Found Family: Chapter 1 by Clara Copyright© 2025 Clara Schumann Mary's cousin Connor came over to watch ball with the boys, but in coming over, Connor finds out some things about himself and Connie emerged from her prison!

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Author's Note: This is my first time posting anywhere in quite some time. I appreciate both your patience and support throughout this time with lovely comments from both here and Fictionmania. I am posting this story first on BigCloset as a shoutout to Sephrena for her diligent work in putting my stories up here for me. Thank you very much my dear! This story went through several rewrites and I hope this version resonates with you all the best. It's roughly 125 pages long, and I plan to publish it in 5 installments over the next couple of weeks.

Now, on with the story... ~Clara.

Image Credit: https://perchance.org/beautiful-people
 
 
Chapter 1
‘Family isn't always blood. It's the people in your life who want you in theirs; the ones who accept you for who you are.’  - Dez Del Rio
 
 
“Oh, come on,” Bill shouted at the screen. “That was interference, plain and simple.”

Joe, Bill and Toni sat on the couch watching the game, but the conversation from the kitchen overpowered the sound of the commentators.

“Mary, can you chop up those potatoes and get them into a pot for me,” Connor asked, always in command of the kitchen. “Then cover them with water.”

“Throw the pork, carrots and yams into the pressure cooker,” Connor commanded from the kitchen. “They can all be cooked together. I’ll season everything before we start the cooker, and it’ll all cook as a stew.”

“Why not just throw the potatoes in there, too?” Amy’s voice asked.

“I don’t want them seasoned the same way,” Connie explained. “The rice is in the rice-cooker and the potatoes will be boiling in a few minutes. That gives everyone a choice of starches to go with the stew. If they want to spread stew over the starch, then that’s their choice, but I know that not everyone likes that. Let’s keep our options open.”

“Good thinking,” Mary laughed.

“So how did you get out of working in the kitchen?” Joe asked Toni.

“My fiancé is a trained chef,” she chuckled. “I never have to cook. Connor always takes care of dinner.”

“Good move,” Joe laughed. “I married a hairdresser. Mary’s a hard worker and brings home nice money, but a cook she is NOT. She is the only person I know who can take a can of Campbell’s Chicken and Rice soup and make it taste like mud.”

Bill laughed at that. “Same with Amy. I can’t complain about the money she makes, the dedication to her job or the sex, but she is not a good cook! We eat take out at least six nights a week and go out to eat on the seventh. Every restaurant in town knows us.”

“Let’s get the dessert started,” Connie’s voice was heard. “Peal those peaches and cut them in half, then put them in this bowl. I’ll show you how to poach them when the time comes. The ice cream machine is going, right?”

“Yes,” Amy answered a few seconds later. “I’ve never made ice cream before.”

“I never buy the stuff at the store,” Connie replied. “Home made is so much better, and it’s easy. Throw in the ingredients, push the button and in forty-five minutes to an hour, you have great tasting ice cream.”

“I’m getting hungry just listening to them,” Joe said, then took a swig of beer.

“Me too,” Bill said and followed his friend’s lead.

“Smells good, too,” Toni agreed.

“I CAN’T BELIEVE HE MISSED THAT PASS!” Bill yelled at the screen. “The guy is paid ten million bucks a year and his sole responsibility is to catch the freaking football, and it passes right through his fingers!”

The game in the living room continued as did the controlled chaos in the kitchen.

It was halftime when Bill, Toni and Joe all stood to stretch their legs and Amy was setting the table in the dining room, which was actually just an extension of the living room. It was the standard middle-class, starter apartment set up. A big living/dining room, a kitchen with a wall and doorway on one side and a breakfast bar meeting the wall at a ninety-degree angle so the dining room had easy access from either the living room or kitchen. A doorway off the dining room lead to a short hallway with a lavatory/shower, a small bedroom and a primary bedroom suite. It was pretty roomy as apartments went, and Joe and Mary had it furnished nicely in the three months since their wedding. Bill and Amy had a nice little house they had been able to purchase from a generous aunt who had retired and moved to Florida, and Toni and Connie were already living together in a nice apartment of their own, but Joe had the eighty-inch screen, so they chose to watch the game there.

Unlike Amy and Mary, Toni liked sports of all kinds and had played softball, basketball and field hockey in high school and college. She enjoyed a Sunday afternoon sitting and watching any kind of game with Bill and Joe.

Connor… well… Connie hated sports of all kinds. He was small and thin and had no aptitude for them. In Phys-Ed at school, he’d always been the last one picked for any kind of sport, and he still harbored a grudge because of it. He had no problem with Toni watching sports on TV as long as she didn’t mind him doing other things while she did.

Bill, Joe, Mary, Amy and Connie all went to school together, and because they all grew up on the same block, they had all been close since kindergarten. They all had overworked single moms and watched out for each other as kids. As Joe and Bill grew bigger and became sportsmen themselves, Connie became more of a member of ‘the girls’ section of the group and everyone was fine with that.

Connor had always loved cooking and went to a local culinary academy to study it after high school. That left him with no college degree, but a certificate that got him an entry level job in a kitchen of a well-regarded local restaurant.

The problem was – he hated it.

He hated the yelling, the pushing, the heat, the standing for twelve hours, the pressure, the… he just hated it. To him, cooking was an art. He loved the planning, the prep, the beauty of the plating and the enjoyment of the meal. Not making the same old bland food day in and day out for people who didn’t appreciate it.

After three years and two kitchens, he decided that cooking was his vocation, not his livelihood.

He took on a job as a billing clerk for his sister’s law firm and began making more money doing that than he had in his jobs in the kitchens and it had the extra bonus of allowing him to work from home. He usually clocked about six hours a day, five days a week, and was able to still cook every afternoon.

Antoinette, Toni, was Mary’s cousin. When she was a kid, she’d visit Mary’s family and stay in their home in Sandwich, Massachusetts, a town on the northwestern shore of the arm of Cape Cod where Mary and the others lived. She’d arrive as soon as school got out every summer and always fit right in with the group of friends. She and Connor had always been buddies, but everyone was kind of surprised when as a teenager, this tall, athletic girl asked out quiet little Connie.

But it worked out. About a year before they had all gathered together to watch a game and enjoy a meal, Toni moved to Sandwich permanently, found a very good job as a civil engineer for the Massachusetts Department of Transportation and had proposed to Connie. A week after her arrival, they were sharing Connor’s lovely little apartment in a beautiful century old house. A wedding date had yet to be set.

