Daddy had gone back to work after months of recovery from his heart attack, and Mommy was still working in her job at the pet shop. He was going to be alone, probably for almost the whole day. No interruptions for at least eight hours. He walked nervously down the hall and opened the closet door. Mommy didn't sleep in the same bed as Daddy, probably not since Jerry was born, and she kept all of her clothes in the closet outside what used to be "their" bedroom. He reached in and quickly found what he was looking for. The soft satin was more soothing than thrilling at that point; he was only fourteen and he had already discovered how provocative and exciting her clothes were, even if they were somewhat mundane. They were at least pretty and comforting, and the temptation to pleasure himself had diminished as he felt more like a girl and less like a boy in his mother's dress.

Jeannie sat on the couch, her legs curled up underneath her as she read the story her husband had written. Two things struck her as interesting; the story was well-written comparatively speaking when she realized he had only been writing for a short time. But more importantly, it gave her insight into his "habit," as it were. This was more than just a curiosity or even obsession with clothing. Like he had said to her days before, it wasn't just about the dress.

He stood in front of the mirror in "their" bedroom, wondering what he would do if anyone came home early. The urge to dress had outweighed any thought of discovery and he had made his transformation, such as it was, almost as soon as his mother left for work. He was too scared to risk cosmetics at this point, and his hair was short enough almost to make him cry. But the clothing helped him approximate the image his mother projected; that is when she actually embraced her own femininity. She was more likely to wear slacks and a sweater than a dress at this point, feeling insecure and not at all good about herself. So her pretty dresses languished in the closet, almost begging for someone else to free them from their prison.

"I never..." Jeannie started to think out loud. "His mother was so beat down and broken. Oh, God what she must have gone through...?” Jeannie blinked out a few tears. She had always gotten along so well with Todd's mother, but always felt there was something vacant and sad behind her eyes. She read on.

A simple dress...dark green with a full skirt wrapped the boy in bliss. He had finally decided upon a name... Claire, after his mother's sister. A favorite aunt, she seemed to be the one who would have accepted him as Claire if he had the courage to share with her. The dress covered the obligatory lingerie, which was just a pair of panties, a bra, half slip and pantyhose. No shoes of her mother's would fit, so Claire stood admiring her image in her stocking feet. She liked what she saw and hated it at the same time. She would have reacted with a melancholy sigh had she the opportunity, but her daydreams were interrupted when she noticed a familiar face looming over her shoulder in the mirror...Mom was looking at her and she wasn't happy at all. No nice mother-daughter moment like in the stories she read on line. No sweet and sentimental introductions. No heartwarming acceptance. He turned to face his mother and was greeted with a very painful slap to his face.

Jeannie used her hand to wipe away some tears, but they fell upon the page as she considered what her husband had written.

"He told me his mother slapped him hard enough to give him a bloody nose....I wonder if this actually happened,” she thought as she looked down at the page once again.

"This is too real not to be..." she thought.

”And he wanted to be so much like her."

Jeannie was struggling with her own feelings. This wasn't anything like she expected, and certainly nothing like what she "signed up for," when they got engaged. She was angry at Todd for being so dishonest with her, but try as she did, she was unable to stay focused ....the anger dissipated as she thought how much betrayal he must have felt when he realized that the one person he wanted to please had rejected him.

She put her hand to her face, angry that she was crying...it shouldn’t be this way. He didn't deserve her sympathy after all the lies. But it wasn't sympathy that caused her to cry. It was the very same love she wanted to demonstrate when she agreed to read this story. She certainly wasn't weeping for Claire at that point, but she felt so sorry for her husband. She wiped the tears from her eyes and continued to read.

The boy ran out of the room and into his own bedroom down the hall. No tearful forgiving reunion between mother and son; certainly no love ever between mother and "daughter" would ever take place. He threw himself on his bed and wept into his pillow, unable to stop the waves of guilt and shame that assaulted him so powerfully that he got physically ill. No promises of reconciliation that day, and he felt more hopeless than at any point in his life.

Jeannie put the papers down next to her on the couch. She wept angry tears, bitter shameful tears wrought with confusion and doubt as well. She should have been entitled to be angry at this point, and in part she was, since he had deceived her from the start. Would she even have considered marriage if she knew her husband was as damaged as he was? He had lied; both by what he said and more so by what was never told. He had not allowed her to know him completely, and that didn't just anger her; she felt that her love for him had been betrayed. But the anger was nowhere near as intense as the sadness she felt for him.

She realized that this story wasn't just a fictitious example of his "habit." No mere story...this was real...it had actually happened, and she felt the absolute despair and shame come through each word on the page. She looked down at the paper on the couch and grew angry again, but not at Todd, although she still was hurt by his deception.

She grew angry with herself for having thought that her husband was odd or strange. He was damaged, but not by the cross-dressing. He was damaged because of the rejection he felt every day as part of who he was; scarred with wounds that were so deep that they were hidden from sight by the shame and guilt visited upon him every day by his mother's neglect.

