Closer Friends
A Short Story
By Maryanne Peters

Part 1

Gabe yanked the towel back around his waist. “I wish you hadn’t seen that, man,” he said. The initial shock of being seen had been replaced by frustration. He needed to finally explain … at last. The dreaded day that “might come“, had arrived.

Mal’s eyes blazed. “What the fuck? What the fuck was that?”

I always knew this could happen. Why didn’t I prepare? Instead, I decided not to think about it. That’s what I do – I avoid things instead of confronting them. I always take the easy way out. “Haven’t you seen a vagina before?” Gabe asked with a sigh.

“Not on a guy!” Mal spat. “Where’s your cock, man?”

“Okay. I owe you an explanation,” Gabe allowed. The humidity and normal stench of the locker room closed in on him. “Just calm down and I can explain.” He thought: ‘Damn, now I have to deal with this, even though it might mean the end of our friendship’. He reached into his locker, thinking: ‘Stay calm!’.

“Let’s just get our clothes on,” Gabe said. “Then we can go to the bar on the corner and talk about it.”

“Fuck that!” Mal sneered. “What’s happened to you? What the fuck are you?”

Gabe pulled on his underpants, under the towel. Then he pulled fake genitalia from the bag and dropped the towel to stuff them under the inverted Y.

Mal closed his eyes and shouted. “Fuck! What the fuck!”

“Calm down,” Gabe begged. “I’m going to give you the explanation. Get your gear on. We’ll get that beer -- like we do after every game of squash. This shouldn’t change anything.” Gabe put on his shirt.

Mal just stared at his friend.

“I’ll buy the beers,” Gabe added.

“Was it an accident?” Mal asked. “If you were injured in an accident, then I’m a prick.”

“You’re not a prick. We’ve been business partners for eight years and not once have I regretted partnering with you.”

“We’ve been friends much longer than that,” Mal agreed. “If either of us had ever decided to get married we’d be each other’s best man. Now you’re not even qualified!”

“Get dressed,” Gabe repeated. “I’m almost ready. Get a move on, or I will go there without you.”

Mal stood like a statue. “Just tell me what the hell is going on.”

Gabe had his pants on and was slipping on his shoes. “I’ll set up the drinks. We can get beer while I do the talking.”

“I can’t believe what I’ve just seen with my own eyes. My closest friend has no genitals. Just a patch of pubic hair and nothing below it. The only mound in the front of your pants is the thing I just watched you slip down your shorts.”

Gabe didn’t respond. He left the gym, hoping Mal would follow.

Instead of sitting in their usual stools on the counter, Gabe found a place in a quiet corner. He had ordered two handles of beer which were on the table. He took a sip of his, and then leaned back. Gabe would need to do the talking. Half of him wanted to know what Mal would say, the other half did not.

Mal finally came in and came over. He sat, and then took a long draw from his mug.

Gabe took a deep breath. He had plenty to say, and there is only one place to start. “I’m transgender,” he said. “That’s right. My whole life is a lie. I’m a woman inside. It’s been driving me crazy since I was a kid. I have kept it secret. It’s been eating me up. I couldn’t tell you. I couldn’t tell anybody. I still can’t.” Gabe paused to look at his friend. He detected a trace of understanding – perhaps even sympathy.

But no words came from Mal.

Gabe continued. “After Cheryl and I broke off our engagement, I decided that I had to do something. Being a man disgusted me. I needed to put an end to that. I could have just. . .un-manned myself, but I thought – ‘what the hell.’ You know that holiday I took where I went to Asia last year? I went to Bangkok and had the full deal. Vaginoplasty we call it. I traded my “outie” for an “innie.” That’s what you saw in the dressing room. That’s me now. Down there at least. That’s it.”

“What do you mean ‘that’s it?’” Mal said, in disbelief. “I know what transgenders are. Why aren’t you wearing a dress? Why don’t you have tits?” His look of demand left little for Mal to mis-interpret.

“I want to do all of that, but it’s the job, man. We have clients. They know me as a man. I don’t think they could ever accept me as a woman. I can’t afford to change at work. I just have my girl time when I get home. But it is real girl time then. Not just cross-dressing. I am not pretending anymore. Not when I’m at home. I only pretend during the day. I’m pretending now. This is not me. I am really her.”

