By Popular Demand, the continueing story of The Swan Who...

Terry has spent a few weeks now working and living as Tammy. He's doing his best to fit in, but it isn't easy when you are pretending...

(currently…)

He glanced down at the phone’s call buttons to confirm where the call was coming from. The phone was smart enough to sound one way when the call was internal and another way for when the call was external, but even though he knew this, he liked the visual confirmation anyway. Okay, external. “Widget, Gizmo, and Dingus Corporation, You’ve reached Mr. Corwin’s office. This is Tammy. How may I help you?”

It was amazing in its own right that he no longer shuddered at what he just did. When he first started, every single time he said ‘this is Tammy’ he felt uncomfortable. His mind screamed at him, ‘NO! You are Terry!’ And when that happened, he couldn’t help but to make a very quick assessment of the checklist as to why this was wrong. The checklist was one of the ways he dealt with things. One of the ways he could say, ‘this is not me and I am here against my will.’

It would start off with the more serious offences first. The fact that he had breasts. Thankfully they weren’t real breasts, only padding. Still they tended to get in the way of everything he did and everything he could see looking down. They also tended to attract male attention. He also had found that he tended to bump himself a lot in the breasts when he got too close to something. Or when his purse strap tended to catch on them when he put his purse on his shoulder. Or the way some necklaces he had would get caught on them or how his chest would feel with some blouses showing more skin than he liked above his breasts, especially when something cold hit his skin like a raindrop or a blast from an air conditioner. Yes, the breasts easily made the top of the list. The way the band of the bra dug into his chest or the straps would pull on his shoulders. Well, every single thing about them was a constant reminder.

The next thing that would come to mind tended to change depending on what was bothering him the most. Sometimes his feet hurt from the heels he was wearing. Sometimes it was the hot padding that gave him his hips. Sometimes it was an earring that got in the way of the phone or was tangled up in something else like hair or anything that it could get in contact with. Sometimes it was the feeling of makeup on his skin or lipstick on his lips. Sometimes it was the perfume he wore. Sometimes the cut of his dress or skirt or blouse or a bracelet or a bangle or …. There were a lot of things.

And the worst part about EVERYTHING? Was that his checklist didn’t automatically pop up at times. When he realized he hadn’t felt strange about whatever it was he was doing or feeling. That’s when it hurt the most. That’s when he had to reinforce the need for that checklist. It was one of the few things that kept him sane. Kept him grounded.

“Yes sir, Mr. Corwin is currently not in. May I take a message?”

Of course he wouldn’t be in, Terry thought. It is lunchtime. Why do people think that at lunch time everyone is in their office and waiting to talk to them? Jack wasn’t due back for another forty five minutes, if he was punctual. And he was. It was very annoying that he had to be too. Everything done by the book, to the letter, by the numbers… Could he not relax a little?

“Yes sir, I’ll be sure he sees this. Thank you for calling. G’bye.” Terry set the phone back on its cradle carefully. It wouldn’t do for anyone to see him as anything other than perky. He had an image to uphold. There was no relaxing possible.

Dutifully, he went back to work. Funny how offices change. It used to be there were rooms upon rooms of typists, doing whatever needed doing. They were there to type. And there was a lot of things to type. That’s what he remembered about his mother’s job. But here in modern 1984 computers had come into their own. They were powerful machines that sat right on a desk. It was amazing how they only took up half of the desk too. What would they think of next? And the programs! He had thought that all he would be doing was typing, but as it was, he had to learn this thing called a word processor. You could type up the letter you were sending out to everyone, then in a separate file list all the individual details that would go into the letter and the two things could be merged and sent to a printer room where all of it was sorted, stuffed, and mailed out with a single push of a button. Well, not a ‘single’ push. It took some getting used to doing it. In fact, that’s what kept him the most busy of everything, learning how the word processor worked. He’d take manuals with him to the lunch room and read how to do whatever. Some days he stayed a little later than everyone else so he could try some of the things that were in the book.

If nothing else, he was certainly getting an education.