“So, tell me Claire, after looking over your story, is there anything that sticks out that you want to talk about. I thought it might be helpful if you and I were looking at the same things that Jeannie might be reading right now. That way, whatever questions she has will already be something we’ve discussed, yes?”

Katie smiled and offered Claire a bottle of water. She had been crying almost non-stop since she’d arrived at Katie’s office. Something about feeling safe allowed her to be vulnerable, even if she was still outwardly Todd Sinclair.

“I…I think I want to talk about…” She broke down once more. Rocco was used to being around clients that cried, and being the clever dog he was, hopped off the couch and grabbed a packet of Kleenex from the table next to Katie.

“It’s the slap in the face that’s botherin’ you, dear, isn’t it?” Katie wasn’t making any real assumptions. Todd had alluded to that very thing when he called the day before to confirm.

“I couldn’t believe it….I….she …she never hit me before that…ever…No spanking…nothing.”

“And you couldn’t believe it was happening…it was so foreign, if I may use that word, from what you were used to?” Katie leaned forward and waited for Claire to raise her head.

“It hurt real bad, didn’t it, Claire?” She smiled softly in acceptance, prompting Claire to speak.

“I don’t know if I’ve ever been hurt like that in my life. Even Daddy hitting me was easier to take than that. It was like she was telling me that she hated me…” She sobbed and wiped the tears out of her eyes, but they were coming almost too fast to clear.

“She never apologized for it…ever. Funny thing…she never ever mentioned the dressing. I wanted to talk to her about it, but every time she’d say, I don’t ever want to know…” Claire forgot the tissue in her hand and wiped her face with her sleeve.

“You tried to talk but she wouldn’t talk…it was like?” Katie prompted her but gave no hint, wanting to hear Claire say what was fairly obvious.

“She didn’t want to know me…her own son.” Claire slipped in a way, using the male noun, but it really reflected how she felt. In rejecting Claire, her mother was rejecting Todd as well.

“From that day until the day she died…she never would even use my name if she was talking to me…no Todd, what do you want for dinner, or Todd, what happened today at school. I felt like a stranger in my own home.”

“You felt like a stranger…like you didn’t...

“It was like I didn’t belong…anywhere.” Claire began to sob once again. In talking about it, it was like reliving each moment of rejection. Her mother never gave her any affirmation whatsoever as Todd, much less as Claire, and it was like being starved slowly.

“But you didn’t stop dressing…you still wanted to be like her? What did your dressing do for you when she wasn’t accepting you at all?” Katie again had an idea, but waited as Claire collected herself.

“I wanted to please her…so much…to be accepted. If I could only…I don’t really know why.”

Claire actually did know, but it was almost too painful to say. She thought for a moment and corrected herself.

“I had to choose…it was like…be like Daddy and grow up and smack my kids, or be like Mommy and just be calm and quiet and take all of the abuse…she always was calm, even when he started hitting her. I had to…” Claire’s voice trailed off.

“You had to what?” Katie had lived this in her own childhood, and knew exactly how Claire felt.

“I had to protect…I didn’t know how to be….” Claire turned and laid her head on the back of the couch and sobbed.” Rocco jumped up on the couch and used his muzzle to nudge Claire, as if to offer solace.

“I couldn’t be like him…no….never….he was so cruel…she just ignored me.”

“But you didn’t know how to really be like her since she never acknowledged you?”

Katie took her hand and wiped a tear from her own eye, glad that Claire wasn’t looking. It was hard at times to remain objective, which was okay, since she made every effort not to get too personal. But it was human to be moved by another’s pain, she would remind herself.

“And you did the best you could without having anyone teach you…”

“I didn’t know what it was like to be a….boy…to be a good kid, you know?” Claire’s voice sounded more like Todd at that point.

“So you became a good girl…even if nobody noticed?” Katie looked at Claire as if to show that she was “noticing” her.

“Can I ask you a question, Dr. Kelly?” Claire said as she once again used her sleeve to wipe her face.

“How did I end up here? I figured out sort of how to be a guy…I don’t want to be a girl, but here I am.”

“We sometimes don’t have all the things we need to get the job done, I suppose. There are lots of boys and girls who grow up sorta bein’ their own parents. It’s amazing after all you’ve told me that you’ve done such a good job bein’ your own mom and dad, so to speak. What do you think?”

“I think I always wanted to be good, period. To be kind, like my Aunt Claire…to be gentle like Grandpa.” She sniffled and wiped her nose with the Kleenex in her hand.

“So there were some folks who maybe taught you without tellin’ you a thing?” Katie smiled.

“I guess so…they were always so nice…so kind.” She started to weep at the memory of losing both of them years before.

“If you don’t mind me sayin’, I think for folks who never taught you anything, they did a good job and you turned out just fine.”

Katie smiled, Rocco nudged, and Claire fell back into the couch weeping once again.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tO5xwaqU8PQ
Next — Confession.