look.  I gave
her the famous mechanical smile, and walked away.
     She was right, I decided at home.  They weren't my colors. 
At least I hadn't got any mascara; the tears would have made it
run.

     I got back from my parents around the second of January.  It
had been the usual hideous Christmas, with inappropriate gifts
and the required oohing and ahhing.  I was as guilty as anyone
else, of course, but that only made it worse.  The only bright
point was my sister's baby, who got things she really *did* like,
and enjoyed them quite openly.  I almost asked my sister for
makeup advice, but ... what did it matter?  Nobody was ever going
to see *me* in makeup.  And if it made me look ridiculous, well,
that would go well with the rest of my outfit, right?
     There was a gift waiting for me.  From Nancy.  Two sets of
makeup, one for a blonde, one for a green-eyed brunette.  Or
brunet.  Also a little booklet of beauty tips.  The note: "I'm
sorry I misinterpreted ... if I did.  Here's something that
should be more appropriate for your sister.  And some for your
friend, Amy.  Merry Christmas.  Love, Nancy."
     I worried at that note, and the package, for days.  Why was
that comma there, after the word 'friend?'  Sending the makeup
off to my sister was an easy decision.  A good one, too, it turns
out; she sent a letter back a week later effusively thanking
Nancy (I'd told her who it was from).  When I nerved myself to
try the other, I discovered that she had been right.  The
mustache looked more out of place than ever, but in a bad light,
if I put my hand over my mouth and upper lip, I might have passed
for a woman with absolutely no skill in putting on makeup.  I'd
gotten a pretty nice haircut at home, too, more feminine than I
had let myself wear it when Nancy and I had been together--just
bangs in front, but that made an incredible difference from
pulling it all straight back in the usual ugly guy's style.
     Once I'd used the makeup, I had to keep it.  So I told
myself.  I also found a present for Nancy, one that I agonized
over for longer than I had spent on all the presents for my
family.  I had to find something that wasn't trivial, but that
also wasn't super expensive; I didn't want her to feel
uncomfortable about the cost.  It had to be
appropriate--personal--without being intimate.  I finally settled
on a soft leather over-the-shoulder handbag, one as casual as she
usually was, but as quality.  I figured she wouldn't know how
expensive it was.  Hey, it may be obvious to any idiot that women
know the prices of things that they usually have to buy, but I'm
not an ordinary idiot, okay?  I included a copy of my sister's
letter, too.
     Classes had just started when I got a note from Nancy. 
"Lee, the bag is beautiful!  But you spent much too much!  Let me
make it up to you: I'll buy you dinner.  Give me a call.  Love,
Nancy."
     I was in an absolute panic when I finally placed the call. 
But the chemistry had somehow changed; she teased me fondly,
friendlily, and demanded that I let her buy me dinner and take me
to a movie.  I agreed, of course, hoping that something would
start up again.
     We went on a Friday night.  In her car, with her driving. 
Not so astonishing, it was, as she pointed out, her treat, and
we'd always shared those kinds of tasks before.  She gave me a
slight panic, early on, when I asked where we were going, and she
replied, "Trust me."  I was very restrained all through dinner,
wondering if she was going to demand that I prove my trust, and
wondering if I would refuse, if she presented me with the dress
again--she was wholly desirable, that night, and wearing the
perfume I had given her, long ago.  At the movie, she was very
affectionately aggressive, her hands teasing me at odd moments,
but fending off, gently, my attempts to return her caresses.
     By the time we were in the car, I was confused, and a bit
unsettled as well.  Were we together again?  I've never been good
at reading the signals.  She drove me home, parked the car, and
leaned over to kiss me.  I thought, for a moment, that I was
going to come in my pants; I'd missed that so badly, the softness
of her lips, the sweetness of her mouth.  She broke the kiss, and
I sighed, licking my lips.
     She giggled.  "I love the way you do that," she whispered,
and my heart leapt into my throat.
     I managed to open my eyes, and surreptitiously cleared the
tears from the corners.  Hers seemed unnaturally bright as well. 
I hesitated, fearing the 'no,' that was sure to come, but managed
to force the words out--they had to turn sideways and slither
past my heart, which was still blocking things up.  "Will ...
would you like to come inside?"
     She smiled, and I thought my heart would break.  But then
she asked, "Did you like the makeup I gave you, Amy-Lee?" 
Something crept into her eyes as she whispered the question.
     I know that my eyes probably reflected abject fear.  I was
trying to figure out what hers were saying, there with the dim
light from the streetlamps, and caught in a struggle between fear
and desire.  I'd never thanked her properly, she was hinting, or
so I thought, and I'd lied to her and hadn't trusted her.  Could
I trust her even enough to tell her that I liked her gift? 
"Yes," I croaked, answering my question and hers.
     She kissed me again, and the release of tension was enough
to let me decide what I'd seen in her eyes.  Fear.  Fear of being
hurt, of being lied to, again, probably.  This time, when she
broke the kiss, she laid her head on my shoulder, and her
fingertip followed the tip of my tongue.  It was an old trick of
hers; she'd always been fascinated with the fact that I savored
her kisses so much that I had to lick them all up when they were
over.  "Will ... Can you show me, if I come in?" she asked, in an
oddly thick voice.
     That question was more or less equivalent to a handful of
speed.  My poor, abused heart, that had just spent several
minutes crowded into my throat, and then brittle as glass, took
off like an Olympic sprinter.  It didn't have far to go, really. 
Nancy had always had it in her keeping; it fled there, where it
had always been well-treated.  I made an absurd little whimpering
sound, and squeaked, "Y-yes."
     She hugged me tightly, for a long pair of moments.  I
absently returned the hug--I mean, really absently.  Most of me
had run for shelter somewhere, and I felt weirdly detached, like
in the middle of an acid trip.  There and not-there.  She pulled
back, finally, and whispered, "Come on," taking my hand to pull
me out her side.  As if she was afraid to let me get too far
away.  In that oddly detached mood, I let her lead me to the
door, and watched as she repeated my actions from the car,
surrpetitiously blotting tears from the corners of her eyes.
     We went in, and she led me to the bathroom.  My hands were
trembling convulsively when she let go of them, and took my coat. 
She disappeared, and I found the makeup, still operating on
autopilot.  When she came back, a moment later, I had tears
standing in my eyes again, because the lipstick had mostly missed
my lips.  I started to wipe it off with the back of my hand,
feeling horribly ashamed, but she stopped me, then gently cleaned
my lips and my hand with tissue.  Her glance, now, seemed
compassionate, and I hoped, desperately, in the part of me that
was shrieking in terror, that she would let me off the hook.  She
did, sort of.  I guess.  She put the makeup on me; I just stood
there, obediently.
     "There!" she said, finally, turning me to face the mirror. 
"That wasn't so hard, was it?"
     "Yes!" I gasped, and then laughed, half-hysterically, before
bringing myself under control.  Her eyes looked concerned, when I
caught them in the mirror, reaching up to blot the tears again.
     "You'll run your mascara," she warned softly, and I gasped a
laugh again, as she slid her arms around me from behind.  I
relaxed into her, and finally dared to look.
     It was a more remarkable transformation than the one I had
managed on my own.  Well, that was predictable, I guess, she had
experience with the stuff, and got the blush in the right places,
and the shadow properly feathered.  I stared, a bit taken aback,
and then, reflexively, laid my forefingers across my mustache,
hiding it.  She giggled at that, and I blushed, and got
fascinated by the way the blush made my face look even softer and
more feminine.
     The terror was receding, turning into a fear that was more
controllable.  It was very odd, and I didn't really understand
it.  We stayed there, staring at the mirror, or at each other's
eyes in the mirror, for what seemed a very long time.  Then she
let out an enormous breath, and the world all came back into
focus for me.  It was an ordinary, mundane world, and I hadn't
died of wearing makeup in front of her.  I was enormously proud
of myself.
     "Where's your makeup remover?" she asked.
     "My what?"
     She giggled.  "Okay.  I know you have coconut oil.  That'll
work."  She found it, and then said, "Watch me."  She started
taking off her own makeup.  I hesitated, then followed suit, and
when I was finished, relaxed even further.  I suddenly realized
that I was exhausted.
     "I'm beat!" I said.  I caught her eyes in the mirror, again. 
"Are you, umm, staying?"
     She looked at me, calculatingly.  "I don't have a nightie," 
she said.
     I blanched.  Okay.  Another step.  Just make the words come
out.  "I'll loan you one," I answered.  'Of mine,' her lips
shaped.  I nodded, feeling the heat return to my face, and added,
in a small voice, "P-please, don't make me w-wear one."  She
looked, nodded.
     Now's the time for me to claim that our emotions, after
having such a workout, turned into heated passion, and we made
love all night.  Well, no, we didn't.  We both wanted to, I
think, but my cock wasn't willing.  I finally whispered, "Sorry,"
and started to move to go down on her--she was wet, and I didn't
want to leave her unsatisfied--but she stopped me, and suggested
that we cuddle instead.
     But she was gone in the morning, when I awoke.  The only
thing that convinced me it wasn't all a dream was my nightie,
with her scent still strong, laying on the side of the bed.  I
had a vague impression of her getting up, kissing me, and moving
around looking at things and talking to me, but I sleep like
death, and have been known to carry on midnight conversations on
the phone without ever remembering a word of what I said.

     I wasn't quite sure what to do, so I didn't do much of
anything.  She called in late afternoon.
     "Hey, sweetie!  When will you be free to talk?"
     "Umm, I don't know.  About what?"  There was a long silence. 
My heart returned, and slammed against my ribs.  "Did we agree to
something this morning?  I don't remember.  Whatever.  I'll do
whatever I said.  I don't remember, that's all!"  Calm, Lee, I
told myself.  Don't sound so desperate!  Why not? I wondered.  I
*am* desperate.
     There was another slight pause, and then she chuckled
throatily.  "I could tell you that you agreed to anything, you
know."
     I grabbed my nerve with both hands.  "Yes.  Anything.  I'll
do it."  There was another moment of silence.  "It's worth it," I
added.  "You are."
     "Anything?" she asked archly.  A hint of a laugh?
     Ka-thump, ka-thump, ka-wham.  Hearts, I decided, are a
bother.  If I could get rid of mine, I wouldn't be in this
position.  Time for the magic words.  "I trust you," I said.  But
my voice sounded strangled.
     This time the silence lasted forever.  I started to panic,
when I realized that she was speaking.  Her voice was very soft,
and it sounded as if she might be crying.  "...on the first bench
in the park, at 7:30.  All right?"
     "Yes!"  It came out harsh.  More obstructions in my throat.
     "Pink ones," she said, obscurely.  "I love you."
     "I love you, too," I choked.  Before I could ask, 'pink
what?' the line had gone dead.
     Well, but it was obvious, right?  Panties.  I have a
weakness, I guess you could call it, for panties.  And for pink. 
And for nylon, and ruffles.  My all-time biggest button pusher is
pink nylon panties, with ruffles.  Little-girl panties.  Little
Bo-Peep panties.  I found out that the previous night's impotence
had been only temporary; just thinking about showing up for a
meeting with her, wearing pink panties, was enough to make
walking uncomfortable.  I debated stopping by some store, and
getting new, but decided that I had only a limited amount of
courage, and needed it all to show up so dressed in the park.
     At 7:20, I settled myself on the bench where we'd met,
almost a year before.  On Valentine's Day.  I'd bought a bouquet
of flowers--for myself, to be honest, but when I'd seen a
beautiful woman sitting there all alone, I'd impulsively handed
them to her.  It had taken a while to convince her that I wasn't
some odd masher or rapist.  I was warmed by the memory, and
dwelled on it, since it distracted me from the fact that every
time I shifted position, the nylon caressed my cock and my
bottom, and the elastic gave me tender little nips around my legs
and my waist.
     She showed up late, of course.  Woman's prerogative.  Her
face brightened when she caught sight of me, and my heart
swelled.  She ran the last couple of steps, and shyly handed me a
bouquet of roses.  Pink ones.  I accepted them, blushing.  It
occurred to me that I had missed a very important bit of
conversation.  I stood and walked with her, uncomfortably aware
at every step that I had made an utter ass of myself.  She
noticed, finally.
     "What's wrong?" she asked.  "Have you changed your mind?" 
She looked a little hurt.
     "Umm, no.  I just ..."  I looked around, desperately.  Not
too many people in the park, not in mid-January.  I gulped,
looked down at the flowers I was clutching--crushing--in my
hands.  "I didn't hear what you said," I confessed in a miserable
whisper.  "I didn't, umm, want to ask.  And you said, 'pink
ones.'  So I wore ... I'm wearing pink ones."
     No response.  I finally dared to look up.  There was an
astonished grin spreading over her face, as she understood what
it was I had to be referring to.  She reached for my hip, and I
shied away, face flaming.  She giggled.  "Really?" she asked, her
voice vibrant.  "My god, how wonderful!  I didn't think you'd
have the ...."  She looked at me.  "You really do mean
'anything,' don't you?"  I nodded, relieved when we started
walking again.  "Even if I take you home right now and tell you
to show me that you trust me."  That was a statement, not a
question.  But I confirmed it with a nod and a glance.  I was
wishing she'd take charge of my heart again, since I was getting
very tired of its antics.  It was trying to break my eardrums.
     We walked to the edge of the park before she spoke again. 
"Why were you so stubborn four months ago?"  She didn't wait for
an answer, but continued, gently, "I told you to meet me here at
7:30; you must have gotten that part.  And that I wouldn't demand
anything beyond your strength.  And that to symbolize the start
of a new relationship, I'd bring you flowers.  Pink ones, like
the ones you gave me, in our first relationship."
     Well, good news and bad news all at once.  I didn't
understand what she meant by 'new relationship.'  On the one
hand, I wanted whatever she was willing to give.  On the other
hand ... on the other hand, I corrected myself, I also wanted
whatever she was willing to give.  Did that settle that? 
Although it worried me a little that she was giving *me* flowers,
instead of the other way around.  We were heading for a
restaurant that had been one of our casual, talking spots.  It
had always been easier for us to talk in a public place, a
neutral zone, rather than at one of our houses.

