New studies reveal an old truth.

Some recent headlines regarding studies of marriage breadown may have caught your eye. A lot of interesting work in this area ha

s recently received some mainstream press attention, and garnered some eyebrow-raising coverage. This new approach to marriage psychology has been pioneered by Dr. Elena Olaffsson at the Oslo behavioural institute. Her work in the field has revealed what many of our readers already know - that for many couples, the usual western model of mariage has deep flaws, but that these can be remedied by the application of the principles of wife-led marriage.

Here’s an extract from the institute’s recent study of gender roles within successful and failing marriages.

“The study of gender roles within marriage has usually concentrated either on the difficulties that may be caused by a perceived imbalance of work in the home, or the potential to emasculate the male partner by the imposition of female roles of homemaking or childcare when the female partner works outside the home.

What

this study has revealed is that the imposition of perceived female roles on the male partner can have a hugely beneficial effect on marriage outcome. These results have heretofore been masked by the gender role bias of the researchers. Most interestingly these gender role biases are rareley apparent in the subjects themselves. Allowing their experiences to come to the fore, free from societal value-laden mores reveals the potential for deep beneficial effects of the reversal of normal gender-roles within the home and the relationship.”

What Dr. Olaffsson is saying, is that the study of gender roles needs to look at the context within the marriage and see past the superficial constraints that society places on such roles.

In other words, making your husband wear a pinny may help your marriage if it is addressed in the right way.

Her study first looked at failing marriages where gender roles were identified as playing a part in marriage beakdown and then examined how those perceived roles could be addressed.

The original study looked at over 100 couples presenting for counselling where either or both parties complained that gender roles were an issue. Typically these cases broke down in to one of two types. Firstly, where the male did not work outside the home, but the female partner was working outside the home. Secondly, where the female partner was unhappy with their partner’s desire to take on female roles within the marriage or the male partner wished to do so but was rebuffed.

Such cases often resulted in marriage breakdown, but due to the application of some imaginative work on the part of the institute some remarkable success was found by placing such difficulties in a different context. The institute began a program of persuading such couples to see the imposition of perceived female roles on the male party in a positive light. Males were encouraged to embrace the female aspects of their personalities and to adopt ever increasing female roles and tasks within the marriage. Such approaches were not new, but what was new was that such advice was given, not in the context of ‘balancing’ perceived female roles within the marriage, but rather in a wholehearted acceptance of the male party taking on a female role, led by their partner. Success in avoiding marriage breakdown was both marked and verifiable.

Interestingly, the reverse was shown not to be the case, and to the same degree. That is, the imposition of perceived female roles on the female partner had exactly the reverse effec

t.

Here is Dr. Olaffsson again.

“Often, we see male resistance to the imposition of female roles based not on a reluctance to adopt such roles, but because such imposition is perceived as ‘unfair’. What does the male mean by this? Probing such resistance reveals that he feels that he will have only the negative aspects of the role - the work, the subordinate role - without any of the positive aspects. What positive aspects are those perceived to be? These are more difficult for subjects to articulate, and this in part leads to confusion regarding the resitance in the first place. Theraputic dialogue, includng hypnoisis though, can reveal the nature of the supposed ‘positive’ aspects. A lack of responsibility, feelings of being cared for, respect due to the home maker, and most ephemeral of all - femininity itself. That femininity can be regarded as a positive, indeed desirable state, in and of itself is an interesting finding - but why should that be? Masculinity can be regarded as such. males speak of feeling ‘manly’ when partaking in aggressive sports, undertaking male-oriented tasks requiring skil and physical strength or protective or bread-winning tasks in the context of the home. In the same way, femininity can be ragarded positively. A woman may gain satisfaction through the achievement of feminine goals - child rearing, home making and, of course, and especially through a feminine appearance. Thus, a male, suborned into what is perceived as a female role through necessity or changes to a relationship’s dynamic, may feel that he is obliged to assume the role, without gaining it’s benefits.

Of course, such benefits are purely subjective. A male who is required to clean and tidy as part of their work outside the home does not feel that he has become feminine. Within the home though, the perception is different. A male who is required to work in the home is simply performing a woman’s role. But of course, he is not treated as one, nor can he be, he is male. Here is the perceived unfairness, and it contains a paradox - what is a man when he is not behaving as a man? The answer is simple. He is an emasculated, feminised man - a sissy. The resolution of the paradox, and the solution to the marriage problems it engenders is simple. The man must become a sissy. He must bend to the will of his wife and take on the feminine role in the marriage. “

Strong stuff, we’re sure you’ll agree. But Dr. Oflaffsson’s discovery is even more contentious. Her research has shown, conclusively, that such a solution can not only work, but work extremely well. Not only that, but that it can work in almost all cases.

Relaxing in her surprisingly comfortable offices, she relates to us how her techniques have been applied.

