COMMENCEMENT

By Vickie Tern

 

I.

That’s right dear, I’m sorry, it’s just that you caught me at a bad time. But I can talk just fine now. No, nothing serious, only a customer left over from when Bill was running things here. He said he hadn’t seen Bill out inspecting the job site lately, and wondered if we were neglecting him. Can you imagine? Bill hasn’t been there for a year, and he notices only now. They’re like children, these men, they think they have a problem and they come crying to you to make it better. So I showed him our progress reports, how it’s going fine, he better get the money ready for our completion bonus, because we’re way ahead of schedule.

I tell you, Madge, I don’t know what these men do all day. I come in here and make a few calls, and then the contractors take their fingers out of their asses and do an honest day’s work for a change. Then I come home and I tell Bill how fast things are going, and he doesn’t believe me. Just last night I told him about the Peterson project, and that Mall complex he got mixed up in, I don’t know how, it’s taken me ages to straighten it out. Well, he kept asking me questions about this and that, and I kept answering him, until he finally decided I knew what I was talking about, and he sat down and got moody–I was doing his job better than he’d done it. Yes, he gets that way sometimes when I change his hormones for a few days each month, same as we all do. Suddenly he realized the roast was getting overdone and he jumped up again. Well, it was overdone, a little, but I wasn’t going to say it, and when he served it I had nothing but praise for it, and for his scalloped potatoes, he found a marvelous recipe in this “Modern Woman” magazine he likes to read.

But still he was sad, poor thing. I could tell. He’d worked so hard to

clean the house, and the table was set just beautiful, and then he’d gotten to talking about business and ruined the roast. I praised him and praised him, and told him I wouldn’t bother his pretty little head with office matters ever again. Finally I had to just take him to bed and give him a blow job and tuck him in. I didn’t even insist he take off his makeup or put on a nightie, and he just went right to sleep, so I cleaned up the kitchen for once. These men! They need to feel loved and appreciated all the time, or they come apart!

Is this an OK time for you, Madge? No, I’ve got some time now. There were invoices to get out, so I told my secretary he’d better take them direct to the post office so we’re sure they’re mailed, no mistake, and then to go home and bring me the receipts tomorrow. So no problem, dear. He’s gone, and I’m waiting on a Fed-X right now, some powers of attorney I need for Bill to sign. Then I can go home too.

I guess you’ve heard about it? From Becky? The word must be all over town by now then. No, it’s just as well. They’ve been keeping to themselves I guess for a year now, and we’ve had to make all sorts of excuses for them wherever we went. Now it’s out, there’s nothing more for them to hide, maybe they’ll stop all that silliness about being ashamed to be seen for what they are. Can you imagine? Ashamed to look like women–how’re we supposed to feel about that? Especially when we went to all that trouble? And they all really are kinda cute, now. You should see my Bill, I’m so very proud of him. He’s really been trying so hard now that he thinks there’s no going back.

Well sure, I suppose he could, but he doesn’t know that. They all think it’s for life. That’s why they’re all trying to get used to it. And trust me, Madge, they really do like it. They prefer it. How do I know? It’s a long story, you want to hear it or not? When I tell you, you won’t believe me. But maybe you’ll want to try the same thing with Dave. There’s no reason not to.

Well, you remember last Winter, Super Bowl time, when the boys were all getting together to watch the match, or whatever they call it. I asked them what’s so super about it, and all they did was laugh, and say, “Women!” and I’m a little peeved but I don’t say anything. Well, Helene, and Beth, and Lorie, and me, we sat down to play cards, and its near this open door to Bill’s study where the husbands are inside watching the television.

Honey, I think its 325 degrees. For a slow oven, I mean. Maybe that’s moderate. But I’d have to ask Bill, I don’t remember any more. He’s done all the cooking ever since I took over here at the office, and that’s nearly a year ago.

Well, anyhow, at first they’re laughing together and we feel good the boys are enjoying themselves. But then it gets mean, you know? They start shoving on each other, and they get really nasty? Beth’s Joe, I guess he’s looking at a cheerleader, or maybe one of those football players always patting each other’s behinds, and he says “Now there’s a piece of ass!” Then there’s no stopping them. “How would you know, all you ever see is your wife’s,” says I think its Tom. Tom, you remember, Helene married him just last year in that big country club affair. “You can think so if you want to,” says Joe, and Beth perks up at that and starts listening. Then my Bill wonders how come the girls on television are so thin and we’re so fat-assed. I hoped he was kidding!

But then they all start in! One of them says how we’re fleabrained, can’t be trusted even to answer the phone properly, and they all agree, and they all start telling each other stories about how we never do things their way. Then they move on to how we truss ourselves up in girdles and stockings and brassieres and things, squeeze our bodies into weird shapes, and one of them starts to mock our clothes that button backwards, and silly hats, and the way we paint ourselves, and how we’re always asking each other ‘What’re you wearing?’ as if we couldn’t make up our own minds, and saying ‘Can you imagine?’ and ‘Isn’t that darling?’ and exaggerating everything. And spending too much money on ourselves, yes, that too.

Charlie, that’s Lorie’s husband–yes Madge he is cute, he’s a dreamboat, but listen, Madge–Charlie he starts telling them what Lorie sounds like when she’s having an orgasm, uhhhh, uhhhoooh! something like that, and these assholes start laughing and talking about “moaners” and “screamers,” and I’m waiting for Bill to start in on how I sound off when he’s finally gotten me going. And sure enough, he does. I was so embarrassed! We all were. They start telling each other our favorite positions, or theirs, and the little things we like to do. That’s right, Madge, all those little private things that are none of anyone’s business! Did you know Charlie gives it to Lorie in her rear end? He says she likes it that way, and real rough, too. So I look at Lorie, and she’s shaking her head ‘No’ to that, and her face is all, twisted, and tears are running down her cheeks, but she doesn’t say anything.

Then they all start talking how women have a “basic triviality of mind,” that’s what he said, my Bill, a “basic triviality of mind,” and am I ever pissed? He says that’s why he doesn’t ever tell me anything about his work, and the others agree, they don’t let their wives know anything, they’d only offer useless advice. By now they’re on their third sixpack, maybe the fourth, and there’s no stopping them. It’s like they’re infecting each other. I keep waiting for Bill to drop the other shoe, and sure enough he starts telling them how I let our house go to hell when I was studying for my finals for my management degree. It was only for two weeks for God’s sake, and did he lift a finger to help when I was at it all day and half the night? Someone else is muttering about ‘ungrateful bitches,’ or something.

Anyhow, Helene is sitting there real quiet, and sure enough, her Tommy starts in how women are frivolous and grasping and only good for shopping and sex, spread ‘em and forget ‘em, that’s what we’re good for. Yes I think he was serious, because Helene at first gets all red-faced and then she’s crying a little too, and Beth has to lean over and hug her around the shoulders a little, you know? And Tommy keeps going that we never know our own minds, and Helene suddenly says out loud, “That’s right, you shit, that’s why you rape me most nights!,” and she starts to cry, and it isn’t too funny any more.

And Joe, that’s Beth’s husband, he starts waltzing around the room and saying in a high-pitched voice, “Dear go to the store and buy me some tampons, will you, I’m all out,” and the others all laugh, they think it’s funny. So I just motion with my head, and we all get up from the table and go into the living room, and we can’t hear them clearly any longer, but they’re as loud as the Super Bowl reporters still all jabbering away, and there’s no mistaking it, they’re mocking and laughing, and nasty and spiteful, and obviously they’re telling each other everything about us that’s no one’s business but ours.

Poor Helene, she’s really crying now, and the rest of us aren’t feeling too good either. Beth and I are just furious. We love them and sacrifice for them, and just listen to what they really think! Helene starts to makes excuses, says Tommy can’t really help it! He has a rotten boss so every night he stops off and then comes home drunk, and then climbs on her and forces it in and calls it making love. “But he’s sweet to me sometimes,” she says. And it turns out Charlie, the dreamboat, you remember from a minute ago? Lorie says he’s got a temper, punched her out a few times, and once busted her nose, and when they argue he’s never far from it again, fists all clenched and everything. But he cares about her down under, she thinks, really. She hopes. Beth and me, we don’t say anything. But now we can all hear all of them in there making high pitched squeals, pretending to be us. Very funny!

