Looking at myself in the mirror critically, I wasn’t quite happy. But there again, I was never really satisfied that I looked like a real-life genuine biological female.

I had done all that I could to make myself look pretty and I knew that I “passed” well enough. Anyway, I don’t think that I have ever been clocked and as people didn’t run screaming and shouting from my presence, I think that I was fairly successful with my efforts to look like a normal woman whoever or whatever that is.

In my heart and my soul, I was a woman and had always been. Society and my parents hadn’t thought so. From an early age, I knew that I was a girl and occasionally had major wobbly moments when everyone said that I was a boy and always would be.

It was a similar story to others who had suffered as I had, according to the groups and forums I belonged to. I was about four years old when I questioned my mother about why Lucy next door wore pretty clothes and had long blond hair when I had to wear scratchy boys’ clothes and had very, very short mousy brown hair.

‘Because you are a boy Ben.’ said my mother for the umpteenth time through gritted teeth, trying her hardest to be patient with me.

‘Why?’

“Why” was my favourite word back then.

‘Because you are. Boys are boys and girls are girls, it’s the way it is.’

‘Why?

‘Stop saying why all the time. For the final time, because that’s the way it is. Now no more questions. Let’s have lunch, it’s your favourite, banana sandwich.’

Being young and always hungry, I put any further questions about that subject temporarily from my mind, but I was forever coming back to it though, much to my parent’s chagrin!

All that was in my past, I was now at the ripe old age of 25, living in a flat in Brighton that had nice views of the sea - that is if you stick your head out of my kitchen window and strain your neck out far enough and then look to the right.

I was a proofreader and worked from home over the glorious internet. I never had to go into the office as there was no office for me to go to. After the pandemic, the company I mainly worked for decided that it was cheaper for their workers to work from home. I was on a self-employed contract anyway and as I was on my real-life test, I would never willingly dress as a male to go anywhere, so I jumped at the chance of not showing my face anywhere that I did not want.

I could have outed myself to my employers and told them that I was one year and 9 months in from the start of my real-life test, but I am a private person, and the fewer people knew about the real me the better. Discrimination is still alive despite what some people say to the contrary.

My main contact with my employer was Joseph. I had never met him face to face, apart from on Zoom, but he was in charge of several proofreaders, and he said that I was his favourite. I bet he said that to all of his team! He was a nice man though and I liked him a lot. In fact, I nearly told him my “secret” on several occasions but didn’t feel brave enough. I was desperate to keep my professional life away from my private one. Little did he and others know when we had group meetings on Zoom when I had to dress as a male on top, that I was wearing a skirt down below!

My parents knew about my dual personality for want of a better term as they finally accepted me as a girl on my 18th birthday. Before then, although they knew who and what I was, they always were under the impression that it was a phase and I would grow out of it.

I never did!

My girl’s name is Lauren, as my parents told me that this would have been my name, had I been lucky enough to have been born a girl.

So, here I was on December 23rd, in a hotel room in East Grinstead feeling slightly excited but a little bit scared too.

Why was I there?

On a whim, I had decided to book into a Christmas party for people in a similar situation, persuasion or whatever you want to call it, to me. It was a long-established event with lots of positive reviews. I was booked in for two nights and was really looking forward to it.

One of the things that I didn’t like about my situation and many others like me was that I was sometimes rather lonely and most of my friends were online and similar to me. We connected in a way that others just wouldn’t understand.

It helped that my long-time online friend Clara had agreed to go. We had never met in person or even seen each other online. We had talked a lot on the phone and many times long into the night, we had spoken in our respective beds about our hopes and dreams of a future as women. It wasn’t always serious though and she’s brilliant and funny and at the time, I just couldn’t wait to see her for real.

Clara, like me, was ever so shy though, and we had never wanted to do the Zoom thing, although I would have been up to it if she had been. I thought that her reasons might be that she did not consider herself to be very feminine-looking. I couldn’t care less about that, as, in my opinion, it’s what’s inside that counts. It took a long time for me to bring her out of herself, but eventually, the barriers came down and we became firm friends, although she still didn’t want to show her face to me or go on Zoom videos; she preferred audio-only. I didn’t push it, as I did not want to lose her as a friend.

Her voice was lovely, slightly deep and breathy but she had trained her girlie voice to be like that and it was quite convincing. That was a problem when boys reached puberty and voices naturally deepened; it caused problems when you really wanted to sound like a girl. I was sounding much more feminine now too and was getting much better as I now used an online voice coach.

