In the Family, Part 3

Linda continues her story of Susan, a 50-something long-time crossdresser who has just spent the last several weeks in Florida winding up the estate of her recently deceased birth father. Among other discoveries Susan learned that her father had also been a crossdresser. She also got to wear some of her father’s old dresses and to get to know Nora, her father’s partner who was a post-op TS. It had turned out to be a fabulous visit.

As Susan sat in her small compartment on the Amtrak Auto Train ready to head north out of Sanford FL she knew several things with almost certainty.

• The next morning she would arrive in Lorton, Virginia and drive towards her home to the Boston area.
• She would make most of the trip dressed as Susan. She was even planning to stretch the trip out by a day by stopping overnight in Providence, Rhode Island where she had reserved a room at the Hilton with the expectation of finding a little ‘recreation’ at the sports bar or perhaps heading to one of the gay bars with a drag show, just like her good old days in Boston.
• The last two weeks as she visited Florida for her birth father’s funeral and to clean up his estate had been pretty well life-changing for Susan.
• Meeting her late dad’s partner, Nora, and learning that her dad had also been a crossdresser had been more than life changing. It was mind-numbing for Susan.
• She was not certain she wanted to find anything genetic about the two Joes attraction to crossdressing. ‘What if Joe III, is also attracted to crossdressing?’ she thought of her teenage son. Susan did not want to test those waters as that probably would mean revealing herself to the rest of the family. It was good enough that her wife knew and supported.
• She was impatient to get out of Joe mode and begin the Susan part of her journey. She would do that as soon as the car’s porter had made his rounds with the safety and other information.

Now, anyone who has travelled the Auto Train knows that the company is very restrictive about how much baggage can be taken from one’s car to the passenger compartments. One small bag and a handbag: that is it. Susan had to pack carefully if she wanted to carry out her plan. Once she boarded the train she wanted to exchange her male clothes for female and then have another set of femme gear for the trip and check-in in Providence. But just in case there was someone ‘he’ knew traveling along there had to be a change of male clothes, too. There was the toothbrush, razor and makeup to consider. Then what about the nighttime trip to the toilet. Susan did not like sleeping with her wig and breast forms on. And how about showering and shaving in the morning. She would have to pass to the car’s lower level to take the shower and that with almost a day’s beard growth. It would be tricky but such was her compulsion to try that she worked everything out.

After boarding the train at 3:30 as Joe, Susan was ready en femme for the lounge car at 5:00 and the dinner sitting at 6:30.

When Susan goes out for dinner or for cocktails she likes to dress up in a dress, nice jewelry and heels. She also likes a modest bit of makeup to make her eyes and lips stand out. However years of traveling the Auto Train taught her that pretty well all her female fellow-passengers were going to be in slacks, capris or shorts and a comfortable but baggy blouse or tee. Susan gulped but chose to fit in. Her one concession to fashion was a large necklace and matching dangly earrings. ‘How very New York of me,’ she thought.

Once in the lounge car she grabbed a glass of wine and proceeded to work on her tablet composing thank you notes to the many folks who had sent or posted comments about her late dad. She noticed a few that gave hints they had probably known of his crossdressing. Some had written slightly coded messages of sympathy. After all, at the time they had not known that ‘Susan’ even existed. They weren’t going to write something like “Joe/Jennifer was a great person. She always looked best in the sundresses she liked to wear’ so they wrote something like ‘Joe and Nora were very helpful to me when I needed them most. Their advice saved my life. I am now the person I am because of them.’

While passers-by in the lounge car generally smiled and said hello none tried to engage Susan in conversation.

Same in the dining car. Her companions at the four-person table were a couple from Canada and an empty chair. With the Canadians she made light conversation about how many times each had taken the Auto Train, where they were from and of course she tried to impress them with her knowledge of Canada. She didn’t tell them about her annual fictional deer hunting trips to Ontario where she really headed to Provincetown for an annual transgender conference. They would not understand, Susan thought.

That pretty well sums it up. The train trip like many of her outings en femme were just uneventful. No one made an issue and no one made a pass at her. Susan liked it that way. There was a bit of anticipation of possible danger, an adrenaline rush, as she got ready to meet others then a satisfying calm as the sense of danger passed.

The trip did give Susan a chance to think about the past two weeks and what she had learned about her dad. She wondered what would have happened if her dad had come out and revealed his trans feelings to his family. How would their relationship have been? For a long time Susan had thought that her own trans feelings had something to do with her strong but unrequited feelings for her mother and lack of a fatherly role model. Now there were these thoughts about genetics creeping in. Had she inherited a gene from her dad? She fell asleep thinking about that possible mystery gene and if she by chance had passed it on to her son. As the Auto Train quickly but gently rocked its way through the Carolinas, Susan alternately slept on and woke to thoughts about Nora and about her wife and son, Joe III. ‘What would I do if I came home one day and found Joe III wearing a dress?’ she thought at one point. Sleep erased the thought.

