Stop the world, I want to get off!

I walked through the few people remaining who were trying to get into their seats. My personal assigned seat was right on the aisle, front row, so it was a little bit of a struggle to make it all the way there in time. Sitting down, I glanced to my right down the row of seats of people, some families with small children, like the rest of the audience, so it wasn’t too bad. Pretty normal I supposed. Unlike most of the audience, I was a member of the show and I had a role to play. I wasn’t too certain what my role was. Maybe I was a singer? Maybe I performed a speaking role or something? It seemed strange that I didn’t know what my part in this whole performance was going to be, but I found it to be far more important that I was in my seat and ready than what it was I was supposed to be doing.

The seat’s back scratched a little on my bare skin. For a change I wasn’t going as ‘Tammy’, but as my very welcomed male self. I maneuvered myself so that I wasn’t sitting square, but at an angle to the seat’s back to reduce my contact with it. That’s when I realized my pants were unzipped and not fastened, nor was my belt buckled. In fact may pants had fallen far down past my waist, exposing my black, shiny nylon panties. The lace details along the sides was fully exposed; as was the top part of my leg where the panties ended. These were not, as Lisa called them, grandma’s panties, but skimpy and sexy panties meant for an attractive young woman.

I couldn’t move much though, as the show had already started. The lights were still up, which was required for a show such as this, and I could tell that anyone on the other side of the aisle looking my way would be able to see my underwear quite well. I reached down and tugged at my pants to pull them up, but I wasn’t able to stand up or make much movement without attracting further attention. Plus I knew in my heart if I stood up, I’d flash everyone around me before I would be able to bring my pants fully up.

I looked behind me and I could tell someone had started to point my way…

“Tammy, when are you going to wake up?” Lisa nagged. “It’s afternoon already!”

I blinked a few times, still concerned with the people who were watching me struggle to hide my panties before I realized I wasn’t in the theatre anymore. I wasn’t sitting down. I was in bed. I wasn’t even wearing panties, nor anything else for that matter. It had been a fun night with Lisa and I wasn’t quite ready to get up.

I mumbled something to her. The intelligence of my reply didn’t make it through the mumble though, and she turned angrily away and left the room, slamming the door behind her.

I sighed deep into the pillow and waited for a bit, trying to store my energy up. I turned over after finally getting enough to do so and looked at the clock. Damn. It was late. I really needed to get up and get moving.

I laid there waiting for … I wasn’t sure. I didn’t want to get up. I knew that once I did get up, I’d be able to move through the day, but inertia kept me from beginning that epic journey. But for now I was fine with laying there and watching the clock slowly change the digital display as the minutes went by.

It hasn’t been easy for me recently.

Kimberly got up and answered her door, “Hey Lisa, what’s up?”

“I need someone to complain to.” Lisa pushed past and hurriedly sat down on the couch.

She turned from the door and stared at her as she sat there. “Oooo-Kay. Tell me what’s going on.”

“It’s Terry. She’s being a real pain.”

“Terry? Not Tammy?”

“We’re not at my home so I can call her what I want.”

“Her?”

Lisa slammed her arms down on the couch, “Damn it Kimmie! You know what I mean.”

Sitting down, Kimberly ignored the outburst. “So tell me what’s going on.”

“Terry is … God, I don’t know where to begin.”

“Do you need a beer?”

“Hell Yes.”

Lisa was gone by the time I had gotten dressed. We weren’t having the best of times lately. I felt bad about it too, because it was all my fault. Every month I went and saw Dr. Willingham. Every month I also had to meet with my therapist. Every time I did I kept up the falsehoods they expected out of me. It had been four months worth since I had lost my job as Mr. Corwin’s secondary executive secretary.

Four months as things steadily got worse for me.

I was free, for the most part, of having to dress outwardly as a girl though. That was nice. Mostly nice that is. I wasn’t 100% free, which was the bad part about it all. So I couldn’t ditch everything like I wanted to. I still had to keep my hair in a relatively feminine cut. Since July, I had started to let it grow out again. I had hoped to achieve a little more masculine look by doing so, because with my last hairstyle, I looked like a woman no matter what I did. Bonnie though, had stopped supplying me with free services. I now had to pay for the pleasure of having her work with my hair every six weeks or so.

