A Chance Encounter with an Old Friend

I encountered an old friend last week. Our friendship goes back so far and both of us have changed so much that at first neither of us recognized the other. Part of the encounter played out like a scene from one of my all-time favorite movies, a French-Canadian classic called J’ai Mon Voyage. But I’ll write more about the movie later.

Let me set the scene for the encounter. It is a story in itself. You know me. I’m a long-time crossdresser, happy with that label, and as my bio states I’m married to a wonderful woman who accepts Linda as an important part of the person she loves. We have some routine to our lives. We take long winter vacations in Florida. We like our golf. We like live music. For example for each of the past several years we visit a blues festival up in Ottawa, Canada. We go for three days. We get a hotel room near to the festival and we walk to and from the festival. Most of the time I’m in drab, but we have one other tradition: One afternoon my wife will find something else to do while Linda gets out to enjoy the festival as a single girl. It is not that she is ashamed of Linda but she is concerned that someone we know will see us, recognize her and put two and two together about who the tall girl with her is. I am not out to the family and folks back home.

So it was decided that Wednesday would be Linda’s day at the Bluesfest. It was predicted to be a sunny clear day with pleasant temperatures and low humidity. The forecasters got it right. What a day! I may have some explaining to do about the cleavage and halter strap tan lines but I will be careful. Oh yes, the sandal strap lines, as well.

There I was. Freshly epilated, modest makeup, dressed in the same style of shorts, halter and sandals that half the women at the Bluesfest would be wearing, walking out of the hotel when the urge struck me to visit the ladies’ room. I didn’t really need to pee but I felt a need to check myself once more in the mirror and this particular room had mirrors that allowed for delicious rear views.

Just as I smoothed some wrinkles off the rear of my shorts I heard the outer door opening. As passable as I think I am I still use caution rather than confrontation in the ladies’. I ducked in to a toilet stall and locked the door. I would wait out the two girls entering. They did their ‘duty’ and lined up next to each other at the mirrors. You know how it goes, I’m sure. It was as they chatted at the mirror that I first noticed it. One voice was in a definite feminine pitch; the other was a fair imitation of a feminine voice but it came from masculine vocal chords. I decided to meet these two. I stood up, flushed my toilet and opened the stall door.

Now aware of my presence the ladies stopped talking and packed their makeup in to their purses. I saw in the mirror that they took a quick look my way but they showed no sign of ‘reading’ me. They were not spring chickens, probably in their 50s and I could see by their casual wear and the festival passes hanging around their neck that they were heading in the same direction as I was. They were gone in a flash. I still had a fresh coat of lipstick to apply. I determined to try to meet up with them later in the day.

`Wait a minute,’ I thought to myself, `there will be a few thousand people at the festival this afternoon. How will I find them? I’d better keep them in sight.’ By the time I exited the hotel on to — get this — Queen Street my potential friends were 100 yards or so down the street headed towards the festival site.

As I walked I tried to come up with a plan to meet them. They would be seeing me as a genuine girl so what do I say to them? ‘Hi, I know you are trans but that is okay. I’m cool with that,’ sounded a bit condescending. And what if I was wrong? What if she were a GG? Would that be a big insult? As I walked I was noticing that nobody, absolutely nobody, was paying any extra attention to them. No passerby turned around to nudge their companion. It seemed my radar had picked out ‘trans’ but nobody else’s had. ‘Great,’ I thought. It seemed nobody else was reading me either, I observed. But I was used to that.

I was still wondering how I could approach the couple when I arrived at the security line for pass holders where I stood directly behind them. As we inched forward the shorter of the two turned to me and said ‘hi’. I responded with a ‘hi’ as well and with that her companion turned to look at me. We smiled but said nothing more. I think both of us are conscious not to say too much around strangers.

So the shorter woman, who turned out to be named Mary opened up the conversation. “Aren’t you staying at the Delta Hotel?”

“Why yes, I am.”

“Yes, we saw you there a little while ago, in the ladies’ room.”

“I saw you there, too,” I replied, “but I didn’t think you had noticed me. Are you staying there, too.”

“No, we had just stopped in to refresh our makeup, take advantage of the air conditioning for a while before hitting the festival. We knew we had some time to kill before the gates opened. Where are you from?”

I was to learn that Mary had a habit of talking along on one subject and then suddenly making a 90 degree turn to ask a question on another.

“Kingston,” I replied, “My …friend and I are up for a couple of days for Bluesfest.” I had been about to say wife but decided to leave that bit ambiguous. “She had some work to do so I’m here on my own. She will join me for the evening stages.” Actually the plan was that I would be heading back to the hotel, putting away ‘Linda’ and we would be returning as husband and wife but as they say -– TMI (too much information).

