Chapter 5

A month or so later we were still at it. I had forgotten what it was like to wear men's clothes, and Monica seemed to be so utterly enraptured by my femininity that I couldn't think of displaying anything else to her. True, I had been unfaithful to her when I had made love to Eric, and Eric had made love to me. But somehow that didn't seem to be a violation of my marriage vows. It wasn't with another woman but with a man, a gay man, and I wasn't even aware of it, at least afterward. So Monica thought what the other women thought, that it was merely evidence I had become one of them, except for the technicality that had made it possible for me to relate to Eric. She only regretted that it hadn't happened years earlier, when I was still a teenage girl, so I could have weaved romantic dreams around my memory of it. She only regretted that I had no memory of it at all.

I was still doing cost estimates on various projects and faxing in the results, and still earning a good income, but no one in the office had seen me for many weeks, and I was thinking of quitting and just setting up full time as a homemaker for the two of us. It was what I much preferred doing. And keeping myself pretty for Monica took time.

Monica encouraged me. She was working very hard, many days and evenings spent out with clients showing them real estate. But that was what she loved to do, so it never seemed taxing to her. She was herself her firm's top salesman, and we were banking most of her high commissions on each sale, because we didn't need them to live on. Financially we were set. As she pointed out, the difference between more money than you need and a lot more money than you need is no difference at all. We had no children, and no plans for children, nor any possibility of having them, so it was pointless for us to save for their futures. We lived in our own present. I had begun faxing recipes back and forth with Tinka, and I longed to have more time to try out more of them. We neither of us again referred to the incidents of that night when my mouth and my rear end lost their virginity -- that too was in the past.

At least we never again referred to that night until the week I finally quit my job. We both were looking for some way to celebrate my elevation to homemaker full-time, when coincidentally Monica learned she had won a quarterly sales competition run by her firm. The prize was a long weekend free in the most luxurious resort hotel in the state, complete with a suitable new wardrobe, for ourselves and also for any other couple we chose to bring along for company. We selected Denise and Tinka, the only other couple we'd seen since that lovely evening some months back when Monica had changed her mind and heart about my cross-dressing, and had led me into the womanliness I now loved, and she apparently loved too.

Then we all had a fine time selecting new lingerie, dresses, skirts, blouses, shoes, accessories, makeup, everything a woman needs to be stylish and beautiful and playful at a resort. Denise reserved her credits against the day her figure would return to some semblance of acceptable, and Tinka's new wardrobe stressed nursing bras and front-buttoning blouses. But once again, Monica and I were like schoolgirls vying with each other to purchase the most tasteful yet sexy outfits we could find, giggling together the whole time. It was such fun!

The night before we were due to leave, Denise had a false labor scare, the first of several as it turned out. So Denise and Tinka didn't dare come with us. We decided to hold the two double reserved rooms by renaming the occupants Mr. and Mrs. Sloan, my married name with Monica, and Ms Jackson, my "maiden" name. We hoped Denise and Tinka would change their minds, but if not, maybe we'd find some other use for a separate room. "Maybe you'll get lucky, and you won't want me around," Monica said. I kissed her reassuringly.

Apparently, something else did occur to Monica. As we approached the hotel desk she whispered to me "Just follow my lead, and go along with whatever I say."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Never mind," Monica replied. "You trust me, don't you? Remember?"

"Yes," I said. "Absolutely!"

"Then act sexy. Feel sexy. Swish your hips. See if you can distract the registration clerk. Since you're here as a girl, start enjoying the fun parts of it."

I tried, but the main person distracted was me, because I never noticed that Monica was registering us into two separate rooms, until the clerk announced, "There we are. 407 Mrs. Sloan, and 409 Ms. Jackson, adjoining rooms with a door that can be locked on either side. Will your husband be joining you later today, Mrs. Sloan?"

I was taken aback, but Monica seemed to be expecting the question. "I don't know when if ever, " she said to the clerk. "But just a moment."

Then she turned to me, and looked me straight in the eye, and said, "Andrea dear, what do you think? Think carefully now. Will my husband be here this week end, as far as you know?"

A strange question. I wish I'd understood what she really meant, because I answered after only a moment, "No, I don't think so, Monica. I think this is supposed to be a girls' weekend."

"You're sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure. Why do you ask?"

She ignored my question. "Then it's settled, isn't it?"

"What?"

"Isn't it?"

"Yes, I suppose so, Monica." I was absolutely baffled.

"Good," Monica said. "Then we can enjoy ourselves any way we want. This weekend is for fun."

And turning back to the clerk, she answered, astonishingly, "Yes, my husband will be here around six, in plenty of time for dinner -- just send him up when he arrives. Mrs. Jackson doesn't have a husband, but we'll make arrangements I'm sure." She smiled at the clerk, who smiled at me. Confused, but playing along, I smiled back.

When we got up to our room I started to unpack, and Monica stopped me. "No, Ms. Jackson's room is right there, " she said. "Through that door there. You heard me, that I'm expecting a gentleman. So if you don't mind, dear, why don't you go in there and change to a bathing suit? This hotel has a famous hot spring pool we'll want to try. And it may be that a girl in a high-cut bathing suit like that one you've brought can make her own arrangements. We'll leave the door open for now. But you might want to close it before this weekend ends. You never know."

I was beginning to understand, and I didn't like what I understood. Monica had a date for the weekend, and had made me promise that there would be no jealous husbands spoiling the fun, just two girls who like to see each other enjoy themselves. I was feeling a little depressed when Monica came in wearing an absolutely smashing yellow flowered bikini with a gauzy top. Reflexively I started to get an erection, even though Monica and I had been making love only "like women do," for the past three months, and I hadn't inserted my penis into her the whole time. Luckily I had already pulled up the bottom half of my one-piece, so my prick was hidden, and Monica didn't have to deal with an irrelevant hard on. I was trying to fit my breasts into the bathing suit's cups when Monica broke into my meditation on my strange sexual half-life.

"Oooh, look!" she said. "You really have a figure! They are coming along beautifully! I'd never noticed before."

"What are?" I asked her. "What's coming along?"