“Who?” Mal asked.

“That’s a good question.” Gabe stopped to collect his thoughts. “I’m her. I’m Gabrielle. Gabby. That’s who I am … when I take these clothes off. That’s when I become who I really am.”

Mal took a big slurp from his beer, and then looked at Gabe. “That’s fucking sad.”

His disapproval devastated Gabe. It was the rejection he had expected all these years, might happen. It was easy for Mal. He was the man Gabe wished he could be. Handsome. Confident. Gabe knew that he was good-looking enough to attract women, but it was a sham.

“It is sad,” said Gabe. “But I don’t regret the surgery. I’m no longer a man living a lie, I’m a woman living a lie – but at least I’m a woman.”

Mal nodded slowly. He seemed to have a bit of understanding but needed more information. “But you haven’t gone far enough to be the woman you want to be?”

“Not now, anyway,” Gabe conceded. “One day, I hope.”

“I just wish you had been able to tell me,” Mal stated ruefully. “I thought that we were tight, you and me.”

“I thought that it would change things. Maybe it has. I didn’t think I could risk it. The friendship and the business partnership – they mean a lot to me.”

“Your friendship is important to me, too.” Mal signaled the barman to bring two more beers. “I won’t say that I’m not shocked by all of this, but it seems terrible that you can’t go all the way like other trans people.” His face expressed genuine concern. “I would like to help.”

“I can’t afford it, Mal,” said Gabe. “There are plenty of people out there who pretend to be someone they’re not every day of their lives. I’m not alone. But I’m happy whenever I sit down to pee. That reminds me who I am, really.”

“Why can’t you take another step? I mean, couldn’t you gradually move away from being a guy to being a woman, so as people hardly noticed? Could you do that?”

“We’d lose business,” Gabe suggested.

“Fuck the business! Your mental health is what’s important.”

“Our profits would suffer.”

Mal laughed. “When you and I started we had no clients. What ‘profits’ did we have then? All we had was our confidence – in each other. You’ve had your balls cut off. You didn’t have a lobotomy. If someone leaves ... well … fuck’em. Let them try to find a better organization than ours.”

A small tear escaped from Gabe’s eyes. He could not ask for a better partner.

Mal continued. “Everyone knows how trans people suffer when they don’t. . .. That can’t happen! What’s the next step?”

“Sure, I could take female hormones. I take a few male hormones now because I don’t produce my own. Just quitting those drugs alone, would soften my body. Then you might actually be able to beat me at squash.”

They both laughed. Gabe wondered if he should have trusted Mal more than he did. Maybe he should have confided in him?

Two new beers were set in front of them.

“I’m serious,” Mal said. “It seems as if this middle-life can’t be what you really want. Don’t you want to live as woman? I don’t understand it, but this half-solution just doesn’t seem right.”

“This is a binary world, Mal,” Gabe explained. “Either I’m a man, or I’m a freak.”

“You,” Mal stormed, “are not a freak.”

“I don’t know if I could make it as a woman. I just don’t think that I have the confidence to try. If I were to live as a woman, I would want to be a desirable one.”

“It’s your choice,” Mal asserted. “No one else gets a vote.”

“I have no desire to look like a fool,” Gabe said, bitterly.

“How do you know you’ll look like a fool. I haven’t seen you as a woman.”

“You wouldn’t want to. I wouldn’t want you to.”

Mal took another big gulp of his ale. “Maybe you just need a makeover -- just to see whether you can look like that desirable woman you want to be.”

“You don’t understand. It’s not just how you look. It’s how you move; how you behave; how you talk.”

“There’s a lot more to being desirable than just looks. You’re a great guy. The best. I’ll bet most of that translates. Get it “Trans” lates?”

Mal nearly choked on the beer he’d was trying to swallow.

“Hey, it’s up to you,” Mal argued again. “Your secret is safe with me. If that’s how you want to live – okay. But if you want to take some time to explore this woman thing, then I can back you with that, too.”

“Thanks, pal. That means a lot.” One hell of a lot.

