Chapter Six: Candlelight Dinner for Two
The minute I hung up, I had second thoughts. What had I done? Hadn’t I been trying to be a man, a male animal so that I could safely continue my budding career as a teacher? Now, I had invited a man over so that I could be “the woman of the house,” painstakingly putting on make up, a lovely seductive cocktail dress and then preparing him a supper of a salad with sliced chicken breast, pasta and a chocolate mousse dessert.

Momentarily, I considered calling him back to suggest I’d meet him at some bar, dressed not as Julie, but as Jason. I dropped that idea quickly, perhaps because I was recently out of a scented bath water, standing in my dark slip and feeling totally feminine. I wanted to show Hank just how lovely and pretty I could be.

I fussed terribly in the hour or so before Hank showed up, fixing my hair this way and that way before settling upon leaving it brushed and flowing freely, but with bangs carefully moving to one side. At first I put on too much eyeliner and a lip gloss that was far too bright and garish. I looked like a street-walker, I was convinced. Hurriedly, I cleaned it off, before putting on more modest makeup, giving me a more schoolgirl-like look.

Then, I decided that I probably shouldn’t wear my favorite dress – the black cocktail outfit – and instead put on a plaid, pleated skirt, a white blouse, stockings and ballet flats. I loved the result; the mirror told me I looked like an innocent, first-year college girl who would be “carded” for being too young to drink, even though by then I had turned twenty-four.

“My, my Julie, now you look too young for Hank,” I said to the mirror.

It would have to do, I realized, since I had about fifteen minutes left to assemble the salad; I had pre-cooked chicken breast in the freezer and merely needed to microwave it and slice it; after his call I began to boil the water for the pasta. I placed a white table cloth on the dining room table, found two pink candles and placed them in their holders and made the place-settings, using my mother’s best dishes and silver – all of which she had received as wedding gifts some thirty years earlier, but had rarely used.

I was still working on the salad when the bell rang; I ditched the apron I was wearing, looked in the mirror and was horrified to see some random strands of hair had gotten out of place. I tried to brush them back, as I ran to the door.

“Oh my, Julie, you look great,” Hank said as he entered. He thrust a dozen pink roses into my hand.

“Hank, thank you,” I said, rising on my toes to kiss him lightly on the lips. “But, Hank, I feel like a mess. I’m just finishing the salad and I had such a long, busy day.”

“You look lovely, dear,” he said, smiling.

“Let me put these roses in a vase,” I said. “Make yourself at home. Would you like something to drink now? I’m afraid I only have vodka, some diet cola and light beer.”

“A beer’s fine. And let me join you in the kitchen, I’m a pretty good salad tosser,” he said.

As we gathered at the kitchen counter, he put his arm around me and drew me to him. We kissed long, deeply and passionately. Our tongues played with each other, and I smelled the musk of his after-shave lotion, growing intoxicated by the press of his body against mine. Our breathing became heavy and excited; I could feel his bulge growing in his pants, while my own tiny penis hardened. It was an erotic moment.

“We’d better not start this now,” I said, turning my head so as to break his kiss.

We broke apart, and set about to work together to finish preparing our meal. As Hank tossed the salad, he asked me about my mother; he had seen pictures of her on the breakfront in the dining room and remarked that she was a beautiful woman, “just like her daughter.” I told him that I missed her terribly and that she had been my only real friend, the only one I could turn to when I was troubled.

“She understood me, Hank, like no one else could,” I said, tears beginning to form in my eyes.

“Julie, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to bring back memories like that,” he said. Hank pulled a tissue from the box on the counter and gently reached in to dab my eyes. It was a sweet, warming gesture.

“It’s not your fault, darling. You didn’t know, and the truth is I love thinking of mother even if I sometimes cry because she’s gone now.’

“Did she want you to be a girl, Julie?” he asked when he had finished fixing the salad. I put the cut-up chicken breast into the microwave, giving us a few minutes rest from our chores. We stood opposite each other in the kitchen; I was balanced against the back of a kitchen chair and he leaned back with his buttocks on the counter.

“Not really,” I replied. “Not at first, anyway, since she had wanted me to go out and play with the guys in the neighborhood, but I just never fit in. The guys said I threw like a girl, which I guess I did.”

“Not every boy has to be good in sports,” Hank said.

“It wasn’t just that, Hank. I began taking an interest in how mother dressed and in reading fashion magazines. And I began playing with the girl next door a lot. Her name was Amy. She was a year younger, but we hit it off. I even played dolls with her and one day she let me take one of her dolls home, just for an overnight, you might say.”

“How old were you then?”

