Girls Night Out

Girls' Night Out

by Vickie Tern

"So, I see she did talk you into it! My God, look at you! You're gorgeous!"

There at the door was Pearl, my wife's best friend, looking at me as I figured she would when she saw me, amused but also contemptuous. She stepped back and gave me that same relentless look of appraisal women use on themselves when they look into mirrors. Then she said, "Not bad! Not too bad! But how in the world did she get you to do it?"

I was embarrassed, but tried to hide it. So I looked Pearl over equally deliberately. What I saw was the usual bright and brassy middle aged woman, dressed up for a big night out on the town. Packed into a green silk dress much too short for her, I thought. Matching strappy high heels and a clutch purse. Lacy black stockings. Pinned somewhere back of her blonde curls was some kind of small felt hat with a wisp of black veil. So she was green and black and lacy and sassy, and busy making me feel uncomfortable.

"C'mon in, Pearl," I said. "Bea's almost ready. You look good too, you really do!"

I was sincere -- for Pearl, she looked terrific. But especially I wanted to steer our conversation into compliments right away. I couldn't take her usual mockery, her sardonic put-downs. Not dressed the way I was when I came to the door. I was trying not to be too self-conscious about it. I wanted to be a good sport for this one night, to play it straight. To be a proper lady, one of the girls, the way I'd promised Bea. But with Pearl nothing ever comes easy.

She overreacted like a Disney cartoon character. Her eyes flicked over my coiffure and then down my dress, Bea's choice for me for the evening, a little basic black with satin trim, and a cute peplum to hide my lack of hips, and a wide satin-trimmed collar to cover my now-noticeable breasts. Then she eyeballed my legs -- in plain sheer black stockings, nothing fancy -- and my high heeled black pumps. "Wow!" she said, wiping an imaginary haze from in front of her eyes. Her skirt flipped and she wriggled her hips, then planted her hands on them. "Hoo boy!" she said. "Aren't you something!" She squared her body and then gave me her ultimate once-over. I'd seen it before. Insolent and amused. Absolutely intimidating. In that posture she looked like a tart naming her price, take it or leave it, but managed to imply that I was the tart. "Henry, I don't know what to say. You're such a stunner! You'll knock 'em dead! How can you stand yourself?"

Her irony was too heavy, and I began to wilt. But Pearl sensed it and immediately reversed field. She said, "No, really, I mean it! I'm impressed! That makeover is fabulous! You're really convincing! They must have spent the whole day working on you!"

"Thanks," I said, "If that was a compliment. Come in and sit down."

She stepped into the hallway like a dainty horse imprinting the ground, glanced at me again, and then let her high heels throw her hips into a seductive swish as she proceeded ahead of me into the living room. I got her message. I had to admit it, I couldn't have looked more swishy. "Yes," she said, "It was a compliment. A pretty girl should learn to accept compliments graciously. Just dimple, and curtsy, and say 'Thank you.' You know, when a girl spends hours or days getting ready for a big date, she should appreciate it when her efforts are noticed."

"Bea told me you'd agreed to be one of the girls tonight, but I just didn't believe her." Pearl went on. She sat down, and carefully arranged her legs on our living room couch, skirt smooth, arms draped possessively across the back cushions, at her ease. "Frankly, Henry, I didn't think you had the guts. No offense. But how many men do you know would do this for their wives?"

I followed Pearl into the living room, rocking a bit on my own high heels, and stood looking down at her. She arched her neck up and said, "Get me a drink, would you, Honey? I'd better start calling you 'Honey' I think, not 'Henry.' A 'Henry' who looks the way you do will start people talking, and I'm not sure you'd want to hear what they were saying."

"Or am I looking at 'Henrietta,' Henry's longtime girly other self? Have I at last found out your guilty secret? Have you always liked dressing up in frilly things? Do you really want to be a girl? Have a stiff drink yourself, hon. You're going to need it before tonight's through!"

I took her advice, belted down a quick one, poured Pearl her usual whiskey on rocks and myself another, handed it to her, then sat down across from her. I clasped my drink in my lap with both hands, and crossed my ankles primly, just as Bea had shown me. Shoulders back, bust out, chin high, shake my curls to get her attention, then speak in a high but sweet voice, if I could manage it.

"Don't, Pearl," I said. There was just a touch of pleading in my voice, for Pearl usually a signal to lunge in for the kill. I had better be more aggressive. "You know perfectly well that Bea has been getting me ready for tonight for months. In fact, what with her planning and shopping and rehearsing me, she's had very little else on her mind for some time. I've never seen her like this, not in all our twenty years of marriage. She's been so happy and busy. So don't mock me, because when you do, you're mocking Bea. And that's not friendly." My voice quavered just a little. Maybe it was pitched too high.

"All right, Honey," Pearl said, her voice softened but not subdued. "I'll be gentle. You're one of the girls tonight, and that's that. Don't cry, you'll ruin your beautiful eyes." This time she looked at my face seriously. "They really are beautiful, in a way. Who would have thought it?"

I felt a little mollified. "Well, Bea always did. Even before I was involved in this."

Pearl's look was unwavering. "All right, Bea thinks you're beautiful. But tell me, my Honey, my lamb led to the slaughter. Whatever possessed you? Why are you involved, as you see it? I know, but I'm curious what you know. Tell me what you think is going on."

Pearl didn't seem to be taking this night seriously enough, so I opened up. It was a chance for me to practice my voice some more, anyhow.

"You know full well how come I'm involved. Bea's had her heart set on tonight since last year. You know that. In fact, it was your own idea originally. You remember, Bea's thirty-ninth birthday? How it hit her? Like a house collapsing on her? All that weeping, she was getting old and ugly, life was passing her by. Every day more depressed, popping more pills, then feeling even more miserable. Some days she didn't even bother to get dressed, and I was really worried. Then when I'd try to talk to her, to cheer her up, she'd just look at me and withdraw even further, run into the bedroom or the bathroom and then cry her heart out."

"I remember that time," Pearl said, looking me levelly in the eyes. "It was exactly a year ago."

"So I offered to organize a big party for her to help her celebrate her fortieth when it came around. Invite everyone we knew. Well, that was certainly a mistake! She absolutely forbade it! She ran into the bedroom and slammed the door, and then she really started wailing! I mean loud, agonized, despairing, just terrible! I felt awful! I still don't understand it."

"I know about that time too," Pearl said, still looking at me steadily, and taking little sips from her glass. I remembered to do the same -- sips, not swallows, it's much more ladylike, Bea had told me. It felt more delicate. I wondered if my lipstick was smeared. "You missed the point, Honey dear!," Pearl went on. "A forty year old woman doesn't feel like celebrating. It isn't like a man turning forty."

She set her glass down. "Look! A forty year old man is just coming into his prime, even if he isn't quite the stud he was at twenty. He still believes that 'You aren't getting older, just better' crap. Well, if he's any good at business he's starting to get into heavy money just about then. All those years of hard work begin to pay off. His kids are gone, or they don't need him, so he's free of his family. But his wife is no longer a bombshell, if she ever was one. So when a man turns forty he often decides he deserves better from life. And for once he can afford it. So he begins screwing around. Or, he dumps his wife of twenty years in order to award himself a trophy wife. Isn't that right?"

In fact, that's just what Pearl's husband had done. He'd left her well-fixed enough, payment for their years of struggle together, and had gone off to do the Palm Beach and Palm Springs circuits with a new slim long-haired Princess of a wife, calling his broker now and then to ask how fast the money was coming in.

I was forty last year, and I have to admit it now, I was thinking about doing the same thing. Life with Bea had gotten really dull. The sex was as predictable and boring as her cooking, and she seemed to approach both the same way. We shared lots of interests, but there was nothing new to explore. Evenings, she read her romantic novels and I watched television. But I still cared for her, in a way, and I didn't want to hurt her, so I never said anything about it. I wondered if Bea had sensed something anyhow, and had mentioned it to Pearl.

"Well," Pearl went on, "With a woman turning forty it's different. She's nearly past it. Her kids are gone or don't need her. Raising kids has been her life, and now it's over. She finds it's harder to stay in shape, and she lets herself go a little. Her dresses don't fit her any more, so she spends more of her husband's money to buy more of them, and they still don't fit just right. She logs more time at the beauty parlor. Her husband logs more time at the office, and less with her. There're still things she hasn't yet done with her life, and she knows time is running out, and she knows she's beginning to forget what those things were. That's why Bea didn't want your party. I'm sure she told you that right off when you proposed it to her. There's nothing to celebrate when a woman turns forty."

"She did say that," I said. "I thought she was just depressed."

Pearl looked steadily at me again, and then took another sip.

I went on. "But I really am grateful to you and Kay. When the two of you cooked up these plans for tonight, her mood changed. Almost immediately! It was miraculous! I still don't understand it. My idea for a birthday bash depressed her, but yours gave her a new lease on life! I'd never have guessed it, that what she really wanted was an intimate night out on the town with just her two dearest friends. A fabulous girls' night out. Something she'd never done before. But that was what she wanted! Immediately she started humming around the house, telephoning and planning and talking and preparing. Weeks spent shopping for the very outfit she's putting on right now. All of today spent in the beauty parlor, sitting next to me the whole time, getting her hair and face and hands and nails and body worked over by any number of the women there."

"Anyhow, for months she's been so excited! I'm not sure why. What does she expect? Dinner, a show, some drinks afterward, and talk, lots of hot gossip she's never heard, she says. Do things she hasn't done for years, she says, maybe never done. Bea said that you planned to stay up till morning, the three of you, making girl talk, telling each other racy stories, doing girl things, away from husbands or other such depressing people. If she liked the way it worked out, she said, then she'd do the same things with you girls more often. They'd become her things too. And that's what cheered her up! I suppose, for Bea it's a change. We don't go out much together any more, hardly at all. Not for years. I'm pretty much satisfied to watch television."