     Between the flowers, the panties that *kept* reminding me of
their existence, and the things that she had said, that I had to
mull over, I was abstracted, and she ordered the table, guided me
to it, and took my coat as I sat down.  I flushed, realizing that
since we had met in the park, I had taken the 'feminine' role. 
She smiled, in a way that said she understood why I was blushing. 
I crowded myself into a corner of the booth, and tried to adjust. 
We had used this place, in particular, because the lighting was
dim, the booths reached the ceiling, and so we could talk with a
sense of privacy.  I laid the flowers on the table, and picked up
a menu.
     "Let me, okay?" she asked, reaching for the menu.  I looked
up, blinked, hesitated, and nodded, letting her take it.  She
ordered for us both, and I sat there, feeling a bit foolish.  And
a bit cosseted, protected, taken care of.  There is an odd
security that comes in total dependence.  I think girls learn
that when they're young.  Most men never do.  Maybe they don't
want to.  I wasn't sure I wanted to.
     Once the waitress had gone off to put in our orders, she
leaned forward, looking at me searchingly.  "Lee," she began,
"four months ago you preferred blowing up our relationship to
letting me see a part of you that you were ashamed of.  Now you
seem to be saying exactly the reverse, that you'll suffer
anything to have a relationship.  Why should you trust me now,
when you didn't then?"
     Taking the bull by the horns, apparently.  I shrugged, for
an answer, but she waited.  "I don't know," I said, finally.  "A
lot ... a lot happened, after we broke up.  I tried to quit ...." 
I thought about telling her how, but remembering the reaction of
my friend's girlfriend, decided that it could wait.  "I got ...
depressed."  Suicidal, in fact, but again, let's not dramatize. 
"I always ... trusted you.  I think, maybe, I just didn't trust
me."  That wasn't really right, either.  I just didn't *like* me. 
Well, let it pass.
     She considered that, nodding.  "I think you're right.  I
think you still haven't admitted some things to yourself that
you're afraid of."  I flinched.  "But it was probably for the
best.  Four months ago, I couldn't have given you what you want. 
What you need, maybe.  I did a lot of reading."  She shook her
head, and laughed drily.  "A *lot* of reading, and not just your
stories.  I was trying to find a reason to be as disgusted with
you as you are."  She looked straight at me.  "I couldn't.  I
kept on loving you, and hoping you'd grow up enough to come back
to me.  I even followed you around, whenever I saw you going to a
store!"  She laughed.  "That finally worked out--but you *lied*
to me.  Are you ready to admit what you need, what you want to
be?"
     I was a bit nonplussed.  My stories, some of them, got
pretty radical.  There were some things I didn't think I was
ready to try, and maybe never would be.  "What ... what is it you
think I want to be?" I asked.
     She cocked her head to one side, just looking.  At me.  For
a long time.  A very long time.  I finally had to drop my eyes,
and nervously fiddled with the flowers.  "I'm a very assertive
woman," she began, elliptically, "but four months ago, I would
have been a little shocked, a little uncomfortable, maybe, to
have a sissy boyfriend."
     My head shot up, and the denial sprang to my lips.  But she
was smiling, warmly, a little challengingly, and I flushed,
remembering that she had read all those stories.  I looked away
again, and nodded once, sharply.
     The waitress brought our food.  I took a deep breath,
released it, and glanced at her warily.  She answered the
unspoken question without words, laying her hand over mine, the
one that was playing with the stems of the flowers.  "I'll go
slow," that gesture said.  The food, though, wasn't a total
reprieve.  As soon as the waitress was out of earshot, Nancy
continued.  "Some of what you want, I can't offer.  I can't turn
you into a girl if you snap your fingers."  Another story
reference.  An embarrassing one.  In that one, the boy (he wasn't
really a man, I think) was asked at one point what he would do if
he was told he could turn himself into a girl just by snapping
his fingers, with no possibility of turning back.  'Decide now. 
You have thirty seconds.'  At twenty-five seconds, he was staring
at his fingers.  Her fingers.  Magic, remember?  I'd actually
heard about that as a sort of test, and tried it on myself, and
shocked myself in just the way suggested by snapping my fingers,
at about twenty-five seconds.  But I'd convinced myself that it
was only because it wasn't for real, and because I wanted to
shock myself, and ... oh, all sorts of excuses.  "Four months
ago, maybe, I would have been trying to push you far enough to
make you want to quit ... maybe that's what I did, anyway."  She
paused.  I pretended I was absorbed with my food.  "Are you
really wearing pink panties?" she asked, quite casually.
     When I finished coughing, I nodded.  She patted the bench
beside her.  "Come here.  Show me."
     I looked around, shocked.  She waited.  I thought about it. 
Like I say, it was a dim restaurant.  Finally, I gulped, slid
out--feeling as if every inch of my ass had been specially
sensitized--and slid in beside her, on the other side.  She
looked at my lap, and raised an eyebrow.  I looked around,
furtively, and tried to look like I was doing something other
than unzipping my jeans.  I put my hands, shaking, on the table
when I was done.
     I couldn't help but gasp when her hand slid over the nylon. 
Boing!  Instant erection.  She stroked it, and I gasped, again,
shuddering, before I brought myself under control.  "Well," she
said, with satisfied amusement in her voice, "I think you'd have
a little trouble denying that you like wearing panties at the
moment."  Stroke.  I shook my head, darting little glances to the
side.  "No, what?"
     "Umm, no, I don't," I said, confused.  "I mean, don't deny
it."
     "Deny what?"
     I looked at her.  Question and answer, the Truth Will
Out--common elements of my stories.  I tried twice to say what
she wanted me to say, and finally leaned closer to whisper it. 
"I like wearing panties."  Stroke.  I shuddered again.  Gods,
don't let her bring me off in public.  Please.  Please.
     Instead she took my hand, and guided it under her skirt. 
Up.  Up.  Her skin was like satin.  "And this is proof that I
like seeing you in them ... sissy," she whispered back.  Her
panties were warm and damp.  She was aroused by *something*.  She
left my hand there, stroking her, for several moments, then
sighed, and urged it back out, closing  her legs.  "I don't want
spots on my skirt, sweetie," she explained.  She reached across
the table, and pulled my plate across.  She ate the rest of her
dinner one-handed; the other hand stayed where it was.  I don't
know what I ate.  Boiled sand, maybe.  I didn't taste it.  She
only sent me back to the other side when she ordered dessert for
us, and I was just as tongue-tied and mute as before.  The
waitress gave me an odd look.  'Why is she the one doing the
ordering?'  We'd been there before, you see.  Dessert gave me
just enough time to get my breathing, and my, err, circulation,
under control.  She paid the bill, and motioned me toward the
door.
     When we got to the park, she gave me a sidelong glance, then
shrugged her purse off and hung it on my shoulder.  I blushed
again.  Purse, flowers.  But, hey, I justified, people can put it
down to young love.  An odd feeling, though, to have the thing
banging on my hip.  On the other hip, Nancy's familiar softness,
her perfume.  Her arm around my waist, walking me home.  The park
was four blocks from my house.
     I wasn't sure what she would do, at that point.  Back off? 
Come inside?  I *needed* some time to deal with this, and to deal
with the disturbingly deep arousal her taking the dominant role
provoked in me.  She came inside.  She didn't even ask.  I got
cranked up another notch, just looking at her for directions. 
She looked around, frowned, and then smiled at me.  "Go put on
your makeup, sweetie," she told me, turning toward the kitchen. 
"Oh, I almost forgot.  There's something for you in my purse."
     The package that I opened with trembling fingers turned out
to contain perfume.  The same kind that I had bought for her,
that she wore.  A hint, obviously.  And if she had read the
stories, she knew the effect perfume had on me--well, on the
"hero," which was me in drag.  I blushed slightly.  "Infelicitous
choice of phrase, Lee," I muttered to myself, and drifted off to
the bathroom.  Where I would put on perfume, and start *feeling*
feminine.  Panties arouse me.  Perfume softens me.  Weakens me. 
Feminizes me, I guess.
     Strengthens me oddly, I discovered.  With the delicate scent
in my nostrils, the trembling of my hands decreased, and I got my
makeup on in reasonably well, if still clumsily.  I heard music
start up from the direction of the bedroom, where my stereo was,
and then Nancy came through the door, carrying something.  "You
look very pretty, sweetie," she told me.  "But we're going to
have to do something about your wardrobe!"  She slipped back out,
and I discovered that she had brought the least objectionable of
my skirts, and a blouse that happened to fit very badly.  It was
pretty, which was about all one could say for it.
     The perfume hadn't given me quite enough strength, it
seemed.  I changed into skirt and blouse easily enough, but
leaving the relative safety of the bathroom was beyond me.  I
looked ridiculous, and knew it.  I dreaded the moment when Nancy
discovered it.  I stood there, trying *not* to look at the
mirror, and shaking every time I considered going out the door. 
And aroused.  I had a feeling that I would have a case of blue-
balls to match any sixteen-year-old's if this went on much
longer.
     "Are you practicing the 'Make 'em wait' part?"  She was
there, and I drew a breath, waiting for her to laugh.  To giggle. 
To smile maliciously, even.  "Come on, I want to dance," she
said, and drew me toward the bedroom.
     I have *never* been much of a dancer.  Too self-conscious. 
Slow-dancing, though, was usually all right.  I mean, all it
amounts to is foreplay in public, with your clothes on.  This
turned out to be a little different, though.  First, *she* led,
signalling with pressure of her hands, or her hips, or her body. 
That inflamed me further, just as it made me even more
uncomfortable.  Something was slipping away, something was
getting revealed, and I was beginning to feel extremely
vulnerable.  She danced me female, is what she did.  She was
wearing high heels, tall ones--maybe the ones she had bought for
the all-black costume.  She'd told me once she didn't like them. 
Since I had taken off my shoes to change, and left them off, it
meant that we were about the same height.
     So we danced through three songs, and then the CD ended.  It
ended, and I realized that I was dancing with my head on her
shoulder, while she had her face in my hair, and that she had
been stroking my bottom through skirt and panties.  My hands were
just around her waist.  Passive.  I started to flush, painfully,
when the music stopped and she broke the clinch.  I heard myself
whimper.
     She held me back from her, her hands holding my arms to my
sides, and looked at me.  Then drew me closer, and kissed me. 
Taking the initiative, again, and this time demandingly.  When I
tried to kiss her back, her mouth and tongue turned punishing,
demanding, until I simply submitted, and let myself *be* kissed. 
As the kiss ended, my skirt slithered down my legs to puddle on
the floor, and she urged me to step forward, stepping out of it,
as her hands caressed my bottom again.  She was nibbling and
licking my ear.  Another of my weak spots, one that she had
learned, long ago, sent me into trembling ecstacy.  Then another
shift of position, and she was pulling my blouse over my head.
     I'm a fraction short of six feet tall, but standing there in
front of her, wearing nothing but makeup and a very silly pair of
panties, I felt very small.  She stepped back, unzipped her skirt
and stepped out of it, then unbuttoned and discarded her blouse,
keeping her eyes on me the whole time.  Stepping toward me again,
she unbuckled her bra, and let it slither off her shoulders and
land with a snick of fasteners on the floor.  She took my hand,
and led me, unresisting, toward the bed.
     I was out of my depth.  Every time I started to respond, she
pulled back, gently laid my hands aside, and then started over. 
She pushed me to sit on the bed, then sat beside me and started
kissing me.  My lips, my nipples--unfortunately, they aren't at
all sensitive--my ears--they are--and everywhere else.  Her
tongue traced a trail along my waistband.  I used to do that to
her.  Eventually, she had me laying back on the bed, arms at my
side, eyes closed.  She'd somehow lost her high heels and
pantyhose while she was teasing me.
     I turned over my will to her, at that point.  Whatever she
wanted.  Shortly, she was straddling me.  Nylon binds when you
press it together, but if you back off, and sort of brush it, the
feelings are unbelievably erotic.  She stroked me, through two
layers of nylon, moving nothing but her hips.  And then pressed
down, and ground us together.  I could feel her heat, and the
damp spreading into my crotch as well.  After a few minutes of
this, I started to toss my head and make little noises.  She
slowed down, lowered herself directly into contact, and started a
sort of slow bump and grind.  Simultaneously, she took one of my
wrists in each hand and raised them over my head, lowering her
body until her nippled traced erotic circles on my chest.
     Then she made a noise, ground herself into me convulsively,
and kissed me hard, shuddering.  My eyes popped open in
astonishment.  She was coming!  I had usually been  able to bring
her off--say three times out of four--but usually only after I
had come, and then usually manually.  She'd let go of my wrists
when she started to peak, so I hugged her, hard, and started to
kiss her back.  I stroked her back, down to her beautiful ass,
and stroked her cheeks and her hips.  She had very sensitive
hips.  She not only didn't stop me, but her kiss turned into
something very soft, very wet, and very tender.  And then she bit
my lip!  I yelped, but she was ignored me, and plundered my mouth
again, the waves passing through her body again.  The junction of
our hips was hot, and very wet; it was very similar to
penetration, and I had started climbing toward the peak myself.
     Then she stopped, and raised her upper body with a jerk,
pushing her elbows between my arms and my body and pinning them,
somewhat painfully, to the bed.  Her thighs had clamped shut, and
stopped me from moving.  I was pinned underneath her, her
complete weight resting solidly across my hips and the insides of
my elbows.  "Oh, no!" she breathed.  "Not like that!"  She took a
deep breath, to calm herself.  I was amazed that she was able to
do so.  I'd only managed to bring her to orgasm twice in one
night once.  And her eyes were flashing with passion; I had a
glimmering idea that the night wasn't over yet for her. 
"Tonight, I'm in control," she whispered, and lowered her head to
nibble on my ear again.  "When you come, you're going to come
like a sissy."
     I moaned, partly from the pleasure that was thrilling
through me again as she deep kissed my ear, and partly from fear. 
A delicious fear, though, one which seemed to channel itself
directly to my groin, increasing my arousal.  Revenge on my
heart, you see.  It was having to work double time to supply
sufficient blood.  Or maybe revenge on my brain, since I think it
just shut off the blood supply there to send it to areas with a
higher priority.
     The next time she came, she had me trapped.  Forearm to
forearm, with our fingers tightly entwined, and all the weight of
her upper body keeping me pinned and motionless.  She was biting
my face, giving me sharp little nips, and I almost lost control. 
I bucked my hips, and managed to stroke twice, to get right to
the edge of the abyss when she sat up and let all her weight pin
my hips to the bed.  I shuddered, clenching my fists, and tossed
my head in frustration.  When the wave began to recede, I could
feel sweat ... sweat? ... trickling from the bottom of my cock,
between my legs, into the crack of my ass.
     She waited until I managed to recover enough to open my
eyes.  She licked her lips, and I closed my eyes again, biting my
lip.  I opened them when she raised herself up off of me, and I
felt her hands at my waistband.  She locked gazes with me, and
wouldn't let me look away, as her hands gently urged me to raise
my hips, so she could push my panties down.  I felt a thrill of
shame, and of excitement; it made me feel very passive, very
submissive.  Very feminine, I guess.  It felt like a very
feminine thing to do.  She pulled them down to my knees, stopped,
and swung herself off the bed.  Before I could recover, and maybe
decide that we'd had enough of this role reversal, she had
shucked her own panties, and was back on top of me.  Warm, soft,
and wet against my erection.
     I tried to avoid her hands, when she started to resume the
position that kept me pinned and helpless.  She didn't argue with
me, or demand anything, she just chased my arms into position,
then clenched her hands over mine, and slowly transferred her
weight forward, which had the secondary effect of parting her
nether lips to engulf the shaft of my cock.
     When she kissed me again, I closed my eyes.  "Good," she
whispered, nuzzling my lips.  "Keep your eyes closed, sweetie. 
Just feel.  You're helpless."  She trailed kisses from the side
of my mouth to my ear, and whispered again, "Overpowered.  The
nipples are hard, hard and tender, brushing the chest."  I
gasped.  Yes, they were--her nipples, brushing my chest, lightly,
erotically.  She shifted her weight, inching forward, until the
head of my cock was between the softness of her lips.  "You're
ready," she breathed, and the kisses trailed down my neck and
back to my lips.  "Feel the penetration begin.  Soft lips
spreading, accepting."  Her lips fastened to mine, closing them
rather than opening, and then her tongue, harder than it had a
right to be, pushed my lips apart, without actually entering my
mouth fully.  I made a noise deep in my throat as I understood. 
And a vivid hallucination, that lasted a microsecond, of *being*
penetrated.
     She broke free, kissing my eyes, my cheeks, and down to my
ears again.  "So beautiful," she murmured.  "So soft, and
helpless, and then it's deeper."  She moved, and swallowed more
of my cock, pulled back, and impaled herself further.  She
gasped, and chanted, "Deeper, deeper," as she stroked, taking in
more and more.  "And it's ... all the ... way in."  She gasped. 
"Between, inside, together," she said, her voice changing to a
moan, and then she all but shouted into my ear, "Oh, God!" and
ground her hips against mine, in a circular motion, our pubic
bones grinding one another--with a bit of her soft flesh caught
between--and she broke into sobs.
     My eyes snapped open, and I tried to say something, to
reassure her somehow.  But I just whimpered again instead.  And
she didn't *need* comfort.  That was her third orgasm, I
realized, a little awed.  Frightened, too.  I mean, maybe it was
just the long drought, though I'd heard that she had had a couple
boyfriends after we broke up, but she was more responsive, more
uninhibited, more outrageously sexy than I had ever seen her.  It
turned me on unbelievably, but she *wouldn't* let me finish.
     She pushed herself up onto her elbows--my elbows,
actually--and a couple tears fell onto my face.  She bit her lip,
fighting for control, and then opened her eyes.  Lowered herself
again, slowly, and moving again, this time in a way that provided
friction for me.  My eyes snapped shut, as I realized just how
close I was.  She kissed the corner of my eye, and I realized
that I'd been crying too, as she murmured, "You cried together as
the waves swept over, pulsing through the walls of flesh, so that
they closed over the magician's wand, stroking, kneading ...
needing."  I heard the difference in the words.  Don't ask me
how.  Sexual telepathy, maybe.  Her voice was tight and shaking. 
"And then they begin to move together, p-perfectly m-matched, and
reach th-the ... Oh, God!  Feel it!  P-penetrating, penetrated,
inside, within ... together!  Together!"
     I thought that I was dying.  I didn't care.  I was released,
and found release.  Or, vulgarly, I came, and so did she.  I
think she started crying again.  I can't say for sure, because I
passed out.  Not for long, but when I woke up, she was cradling
me in her arms, and moving against me again, sobbing.  Using the
twisting bump-and-grind that kept me from moving inside her,
much, while she reached another orgasm.  And another.  I'm not
sixteen, though, and once a night is about all I'm good for, so
the, umm, 'magician's wand' was shrinking.  She finally relaxed a
little, her sobs dying out.
     I was, I realized a bit fuzzily, exhausted.  Completely
satiated, from the most intensely erotic bout of love-making I
could remember.  I had drifted half into dream land, with vague
dreams of a finger tracing the outline of my lips through a pair
of thin, lacy panties, when Nancy bestirred herself.  Moving as
swiftly as before, she sat up, and I slithered all the way out,
feeling another little trickle.  "Hey, sweetie," she whispered,
her voice trembling.  "Wake up a minute.  "If we don't take our
makeup off now, we'll look like raccoons in the morning."  I was
going to object that I didn't care, but she had moved again, and
was pulling my panties back up.  Rather than argue, I let her
push me toward the bathroom, and accepted the little jar of
makeup remover she dug out of her purse.
     She left, probably to go put her own panties on, and I
looked in the mirror.  Now, there's a classic syndrome among
cross-dressers.  Arousal, dressing up, more arousal,
masturbation, and then total revulsion.  When I saw myself in the
mirror, my first impulse was to dig out a razor, or the
hypodermic, and *end it*.  In an agony of shame, I shucked the
panties, tossing them in the corner, and started cleaning my face
with vicious, hard strokes.
     "No," said Nancy's voice, behind me.  Not angry, but very
firm.  "Put them back on.  And this."  She was wearing a white
nightie I'd never cared for, since it was supposed to fit through
the bodice and then flare into a sort of puffy chiffon skirt. 
I'm not built like a girl, though, so it was loose in the chest,
tight in the waist, and the skirt wasn't made of an erotic
material, not to the touch, at any rate.  It was to the eye. 
'This' was a pink nylon chemise, one of those things that mail-
order houses sell cut-rate on the back of the order form.
     "N-nance," I stuttered, "I c-can't!"
     "Why?" she asked.  When I didn't answer, she continued,
"Because it's sissy?"  I winced, then nodded.
     "I ... it makes me look, s-sil- ... ridiculous," I added, in
a whisper.
     "You *are* a sissy," she said, matter-of-factly.  "And
tonight, you're going to sleep like one," she stated, picking up
the panties and handing them to me.  It wasn't a request, or an
order.  It was a statement.
     It turned out to be true.

     I felt even more deeply embarrassed the next morning, when I
woke up next to this beautiful, desirable, feminine creature, in
little-girl drag.  And with amazingly stained panties, too.  They
were almost crusty.  So were Nancy's.  She ignored my glumness,
and joked that it was too bad I was so narrow-hipped, or she
could borrow a clean pair from me.  She kept up her light chatter
as we showered--separately, alas--and got dressed.  She did end
up wearing some of my underwear, some of the nasty 'one size fits
all' kind.  She put it on with a wry joke.  I wore boy clothes,
from the skin out.  She asked me what was for breakfast, by which
I guessed I was making it.  Which was fair enough.  She stayed
and cleaned up a little in the bedroom, and then we ate, not in
total silence, but not very happily.  Her cheer was wearing thin,
against my wall of gloom.
     I was disgusted with myself.  I had given in and done some
things that I'd fantasized about, but that wasn't the real
problem.  The problem was, I enjoyed them.  I knew it, and Nancy
knew it.  I couldn't understand why she didn't hate me yet--I
did--and wondered what was going to happen next.  Nothing good, I
was sure.  What if she continued to try and bring my stories to
life?  I shuddered, and dropped my fork, when I had a sudden,
hideous image of stepping up to the lectern, in front of a class
full of students, in high heels and a miniskirt.
     She did the dishes when we were done, and came out to the
living room, where I was sitting and staring at the window,
trying to decide what I was going to do.  "Lee," she said,
softly, kneeling in front of me and taking my hand.  "You need
some time alone.  So I'm leaving."  I started to protest, half-
heartedly, but secretly relieved, when she laid a finger on my
lips.  "I'm not going to demand anything of you that you can't
do, and that  includes demanding that you try to hide your
feelings when you're feeling particularly raw and vulnerable. 
However," she added, and her voice became very firm, "you *are*
going to have to make a decision.  You'll have to decide if you
want to be my sissy or not."  I flushed and again started to
protest, but she shushed me again.  "It isn't that hard a
decision," she said, with a smile, "since one way or another,
you're going to be a sissy.  The question is whether you'll be
*my* little sissy, and let me make the decisions and take the
responsibilities.  No, don't answer!  I don't want to hear it,
and I don't think you're ready, or able, to make a decision in
the state you're in.  So I'll give you time.  Friday I'll come by
to pick you up, and treat you to dinner and a show.  If you've
decided you can trust me, you'll be wearing panties.  And
perfume--that's easier to see."  Well, smell, I corrected, but
not aloud.  "That gives you a week to torture yourself with it. 
Agreed?"
     There was something in her eyes again, and I had to work it
out before I answered.  Anxiety?  Yes, it seemed to me, she was
anxious.  And considering things, I realized that whatever
decision I made when I was depressed nearly to the point of
suicide was probably going to be the same one.  "All right," I
agreed.
     "Good!" she said, and sealed the bargain with a kiss.  A
promising kiss, a tender one.  I had to blink the tears back when
I was done.  I was going to give this up?  But any other decision
seemed just impossible.  She stood, found her coat and her purse,
and started for the door.  But she hesitated, halfway out, and
turned back to look at me consideringly.  "Lee," she said, in an
amused voice, "lose the mustache, too, okay?"  She was gone
before I could answer.


