My previous chapter started with some of the best love-making Christine and I had ever had. After a ‘turnabout’ party, we had explored ways for both of us to be in control in bed. The chapter ended with my taking the chance to dress in public for the first time. I asked if that was betrayal. I was to be proved right that it was seen to be just that.

Chapter 25 — Being discovered

A sit and a walk in the park gave me confidence. I may not have looked better than a bloke in a dress (and I may have been risking a mugging) but I felt good. My evening in full femme attire proved to be a great experience. I did walk ‘on the wild side’ by purposely encountering other people, though not speaking to them. (I wasn’t ready for that!).

The feel of the shoes and the stockings was intensely feminine. The practising of walking in stilettos was hugely challenging, but ultimately euphoria-inducing. The sensation of my hair brushing my neck and surrounding my face was just an answer to prayers uttered so many times. The feel of my painted fingernails was like claws ready to pounce…. albeit on another woman. I sat in a motorway service café drinking coffee before going back to watch television in my budget hotel room.

The following day, I did my fieldwork with the Company’s employee and set off for home at around 4.30pm. It took four hours to drive home. I had worn the underwear from the previous day to keep my own illusion of femininity alive… never mind how I would manage the arrival home and the disrobing before bedtime.

I had destroyed all the outerwear from the previous day — the business suit, the shoes and anything else, except the wig. I could NOT give up that wig, it was so wonderful. It was, you’ll not be surprised to learn, an auburn tumble of curls that reached just below chin length. Its colour was lighter around the bangs and fringe. Perfect. It looked fabulous in the photograph that I was given by the ladies in the ‘Transformation’ salon. (One free with every ChangeAway session, more available at a price). I looked just like the business woman I was portraying in my own mind — not a slut, not a tart, not a hooker, not a French maid, not a dominatrix… a normally-dressed woman-about-town.

As I set off, I loaded my lips with colour and put on that beautiful wig. So what if people in other cars — in traffic jams especially — looked across and saw a guy in a big hair wig?! Indeed, in a couple of traffic jams, I did purposely refresh my lipstick in the car’s rear-view mirror. As I drove home, I re-ran the previous day’s experience in my mind. It had been worth every penny of the  £135 it had cost me, not to mention the cost of the shoes, the cost of the business suit and the cost of the beautiful wig.

All I was left with were the panties, stockings, suspenders, the wig and the lipstick. I would have to find another place at home to hide them.

Arrival home found Wife-y sitting at her computer, doing more working things. She was working 12 hours a day having found herself promoted into ever more senior jobs once the kids were settled at senior schools.

Everything went well and the evening closed with our settling in bed together, as usual.

The following day was just as normal. She went off to business and I “worked at home” the whole day, finishing my report on the fieldwork experience.

There was enough time for me to put everything away in a box in the garage where there would be no need for her to ever go looking.

There was nothing left to chance. Life was good and I didn’t want anything to disturb the situation.

--oo00oo–

Life went on with ease for several weeks thereafter. My thoughts occasionally — no, frequently — returned to the stash in the garage. Especially the wig.

The lipstick I kept accessible because there was the chance that it would figure in our love-making, just like before. Just making us both feel sexy. Adding a taste to my tongue-fucking. I was obsessed with that, I know it now. That’s what girls do for eachother. That’s what I do for my wife.

Apart from that — my crossdressing in my mind, I began to read. I began to read stories about my ‘special interest’. The ‘Transformation’ store had some books — all very poorly presented but they gave an outlet to my imagination.

--oo00oo–

Everything came to a sudden crisis, however.

At the age of 42, with a family of teenage children and a wife that was increasingly successful in her job, I had survived the trauma of losing my job as a Marketing Director and finding myself pushed into a poorly-managed service sector business where I was tasked with starting a new division for anew market. I gave that my best shot and made a success of it. The problem was not the business, it was the people. They were a very unco-operative bunch of men who would say one thing to the business owner and another to me. They would ‘slag off’ my efforts to the owner and refuse help when I asked for it from them. A recipe for a short-term fix; income, but unhappiness. A travelling time of two hours to and from home at both ends of each day didn’t help. I was fu*cking crazy by the time I got home each day.

I was therefore not prepared at all for the day when I got home and found, for once, my wife not working at her PC. Not working. She had a drink in her hand.

It was clearly not the first drink of the day.

She sat there, simmering.

She sat there with a small square of something on the table in front of her.

I couldn’t make out what it was.

“Who the fucking hell is she?!”

I didn’t know what she meant — quite literally, and so I said so. I can remember every word of this conversation. In fact, it has helped me recall many conversations with others since that time.

“Who is this?” she shouted……. “Who?!” Throwing the square of card across the table, she spat the words “Who the fuck is it?”

Holy shit! I thought…. It’s the photo from my ChangeAway day. It was ME…. Dressed. Dressed as a woman, with all the crossdressing clothes and accessories I had enjoyed so much that day. In a flash, my secret was out. She knew!!!

Looking like her… I looked at the photo and I realized, I looked like my Wife. I had created a version of her. Not her, but as much like her as I could have created. The clothes were not dissimilar to what she wore for business. The hair was not unlike hers, although it was a lighter shade of red than hers.

“Who is this fucking tart?!” she said once, then again, then again. I was still dumb-struck.

