The Other Woman – Part Five

Continuing the story of how a wife meets the other woman in their lives, who happens to be her husband.

This story is dedicated to my friend and fellow author Warm Hearted, who has called me his cheerleader.

We have become good friends and confidants, sharing comments and ideas on our stories as well as messaging and emailing each other regularly.

I can never find the proper words to say thanks to my editor and friend Chris, who finds the time in a very busy life to review my ramblings with comments and insights. Chris continues to edit for others as well as writing and posting his own stories.

All comments are welcome as we never stop learning and improving, thank you for taking the time to read this story, all comments will be responded to.

Please remember this story is mostly fiction with some real events in our lives to hang the story on to and give it a base of realism.
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Up to now the story has been told through Tony’s eyes; it’s time to for Joanna to have her say.

-o-0-o-

I was and still am a very shy person always in the background staying out of sight mostly due to my upbringing.

Growing up in a large family (Mum, Dad and six siblings), it was always a struggle to make ends meet. I often had to wear hand me downs from my older sister or from distant relations, which was difficult enough without getting teased by all and sundry at school.

I felt embarrassed at this as my classmates always appeared to have all the modern fads and brand-new clothing. We walked the long journey to school on many occasions, the shortage of money meaning we were unable to afford the bus fare.

Around the age of eleven I started going into my mum’s place of work; she was a kitchen porter in one of the local hotels.

It was here I started to come out of my shell a little and found a passion in cooking, eventually making a career of this, specialising in patisserie.

The chefs were friendly and while I was waiting for Mum we chatted away. They regularly gave me some of their dishes to taste: if I’m truly honest, it was just more than a taste, it was a meal that I did not have to share with my siblings.

I am wary – very wary – of men, due to a relative who abused us as children, myself more than my younger sisters, as I did not want them to suffer the way I did.

No one knows the fully story, just me, not even my husband Tony. Not sharing with him means it hurts me more, but it’s my hurt, my memories that I want, no, NEED, to block if I am ever to forget that nightmare.

I want the innocence back, I want my girlhood back, I had all that but it’s gone, gone forever, taken by that monster.

-o-0-o-

No matter how much I push him, test his patience, turn him down or away he looks at me with love – a love that I had never known although there is always hurt in his eyes. He is Anthony Donaldson, the man who would become my husband.

Like many couples, we met through work and I was attracted to him almost instantly. For Tony it was not at love at first sight; he was honest about that and told me I just grew on him.

Tony was the first man that treated me as a person and not an object, the rest only wanted one thing from me, to get their jollies, not even considering my needs and desires. We took time when we started courting – he is a bit old fashioned that way, calling it courting and not dating.

He would open doors for me, and when we were out walking, arm in arm, Tony would always be on the street side – unless there was a large puddle in the road and a car was driving towards it, then he would ensure I was on the street side! He did not do that really, it’s just my wicked side escaping.

He was and is still like that and although nowadays we don’t get away together as often as we would like, he is still my gentleman.

My issues with males all extend from my youth. I felt uncomfortable, even with Tony, and when we tried to be intimate together I often tended to be cold. I was uncomfortable going anywhere near his penis: I would withdraw into myself, sometimes even turning my back on him. Therefore, I never blamed him for playing with himself to get relief.

Eventually we had to do something about this and I got Tony to wear a panty-girdle to hide his penis so we could at least be comfortable in bed. He agreed as he loved me and it was another way of him supporting me.

Our marriage was very special for me, as this man accepted me as myself, although I was so happy to be married I thought the rest of the world should stop and we should only focus on each other. I misunderstood this: our own interests before getting married had to be continued, we needed these interests to be included or we would snipe and bark at each other. Eventually I began to worry that the marriage would die.

This was part of the reason for our first real fight in the marriage where we cleared the air by shouting at each other, not the best thing to do in all honesty. Tony also was unhappy as he felt he was giving his all and I was just taking things from the marriage, and he was feeling used. At first, I did not agree and it took some time for me to see where he was coming from.

I do remember afterwards I asked Tony “if he still loved me.”

“Of course, I do – why do you think we’re having this argument?” was his reply.

One afternoon Tony was lying with me in bed wearing a pair of panties, still being considerate for my feelings and I looked at him and decided that his name did not fit how he was dressed.

“I’m going to have to call you by a girl’s name when you have panties on,” I told him.

Tony was embarrassed and blushed at this, although he did not put up much of a fight – his protests were very half-hearted as I recall. Anyway, I decided he was not a Susan or a Mary or a Jessica – that was his mother’s name, so too close to home. Samantha just popped into my head; that could be shortened to Sam to tease him in front of others if I wished, having a wicked streak in me at times.

Tony now had a girl’s name when he wore panties: little did I know at the time, he loved to dress more than he shared when we first met.

-o-0-o-

Over the coming years we had a family – four children, well three really; just that Tony is such a big kid at times it’s like there is a fourth child, playing with his toys, only they were not toys of the normal kind, they were women’s clothing. Not just underwear, dresses, skirts, blouses, shoes… he had quite a diverse collection when I discovered how often he was dressing.

I even found a make-up bag with some cosmetics in a jacket pocket in the wardrobe he had hidden away – well, I get to look, I am his wife – and confronted him about it. His answer was that Christmas was around the corner and he was putting away presents for me. This proved to be true and I did get the make-up as a gift; however, the eyeshadow had changed to one that I preferred, with no sign of the other one I had previously noticed. I wondered what happened to that one.

Over the years Tony would buy clothes, sometimes with my knowledge, more often without, to such an extent he now has more clothes than I do and that is saying something, as he is meant to be my husband and not my girlfriend.

