A Sissy's Progress - Chapter One

A Sissy's Progress, or, How to Train Your Cheating Ass of a Husband - Chapter One

The early morning light, stained pink by the lacy curtains, filters down over my prone form. I heave a sigh and stare blankly up at the ceiling, allowing my mind to wander like a stray leaf in the wind. I should be happy, really. I'm warm, and lapped in softness. I'm home, and cared for, and all that is being asked of me today is one simple task.

I must write.

My glance drifts down to the pink blanket tucked securely around my body. It conceals much, but not even the thickest blanket in the world can keep my brain from visualizing what lies beneath at this very moment. Baby-soft cotton and lace, and little button snaps, and velvety-smooth plastic... and beneath that, more cotton, and more plastic, and the swollen bulk of my urine-soaked shame...

I grimace and twist onto my side, trying not to think of it. No one wants to contemplate their own degradation, after all. No self-respecting person likes to think back over their life and reflect on all the wrong choices they've made, all the times they've screwed up. No one wants to think about how they're the ones solely to blame for the mortifying situation they're currently in.

Yet that is exactly what I have to do today. She told me to, you see. And she must be obeyed. Oh, yes. I've learned that the hard way.

So as I roll onto my belly to face my laptop, acutely aware of every squishing, humiliating sensation that accompanies that action, I sigh once more. Might as well get started. Might as well begin the story of my complete and utter reduction... to this. To the life of a diapered sissy.

***

It hadn't seemed like much at the time. Somehow I can't help but think of those nature documentaries, where they show those first, innocuous stones and puffs of snow that start what will become a devastating avalanche. Yeah, that's pretty much how it started, that warm summer evening after work. Just a normal evening at the bar, nothing more than that.

The beer was mediocre, as usual. And the music sucked, as usual. Even the usual patrons were there, chatting and joking as if there was nothing out of the ordinary. And yet, amid all that humdrum ordinariness, that's when it happened - when I least expected it.

I saw her.

Oh, I'm not going to pretend that I was blameless in everything that followed - far from it. I was a complete and utter ass, I know that now to my pain. But I guess what strikes me as I reflect back on the past year is just how one little chance event led to another, and another, and another. Maybe that's why folks like to talk about fate - to explain how those little happenstances add up to consequences of earthshaking proportions...

She was quiet, tall, demure. Hair the color of a new penny - auburn and down to her shoulders. Eyes fastened on her cocktail, but which I would later discover were grey as the sea in a fog. She was something, all right. And what was more, there was no ring on her finger, not at least from where I was sitting.

Or more properly, standing. Because whether it was hubris, or testosterone, or the sheer force of her magnetic aura tugging me in, I found myself on my feet, easing toward her as one might approach a skittish cat. I wanted to talk with her, if nothing else. I wanted to know what sort of voice belonged with that lovely form...

Oh, and yes - I was married. I guess I shouldn't leave out that important little detail.

"Hey," I managed, feeling a sudden twist of nervousness that I thought I'd left behind in high school. "I don't think I've seen you here before." Her eyes lifted from the drink in her hand as she regarded me mildly, curiously. "No, I don't expect you have." Her voice was nothing particularly remarkable, as even I had to admit at the time. But there was a soft flutter of breathiness around the edges of each syllable that would echo in my memory long after...

And so we talked. I mean, it's not like I can recollect everything we said. I'm not some damn novelist writing cool, epigram-filled dialogue for his pet characters. How the hell should I remember everything we said over those first drinks? But this much I do remember: the lurch in my chest every time her searching eyes caught mine. The delicate way she fingered her glass, turning it this way and that in the warm yellow light. The way I had to bend closer to hear her voice over the blaring music.

And sure... as much as it pains me to admit it, I also remember the feeling of quiet relief as I felt my naked ring finger, momentarily freed from the circlet that was lying on the dresser at home.

Julie was a teacher, it turned out. She was at the local community college, teaching some subject in literature that I didn't understand and she didn't explain. Things were better that way - as they so often are. I told her about me - IT professional, baseball fan, nerd. I told her it was nothing exciting, of course. Once I even managed to coax a soft laugh from her over some nonsensical joke, and the memory of that sound glowed within me all the way home.

Flirting isn't forbidden, you know. Being friendly is just a normal part of life. It's not like I was some monk trapped in a monastery, right? And jealousy is one of the seven cardinal sins - so take that.

Yes, I was very busy with my conscience that night as I lay next to my sleeping wife.

Erica had no idea, of course. She'd been busy with her girlfriends all evening, as she so often was, and I had been tuned out of the whole monologue about shoes and clearance sales well before she was halfway through. It's not like I had anything to tell her, anyway. What would I have even said? "Hey, honey, I met this really cool chick at the bar tonight and I wish you were more like her?" That wouldn't have done anyone any good, would it?

And yet, ass that I was, I couldn't help but feel a rush of anticipation every time I contemplated the possibility that Julie might be there next week. Sitting in that corner, drink in hand, smiling and ready for another friendly chat...