I suppose, if I thought about it, I was bi-sexual as I was turned on by some men as well as women, although I was still regrettably a virgin at my advanced age! Inevitably, I had strong feelings for Clara, although I never spoke of it for fear of rejection. We had had many pretty deep discussions about life in general and our emotions in particular. I suppose that we just clicked on a personal level. She was kind and sensitive, although it’s difficult to judge people entirely when you are only relying on the written word on forums and speaking on chat apps or over the phone.

We talked about many things. I had told her about my history, and she told me about hers. She, like me, felt that she was trapped in the wrong body. She wanted to transition too and had actually started a few months after me. I was slightly further along the journey that we hoped would both give us what we needed quite soon.

She had great misgivings about her appearance. She had gone out dressed on a few occasions and although she had not been clocked, she felt very uncomfortable about it. At least at the party, we would be amongst others like us and wouldn’t be out of place. She, like me, worked from home and that helped. She evidently didn’t need to go to the office much and when she did, she dressed as a male, as I reluctantly did too on those occasions.

I was as surprised as anything in my life when, after some intense persuasion, Clara reluctantly agreed to go to the party. Like me, she had booked two nights at the hotel. I was so much looking forward to seeing her in the flesh!

Following the terrible pandemic that ravaged the world, the lives of many people changed and it was the internet that kept many people sane, including me!

Somewhere in the hotel was Clara, she had texted me a bit earlier to say that she had arrived. We would see each other at a table at the party, which included a Christmas meal. We had chosen a table for two, unfortunately, it was table 13, as that was the only one left. I hoped that that wouldn’t be a bad omen for us!

Back to the present, I looked at my watch. It was nearly 7 o’clock. The dinner dance was due to start at 7.30.

I glanced down at my hand.

Eeek, I had forgotten to do my nails!

I was mildly panic-stricken but with minutes to spare, I managed to apply and dry my digits.

I was to meet Clara down in the dining room. I had received a message to say that she would meet me at the table just before 7.30. My heart fluttered slightly at the thought of finally meeting her.

I looked at myself in the mirror and was satisfied with how I looked. My dress was a lace, red boat neck layered one; well, it was Christmas! I was wearing sheer nude stockings and black suspenders instead of my usual tights as I wanted to push the boat out and feel special. I completed the look with some reasonably-heeled red shoes to match my dress.

I sighed.

In my wildest dreams, I thought about the possibility that I might be lucky enough to have an intimate relationship with a man or woman who loved me for who I was.

I wondered sometimes about Clara. Could she be the one? I didn’t want to think about that too much, as we had never actually met in person. She might be an awful person in the flesh and maybe she wouldn’t be interested in anything in the way of a romantic nature.

I glanced down at my chest and smiled. My breasts were growing nicely although still a bit on the small size; that was why my red satin bra was slightly padded. I would just have to be patient about bigger breasts as Rome wasn’t built in a day! I was also wearing matching red panties, As you can see, I was well into the Christmas theme by now!

I was fairly happy with my makeup attempts thanks to YouTube. I had a lot of practice and had actually gone into a few department stores to have a free makeover. Some of the sales assistants were happy to help me out and give me tips as long as I paid for their products, of course! I was proud of the fact that I was never clocked by any of them, although, thinking about it, I might have been, and they were too polite to tell me. I did wonder how many girls like me had used their services.

My hair was long and blond. I had long since shied away from my natural mousy brown colour. As far as jewellery was concerned, I wore some silver teardrop crystal drop earrings and a thin silver bracelet. I didn’t like to wear too much jewellery but I did wear a nice silver ring that was my grandmother's, given to me by Mum when she finally gave in and started to treat me as a woman.

We both were in tears that day!

To complete my look, I was wearing a small diamond-encrusted watch that was dainty and looked very pretty on my wrist.

Was I being vain about my looks? Possibly, but I hoped not. I tried to see myself as others would. I was insecure enough to worry about what others thought of me and always questioned myself about my appearance.

I glanced at my watch. It was ten past seven. I would have to get a move on.

I let myself out of my room and made my way to the lifts. A few other girls were walking the same way, they were all wearing their party frocks and looked lovely. I knew that the hotel was full of girls like me so I didn’t feel shy about seeing those women.

One of the girls was wearing very high heels and I wished that I could wear them too, but I was a bit uncomfortable in them and when I tried some in a shoe shop, I nearly sprained my ankle! I would have to buy some and practise in my flat. I loved the look of high heels and wanted to wear them on special occasions like this.

We made small talk in the lift about how nice we all looked as the piped Christmas music played softly in the background.

Soon we were on the ground floor and with the others, we made our way into the function room.

