by Jillian Marie

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Once inside, I closed the door behind me and in a moment of clarity remembered to put the chain on the door to keep Cindy…or anyone else who might think they need to come in…out. I then started into the apartment proper, stripping articles of clothing as I went. Less than two steps inside the front door, my jacket dropped to the floor, followed a few steps later by my tie and shoes. My shirt and pants found themselves a spot in the middle of the living room and as I entered my bedroom the bra, socks, pantyhose, and panties all joined in.

Still half blinded by tears I plopped down naked on the bed and prayed that I could simply forget about Cindy. Maybe it made no sense at all, but part of me wished I could remove her from my heart as easily as I removed my clothes. Unfortunately that small part of me that was still in touch with reality knew that wasn’t likely to happen.

As I lay there, the inevitable happened. There was a knock, followed by another more insistent one, then finally a key in the lock and the sound of the chain lock being pulled taut.

“Come on, Kyle! Let me in? Please?” Cindy shouted through the crack allowed by the chain lock on the front door for about the hundredth time. She had followed me back to my apartment; ironically that possibility had been the only thing that had prevented me from losing it completely in the last hour.

“It’s not what you think,” she said.

I said to myself, “If she’s so sure of that, then what do I think?” To tell the truth, I wasn’t sure what I thought myself. I opted for attempting to ignore her.

In her ongoing plot to prevent me from doing just that Cindy said, “We need to talk. I know what you overheard at the reception. You have to believe me when I say it wasn’t like that.”

I rolled over on my back and stared at the ceiling, trying to prevent the memories from weakening my resolve, but that was to no avail. With each time she called to me from outside, I felt some sort of force pulling me toward the door and the inevitable conversation to come.

Finally, I pulled myself up off the bed, grabbed a robe to cover up my complete lack of clothing, and stumbled through the apartment toward the front door and the moment of truth.

“Kyle?” Cindy called yet again as I neared the door.

“What do you think you have to say that I might possibly want to hear?” I said with as much ice in my voice as I could muster.

“It’s not what it sounded like, I swear.”

“Oh no?” my voice quavered. “It sounded like you’ve been writing a paper about me without my knowledge or consent. Is that not accurate?”

She paused, taking a deep breath before saying, “That’s true.”

“Then tell me what’s not what it sounded like then?”

“Your identity isn’t revealed at any time…”

I jumped in before she could finish that thought. “Except of course to all your friends who no doubt had a good laugh at my expense.”

“No!” she stated as firmly as she could. “I never told anyone!”

“Now why don’t I believe that? Maybe it’s because one of your friends just asked you if I was the subject of your research project.”

“That was a wild guess on her part, which I denied before I came running after you.”

“Sure you did.”

“It’s true!”

I stood there on the opposite side of the door from Cindy silently for a moment before continuing. “You’ll have to forgive me for not believing you at the moment. Even if I were to accept what you’re saying, there’s still the issue of making me the subject of a research project without my consent. How ethical is that? And more importantly in the light of that, how can I ever trust you again?”

For the longest time there was no response other than silence. Eventually I could hear Cindy softly crying on the other side of the door. Finally after several minutes of listening to her cry, she managed to say, “Because I love you.”

“What was that?”

“I said because I love you. That’s why you can trust me. I swear to you, I would never do anything to jeopardize you in any way.”

“At the moment, that rings a bit hollow to tell the truth.”

Just then my mom and dad came walking up to my door, greeted by the still tearful Cindy. My father was the first to speak, “Kyle? Open up, please?”

“Not until she leaves,” I said, knowing full well that it would hurt Cindy’s feelings deeply.

“Kyle, please think about this? Let’s talk later?” Cindy begged before heading toward her little-used apartment.

I waited a moment before asking, “Is she gone?”

“Yes,” my mother replied.

I opened the door allowing my parents entry, following them into the living room where we all took seats in preparation for the inquisition that was most certainly to come.

Mom got straight to the point. “What’s going on here? You two were deliriously happy one moment, then the next…” she allowed the thought to trail off. “What happened?”

I let out a deep sigh before responding, “I overheard one of her friends ask if I was the person she was writing her research project on and I kind of freaked out.”

