I thought I had it made. Teach a class in self-defense and that’s it. It was easy money and no worries no more feeling guilty no more sponging off of Karen.

Three weeks after I started work at the shelter, I knew I was close to losing my job. I had one person take the class, and while she loved it and was effusive in her praise, no one else seemed willing to try me out.

I pitched in around the center, filing and doing paperwork, putting my administrative skills to work for them, just so I felt I was earning my paycheck, but it wasn’t enough. I knew the axe would fall soon.

“Greg, can I see you in my office?” Jeanette said to me one day.

Here it comes I thought.

I followed her into her office and stood at something like attention in front of her desk. She looked at me. “Greg, we have a problem. Apparently because of who you are, the women here don’t feel comfortable. It’s not that you aren’t skilled, it is simply that the ladies who in the shelter, the ones who come here, are afraid of men. Even though your abilities are beyond reproach, the simple fact that you are male is scaring them away.

“It was a good experiment, but it looks like I’m going to have to let you go.”

I was somewhat relieved. “Miss Jeanette, is it just my sex that is putting people off, just the fact that I’m male, right?”

“Yes. I’ve needed a self defense teacher for some time, and I thought your skills would overcome the fear your sex brings, but apparently not.”

“Let me try something then, please? I think I have a solution to the problem, but I want to make sure that it’s a surprise to everyone.”

She looked at me over the top of her reading glasses. “Please don’t get a sex change just to keep this job.”

“No worries Ma’am. It’s not just to keep this job.”

Well, if you’re reading this story, you can probably figure out what I had in mind. I went home that night and spent considerable time getting “pretty”. I shaved everything, made sure my skin was smooth as it could be. I tried to do my nails and toes but I knew I didn’t look as nice as it should.

I had today off, so I decided to go to the spa. It had been a while.

I got dressed, did my hair up as I could, and put on my face. I pulled out one of my purses and put all my stuff in it. I also made sure I had my ATM card and that there was enough money in my account to cover the indulgence.

I won’t go into details of being pampered right now, but it was heaven. The ladies there made sure to take good care of me. They weren’t able to do much in the waxing department, and one lady suggested permanent hair removal. I thought it might be a good idea, so I checked in to the electrolysis service they had on the ‘menu’.

I would never think that makeovers and all the woman things to make her look beautiful were inexpensive again. I could see that I would have to save for a while to get some of the things on my list done.

In the end however, I was looking beautiful and smelling sweet. My eyebrows were nicely shaped and my ears were now pierced. All the things I wanted to do but couldn’t while I was in the Army. It was an incredible heady feeling.

I didn’t let them put on the killer claws they wanted to put on me. It would be hard for me to do three quarters of the combat and self-defense things I would need to without snapping one, so I settled for “sport length” which was just a little beyond my fingertips. Just enough to have nails, but not enough to get in the way.

When Mistress saw me, she was very excited.

“Sissy, I’ll be honest, I’ve wanted my girlfriend back. Glad to see you home again.” Then she kissed me on my cheek and went back to what she was doing.

I have to admit that I was relieved to be Sissy again, but I wonder how my name would go over among those women.

Nightgowns are wonderful things. They are silky, smooth, heaven on the skin and just all around gentleness. Men haven’t had anything like this since Queen Victoria’s times when men wore nightshirts.

Before going to bed that night, I made sure to glue the breasts on to my chest and check my clothes for the next day. I had a class to teach, and I wanted everything to be ready.

I laid out some shorts, a tank top, and the various under things that I needed. I picked a pretty pair of sandals and sport bra. I looked closely at what the ladies at the salon did to my face before taking it off, so I could duplicate it tomorrow.

Skirts would come later in the class. It was important to know how to fight in a tight skirt since a lot of attacks happened at clubs. Being able to beat someone senseless when you couldn’t get your knees more than 2 inches apart is not only a valuable skill it’s an art.

My dreams that night were intense. I normally saw myself as my he-self, Greg the Ranger, but this time I saw myself as Sissy only. I felt real breasts, and it felt so right and natural. The clothing I wore was normal, the skirt dancing around my knees and most strangely, I couldn’t feel a penis anymore. Not only did I get rather horny from that it was it was absolutely the right feeling to have. It was like stepping into a whole new me.

I woke with my hands stroking myself, not as a male would, but as a girl would. I was rubbing my belly, my chest, my legs, feeling incredible sensations as my hands brushed my body through the satin of the nightgown.

I got up and took a quick shower, making sure not to mess up my hair too much. I dried and powdered getting ready for the day.

It didn’t take me long to get to work. Traffic was with me and I was one of the first people there. I started organizing the files and paperwork, then I went into the gym to ensure everything was set up properly. I moved some boxes around and partially covered one door and then adjusted the blinds on the windows in the room.

Satisfied I went back to my job.

