Having a man's body and being a man are two different things. Every time I put on the suit, I felt like I was playing dress-up. Like I was in drag. That even though I have a muscular chest and a thing between my legs, I'm really a woman inside. And a very bizarre side-effect of taking a trip to the Inn, I was finding, was that I didn't want to feel like a woman. I wanted to feel like a man, be accepted by men, and be among men, even though I don't -- on the top of my head -- think masculinity is better than femininity. I didn't have time to worry about what kind of hormonal drug was coursing through my veins that made me want to get all rough and tumble, I just knew I was a person in crisis -- a hairy, muscular person.
I threw myself into being as good of a man as possible. I don't think most women would be able to Kill It as a guy on day one, but many of us are adaptable and have had to acclimate to things men can hardly even conceive of. Styling short hair? I've never had short hair but it wasn't hard to figure out. Shaving? A necessity now, so let's get good at keeping it neat. Matching a tie and a shirt? I can probably make more out of Sam's wardrobe than he could. Actually tying said tie? Well okay, I needed a few views on a YouTube video for that. But I got there.
I was rocking it, and getting confident, even if, amongst the men at work I felt like an outsider. Everything with them is sports, booze, money, tech and women, and I only know about one of those things, and not from the expected perspective. Still, I needed to gain experience in order to ingratiate myself with my new gender.
I began to see sex as this weird missing ingredient in who I was supposed to be. I felt locked out of the full male experience by virtue of my lack of sexual experience. I felt like such a strange nothing-person adrift in a world I didn't understand, trying to navigate delicately between my old life and my new one. I knew I had some kind of sex drive -- my anatomy had a curious habit of awakening virtually unprompted. I didn't know what was doing it or what "I" was "into" only that I felt a gaping need for satisfaction.
I thought that I might as well direct this toward my "wife" Shannon.
I felt icky about it at first. I'm an open-minded person but I've never been attracted to women before so trying to push myself over that hill and see a woman that way was a real barrier, even if Sam's body was telling me that was the way. It felt kind of like I was taking advantage of her, too, because she didn't know I was not her husband. I didn't, and don't, like the lying that goes along with this scenario. That's probably why I'd been distant for the first few months. I tried to convince myself that it would be doing her a favor to play the role of her husband, since he was not here to do so.
I wrestled with it. The first time we made love, it was an awkward affair. I gave her probably more attention than she was used to from the real Sam, which was maybe suspicious. I felt dirty about it and not necessarily in a sexy, fun way. But I am a woman at heart, and women know women, and I think it was probably easier for me to participate in that than a man in a similar situation who finds himself suddenly with a heterosexual woman's confusing and complicated libido.
I did some things that maybe she didn't expect Sam to do, because I knew they would be appreciated even if they were firsts for me. Coming face to face with her privates, I tried to be tender but I think I was a little clinical, but my body was telling me I was on the right path even if I didn't fully understand it. I didn't know what was supposed to be so arousing from where I was standing, but maybe the butterflies were flapping their wings just at being so intimate with another person for the first time in, oh so long.
Once we got to the main event... I didn't love it. It felt like work. It's a lot of motion and activity when you're a man, and I have to give some credit to some of my partners because I can see it takes some time to master the technique. I had this distinct feeling of finally getting "in" there and being like "Oh, shit." I mean, this feels good and all but... now what do I do?
Afterward, I was almost too embarrassed to face her. Having bad sex with her seemed to be worse than having no sex at all, like I had let her down and tipped my hand that something was off. She began to broach the topic of therapy, which normally I'd be all for but in this context was the last thing I wanted to do.
Normally I'm all up for talking through your feelings but I'd been drowning in a sea of unfamiliar thoughts and emotions so I didn't know where to start. I wonder if most emotionally-constipated men feel this way.
Time went by and we kind of tiptoed around it and I somewhat dreaded having to do it again, and somewhat hoped to get another chance.
That's when I started seeing her.
I had seen her from the beginning, of course... she lives in the same house as me. She sleeps in the same bed as me. I've even done her laundry so I have handled her intimates. She has walked around naked in front of me and not expected me to care. In fact she may have even noticed me averting my eyes shyly, asked me annoyedly about it, and I had to come up with some "baby it's not what you think" excuse that I don't think she's unpretty.
And that's true. I don't think Shannon is unpretty at all. She is classically very beautiful -- she works hard to keep herself in good shape, has a pretty conventionally desirable figure, and is obviously great at makeup and aesthetics. My feelings toward her were, at first, mingled bitterness and envy, a gnawing feeling in the pit of My Becca Stomach that she was winning at being a woman, way way better than me, even if I hadn't been transformed into a man. She just had this presence of a roommate that, unfortunately, had some expectations of me that I had a hard time fulfilling.
And then one day... I saw it.
It was at the most random of moments. She was standing in the kitchen with her reading glasses on looking at some bills on her phone, dressed in a workout outfit and I saw her, like it was for the first time. The curve of her hips, her trim waist, that little sideways smile she does, the way her eyebrows furrowed... the particular size and shape of her breasts. I saw her as a person and a partner and an object of desire. It was like a magic box had opened to reveal a gleaming prize and it could be mine if I wanted it.
Normally I am very shy. I don't know how to approach potential partners, and as a result I usually let them dog me around pretty bad. But here... all the work had been done for me. I was married. I was a man, and this woman liked me, loved me, wanted me, or at least thought she did because of who I looked like. And I was starting to like her. I wanted to take her in my arms.
I realized I could take her in my arms. I wrapped my arms around her waist from behind just to see how it felt. She responded favorably. She nuzzled me, I kissed her, and suddenly it was like we had found our rhythm.
It still took some practice to really find my mojo in the bedroom, but I had found my desire. I began to really appreciate having a woman lay back beneath me, or sit astride me as the case may be, and use my masculine physique for her pleasure -- and mine. It was like woah. Something has changed.
Soon we fell into a honeymoon phase. I'm sure she has questions about what ever inspired it but I just told her I woke up one morning and it was like I was a kid again and we were newlyweds, which is all I can say. Life is stressful, life is hard, as parents of three, but we have that to look forward to, and I've gotten a real charge out of being her partner. I'm a changed person.
And Nevin, or "Corinne," I think, took notice...