With my new cut, I could slick it back and get away with it. Not the ideal solution, but workable. I had been able to pass it off as ‘necessary’ to everyone out there involved in the whole ‘Tammy’ business because with my name as officially Terry and my sex, or gender as they tell me is the correct way to describe things, was thankfully still listed as ‘Male’, my search for employment would go better if I was able to apply as both ways. And I had. It took my seven weeks to find my current job. I went on the job hunt nearly daily all over town and even a few places close to town. Sometimes I went at Terry. Sometimes I went as Tammy. I went as whomever could get me a job.

Even though the world was supposed to be this enlightened, equal rights government ensured, and have unbiased people not only hiring you, but willing to help out a soul in need, I had found all that the world really was good at being was a hateful and phobic type of place.

When I did seem to get a good fit somewhere as Tammy, which were generally higher paying jobs than I could get as Terry, go figure that out, I couldn’t get into the door once they saw that ol’ M on the application. Even with Jack at times going to bat for me, it was always something along the lines of ‘not the best fit’ or ‘we would rather avoid the issues it might bring’.

Frankly I was happy as I could be for not working as ‘Tammy’. Except for one simple fact. With the right job Tammy could make a lot more money than Terry.

As Terry, I didn’t have any skills except my natural typing ability. I couldn’t even really use my employment history as ‘Tammy’ because they could try to verify and get the wrong person on the other end who would tell them that ‘Terry’ never worked there, but they had a ‘Tammy’ with the same last name. I might be paranoid, but I have had much of life going against me for the last year since my father left me. So to me perhaps being paranoid was warranted.

I finally pulled myself out of bed and dragged into the shower. I put myself on autopilot and started to get ready.

It was at last that I was able to find a job, and as Terry no less. It was hardly a decent job. The pay was terrible, barely allowing me to contribute my share of the rent and food. What was left over went towards keeping up my dual existence. A fact that hounded me often. The only real joy I had found since I had first become unemployed, was baking. When I first started baking, I wasn’t all that good. But I’ve gotten better. I also found that I could bake a dozen or so cookies and eat them all in the same day.

Lisa didn’t care for my new found baking passion. Frankly, I didn’t care if she didn’t like it. I enjoyed it. I deserved some sort of happiness. It was her fault in the first place that I was in this hell hole of a situation. So if she didn’t like it? I didn’t care.

I realized after I left the shower that I had shaved my legs and underarms again. I didn’t need to do that today. In fact, I wasn’t set to go job hunting as Tammy for another few days, so I certainly didn’t need to shave this soon. I looked at my face critically. I hadn’t had to shave my face much these days. Not that I had a lot to begin with, but now a days it seemed to take forever for something to come in. And I had to be careful if I did shave too. My skin seemed so much more tender than it used to be, thanks to all the lotions and creams I had to use. One thing was certain, my skin was a lot cleaner than it used to be. I hardly ever had any acne. I kept up on the demands of keeping my skin looking good.

Honestly it looked too good. With all the stuff I had been using, my skin looked like a girl sort of skin. My whole face was that way, more like a girl version of myself than boy version. Even without makeup. Frankly it caused me problems when I was in boy mode at times. But it was better in that it was even worse if I was in girl mode and didn’t look like a girl. I also didn’t like having to use a pound of foundation and other makeup to get by. So I guess it was middle ground.

Once out of the bathroom, I went to my drawers and pulled out some panties to wear. I didn’t really have briefs anymore, and I never like boxers. I had a laugh to myself when I saw I was wearing the same black panties that I had dreamed about earlier. Good thing I wasn’t going to be letting my pants down for anyone to see.

With white socks, my polyester pants, and my button down white shirt, I was ready to hit the door. If I hurried, I could get something to eat before my shift started, maybe a double bacon cheese burger with extra fries. I grabbed my heavy jacket, the most masculine one I had actually. I had picked it up at a salvation army store back in October. Plus I grabbed my uniform hat and apron. I almost took my purse before I realized what I was doing. I pulled my shoes out of the tote Lisa required me to keep them in, and put them on. They smelled like fast food. The grease I dealt with every shift had made them unusable anywhere else. They were my last pair of boy shoes too. Thus with everything in hand, I headed out.

“So tell me what Terry is doing that’s so wrong?” Kimberly put her empty can next to the others. “What has our wayward girl been doing? Did she steal your boyfriend or something?”

“That’s not funny. It isn’t easy you know, to have your boyfriend pretending to be a girl.”

“I can’t imagine. Especially since he’s doing it all to protect you.”

“Don’t go there!”

“So what is he doing that is so horrible?”

