My Big Night OutBy Cissy I manage to have a big night out...At last, the family leaves the house and goes on a road trip...I thought they'd never leave. As a matter of fact I'm pretty sure that nobody has left the house since Spring of 1995. Anyhow, I get the house for about 24 hours. A short but wonderful opportunity to be Cissy for a day. The opportunity happened to coincide with an email conversation I've been having with Jean, a local TS who had a lot of advice for me about being TG and sorting it out with your spouse. Once or twice Jill, who discovered her TG-ness about a year ago and is now undergoing electrolysis, invited me to events in the Gender Community. A remarkable thing about Jean is that she has reshaped her life to accommodate the expression of her TS needs. Her spouse is working hard at buying in, attends Tri-ess and CGS events with her. In addition, she has her own business with a secretary that happily takes messages for "Jean," her boss who goes out in world enfemme, quite passably I'm told, 3 or 4 times per week to do legal research and hang out in restaurants. Given that I'm no longer happy in the closet, I wanted to set up an ambitious agenda to ensure getting out of the house, so I asked Jean if she would like to meet somewhere. She would. My final agenda included:
#1 - Quitting work was easy. In anticipation of the day I decided to wear something from Victoria's Secret under the suit. I won't say exactly what it was but let's just say I didn't want to get caught with my pants down. By noon, the anticipation was driving me crazy and I made a quick exit muttering some excuse about the kids being on spring break this week. I figured that even with a workout I would have at least 3 hours to get ready. Which is barely the amount of prep time I need when dealing with my perfectionist streak. #2- I was obsessed about my hair so I skipped the workout and went to the wig store across the street from the club. As usual my shopping anxiety set in. First I walked past the store quickly... trying to show no interest while simultaneously trying to see everything in the window. I walked up the block and turned around and after the appropriate delay, walked back down the block more slowly past the window where a staunch matronly lady now stood. She looked a lot like Dana Carvey's Church Lady and was busy examining every item in the window. She looked at me with that "I know you're a sick pervert just trying to get in here to try on ladies wigs and if my being here is keeping you away then I'm never leaving" look. Just to prove that I had no interest in the wig store, I turned my back on her and officiously fed an expired parking meter (not mine... some lucky person got an extra hour and avoided a $25 ticket). Finally, she left and I actually entered the store. Inside the proprietor, a quiet Asian lady, was busy making a hairpiece. "Can I help you?" Couldn't she just make believe I wasn't there? "Uh...Well, I'm shopping...uh..just looking around..." "For something in particular?" she said. Hmmm, what to say now? I stood there looking thoughtful while deciding not to use the one about a having the part of a female impersonator in a community production of Cabaret and then honesty overtook me. "I'm looking for a realistic wig in about this color"...I said, pointing to a dark red should length number. She quickly moved into action. If she was having harsh thoughts about me they were suppressed, besides none of the wigs had prices on them. She could attempt to charge me anything she liked. All paranoia aside, she was quite wonderful and showed me a variety of styles, colors. Unfortunately, all of the wig stores I've shopped in have no private "changing" rooms. This is generally a problem for me because I've purchased way too many women's items without actually seeing what they look like "on" and a wig was going to be a major purchase. On the other hand, I wasn't about to stand there in the storefront trying on wigs for the general public (although the thought of putting on a little fashion show for that Church Lady might have been worth the potential humiliation). So I made my best guess. Thankfully it turned out to be a good call. I ended up buying a beautiful and slightly conservative (although it still looks too red in the daylight), shoulder length red-brown wig for the feminine me, adding another $100+ to Cissy's growing clothing and accessory assets. #3 - After that experience I felt I owed it to myself to stay in shape...I'm finally into a size 9 petite...so I crossed the street, wig in gym bag and hopped into the club for a short but intensive workout. #4 - Still feeling like I had plenty of time, I rushed home to get ready. Most of my feminine worldly goods are stored in a couple of masculine looking travel bags in my office closet. Now, with the family absent and the dog as my only witness, I carted out my suitcases and brazenly unpacked them on the dining room table. Happily I surveyed all of my things, a collection which had started with a pair of misfitting panties purchased at a Venture and had grown to the equivalent of five or six outfits, myriad undergarments and body shapers, wigs, too much makeup and three pairs of shoes for various occasions. I started with some Sally Hanson for Dark Coarse Hair...yes, the bane of my existence...body hair. I had to work carefully here because too much missing hair would be a problem later, so as much as I hated to, I left carefully cultivated patches of chest, back and forearm hair. The Sally Hanson cream had gotten very cold in the closet and wasn't easy to work with, it also seemed to dry and it wouldn't soak in well. The whole process took way too much time, but I just don't feel feminine without nice bare silky legs and shoulders. Now I was running late...I know it sounds excessive but I only had about an hour for make up...and given that I haven't