(previously…)

A smartly dressed woman wearing a light blue blouse with a large floppy bow along with her navy skirt and jacket led him from the common secretary room where rows and rows of women were busy typing on IBM Selectric typewriters or busy with what looked like small computers at their desks. The room seemed split upon who had what on their desk, with about half having one or the other. She ushered him into a windowed room that held two desk sets, one prominent set that was right outside a large door that obviously was the company president’s office, and a smaller set of desks off to the side and back in the corner. Two other ladies who were equally well dressed stood from where they had been sitting on a couch waiting. All three seemed to be in their thirties, as best as Terry could tell.

“Tammy, this is Florence Clugston and Linda Brand,” Alice stated, pointing to one and then the other. “Ladies, this is Tammy Grant and she’s assisting us while Nancy is away.”

The three of them exchanged simple pleasantries, but Terry felt like he was being sized up by each of the women. He wasn’t quite sure why as he didn’t see himself as a threat to anything they could be doing. He was only here for a short while so that he could pay off the loans he had been forced into and then he was out of here.

Florence turned and asked, “Alice, what happened to the boy who was supposed to be here?”

“I’m not sure. Mr. Corwin says that he called to cancel or something and that he was recommended to Tammy here by a friend of his.”

“Well that’s good. I wasn’t too thrilled with the idea of him working here. Tammy, I’m so glad to have you with us. And I’m also very pleased that you don’t need to be told how important the dress code is.”

“I’m sorry, dress code?”

“Well yes, since you are one of the executive secretaries, you have to dress the part. As you can see, the secretaries that are in the common room aren’t required to be as well presenting as we must be. Given their duties, they have a lower expectation.”

I looked down at how I was dressed and was glad that not only had I received several outfits from Nancy who I met the previous Thursday at the beauty parlor, but Lisa had insisted that we pick up a few more outfits over the weekend while I was receiving my crash course in how to do everything. Part of me shuddered as I took it all in yet again. Like Alice, I had a bow at my neck, but mine tied to the side and my dress was blue with alternating diagonal pink strips. And I had to agree, I was certainly much better dressed than the women I had seen in the other room. They were all dressed well, but not nearly as well as the women before me.

“So Tammy, did you train at a professional school or did you have another job before joining our office?”

“Oh, no. I’m sorry, I am pretty fresh off the boat I’m afraid. I think it was my typing skills that caught Mr. Corwin’s attention. That and since this isn’t a permanent position, he felt he could take the risk with me.” Lisa had taught me to explain myself this way. She said it would help if I apologized now and then, even if I hadn’t done anything wrong. It was a way to show that I was a humble person and not someone they needed to worry about. Plus saying that I was only temporary would mean that I wasn’t going to be around for very long.

“Oh don’t worry, I’m sure you will do fine. I’m sure with your talents you’ll be able to land a full time job with us.”

I wasn’t sure if she really meant what she said. The tone and everything else about it seemed to say she was being honest and nice, but I also seemed to pick up some sort of acidic barb in there for some reason.

We chatted for a few more moments and then Alice led me over to the desk in the corner and began to instruct me as to how to answer the phone as well as where everything in the office was. Eventually she was able to guide me around to where the other offices were. It seems that Nancy was the main secretary to Jack Corwin and Alice was her assistant. Florence was the main secretary for the vice president, as well as the executive office manager, and Linda was her assistant. Alice was taking Nancy’s spot while she was out and I was taking Alice’s. It was confusing to me, but I guess it made sense not to switch who you reported to during this time.

It was a very busy day for me. It sort of flew by, everything was happening so quickly and I was rushing to catch up on all the right ways of doing things. One of the annoying aspects of where my desk was, was that part of it looked out over the secretary’s floor, and thus they all had a clear view of me and everything I did. Occasionally I looked up from what I was doing and would see some lady’s heads move quickly, as if they might have been looking at where I was. It was disconcerting to say the least.

