Smiling, I shut the computer down then went to the bathroom, brushed my teeth and had a wee. Switching off all the lights with the exception of the one on the bedside cabinet, I slipped under the sheets and just stared at the ceiling. As far as I was concerned, today was the end of my old life and tomorrow was the beginning of my new one.

And now the story continues…

The next morning I awoke with the sun on my face, coming through a chink in the curtains where they had not been closed fully.

Rubbing my eyes, I reached over and looked at my watch; it was ten past eight. I had a good stretch and a yawn, feeling rested and ready to face the new day.

Getting out of bed, I stretched again and padded over to the dressing table, checked the kettle for water and switched it on. Feeling a bladder situation occurring, I used the toilet and then washed the sleep out of my eyes. By the time I had done all this, the kettle had switched itself off.

I made myself a cup of coffee with the granules and milk provided and then went back to bed. Switching on my computer, I clicked on Google Maps and had a look at the route I ought to take to sunny Devon. It looked straightforward enough and, if I didn't stop, I reckoned I would be on the road for about three hours.

I checked my emails–more out of habit than any real need. Apart from a couple of spams regarding enlarging my penis, and telling me for a fact that I had won a timeshare in Spain, there was one from Olivia.

After pausing over the button for a moment, I sighed and opened it.

Tom, where are you? Why have you switched your phone off and why didn’t you answer my previous email and texts?

Olivia.

No “Love Olivia”, I noted as I closed her email. Did she want to tell me about her infidelity? I felt as if I didn’t know her–she wasn’t the person I thought I had married. I hadn’t decided what say to her yet and was going to wait until I arrived at my destination and settled in. Mind you, there may not be anywhere to stay, but I would cross that bridge when I came to it. It wouldn’t hurt for her to wonder where I was for a few more hours.

Drinking my coffee, I felt a certain peace. I was doing what I wanted–without any outside influences. For most of my life, I had taken into consideration what others wanted and not looked after my own interests. It was kind of liberating, lying on this bed like this in my silky feminine nightie, planning my future. It had taken the breakdown of my marriage to get where I now was and, sad as I was that things had happened the way they had, anything I did from now on was down to me and me alone. So I would go down to Devon and would try to make a life for myself without being held back by work or messy relationships.

I was lucky in a way because financially, I was in quite a good situation. When my mother died, she left her large, rambling house to me. I sold the house and it netted 250K and the money nestled in several different accounts–all in my name. Olivia wasn’t interested in my money and had always been of independent means; in fact my job was working at her father’s business, although now I think it was a mistake to have worked for him. The house we had lived in was bought by her parents as a wedding present–another tie which I could have done without. I sometimes felt like a kept man or girl. Olivia didn’t need to work, but she did anyway–at the local library. It made her feel useful.

I was never very happy in the job. All the other employees thought that I was there was only because my father-in-law owned the place –true really. Olivia thought that I should work in a real job and of course, me being the person I was, I went along with her wishes. Maybe I was too submissive and should have put my foot down and done what I wanted with my life and not just gone with the flow.

My real passion was painting. Watercolours mainly, but some oils too. I had gone to university at Bath. I was the traditional art student, a bit scruffy–when not dressed en femme, of course as I had to keep up with the perceived persona. I had a talent and could make my brushes dance on the canvas. I had a good eye and could remember faces and scenes and was able to reproduce these accurately from memory rather well.

I had met Olivia at university–at one of those end of term things. She was studying social science and I hadn’t seen her before. It was lust at first site and we found ourselves in bed that night and more or less from then on we were an item. First it was just the fun of it all and then things got heavy and we fell in love. Nine months later we were married and the rest, as they say, is history.

Olivia had loved my paintings and drawing and thought that I was really talented–but she thought it wasn’t a real job. If Van Gogh had sold only one painting while he was alive, what chance did I have amongst the thousands of painters trying to scrape a living from their art?

I suppose I was under her spell and my wishes receded into the background. In the end, I gave in, as I always did, and joined the family business. Well it was now time for me to leave the family business and start living my own life.

I had a shower and washed my hair. Using a razor, I shaved my armpits and legs, not that they needed much shaving as I always managed to keep on top of that sort of thing. Using the dryer I found in one of the drawers, I dried my hair, then brushed it until it shone, and put it in a ponytail. Finally, I shaved my face with a new wet razor, luckily I was blond and the hair was somewhat sparse.

I had remembered to take some of my clothes out of my case to stop them creasing and when I opened the wardrobe door; I pondered about what I should wear. It was quite bright and sunny outside and I wanted to look as feminine as possible, so I pulled out my yellow strappy sun dress and layed it on the bed. Next I searched around for a white bra and panty set–I didn’t want to wear tights because I felt they would be too hot on a day like this, so I decided that white sandals were the answer to the footwear problem.

I pulled on the panties and then the bra, placing my breast forms inside and arranging them so they looked okay.

Then I went to the bathroom to put on my makeup. The lighting was good in there so I was able to put my face on quite easily. I was good at makeup; it must be the artistic side of my nature. I had fair skin and so I only put on the minimum of foundation. Heavy makeup would draw unwanted attention to me, so I was careful not to use striking colours: light blue eyeshadow and light use of eyeliner and mascara made my blue eyes look a little bigger but not over the top. I plucked a few eyebrow hairs to give them more shape and then used a pencil to help define the shape a bit more, giving them more of an arched look.

I looked rather pale, so I brushed some pink blusher on my cheeks. Finally, I used a lip liner pencil to improve my lip shape before filling in with my favourite pink lip gloss.

I slipped the dress over my head making sure not to get any contact with my face–the last thing I wanted was makeup on my dress. Then I took the scrunchie out and brushed my hair. Finally I put on my sandals and I was ready.

Looking at the full length mirror on the door, I could see that I didn’t look too bad, quite pretty really, in a plain sort of way. I was thin, about five foot eight, nice legs and my breast area looked okay as the forms definitely gave me the shape and look I wanted. No Adam’s apple to speak of, for which I was thankful. The only downside was that my hips and bum looked painfully small for a woman and not quite right, but I couldn’t do anything about that–yet.

I was blessed with a soft voice and I could raise the register a bit so that it sounded acceptably feminine. One of the standing jokes at work was when anyone rang me they weren’t sure if they was speaking to a man or woman!

Altogether, I think that anyone looking at me would be hard pressed to call me a man and that was the way I wanted it to stay.

Looking at my wrist watch I saw that it was nine o’clock. I was lucky that I always carried the watch in my shoulder bag, together with other emergency jewellery like clip-on ear rings, necklaces and the like–just in case of emergencies.

After leaving the hotel, I went to the Little Chef and made use of my  £5 off coupon. Not knowing when I would be eating again, I had a full English breakfast and a pot of tea. No one paid any attention to me other than a quick smile from the waitress as she showed me to my table and a rather lecherous grin from the chef as I walked in.

After my rather filling breakfast, I returned to my room, did a few running repairs to my face, packed and twenty minutes later, I was on my way. I stopped off at the petrol station first to fill up and buy a bag of Murray Mints to suck on the journey and then I was off again on the road to Devon. Next stop, sun, sea and dressed crab.