Everything I Want
A Short Story
By Maryanne Peters

“You would seem to have everything I want,” he said.

“I am very proud of my boys,” I said, switching the phone from the image, and slipping it back into my pocket.

“Not just your family,” he said. “Your house on the river, your relaxed lifestyle up here, and clearly you are in good health.

“I live here because it is all I can afford,” I explained. “But the boys can live better out of the city. And I can do my freelance design work from home. But it is tough. Ever since my wife died, it has been tough.”

“I am sorry to hear about your wife,” he said. “Was it an accident?”

“Cancer,” I said. “An accident would have been better. It was a slow death after 14 months of treatment. She finally left us 4 months ago. But the whole thing has brought me closer to my kids, so there is something positive from it.”

“You strike me as a positive person,” he said. He gave me a warm look. By that I mean that the look he gave seemed to wrap me in a warm rug. I felt more able to talk to this stranger.

“And can I ask what you do? And what you are doing in the backwater?” I asked.

“I’m a psychoanalyst,” he said. “And I am a counsellor and a hypnotherapist as well. A good one. And what am I doing here. It is a house call. I really should not go into details. Confidentiality, you know. But I am treating a person suffering from agrophobia, if you know what that is. I have come a long way for a large fee, but I think that I have earned it today.”

“I know what agrophobia is,” I said. “And I think that I can guess who your patient might be.” It was well known in the village that the immensely wealthy resident of the house on the point was reclusive to the point of madness.

“I cannot comment,” he said. “I keep all my patients’ details confidential.”

“So, I detect that you are from overseas?” I queried. “Eastern Europe perhaps?”

“You are very observant. I am Romanian,” he said. “But I have consulting rooms in Paris. I have a good practice there and I work throughout Europe, but I would love to be more established here. You have so many problems in your country. There are so many people who need my help. You have one of the world’s biggest cities just down river from here, and half of the population seem to have some kind of psychological problem. I could do very well here. But I would need a green card.”

“You need to find a local girl,” I joked.

“That’s what I am thinking,” he said.

He looked at me quite intently, which I found slightly uncomfortable. I am sure he could sense that. He offered to buy me another coffee and he called the waitress over.

“I really must be going,” I said. “My boys will be home from school soon. I really only came into town to get a few things.” I felt suddenly nervous and uncertain.

“You really should relax and have another coffee,” he said. He placed a hand on my back. It seemed and overly familiar thing to do, but it was not as strange as my reaction to it. Instead of pulling away from it or tightening up, my back seemed to welcome the contact. He said: “Relax. Relax. Here is your coffee.”

I suddenly felt that I knew and trusted this man. But I did not even drink my coffee. I invited him around to my place. It was not something I would imagine myself doing.

“This is wonderful,” he said. “It reminds me very much of the place where I was brought up. It was a wooden house like this, but beside a lake rather than the river. It was warm like this. This is a home. I can feel it.”

“I bought it when times were good, as a retreat. But now it is all I have. And with the medical bills I find myself with a mortgage.”

“Is this your wife?” he said, picking up a photograph from the sideboard – a scene of happy times. “She is very beautiful. You must miss her terribly. And your children too.”

“The boys are young,” I told him. “12, 10 and 8. I think they need a mother.”

“More than a father?” he asked.

I did not answer. But I was worried that he was right. If I had died instead of her, would they be better off? For some reason I felt that I needed to show him more of her. I had more photos in the bedroom.

“I haven’t thrown anything of hers out, yet,” I explained to him as I moved to close the doors to her wardrobe. I touched the red dress and said: “I really should, I suppose.”

“Don’t,” he said. “It looks to me that she had a wonderful taste in clothes. And I feel the essence of her is still here. Don’t throw anything of hers away, just yet.”

“Clothes were her passion,” I said. I was imagining her wearing some of the items that I could see. I felt sad, but not in a despairing way.

“That is beautiful,” he said. “You could be the same size as her. I would like to see it. Would you put it on for me? Please?”

I unbuckled my jeans and let them fall to the floor. I pulled of my socks and my sweater and tee shirt. For some reason there seemed to be nothing unnatural in what I was doing. I wanted to see it on too. I stepped into it and pulled it up as I had seen my wife do it. There was a zip at the back.