                   Part 2: Fiery Pride

     I was pacing nervously, glancing out the windows from time
to time.  Seven-thirty was approaching.  Friday.  As I paced, my
hand occasionally stole to my newly shaven upper lip.  It was
hard to regret the loss of the mustache itself--it had never been
much of a mustache--but it had always been there, to prevent me
from doing something outrageous.  Now it was gone.
     I'd gotten a note in my mailbox at school in the middle of
the week.  I kept telling myself that she'd put it there herself,
so it wouldn't have to go through normal mail, but the intrusion
of that carefully sequestered portion of my life into my
day-to-day routine made me jumpy.  Jumpy, hell, it had thrown me
into a tailspin.
     "Lee, sweetie, I told you I wouldn't ask for anything beyond
your strength.  But I've been thinking about Saturday, and I have
a hunch that you're much stronger than you think you are.
     "I will pick you up at 7:30 Friday evening.  I will wait
five minutes.  If you're not ready then, I'll leave."
     A bit ambiguous, the Observer pointed out clinically.  Leave
... forever?  Until the next Friday?  Until the next phonecall,
or note?  Long enough to drive around the block? the Professional
Cynic added.  I have enough different points of view inside my
head to populate a bad novel, and most of them have names, of
sorts.  The Intellectual.  The Dreamer.  The Romantic, the
Professor, the Pessimist, the Comedian, the Coward.  They held
meetings from time to time and shouted at one another, while my
mouth stuttered in the background.
     "In your stories, the woman always asks the man to 'say
it,'" her note continued.  "I won't do that to you.  All you have
to do is get in my car.  As my 'sissy.'  The other two conditions
also stand (but don't wear pink ones, wear white ones)."
     Why does she have to keep using that damn word? the Codger
grumbled.  Because it's appropriate? the Cynic suggested. 
Perhaps because you use it in those hideous stories, the
Professor commented, and she is aware that it is a sort of 'Word
of Power' for you.  "Fuck the stories," I snarled aloud.  She
made three conditions, the Observer observed.  Panties, perfume,
and mustache.  Which one did she forget?
     "Once you enter my car, we start a new relationship, just as
I intended last week with the roses.  I will lead, and you will
follow.  This note is to let you know *where.*  To lay the ground
rules, I guess.
     "I won't be the 'boy,' but you, in a sense, will be the
'girl.'  I will make the dates, call you, invite you out, drive
the car, and pay the bills.  And perhaps buy you flowers, or sexy
underwear.  You will simply be available (or not available, but
in that case you may find yourself waiting by the phone for me to
call).  To remind you of this, you should be wearing panties and
perfume every time we go out.  If you don't, I may simply drop
you at your house, and you can wait to see if I call you back.
     "At your doorstep, everything changes.  You are in charge. 
I am a guest, if you invite me in.  If you want to wear studded
leather jockey shorts at your house, that's your prerogative.  It
will be *my* prerogative to accept or decline your invitations,
or to leave when I wish.
     "At *my* doorstep, everything changes again.  *I* am in
charge, and even more so than you are in your house.  You will
dress, talk, and act as I tell you to.  A hint: you won't be
wearing pants in my house any more.  When you arrive, I will lock
away the clothes that you arrived in.  If I invite you, you can
expect that we will sleep together.  You are always welcome to
come visit, of course, but that places no obligations on me.  In
my house, I will have the power over you of a mother over her
daughter, or a big sister over little.  If you wish to spend the
night with me, at my house, but don't have the courage to ask,
you may send me a signal by bringing your nightclothes with you.
     "If, for some reason, you wish to leave before I give you
permission to go, there will always be an option.  I have
purchased a pair of men's jeans and a shirt in your size.  There
will always be a set of unremarkable clothes on the table by the
door, and you are free to change into them and leave."  I didn't
catch how cleverly that was worded until a couple months later. 
It *looks* like more of a promise than it is.  "However, you
won't be welcome in my house until you volunteer to do whatever
it is that caused you to leave in the first place."
     "I love you.  Nancy."
     Puzzle *that* one out, the Cynic sneered.  Oh, don't be a
damnfool! the Codger grumped.  She just wants to make sure you're
not sneaking around doing things behind her back.  She wants you
to prove you're *not* a sissy, is what.  So prove it.  Is that
what she was doing on Saturday? the Doubter asked.  The rest of
the Committee snarled at him to *shut up* about Saturday.
     It was almost seven-thirty, and I was pacing.  I'd spent the
week thinking, too.  If you can call these debates between
personality fragments 'thinking.'  My powerful repugnance at
being reduced to something unmanly warred with the memory of
astonishing sex.  I'd passed out, ferchrissakes!  But if I read
that letter properly, it wasn't going to happen again in my
house.  It might in hers, but I wouldn't be able to get up in the
morning and do myself up 'boy.'  She was going to arrive in
minutes, and I still hadn't made up my mind whether I was even
going to go *out* on her terms.  Oh, it may have looked as if I'd
made up my mind, seeing that I was wearing 'white ones,' perfume,
and my face was smooth-shaven.  In fact, there was a flight bag
by the door, with a nighty in it.  And my makeup, just in case.  
     But the shaving had only taken place at seven o'clock.  The
perfume was barely noticeable, if you leaned in close.  And the
panties--they were a sort of symbolic protest.  I'd gone and
bought a pair, which always made my teeth sweat, facing one of
those clear- faced female cashiers, but I'd done it.  They were
cotton.  Calvin Klein for her.  About as mannish as panties got,
until you got to panties-for-men (I had a couple pairs of silk
men's underwear, that were basically flyless bikinis, differing
from panties only in that they were solid, subdued sorts of
colors, had wide waistbands, lacked decoration altogether ... and
cost roughly three times what panties cost.  Got 'em from Vicky's
Secret.  They didn't give me the same thrill that panties did,
though.).
     I saw her car pull up in front of the house, and almost went
to hide under the bed.  My brain went into overdrive, and I used
up my adrenaline allowance for at least the next six months.  I
was not breathing very well.  I was leaning on the door of my
house.  Outside.  Unsure how I had gotten there.  No, I was
leaning against the side of the car, staring at the hand that was
holding the handle.  I shrugged internally, and told it to go
ahead, go on with it, but the signals kept going astray.  Instead
of opening the door, my legs twitched occasionally.  My knees
felt oddly weak.
     I closed my eyes.  Click.  They popped open.  The click
wasn't my eyes, it was the door of the car.  Had I opened it?  Or
had she leaned across to do it?  No, I saw, she was sitting there
with her hands in her lap, turned slightly to face me, and
watching compassionately.  I gulped--it must have been the last
of my pride I was swallowing; it tasted pretty bitter--and slid
in.  My eyes fastened on her dashboard clock.  It said 7:47.
     She didn't give me time to feel embarrassed that I'd taken
seventeen minutes to cross a smallish lawn.  She leaned close,
kissed me warmly, and said, "Hi, sissy!"  The Committee took off
to race around the block, gibbering and arguing with one another,
and then came and caught up with the car when she stopped at the
corner.
     "Umm, hi," I responded.  "S-sorry I'm late," I offered.
     She gave me a funny look, then cracked, "That's the girl's
prerogative."  That was my line.  I used to use it whenever she
was late because she stopped to make herself pretty, and it used
to always be good for an exasperated glare.  I couldn't think of
anything to say in response, though, so I reached for a
cigarette.
     Oops.  Must have left them on the table.  I let out a
breath.  A safe topic of conversation.  "Umm, I forgot my
cigarettes.  Could we stop somewhere?"
     She looked at me, frowning.  "Are you carrying money?" she
asked.  That struck me a little odd.  I did, but even if I
hadn't, she wasn't going to be driven broke on a pack of
cigarettes.  I frowned back and nodded.  "Don't, from now on,"
she said, turning her attention back to traffic.  "Put a dime in
your shoe if you're worried about being left somewhere, but you
don't bring money on a date.  Put your wallet in my purse."
     I started to object, then bit my lip, catching sight of how
she was watching me in the mirror.  *We* had never worked that
way.  We'd gone dutch, as often as not.  She was testing me.  I
should have realized that from her comment about the dime; phone
calls hadn't cost a dime since both of us were teenagers.  So she
must be telling me something her mother told her.  It sounded
like something I'd heard my mother tell my sister, although as I
remembered, my mother had just recommended she keep a dime for
the phone in her shoe, not that she not carry money.  I pulled
out my wallet, and discovered that I was extremely reluctant to
part with it.  It was a sort of symbol of me, of my masculinity,
or something.  No, of my independence, I realized, forcing my
fingers to release it, and watching it drop in with her things.
     We pulled into the parking lot of a convenience store, and I
started to get out, then paused, puzzled.  I looked at Nancy,
whose eyes were laughing.  "I'll get them, sweetie," she said,
with a lean and a kiss.  "Do you need anything else?"  I blushed. 
No, it wasn't that suggestive a line, but I'd once tried to make
her sit in the car, when it was raining cats and dogs, and ran
into a store to get something she said she needed.  And when I'd
asked that, she'd told me what it was she also needed, which was
probably the only thing she needed.  I let her get her hair wet,
rather than try to by feminine hygiene supplies.
     "Uhh, a lighter," I said.
     I relaxed into the seat, a little red-faced, to wait, and
reflect.  It's the little things that count in a relationship. 
One of my friends had told me that in college.  He was living
with his girlfriend, off-campus, and the reason he told me is
because they had just had an enormous screaming fight, based, on
the surface, on the fact that she bought the groceries, and liked
her peas fresh or frozen, while he preferred the mushy kind out
of a can.  It was one of those ridiculous little stories that
stays with you.  He'd been laughing when he finally admitted to
it, and then, to my surprise, had gone off to make a compromise,
instead of simply giving in.  I recalled dates from my past, and
times when I had dashed into a store to get something for a
girlfriend.  Leaving her in the car.  I recalled that it had made
me feel important, and gallant.  Now I wondered how it had made
her feel.  Taken care of?  Or taken in charge?  It *was* kind of
pleasant, being waited on.  But the waiting wasn't as pleasant,
nor was the feeling of incompetence.  Once more the battle
between security-in-dependence and fear was on.  I began to
wonder what caused the fear.  Fear of not being taken care of? 
Or fear of being noticed, dependent on a woman?
     She came back, handed me a bag, and started up the car.  I
turned my head away after I opened the bag.  I didn't want her to
see the tears.  It was not a nice trick.  Virginia Slims, a pink
lighter, and some breath mints.  We were at the restaurant before
I had fought my composure back.  I left the bag in the car.  She
didn't say anything.  Good thing, too, because I was simmering.
     Once more, she was in charge, but this time, whenever I
started to do something from my usual patterns, she subtly
spanked me.  Figuratively speaking, of course.  She made me feel
gawky and a fool, so that dinner was actually a pretty miserable
affair.  And no cigarette to finish it, not until we got to the
car and I smoked one of the foul VS's.  I was acting pretty
subdued by that point.  What I was was steaming, just smoking
mad.  You know what kept me from saying anything?  The panties. 
Even cotton ones.  Suppose I made a fuss, right?  She could just
expose me.  Well, she could, couldn't she?
     She seemed to be having a nice time, and continued to act
quite affectionate, putting her hands on me, teasing me,
flirting.  But as soon as I started to do the same, she'd pull
away sharp.  In fact, as we stood in line at the box office, I
realized that she had maneuvered me into *clinging,* in that sort
of soft, desperate way that some very shy women have.  I actually
saw red.  I thought that was just a phrase, but I did; my sight
went all hazy red, and when I refocussed I was standing stiffly,
a couple feet away from her, with my fists clenched.  She
pretended not to notice.  I settled angrily into my seat in the
theater, and then she got me all off balance again, with
caresses, and popping candies into my mouth, and gently
agressive, affectionate behavior.  At the end of the film, my
head was on her shoulder, and the Dreamer was in control, with
the Romantic as ally.
     "Shall we go to my house?" she asked, as we slid into the
car again.  Whang! and another six-month's allotment of
adrenaline used up.  I didn't have to consider it, but I might
have looked like I was for the five seconds before I got my
breath.
     "Mine," I said, firmly.  She had promised to let me be macho
in my house, if I wanted to be.  During the movie, which included
a love scene, of course, it had occurred to me that one way to
stop the weird parts of this relationship was to do unto her as
she had done unto me.  Drive her crazy with lust, as masterfully
as the actor on the screen did.  As masterfully as she had done
to *me* the week before.  If I could turn her on even in panties,
I had an idea that she would just *melt* if I played her the way
she had played me.
     She gave me a look that said, 'I know what you're thinking,
naughty boy!'  And a smile that promised delights.  I breathed a
sigh of relief.  The old Codger was right, and he wasn't too
proud to say 'I told you so.'  I started running plans through my
head.  But when we arrived at my apartment, she leaned over to
kiss me, warmly but briefly, and said, "I'll call you, okay?"
     "I ... But ... Don't you ...."  I took a deep breath. 
"Would you like to come in?" I asked.  
     "No, I don't think so," she replied, calmly.  "I have to get
up early."  Wait a minute.  She'd asked me to *her* house.  And
she'd told me that it meant, well, sex!  Something had gone
wrong.  The Cynic was throwing peanut shells at the Codger in the
attics of my mind.
     Masterful, Leeling.  Be masterful.  I gave her a look
intended to be both wry and sexy.  "Aww, come on.  I'll show you
my etchings."
     She smiled, without warmth.  "I'd rather see your
collection," she said, and rubbed my hip.  Then she frowned. 
"Aren't you wearing panties?" she asked.
     That was ... deflating.  "Cotton," I gritted.  The Observer
noted that it was a bit difficult to play suave and deadly when
one was wearing feminine undergarments.  I hesitated, angry and
frustrated, and then climbed stiffly out of the car.  
     She leaned over and rolled the window down, behind me, as I
walked toward the door, fuming.  "Lee," she called, in a clear,
amused voice.  "*I* make the rules."  I turned to look at her. 
She smiled, this time warmly, and continued.  "I call the shots,
honey.  All you can do, if you don't like the game, is get out of
it."  I clenched my jaw, at a loss for an answer.  It *was* what
I had agreed to.  More or less.  "I'll call you," she repeated,
and drove off. 
     I'd thought  I was miserable before Christmas.  I didn't
know what misery was.  On Friday night, I'd felt betrayed, angry,
and bewildered.  I laid in bed for three hours before I cried
myself to sleep.  Saturday morning, I tried to call Nancy. 
Answering machine.  Four times.  Six times on Sunday.  Monday, I
decided I wasn't going to humiliate myself any more, and went
marching through a day of snarling at the secretaries and my
students.  I didn't call.  Neither did she.  I spent the evening
pretending to read, and staring at the phone.  Surprised hell out
of one of the little darlings by answering the phone on the first
ring, with a breathless, "Yes?"
     Tuesday I said to hell with pride, and started calling
again.  At work, one of her female coworkers informed me that she
had just stepped out, laughing under her breath.  The third time
I called, she said, "She doesn't want to talk to you, okay?" and
slammed the phone down.  Also the fourth and fifth time.  I
couldn't believe what I was doing.  When I was a teenager, the
idea of this sort of reaction to a call would have been enough to
keep me off the phone for a month.  I justified it to myself by
saying that I just had to prove to her that I was willing to
grovel a little, and she'd see me again.  She *had* to see me
again.  I hadn't done anything *wrong.*  At four-thirty, as I was
gathering my things and getting ready to leave, my office phone
rang.
     "Hi, sissy!" her voice said, cheerfully.  I nearly dropped
the phone in alarm.
     "Christ, Nancy, what if one of the secretaries had
answered?"
     "You don't sound like any of the secretaries, sweetie. 
Listen, I just realized that I still have your wallet.  Do you
want me to bring it over?"
     I'd forgotten all about the damn thing.  I could have used
*that* for an excuse to see her.  How had I missed that one? 
"Uhh, sure, that'd be, uhh, nice.  I'll, uhh, buy you dinner as a
reward."
     Silence.  I deliberately ignored it.  Put this relationship
back the way it was supposed to be, right?  "How very ... forward
of you, Lee," she said, distantly.
     Oh, shit.  I hadn't heard ice like that since the breakup. 
"S-sorry!  Sorry!  I forgot!" I gasped into the phone.  I gulped. 
Where's your spine, boy? the Codger asked, irascibly.  With his
heart, the Comedian quipped.  Nancy has it.
     She chuckled.  When had she learned to chuckle?  She used to
giggle, or snicker.  But that was definitely a chuckle.  "Maybe
I'll let you cook me a dinner, sometime, sweetie."
     An out!  Was that an out?  I jumped for it.  "T-tonight?" I
asked.
     Another pause.  "My place or yours?"
     Ooh, shit.  Was that an invitation?  I was safe enough, I
told myself, if it was an invitation.  Get her in bed, and I'll
convince her.  I felt a pounding in my head, echoed lower down. 
Wait, no, if *I* picked, would she regard that as an invitation? 
Better be safe.  "M-m  ... Yours?" I heard myself say,
uncertainly.
     That *chuckle* again.  It was unnerving.  "Are you asking to
come to my house, sissy?  You haven't forgotten the rules, have
you?"  Well, that settled the question of the invitation quite
neatly, didn't it?  I'd just invited myself.
     Okay, how do I get out of this?  Ask her to my place
instead?  Oh, hell, she settled that already.  Maybe she'd change
her mind about the invitation.  Or about bed, at least.  Just go
for it, idiot, advised the Romantic.  Sexy, male voice, with a
pickup line, so she knows you're still planning on changing the
rules.  "Hey, babe, I make a killer steak.  Give me a place to
cook, and I'll make you a meal fit for a Que  ..."  Ooh, *nice*
turn of phrase, the Cynic applauded, sarcastically.  And that
quaver in your voice!  So manly!
     "What a lovely offer!" Nancy exclaimed.  "I'd love it,
sweetie.  Why don't you come over around seven?" 
     I went home and paced, occasionally blinded by tears.  Tears
of rage, tears of fear, tears, perhaps, of weakness.  They feel a
little different, I guess, but they all taste the same.  And when
your emotions are roiling so badly that you can't tell what
you're feeling, it's difficult to sort out what sort of tears
you're crying.  The rage was directed equally at myself, for
being a spineless, weepy, pantywaisted wimp, and at Nancy for
making *me* be one.  The fear ... that was easier.  I was afraid
of everything.  Of being laughed at, especially.  Of being
humiliated.  Of losing Nancy.  Of turning into someone I wouldn't
want to know.  The weakness ... well, I guess it's enough to say
that I was pacing in my favorite pair of panties.  I'd changed as
soon as I got home.
     I still had that bag packed, with my stuff in it.  But when
I left the house, I left it there.  I was having second thoughts
(are they still second, the thousandth time they  race around the
inside of your head, sticking their tongues out and jeering?) all
the way to Nancy's house.  Parked.  Blew my nose and wiped my
eyes.  I got out of the car.
     You know how, when you do something over and over, it
becomes second nature, so that you don't even notice you've done
it?  It falls down into your pre-conscious.  Like riding a
bicycle, the famous example.  Or putting on the turn signal in a
car.  On the way over, I'd been astonished several times to
realize that I had done things legally.  My preconscious was
driving, the Comittee was running around in the belfry of my
mind, screaming and wailing and scaring the bats.  And you know
how, when you've visited someone often enough, you stop even
noticing the route between the car, or the bus stop, or whatever,
and the door?
     This wasn't one of those times.  The panic was infectious,
apparently, and my preconscious came down with a bad case and
took to its bed.  Every step was an effort, every sight was brand
new, searing, in living color.  Good thing I wasn't chewing gum. 
I never would have made it to the door.  Once I got there, I just
stared at it for a while.  It took another effort to remember
that the brass thing was for knocking, and the button for
ringing.  I  had to choose one.  That required deep thought. 
Don't laugh!  It could happen to you.
     "Hi, darling!" she said, and kissed me.  Oh, heaven. 
Fluttering little angels, playing harps, everything bright and
rosy.  Rosy ... pink.  No, let's not think pink.  I wonder if I
knocked or rang?  Not important, of course.  The kiss was
important.  The kiss ended.  I made an incoherent noise of
protest.  "Your clothes are in the bedroom," she said.  "You can
change and start dinner.  I'm starved!  Didn't you bring your
makeup?  Hmm.  I guess we need to get you a purse.  You can use
mine, this once; it's in the bathroom.  Call me if you need
help."
     Hmm.  Not only had she learned to chuckle, she'd become a
witch.  She'd teleported me into the bedroom, and then blinked
out.  Have you gotten the idea that I was a little over the edge? 
I was further rocked by the clothes.  Yes, the famous pink dress,
with all its accessories.
     "Little Bo-Peep has lost her sheep, and doesn't know where
to find them.  Leave them alone, and they'll come home, dragging
their tails behind them!"  I was quite pleased without myself for
being sane enough to recite poetry.  The Cynic applauded,
sarcastically.  Some time had passed, and I was sitting in the
desk chair, staring at the stuff on the bed.  Progress had been
made.  My shoes had gotten themselves taken off.  My shirt had
been unbuttoned; likewise my jeans.  Which meant that my Calvin
Kleins were showing.  I barely noticed.
     "You know, you'd be popping a zipper if you had this thing
at *your* house," the Cynic said aloud.  "Only crazy people talk
to themselves," I replied viciously.  "I may be crazy," the
Romantic responded, "but am I crazy enough to dress up like a
refugee from a fairy tale in front of the most important woman in
the world?"  The Comedian laughed.  "Yeah, right, get real. 
Fairy tale for adults, maybe.  The Scarecrow dressed up like
Dorothy."  A part of me that hadn't woken up for a while chimed
in, "Story idea, there."
     "Oh, good," the Codger remarked to thin air.  "While we were
talking, someone seems to have undressed me.  How kind of them. 
Do you think you'd like to maybe calm down, buckle down, and get
it over with?"  I looked around, and the Comedian commented. 
"Funny, I don't *see* any large, friendly red buttons, with
'Don't Panic!' inscribed on them.  Well, never mind.  We already
did that.  Try something else."  The Cynic: "Ha!  What?"  The
Romantic: "Well, what about getting dressed?"  The Coward: "In
that?"  The Tough Guy: "Yes, as a matter of fact."
     "Right.  Problem: getting dressed.  Solution: One: stand
up."  Intellectual at work, breaking down the problem to
understandable steps.  I did.  "Good!  Two: Walk to bed.  Very
nice!  We may be able to make something of you yet.  Three: pick
up dress."  Pause.  "Umm, hands toward bed.  Touch it, dummy!" 
Intellectual supplanted by Tough Guy, or Can-Do Man.
     "This isn't working, Leeling," I muttered, sinking to the
bed.  "Maybe if you could trick yourself into it.  Or, I dunno,
twist your arm.  Or pull your hair until you cry like a girl and
abjectly humble yourself by wearing girl-stuff."  Another story
scene, of course, contributed by the Cynic.
     "This isn't working," I repeated, in a miserable voice.  And
to my horror, started to cry.  "Stop that!" I demanded angrily,
but at the same time curled up into a tight defensive ball. 
"Just give it up, then," I sneered.  "Get dressed, tell Nancy
you're too *much* of a sissy to wear a dress, and leave.  I'm
*sure* she'll understand!"  That was the Cynic again, sneering
with professional skill.  A little voice inside, though, spoke
up, a bit timidly.  "I bet she would.  Why don't you ask her?"
     "Nancy?"  I heard myself call.  Not much of a voice, that.  
     "Lee?  Are you all right?  What are you doing?  What's
taking so long?"  She came in the door on the last question, and
halted, her eyes going very wide when she caught sight of me.
     The Committee members, acting in concert, grabbed the tears,
brutally throttled them, hog-tied them, and threw them into a
cell.  "I c-can't d-*do* it!"  Damn, the world's fastest escape! 
That's impressive, boy, the Codger told me.  Just start crying. 
Not only does it show how macho studly tough you are, it shows
how little women's clothes affect you.
     She waited until I managed to turn a groan into a growl and
frighten the tears into submission.  "Do you need some help with
something, Lee?" she asked, carefully, neutrally.  Her eyes were
hooded.  Setting precedents, I understood later.  One doesn't
back down from the orders.  At the moment, though, I felt cast
adrift, helpless to do what I knew I *had* to do.
     "I bet that would work," said the timid little voice in my
head.  "If she helped, I mean."  The Committee took a break from
suppressing the weeping mutiny, and considered the idea.  Yeah,
okay, if I can ask.  "C-can you help me g-get dressed?" I asked,
timidly.  Hoo, wait!  We haven't had a Committee meeting on this! 
That question qualifies as a policy statement, and a quorum of
personality has not been convened to rule on its applicability! 
The timid little voice gave a timid little grin, flipped its
skirts in the faces of the ponderous thinkers who usually gave me
hell, and disappeared.  Astonishing.  The Committee of crazed
personalities has been invaded by a little girl.  Where'd she
come from?
     "Well, of course I will, sweetie.  Come on, sit up straight,
and raise your arms."
     Okay, Tough Guy told the timid little voice, a little
grimly, as I lifted a leg to step into a pair of panties that
screamed 'Fetish!  Fetish!  Fetish!' at the top of their pink
ruffled lungs, you wanna go subdue that nether mutiny for me? 
Nancy and I both pretended we didn't notice that my cock rose as
the panties did.
     "Can you do your makeup yourself?" Nancy asked, looking up
from buckling the second shoe.  
     I nodded.  "No," the timid little voice said.  "I don't
think I can look in a mirror right now," she explained.  Sweet
gods of the mountains and forests, there was a little girl
borrowing my voice!  The Committee convened in great excitement,
determined to do something about this open rebellion.
     Nancy smiled, kissed me on the cheek, and assured me, "I'll
be right back."
     I suspect that I looked primly proper as she fixed my face
for me.  Completely passive, with my hands lying in my lap.  It
wasn't that I was getting into character, or anything.  It was
just that the Committee had decided to form a posse, or a lynch
mob, and were hunting for that traitorous little girl.  She must
have had a lot of experience, hiding, though.  Not only did Nancy
do my makeup, she also put my hair up on the sides, with a pair
of barettes, and added a pair of earrings.  She finished, urged
me to my feet, and had me twirl.  Odd feeling, having a skirt
brushing against my legs.  And letting in a sort of draft.  The
Committee was still howling in pursuit.  "Pink suits you,
sweetie.  You really should wear it more often.  Are you going to
start dinner now?"  Timid little nod of the head.  Ha!  The mob
recognized that mannerism, and roared off in pursuit.
     They got stunned into immobility in short order.  Nancy
keeps a full length mirror in her hall.  You have to pass it,
going from the bedroom or the bathroom to the kitchen or living
room.  The committee, roaring along in pursuit of the little
girl, suddenly caught sight of me in that mirror.  And every
single one of them--the Professor, the Observer, the Professional
Cynic, the Codger, the Tough Guy, the Comedian, all of
them--suddenly found themselves in cute little pink dresses, and
ran for cover.  With a tinkling girlish giggle taunting them.
     Nancy led me by the hand to the kitchen.  As she turned to
leave, I blurted, "I look really ridiculous, don't I?"  The last
few steps, with the Committee mostly lying low, I'd noticed the
skirt swaying against my legs, and the nylon covering my bottom,
and I'd become aroused again, despite myself.  Maybe it was just
the sexual element that embarrassed me?  Or maybe that was the
element I was interested in?  I shied away from enumerating the
other possible elements.
     She slid her arms around my waist, hugged me tightly, and
then leaned back to look in my face.  "You look ..." she said,
slowly, with a long pause to make sure I was listening, and so
she could judge my response, "like a sissy."  She watched the
blush rise in my face.  I saw her, from the corner of my eye.  "A
very pretty, very desirable sissy," she added, as carefully as a
chemist mixing nitric acid with sugar water.  Blushes feel
different, too.  Was that one change from embarrassed blush to
pleased blush?  Her hands slipped down from my waist, and I
forgot about blushing as intoxicating sensations spread from her
delicate touch, satin on nylon.  "Do you remember what I ...
feel, for sissies?" she asked in a murmur, biting my earlobe and
pressing her hips against mine, as she stroked my bottom again.
     She had teleported away again, I discovered when my eyes
opened.  I sighed.  Had she made a promise?  Well, at least a
suggestion.  Gods, do you suppose this is the way women feel,
when they start acting incredibly sexy, moving with that
incredible grace?  When did I get graceful?  Better start dinner,
kid, it's already eight o'clock.  One special of the house,
coming up.
     Not coming up, I realized, almost fifteen minutes later.  I
can't cook.  I mean, there are about half a dozen dishes I can do
up wonderfully well.  Spaghetti, for instance.  That takes all
day, though, for the sauce.  Nancy had taught me to make
Fettucine carbonari.  She didn't have any bacon or parmesan
cheese.  She'd also taught me mexican.  Nit in the fridge.  Not
even salsa.  Plus I could grill any animal that I could get to
hold still long enough.  The grill was on the balcony.  Never
mind.  That left altogether not much in my repertoire.  Cheese
sandwiches.  I didn't think that would be a big hit, not for a
dinner.
     Well, I tried.  There was chicken in the fridge.  I had an
idea of how one fried it, so I got that sort of started.  Flour
and bread crumbs, and some spices, right?  It didn't stick too
well, though.  Then I attacked a head of lettuce, subdued it, and
dismembered it partially.  Some tomatoes and stuff.  Frozen
beans; they came with directions, and needed nothing but boiling
water.  Rolls from a can.
     'Disaster' is too mild a term.  I think part of the trick to
cooking, like to lots of other things, is simply confidence. 
Well, when the chicken fat caught fire, at the same time that
smoke started to issue from the oven, I lost my nerve.  Water is
not a good thing for oil fires, and opening an oven door doesn't
do much for the atmosphere, when the rolls are burning.  Fat
splattered onto the eye where the beans were, and flared up, and
I grabbed for the pan in desperation.  Any girlish grace I might
have once felt evaporated.  The smoke alarm began its peculiarly
piercing wail, and I added curses as the boiling water from the
beans slopped first onto the stove, and then, as I overcorrected,
onto my legs.  I dropped the pan and danced backward into the
table, and the salad bowl toppled onto the floor with a ceramic
splintering.
     "What the ... !  God damn it, Lee, what does it take to get
you to ask for help?!"  She dashed for the stove, slipping on the
beans and salad and slamming a calf into the open oven door. 
Salt in the fat, then the lid on and the pan off the stove.  She
whirled, slipped again on the slimy mess covering the floor, and
slammed her hip into the table, but she reached the smoke alarm,
jerked off the cover, and pulled the battery loose.
     I managed to get the rolls out of the oven, and started to
set them down on the table.  The wooden table.  You know, the one
with the finish on it.  She snatched at the pan, burning her hand
as she pushed it toward the sink, and then stopped, visibly
gathering her temper.  I dropped the pan and gulped.  "I-I'll
clean it up," I said, dejectedly.  My leg hurt, and I'd just
proven myself utterly incompetent, and the fact that my shoes
slipped on the floor reminded me that I was dressed for
Halloween.
     "No, you *won't!"* she replied, sharply.  She opened her
eyes and glared, then turned to yank the freezer door open and
get some ice for her hand.  "You'll go to the bedroom, sit down,
and *wait!"*  I flushed.  "And then," she added, still biting her
words off, "We'll go *out* to eat!"
     I nodded, and stepped backward, trying to ignore the
throbbing agony in my leg.  I didn't think she was going to have
much sympathy.  I had to pass that damn mirror again, though.  I
managed not to stop.  But there was one on the bedroom dresser,
too, that I had kept my back turned to the whole time.  I flopped
into the desk chair, and then blushed.  Stood up, smoothed the
skirt underneath me, and sat down again.  At least that way I
didn't feel the fabric of the chair directly on my ... my
underwear.
     I couldn't help it, I turned to look at the mirror.  I'd
only had glances at myself, and they had been disturbing enough. 
I looked, then closed my eyes and looked away.  Took a deep,
steadying breath, and looked back.
     I had never been much of a fan of mirrors, dressing up at
home.  I'm  nearly six feet tall, and skinny.  32-26-34--it
sounds sexier than it is.  I'd once tried padding a bra, but no
matter how little I put in, it always looked like I had tennis
balls taped to my chest.  Or ping pong balls.  No curves, all
angles.  Nice legs, the ladies said, but boys' legs, more
muscular than pretty.  Big hands and feet.  I always looked
completely ridiculous, which was one of the saving graces; I'd
never been tempted to try to "pass as female."
     I still looked ridiculous--mostly.  The pink dress was a
little girl's dress, or a costume; nobody six feet tall and
angular should wear a dress like that.  The shoes more or less
matched the dress, except that they were boats.  I wear a 10 1/2
in men's sizes.  Hairy calves sticking out of lace
stockings--christ, almost the definition of 'camp.'  I probably
could have dealt with that.  What was disturbing was the pretty
face perched on top of this monstrosity.  My face *could* pass,
now that the mustache was gone.  The hair was pulled back in a
very authentically feminine touch, not at all overdone; that
displayed my ears, which were sporting a pair of little gold
butterflies.  The makeup I was wearing was not the awkward stuff
that I did for myself, or the somewhat dramatic effect that Nancy
had put me in on that fateful Saturday.  It was understated, too,
and it basically turned my face from being unremarkably boyish
into being ... unremarkably pretty.  Feminine.  Girlish.
     *Sissy.*  I *hated* that word, almost as much as I hated
'pantywaist.'  Nancy knew that from reading the stories, of
course, since sooner or later all the sissy heroes had to admit
that they were sissies.  I was *living* a sort of fantasy, and it
was giving me the *creeps.*  Seeing my face transformed into
something feminine, nearly *female,* shook me to the depths.  I
stood up abruptly, intending to walk over closer to find the
flaws and reassure myself.  Stopped equally abruptly.  The dress
... transformed my usual motions.  Softened things.  I took a
couple steps.  It swirled when I walked, emphasizing first one
leg, and then the other.  The fullness of it also gave me a sort
of illusion of hips.
     I gulped, and looked at the door, then grinned slightly,
remembering my teenaged days, when I'd snuck into my sister's
room and kept one eye on her door while I rooted through her
underwear drawer.  Then I turned around, looking over my
shoulder, and tried to watch myself walk from behind.  Darted
another glance at the door, and bounced experimentally.  The
skirt swirled a bit, but I didn't achieve the effect I wanted. 
Marilyn Monroe from behind, basically.  So I bouced some more,
and when that didn't serve to flip the skirt up, I lifted it,
pretending that my hands were a breeze, and craned my head around
over my shoulder again.
     "If you're done showing off," Nancy said shortly, "go wait
in the living room.  I need to change."
     My head snapped back around to face her, and I dropped the
skirt as if it burned me.  Embarrassed, I started for the door. 
And stopped, as she stepped inside and opened the closet.  "Umm,
Nancy?" I asked, a hideous doubt springing up and growing to
larger- than-life-size all in the space of seconds.  "Shouldn't I
change, too?"  She looked at me, her face telling me nothing.  "I
mean ... I c-can't go out l-like *this!"*
     "You wear what I tell you to wear while you're here," she
said, with no sign of softening, and repeated, "Go wait for me in
the living room.  Stay out of the kitchen."
     I got as far as the hall mirror before stopping.  She meant
to take me somewhere in this ... in this *costume.*  "Why don't I
just wear a sign that says 'Pervert?'" I grumbled to my
reflection.  It was not a pretty reflection.  For one thing, the
blood had drained from my face, and the makeup had gotten pretty
obvious.  "I *can't* do this!  They'll ride me out of town on a
rail!"  I looked at the bedroom door.
     It opened.  "I thought I told you to wait in the living
room?" Nancy said, walking toward the kitchen.
     I gathered up my courage again.  "Sh-should I change now?"
     "No.  You look fine.  For the third time, go wait in the
living room."
     "No!" I screamed, and stopped, shocked at myself, shaking. 
"I w-*won't* wear this!  I b-burned *my* leg, too, you know, but
I'm not trying to, to drag you outside in your p-p- pa-p-pan  ...
in your *underwear!"*
     "I never said a word about you going outside, did I? 
*Trust,* Lee!  I told you to go to the living room, and wait. 
Dressed as you are, since I haven't told you to change.  When you
have done that, I will come tell you to do something else."
     "You said we were going *out* to eat," I shot back,
breathing hard.  I think I knew what happened to all that
adrenaline.  It had gone off, collected all its friends, and
waited for an opportunity.  I was trembling like a leaf, my arms
and legs shaking, my vision blurring, and caught somewhere
between utter screaming panic and bloody rage.  "Are you gonna
give me my clothes back?"
     "I told you to go to the living room and wait, Lee.  Now go
to the living room and wait."  She turned her back on me, and
walked into the kitchen.
     I stood there, breathing hard, for about ten seconds, and
then started struggling out of the ridiculous clothes.  No way. 
Not any way.  Maybe she could have shamed me into it, since I
made such a complete mess of dinner, if she had told me I was
going to wear women's jeans.  I told myself that, and when I
believed it, I told myself that I might even have worn a skirt,
or something.  Maybe she meant us to go to a drive-through, or
something like that, but *damned* if I was going to try it
looking like I'd escaped from the nearest brothel!
     By that time, dress, panties, and shoes were on the floor,
and I was pulling off the stockings.  Nancy reappeared in the
kitchen door.  She looked at me, then at the discarded clothing. 
I leaped for the table by the door, and snatched up the clothes
there.  Yes, men's clothes.  No underwear.  No *shoes,* damn it! 
I started to pull it on, anyway.  "Are you leaving, then?" she
asked.  Calm voice.  Hint of a quaver?  She took a breath.  "You
know that when you decide to come back, you'll have to put
everything back on and go wait for me in the living room.  Don't
you think it would be easier to do it now?"
     I had the pants on, and the shirt over my shoulders, if not
buttoned.  "I will *never* wear that shit again!" I said, voice
shaking.  "You can *burn* it!  I am not going to, to *blow up my
life* just so you can prove how butch you are!"  That was
supposed to be an insult.  She smiled.  Why did she smile?
     "You'll want your shoes, then," she said matter-of-factly,
and started for the bedroom.  "I suggest you take off your makeup
as well.  Your wallet is in my purse; I bought you a new one."
     I hesitated.  This wasn't the response I expected.  I almost
started for the bathroom, but I figured the trap in that--the
door opened out, and she could barricade it, or something. 
Paranoid?  Me?  Instead, I dug makeup remover, kleenex, and a
mirror out of her purse, and smeared the stuff off.  I didn't
find my wallet, though.  The Doubter was back in my head,
wondering if I was doing the right thing.  I called the Committee
into session, and pointed out the dress, and told them to shut
that idiot up.
     She came back carrying my shoes, and I belatedly pulled off
the other stocking.  Grabbed my coat.  Stuck my feet in my shoes. 
"I didn't find my wallet," I said, sullenly.
     "You won't need it if you stay here, Lee," she replied,
standing up with the dress in her hands.  "If you're not going to
change back, I'll put these things on the chair in the bedroom." 
That was a question.  I glared an answer.  Did she look sad?  "I
bought you a new wallet.  The red leather one."  She hesitated,
and added, awkwardly.  "You're going to think it's an insult, but
it isn't.  You can carry it in your briefcase, and nobody will
ever see it.  I wanted to see your ... your bottom without the
wallet in the way."
     I found it.  Red leather.  A lady's clutch purse, I guess
you call them.  The things women keep in their purses.  I
discovered that all the shaking and trembling I was doing was
anger.  I grabbed my coat, stuck the thing into a pocket.  I'd
clean my stuff out of it later.  "That's *it,"* I snarled.  "Now
I understand!  I thought ....  You hate me, don't you?  Because I
didn't live up to your image of what a man should be, is that
it?"  A look of horror came onto her face.  "Well you can
*forget* your revenge, lady.  You moved too damn fast.  You can't
prove those stories are mine, you can't prove I ever wore *that*
shit, or *anything* else!  You're screwed," I said, forcing a
laugh that I hoped was defiant.  "*Nobody's* gonna believe you. 
You shoulda took pictures, or something."
     I was right, I knew I was right.  That upset look on her
face was because I'd figured things out, and she wasn't going to
have the pleasure of destroying me in public.  I jerked the door
open, and started to slam it.  She caught the edges of it, so I
couldn't, and I spared a glance back.  Oops.  Wrong thing to do. 
She was crying.  "Lee," she said, keeping her voice steady with
obvious difficulty, "I love you.  Trust me!"  She took a deep
breath, reached a hand toward my face, and added, "And take the
barettes out of your hair."
     I stopped at a convenience store on the way home.  I had a
plan, but it called for massive quantities of beer.  Remembered
to take the money out of my wallet, with my license, *before* I
went in, and stuffed the wallet under the seat of the car.  I was
right, I knew I was right.  She hated me; that explained
everything.  I got a case of beer.  The cashier gave me an odd
look.  I figured it was because I was a little wild-eyed.  I
didn't remember about the butterfly earrings until I got home. 
See how she tricked me?
     When I got home, after I had discovered the earrings, I took
everything feminine in the house and stuffed it into a garbage
bag.  Then I laid out one pair of panties, one bra, one slip, one
skirt, a pair of stockings (I don't like pantyhose), and a
blouse.  I couldn't find my cosmetics.  I wasn't really in a
condition to think about it.  Then I dressed, and each time I put
something on, I put a cigarette out.  Once I was fully dressed, I
looked at Nancy's picture, my eyes streaming, and told her "I
don't need you, bitch!"  Cigarette number seven sizzled out
against the flesh inside my arm, and I curled up, sobbing.
     The original plan at that point called for me to undress
with six more fiery stops.  I justified cutting straight to
throwing everything away by the reasonable argument that I didn't
want to use aversion therapy for taking such things off.  Well, I
didn't, did I? 