Around this time the children started to notice Dad ducking in the bedroom when they passed the door as he was dressing in his girls’ clothes and it got to the point they were asking me questions.

“It’s your problem, you tell them,” I confronted him, but he could not see it as a problem.

Eventually he did share with them that he enjoyed dressing in women’s clothing; our daughter more understanding and he even shared with her that his female name was Samantha.

All our lives changed in a dramatic way when I became seriously ill. This resulted in a major operation and a longish stay in hospital, with many more stays over recent years.

Tony did a lot of travelling up and down to the hospital as well as looking after the children. The youngest was still in high school; the older children were more able to look after themselves.

During one of the hospital visits I noticed a brownish mark on his jacket which he claimed was dirt He got a ‘pull the other leg’ look – it was obviously make-up.

“We’ll talk about this later,” I told him, my tone of voice indicating there would be no argument to that.

Eventually we had the chat about him dressing and the need to be more aware of the feelings of others – ‘others’ being the immediate family. It turned out I was correct about the mark I had noticed and he had gone out from the hotel the night before ‘dressed to kill’ as he was bored without me around.

Having his Samantha clothes with him he went out; of course, he did not have a lady’s coat with him and had not noticed the makeup stain on his male jacket.

Tony eventually said that it was time that I should meet Samantha fully.

I was, of course, aware of Samantha, I had even helped decide on her name. Did I really want to meet HER, fully dressed? The idea thrilled and frightened in the same moment.

“I’ve seen you dressed,” I said.

“No, you have not,” he replied, “not fully.”

“What do you mean by not fully? I’ve seen that blue suit with the matching tie…”

“That’s not what I mean and you know it,” he interrupted. “I mean fully as Samantha.”

“I know what you meant,” my voice raised in frustration at him, “and I’m not ready, and not sure I ever will be,”

Almost every time we go away, no not almost, EVERY time we go away for a few days he has a bag or suitcase with his girl clothes packed. Initially he would try to hide the bag by putting in in the boot, often the evening before the rest of the cases were packed.

Eventually I noticed the extra bag and pulled him up on it, informing him I knew what he was up to and not to hide it. Eventually I asked how much of Samantha would be coming with us and was told “as much as ‘she’ could get away with.”

His stubbornness was getting more and more entrenched regarding wanting Samantha and me to meet.

-o-0-o-

I had another couple of appointments for hospital check-ups, thankfully none of these involved being an in-patient and every time ‘she’ was with us.

Don’t misunderstand me, I love Tony with all my heart and, I suppose, ‘her’ as well, though obviously not in the same way as him. I often feel that Samantha wants to be here more than Tony; despite his denials, I believe that to be true.

Tony does not wish to become Samantha full time, as he has never expressed any indication of being a woman in the wrong body, just the enjoyment of dressing in female clothing. Samantha has told me when she is dressed she is more relaxed and calmer than her male side.

I was used to men being violent and ready to lift their hands to get what they wanted: my dad and brothers did this on a regular basis. Tony never lifted his hands, so this was a new experience to me.

Remembering during our first major argument we had early in our marriage Tony lifted his hand to push his hair back or something like that, and I backed away as I thought he was about to smack me one. He noticed the recall and asked if I thought he had been going to hit me.

“I would never do that,” he told me. “My mum and dad brought me up not to do that, but to respect others and not to use violence, it solves nothing. If I were to do that,” he added, “I would be the first to pack my bags and leave.”

To this day, Tony has never lifted his hands to me or the family; we’ve had our arguments, like most of us, and not once has he been abusive or violent. Another reason why I love this man deeply.

Deciding to grant his request to meet Samantha I set down some conditions: it had to be away from the family and not in our home town. We decided to use the hotel that we stayed at when I had to go for check-ups. We reserved two rooms on this occasion, and as we checked in, he to his room and I to mine, we turned to each other with a nervous smile.

“See you later,” we said at the same time.

The door closed behind me and I looked around the room: nothing fancy, just a normal hotel room. I wondered what the night was going to bring, what my Tony was going to look like as Samantha. After all these years I knew he dressed; sometimes I encouraged, probably more than I should have, yet at times I actively discouraged.

Now we were on a countdown to me meeting Samantha in person, in no more than four hours.

That four hours felt like an eternity: each hour dragged, and eventually I switched on the television to try and settle myself.

There was a programme on called “Coming Out”. It was tale about a married man who had an up and down relationship with his wife, and one day arrived home to find a bag of intimate underwear from Ann Summers. He and his wife had arranged a candlelit dinner and she did not have the underwear on, so he asked her why not. The wife did not have a clue what he was taking about, so he found the empty bag and showed it to her. Their son appeared from his room, his attention drawn by the raised voices and saw the bag in his dad’s hands.

“Dad!” he shouted to get his attention, “That’s not Mum’s bag… it’s mine.”

‘Just what I needed, today of all days’, I thought, turning off the TV in nervous frustration.

Just before eight pm – I was late and knew this – I had a check in the mirror, took a deep breath to help steady the nerves and went to knock on Samantha’s room.

I held back and thought ‘do I really want to meet Tony as Samantha?’ Yes and no kept running around my head, and I almost returned to my room. Samantha and Tony are one and the same individual, yet you could say there was now another woman in our lives.

No backing out now girl, get a grip, take a deep breath, and get this over and done with. Before I could lose my nerve, I knocked on Tony’s door. At first it was a soft knock almost as if I did not wish the door to open, then a heavier knock that I was sure the whole corridor heard.

Samantha opened the door to allow his Wife to enter.
“So, you’re the woman my husband is involved with,” I whispered.

As ‘she’ closed the door behind us, I added, “Samantha, we need to talk…”