“The game is running longer than we expected,” Amy said as Bill put an arm around her waist and hugged her from behind. “Dinner will be ready in about ten minutes. Can you guys pull yourselves away from the game and have some dinner.”

“Sure,” Bill said, then kissed her on the side of her neck. “You mind if we keep the TV on during dinner? It’s been a lousy game so far, but the Pats might turn it around.”

“Do we mind?” Amy giggled. “Of course we mind, but it’s fine. We’re used to taking a backseat to sports.”

Bill snickered and held up his hand, rubbing a finger against his thumb. “You know what that is.”

“I know what it is,” she sighed and gave her husband a playful elbow in his abdomen.

She walked away, but her husband persisted. “It’s the world smallest violin playin ‘Hearts & Flowers’ just for you.”

They all laughed, including Amy, as she walked back towards the kitchen, just as Connie let out a panicked yell, “No! Don’t open that!” and what could only be described as a small explosion came from the kitchen.

They all turned in that direction to see food splattered all over the kitchen walls, but no sign of either Mary of Connor.

“Mare!” Joe yelled heading in that direction, followed quickly by Toni who was calling ‘Connie’ at the same time.

They push around the breakfast bar and found Mary on the floor with Connie laying on top of her. He was drenched in food. Mary had some on her as well, but not much.

“What the hell happened?” Joe shouted too loudly out of concern for his wife and his friend. The fact that the walls were also covered in food had not yet registered with anyone.

“Mary opened the pressure cooker before I’d released the pressure,” Connor said. He pulled himself off of Mary and pulled his sweatshirt over his head, then started pulling off his pants.

“What are you doing?” Joe said as he helped his wife to her feet.

“My clothes drenched in boiling hot water.” He looked at Mary, who had a little food in her hair, but seemed ok. “Are you alright?” He asked.

“Yeah,” she said, patting her body and taking stock of herself. “I’m just… why did you knock me down?”

“I know you were only trying to help, Mary,” Connor explained, “but you could have really been hurt, opening up a pressure cooker like that.”

Mary looked at Connor. “You’re a mess, Connie.”

“Not as big a mess as the kitchen walls,” Bill said, just noticing the mess.

Joe looked at the walls and shook his head. “Wow! Look at all that food on the walls. That’s going to take some time to clean up.”

Amy, who had been inspecting Mary to make sure she was ok, said, “You have some in your hair, Mary. You should probably wash and change.”

“Me?” Mary snorted. “Look at Connie. He was on top of me. He’s covered in food.”

Connor looked himself over and let out a small laugh. “Yeah. I guess I am. Good thing I had on long pants and sleeves or I could have been badly burned.”

“I’m so sorry, Connie,” Mary said. “I didn’t know…”

“It’s ok,” Conner shrugged. “I bet you’ll never do that again, though.”

“I’m never touching that pressure cooker thing EVER!” she giggled. “We got it as a wedding present, and it stayed in its box until today when you said you would use it. I should have read the manual, I guess.”

“Here,” Bill said, grabbing a bucket, mop, and a few other supplies from the nearby utility closets and moving to the obvious next step – cleaning. “You two go get cleaned up and the rest of us will deal with this mess.”

“But what about dinner?” Connor asked as Mary began to lead him down the hall.

“We’ll order out, or something,” Bill said, amused by his friend. “I’m sure this would have been delicious in our stomachs, but it’s pretty messy on Mary and Joe’s walls. Go on, now. Get cleaned up.”

“You are ok, right?” Toni asked Connor before he left.

“I’m fine,” he smiled and kissed her cheek. “No one was hurt. That’s all that matters.”

Mary led Connor to the guest bathroom off the hallway. “Why don’t you take a shower in here while I shower in the other bathroom. There’s plenty of body wash and shampoo in there. I use this shower more than the en-suite one. Just throw your clothes on the floor and we’ll bag them up later. I’m sure we can find you something to wear. When you get out, just throw on my robe, it’s hanging behind the door, and come to my bedroom. I’ll probably be out first anyway.”

“Ok.” Connor nodded and entered the fairly small lavatory. The shower was a walk-in model in the corner. Bigger than most corner showers, but still a bit cramped for someone as large as Mary’s husband, Joe. He understood why this had become Mary’s shower.

He rinsed and rinsed his hair and stew ran down the drain. He reached for the shampoo and poured some into his hand. It smelled of vanilla and… lilac?… no… it was lavender. Vanilla and lavender. Certainly not his first choice of personal aromas, but it was very pleasant. Certainly prettier than his usual Head & Shoulders shampoo.

The conditioner and body wash both had a similar aroma.

It took a lot of scrubbing and rinsing to get the food out of Connor’s hair. He’d always worn it a kind of long, but since working at home, had not bothered to visit a barber, and subsequently it now reached his mid-back.

In fact, he rather enjoyed his longer hair and did his best to keep it clean and shiny. It was always in a low ponytail or ‘man-bun,’ but he liked it to look nice, too. Being just five-foot-two-inches tall made it difficult to be considered ‘handsome,’ but at least he could look ‘nice,’ and somewhat stand out from the crowd with longer hair.

When he finished the shower and dried off his body, he used the towel as a turban to keep the wetness contained. He grabbed Mary’s robe, a very soft, long, pink chenille garment that went to the floor on him and required him to hold up the hem as he walked to the main suite to find Mary.

She was sitting at a vanity using a blow dryer on her own long hair when he came in. She had no choice but to giggle a bit. He was a sight. At her above-average height, her robe swamped her friend and the turban looked adorable on him. The image was one of a little sister wearing her big sister’s clothes. Kind of a sweet moment between friends.

“Don’t you just look adorable,” Mary laughed. It was a sweet laugh, though. She was enjoying the moment, while also making fun of him, because that was how their friendship worked. In fact, they were more than friends. They all were. They were brothers and sisters. All of them. A found-family who loved and cared for each other. Yes, some of them had paired up romantically, but they were all one big family and always had been.

“Adorable?” Connor asked, looking down at himself. “Damn. I was going for ‘sexy.’ You know, like one of those Victoria’s Secret models that you see in their ads. Something like that.”

Mary’s smile broadened. “Maybe when you grow up.” She stood and tapped the stool where she’d been sitting. “For now, little girl, come have a seat and let me get your hair sorted out.”

Connor lifted the hem of the robe and walked over to take a seat. Mary removed the towel-turban and ran her fingers through his hair. “I’ve been telling you to come see me about this mess for months.”

Connor said. “It’s not a mess. I keep it clean and I like it. I’m not hurting anyone by keeping it long, so I’m keeping it that way.”