If the book says 300 degrees, that’s what it is. Put it in, I’ll wait. I may as well tell you all of it. No, I won’t be late. Even if I am, Bill’ll greet me with a kiss, no complaints, pretty as can be, all dolled up, and dinner ready. He really appreciates how I take care of him. He’s such a lovely man, now. I tell you, Madge, every girl should have a husband like my Bill.

So first thing is, Beth and I have to calm down poor Helene and Lorie, they’re both crying now. “Bastards!” I say. “They should try walking in our shoes for once, and see what kind of basic triviality of mind they’d end up with.

Beth says, “They need a taste of their own medicine!”

I say “No, they need a taste of our medicine, what we go through as women. We should teach them a lesson they can’t ever forget. We should fix them!”

And Beth, she’s a head nurse over at Mercy General, in obstetrics and gynecology I think, she says to me “Well, Janice, if I understand you, I’ve got plenty of our medicine we can lay on them.” I just stare at her, and this terrific idea is born.

“It’ll take more than medicine,” I say.

“We can do it,” she says, and that’s all she says. We’ve always been that way, know exactly what’s on each other’s minds. “Should we?”

“Bill’s a dear,” I say, “But obviously he can stand improvement.”

“I’ve been working on Joe,” says Beth. “And I thought I had him the way I wanted him. But I guess not yet. Lets.”

So while we’re consoling Helene and Lorie, and bringing in the tea service and little cakes and things, I’m just thinking hard. You know, Bill would never let me come near the office. “It’s no place for a woman,” he’d say. But that management degree really did teach me a few things about project planning. By the time the tea’s ready, and the boys are still in there hooting and hollering and laughing, and the television’s shouting, I’ve got it pretty well worked out.

“Here’s what,” I say while Beth pours the tea, and Lorie and Helene are taking sugar and lemon or milk or whatever, and stirring, and then we’re all stirring and sipping, and we can still hear those bastards yipping and laughing. “They need to learn things we can teach them. And they can learn them, if we give them the proper motivation and guidance. Clear so far?”

They nod, and sip, and stir.

“Well, we are going to educate them. We are going to put them in our shoes, literally, and let them walk around and see the world the way we do. Why are they being so hateful in there? Why do they put us down like that? Because they don’t understand us, for sure. But more than that, at some level they’re afraid of us. Why? Different reasons. But I think a lot of it is, they’re scared not to measure up as men, all that macho bullshit they’re throwing around in there right now. They don’t dare to resemble us, or act like us–if they do, they get mocked and called sissies when they’re kids, and faggots when they’re grown up.. They can’t even let themselves think about it. They can’t handle it. So they exaggerate how they’re different and superior, and that makes them worse, in some ways a lot worse.

“Well, we’re going to make them more scared not to be like us, and to be

proud to be like we are. We’ve got to tear down their crazy notions

about who and what they are, and rebuild them with our feelings and

ideas”

“I see what you’re driving at,” Helene says. “Not just get even with them but rehabilitate them. I like that. But what do you mean, ‘like we are’? Do you mean we turn them into women? Then maybe lose them when some man comes on to them? Anyhow, I don’t know that I want to live with a guy who thinks he’s a girl.”

“No, they’ll know they’re men all right. We’ll make sure they think they’re failures because they’re not real women. But they do have to want to be women, enough so they’ll try real hard, and get to know what it’s like. Maybe we’ll get them to think that’s what they are for good, so they’d better get used to it! Then later we can lead them back to what they were, if we want. Or to anywhere else we want.”

“Think of it this way. People are all basically different. Some of us are bold, or shy, or rough, or gentle–we all have lots of different traits inside us, and whether we’re boys or girls has nothing to do with it. But then we get fucked up. Little boys get taught some traits are OK for them and others are bad, and little girls get taught the same, but with different traits. Boys get taught they have to be tough and pushy like it or not, and drink beer out of cans, and never use lipstick to look pretty, ever. Little girls learn not to fight but let boys do the fighting, and to be shy and gentle, and to help each other, and never to drink beer out of cans, and to use lipstick. Boys are supposed to be competitive and go to work, and girls are supposed to help each other out and stay home. You know.”

“Well, we’ll leave them men down under, sort of. But we want them to be nicer, more the way we are. Maybe even shy and gentle, and to want to look pretty. We’ll suppress all their boy habits, and encourage all their feminine traits. Then we can each of us decide what boy habits we’ll let them have back. It’ll take patience and a lot of work, but we can do it. I think Tom will look darling wearing lipstick.”

Helene giggled. “I see your point,” she says. “He’ll think twice about climbing on me drunk without asking me first, if the next day he wants to borrow my lip liner.”

And Lorie really brightens up. “And if Charlie’s got long fingernails he’ll be more careful with his hands. You know, he’s cute, but he’d really be cute with an upswept hairdo!”

“There you go,” says Beth. “More tea, anybody?”

“Now, we’ll meet with each other every week to compare notes and give advice,” I tell them. “Each of our husbands is a little different, and we’ll need to use different methods on them sometimes. There’ll be unexpected problems. But mainly we all face the same problems. So there are some things we need to agree right now.”

“Most important is, we talk to each other, but they don’t. We don’t want them finding out we planned this, or they might quit before they’ve learned to appreciate what we’re doing for them. And if they see each other before we’re done, they may feel a little ridiculous or ashamed. Because they are going to look silly for a while. We don’t want them to see each other until they’re each so pleased with themselves they don’t care what anyone else thinks.”

“It’ll take maybe six months to change their habits. I’ve got some ideas for a commencement ceremony, where we’ll welcome our new feminine husbands back to their new lives, or maybe to their their old masculine selves again, but a lot nicer. Then settling them into their new lives could take another six months. We’re talking about a year here, probably, altogether. Everyone still with me? Good! Beth, your turn!”

“Thanks, Janice. Now, most of our problems will get solved the same way. We are going to make them feel real sick at first, and in deathly fear of losing their masculinity. By which I mean literally, their balls.” says Beth. “For at least six months, we’ll give them good stiff doses of what made us what we are when we were little girls starting to become big girls. Hormones. Lots of them. They’re going to become big girls too. But we’ll give them some other drugs too, especially at first.”

“For a few weeks we want them scared and miserable, ready to try anything. We don’t want them able to go to work, or to feel like doing much of anything . We want them dependent on us for everything, the way they were dependent on their mommas when they were little boys who didn’t feel good. I’ve got something to make them each feel bad enough to stay home, and then I’ll visit each one at home and set them up with their hormones. With the hormones I have in mind they’ll get terrific headaches and nausea, and some bad belly aches for a while. They’ll want to see a doctor, and I have one in mind who’ll be willing to make house calls. She’ll scare them into doing everything we want them to do, and she’ll fix their voices at the same time, so they won’t want to call their offices and won’t be able to talk to each other. She’s not crazy about men, and she’ll love this idea.”

“They won’t be able to talk?” Lorie asked. “That seems cruel. And it can get lonely for us.”

“No,” Beth answered, “They’ll be able to talk after a few days. But then you’ll feel the reverse of lonely. They’ll be ashamed to talk to anyone except you, because their voices will be higher pitched, like ours. They’ll sound like women. Then as their bodies accommodate to the hormones, they’ll change. Their faces will soften. There’ll be a redistribution of their body fat to their hips and their butts. And to their breasts. They are going to grow breasts. That’s essential to changing their sense of who they are, changing their body image to include our most obvious feminine feature. So they can’t ever deny what they’ve become, and never forget for a moment. Does this bother any of you?”

Helene and Lorie looked uncertain.

“It oughta be fun, going to the store with them to try on brassieres,” I broke in, mainly to reassure them. “If our men are being good girls, we’ll let them shop looking like ladies, so they can use the dressing rooms. If they’re being difficult, we’ll make them try on their bras looking like men, out on the selling floor. That should help keep them in line.”

“And it might be fun to grab Charlie’s boobs the way he grabs mine, really feel him up,” said Lorie, “especially in public.” She was smiling again, and she leaned over to whisper something to Helene. They both giggled.

“Now one more thing, girls. The hard part, maybe. The massive amounts of hormones we’ll put into them will make them impotent after a while. When that happens it’ll scare the daylights out of them, and we want them scared. Remember, they won’t know what’s hitting them. Later when we cut them back to sustaining doses their potency will return, though their bodies won’t change from what we’ve made them. But they won’t know that either. Anyhow, you won’t get to enjoy your husbands in your usual ways for some months while we’re changing them over to our ways of living and thinking and feeling. In effect each of us is going to have to make love to them like lesbians, or else not at all.”