“The problem in the past has been that marriage therapists have recoiled from the kind of gender stereotyping that are ingrained in the conciousness. In a misplaced desire to achieve a false ‘equality’ and an understandable, but wrong-headed aversion to degenerate ‘women’s work’, they have attempted to persuade men to see work in the home, acceptance of spousal leadership, the subjugation of masculine traits as a positive, liberating role. This is doomed to fail, since it runs against every more in society and the male’s own experience. You simply cannot persuade men that cooking and cleaning is a positive, life affirming job. They are not that stupid. Women have rebelled against such a notion for generations, and men are not immune to this. However, a man can be persuaded that the adoption of a submissive, feminine role is a positive thing. This is new. Of course, many men embrace such a role. These are natural sissies. Such men have long been the subject of study. What we have discovered is that inside most men, perhaps all men, there is a natural sissy who is waiting to be released.

The key is in the positive reinforcement of the validation that this role can provide. Thus the male is encouraged not to ‘accept’ the role but to ‘embrace’ it. Yes. Embrace. A loving embrace!”

At this Dr. Olaffsson bangs the rosewood desk in her plush office and laughs a rich, nordic laugh, such as her Viking ancestors may have done. In fact, one can easily imagine the statuesque blonde in the garb of a valkyrie, taking ownership of cringing male captives, snatched from more dissipated shores. Any man, natural sissy or otherwise, would feel emasculated in her stern presence.

“But yes. This is the case, and such an embrace is good for them, for their marriage, for their wives. And how they embrace it!”

She goes on to describe the technique. Surprisingly, no hypnosis is used, only the most basic techniques of behaviour modification - punishment and reward, reinforcement and aversion. Such techniques work well with the male psyche, as they do with children, or pets.

“The key is the participation of the wife. She must also be trained, not in the same way, but at the same time. In fact, she must be the trainer, and anyone can learn the techniques. The ease is of course, because the man will want to obey, will want to comply. He will soon understand that reward comes with compliant behaviour, punishment, scolding comes with wrong behaviours.”

She shows me some short instructional videos used in couples therapy. The first is for the wife.

audio excerpt - “Nobody likes to make beds of course, but it has to be done. Nothing makes a home look untidy and unkempt quite like an unmade bed. Your husband should be encouraged to take pride in the appearance of your home and to feel that warm glow of satisfaction that an orderly, tidy bedroom gives. The bedroom provides an ideal venue for punishment when a bed is not properly made up to your satisfaction. When he fails to perform the task properly he can be made to sleep on the floor, or be ejected altogether. Don’t fall into the trap of allowing him to think that performing the task properly confers any conjugal rights. Certainly not. In fact the bedroom should always be seen as your domain. His only duty there is to keep it neat and clean. if you allow your husband to sleep in the same bed with you, his reward should only be in seeing you pleased enough with his efforts that you deign to allow him to share it at all.”

The second is an equivalent video for the male partner.

A softer female voice - “The sight of a well-made bed is it’s own reward. Everyone should take pride in their home, and the bedroom, the heart of the home is the place where that prid

e can be most intimately expressed. A perfectly smooth coverlet, a fluffed pillow, all combine to create order and comfort. How pleased will you wife be when she sees the care you have taken to perfectly present her bed. And perfect, crisp white sheets, ironed and smoothed in the linen cupboard are a wonderfully intimate way to express your love and devotion to her. The bedrom is where your wife can relax, and relieve herself of the stresses of her working day. It would be terrible for her to return home and find an unmade bed. She would be disspointed and displeased with you. No. Instead, as you make her bed each morning, think how happy she will be with the care you take in this simple task. She deserves clean, ironed sheets, a scented pillow, her nightwear carefully folded and ready for her. How loving and intimate this act can be. She leaves in the morning, tosing her used nightwear on the floor, the bed crimpled and used. How wonderful for her to return to freshly laundered, lovingly pressed fresh lingerie, placed on a perfect pillow.”

“You see? You see the reward? The femininity is it’s own reward. He strives to win her approval, and in return, she allows him his feminity. It is perfect? No?”

Dr. Olaffsson’s satisfaction is borne out by the dozens of successful couples she has helped to save their marriages.

Case after case shows truculent, dissatisfied men turned into happy, contented husbands, pleased to serve their working wives in whatever way they see fit. Happy, successful wives attest to the wonders that Dr. Olaffsson has worked on previously difficult marriages. Husbands are rendered pliant

and docile, attentive and loving where once they were argumentative and deeply unhappy.

In the face of such success it seems churlish to bring up possible problems. Howver, Dr. Olaffsson is nonplussed.

“The sex? Of course, you Americans always ask about the sex. But this is no problem of course. Yes, once the husband is feminised, yes, there are problems in the bedroom. He may not be able to perform, but more commonly, the wife can no longer tolerate the sissy as a sexual partner. But of course, the solution is right there. She can, she must, find sexual satisfaction o

utside the home. This is natural, to be expected. And there is no problem from the husband of course. Now he is a sissy, he is unable, unwilling even, to make this an issue. He, of course is bound to his wife. Even if denied sexual role at all, he cannot do anything about it. But this is natural, and often must be part of his training, not to seek an active sexual role for himself. If training is complete, he will not even think to do so, and will be glad his wife has a fulfilling sexual life without him. He thinks only of her hapiness.

Well, quite. I am almost afraid to ask if the doctor takes her own medicine. Her laugh puts aside my trepidation.

“Well , of course. Although, I have to say, my marriage was never in trouble. My husband is Swedish, and between Sweden and Norway, there is not contest - you understand?”

She laughs again, and while I have no idea of the subtelties of Scandinavian

politics, sexual or otherwise, I am left in no doubt that Elena will be returning to a well-made bed this evening.

