Dreams Take Flight: Part 4 Discovered (or How it Hit the Fan)

[Part 1][Part 2][Part 3][Part 4]

A quick review:

• Patrick, the gay flight attendant liked singing karaoke en femme and he was pretty good at it.
• When his airline colleagues caught his act they conspired to have him work a shift as Patricia. He was pretty good at that, too.
• One of the pilots who had always been a bit cold towards the gay Patrick seemed to take an immediate liking to the new Patricia. No one could figure out why.
• After returning from a short vacation at a Palm Springs Gay Pride Week Patrick decided that he wanted to spend more time, including work time, as Patricia. His crew mates were all for it but would the airline agree?

Hi again folks. Thanks for bearing with me as we near the end (I hope) of our story about a gay male flight attendant named Patrick, working for a major regional airline who finds himself working one day as a female flight attendant, Patricia.  This all happened back in the 1970s but as you will find out later most of the details can only be revealed now.

For many crossdressers being dressed en femme is a very sexually charged experience. Dressing turns us on. Apparently, it wasn’t that way for Patrick. At first he ‘did drag’ because he had the voice to emulate many female singers in the karaoke machines.  Patrick loved karaoke.

If crossdressing wasn’t a sexual turn on for Patrick what was motivating him to branch out beyond karaoke?

It was the 1970s. Large parts of society were still openly hostile to the gay lifestyle and to the homosexuals they saw. Being short, slight and soft-spoken Patrick often faced both open and subtle hostility. However he was so good and so convincing en femme that people were leaving him alone, even openly admiring Patricia.  He liked the admiration and attention. Wouldn’t you? I know I would. He wanted more of it. But it wasn’t going to be without complications.

The first complication was the Operations Center in Denver. When crews started the day out of town they would just go to the airport, find their gate, board the plane and start the day’s work. However in Denver they had to route through the Operations Center, sign in and pick up any staff memos, briefing notes, etc .  Patrick had no desire to confront the bosses with his femme image. He did not know but he imagined their reaction would not be good. So for Patrick Denver was ‘Drab Central’.

The second complication was Dan, the crew’s most frequent first officer, the co-pilot. Dan was married. However, while indifferent to Patrick, Dan was taking an obvious interest in Patricia. Dan is what we would call today an admirer. At one point Dan confessed to Patricia how he became an admirer. It’s a good story. Someday I will tell you.

Patricia liked Dan but knew that a romance within the company, particularly with a married man would not end well. Dan respected that and the two stayed on good friend terms.

The third complication was something that Patricia and the rest knew would happen eventually but they decided just to cross that bridge when it happened. It didn’t happen for a while but when it did the stuff really hit the fan.

Back in those days you may remember many retail businesses hired people known as ‘secret shoppers’ to visit stores and report on their interactions with staff. Were the staff knowledgeable? Were they helpful? Did they give a good impression of the company?  I know this because I had a short part-time career as a secret shopper.

It seems the airlines had the equivalent of secret shoppers. Officially they were called something like Quality Control Inspectors. Some people called them Phantom Flyers however in Patricia’s circle they were called by the acronym from Customer Relations Auditing Personnel.

The inspectors’ jobs were to take flights as if they were regular passengers but note and report everything that was going on particularly even the slightest deviations from the flight attendants’ procedures.  Sometimes the agents were regular passengers who had been contacted by the airline and offered a discounted or even free ticket in return for a report on the crew’s performance. Sometimes they would be regular ‘CRAP’ staff.

Patricia told me that they could often tell who were the ‘CRAPers’  as they tended to hang together in the waiting areas but sit separately on the plane. They also carried notepads, something like stenographer flip pads, in which they recorded key information.   But most important to Patricia and her colleagues was that the ‘CRAPers’ would have been provided with the names of the staff they were to report on. It was only a matter of time until a ‘CRAPer’ came on board expecting to find Patrick H—- only to find Patricia H—- working in his place.

Patricia and her crew mates expected all hell to break loose when that day finally came but they had decided to let the chips fall where they may.

