Hollie by Stephanie Silver (sjtw69@yahoo.com)
Chapter Eight -- Divorce
If you want to change the world, they say, start by changing yourself. If that's true, then it must work in reverse - if the world around you suddenly seems different, then maybe it's you who changed.
That's what I think happened to me. I changed inside and as I did the whole world seemed to change around me. Hollie herself summed it up best when she said, "You're ready to be on your own, Cammie. And face it, we always knew you'd never be man enough for me. But now you're woman enough to be on your own. There's really no point in us being married anymore."
"What?" I said in surprise. I knew exactly what she was saying, but I still asked as if I didn't know. I'd known it for months, maybe longer, just as she had. Our marriage was pointless. Still, hearing her actually put it into words was extremely difficult. It felt like someone had pulled the rug out from underneath me. I sat down, feeling a sense of shock. "Are you saying you want a divorce?"
She looked at me steadily. In the past, her look probably would have included some amusement at my inability to understand something that was perfectly clear to her. But things had changed. She no longer treated me that way. We were equals.
As long as I wore a dress. And that's hard to understand, even for me even now. In changing me from a more or less normal male to someone who thought of himself -- herself? - as being more female than male, Hollie had taken me through a stage of development where I could only be described as a wimp. But somewhere along the way a metamorphosis had occurred, and I changed from being a wimp into someone with newfound confidence in his abilities. HER abilities.
As a male, in my previous life, I was timid and introverted. I preferred the silence of books and quiet study to the garish glare and noise of parties and crowds. But as a female, I became confident and outgoing. Books had served me well to teach me about the world I lived in. But that world was now mine to explore and cultivate for all the pleasures I could get from it.
It's hard to describe. I just know I became a much different person when I put on a skirt, stockings and heels. The world no longer scared me. It was mine to do with as I pleased.
And what pleased me most was flirting with men. Coaxing them into chasing me until I had them wrapped around my little finger. It was a game to me, and I loved playing it. I won't say I was good at it. Hollie was, and I tried to copy everything she did. I know I never came close to matching her abilities, but I knew if I could have even half the success she did, I would be doing well. And I managed to do well enough to keep myself entertained and happy.
I was limited, of course, in what I could do. I couldn't wear a skirt and stockings in public. Although even that fact was one I was starting to question. With a little makeup, and if I let my hair grow longer, why wouldn't I be able to pass as a woman? Perhaps, but passing as a woman in public was something I needed to think about at some future time, not now. For now, I focused on finding guys who I thought would be interested in seeing me in private dressed that way.
They were harder to find, and I needed to be careful. But, if I thought a guy might be interested, it was so easy to flash him a bit of brightly colored panty, or let him catch a glimpse of lace, or make sure he noticed a bra strap underneath my shirt. And then I'd smile shyly to let him know it hadn't been a complete accident. There was always the chance, of course, that I might do it with the wrong guy, and end up getting laughed at for it. Or worse. But it was a chance I was willing to take. And for the most part, I considered myself a good enough judge of character that I knew the guys I flirted with that way would either be interested enough to talk to me later, or would simply ignore it. I never felt like I put myself in any kind of real danger by flirting.
Although I managed to lure a couple of guys that way, Hollie was still our best source for finding guys who were willing to have sex with both of us.
It was while I was telling her about my latest flirting success in the gym locker room that she said those words that made me sit down in shock. "A divorce?" I repeated. Added to my sense of shock was a sense of total failure as a human being. My parents had been happily married for over twenty-five years, and somehow I felt I was expected to match their commitment.
Hollie was adamant. We were holding each other back. She was restricted by me in what guys she could approach. And I was restricted by her. If I was on my own, she assured me, I could have any guy I wanted. "There's a ton of guys out there who would just love being with a girl like you, Cammie. You just need to go out and start finding them."
"But..." I felt abandoned. Lost. What would I do without her?
"Shhh. No, it's the best thing for both of us. You need to start living your own life." And that's when she told me how much I'd changed. "When I married you, you were so quiet and shy. I don't know why I married you. Hell, I don't know why I even started dating you. I just saw something in you that I liked. Something I thought I could bring out. I didn't know what it was, but I think I do now. It's this." She pointed at the pink flowered camisole I was wearing. "You're different when you're dressed like a girl. You quit being quiet and shy and turn into someone vibrant and friendly."
She paused a moment, letting a hint of sadness creep over her. "And now you don't need me anymore. You need to be on your own. We both need to be on our own."
I wore my favorite outfit - the silver bra and pants set we'd bought at Frederick's a few years before - underneath my regular clothes the day I went to the lawyer's office to make our divorce final. It seemed appropriate. It expressed, to me, my new independence. As much as I could, I wanted my new life to be lived as a female. The silver bra and pants seemed to me to be the best way of expressing of that feeling.
It was a little bit surreal walking out of the office building with Hollie. For more than four years we'd been together, through bad times and good times. Somehow I couldn't seem to remember any of the bad times, only the good ones. And through it all, at the end of the day, we were connected by marriage. A bad marriage? Maybe. Although I'd disagree with anyone who suggested that. A crazy marriage? Okay, I'd go along with that. But still, it was a marriage. We belonged together. She belonged to me and I belonged to her.
And yet, walking out the door that day, I realized that that connection was gone, severed by mass of legal documents less than half an inch thick which were at that very minute upstairs being copied by one of the lawyer's clerks.
"Well, I guess this is it," Hollie said, pausing. Her car was to the right; mine to the left.
"Yeah, I guess so," I agreed. I didn't know if I was supposed to kiss her or shake her hand or what. Inside I wanted to cry. I wanted to hug her and ask her to take me back.
But I didn't, and I guess it was fitting that Hollie, as always, was the one who did know what to do. "Bye," she said, and turned away. I waited, seeing if she would look back. She did, once, and gave me a flirty wave before getting into her new car and driving away.
I turned and looked across the parking lot, picking out my old green jeep from the sea of other cars parked around it. Did I hear it whinny? Probably not. But I liked imagining I did. I began walking that direction, and suddenly started thinking about Eddie. I still had his phone number. I wondered if he was doing anything later.