                                   Trust
                           Part 3: Know Thyself

     I made a hell of a mess in the bathroom, too.  Cheap beer. 
I usually drink imports.  This stuff was just supposed to put me
under though.  It did, but my system had sustained enough shocks
that it decided poisoning was going just a bit too far.  It was a
good thing that the next day was Wednesday.  I had one class, an
upper-level course, and office hours, but that was it.  I called
the secretaries and told them I was sick.  By midafternoon the
hangover was mostly gone, the bathroom was reasonably sanitary,
and  I'd cleaned the broken glass out of the frame that held
Nancy's picture.
     I was sitting in the kitchen, chain-smoking and morosely
considering the consequences of using that hypodermic needle that
was lying on the table, when the door rang.  I thought about
ignoring it, but it was probably the damn yard man.  He wasn't
worth a damn; he cleaned my yard whenever he needed money, not
when the yard needed cleaned.  So he'd done the leaves, finally,
in January.  Brilliant.  Now he'd come and expect me to fork over
cash, since he at least had the sense not to try cleaning things
when I was around to tell him I wouldn't pay him.  Sourly, I
started for the door, and remembered that my wallet--my new
wallet, genuine latest women's fashion--was in the car.
     I was so sure it was him that I just flung the door open,
expecting him to understand I was in a bad mood.  It wasn't him. 
So, okay, you knew that.  I'm a little slow on the uptake.  It
was her.  I had to choke a sob, but I got my composure fast.
     "Whadda you want?"
     "Isn't it a little cold for shorts and a tee shirt?  I was
in the neighborhood, and I thought I'd drop your clothes off."  I
must have flinched or something, because she clarified, "The ones
you wore to school yesterday."
     Okay, we were pretending to be polite, were we?  Mechanical
smile.  "I've been inside all day, it's warm enough.  I've got
some of yours, too.  Wait here a minute."  I felt a slight thrill
of exultation in being able to close the door on her, to make her
wait on the steps.  Good thing I'd taken off those clothes before
I'd gotten sick.  I found them, shook them out, and carried them
back to the door.
     Her face went back to an expression of complete neutrality
as soon as I opened the door, and I wasn't sure what expression
it was chasing away.  "I was going to bring them by the school,
but they told me you'd called in sick."
     "Burns," I said, feeling a little smug at being able to tell
the truth and make her feel guilty about it.  I gestured at my
leg.  I was keeping my arm carefully turned so she couldn't see
the inside of it.
     Should have been more careful.  Should have put on a long
shirt, or something.  Two piles of clothes, two arms.  My
attempts to keep one arm turned in toward me weren't effective
enough.  "Lee!" she gasped, dropping the clothes I had just
handed her, and grabbing my arm.  I almost dropped mine.  "What
happened to you?"
     "Nothing!" I snarled.  "I just made sure I won't be acting
'sissy' any more, okay?"
     She stared at me.  Her face had gone very pale.  My emotions
got all jumbled up.  She was acting almost like she cared.  "Lee,
dammit, I never meant ... no."  She looked at me, and her face
firmed up.  She looked incredibly sad, but firm.  "You'll have
the right to ask questions once you don't have to, once you trust
me."  She glanced back down at my arm.  "But *that's* ... you did
that to yourself, didn't you?"
     "It works, okay?  And it hurts less than being ...
whatever."
     "Good God!" she exclaimed softly.  It was weird, she acted
like she really cared.  She stared at my arm in horror, and I
more or less put it on display.  Badge of pride, so to speak. 
She glanced at my face.  Her face changed.  Grew thoughtful.  She
took a step back, and I started to move inside.  But she hadn't
picked up her clothes, and she wasn't leaving.  She dug something
out of her purse.  I paused, intrigued in spite of myself.
     I'd forgotten about the cigarettes I'd abandoned in her car. 
She dug them out, and found the lighter.  She didn't smoke.  My
heart started to pound heavily.  She wasn't going to ....  She
lit a cigarette.  Were there tears in her eyes?  Looked at me,
and pushed up the sleeve of her coat.  Almost, I started for her. 
No, she was grandstanding.  "How many times do I have to do
this?" she asked, in a shaky voice, and started pressing the
fiery tip against the inside of her wrist.
     "Stop that!" I shouted, and she winced and bit her lip. 
Dropped the cigarette.  She looked at it, then started fumbling
in her purse again.
     I threw the clothes behind me, and closed the distance
between us in two steps.  Grabbed the pack out of her hand,
crumpled it, threw it to the ground and stomped on it.  Grabbed
her wrist--carefully.  "Why, Lee, I thought you didn't care?" she
said softly.
     Something had snapped the night before.  Something else
snapped now.  "I ...." I couldn't think of anything to say,
except the banal three words, which seemed insufficient at the
moment, so instead I kissed her.  It was a very vigorous kiss.  I
damn near attacked her mouth, and she responded to that,
hungrily, softly, and I felt a sob rack her body, and then she
changed it, or tried to.  We fought for control, our tongues and
lips duelling, me stubbornly determined not to let her take the
active side, until I realized what I was doing.  Who I was doing
it to, I should say.  Then it was my turn to stifle a sob, and
relax, and let her do the kissing while I responded.  I think we
sealed some sort of bargain in that kiss, too.  Or maybe I just
agreed to something.  I don't know.
     She broke the kiss, and pulled my arm out where she could
see it.  "Seven," she whispered.  "Oh, God!"
     I felt ashamed of myself.  "Y-you don't understand.  I can
... it hurts, sure.  But I can, can stop the compulsion.  The
craving.  And then, you know, I almost like myself."
     "You're not going to do that any more," she said, in a tone
that brooked no demur.
     I demurred, clenching my jaw.  "Not if I don't have to.  It
shouldn't take much more, I think."  She was staring at me,
shocked.  "Nancy," I explained, fiercely, "I *hate* it!  I hate
wearing p-p-pa-p  ..."  I clenched my jaw.  Damn word.  "I hate
dressing up.  Even when I'm doing it, I hate it!  I hate that it
makes me horny when I *do* do it.  But it's, like, an addiction,
or something, and even though I hate it, I do it."
     "Ah!" she said, softly, looking tenderly in my eyes.  "I
didn't know that.  Lee, I have something to prove to you, but
you'll have to come to my house."  
     I broke the clinch, and let the suspicion show.  "New
rules?" I asked.  "I told you, I'm not going to wear any of that
stuff again.  That's what this is *for."*
     "Same rules," she replied steadily.  I started to shake my
head.  "If you don't agree," she told me, "I'm going to go down
to the Stop'n'Rob, buy a pack of cigarettes, and do six more." 
She held out her wrist.
     "Why?" I asked, bewildered.
     She smiled again, slightly, her eyes still brilliant with
tears.  "Well, if it hurts you as much as those," and she nodded
toward the burns on my arm, "hurt me, then it should help you out
even more.  If pain is what you're after."
     "I ... this is insane!" I exploded.
     "I agree completely," she said fervently.  "Are you coming?"
     "No!  Y-you wouldn't!"  But she *had.*  She just shrugged,
and knelt to gather the shirt and pants she'd dropped.  I sat
down abruptly, feeling the chill, and hugged my knees to my chin. 
"I don't understand!" I spat, in exasperated staccato.
     "Lee," she said, softly, urgently, "I want you to come to my
house.  I want to show you something about yourself that you
don't believe, and that you won't find pleasant, but that will
give you a great deal of peace, once you know it.  I promise you
... I *promise* you that you'll understand, but I can't explain
it here.  You have too *many* defenses, Lee.  We have to go back
to the very basics."  I was wavering.  Stupid.  I'd figured
everything out, and now she was just messing up my head again. 
"I love you, Lee."  Damn it!  I nodded.  "Go put on some clothes,
then, all right?  You'll need something to wear home."
     I sighed.  "You may as well come inside, then."  A thought
occurred to me.  "Oh.  I don't have any p-pa  ... any underwear." 
I glanced at her, shame-faced.  "I, umm, threw everything away."
     "Hmm.  I should have guessed.  In the dumpster?"  I nodded. 
She gestured me inside, finished picking up clothes, and followed
me.  Good, then.  At least she wouldn't make me crawl around in
the trash and recover them.  I started for the bedroom.  Heard
her breath catch.  "Lee.  What's that on the table?"
     I gulped.  "A needle.  Umm, I can ... can I explain later?"
     "I *read* those stories, Lee," she said, looking at me. 
Gods, she was furious!  "Do you have any more?"
     I strangled on admitting, "In the bathroom."  She went that
way; I went into the bedroom.  I wanted a minute or two alone,
anyway.  I heard her rummage around in the bathroom, then the
sound of plastic breaking.  Oh, well.  I could probably get more. 
Then she was out the door, and I let myself think.
     Go through with this?  That meant the dress, didn't it?  Or
was that rule suspended?  Hey, wait a minute!  This was an
invitation!  Ka-WHAM went my heart.  I jerked to my feet, paced
jerkily for a moment.  She probably hadn't thought about that
part.  But it *was* an invitation, and if I didn't trust her some
ways, still, I had an idea that when I pointed it out, she'd
agree with me.  I grabbed clothes.  Hmm.  Let her do what she
liked.  In fact, I could probably even appear in public dressed
like Little Bo-Peep, once, and claim that it was a joke, or a
bet, or something.  *This* time, there was a reward.  Yes, ma'am!
     She was coming in the front door when I came out of the
bedroom.  "What's in there?" she asked, pointing at the bag under
the table by the door.  I laughed, and she looked at me,
startled.
     "That's, umm, stuff ready to bring to your house," I
replied, smiling.  "Makeup, perfume, a nightie, stuff like that." 
 I grinned.  "I forgot about it," I confessed.
     "What brought on this remarkable change of mood?" she asked
me, picking up the bag to hand to me.  "Not that I object," she
added.
     I considered waiting, but then decided ... she was fair-
minded.  "This counts as an invitation, doesn't it?"
     She stared at me, a little blankly.  "Is that all it takes
to make you happy, Lee?"  She shook her head, then laughed
herself.  "Yes, it's an invitation.  Do you have clothes for
tomorrow?  And are you bringing your car, or are you getting up
earlier than usual so I can drive you somewhere?"

