Chapter 2

As soon as Roger walked through the saloon-style doors, Kent reached for a glass. He'd never before seen a man in such need of a drink.

If the dark rings under his brown eyes weren't enough, his incorrectly buttoned-up shirt and mop of dishevelled brown hair clearly used to more attention than it was currently getting were a clear indication that Roger wasn't at his best.

He pounded the first beer that the bartender offered, and as he began to ask for a second, looked up and was abruptly entranced by the large man's eyes. They were so oddly, deeply blue, yet somehow warm. Trustworthy.

Roger was a social drinker at best (his only real vice) and so as he took a large gulp of the next drink that Kent laid out in front of him, it was already starting to hit him. He sighed; there was no one else in the bar - which wasn't unusual for a Wednesday afternoon - and he'd come here to try to cope with his new living situation.

It didn't take long for Roger to unload his woes on the friendly-looking bartender.

Without breaking eye contact, he opened his mouth, and the turmoil that had been his last few days began spilling out. Kent just nodded in sympathy as Roger described coming home two days prior to discover his prim and proper wife dressed in leather and made up like a whore.

"It was like ... Jesus, I dunno. Everything about her was just /wrong/. Even her tits seemed different! ... not that she let me near enough to see, of course. She said that I wasn't ever going near her again, and she ... oh, god ... she /recoiled/ when I reached out to touch her. Can you imagine? She felt sick at just the idea of touching me.

"I felt like someone had taken my Trish away from me, and replaced her with ... oh god, I couldn't even tell what she was. Some kind of man-hater. That's it, that's exactly it: it was like she hated me."

Even as Roger spoke, he tried to distance himself from the words coming out of his mouth. It was difficult to cope with the changes that had so abruptly taken hold of his wife, and he still wasn't quite sure that it was real. As he spoke, he pondered the bartender's strange attire - was the bow-tie part of his required uniform, or was the large man just an eccentric?

Even as his mind wandered around the room, however, his eyes never broke eye contact with Kent's as Roger explained his wife's refusal to answer any questions, the fact that she'd already made up the couch for him to sleep on ("as a special favor" - he wasn't worthy to sleep on the ground outside, she'd been quick to clarify). He'd been heartbroken and confused, but that was nothing compared to what had happened the next day...

"I came home from work really hoping that she'd cooled down a bit and we'd be able to talk. At first I'd thought she wasn't there, but then I heard noises coming from the bedroom ... geez, I mean ... I knew she was mad, but it was obvious, just from the sounds, that she'd brought someone else home and was fucking them in our bed.

"I've never heard her use such language, it was unbelievable. I opened the door, and - oh god, I feel sick just saying this - I could have sworn she was in bed with Julia. Our daughter.

"She didn't stop when she saw me come in, either, she just grinned this huge cruel grin, took a swig from a massive bottle of whisky, and kept going. The girl must have realized something was up though, because she looked up and I saw that it wasn't my baby girl being fucked by the strap-on, thank Christ. It was some teenager who looked just like her. She freaked out and left, and me and Trisha had it out.

"I don't know if she did it to hurt me, like she knew I was coming home, or if she just lost track of time. But I found out that she's been sleeping around pretty much the whole time we've been married. I don't know how I never noticed before, and she just didn't seem to care ... it was like our marriage meant nothing to her, like it never had."

Roger paused, his hollow eyes never leaving Kent's huge and passive face.

"I loved her, I really did. But I think I know why Julia's been locked in her room for the last two days. I think my wife tried to ... do something with her.

"It's been hell since then. I should be going home now, but I just ... I can't face it. I don't know what's happened to my Trisha, but Jesus Christ, I dunno. I don't know what to do."

Kent was the one to break the eye contact, his gaze running up and down the middle-aged man's fit body. He paused, as if chewing over what to say next, but when the large bartender spoke his words were slow and deliberate.

"Why don't you just admit to her that you're a crossdresser?"

"No!" Roger recoiled at the question, his eyes meeting the older man's once more. His face went white as Kent's words sank into his brain.

"You don't think ... you don't think that could have anything to do with it?"

