Tolerance Town

Barb watched the bus full of tourists pull in to the parking lot of the library and took a moment to check her outfit. Blue jacket, white blouse, blue skirt, cute blue-and-white hat. It had been suggested as a joke, but now she decided to just to go for it, why not?

The bus pulled in, the tourists got out and formed a half-circle around her. “Hello folks,” She said., “I hope you had a nice tour with Mary-Beth. My name is Barb, and I will be your host for this next part of your adventure, so I guess you could say I am a real-life Tour Guide Barbie” The tourists laughed.

Come into the library, and you will hear the story of how this little town became known as Tolerance Town” Barb then leads them into the building, past the sign saying “Tolerance Town - 5th year anniversary.”

Inside, there were a half-circle of chairs facing a single man seated on little stage. “Zed?” She asked, “You ready for our guests?” “Sure thing hun,” he answered. “Gather ‘round folks, and I will tell you the true story of how a little western outpost became known as Tolerance Town” The tourists sat, and the man glanced at some notes beside him, and then began.

“Well, folks, we have to go back to a little bit more than 5 years ago. At that time, this town was called Tinsville. I was just a working stiff, counting the days until I could retire. After my wife had died 2 years earlier, it was all I could do to keep showing up each day.

“Well the morning it all started, I had no idea that it was going to be any different. Except that morning, I had woken up , well, lets just say my old soldier was standing at attention, shall we?” There was some giggling from his audience at this point.

“So I was, err, in full form, as it were, but I couldn’t seem to make myself take care of the problem, and instead ended up getting ready for work. I was a little uncomfortable, but didn’t really worry much. “

“Well, at work, first person I bump into is my old buddy Tom, and I notice he is walking a little funny. He is blushing like crazy, and trying to hide the front of his pants, which of course just draws more attention. Being guys, we don’t say anything to each other, but I am pretty sure he noticed my little difficulty too.”

“So I try to go back to my desk and get some work done, but as the day goes on, I notice the feeling in my pants was getting worse. By lunchtime, I was in actual pain, and ended up begging off sick and went home.”

“I felt awful. My parts felt like they were blown up like a balloon that was ready to pop. I was ready to call my doctor, or maybe even an ambulance when someone knocked at my door.”

“It turned out to be Mary-Beth, you folks have already met her, and she had a story to share with me”

“She started by telling me that I was far from alone in my difficulty with my privates. In fact, it seemed like every male older than 12 was affected. The second shock was that this was not natural, someone had done this to us, on purpose.”

“She went to my DVD machine and had me put in a disk she had received. Once it was running, we saw this strange woman claiming responsibility for what was happening. She said unless we did what she wanted, all the males would soon have permanent damage, and many would probably die from pain and shock. “

“I knew Mary-Beth had a son named Tim who was about 13, and looking in her eyes, I knew she was scared for him. The strange woman on the disk outlined what we would have to do for her to turn off this effect. She wanted every male in the town to agree to dress like a female.”

“Not only that, we would have to take all our male clothes to the dump and burn them, and then all males would have to come to the town hall dressed as ladies. She said that if even one male failed to show up by six, all the boys would suffer the consequences.”

“Mary-Beth begged me to agree on behalf of her son, and I just couldn’t bear the thought of that little boy suffering, so I said yes.”

“She quickly gathered up all my clothes, and going back to her car came back with a supply of women’s things for me to try on. She had raided the stores looking for clothes for us men, in every size she could find, and it took a while, but we found some stuff that I could squeeze into, and told me the bus would come get me soon to take me and the other males to town hall, figuring that we were in too much pain to drive or walk far.”

“I felt pretty foolish getting on that bus, I can tell you, but since all the other guys were in basically the same shape, nobody could really laugh at anybody else., My buddy Tom made room on the seat beside him, and we took off, and soon we were all in place, hoping this madwoman would actually let us go.” There was a TV hooked up to a laptop, and very soon it came to life and we saw the author of our misfortune again.”

“She showed us an image from the dump of all our clothes burning, and then said, ‘Well, I must admit, I am surprised. I thought at least some macho male would be more afraid of wearing a dress than dying. Well, never let it be said I didn’t keep my bargain. You will all feel relief in a few minutes, but you might want to find something to catch all the sperm, you never know when it might come in handy’ and then she laughed, and added ‘oh by the way, I hope you boys like wearing dresses, because that’s all that are going to feel comfortable from now on.‘ then the screen went dark. “

“I will spare you a graphic description of what happened next, but it was to say the least, explosive. The only reason not to be embarrassed was knowing every other guy was too busy with his own issue to worry about you. And then afterward, we slowly went back to the bus, which then took us to our respective homes.”

“Well, the next week was not one to remember. I fell into a deep funk, as bad as when my wife died. I mostly slept and refused to eat. I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving the house again dressed up like that. I don’t know how long it might have gone on, but then Tom came to my door, and refused to leave without seeing me.”

“He spent a couple of days at my place taking care of me until I was ready to take care of myself again. Soon, he felt he had to leave, but he didn’t want to leave me alone, so he introduced me to Barb. Well, I wasn’t entirely interested in having a woman about again, I still felt married, even though my wife was gone, but she worked on me hard, and soon I was feeling like maybe there was still some life to be had.”

“She also came up with the idea of Tolerance Town, and managed to get the local officials on board with it. She worked day and night convincing us that we could make it work. She contacted groups who assisted those who are different, groups that helped gays, lesbians, and the transgender. She called doctors and therapists and psychologists and anybody else who might be helpful.”

“And so Tolerance Town came into being, and to be honest, we are grateful for it. We have learned that that woman tried the trick again in another town, and was about to be arrested when she and her group committed suicide rather than be taken into custody. So no one knows exactly what she did or how she did it.”

“But for us, we now look forward rather than back. Lots of cross dressers, gays, lesbians, and transgender people come here for a spell, and some have even stayed on, benefiting both sides. And now that my tale is done, if you turn to the pretty lady at the back, she will direct you to your next stop on your tour. And I hope you all come again, as often as you please.”

The tourists file out, but Barb hangs about, coming up to the man on the stage. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?” she asked. “Maybe not, but I will be happy with somebody else being in the hot seat next time” Zed relied. He then looked at her, and said “Do you think Mary-Beth would mind taking over for a while? I would like to borrow you for a bit.” He suddenly looks shy.

She smiled, and said “Maybe, what’s your offer?” “I don’t know, a little music, a little dancing, and maybe making your toes curl sounds good to me.” He said.

“Mmmm, tempting” she said, and leaned close to him. “Plus,” he said, “I have a little visitor that’s been anxiously waiting to meet you for quite some time.”

“You don’t mean . . . “ she started “Yep” he replied, “Doc’s treatment worked, and the old soldier has reported for duty”

She hugged him and gasped “When?” “About the same time you walked in here in that get-up” He grinned. “I had to rush the story a bit lest it distract me.”

“I love you anyway hun” She says, “You know I don’t need anything more than what you have always given me.” “Maybe, but that don’t mean I don’t want to have fun trying” He smiled, and kissed her.

“O.K. smooth talker, I am yours for the ravishing.” She giggled. He took her hand, and led her out

“Take me home, my dear friend and spouse.” said Tom, now called Barb, “I have been waiting a long time for this.”