"So I've heard," Pearl said. "Well, you've got the drift of it. Turning forty is a serious thing for a woman. Bea wanted to know how we've handled it, me and Kay. What we've really been doing since the big four oh. You're right. A year ago she was way down, and you weren't the only person worried about her. So we told her that on her fortieth birthday, tonight, we'd show her that life begins at forty. We'd tell her all our secrets."

"I'm forty-two now, you know. That rat of a husband of mine left me four years ago. Well, for a year I mourned like a schoolgirl, which is what I still was despite everything, I suppose. Then for another year I thought about the rest of my life, how to take charge of it. Well, since then I've been doing OK. Got me a job to keep busy, started to meet new people -- you don't know the half of it. So I've got lots of good advice to give Bea. I've given her lots already."

"Kay too. Kay told her some things right off that surprised even me, about that husband she still lives with. That Tomcat stud, what's his name, Steve. I've known for years that he's been sticking his prick into anything in skirts the way other people shake hands. But I didn't know he went for anything in pants too. He swings both ways. Did you know that? The man is an animal."

I didn't know that. I'd never met him, but he was a legend around town. I'd heard about his women. We were all maybe a little jealous. That may be why wives and ex-wives always seemed to be so protective of Kay, always inviting her to parties and dinners and sleepovers when her husband was out of town. But he was bisexual? That I hadn't known! "Why does Kay stay with him?" I asked. "She's a doctor. She's got her own practice. She's been our family doctor for years, and she's a good one. Bea trusts her. Kay doesn't need Steve."

"You really are an innocent!" Pearl said. "Because Kay's got her own men too. And her own women. They swing together. They're swingers. That's how they first met, at some swingers' convention, from what I hear." Pearl leaned forward. "But Honeybuns, you haven't told me yet how Bea talked you into joining us for this fabulous night. To do whatever we do. Especially looking the way you do, like one of the ... uh... girls. What happened? Does Bea have something on you? Did she catch you slipping into her little silky nothings, and then shame you into wearing more of them? Do you have your own panty collection? Are you also a secret swinger?" Pearl lifted her face toward me, waiting for some dishy confessions.

"Well..." I began. But Pearl was on a roll!

"And how'd she get you into that beauty salon? Marge did a fabulous job, really, Honey! Those are long fingernails, longer than mine! And that is a perm they gave you, isn't it? I suppose it really took guts! Or was it blackmail, or a bribe? Though I must say, you do look terrific. You look ...well, feminine. I don't think there's any doubt you'll pass."

"You know, don't you, that this night has cost you your manhood, as far as I'm concerned, and probably Kay. Maybe even Bea. I don't know how feminized you are inside, but you are certainly emasculated up front. In my eyes certainly. That's quite a sacrifice! You must have known that would happen. So why did you do it? We are never again going to be able to think of you as Bea's dullard husband! You're just too cute-looking! Now we'll spend all our time thinking about fixing you up with cute guys! Maybe even other cute guys in skirts! How in the world did Bea ever get you to agree to this?"

Finally, Pearl leaned back, looking at me cooly. She'd spoken her piece. She handed me her empty glass, and gestured toward mine, and pointed to the bar. I stood up.

"Pearl, the way Bea did it was, she asked me, and that's all there was to it," I said, a little too grandly. Pearl had finallly gotten to me.

And then Bea's voice came from the doorway. "That's right, I asked him!" Suddenly, there was Bea. "I decided early on that I wanted Henry with me tonight, but not as Henry. And that's why he's here. I have my own reasons, Pearl."

We both turned to look at her. Bea had really gotten herself ready for this special girls' night out, there was no doubt about it! She looked awesome! My God, what a costume! Short tight black leather miniskirt, and thigh-high boots with incredibly long, thin spike heels. A short stretch of exposed thigh, between her boot tops and her skirt, encased in black nylon. Those thighs looked like dark tubes, inviolable, strong enough to crush any man who dared put his head between them. A black silk blouse thrust forward by bare, jutting nipples, apparently she wore no bra, and then it flowed down and over her arms to be gathered at her wrists, and to billow down to her waist. A collar of red necklaces surrounding her neck like chain mail, and large red drop earrings dangling under her black hair, which was teased way up around her head as big as I could ever imagine it. Eyes outlined in black, and a slash of red across her mouth. Absolutely sensational!

I swallowed hard, and almost sat down again. Next to Bea I was a sweet, shy wallflower, in my pretty black cocktail dress. If there were any feelings of manhood left in me, that I was a guy wearing a skirt because his wife had asked him to, they were gone. There could be no men in the vicinity of Bea's outfit. Only varying kinds of submissives, until she gave one of them permission to try to service her like a man, if he could. I suddenly felt utterly helpless. I tried to compliment Bea, but my hands only waved in the air, and nothing came out of my throat but some high-pitched squeals. She saw at once what she had done to me, and smiled delighted. Her eyes sparkled.

"My God, Bea," said Pearl. "Talk about taking charge of your own life starting tonight!"

"That's what I'm doing, Pearl."

Then she turned to me, still standing and staring anxiously at her. "Don't worry, dear, this isn't for you. It's partly for me, and partly to help me keep some other people in line tonight, maybe. You'll do only what you want to do, no matter what I may ask you to do. I wouldn't want it any other way. Did I tell you upstairs that you look just lovely? Really, that dress is adorable! I knew that satin collar would be flattering once your breasts were large enough to hold it away from your body a teeny bit."

And Bea came over to me, and we held each other's arms gently for a moment, and we pressed our cheeks together, so as not to smudge our makeup or wrinkle our dresses, and then we looked at each other silently for another moment. It was a kiss, woman to woman. I don't know why, but it felt heavenly. I felt a sudden surge of love for her! And at the same time, I felt serene, so wonderfully at peace with myself. "Whatever you do tonight," she said to me in a low voice, "Is for me. I want you to know that. I want you to know I want it that way. And I love you for it." I looked at her gratefully, if a little confused.

"Dear, would you get me a drink," she asked me. "And take care of yours and Pearl's too." I flounced over to the liquor cabinet -- those first drinks were beginning to have their effect -- and I poured us each a double. Pearl looked at hers and set it aside for the moment. I handed Bea hers, and she sipped it, carefully, than set it aside and straddled the back of a chair like a pirate, legs spread on either side. For some weird reason I felt a surge of pride that I was part of her life.

"Here's how it happened, Pearl. A month after you told me your plans, Kay called to tell me she couldn't join us tonight, that she was had to be out of town, some medical convention or other. Well, I was crushed. Henry couldn't cheer me up at all. I told him how terribly disappointed I was. But I didn't need to. He already knew how much this night out with the girls meant to me. He could see the gleam going out of my eye. He felt terribly sorry for me, and he thought about it some. Didn't you, dear?"

I looked at her gratefully again, but I still couldn't talk. There was this enormous lump in my throat.

"When Kay had to beg off, that left just the two of us, you and me. It didn't seem...well...festive enough. Then the more I thought it through, the more it seemed right that Henry should help us make up our original threesome. In fact, the more I thought about it, the better I liked the idea. Henry must certainly know what some of the men in town do with some of the women in town, so he could tell us some real hot stories too, I was sure, things he's been too proper to tell me, once we got into the right gossipy mood. It might be fun."

"So the next night I asked him if he'd take Kay's place, so I could still be with my dearest friends, the way we'd planned it. Then I wouldn't have to think about him sitting at home while we were all out together having fun. I told him this would be his gift of love to me, my fortieth birthday gift, a gift I wanted from him more than anything else in the whole world. Well, he told me he'd do it. He didn't think he knew any gossip, but it was enough that I wanted him by my side. So he agreed."

Pearl leaned back into the sofa. "Let me get this straight, if that's the word for it," she said. "And maybe you'd better keep working on your drink, Honey. I think maybe you'll want to begin this evening a little tizzled. Let's see, Bea told you that Kay would be out of town tonight, and that she wanted you to fill in? And you agreed?" She looked me up and down again, and picked up her own drink. She took a swallow. "Dressed and made up the way you are? A real foxy lady, just like Kay?"

I was a little bewildered that Pearl had a problem with this. "Well, not right away," I began. "I didn't realize at first that she wanted me to go all out as one of you girls, to become one of the girls myself, so to speak. To fill in for Kay in every respect. I thought she just wanted me to come along as her husband. But a few days later I realized she meant more than that, when she took me shopping and bought me some brassieres and things. By then I couldn't disappoint her. Pearl, I just couldn't! So I decided I had to go along with it. And that's what I've done."

"Wait a minute," Pearl said, glancing at Bea, who got some kind of message and remained silent. They'd known each other a long time. "You say 'brassieres'. Plural. How many brassieres did you buy that day?"

"Well, actually, seven or eight" I replied, wondering why she should ask. "A training bra and some A, B, and C cups, and then a few more C cups, different kinds of lacy patterns and colors. Underwire," I added, thinking maybe that information would solve whatever was Pearl's problem. Bea smiled reassuringly at me.

"I see," Pearl said, glancing again at Bea. "And you're wearing one of your C cups tonight?"

"Yes," I said. "After a month or so wearing each of the smaller sizes, they no longer fit me. I kept spilling over."

"I see," Pearl said again. One of her odd grins was forming on her face again, and I didn't understand why. "Bea, by any chance have you been taking Honey here -- I'm calling him Honey now, because I'm getting the message that Henry is not long for this world -- have you been taking Honey here to see Kay, for vitamin supplements or something?"