Mary grabbed a wide toothed comb and began to organize his hair. “And I support that choice, but your hair still needs care and maintenance. For instance, you’ve got split ends and those split ends have split ends. If you don’t mind, I’ll clean those up while I have you here.”

“If you must,” Connor said with a dramatic sigh.

“I must.”

She continued to comb and organize his hair. At some point, she grabbed a pair of rather expensive looking shears from the drawer of the vanity, and he heard the occasional series of snips as she worked.

“You smell nice, Connie,” Mary commented at one point. And then, after a few seconds she added, “For a change.”

That made Connor smile. “Thanks… I guess.” They had all grown-up swiping barbs at each other.

There was a tap on the door, and it opened part way. “Everything ok in here?” Amy asked, entering.

“Just fine,” Mary nodded, involved in searching for any more split ends. “I’m just about to blow out Connie’s hair and then we’ll find some clothes for him.”

“You want me to throw his dirty clothes into the wash?” Amy offered.

“That would be great… if we had a washer. I have to take my laundry to the laundromat when I do it. If you want to grab a grocery bag from the cabinet under the bathroom sink and bag them up for Connie, that would be helpful.”

“Ok.”

“How’s the cleanup going?”

“We got it all, I think,” Amy said, as she bundled Conor’s soiled clothes and slipped them into the bag. “Joe and Toni pulled the stove and fridge out from the wall and Bill and I got everything that went behind them. I think it’s probably cleaner now than when we started.”

Mary chuckled at that.

“You know what this reminds me of?” Amy said with her own chuckle, cinching up the bag by knitting the handles together. “Remember that time back in ninth grade? It was a rainy day, and you were just learning how to cut hair… you and Connie and I were all hanging around in my parents’ basement and you did my hair, then insisted on doing Connie’s. Remember that?”

“I do,” Mary laughed. “His hair was shorter then, but I could still get curlers into it. I used some setting gel and a ton of hairspray and when I took the curlers out, Connie had a weird kind of Afro.” She and Amy laughed.

“Yeah, that was hilarious,” Connor said, sarcastically. “I couldn’t get that junk out of my hair for three days and my mother saw nothing funny about it whatsoever. Thank God it was summer. If I’d gone to school looking like that I would have had the snot kicked out of me.”

“Oh, but you looked so cute,” Amy laughed.

Mary began to say something else, but she turned on the blow dryer and began working on his hair so he couldn’t hear what she was saying.

Amy dropped the bag full of dirty clothes by the doorway and asked, “Do you have anything that might fit Connie?”

“I think he’ll fit in a pair of my leggings,” she shrugged. “Will you grab a pair of panties from the second drawer in my lingerie chest? The leggings are in the top drawer of my dresser.”

“Cotton or silk?” Amy asked, looking at the panties in her friend's drawer.

“Silk,” Mary confirmed. “I only wear cotton when I absolute have to, if you know what I mean.”

“Uh huh,” Amy said, pulling out the plainest pair of silk panties she could find. They were a buttery-yellow color with no lace on them. She then grabbed a pair of leggings and laid the two items on the back of a nearby chair. “Should I grab a sweatshirt out of the closet?”

“Sure.”

“What are you two talking about?” Connor asked, deafened by the loud blow-dryer.

“Relax,” Mary said, continuing to brush and blow his hair.

Amy eventually appeared with a cheap sweatshirt with the words ‘Cape Cod, Massachusetts’ written across the front of it. She dropped it on chair with the other items. “He really does have pretty hair, doesn’t he?”

“Yeah,” Mary smirked. “What a waste. A head full of rich, naturally wavy, healthy hair that is wound up into an ugly, messy bun or put into a ponytail all day, everyday. I mean… look…” She pointed at a spot in his hair. “He’s put a crease in his hair by using elastics instead of scrunchies.” She continued drying his hair but suddenly stopped.

Both Amy and Connor were caught by surprise by the sudden stop. Certainly, she had not come close to completely drying his hair.

“You know what?” Mary said with authority, and with no expectation of anyone offering a reply. “I’m going to fix that crease.” She grabbed a curling iron and plugged it in.

“What? Wait! What crease?” Connor asked, confused.

“Oh, you’re in trouble, now!” Amy laughed.

“Connie, how many times have you not to tie your hair back with a rubber band that you originally got when it came wrapped around a stack of mail,” Mary chastised. She continued without waiting for a response. “And how many times have I told you to clean up all those hairs between your eyebrows? My God, Connie, you have a perfect apple-shaped face, and you are three stray hairs away from a unibrow!”

“What?” Connor asked, completely flummoxed by Mary’s sudden change of demeanor. “What did I do?”

“You’ve got beautiful hair, Connie, and a nice face, but you just don’t care, do you?” Mary grumbled, partially teasing, but partially irked, too. “I mean, Amy and I always work hard to to look as pretty and feminine as possible, Toni looks really nice, and Joe and Bill are always handsome and presentable in nice, crisp shirts and slacks. Then you always show up dressed like you’re ready to work in a kitchen, instead of looking nice for the rest of us. So, I am going to pluck those stray hairs while my curling iron warms up so I can get that dent out of your hair.”

“Ok! Ok!” Connor said, hoping not to get any more chastisement.

Mary set to work on his eyebrows.

“Don’t go crazy, now,” Connor cautioned.

“Oh, hush,” Mary said, concentrating. “You know I trim Joe’s eyebrows every Friday after work, so he looks nice for the weekend.”

“She does Bill’s every few weeks when she cuts his hair, too,” Amy assured. “She also takes care of his nostril hair, too.”

“Honest to God,” Mary said, still focused on her task, “those two men are the hairiest mammals that ever walked God’s green earth. I wax their backs and arms, too, or else they’d look like great apes in no time.”

“Ain’t that the truth!” Amy laughed. “You’re lucky to not have that kind of body hair, Connie. Bill could shave every two hours and still have five o’clock shadow.”

“Haha… yeah…” Connor laughed, but he didn’t love the remark. Bill and Joe were his closest, really his only, male friends, and at some point, back in middle school, they had become hairy, strong and manly, while Connor remained smooth, weak and boyish. Granted, he never really had a great desire to shave, but having the option of growing facial hair, an option available to nearly every other adult male human on the planet, would be nice.

“There. Those are a lot neater,” Mary proclaimed. She stepped back, put down her tweezers picked up a squirt bottle with water in it, which she used to re-dampen Connor’s hair.