     The glitter faded a bit when we got to her house.  For one
thing, she had a garbage bag in her trunk.  When I asked, she
grinned impishly, wrinkled her nose at me, and said that someone
had thrown all these nice clothes away, so she was going to go
through and see if anything was salvageable.  I started to object
that they were mine, but saw the trap early enough, and grumpily
lugged it to her door.  They were anybody's, once they were
thrown away, of course.  Then, as we approached the door, I began
to get cold feet.  I stopped just outside her door, looked at
her.  She looked sympathetic, but firm.  "Go easy!" I pleaded,
flushing.  Then I took a deep breath and stepped inside.  One
small step for a ... oh, never mind.
     "Don't put the dress on just yet, all right?  In fact, if
you want, you can leave without doing that part, if you're not
ready for it.  Put that bag on the balcony, would you?"  She
disappeared into the bedroom.  I took a steadying breath, moved
the bag.  Then wondered what to do.  Well, the bedroom, probably.
     There was some stuff on the bed.  My Calvin Kleins, a pair
of tights, and a slightly ragged black leotard that she sometimes
wore to work out in.  She was rummaging through books on the top
of her bookshelf, and looked very appealing, stretched out like
that.  I stood and admired the view until she noticed me.
     "Voyeur," she said fondly.  "Go ahead and put that on, all
right?  It's pretty vanilla, you know.  You could wear it to the
local health club and not get an eyebrow raised."  She glanced
back at me, giggled.  This was more like the woman I remembered. 
"I've got a leotard for you, and *much* sexier lingerie than
those awful things--why'd you buy them anyway?  I thought you
didn't like cotton.  Anyway, *that* outfit is about as sexy as a
dishrag, and that's important for what I want to show you."
     "Why can't I just wear my clothes, then?" I asked her,
moving to the bed and  beginning, obediently, to disrobe.  It was
a lot easier this time, I noted.  I snuck a glance at her chair,
and sure enough, the dress was there, but it didn't seem so
intimidating this time.  I thought I could at least put it on
without help.  Maybe not quickly, but myself.
     "Partly because I won't let you wear men's clothes in my
house.  The other reason you'll find out about soon enough."  She
got down a fat book, and a couple of tall, thin ones.  I couldn't
see what they were.  She caught me trying, and admonished, "No
peeking!  Come on, I'll be in the living room."
     I pulled on the clothes she'd laid out.  Her leotard was a
little small for me.  Worse, I'd gotten a little aroused putting
it on, and that was very visible.  I waited for the swelling to
go down, and the padded out into the living room.  She was
sitting on the couch, next to the table.  Looked up, with a
smile, as I came in, and patted the couch next to her.  I managed
to check out the book this time.  Mark Twain?  Why Mark Twain?
     She set it aside as I sat down.  "Okay," she said, digging
through the stack, then turning to look at me.  "Hmm.  Let's get
the fear out in the open first, shall we?"  She pulled out a
book.  Joy of Sex.  I rolled my eyes slightly.  How-To for
Hippies.  She turned it so I couldn't see it, and leafed through
it.  Then she stopped, and flopped it down on my knees.  "What do
you think?" she asked, brightly.  Woman goes down on man.
     I grimaced slightly.  That had been a sore point, early on
in the relationship.  "You know I don't like it, Nancy.  I'm
sorry, but I don't."
     She left it there, a smile hovering on her lips.  Finally,
"I know.  Now look at your lap."
     Look at my lap?  "It's still there, I reported."  She
grinned, took the book back.  Flipped some more.  Didn't find
what she wanted.  Pulled out another book.  Giggled when she
found it.
     "Here's another nice picture," she said.  Umm.  Rear entry,
wrong hole.  I looked, and shrugged.  "Your lap?"
     "What's with my lap?" I asked.  She grinned, took the book
back.  Dropped How-To for Hippies on my knees again.  My favorite
picture, as it happens: man kneeling, woman standing.  Stir,
throb, throb, throb.  "Umm, okay, I get it.  Was that all?"
     She leaned forward, kissed me.  "That's just the start,
darling."  Sat back.  "I'm glad the idea still turns you on.  Can
we agree that wearing that particular outfit, we have a fairly
obvious barometer to what you like and what you don't like?"
     "Wait a minute!" I protested.  "Sexy pictures turn me on. 
So if you hand me a lingerie catalog, you won't prove anything. 
That is, you won't prove that I like *wearing* it.  I told you,
it's stimulating, but that *doesn't* mean I like it."
     Her smile didn't fade.  "Get up, walk around, and come back
when you're flaccid again, all right?"
     So I did, and as soon as I sat down, she started reading to
me.  "Next morning I said it was getting slow and dull, and I
wanted to get a stirring up, some way."  Huckleberry Finn,
Chapters X and XI.  You can read it yourself.  It's where Huck
dresses up like a girl.  She was watching me as she read, and I
tried to hold off, but ... well, when she finished, she wrinkled
her nose, giggled excitedly, and said, "*Sexy* story, huh?"
     I glared.  "Now that I know what you're looking for, you
could probably read me *anything* and I'd react," I retorted,
angry and ashamed.
     "Bet you wouldn't," she said, and immediately dropped a book
on my lap.  Two men.  She started reading something out of
another magazine, which I guess some people would find pretty
hot--it went with the picture--and I cut her off.
     "That's sick!" I said.
     She looked at me a little oddly.  "No, it isn't.  But it
isn't *your* cup of tea, is it?"  She touched my hip.  I glanced
down, but I already knew.  Instant deflation.
     "So what have you proved?" I asked, belligerently.
     "Do you really think it's 'sick?'" she asked.  It was a
serious question, I discovered.
     I sighed.  "No.  It's just ... like you said.  Since I
always had this *compulsion,* I was always sorta afraid that that
was what it meant, I guess."
     She touched my cheek.  "Lee," she said, still very serious,
"if you don't know who you are, you'll always be afraid of what
you might be, if you dared look.  Once you know, you'll find it's
maybe not such a horrible thing as you thought.  That's what this
is about.  Know thyself."
     I gulped, nodded, looked away.  It made a disturbing amount
of sense.  "What if ... what if it *is* as bad as I think?" I
asked in a low voice.
     "Then you'll at least have a *reason* for suicide.  Don't
you think it's a bit cowardly to die rather than face the truth
about yourself?" she snapped.  That was her top sergeant voice.
     I actually sat and thought about that one.  And breathed a
huge sigh.  "Okay.  You're right."
     I won't bore you with the rest of that demonstration.  It
went on for a couple of hours.  She showed me pictures, read me
things.  Eventually, she went and got some stuff made of
different fabrics, and rubbed them against my skin.  Different
things to smell, too.  She did an uncomfortable bit with
compliments, pointing out my physical responses to being called
various pleasant masculine and feminine adjectives.  It was all a
little much to take in.  The important part of it was that I
*was* taking it in.  She wasn't particularly surprised by any of
my responses.  And she didn't press me on them, either, or at
least on most of them.  Once more, betrayed by what I wrote.  She
had a really good idea of what my tastes were before she started.
     The end of the conversation was a little embarrassing,
though.  "Now, Lee, I want you to repeat after me.  Sex. 
Cunnilingus.  Lingerie.  Breast.  Cock.  Vagina.  Panties."
     "P-p-pa  ...  P-panties," I forced out.
     "One 'p,'" she said gently, smiling.  "Panties."
     "P-p  ...  P-pa  ... Pa-panties!  Damn it!"  I was a
complete, brilliant red, and I had a throbbing, obvious erection.
     She went on.  More words.  After that, some of them seemed
downright silly.  I even laughed, at one point, repeating "Peter
Piper," and "She sell seashells."  She picked up her books, and
read some sentences.  Then, "I like to wear soft, lacy
undergarments."
     "I ....  I won't say that!"
     "I like to give blow-jobs to passing strangers.  Say it."
     "What is this?  I like to give blow-jobs to passing
strangers," I repeated, flushing.
     She waited, looking pointedly at my lap.  Nothing happened. 
"I like to wear soft, lacy undergarments.  Say it."
     "I like t'wear soft, lacy underthings," I repeated, harshly. 
"Are you satisfied now?"  She stared at my lap until I gave up. 
"All right.  So I like it.  So what?"
     She sighed.  "Good question.  You think about it.  Does it
hurt anybody?  It doesn't even hurt you.  Just remember that you
*like* it, and quit claiming you're *compelled* to do it."  I
nodded, angrily.  "Lee," she said, in a much softer voice, "I
think you've been through the mill today.  Why don't you go home? 
You have one visit to my house, by invitation, whenever you wish
to call it that."  I gave her a wounded look, and she kissed me. 
"Oh, Lee!"  She sat back, and looked at me.  "I think, if you
think about this for a day or so, you might even be ready to
trust me.  To trust *somebody*, at any rate, and I'll hope it's
me.  Friday?  Don't have dinner, though.  And come here at 8:30."
     I was feeling rather irritated when I left.  All that
buildup, and no pay off, except "think about it."  Oh, I could
have pressed her on it, but I really *was* tired, my emotions
were in turmoil, and she looked pretty bedraggled herself.
     I went to bed rather confused.  The problem was that I
wanted something nice, something sexy to sleep in, and didn't
have it.  So I couldn't feel guilty about it.  But I didn't feel
guilty even about *thinking* about it, not really.  I thought
maybe I ought to, and started feeling guilty that I wasn't
feeling properly guilty, until I realized what I was doing. 
Well, that didn't stop me from feeling guilty, but I was so
involved in being confused I didn't have much attention to spare
for it.  Nor did the confusion clear up the next day, when I got
up and started to dress, and wistfully wished I hadn't thrown all
my multiple-p panties.  Which got me to thinking about *why* I
stuttered so comprehensively on that word.  Why even *thinking*
it made me have to walk with my fists in my pockets.  I had a
very thoughtful evening.  The Committee had a wild and woolly
conference.  Once I started *thinking,* or maybe a better word is
*feeling,* a lot of what I thought I knew about myself started
getting shaken loose.
     When I was in college, I used to tell people that I told
about my cross-dressing that I only wore underthings, and only
silky ones.  Because of the *feel* of them.  It was, so to speak,
merely sex, merely a quirk ('And I can stop any time I really
want to').  Sex is neat, sex is fun, sex brings joy to everyone. 
Even then, however, I'd had to admit that it wasn't just that. 
Thing was, I didn't just wear them to jack off.  I'd only gotten
the guts to wear them under my clothes in public fairly recently. 
Why did I *want* to, though, if it was just sex?  I don't jerk
off in public!
     Well, the whole 'sissy' bit, maybe.  I mean, they made me
feel nice.  Feel, I dunno, pretty.  No, that's not it. 
*Attractive.*  That made it palatable.  I wanted to be
attractive, and that was what I was attracted to.  Yes.  That was
it.  I was sure of it.  I was *so* attracted to women, that I
wanted something of theirs with me all the time.  No, wait,
that's a different argument, leave that one alone.  Right.  Just
... attractive.  I wanna be attractive, and so I dress in a way
to attract me.  Does that make any sense?  Yes!  Sure it does! 
It *has* to be something like that!
     Just stop thinking about those chapters from Huck Finn,
then, the Codger advised me.

     I didn't have all of this worked out by Friday, though.  I
dunno, it's a lot harder to work through than to tell.  What
*did* happen on Friday is that I went shopping.  So that  when I
showed up at Nancy's door, and got my kiss of greeting, she
pulled back and exclaimed, "You're wearing perfume!  Where did
you get it?"
     I grinned, a little excited.  "I bought it.  I think it's
more, umm, my style, than the other."
     She inhaled again, then frowned.  "Maybe.  Maybe something a
little more flowery.  Delicate."  I drew back a little.  She
chuckled.  Oops.  "Maybe I'll find you something," she said,
whimsically.  "Do you need help getting dressed?"
     I shook my head, working up my courage.  "W-will you help me
with m-my m-makeup?"  Blushing again.  She nodded.
     It wasn't hard to slip into an outfit that had left me a
quivering heap of terror only days before.  It still leeched all
my courage, so that by the time I was dressed, looking mournfully
at my bare, male face in the mirror, I felt very small, and quite
silly.  "Sooner or later," the Pessimist whispered, "she's going
to get tired of a man that isn't much of one.  Enjoy it while it
lasts."  The Committee held a quick meeting, decided that the
Pessimist was right, and gave me orders to be a little better
prepared for the breakup, this time.  I agreed to watch for the
signals.
     So I was once again prim and proper when she put on my
makeup, though this time she demanded that I watch, and learn.  I
did so, with a rather heavy heart.  When she had finished, and
had put my hair up (and given me a kiss when she discovered that
I was wearing the butterflies; I'd put them on in the car), she
hugged me strongly, and said, "Umm, is it the dress that makes
you so adorably submissive?"  I blushed instead of answering.
     "Lee, go wait in the living room.  I need to change," she
said, stepping back.
     I glanced at her.  Literally starting where we had left off,
apparently.  Stood, and marched out.  Well, maybe not marched. 
It's hard to march in pink shoes with white satin bows.  It just
doesn't come off.  I stopped to marvel at myself in the
mirror--it was the same odd mixture, of girl-face and boy-body,
in girl-clothes--and then glanced guiltily at the bedroom door
and hurried to the living room.
     There wasn't anything there, to speak of.  I mean, just the
usual stuff.  So I flopped down, and remembered that one doesn't
flop in a dress, and sat properly.  And waited.  And waited.  She
was taking a hell of a long time, I realized anxiously.  I was
getting more and more tense.  I could *probably* pull this off. 
Was she taking so long so that it would be dark when we went out
to the car?  It occurred to me, then, that I wasn't really
obligated to go *anywhere* in a dress.  I mean, she had said,
'When you cross the threshold,' or something very similar.
     I had worked myself into a minor panic, and the Committee
had convened a meeting to discuss the legalities involved, based
on the rules she had given me, when she finally appeared in the
living room.  She was completely stunning.  She's a sort of dirty
blonde, who usually dresses down, and doesn't attract much
notice.
     She'd attract a *lot* of notice in a tight red dress.  It
*screamed* notice.  Black fishnet stockings.  Black high heels. 
She didn't usually wear much makeup, but she had on lipstick and
nail polish that exactly matched the shade of her dress.  And
somehow, in piling her hair up on top of her head, she'd made it
look much blonder, more golden.  She *oozed* sex appeal.
     "Wow!" I said.  I couldn't manage anything else.  She hadn't
dressed like that even the time I took her to the fanciest
restaurant in town.  Well, it might not have been appropriate.
     "Do you like it?" she asked, and twirled.  "It'll certainly
draw attention, won't it?"  Whoof!  I felt as if I'd been
sandbagged.  I didn't *want* attention.  I nodded.  "Are you
ready, then?" she asked.  I swallowed heavily.  Nodded again,
tensely.  "Stand up and let me look at you."  I stood.  She
motioned, and I did a pirouette.  Turned back to face her, and
forgot about keeping a stiff upper lip.  I gave her an agonized
look.  "Good.  I think we're ready then.  What do you like on
your pizza?"
     "On my ...."  I stared.
     "Mushrooms and ham, right?  Why don't you call?"
     I felt a bit light-headed.  Took a step toward the phone.  I
kept my eyes on her the whole time.  Dialled.  Ordered, rather
confusedly.  Hung up the phone.  She had kept her eyes on me, a
tiny smile playing on her lips.  When I hung up the phone, I
finally broke eye contact, and stared at it.
     She burst out laughing, and then she was hugging me, "Oh,
good, good, good girl!  Oops!  Good boy, I mean.  Sissy. 
Whatever!"  She pulled back, and I stared, as she chuckled and
wiped tears from her eyes.  "You *did* it!"
     "Was ...."  This was simply not possible.  "Is that what you
meant to do on Tuesday?  Order a *pizza?*  You *said* 'go out!'"
     She laughed again, and stroked my cheek.  "Tuesday I was
going to run down to the deli and bring back sandwiches.  But
*Tuesday,* you went into a panic.  Now.  Am I going to do
anything to hurt you?"  She turned her wrist out, to show the
cigarette burn.  I blanched.
     "W-why are you dressed like *that* for pizza?"
     Chuckle.  "I'm going to go change again.  I bought this
dress for a special occasion, and this isn't it.  I'm sorry to
tease you, love, but Tuesday you worked yourself into a panic
very quickly.  You were upset, of course, but so was I.  That
didn't make me want to humilate you in public, though."  She gave
me a rather hurt glance, "*Or* to call you names.  So I needed to
get you tense, and this seemed like the best way to do it. 
That's why I sent you home Wednesday, too.  You were too tired to
be anxious."
     "W-*why?"*  I was a bit shrill, I suppose.  "I mean ... why
did you have to, to get me anxious?  And, and upset, and
*scared?*  Are you going to tell me I liked *this,* too?"
     "No," she replied, so quietly and soberly that I paid
careful attention.  "Because if I had asked you to, you would
have walked out the door with me, trusting me to keep you safe. 
Wouldn't you?"  I looked toward the hall, looked back at her, and
my eyes filled with tears.  I nodded.  "Trust," she finished,
simply.  Then shook herself.  "Relax.  I've got to change again."
     I sat back on the couch.  Well, I suppose it was important. 
I thought about it.  She came back, a bit later, dressed in a
style more typically her: indian print skirt and soft blouse. 
She distracted me quite nicely by having me take her hair down,
put it up again, and take it down.  I was unpinning it the second
time when the doorbell rang.  "Do you want to get that, or should
I?" she asked, mirthfully, and at my stricken look, chuckled and
kissed me on the cheek.
     We went to the kitchen, and she got out a pair of plates and
forks.  I sighed.  I like to *munch* pizza.  She always ate hers
that way, neatly.  I looked down at my dress, then, and grinned
wryly.  But after a couple of pieces, I discovered that I wasn't
hungry any more.
     "Don't you want any more?" she asked, noticing.  I usually
ate my half and part of hers.  Two and a half pieces was
definitely off my feed.
     I shook my head, shrugged.  "Not hungry.  Too much ... too
much has happened, maybe."
     "Well, clean your plate, at least."  I gave her a disgusted
and slightly resentful look, an 'I'm not a baby,' look.  "Momma
spank," she warned, teasingly.
     "Is that a promise?" I muttered, too soft for her to hear,
and cut off another piece.  Pizza's a rather unpleasant food,
when you don't feel like eating.  When I looked up a moment
later, with a sour look, my jaws froze in mid bite.  Her eyes
were gleaming, speculatively.  Maybe *not* too soft for her to
hear.
     She let me finish before she said anything, though.  "You
*can't* ever have been spanked in a dress, Lee.  Why is that in
so many of the stories?"
     "I, uhh ..."  I shifted uncomfortably, and then froze. 
After that two-hour long discussion, she'd know what that
discomfort was, quite exactly.  And she had read me some bondage
stuff, and some genuinely hardcore stuff, as well.  I stared at
her, feeling a bit like a mouse with the cat in sight.  Look, I
have a *lot* of fantasies, but that doesn't mean I necessarily
want to find out about them in real life!  Do I?  Don't use that
argument, Leeling, the Professor advised.  "It's just a plot
device," I lied glibly.  I should say, the Champion Liar did.  He
didn't get involved in Committee work, much, and tended to take
over my mouth when I least expected it.  "Since the guy is always
against it, he has to be made to, uhh ....  You don't believe
me."
     "Well, you're lying aren't you?" she asked, perfectly
calmly.
     "Umm, yeah, I guess."
     She chuckled.  "Well, if you hadn't earned a spanking for
burning the dinner, you certainly earned one for lying, didn't
you?"  She stood, and held out a hand.  I let her pull me to my
feet, and trailed her to the bedroom.  "Bend over, and lift your
skirt."  Was that another quote?
     I hesitated.  "You're not really going to, are you?" I
asked.  "I mean, you were talking about, uhh, trust, and all."
     She looked at me, still with that gleam in her eye.  "You'll
never find out if you like it or not if you don't try it, Lee. 
Now.  You've been very naughty.  Let's see."  She began to tick
off on her fingers.  "Burning dinner.  Hurting yourself. 
Throwing away perfectly good clothes.  Talking back.  And now
disobedience.  You better get yourself bent over my knee in a
hurry, or you may *really* not like it."  I blushed, and fumbled
with the skirt, and awkwardly obeyed.  On my knees, over her lap,
with my head turned away from the mirror and carefully not quite
in contact with her leg.  No reason to let her know I was aroused
already.
     Oops.  Damn, I kept forgetting.  She *read* those stories. 
She wiggled, and then she had my legs trapped between hers, and
my erection was pressing hard into one thigh.  Through a layer of
nylon, another of satin, and another of cotton, true, but
nevertheless, quite obvious.  "Turn your head to face the
dresser, Lee," she ordered me.  "I want you to see it coming."
     I turned my head and flinched convulsively.  My eyes had
gotten enormous, increasing the illusion of prettiness; my legs
and my lack of, err, mammalian hypertrophy were quite nicely
concealed by my position.  The back of my skirt was up around my
waist, revealing pink ruffled p-p-p  you-knows, and I looked, and
felt, helpless.  And girlish?  Was that the timid little voice
telling me, "You have to be brave?"
     "What pretty panties, Lee!  Such a pity no one can see
them."  She patted my bottom, and I writhed.  Raised her hand. 
Heh.  Hardly more than a pat.  My bottom tingled, though.  She
*stroked* me, and I couldn't help it, I wiggled again.  Spank.  A
little harder.  That one really did tingle slightly.  Stroke. 
Whimper.  No, she didn't whimper, someone else did.  Me?  Don't
be ridi   Spank!  Ooh!  It didn't *hurt,* you understand, but ...
Stroke.  Whimper.  Okay, I admit it, it was ... Spank!  Moan.  I
bit my lips.  Stroke.  Did you know you can make some awfully
interesting noises while biting your lips?
     *Spank!*  Stroke.  My face was turning rosy pink, to match
the dress, I noticed a few minutes later.  I was gasping, between
making inarticulate noises, and bucking against her knee at each
stroke.  I'd lost count.  SPANK! moan, *stroke,* whimper, SPANK!
moan, *stroke,* whimper!  The watching was nearly as arousing as
the spanking.
     "Y-you've been very naughty, h-haven't you, Lee?"  SPANK! 
Moan.  Stroke.  "Haven't you?"
     "Mm-yeess!"
     "Y-you l-lied to me, didn't you?"  Was her voice trembling,
too?
     I nodded frantically.  This *was* a punishment; you have to
understand that.  I didn't hurt, but I was in *torment,* I needed
*release,* and she was slowly SPANK!  "Yes!  Yes!  I lied!  Don't
*do* that!  Don't ... nngghh!"  That was the stroke, over my now
achingly sensitive bottom, and I nearly went into convulsions of
pleasure.  I turned to face her.  "G-gods!  D-don't *stop!"*
     She bit her lip, and pushed me to my feet.  "G-go to the
living room, Lee, and *wait* for me."
     I stared.  "B-b-but ..." I began.
     "Is it sore?" she asked, slipping a hand under my skirt and
smiling smokily.  She caught her breath.  "G-go."
     I went, confused.  Stopped at the mirror in the hall, and
was so aroused from the spanking that I couldn't even find the
strength to condemn myself.
     "L-lee!  Come here!"
     Like a shot!  I clattered back into the bedroom, heels loud
on the floor, and stopped as if shot.  She was standing a couple
feet from the foot of the bed, between it and the door--right in
front of me!--wearing nothing but a black g-string, a garter belt
and fishnet stockings, high heels--and a confident smile.  She
stood, posed like that, just long enough for the image to etch
itself indelibly in my brain, and then she was kissing me. 
Pushing me onto the bed, and I writhed at the pressure against my
sensitized ass.  Taking the lead, pinning my arms, pushing my
skirt out of the way, and then nylon-over-cock brushed nylon-
over-bush.  Once.  Twice.  Three times and ... explosion!  Her
mouth fastened to mine, her body trembling as the shock waves
went through it, and me moaning into her throat and bucking like
a bronco.
     Passing into the golden afterglow.  We lay there, entangled
in ... well, in my dress, okay?  The guilt woke up, at that, and
pounced, and I groaned with the shame of what I had just done.
     She sat up, still straddling me, and keeping my hands
captured in hers.  "Little sissy," she said, deliberately, and
waited until I turned my eyes back to face her again.  "Little
sissy," she repeated, reprovingly, "I didn't give you permission
to come.  And you've made a mess of your dress.  You need a
spanking."
     Impossible!  I flushed, opened my mouth to plead with her,
and stopped.  She'd moved, and drawn my attention to something. 
I looked down at where our laps were separated by two layers of
nylon and about a centimeter of air, refusing to believe it.
     Throb.  Could I deserve a spanking for wanting one?  My eyes
flashed back to hers.  She was waiting for that, and lowered
herself, slowly, to kiss me voluptuously.  "Are you going to
waste time denying it?" she whispered then.  "Or hating yourself
for it?  Or shall we ... investigate the possibilities?"
     I shuddered, half in pleasure, half in fear at the vistas
that were opening.  Swallowed, and whispered back, "I'm a
researcher."