Writing.

I know there's thousands of books out there about how to write, and like talking about drug-taking, or talking about your dreams, talking about writing is very interesting to the writer but boring as hell for everyone else. However, what are blogs for if not for self-indulgent noodling?

I used to be a voracious reader of TV/TG fiction. I still am to some degree. However, the idea of writing somethig myself didn't even occour to me for a very long time. What sparked me to begin was that I read a short story that I liked a lot, but it ended in a way that I didn't particularly like. On a whim, I decided to just change the last couple of paragraphs to an ending I liked more. I liked what I had written, and I went further, changing some earlier parts. Then I decided to rewrite the whole thing. I removed all the original author's text and started from the beginning again until it was completley new. There were similarities in the structure and plot of course, but you could probably say that about 90% of all TV/TG fiction. That story was The Gift, and soon as I'd finished it, I wanted to start on another.

The way I started to write, influencedthe way I would write from then on. Since, I wrote first for no better reason than to please or amuse myself, I've never really written anything 'for' any audience apart from myself. I only write what I might want to read myself, and I think that's a very good way for anyone to start. People say 'write what you know' but I think 'write what you like' is even more important. If the story doesn't please you, you're very unlikely to be able to please anyone else with it. Now, of course, I like the works of some great authors, and I can't ever hope to write _like_ them, but I can write about the same kind of thing - I'm talking about the content, not the form.

The other thing that I inherited from the way I wrote my first story was that I started with some 'scenes' that were central to the story and then worked towards them. Since then, I haven't actually written that way, I start at the beginning and then work from there, but when I get an idea for a story, the idea is a scene, a moment in time that is exciting or interesting. The characters, the plot, the setting, they all flow from that initial 'picture' in my head. Sometimes it's just a single picture, sometimes it's a whole series of them, but that always comes first. For 'Stephanie's Scheme' the picture in my head was of a teenager, squirming at the realisation that his hot stepmother knows that his is a closet crossdresser. (Not very original, but I liked the idea.) I began working to that, without much idea of what the story would be like. In the first chapter, I introduced his older sister, and very quickly, the story actually became about her rather than her brother. It took me thousands of words to actually get to that scene that I had orignally imagined, and to be honest, once I got beyond it, the story got sort of lost, and I've had huge difficulty in getting past that.

With Clarissa, the scene was of a couple in a consulting room, with the wife calmly relating the details of their femdom lifestyle to a female psychiatrist. I liked that idea a lot, and I made sure I got there as quickly as possible. Of course, since that scene is really about the psychiatist's reaction, I wrote it from her point of view, and, as readers have pointed out several times, it's called 'Clarissa' but it's really about the psychiatrist, Jenny and her husband.

I don't know if writing in this way is really a good idea. It's how I do it, but I'm not really advocating it as a method for anyone else. Clearly, beginning with a good idea of what the plot will be, how long the story will be, it's structure, plot, characters is a great idea, but no everyone is able or willing to do that. I've tried to map things out in advance, and I find that pretty easy, but sticking to it is much harder, and makes the whole thing feel like hard work, and since I just do this to please myself, I rarely ever do that.

What I find particularly difficult is pacing. I want to get to the 'good stuff' but I need to set things up in a particular way. Making the action move along at a pace that feels natural and easy for the user, without glossing over things or slowing the pace to a mind-numbing crawl is hard, or at least I find it so. I think if i did plan the structure more in advance that would probably be much easier. I kid myself that I get ideas as I write, and contraining myself to a timeline or script in advance would spoil that, but that's really just an excuse for laziness and self-indulgence.

I think, over time, I have got even worse at completing things. I haven't managed to actually get to the end of a story in years. I look back now at the end of 'Least Resistance' and wonder how I ever managed to wrap it up. Things take my interest and then wane just as quick. At the moment, I'm writing short pieced but even finishing those seems very difficult. Maybe getting some feedback on them might spur me on, but I wouldn't bet on it.

Al.

Last part of 'Basque', maybe, might come back to this yet.

Part 4 of 'Basque'
All getting a bit harder now. Only one post more and that's as far as I've got.

Part 3 of 'Basque'

Part 2 of the story I'm calling 'Basque'

I was going to post the second part of that story today, but in the meantime, I wrote something else.
This is a very first draft, and this is finished now. I haven't read back over it much, so apologies for spelling and grammar.

The Closet.