“Does this have to do with the women’s clothing?” my mom once again got straight to the point.

I stared at her for a moment trying to gauge how to respond before finally trying denial. “What are you talking about?”

“Oh come on son,” she scolded. “I know that a lot of the stuff in your drawers is for you, not Cindy.”

I wavered a bit but eventually opted for the truth. “Yeah, they’re mine. This is something I started because it’s helping with my playing.”

Dad finally weighed in, “How so?”

I took a deep breath before I started, “One of the first things Dr. Caroll said to me was that I had a nice, what she called feminine, touch but it was inconsistent. What I discovered was that I could sustain that touch if I could keep from thinking too much about the technical aspects of playing. What seemed to help me do that at first was to imagine myself as a girl…believe me, I know how weird that sounds…but it was difficult to maintain that image in my mind long enough to make it through an entire piece.

“Cindy was actually the one who suggested I try wearing women’s clothes as a way of maintaining my focus when I play. The amazing thing is it worked. So she took me shopping to buy a supply of panties and things for me to wear.”

I took a deep breath, then continued, “As time went on I found that the more I feminized myself, the better I played.”

“How so?” mom asked.

“At first, I wore panties,” I said, showing signs of extreme embarrassment. “But after a while they didn’t help as much, so I added a bra. Then I shaved my body hair and started wearing panty hose.” By this time I was blushing so much I’m sure I looked like a beet.

“Just this last week I started shaping my fingernails, which I let grow out because they make me hold my fingers correctly when I play. Last night Cindy helped me add clear polish to them.”

“How can something as simple as what you wear influence the way you play?” my dad asked.

“I can’t explain it because I don’t understand it any better than you do. All I know is from the moment I tried playing this way, I could tell the difference and so could everyone who heard me play.”

Mom asked, “What does that have to do with what happened tonight?”

“After a while, Cindy and I started hanging out together and eventually became involved, you might say. It didn’t start out that way, but…” I paused before continuing. “I thought she cared for me, but now…”

Dad looked at me for a moment before offering, “Maybe it’s none of my business, but when you left this evening the first thing she did was read her friend the riot act, then took out after you. I wasn’t close enough to hear exactly what she said, but she was obviously very mad at whoever that girl was.”

“Maybe, but is that because she jumped to conclusions, or because she made the mistake of letting me know what was going on?”

It was actually mom who responded, “I don’t know the answer to that. Cindy is the only one who knows the truth, and from the sound of things it may be a while before you feel like you can trust what she says.”

“You got that right,” I commented glibly.

A rather uncomfortable silence descended upon the room, as none of us seemed quite sure where to take the conversation next. It was my dad who finally broke the mood by asking, “This might sound like a weird question, but does wearing girls’ clothes really make that much difference in the way you play?”

Any spoken response was likely to fall short of convincing him, so instead I walked over to my digital piano and started playing part of the Mozart concerto I was supposed to be preparing for my appearance with the Conservatory Orchestra. I played fairly well, but obviously not up to my recent standards.

“Very nice son. But what does that have to do with your dad’s question?” mom asked before dad had a chance.

I put my index finger to my lips, got up from the piano, and made my way into the bedroom where I pulled on the panties I had removed earlier. Then I returned to the living room and silently sat at the keyboard again and played the exact same passage. The difference in the quality of the performance would have been obvious to even the most tone-deaf listener.

When I finished playing the passage again, I silently turned to face my stunned parents. As we sat there staring at each other, trying to digest what I had just done my folks seemed almost catatonic. They would look at me, then at each other, then back at me again, still unable to form thoughts into words. I think I had made my point.

I decided to be the one to break the silence this time, so I said, “Now you know. Yeah, it makes that big of a difference.”

“You mean to tell me that the only thing you did differently was put on a pair of panties?” My mom asked. Dad was clearly uncomfortable with this information, as he was still unable to form coherent thoughts.

Mom continued, “That’s unbelievable. How?”

“If I knew the answer to that one I might not need to wear lingerie,” I answered, clearly embarrassed by the line of questioning.

Dad finally managed to defrost his brain and asked, “Isn’t there some other way? I mean, isn’t it kind of weird?”