“That’s the hard part?” Helene asked. “Sound pretty soft to me. It’ll be good for the son of a bitch to need to satisfy me if I’m going to satisfy him.”

We started making jokes about oral sex, getting kissed in the crotch by our new Ladies in Waiting while we’re lying in bed like Queens, and what would happen when our husbands found they couldn’t get it up, that their weenies had decided to stay weeny. Then we couldn’t stop giggling, any of us. Beth had time to get out to her car and come back with a bottle of pills, and she gave each of us a few. “Here,” she said. “Give each of them three of these tomorrow night. By the next morning, that’s Tuesday, they’ll feel like death’s door and will call in sick. Then I’ll come by and take some blood samples for tests, and start their hormones, and tell them they’re in the throes of a dread disease almost always fatal to men who fail to take certain precautions. Then they’ll really feel peculiar, and we’ll add some other medication to addle them some more. They won’t seem to get better, and I’ll explain that the disease has to run its course, at least a month, with severe after-effects that last maybe six months more, maybe for life, so they’d better arrange their affairs at work accordingly. You’ll pay attention to what they arrange, because in fact they’re not going back in for the six months this’ll take all in all. If then. At some point, I guess very soon, my friend who makes house calls will come by and take care of their voices, so they’ll be ashamed to call out. Then we’ve got them for the duration.

“Meet Tuesday night to plan things further? My Place?” I asked. The three of them nodded. By then, I figure, the men will all be in bed groaning or trying to sleep, so the four of us can do some serious thinking about what to do next.

The men came in to say a few sociable things to us before thanking Bill for the good beer and the lousy football game. I was thinking, now that I know about it, that Tommy and Charlie are pretty low specimens. But maybe they just don’t know any better. Maybe they aren’t really bad guys, just guys with lots of room for improvement. Bill is really a nice guy, I was thinking, but I’ll enjoy him more when he’s less hung up on these masculinity trips of his. And that’s a fact. I used to think that about lots of boys I went with, and I improved some of them. I was really looking forward to this.

Here’s the Fed-X now, Madge. I’m off! When Bill signs these papers, the whole business is mine, so I’m a little anxious, you understand. Call me in a few days and I’ll tell you more. No, I’m here every a.m. by 8:00 and I usually stay till six, so call me here. I begin early and keep at it–we’ve gotten a lot busier since I took over from Bill.

II.

That’s right, in triplicate to meet the code requirements, then just leave them on my desk. Hello? Madge! No, I wasn’t talking to you, just my secretary. Nothing to it, get everyone working, keep after them, and when they’re done make sure they’ve done it right. Do that, and there isn’t much else you have to do. Certainly we can talk now. Yesterday around this time I left the office and went shopping. Had to remind myself to buy Bill some tampons and some new panties, so I did. He’s so helpless sometimes. I pay no attention to the laundry for a few weeks, and then I find all the panties I’ve bought him are stained, that from now on he needs to use tampons when he’s having “those days”. No of course not, Madge, where would he get menstrual blood? They’re stained with semen! Yes, I suppose it’s his own semen, some of it, how can I tell? Well, never mind, I’ll get there, and then you’ll understand.

So anyhow, I slip the pills into Bill’s coffee the next night, and the following morning he’s feverish and headachy, just as Beth said, terrible cramps, and he calls in to put off his morning appointments, no, he says, better to reschedule everything for the next day. Around ten Beth stops by, she’s already been to see Lorie and Helene, so Charlie and Tommy have been fixed, and she did her Joe first thing that morning of course. So she goes in to look at Bill, and takes his temperature, and taps him here and there, and takes her blood samples to keep an eye on him, and looks real worried. She starts whispering to me so Bill can see. Then Bill looks even more worried.

I nod, and Beth explains to him there’s this new Virus X, very, very serious, there’s no publicity about it or there’d be public panic, he’s got it for sure, and there’s no fast cure. It affects only men, feeds on testosterone or chromosomes or something, I don’t remember, Beth was pouring out gibberish. First it shrivels their balls, then it kills them. But there are precautions you can take, and also there’s this antibody to keep it from killing you while the disease is running its course, six months maybe. Pretty clever story, because in fact his balls will go down in size once they’re drowning in estrogen, and he’ll go impotent too. “This is very serious,” she says, and she’s going to send a doctor who specializes in this disease. Isolation and bed-rest until symptoms ease off, and follow every prescribed instruction precisely. He needs to sign a waiver for the antibody, and of course Bill signs without reading it, his head’s killing him. I witness it, and we’ve got him for anything we do to him, in case he finds out and threatens to sue everyone in sight, Beth in particular.

Then she gives him the antibody, and Bill realizes this has got to be serious. It’s four little slow-release hormone rods she slips under the skin of each arm. Then the butt plug. That’s right, Madge, an expanding butt plug! Once he’s loaded with his first full-month supply of triple-potency girl-juice, she slips a mineral oil suppository into his butt and then a tranquillizer, and then the butt plug, and it’s all firmly in place before Bill even knows what’s hit him. His eyes go sort of round and his face goes real worried, like a beagle’s, and she tellt a side effect of the drugs that’re keeping him alive, to keep his asshole from closing up, so he won’t die from being full of shit. I have to leave the room at that one, and then I can’t stop laughing! She told me later she thought of the butt plug when she stopped by the hospital to pick up supplies for her morning rounds. It’ll hold in different suppository medications until he’s absorbed them, expecially the tranquillizers he’ll need to stay mellowed out, not thinking too hard about his fatal disease. And it’ll keep him dependent on me, she says, because I’m the only one permitted to remove it, so he’ll have to ask permission when he goes to the john. And it’ll reminded him he’s still sick, especially once he’s out and about again. And we’re both thinking, it can have other uses.

Poor Bill’s never had anything like it in his ass before, and I tell you, Madge, he’s plenty aware of it from then on, all the time. Every week I turn the knob and make it a teeny bit wider, and he knows it’s there all right all over again. He gets used to it by the time his anus is stretched out full, of course, but by then I’ve got him practicing walking in high heels, and I can see how it forces his hips to sway like a pendulum. It turns out to be a terrific idea all around. With that thing in his rear, he decides, he must be real sick. It’s like being nailed to a cross, sort of. And it’s handy, because then he never questions any of the things I push into his backside each morning, before I close it up again. From then on, he does what he’s told. Well, I moved the timetable up and that afternoon I let him sort of waddle out of bed to visit the bathroom, and to show me how to open the safe where he keeps important papers for the office then, because Beth tells him he’s in for some real bad days before he starts recovering. That’s when I started taking over the company, and really making it pay.

Well, we all met that night, and everyone’s story is the same: husbands afraid they’ll die or lose their balls, and they don’t know which is worse. Tommy’s really terrified Helene says, and cries and whimpers until his tranquillizer kicks in–Beth tells her to double the dose, and to add another kind of hormone she’s got, a kind they once used to make nursing mothers into contented cows. All four of them are plugged up the ass, and docile, stuck in bed, calling out to us for relief from their headaches and tummy aches, and arranging for long stretches of time off from work.

Well, it turned out Charlie and Tommy work together, and were about to go on six months’ paid furlough anyhow, you wouldn’t believe it, because their main office is relocating in another city and they’d already decided they didn’t want to go. Didn’t even think to tell their wives, their life-partners, or even ask Lorie or Helene for an opinion. So they’re home for a while, no mistake about it! Beth’s Joe is a writer of some kind, works at home and e-mails his copy to whoever’s paying him for it. So he’s home all the time anyhow. I’m taking over Bill’s office. So the really big problem, where does the money come from while we keep our men home and re-educate them, that’s solved! Beth says the boys will be really miserable, feverish, aching, very unhappy, for maybe about a week, then they’ll pick up. But by then her doctor friend with the throat treatment will come by, and she’ll scare them some more so they’ll want to start looking like women right off.

