Youth, Part Two: Going Out
. . . and learn the pleasures of being a woman!
Dressed as a woman, feeling warm and comfortable, luxuriating in the sense of my womanliness, I did not always want to go out. The experience in San Francisco was the first time that had happened to me, and I did not feel the urge again for many years. I was twenty, maybe twenty-one years old when that happened. The urge grew out of the new excitement--this was the first time I'd ever had my own high heels, the first time I'd ever shaved my legs. It was as if I had crossed into some new territory.
My first experiences, my earliest feelings of femininity, occurred when I tried on shoes--first my cousin's, then my mother's. I had worked, in high school, at a shoe store--a women's shoe store. But I'd never had my own shoes. I see how this could have developed into a kind of fetish. It didn't, maybe because I was too curious, too willing to push myself a step beyond what I'd done before. And each new step took me deeper into my feminine self.
Whatever, having my own pair of high heels was like the sudden living of a dream, or, rather, like the fulfilling of a dream--having the shoes I'd wanted, the schoolgirl oxfords my cousin wanted to give to me when I was five or six and which my parents said I could not wear because I was a boy. And then the completely new feeling, seeing my legs so smooth in the sheer stockings--well, it was just suddenly necessary, even natural to me, to think I might go out, let myself believe I was a woman.
It was the open air that I wanted. I did not want to be seen. It was just a way of extending that secret world. The possibility of being seen did not excite or thrill me. It scared me. I did not like to think about that possibility, and when I was seen it scared the daylights out of me. My wife's reaction scared me too. Clearly there were risks involved.
Still, having done it, I felt some satisfaction. After all, I had been seen and nothing had happened. And for a few minutes, seconds anyway, those first breaths of cool San Francisco air, the delicious breeze playing on my ankles, I had felt a lovely exhilaration, as if I were coming alive for the first time.
The man coming up behind me had terrified me though. I had not counted on that, either on his appearance or on my terror. That modified my pleasure when I remembered the episode. It was the terror of discovery, the fear that he would see, would know--and that kind of discovery was not my idea of pleasure, was the opposite of it in fact. The supreme pleasure was (is) to become a woman, to be accepted as a woman. I could accept myself, but my confidence broke down in the face of possible discovery, with the idea that I would be seen not as a woman, not as the woman I felt myself to be, but simply as some kind of perverted soul, a man in woman's clothes.
The risk, then, was worth taking only because of the thought that it might not be a risk to me as a male; rather the danger was the same as any woman faces. Obviously, a woman does not go for a walk alone at night, not in a big city, not even in most small towns. I can accept that (though I regret it--what a sad commentary it is on men) and wish to avoid it, as any woman would.
It was not until five or six years ago that I went out again. Understand that these urges have not always been of equal force. I haven't been terribly obsessed. My life has gone on in an ordinary and satisfying way as husband, father, teacher. It has meant a lot to me to fulfill those roles, and to fulfill them well. Days, weeks, even months might go by without a thought to my feminine needs. But the femininity was never far beneath the surface, and from time to time it grew so powerful that I felt intensely frustrated if unable to express it.
At that time, my daughters having left home, I found myself with some new privacy. Instead of developing my femininity, I turned in another direction, toward love affairs. Mid-life crisis, no doubt. I suppose I thought I had to prove myself as a male. I had been married at the age of twenty, a virgin. Hadn't I missed something in not having more experience with women? Whatever the reasons--complicated, no doubt--there was a period of several years when I stepped out, tested my wife's patience, and put our marriage at great risk. My feminine feelings did not go away, though at times, in the first flushes of a new infatuation, I thought they might. But they didn't, returning periodically with great force.
I just remembered another time, though, before this period of affairs. I had gone to a motel in a nearby city for the specific purpose of relaxing, dressing. I had fairly long hair, this being not uncommon in those days, the mid-seventies. And I had tried, on a few occasions, to style it, using rollers. Also I had my own clothes by then, and makeup. And I had shaved my legs again, keeping them that way for months at a time. I could dress almost every morning in those days, and often did, the children in school and my wife working (my classes met in the afternoons).
My wife knew that I did this. She did not condone it, but neither would she condemn it. She just did not want to have anything to do with it--it was my business. So she understood, I believe, why I wanted to go away for a weekend. The house was, after all, never private enough; I could never feel completely relaxed. The phone might ring, someone come to the door.
Mainly, on this occasion at the motel, I just relaxed. I dressed, took my time with my makeup, set my hair in rollers, walked around in my slip, read a book. Such a wonderful sense of freedom, luxury! But then it seemed, as I put on skirt and blouse, that I was getting ready to go out. You got dressed because you were going somewhere. When this occurred to me, each stage of dressing took on a new dimension, a thrilling edge. I combed out my hair, put on makeup (I had learned quite a bit since the lipstick and rouge days of San Francisco), slipped on my shoes (now clunky heels were the fashion), and walked to the door. All I did was open it, take a few steps. I may have gone to the car, as if to look for something I'd forgotten. I came right back.
Even now, I'm not sure if this happened then, or not until later. Sometimes the adventures get mixed up, they merge, flow into one great stream, the source of which is high up and far away. I know I went to the motel, rolled my hair (my wife commented on how it looked different when I came back, and I told her the truth). I know it was a good experience, refreshing to be away from home, in the outside world even though in a motel room, and I returned with a sweet sense of having crossed new boundaries, entered secret pleasure realms. But I may be confusing the going out with another, later time, another motel.
The main thing during that period was having the longer hair, learning how to use makeup, shaving my legs, having the time in the mornings to dress (I worked also during those times, either on my writing or schoolwork). I was diligent about it, as if learning a difficult craft, studying the art of makeup in particular. True, it was pleasing in itself--very pleasing indeed--but, still, when I was dressed, when I had applied the last touch of makeup and looked at myself in the mirror, I felt so confident, so ready. . .but ready for what?
At last, my own hair cut short and anyway thinning, I bought a wig. Putting on that wig for the first time was a little like wearing my first high heels twenty years earlier. Well, I would make a quick trip to the back porch and back, just breathe the fresh air. Sometimes I sat out there, on a lawn chair, passed many a pleasant moment. Back in the alley, someone might walk by, but I was in the shadows and too far away. If seen, there was no way I could be taken for anything else but a woman relaxing on her back porch.
Still, I lacked confidence. I could not trust my senses, my judgment. What if I saw only what I wanted to see? I figured out a way to use the instant camera to take pictures of myself, setting it on a shelf, carefully propped, and then holding a long tent pole to the shutter release. Now each time I dressed, I took a few pictures. Well, I thought, not so bad. I saw, in some cases, how I had misapplied makeup, and I corrected my errors next time. The pictures gave me great pleasure in other ways. I could take them out when not dressed and recall the moments, see myself as I knew myself to be. I wished I had had a way to do this when I was younger. Wouldn't it be fine to have a record of this other life?
One night I resolved to walk to the alley, the next night to the end of the alley, the next night around the block. These were not consecutive nights, of course. I always had to wait for the times when I had at least a few hours guaranteed alone. Each time I felt better, more confident, less frightened. I was pretty bold. The darkness helped, of course. In my pleasure of going out, sporting my wig and displaying my skill in makeup, I conveniently forgot the risk of a woman's walking alone at night. Oh, I was lucky, that's all.
There were a couple of scary moments. Once I came upon a backyard party, college students, and was spotted, shouted at as if I were a streetwalker of another type. And once I saw a police car a half block away on the next street, saw it then return as if to check out the sight of this woman strolling along the sidewalk in high heels. Fortunately, I was close to home, and I darted back inside, locking the door behind me.
[to be continued]
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