"Why of course, Pearl," my wife answered quietly. She glanced at me. "Honey had to ask Kay lots of questions about filling in for her. And while they were chatting she wrote him some prescriptions for various of his problems. Not that he has any. But just to be on the safe side."

"I see," Pearl said once more. "Ummm, Honey, how many new dresses do you have upstairs, besides the one you're wearing?"

"Only three others," I replied. "But one of them is pretty much worn out, because we've used it as a practice dress for months, smoothing it when I sat down, and straightening it whenever I got up from sitting on the toilet to pee, and so on. I wore it all the time, put it on as soon as I came home, and most weekends. My other things, my skirts and blouses and heels and flats and so on, are all still pretty much new. I have a whole closet full, so I don't have to wear any one of them very often. Bea thought it might be useful for me to have them, just to fill out my wardrobe. To get used to wearing what women wear. So I wouldn't feel self-conscious when I was learning how to move the way women move, and how to hold myself, and everything. Why do you ask?"

"No reason," said Pearl. "Another question. A long shot. My idle curiosity, no more than that. This one's going to sound very odd, but I don't think Bea will mind my asking. Did Bea ask you to clean out your bottom today? Just before you started to dress? Or to do anything else down there, anything exceptional?"

I got annoyed. "Pearl, that's rather personal! But since you ask, no, nothing exceptional at all. Months ago Bea asked me to take an enema daily before I put in the suppositories Kay gave me, and that's what I've done. For cleanliness. And today she asked me to put in a tampon when I'd finished flushing myself out, so I'd stay clean all evening no matter what, and not leak accidentally onto my new dress. So that's what I've done. Any more questions?"

By now Pearl was grinning broadly at Bea, and Bea was looking back at her mildly. Somehow they both looked very satisfied with themselves. Women, I thought. Who will ever understand them.

"Well, just one last question. Isn't it time for us to go to dinner?"

Dinner turned out to be the least of it. It was Bea's big night, but it was mine too, the first time I ever left the house looking like a woman. Despite my months of practice I was rather nervous. But we linked arms walking to Pearl's car, and we giggled about something, and some kids walked by without even glancing at us. So I felt better about it. Walking on my heels was no problem after all those months of practice. When we reached the car, Bea reminded me to fluff my hair with my finger tips now and then. "It's a very attractive gesture, dear."

Pearl drove us. When we got to the restaurant's Valet Parking a boy opened the door for me and stood watching, and I was grateful for Bea's lessons how to get out of a car in a skirt -- twist, swing my legs out, straighten my skirt, stand up. The Maitre D' led us to a corner table, and we settled our purses on the floor by our chairs, and read the menus. Bea ordered for me -- clear soup, and a small warm salad. She cautioned me against nibbling on the bread and butter. "Your figure, dear," she said. "Later you're going to feel stuffed, I'm sure, so you don't want to eat too much now." Pearl let out a guffaw, but didn't look up from her menu. She ordered a bottle of Chardonnay, and we finished it, feeling even more tiddly than at the house. Things went very well. I ate teeny bites, and patted my lips now and then. It was just like all those practice dinners at home. Even Pearl began looking at me with admiration.

"You're very good, Honey," she said. "It's as if you were born to it. Do you think you were? Are you a woman in a man's body?"

"Pearl, cut it out!" I said.

Bea interrupted. "No, Honey. Say, 'Pearl, do stop teasing me, or I'll start to cry.'"

I tried again. "Pearl, please, don't!" I said. I really felt hurt. Bea looked satisfied, and Pearl eased off.

"No, tell me. I'd like to know. This is the night for confessions, remember! I asked you earlier if you'd ever done this before, dressed up like a girl, maybe secretly, and you never answered."

"You never gave me a chance, Pearl. Did I try on my mommy's panties when I was little? Yes, I suppose every boy does. Out of curiosity. Did I feel some special charge or satisfaction while doing it? No, nothing, so I did it only that one time."

Pearl leaned back. If she hadn't recently quit smoking, she would have lit a cigarette. I could tell she was about to say something she actually meant! "Honey, it's no secret that I didn't think you'd do this. You're not a gung ho macho man, like that asshole I married, but you are a straight arrow, and not a very sharp one. If you'll pardon my words, you have always seemed to me to be an unimaginative lunkhead, someone who was repressing Bea's natural high spirits without even knowing it. I have often thought that a divorce from you would be a good thing for Bea. But she wouldn't hear of it. Not ever. And now look at you. Never would I have conceived it, that you'd be sitting here tonight in a dress nibbling on a small salad. Looking very much like a lady. I feel like comparing menstrual symptoms with you, you look so believable. And you even sit down every time you go to the bathroom, is that what you said earlier?"

"Yes, that's right. It was Bea's idea, for the practice. It seemed to please her, so I do it all the time now. It did solve all those problems married people have, about leaving toilet seats up or down. So now that's my gift to her too. I sit down for everything."

"Yes," said Pearl thoughtfully. "You may soon have no choice. But tell me, dear, if you weren't born with...er...transvestite tendencies, how do you feel about wearing women's clothes now?. How long is it since Bea bought you those first brassieres? When you wear them, do you feel...ah...different? Is it...nice? And you've been retraining your whole body to be more ladylike. Does that feel...nice? Confession time, now."

"I guess it's like you to ask those questions, Pearl," I said. "Because the answers are a little embarrassing." I glanced at Bea, and saw her nod, almost imperceptively. "OK. At first I just felt silly, a man putting on his training bra every morning. Bea's fortieth was nine or ten months away, and it made no sense. But Bea said that learning to act like a woman is like learning to play the piano, an art that expresses feelings, and that I needed the feelings as well as the techniques, and that it takes a while to develop them. I spent a lot of time imagining how women feel, about themselves, about each other, and about men, which at first was a total mystery to me. Then as my nipples got hard lumps behind them and my breasts started to grow, Bea helped me with my own feelings. Every night Bea would caress my nipples, or tweak them gently, until they got hard. Like Bea's now." I looked at those finger-thick nipples poking Bea's blouse, a mature woman's nubs outlined in black satin, and again felt proud to be married to Bea. Also, inexplicably, a little jealous. "Every night when Bea caressed me it felt more and more marvelous. So soft, and feminine, and delicious, and attractive, ...well...never mind. I got so I couldn't wait for my skin to get smoother, and my breasts to swell up more, grow into bigger globes that needed bigger bra cups. When I went to the office, wearing my bra, maybe covered by a slip or a Teddy, I was so happy with them I'd often push out my chest, and they'd swell through my shirt on either side of my tie, and my suit jackets would fall back and frame them, so anyone could see who'd bother to look. Just the way women's suit jackets do when they're unbuttoned. I began to feel delighted with my figure, almost as much as Bea. I guess I didn't care who noticed. No one did, that I know of. That disappointed me, sometimes."

"I told Bea, and she said that was my feminine side beginning to express itself, and that I should give it more freedom. So I began turning most of my office work over to my partner, and doing more business by phone. I took to wearing panties, or pantihose, all the time, and women's blouses and shirts, and women's jeans and slacks whenever I went out, and of course when I was home, skirts, and my practice dress. And I took to moving the way women walk, naturally but with a grace I've always loved in women. You know. Bea has it. Even you have it, when you want to. I like pretending I'm graceful and pretty in my own way, and Bea says I really am. And more and more, I've been feeling the way I imagine women feel all the time about things, little enthusiasms and sorrows rising up all the time in my heart. Bea was so pleased, the first time I cried for joy at some silly television drama. We cried together, and it was such good fun."

One by one Bea put away my men's things, and bought me more women's things, and taught me how to wear them, and how to combine them with each other. Now I love them. Even my mens' clothes now are really women's clothes, man-tailored. They feel just...well...right. I feel ... complete in them. And waking up every day and choosing my wardrobe is a whole new adventure for me. I love waking up each day!"

Pearl seemed to be overwhelmed by what I had said. "So for months now," she said, almost disbelieving, "you've been wearing women's clothes at home full time, practicing walking in high heels, and fixing your lipstick, and letting your wrists hang free, and things like that, because you like it? Because it feels good?"

"Yes. At first mainly because I didn't want to disgrace Bea. For fear that when the big moment came tonight, I would give myself away as a man, and be ridiculed by whoever saw me. But you're right. It does feel good. Nowadays, all I have to do is put on a bra with my breasts gathered up in each cup, and my nipples protruding way forward, and I get the same delicious feminine feelings Bea brought out by caressing me. Then I want to do more things that girls do. Bea and I cuddle a lot together. And today in the beauty salon was such a treat! I love the way my hair came out! You shouldn't mock me about these things, Pearl. That's the way I am, now. And it's how Bea wants me."

"You're right, Honey," Pearl said. She set her fork down and looked at me, and said softly. "I'm sorry. I had no idea things had proceeded this far. I guess I thought Bea had duped you, not that she'd converted you, or discovered you. Maybe you always were a transvestite, or a transsexual, but never knew it." Then Pearl suddenly straightened up, and said in a sprightly way, "But now you're one of the girls, just in time for tonight. That's just fine! Tell me, dear, these feminine feelings, do they include feminine feelings about men?"

Bea interrupted, her voice a trifle sharp. "Let me set the pace here, Pearl. Henry is married to me, and while Honey lives inside Henry she will be as true to me as Henry has been. Henry has never cheated on me, he says, and I believe him. I've never cheated on Henry either. That's why it's important that whatever we do tonight, we do it together. Especially tonight. If Henry decides tonight to let Honey be herself, I don't say that Honey shouldn't feel free to find her own way in the world, and to make her own commitments. My obligations are to Henry, the way Henry's are to me. Do you follow me? That's why I'm so delighted that tonight, it's Honey we're out with, that she's one of the girls, not Henry. She'll do whatever she feels like doing, tonight. The way we all will."

