Look at that woman sitting next to the guy: she's a male inside, once married, now his collared slave. To anyone who sees her from the outside she's all female, well turned out, confident early thirties. Her breasts are indistinct, her waist perhaps a trifle thicker than one might expect, long legs with graceful muscles accentuated by high heels. The eye catches on her first, so let's arrange the scene: late afternoon in a London pub, just off Cambridge Circus; sitting with her Master who looks as straight and respectable as she does, she's holding his hand and playing with it on her skirted lap. They're smiling at each other like a married couple, shopping bags from elegant department stores at their feet. Sometimes he beats her so badly that she screams herself hoarse from inflicted pain. None of this shows: she adores him.
So maybe a commonplace that she wasn't really a woman, but then neither was he a man, he was a woman in his heart. When a teenager, nicely dressed and made up, he'd turned heads and broken hearts (his own heart had also been broken and he knew about spending nights crying tears of frustration in an empty bed.) But that was as if in another country, and that wench was well and truly dead. Today he's wearing a tweed jacket, silk tie and corduroy slacks. He looks a little less than a businessman, perhaps a touch of old-world academic, slightly battered round the edges.
She's grown a delicately small pair of breasts for him, and she keeps her bits and pieces tucked in and folded away so she can wear the most daring costumes and nobody would be any the wiser. At work she wears three-piece men's suits but keeps some scraps of feminine underwear on underneath, just to remind himself from time to time. And when you dig down deep into their psyches, you realise that although both of them are biologically male, underneath it all, they are both sexually and spiritually female. Which is, of course, is why they suit each other so well.
This is a story of what happened between them on a certain day in their lives; it was an ending in one sense, and a beginning in another. A story as ambiguous as their sexuality. I hope you'll find it interesting.
They've been wandering around for hours, looking at shops, buying a few cheap things which will become of tremendous sentimental value to them later. They are really a very striking couple, and people look at them and wish they could be like them too. He appears to be elegant and sophisticated; she is cool and polished, giving off radiant energy like a crystal caught in a moonbeam. When you observe them closely, you see they're an act: each of them is the way they appear to be because the other provides them with the roles and the leads. Because of him, she can be an essential female, and of course, her pretence makes him respectably straight.
A discreet ring flashes briefly in the weak sunlight as she plays with his hand and he is looking into her face. She has cast down her eyes and she sighs.
"I want you to know" he tells her "that these past few years have meant more to me than anything else I've ever experienced, or it would seem, am ever likely too again."
"Me too" she sighs again in her low, dusky voice. "And I don't care how corny it sounds. I never realised how much I needed you to make me really appreciate what I am."
"You are very, very beautiful."
"I wish you'd keep on saying that to me till the end of time, but it looks as if our time has just about run out, and I don't know what I'm going to hear after this. Nothing, I suppose. Static."
"Remember that awful hotel lobby where we met on our first date? Suddenly, I realised that the waiting and the plotting and the scheming was finally over, and there you were, looking awesome in that short black dress and high heels. I watched you walk up to me and I could feel every step you took in those heels."
"I was so scared. I'd never gone out in public before, even if it was a hotel full of gays and t-girls. You actually kissed my hand. Nobody ever kissed my hand before! I felt as if my insides had turned to liquid and I could hardly say a word. Every time you looked at me I felt I was being undressed."
"And when we were alone, later..."
"...you slid one item of clothing off me after another until I was almost completely naked in your arms, my head resting on your shoulder as you stroked my body. I could feel your big fat cock pressing on mine through your trousers and my little silk panties. My body against the roughness of your suit. Sex with you has always been supercharged."
"Still is. You love the beast in me."
"Your best" she laughed. "You made me be so many things: lady, slut, servant, princess... You shaped me from a gawky trannie to a sophisticated woman, you changed my body, my way of life, my career. I've always learnt from you."
"You were always a very willing pupil."
"I wanted to be the best for you. Do you remember how I trembled when you first put your collar round my neck?"
"I asked you, did you understand what this meant, and you replied: whatever you intend it to mean, my love."
"Total surrender to you."
"Of course, and we both knew that, too."
He looked at her and remembered her at other, private, times: kneeling in front of him, legs slightly apart, her delicate little equipment folded inside a white silk thong. She might wear a small B size brassiere to match, and a short skirt that came to halfway down her thighs. Her arms would be behind her back, mouth slightly open, looking at him intently. If he leaned forward to touch her she would feel a rush of blood to her face. And then at last he would give her the signal she had been waiting for and dreaded, and she would sigh ever so slightly, get up, and position herself over his lap. A few wriggles to get comfortable, and when she became still she would feel her skirt lifted and her panties pulled down to her ankles. Then the first delicious slap of the palm of his hand against her round buttocks. Stiff as her little cock might be to start with, after a few slaps, surrendering always put sex into a second place for her.
"Your first cry of pain of an evening: like the first drag of a cigarette or the first slug of whiskey."
"I loved holding back on you until you drove that little cry out of me, not because you had to earn it but because I always felt that to put on an act at that moment was like sacrilege. I used to hate the pain when it took place, and would have done anything to stop it when it was going on. But as for before and after, I would have cried a torrent if it didn't happen."