had years of practice like the GG's I spot on the expressway in the morning who can apply eyeliner while driving at 55 mph... an hour wasn't nearly enough. Unpacking my latest makeup purchase (I finally bought L'Oreal foundations...it was time to invest in quality), I pulled out my instructions (Jim Bridges' make up tips printed from TG Forum). While Jim's overall plan work great for me, I didn't have time to sort through his digressions of beauty advice interspersed among the steps. Alas, like a good male with a new barbecue grill, I longed for the simple diagram outlined in Spanish or Japanese. First the beard cover, then the big light colored oval then the dark oval.....etc. Time was running out, I wasn't dressed yet and that could be another 30 mins. of pad adjustment alone. I was panicking, I got mascara on my contact lens and flood of tears washed away 10 minutes of eye work. This was my first time with loose powder and I feared I looked like I'd been in a flour mill explosion. Then I goofed up the lipstick liner and ended up removing a big chunk of foundation and beard cover along with the left half of Bozo's clown lips. It was now 5:00 PM... Jean would be waiting and I was still a good 20 minutes away from leaving. In the midst of pulling on, squeezing into and adjusting my black stretch pants and turtleneck outfit I managed to leave a message for Jean... hopefully she would wait. I'd be very disappointed if I had to experience the true meaning of "all dressed up and nowhere to go..." I put on and adjusted the new wig and stepped back to get a good look. WOW, a narcissistic rush. Of course, to my eye I could always find little problems but, WOW, the wig added the right touch and I looked beautiful. I added some earrings, bracelets and a scarf for a splash of color, shoved my guy wallet in my purse and headed out to meet Jean. #5 - In addition to running late and not knowing for certain that Jean would still be there, I suddenly had a couple other problems. First my garage is about from 50 feet from my back door, setting up the possibility of my having to make a brief public appearance in front of neighbors who might be in their back yards. Second, it was still broad daylight, making me very easy to see, (on top of the fact I'd never been "out" in this kind of light and wondered if the "illusion" of my exterior femininity was going to hold up in the world at large). I walked briskly and intentionally across the yard, picturing myself as a sexy but driven movie heroine...best I could tell there was nobody out there anyway so the great Hollywood drama was playing for me alone. I blasted out the garage, trying to put some distance between me and any neighbor who would become curious about the redheaded babe driving my car while my wife was away. After a short but adventurous drive, (I find a get a little more leeway from male drivers when I'm out there enfemme), I got to Minnie's Inc. Jean, who didn't have time to dress for the occasion, was sitting on a bench outside. I recognized her by the electrolysis "rash" she warned me about. Her beard is about 3/4's gone and apparently she's made quite an investment ($40.00 an hour) in getting that far. With all the hours and money she's spent at Minnie's, Jean is apparently able to use Minnie's waiting room for meetings like ours. Okay, this was it. Another short walk in the daylight...I am beginning to get an idea of what vampires must experience...with my best girlish gate and I make it over to Jean, a quick greeting and inside we go. Minnie's service sees a lot of gender community clientele. Inside Minnie, a GG and another operator Dena, a transsexual in the late stages of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) are working on people lying prone on special tables. Jean introduces me around, announcing that this is my "coming out" event, which isn't quite accurate but close enough. I had asked Jean for an appraisal of my general passability, presuming that given her experience, she could give me some advice or feedback. Jean was great, she had a facilitative quality and soon got everybody in the place involved in the process of supporting my coming out and offering me feedback. I was there for about 3 hours as Jean facilitated little meetings between myself and gender community members, some of whom were in HRT transition, many of whom had spouses, and one in particular was an active leader in Tri-ess and local TG politics. A real highlight of this visit was Dena, the electrolysis operator, who had undergone HRT and electrolysis and whose femininity was completely surfaced. I wouldn't have known that she wasn't originally a woman. She openly shared a lot of details about her transition, her current life with her spouse, her experience of Gender Society support groups and even a before picture. She left me with an indelible sense of the courage it takes to accept and become who you really are. Needless to say this little visit which started out simply as a destination turned out to be much more. It gave me a deeper understanding of the range of possibilities for expressing my female inner self and a lot to think about. It also gave me an idea of how I passed:
#6 - By the time I got home it was 8:30 PM and even though it was Tuesday night, I was ready for some action. Apparently, Iooked pretty different because the dog didn't know who I was... good test. One of the deep psychological questions I'm trying to sort out is my own TS nature and the dual heterosexual orientation I'm beginning to become aware of. When I'm a guy I'm mostly attracted to women and when I'm a woman I'm mostly attracted to guys...go figure. Though I wasn't actually ready to commit adultery, I wanted to spend some time experiencing and testing out being flirty and sexy with the "opposite" sex. So I decided on Temptations, a gay bar featuring male strippers on Tuesday Nights.