I was lost. I didn't understand a word of what Bea had just said, but Pearl nodded slowly. She was obviously impressed.

Bea and I then went together to the Ladies' Room together, my very first visit to any Ladies' room anywhere, and my dear companion my very own wife, while Pearl stayed behind to pay the check. We primped and fussed and chatted, and I combed my hair out a bit, and only when we were leaving did I realize that I had gone into a booth to pee, and sat down to pee, and wiped myself, and risen to adjust my dress, all without thinking about it at all. It was now second nature to me. Maybe even first.

Next we went to a concert, a string quartet playing Mozart and Schubert, Bea's favorites. The pieces they played were all gentle, and beautiful, and some of them terribly sad. At one moment when the music was especially unhappy, Bea leaned over and kissed me on the cheek, very sweetly. I looked over and saw she had tears in her eyes. I took her hand and held it tightly. "What's that for?" I asked in a small voice. "Nothing," she replied. "You'll see." Then she said, "Oh, I do hope everything works out the way I've planned it. I do hope so!" I couldn't ask her what she meant by that, but I noticed that she held my hand tightly in both her hands through the rest of the concert. I remember how satisfying it was, each time I looked down into my lap, to see our newly manicured red fingernails all tangled and coiled together, looking so elegant.

Afterward we went to a night club, one with hot but also dreamy dancing alternating very loudly in one section, near the bar, and stretching for what must have been a city block, rooms and cubicles one after another for drinking and for noisy or quiet conversation. As we settled down in a booth, and our drinks came, and we started sipping them, I glimpsed someone familiar coming toward us. I got the shock of my life!

It was Kay! I half rose in surprise, but then I remembered I was a lady, and settled back down. She came straight over to our table, and Pearl and Bea moved to make room for her. They both were delighted to see her. Neither looked especially amazed. "Kay!" I said. "I thought you had to be somewhere else tonight! Why are you here? I mean, it's wonderful that you're here, because now you can help us with Bea's birthday. But weren't you supposed to be somewhere else? Isn't that why I'm here?"

"Yes, I was supposed to be elsewhere," she said. "But I changed my mind. I figured I'd be more useful here tonight. Hello, Henry. You are Henry, aren't you?" She peered more closely at me. "My heavens, look at you! It's amazing! Those treatments really did their work, didn't they? You look absolutely ravishing, Henry! I love it! You look good enough to eat!"

"Tonight, Henry is Honey, Kay," Bea said. "The way we discussed it. That's the way it should be, and that's the way Honey wants it to be."

"Of course. Honey! You are a real stunner, Honey! I'd invite you home with me, if I didn't know you have other plans. Sorry, girls, I've been drinking, waiting for you to show up. Well, anyhow, I'm here, and now we're all here, all of the girls, including our newest girl." She smiled at me charmingly. I smiled back. "Let's start the proceedings. Aren't we all supposed to tell Bea something about the first time we had sex with someone we weren't married to? After we were already married, I mean? Those stories are usually the juiciest. Honey, you go first. Tell us your favorite infidelity."

"Honey hasn't had any infidelities yet, Kay," Pearl said. "She's too new. She's still a virgin. And Bea just told me that Henry hasn't had any infidelities either. I don't think he's a virgin, though there's some question whether he's ever done anything memorable. Anyhow, Henry's not here tonight. He isn't one of the girls."

"All right, I'll go first, then Pearl," Kay said. "Order us some more drinks. Bea looks too quiet, and Honey needs another, I'm sure."

"Well, I had sex with quite a few people right after I was married, within a few hours in fact. But I don't think I was unfaithful. Steve and I had been swinging singles for a long time, and one day when I had his dick in my mouth and my finger in some local housewife's ass we decided that we would make a great team. We should get married. We could offer ourselves together, and be more selective. You know what Bernard Shaw said, that marriage is popular because it offers a maximum of temptation and a maximum of opportunity. Well, it's sort of true, but not the way he meant. Any two people can live together without being married, and any two people can fuck. But marriage is a partnership. It's popular because it assures established partners that they can link up with other established partners, and form new his and her couples, or his and his, or hers and his and hers, or whatever other combinations anyone likes, and at least some of the partners will always be compatible. But if you do that, you have to trust each other. You have to tell each other everything. That's keeping faith with each other. That's fidelity. That's why we got married. That's why we're still married. We're still popular, with couples and with individuals. We're both good at what we do, and we enjoy it. Sometimes we even do it together. But we always tell each other everything. We trust each other, that we'll tell each other everything."

"Anyhow, mine is a short story. After the wedding Steve's best man wanted a blow job, and no one was available. The bridesmaids had all gone off with different wedding guests, or with each other. One of the bridesmaids was a transsexual like you, Honey, if that's what you are now, but there weren't any unattached men around for her, or any women either, and she was feeling a little lonely. Weddings do that to people sometimes. So anyhow, I suggested she take care of Steve's best man. But it turned out she was was a lesbian, and didn't like oral sex with men. Lots of men who are women are lesbians, it's the way their mothers make them even before they're born, poor babies, but they usually don't mind once they get used to the idea. So I volunteered to take care of Steve's best man instead -- that wasn't being unfaithful to my new vows, exactly, I thought, unless I were to put his cock into my vagina, and I never wanted to do that. He was a creep, and Steve had invited him only because he owed him money. I still owed a lot of money from Medical School, and we didn't need more debt. So I blew him, and he cancelled whatever Steve owed him.

To keep things even, I asked Steve to take care of the transsexual bridesmaid, to fuck her pussy, if she'd have him. Her vagina was constructed in another State where they recognize that sex change operations change a person's sex, so it was a proper vagina as far as she was concerned. But in this redneck, cracker State where we had just gotten married it took more than that to become a woman. If you weren't born one, then God himself had to come down during the operation, and take over the surgery. So it wasn't a vagina in this State, just a slit, so here she couldn't be a lesbian officially, just a guy who likes girls. So Steve could fuck her vagina good and proper, and still not be unfaithful to me, as long as they didn't cross State lines to do it. So that's what Steve did. My bridesmaid transsexual friend was willing to go along with it. She appreciated the gesture. And we'd been old friends a long time. We'd even slept together in college. You know, I don't remember which sex she was then, or even which gender."

"OK so far. But this creep I had just blown told Steve that I had spread for him, can you imagine it? On my wedding night? And Steve believed him. He couldn't see why I hadn't -- we didn't put any of that "forsaking all others" and "husband and wife are one flesh" stuff into our wedding vows anyhow. I don't say I wouldn't have fucked him if he weren't a creep, but he was, and I didn't, OK? Anyhow, Steve didn't believe me. Now there was a violation, right off. When you get married, you plight your troth, which is old fashioned language for you are true to each other, which is middle fashioned language for you don't lie to each other, which is modern language that means what it says, and is the proper basis for any marriage as I see it. You trust that each one of you is telling the truth, even about the length of the stranger's dick that reamed you silly the previous night. You don't lie. You have to trust each other."

"Well, Steve didn't believe me. So I got mad, and phoned all of Steve's ushers, and told them to get over to the hotel where we were married, we had to do it again because there was a page missing from the marriage manual, or something. And when they came, I pulled a train with them. Told them they could all gang shag me as long as we all held out. Well, whatever they were up to with the bridesmaids and the wedding guests, most of them still had a couple of shots still left in them. So I wore them all out. God! I was squishy for days after that. Anyhow, later on that night, on our nuptual bed, Steve noticed that I was pretty wet down there. In fact, standing, sitting, or lying down, I was pouring cum like a half-open faucet. I told him the truth.

And he forgave me, and apologized for doubting me about the creep. He then told me that my bridesmaid, the one he had screwed, the sexually re-assigned lesbian except in this State, would rather have been with me than him, because she felt like a lesbian even in this State. I felt terrible about that. So I went to her hotel room, and that's where I spent the rest of my wedding night. Steve looked pretty happy the next day, but I thought enough was enough, so I never asked him where he'd spent the rest of that night. He would have told me, I know it. And ever since then, we've tried to tell each other everything. And we believe each other. We never lie, or exaggerate. We trust each other. We are as true to one another as we can be.

But it remains a fact. The first people I screwed after I got married were a majority of the bridal party, even before I screwed my husband. And the first person he screwed, even before he screwed his new wife, was a transsexual girl I then screwed that same night. We all have so many holes and bulges, and they fit so many others, it's no wonder we can't keep track. But a married couple should try. That's what we promise each other. To try."

We were all silent after Kay stopped talking. Then Pearl asked, "Kay, how much of that story is true?"

And Kay answered, "Which parts are giving you trouble?"

Bea said, "I understand what you're telling me, Kay. Thank you. I think we all need more to drink. Call the waiter over."

More drinks came. I was beginning to feel a bottomless place under me, and that I was teetering on the edge of falling into it. So I didn't notice, until Pearl pointed it out, that the next round of drinks came from three interesting looking men sitting together not far away. They were a bit gray in the temples, two of them, and one had a well-shorn black beard. All were nicely dressed, and rather handsome in fact. Probably professional men. It seems Pearl knew one of them, and she went over to thank them and to chat. She came back.

"They were wondering if we cared to dance, any of us. I told them certainly, but that we wanted a little more time to talk together. Just us girls. I've told them our plans for tonight, Bea, and they've offered to help out in any way they can. I told them we'd see."

"Sounds good to me, Pearl," said Kay. "Your turn."