Lunchtime came and I was somewhat unsettled to find that I wasn’t going to be eating with Alice. She was heading off with Florence and I was supposed to fill in for her while she was out. I was her assistant after all. So Linda came over and helped me through what to expect during the lunch hour while the office manager, Mrs. Luanna Strickland from the secretary floor, covered her duties for the vice president’s office. When it came time for our lunch, Linda and Luanna took me to the lunch room where I mainly sat and listened in on what they had to talk about.

I didn’t really feel comfortable bringing anything up with them. They were nice and all, but they seemed to want to know more about me than I really could talk about. So I mostly kept quiet and listened to what they were saying.

The next day was a little more familiar for me. At least I knew where to go and how to get things done better. Lunch wasn’t fun for me though, and eventually through the week Linda and Luanna had gotten what they wanted out of me and they stopped including me when they went to lunch. I’m not sure if I put them off or what, but they seemed to either be heading out more often or doing things that made me feel unwelcomed. I tried to talk to Lisa about it, but she kept telling me that the things they were talking about that made me feel unwelcomed were things women said to each other all the time. It was that I wasn’t too comfortable with talking about these things that was causing me to feel the way I was. As it was though, it became even more miserable for me to be there.

(currently…)

“Hello Alice. How was lunch?” I gave her my best smile while I asked. That’s one of the other things that Lisa had been drilling into me day in and day out. A smile and a perky attitude must be worn at all times. It helped cover up any sort of discomfort I might be feeling. Besides, she said that if the sharks smelled blood they could attack and I didn’t want to experience that.

I actually saw that happened on Monday. One of the girls in the secretary pool apparently had a bad breakup over the weekend, and the other girls formed two different groups. One group tried to console her a little, but the other group talked about her behind her back in ways that really shocked me. I had no idea they were so petty and mean about it all. What was worse was that some of the girls in one group were also in the other group. Lisa told me, ‘What do you expect? We’re human after all. Just because we’re women doesn’t mean we are supposed to be some sweet, nice, pollyanna type person.’

I tried to point out to Lisa that she was telling me to be the sweet, nice, pollyanna type person while I was in disguise as a girl. ‘That’s true,’ she said, ‘because you need to learn how to be non-threatening to the other women.’

I retrieved my purse from the desk and made my way to the ladies room. I had always thought that the bathroom would be very different than what I saw as a guy, you know? That women were always supposed to be these neat and tidy people and the bathroom would reflect it by being clean. That certainly was not the case. The bathrooms were one of the dirtiest places I had ever seen. You think men’s rooms are bad? Try the ladies; they aren’t clean. Not only was it not clean, but why was it that the men’s room had the same basic number of stalls? I knew how many stalls the men’s room had because I had been in there before during my interview process back before that horrible Thursday. Why were there not more stalls for the ladies room? I mean, it was obvious that going to the restroom as a woman was a lot more involved process than going as a guy. I mean, even as I guy I knew that.

But apparently no one ever told the designers this. Why the women haven’t complained about this before was beyond me. Listen, for a guy it was simple. You go in, you drop your pants, you go, and that’s that. When you are all done, all you have to do is pull your pants back up, tuck in your shirt and then hopefully wash your hands. But for a woman there was a lot more involved in ‘dropping your pants’. The number of ‘layers’ you had between you and the outside world was a lot more than what I had as a guy, and it was generally a lot more tight to the skin so getting it off, much less on, was a lot more involved. Plus you’ve got to keep your skirt or dress up high enough to not get it dirty. And I learned very early on that to have a tight skirt was a terrible thing, no matter how good someone said you looked wearing it. You had to practically undress in order to get to where you could sit down. And getting put back together? Again a lot more involved. And then you have to make sure your appearance is neat afterwards. That’s not as simple as tucking in your shirt. There’s hair and makeup and perfume and other things. It’s a mess. So tell me why there were the same number of stalls in the girls room as there were in the men’s room? Especially where there were only about ten men in the entire area compared to the fifty or so women? All trying to use the restroom at the same times?

It’s madness, I tell you!

