Darren sat in my easy-chair by the fire, wearing, carelessly, one of my deceased wife's terrycloth robes and, visible and bulgy at the middle front, a pair of her panties. Nice ones, black microfiber, size 7--they fit him like a dream. The fireplace was raging, the heat enough to knock you back a step. I didn't know how Darren stood it. On the other hand, he was wearing fewer clothes than I.
Darren's clothes had been torn, sopping, bloody and filthy when I discovered him, about six feet off the ground in the woods up the mountain behind our--my--cottage. After the awkward rescue I'd offered him my shower stall and a choice of clothing: a pair of my used Jockeys, plaid shirt, ill-fitting bluejeans, grey-flannel socks...or, I explained to him, I'd never had the heart to toss out my deceased wife Gracie's finery. Panties, a robe, pastel socks if he wanted...
"I'm not proud," Darren had said, opting for the latter. I thought it an odd choice of words, to say the least. Not proud? Not proud of what?
Now Darren sat in my chair, in my wife's panties and robe, sipping an adult beverage, glad to be alive. He and a foolhardy group of other thirty-somethings had decided, earlier in the day, to parachute into the camp atop Mount Milkbone. My mountain. And for all their iPhones and tablets and gadgets not one of them, including the plane's pilot, seemed to have bothered to check a weather app. A freak early-winter storm was blowing in just as they began their collective drop. Darren got blown off-course several hundred yards down the mountain and ended up crashing through the tapered limbs of a mighty spruce until he smashed feet-first into the ground. Or nearly did. The salvation of a last sturdy limb rescuing him from broken legs, pelvis or worse.
And it was there Siren and I found him dangling, after directing our man-dog walk uphill upon hearing what had sounded like one tree crashing into the other. Or maybe one of those errant dud bombs that sometimes even reach our remote neck of the woods during war games. Or the actual, neverending real war. Since my pointer Siren and I had not happened to bring a ladder with us on our walk, I was reduced to shedding my backpack and leaping up and down until my tenuous reach finally took hold of Darren's ankles and brought him and his parachute remains crashing down on me.
"You OK?" I asked, while wondering the same about myself.
"My back...," he started to say, wincing. "What happened?"
"You military?" He didn't look it.
"No!"
"I would say you got blown off course."
And it was at this point, getting his bearings, Darren told his sad little parachuting story. Rain was pelting down. Cold rain.
"I have to get..."
"Where?"
"Back to the top of the mountain. Where is it?" he asked, stiff neck craning.
"I would guess," I laughed, "up."
"I have to get up there," Darren said. "Check on the others."
"Not a chance."
"Why?"
"For one...," I replied, getting to my feet and brushing my jeans off, "you may be injured. Require attention. For another...Siren stop it!" I yelled at my enquiring, sniffing, wet-nosed dog. "For another...storm's blowing in fast. We'll be washing down the mountain soon. Plus...can't get my Jeep up there in this slop."
If Darren was listening he didn't act like it. He'd fished his cell out of a pocket of his cargoes. It was smashed. He tried to punch in numbers anyway. Useless.
"My advice? Twentyfive years living up on this mountain? Let's get down to my place--fast--you can stay with me tonight. We'll track down your friends in the morning..."
"What if they got blown off course?"
I shrugged. "They can stay with us too. Stew's on. Plenty for everyone."
"No, I mean...," trying to unentangle himself from his parachute. "We need to call the police! They need to call out rescue squads!"
Raindrops the size, if not the shape, of silver dollars were pelting down. In a few minutes walking would become sliding. Soon enough it would be all downhill. Despite it all I stood my ground and laughed, softly.
"I don't have one of those gadgets," I said, indicating his broken cell. "Cause cancer. And there sure as fuck ain't no landlines up here."
"How do you...communicate with people?"
Water was running down my face. Siren knew: he was yelping. Footing was growing slippery. I grinned. I planted my foot. "I don't."
"What did you put in that stew?" Darren asked afterwards. Gracie, I mean. At least he'd called himself Gracie when my words burst like water from a collapsing beaver dam:
"I'm gonna cum!"
"Cum, darling! Cum in Gracie!"