Pearl sat down and thought a moment. "Let's see," she said. "My first fuck out of wedlock, after my marriage. Yes. That was Tim, three years into it. A wonderful man. It was a brief affair, only two weeks, while my ex was away on a business trip. I wish I'd known then that my ex was going to be my ex, or I would have made him my ex a lot sooner. Maybe married Tim then and there. But I was doomed to be married for seventeen more years before that bastard ran off with that slut whore, and I called it quits.

But Tim is another matter. I still love him, very dearly, and we write each other sometimes, even though he's married now himself, and I wouldn't come between him and his wife for the world. But I know he loves me too."

"We went to the same college, and he was dating one of my sorority sisters, who was of course two-timing him. He thought they were sort of engaged. He was one of those kind, decent, gentle guys who write poetry, and edit the literary magazine, and sit up all night listening to girls with shit boyfriends who resent being shit on, girls who come to him to tell him how they feel. While they talk, they feel their own self-respect flow back, because of his sympathy and understanding. Every college has one. My Tim was a wonderful man. Still a boy, then, really."

"Well, his fiancee's other boyfriend got jealous of him, and started spreading the word that he was a faggot. A ponce. A fairy cocksucker. And all of the shit boyfriends on campus picked up the tune, and one day before a big costume dance they all got together to plan their revenge. They didn't know what he had done during those all night sessions with their girlfriends. But some of the girls had mustered enough courage to break off after one or another of those nights, and their boyfriends found this inexplicable and unforgiveable.

Tim's fiancee delivered him into their hands that night. She talked him into going to the ball with her as Romeo and Juliet, with herself as Romeo, and got him a flouncy dress and a blond wig, and dancing slippers, and put makeup on his face, and then told him they'd been invited to a cocktail party at one of the fraternities, they'd just stop there for a drink first on their way to the Gym. Well, you know guys, those kinds of guys. You know what happened next. She led him into a room, pitch black, and then disappeared."

"Two hours later she was still dancing away with her other boyfriend and his friends, in her green tights and little feathered cap, and pretty swirling cape, having a delightful time. By then Tim was lying out on the quad unconscious, his asshole a bloody mess, his face and his dress and his legs soaked with piss and cum and blood. He had been raped maybe thirty times, probably more -- he didn't know. What he told me afterward was, he was standing in the dark. Then the lights went on suddenly, and there he was, Juliet, standing in his dress and his lipstick and his dancing slippers in the middle of a room with a bare floor and one mattress on the floor, and all around him against the wall maybe two dozen muscle men, maybe more, football players, wrestlers, weight lifters, who knows? They were all masked, and naked except for black jock strops, and their bodies were all oiled and gleaming, and they all stood with their legs apart and their arms folded as if in some kind of final judgement. Tim saw what was up quickly enough, and tried to make a break for it. But his fiancee had led him in the dark into an inside room, soundproofed, with no doors, where the fraternity conducts its secret rituals. It turned out she was led in the dark through different passageways by someone who knew the way, and then when she had delivered Tim she was led out, back to the fraternity quad, and given a corsage in thanks. Then she went off to the dance. Tim didn't have a chance."

"The rest is rather vague even in his mind. They read some kind of hokey charges, and two men held him down. A third raped him with a broomstick, then he thinks with a baseball bat. The pain was unbearable, he said, and he's sure he fainted a few times. Then they all lined up and one by one they used his body, his mouth and his ass and his hands, a few at a time, over and over, insisting that he jerk every one of them off until there were no more pricks left to clutch, and that he suck everyone off and swallow all of their cum, until they had no more juice left, and that he receive gratefully every prick they could lunge into his ass and every load of cum they could dump inside him, and say 'Thank you!' every time. If he didn't thank them loud enough, they'd pull his head way back by the hair until he couldn't breath. He says when he finally passed out his skirt was still relatively clean, flung up over his back and his head so the muscle men could have clear access to his anus, but that when he found himself on the lawn a couple of hours later, unable to move for the pain, his skirt was stiff with what seemed to be quarts of cum, and drenched in piss. So he figures that long after he had lost consciousness they kept at it, to "teach the fucker a lesson" as they said."

"I know that's what they said because my ex-husband was one of them. Tim spent a few weeks in the hospital, then left town, and never came back. That was the end of his college career. The whole thing was hushed over and forgotten, except by a few girls Tim had helped once, one of them me, and of course by the rapists. Well, a few years after I was married I was in the mall buying a pair of shoes, and there was this salesman kneeling in front of me trying to fit me with a pair I had insisted would fit. I was vain, and stubborn. They were already pinching. I cried out, "Ouch, you stupid fool!" And he looked up at me with such sorrow in his eyes! There was Tim!

He didn't know me, of course, but his eyes started to brim, and he said, "I don't want to hurt you, ma'am, really I don't. I don't want to hurt anyone! Please forgive me! Please!" And he looked about to come apart. I leaned over, and took his head in both my hands, and held it, and then I leaned way over and looked into his eyes, just looked, our noses almost touching. More powerful feelings welled up in me than I have ever felt in my life before or since. I said, "Tim?" And he was baffled and frightened for just a moment. Then he suddenly said, "Pearl?" And I broke down and started to bawl. I just dissolved. I collapsed into little pieces. I started crying, "Tim! Tim! Tim!" over and over, and I still don't know what I meant by that. Maybe I was mourning for all the decent people I'd ever known that had gotten shit on. Maybe for the decency in me that I buried after I got married, then tried to forget altogether, because what good is it? I don't know. He had to help me into the manager's office, I was sobbing so uncontrollably. And there he sat with me, just as in the old days, waiting quietly until I could get a grip on myself."

"Then we went for coffee, and he told me how things were with him. He said that lying in the hospital, he couldn't handle the rage, and the self-contempt, and the loathing. When they released him he was still taking a dozen showers a day. He went crazy, he said, and he still couldn't sleep without terrible nightmares. Any large man still terrifies him, he said. He thought it was somehow his fault, exactly what he had told any number of girls they should never believe about themselves. He felt polluted, inside and out. He tried to remember, relive the horror of it one person at a time, to exorcize it from his mind. But no use. That only made it worse, he said."

"For a time he went on the streets and sold himself, he felt so worthless. He couldn't concentrate, or hold a job. He tried to kill himself, twice, he said, but he failed even there. Worst of all, he couldn't confide in anyone, or trust anyone. He had this terrible fear of betrayal, after what his fiancee had done to him. When I tried to touch him reassuringly after I got his phone number and gave him mine, he trembled so hard he couldn't get his coat on."

"I was still hopeful about my marriage. In fact it was going to last another seventeen years, though I didn't know it, and I didn't know it was going to cost me a large part of me, my enthusiasm, my trust in other people, any instincts for kindness I might have had. I was already getting arrogant, getting to be the kind of woman who feels free to talk bitchy to any shoe clerk who's only trying to do what he's asked to do. I got worse, as the years went by. You know that now I'm a tough broad, hard to live with, sarcastic, suspicious of any kindness anyone shows me, much too cynical. That's what life with my husband did to me. But you tolerate it because you know there's more to me. We both know when I'm putting on my masks. You know I'm a wiseass mainly for my own amusement, and for self-protection. And you know that when all my acting has played itself out, I do care! I care a lot! I know you know this, or you couldn't stand me for a minute. Neither could I."

"Well, I was more trusting in those days. That night I mentioned to my partner in life that I had met Tim, the fragile young man who had helped me and so many of my friends when we were in college, who had been brutalized by some bastard jocks, and had left school. He only commented, 'Oh, yeah, the pansy who used to talk my brothers' girlfriends into fucking other guys. Well, we fucked him that night, but good. The piece of shit! He really looked like shit when we dumped him on the quad, after we taught him to mind his own business. He hasn't forgotten that lesson yet, I'll bet!'"

"At that time I knew that my partner in life, my very own piece of shit, was already fucking other women. Only three years into our marriage! But I couldn't figure out what to do about it. Should I call him down, and let him know I knew? Should I ignore it, and hope that it would pass? Was it my fault? When he said that about Tim, he made up my mind for me. "

"The next day he was going on a sales trip to the midwest, for two weeks. So the next day I called Tim, and asked him to have dinner with me in a quiet little restaurant after his store closed. We had two cars in the garage, but I told him my husband took our car, so if he didn't mind, I'd like him to take me home afterward. We needed to talk, I said. I needed to talk. He agreed."

"We ate, and we talked. It was just like the old days. I found I was telling him all about my marriage, and what it seemed to be doing to me. He listened. By the way he listened, I could tell when I was striking poses, or pretending, or overdramatizing myself, and I could tell when I was talking to him from my heart. He was that kind of a guy. I heard myself speak truths, and I heard myself kidding myself. I knew he could tell the difference, so I heard myself with his ears, and for the first time since my marriage, maybe even before then, I was absolutely honest with myself. Tim just listened."

"We took a taxi home, and I asked him in for a nightcap, just a quick one. He was uncertain, but I took his elbow, and he was through the door and into the living room before he could say No. Then we talked for another hour. He sat on the sofa, looking at our fire in the fireplace, and I sat on the rug in front of him, also looking into the fire. We both relaxed a little more. We even got cozy. After a while I snuggled between his knees, and leaned my head back onto him, and rested my arms on his thighs, and we both looked at the fire, and I poured a little more wine, and we both felt mild and easy. We talked some more. I told him the worst of my fears about my life with my husband. He wanted to comfort me, I could tell, but his hand wouldn't quite bring itself to stroke my hair. As soon as I dared, when I felt his hand resting on my head, and trembling a little less, I preened myself against it. I was really afraid to move, for fear he would start to shake again, and his ghosts would return, and he would rush out of the house without even letting me call him a taxi."