“Excuse me, but who are you?” I smiled up at Miss Jennette.

“I’m your self-defense instructor,” I said in my best Sissy voice. I held my hand out to her and shook it. “You hired me nearly a month ago.”

“GREG!” she nearly shrieked.

“Sissy, please, if you don’t mind.” I grinned at her. She spent the next five minutes looking me over and checking me out. Her appraisal became very detailed and I felt like I back in the ranks being inspected by the General.

Finally she was satisfied. “If I didn’t know better, I would swear you were born a girl,” she finally declared.

I smiled broadly and went back to what I was doing.

She thought for a bit and finally said, “Sissy, I don’t think that is going to be a good name for you.”

“It’s short for ‘sister’” I said.

“I understand that. But maybe Gina would be a bit more appropriate?”

I thought about that proposal. I could understand her point in that ‘sissy’ is a name that is used for derision. Sissy as a nickname wouldn’t be too bad, and Gina had a good sound to it. I nodded my head and accepted my new name. Gina Taylor. It fit.

The self defense class was pushed really hard that day, and with the announcement that there was a new teacher, a lady, suddenly there were about 10 ladies ready to learn.

When I arrived I found them waiting for me. I set my purse down near the rest of purses and stood in front of the ladies.

“Everyone, close your eyes.” I waited until they had. “How many exits are there from this room?”

I could see that they were confused. “I’m serious, protecting yourself is about survival, and survival is about being observant. If a man was in here and going to attack you, you would need to know where the exits are so that you can get out. So I’ll ask again, how many exits are there?”

Five ladies said there was one exit. Three said two exits. One didn’t know how many and didn’t answer. One lady said Five.

“Would it shock you all to know that there are five exits from this room?” The looked surprised and opened their eyes. I started pointing out exits.

“First is the door you came in through. Second is that door over there, a secondary exit, partially blocked by the boxes. The other three exits? Remember, you can go out a window almost as easily as you can a door; you might just get hurt a bit more.

“This class is about defending yourself against an attacker. It is not about honor, it is not about pretty, it is not about following rules. You will learn to use everything and anything as a weapon, and you will learn how to get yourself out of a situation with the least damage to you, and the most damage to him.”

From there, I started the class. It wasn’t anything shocking, just the same general fighting tactics that women are told, the emphasis this time was on hurting their opponent enough so he had no interest in getting up.

I had seen some pictures that made me angry to the core of my being. Women with bloody faces, broken arms bruise the size of dinner plates and dead women. All of my life all of my training taught me to regard women as sacrosanct, to be guarded, protected, and revered and the idea that some puke would dare to touch a woman made my blood boil. I kept seeing the faces of these ladies in harms way, and I was determined not to leave them vulnerable.

Throws and leverage escapes, I added an incapacitating strike in. Instead of just tossing the guy that grabbed them from behind, I had them add a stomp from their high heeled pump for good measure. The motto was “put him down and keep him there”.

I was enjoying myself and they seemed to have a good time too. When the littlest girl in that class threw me about four feet away, everyone cheered and clapped for her, none louder than me.

Perhaps this would keep them alive if they had someone come at them from a dark alley, or more likely from across the living room.

I taught the ladies every trick I had learned over the next seven weeks. We had class three times a week, and I showed them things they’d never though of. I taught them how to rupture a rapist’s testicle, how to kneecap a person, how to break strangleholds and chokeholds. I taught them not to worry damage they might do to some monster who didn’t give a shit about what he was doing to them, but to hit him as hard and as dirty as possible as fast as possible since it was highly likely that if a woman didn’t she would be beaten, used and then killed.

I made sure that the strikes I showed them would be “one hit” strikes, the monster was going down and not getting back up for a while. I knew if these bastards that some of them had were to attack, and these women resisted, the monsters would keep hitting them until they couldn’t get up again. I kept reminding them that the enemy was just that, not a person, not a human being. It was the enemy, a rabid animal, a bastard, monster something that had to be put down. It’s a standard tactic for training soldiers because it’s effective.

I tried to relate these things to food they had to handle. A testicle became a grape or plum. Squish it and it exploded. They had all squished a grape before and thought nothing of it. Gouging out someone’s eye or ripping someone’s tongue off with their teeth isn’t normal, so the food associations helped.

While I hoped to God that these ladies never had to use anything they learned. But I wanted to insure they were as prepared to react as instinctively as any one I had ever trained. They were my first new squad. I didn’t work them as hard physically as I would a military squad, but I certainly encouraged them to keep practicing in the evening and on weekends. The ones that did follow my suggestions definitely saw a difference in their stamina and physical fitness. As they got slimmer and healthier and able to eat more there were more ladies who joined the group and more who began to practice.

I wanted all the women in the shelter to feel confident about their ability to be safe from their abusers for the rest of their lives. I prayed daily that they would be safe for the rest of their lives.