Some of you might have read my earlier article where I described my first experience in “leaving the closet” for a short while. It started all wrong! I was in a hotel, and at that time I had a rather limited wardrobe, and little skills in applying makeup. So in the middle of the night I came out, dressed as best as I could, picked one of the rear entrances, and… slipped on the first step on a rather long stairway, not used to high heels on uncarpeted ground, fell down all the way… and broke a heel.
Fortunately I didn’t really hurt myself, it was only a big scare — would people come because of the noise and find me that way??
Luckily for me, nothing like that happened. Gathering my wits, I went back, changed shoes, went out again, and entered my car, and just drove around a bit, and returned back home. That was all I could manage. But the memory lasted for a decade!
Ten years have passed since that day. In the mean time, I moved to my own apartment, which I share with by beloved partner, who knows for a few years that I crossdress, and, being the most wonderful person in the world, is definitely not shocked — not any more. As in all good, long-lasting partnerships, we all work with compromises, many of those not even “written” or “agreed after discussion”. We just look in each other’s eyes and know what to expect. So I don’t “abuse” the crossdressing — once or at most twice per week, and my partner is fine with that. I don’t spend more on clothes and accessories than she does — and we can share at least some makeup and jewelry. She can’t have her ears pierced either — allergic reactions and so forth — so, after taking a close look on how my earrings work (with a small spring), she started adapting regular earrings to use springs as well (you can buy them insanely cheap on eBay from China). In fact, before I “came out” to her, she only owned a pair of earrings. Now she has a few dozens 🙂 Same with makeup, really — she barely wore makeup, but now we share plenty to satisfy both of us 🙂
In those small things we do have the most perfect relationship. Guys might get angry at their wives when they buy too many accessories (“waste of money” or “you already have too much”), clothes, or accessories. Like any good crossdresser, “there is never too much”, as we all know 🙂 So she can shop as much as she wants, so long as I can, too! Granted, my male wardrobe is full of ugly and uninteresting stuff — I really can’t bother to wear nice things as a male (what’s the point?). But it’s a nice warm feeling knowing I can buy what I want for my female self — provided I don’t blow up our tight family budget — and expect my partner to do the same 🙂
But there are some limits. I’m not allowed to shave my belly, since she loves the hair there (we all have fetishes, haven’t we? How can I blame her for that small fetish?). So I just shave everything else, and as Sandra Imust wear a corset anyway, so it’s not as if it matters. She also draws the line at “No More Coats” (I have three) since we can’t afford the space they take. And finally, she also draws the line at “no going out dressed”, but for a slightly different reason: she feels I’m not ready yet. I don’t look passable enough.
Well, in the past 6 months or so, she started to compliment me on my makeup. I thought at first that it was just because I had toned it down a bit. I guess that all crossdressers start to try to look as slutty as possible (since that look is soooooo appealing) and as time goes by, some of us want to look more natural, and replacing “slutty” with “elegance”, sometimes with the same outfit. It certainly is my case! But once in a while I overdo my makeup a little bit — and she still thinks it’s well done. Well. The simple explanation is that with practice you get better, which is what I tell all ‘new’ CD friends who aren’t bold enough to do their own makeup. You have to experiment, girls! And read a lot of advice. Watch those makeup tips on YouTube — or even on the TV shows, if you’ve come out to your partner or spouse (she’ll enjoy watching those shows as much as you do!). Read books on makeup (not necessarily for CDs — the techniques are pretty much the same). Although not every trick works for everyone, most of them do. Really! Remember, you don’t need to be an accomplished, talented painter to do your makeup — GG do it every day, and almost none of them are pros, so you’ll be able to do it too. And very likely you’ll soon start criticising other women’s makeup, like I do all the time — you see, most of them never learned it properly, or were taught by friends or a mother who didn’t really know the simple tricks and techniques. While you can learn from watching videos, TV shows, and books written by expert makeup artists and CDs with years of practice 😉 Remember that, and you’ll be fine.