But it was the bathrooms that gave me my first big clue as to what was going on around me.

(previously…)

The stall I happened to get into was the smallest one. I don’t know why, but they seemed to have run out of room when they were setting up the stall walls and this one stall against the wall seemed to have a lot less room than the other four normal stalls. I watched my purse swing slightly side to side from where it was hung on the door. When someone opened or closed the stall close by, it would start my purse swinging again. It wasn’t like I normally took a long time while using the restroom, but today I was a bit out of sorts. Something I ate for certain.

I glanced down again, making sure that I had a good hold on my skirt and slip, and that my girdle that held all my padding wasn’t low enough to be seen by everyone else from under the stalls. Not that anyone was going to be looking, but you never know what someone can see at times. I tried especially hard not to listen in or try to look at anyone in the bathroom. After all, I was intruding on their space whether they knew it or not. Lisa teased me now and then about having to use the women’s room and it was a very uncomfortable subject. Because she was partly right. It was something of a boy’s dream to be able to see what women did. To be able to catch glimpses of things that you normally would never see. Still, it wasn’t right. I mean, I at least didn’t go in there thinking it was some sort of love fest going on between all the girls like some guys would think.

Girls were like guys. They wanted to come in and do their business. Most didn’t want to talk while they were doing their business. The big difference was what they did after they did their business; while they freshened up at the counter or waited for their friends or whatever. A good number of them, far more than any guys, liked to strike up conversations. And not just sometimes, but it seemed like an all the time thing. I thought at first it must be between their friends, but I found out it was even between those that they didn’t know so well. Like me.

Yah, I didn’t like the bathrooms because they were always so busy and I felt so rushed. I also felt so exposed in there, that someone might see … well, you know. I also felt like they had me captive in there. I couldn’t get out sometimes without people trying to talk to me. Comments about my hair or whatever. I did my best to cut the conversations short. It was not a pleasant experience for me at all. I like bathrooms before all this happened because I could take a few minutes to escape everything. Guys tend to leave other guys alone. Not now though. I don’t like bathrooms anymore.

Suddenly I heard someone mention the name, ‘Tammy’. I was the only Tammy around the office that I knew of, so it had to be me unless they were talking about someone outside of the office. I listened in whether I wanted to or not. I couldn’t help it.

“Why in the world did they pick up that girl for the executive secretary job?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I heard that she never learned how to be in an office before she got this job. And that this is her first job at that. Do you know how long I’ve been trying to get a job like that? And she waltzes in and has it?”

“Yah, but the job is temporary. She won’t be an executive after that.”

“But what about the rest of us? We could have gone in there even temporarily and done a much better job. Hell, I could have shown them that I was capable to doing the job, but they brought in some stuck up bitch instead.”

“She’s certainly stuck up. Every time we try to talk to her she never wants to talk to us. And she’s always dressing like we’re so far beneath her. And… well, I did hear that one of the other top ladies say that she must have done something to get in there. You know she’s pretty cute, so she probably did her interview in a motel room.”

“I bet you’re right. She’s probably trying to land herself a husband. Well good luck there. All those men will play with you, but they aren’t going to let go of what they already have. Especially when there are a lot of girls here who would be happy to give them what they want.”

You know the list of why I hate bathrooms? It keeps growing.

(currently…)

I looked across the restaurant table at Lisa as she ate her salad, one identical to my own. One of our rules was that I had to eat the same things she ate. That’s one of the ways I kept in character. Kimberly saw my longing stare and asked what was wrong.

I tried to explain my problem. “It isn’t that I’m against salads. I like them well enough, I guess, but what I’d really like to have was something more pleasurable. Something really beefy to fill me up.”

When I figured out why they were laughing so hard, I could have buried myself under the table.

“So, what have you learned so far?” Kimberly asked us. We had been researching everything we could about my situation, looking for a way out of it. Lisa worked her social network for what she could find out and I had spent most of my Saturday in the library looking things up on a variety of subjects while the two of them worked in the salon. This was supposed to be our triumphant celebration meal about what we had discovered. It turned out to be more of a discussion of futility.