“Well, for one… he lays around all the time. He comes home from his shift and takes a shower and washes his clothes, then he either goes straight to bed or sits on the couch and watches TV or just… sits there.”

“That doesn’t sound so bad.”

“He does it all the time. I mean, it’s like today. He has to go to work, but he won’t get out of bed.”

“What, is he sick or just tired?”

“I thought he was tired at first. You know he works hard, he really does. But it’s like he doesn’t care about stuff. He doesn’t even seem to care about me.”

“Lisa, that boy loves you. I know that. I’ve seen it. The way he looks at you? Damn, he’s in head over heels.”

“That’s what he USED to do. I… I don’t think he loves me anymore.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Well, we used to do things together. Even after all this stuff happened, we’d hang out together and be silly. He would even let me do crazy shit to him because he liked having fun with me. Now he seems like a lump. All he does is eat and sleep. He eats all the time too. He makes cookies and cakes and eats them all by himself. I rarely have any of it. Yet he’s making it almost daily and then he eats it. I don’t always see him eat it, but whatever he makes seems to disappear the next time I look.”

“Sounds to me like Terry is in a rut.”

“A rut? What rut? He actually has to do things to be in a rut.”

“Okay, let me try something here. So he’s a guy, right?”

Lisa warily answered, “Yah.”

“A guy that is dressing like a girl nearly every hour of every day. Before he got this fast food job, he really did not get to dress or act like a guy at all, because you guys felt like you were being watched and maybe even bugged? Tell me, what would you feel like if you had to pretend to be a guy all the time?”

“I don’t see that as being a big deal.”

“You know, if you think about it, after a while you’d feel kind of down about it. You wouldn’t be able to do anything that you really liked doing, because you wouldn’t fit in anymore. You and I couldn’t hang out because you’d be a guy and as a girl I wouldn’t want to hang out with you all the time. Hell, no one would want to hit on me or ask me out on dates if I was always with some dude.”

“So you’re saying that he’s sad because he’s got to dress like a girl all the time?” Lisa asked, annoyed at where this was going.

“Pretty much. I don’t know if it is the dressing itself that is bothering him, but I would think that it does in some way. More to the point, he’s not able to do any guy things. He doesn’t really look like a guy most of the time. He can’t hang out with other guys. His only friend in the world is you and, I know this isn’t kind, but you only will treat him like a girl. You’re so scared that you two will be found out that you aren’t even letting him have a rest when you guys are in your apartment. He’s got to be a girl all the time. And how do you think Terry handles it when his girlfriend wants him to be a girl all the time? Treats you like a girl all the time? Calls you ‘Tammy’? Calls you ‘she’ or ‘her’ not only to him, but to everyone else? Like, talks to her best friend as if he was a girl… all the time. When we would go out together, he had to act like a girl around you. He couldn’t hold your hand or put his arm around you. He had to go along and do whatever you wanted him to do.”

Kimberly continued, snapping her fingers at the thought, “It’s like he’s stuck his head in the sand and is trying to make the world go away.”

Lisa sat back and moped, “So I’m the bad person in all of this?”

“No, I’m not saying you’re a bad person. I think that you’ve forgotten that he’s a man, your man actually. That he’s doing this for you. And himself now. He’s cut off from everything that used to define him as a guy. And you’ve gotten to where you accept him as a girl.”

“Maybe you’re right. But I can’t reverse that, not yet at least. He’s got to be a girl for everyone right now. It’s part of the whole mess!”

“Yah, I know. But what can you do to spend time with him? What sorts of things can you do together with him, even if he was in girl mode, that might make him feel a little better about things? Maybe something that would even be a little manly from time to time?”

“I don’t know. Honestly I can’t think of anything we used to do before all this happened that was really manly. He always seemed to have fun doing the things I liked to do, like going to clubs and hanging out together. I guess we could start there.”

“Terry! If you keep eating like this, you’re going to get even fatter!”

I had just dragged into the house after my Monday shift, my double cheese burger in hand. It had been another rotten day and I felt like eating, showering, and then going to bed.

“I’m not fat,” I grumbled. I put my food down and bent over to take off my shoes and put them in the tote.

“Oh yeah? You’re big enough in the butt. Your pants are stretching pretty tight.”

“If I was fat, it would be in the gut, not my rear.”

“Well, it’s definitely in your ass.”

“No, it’s these cheap pants. They’ve shrunk. Look at the length of them, they are shorter now than they were when I first got them. I guess I have to get new pants soon.”