Amy glanced at Connor’s newly tweezed brows and smiled just a bit. They were certainly a lot neater, but Mary may have gone just a little overboard. They weren’t too narrow or too arched, but they were just slightly on the feminine side. Just slightly.

“Any chance you’ll take care of your hair if I send you a hair-care regime to follow?” Mary asked, sounding a bit exhausted by the condition of her friend’s hair.

“There’s always a chance,” Connor smiled, knowing he was irritating her a bit.

She sighed and picked up the curling iron. “The first thing you need to do is to stop tying your ponytail so tightly, and for God’s sake, PLEASE stop using rubber bands in your hair! It’s very damaging.”

“Yes ma’am,” Connor said in a serious manner.

Mary gave the back of his head a playful slap. “I mean it. Start taking care of this mop or cut it all off.”

“I will,”

Mary worked her curling iron quickly through his locks, then brushed it all out and stood back. “Ta da!” She proclaimed, holding her hands to the side in presentation.

“Very lovely,” Amy nodded.

Connor could only see the front of his hair in the mirror. He’d always parted it on the right side and then pulled it tight into a ponytail or bun of some kind. Now, it was brushed straight back. Even though he couldn’t see the waves flowing down his back, he could see that his hair looked a lot nicer and fuller than usual.

“Let’s get you dressed,” Amy said, offering Connor a hand and hauling him to his feet. She handed him a pair of undies.

“Seriously,” Connor chuckled, “you expect me to wear your silk panties?”

“They’re clean, Connie, and believe it or not, I don’t keep a drawer of mens’ boxers in your size just hanging around in case you need them,” Mary teased as she put away her tools.

He pulled them up his legs under the robe and situated them on his hips.

“Fit ok?” Amy asked.

“A bit loose,” he shrugged, “but fine.”

She nodded and handed him the leggings.

He pulled those on, then pulled off the robe.

“Uh oh,” Amy said. “Houston, we have a problem.”

“What?” Mary asked.

Amy indicated the leggings sagging from Connor’s hips. “Unless you have some suspenders, these are going to fall off of him when he tries to walk.”

Mary stood straighter and looked at him. ‘Hmmm… Connie, walk around a little.”

He did, and immediately the leggings, which were a bit stretched out, began to slide down. “It’s these stupid silk panties,” Connor insisted.

“That and your skinny butt and lack of hips,” Amy contributed.

“I’m not supposed to have wide hips,” Connor pointed out. “I’m a man, remember.”

“Yeah, well, we do need constant reminders in order to remember,” Amy teased. “You have anything else he can wear?”

“Let me look.” Mary began to search her closet. After about five minutes, she emerged with something that was an orangey-brown with red spots on it. “Turn away from me and hold your arms over your head,” she ordered.

“Why?” He asked.

“Let’s just see if this fits.”

He shrugged and turned away, holding his hands above his shoulders.

Mary, perhaps a bit brusquely, pulled the garment into place.

“Well, it fits well,” Amy said.

“It’ll be fine,” Mary confirmed. “Take off the leggings, Connie.”

Connor opened his eyes and immediately said, “Ummm… I don’t think so.”

What he was wearing was a dress in that orangey-brown material with little red flowers all over it. It had a low, ruffled neckline with a small string closure at the bottom, sleeves that came to his elbows in a rather puffy, balloonish way, a skirt that began with an elastic empire waistline just below where breast should be, then hung loose to just above his lower thigh where a ruffle took over, the hem of which ended just below his knee.

“I don’t see another choice, Connie,” Mary insisted. “We’re lucky this fits. I used to wear it line-dancing with cowgirl boots. It only comes to here on me.” She indicated her mid-thigh. “It looks nice on you, though. Not sexy, like it does on me, but nice.”

“Come on, Connie,” Amy said, picking up the leggings. “They must be about finished in the kitchen and I’m hungry. Let’s just get you something to wear on your feet and get out there.”

“I have some sandals that should work,” Mary offered. She returned to the closet and came back with a pair of low-heeled, cork soled sandals. Very plain.

“Can’t I wear my Crocs?” He asked.

“Is that meant to be a joke?” Mary asked. “Crocs should only be worn to the beach, on a boat or if they are the only thing you can find when a fire alarm goes off. Sit down and let me put these on you.”

He returned to the chair by the vanity where Mary began to strap his right foot into the delicate shoe.

“I’m going to look like a dork,” Connor complained. “The guys will laugh.”

“The guys are your friends,” Amy assured him. “They’ll understand.”

“I will make sure you don’t look like a dork,” Mary assured him.

“I’ll be right back,” Amy said, exiting the room.

She walked down the short hall to the kitchen where Bill, Joe and Toni were pushing the refrigerator back in place.

“How are things going in there?” Toni asked.

“Ok,” Amy said with a cautious smile, “but look, guys… Mary didn’t have anything that fit Connie except this elastic waisted dress she used to wear line dancing.”

“What?” Joe laughed.

“See, that’s why I’m talking to you about this,” Amy said sternly. “He’s afraid the three of you will spend the afternoon teasing him if he comes out dressed that way. So, come on, ok? When he comes out, don’t laugh or say anything hurtful, alright?”

“We won’t,” Toni said, with some force. “Will we, guys?”

“No… no… of course not,” Bill and Joe muttered.

“You know Mary could have been badly burned, right?” Amy asked. “Connie saved her from that.”

The guys nodded.

“We’ll all be good,” Toni assured Amy.

“Good,” she said, then headed back down the hall.

When she opened the door, she was surprised to see a very nicely made-up, a very pretty Connor sitting with his back to the vanity. He looked very natural in the pretty dress with the very natural looking makeup on. The only big differences that really stood out was his red, shiny lips and the fact that the eye makeup made his eyes look a lot bigger and brighter.

“Wow, Connie… you look… amazing!” She said.

“I feel foolish,” he said, sighing.

“Well, you shouldn’t,” Amy said. “I’m serious, Connie… you look really, really nice. Mare, you did a great job.”

“Thanks,” she said, rummaging through a drawer and seeming to find what she’d been looking for. “I think he’ll be more comfortable if he just looks like one of the girls, rather than a boy in drag.”

“Makes sense,” Amy nodded.

“I haven’t seen myself yet. Mary won’t let me near the mirror,” Connor complained. “Can I look now?”

“Not until you’re completely ready!” Mary came up behind Connor and said, “Let me slide this down your arms a little way.” The low neckline allowed Mary to expose his upper arms and then remove his arms through the poofy sleeves. “Put this on,” she said, holding a very pretty bra out in front of him.