In any case… it’s not just the makeup, of course. It’s “looking passable” that I aim for, and I’m sadly light-years away from that. Seriously. Many of you will disagree, but let’s be honest — you’re judging me by my pictures and videos, where I tend to use angles and lighting that favour me better. And I’m still ugly and fat, and that is hard to disguise, although I quickly found out that my smile is my best disguise 😀 But to go out I can’t smile all the time, and I’ll still look like a barrel of beer walking on stilettos and the face of Frankenstein’s wife.
So, what to do? On one hand, I certainly want to try going out again. It’s an adrenaline rush because it feels so delightfully forbidden. On the other hand, I still don’t feel “good enough” to go out, so it means the dark of the night (also, my neighbours would go nuts, most of the people around here are elderly and very conservative and would never tolerate CDs around). But most important than that, I wouldn’t dare to go against the wishes of my partner.
Well, she was away a few days on hospital (removing some lumps from her uterus; the surgery wentvery well and she feels great again!), so I thought this would be my chance, after getting kicked out by the nurses for overstaying during the visitors’ hours.
It’s cold enough to be able to wear my think fake-fur coat, so I thought I’d be safe after midnight, in the middle of the week, when the sensible neighbours are having a good night’s sleep. And taking a deep breath, after ten years of being a pure closet crossdresser, I finally went out of the door, took the lift down, and entered my car fully dressed.
Then was the choice of what to do, of course. Again, like a decade ago, I stuck to driving around familiar places (now empty at that God-forsaken hour) and just making pretty smiles if I had to stop at a signpost with some light around. My neighbourhood is not too brightly lit, although there is a Casino nearby, and it was fun just to drive past it.
I considered stopping at two places, and just take a short walk around. We live close to the sea, and there are plenty of nice places where you can park your car. These are well-lit and popular for lovers to watch the moon reflecting on the peaceful ocean — yes, I have my storied on how my car once broke down on one of those places with a former girlfriend 😉 — so they’d be safe enough. And there would be few people around anyway.
However, I always think the worst. I’m a natural attractor of bad luck with cars. My current car is quite old and like her owner, it tends to hate the cold. Getting it started again in the middle of the night might prove unsuccessful, and two awful things might happen: I might be too nervous to have patience and get it eventually to go again, and attract unwanted attention. Sometimes there are still some fine nice gentlemen around who’d be happy to give a help. Please, not when I’m dressed!!! I’d die of shame. And the alternative — calling a garage mechanic to tow my car back home — would even be worse, of course! And, who knows, sometimes the nice policemen give a hand too — what could possibly be worse than that? Not that crossdressing is illegal — but definitely would make a policeman think twice about what I’d be doing there. And although I could at a point ask my partner for help, she’d be in hospital, unable to get out, and, worse than that, she doesn’t drive and would have to ask her mother to pick me up…
Clearly none of that are valid options…
So, frightened that the car would break at some point, I patiently drove back. Who cares! I did go out, and didn’t stumble or break another heel (although I slightly slipped on a wet stone at some stage, but quickly recovered!), and it was too cold for walking around anyway, so… what can I complain about? It was awonderful feeling, and the adrenaline rush lasted for 6 sleepless hours afterwards, as I played the whole session in my mind over and over again.
When returning home I suddenly realised I forgot to take pictures of the event. I brought my phone with me and tried to take a few… but as you can see, they didn’t come out good, and show me from my worst possible angle. And I had a slight shock when coming back and seeing that one of the neighbours’ houses — where I usually park my car — had a light on! They’re very friendly and they would recognise my car and certainly say “hi”, even at 2 AM in the morning, if they were awake. So I had to continue to drive around and find a different place — meaning more exposure when walking across to the building where I live, but, of course, at that hour and with an icy wind blowing, all proper citizens were safely asleep.
So it was really great fun 🙂 A joy to remember, over and over again, for the next ten years or so! Or… who knows… perhaps on another day when I feel braver, or even kindly request my partner to allow me to go out. I certainly get a few of my CD acquaintances to “challenge” me to have a coffee with them. Invitations I never accepted. Who knows what the future will tell!
