Fiction

From Transgender magazine
by Hal Fuller

Cactus Flower 9/96

With Ru Paul blaring on the boom box, John sat in the pastel yellow kitchen applying the nail polish to his toes, letting the warm honey afternoon sun sparkle off the pretty red nails. He felt so lovely, so relaxed. His wife Helen was off to New York for a weekend business trip. He'd called up a few of the "girls" and had a hot evening planned. They would hit a couple of the clubs, have a few drinks, do some outra- geous flirting with the admirers there and dance their asses off. Of course, John never left the club with any of the men gawking at him, he wasn't GAY, after all.

He started to dance across the kitchen floor, caught up in the pounding beat, the swirl and swish of the black lingerie against his shaved and powdered thighs. The music and movement transported him. He was floating, glorious.

"John! What the Hell are you doing?! You promised!" a shout struck the air, shaking the windows. John turned and there stood his wife, Helen and three women friends from the neighborhood. The neighbors were smiling, giggling, smirking. Helen simply scowled. In a move worthy of a Southern Belle, he succumbed to the vapors and slumped to the floor in a dead faint.

When he came to he was lying on the couch in the living room in his intimate frillies, with a cold cloth across his face. Lifting the cloth, he saw Helen, still in her severe brown business suit, sitting in a chair across the room, a drink in her hand, her eyes red rimmed and glaring at him

"Helen, I'm..." he stammered.
"Shut up!" she interrupted. "And listen to me!" She took a long pull on the bourbon in her glass. "You're sick! But Sonja says you can't help it and she watches Jerry Springer and Rikki Lake, and they have shows on people like you all the time, so she should know." She got up, began pacing the room, hands sawing the air like angry birds, sloshing her drink on the dark blue shag carpeting. "But the lying is the worst part, you promised me the last time I caught you that you'd give it up, you promised!" She threw her drink across the room, the glass shattering on the brick hearth of the fireplace.

"Helen! I tried ! I really did! But I just couldn't..." He began to sob.

Helen's face softened. She walked to the couch, sat down and held him, stroking his hair. "Shh! It's OK! " she cooed. "For lying to me, I should divorce you. I may yet. I need to think about it. We're going to find out just how deep all of this is. You want to dress up as a woman, maybe even be a woman."

She rose, began again to pace, the anger returning. "Well, we're gonna find out. OK!" She sat back down in the chair, an angry lioness ready to pounce. In cold words she outlined her plan.

John would now be Joannie Ann. He could continue writing his children's stories, but he would quit his part time job at the Day Care Center and take over as maid and cook at home. He would dress, act, live as a woman full time, And Joannie Ann better look good! Helen would have her friends watching, maybe dropping by occasionally. If she failed in her household duties, was ever less than gorgeous, or gave Helen any trouble, she would be kicked out, divorced, and John's nasty little secret told to everyone.

"You got that? Joannie Ann?" Helen stood over him, gloating, staring into his downcast, teary eyes. John nodded, unable to speak "I've got to fly back to New York. Monday morning we begin your new life as a woman!"

Monday morning came and Helen had already left, leaving her weekend outfits strewn all over the bedroom along with a long note listing Joannie Ann's duties for the day, first of which was to get Helen's clothes to the dry cleaners.

Joannie Ann dressed carefully, a pink frilly skirt and blouse with dainty pearl buttons. She fussed with her long brown hair and primped with her makeup for an hour. At last she was ready. Leaving the house, she saw Sonja across the street, gardening in her front yard. Sonja waved and gave her a smile that said all, that she was in on Helen's little mission. Joannie Ann gulped, pasted an answering smile on her face, waved back, and got into the car. The dry cleaners, Antonio gave Joannie Ann a wink, asked "How's it hanging Beautiful?" As she cringed and blushed, the fifty some- thing counter clerk with mounded beer belly stretching his faded maroon sweats, told her how he'd dated a she-male during his wild teens, even worn a dress or two himself. "So, gorgeous, hows about you an me go out for a drink or sumptin, huh?" "No, thanks!" Joannie Ann said, fleeing the store. Back in the car, she collapsed in giggles over the wheel at the thought of Antonio's bulk poured into something tight and clingy. Over the weeks, Joannie Ann got better at passing. She was dressing up all the time, not hiding any more. Even Helen's friends got to like her and asked for recipes and advice on where to shop for clothing bargains.

She was in heaven! Of course, being on a tight budget from Helen, nights out with the "girls" were a thing of the past and there was always shopping to do and errands to run and cleaning and cooking. Always looking her best was getting to be, shall we say, a real drag. She began to doubt that even Zsa Zsa vacuumed the rug or did the laundry in gold lame, diamonds and four inch heels. How did real women pull it off?

After several months, Joannie Ann had enough of the glamour, enough of the happy homemaker, enough of the endless chatter of the neighbors dropping by for some of her "Fabulous!" tarts and cookies. In fact she was sick to death of fabulous.