He sighed as she slid the straps up his arms and began fastening it behind him.

“Is this necessary?” He asked.

“If you want the dress to hang right, yes, it is.”

Here’s the thing: Mary was not very well endowed in the chest area, and both Amy and Connor knew it. It was a source of constant frustration for Mary. She always wore slightly padded, push-up bras. Even her swimsuit tops were padded and had push-up qualities.

Mary finished connecting the strap in the rear of the bra and then reached around to the front of Connor’s chest and lifted what little extra skin he had on his chest and settled it into the bra’s cup, creating a very realistic looking cleavage.

“Ok, you can pull your top back up, now,” Mary said.

From down the hallway, they heard Toni and the guys scream “Oh, no!” in unison.

“Sounds like the boys are watching the game again,” Amy said, chuckling. “Let’s go back out.”

“I don’t know…” Connor said.

“Oh, come on, Connie,” Amy said, sounding a bit impatient. “I already told them that you’d be wearing a dress because there’s nothing else for you to wear. No one’s going to make fun of you.”

“Besides,” Mary said, “you came out pretty amazing, if I do say so myself. You look great, there’s no one here except your closest friends in the world… let’s go.”

Connor took a deep breath and nodded. “Can I at least see myself first?”

“Oh,” Mary laughed. “I forgot. Yes, of course.” She opened the French doors to a walk-in closet and angled the mirrors on the inside of the doors to show Connor how he looked from forty-five degrees on both the right and left side.

Connor turned and looked into the reflections. “That’s me.” He gasped.

It wasn’t a question, like, “Is that me?”

It wasn’t a laughing realization like, “Holy cow, that’s me!”

It was a simple statement of fact. As if he was seeing himself for the first time.

He said it again. “That’s me.”

“Yeah, it is,” Amy smiled. “You’re kind of a hottie, if you ask me. Maybe looking a little teenie-bopper-ish because those clothes are Mary’s from when we were all in high school, but definitely on the hottie-side.”

“I look…” he struggled for the right word. “… right. I look like… me.”

Amy looked at Mary who shrugged, but the little smile that had come to Connor’s face had vindicated her decision to do his hair and makeup the way she had. “I knew it! You should come see me every week for the same kind of treatment. Trust me… after a few visits, you’ll be hooked on looking nice.”

“It’s not that I look good,” Connor said, looking at his two friends. “I mean, Mary you did an amazing job, but… I’ve always been so… weird looking. So… not right. This is unbelievable. I look like… like I should. Like I’m meant to look.”

“Oh, honey,” Amy said, patting his back. “You were never weird looking.”

“You like the way you look now, then?” Mary asked.

“I do.”

“Well, then, think about continuing to look like this. I bet Toni will love it.”

“You think?”

“Only one way to find out.” Mary gave him a hug and turned him towards the door.

“Let’s go,” Amy said, opening it.

“NOOOOOOOOOO!!!” Bill, Toni and Joe screamed, jumping to their feet as the Patriots’ offensive team once again missed an opportunity to score.

“Son of a bitch!” Bill said, stamping his foot in frustration. “I swear to God, our high school team could have…” he stopped as he caught sight of the cute little woman who was accompanied by his wife and Mary. Then his jaw dropped as he realized that he knew that woman. “Holy smokes…” he said. “Connie?”

This caused both Joe and Toni to turn to look in the same direction as Bill.

“Whoa!” Joe said, shocked.

Toni took the longest to process what she was seeing. “Connie? Is that really you?”

Connor smirked in a manner that was all too familiar to his friends. It was definitely Connie. “Yeah. It’s me.”

“He looks nice, right?” Amy asked, reinforcing her previous warnings to be nice.

“Nice?” Bill said, still in shock. “I don’t think I’d say ‘nice.’ Connie, you’re a freaking fox!”

Connor laughed a nervous chuckle.

“I’m serious,” Bill assured him. “Toni, you’d better propose. You got yourself a trophy-wife.”

Toni stood in silent shock.

“Toni?” Amy encouraged. “Don’t you think Connie looks nice?”

“You look… lovely,” Toni said at last. “Mary, you… you made him look… beautiful.”

“So… what’s this all about?” Joe asked his wife. “Why all the hair and makeup?”

“Nothing I had fit Connie except dresses like this,” Mary shrugged, “and once I got started, I just couldn’t stop. And Connie’s been a really good sport about it, so… this is the result. The new and improved, Connie 2.0.”

“More like an entirely new and improved Connie Mach II,” Joe chuckled. “You did a hell of a job on him.”

“It wasn’t hard,” she smiled, proudly. “He has pretty features.”

“So, let’s order a pizza or something,” Amy said. “I want something with pineapple on it.”

“No, no, no,” Connor insisted. “We don’t need to order out. Let’s see what we have here.”

Connor and the girls rummaged through the refrigerator and cupboards until Connor laid a couple of boxes of spaghetti, a couple of jars of sauce, a box of breadcrumbs, three pounds of ground beef, some ground pork, an onion and some cloves of garlic on the counter. “I can have meatballs made and cooked in a half hour. The pasta will only take ten minutes or so and I can improve on the jarred sauce while it heats up. We can have a feast in the time it would take to get a pizza delivered.”

“Alright,” Amy sighed. “Sounds delicious. How can I help?”

Connor put her to work dicing onions while he grabbed a mixing bowl and put the beef and pork into it. As he started adding breadcrumbs, Mary appeared and said, “Put this on. I don’t want that dress ruined.”

She held out an apron for him to wear. It was an apron he’d seen Mary wear several times before. It wasn’t really designed for cooking, but it would do the job of protecting the pretty dress, but this apron would probably be better described as a ‘hostess apron,’ rather than a ‘cooking apron.’

It was green with a subtle white grid of lines running vertical and horizontal through the material. It had a strap that swung over his head and allowed the apron to hang. There was a ruffle of slightly darker green running along the edge of the strap and around the hem of the apron. It had two pockets and both of them had delicate white lace around their openings. The lace pattern was repeated across the top of the bodice, giving the apron a very feminine appearance.

The sash that tied around the high waist formed a big, floppy bow in the back of the garment.

“There, that’s better,” Mary smiled. “The dress is protected, and you look even prettier. Honestly, I don’t know why Toni isn’t in here right now molesting the heck out of you.”

Connor smiled and chuckled a bit. “I don’t know how Toni felt about all this. I mean, she smiled, but I don’t know if she approved of me doing this or not.”

“Oh, don’t try reading too much into it, Connie. Toni’s a tough girl and she doesn’t show a lot of emotion the way that Amy and I do. Trust me… she loves it.”