The room was about half full and was heavily decorated with Christmas decorations including a large tree over to one side. It was all very cheerful and festive. The same piped music from the lift was playing and there was a hum of cheerful conversation everywhere.

All the tables had decorations on them including crackers and red candles in silver sticks. and it was all very festive and so nice to see.

I looked at the table numbers and finally found my table, over to the side. I did wonder if Clara had beaten me to it, but she wasn’t there. I sat down on a chair, carefully sweeping my skirt under me.

There was a bottle of bubbly in an ice-filled silver bucket on the table and I was tempted to have some, to give me Dutch courage, but I held back. I didn’t want to get drunk too soon, if ever. I didn’t have a very good head for alcohol at the best of times.

I looked at my watch for the seventh time and looked at the people coming into the room, trying to guess who was Clara.

Glancing at some other tables, I might have been wrong but it looked like several of the couples included genetic women, a term that I didn’t like but, I suppose was true enough. It was nice that these women accepted that their partners were different for lack of a better term.

It was 7.40 now and I was beginning to wonder where she was. The tables were near enough all full now and only a trickle of people were coming into the room.

For something to do and to distract me from worrying about where Clara was and whether she might not be coming, I picked up the menu. Unnecessary really as we had pre-ordered the meal.

I looked at the menu without actually taking anything in.

‘Hello Lauren.’

I looked up smiling.

She was beautiful, wearing a black cocktail dress, immaculate makeup, lovely earrings and a thin gold heart necklace.

Her voice was soft slightly deep and very alluring.

But that wasn’t what I was thinking at the time.

Because I recognised her immediately.

Under all that lovely makeup I could just see… Joseph.

He…she sat down.

‘Is this a joke?’ I asked, upset beyond belief.

‘No, of course not. This is who I am. You should know that; we’ve discussed how we feel often enough. Can I explain?’

I nodded, not trusting myself to say anything. To say that I was in shock would be an understatement. I wanted the ground to open up and swallow me.

She was about to start explaining herself when a waitress came up with our starters, soup, if you’re interested… I wasn’t.

We waited until she had left and she continued after taking a deep breath.

‘You know my history so I won’t go into that. I am, like you, transgender and you know that I am going through the life test. About how I knew it was you? Well, that’s down to you.’

‘What do you mean?

‘Well, remember you texted me on my personal mobile about a month ago about this event?’

‘Yes?’ I replied wondering what she was getting at.

‘You used your work phone, not your personal one. I recognised the number immediately but checked with your personnel file as I didn’t want to make a mistake. At first, I wondered what was going on and that it might be some sort of bizarre mistake or maybe you knew about me and was trying to do me some harm.’

‘I would never do that to you.’ I exclaimed.

‘Shh, not so loud,’ she said, looking around the room, ‘I know that now, but remember, I’m very insecure and it doesn’t take much for me to think the worst. Remember I didn’t reply to your invitation to the party for two days?’

‘Yes, I wondered about that. I thought that I might have overstepped the mark or something.’

‘I was in a panic. I didn’t know what should I do. Looking back at the many times we had spoken and seen each other online when we were both in boy mode, there was something about you that I couldn’t pin down. I liked you, a lot, and would have loved to have met you face to face but I was and am shy and would have hated to be rejected.

‘I could see that you had sent the text in error and hadn’t realised it, otherwise, you would have mentioned it. So I decided to take a chance and agree to go with you. I sent the text via the usual number we used and not just reply to the text you sent on your work number. That would have given the game away.

‘I waited a bit for your reply, hoping against hope that you wouldn’t pick up on the different number I had used and luckily you didn’t.’

‘I was very busy then and just didn’t realise,’ I replied.

‘Anyway,’ she continued, ‘Many times since then I wondered whether I should come clean, but I thought that you might not want to have anything to do with me. You know, the mustn’t mix business with pleasure thing. I decided to just wait and talk to you in person about it. If you just want me to walk away or if you don’t feel the same way about me as I do about you, then we’ll leave it at that. I want you to know though, that I think you are beautiful and I want to get to know you a lot better, if you’ll have me after all this silly duplicity.’

I suppose that I was still in shock over all of this. The last thing I expected was to see her in front of me.

I took in the appearance of the person I once thought of as Joseph and could only see Clara. She looked worried and I could see that even with the immaculately applied makeup, she was pale, nervous and biting her red, immaculately lipsticked lower lip.

She had had a lot longer to take in the fact that I was Lauren and not Ben and that knowledge hadn’t put her off me. It was incredible that this lovely vision in front of me was the person I thought to be Joseph but was, in fact, Clara.