He loved the way her silk dressing gowns and slips wound around their bodies as they had sex, the smell of her leather cuffs and collar mixed with her perfumes and the scent of her sweat and the cum from her cock. Scents, smells. So many smells he had known before had suddenly turned to magic in her presence: the smell of old fountains in Rome, chestnuts roasting in the street, the musty smell of cheap hotel bedrooms: none of these would ever be the same without her any more.
"Do you remember that old Marquese in Fiesole?" she giggled, reading his mind again.
"Secco-Suardi? My old friend Niccolo, who lent us the dungeons of his palazzo?"
"You really had me chained up! I rattled every time I moved. And I never knew he was spying on us until we both heard his heavy breathing! You knew!"
"Of course. That is what old Niccolo does best: he watches. And when he realised you knew.."
"He shouted 'batti forte, battila!' as he came into his fist." They both laughed. Hit her, hit her harder. He did, wielding the antique leather horsewhip over her slender back and thighs, and she screamed so loud and urgently that the sound reverberated through the dark cellars and finally he had grabbed her by the cock and balls, raised her trembling bottom to him and drove his own cock right in to her, hard, as she sobbed in her chains against the rough stone wall.
They were silent for a while and watched the early evening drinkers gathering in the pub. Slowly they became aware of smoky London around them again.
"You're going to have to go soon" she said. "Are we going to do a goodbye scene?"
There was a touch of sad amusement in her eyes. A lot would always be left unsaid no matter how much they spoke. He shook his head. "No, better go quietly, love. God knows when we'll ever touch intimately again. Walk out, straight and tall, and never look back."
She caught his eyes. "I don't know if you've ever given me a harder task" she said quietly. "Or one that hurt more. How long will you be in Washington for?"
"I've a week of meetings and seminars planned for me. After that, I really don't know. Early retirement here in England or that crazy job in San Diego. I suppose I'll have to come back home to my long-suffering wife eventually, but not just now. I don't think I could face her after all the exposure. Perhaps after a while without you it'll just fade into a dream and I'll sink back into the old routines, do the right thing."
"Remember, I've been married as well."
"Poor old Susan. She hated herself more than she hated anyone else in her life. I could just see you getting sucked into her hell."
"Which you rescued me from" she smiled and touched his hair as she rose. "My knight in shining armour. Will anyone rescue you, my beloved knight?"
Somehow he'd weathered the worst of the collapse. New arrangements holding together just so - a breath of wind could still knock it all down again. Could a miracle ever happen, he asked himself. All he ever wanted was just one tiny, lousy miracle that could take them both away; rob them both of some of that good sense they possessed together in abundance, to free them so they could face a far less certain future together. To walk away from the total collapse behind him of his life's work: not bad for an ignorant trannie kid none the less.
"That's it then, I suppose" she brushed her dress down, and picked up her coat and the shopping bags. She straightened up and waved with half a hand. "My Master" she mouthed silently, turned away, and slid into the crowd that drew itself around her.
It's usually redemption by love, he thought, as he picked up his own bag and suitcase. Hero redeemed by the sacrifice of the woman. She had finally got onto the corporate success ladder after her divorce and there was an amazingly bright future for her... him... whatever. We'll always do the right thing in the end.
And then of course, after the interminable journey with his bag and briefcase, the changing of trains and walking down endless corridors, standing in queues, the miracle did happen after all.
It was like this: he was waiting dumbly in the small crowd of first class passengers at Terminal Four in Heathrow Airport. He sensed rather than heard the sound of her behind him, the way she walked in her heels. He turned and she fell into his arms, they clung together wordlessly. The other passengers moved around them as they hugged. All the better for the constant practice, he thought, holding her vibrant body to him. Right. Ten more seconds and you're going to have to do something. He realised she was talking to him.
"Would you.." she sobbed "would you ever agree to punish me every day for the rest of our lives?"
"And throw heaven knows how much of this away and be with you? Of course."
"Me too" she cried, kissing him madly over his face. "I'll take the operation, if that's what you want me to do..."
"...I never asked you that, you know I didn't..."
"...but if that's what you want..."
"...do you really want to be my slave for life?"
"I never wanted anything else from the moment you first kissed my hand..."
"Your job!"
"Fuck my job."
The waiting area was empty now. The flight attendant approached them cautiously. The flight was closing, would the gentleman please take his seat. He held his woman tighter by her waist and shook his head over her shoulder.
"No, sorry" he explained patiently to the attendant. "You see, my... our plans have changed. We'll take a later flight, if we go at all."
The attendant, a young handsome fellow grinned back, looking at the beautiful woman. He had noticed her from the moment she had entered the boarding area. She had that effect on young men of a certain persuasion, those who kept a flame alive in their hearts for a beauty that they knew rightly belonged to them.
"Are congratulations are in order, sir? You know, the penthouse suite is empty on this flight, I'm sure we could make it available for the both of you if that would be of any use..."
The man and the woman who were neither of them really man nor really woman looked at each other and saw each other afresh in that instant. The future, whatever it was, appeared suddenly bright and golden like the glint of sunshine breaking through the glass roof high above them. Between them, they knew they would succeed; apart, they both saw it bleak and grey.
"Why not indeed" he felt they had finally broken free of the clouds.
"Best offer we've had all week, Master" she murmured into his chest.
"I think that it's a yes, yes, we will" he said for both of them, and this is how our story ends or maybe how it began when you, my princess, first read what I wrote to you and saw something in it, you told me: maybe here at last was someone with an offer you could not refuse, however uncertain the outcome.