Just about forty-five minutes later, food was on the table and ‘the boys,’ a term that included Toni, but not Connor, were called to the table to eat.

“This is delicious,” Bill said, digging in. “I can’t imagine that whatever you girls were preparing before could be any better than this.”

Joe swallowed his first mouthful. “I agree. Babe,” he said to Mary, “you have GOT to take some cooking lessons from Connie. This is insane!” He picked up another forkful.

“Toni, do you eat like this every night?” Bill asked.

Toni nodded, also devouring the food on her plate. “We do. At least most nights. Connie loves to cook, and I love good food.”

“Man, you lucked out!” He laughed.

“How so?” Toni asked, aware that she was lucky to have all that she had, but uncertain as to Bill’s meaning.

“I mean… this food is delicious, and Connie is a total hottie! You’ve got it made! I’m telling you, man, you better put a ring on her finger before she gets swept up by someone else.”

Toni smiled and glanced at Connor. He really was a little hottie tonight. Not in a slutty way at all, but in that sexy, Betty Crocker, homemaker kind of way. Sweet. Pretty. Kind of maternal, in a way. The kind of girl any boy would love to take home to meet his mother.

It was weird, though, since she was not a boy and Connie was not a girl.

Toni wasn’t brought up to be one of the girls. She was brought up to be one of the guys. To be a tough athlete who never let pain stand in her way of winning. She didn’t remember having ever worn a dress, although there are a few pictures of her as an infant that said otherwise. She even wore a tux to prom.

Growing up, her favorite times were the times she spent in Sandwich with her cousin Mary and her friends. Things were different when she was on Cape Cod. At home, she was that boyish jock-girl who was always acting tough, but at Mary’s and with Mary’s friends, she could relax and be herself. Boyish and athletic, yeah, but not aggressive and not needing to win-win-win. She’d often thought that had she not had that time away from home every year, she might have become a mean bully, because she was strong enough and angry enough to have lashed out back then.

Of all of her ‘beach friends,’ Connie was always her favorite. He was her exact opposite in so many ways. The yin to her yang – and yes, she knew that yin was the feminine and yang the masculine. That was how she’d always seen her and Connie. A perfect couple, just a little different than most other perfect couples.

As she looked at Connie in that moment, with her in jeans and a flannel shirt and him in a dress, and a pretty apron, and with hair and makeup making him look just perfect, she smiled. This all felt really nice and she was kind of turned on by the whole thing. She felt strong and handsome and he looked meek and feminine. A perfect couple.

She took his soft hand in her calloused one and gave it a squeeze. “Yeah… I am lucky. Things are working out pretty fine. I think I might just keep this pretty little girl of mine.”

There were some chuckles from around the table.

“Mary did an amazing job on Connie in just a few minutes, don’t you think, Toni?” Amy asked.

Toni smiled. “Mary did a great job,” she smiled, “but I always knew that Connie was beautiful. You just showed the rest of the world.”

She smiled at Connor, who blushed a bit, but the rest of the table grew quiet and they exchanged glances with one and other.

“That’s an odd thing to say,” Joe said.

“Are you saying that you prefer having Connie look like this?” Amy asked.

“I prefer Connie looking however Connie looks at any moment,” Toni said, returning to her plate.

“Oh, my God!” Bill said, throwing his hands up in disbelief while staring at the TV.

“What?” Joe asked.

“They blocked the damned punt! This team can’t do anything right! Can’t score a touchdown. Can’t score a field goal. Can’t get a first down on fourth. Can’t even punt the freaking ball down field. Remember when being a Patriots fan wasn’t embarrassing?”

At that point, they stopped watching the game and all attention went to the improvised feast before them.

Hours later, after everyone had enjoyed the homemade ice cream, and Connor and the girls had cleaned the dishes, pots and pans, the visitors began to say their goodbyes. There were hugs exchanged, and cheeks kissed and Bill and Amy, and Toni and Connie headed for the door.

 Mary handed Toni a small white trash bag containing Connor’s food-soiled clothes. “I’m sorry I couldn’t rinse these out for you,” she said to both Toni and Connie.

“No problem,” Toni said. “Connie will put them in to soak tonight and wash them out tomorrow. Truth be told, Connie actually likes a good laundry challenge, don’t you, Connie?”

Connor let out a little laugh. “I do. The only thing more satisfying than making a good dinner is getting the stains out of clothes.”

“Huh,” Mary grunted, not really agreeing with her friend. “To each their own, I guess.”

Connor smiled and headed out the door.

Toni stayed back for a moment. “Listen, Mare… thanks for making Connie look so nice. He looks…” she struggled for words.

“He looks very pretty,” Mary said, “but all I did was enhance that beauty a little. The truth is, your boyfriend is a very pretty girl.”

“Well, one of us needs to be,” Toni smiled. “Ummm… if it’s not too much to ask… do you have a nightgown, or some nice pjs he could borrow.”

Mary’s face warmed with a sly grin. “Actually, I have a nighty I bought from Amazon last week. I tried it on and it was a bit tight on me. Let me grab it for you.” She scurried to her room, returning moments later with a white Amazon envelope containing the nighty she’d intended to return. “With a big smile, she gave it to her cousin saying, “Here you go, and… please… don’t return it. There are matching panties in there, too. Oh… and please… don’t return the panties Connie is wearing now, either.”

Toni chuckled a bit at that. “I’ll buy you some new ones. Thanks, Mare.”

It was a short, eight-minute ride from Mary and Joe’s apartment to the place shared by Connor and Antoinette. Mary and Joe’s place was a new, efficiency place with beige walls and a view of the parking lot out one window and the little parcel of lawn that was referred to as ‘the courtyard’ by the owners.

Connor and Toni lived in what had once been the second floor of an old Victorian that was only a block from the ocean. The home had been subdivided to create rental space by a previous owner. The current owners of the building were friends with Connor’s sister and had rented him the space at a very reasonable rate. He’d moved there when his sister had insisted that they sell their mother’s house when she died. That was when Connor was still a senior in high school. Not long ago, Toni made the move to Sandwich and joined him in his charming apartment.

The place had two-and-a-half bedrooms. The ‘half’ bedroom was rather small and had no closet space but was a perfectly fine bedroom for someone vacationing on The Cape. Connor used it as his home office, where he worked as his sister’s billing clerk.

It had an old-fashioned feel to it that Connor really liked. Flowered wallpaper, all immaculately maintained, despite the fact that the newest wallpaper was probably hung before Connor’s parents were born.