“Maybe nine or ten and I proudly showed mother the doll when I got home. I think it shocked her ‘cause she took the doll from me and said ‘boys don’t play with dolls.’ Well, I began to cry and I think she finally began to realize I might be a bit different from other boys.

“A few days later – after the doll incident – mother surprised by buying me a doll of my own. I was so happy and soon I had a small doll collection and she quit telling me to go out and play with the boys. For a couple of years, until middle school, Amy and I were best friends.”

As I told Hank how I began to realize that maybe I was truly a girl and that my male anatomy was just a big mistake, I found myself relishing in revealing my life; I had rarely opened up to anyone like this and I found it so liberating. I had begun the process with Jon Edwards, whose sensitive nature was obvious, but now I was telling even more secrets to Hank – a man whom I at first had assumed was a crude, uncaring lout.

“I’m happy that your mother saw the girl in you,” Hank said, as the microwave alarm sounded indicating the breast was done cooking.

“Me too,” I said, standing on my tiptoes to give him a quick, but affectionate kiss.

*****
Our dinner turned out to be divine in many ways. The pasta and chicken dish was tasty and the salad was delicious thanks to Hank suggesting the addition of several herbs that I never thought of using. The conversation was easy, mainly about school, our favorite movies and some of his sports successes.

I recalled again his experiences as an all-everything in football at high school and college playing as a quarterback-sacking linebacker, the type of player often associated with meanness. I know Hank was regarded by his students and the other teachers as a no-nonsense instructor, demanding much and unyielding with those who failed to obey as instructed. Yet, Hank’s sensitive nature was becoming more and more evident to me. The evening went on and we finished the bottle of wine, before adjourning to the couch to watch a movie from a DVD that Hank brought, claiming it was a favorite of his. I was surprised that the movie was not a shoot ‘em up action film but was “The Bridges of Madison County.” What a surprising choice for this macho man! And we both cried as the movie ended, having been emotionally moved by Meryl Streep and Clint Eastwood’s brief, but intense affair in the movie.

“Is this what happens when two people fall in love and have to walk away from it?” I asked.

Hank held me more tightly, stroking the back of my head and I buried my head into his neck, taking in his man scent. It was delicious!

“You mean, like us, Julie?” he asked.

“Yes, like us. This can only be a dream, Hank,” I answered, as my tears began to gush forth, moistening his shirt at the shoulder.

“Maybe someday it can become real,” he said, his hands moving passionately over me.

We hugged, moving in unison on the couch so that we were soon lying side-by-side, needing to squeeze tightly together to avoid falling on the floor. I could feel his heart pounding and his manhood grow against my thigh, as we kissed vigorously, both breathing heavily.

“I’m not ready for sex,” I said breathlessly after a while.

“Me either,” he said. “I want you to receive me as a woman, Julie.”

“Oh darling, that’s so marvelous. That’s the way I want it too.”

“Maybe someday,” he whispered.

“Yes, someday, I promise.”

*****
During my lunch break the next Monday, I found time to call Dr. Pamela Wojcziehowski, the gender specialist I had seen a few times in the past year. Mom had arranged for my first appointment in the last months of her life, having realized that my fetish to wear women’s clothes and to enjoy female endeavors were signs of my true nature. With mom’s death, and the fact that I had to pay for the visits out-of-pocket, I had found it impossible to see her but a few times.

My visits with Dr. Pam, as she insisted I call her, recognizing that Wojcziehowski might be hard to pronounce, had proven to be helpful; she was understanding and patient, allowing me time to tell her my innermost thoughts, dreams and feelings. She also realized that my shy, almost reclusive nature might make it difficult to effect any major life change, such as from male to female.

“Whenever you’re ready, Jason, I believe you’d likely be a good candidate for a gender change,” she said.

She convinced me that I was not “weird” or “strange” or just plain “nuts,” but that I was experiencing what a select group of men have faced throughout centuries: a realization that they were women in mind, soul and feelings.

“You must get out into the world as a young lady to see if that is what you want,” she had urged him. “Live outwardly as a female for a week, a month or a year.”

“I can’t do that, Dr. Pam,” I argued.

“We’ll let that up to you, Jason, but I know you want to try it, but that you’re worried about what others might say and what reactions you’d get.”

“I’d be scared, Dr. Pam. Besides I want to be a teacher, and that would be so difficult. I’m such a coward.”

The doctor, an attractive woman in her late thirties with close cropped blonde hair, shook her head and said: “No, Jason. It’s a natural feeling and a realistic one.”