Well, Lorie’s really getting into it. She wants the doctor to come right away. When she comes in to see Charlie, she says, he still bellows at her. It would do him good, and her too, if he couldn’t use his voice for a few days. Then if he’s going to lie in bed and yell, she says, she wants to be yelled at by a man with a high-pitched voice wearing full lipstick, mascara, eyeshadow, blush, and if she had her way -- we restrained her a little–even that cute blonde upsweep she’d mentioned already, topped by piles of curls. Fair enough, considering the abuse she’d taken from him in the past. So we decide to go ahead with makeup, so they’d learn how to put it on properly by themselves while they’re still bedridden and can’t do much else.

Helene thinks Tommy’ll look a little more loveable if he’s wearing a frilly nightgown, when she has to bring him his meals in bed. So we all agree on that too. Beth’s story makes anything easy–to keep their balls they’ll do whatever crazy thing they’re told is necessary. We vote frilly nightgowns and makeup, and decide to leave it to Beth’s doctor friend to explain it, and leave it to the tranquillizers to cover any doubts. We agreed to meet again in a week.

Sure, honey, call our lawyer and let him handle it. No, Madge, only to my secretary–he just came in with some Accounts Receivable over a year old. Can you believe Bill carried some of these sons of bitches forever, at no interest, firms perfectly able to pay us? He thinks he’s a businessman? Well, I’m being unfair, Madge, he thought he was a businessman, but he doesn’t any more.

So, the hormones begin to get to Bill, with a bellyache Beth tells me is really in his liver while it accommodates to his new body chemistry, and he’s fine, his blood counts are excellent, and he’s scheduled for his voice operation the next day, Beth assisting. This Dr. Teague, Beth’s friend, shows up the next morning. I’m expecting a Dyke, a man-hater, but in comes this short, pleasant, middle-aged lady, well-turned out, with a firm handshake and a steady gaze. And no makeup. She walks in on Bill, and if there was any hesitation or doubt in his mind, it ends immediately. She says right off, “I see no makeup. Why is there no makeup on this patient? Is he in tertiary, that you figure why bother, he’s dead already?”

“No,” I explain. “He’s my husband, and I knew he’d think it was an odd treatment, so if I suggested it he’d think it’s silly, so I’d wait until you could....”

“Well, my dear, what’s silly is none of his business. You shouldn’t have waited. He’s a man, isn’t he? And this virus is specifically fatal for men. Look at his skin color already. Look at it. The virus lodges in hair roots especially, and the eutrophication is phototropic -- that much we know. So full facial makeup! And you’d better begin his electrolysis at once. No hair roots on that face. And his skin covered at all times if you want him to come through this alive and unscarred. No daylight on facial skin anywhere. Exposure to air and daylight can kill him during this active phase, the next several months. Women’s makeup, exactly the way you’d use it on yourself. We know women’s makeup contains some form of protection and doesn’t cause allergies, and we don’t know why, and we don’t know what else might. Lipstick day and night! And get him into a nylon nightie at once, his skin is abrading already. Do you have satin sheets for him, too? Now I’ll attend to his throat. Those tonsil roots are a core area where the virus lodges. I see he’s had no tonsillectomy. I’ll attend to that too.”

Bill commented that this was...er...unusual treatment. Dr. Teague just said, and talk about icy contempt, “Oh? You know about these things? Have you seen any women with this disease? That was our first clue, it attacks only males past puberty, so we thought it was in some kind of symbiotic parasitism with testosterone. Now we think it’s also triggered by secondary sex characteristics, male skin especially. Above all with male testicles. You see what it does to the testicles, and how the patient agonizes while it’s doing it, well, it’s a welcome death, if it gets that far. We’ve thought of recommending that testicles be removed at the first sign of the disease, it’s so bad. Women are somehow immune. Believe me, you don’t want to look like a man. We can treat these symptoms in the early stages, and save lives, if we have the patient’s full cooperation. Do we have yours?”

Bill nodded vigorously, and said “Yes! Yes, doctor!” and pulled his covers up to his neck. Dr. Teague then called in Beth, and told me I could leave the room.

Three hours later there was my poor dear Bill, his face badly swollen but looking peculiarly well-groomed, feeling utterly miserable. He had insisted even before Dr. Teague put him under on having everything she prescribed. So I had put foundation, blush, lipstick, eye-shadow, eye-limer, mascara, and one of my prettier full nighties on him, one with puffed sleeves. Then a lot of it came off once he was out. To take advantage of the anesthetic, the electrolysist I called managed to burn out over half of his facial hair follicles, and the other half went during the next few weeks. His throat was raw for a few days, and so was his face. But sure enough, when his voice returned it was no longer that usual deep resonant tone but a high-pitched sound like Minnie Mouse’s. He sounded so silly, Madge! I had to try real hard not to laugh. But he did his exercises, and in time he brought it down to a pleasant woman’s voice. I must say, I found it charming, once he could speak up without squeaking. I’d close my eyes and imagine that I had a new girlfriend already, and we’d talk about all kinds of things, and he began to adopt some of my other mannerisms too. But he realized he couldn’t make phone calls to his office any more, so he had me make them, and then he began sending me instead.

We compared notes every Tuesday. Of the four men, only Tommy kept a kind of flute-like Bimbo falsetto, and Helene said she loved hearing it come out of him. She taught him to do his own make-up, and she especially treasured a moment she came into his bedroom and found him fluffing up the shoulder ruffles on his nightie, so they’d look prettier for her. He was really beginning to get into it. She said that was when she began thinking she might rent him out as a call girl for perverts when we were through with his re-education. Beth told us Joe had done electrolysis years before, because shaving annoyed him. But Charlie had a thick black beard that took the whole six months, three times a week, to make disappear.

Charlie gave Lorie a problem over the nightgown. It made no sense to wear a sexy nightie, he said, when he could wear men’s nylon pyjamas. So she used up one of our reserve tricks on him. Friday morning she gave him sedatives enough with his morning orange juice so he dozed off and slept until Saturday morning. Then on Saturday morning she brought him Friday’s paper and made a bet with him about a Friday night basketball game, who would win the game “that night” with what point spread. After he made the bet she drugged him again, and on Sunday she told him he’d slept all through Saturday, now it was Sunday, and she’d won the bet. She proved it by showing him the Saturday and Sunday newspapers. The bet was that for six months he’d wear anything she wanted him to wear, anywhere, anytime, and would give her no further trouble. Or if she lost, she’d wear anything he wanted, even the slutwear she hated but he always made her wear when they went out. How could he refuse a bet like that, especially when he knew she knew nothing about basketball?

Anyhow, in the end, all of our husbands’ cheeks were as smooth as ours, and their voices were even more mellifluous, and their nighties were soft and their skin was getting softer, and when we snuggled up to them at night they felt smooth as silk.

And after Dr. Teague frightened them about their skin corroding or something, they all used used makeup to cover their faces completely. Bill tried a shortcult with suntan lotion once, but I just kept repeating ‘Doctor’s orders!’ After a while he took pride that he could put his face on every morning neatly, even elegantly, in under a half hour. When he began feeling better during the second month or so, and showed up for breakfast, he was always beautifully made up. I was proud of him, because he really seemed to care about looking nice.

It was around that time that male pattern balding was discovered to be a primary source of phototropic eutrophication for Joe and Tommy, or whatever the gobbledegook talk for it, I forget, and the Doctor immediately ordered them to wear their wives’ wigs at all times to cover their bald spots. Eventually they went in for fittings and got wigs of their own, really pretty ones, in styles they liked. It’s only right, Madge, every girl gets to choose her own hair style, so why should our husbands be the exception? Bill and Charlie each have full heads of hair of their own, so we each flattered them into blow-drying it into a girlish style they didn’t know was girlish, until it could grow in enough to get a girlish cut and be styled properly. By the third month, when I was going into his office every day and Bill was fully in charge of the household, he always looked lovely when I came down for the breakfast, a sweet gamin cut swept back, long lashes on his beautifully outlined and shadowed eyes, and curling red lips. When I remembered to compliment him he’d dimple, and look pleased. It took time to talk him into lighter shades and natural tones for day wear, and just a few cremes for bedtime. Like the other husbands, he was taking no chances until the virus’s full six months incubation had passed, and his balls were safe. Can you imagine? Men!