Lisa started off, “Well, one of the things we have learned is that our beloved Mr. Jack is one of the most powerful men in the county.”

I nodded, filling in, “He’s up there and calls a lot of shots it seems. Many of the elected officials meet with him during the week or call him on issues. I can’t say he tells them exactly what to do, but his opinion is always sought on a lot of things. He also gets into calls about once a day that none of us secretaries are allowed in on. So he must be doing a lot of behind the scenes type stuff.”

“Yah, that’s pretty much what Bonnie said too, that Jack was not someone you wanted to get angry with you. Seems he can arrange to have your business suffer and not make as much money if he wants to. And if he really didn’t like you, he could make it fail.” Lisa pointed towards me, “And we both have found out that there’s no way we’re going to be able to take him to court about the whole not wanting a guy to work as a secretary thing.”

“What do you mean? It’s completely wrong. He should easily lose that case.” She waved her hand indirectly to cover me. “Even though we’re in a right to fire state, the government still protects against discrimination over gender and stuff.”

“That’s true, but you need witnesses. And the only people who witnessed it were Tammy, myself, Bonnie, Jack, and his secretary Nancy. And Bonnie won’t speak against Jack. Like I said, if you get on his bad side your business can go under. And Nancy won’t go against him either. She’s got a baby now and her husband is a fire fighter, directly controlled by the county government which Jack is so capable of influencing. He doesn’t have to do anything directly, because people will assume what he might want them to do and do it for him, just to get on his good side.”

I added, “And so that leaves Lisa and me, arguing against Jack and two others who would take Jack’s side of things. And in that trial, my situation would come out and thus Lisa’s. You know what? That bastard could argue that he gave me the job when I was a guy and still let me have the job when he went to Bonnie’s, even knowing I was a guy and that I would be dressing as a girl. So any argument saying that he didn’t want guys working as a secretary would have to fight all of that. We’d never survive afterwards. And there’s no where we could go nearby that he couldn’t reach out to and destroy our chances to have a job, a home, or anything else.”

Kimberly took it in and noted, “That’s why your plan is to get way far away from here, right? So that you can get away from anything he could influence?”

Lisa swallowed her bite and answered, “Exactly. Look, Tammy or I are going to have to get far away from here, establish ourselves, then we can bring the one left behind along. And right now that is looking like it is going to have to be me. I should be able to set up in another place fairly easily. Then Tammy disappears here, and Terry shows up far away. He won’t be able to use any of his work experience here, but at least we’ll get out from under him. At worse we have to stay separate from each other for a short time, while they might look or check up on where we went, but then we’ll be okay to get back together.”

“So when do you plan to move then?”

I sighed, stabbing my salad with my fork, “Not for a long while. I have to pay off these loans that Jack pushed on to me for the clothes and stuff.”

“Well, that wasn’t too much, was it?”

“It was enough to really slow me down. And it gets worse. Even though I’m being paid more than the other girls because I’m an executive secretary, it isn’t nearly what the other ladies are making. I’m a temp after all. And all that extra money is being spent on clothes and stuff to help me keep up with the dress requirements at work.”

“And doctor bills…” Lisa mumbled.

“Yah, don’t remind me.”

“Doctor bills? Is there something wrong?” Kimberly looked back and forth between the two of us, trying to figure out who was having problems. It wouldn’t be unlike Lisa to shove her expenses on someone else, but after everything Tammy, err Terry, was doing for her, why would she abuse him like that? Didn’t she realize the lengths and depths that he was going through to help her? And he had been so noble about it too.

He spelled it out for her. “My friend and promoter of good health, Mr. Jack Corwin, is making sure that I get what I need to fulfill my lifelong dream and wish of being a woman.”

“But… you don’t want to be a woman.”

“Yah, but he thinks Tammy does want to be a woman. That’s what Bonnie sold Jack on that Thursday. God that bitch drives me nuts. I tried to take things only a little way and she takes over with her whole ‘All the Way or Nothing’ attitude because she thinks she is so right about everything… I mean, UGH!”