The first time they spotted the auditors they were lucky. They were outbound from Denver. Patrick was in ‘boy-mode’ and all went well. They decided that he should not ‘go femme’ for the return trip just in case the auditors were going to be along. So he didn’t change and sure enough they were along, this time sitting together which meant they weren’t officially reporting. So Patricia and her colleagues had some breathing room. They were not likely to have another audit in the near future.

The more flights that were taken as Patricia the bolder she got. In those days the routine for the flight attendants including their pre-flight instructions to the passengers were pretty flat and stifling. The crew knew that 99% of the passengers paid little or no attention to the safety announcement and would not know fully how to put on an oxygen mask when their life depended on it but that was the FAA regulation.  The natural entertainer in Patricia saw that when she jazzed up these announcements the passengers paid more attention. She could get them laughing.  She even incorporated something she experienced in her church where the leader would ask the members of the congregation to turn to those around them and offer a greeting like ‘Peace be with you’.  Patricia modified in to ‘A good flight be yours’. Usually it got some icebreaking and relaxation. Always it got a laugh but she knew that when the ‘CRAPers’ were next on board their pens would get busy.

Patricia and her colleagues decided that when the auditors finally did catch up they would just let things happen. A suspension was possible, even a termination of employment for Patricia and that would be a serious blow. However the compulsion to be Patricia on the job kept growing stronger and stronger.

It wasn’t long before word started to spread among the other flight attendants and even the pilots that one of their colleagues was crossdressing on the job.  While 99% of them were fine with the news and enjoyed being in on their little secret it only took that one fink, that one tattle-tale to get the ‘CRAP’ people sniffing around.

So it was that one agent, deep undercover, boarded a flight inbound to Denver where Jill, Margo and Patrick were scheduled to work the cabin only to find Patricia taking the purser’s role.  Not only that but Patricia was in fine form with the pre-flight announcements even offering the male passengers the chance to guess which one of the three attendants was ‘single and available’, a comment that always seemed to get a heightened level  of interest in the rest of the safety messages.

It was when Patricia answered the call button for the passenger in 6F that she realized her time had finally come. The lady seemed pleasant enough. She was asking for a different magazine and a fresh vodka & tonic. That was a privilege afforded to first class passengers. Patricia fulfilled the request well enough but also noted the tell-tale spiral notebook sitting on the lady’s table. It was as if she was letting Patricia read over her shoulder. The notepaper had three names. Circled was Patrick H—- with a question mark next to it.  The auditor could not out herself but she was letting Patricia know that there would be a report to the company about the missing Patrick. It was a serious infraction for one person to be booked for a shift and another to take that shift without notification.

Sure enough the next day when the crew returned to Denver there was a directive for the three flight attendants to report to the Operations Center.  When Patricia had told the others about the encounter with the auditor they had figured this was going to be the outcome. Jill and Margo had suggested that Patricia should be packed away and Patrick should make that final trip in to Denver so they could say it was all a lark and would not happen again. However Patricia said no, that she would face the music and tell the supervisors that it was all her doing, that her colleagues were blameless.

Once the three appeared at the Operations Center they were ushered to a conference room. They could not help but notice the office staff were paying more attention to them than usual. Patricia recognized the signs of people trying extra hard to read her. It happened all the time in karaoke bars.

Not long after they were settled in the conference room two supervisors and someone Patricia recognized as the auditor from the day before entered and took seats at the head of the table.

“Ladies, we have an uncomfortable situation,” started one of the supervisors, “Patrick H—- was to be working with you but instead this young lady – I am not sure of your name – took his place without authorization. That is a serious offense, affecting our safety and insurance coverage so normally you all would be fired and Patrick will be, too, but Mrs. Davis here noticed something on the flight that we would like to discuss with you.” The last remarks were aimed directly at Patricia. “But first do you have anything to say for yourself?”

There was a slight pause as the three looked to each other. Was it possible that none of the supervisors or the Phantom Flyers had read Patricia? Were they about to be fired because Patrick did too good a job at impersonation? The pause was not a long one but it seemed that way. For you it will seem like four weeks. Check back then.

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Tags: crossdressing, featured

Category: Transgender Fun & Entertainment