Anyhow, when they began feeling better they got out of bed and puttered around the house, and the nighties we’d “loaned” them were no longer suitable. We decided not to push matters yet, because their breasts and their impotence were expected to appear soon, and when that happened they’d be so embarrassed and desperate we could talk them into anything. But they understood they needed to wear “slippery” clothes at all times, and that meant pantyhose and slips. And while they were wearing slips, dresses to cover them. By the end of the fourth month we were all living with well-dressed, beautifully coiffed, and impeccably made up men. I had Bill slimmed way down, so his curves would show when they developed, and he really was starting to round out, front and rear. No one but the wives and Beth ever saw them, and they didn’t know about each other at all, od course. We showed each other pictures, and half of our weekly conferences were taken up with making jokes. Helene wondered if Tommy was Charlie’s type, how they’d get on if they dated. I thought Bill was better suited, and Bill liked dark, mysterious-looking women. Lorie thought Charlie would be more attracted to Joe, because both of them were feisty, and they’d enjoy teasing each other. And so it went.

When our husbands began to feel healthy we began to teach them how to become our kinds of women. That was the price they had to pay in order to get out of the house, they had to be passable in all respects. That was when we brought on heels, really high heels for dressy wear and maybe two or three inch heels for around the house. We taught them to walk, and sit, and use their hands expressively, and when each one was ready, we each took our husbands to the mall to buy them more clothes. By the fifth month they were as avid shoppers as any women anywhere, and sometimes when they got caught up with their housework they’d go roaming the malls on their own. No chance they’d recognize each other.

Helene taught her husband to wear real dark eye makeup, mince around on four or five inch heels, wear leather miniskirts, and patrol the mall asking men if they knew what time it was. Their arrangement was, every tenth man he asked entitled him to another article of lacy lingerie from Victoria’s Secret. He got to love roaming the mall stopping men, and Helene told us with a broad, beaming smile, that just as she’d hoped, sometimes he’d disappear toward the parking lot for a half hour or a more with a man he had just approached. She never asked him what he did and he never told her, but she’d tell him his lipstick was rubbed off even when it wasn’t, and he’s always believe her. She was looking forward to a time when he went away and didn’t come home at all, she said, so she could throw him out of the house altogether. “He’s a natural slut, my ex-rapist. Promiscuous? Who would have thought it?”

Lorie allowed Charlie to wear slacks and pennyloafers or flats, but always with the most feminine blouse imaginable. She wanted him to be highly conscious of his upper areas. One blouse she showed me had a low scooped neckline that showed his cleft–he was really getting impressive up top. And another was satin with panels that draped across his breasts and nipples as they grew. After a while his breasts got real heavy, and he really needed to wear bras to keep from sagging, and she saw to it he was well-set-up with figure-hugging sweaters..

Once I came upon them coming out of the Bon Ton, and I didn’t know whether I should recognize them or pretend not to notice. But Lorie called me over, and Charlie said “Hi, Janice, it’s been a while,” as though he were wearing a business suit or blue jeans, though in fact that day it was a calf-length skirt and loose print overblouse. He was made up just the way Lorie had described, and his black hair was now cut in a neat bob at earlobe length. “Hello, Charlie, you’re looking nice,” I said a little uncertainly. “I heard you haven’t been well.”

“Thank you,” he said calmly. “No, I’ve been quite sick lately. I’m still not myself.”

“So I see!”

“Do you like Charlie’s earrings?” Lorie asked. She seemed to be signalling me, keep it cool.

“We’ve just had my ears pierced,” Charlie added. “The selection of earrings for pierced ears is much wider than for clip-ons.”

“Yes, I know,” I said. “They’re very nice, Charlie. Wear them well!

Well, I’ve got to run. See you!” And I was off.

Lorie told us at our next meeting that was Charlie’s first encounter with anyone who knew him, and that she had been training him for that very moment, to take everything in his stride, always to remain poised no matter what, always to act like a lady. When I left, he had begun to shake, and she’d had to take him home to recover. But she was proud of him, and that night as a reward she had allowed him to lick her pussy for a long while, until she came several times. Earlier, while he was still sick, she had decided to let him kiss different parts of her own body as different rewards for good behavior, to teach him to respect her body always, and to feel privileged to touch it, though only with lips and fingertips. This was only the second time ever he had been permitted to kiss her crotch, and she said the next day he was positively euphoric, singing and humming as he worked at repairing the lace on her panties, which was one of his regular chores.

I went out to restaurants with Bill a few times to get him accustomed to being seen, and when I thought he was ready we went to a businessman’s grill near my office–formerly his–to see how he’d handle being seen by people he knew. He was tense until he realized no one recognized him, though a few times men or women we both knew stopped by to greet me. Once he realized what terrible risks of exposure he was running, I had no problem feminizing the rest of his appearance out of all recognition. He spent a full day at the Beauty Salon having his hair permed, lightened and frosted, and his fingernails done, and his face completely made over, and it really made a new man of him. After that he felt perfectly confident when he drove off to the mall for a day’s shopping on his own. I would advice him about purchases, but Bill had good taste, and he’d been reading about women’s styles from when he was first bedridden and saw the handwriting on the wall. So gradually, his part of our closet filled with dresses and skirts and things, and sometimes I borrowed one or two that weren’t too feminine looking, to wear to the office.

Beth didn’t usually report much about Joe, and it was only near the end of the six month training period that she told us why. It seems Joe had always been a transvestite, even before they were married, and had a full wardrobe of women’s clothing he’d often worn when they were out together. She’d always encouraged him to look like a woman whenever possible. “None of this is that big a deal for him,” she said. And he always did whatever she wanted, because she had pictures of him looking really sexy, and whenever he objected to anything, she’d comment that it would be good for the world to know about his hobby, what’s he hiding it for anyway? He knew what Beth was up to with those hormonal implants from the beginning, and he was uneasy about it, but he raised no objection. Then each month when she replaced them, he more and more welcomed the changes in his body. It was like wearing the ultimate in women’s underthings under his underthings, he told her, transvestism down to the skin. He didn’t understand why she wanted him to wear the butt plug or undergo the voice change, but Beth told us he was happy with his developing breasts and especially with his wider hips and rounded tush, even though he wasn’t really a transsexual and wasn’t planning to go further.

Helene was the first to report the onset of outright impotence in her formerly rapist but now silly-Bimbo-voiced slut of a husband. She couldn’t contain herself, she was so happy. “He tried, the bastard,” she crowed. “Nothing happened! So I tried, even with my mouth, which I haven’t tried for years! Nothing! So I told him next time I’d get a dildo and fuck him like those men he ran around with, and turned over and went to sleep absolutely delighted! The next morning he looked as if he hadn’t slept at all, and when he saw I was awake, he asked me, “Am I going to die now?” I told him “No, worse, you’ll live!” Then I caressed and squeezed and pulled on his little worm for a while, just to be sure it was out for the count. He could feel it, he said, and he looked so grateful to me for my half-a-hand job that I thought, even if this goes no further it’s been worth it!

Well, Madge, I’d been preparing my Bill for the same moment by caressing his nipples. They were beginning to swell into points pushed out by the developing tissue beneath them, hard lumps growing increasingly sensitive, and finally excruciatingly erotic. Then real breasts started to emerge. One night neither my hand nor my mouth could make him stiff enough for, you know, penetration. I told him the breasts were a side effect of the antibodies he was getting to save his life, and that later he’d recover his ability to get an erection. He told me he’d been worried the virus was spreading, or the medicines were giving him breast cancer in some way. My heart went out to the poor dear, and I almost let him in on the secret. “No, my love, you’re getting something much better than breast cancer,” I said. “Breasts! Maybe better even than a penis!” And to prove it I brought him off by nipple play alone.

He never asked me how I was so sure the breasts were benign. But he was amazed, he said, that his orgasm that night had seemed to fill his whole body, not just his prick. It was glorious, he said, and seemed to go on and on, and higher and higher, before it finally eased into an afterglow. Only then did he discover that his little limp penis had ejaculated even though it was limp the whole time. For the first time since we started this, I began to think that I might really be doing Bill a favor, not just educating him about what it’s really like to be a woman, bringing him to task for not respecting women. Now he knew how women enjoy sex, through their whole bodies, and now he’d had a taste of it!

Joe and Charlie were also beginning to have unaccustomed failures in their erections and bulges on their chests. After some discussion of what we wanted next, we decided to consult with Dr. Teague again. “They bought those last explanations?” she said. “Then they’ll buy anything! I’ll visit each one of your husbands, and just wait until you hear what I tell them. Just be sure to give them two doses of those tranquillizers first.” We assured her the men had been on tranquillizers since we began, which was why they had been so amenable to everything, scarcely ever complaining, no matter how strange our requests or explanations.