Kimberly looked me over. “So what does that mean? How is he going to do the wish fulfillment?”

“He’s making sure that I have the information I need and the appointments with the various doctors in order to achieve my goal. He’s even researched things out for me so that I have all the information at hand.”

“Oh God!” Kim exclaimed. “He’s going to have the doctors cut your … thing off.”

“NO!” Lisa and I both erupted, then we felt embarrassed having shouted in the restaurant.

“No, it isn’t like that. Not this early at least.” I drew an imaginary line on the table and stated pointing to various locations down the imaginary line. “Here’s the time line of events. This is what I found out and I’m safe and clear on things. You see, I have to have therapy for a long while before anything medically or surgically can be done. So I should be way out of here before it gets time to see the medical doctors about it. And even if I don’t get out of here that fast, which I hope to God doesn’t happen. Even if I’m here for a year or so and then the medical doctor part happens, they don’t go in and start cutting things off of me. They have to go slow as well. They have this entire procedure of events that must happen before the next thing can be done.”

This was news to Lisa as well, “How slow do they go? And once they start, aren’t you committed all the way?”

“Nope. I mean, it’s slow. Every part of the procedure takes time. It’s like another year or so each part. A year of therapy and then you get to the medical part. And that takes time like I said. You see they start injecting you with girl’s hormones. Then your body slowly changes to a more girlish shape and form. It’s not a complete change, but a partial change. From what I read, it won’t turn me into some super model or something like that. No, my skin will become more soft. And I’ll slowly start to grow… um, curves.”

Kimberly laughed a little, “Oh God, if you get tits you won’t stop fondling yourself.”

I blushed a bit and then I caught Lisa’s eye and she seemed a bit intrigued by that, which made me blush even more. I tried to protest, “No, no, no. It isn’t like that. It’s very slow. It’s like, oh, I don’t know, how fast it took you to grow your own, you know?”

“Oh, that took a long while before they began to look good and you’re right, they take a good long time before they even come in. You’ll have itty bitty titties for a long time.”

I crossed my arms over the padding of my breasts. “This whole conversation is making me very uncomfortable.”

Lisa ventured, “But once that happens, what else? Is it permanent?”

“Ah, no. Not really. From what I read, the body will redistribute the stuff back to where it goes based upon the hormones I have in my system. So if I have girl hormones, I get hips, small waist, soft skin, and … you know. But when I stop taking those hormones my body has its own and I’ll just revert back to my normal self.”

“Won’t your thing suffer?”

“Nothing bad from what I read. It will be a long while before anything happens to stop my thing from acting like it should act. But by then I best be away from here and if I’m not able to get away normally by then, I certainly will be running for the other coast, loans or not. I won’t leave a forwarding address either.”

“So when does the thingie get cut off?” Kim blushed a bit, but I could tell she was curious about the whole thing. It didn’t bother me much, as it wouldn’t happen to me that’s for sure. It was a much more clinical type of view point.

“Well, let’s see. You go on the meds and your body changes which takes a few years. Then you have to prove that you’re willing and able to live as a woman, so that’s yet another year or so. Then if everyone agrees, the doctors, the therapist, and the patient, they can then do the surgery which I read was really expensive.”

“Oh, then even if things go all to hell, we’ll have plenty of time, right?”

“Exactly.”

Lisa wondered, “Is Jack doing all these things to see if you trip up and reveal yourself as a fraud? Do you think he’d do something like that?”

“Um, I don’t know. I mean, what I’m telling you about the time line and all is from the library, so unless Jack wrote that and published it under assumed names, I don’t think so.” They all chuckled at that. “However you know how controlling he is about everything. I told you how he likes to be very rigid about everything done perfectly right all the time. I bet he’s with that therapist right now discussing what happened during my meeting and making sure that I’m not a fraud of some sort. He’s not paranoid. I’m not saying that. But he’s the kind of man who ensures that everything is done by the book. I bet he’ll even set up tests of his own to make sure I’ll follow through with them and continue to prove I’m on the up and up in all this. He’ll want to insure I am not faking anything.”