Carol was standing by the bar when I saw her for the first time. I’d known her since I was born, but I had never really seen her before. Before that moment, ‘she’ had always been Edward. For the first time, I saw her, and the idea, the person, the being, that my mind saw, was Carol. It thought it was like when you think in a foreign language for the first time. When you realise you have heard a word, processed it in some way and responded with words that were all in a new language that you have been learning, with no translation.
I saw the person, I thought her name, considered my idea of that person for a moment and came to a conclusion, all without thinking ‘he’ or ‘him’ or ‘Edward’. Just Carol. No translation. No - ‘the guy who I grew up with who turned into a girl’. No - ‘Edward, who we all call Carol now. Just Carol.
What was confusing, dizzying even, was that I couldn’t work out if this realisation, this transition, was linked to the sudden insight that I had just had. That I loved her. That I loved her as a man loves a woman. Had that thought always been there? Or had it just this moment arrived, released into the open by my sudden unconscious acceptance that she was she - not ‘she that used to be him’.
It didn’t seem to matter really. Probably it did though. The shock of what I had realised began to hit me. I loved her. I wanted to be with her always. I wanted her to know I loved her, and love me too. All impossible. I noticed that she was looking at me and smiling. She was so beautiful. That wasn’t a new thought. A long time ago I’d suddenly been struck by the odd realisation that my best friend looked good as a girl. Hot. Though I hated when other people called him that. He was still ‘him’ when he started to look ‘hot’, and back then, he didn’t all the time. He needed a lot of makeup and a certain angle. “Gee - your Eddie’s pretty fuckin’ hawt.” They’d say. Our asshole friends. My Eddie they called him. He was my Eddie.
We grew up next door to each other. Not just neighbours. Our houses were attached on one side. His bedroom was back to back with mine. Our bedroom closets shared a back wall and when we were just six or seven, we’d taken the partition boards away so we could sit together in the dark closet and be together. Our rooms were mirror images, and so were we. He was loving and gentle and I was filled with resentment and anger. In the dark, among our clothes and shoes and baseball gloves, I would whisper all my pent-up frustration and venom against my family, teachers, strangers and he would touch my face with his cool hand, whisper words of consolation and calm.
We were inseparable. I was always regarded as the bad influence on him. My parents hoped Edward would have a moderating effect on my behaviour. Maybe it worked. Maybe if it weren’t for him I’d have ended up killing someone before I was fifteen. Edward’s parents hated me almost as much as I hated them. They would receive notes from school regarding some transgression or crime. ‘Edward and Alfredo Testarossa were found outside the school grounds after lunchtime.’ The notes to my parents would not mention Edward. Everyone knew I was the bad one. His parents would send him to classes and lessons to keep me from him. He learned soccer, fly fishing, piano, every musical instrument teacher they could find to keep him away from the devil-boy next door. But he always came back to me. In the dark, shared closet.
Until college of course. They knew I would not be able to gain entry to the kind of college Edward was destined for. In any case I didn’t enter college at all. Straight after high school I told my father that I wanted to work in his restaurant. He was surprised, sceptical. With a sigh he gave me a shot. We were both surprised at how well I worked out. Freed from bullshit rules of school I relished the limitless possibilities of commerce. To customers, I was charming, personable. They paid good money, so I gave them good service. With the restaurant staff, I was firm, professional, assured, as they moved from being my supervisors, my peers, my staff.
Soon, the bosses son was the day manager, then the manager, then the new boss. My father could not believe the transformation in his wayward son. “That school! It taught you nothing. You were wasted there. The business, it’s in your blood.” He cried. Soon, he retired. Almost as if he wanted to get out before I could change back to my old self.
And as my anger was turned to a less destructive path, the quiet inside let me realise something. I liked men. I was queer. The first time was with one of the staff. A latino cook. He was changing in the back room. I didn’t even realise I was staring at his chest. ‘You like?’ He asked. I really didn’t realise what he meant. It wasn’t until he kissed me roughly that I knew. Afterwards, I wondered if my unacknowledged queerness was what had made me so angry all my life up to then? Maybe. I didn’t come out to my friends or family, but I didn’t hold back either. I explored. Many men.
My father’s delight in my career choice was mirrored by Edward’s parents shock and disappointment in his academic choices. He passed on the Ivy League offers. Instead he insisted on a college in Paris, liberal arts. He wanted to get away from them. From everyone. He had a plan.
When he returned after the first semester he visited me first. He drove up in a little rented fiat and rang our doorbell before his own. I didn’t recognise him. The long hair, the changes in his face, of course, the female clothes. Who was this odd-looking chick at our door?
“Freddie? It’s me.” He said.
“Fuck. Edward. What have you done?” I blurted out.
“I am becoming a woman.” He said. His eyes searched mine.
“Shit Eddie. Do your parents know? They are going to freak the fuck out.”
He just nodded. I'm not sure if he was looking for some sort of validation from me, or just wanted to see how his oldest friend would react before presenting himself to his parents. He left and, later I heard from next door the raised voiced of his astonished, angry parents asking over and over again - “Why?”
Edward was always self-assured. As a nerdy, slightly effeminate youth he had suffered his share of bullying, but not as much as he might have. Bullies pick on the weak, and Edward was never weak. Their taunts and fists couldn’t reach him. I knew that people thought that he hung around with me for the protection that my bad reputation afforded, but it wasn’t true. I never needed to defend him.
So, that holiday, he simply braved the shock and questions and embarrassed silences that his transformed appearance generated among his friends and family. At first of course, he looked simply androgynous, half way between boy and woman. I learned he’d been taking hormones for months before leaving for France. He’d had laser hair treatment and other procedures, but nothing surgical yet. His parents cried and pleaded with him. They couldn’t understand his need to change himself so utterly. They felt they were losing their precious boy. They couldn’t see that they were gaining a beautiful daughter.
