Chapter 1

"Andrew dear, why didn't you ever get your ears pierced?"

I looked up, astonished. My wife was perched comfortably in our big easy chair, her nest most evenings when she wasn't out selling a client some building, her legs curled up under her, reading one of her magazines, all as usual. She was gazing at me casually with a mixture of curiosity and mild concern, as if the question had just occurred to her, and the answer didn't much matter, but it might, and she figured she'd ask before returning to her story, or article, or whatever.

"What?!" I asked. I couldn't believe it. She knew I'd wanted to, in fantasy, but she knew that for me fantasy and fact were separate, that I'd never have done it. And in fact she hated the pleasure I felt when decorating myself like a woman! She never allowed reference to it. She didn't want to know! My mind replayed what I'd just heard, and tried to re-hear it. 'Airs, ' could that have been the word? 'Pursed?' No, nothing else made sense. But what I'd heard didn't make sense either!

"Your ears," she said patiently. "Didn't you ever want to get them pierced?"

"Well, yes," I replied. I wondered if I could tell her when that was. It was a few years ago, during those intoxicated, golden afternoons when I couldn't help indulging my love of dressing up, just before she came home early one afternoon to discover me dolled up curls to heels in women's clothes, coiffed and jeweled, strutting and posing in front of a mirror until I saw her in the same mirror, standing there watching me, shocked! At that time I was besotted by the fantasy that I could magically become a complete woman, and yet remain a man, no bodily alterations toward femininity being too extreme nor too permanent. Pierced ears were the least of the things I wanted but would never have except in my imagination. Above all, I gloried in imagining that my Monica was as delighted and entranced as I was when I was dressed to look like a woman, even turned on by it. Or at least mildly interested, and perhaps helpful.

But when she actually saw me cross dressed, reality replaced fantasy. Long months of resentment and grief followed while our marriage foundered. She made impossible demands I was too honest to accept, that it was a filthy addiction like smoking I should give up cold turkey, or taper off gradually, that a shrink could cure me, that I should take up golf or tennis instead, that I should settle for flashy men's clothes whenever I felt the urge. She had cross dressing confused with infidelity, as if by dating my mirror image I was being intimate with another woman. I argued in turn that it was harmless, for me a source of great joy, nothing more. Finally she understood that it was a compulsion, delightful to me if perverse to her, but a deep-rooted, powerful compulsion nevertheless, dating maybe even from a prenatal time of life. It was how I was. Finally we agreed that I could keep doing it, since I'd keep doing it anyhow, but it should always be in ways and places where she'd never know or be reminded.

Mostly I'd kept to that arrangement. It was tricky, but possible, and our happiness depended on it. We have a good marriage. We're a little unconventionally matched, maybe, but wonderfully compatible. I do most of my work at home, cost-estimating engineering projects, because home is where I can think more clearly than anywhere else, juggle all the variables in my head and watch them land right side up. Then I pipe in the results by fax or e-mail, and get other data back the same way. I don't much need to talk to anyone. I just do it, and do it better than anyone else. It's not something I especially enjoy, but there are compensations.

I like the arrangement with my company because I'm a deep-dyed homebody. Always have been. The thinking is intricate and conceptual, and it's easy to get lost in your mind. But I love working out the problems while doing simple homey tasks in the real world, like making the beds or fluffing the couch pillows, or scrubbing the kitchen floor, or sewing on shirt buttons, or cooking up intricate dishes for my beloved wife. I know, this is all women's work, but it helps keeps me sane. Early in our marriage we agreed that I would look after our household routines, shopping and cooking and cleaning, and Monica would take charge of the exceptional elements of our marriage, like our social lives or vacations.

This freed Monica for her work, which is selling real estate. She dearly loves it, and is a whiz at it. She's good with people -- she has the right combination of charm, persuasiveness, and persistence, and she does her homework too, her endless research on her clients and their needs and the properties she thinks right for them. She can be devious setting up intricate arrangements for a client to walk in, see advantages, and then think he's deciding for himself that this or that building and its financing are perfect for him. It's commonplace for Monica, about to close on an office building, to schedule the closing in another more expensive but more suitable building, lead the client in, and then let him discover that fact for himself. This especially amuses her boss, a smooth operator named Ben who has himself pulled off some very big deals in town. Sometimes he can't believe some scheme she's conceived will work, and they bet her commission on the outcome, double or nothing. He's right just often enough to want to keep betting and losing, and I've sometimes thought Monica schemes even that arrangement. Her job is demanding -- it gives her irregular hours additional to the regular work week she spends in her office. Sometimes she's out of the house all day and many evenings, and sometimes whole weekends. But she's hard-driving, and she enjoys it, and she enjoys the payoff.

This was convenient. I was too frightened of discovery, too embarrassed by my own desire, to dress feminine anywhere but in my own home with the shades drawn. So I did the housework dressed suitably, in a house dress, and if there were no deadlines then I could lounge through the afternoons fixing my hair to look pretty, or even pretend I was out on the town wearing my one figure-clinging evening gown. After we arrived at our truce I couldn't keep the evidence entirely away from her. A few times panties or a bra unknown to her found their way from my separate laundry into her drawers, and then I'd find them on my bureau to be stowed in my own panty drawer, no comment ever made. It was embarrassing once when we had Ben over for dinner, and Ben commented that with all my domestic talents I'd make someone a fine wife some day. I flushed, maybe too quickly, but Monica leaped in to snap "No, he won't, he's already married to me," and that was that.

Once or twice I'd forget myself, and ask her an idle question about women's styles, what do you call a high waistline, gathered under the breast and falling to a full skirt for example. She'd just bought such a dress. On such occasions she'd only reply sharply, "I told you, I'm not going to discuss such things with you. It would only encourage your sick habit." I didn't dare protest that my question was disinterested and innocent. I didn't dare say anything. It would only have seemed to her to be a deliberate extending of discussion of a forbidden topic, a flouting of our agreement. Where my transvestism was even distantly implied, she was not interested. Period. Until now.