When she arrived at our house she elected to see Bill in the living room. I sent him in wearing a plain cotton print house dress and flats. Dr. Teague just stared at Bill and shook her head in amazement. “Billie, my dear,” she said. “Why didn’t you tell me last time that you really are a woman? The virus doesn’t seem to have affected anything essential at all. Only your penis, I hear!”

“I’m not a woman,” Bill said with a certain determination. “Ask Janice if you don’t believe me. I’m a man!”

“Are you, dear?” she replied. “How interesting. Breasts well under way, no erectile tissue to speak of, wearing a dress, beautifully made up with a lovely hairdo. You’re working at home and your wife’s at the office. Tell me again what kind of man you are, in that lovely voice of yours.”

“Whatever kinds there are, I’m one of them, Doctor! Or I hope so!”

“Well, dear, you’d better hope not. I’ve seen your blood workups. It’s true you have testicles, and that may have deceived your parents and affected the way they brought you up. But now, call yourself fortunate. The antibody has neutralized your testosterone, fortunately, or the virus would be attacking it at this moment, and you’d be dead by now. Now, the antibody that has saved your life, the one I prescribed, is a form of estrogen. That’s why you’ve grown breasts, and hips, and why your face is now so much softer than a man’s. Your bloodstream now contains the estrogen usually raging in the veins of a fifteen year old girl eager to suck cock to stay popular with the boys. I do recommend you do everything you can to complete your passage into full womanhood. Sucking cocks is one way. But if you’re still a virgin, consider losing it in one of the more traditional ways, as soon as possible. It’ll improve your estrogen balance and prevent any recurring male hormones from metabolizing the virus and killing you. This treatment has now gone on for six months. I think we can declare all risk past after another six months, to be on the safe side. Then you can do whatever you wish about finding you manhood again. Needle in a haystack, if you ask me!”

Well, when she was gone, I went to hug my darling. He was staring out the window frightened. “She told me I need to get fucked, or to suck cock, or I might die,” he said. “For another six months I need to dress like you and be like you. I’m getting to kind of like that. But I don’t want to have sex with a man. I don’t want to die either. What should I do?”

I realemony I’d planned from the beginning. Now Bill was ready. Soon after Dr. Teague visited the other husbands, and so were they.

Goodness, look at the time! Gotta go now, Madge. I’ll call you this Friday, before the weekend, maybe we can get together some time soon. I know you’ll want to know how our guys finished up.

III.

Madge, you’re the first person I’m telling this to, but what Dr. Teague told all four of our guys was what I had asked her to tell them. We decided fairly early on that our husbands needed a full feminine experience in order to respect us properly. All of it. They’d made fun of how we think, and dress, and talk, and behave, and also what kinds of noises we make when we’re getting laid by a stiff prick. So it’s only fair they should find out for themselves what kinds of noises they’d make when they’re getting laid by a stiff prick.

It’s true that Tommy didn’t need to be encouraged into a full feminine experience, including sex with a man. Fairly early on it looked like he had to be peeled off any man who’d let him come close. But our other guys, I don’t know, they were a little shy about getting intimate with a man. I knew they would be. They spend all that time horsing around, and punching each other’s shoulders, and maybe like me they’d rather be feeling up some guy’s buns, but they repress it. It’s that competition thing again. They think it’s manly to fuck but it isn’t manly to get fucked. Even though there never has been one without the other. As if one was winning and one was losing.

Think about it, Madge. It’s only sex with a man. We all do it all the time, you know, or we wish we could, some of us. Nothing more common! Every woman does it. But our big strong brave men, the very idea of it spooks them. Just suggest it and they get crazy angry, and they tense up, and you can’t reason with them any more. I knew it would be that way the first night I thought of the plan, that Super Bowl Sunday. That’s why right off I thought about the commencement ritual we’d have to have, when we got our guys together for the first time since we transformed them, and gave them a chance to get to know each other all over again. And to be initiated into full womanhood together. That’s what we wanted for them.

And that’s what we gave them, Beth and Lorie, and Helene and me. Here’s how. Remember that none of them knew that any of the others had been feminized. Charlie knew that I knew about him, but Lorie assured him I’d never tell Bill, and of course I didn’t. They each think they’ve just barely been saved from this virus by their body’s hiding out from its own masculinity somehow, suppressing its testosterone, looking feminine. I know, it sounds a little crazy, but we’ve been shoving tranquillizers up their asses every day for six months, so even if it still sounds crazy they never questioned it. They’re a little zonked, remember, Madge! They’re thinking the way they think we think, like women, right? Sure it’s funny. At this point they believe they’re still at risk, for five more months, and to reduce this risk they need to get laid. Sure, but what do you expect? From a man? They’re scared!

Well, we decide we’ll hold the commencement as the final meeting of our Tuesday night group, because after that there won’t be any reason to meet in secret any more, and that’ll be the big moment we’ve all been working toward. At my house because I’ve got the biggest living room. We get each of our men ready. Remember how they thought we were all so silly, going around all trussed up in girdles? Well, now, each one of them has a corset, and we make sure the laces are tight, so each corset is nearly rigid, and each of them has a wasp waist and spread out hips and real breasts pushed up into the cups. Bill’s are an honest C cup with no padding now. They look so sweet sometimes. I love to kiss them. That’s right, Madge, he can’t go without at all any more, or they sag down and hurt. Well, they’re all wearing their nicest dresses, and are beautifully made up. Bill knew there was something special happening but didn’t know what, so he went to the beauty parlor for a hairdo and makeover. I tell Bill no panties, maybe we’ll want to paddle his bottom, who can tell, and no butt plug for the same reason. The other girls tell their men the same thing.

So, anyhow, Bill’s sitting in the living room, waiting for the first arrivals, and I go into the kitchen, supposedly to fix up snacks or something. The doorbell rings, and in comes Lorie with Charlie, very quietly, and she motions Charlie to go in the living room and then joins me in the kitchen. Well, Charlie goes. The two men check each other over and each sees a strange woman, so they nod and smile politely, and Bill returns to his “Cosmo” and Charlie picks up a “Vanity Fair.” It’s so funny–Lorie and I can see from the pass-through in the kitchen that they are reading the ads much more closely than the articles, the same way all women do. Same thing when Beth comes in with Joe, and Helene with Tommy. Now there are four women in the kitchen, grinning and whispering excitedly, and four men who each think the others are women in the living room making brief polite remarks and mainly trying to ignore each other, sitting and waiting. Oh yes, and four men from the Gay-Bi Athletic Club, two of them trainers in terrific shape, and two others long-time regulars in the Nautilus program, sitting in a car parked across the street, making jokes and waiting for the signal.

Well, when everything looks right, I signal and then I call out “Bill, where’d you put the wine?” and Lorie follows with “Charlie your lipstick’s smudged!” Without thinking Bill calls back to me in his new voice “In the pantry, dear,” and returns to his magazine. Charlie pulls a mirror out of his purse, checks his face, and starts to repair an imaginary imperfection with his lipstick. The other two ladies stare at both of them.

“Bill? Did she say your name is Bill? And you’re Charlie?” says Tommy in his Minnie Mouse squeal.

Joe picks up on it quickly, an experienced transvestite accustomed to seeing other men in drag, and just as Bill is looking at each of the others in turn, all confused, with his mouth and eyes wide open, Joe says, “Well, I’ll be damned! Here we are again! All four! What have those women done?”

Charlie just stares around a little wildly, his lipstick still in his hand. “What?” he says. “Who are you?” But he already knows.

There’s a brief pause while the boys recognize each other, then recover themselves, and then recover from their embarrassment at being seen, and then from their realization they’re all in the same boat, and then recover their sense of humor. “So we’ve all had this same disease, this virus, and we were all too ashamed to admit it all these months,” says my Bill. I could kiss him! He’s so wrongheaded! He leaps to the wrong conclusion and leads the rest of them there, that they’ve all been fighting the virus. Then even Joe abandons his correct line of inquiry, that we women connived together and did it all.