“Let me zip you,” he said. I lifted my hair out of the way. My hair was not really long enough to do that. I had not had a haircut since well before my wife died, so it was longer than it should be, but I suppose lifting it like that was a thing you do when you are putting on a dress. He zipped me up.

I looked at myself in the mirror. It was a beautiful dress.

“It’s a perfect fit,” he said. “You are the same size. You need to fill out the front with a nice pair of breasts, and it back down here too, you need just a little more volume. And those shoes?”

They did not fit. So, he suggested that I walk on the balls of my feet across the room in front of him.

“You need the right shoes,” he said. “But with heels on, your legs will look great, when you remove the hair from them.” I knew that he was right. He pulled out the chair from the dressing table so that I could sit down. When I did I smooth my dress across my bottom and sat with my thighs crossed. It seemed the way to sit, but it was uncomfortable. I cursed the fact that I had genitals in the way of a perfect pose.

He examined my feet and seemed to measure them with his hands. He said: “If you will be my Cinderella, I will find you the shoes to match.”

I laughed. It felt good. It seemed to me that I had not laughed that way for quite some time. I smiled every day for my children, but there was not enough real joy. There had not been for many months. It seemed that this man had made me happy again.

“Would you be so kind as to drop me off at the station so I can get a train back to the city?” he asked. I started to look for a handbag, so he added. “Perhaps take the dress off for today.”

When he got out of the car at the station he introduced himself: “I am Doctor Marius Hananescu. I will be back on Saturday morning. It is my intention to make you a happy woman, if that is what you want?”

“It is,” I said. “It is.”

I got home just before the school bus dropped the boys off. I am not sure that they noticed that I was any different from that morning, but I felt different. I think that they knew something had changed when I got them up on Friday morning. I felt happy and I was certain that it showed. The whole house felt brighter, as if a dark fog had finally lifted letting the morning sun seem to shine as a sun should.

When they headed off for school I kissed each of them on the head as my wife had always done. Jason, the oldest, made some show of embarrassment.

“From now on I want to be more of a mother to you boys,” I explained.

I could not stop thinking about Marius. He told me that he would be back the following day and I badly wanted to see him. I took a bath, which is something I do not normally do, and I shaved my legs. I shaved my armpits as well, and for good measure, my lower arms, my chest and my stomach. I even shaved my pubic hair – but not all of it. When I stepped out of the bath I felt more naked than naked, but somehow super-sensitive. I stepped outside into the sunshine, naked and alive. It was like communing with nature, without the barrier of hair. It felt good.

I used some of my wife’s moisturizing body lotion, and I took the time to go through some of the other lotions in the vanity cabinet. There was hair colour and hair straightening solution and other hair products and tools. I decided that I needed to do something with my hair. Everything came with instructions.

“Dad, what have you done?” said Jason when the boys got home. They all stood in the living room with their mouths open. I was wearing my usual jeans and sweater, but I needed to check myself in the mirror by the door to see what the fuss was about.

My hair has always had a slight natural curl or wave, so the straightening treatment had added some length to my hair, which now hung below my ears and was parted in the middle. And it was blonde. The same colour as my late wife’s hair.

I knew that I had done this, but I stood looking at the mirror looking at myself and wondering how the hell this had happened.

“Dad has girl’s hair,” said Gabriel, the youngest. He was right. But all I could think of was that it needed to be curled under to look right. I just did not have the skills.

“I am just playing around,” I said. “Do you like it?”

“It’s weird, Dad,” said Jason.

We went down to the clearing to play ball for the rest of the afternoon, so my hair was not discussed again for the rest of the day. But after I had fixed dinner, we had watched some TV and the boys were in bed, I spent a lot of time in front of the mirror in my room, working on my hair. I knew that I had no skills when it came to styling hair, and I felt stupid and inadequate. And I did want it to look good for Marius when he came in the morning.

Sure enough, he was there after breakfast. He had rented a car and he pulled up beside the house.

I introduced him to the boys – Jason, Tom and Gabe. They seemed a little uncertain.

“Do you play baseball,” said Gabe, breaking that uncertainty.

“No,” he said. “We don’t play that game in Europe. I play tennis, and golf. But I had the privilege of playing rugby for my country, and professionally in France. Do you know this game?”