We were different around each other. In some ways I was as different as he. He remarked on how happy I seemed. I almost resented the comment. To me it seemed that my happiness was due to not being freed from the rules and petty insults of being a child. Now, I was free, helping to run a business, with my own money, my own place. Why shouldn’t I be happy? I didn’t know how I felt about his transformation. I might have felt angry that he’d said nothing to me about it, but it was such a personal thing, I couldn’t imagine how the conversation would have sounded. We couldn’t return to how we were. Near the end of the holiday, we were both at a house party. Some people at least seemed to have accepted what he was doing to himself. The fact that he’d leave for Europe again soon made that easier. Late in the evening we found ourselves sharing a settee in the family den. He was wearing an angora sweater and a long skirt. His hair was in a feminine style and he was wearing earrings.
“Freddie, I need your help.” He said. “I need money.”
I don’t think he’d ever asked me for anything before in all our lives.
I knew, of course, what he needed it for.
“How much?” I asked without looking at him. His face disturbed me.
“A lot. Maybe fifty thousand dollars in total over a couple of years. But I need five thousand now.”
“I can do it.” I said. I had access to the accounts. The restaurant was doing well, and I could hide payments pretty easily at least for a while. Even then my father was leaving things in my hands.
“Thanks Freddie.” He whispered.
As we walked home together I wondered to myself why I was doing this. I could kid myself that I just wanted to stick to his parents, but the truth was that I couldn’t have refused him. I would have killed to get him what he needed.
Was I attracted to him? No. Not then. He was too much still my friend. Like a boy fancying his brother. And now, of course, he was becoming a woman. Before, in my bad days, I’d been with girls. It had never worked out. Not that I hadn’t been attracted to them, but being so close to someone seemed to make me even crazier and meaner than I was normally. Now, with men, my relationships, such as they were, were over too quick to be meaningful, and I was different too. I had no need to fight. Nothing touched me. The business consumed my time and my success gave me peace and satisfaction.
We parted, smiling at our front doors. Though I now had an apartment of my own, I was staying at my parents house that night. When I got in, I waited for him in the closet. When he joined me I noticed for the first time that he was wearing a scent. In the dark, he seemed more like a girl than ever before. The closet was cramped and close. Though we were not much bigger than the last time we had both been there, many months before, it seemed very small, and I was struck by how it made me feel like a little boy again, remembering all the times stretching back over nearly a decade that we had sat here together.
After a long silence I finally said.
“I like men now.”
“I heard.”
I turned, trying to see his face in the dark.
“Where did you hear that?”
I felt him shrug, the angora sweater brushing my shoulder. “From people. You haven’t been very secretive.”
“Not like you.” I said.
“I was.” He said. “But not any more.”
“What’s it like?” I asked.
“Like I haven’t been alive at all before. Like I have become a real person.”
“I meant, what is it like in college? You get much grief?”
“No. Not really. To them, I was always the weird American from when they met me the first time. There were no expectations to be challenged.”
“Like your parents.”
He laughed.
“Yeah. You would think I’d committed a crime. They actually compared me to you.”
“Like what?”
“Like, ‘look at Freddie’ Now he’s become a man. He’s running his Father’s business so well, so respectable. And look at you, now when you should be becoming a man, getting a good degree, you’re becoming a freak.”
“You’re not a freak.”
There was a silence.
“I know that.” He said at last. “What do you think?”
“I think you should try to be whatever it is you think you should. You’ve wanted to do this for a long time, haven’t you?”
“Forever.”
“Yeah. And they’ll come round. Soon as you get your degree, you’ll be the perfect daughter they never had.”
“Maybe. And you? I guess you’ll never tell your parents.”
“About fucking guys?” I laughed. “No. I can’t imagine what my Dad would do. Now that he thinks I’m the perfect son, it’d kill him to know I’m a fag. He;s too Italian. Too old.”
“What’s that like?”
“Fucking guys? It’s okay once you get used to it.”
“Is there anyone special”
“Love? No. I dunno. Not yet. You?”
He shook his head. “My studies, learning French well enough to attend classes, going through all this, I don’t have time.”
“I mean, if you do, go with someone, would that be a like, a guy or a chick?”
There was a long pause before Eddie answered, and then I realised he was listening. Someone had come into his room. His mother.
“Eddie are you there? Are you back?” She asked quietly in the darkness of his room.
He didn’t answer, and she closed the door quietly.
“I’d better go.” He said. “I have to be up early tomorrow. I’ll see you soon.” He said, and he crawled out of the cupboard..
I lay on my bed among all the stuff of my childhood. Even Eddie’s parents thought I was respectable. That I had become a man. But I didn’t feel like a man. Somehow I felt more like a little boy than ever. I fell asleep, and when I woke and looked out the front window, his car was gone.
The following Summer Eddie returned fully as Carol. Now, he could pass. He wasn’t perfect, still a little masculine in his jaw, his cheeks, but he looked more like a woman than some women did. His voice was different. The same, but softer, like some of the power had been taken from his vocal chords. Which it had. He’d had a number of surgeries. All paid for with the money I was sending him. As soon as he’d left I’d begun skimming the restaurant. I figured a way to take a grand a week off the takings by padding some invoices. As long as I did it carefully and consistently my Dad and the accountant wouldn’t know. I was doing good business anyway, and rising profits hide a lot. I sent him the money in four thousand tranches, wiring it to his account in Paris. I never asked him for the details, and he never told me specifics. In fact, while he was away, we hardly communicated at all.
I could see where the money had gone though. All his facial hair was gone, he had had breast implants, and probably something done to his buttocks and thighs. His adam’s apple was almost totally gone and something had been done to his jaw line.
Now, the reactions were more astonished at how he had changed. Since he now looked less freaky and androgynous, people seemed even more open about appraising him and commenting on his appearance. I didn’t like this. When remarks were made to me about him, I snarled and growled like my old self. Some interpreted this wrongly, and tried to tease me about Eddie, suggesting I’d always been attracted to him, or that we’d been lovers. This teasing made me even madder of course, and a couple of times I made threats before they backed off. In truth, I was never sure who knew about my sexual activities. Our town had a lively, but totally underground gay scene. Very few men were totally ‘out’, and there was always suspicion about who knew, and about whom, and how much. Nobody ever said anything to me directly, but I knew there were rumours. On one occasion, my Mom came to me, cringing, fearful, and asked me if there was anything I wanted to tell her. That she’d love me all the same.