At Kent's gentle nod, Roger lowered his head in shame. The man was right - of course his wife hated him. Of course she was disgusted. He'd never had the guts to tell her, but since he'd been a child he'd been attracted to women's clothings - frilly things; dresses, skirts, blouses ... but most of all panties.

As he'd grown, so had his obsession, and when Roger had first met his wife, he was barely able to get an erection without thinking about panties, without imagining himself wearing them - thongs, granny-panties, bikinis, boyshorts...

Even though he'd never been able to confess his bizarre fetish to his wife, she must have suspected. The drawer that he'd never let her near, his insistence on making love with the lights off. From time to time she must have felt the strap of a bra under his shirt, the silk of the panties around his ankles as they made love.

And at least once, she must have questioned where he went on weekends.

The internet had been a game-changer for Roger; they'd gotten their first modem hooked up a few years after their marriage had begun, and once he'd discovered that there were others like him, he knew he had to meet them. He knew he had to find out.

The first meeting he'd attended had simultaneously been the most freeing and the most shameful moment of Roger's life. Freeing, because he'd realised that he wasn't alone, that other people had the same urges and the same need as he did.

Shameful, because it confirmed what he'd suspected for a long time ... he was a freak.

Six and a half-feet men in tiny miniskirts, old men wearing corsets. Roger only had to take one look at them to know that there was nothing normal about what he did. The sight was humiliating and disgusting - and confirmed beyond a question of a doubt that he was one of them.

Despite the mix of euphoria and nausea that his attendance had caused, Roger had kept going back. At first monthly, then once every two weeks, until finally he'd caved and started going each and every week. He had even become a board member, showing up to every meeting in his favourite outfit, a schoolgirl's dress with "little girl" underpants and matching pantihose.

And although the meetings themselves weren't sexual in nature, they'd only served to fuel his lust for lingerie. His habit had stopped being a "special occasion" type deal, and was now his standard dress. He couldn't even imagine leaving the house without the comfort that a silk pair of panties provided him, or a half-cup bra. He wasn't whole if he wasn't wearing something, anything from his secret drawer, or the chest of clothes that he kept up in the attic.

With a start, Roger realized that he was still staring at Kent wordlessly. /I hope he doesn't think I'm gay... / he thought to himself, as one hand reached down to comfortingly stroke the pantihose he wore under his trousers.

"Oh god..." he groaned. "You're completely right. I should have told her ... at least when I started wearing her panties."

Most shamefully of all, he'd started wearing his wife's pantihose ... and, as soon as she was old enough to buy some, his daughter's as well. The delicious feeling of his family's underwear against his skin only added to the erotic thrill he got from doing everyday activities with the feel of familial silk on his genitals.

It was no wonder they'd drifted apart, Roger told himself. She wasn't stupid - she must have noticed when her tiniest pair of underwear had stretched, or at least once found a chest-hair in her favorite bra. He couldn't resist - she had such excellent taste. Even in the heat of anger yesterday, he'd found himself admiring her cupless bra, and wondering how it would feel against his skin.

Kent reached one hand out and patted Roger's shoulder, recoiling slightly when he discovered a strap underneath the crisp polo shirt the man was wearing. Roger couldn't help but get lost in the bartender's deep blue eyes once more as a whimper of sadness escaped his mouth. He'd hidden it from his wife (like most everything he found important) but wearing women's clothing had really helped him get in touch with his feminine side, and sometimes when he was alone at home, he would just sit alone in the lounge and sob, openly cry in despair at the double life he was forced to lead.

Even now, one eye was tearing up, but he swore that he wouldn't cry. He wouldn't.

"I hate to ask..." Kent said soothingly, his deep voice seeming to take more than a few seconds to rumble through the air and reach Roger's ears, " ... but do you mind putting that out?"

Roger looked down guiltily at the cigarette between his fingers, a wisp of smoke rising. He shouldn't have been smoking indoors, he knew that, but it had become such a habit that he hadn't even noticed himself lighting up. He laughed at himself, but even as he ground the smoke into the ashtray that Kent offered, Roger felt himself getting twitchy. It had been a few minutes since his last one, and if he wasn't so deep in conversation with the man behind the bar, he would have stepped outside to feed his craving.