They raised their glasses, and then chinked them together.

They then put down a few more rounds than they normally would have.

Mal forgot that Gabe’s pants were empty. Or rather, he learned to ignore it.

In the course of the evening, Gabe went for a piss. When Mal got the urge a minute later, he walked in the Gentlemen’s and expected to see Gabe at the urinal, but he was in a cubicle.

“Hey, Gabe,” Mal said. “I just realized that you’ve been pissing in a cubicle for more than a year.” Mal pulled out his own cock and prepared to piss. “What on earth could possess a man to part with such a precious organ.” He mused. “The answer, of course, is -- no ‘man’ would. Gabe, my friend, you are not a man.”

“But at work,” Gabe stated, “I have to be. We’re debt brokers. Almost all of our clients are men. They expect brokers to be blunt with them, and aggressive in finding the best deal. I’m worried those burly, back-slapping ex-footballers will realize that I’m just pretending to be a man with a rubber cock in my shorts.”

“Fuck’em,” Mal said again. “You and I are partners. We look out for each other. No matter what!”

When they left the bar that night, Mal had confirmed his friendship and support.

They’d parted with a man-hug.

Part 2

Gabe had called him that morning to tell him that he would not be coming into the office, and to ask him to attend to a few things. “You know what you said to me last week – about needing a makeover? I have decided to give it a try. I’m going to spend the day on this, but I need you to look at the end product. Would you do that for me?”

“You know it,” Mal vowed.

They arranged the meeting. A rendezvous in a bar. A public place. A bold step for Gabe.

Gabe had sent a text that he would be a few minutes late.

“Late – typical for a woman,” Mal had sent back.

This time Mal bought the first round. Not at the bar on the corner by the squash club, but an upscale place in the hotel not far from Gabe’s apartment. The price paid probably explained why the bar was only half full on a Friday night. Mal had been able to secure a quiet table - like before – somewhere where he could talk to his friend and colleague in private.

He had not bought beers. He bought a scotch for himself and a glass of Sancerre for -- Gabby. They were meeting for Mal to see Gabrielle.

Gabe was aware that Mal had been reading about it since the shock of the week before: Gender dysphoria, transgendered people, sex reassignment/confirmation.

He had old Gabe that his research had given him a new appreciation of what his friend was going through. For many it could be tough. People killed themselves.

Gabe had found a way to cope. Gabe’s answer had been to have his dick and balls cut off but he had chosen not to transition.

Max had told Gabe that his failure to go all the way seemed wrong, somehow. Mal further had stated that he had been horrified from the moment that the towel slipped away, and the thought of it had made him wince for days afterwards, but he now understood, perhaps just a little bit.

It was obvious to Mal that Gabe was lying to himself and he’d also made that opinion clear to Gabe.

Gabe approached their table in the hotel bar.

Max’s head was down reading a text. He looked up and smiled, but it was only after that smile that he recognized her.

He stumbled to his feet. “Gabrielle. . ..” His face was the picture of disbelief.

“That’s me,” she said, in a voice that he has been practicing all day, delivered with a rehearsed smile and tilt of the head. It produced a response from Mal that she did not understand. Is he happy to see me?

“Sit down, sit down,” stammered Mal. “I’ve gotten you a glass of French wine. They have a big wine list here. I am having a scotch.” He sipped some to stop his mouth from flapping on.

She sat, tucking the skirt of her dress under her shapely bottom and showing off the longs legs that she crossed at the thigh. It was something that Gabe couldn’t have done when he had balls that got in the way.

She was wearing shoes with a heel – not super-high but sexy. She seemed to walk easily. Her obviously expensive dress had long sleeves and displayed no cleavage, but it was tight enough to show a very womanly shape.

“Your face is. . .amazing,” he gushed.

“What did you expect?”

He shut his eyes. “We’re best friends or I wouldn’t tell you this.” He took a drink of liquid courage. “I’ve imagined weird things. I’ve even thought of you in bed with. . ..” He couldn’t go on.

“Maybe it’s best unsaid,” Gabby speculated.