“Like what Ma?” I asked. “Drugs?, Gambling?” She shook her head. “Trouble with the police?” More fearful shaking.
“No Ma. There’s nothing I need to tell you. Really. I just want to make the restaurant great.” I told her. I knew she still had doubts, but she buried them and forgot them. When I opened the new restaurant on the other side of town both my parents beamed with pride. Drunk, at the opening party, my Dad recounted all my past misdeeds in order to emphasise how good I’d turned out since. I smiled indulgently as his cronies laughed at each terrible revelation. The time the cops brought me home drunk when i was only fourteen. The discovery of the theft of the school bull mastiff football ascot in our garden. The flirtation with cannabis was tutted over, all leading the wonderful denouement of the bad seed turned good by hard work and a Father’s faith. This last was a little revisionist, but I let him have his moment.
Eddie’s parents were present for this event. They stood by, smiling nervously as their old friend and neighbour indulged in his paternal pride. Their son had turned out rather differently, and they felt the difference all the more keenly from having so long anticipated similar occasions of familial hubris, albeit of a more academic nature. In Eddie’s second year away, they had seemed to come a little more around to the reality of his situation. But I could tell this was forced. They would seize on any of his scholastic achievements and trumpet it to neighbours, adding some rather circuitous remark about how well he looked in the last picture he had sent. They always referred to his health in the same breath as his appearance, as if they had decided to pretend to themselves that he had some strange illness, part of the treatment of which was that he must become a woman. And in a way they were right. When Eddie returned as Carol he looked great. Not great in the sense of looking attractive, though, yes he could look attractive as a woman, but he looked healthy, glowing, happy. As a woman, he seemed taller than the rather slight boy he had been. He had had something of a stoop before, he never stood up totally straight. As a woman, he was elegant and charming. Girls would exclaim over his makeup, jewelry, his clothes. He would make self-effacing comments about how easy it was to buy nice stuff in Paris, but I could tell he loved this attention from other girls.
When he returned he still mixed with the old crowd. I had moved on, mixing with other young businessmen from around the city, but his presence brought me back to parties and places that I had left behind. In truth, my changed personality made mixing with old friends difficult. The wilder, more dissolute crowd now bored me, and the more responsible of my older acquaintances tended to shun me because of old bad behaviour. Now, at social gatherings of our old high school crowd, I tended to hang back and observe. I observed Eddie. He was keenly aware of his movements, his mannerisms. He watched women. He copied, he mimicked. He pitched his voice carefully. He glanced, he gleaned, he made every effort to try to be feminine, womanly. It was his constant thought. I realised it was why he came to such gatherings. To test himself, to learn, to try things out. Everything he did was part of his ongoing project to become a woman. And it was working. Not always, not perfectly, but it was working. He was getting better. And of course, it sometimes lead to some men making advances. A couple of times, strangers, who didn’t know his secret found that they had made fools of themselves. One, a visiting musician from some minor student band was so impressed by Carol that he invited her to join him in his hotel room. He was astonished when a local, overhearing the conversation, burst out laughing.
“She’s a dude, you idiot.” He yelled out. To his credit, Edward skilfully diffused the potentially dangrously embarrassing situation, shushing the interruption, but with the right pitch of irony that the band member wasn’t too embarrassed and preventing a wider humiliation for him. He moved away, he cocksure composure evaporating, but I saw him steal glances back at Eddie, still not able to shake the attraction he’d felt.
Another time, a local, aware of Carol’s history made a play, in the full knowledge of what he was doing. Eddie brushed him off. The exchange was over in a moment, but I caught it. Eddie caught my eye as he moved off, either relieved or disappointed, I couldn’t tell.
“Does that happen often?” I asked, refilling his drink.
He shook his head.
“Not even in Paris?”
He laughed. “You imagine that French men are less conservative than here?” He asked. “It’s not like that. I mean, there are men who would be interested, but I have no interest in satisfying someone else’s curiosity or being some kind of fetish.”
“As a woman, or not at all.” I said.
“Not just as a woman. With the right person.” He said firmly.
“And it’s not really about that with you is it?” I asked. He didn’t understand me. “I mean, you’re not doing this because you want to be attractive to someone, you’re doing it because this is what you want to be.”
“Yes. Kind of. It’s who I am. I just didn’t look like who I was.”
“And do you now?”
He glanced down. “Not yet.” He said. “It’ll take more.” He looked at me. “I haven’t thanked you yet for all your help.”
“Don’t.” I said. “Doing it makes me feel good. And it’s easy for me. At first I was skimming it from the business, but now, I am the business. I can’t think of any better use for the money.”
“Well, thank you all the same.” He said.
“I told you not to do that. Please don’t mention it again.”
I changed the subject. “Listen, I don’t like these people, and I’m hungry. Let’s get out of here and let me get us something to eat.”
“Where?” He asked.
“I know a place.”
I brought him to the best restaurant in the city. They knew me there, and the staff fussed over me. Over us. It took me a minute to realise they thought Eddie was my date. Their natural acceptance of the well-dressed lady made me reappraise just how far he had come. Sitting at the best table, he put his chin on his hands and beamed at me. So feminine.
“Do you bring all the boys here Freddie?” He asked.
I shook my head. “No. It’s not like that.”
“You don’t go out?”
“No. Well, yes. There’s places.”
“You make it sound kind of furtive.”
“It is.” I said, a little too sharply, and he dropped it.
He was a perfect date. We talked about old times and plans for the future and laughed at old jokes and promised to keep in touch more. I drank a little too much and showed off a little too much. I realised how much I missed my friend.
