Poking Around the Poconos

About once every four weeks our friendly editor will send me a note that has the effect of tying me to a chair in front of my computer as I try to recall and retell a personal story someone has told me. Recalling a story is not usually a problem. Retelling it often has me wishing I had paid more attention during high school English grammar classes. But that is another story.

As I write this Angela has not yet cracked the whip but I want to get the story down while it is fresh in my mind. It will certainly not be the most interesting story I have ever submitted but it will be my most personal. I am writing it ‘in the third person’ (a technique I did learn in English Lit. class) but I think you will know the subject. Here goes:

Linda didn’t know if she should call it “getting away from it all” or “going where the action is” but every once in a while she likes to pack a bag or two and head away on holiday. The destinations vary but the objective is always the same: she wants to go somewhere interesting and live all her waking hours for seven to ten days as Linda. In the TG spectrum Linda would place herself as a crossdresser. With one important exception she is closeted to all her family, friends and associates. She lives in a small city. If Linda goes out at home she does so in deep stealth mode. Frankly at her stage of life it probably does not matter whether nosey neighbor Frank sees her in a dress and makeup or that ‘Linda’ and her partner host a dinner party for their former work associates or golf club friends but it once would have made a big difference. Now, she continues to love the intrigue of living a secret life. But that is another story.

It is not the case that Linda has to keep anything secret from her partner. They met about 15 years ago, long after the femme Linda was a firmly established part of the male Doug’s life. When it came to the make-or-break time to tell his new love about Linda and her exotic lifestyle he was pleasantly surprised how well Linda was accepted. But that is another story.

As well as Linda is accepted inside the home, partner Liz feels very uncomfortable when the two are out together anywhere and even when the beautiful Linda steps out alone in their home town. Somehow Liz feels someone might mistake the beautiful Linda for the burley Doug. But that is another story.

So Linda is quite happy to go it alone on her special vacations. “Frankly even when I am in femme mode I had trouble submerging my male self when I was with Liz. I wanted to open doors and hold chairs. I had trouble feminizing my voice and worst of all: I always was picking up the check,” joked Linda. “When I go away I want to be, feel and act as feminine as possible,” she continued, “Without even trying Liz put a cramp in my style.”

Linda’s weeks have taken her to places from Los Angeles and San Diego to London, England. Some weeks were combined with work trips. More recently and strictly on vacation she has stayed as Linda in Vancouver, Montreal, Provincetown, Mass. and just last month in the Poconos region of Pennsylvania. That is our story.

New bikini.

“How do you have the nerve to be taking these single’s vacations?” I asked Linda.

“To me it is part of the evolutionary process of crossdressing. It is like those cartoons about evolution where the fish comes out of the water, a figure crawls for a while and eventually the figure morphs from an ape into a human figure. We start out in the closet trying on a sibling’s bra and panties, move to a hotel room dressing with nervously bought clothes, then we venture out of the hotel room, perhaps to drive around town, perhaps to a bar with a drag show or perhaps to a support group meeting.

“From there we evolve to dinners out with the girls or maybe attending a TG convention like Southern Comfort or Gal’s Spring Fling. Going out in the straight world and living en femme pretty well 24/7 is just another step along the crossdresser’s evolutionary chain. I see it as the step where one is pretty well able to walk on one’s own.”

“Where does it end?” I asked.

“It’s evolution. It does not end but I suppose the next step would be to come out to family, friends and associates. I don’t see myself going there.”

“So a week by yourself: that doesn’t sound too exciting. What do you do?”

“I try to do what I normally would do on vacation except I do it as a woman. For instance on my trip to the Poconos I played golf, went hiking, sunbathing, I was taken out for lunch and dinner, I went to a casino for an evening and I went dancing.”

“That’s it?”

A try but no buy.

“Well, of course I went shopping.”

“What about companionship?” I prodded.

“Let’s be clear. I leave home alone but in no way do I spend my vacations by myself. I do whatever I can to find people to share my time. Usually that means putting an ad on Craig’s List but I also try to find friends in the area through TGForum, URNotAlone and anything else I can find.”

“Craig’s List: isn’t that just full of phonies and time wasters?”

“Granted there are a lot of trollers and ‘catch and release’ types but I can tell you that I counted the replies to my Poconos ad. I received replies from 38 different men. Most did not send replies worth pursuing but I followed up with about 12 that whittled down to eight definite plans of which five came through with actual dates. Of the three that cancelled not one left me hanging. The three gave me great excuses for cancelling. One threw his back out while working in the woods. Another’s wife got food poisoning and stayed home from work at the exact time he was to be with me. I don’t care whether the excuses were truthful or made up. At least they let me know they weren’t coming. That doesn’t always happen. Of the five men I met all were great to be with, really great.”