“Yeah, it’s really weird, not just kinda. But if there’s another way, I haven’t been able to find it. Lord knows I’ve tried. But once I heard the difference for myself I haven’t been able to bring myself to try playing without it. And as the semester has progressed I’ve found myself adding articles of clothing and such. With each addition I’ve gotten better.”

Dad asked, “Aren’t you a little worried about where this is all going?”

“You could say that, Dad. Until now, I at least had Cindy supporting me. Now though…” as the thought trailed off, that silence returned.

As the hour was getting rather late, I offered my folks the use of the bedroom and after getting them settled stretched out on the couch in the hope that I might eventually be able to get some sleep myself. I tossed and turned much of the night, but did finally drift off around three in the morning.

My dreams were a reflection of the just completed evening. I had multiple dreams in which I found myself feeling betrayed by Cindy and yet still unable to stop loving her. After the fourth such dream in a couple of hours, I finally gave up on sleep and got up.

I plugged in my headphones and started working on the Mozart, trying to commit it to memory. I lost all track of time and it wasn’t until mom tapped my shoulder to ask if I wanted any breakfast that I realized I’d been practicing for several hours. If nothing else, at least my Mozart would be ready for the performance.

As we finished up breakfast there was a knock at the door, so I went to see who was there. I don’t suppose I should have been surprised when I saw Cindy standing there looking at me with her best wounded puppy eyes.

“What?” I asked, still being a bit cold toward her.

“Kyle, I know you don’t trust me right now. You have every right to be that way towards me,” she said. “Is there any way we can talk now?”

I looked into her eyes and despite the hurt that was still bouncing around in my heart, I felt myself being drawn to her. I was able to remain outwardly unmoved by her plea for roughly thirty seconds before I could do it no more and finally said, “Okay.”

She started to enter my place when I stopped her saying, “My folks are still here. If there’s anything you want to say that you don’t want them knowing we might want to take this to your place.”

“I’m fairly certain that no matter how things turn out after this conversation you’re going to tell them most everything we talk about, isn’t that right?”

I couldn’t resist cracking a smile when I said, “Yeah, probably.”

“Then I guess you could say we have no secrets,” she walked in the apartment ahead of me after our conversation at the door.

When my folks first saw her coming into the living room, they started in immediately. Mom was first with her icy greeting, “Cindy.”

Dad’s greeting came right on the heels of mom’s, and was no less cool toward her. “I’m surprised to see you this morning.”

Cindy found herself standing against the wall opposite my folks, where she began, “Kyle, I realize you feel like I’ve betrayed you somehow…”

“You could say that,” I cut her off. “Tell me this. Am I in fact the subject of your research project?”

Cindy took a deep breath to steel herself before responding, “Um, yes.”

“And how exactly did you reach the conclusion that it was all right for you to do that without letting me know?”

“I didn’t think there’d be a problem,” she stated.

“Then you thought wrong,” I snapped back.

“Kyle, I…”

“I don’t think you realize how betrayed I feel right now, not to mention feeling used. I mean, do you even like me? Or was this all just an experiment for you?”

Cindy looked shocked and hurt by my question, which told me most of what I wanted to know. She did however finally respond, “Kyle! I love you! I thought you knew that!”

“I don’t know anything anymore. I thought we…” Flustered, I had to stop to get my thoughts together. “Then I find out that you’ve been using me…” I found I couldn’t go any further as I started crying.

Cindy too was in tears as she said, “I know I should have asked you before doing this. I was wrong, and I’m so sorry. Can you ever forgive me?”

“I don’t know,” was all I could say.

We all sat there in silence as thoughts overtook each of us. Eventually Cindy broke the silence. “I’m sorry Kyle. I hope you’ll be able to forgive me and we can go back to the way things were before.” She then headed slowly toward the door.

I looked toward her as she was leaving and said, “I don’t know if that’s going to be possible. Maybe for now it would be best if you didn’t come back.”

She looked back at me, completely rejected, then turned and left my apartment. I buried my face in my hands to try to hide the overwhelming sorrow I felt.
 
 
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Piano Concerto No.12 in A Major, kv.414

Notes:

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To Be Continued...