As we were getting ready to go a man approached the table. A former lover, one I’d dropped. Patrick.A little to snide and self-assured.
He smirked at us both as he approached.
“Hi Freddie.” He cooed at me as he approached. I didn’t want to talk to him and he knew it, but didn’t care. He smirked at Carol.
“Who’s this charming lady?” He asked, his oily smile both knowing and yet utterly contemptuous.
“I’m Edward.” Said Eddie simply, looking him straight in the eye.. He never used his given name.
A wonderful series of expressions passed over Patrick’s face, starting at confused, and moving through shock, to disbelief, to anger before returning to puzzlement again. Throughout, Eddie fixed him with a radiant, but icy smile.
“Right. Well, good evening.” He replied lamely before wandering off, glancing back and shaking his head.
“Thanks.” I said, as I left the tip, though I wasn’t sure what I was thanking him for.
As we walked to the exit, Eddie remarked. “No wonder it’s furtive.”
In my boozy state it took until we were outside before the remark sank in. I grabbed him by the elbow.
“What the fuck?” I hissed. “Don’t judge me. You don’t know anything about me. You don’t know my life or what I do. Who do you think you are?”
His face was frightened, shocked. I realised I was hurting his arm, let it go.
“Shit. Eddie. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. That, that wasn’t me. I, I didn’t mean to do that. Did I hurt you?”
He rubbed his arm.
“Yes. It hurt, but, no, I’m sorry. It was a catty remark, and I didn’t mean it. I just meant, well, it doesn’t matter. Look Freddie, it’s late. Let’s just go home. It was a lovely evening. Don’t let’s spoil it”
“I spoiled it.I shouldn’t drink. I shouldn’t go with fuck’s like him. I should’ve...”
He put his hand to my face as if to shush me, but I flinched back.
“Ssh. Freddie. It’s okay. Really. Just take me home.” He said, and he calmed me, like he had always done.
We got a cab home. I don’t remember much of the trip. But as we went to our own front doors, I remember saying. “I’m too tired to go into the closet. I’m just going to go to bed.”
He just nodded. I wasn’t sure if he heard me, and later, as I lay in bed, the ceiling whirling above me, I thought I heard him enter the closet from his side, and sit there in the dark. Drunk, not sure if he was really there or if I had just imagined the sounds, I resolved not to join him. Thoughts swirled in my head. Should I go into the closet? What if he wasn’t there, but in his own bed, and heard me drunkenly stumble in? Or what if he were there, what would happen? Did I want to? As I drifted to sleep, still not sure, I imagined him coming out of the closet on my side, joining me in my own bed, his cool hands on my face.
I didn’t see him much that Summer after that. He returned to Paris for the final year and I turned to my business with a vengeance. I brought in new chefs and promoted new cuisine, introducing fine dining to a new, appreciative clientele. I took over diners and coffee shops, and forced others out of business with aggressive pricing. I received an award from the chamber of commerce. I stopped going to the places I’d visited before, living only in the restaurants and my apartment, where I just only slept alone. I kept sending money to Eddie, until finally he told me to stop, that he was done. He was concentrating on his degree and his final exams.
The week before he returned, his mother came to see me. She told me that they were selling the house, moving to a condo, and that during renovations for the sale, she’d discovered the missing boards.
I was surprised she hadn’t known about the closet all along. My parents knew. I hadn’t realised it was a secret in Eddie’s house.
“Did you?” She asked. “Did you and he? I know about you. I don’t agree with it, but I’m not prejudiced. But I have to know, if you and Eddie...?”
I was nonplussed. She really knew nothing about her son.
“What do you think Mrs. Leonard?” I asked, her pain and suspicion didn’t touch me at all.
“I know it was you.” She spat. “Eddie was a good boy. You made him like this. You weren’t happy to lead him into trouble. You had to violate him too.” Her anger, so totally misdirected, so venomous, seemed absurd, incomprehensible.
“I don’t think you believe that really.” I told her. “You know Eddie and I were only friends. I didn’t know myself that I was gay until he left here. You say I led him into trouble, but I never made him do anything he didn’t want to do. It suits you to paint me as a villain and him as an innocent - fine - but you can’t say I had anything to do with him becoming a woman.”
She recoiled. She knew it was true, but maybe she suspected about how Eddie could have afforded his transformation.
“You know, Mrs. Leonard, I wish you were right. I would love to have been responsible for his becoming a beautiful woman. I have never been responsible for anything so wonderful, or for making someone so happy. He is what he is. What he always was. If you can’t see that, then I pity you.
As she left she muttered darkly at me. Accusations, suspicions. She guessed at the money, but she knew she’d never prove it. She would never accept it, never let herself be seduced into loving her son for who he was. After she was gone I drove over to the old house. My parents had moved to Florida for a few months to see if they liked it, maybe retire there. I let myself in and went to the closet. My own stuff was all still there. On Eddie’s side his clothes and other stuff was packed in boxes, but still in the closet. I took it all and loaded it into my car. I boxed my own stuff and drove it away. Back in my apartment I stacked the boxes in the spare room and had a drink. I wasn’t sure why I’d done it, but I was glad that I had.
The following week my best restaurant was to receive an award. The good food guide had awarded it’s first star to a restaurant in the city. I’d laid on a lavish party, invited everyone I could think of.
It was a huge success's. My father, told all the old stories. The mayor made a speech. Everyone reveled in my success. And there was Eddie. Carol. She arrived late, looking more elegant and innocent than ever before. Her printed skirt and black top spreading a little European chic as she moved through the crowd to the bar. The realisation that I loved her, had always loved her thumped in my chest as I walked over to her. It felt that everyone in the room must hear my thudding heart, even over the loud music as I threaded my way through the crowd.
I don’t know if she saw something in my eye but her expression shifted as I got closer, reached to her, put my arm around her and leaned in to kiss her on the cheek.
“Thanks for coming.” I whispered.
“Congratulations.” She replied.
“I love you.” I said.
“I love you too Freddie.” She answered. “I have always loved you.”
“I know, and I have always loved you. I just took this long to figure it out.”
“I knew you would.” She replied. She put her head on my shoulder, and we regarded the throng about us.
“You know they’ve sold the house?” She asked.
“Don’t worry. I saved the most important part.” I said.