After mom’s death, I saw Dr. Pam only once, in June, two weeks before the Fourth of July weekend when I ventured out as a women, traveling to Point Pleasant where I first met Randy. I’m sure her renewed suggestion that I get out as “Julie,” a name I told her I wanted to use, prompted me as much as anything to make that initial outing.

She had an opening at five-thirty in the afternoon on Wednesday and I booked it. I knew I would have to tell Jon that I’d have to cancel our usual Wednesday night outing, but knew he’d understand. He also had been urging me to become serious about my transitioning. “Unless I’m imagining it you’re becoming more feminine week-after-week,” he told me.

His remark made me smile, even as it frightened me.

*****
On the Tuesday before I was scheduled to see Dr. Pam, Carmen caught me as I was leaving school, “Mr. Pearson,” she yelled as she ran after me. The girl had become formal with me, never exhibiting any signs that she knew me outside of the school setting, and for that I was grateful.

“Yes, Carmen, what’s up?” I said. I had just reached the sidewalk off the school grounds and began walking toward the train stop.

“I need to tell you something, and I know you’ve got to catch the train. It won’t take long,” she said hurriedly, the words coming out in a rush.

“Walk along with me then, if you wish, Carmen,” I suggested.

She moved alongside me on my right and when we were away from the throng of students leaving the school she began, “Randy and I went to the coffee shop after the tournament on Saturday; he had to wait for his mom to pick him up from her job, so he had time to kill, and do you know what he asked me?”

“No,” I said, although getting a sick feeling that whatever it was it would be about me and it wouldn’t be good.

“Well, he asked me who the teacher was at the reception table where we did registration, and I said it was Mr. Pearson, who was subbing that semester for an English teacher on maternity leave, and I thought would be the end of it, but he then said this: ‘when I walked up to register, I saw the teacher, and the way in which he flicked his long hair out of his eyes and for a minute I thought it was Julie sitting there.’”

I was stunned by the revelation, having tried that day to act as manly as I could, but my girlish habits apparently were becoming too ingrained.

“Randy then said he realized you were a man and for a while ditched the thought about seeing Julie,” the girl continued. “Yet, he watched you when he could that day, fascinated by how much like Julie you were. Really, Mr. Pearson, I hate to say this but I and lots of students already are commenting about the ‘femme’ teacher in our school. I just wanted to warn you.”

I knew there had been comments like that, having overheard some undertones of conversations among the students and having observed many students giving me long stares and then averting their eyes when I looked back at them.

“That’s all right, Carmen,” I told the girl. “I thank you for keeping my secret.”

“No problem, Mr. Pearson, since I know you’re a good teacher and wouldn’t do anything wrong to harm other students, but frankly I’m worried about Randy. He’s still obsessed with you, or should I say ‘Julie?’”

With that, Carmen gave me a quick “good-bye,” and even before I could respond, she had turned away and was bounding back toward the school. Apparently I was becoming the talk of the school, which for some reason didn’t bother me; what did concern me was that Randy seemed committed to pursuing “Julie” and might one day find out who she really was.

Carmen’s words confirmed it: I was female.

*****
“I’m a woman,” I told Dr. Pam directly when we met.

“Not so fast, Jason,” she counseled, reverting to my male name perhaps to emphasize the point. We were seated in a part of her office that had been developed as a lounge area with overstuffed chairs, a love seat and a coffee table. I had taken the love seat, which I had found to be the most comfortable of chairs, largely because it was firm. The chairs were soft and I seemed to sink down in them, making me drowsy. Dr. Pam kept the light subdued in the office, keeping only table lamps (with old-fashioned incandescent bulbs since they gave off a soft light) lighted.

“I’m convinced, doctor,” I said. “Just look at me. I’m wearing men’s clothes, but look at how I cross my legs, hold my hands in my lap and brush my hair like a girl does. One of the students at school told me I’m looking more-and-more female every day.”

She let me prattle on about what Carmen told me, about Hank’s visit on Saturday night and how much I felt like a woman. After about ten minutes of narrative, which I delivered in a breath-taking cascade of words, I stopped with the words: “Dr. Pam I feel like a . . . no . . . no . . . I am a woman.”

She said nothing for a few minutes and put her fingers together, matching the tips of each finger from each hand. She was seated in a side chair that held her body erect, looking directly at me.

Growing impatient with the silence, I finally asked: “What do you say? When can I start hormones?”

“You seem like a young lady in a hurry. Let’s talk about this,” she said, smiling.

“I think I’ve known I’ve been a girl for years. I just didn’t want to admit it to myself. Now I know.”