“We love Kingston. We’re from Toronto but we go there quite a bit for sailing events. Our daughter, my daughter attended Queens a few years back.” She had corrected herself on the our/my thing but she did it so smoothly that no one else but another TG would have noticed. As we were about to go through the security checks Mary continued, “if you are here alone why don’t you join us? We are just going to cruise around the smaller stages and then get some drinks. We’d love your company, wouldn’t we Crystal.” Her friend who had been attentive but quiet nodded her agreement.

“I’d love to,” I replied.

So it came to pass that Mary, Crystal and I enjoyed an afternoon of music mostly performed by local up-and-coming bands. The crowds were not as large as I had expected them to be so we three girls had plenty of room to move around, find some shade and enjoy a beverage break. Between numbers we would chat a bit, mostly about small things in our lives or about the music, nothing worth reporting here. It was enough for me that I was being accepted unconditionally as a woman in a ‘straight’ environment. It was a pretty good feeling, let me tell you.

During one of our breaks at an outdoor beverage plaza that Mary asked about my ‘friend.’ She wanted to know if she and I would be returning to the Bluesfest that evening and if so, could the two of us join them for dinner before the evening stages.

That created a conundrum for me. First, I would really love to have quickly accepted their invitation for the both of us. Second, I knew that my wife did not like to be seen in public with me in case someone we knew happened upon her. I am not ‘out’ to the friends back home. Third, what if she did come along but spill the beans about me being transgender. Would Mary and Crystal feel they had been deceived? Fourth, I thought what if my wife, Lisa, joined us and if we met anyone we knew she could say Mary and Crystal were old friends of hers and I was a friend of theirs.

I so wanted to spend the evening as Linda that I decided to try for #4. I would call Lisa to tell her what was planned but first I thought it only fair to tell my new friends about my true self.

“I’ll call her and ask,” I said, “but first there is something I have to tell you. My friend is not just my friend; she is my wife. I am not Linda full time. I am actually a crossdresser.” I was pretty sure they would be familiar with that term.

“Oh we know that,” Mary responded, “Crystal had figured that out back at the hotel ladies’ room.”

“What? I didn’t talk with you there, how would you know?”

Mary replied, “Don’t worry. Your secret is safe with us. Crystal is a crossdresser, too. Tell Linda what you noticed, Crystal.”

“It wasn’t your looks, that’s for sure,” Crystal started, “You are very attractive. As Mary and I were chatting in the ladies room I looked around and noticed a pair of feet behind one of the stalls. You were sitting. That is good. But as you got up to flush and leave I noticed that I hadn’t heard the sound of the toilet paper roll. Every genuine woman who sits on a toilet for either #1 or #2 will take some paper, usually a lot of it and wipe herself. You didn’t do that. Because I had to learn the hard way I’m very conscious of that little detail.”

“Of course: the old roll the roll trick,” I replied giving my best effort at a Maxwell Smart imitation, “I was so fixated on your voice that I forgot one of my own little details.”

Crystal looked at Mary. Then she explained to me that often when the two are alone as she had initially thought they were she will slip out of her femme voice and drop other femme mannerisms, too.

“Me too,” I exclaimed, “it is as if I don’t want to play make-believe with her. Or I can’t.”

We chatted about roll playing with our spouses for a while. To make a long story short I called Lisa, explained the situation and told her we had been invited to join my new friends for dinner and the evening stages. Mary got on the phone to close the deal. We agreed to meet up at the restaurant in our hotel. That gave me a chance to freshen my makeup and change outfits.

It was at dinner that things got really interesting for me. It turned out that Crystal and I had met and been friends some years ago. We recalled some of our adventures in Montreal and how years ago she had sent me the story of how Mary had ‘outed’ her to all their family, friends and neighbors.

I will tell you that story next month.

But wait; there’s more. I promised to tell you about that movie, J’ai Mon Voyage. It centers on a French Canadian couple who speak no English but decide to take a trip by car and trailer across Canada. Most of the rest of Canada at the time spoke only English. So the husband takes a few English lessons by way of tapes. He practices phrases such as ‘say hello to your mother and father’ and ‘it is a beautiful day today’, etc. They have lots of adventures and mishaps but the incident in mind was when our hero stopped at a gas station in Toronto and decides to ask for directions. He decides to try out his limited English on a man standing nearby. “Say hello to your mother and father,” he says. “It is a beautiful day today,” comes the reply and on goes the conversation. It turns out the other man is another French Canadian who has tried the same tape lessons. Eventually he returns to the car and tells his wife that he met a local man who turned out to be very nice and he had a nice conversation. The irony is heightened by the fact that the role of the other man is a cameo appearance by Quebec’s biggest hockey star of the time. I hope you get the connection. I originally thought we were two CDs pretending to be GGs unknown to the other.

Tags: crossdressing, featured, passing

Category: Transgender Fun & Entertainment