So, I've been working on this below for a while. At first, I was just doing something for a magazine - a short fantasy article, but it got longer.
Anyway, was hoping for some feedback. I've done about four times more than these two first pages. I'll post them over the coming week.

Please leave a comment.

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Why are they all so thin?

Who is it who likes skinny girls. I never want to see ribs. I want to see soft curves. Not bony elbows and knees and hips. I don't have some 'fat' fetish (to add to the list of others) but I do like plumpness. Somehow, plump women always look happier, more comfortable with themselves.

Big girls look more confident, sensuous, loving. They look like they know how to enjoy themselves. The woman on left is a case in point. She's a model from Hips and Curves by the way, who have a tumblr site here.

Their models are beautiful, busty, curvy, glowing.

One of the most beautful is the girl below - "Monica Harbison".

Somehow, also, big women look better in lingerie. Better than skinny women I mean. Lingerie accentuates curves and shape and if there's no shape there in the first place, then it can't do much. There's not much nicer looking though, than a generous breast filling out a lacy bra cup or a curvy hip, draped in luscious satin.

It's often pointed out that the late 20th and 21st century's obsession with thinness is an aberration. Through history, men always preferred larger women's shapes. And for the most part, men haven't changed - it's just fashion that has changed. So really, I'm normal and the rest of the world is mad.

Curing your Whiney Husband.
Again, it was the picture that generated this one. Her name is Doutzen Kroes, she is Dutch, and she is a Victoria's Secret model. As you might guess, it was really the black opaque pantyhose that did it. The little story came out all in one go, and is meant to be a long letter to 'Strict Wife'. I'll post the whole thing some day soon.

I'm not really okay with it.

Darker still. Somehow I can make them more cruel and unpleasant when they're short. I can't sustain meanness in a longer story.

Don't remember where I got the image from. If it's yours, sorry.

"Loving female domination."

That's the title of Elise Sutton's first book (and it's a great book of course) but it's also what I often find myself looking for on the web - stories, pictures, videos - because that's what I like.

I want femdom, but I don't want to be mean, aggressive or nasty. It has to be loving.

And it's out there, of course. It's out there in blogs, art, story sites, all sorts of places and lots of it is great and there's enormous variation too. But there's very little loving female domination in mainstream porn.

And I think that's odd. Porn caters for practically every niche you might think of, from the vanilla to stuff so repulsive you wish you could burn out your eyes. And given that loving female domination is so popular (I think), you'd imagine that there would be lots of sites with professional photography and video, but no, none.

FemDom in professional pay sites is universally mean and occasionally very unpleasant. I think the reason is that it's easier to act nasty than it is to be loving.

Of course, I'm a bit of a hypocrite to be saying this beneath the fairly mean vignette above, but that's pretty unusual for me. The meanness, that is, not the hypocrisy.

If anyone agrees/disagrees, please comment below. Prove me wrong kids!