Connor had decorated the apartment with sheer, lace curtains, artwork that featured either more flowers or romantic portraits of Victorian women, all of which came from yard sales and thrift shops. Every chest of drawers was at least a hundred and fifty years old and each was adorned with a lace covering of some kind of another.

When Toni first saw the apartment, she’d assumed that it had been decorated by some prim and proper old lady, but when she realized it was entirely Connor’s doing, she could not say she was surprised. Connor was an old soul – and a prim, feminine soul as well. She liked that about him.

They climbed the beautifully lacquered stairs to their flat.

“I’m just going to go into the bathroom to get this makeup off and into my pjs,” Connor said as they stepped into the living room, but Toni stopped him with a gentle grip on his wrist that caused him to turn and face her.

“Not just yet,” she said, then planted a warm, soft, wet kiss on his shiny lips.

When the first, long kiss ended, she pulled him even closer, and, before he could even attempt to speak again, she kissed him again. This time, the power of her hug and force of her kiss made his head lean back to accept her advances.

“Wow,” he said softly. “I didn’t expect this kind of affection tonight. Usually when the Patriots lose, you’re too grumpy to even think about being this frisky.”

She smiled a bit wolfishly. “The moment I saw you looking like this I completely forgot about the Patriots.”

“Really?” Connor smiled. “You were more interested in me than Tom Brady?”

Toni chuckled. “Oh, Connie… Tom Brady hasn’t played for The Patriots in years.”

Connor shrugged. “That’s too bad. He was the only player I knew.”

Toni smiled broadly. Their relationship was completely weird. She loved being one of the guys and Connie loved being one of the girls. It was all twisted and backwards and messed up in ways she couldn’t even explain, and yet it was just so… perfect, too. Now, with Connie actually looking so pretty and perfect… well, it was just that much better.

She didn’t say a word but took his hand and led him to their bed, a beautiful king-sized affair with brass head and footboards that Connor fussed over endlessly. Every fingerprint left on the polished metal was buffed away within seconds.

She led him to her side of the bed, the side by the door, and gently laid him on the mattress, his knees hanging.

“Do you like wearing a dress, Connie?”

He smiled and shrugged. “It was just kind of a joke. I needed something to wear, and this was all Mary had that fit me. Then the girls just got a little carried away. I figured I’d just let them have their fun.”

“It feels nice though, doesn’t it?”

He nodded. “Actually… yeah. I kind of like it. It’s soft and very comfy.”

She smiled and her hand crept under the hem of the dress and slowly worked its way up his inner thigh. “And pretty.”

He smiled.

She fingered the elastic of the leg hole of his panties. “And it’s not just the dress that makes it pretty. Connie, you look beautiful this way. The dress, the hair, the makeup… just beautiful. I love seeing you like this.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” She moved her hand to the center of the front of his panties where she found his modest manhood encased in the panties’ soft silk material. When she touched it, shivers were sent through both Connie and Toni. “Oh yeah,” she said in a hoarse whisper.

Connor let out a soft purr and spread his legs a bit wider, accepting Toni’s caress through the silk.

When he’d become fully erect, Toni stopped and lifted his legs so that his heels were on the mattress and his knees spread wide. She took a moment to undo her belt, unzip her jeans, drop them to the floor and step out of them. Then she retook her position between his splayed legs pulled his panties off.

Gently, she guided his penis into her. She engulfed him and began to thrust back and forth, as her breathing began to match her rhythm.

This was not an unusual position for Toni and Connie to find themselves in when being intimate, but this all felt different. When she bent to kiss him, she tasted lipstick. When her hands ran down his chest, they caressed the breasts created by the padded, push-up bra. When she breathed deeply, she smelled the flowery scent of the shampoo in his hair.

Toni was not a lesbian. She’d never desired a sexual relationship with a woman. She’d never really considered a sexual relationship with another man, either. She just loved Connie and wanted to be with him. To engulf him within her. To be with him.

Something was different now, though.

She’d never worn silk lingerie. Her bras were just functional sports bras. She’d only tried lipstick twice in her whole life and despised the heaviness of it on her lips. She’d never worn any other kind of makeup, either. She’d never worn her hair longer than the boyish pixie cut she now wore. She’d never willingly put a dress on because she hated the fussiness of the garment and the sense of vulnerability the thought of wearing it presented.

Now, Connie wore silk. Connie wore a lacy bra. Connie’s lips tasted sweet and waxy from lipstick. Connie’s face was smooth and smelled of the makeup base he wore. Connie’s eyes looked wide and innocent from the eyeliner and mascara. Connie’s hair was long and soft and perfumed. And Connie wore a very pretty dress and in his position, prone on the bed, knees in the air and the dress’ skirt flipped up to allow her access to him, Connie was very, very, very vulnerable.

She felt excited. Powerful. In charge. Fulfilled.

She felt right.

Connie felt right, too.

He knew that Toni was turned on by his new makeover and he was turned on by suddenly possessing the power to excite her. He had rarely initiated intimacy, other than some nice cuddling. He waited for Toni to suggest being playful in bed. He liked it better that way and so did Toni.

“Be a good girl, now,” Toni said in a husky whisper as she began to take her husband in earnest.
 

 
“Why are you up so early?” Connor asked as Toni hustled around the room. “It’s only 5:45.”

“I’m actually late,” Toni said. “I have to meet a group of highway department bigwigs out in Truro this morning. We’re looking at ways to alleviate some of the summer traffic on Rt 6.”

Truro was the next to the last town on the Cape Cod peninsula. Most of the town was sand dune or beach, but it was on the route to Provincetown, the last town on the peninsula and a huge vacation destination. P-Town had long been a Mecca for artists and artisans, and at some point in the mid-twentieth century had developed a very joyous and very open gay community.

“I’ll get up and make you a thermos of coffee and see what I can find for a quick breakfast for you,” Connor said, pulling back the covers and swinging his legs over the side of the bed. It was at that moment that he realized that he was still wearing the nighty that he’d put on after he and Toni had had a very good time the previous night.

It was a very slight garment. Deep blue with spaghetti straps, lace trimmed bodice with a gently elasticized band just under the breasts created by the push-up bra he still wore, a short skirt that just barely covered the matching panties that he also wore.

He slipped his feet into his rather generic scuff-style slippers and hurried out to the kitchen.

A few minutes later, when Toni appeared, Connor had a large travel mug of coffee ready to go and he was wrapping a bagel he’d grilled for her in wax paper. He placed the wrapped bagel into a lunch sack and closed it up. “I put a banana and an apple in there too, so you’d have something besides just starch to eat.”