Susan had to wake early and she did. With her makeup removed and dressed in drab she made her way to the sleeping car’s shower area. She showered. She shaved and she applied talc to her private parts. She liked the feeling of that area being dry, particularly when she was going to be wearing a padded panty most of the day.

Susan also liked that she could dress up a bit. Over the years of Auto Train travel she had noticed that some of the women switched from the shorts and tees they wore for the train to skirts and dressier blouses for the car travel. Perhaps it was for a meeting on the way or perhaps it was for the people they knew would be greeting them up home. Whatever the reason it worked for Susan. She had packed her new royal blue stretch pencil skirt ($8.95 at Ross Dress for Less), a print blouse with some of the same shade of blue and a black blazer Nora had helped her find at the local Goodwill.

By coincidence she was seated with the same Canadian couple as the night before for the continental breakfast. She complimented Susan’s outfit. He talked about the road travel ahead and Susan thought she was glad to have worn the same wig as the night before.

Soon enough the Auto Train was pulling into the Lorton, Virginia station and the detraining process began. Susan delayed her disembarking as long as possible but was there in time for her minivan to be unloaded. She had paid the extra $50 for priority unloading. Susan was on the road headed up I-95 by 9:00 a.m. ‘Thankfully it is a Saturday,’ she thought to herself, ‘The DC traffic won’t be so bad! It’s going to be a long day.

Susan was very familiar with the car trip between DC and Boston. For a period in her life she had served, as Joe, on a presidential commission working on a report that helped shape an industry in the 21^st Century. Enough said.

The commission work often entailed Monday to Friday in DC with a return home on the weekend. If there would be two weeks in a row in DC he would stay over but that rarely happened. Why did he not fly or take the train? Because Joe was Susan and Susan valued the great time she had taking her time. Most of the commission members could be at their homes spread across the country by Friday dinner. However Susan and her wife who knew about Susan agreed to her having some ‘quality Susan time’ on the road. “Just be careful,” her wife always said. Susan was careful — careful to not get outed and careful to have a good time.

When commission work wrapped up for the week Susan checked out of her government sponsored hotel room and into a more budget conscious motel in the Glebe Road area of Arlington. Access was easy and it was barely 15 minutes from Ziegfeld’s, her destination for that evening. Susan loved Ziegfeld’s as she could always count on the hostess, Ella Fitzgerald, not only attracting the expected gay clientele but also the straight and bi-curious crowd drawn by Ella’s humor and the great shows she would put together. Susan was happy to satisfy the curiosity of some of the bi-curious.

Was Susan a part-time ‘working girl’? Definitely not but she was firm about receiving help paying for ‘part of her room expense’. After all there were girls at the club where meeting a generous man was an important part of their income. She had been told not to be ‘giving it away’. Besides it was good for her ego to know that men wanted her enough to be paying something for being with her. I suppose a lot of us would see that as cheating on her wife. She explained it as when she was Susan she did not feel married and as long as she was careful about STD it was okay. (That explanation worked for me but it may not for you. To each their own.)

NOTE: The new Ziegfeld’s/Secrets has recently announced that it is closed forever. It will not be re-opening after the threat of pandemic has passed. The reason is not the pandemic but the gentrification of the neighborhood that has seen a few other gay clubs bulldozed under to be replaced by condos.

But moving on: after a fun Friday night Susan would hit the road back to Boston. It was typically about a seven hour drive. If driving as Joe the trip would take a little less. If driving as Susan the trip would stretch over another day.

With Susan at the wheel the car had trouble getting by the malls at Christiana, Delaware. If the night was right the car would divert to King of Prussia, Pennsylvania and Susan would find herself among the crowd at Angela’s Laptop Lounge. (Note of explanation: The Laptop Lounge did not see the CDs sitting or otherwise in the laps of the admirers. I wish). The name came from the beautiful hostess/DJ playing music from her laptop computer.

If there was no Laptop Lounge that night Susan would make her way on to Hartford or Providence to find a T-friendly nightclub there. Sometimes she cruised a local singles club or hotel lounge. She had that much confidence in how she carried herself.

Whatever unfolded Saturday night Sunday would find Susan’s things packed away and Joe making his way home to the Boston area where the family waited.

That is what Susan had usually done and as she left the Amtrak station that Saturday morning she fully expected to be home sometime Sunday afternoon after a stopover in Providence and that is what she had told the family.

However sometimes one’s mind plays little tricks and Susan’s plans were about to change. I’ll tell you about it next time.

To be continued. . . .

Like to make a comment? Login here and use the comment area below.

Tags: crossdressing, featured

Category: Transgender Fun & Entertainment