Then it became suddenly clear. She thought I was ‘playing away’ with another woman. She did, in her purple mist of anger and jealousy, fail to look closely at the face in the picture. She didn’t recognize that it was me… her husband. Dressed.

She thought that this was a rival. A lover probably. A mistress.

I know my mouth was moving but all that came out was a gabbling sound of “…. Er, um..errr… oh… no….. it’s… well, can’t you…. Umm…. Now, can I …. Well….. Oh, shit! No, it’s not like what you’re thinking at all…..” that was all I could manage.

“Oh, no, of course it’s not what I can see it is…..” She grabbed the picture back and she tore it into shreds. She scattered the pieces as she said “You bastard!! You absolute bastard….”

Oh, FUCK!!! I thought in an instant. What the fuck should I do? Tell her the truth? Or go along with her supposition and suffer the consequences? Try to play out the mistake she was making and get over it? Or try to rationalize with her that it was in fact me… doing what comes naturally — and blow a hole in her view of me. Well, having a mistress would do that, wouldn’t it? In a different way….. Fuck… Impossible! No-Win situation.

I chose the disclosure of my secret route. I had never screwed around in our time married. I had never slept (silly word) with another woman. I had always fought shy of the risks in having affairs. I knew most men that I knew had secret affairs. I didn’t

My “affair” was with myself. My dressing.

Would she understand that? Well, I was about to find out.

Her anger had not subsided but the vehement shouting had calmed. Her face was red with rage. Her accusation stood. I was screwing and she wasn’t having any of it.

“Let me explain…” I started……

“Fuck your explanations…..” she cried, as tears began to flood in place of the rage. “Fuck it!”

“Honey, it’s not what you think at all. I’m yours and I always will be…. This is different…..”

“Different?!! How fucking different does it have to be. If you’re screwing another woman, you can go screw yourself for all I care…..!”!

“No, no….. I’m not…… That…. Well, see it this way…. That wasn’t another woman……”

“Well, who the fucking hell was it?” (She never swore.. this was a tirade I had never heard before).

“Who was it? Father fucking Christmas??!!”

“No, darling…” “Don’t you Darling me….” “No, honey, it wasn’t a woman, it was ….. me….”

“What?”

“Yes, it was me….. I was dressed……..”

There was a cold, quite nearly a minute-long, silence. She stared at me…… Her gaze saw me differently now. I could see a degree of hate in there, mixed with incomprehension, mixed with fear.

Quite the worst way to find out how deep-seated your Partner has a secret that you’re unaware of. Or perhaps had suspected but never had confirmed. Or perhaps …..

Quite the worst way to tell your Partner about your own secret.

I realize how much stupidity I had shown in many ways. In keeping the secret. In hiding the evidence. In letting a detail be discovered. In not having opened discussion about my dressing years before. In getting her to see…. Maybe even enjoy….. After all, she had enjoyed crossdressing and going to that party as a guy…..

My hatred for myself was sudden and intense. Enough almost to make me physically sick.

I began to plead…. (quite the wrong thing to do really). “Forgive me, darling. It’s not important. It’s a silly, stupid stupid part inside me that … I promise…. I’ll shut down. I’ll stop.. it was only once. It wasn’t serious. I didn’t have sex with anyone… I didn’t….. Please believe me. It’s harmless. And ……… There’s part of you that will think I’m a pervert.. and I’m not. I’m not homosexual.. I’ve never been that way and that makes me sick to think that you would, or could think I might be, ‘cos I’m not…….”

My gabbling tailed off into her tears and my own now. We were both crying…..

“You will stop… Oh, yes, you will stop. Or you will move out of this house…. In fact, I think it would be better if you did. You bastard… How could you??? What if the kids saw you? What would you say to them? Don’t give me that “Two Mummies” shit…. There will be no Two Mummies in this fucking house…. You fuck off if you think there will be….”

"No,please, darling. There’s no need. I will stop. I will. I’ve thrown away all of that stuff… really, I have." (I lied).

“You lying bastard. I bet you haven’t.” Christine again spat the words at me.

“I honestly have…. Or I will, if there’s anything left.”

“How long has this been going on?” she asked, more calmly.

“Since the party….” (I lied). “I got a taste for … well, it’s fun…… to me…. It’s fantasy. I’d just enjoy the feeling of the clothes and the look in the mirror. I know it’s stupid….. I don’t make a convincing woman.. but I don’t ever expect to… I mean, I didn’t… and I won’t….”

“Not before then?” she probed.

“No, not before then.” (I lied again).

“You’re a liar….. I’ve seen lipstick smears on your face now I remember. And I know that my clothes move around in their drawers sometimes….. And I wondered why, but it never crossed my mind…”

“Yes, I’m sorry, I have rummaged a bit….”

“And worn my stuff…. Haven’t you? Go on, admit it….”

“Well, yes, more than once.”

“Are you a fucking transvestite?? Because if you are, you’re history… You can leave…..”

“No, that’s not how I feel about it. I simply get a good feeling from girly clothes and things….”

“I’m not having a bloody pervert in this house with my kids….”

“I’m not, and I’m not a danger to them… Please, please…. Don’t ever think that I would harm them. Really, you can’t…… Don’t imagine……”

Betrayal? Chapter 24 asked if Wife-y Christine felt betrayed. As you can see. She did. But there is a way back, as life today proves. There are other tales along the way of this true story. I hope, dear Reader, you will follow the next steps… in chapter 26.