"But at a particularly magical moment, I knew I had to act. I said, 'Tim?' and he said, 'Pearl?' as if he already knew what I was going to ask him. So I didn't ask him. I twisted around between his knees, and laid my cheek against his crotch where his balls had to be, and I kissed his jeans where his cock had to be. Then I said, 'Please hold me.' Thank God, he put both hands on my head, and gently pressed my face into his crotch. I hugged his thighs, and then sat up a little, and unzipped his pants, and ever so gently took out his cock, and held it in both my hands. What a treasure! But it looked so shy. I kissed it. I kissed it again. I asked him to kiss me, and he touched his lips to me. Then I took his prick firmly in one hand, and I sat up, and settled onto the couch next to him, and snuggled against him, and then worked my hand slowly up and down on his prick. I asked him to kiss me again. He did, on my lips this time. I sighed, without even realizing it."

"Then for the next half-hour we were like high school kids. We kissed each other. I kissed him everywhere I could reach, his face, his mouth, his eyes, his neck, and he kissed me, especially on my neck. Little by little he grew warmer, more sure of himself. And all the while I was moving my hand gently up and down on his tool, being careful never to seem casual or absent-minded. I wanted him to feel pleasure there too, every minute we were also kissing and hugging."

"Then I went down on him. It was exquisite. I bent over, and put my head in his lap, and put the head of his cock in my mouth, and I made love to it. It grew. I licked it, and I kissed it. And it grew larger. He lifted himself to put it deeper into my mouth, and that was the first move he had made toward me without my asking. The very first. I almost began to cry. I slipped my head down on his meat, and he lifted himself up, and then again, and finally there we were. We were making love together, in rhythm, delicately responsive to each other. I think I was the first girl to make him feel desired since his fiancee had abandoned him in the dark."

"So I took a very big chance. All of a sudden I stood up, and said, 'Tim, we are going to make love tonight. Don't say No. Don't. Please don't. If you can't make love to me, then just let me make love to you. I need you. Oh, how I need you. I want you to kiss me. I need you to kiss me. All over. We need to take our clothes off. We need to go to bed. Come to bed, Tim. Please. For me.' And oddly enough, it was for me. It had to be for me. He'd have known if I was faking it. He'd have known if it was only gratitude, or some misplaced charitable instinct, or if I was using him to get even with my husband. It had to be real caring, and he had to care for me too."

"Tim said, 'All right, Pearl. I want to kiss you too. All over. For me. I know what you're doing. You are the most wonderful girl I have ever known.'"

"So we went to bed. The rest is what people do together, men and women, boys and girls. We took off our clothes and lay together side by side upstairs, in the big bed I shared with my husband. And in the warm yellow glow of our night light, we looked at each others' bodies. And we touched each other. We touched each others' faces, and shoulders, and arms -- each touch seemed a miracle. And we caressed each other. He stroked the steep curve over my hip down to my waist, again and again, and told me it was a marvel he couldn't believe was real. Almost right off I found a place on his neck that started him moaning. We found each others' nipples, and when our four hands weren't enough we moved our mouths onto each others' bodies, and began to kiss and lick each other, everywhere. I mean everywhere. The first time I came that night, he came too, his lips gently pulsing on my clit and his tongue sweeping my slit, and my mouth filled with his cock and then with his cum. So very delicious. Then ever so gently I licked him erect again, and I turned around and smiled and sat down on his prick, and he lifted himself into me. Then we moved into each other and we rocked back and forth together, faster and faster, and I held his shoulders, and when he came again so did I. It was so wonderful. It was the only orgasm I have ever had that I would call peaceable, all warmth and serenity and quiet joy, a feeling of love that spread through my entire body, and then seemed to pass through me into him."

"We made love again that night, always attentive to each others' needs, and exploring others. The last time was passionate. Yes, passionate! By morning he had finally lost all of his inhibitions. We trusted each other absolutely, and we owned each other, and we took possession of each other in whatever ways our whims dictated. Over and over. He built up in me the most frenzied delight I have ever known.

"This went on for the whole two weeks my ex was away. Tim came and went at will, never mind what the neighbors might think. His self-confidence came rebounding back. By the end of the first week we were joking with each other while making love, and I discovered that what people do with each other's pricks and breasts and cunts can be enormous fun! Other times it was like religion, beautiful, devoted, rapt, so very spiritual, though always with a perfect communion of his cock and my pussy at the heart of our worship. At the end of the second week he kissed me, and told me he had found a job in California near a college where he intended to complete his degree, and that I had saved his life, and that he loved me dearly. I told him I loved him, too, and always would love him. And it was true. I still do love him. More than anyone I have ever known. There was a perfect truth between us, nothing wishful, no bullshit, no pretense. And perfect caring for each other. I know he knows today how I still feel about him. And I know he feels that way too about me. But we no longer need each other the way we did then, when we were trying to lose ourselves in each other, and instead we found ourselves."

Pearl stopped, and took a hefty swallow at her drink. No one said anything.

"Where are those three guys?" she asked. "Weren't they due around now?"

"You know, Pearl," said Kay, obviously impressed. "That doesn't sound like you at all."

"Thank you, Pearl," my wife said. "I hear you." Her eyes were bright, and I thought she was being sentimental. Later I found out she was thinking about me the whole time.

Things got a little blurry after that, then a lot more blurry. The three guys came over, and we had a few more rounds of drinks. Kay told them what we'd been talking about, and they each of them told their own stories of one night stands on business trips, hot sex with willing partners, with every anatomical detail described. They each referred to their own pricks as heavy, or huge, or frightening to their ladies at first. Pearl questioned this, and they said they were willing to bet her they were all three exceptionally well-endowed, put up or shut up, her choice. Pearl just smiled to herself, and took one of the men by the hand and led him off to the dance floor. I didn't see her again that night.

Then my wife Bea spoke to the nicest of them, I thought, the quiet, confident, gray-haired man called Bob. I was a little looped, but I noticed that her voice with him was different from her voice with me. She commanded him, almost. She said, "Well Bob, if you know how to dance, ask me to dance." Bob looked at her, surprised, but he didn't say anything. Then Bea stood up on her spike-heeled boots with her legs spread apart, and she twisted her pelvis slightly, and she put her hands on her hips, and she leaned forward. Her breasts pushed out into her black silk blouse, inches from his face, and the tips of her nipples were practically in his mouth, which fell wide open.

"Didn't you hear me, Bob?" she asked him.

Bob leaped to his feet, "Yes Ma'am!"

"Then what do you say?"

"Uh, would you like to dance, please, mmm...ah..mmm....?" He couldn't finish.

Bea smiled. She seemed to know why he couldn't finish. "'Ma'am' will do quite well for now," she said. "Later I'll expect you to follow your instincts when you address me!" And off they went to the dance floor.

I lost sight of them for a few minutes, but when I next looked they seemed awfully close. Bea had thrust herself up against him, and was looking up into his face with an imperious smile. He seemed to be in a daze, and I noticed that one of his hands was pressed between their bodies. She said something, and he actually took hold of one of her breasts! Her pelvis seemed to be stroking his. She said something else, and he leaned forward and buried his face in her neck.

I turned to tell Kay what I thought I had seen, a little disturbed. But Kay had something to say to me first. "Here's someone who wants to meet you, Honey," she said. "Treat him well and he'll treat you well. Here, let me freshen your drink." A rather tall, thin man with blonde hair across his forehead sat down next to me. He looked at me for a moment, then gazed into my face and said, "I've been wanting to meet you all evening, Honey," he said. "You are absolutely lovely." He was very personable, the kind of man that women find attractive at first sight, I'm sure. He had an odd appeal even I could sense. He took my hand, and I looked down at my hand in his, and I was happy that Marge had made my nails so beautiful. I hoped he wouldn't realize what I really was. I wondered what would happen if he did.

"Thank you," I said. If I had been standing, I'm sure I would have tried to curtsy. Instead, I bobbed my head at him and smiled, and hoped I looked appreciative. This was the first pass anyone had ever made toward me, and the first compliment I had ever received from a stranger. My heart welled up. I knew that given who I was, what I was, really, I should keep him at bay. My purpose tonight was to keep my wife company. That was my purpose. But she was off dancing with another man right now. It would be fun to flirt with this man, I thought.

"Here you are, Honey. Bottoms up!" Kay handed me a glass filled with a straw colored beverage and a few ice cubes. I drank it down in four swallows, before I realized that her advice was not good advice. "I should sip, Kay," I said, feeling further distanced from myself than I knew myself to be. "That's what Bea told me."

"You should always do what Bea tells you, Honey," Kay said. Then she and her own gentleman, the dark bearded one, disappeared.

My new blonde friend hadn't moved from my side, nor had he let go my hand. "I'll get you another drink, Honey, one you can sip," he said. He snapped his fingers in the air. There was another drink in front of me. I sipped it. He said something I couldn't quite hear, and when he repeated it, he came very close to me, and I felt his breath and his lips on my ear. I blushed, and tried to push him away, but teasingly, because he was really such a lovely man. But I almost fell off my chair. Then he was sitting on the other side of me, and I was resting my head on his shoulder, and he was telling me something, and I was listening, and smiling, and nodding. I felt very content. No idea why. I closed my eyes.