For fear of having to say ‘TMI’ I asked, “Why the Poconos?”

“It was a lucky choice,” she replied, “I own some timeshare weeks that are deposited with an organization called RCI. I used them last year to line me up in Provincetown so I was flipping through their website and found a place in the Poconos. I’d been there before when JoAnn Roberts held her Paradise events there. It is a beautiful part of the country and the resort had weeks available when I wanted to get away. Although the reservation was in Doug’s name it was no problem for them when I checked in as Linda. In fact the whole week I was there all the staff members I met were very friendly. It is not officially an LGBT friendly resort; they are just a customer friendly resort.

“How was the room?”

“Great. It was a three storey villa with one bedroom on the ground floor, a living/dining/ kitchen area on the main floor and another bedroom and bathroom upstairs. I used the ground floor area as my dressing room and private area and entertained on the other two floors.”

“You entertained at your room. I thought you were against doing that?”

“My ad was very specific that I wanted to meet any prospective dates in a public place first. We had to get to know each other first. I suggested that they should treat it as if we were meeting through eHarmony or some similar dating site. They should be thinking as if they wanted to impress their date. That dropped a few from the running but it suited me. As I said, they guys who came through were great. One took me golfing then I made a dinner for us and we had a great evening. The night at the casino was fun. He wasn’t much of a gambler and neither was I. We ended up chatting and watching a hockey game. From time to time I would look around at the ladies and somewhat conceitedly concluded that I compared very well to most of the women there. A trip to a casino is good for a CD’s ego.”

“So it sounds as if everything came through as you planned.”

“Not quite. I had to make some changes but the changes turned out better. My week at the resort was Friday to Friday. I had planned to leave there and head over to Danbury to attend the monthly party at Triangles. I was also going to get together with Jan Brown for a golf game. Both those plans changed. As it happened I was staying very near a gay resort called Rainbow Mountain Lodge. I happened to learn that they were having a CD/TG weekend that very weekend. I visited there on Thursday evening and fell in love with the lodge and liked the girls who were there.

“I decided to forego Triangles and visit the Rainbow for the weekend. Thanks to a rainy Friday Jan was good enough to change our golf plans so we could play in Montgomery, New York the next day, not such a far drive for me. After checking out from the resort I went shopping at the Stroud Mall and checked into a local motel.

“The rest of the action centered on evenings and entertainment at the Rainbow. There was karaoke Thursday to Saturday and dancing Saturday night. Apparently they have these CD/TG themed weekends three times a year and they draw quite a crowd including some girls who have been coming to the Poconos since the days of the Joyce Dewhirst parties back in the 1970s. I met two girls who had been at the same JoAnn Roberts parties that I attended.”

“Okay, that’s enough of the fluff Linda. Let’s get to the point. People will want to know. How can you reconcile having a loving wife at home and leaving her to have sex with five strangers? “

“Six, actually. I also brought one of my Rainbow friends home. You can’t reconcile or make sense of it if you think in terms like the love of your life should be your only source of sexual gratification. That idea is promoted in America and woe to any politician who goes against that ideal and is caught. But it is not a universal ideal. I love my wife and she loves me but when I revealed to her the 20 year existence of Linda I also told her about Linda’s sex life and how it made me feel. To my great relief she understood and did not ask me to change what I probably could not have changed. She did not ask me to quit and I did not promise to quit. She asks me to ‘be careful.’I promised to be careful and I keep that promise. She knows that my love and emotional attachment are to her.”

“At your age is sexual gratification that important to you?”

“At my age! Don’t go there honey. I’ll let you in on a secret: my sexual gratification has never really been that important to me. However in trying to project the best image of a woman that I can I get great pleasure in seeing the pleasure and sense of arousal I bring to certain men. When I catch my dinner date looking at my cleavage: that gives me pleasure. When we are walking along a forested trail and my friend puts his arm around me so we can walk in step: that gives me pleasure. When I dance closely with a man and feel his erection: that gives me pleasure. It all validates my sense of femininity. It helps me feel as if I am achieving my goal of realistic femininity.”

“So does that make you gay or bisexual?”

“I guess you might say the latter but I’m not really turned on by a man’s physique or his looks. I’m definitely more aroused by his interest in me. I guess that must make me ego-sexual, if that is a word.”

What do you think dear readers? If you have a story you would like to tell or have Linda tell it for you write lindajen@hotmail.com and let’s get started.

Tags: bisexual, crossdressing, featured, Out & About, partners, spouses

Category: Transgender Body & Soul, Transgender Fun & Entertainment