“That’s a great game,” said Jason. “It’s like football but without pads and helmets.”

“It’s a boy’s game,” he said. “No, it’s a man’s game. Not for soft people.” He was looking at me. Was I soft. I suddenly felt that I was. And I liked it.

“I’ve got a football,” said Jason. “Can we use that and you show us some rugby moves.”

“Of course,” said Marius. “But first I have somethings for your mother.” He motioned me to come to him.

“Our mother is dead,” said Tom.

“Your father is taking her place,” said Marius. “Now listen to me boys, listen very carefully …”. The boys fell silent and waited for him to continue: “You need to support your father in this. He is concerned only for your welfare and happiness. I am too. I want to stay here with you to help your new mother through this. You should not see any change. You should only be aware of the love that comes from her. Can you do this?”

The boys all nodded together.

“These are for you,” he said to me. “These are pills that you need to take every day. But I will give you an injection as well. One every month. And I have bought you three pairs of shoes, and some gel inserts for your bra.”

“I have shaved my legs,” I told him proudly. “My whole body in fact.”

“Just as well,” he said. “But we will go into the city next week for something a little more permanent. And I do like your hair that colour, but we will need to get that professionally styled next week as well. Now Jason, get the ball and let’s go outside while your mother tries on her shoes. And you boys can call me Tata if you like.”

I put on a nice dress and wore the sandals with the heel. I brushed my hair from the side and put a coloured barrette to hold it. I baked a quiche for lunch. I was not really a baking person, but I followed the recipe from the book and I was very pleased with the outcome. All my boys seemed to like it. I felt very pleased with myself after they had eaten the last crumb. Content is the word, I think. Me, that is.

We took the boat out on the river in the afternoon. I did nothing. I just sat under the small sun umbrella I had brought with me.

That night Marius stayed with us. He slept in my bed. I wore a nightgown from her wardrobe. He only touched me to inspect the smoothness of my legs and arms. He gave me the injection and told me that in a short time my skin would be much softer. I felt that is what he needed before he could touch me properly. I prayed that the drugs would take effect sooner so that he would. Touch me, I mean.

After Marius spoke to the boys they never questioned what was happening to me, but some others did. In the village people looked at me very strangely. I did my best not to draw to much attention to myself, taking to wearing tracksuits when I went shopping, but I could not (and would not) hide other changes.

Things improved with the visit to the spa and salon the week after Marius moved in, and that became a weekly thing after that. The spa took on the task of removing facial hair with electrolysis and body hair with wax. The salon did my hair and attended to plucking my eyebrows and applying makeup. Plus I received instruction on hair and skin regimes and a variety of hair and makeup styles. I really enjoyed it.

The hair program resulted in fairly rapid growth and regrowth of “baby hair” on parts of my head that had been short on hair growth. Within a couple of months I had hair down below my shoulders and I could wear in in a variety of styles. I spent a lot of time in front of the mirror in the evening caring for my hair, and in the morning experimenting with styles and ornaments.

I liked using makeup, and as things progressed I found that I was not stared at as an oddity anymore, but as an attractive woman. That made me feel good.

My body was changing too. I had grown breasts and I had shape to my hips and my behind. My legs looked better and my arms looked more feminine. It was as if I had always wanted to look this good.

As Marius said the drug would make my skin became softer as well. With that he found it easier to touch me. He liked to snuggle up to me in bed if my back was turned to him, or to play with my breasts as I lay on my back, provided that I was wearing panties. It was clear to me that he hated what was between my legs, so I hated it too. It was like a barrier between us. I longed to remove it – the barrier I mean.

My sons were more inclined to go to Marius for fatherly advice. I was being treated more and more as their mother. But I was totally OK with that. Mothers tend not to judge their children and just to love them unconditionally, and I felt that was my role now. It was easier somehow. I really liked being a mother rather than a father.

Also, Marius was not always there. He had a semi-permanent hotel room in the city, and he stayed there two nights a week. One night I stayed with him there and we had a babysitter stay with the boys at the house. Marius took me to the opera, which I did not understand, but I adored it, just like the girl in “Pretty Woman”. What I particularly liked is that I got dressed up and Marius’s expense in an evening gown and sparkly heels, with my hair up in a fancy style. I don’t believe that I ever felt better about myself than that night. I really was Cinderella – but in my case a filthy man become a gorgeous girl.