When the fifty minute appointment was ended, Dr. Pam convinced me that it would be in my best interest to delay a decision on taking hormones at least until the end of the school year, which was about two months away.

“This is a decision about which you need to be certain,” Dr. Pam said. “The consequences of beginning transition that involves chemical changes in your body can be irreversible. Not every patient I’ve had finds such a transition successful, and then they’re in terrible distress once they’ve taken such hormones.

“Furthermore, transitioning will bring all sorts of challenges, particularly with your desire to continue teaching. Not every school district wants to deal with transgendered teachers. You’ll likely face more health problems later in life, too.”

“I thought there were laws prohibiting discrimination against transgendered people,” I countered.

“No, honey,” she said, her voice growing more gentle and soothing. “The laws cover sexual orientation, but not those who were born male or female and wish to live as the other gender.”

I agreed that I would live the next two months as a male, wearing female clothes only in the privacy of my own home. In the meantime, I would schedule two more meetings with Dr. Pam, get a complete physical examination and see an endocrinologist who would prescribe appropriate hormones once I decided – along with Dr. Pam – that I was a good candidate to transition. Also, it would be a period in which I could discuss my pending transition with the school principal and perhaps other school officials. I knew Mrs. McGuire would return for the next school year, but the principal had told me my performance had been excellent and they were ready to offer me a contract if there would be an opening for an English teacher in the district. “You’re really a very talented teacher, Jason, and we’d love to have you in the system,” Miss Hammond said.

The question was now: would the school district be so eager to keep me as a teacher if I was Miss Julie Pearson?

*****
I wanted to cool it with Hank; while he ignored me at school, he called me at home once a night – and sometimes twice. In the calls, he treated me as Julie, making no reference to Jason or to school. That he considered me to be his “girlfriend” I had no doubt. We had a Saturday night date; this time he wanted to take me to an out-of-the-way club in another community where it would be doubtful we’d run into anyone we knew. I tried at first to decline.

“Oh Hank, it’s been a long week and I’m tired,” I said when he called on Thursday night.

“It’ll do you good to get out, wake you up, darling,” he replied. “Besides, I’d love you to wear that dark violet cocktail dress, the one that shows your lovely arms and shoulders. You look so hot in that.”

“No, Hank, we shouldn’t be doing this now while school is still in session. What if someone will see us?”

“Nobody will see us, Julie,” he pleaded. “No one I know even knows about the place. Besides if someone shows up who knows me, they’ll never place you. You’ll be my new girlfriend, Julie, that’s all.”

“We shouldn’t,” I said, though I sensed he felt my opposition to the invitation was weakening.

“Julie, I really want to show you off. Let’s go out and have a good time.”

In the end, I agreed. How can a girl refuse such a request from a handsome, strong and sweet man?

*****
Club Crystal was in a warehouse-type building, hardly fitting for a top-rated restaurant and night club. It was in a decaying industrial area of Crystal River, a community named after the river that cut through the center of town. I had checked the club out online and found that it had a four-star rating, offered great entrees and had a live quintet that featured danceable music. Valet parking was available at the fancy entrance that seemed out of place with the rest of the building.

“You’re my princess for the night,” Hank announced when he picked me up about six-thirty on Saturday.

I blushed as I opened the door to my bungalow to see him standing there with a wrapped box in his hands, wearing a formal black suit. The night was unusually warm for late April and for the first time that cold spring he didn’t wear a coat.

“Here, let’s see how this looks on you,” he announced, handing me the box as he entered the house.

“Oh Hank, you shouldn’t,” I said, rising on my toes to kiss him. Even in my three-inch heels, he was still taller than I was.

I was so excited being treated as such a special girl, but I restrained myself, carefully untying the bow on the box, opening it and finds a corsage of tiny white roses.

“It’s lovely, and it’ll look lovely on this dress,” I said, clearly astounded that this man – whom I once considered to be a lout – could be so sensitive and artistically tasteful in choosing a corsage.

“Nothing’s too good for you,” he smiled.

He helped me pin the corsage to the area on the area above my left breast, his hands gently accomplishing the task. Of course, the corsage perfectly complemented my dress, which was a sleeveless halter style outfit, with a plunging neckline. To ward off the chill of the night, I wore a white, crocheted wrap about my shoulders. I made little effort to enhance my breasts, choosing to wear only a padded bra; I had learned to use cosmetics to provide the hint of a cleavage, and was satisfied that I looked very much a woman who just happened to have only modest breasts.

I felt we were Cinderella and Prince Charming as we were met by a uniformed valet as Hank drove his Ford Mustang up to the entrance. What a marvelous way to start a lovely evening! Little did I know how badly it would end.