Darren had taken his role to heart. And in an astonishingly brief span. Gracie--Grace--had been my wife for seven years. Before her unfortunate demise--a hiking accident--she'd been nearly a generation younger. Darren's age in fact. Young enough to be my child.
After more liquor, supper and a bottle of vino my unexpected visitor, the man I'd rescued earlier in the day, the errant parachutist, had stood up, disrobed and expressed a voluntary desire to be "more Gracie-like." I could not have been more pleased. He stood before me like a deluded god, in nothing but panties.
We went to the cabin's lone bedroom and I walked Darren through the many-drawered options: bras, stockings, slips...all the sexy, silky things I'd bought for my wife at the distant downstate mall while she remained in the cabin, compliantly washing, scrubbing, cleaning the toilet, even walking Siren. In the nude. Gracie I mean, not Siren. Of course Siren, on his leash, walked in the nude. He was a fucking dog!
The coup de grace was when I opened for Darren Gracie's drawerful of lipsticks, eyeshadow, eyeliners and face powders. Gracie had collected these things like guys--boys--used to collect baseball cards. As Darren, already Gracie in fem attire, meticulously painted his eyelids and lips, I observed, hovering above:
"All you need is a wig, darling. I could drive down tomorrow and get you one."
"But," reality encroaching, "tomorrow we have to..."
"Have to what?"
"Nothing," Darren-Gracie said, recapping her lip gloss tube. He-she smiled--in the mirror. At herself. She did not look anything like goldilocks Gracie. He looked like a very sexy fem Darren who needed, as a finishing touch, a wig.
"I didn't put anything in your stew," I said, having deposited my Viagra load seven inches' deep in my new wife's ass. This was true. It had not been in the stew.
"Something then. All of a sudden I get this incredible desire to dress as a fem?"
"You've had it before."
"No I haven't! Never! I have a girlfriend."
"That doesn't mean anything. College? With your dad?"
Darren evaded. "What about...tomorrow?"
"What about it? I drive into town, get you a wig. You get busy cleaning this cottage. It's a mess!"
Darren looked off in the relative distant of the bedroom. Frankly, he looked lost. "I feel so...girly inside. I don't know..."
"Of course you do. You just got fucked in the ass."
Darren looked confused. "What was the name of that...Scotch?"
"It wasn't a Scotch."
"Yes it was."
"It was liquor. My own concoction. Homemade. Remind me to show you my still tomorrow."
"Your...?"
I leaned over, balls spent, and kissed Darren on the painted mouth. He kissed back. Our tongues intertwined. I felt him in his bra. Nothing. We'd have to work on that. I knew a doctor. On the mountain. No hospitals or clinics needed. Our lips finally parted...
"What's the name of the, uh, liquor again?" Darren asked. Darren, dressed as Gracie.
"Hypnosis," I smiled.
The State Police arrived about 2 pm the following day. The second day of my unofficial marriage to the new Gracie. What took them so long?
Siren alerted me. Why do you think I named him Siren? Wooooo!
I greeted them in my flannel shirt and jeans. My balls were spent. Spent! I'd emptied them in a crossdressed Darren again that morning before heading into town. For the wig, et al. Blonde. I wanted another blonde. Last instruction to Darren before leaving: "Bury that fucking parachute back behind the still. First thing!"
It wasn't exactly girly work. But Darren still had a thing or two to learn about being my wife. On the other hand he had years and years to learn. And hopefully he'd be better at it than the sometimes obdurate, unpredictable Gracie. Why do you think she ended up in a ravine?
The police told me a story I already knew: how a group of amateurs had attempted to parachute onto the vacant camp atop Mount Dogbone the previous afternoon. Most had been blown off course. Thankfully all were accounted for, and in good health, except for one 30-something male. Had I seen him? Of course not. Could they search my property, which extended way up the mountain? Be my guest. "Ignore the still," I said, with a wink. Of course the police would ignore my still. Otherwise they'd jeopardize their annual jug-sized Christmas gifts!
A butch-looking female officer handed me a fax picture. Faxes? They were still doing faxes?
I studied it. Intently. Handed it back shaking my head.
Darren whatshisname did not look at all like Gracie.