I recalled the many times we had used online media to contact each other and the lovely soft but slightly deep voice she used. This was nothing like the Joseph voice he used at work. I also had used my feminine voice when speaking to Clara; it was getting quite natural for me. It would have been strange in my eyes to talk as a male when wearing pretty clothes. It must have been very hard for Joseph to talk to me about work knowing, as he did, that I was in fact, Lauren hiding away inside.

I never in my wildest dreams guessed whilst working for him that he had this hidden side so similar to mine.

Over the time that I had known her, Clara had been kind and caring to me and we had shared many trials and tribulations…

I looked into her eyes and my heart melted. It was the eyes of someone full of compassion, care, understanding and kindness.

All this I thought of in a moment and it wasn’t hard to make my decision.

‘I think that it would be lovely to get to know each other much better.’

And so we ate or was that drank our soup? I have never known the correct term for that. Then we had the other courses including the obligatory turkey and Christmas pudding. We talked about things like fashion and makeup. We had an unspoken agreement to leave a more intimate conversation until after the meal when we had less chance of being interrupted.

We kept glancing at each other and smiling as we ate our meal. I was feeling very comfortable in her presence and I believed that she felt the same.

All around us, others were having a great time too and I was so glad that I had come despite the shock that I had earlier.

After the meal and over coffee, we started talking about the things that mattered to us and where we wanted to go from there.

‘I wish that we had known each other properly a lot earlier,’ I said, ‘I mean, all the time we spoke about work, we could have been comparing nail polish and hair colour,’

We both laughed.

‘It was awful for me Lauren, once I knew who you really were. Many times I nearly told you about the true you, but I hated the idea of rejection. I thought that if you saw me in person, you might do the love-at-first-sight thing. Corny, I know, but I’m an incurable romantic and suck up those romantic stories about that sort of thing like a sponge.’

I stirred my coffee and then looked at her.

‘So, now you have seen me in person, warts and all, what do you think?’ I asked.

‘I think that your warts are wonderful!’

I giggled; something I was prone to do sometimes.

‘Fishing for compliments?’ she continued, her perfectly plucked eyebrows rising slightly.

‘Of course,’ I replied and was about to continue when the waitress came back and took our plates away.

After the waitress left, I looked around for a moment and then instinctively reached across and held Clara’s hand.

She smiled.

‘You didn’t answer my question,’ I said.

‘About what do I think about you?’

‘Yes,’ I replied slightly huskily.

‘I think that you are very beautiful and I’m pretty certain that I am falling in love with you. If you don’t feel the same, just tell me. We’ve known each other for quite a while now. How many times have we spoken to each other on the phone late into the night?’

‘Many times I imagined you lying next to me in that lovely pink satin nightie you told me that you love to wear.’

She smiled.

‘Yes, I had similar thoughts to you.’

At the front of the dining room was a dance floor and on the small stage was a DJ who had been playing muted Christmas music. Now that the plates had been cleared and we were just left with our drinks, the atmosphere changed somewhat as the music grew louder and people started to go on the dance floor.

It was a lovely sight with everyone in their party frocks having a good time dancing to the music, although it was difficult to talk now as we couldn’t hear each other very well.

We were still holding hands and that was nice.

‘Fancy a dance?’ shouted Clara.

‘Okay, but I have two left feet.’

‘That’s handy, I have two right ones!’

We went and joined the other dancers on the floor and despite our lack of expertise, we enjoyed ourselves hugely.

I noted that many others weren’t exactly good at dancing and that was good as we weren’t out of place.

We had a great time on the dance floor, coming back to our table occasionally to have a drink.

After a while, I needed to use the loo and with Clara, we made our way to the Ladies. There was a bit of a queue and we chatted to some of the women waiting. We talked about the usual things, clothes, makeup, the meal and how nice the evening was going.

Soon, we went into The Ladies and I made my way over to a cubical and did the necessary.

Afterwards, I washed my hands and touched up my makeup, as did Clara when she joined me. It all seemed so natural and right.

The evening drew on and far too soon, the DJ put on some slow numbers. At the time, we were back at our table catching our breath and finishing the remains of the champagne. We had an unspoken agreement not to talk any more about the future until we were somewhere a bit more private.

After a slight reduction of people on the dancefloor when the slower numbers were played, couples gradually started to drift back on.

‘Do you want to dance?’ asked Clara.

‘That would be nice,’ I replied.

She held my hand as we walked onto the dance floor and that was lovely. There was a bit of confusion as to who would take the lead and I laughed as I let her do it!