“I look at you and I see Gabe’s jaw, and his nose, but somehow that doesn’t make your face look any less feminine,” he stammered. “Your large eyes are beautifully made up, and your small but gorgeously-shaped lips are painted red. They dominate your face, which is stunningly framed by a honey-blonde, shoulder-length wig. Your eyebrows appeared to have been shaped.”

“Well, what do you think?” She asked.

“I don’t know what to think,” Mal dithered. “I was expecting a friend of mine to turn up, and instead I am being propositioned by a beautiful woman.”

“Propositioned?” Gaby’s eyebrows shot up.

“It’s nothing you’ve done – or said – but your body seems to be asking to be … .”

“Maybe we took it a bit too far. It’s good, right?” She asked. “The salon does a service for cross-dressers -- as well as women. They arranged the body shaping thing. Pretty cool, huh?”

“Um … yeah. Very cool.”

“The only things to worry about for Monday – back at work -- is the plucking between my eyebrows and the lower body wax job,” she said. She raised her bangs to show him her eyebrows. “I can brush them up to make them look more masculine, but people might notice. And, I wear long pants, so the leg hair will have time to grow back. I just thought that the waxing would be better than a shave. Pretty stupid -- I guess, but it’s done now.”

“You look great,” Mal gushed. “Like -- way better than I would have expected.”

“I know,” she said. “You look surprised, but I can tell you that is how I felt when I saw myself.”

“You could live like this,” Mal opined.

She looked at him seriously. There were still doubts in her mind.

“There’s the business, Mal,” she said. “It’s a dream, but Monday morning I will wake up.”

“No, I mean it, Gabe—er-- Gabby,” Mal stumbled. “Gabby could come to work on Monday. We can work around issues. You were always more valuable doing the analysis and proposals. If you’re uncertain about dealing with clients, then the office is full of young bucks ready to step up. If you want to live this, you should. I know that is what you really want.”

Gabby raised a glass daintily and said, “Here’s to true friendship. Thanks for being here for me.” There was a trace of sadness in the painted heavily lashed eyes.

“I mean it, Gabby. I mean it.”

She smiled knowing that her teeth would look whiter against her bright lipstick color. The first sip of her wine left a trace on her glass. “I bought some hormones, too. I just have them sitting next to my shaving mug at home. A syringe, too. Just in case I decide to go down that track.”

“For fuck’s sake, you have had your junk removed and a snatch installed.” He blushed at what was just his normal blunt manner. “Here you are looking and sounding like the woman you are down below. Why are you even thinking of turning up to work next week as a guy? I am trying to support you, but I have no time for wimps.”

His anger startled Gabby. “You’re over-reacting, just like you did last week.” But this time she spoke in her girly voice, that sounded timid and fearful.

Mal grinned. “Everything about you makes me want to protect you.”

Gabby wondered if that was a joke, or an attempt at one.

“Let’s finish our drinks and we’ll go to your place,” Mal suggested. “You need to make your decision. You wanted me to witness your first step, actually, your second step, and here I am. I’m going to witness you taking your next step. If you don’t know what you need to do, I do.”

There was something about his firm statement that made Gabby feel as feminine as she ever had. Mal was a man she respected, who was taking control. She liked it.

“Ok,” she whimpered.

Part 3

On the way back to her apartment, she had asked whether she could take his arm -- just as support while she was adjusting to walking in heels.

“Are you sure?” He asked.

“I need you.” She clung to him and felt fragile and comforted.

She saw other people looking at them. Not at her, or at a man dressed as a woman, but at “them” – a couple going home for the evening.

“I’ll have to admit,” Mal whispered, “for a brief moment I wondered if somebody might notice that I’ve got a tranny on my arm. But looking at you hanging off me -- I can’t possibly see anyone thinking that.”

“You’re the best friend possible for helping me.”

Mel chuckled. “The fact that my friend has a penchant for women’s clothing shouldn’t change things. What kind of guy would I be if I thought differently?”

People smiled at them and men seemed fascinated with Gabby’s legs. Nobody stared.

“It’s as I told you,” Mel stated happily, “You can be who you want to be.”

Gabby let them in to her apartment, which was still Gabe’s apartment. There was not a trace of anything female in it. It had been a long time since Cheryl had moved out. It was tidy – Gabe was a tidy person – but definitely a bachelor’s apartment.