     It still wasn't easy to wake up in a frillier negligee than
my girlfriend, the next morning.  But when she asked, "Are you
going to stay the weekend?" it wasn't at all difficult to decide.

                                   Trust
                          Part 4: Tables Turning

     That winter remains in my memory as cold, miserable, and
gray, although it was probably little different, physically, from
any other winter.  But as spring bloomed into freshness and
beauty, so--at least in the emotional sense--did I.  There was
always a lurking fear, though.  "Sooner or later," the Pessimist
would whisper, and the joy would go out of whatever it was we
were doing.  We ended up doing a *lot* together.
     Nancy set the tone, a light-hearted one.  Take the weekend
after what we started to refer to as "The" pizza.  She'd told me
that I was going to learn to cook properly, so I arrived on a
Friday evening, a bit trepidatious.  There was a sign up over the
kitchen door.  "Kitchen Anthrax."
     "Thanks," I said, sourly, smoothing my skirt nervously, and
nodding at the sign.  It wasn't the famous pink dress; I didn't
see that again for quite a while.  "I'm not *that* dangerous."
     She gave me an odd look, then burst out laughing.  Refused
to explain why.  Once she had me slaving over a hot stove, she
said she had to run an errand, and left.  I didn't destroy
dinner, mostly by luck, and after we finished eating, she drew me
into the living room.  Put a tape in the VCR.
     Monty Python and the Holy Grail?  Well, okay.  I *still*
didn't get the joke, even when Sir Galahad was in Castle Anthrax. 
Nancy waited until the line, "First the spanking, then the oral
sex!" and froze the movie, then turned to me.
     "First the pizza, then the spanking," she said.
     I caught my breath, crossed my legs--and blushed when she
made a point of noticing me cross my legs.

     Or she played these nervous-making tricks on me, always in
such a way that I couldn't resent it.  For instance, she started
dropping by my office occasionally, when she knew I had office
hours, and she was out of her office for whatever reason.  She
was a translator, did I mention that?  Well, it just meant that
she often had to go places to pick up or drop off translations,
or find obscure dictionaries, and sometimes even do simultaneous
interpreting.  Well, one afternoon, in March I think--at any
rate, after she had convinced me to shave my legs, but that's
another story--she showed up in my office, with some packages.
     "Hi, sweetie!" she greeted me.  "I've been out spending your
money."  That's another story, too, but suffice it to say that
she had spent money on my wardrobe, I had started to spend more
and more time at her house, and so on, so she had charge of a big
chunk of my finances.  Well, all right, all of them.  I had an
allowance, though.  "Stand up, and try this on.  Does your door
lock?"  It did.  She locked it.
     "Nancy!  Come on, I have office hours?  What if somebody
comes?"  But I was standing up.  *Really* nice skirt.  Slim, in a
sort of pale rose.  She said I looked nice in pink, and I think
she was trying to make sure that I was aware when I was wearing
feminine stuff.  Oh, hell, that's not really the point.  I *like*
pink.
     "Oh, I wouldn't do that to you," she said, disconcerting me
further.  "Go on, try it.  I want to see if it fits.
     So, breathing fast, I kicked off my shoes, stepped out of my
pants and into a skirt.  In my *office.*  I was already wearing
panties, a garter belt, and white lace stockings.  Well, trust
Nancy to be prepared.  She had a new pair of shoes, too.  White
heels, a bit taller than what I was used to.  So I put them on.
     "What do you think?" she asked, brightly.
     I stepped back and forth, to make the skirt swirl, and to
listen to the sounds of the heels.  "It's nice," I finally
managed.  It was a good fit, too.
     "Nice?" she asked, pouting.  "It's *perfect.*  You look
adorable!  Turn around, I want to look at your bottom some more." 
I turned, and wiggled at her.  Lightening the situation, you
understand.  "It goes better with your jacket than these pants
do," she said.  Then, "Here, try this one, too."
     A gray skirt, slightly shorter, with pleats.  Sort of
purplish, under the gray.  My jacket was an expensive camels'
hair thing, that I'd bought when I got my appointment.  This
time, when I pulled the skirt on, she frowned.  "It is sort of
hideous with this jacket, isn't it?" I commented.  Strange to see
two grays clash.  They did, though.  My taste was improving.
     "That's *awful,"* she said.  "And it isn't even the right
size."  She frowned, but the grin kept slipping through.  I
recognized it.  She was about to spring something on me.  "And it
was on sale, too.  I'll have to exchange it today.  Do you want
to come with me?"
     "You set this up!" I accused her.  "And no, I don't.  You'll
ask me if I want to try it on, like last time."  We'd gone
shopping once, and ended up having a terrible fight, because she
insisted on holding things up to measure against me, and then had
even asked me if I wanted to try one on!  Loud enough for the
cashier to hear, I was sure.  I'd been so angry that I'd caught a
bus home.  Fortunately, according to the rules she had set up,
she agreed that I didn't have to go trying dresses on in stores
in order to see her again.  It took some fast talking, though. 
That was at the beginning of March.
     "All right, then," she said, with a big smile.  "But I'll
need either your jacket or your pants to match colors with."
     I stamped my foot in anger.  Looked down in confusion.  I
hadn't quite expected to make a womanish sound.  In fact, I'd
picked up that habit, of stamping my feet, putting my hands on my
hips, and glaring, at Nancy's house.  She chuckled.  "You *know*
I can't give you my jacket," I complained.  She nodded, her eyes
dancing.
     I suppose I should explain that.  On what would have been
our first anniversary, if we hadn't broken up--Valentine's Day,
that is--we'd given each other remarkably similar presents. 
Well, she knew me pretty well, so she probably knew what I was
going to give her.  Flowers, candy, and sexy lingerie.  In this
case, a bra-panties-garterbelt set (in red and black, to match
the dress she'd worn for The pizza, which I desperately wanted to
see her in again).  Maybe it was telepathy, since I could equally
well have bought her a negligeee, or something, but she gave me a
matching set--same cut and everything, from the same store, only
mine were pink and white.
     So we'd smelled the flowers, and then we made a romantic
little arrangement with them both in the same vase, intertwined
with one another, and stolen candy, giggling, from one another. 
Modelling our lingerie.  Then, however, she wanted to take me to
dinner, and she wanted us both to wear our presents.  It made me
horribly nervous.  I was wearing a white shirt with my jacket.  I
usually did.  The pink was visible.  I'd worked up my nerve to
ask, "Please, Nancy, I'm afraid to go out in a bra.  Look.  You
can *see* it!"
     "You're right," she said, looking carefully, and surprising
me.  I was greatly relieved.  I pulled off jacket and shirt, and
was struggling with the bra, when she came back from her bedroom
with a dark blue silk blouse.  "Nobody'll see the sleeves, if you
keep your jacket on."
     Well, I gave in.  But I didn't have much fun during dinner. 
I was sure that the lines of the bra showed through the jacket. 
She'd noticed, of course, and a couple of days later, she gave me
a handful of bras.  Which, she said, I should wear whenever I was
wearing panties.
     I refused.  For one thing, she'd traded me about half of my
old collection of panties back, in exchange for my boy underwear,
which she'd destroyed.  I only *had* a couple pairs of boy
underwear left, and I didn't *dare* wear them to her house.  They
were too likely to disappear, and at that point I thought that
there would be times when I *had* to have them.  In fact, that
was the first time, after the time I burned dinner, that I took
the boy-clothes option and went home.
     It was also the only victory I won.  I went back two days
later, armed with pictures and some new purchases.  I didn't
start arguing as soon as I walked in the door, and in fact I
changed into the bra that she had laid out for me, before I sat
down to show her some things.  I felt a bit silly, which was what
I'm sure she intended by laying out a sheer white blouse to go
with the pink bra.  I was also a little warmed, though, that she
had laid out my Valentine's underthings.
     The pictures I showed her were of business and professional
women, wearing jackets, but in every picture, the bra straps and
ridges were visible.  That set her to frowning slightly.  And
then I offered a compromise.  I laid out the three blouses I'd
bought.  She'd given me the idea herself.  I'd found blouses that
mimicked men's dress shirts from collar to waist.  One of them
was a bodysuit.  All of them, though, were obviously feminine,
but in a manner that was *covered* when I put on my jacket.  I
suggested that I could get more of them, and replace my dress
shirts with them.  She had agreed, although she had made the
further condition that I wear a bra at her house.  Which turned
out to be okay ... oh, we're being honest here, aren't we.  Well,
it happened to be another thing that turned me on.  I don't have
very sensitive nipples, but the brush of nylon over them for a
few hours could actually make them reasonably responsive.  And I
like the straps.
     Well, but I was hoist by my own petard.  The day that Nancy
brought me the skirts, I was wearing a back-buttoned blouse with
a false front placket and puff sleeves.  It had a belt, too, but
the belt gave the game away, so I didn't wear it.  "Nancy," I
said, with exaggerated patience, "if I take off my jacket, I look
like I'm wearing a blouse.  Right?"  I slipped it down my
shoulders, to make the sleeves visible.  I wasn't about to *give*
it to her.  I was trying to figure out how to make her give me
the pants back.  "And I can hardly meet students wearing a
skirt!"  I grabbed a couple handfuls of skirt and flipped it at
her.  "That is, unless you've decided to make a fool of me and
dump me," I blurted, then bit my lip.  I was pretty sure that
that was what she would eventually do, but there was no point in
giving her ideas, and she didn't like it when I said things like
that.
     This time, though, she ignored that outburst.  She looked
around my office.  My desk was in the exact center of the room,
facing the door, with a couch and a chair for students facing it,
beside the door.  She walked up to the desk, leaned down, and
banged on the front of it.  "Do you know what this is?  It's
called a modesty panel.  So nobody can look up a secretary's
skirt."  She smiled winsomely.  "Or a professor's.  All you have
to do is sit behind your desk, and nobody will know, will they?"
     I walked around the desk ... tap, tap, tap, went the heels,
and you walk different in heels, and it made me uncomfortable to
be doing it somewhere outside Nancy's house ... and looked. 
"They'll see my shoes," I argued.  "And my ankles," I added,
hastily, since shoes just meant she'd give me back mine.  Lace
stockings don't much resemble socks, though.
     She smiled.  My heart fell.  She'd been in my office before. 
She walked around to my chair and sat down, feet under the desk. 
"Sit down and tell me what you see," she said.
     I sat.  Stewed.  "Nothing," I grumbled.  There was a
footrest attached to the inside of the modesty panel.
     She gave me one of those heartbreakingly sweet smiles.  "Oh,
Lee, don't look so tragic!  You need a couple of nice office
skirts.  I know you; you're going to be making a lump in your
skirt the whole time, especially if some cute little
undergraduate comes in to sob her heart out over your cruelty. 
No one will know but you, and you'll get a secret thrill from
sitting there, so professional on the surface, and so feminine
underneath!  Well?  Won't you?"
     I gulped.  It still made me nervous to admit this sort of
stuff to someone else.  Hell, I hadn't been able to admit it to
myself all that well, until recently.  I settled on a nod.
     "Then change skirts again, dear, so I can go exchange that
one.  And relax.  You told me nobody ever comes in on office
hours."   She took the tags out of the pink skirt for me.  I was
trembling when I sat down, and anxiously asked her to make sure
that nothing was visible, once I put my feet up.  Leaving, her
hand on the doorknob, she said, "Don't worry, Lee.  I'll be back
in a couple hours, and bring you some pants."  I missed that
phrasing.  She opened the door.  Trust my luck.  One of my more
attractive, and fluff-headed, students.  "Oh, sorry," Nancy said,
"we were just discussing what to do for dinner."  She looked at
me mischievously.  "Pizza then ... first?"
     I got my breath back a few minutes later and invited the
student, who looked a little puzzled, to sit down.  Nancy was
right, though.  I suppose I acted a bit distracted.  Every once
in a while, I'd shift, and feel the draft, and glance down; at
other moments I caught myself about to put my feet on the floor. 
I resolved to build a little wooden screen to go around the front
and sides of my desk.  The rest of the afternoon was uneventful.
     At five, Nancy called, laughing, to say she'd been delayed,
maybe an hour or so.  At six-fifteen, she called again to say she
was on her way, as soon as she finished up one last thing.  By
seven-thirty, when she finally arrived, I was in agony.  Not
emotional, this time.  But I seriously needed to go to the
bathroom.  I blew out an enormous sigh of relief when she showed
up, and then doubled over slightly.
     "Sorry I'm late," she said, cheerfully, then paused, looking
at me.  "Is something wrong?"
     "I hafta go t'the bathroom," I gritted.
     She burst out laughing.  I had to strangle my temper. 
"Well, come on, then," she said.  "You can change in the
bathroom."
     "Ngh!"  That was to emphasize the orders to the nerves that
controlled sphincters.  "Nancy, don't.  Please, just don't.  If
one of the other faculty, or even some student happened to be
there, I'd be out of a job.  So please just give me my pants,
okay?"
     She hesitated, frowning.  Then smiled.  "I'll keep guard for
you.  There's nobody in any of the offices on this hall, though,
I already checked."  She opened the door.  I hadn't managed to
pick one from the withering comments I'd thought of, when she
turned back to say, "Hall's clear.  I'll wait for you outside the
ladies' room."
     "I ... Nancy!"  I got to my feet, carefully, since I was
sloshing like an overloaded tanker.  The ladies' room?  Forget
it!  I stuck my head cautiously around the door, saw her at the
corner, and whispered fiercely, "Nancy!"  I *couldn't* shout.  I
heard her footsteps fading down the hall.
     "Damn, damn, damn, damn," I whispered, like a litany, as I
tried to tiptoe down the hall.  The heels seemed unnaturally
loud.  I slipped them off, and then it was a bit easier.
     She was there, outside the door, though.  I tried to glare
at her, but it might have just been a wounded look.  Slipped
inside, white-faced and shaking.  At least I'd learned how to pee
in a skirt--sitting, that is.  A pair of pants appeared over the
door of the stall.
     Women's pants, I discovered.  High-waisted, narrow-ankled,
and pleated, with the zipper in the back.  I finished, opened the
stall door, and found her by the sinks.  "Not funny, Nancy.  Can
I have my real pants, now?"
     "The sun is already going down, Lee," she said. 
"Everybody's gone somewhere off campus to eat dinner.  Nobody is
going to walk up to you, lift the skirts of your jacket, and look
at your pants."  She smiled.  "Or you could wear the skirt, if
you want.  You really *do* look adorable in it.  Where are your
shoes?"
     I exploded, at that.  "Damn it, I am *not* wearing heels
across campus!  You *took* my shoes.  Give me my damn shoes,
*and* my pants!"
     She lost her smile.  "I didn't take ... did I?"  I was too
angry to respond.  "Lee, if I took your shoes, they must be down
in the car.  I'm sorry about that.  I forgot.  If you're not
going to wear the heels, though, you should take off your
stockings, too.  You've already half-ruined them walking around
on these filthy floors."  Now I glared, and ground my teeth in
anger and frustration.  She returned a level gaze, and finally
spoke again.  "Lee, the campus is quiet now, but if you stay here
forever, sooner or later someone is going to come.  If you insist
on it, I'll go down to the car and get your pants, and your shoes
if they're there.  But I know you've wanted to do something a
little risky, and now's your chance.  Think of it as an
adventure, and trust me to keep you safe walking to the parking
lot.  Which is not 'across campus.'  If you want, I can give you
my bra, and we can find tissue to stuff it, and I'll fix your
hair, and you can try the whole thing.  But I think you'd be more
comfortable just getting your feet wet.  Well?"
     I released the anger in another enormous breath.  Thought
about it.  "How do you talk me into these things?" I asked, a bit
sullenly.  "Not a skirt, though."
     She waited until I was zipping the pants, and answered,
"Easy.  I let you do the talking."
     As a matter of fact, I got off on it like a rocket.  With
Nancy's hand around my waist, it wasn't as fearful as I had
expected, and I got a weird exultation out of sauntering, in high
heels and everything else, our hips bumping together as we
walked.  And conquered another fear.
     And we had pizza, too.  First the pizza, then the spanking,
then the outstanding, mind-numbing sex.  When we finally
collapsed together, into a perfumed, sweaty, satiated heap, she
mumured, "If that's what you're like after wearing heels in
public, I can't *wait* until I take you somewhere in a dress." 
Instead of reacting with fear and shame, I found the idea
intriguing.  It was a memorable day.
     There was only one blot on it.  As we were walking toward
the parking lot, high heels tapping in unison, there'd been a
football player, or an athlete of some sort, at any rate, off in
the distance.  Nancy nudged me with her hip, nodded his
direction, and commented, "Look at *that!*  What a monster!"  But
in an admiring tone of voice.  The Pessimist gave an "Aha!" and I
was a little quiet on the way home, until we stopped at the
carry-out pizza place.