Kimberly considered the two of us and what we had talked about as she ate for a few moments in silence. Then a thought occurred to her, “You mentioned doctor bills like you already have seen a doctor. Have you?”

I nodded. “Yah, sort of. I had my first therapy session yesterday. Didn’t I mention that? I had to take time off from work to do it too, so that’s another thing that is stopping me from getting all the money we need to move on.”

“How did it go?”

“It was … strange. I had to keep in mind what I needed to say about things so that the doctor would believe that this was what I wanted in life. Keeping to the script and lies I needed, I think I did okay.”

“What sort of things did you say?”

“Um, God this is embarrassing. I had to tell him that I wanted to be a girl and stuff. But he didn’t really seem all that interested in my telling him that.”

Lisa joined in. I hadn’t told her everything about the therapy session yet. “So if you didn’t talk about wanting to be a woman and how you were a girl in a boy’s body and all that junk, what did you talk about?”

“Well, it was mostly how I felt at work and stuff. You know, how I was coping and working with the other girls and stuff. Like, how I felt about things, my troubles I was having fitting in with the other girls, my living as a girl full time, and stuff like that.”

“What sorts of troubles are you having? Is it that you are trying to understand the other girls or something like that? Because let’s face it, you don’t have a lot of life experience as a girl so of course you don’t know what girls like or do and that would make it hard to swap girl stories and junk.”

“No, mostly that the other girls aren’t accepting me in their little groups.”

Lisa laughed a little at this, but Kimberly pressed on. “In what way are they not accepting you?”

“Well,” I squirmed a little in my chair and felt my cheeks heat up, “the executive secretaries see me as someone who doesn’t have the background to be an executive secretary, even a temporary one. And the girls from the secretary floor think I’m stuck up and that I dress more nicely than them as a way to try and be better than they are.”

Lisa and Kimberly both laughed a little at my confession. Lisa already knew all of that, but she still found it funny. She pressed me and encouraged Kimberly to hear the rest. “You’ve got to hear the funniest part of this whole thing. Tammy, tell Kimmie here what both groups think you did to get the job.”

I delayed as long as I could, but it was inevitable. If I didn’t say, then Lisa would say and she’d make it sound a lot worse. “They all think that my typing skills alone aren’t enough to have landed me this job. They all think I slept with one or more of the managers to get the job.”

I thought Kimberly was going to choke to death after that.

(meanwhile on the other side of town …. )

“You know Jack, she’s the real deal here.” Don sat back in his chair on the private deck at the country club, looking out over the pool. He took a long sip from his drink before setting it down on the table between himself and Jack. They both sat and watched their families swim in the pool as well as watched some of the pretty ladies walk about.

“The real deal? How so?”

“Well, you know that this isn’t my expertise, but I read up enough in the last week to know that she’s showing the classic signs. She didn’t seem all that interested in trying to convince me that she was a girl at heart or anything like that. If she was trying to trick you or me, she would have spent a lot of time on that alone. As it was, she only responded to my questions about that sort of thing and then she dropped it. That was it.”

Jack glanced over and tried to evaluate what the doctor had said, “But wouldn’t the lack of talking about it be a sign that she isn’t the real deal?”

“Well yah, if she then went on and talked about cars or guy stuff. Or if she continued to try and convince me that she was a girl and not a boy at heart. No, this girl didn’t do either one of those.”

“What did she do then?”

“Well, she talked about how she felt like she was being ostracized from the rest of the girls at your office. She feels they aren’t letting her into their little hen house and she wants desperately to feel a part of all that. Tammy said that your senior girls seemed to feel she didn’t have the skills or experience to be one of them, and their keeping her out. I bet your senior girls see her as a threat, not because she’s a great secretary, but because she’s young and cute. So damn, she’s got them all convinced she’s the real deal otherwise they wouldn’t be threatened like that. Plus your junior girls also don’t like her. Tammy said that they felt she was stuck up and didn’t like that she dressed much better than they do.”

