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| Image from Christopher Ivanov on UnSplash |
As I look back on many facets of my life I wonder how I was able to hide the many times I was able to escape the house and explore the world as a woman. Several of the more exciting and enlightening experiences happened on business trips I was scheduled to do by my employer.
I worked for a very successful regional restaurant company and I ran one of the most profitable units and I was a managerial training manager. As such I was required once a quarter to make the trip (approximately two hundred miles) to the company's headquarters in Lexington, Kentucky. When I was told to go to the training sessions it did not take me long to figure out how to attend the meetings as well as take the time to go out and explore the world. It was exciting to not have the same old time requirements I encountered when I was at home. Once I did I found a whole new exciting world I had mostly only dreamed of. I only just had to figure out how to pack a whole other set of clothes.
If you are not familiar, Lexington Kentucky is the home of the University of Kentucky and as such had several large gay or LGBT bars/clubs. I immediately located one of the clubs close to the hotel I was staying in. The only drawback I faced was classes started on time at eight in the morning, so I needed to be prepared for the early hour. It turned out to be not much of a problem since the gay club turned out to be quiet when I went in there during the week, plus I was relatively early for the majority of the other clientele to arrive. As I recall, the only person of interest I saw was another cross dresser. Who I didn't talk to. Even though I was satisfied with going out on the first night as always I needed more. Since the training day I was scheduled for was just that, one day, I told my second wife the session really lasted two days so I could take the extra day to play around.
For my second day, I decided to stop half way back in Cincinnati and check out a couple of the more exciting gay venues I had heard of before. Before I did, I needed to find a motel room to change in plus I needed to make sure I could pay cash for the room so my wife couldn't see any strange receipts on our monthly bank statement. I am not proud now of how far I went to hide my gender issues but only mention them to show you where I was mentally at the time. At any rate, once I dressed in my best mini skirted black outfit with heels and hose I finally found the large gay venue I had heard so much about, I went in and after one drink encountered a very drunk guy who was showing me quite a lot of attention. Initially, I was flattered until another woman showed up who turned out to be his wife. Fortunately for me she saved all of her hostility for him and I thought I could be in real trouble when he said to her "Why don't you have legs like her (meaning me)." By that time I was preparing to make myself scarce from the bar and headed to the restroom. When I returned, the couple had left and I was safe from being a part of a domestic disturbance. As it turned out, it was the last time I was ever in the venue. It has long since closed.
Along the way, I left the company I worked for to start my own restaurant and I had no more business trips to contend with. I had to come up with other ways to express my feminine side. Sadly it wasn't too long after that my life took a severe turn for the worse. I lost nearly all the friends I had to cancer, my second wife to a heart attack and my restaurant to an economic recession. Maybe it was a touch of karma coming back to haunt me for all the sneaking around I did so I did not have to face up to knowing the truth about myself. All along my truth was I should have been trying to live as a full time transgender woman much sooner than I did.