We danced for ages and I put my head on her shoulder, taking in the subtle fragrance of her perfume as we danced as close as a couple could. It felt so romantic.

After a while, as we danced to Lady In Red, it seemed very fitting as I was wearing my lovely red dress. I looked at her and she looked at me and then without thinking we kissed each other gently on the lips.

It was wonderful, dancing gently to the music as we kissed, oblivious to the others dancing around us. I never wanted the song to end but the music finished and we stood apart slightly, breathless and full of longing for each other.

I didn’t want the evening to end but end it did. The DJ played The Last Waltz, a bit cheesy but nearly everyone was on the dancefloor by then.

After that final dance, we walked back to our table and picking up our bags, we made our way out, saying goodbye to some of the people around us.

We had already discovered that we were on the same floor of the hotel. Indeed, Clara’s room was only a few doors down from mine.

We went up on the lift together with a couple somewhat older than us. They both looked very pretty in their party dresses, but they were slightly worse for wear, tipsy, I mean. They couldn’t stop laughing and that set off Clara and me.

I never did find out what was so funny!

The couple got off on the floor below us and I was still giggling as the lift reached our floor. We left the lift and walked towards Clara’s room hand in hand. Stopping outside her room, she looked at me and sighed.

’So, is this time we have a kiss and a cuddle and say goodnight?’ she asked.

I looked at her. I didn’t want to leave here out of my sight.

‘Not if you don’t want to,’ I replied.

She smiled.

‘Want to come in for a nightcap or something?’

‘Something.’ I whispered.

*

I was a bit shy, to say the least, and so was Clara, but we managed somehow. As soon as we entered the room, we turned to each other and kissed deeply. It was obvious that we wanted the same thing. I wasn’t very experienced and was, in fact, a virgin as was Clara.

I let Clara take the lead and she undressed me slowly, carefully and with a gentleness that I loved.

I did the same for her and, breathing heavily, we were soon on the bed cementing the love that we had for each other.

I will draw a veil over what we did that night and leave it to your imagination. To say it was special and unforgettable would be an understatement.

After that wonderful experience, we showered together, exploring each other’s bodies in a sensuous and intense way that left us breathless and wanting more.

Later, exhausted in a good way, we cuddled up in bed. I was wearing one of her long satin nighties and she wore a shorter one. We were so relaxed that we fell asleep in each other’s arms, only to wake up in the night to repeat the lovely experience of earlier. We made the most of our time together and it was unforgettable.

Epilogue.

Nine months later we were married. We both wore wonderful wedding dresses complete with white diaphanous veils and were surrounded by our friends and the few understanding and supportive relations including, I am happy to say, our respective parents. We couldn’t be happier.

We had a wonderful honeymoon in The Seychelles’ with its lovely beaches and its laid-back people who welcomed us with open arms.

After the honeymoon, we returned to work but things were never the same there as word got around that we were now married and living as women.

We had by then, sold our properties, mine a dockland flat and Clara’s a semi-detached house in Chelsea and were able with the proceeds to buy a nice, detached house a bit more out in the country with five acres of land and with a delightful stream running through the middle of it.

We were living the dream, but it wasn’t to last.

We started to have serious issues at work.

Eventually, after a few regrettable incidents, we left the company. Our employers, who although they didn’t say as much, obviously didn’t approve of our relationship, even though we were supposed to be in a more enlightened society. They started to pick holes and criticise our work, without any true justification.

The company actually lost out by us leaving their employment as we set up our own company and poached many clients and not a few employees from them. Revenge was sweet and we never looked back.

Soon after, we completed our real-life test and were well off enough by then to have sexual reassignment completed privately. It was a painful experience for both of us but well worth it as we now considered ourselves to be as complete women as we could be.

The following Christmastime, we went to the same party that we first met in person and sat at the same table. We had come full circle and we marvelled at the fact that so much had changed for us in such a short space of time.

We had made tentative enquiries the previous month about the possibility of adopting a child. We did that in hope rather than expectation of a result in our favour but were pleasantly surprised that the authorities were looking on us favourably as we had a strong stable home and we hoped sometime in the not-too-far distant future that the patter of tiny or not-so-tiny feet might arrive and give us joy and fulfilment.

For us, our future was just beginning, and it was a future that we very much looked forward to.

I blessed the day when I saw my Clara for the first time and not hiding our lights under the bushel.

For us, now and forever, we consider that Christmas is a wonderful time of the year where dreams sometimes do come true.

I was so happy that I went to that Christmas party and found the love of my life.

Please leave comments if you have time. Oh, and if you can, please do the kudo-thingie... thanks! ~Sue