Toni, dressed in slightly loose, work jeans, a gray tee shirt that was covered with an open, red and black buffalo plaid flannel shirt, smiled as she gathered her computer bag and folders together. “Thanks, babe,” she smiled, shoving the folders and an iPad into the computer bag. “You take good care of me.”

Connor smiled. “Someone has to.” The makeup was gone and the hair was a little tussled, but the work Mary had done on him the previous day was still very evident. His hair was still fuller than usual, his eyebrows thinner and the cute nighty helped to accentuate his feminine features.

Toni kissed his forehead and held him at arms’ length. “God, you are adorable like this.”

Connor, clowning around a bit, took either side of the short hem of his nighty in his hands and performed an exaggerated curtsy, his right foot behind his left and his knees bent low. “Why thank you, kind sir. I am happy to have pleased you.” His grin grew even larger due to his silliness.

Toni gave him a warm kiss on the lips, threw her computer bag on her shoulder, grabbed her lunch bag and travel mug. “I’ll be home just a little late, I think. Around five-thirty or so.”

“Ok,” Connor said, already considering what to make for supper.

Toni reached the door and stopped to take in her view of Connor once more. She smiled and opened the door but stopped and turned back to Connor once again. She and Connor had always been very forthright and honest about everything, so… what the hell… she might as well just say what she was thinking.

“Connie…” she said, almost changing her mind. Connor waited. “Connie… if… if I were to get you some more things… you know… like what Mary gave you to wear… would you be open to wearing them?”

“Would that make you happy?” He asked.

Toni nodded. “Yeah… it would.”

“Then sure,” he said with a smile and a shrug.

The truth was, Connor was rather fascinated with not only the way that these soft, delicate clothes felt when he wore them, but he was also intrigued by how they made him feel. He felt small, and attractive, which was not a feeling to which he was accustomed, and he really loved the way that other people reacted when they saw him dressed like this. Sure, he knew that it got Toni a little hot and bothered, but Mary and Amy, who had always been his closest friends, seemed even more accepting of him like this, and Bill and Joe, his buds, seemed shocked, in a good way, when they saw him. Heck, Joe even gave him a hug and a peck on his cheek before he left their place the previous night. That had certainly never happened before.

Toni smiled, feeling happy that he’d said ‘yes,’ but also a bit awkward for having asked the question in the first place. She gave an uncomfortable smile. “Ok, then… umm… I’ll see you after work, then.”

She left and Connor looked at the clock on the stove. Not even seven o’clock yet. Usually, Toni and he got up around seven thirty. No point in going back to bed now, though. He figured he’d have a little breakfast; some fruit and maybe a piece of hardtack with jam, a treat he loved despite everyone else being confused by the idea. Then maybe a shower to wash off the night before and then he’d get ready to log in and start working for his sister.
 

 
Connor’s relationship with his sister, really his half-sister, was a bit odd. Heather, or H. Eleanore Bentley, the name she used professionally, was sixteen years older than Connor and they had different fathers. Connor’s mother had been married right out of college to Heather’s dad, but they got divorced about two years later. For the most part, Heather grew up with a single mother who worked as a high school English teacher and part time waitress. Her mother married Sean, Connor’s father, when Heather was fifteen and Heather and Sean were never close. Sean owned the Irish pub where their mother had started working as a waitress and they hit it off… for a while.

Connor arrived as a bit of a whoops about sixteen months later.

By the time Connor was three, Heather had left the family home for college, then law school, and then she returned to The Cape and set up a law practice in the nearby town of Falmouth. She specialized in real estate law, labor law, ‘senior planning,’ wills, and divorces, the last of which she’d had some personal experience with. As she approached the forty-year-old mark, she’d been married and divorced three times, but she’d kept the name ‘Bentley’ from her first marriage since it had the most pretentious sound and lawyers needed that kind of thing.

She treated Connor well enough, kind of like an aunt, but their relationship involved an awful lot of judgmental sighing on her part. She just thought that Connor had a lot of potential that he was wasting.

When their mother, who had been divorced from Sean for quite some time, died suddenly when Connor was just seventeen, Heather had found him the apartment he now lived in and helped him manage the inheritance he’d gotten from their mom. It wasn’t huge, but it covered the rent and paid for culinary classes.

When kitchen work hadn’t panned out, Heather hired him to do billing work for her until he found something else. He kinda liked the work, though. No one bothered him, he listened to music or podcasts all day while he worked and he didn’t have to commute… why get another job?

On occasion, he would have to go to Heather’s office, or she’d drop by his place with paperwork that she needed put into digital formats. She had a receptionist in her office who handled phone calls and in-person clients, but she didn’t do a lot of secretarial work. Lately, more and more of that kind of work was being forwarded to Connor, and that was fine.

Heather paid him fairly and he liked the work. Life was ok.
 

 
As Toni drove east along Rt 6, something occurred to her. She’d neglected to send her cousin, Mary, a text to thank her for her hospitality the previous day. She always tried to call or send a text before going to bed after a visit, but the previous night had gotten away from her.

So, she opened her text app, touched Mary’s contact icon and spoke her text into the phone: HEY, CUZ! THANKS SO MUCH FOR YESTERDAY. HAD A GREAT TIME WATCHING THE GAME WITH THE BOYS. FOOD WAS GREAT TOO! THANKS. AND THANKS TOO FOR ALL YOU DID FOR CONNIE. I LOVED WHAT YOU DID AND I THINK CONNIE DID TOO. I THINK WE’LL BE SEEING MORE OF GIRLY-CONNIE IN THE FUTURE. She thought for a second, then added: THANKS FOR THE NIGHTY TOO. WE GOT SOME GOOD USE OUT OF IT LAST NIGHT.

She sent the text.

Seconds later her phone rang. It was Mary. Toni answered the call. “You’re up early.”

“Ok, first – gross,” Mary said, speaking to Toni as if they were both still teenagers. “I have no interest in hearing about the intimacies of your playtime.”

Toni laughed at the playful chiding.

“And second, you mean Connie’s going to start living as a woman?”

The question surprised Toni. “I don’t know if he’s going to start LIVING as a woman, but I know we both enjoyed last night, so… well, we talked about it this morning and he says that he’ll dress that way if I buy him some clothes. I don’t know if that qualifies as LIVING as a woman, but…”

“Just what I need, extra work,” Mary interrupted, but she didn’t seem upset. In fact she seemed tickled by the idea and eager to help.
 
 
To Be Continued...