For some reason I thought I remembered that it would be easy to remove excess polish from fingers and cuticles (like I mentioned I'm still working on my small motor coordination and I had polish all over me), ...something about using and emery board to buff it off. All I can say is that my fingertips and cuticles are still raw (not to mention slightly Crimson Red because some of the polish was impossible to remove). Also, everything they ever said about letting each coat dry before you use cotton balls or adjust your pantyhose is a good idea. By the time I was done messing up and replacing coats of nail polish due to my impatience, I ended up with nails that resembled the old chipped walls of my first low rent apartment. Oh well, once again time flies and it's now 10:30 PM so I headed out to Temptations. On the way there I passed a number of straight night clubs and considered the possibility of going to one (after all if it was straight guys I wanted to practice on and I was certain to find them there). But I didn't know what the tolerance for a TG gal (especially if my passability wasn't as good as my TG sisters had appraised). On top of that, I didn't know what kind of trouble I could get into (drunken sexual advances, potential bashing, etc.) if I managed to actually attract someone. So, onto the gay bar where it's okay to be different.
I didn't know how I'd be taken when I entered... and I received very little attention. I was nervous and sought out a seat near the stage as quickly as possible. On this night at least, the bar's clientele was both gay and lesbian, with what looked like one or two hetero couples hanging around as well. Based on the looks or lack of them, I was trying to gauge my passability. If I was passing well, the lack of attention from the men could be taken as a good sign because gay men are more interested in more masculine types. On the other hand, if I was passing poorly, it could be that I just wasn't masculine enough to be interesting. As far as the lesbians in the crowd, I thought my passibility could be gauged by the fact that I didn't really fit the image of a gay woman, potentially I looked like a passably straight female... or not. Someday, I'd like to be able to figure all of this out. I got up my nerve, stepped up to the bar, bought myself a glass of wine, then quickly sat down again. Though I had the intention of flirting and mixing with the crowd, I was slightly intimidated by the situation and I stayed in one place hoping somebody would come to me. Unfortunately, I failed to get myself a "mailbox" number so I couldn't passively advertise like everyone else. The male strippers were putting on their second show. This was comprised of very hunky, good looking guys who quickly removed their clothes on stage and then danced around the bar rubbing up against people and collecting money in their g-strings for their troubles. As part of my sluttyness experiment, I encouraged two or three of the dancers by placing money in their belts when they swung the meaty butts in my direction. This gave me a chance to touch them in a sexy way to see if I liked it... and I did. Though I didn't get turned on the same way I do when I touched a disrobed woman, I could imagine playing my Juliet to his Romeo (if you know what I mean). One stripper flirted with me fairly often, rubbing his fingers through my hair and up and down my back. I enjoyed yielding to his touch and sensed a certain feminine submissivness I've never felt before. Around the time I was getting ready to leave, I noticed a guy checking me out. His demeanor reminded me of the nervous little dance I had done in front of the wig store earlier in the day. Finally he sat down in front of me. He was pretty drunk and not quite my type (after all I had been spoiled by flirting with the hunky stripper). He was shorter, slight of build and less confident than I would have preferred. But in the name of experimentation I gave him my full feminine attention. He immediately started to touch my hands (my nails looked okay in the dark) and stare intensely into my eyes. This was a little too sudden for me but I stayed with it. "What's your e-mail address?" he asked somewhat drunkenly. I told him, trying to find my feminine voice without much luck. After we did this exchange a couple of times it was obvious that he was too drunk to remember it so he had to go to the bar for a pen. When my address was recorded and after he had sidestepped telling me his address (I noticed the wedding ring on his hand...so I presumed his need for secrecy)...he inimtated "I've been drinking these all night", (he pointed to my empty glass and apparently had been watching me long enough to know that we had been drinking the same thing), "I'm too schnockered to have anymore but here...(he gives me four dollars)... you have one." And with that he was gone. This was my best girl feeling all night....a guy buys a pretty girl a drink and finally I get to be the girl. |