     Shortly after that, we went shopping again.  A week, or two
weeks later, perhaps.  At Nancy's, there were some new rules;
she'd had me learn how to pseudo-gaff, or tuck, with a tight pair
of panties, and I did that for an hour each day, at first.  There
were walking, and makeup lessons, and bras started being less
interesting, because now sometimes I wore little water balloons
in them.  That started shortly after Heels Day, and I'd been
doing it for at least a week before she showed up in my office,
right after my Tuesday morning 8:00.  It was 9:30 or so.
     "You don't have office hours until one, do you?" she asked,
coming to sit on the edge of my desk.
     "No, why?"
     She got up, locked the door, and came back.  "Because you're
almost ready for an outing."  I paled.  I'd been thinking about
it, but it seemed like a truly enormous step.  "For that, I want
you to have a dress that's perfect--everything new, in fact. 
What I'd really like is to get you a corset.  But that means you
try things on.  *Everything."*
     "Nancy!" I objected.  "You *know* I can't do that!  What if
somebody from school saw me?  I think all the cashiers are
students!"
     "No they aren't," she assured me.  "It's really perfectly
safe.  There's a store that sells exotic lingerie in the mall at
the north end of town.  Hardly anybody from the University ever
goes that far.  We can get you a corset there.  We'll do the rest
of the shopping there as well.  Tuesday mornings are a really
quiet time for shoppers.  You'll see."
     "Oh, come on!  You can't be serious!"
     "Lee, you know I'm being serious, and you know that sooner
or later you'll give in.  Don't you?"  I blushed furiously, and
looked away.  "The only question is whether you want to try to
pass for femme while we're shopping, or whether you'd rather wear
what you've got on now."
     Which explains why, ten minutes later, I was in the back
seat of Nancy's car, pulling on the pink skirt.  She'd brought
earrings, my makeup, one of my bras, and the water balloons, too. 
The skirt and heels came from my office; I folded pants and
jacket and laid them aside.  Blouse, panties, and hose I wore
every day.
     When we got there, she fixed my makeup slightly, and let me
hold her hand, crushingly, sweatingly, as we walked inside.  I
suspect I looked terrified.
     First stop: the lingerie shop.  Corsets, to fit right, have
to be actually fitted.  So I expected to be discovered there. 
Nancy told the saleslady that I'd lost a bet to her, and then
wandered off while I was being fitted in a back room.  When I
came out, wearing what I'd worn in, though, she frowned, told the
saleslady I wanted to wear the corset home, and then, perfectly
openly, handed me a pair of panties she'd just bought, with a
matching tap pant and camisole.  "Tuck, while you're at it," she
told me.  And before I could even turn away from the amused grin
on the cashier's face, she handed me a pair of thigh high
stockings as well.
     It took me a while to come back out.  The panties were high-
cut, a size too small (that was deliberate) and palest pastel
pink, with scalloping and lace.  I thought about Serbian
atrocities, tucked, and started to pull them on.  Then I had to
stop again.  I think more Muslims got killed in my imagination,
trying to kill a simple reflex, than have died to date in Bosnia. 
It was hard, which made things difficult.  So to speak.
     My skirt no longer fit quite properly, either, I discovered. 
It was loose in the waist.  And I was more trembly than ever.  We
went to find a dress, next.  That was embarrassing.  The
saleslady, an older, matronly woman, approached as I was trying
to act ladylike and experienced, and asked, "Well, what can I do
for you ... ladies?"  With just the slightest pause.  "Is there
something I can show you?"
     Nancy giggled, and gushed, "Oh, you figured us out!  My
boyfriend lost a bet, so he has to be the wife for a week, and I
told him that means he has to look pretty."  I was gaping.  Nancy
*never* gushed, or acted quite this silly.  "Anyway," she
prattled, brushing down the back of my skirt, "I don't want to
keep loaning him my clothes for a whole *week,* and anyway, they
don't fit!  See?"  She tugged at my skirt, and I yelped and
grabbed.  Another giggle.  "I just think it's too bad it's only a
week, though," she finished, turning a wide-eyed stare on the
saleslady.  "He makes an awfully pretty girl, don't you think?"
     She gave me a sympathetic look.  I finally reacted.  I
blushed and looked away.  "Girl," the saleslady said, a bit
severely, "you're going to lose him if you keep embarrassing him
like this.  Your bet didn't include anything outside the house,
now did it?  And you've dragged him down here to try on dresses,
just because you're too selfish to let him borrow yours."
     "But I'm buying them!" Nancy protested, in a good simulation
of defensive hurt.  She winked at me with the eye that was turned
away from the saleslady.  "Besides, he *did* promise to look
pretty, and he has to take me to dinner one night."  She pouted,
and added, "If *I'd* lost, he'd be making me wear skirts up to
*here!"*  And she put a hand a couple inches above her groin.
     The saleslady frowned at me.  "Well, then.  I suppose he
wanted you to go to dinner with him, dressed like a tramp?" 
Again the wide-eyed nod, and now the saleslady chuckled.  "All
right, then, scamp, you're getting what you deserve, aren't you?" 
I picked up the cue, and smiled wanly.
     "Not *that* high," I protested, in a very low voice.  "Just
a miniskirt.  Black leather, you know?  She'd look really good."
     The saleslady knew how to chuckle, too, though it was deeper
than Nancy's sexy throatiness.  "Well, you find something to make
him pretty, and I'll make sure no one comes in the dressing room. 
This is a good morning for shopping, as a matter of fact."
     "Why did you do that?" I whispered fiercely, a few moments
later in the dressing room.
     She chuckled, glanced toward the curtain, then pulled me
close and kissed me slow.  When she released me, I was barely
able to concentrate on her words over the roaring in my ears. 
"Because now, she'll let you try on as many different dresses as
I want.  And the next time you want to buy one, you just show up
and look for her.  Maybe next time you can get that black leather
miniskirt.  Or she'll pick out things in good taste, and cover
for you."  She giggled excitedly.  "Besides, this way she'll let
you wear one out of the store.  They don't, usually."
     I tried on over a dozen dresses.  With the saleslady looking
on benignly.  Nancy bought three.  Including a full-skirted,
full-sleeved, brilliant violet one, as shiny as her red dress,
though cut very differently.  A second, more demure jade green,
featured a fitted bodice and flaring skirt, fitting over the
corset like a glove.  That was the one I got to wear 'home.'  The
third was the one I wanted to wear; it was simple, sleeveless,
soft rose, with a kick-panelled straight skirt and a black belt.
     I got read at the next place we went, too.  Makeup.  A new
kit.  And instructions on applying it.  And nail polish.
     "Now comes the fun part," Nancy whispered.  But it wasn't. 
She bought me a new purse.  The 'fun part' actually came after
that.  We went to another department store.  We stopped in the
mall to unpack the purse, first, though, and I was carrying it
when we entered the other major chain store.
     I was also pretending not to understand English.  Nancy
would give me low voiced instructions as we approached each new
section, and then explain to the salesladies that I was just
arrived from Germany, didn't speak a word of English, and had
lost my luggage.  I acted a bit bubble headed, spoke in my
deepest voice, and only in German.  It was a riot.  Nancy had me
try on half a dozen *bathing* suits, as well as leotards, some
skin-tight pants, shoes, and nearly everything else.  I got to
try on lingerie, even--though I didn't quite dare to walk back
out and model it.  But we bought a bunch more stuff than I had
ever dreamed of, sending me into a kind of shocky bliss.
     And then we had *lunch!*  As we sat down at the table, I
leaned across to whisper, "I thought we were just *preparing*
things today!"
     Nancy chuckled wickedly.  And started playing footsie under
the table.  I was in a bit of distress by the time we left the
mall.  I climbed into the back seat without prompting, and
managed to release my cock, which was trying to erect while being
strained backwards.  Blessed relief!  We were on the highway, and
Nancy looked in the mirror and chuckled again.
     "That probably qualifies as cruel and unusual punishment,
you know," I told her, a little irritated.  "And I hope you're
planning on stopping somewhere, because I can't get this corset
off by myself."  As a matter of fact, I couldn't get the dress
off, either, I discovered.  She didn't answer, but a few minutes
later, we went off an exit ramp, down a block, and turned into a
parking garage.  I had a bit of a shock; it was right next to
where she worked.  I'd been there once.
     She turned to look at me, and her eyes were burning like
coals.  "Do you want to fuck here, or in my office, sweetie?"
     "Nancy!"  I guess I'm easily shocked.  "I have to get back
to school!"
     "Well, I'll let you get away with a quickie, then.  Here in
the car?"
     "Somebody'll *see* us!"
     She chuckled.  "The office it is.  Better put some panties
on, though, or you'll stick out."
     She wasn't an easy person to be with when she had moods like
this.  I scrambled into my panties--the ones I'd been wearing in
the morning, not the new ones--and followed her, stumbling a bit,
and protesting in whispers.  Once we were on the elevator in her
building, though, we were committed.  I shut up.  She *goosed*
me.  And then went through my purse and found my lipstick and
compact.
     I was still fixing it, staring in the little mirror, as she
guided me by the elbow through her office.  "Hey, Nance!  Who's
the cutie?"  I broke out in a sweat and concentrated some more,
then looked up to flash a nervous smile.  Jimmy the Freak.  My
pet name for him.  A translator.  He looked like a linebacker.
     "You remember Lee?" Nancy said.  My heart stopped.  "This is
his sister.  She's visiting, but she might move here."
     One painful beat, as it started back up, and then another. 
I didn't dare look up.  "Shy, isn't she?" Jimmy commented. 
"Listen, sweetheart, if that brother of yours doesn't show you
around, you just come to me.  Jimmy knows *all* the best places. 
Ask Nance, here.  That's me, Jimmy," he finished, and thumped
himself on the chest.
     What was I supposed to do?  I smiled--and probably looked
like a frightened rabbit--and whispered "Thank you," barely
audibly.
     "Any time!" he called heartily after me.  "You just give me
a call!  Nance has my number!"  And then, thankfully, the door
closed behind us.
     Terror appears to be an aphrodisiac.  As soon as the door
closed, Nancy was all over me.  She had been wearing pants, and
didn't bother getting out of them, before her lips fastened to
mine.  Since we were both in heels (I was wearing one of my two
new pairs), she was shorter than me, and didn't like it; she had
her hands under my skirt and was pushing me down by my hips.  I
started to kneel, but the heels tripped me, and I slipped
instead.  Landed on my butt.  I was on my back a moment later,
though, with Nancy on top, deep-kissing me like she meant
business, and her hips straddling mine.  She finished pushing my
skirt up, and then paused long enough to unbutton her pants and
slide them down to her knees.
     That frustrated her; she couldn't spread her legs.  It
didn't stop her, though.  She pushed her hips, hungrily, against
one of my thighs, gasped into my mouth, and then wiggled.  She
was between *my* legs!  The perfect position reversal, and for
some reason, incredibly arousing.  Especially since she was
dripping wet; I could feel it through the two layers of nylon
that separated us.  She thrust against me perhaps three times,
then groaned into my mouth, and shuddered, a wave of orgasm
passing through her body.
     "Nancy," I began, when she freed my mouth, "holy mmmph!" 
That was her, kissing me again, and wriggling her hips, and
moving things around.  Her panties went down, I noted foggily. 
Mine didn't.  She pulled my cock out the leg, though.
     And then, gods of the heights and depths, she started to ...
what do you call it, even?  It wasn't 'entry,' I was doing that. 
But she was between my legs, her legs barely parted, and totally
in control, and I was being enveloped ... yes, enveloped is the
word ... in the tightest, hottest, and wettest bit of sexy woman
that ever existed.  And the corset, squeezing my body the same
way, so that I felt as if all of me was, in some fashion, just
that slight piece of proud (upstanding!) flesh.She came, again,
when she had taken no more than the head, grinding herself
against my abdomen, and sobbing.
     Then kissing my face, biting my ears (hard!), and
whispering, whispering.  "Oh, god!  Oh, god!  Beg me, beg me, beg
me!"  Another inch, or pair of inches, and another orgasm?  Not
as intense, perhaps, and she was whispering, "So sweet, so good,
so nice, so nice, oh, god!"
     And with a brutal sort of thrust, all the way on me.  I
moaned, and she kissed me hotly, hugged me tightly, and began one
... slow ... *thrust!*  Tight, hot ... we both came, in a
convulsive flailing and bucking.
     That was it for me.  She got off *twice* more, though,
stunning me, before my shrinking cock slipped out of her. 
Finally collapsed against me.  "Jesus!" she whispered, in an
exhausted voice.  "That was ... that was *incredible!"*
     I was too shaken to answer.  Instead, a bit awkwardly aping
something she had used to do, I hugged her, with arms and legs.
     After a moment, she raised herself on one elbow, and
giggled.  "You're a mess, sweety!"  Made a face, and added, "I
bet I am, too.  Jesus!  That must be what men feel like!"
     I laughed, shakily.  "I don't think so," I told her.
     She smiled.  "The sense of complete power, yes.  I *knew*
when you were ready.  When you were *mine."*  A slight frown
wrinkled her brow.  "But next time I tell you to beg me, you
beg!"  With that, she wriggled off of me, and stood up.
     I felt ... wrung out.  Too tired to move.  "Will you spank
me if I don't?" I asked, in the timidest voice I could manage. 
She looked up from mopping herself with tissue, and chuckled,
wickedly.  Finally, I sat up, and then gasped, and checked the
back of my skirt.  She chuckled again, and tossed the box of
tissue to me.  
     "I'll walk behind you, sweetie.  You're going to have to
change your panties again, though.  You soaked those."
     "*I* didn't," I muttered, face flaming.
     She giggled.  And kept giggling, and teasing me with
occasional caresses, as she fixed my face.  "Do you want me to
tell James that your name is Amy?" she asked.  "He's sure to ask. 
He may even call your house, if I give him your phone number.  Or
even if I don't; he knows your name."
     "Christ on a crutch!" I muttered.  "No.  Can you imagine
anyone actually naming a girl Amy Ames?  Tell him ... tell him
something ugly.  Brunhilda."  That had always reminded me of
witches.
     She giggled.  "Seriously?"
     I looked at her.  "Hey, wait a minute!  You're gonna start
using that name, or something, aren't you?"  Giggle.  "Christ. 
That's all I need.  Tell him we're both named Lee."
     "Do you think that's a good idea?" she asked.
     "You're serious, aren't you?"  She nodded.  And giggled, not
very seriously.  "Oh, hell.  *You* pick something, okay?"
     "You realize," she asked me, as she helped me out of dress
and corset in the car, "that now it's perfectly possible for you
to come visit me here, and no one will ever guess."
     "Jeez, Nancy!  Don't make me do that again, okay?"

     After that day (and we had pizza again that night), my debut
was something of an anticlimax.  Well, no, I guess you couldn't
call it an 'anti' climax.  I wore the new rose dress, white lace
stockings, and the matching shoes, with all sorts of little pink
accents, here and there.  And by special pleading to Nancy, my
Valentine's day lingerie instead of the corset.  Tucked, though,
and with water balloons.  She wore her stunning red dress.  This
was the special occasion, I gathered.
     She timed it specially, too, I found out later.  April
first.  Ouch.  Silly me, when I found out that she had planned it
that way, I assumed she was making fun of me.  I'd started to
remember how Jimmy the Freak had stressed his *close*
acquaintance with Nancy.  That got me both jealous and depressed. 
Which made me sort of desperate.  Not that night, though.  The
day was special; she attracted attention away from me, and I
actually got treated like a lady, which was a bit frightening. 
She'd dubbed me "Ginny," short for Virginia.  I dunno why. 
Slims?  But I kinda liked the name.  And when we got home, I
discovered that she was wearing *my* Valentine's day present,
too.
     You wanna know what happened?  There's a pretty good
description of the first bout above, already.  Bam!  As soon as
we walked in the door, she was on me.  But even in the throes of
passion, I couldn't bring myself to *say* things.
     Which meant that we adjourned to the bedroom, she changed
into a teddy, put me in the corset, and spanked me.  SPANK! moan
*stroke* whimper.  And so on.  By the end of it, I was repeating
anything she told me to repeat, completely out of my mind with
desire.  SPANK! moan *stroke* whimper ... "Yes!  Yes, I'll be a
good little girl, I'll do what I'm told, oh gods, oh gods, please
*fuck* me!"
     She did.  With me moaning, and begging her to 'fuck me, fuck
me hard!'
     Now, why?  I wondered about that, later.  It was the next
day when I found out about the April Fool's Day planning.  So
then, I decided it was because she wanted me to humiliate myself,
completely.  It fuelled the already raging fire of my jealous
anger.  And that, in turn, brought on the low point of that whole
spring.

     Don't get me wrong.  It wasn't the only low point.  I'd
walked out on her, three more times after the burned dinner,
though not with the extent of bad feelings that that had caused. 
Once over the bras, but I already mentioned that.  Once
overshaving my legs.  That was mostly a case of my pig-
headedness.  She called up the next morning, asked if I intended
going places where I absolutely had to wear shorts, and I gave
in.  Shaved them before I went to her house, in fact.  Badly,
too.  It took a while before they got to be smooth, instead of
rashy.  The third time was after April First, and convinced me
that I had to complete my plans, and soon.
     It was a Saturday.  We were puttering around the house, not
really doing much of anything.  She got a call to go in to work. 
Fine.  That had happened before, and she'd just left me at home. 
This time, she wanted Ginny to go along.  Her eyes gleamed with
anticipation.
     I'd already laid my plans, though, and for over a week had
managed to avoid going out in anything like full drag.  Nor was I
wearing my office skirts any more.  I'd even gone so far as to
start wearing some of my remaining masculine underwear to school,
then dropping by my apartment to change.  According to the letter
of what she had told me, I only had to wear a blouse when I was
wearing panties, and that meant that I could also stop wearing
blouses.  The stockings had never been required; I'd started
wearing them partly out of pleasure and partly because I figured
they would be required, if I made an issue of it.  So I was
spending my days "in boy."  Now, she wanted to drag me,
perilously, to her office.  I refused.  Maybe I would have been
better off accepting the implicit invitation in her eyes.  In
fact, I'm sure of it.
     I didn't, though.  I lost my temper, started pulling off my
blouse (I wore dresses, or skirt and blouse, while I was in her
house, although I knew we'd bought some women's pants for me as
well), and headed for the clothes which were still, as agreed,
there by the door.
     When I grabbed them, I pulled up short.  "What is this?" I
asked, outraged.  A pair of shorts--men's, but so what?  I had
shaven legs!--and a tank top--and I shaved my underarms, too. 
The tank top was *pink.*
     She smiled.  "I promised a set of unremarkable clothes," she
said.  "I didn't promise that they'd be unremarkable *men's*
clothes.  Shall I get my copy of the agreement?"
     She had one, and she knew it by heart.  Every time she made
a new requirement, she wrote that down, too, and made me agree to
it explicitly.  Like keeping my legs shaved, and wearing a blouse
when I wore panties.  Well, anyway.  I stamped my foot, and
wailed, "That's not *fair!"* before I even realized how
ridiculous it sounded, how silly I looked.  And then I got
stubborn.  "Well, I'm *not* going to your company, to let Jimmy
the Freak stare at me again!"
     She wouldn't give me my *shoes* back, either!  And the tank
top *was* a woman's top, with one of those shelf bra things.  I
didn't even have any pockets to carry my keys in!  But like I
say, I was getting stubborn, even though I was about half-blinded
by tears.  I pulled on shorts and tank top, and, barefoot and
clutching my keys, marched out of the house.  I had painted
toenails, did I mention that?  I stopped in the stairwell long
enough to scrape the polish off with a key.
     I discovered a couple things.  First, most people don't
bother looking at other people.  I felt as if I were dressed
completely bizarrely, but nobody gave me a second glance, in the
two blocks I walked.  Second, Nancy was not entirely without
pity.  She found me, and gave me a ride the rest of the way home. 
Oh, my car was usually at my house on the weekends.  We usually
went out, in her car, on Friday night, and I spent the weekend
with her.
     She really did have a wider streak of mercy than I thought. 
When I went back, the next day, prepared to expostulate, she
asked if I wanted to go to her office that very day.  Which was
great; a better compromise I couldn't hope for.  Her office
didn't work on Sundays.  In another sense, it wasn't so good,
because we didn't have great sex at her office; I just sat around
and kicked my feet while she caught up on work she could have
done about any time.  She cut me off again, for three days.
     That wasn't uncommon, either.  By early April, I was
spending virtually all my time at her house, with maybe one
evening and night a week at mine.  Otherwise, I just went to my
house to check the mail.  It didn't mean that we screwed every
night, though.  Oftener than in our first relationship, now that
I think about it, but since I wasn't getting invitations, I spent
a lot of days and nights in drag, without getting sexual release
from it.  On fact, by that point I was pretty blase about what I
wore around the house, except when she made a point of dressing
me up pretty, or started teasing me.  Well, the fact that she
never let me watch her dress or undress was also a form of
teasing, but it hardly counts, since it happened every day, just
about.  When she undressed in my presence, that was something
powerfully stimulating, maybe just because it happened so rarely. 
Or maybe because it always meant sex.  Conditioned like Pavlov's
dog.  And it was a case of her undressing in my presence; I
didn't get to undress her, no matter how much I wanted to.  She
undressed herself, and she undressed me.
     Well, to get back to the point, Jimmy the Freak had, for
some reason, provoked my undying jealousy, anger, and fear, and
the Pessimist was elected chairman of the Committee.  Ginny (the
little girl adopted the name eagerly) got securely trussed and
dumped inconspicuously in a corner, and Tough Guy was assigned
the task of proving what a man we were.
     I sprung it on her on the Friday night following Office
Saturday.  Quite casually, while we were having dinner, I asked,
"Why don't you let me cook you a dinner at my house, sometime?"
     She looked up at me, quizzically.  Then ... calculatingly? 
"Yes," she agreed, far faster than I thought would happen, "that
might actually be a good idea."  I'd expected resistance.  *Lots*
of resistance.  She'd only visited my house *twice* after The
pizza.  I'd tried invitations a number of times, and she always
made it clear that if she came in, she wouldn't stay.
     So I pushed my luck.  "Tomorrow?"  I had everything already
prepared, a special meal, new cologne, a very sharp outfit, and
so forth.  I'd even straightened the house up.  I did most of the
cleaning at Nancy's house, though, so I'd mostly given that a
lick and a promise.
     She nodded, her eyes glinting.  "Shall I plan on spending
the night?" she asked.
     Ka-thud.  Yes, oh, yes, oh, yes, it's all working out so
perfectly!  I nodded, my own eyes gleaming their excitement back.
     I tried to hold back a bit that night, but she was very
demanding.  I finally decided that it was sort of a warmup, and
responded as best I could--and as much as I was allowed.  I left
in the morning, to make sure that everything was as perfect as I
could manage.
     Musky, masculine cologne (my perfume was always something
flowery; she'd bought me several varieties, and I tended to even
wear it, very lightly, to school).  No jewelry.  Hair swept back,
but not put up in any fashion.  I couldn't grow hair on my face,
underarms, or legs on such short notice, of course, but that was
okay.  Black pants, a black silk shirt, and a black leather belt. 
Black men's bikini briefs.  We're looking to achieve a sense of
power, here.
     She arrived carrying an overnight case, and dressed in the
spectacular red dress again.  I met her at the door, and kissed
her inside, taking the initiative in the kiss for the first time
in months.  She was wearing her tallest heels, but since I had on
boots, I still overtopped her, and could force her head back.  It
turned into more of a struggle than a kiss, and then she gave a
sort of surrendering bend of the neck, and started to kiss me
back sweetly.  I felt my heart leap with exultation.  Then she
broke the kiss and slipped out of my arms.  Very frustrating.
     "Mmm," she said, with a bright smile, "that smells good! 
What is it?"
     Well, okay, Tough Guy said.  We go to Phase Two.  I smiled,
and went to the oven.  Yep, they were just getting finished.  I
lit the candles on the table, let her put her stuff down and look
at my house in its changed, clean state, and then pulled out her
chair for her.  She hesitated, then smiled warmly and sat.  I
placed the salads, and got the main course out of the oven.  As I
put them on the table, to cool slightly while we ate the salad, I
smiled as warmly and sexily as I could, and said, "It's a sort of
pizza."  I forget the name, now; it was one of those closed pizza
dishes, one per person, with the crust that goes over the top and
makes it look sort of like a loaf.
     She raised an eyebrow, and giggled.  "Oh?" she said, and
relaxed somewhat.  "Well, first the pizza, by all means."
     I'd also even carefully plotted out a course of
inconsequential, but amusing chatter.  The jokes fell kind of
flat, but otherwise it went pretty well.  A nice wine with
dinner, and I tried to urge a lot on her.  That was mistake
number one--number two, if you count the kiss.  The way I tried
to encourage her to drink was by drinking a fair amount myself. 
I don't much like wine, and it goes to my head pretty fast.
     A sweet, but inconsequential dessert (the fruits of my
cooking lessons), and dinner came to an end, with me coming on as
strongly male as I could.  "Well," she said, laying down her
fork.  "Do we do the dishes, or shall we adjourn for ... what
comes after pizza?"
     Slightly light-headed, I beamed at her, convinced that
everything was working like a charm, and she'd love me for my
masculinity.  I stood, extending a hand, and answered, "Let us
... adjourn."  I escorted her, with pomp and ceremony, into the
bedroom.
     Her overnight case was already there.  She started for it,
and I stopped her.  And, well, things went rapidly downhill from
there.  I bungled another kiss, from which she escaped, this time
with an angry shake of her head.  Tough Guy decided to cut to the
chase.  So I grabbed her, and fought her over to the bed.  Yes,
fought her; she was resisting quite strongly.  That was confusing
at first, but after one "Lee, stop it!" her forehead puckered,
and then she fought me in silence, a slight smile coming over her
lips.  That was encouraging.
     Well, I was stronger than her.  I got her, finally turned
over my lap.  But that didn't stop her struggles, and I had
barely managed to start working her skirt up, when, with a lurch,
she broke partway free and half-pinned me to the bed.  Okay, said
Tough Guy, go for it!  We wrestled, and she finally started
speaking again.  "Lee, dammit, stop it!  You're stronger than me,
I can't *do* it this way.  Stop it, Lee!"
     By that time, though, I had her skirt mostly out of the way. 
I'd gotten her arms pinned over her head, holding her wrists with
one hand and part of my weight, while she bucked and twisted
quite realistically underneath me.  Quite realistically.  Yeah. 
Quite.  I fumbled my belt and my fly open, and started to lower
myself onto her, with the agonizing slowness that she used on me
to such effect.  Her eyes suddenly grew wide, as I tried to
project power, power, maleness, and as my lips descended, ready
for that first sweet, submissive kiss, she suddenly stopped
struggling.
     And turned her head aside, at the last moment.  "Lee," she
said, tensely, "if you rape me, I will never forgive you.  I will
*never* speak to you again.  I *swear* it!"
     Oops.  Tough Guy started to tell me "Hey, it's a rape
fantasy.  She wants, it really!  I'll show you."  But some of the
rest of the Committee were gifted with a bit more brain.  She was
serious.  Not a game.  Confused, I hesitated, trying to decide
who to listen to--I was leaning toward Tough Guy, because, I
mean, obviously she wanted a *real* man, right?  Right?--when she
bucked again and Tough Guy wilted.  With the rest of me.
     Excruciating, overwhelming, painful pain.  She'd gotten a
knee free, and I collapsed in agony around my abused member,
sobbing.  She scrambled away.  I ignored her.  Not too difficult. 
I was ignoring most things.  Priorities, you know.
     She was speaking, I realized through a haze, and leant her
half an ear.  "... *what* you were thinking of.  *I* thought you
were ready to extend out relationship here, to your last bastion. 
I even," pause for something.  A sob, maybe?  "I even brought
your things, and when you served *pizza!*  Oh, god!"  Yes, that
was a sob.  The pain was subsiding.  I spared her an eye as well. 
She was crying!  Pulling her clothes into order, and grabbing her
overnight case.  She'd lost a shoe in the struggle.  "Well,
whatever you planned, I'm *not* interested!  God!"  She grabbed
some tissue, daubed at her eyes, blew her nose.  I choked off the
animal noises I was making, and started trying to uncurl.  The
body wasn't cooperative.  She looked at me.  "Good," she said,
heaving a sigh.  "You're all right, then.  I thought I'd hurt
you."  I tried to laugh at that--it tickled me--but ended up
groaning instead.  She waited until I looked at her again. 
"Lee," she said.  "Don't come to my house.  I'll call you, when I
decide what to do about this."
     When *she* decided?  *She* wasn't the one with severely
bruised genitalia!  My speech apparatus was not, though, in
working order.  She left.