Then I don't know. He was dancing me backward, and I was in his arms, following his steps, looking into his eyes and smiling. I thought we passed Bea and her gray haired friend, but I couldn't be sure. There were billowing black sleeves around some man's neck, and a glimpse of her big hair maybe. But their faces were absorbed in each other. Were they kissing? I couldn't see, with my eyes closed. My blonde man kissed my closed eyes, tenderly, and I responded! I kissed his face. I could feel a man's bristles on my lips. He was such a lovely man! I put my arms around his neck and I kissed his mouth. Just like Bea. I felt a lot like Bea. If it was Bea I had seen, her black sleeves. But my arms were bare, and smooth. Bea had insisted I use lotions all over my body. I felt bare, and smooth. I pulled him closer. His tongue kissed my mouth. We danced with his tongue in my mouth, or mine in his, and I put my lips softly on his lips. He tasted so sweet! Had I said aloud what I thought I had seen? Bea kissing? He kissed me again. To the table, another whiskey. A slow romantic dance, and I was plastered against him, I was part of him, so we could dance together. His hands felt my breasts, fondling my little nipples, cupping me and lifting me. They are real breasts I thought. Bea made them for me. They feel very nice. His hands feel very nice. My eyes were closed now. We danced around the table, and his penis pressed into mine and I was feeling strangely excited, as if I were melting into him. My heart melted into him. More music from somewhere, but my eyes were closed. I felt very good. I held him tightly around his neck. Such a very lovely man!

"They're gone," my man said. Who? "I'd better take you home," he said. "I know where you live, don't worry, dear." All right. We'll go home. I picked up my purse. There were no other purses near the table any more. As he steered me out the door, I heard a voice, was it Kay's? A woman's voice. Bea's? Not my woman's voice. I heard "Don't forget to take out your tampon, Honey dear. Have fun!" My first fun. Where am I? A parking lot. No, I am home in my bed, and it's my bridal night, and I am kissing someone passionately, and I am wrapping my legs around him, and I am moaning in delight, and he is wrapped around me. He is sucking on my tits. I am suckling him. I fold his head in my arms. My love! Oh, my love! He is entering me, and I open my whole body wide to welcome him in.

I came to consciousness of early morning light in the windows. Dawn. I was lying on our big king sized bed, in our bedroom, Bea's and mine, only my head was turned to the foot of the bed, and tucked in snug. My arms were wrapped around bony buttocks, not Bea's round, soft pillows. Someone's boneless finger was deep in my mouth, and I was nursing on it. Deep inside my crotch I felt a yearning for something hot and wet and snug and soft, and I pushed into more wet velvety softness. The finger in my mouth began to rub on the slick insides of my lips, and I could feel it was growing bigger. I sucked on it and opened my eyes.

I saw my nose was buried in a leathery sack, soft and hairy. Someone's balls. That my mouth was wrapped around someone's prick, half-engorged. That I was pulling my face into someone's crotch by hugging his hips with all my strength, and not letting go. That my own prick was growing into more wet, warm, comfy velvet. I moaned and hugged the pillows even tighter. His buttocks. They rolled a little. I was a comma inside a comma, and a luscious feeling grew deeper between my legs. My mouth slipped up and down on some man's dimpled prick, with its royal purple head, like a gladiator's helmet, his lovely, lovely cock. I licked and sucked it while it grew larger, and mine craved to be buried deep in his mouth.

"Oooohoooooh!" I heard a woman's throat vibrate richly, luxuriantly, purring, and I realized that the throat was mine. I thrust my nose deep down, and I pulled his cock deeper into my face. He did too, sucking on my meat, holding my rump firm, lovingly. Rumpled sheets.

I woke up completely. I was in bed with some man, and we were in a sixty-nine embrace with each other, probably because we had slept that way much of the night. Yes. I could smell cum in his pubic hair, someone's, mine or his, and still taste it salty in my mouth, though his sweet cock was still growing in my mouth, and mine in his, and I was sucking vigorously on his. Finally I got up on my elbows and devoted full attention to lapping and kissing his beautiful smooth tower while a sweet tension grew deep behind mine, and I pumped his face. I fucked him, down his throat, which clung to my cock, until I cried out "Ahhh, ahhh, ahhh, nnng" and I came into him pulsing. The most delectable feelings flooded me inside his face. I could feel him swallowing me.

I am on my bed, I thought, and a man has just given me a great blow job, and I am giving him the best I know how. Why am I here? I noticed that my bra and my slip were rumpled around my shoulders, the bra unfastened but the straps wrapped on me. He was licking me off, sucking on me still, until I was small, and clean, and wet. A boneless finger.

"Wait, Honey!"

His voice was soft, musical, gentle. I took his tower into my hand, to assure that it would be there when I turned my mouth back toward it, and I saw my lovely slender red fingernails wrapping around it. Then I lifted my head and looked back along his legs up to his chest and face. My body was smooth and soft, hairless, I could see. I remembered how Bea had showered me with a pungent cream before I went off to the beauty parlor, and had rinsed it away to reveal my soft, woman's body. It occurred to me that my hair must be a mess, and my face. But I didn't dare touch them. His body as I looked along his legs was hairy, my white skin lying against his.

Between my legs, there I saw my friend from last night, with his short, blond, tousled hair, resting on one of my thighs, still caressing my balls and my own softening prick with his tongue, still licking up my own cum. We weren't dancing together any more. He smiled at me.

"It's daylight. One more for the road," he said. I didn't know what he meant. He wriggled out from under me, and turned, and gently straddled my legs. I felt deprived of him. Where was that beautiful velvet penis now? I felt a prodding between my buttocks, and without thinking I humped my hips high into the air to receive it. The soft tip of his rigid cock pressed on my anus, my cunt. He'd been there before, I realized. My body was welcoming him into me again without giving it a second thought, and I was already slick and wet, slippery between my cheeks. Cum from an earlier fucking? No doubt of it, though I couldn't remember. How many times fucked? No knowing. A few, at least. I realized that my cunthole was well-stretched out, that my ass would have no problem taking him in. And in fact his prick, now fully extended, slid into me like an old friend settling into bed.

"Oooooh!" I said in deep satisfaction, and I wiggled my ass into him to sink his prick even deeper. I wanted him to plunge all the way into me. "Ooooh, lovely! Fuck me, you sweet man. Oh, darling, please, fuck me!" Was that me, saying such things? It was! I must have been saying such things for half of last night, they came so easily out of my mouth. I felt so feminine, so ripe, so complete, so fulfilled inside me, so...just.... well... just...lovely. Just lovely, once his meat was deep inside me. His hands came around and grasped my breasts, my beautiful soft mounds, and he cupped them with the palms of his hands, and his fingers touched my dainty tips. My beautiful nipples. My whole body felt such divine longing! I felt so happy that his hands were full. That I could fill his hands. Bea had been so loving when she had trained my breasts out until they hung down from my chest, into the cups of my bigger bras, into his hands where hers had been, where hers were playing with my engorged nipples so deliciously. As always, I felt so feminine, so loved. It felt just...so...wonderful! I loved the feeling. I loved that he was holding me in both his hands, my pussy wrapped around his cock.

I embraced his tower with my buttocks, and we began to move. Faster and faster we probed and thrust into each other, over and over. His hands and his body possessed me! All of me! I was near fainting with the pleasure of it. Then I felt him swell up into me, and deep inside I could feel his hot jism pumping into my bowels. It was so incredible! I squealed again, even louder! As I came down to earth, I realized I had cum again too, that my prick was now sticky wet, pressed into the mattress, having spurted without even getting hard!

He pulled out of me, and kissed the back of my neck, and got off the bed, and started to get dressed. I just lay there dreamily, and looked at him. He was thin as well as blond, with a rangy build, well-proportioned, no sagging anywhere, and he smiled at me as he stepped into his pants. What was his name?

"Will I see you again?" I asked him, still euphoric. What a question! I felt like a one night stand picked up in a singles bar, But that's what I was! It felt so good! I was a deeply satisfied woman, and that is what a satisfied woman asks when her man leaves her bed! I loved that the words had come out of me so naturally. Like his cum now oozing out of my ass, I could tell by the slippery feel when I squeezed my buns together, as if his prick were still somewhere safe there inside me.

"That depends on your wife, Honey," he said gently, with a wry little smile. "Tell her 'Hi!' for me when you see her. And tell her thanks for the use of her husband." He slipped on his undershirt and his loafers, and picked up his shirt and tie and jacket, and headed for the door. "Time to leave," he said. He paused at the door. "You're just great, honeybuns! You have lots of passion down under there, waiting for someone to bring it out. And you have lots of talent for making love, when you're aroused. But be careful! Fucking and sucking the way you do it can be habit-forming."

He reflected a moment. "It was a real privilege to take your cherry last night," he said. "I wasn't sure you even knew, though you were certainly responsive enough, and grateful enough afterward. Each time! Anyhow, you sure knew what we were doing just now! Welcome to the club! Honey, you are something very special!" He kissed the tips of his fingers at me, and went out the door.

I got off the bed, and my rumpled slip fell down over my rump where it belonged. I felt like such a slut, and now my ass began to ooze cum down my legs. Who knew what my face and hair looked like now? But I didn't even know his name! I followed him out the door.

When I got to the top of the landing, I saw Bea just coming in. She still looked sensational, though I noticed she was walking carefully down the front hall toward the stairway as if limping on both legs. She'd been out all night! Where had she been? Doing what? My own wife! With another man? My blond lover nodded to her as they passed, and she nodded back, not even bothering to turn around.

"G'morning, Steve."

"Morning Bea. Is Kay home yet?"

"I wouldn't know, Steve. I don't think so, though. When I left our motel there was still moaning and shrieking coming from her room. I don't know how she can keep that up all night!"

"Oh, there are ways." Steve grinned at her, and cast a glance back at me. "G'Night, Honey. It was really beautiful. You're really beautiful. Any time at all!" He let himself out the front door.

Bea paused on her painful voyage up the stairs, and leaned on the bannister below me. "Well, Henry, are you Henry again, or are you Honey now, now that you know the joys of being Honey? Is there anything you want to say to me, or shall we get to bed!"