So they all feel this enormous relief and begin talking at once. Charlie tells Joe he’s wearing a gorgeous tunic, is it silk? and Bill admires Tom’s leather miniskirt–“I wish I had the courage to wear a skirt that short,” he says. “It’s really precious! Where did you get it?” And then they all begin talking at once, and we’re listening, and each of us is hearing the kinds of exaggerated comments they had once told each other was dumb. I guess they no longer thought so. It’s amusing, and cute, and really loveable, you know? They were really enjoying themselves making girl talk in those lovely voices. We wives are grinning and feeling so warm about everything we’ve been doing. Our husbands are so much...well...nicer now. You know? Then we decide, time to move on.

So we march in together in a row, one behind the other, and sit down in four chairs that happen to be lined up across the room from the chairs they’ve settled into. We look like a tribunal, or whatever the four of us would be called if we were sitting in judgement of them, which in a way we were. “Ladies!” I call out. “Ladies, please!”

They look up at us, and smile, and the gibble-gabble gradually quiets down, until finally they’re just looking at us, expectantly. We’re all here for a reason, they know, but they don’t know what it is yet.

“Ladies,” I say to them, “Let’s get to it. You have each of you been making some difficult adjustments during the past half-dozen months, and you’ve all four survived them, and you’re still here with us, and we’re all of us grateful for that.” The other wives beamed at them. “There are more adjustments to come, of a different kind, but tonight we reach a threshold, and we want to help you cross it, each of us. So we’ve arranged a kind of ceremony. I assure you, after it, you will not be quite the person you are now. You do have our best wishes for what you are about to become. Please, now, each of you, kneel down here a few feet from your wife, in front of her.”

Well, Madge, they were still guys, no matter how beautifully coiffed and

dressed. They glanced over at each other with half-smiles. It was

clear to them that there would be some fairly heavy pussy smooching

coming up. So they got up and knelt down elegantly. All of them were

wearing stockings, and heels, so the kneeling wasn’t easy. But we have

a soft carpet,

“Now if you will bend way forward, each of you, chin to the floor, bottom to the heavens.”

They do that. Behind them, unheard and unseen, the Athletic Club jocks enter the room barefoot, naked from the waist down, and line up behind each of our husbands. Three of them already had erections, and the fourth was pulling on his dong until it hardened and then stood out even while we watched. I must say, they were all the biggest pricks I had ever seen, but then up to that moment I ‘d only seen Bill’s, and a few half-hidden ones in college. I was glad for Bill that his butt plug had expanded his anus, that it was now as elastic and loose as a vagina after childbirth. One stud tossed another a tube of KY, and in a moment they’re all slathered. The boys may not even feel anything slip into them, I think. But then I think, No. They’ll feel those pricks all right!

“Ladies,” I say. “This is very important. Listen to this instruction closely. No matter what happens now, you must keep looking at your wife until we tell you otherwise. She wants to see your face the whole time. She wants you to see her face the whole time. No matter what happens.

Is that clear? No looking back. No changing your position.”

I wait a moment for my words to sink in. They are now each looking up at their wives. The position is awkward, so they now look a little mournful. The studs behind them are grinning. I nod at them, and they advance on our husbands, bend over behind them, and then at a signal from the one on the left they place their hands on our husbands’ hips, lunge forward, and bury their meat all the way into our husbands’ rumps. Then they pause. Our four men are impaled by four other men.

The expressions we see are priceless. Bill is shocked and amazed. I look at him amused. I’m sure the other wives are feeling delight, contempt, concern, vengeful glee, I can’t begin to guess. I’m too fascinated watching Bill.

“Ladies, welcome to full womanhood. We all hope you enjoy it,” I say.

Now it’s up to the Athletic Club.

They start stroking in and out, and Bill’s face keeps staring at me, reproachfully. Then I notice his eyes begin to glaze over, and his beautiful rump begins to pump up and down, very slightly at first, then more and more. I glance at the other men. Tommy’s eyes are closed, and a beatific smile lights up his whole face while he pushes back sinuously against the man fucking him. Obviously when he was been disappearing in the mall for a half hour at a time with men he’d picked up, it hadn’t been just to suck cock. Charlie looks worried. Joe looks as if he’d just had a pleasant revelation, and is thinking it over. I look back at Bill, and though he’s still facing me, it’s obvious his attention is now altogether elsewhere. He has a pleased smile, and his ass is now pumping strenuously into his partner.

And it happened. As Bill’s stud gets closer to coming he changes into a rhythm of long easy strokes each seated deeply into Bill’s cockpit before he eases off and starts to pull back, slowly, all the way, and then forward to seat into the hilt again. Bill starts to moan. Then as the pace picks up, each time his lover pushes in all the way he calls out “Ooohhhh!” louder, in a tone of longing and regret, each time faster and faster. When his man finally comes into him with a mighty push, Bill in a frenzy pushes back hard and deep, and when cum starts throbbing into his bowels Bill can’t contain himself. Out comes high pitched shrieks, one after another. The other boys are shrieking too by now, and Beth, sitting next to me, is laughing uproariously. “Like feeding time at the zoo!” she can barely choke out at me, and then collapses into her chair again in stitches.

Eventually the Athletic Club finishes, and each man pulls out of each of our men with a “Plop!” sound. They’ve left a fair amount of cum behind, I’d guess. The leader looks at me again, waiting for the next signal. “Now Ladies,” I say, trying hard not to join in with Beth, who is still laughing out of control, “Turn over on your backs, and lie flat, and feel free to do whatever comes into your heads except get up.”

They do that. The studs straddle our husbands’ torsos, knees wedged into their armpits, leaning slightly forward, balls are hanging over our husband’s chins, their shiny, slick, wet pricks, still partially swollen, hanging directly over each prettily lipsticked mouth. One by one the boys lift their heads and lick the cocks hanging over them, then start sucking on them. Bill is no exception. Then as each cock grows hard again, ready again at different times, each stud changes position. Tommy is sucking away at his man’s cock so vigorously I doubt there’s any way he will get fucked in the ass a second time. Joe fucks his stud from in front with his legs held high, draped on the muscleman’s shoulders. Charlie has his legs wrapped around his stud’s waist. Amazed, I see Charlie tighten his arms around his lover’s neck and kiss him passionately while his asshole is being reamed. I remember that Dr. Teague has told our men that this is the way to assure they’ll survive the virus, and I imagine Charlie is grateful for what the man is doing to him. But his gratitude seems excessive. I suspect that now he’s into it, that just like any other woman, he loves getting fucked.

When it was over, each of our husbands’ lovers had pumped yet another load of cum into our husbands’ rear ends. They stood, nodded to us, one or two grinned a farewell, and they disappeared back where they had come from. Now we looked at the sorry specimens still on the floor, still breathing heavily, still with their eyes glazed or closed. The evening wasn’t over. As we’d planned and discussed it, now each one of us would take her husband into a private part of the house, interrogate him, and when he was feeling properly guilty, turn him into whatever each one of us wanted. That was our scenario, and we’d talked at length about why this was the most important part of the evening.

When the other men had been led elsewhere I went over to where Bill was still sitting on the rug, by now fully aware he had not been himself but a slut utterly out of control. He looked bewildered. A special tranquillizer I’d slipped into him earlier to relax his inhibitions had helped, I’m sure. But he didn’t know that.

I took charge. “So, Bill. First of all take off your dress. You’re probably leaking that man’s cum, and you don’t it to get stained. You might want to wear it again when you take up whoring for a living. Now just stand there in your slip, and if you don’t mind, tell me. How did it feel when he first stuffed his prick into you. Good? Delicious? Feminine? Can you hardly wait for more?”

Bill answered earnestly, as if full and open confession could earn forgiveness. “It felt full, Janice. At first it felt like like a big, fat, soft butt plug. Then I don’t know, it began to feel nice. Then very nice. It was strange. As if I wanted to move my bowels, but move them the other way. Then when he started going in and out I went crazy, the way it felt.”

“Bill, I arranged for you to get laid because the Doctor ordered it.

You had to endure it, not enjoy it. But you made love to it!”

Bill looked down embarrassed. “Janice,” he said in a pleading voice, “You know I never would have done any of that on my own. I never wanted to do it. It was embarrassing. You know that.”