“Well, I guess that’s to be expected. After all the juniors aren’t required to dress at the same level as the senior staff. So of course she can’t dress like they do.”

“Yah, but it also shows something else. She likes to dress nicely. We talked a little about what she wears when she’s not at work and from what she said, she dresses nicely then too. She also isn’t coming at it from the angle you just used. If Tammy was really a guy, she would have been logical about the whole deal and would have written it off like that. But no, she talked about how it made her feel and how hard it was for her to fit in. All because she wants to fit in. She’s also worried about what she’ll do after her temporary job runs out. How will she fit in with all the girls in the common room after they’ve pushed her out all this time and she also doesn’t know if she could even dress as casually as they do. I can tell she likes to dress as feminine as possible. You know Jack, she’s the real deal.”

“Huh, I hadn’t thought about the disruptions to the staff that she’ll have when we move her down to the common room.” He took a drink and made a mental note to think about how to help Tammy out in that regard. He didn’t need another senior staff member and she wasn’t fitting in with either group, so it would be hard no matter which group she tried to join once Nancy came back to work.

“She’s also complaining about how uncomfortable she’s feeling dressed like she is.”

“What? I thought you said that she likes to dress as feminine as possible? If she’s a real woman like you say she is, why does it bother her?”

“Sorry, I guess I need to clarify that. It is not that she feels out of place dressing like she does. No, her complaints are about the padding she has to wear in order to wear the clothes properly. She spent a bit of time complaining about how uncomfortable it was.”

“Well, I can see that. I mean, I am sure that wearing padding would be sort of difficult in the summer time. All that heat trapped in there. I mean, I don’t like to wear a suit coat myself all the time either, so I bet she would like to take her ‘coat’ off in a way.”

“Exactly. She’s wanting to ditch the padding and look normal. I tell you Jack, she’s ready to be a woman now. All this waiting is going to kill her.”

“Waiting?”

“Well yes. There are procedures that we follow generally. She’s got to spend time in therapy for a while so that we can officially say that she is or isn’t the real deal.”

Jack nodded at his point, mentally noting that Don already stated that she was the real deal. Just like in business, there were times some idiot created a bunch of procedures and red tape to slow down what needed to be done. Yes, they were helpful if you had to be careful about your next step, but once it was determined what the right course of action was, the responsible thing to do was to do it. Damn the procedures and get the job done.

Don continued on, “And after that, she’s then ready for the medical side of things. She’ll have to be prescribed estrogen and other female hormones in order have her body adapt. Then she’ll have to eventually do what is called a real life test. Living as a woman full time for about a year so that she is confident that this is what she really wants to do and that she isn’t some cross dresser or something like that. Once she’s proven that, then she can have the operation.”

Jack was silent for a moment. He thought about it and what Tammy would have to live through before reaching the end goal. That was what? Three years of effort to prove beyond everyone’s doubt that she was really ready for this? That would be like a journey through hell to prove to everyone else that you could do it, all the while playing “mother may I” every step of the way. It was obscene to have to put up with that much crap to get to where you were trying to get to.

No, that wouldn’t do. Tammy was pretty damn courageous. The more he saw of what she was going through to get to where she was trying to go, the more courageous she became. He thought originally that ‘Tammy’ was a failure as a man, such a failure that he was willing to be demoted to being a woman. But now he saw things in a newer light. Here was a person, brave, determined, willing to live through years of hell to get what she wanted. Tammy was risking everything she was to achieve this goal. And if she was discovered during that time? It would be throwing the Christian to the lion while everyone watched from the stands.

No, that won’t do. He wasn’t going to stand by while everyone played ‘gate keeper’ and made Tammy jump through their hoops and dance before them until they were satisfied that she was ready to go to the next step on the ladder. No, that won’t do at all. The responsible thing when the procedures are in the way of the justified and qualified goal is to damn the procedures and do it.

And there was one thing Jack did well. He got things done.