I was utterly addled. "No, Bea, for God's sake, I...we... it was..."

"Yes, it certainly looks that way. Well, Henry, let me relieve your mind, right now, before you have a stroke. You've just had a lovely time with Steve, I'm sure. Pearl and Kay and I have just had delightful times with our guys. Mine was just scrumptious. When we left you with Steve we went back to their motel rooms, just the way Pearl and Kay arranged for us. And we've been with them ever since. All night. Fucking their brains out. And vice versa. My special birthday treat! Bob was my special birthday treat! The girls brought him in from out of town, can you imagine? A marvelous stallion, plunging into me, and I rode him bareback. By God, huge, and such powerful thighs. And yet so sweetly submissive when I ordered him around. I could make him do anything! Anything at all! Even when I tied him up! Well, later we'll compare notes. I'm too tired now. And too sore. I need a night's sleep, and that's where I'm headed."

I just stood there in my rumpled slip, my unhooked bra still hanging from me, speechless. She kissed me as she stepped past me, then paused again and looked back with a wicked smile, but it was affectionate too. "Henry, or Honey, my very own husband, my sweet dearest girlfriend, you look as well-fucked as I feel! I'm glad. And you look as if you could do with some sleep too, dear. Are you also a little sore? Does your little pussy hurt? I'll bet it does."

"Now we both have some wonderful tales to tell each other, and to tell the other girls. Later today, tea time, I've arranged for all of us to gather here together for a lovely hen fest. But first, sleep."

She paused again. I think she realized that there was more to be said, because I was still standing there with my mouth open. I had tried several times to say something, anything. But nothing came out. I guess she decided that now was as good a time as any to relieve my mind of its confusion. She leaned on the railing, and then turned toward me, while I was still staring at her.

"I think you finally understand now, dear. This is what I wanted for my big fortieth year celebration. This is exactly what I wanted. This is what the girls have been arranging for me."

"But it's what I arranged for you, too. The more we girls talked about it, the more certain I was that this is what we both needed. I love you, and I love being married to you. I didn't want to lose you, the way Pearl lost her husband. So there was always risk in what Pearl and Kay were planning for me. If I really went out on the town the way they wanted, and you found out what I'd done, you'd divorce me! Even if you never found out, then what we're going to do from now on would need to be hidden. There'd be too much sneaking around. Too much dishonesty. I wanted some real adventures, to meet some new guys, to get intimate with them in new ways. And if I liked it I wanted to keep doing it, the way Pearl and Kay do. But not at cost to us, lover. I cherish us!"

She straightened a little, and smiled at me sweetly. "So my problem was, how could I renew my life and enjoy other men without you getting all macho and pompous about it, and declaring that our marriage was at an end. Or without you worrying yourself to a frazzle that you had somehow driven me away by your own inadequacies. Men all think that any one of them should be enough for any one woman! They're so silly! So they blame themselves when their wives go astray, the decent ones do. Or their wives blame them. I didn't want you to feel guilty. This isn't your fault. I just wanted to know before I got too old what it would be like to be with another man. With other men. Maybe with lots of other men. To get well laid, in lots of different ways. That's all. But I didn't want you to suffer while I was doing it. I wanted you to know that we are still the same couple we've always been, if you know what I mean. Still together. That we are perfectly safe with each other whatever we may do with other people. That we are truly married."

"So the girls and I arranged this lovely, lovely night, exactly the way it worked out. You had to become one of us, truly one of the girls, and do everything we were doing, and enjoy it just as much. I've been preparing you for nearly a year."

"Pearl never thought you'd do it, become Honey, an attractive girl out to enjoy herself. And even if you did become Honey, Pearl didn't think you'd go through with the rest of it. "A woman isn't a real woman until some man has screwed her, one way or another, maybe both ways," she'd say. "And he'll never agree to that. He'll wimp out!" So she wasn't much help. But Kay helped out, giving you female hormones all year so you'd look more like a woman, and feel more like one, and maybe enjoy sex more like one. And I guess that's what happened! I'm so glad!"

"When Steve showed up last night, that was Kay's signal to give you a really heavy dose of tranquillizers, so you wouldn't get anxious about me, or about yourself, and then also one more whopping overdose of female hormones, so you'd feel especially sensitive in your intimate places! You'd never have tolerated my taking up with Bob the way I did, I'm sure, unless you were already stoned out of your mind, and already pretty horny yourself. And I'm sure you'd never have gone to bed with Steve on your own, even as Honey, even as drunk as you were. It took a little more."

"In fact, when we left you, I wasn't sure you were still conscious! But you were, in a way. Enough, anyhow. You did seem to be enjoying yourself, dancing with your head thrown back, and your eyes closed, a huge smile on your face, Steve's hands roaming all over you, and you rubbing your tits all over him. Kay said we could trust you with him. So we left with our guys. Bob and I had already started, even while we were still sitting next to you at the table. I mean, not a foot away from you, there I was sitting in his lap french kissing him, and there he was with his fingers somewhere inside my pussy, doing such marvelous things! Not a foot away! But you were so wrapped up in your own man you never even noticed!"

Bea paused, and then spoke very slowly. "You have given me the most precious birthday present I have ever had, love. Thank you. It was very thoughtful of you. As far as you thought about it, that is. And it couldn't have been more generous. I'm so very happy!

I still couldn't think of anything to say. "Bea," I began. Then I was silent again.

She came over to me on impulse, and kissed me again. On the lips. I just looked at her. Maybe those tranquillizers still had me a little zonked.

"In a way this been my present to you too. We'll talk about it when I wake up. When I went off with Bob, did you get nice and hard thinking about what we might be doing? And all last night here with Steve, did you feel nice and soft and yielding when he was pumping into you? The way I felt with Bob? Were you the teensiest bit turned on? More than just a teensy bit? Did you have any really grand orgasms, huge rolling ones, the kind Bob gave me? Oh, I do hope so. But don't worry about it if you didn't, lover. You will. Now that you're not afraid to be Honey, you won't need tranquillizers any more. We'll see to it. It'll just take the right man."

"I must say, Honey lamb, thinking about Steve plowing your ass while Bob was plowing mine was the most wonderful turn-on for me! Bob was everything I'd hoped for! He barely fit into me! The first times we fucked, I just came and came, over and over. But then afterward, whatever we did, I came again every time I imagined you and Steve doing the same things. Bob couldn't understand it when I told him. 'That lady was your husband?' he kept saying. 'Do you go out together often? Why don't you make it with each other? Are you both lesbians?' The poor man was baffled."

"And Honey, there's more. I wasn't going to tell you until tea time later today, when we all tell each other what we did with our fellas. But you might want to sleep on it now. Next weekend we're all going away for the whole weekend to a resort hotel in the mountains. A fabulous place, Pearl says, for singles of all ages to meet and have fun. Tennis, swimming, golf, new friends and companions, all four of us enjoying ourselves. We'll see what action we can arrange. Doesn't that sound wonderful?

"Or all three of us, Henry dear, if you'd rather stay home and watch television. But I think you'd have more fun with us. You are one of us, now, you know. And if you come, we can share everything. A whole weekend! Here I am, forty years old, and I'm looking forward to a whole weekend, the start of a whole new life!"

"But I don't want to force you, Honey. You think about it, and let me know. Even as late as next Wednesday. That's when we'll need to phone in all of our room reservations. Don't worry about a thing! I'll help you shop for everything. You'll need lots more pretty lingerie, certainly, and tennis outfits, and some swim suits. You do know you can't go swimming topless any more ever, don't you? And you'll need to wear a really good brassiere all the time from now on, or those titties of yours will start to sag down to your stomach. Oh, and certainly you'll need to buy a sheer dress or two for your little romantic candlelight dinners. To wear when we're back here in town, too. It's going to be such fun!"

Bea came closer, and now she put both her hands on my shoulders, and looked me straight in the eyes. I glanced down at her boots, and at her thighs, and at her nipples poking through her silk blouse so close to mine, but so much bigger than mine, and then I looked up into those dark-streaked eyes of hers, and I couldn't look away. They held me. Her voice enchanted me. "Honey," she said, "Please come with us. Please, sweetheart. You'll love it! Do it for me! I won't enjoy myself at all as much, if I don't know that you're also enjoying yourself. I'm sure Pearl can fix you up with another guy you'd love to be with. Maybe even Steve again, if he's not busy. Didn't you enjoy Steve? Wasn't he just right for you?"

"We have such wonderful years ahead of us, sharing our new lives, you as my sweetest, dearest girlfriend as well as my loving, adorable husband. Now there's no need for us ever to separate, or get divorced, or for you to feel you need to hunt up some trophy wife, the way Pearl's husband did, to renew your life. Last year, I knew you were headed that way, toward taking on some younger woman who would help you feel younger. I could tell. And I was so depressed that I might lose you, and I felt so helpless to do anything about it. You remember! It seemed only a matter of time. Only last year! But now, no trophy wife would want you. Not after what I've done to you. And I don't know that you'd want one of them either, now that you know how good it is to be a woman in bed with a man. Now you're really and truly one of us. And you're mine."

"Oh, Honey, there are so many new places we'll visit, and so many new men to get to know. It's a whole new beginning. Say you'll come with us. Do, please, say Yes. Do sleep on it, and then say, Yes"

"But I'm terribly sleepy now. Come, love, take off that slip, and slip into a nightie, and let's just go to bed and hug each other. Just the two of us. I do so want you to lick me to sleep. I'm still wet with Bob, and I know you'll love the way he tastes. Oh, everything's going to be so beautiful from now on. You'll see."

End