                                   Trust
                                Conclusions

     I did not have a happy week.  As the joke goes, "She doesn't
call, she doesn't write!"  Sunday I drank the rest of the bottle
of wine, a half-bottle of vodka that had been in my freezer
forever, and then went out and got some beer.  I drank myself
insensible.  Nothing Sunday.  Or Monday.  Tuesday I considered
calling, but put it off.  Wednesday I did call, but she didn't
answer.  I began to be convinced that instead of managing a
brilliant coup, the Committee had, once again, landed me in the
soup.  Thursday I even called her at work, but when Jimmy the
Freak answered, I just hung up.  Called back again, and got one
of the women, but she refused to pass me on to Nancy.  She didn't
pick up her phone that evening, either.  I even drove over to her
apartment, but lost my nerve.  I had a key.  But she had
specifically told me not to come over.  And, I guess, I was a
little afraid that the key wouldn't fit.
     Friday afternoon ended things.  I called her office again. 
Got a runaround.  Called back.  Got Jimmy the Freak.  And heard
myself say, "Would you tell her that my sister Ginny is in town
and wants to speak to her?"  Held my breath.
     "Ginny?"  Thank the gods!  Her voice.  Like angels singing.
     "It's me," I said, in a small voice.
     "I'm glad you're back in town, Ginny," Nancy said, in an
oddly constrained voice.  "I'd like to talk to you about that
brother of yours."
     I couldn't think of anything to say.  "Okay," I managed,
finally.
     I heard her let out her breath.  "Sit tight," she said.
     And hung up!  I sat, staring at the receiver, for ten
minutes before I managed to put it in the cradle.  And then I
laid my head down on the desk and sobbed (this was at my office. 
I like scheduling office hours on Friday afternoons; I always get
an undisturbed nap that way).
     I had recovered, more or less, when, astonishment of
astonishment, I got a knock on my office door.  Could it be Her? 
No, impossible.  More likely to be that one-in-a-million student
who wasn't drunk by Friday afternoon.
     "Come in," I called, and then cleared my throat and repeated
it without the quaver.
     It was her.  She didn't look happy, though.  She eyed me
carefully.  Closed the door.  "Ginny?" she asked, cautiously.
     Tears sprang to my eyes.  "N-Nancy, it's *me!*  Just ...
me," I repeated, and my voice quavered again.
     She sniffed.  "I *hate* that cologne.  I want to talk to
Ginny.  Or at least be sure that she's back."
     "No!" I cried, and tried to squeeze back the tears.  She
turned, abruptly, for the door.  "No!" I yelped, "Please!"  I
thought I'd sobbed myself out, but the tears welled up, and I
added, "Please, Nancy, *don't leave me again!"*  Then covered my
face with my hands, and started crying in earnest.
     I got my breath back when her hand touched my chest.  My
shirt, to be exact.  I swalllowed, hiccuped, and cut myself off. 
"Why aren't you wearing a blouse?" she asked.  When I looked up,
she added, very softly, "Lee, I'm not the one who keeps leaving. 
Who keeps running away."
     I bit my lip and turned my head, until I thought I had
enough control to speak.  "I-I'm t-trying to be m-more masculine. 
Like J-Jimmy the Freak, and that.  So, so you'll want me, as a
man."
     Silence.  I dared a glance at her face.  She was shaking her
head, slowly, and looking troubled.  "Lee," she said, catching my
eyes, "I thought we'd been through this already.  What does an
ape like James have that you don't have?  Why should I want *him*
instead of you?"
     "H-he's a m-m-m-*man!"* I said, on a rising sob.  Choked off
the hysteria again, and managed, "Not a f-freak.  A p-pervert. 
Who'd want me?"
     Silence, again, until I met her eyes.  "Anyone who likes men
in dresses.  Like me.  Does that make me a pervert, too?  Careful
how you answer!"
     I laughed, involuntarily.  "N-no!  B-but sooner or later,
you'll get t-tired of, of a sissy."
     "No.  I won't."  Very firmly stated.  "I love you.  Not
'because' anything, but it certainly doesn't hurt that you like
making yourself pretty and feminine.  I like your feminine side. 
And there are a lot of advantages to it, too."
     "What?"  *That* was a new one.  "Like what?"  In a tone of
complete disbelief.
     She smiled.  "Well, for one thing, I don't have to worry
about being raped.  Or so I thought.  You aren't going to try
that again, are you?"  I gulped, shook my head.  "For another ...
oh, I know that the only skirt you're likely to chase is one on
*sale!"*  That startled a giggle out of me.  "And, all things
considered, you're not likely to cheat on me.  That might be
different if you were gay, but you're not.  So long as I've got
you in panties," she said, with a sudden fierceness, "you're
*mine!"*
     That went straight to my heart.  My face crumpled like wet
cardboard, and I doubled over crying.  Her feet clattered on the
floor, and then she was *there!*  With, when I exhausted myself
again, a rather damp shoulder.  I sighed, and tightened my arms
around her.  "I'd like to be yours, again," I whispered.  "All
yours, forever."
     She leaned back, brushing my hair away from my face.  She
looked troubled.  "Lee.  I want you to think about some things,
all right?  Who's harmed by your dressing up?  If someone doesn't
like it, or thinks it's wrong, or sinful, or, I don't know ..."
     "Disgusting," I put in, in a whisper.
     "Or disgusting," she amended, then looked at me, and asked,
"How could it be disgusting?  It isn't baby raping, you know. 
Nobody's hurt, except when you decide to torment yourself.  Sure,
there are a lot of people out there who would disapprove.  A lot
of people disapprove of oral sex, too.  And spanking, probably. 
And homosexuality, certainly.  Does that make 'all those people'
right?  Does it even make them worth listening to?"  She was
growing animated, holding me by the shoulders and giving me
little shakes for emphasis.  "Don't you think that people who get
outraged are merely expressing the narrowness of their own tiny
little minds?  Lee, *think!*  Stop being a little boy who feels
guilty about stealing his sister's underwear, and *grow up!*  If
it doesn't hurt someone, why can't you do it?  And why, in
heaven's name, can't you believe that I *want* you to, that it
turns me on, that I could fall in love with a man who's
sentimental, soft, romantic, pretty, and a bit silly?  Just
because *you* want to do it so badly?  Is that a reason?  Is
*everything* that you really want automatically bad?"  She
released me, then, and sat back.  "Now *that's* sick."
     I stared, at a loss for an answer.  She seemed to make so
much sense, but ... well, it contradicted what I thought I knew. 
Maybe that showed on my face.  "Well, it's a lot to think about,
maybe.  Are you coming over tonight?"
     And everything was all right.

     Actually, of course, it didn't end there.  It took about a
week for things to fall, more or less, into the pattern that had
gone on before.  More or less, I say, because I was a lot
quieter, and very conscious of whatever I happened to be wearing,
wondering how it made me feel, and if that was really okay, and
what other people would think.  Not only that, but Nancy, I
thought, was avoiding me, often getting home late in the evening,
and exhausted.  That initiated something slightly new; I started
trying to figure out treats for her, that would entice her home,
perhaps, earlier.  Foot rubs, back rubs, little sweets, hot
baths, and ultimately, after a couple weeks of this, I started
laying out casual clothes for her and helping her change.
     The things that I began to recognize were disturbing.  As
Nancy had pointed out, they didn't hurt me, or anyone else, but
they were far from the ideals of masculinity that I had grown up
with.
     For instance.  I finally admitted to myself that I like to
be, put simply, pretty.  I don't have a classically feminine
face, but it'll pass.  I like my face better, though, when my
lips are full, red, and pouting, and my eyelashes long.  When I
have a pink bow on the top of my head.  It doesn't necessarily
make me horny, but it does make me feel, sometimes, languorous
and sexy, and at other times, simply secure in the knowledge that
I have a pretty face.
     Or panties.  I finally learned to say that word without
stuttering.  But, gods, there's a combination of fetish and
practicality.  I like panties that are pink and lacy, and it is
my considered opinion that they fit men better than men's
underwear does.  They hold me more securely, since the legs are
elasticized, and are actually easier to forget that I'm wearing. 
Except that the ones I like are nylon, and if I want, I can
remember them, and then feel the cloth of my pants or skirt
brushing against them, and the delicate bite of lingerie elastic
around my legs and my belly, and it makes me feel just incredibly
sexy.  I like them pink and lacy because I like pink and lacy,
because those are the things that turn *me* on, and because they
remind me that I don't have to act macho.  Because I've got
Nancy, I also have the assurance that they'll turn my *partner*
on.
     They do that because she likes being in control, being
dominant.  She likes me submissive, and in fact, I like being
submissive.  That doesn't mean only spankings, either.  I simply
like looking after her, taking care of her, and making sure that
things  around her are pleasant.  That's almost stereotypically
'girl,' the nurterer.  Well, maybe I should have been born a
girl.  But why should it be necessary?  Then I wouldn't have had
Nancy, and being submissive and nurturing doesn't mean I don't
like sex!  Just exactly the reverse, in fact.  In the weeks
immediately after our reconciliation, though, I wasn't getting
*enough,* and so I sometimes floated around the house wearing my
sexiest perfume and sending her significant glances or pouts.  I
didn't do that so I could imagine being a girl, but so she would
take me to bed and let me show her exactly how hot a lover a
sensitive and--should I use the word?--*sissy* man could be.
     I like the feel of skirts, and the look, and the way that
high heels show off my legs, and all sorts of other things that
might make a 'self-respecting' man laugh in derision.  Let them
respect themselves, then, for narrow-mindedness and lack of
imagination in bed; I discovered, as I began exploring and
accepting my submissive and feminine qualities, that I could send
Nancy out of her mind with bliss.  I *paid attention* to her, and
my own gratification, though it had driven me to bed, was
something to be ignored--no, not merely ignored, but put off as
long as possible.  I fully intended to make her so dependent upon
me as a gentle, sensitive, and responsive lover that the thought
of going for a piece of meat attached to a set of muscles would
be completely laughable.

     I didn't work all this out in a day, of course.  Nor was our
home life all smooth sailing, with turbulence reserved for
between the sheets.  As I was considering these things, I started
thinking about the image I presented at school, and began to
soften it, deliberately.  Until one day I wore a bra under my
blouse to school, and got away with it.  I crowed about it to
Nancy, that evening, and she went into a rage.
     She was tired from the extra work she was doing.  But after
she calmed down enough to explain it to me, and managed to get me
to stop crying, she explained it.  My acceptance, she pointed
out, didn't change the opinions, or if you wish, the prejudices
of society.  Had someone caught me, doing a job in which I was
known as male, and expected to set some sort of example (a
stereotypical example), I would at least have become a figure of
fun, and possibly something much worse.  It was, as she told me,
*our* secret, and had to be, because what I could share with her
wasn't something that the world was willing to share, or even to
permit us to share, if it were to become known.  In fact, that
was why she had introduced me as Ginny at her workplace, because
no one there had seen me more than a time or two, back when I
still had my mustache and dressed as drably as possible.  That
meant that anyone seeing us together, when I was dressed to
pass--and her colleagues were likelier to see us than mine--would
assume that it was Nancy and Ginny, not Nancy and Lee.  Should
someone from the school catch sight of me, we had that alibi
already firmly established, and an entire business office ready
to swear to the independent existence of Ginny.
     At that point, I realized that one of the other things I
enjoyed about cross-dressing was thumbing my nose at society. 
Secretly.  Our occasional (very occasional, at that stage)
outings turned from something dreadful and frightening to
adventures.  And did the sparkle in my eye increase the gleam in
hers?  Just guess!

     In mid-May, though, I found out what had been occupying
Nancy all those long evenings.  She'd been trying to find us a
house, that we could together afford.  One with a hedge, or a
fence, or somewhere enclosed so that I wouldn't have to be
perfect just to get out in the open air.  Open air, in fact, is a
marvelous aphrodisiac.  When she told me, my jaw dropped in
amazement, and we went to see the house together.  It was
wonderful.  Perfect.  Two bedrooms ("One for us and one for Lee,"
she said, and I understood), an enormous living room, a dining
room with panelling ... a wonderful house.  With a hedge all
around the property, and a neighborhood in which the neighbors
weren't nosy, and there weren't any kids to come and stare,
giggling, through a hole in the hedge.  We could barely,
together, afford the payments.  But we did it.  On my birthday,
even.
     On the day we moved in, though, I got another shock.  I made
us dinner, and Nancy solemnly produced our original relationship
agreement ... and tore it up.  She refused to make another ... I
begged her to.  I wanted to tie her to something.  And then, with
an odd little smile, she told me that I could dress exactly as I
pleased, so long as I didn't try wearing a dress to classes.
     I spent a very confused pair of weeks.  At first, I thought
it was a signal that she had tired of me in feminine attire.  So
I conscientiously began trying to play boy, again.  It was an
uncomfortable time, with us new in the house, and new living
together (I had always, in the past, had the security of knowing
that there was a place I could go to.
     It was really only at the beginning of June that all the
insights that I mentioned above, the true acceptance of myself,
began to click into place, and I began to veer from a carefully
male presentation at home to something more androgynous.  I
caught a few subdued smiles from Nancy, and puzzled over them for
days at a time.  But while I may be slow at figuring out things
in relationships, I eventually got there.
     Release.  "If you love something, let it go ...."  And blah,
blah, blah.  I caught on, in what was nearly a religious burst of
enlightenment, in the first week of June.  And carefully hid the
fact.  Nancy's birthday is exactly a month after mine, so this
year, it was going to fall on the one-month 'anniversary' of our
new home together.  Better yet, it was a workday for her, but
school was out for me.
     I made very careful plans.  I found that horrid black
outfit.  It wasn't really so bad, and in fact I looked really
good in it, but it had some pretty horrible memories.  I met her
at the door, wearing it, and let her avoid the kiss I offered,
leering.  I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing at the look
of horror that passed over her face.  She gave me a very
mistrustful look.  "Dinner will be ready in a few minutes," I
told her, and guided her to a table laid out as nearly like that
fateful dinner in my house as possible.  She was beginning to
look seriously disturbed.  I thumped off to the kitchen, careful
to make as much noise as possible in my boots.
     The kitchen didn't take long, though.  Just turn up the
oven, slip out the kitchen door, and into the window I'd
carefully left open.  Coming back was slightly trickier, but I
managed it without tearing or running anything.  I was literally
giggling with excitement, knowing that her tension was rising in
the dining room, when I smelled the first whiff of burning rolls. 
Then ... a match in the fat, open the oven door ... damn.  Hold a
match under the smoke alarm, and *then* push the bowl off the
table.  And let out a squeal, as of dismay.
     The hardest part was getting the silly grin off my face, and
manufacturing a look of frightened horror when she came dashing
through the kitchen door.  "I b-burned the d-dinner," stuttering
from the effort to choke giggles, and then exaggerating it, as if
I were very embarrassed.  I clutched the sides of my skirt in
both hands and raised them to my mouth, trying for the image of
the little girl caught being naughty, and also aware that she
could see the triangle of my Valentine's day panties perfectly
clearly.  The skirt proved useful, since it hid the smile that I
couldn't keep back, and I managed to make the giggles sound more
or less like frightened sobs.  I kept my eyes wide, though.  Of
course, the mascara helped.
     She finally broke her paralysis, and rushed to the stove to
put out the fire.  Good thing, I was getting a little worried. 
"You ...." she said, and couldn't continue.  She twisted, wildly,
and fixed the smoke alarm.  "You ...." she tried again.  She
looked at the floor, where the shattered bowl lay--nothing else,
though, no beans or salad, and I hadn't wasted chicken to burn,
either--and then she grabbed a potholder, dumped the rolls in the
sink, slammed the oven door shut, turned it off, and turned to
face me.  "You ... little imp!" she cried, and dissolved into
laughter.
     I waited, manfully suppressing the wellspring of laughter
that was rising in me, until she began to recover, wiping her
eyes, and then I dropped my skirt, gave her my best tragic look,
and asked wistfully, "Do you suppose we could go out?"  Paused,
carefully, and added, "For pizza?"
     She rushed across the floor to envelop me in a hug, and this
time we both went into a fit of laughter, that turned into a f   
it of giggles, and almost couldn't be stopped.  We kept starting
over every time we looked at one another.
     Finally, she blew out a breath, and slipped a hand under my
skirt.  "Oh, god, Lee!  Do we have to have the pizza *first?"*
     "Ooh!" I squealed in mock fear.  "Are you gonna send me to
bed without supper?"

     She did, eventually, ask me again about my feelings.  And so
I've written them down, all in order, just as it happened.

     Epilog:  Nancy claims it was a double wedding.  I think
that's stretching the boundaries of the language a bit.  The
first one was perfectly normal, as such things go, with her
stunning in white, and me in a tux.  And the wedding night was as
perfect as such things can get; it's a bit nervous, being
married.  For both of us.
     The second wedding was just us, no family, and some of our
odd new friends.  Found through the internet.  Some interesting
sorts of people.  This time, the bride wore the tux, and the
groom wore white.  It's a *beautiful* gown.  We didn't have the
traditional wedding feast, either.  We had pizza.
     Well, we had pizza *first.*

--