It was not long after that, when my parents came to call. They telephoned first. I had not seen them since Marius came into my life, and I told them that I had made huge changes. They said that I sounded different, but they were hardly prepared for what they found.

My father was very angry and called me a “pervert”. He stomped around outside while my mother dried her tears and sought some explanation. I really found it hard to give her one. I just said that I had come to the realisation that this is how I wanted to live, to become a mother to the boys. I told my mother that I had come to believe that mothers were the most important people, in particular for boys. I really meant it, but it was just the right thing to say to my mother. We hugged. It was beautiful.

I told her that the boys and my new friend Marius had totally accepted the new me. I said that as I had become more feminine even strangers accepted me as a woman. I just needed her and Dad to do the same.

When my father came back he spent time grilling me about Marius. He felt that Marius was responsible for the change in me, but somehow that made no sense. I was uncertain, but I felt that maybe I had been like this before. I asked my mother if she had noticed any feminine traits in me in my childhood. She told me that she had not, and that I was always manly. Somehow that seemed to make no sense. Transwoman know from an early age – don’t they?

My parents were devoted to the boys, and I think that it was the need to stay in contact with them that persuaded them to accept the situation, no matter how uncomfortable they were about it.

My father asked me whether I was planning an operation to remove my male genitals. Strangely, I had never given thought to the actual surgery until he raised it, I was simply trying to wish them away. It suddenly seemed to be something that I would need to consider, even though it could be painful.

I spoke to Marius about it. He was supportive and said that he could arrange the paperwork with some colleagues, and that he could pay for the surgery. Again he had connections.

“I could not expect you to do that,” I said.

“If I was your husband you would expect me to pay,” he said. “If you had the operation I would expect you to be my wife. If you would have me.”

I was so happy that I hugged and kissed him like a schoolgirl. That night we made out properly, but I could still not take him inside me because of the male stuff being there. I desperately wanted to satisfy him, so I gave him a blow job. It was the first one I had ever given, although I had received quite a few in my time as a man. I surprised myself by really enjoying it, and by swallowing everything he put into my mouth, with relish.

I did not have to wait for too long to get the surgery, as he was able to pull strings with his medical friends and get me approved and lined up with a top SRS surgeon in quick time. He went with me to the clinic and promised to stay all the way through.

Just before I was wheeled in to the OR he said: “I could tell you the truth. I could tell you everything, and if you wanted to stop now and never see me again, then I could make you forget it. Or I could let you go.” I was confused, and he could see it. He said: “I am giving you the chance to say no. Without my influence. There, it is now your choice. Life with me as a mother to our boys, or be a solo father consumed by memories. Which is it?”

I found myself suddenly very confused. I knew where I was, but it now seemed crazy that I had let things go this far. He was holding my hand and looking into my eyes pleading me. Pleading me to agree to have my groin cut into. I had every memory intact, except how it had all started. The one thing that I knew was that while I had adored the woman who had been my wife, nothing could compare to the happiness that I had known with this man.

“If you promise me that you love me, and you always will, I will do this,” I said.

He was so happy he wept. “Yes, my darling,” he said. “I love you. I always will. I want you to be my wife.”

And it seems like minute later I woke and it was done. My throat was bandaged and I could not talk for two weeks. I had other bandages on my face, and what I could see under them appeared purple and swollen. I had breasts, in a forming bandage. And my crotch was in pain.

Recovery took several weeks, but Marius was in attendance at the hospital, and when I got home the boys were great in looking after me as their mother.

I could not wait for the green light to have sex with Marius. I was warned not to rush it. I needed to be fully healed and adopt a regimen of daily stretching with plastic tools to ensure that I was wide enough to take him without pain.

And he was a wonderful lover. Better than I had ever been as a man. With his hands and his lips he lifted me to a point of high excitement before his penis came anywhere near me. And when it did … well, I wondered why I had lived so long without a vagina. I just lay back and relished it. The climax was perfection, and then when he came moments later, I had another one!

He pulled back the sheets. My pussy was still dripping his cum, warm and sticky. It felt wonderful. He was looking at it.

“What?” I asked with a smile.

He said: “Now I definitely have everything I want.”

The End

© Maryanne Peters 2019