I figured, now embroider it a little, he’ll never dare correct me. “What I know,” I told him, “Is that once that guy got his full length into you, then the first one of you to push toward the other was you. Then when he was roaring along full strength you couldn’t get enough. You even gave your tush a little wiggle before he pulled back, each time, didn’t you? Was it that delicious? Did I tell you what a pretty tush you have now, Bill? We have to get you some tighter skirts to take advantage of it, and attract other boys to fuck you, it’s one of your most attractive features. And that blissful smile on your face while he was moving around in you as if he owned you? Tell me what that meant! And after he came into you and then pulled out, I saw your face. You felt a little deprived, didn’t you? I know that feeling. I could recognize that look.”

“Then you turned over onto your back, and he crouched over your chest with his prick still dripping cum into your mouth, and who lifted his head just a little in order to kiss the tip of his cock? I saw that. And did you need to grab it with both hands and your whole mouth, and lick and kiss it over and over, and make your mouth into a cunt that couldn’t stop fucking him? Who told you to do that? And when it got hard again and you wrapped your legs around his waist, who smiled like a kid on Christmas morning, and who kept crying out “Oh yes, oh yes, again, again!”–that’s an exact quote I think–and who reached down to guide his cock into whose dripping asshole for a second go-round? And when he was plunging into you a second time, who was squealing like a fire engine with a house on fire somewhere. Who was that exactly? Am I married to a squealer? A screamer? Should I imitate it for you, the way you boys imitated us during the last Super Bowl?”

Bill just looked down, still blushing furiously. He had nothing to say, of course. There was cum leaking out of his ass and down his leg, and he knew I’d seen it all, so there was nothing to deny and he had nothing to say. “Janice...” That was all that came out.

Then to his amazement I came over and kissed him. “Don’t look so unhappy now, dear. Whatever makes you that happy should never make you unhappy. I love you. I knew you’d never do it on your own. That at first you didn’t want to do it. That once you started doing it you couldn’t stop. Because that’s the way it should be when a women has an affair with a man. I never would have been unfaithful to you with another man, the way things were. But now that I’ve actually seen you being unfaithful to me with a man, in front of my own eyes, and actually enjoying it, it’ll be much easier for me.”

“Oh, I imagine it’ll be a little embarrassing the first time, same as for you. I’m basically shy, like you. But I hope I’ll enjoy it as much as you did. You really loved it, Bill. What you just felt, that’s what I hope I’ll feel when I start my first affair with some man. You won’t be there watching that first time, of course, the way I was watching you, but maybe later, if you want to, if my man doesn’t mind, if it would give you pleasure. We’ll see.”

And I kissed my fingertips and touched them to his lips. He just stood there, cum flowing down both thighs, bewildered, distraught, helpless. He’s really such a dear, Madge. I do love him. “You’re a woman now,” I tell him. “So I know you understand. A woman wants to have a man to make love to her. You can’t right now. So I know you won’t mind when I find someone who can. Now shower and change and come to bed, dear.”

That’s what I wanted to get from that evening. Lorie got Charlie for her willing slave, ready to do anything to make it up to her. So she converted her game room into a dungeon, complete with a rack, and whips, and ball gags, the full equipment. Now when Charlie doesn’t hand wash her lingerie properly, or doesn’t serve dinner enthusiastically, or doesn’t lick her to orgasm artfully enough, she says he goes down there himself to hang there half the night doing penance. Beth ended up pushing Joe over the edge from transvestism into full transexualism, which is where she always thought he belonged, though he never did. Now he really does believe he’s a woman born by mistake into a man’s body, and he’s discussing a sex change operation with a surgeon who’ll turn his prick inside out to make a vagina. Then she’ll divorce him, she thinks, but she’ll pass her boyfriends on to him as they accumulate. He’s promised to do the same. Helene didn’t want anything more from Tommy. Now they still live together but they each go their own ways, picking up men and spending the night with them, and they chat together about different men’s techniques and cocks like the dearest of friends.

The boys all got something unexpected from it too, though we all knew it was coming. More than just something. We encouraged them to see a lot of each other after that night. I’m always delighted to hear Bill call Charlie or Joe when they’re going to dinner together, to ask what he plans to wear. When they came over to play cards, or for some other reason, it’s very satisfying to hear them chatting about recipes and hair styles. Then it was Helene who told us that their new relationships matured right on schedule. Tommy told her they’d begun sucking on each others’ soft cocks. It seems that one evening Tommy couldn’t resist and sucked on Bill with Bill’s consent, then asked Bill to return the favor, and Bill complied. Before long it turned out they were spending most of their evenings together sixty-nining each other in different combinations. They thought we didn’t know. But Tommy enjoyed tellng us a lot about our husbands’ techniques with each other.

The next step for them was obvious enough. Beth reduced their estrogen intake around the ninth month, I thought just in time, because my Bill was now a C Cup, and I was beginning to think enough was enough. Well, they began to get hard-ons again! By then we’d each of us taken up with different boyfriends, and I’d already gotten accustomed to bringing mine home, so my sweet Bill could attend us when we wanted–blot us dry when we showered together, or fix coffee when my lover-of-the-night was ready to drive back home to his wife, and always suck me clean afterward, since he couldn’t do anything else, and was half-convinced her was a lesbian woman anyhow. So when Bill started getting erections again, I didn’t really want to return to our old marital state. The way it is now, if I want Bill to fuck me, or to suck someone’s cum out of me, he does it, that’s all. No big deal.

Wait a second, Madge. ‘Night, see you Monday! Love that new blouse, the red stripes match your lipstick! My regards to your wife!

No, my secretary, leaving for the weekend. Like I said, they need reassurance all the time, these men!

But the real point is, once the boys found they could do it again, they started in doing it to each other. Now, sixty-nine is only the half of it. Did I tell you about this last Super Bowl, the one just past? Ok, I will, but then I really gotta go.

We all got together again, and the boys all made themselves pretty for each other as usual, and then they went into Bill’s den and shut the door, and then they forgot to turn on the TV. It was very amusing. “They think they’re doing it under our noses and getting away with it, “ I said. “That’s sort of dear.”

Helene wasn’t at all amused. In fact, she got rather tart. “Maybe so,” she said, “But someone should tell them to use tampons or sanitary napkins afterward. They leak all over their panties, and their skirts, and even on the car seat sometimes when driving back home. At the very least they should excuse themeselves and go douche before they rejoin us.” Lorie just smiled. I think she gives Charlie these evenings as a reward for satisfactorily performing God knows what with her.

Well, after the game this year the husbands planned a sleepover pyjama party for themselves, with lots of giggling, and I’m sure lots of other things planned too. Bill laid out his prettiest nightie, and I suppose the others did the same. They understood we were going out while they stayed home, and they didn’t seem to mind at all. I told Bill we’d be home late, not to wait up, and I told him to have fun. He told me the same thing. He said he really loves me. He said he didn’t know of any other wife who’d be so understanding.

Well, I know of one other. When we were leaving the boys to their Superballing and their pyjama party, Beth told me that her first idea had been only to fix things so the boys’d be too busy with each other to notice that we were getting well-fucked by decent guys who really appreciated us. Or if they did notice, to fix them so they’d be in no position to complain, lying on their backs the way they were, with their own pricks working in and out of them.

Then she said, “You know, Janice, now that we’ve done it, it doesn’t matter to me what they think they are, women or gay men or what. We’ll just make sure they continue to service each other, getting all the ass they want any time they get together, and all the cock too. We can’t expect them to be strictly good girls, they weren’t bred up to it like us. Look what happened to Tommy before we were even halfwae men, so of course they’re sluts now. I like it that this arrangement keeps them from roaming too far away from home. Right?”

I agreed.

Then Beth said, “It’s simple justice. The way they were behaving last year, mocking us, mocking all women, falling all over each other to humiliate us, their own wives, showing off to each other like that, we had every right to arrange for them to get their fill of each other. I listened to all that boasting and insulting last year, and I thought to myself, every macho asshole deserves to get stuffed by a macho prick. And that’s what they are, and that’s what they’ve got, and that’s what they do. C’mon, our guys are waiting for us.”

Oh my goodness, Madge, it’s past six! My guy really is waiting for me right now! I wanted to take him home first for a drink and to meet Bill, but now there’s no time. Well, give me a call over the weekend, we’ll get together. No point any more in keeping our husbands under wraps. It’s time they met some new people anyway. How do you think my Bill and your Dave would get on?

END 3/3 Vickie [email protected]