“Why don’t we do that today? Let’s go out and get you some pants. And, you can go out as Terry since you’ll be shopping for some guy clothes.”

“I don’t have any money for new clothes.”

“My treat then. I can afford a few things.”

Lisa looked at me when I came out of the changing room. “So what’s the problem?”

“None of these pants fit. They are too big in either my waist or my rear.”

“What do you mean?”

“If I get them to fit my waist, they are too tight in my butt. If I get them to fit my butt, they are too loose in the waist. I don’t get it.”

“Here, lemme try something. Wait here, okay?”

“I can’t believe I’m having to wear girl’s pants now.”

“I told you. All those cookies and the cake and stuff you’re eating are making you fat.”

“They aren’t! If it was making me fat, they would be in my belly, not my ass.”

“Tammy… er, Terry, come here.” She had me stand in front of her, pulling my white work shirt out of my pants and lifting it up a little higher. Then she had me turn around and face the mirror as she held tight onto my shirt. “See?” she said, “Look there. You’re wearing girls pants and they fit you. Well, they’re not a great fit, but they are better than your regular pants. See, they fit your waist still and they’re only a little loose in the hips. Overall a much better fit than your old pants.”

“Oh shit.” Then it dawned on me, “The girdle and stuff I’ve got to wear whenever I’m not working. I bet it is, like, pushing my body down from my stomach to my bottom.”

“Do you think so? Really? That might be it, you know.”

“Yah. That’s probably it. Damn. Hey, how do I fit my wallet in here? These pockets are way too small.”

“So tell me again why the hell am I dressing like this?” Terry did his best sultry pose before Kimberly and Lisa as they were getting ready by the large mirror in the bedroom.

Lisa looked over and smiled. This was the most animated she had seen him in some time. Even though they weren’t able to let him go out as a guy, he still seemed pretty excited to be going out to the club. Kimmie was right, Terry did need a night out with her to do fun things.

Kimberly talked between brush strokes, “Because it looks cute on you. That and you are hoping to score with some hot girl named Lisa.”

Lisa had convinced him to dress up and go with them to the club. He hadn’t been to any clubs with her since before all this began, so he was looking forward to going, even if he couldn’t go like he wanted to. And he had dressed up too in something like he had seen someone else wear sometime ago. She hadn’t picked anything out for him, this was all his choice this time. And he had gone all out for her. He was even wearing something sexy for her to find later. Hopefully she would like it. She always seemed to get a kick out of dressing him up in over the top type stuff.

And tonight he was being sexy for her. He had on a pair of black, high heel booties with silver buckles and a little fringe. Tucked into the boots were his tight acid wash jeans with the little ankle zips he had borrowed from the back of her closet and a black, bulky sweater that had big puffy sleeves he had rolled up on his arms. The large neckline barely hung on his shoulders and showed the straps of what he was wearing underneath the sweater, a black tank top that was made of some sort of shiny and slippery fabric. And under all that was something for Lisa to find out later. Because of the way the sweater hung long on him, he had pulled it up slightly with a broad leather belt that also had a silver buckle. Plus he had on several silver rings, bangles, and some hoop earrings that were way larger than any he had worn before. Almost fully two inches in diameter! He had done his makeup too, with a little help from Kimberly on his eyes. He still couldn’t do his eyes as well as she could. The rest of him though, was all his own work. And he actually felt proud of it.

They had gotten off the dance floor and made their way to the bar to get some drinks. Kimberly was still dancing with a guy she had met, so Lisa followed Terry and she couldn’t keep her eyes off of his butt. It seemed to move more naturally than she had ever seen it before. All that fat that had been pushed down from his waist to his hips was giving him a jiggle and a wiggle he never had before.

Suddenly a thought occurred to her. “Terry?” she pulled upon her boyfriend and got in close to his ear so she could be heard. “You’re not wearing any padding?”

He grinned and laughed at her surprise. “Yes, I’m wearing padding. Just not down there!” he teased. He turned and accidentally left her still staring in confusion at his retreating form.

Lisa saw that Terry didn’t need any padding in his hips anymore. They were still a little small compared to a normal girl’s, but he had curves that filled in the jeans naturally. And they moved like a regular woman’s. And his front side… It was flat like a woman’s. She had seen this before plenty of times when Terry was getting dressed and had tucked in especially well because of a tight skirt or something, but seeing him now, like this…. Suddenly Terry looked completely different.

When Lisa looked upon him again, she didn’t see Terry as a man. She couldn’t help seeing her as a woman.