“I have some food I can heat up for us,” said Gabby. Her voice was still her voice. Her movements were still her movements.

“I could eat a bit. I guess I saw the last of Gabe yesterday,” Mel said. “That’s the way it should be. Why should you suffer when the answer is at hand? Where are those hormones?”

“I’ll get them,” Gabby said. She disappeared, and then re-emerged with a jar of pills and a box with a sealed disposable syringe and a vial inside.

Mal examined the instructions. “This injection is the best,” he announced. “This will send you off down the path towards true womanhood. I am not even going to ask you if that is what you want, because I know it is. You just need to say ‘yes.’ Then you bend over and pull down your panties and I give you a shot in your buttock.”

“This is going to change everything,” she whispered.

“Getting rid of your genitalia changed everything. Maybe you should have done this first.” He had removed the syringe from its sterile wrapping and was opening the special seal on the vial. “Now show me that ass.”

Her underpants were bulky and padded with a high waist to hold in her tummy, and the pantyhose needed to come down first. Gabby was doing what she was told, although he did not tell her to bend over the way she did.

Mal had pressed the plunger for a droplet to appear and had a sterile swab to wipe the spot for injection, but then he saw what faced him. Her dress hiked up. Her bottom pale and as smooth as polished pink marble, with a shapely thing below. And above those thighs was her pussy – a perfect little strawberry macaron -- winking at him.

“Oh fuck,” Mal whined in a sexual way.

“What’s wrong?” She asked.

He plunged the syringe in and pushed the plunger home.

Gabby noted the erection in his pants. She stayed bent over with her hands on the sofa. “Oh my God. I can actually feel it. I can feel the female chemistry inside my body. It feels good.”

Mel moaned.

Gabby looked around and could see it. His lust could not have been any more obvious had he been naked.

“Oh?” She asked. “Did I do that?”

“I think so,” Mal apologized. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” she said. She slipped off her shoes and stepped out of her pants. Below the waist she was now a complete woman, but somehow that had never been relevant until just now. “I guess I have taken my third step, so why not take a fourth? Are you willing to help with that, too?”

He looked at her as if begging her to stop him from doing what he wanted to do.

But she would not. She stepped to him and undid his belt and zipper. A steel hard member appeared.

“I am not sure,” Mal began.

“Well somebody is,” she said. She took his cock in her hand. “It has been a while since I’ve held one of these.”

“What with Cheryl and everything, I didn’t think that you were ever interested in guys,” he said.

“I never was,” she said, “until just now. I was speaking of holding my own penis. Yours is the first one I’ve ever held that wasn’t mine.” She stood close to him. Face to face, without her heels she was much smaller than Mal.

He always knew it but somehow, he had never been as close as this so as to notice.

She licked her painted lips and batting her stuck-on eyelashes.

They kissed while running their hands over each other’s body.

She kept her dress on while he gently placed her on her back on the bed.

He ran his hands up the insides of her thighs.

She gasped.

His cock twitched, already engorged to bursting, and appeared to strain even more.

“I need lubrication,” she said. “Bedside table.”

He squirted some of her gel on his fingers and poked them inside her vagina.

“Oh Jesus,” she squeaked. “Please get inside me -- quickly.”

He didn’t ask for further invitation. He impaled her to the hilt, his back arching. “This feels so right. My cock feels like it’s right at home.”

She felt him. The form of his tip and every bulging vein on that cock. She had considered that her sex life would be smooth plastic forever, but now she understood. She needed a man inside her. Preferably this man.

“Are you okay, Babe?” He asked.

She loved that he had called her “Babe.”

“Just make love to me.” Not “fuck me”. She knew the difference. She knew what this was. She knew that each rhythmic thrust was an expression of love. How else could it have this effect on her? Not just a female orgasm. She had been enjoying those for months. This is the way things should be, since men and women came into being, made for one another as she felt that she was made for him.

The orgasms were simultaneous, exquisite and earth-shattering.

She oozed. There was nothing left inside him. It was all inside her.

“Now this is going to change everything,” he said.

“I hope so,” she said

The End

© Maryanne Peters 2020