my only regret is that you have stopped writing stories.  I just love good hairdo/salon stories and yours are of the best I've ever read.
Hoping you have more to share and please let me know if you are posting elsewhere.

Thanks,
dutchboy bobbed

Phew, Molly!  I've read this again and again......  Sorry, I can't get where you're coing fro really,  but... whatt he heck!  LOL  WbG xx

Regrets... Yes, and it's oh so true, what I've heard it said, that we regret the things we HAVEN'T done. In your writing, the pain and sadness of living half a life, of living a lie, of the non-acceptance from the one who supposedly loves you and whom you love, comes through loud and clear. It also reminds me of an experience I think I might like to share here, although I have no idea why your story reminds me of this -- except for the hunger, and the longing.

I was in a Wild Pair shoe store, years ago before the chain, and the parent company it belonged to, went out of business. I was looking at the latest styles in my favorite metal-spiked needle-heeled stilettos on the discount racks, which was the only way I could afford anything back then. These heels taper to very small points which, being made of very hard steel, are sure to leave a trail of dents and holes in any soft floor. Stilettos are all about sexual power, and nothing says "power" like these stilettos. Wearing them is a sensual experience, knowing that anything upon which you walk is straining, groaning, and crying to support your pretty arches upon their deadly pedestals. Anyway, back to my story...

Suddenly, into the store breezed two young women, with one leading the other, who was clearly reluctant to be there, by the hand. One could perceive both their personalities and their relationship to each other, at a glance. The one leading was a personification of the free spirit, and was in a lacy white dress with a three-tiered, A-line skirt. The other was clearly very shy, uncomfortable in her skin, lacking in confidence, and dressed in a two-piece black outfit with a very tight sheath silhouette -- though it fit her curves (and she had them), it simply emphasized the tension and unease that she already radiated. The relationship was equally obvious: the free-spirited one was attempting to get the other one to open up, to relax, to enjoy her femininity, and simply to enjoy life.

The fact that Ms. Free Spirit immediately spotted and descended upon my favorite metal spiked heels came as absolutely no surprise to me. As good fortune would have it, they had a white pair in her size to match her white dress, and a black pair in her friend's size to match *her* dress. Ms. Free Spirit completely ignored the store clerk's remark about not forcing her feet into shoes that were too small -- the only remark that anyone had an opportunity to address to her, since she completely took the little shop over as soon as she made her entrance -- as she preened, danced, and twirled in front of the three-way mirror. She never said anything, but only made little "Mmmm..." noises to herself as she twirled and spun, as though she were in orgasm -- talking about autogynephilia, or being in love with herself as a woman! In my hyper-active imagination, I could see the droplets of female pheromones spinning off the edges of her skirts as she spun and preened. I became aware of my surroundings in the course of this spectacle, and noticed that every other person in the store -- there were about seven of us -- had stopped whatever we were doing, and were lined up in a semicircle around her, totally mesmerized and enthralled by her display. Her poor friend was entirely forgotten off somewhere else in the store, and I do not think that a single one of us saw her try on her shoes.

All too soon, the magic was over, as they quickly paid for their purchases and left. I cannot remember if I bought any shoes myself that day, though I did somehow wind up with a pair of metal spikes in the style I saw on the rack -- maybe I went back another day. I do recall that I was excruciatingly depressed for the entire next week, and my own dresses, skirts, and heels were left alone to keep each other company in my closet for a very long time. I have never purged, knowing that I would just wind up buying more, and not wanting to throw away the treasures I had searched and saved for, but I came very close to doing so that day. I do not think I have ever hated my maleness, yearned to have been born female, and felt like a fraud, a sham, and a sick puppy, quite so much as I did after that experience. I was not suicidal then as I am now; had I been, the experience might very well have driven me right over the edge.

I still think of her from time to time, and imagine her at her friends' parties (for it was clear that she was extremely sociable) in her white dress and metal-spiked stilettos, with not a care in the world for the dents she would be leaving behind her on wooden and vinyl floors (perhaps she even knew, and was enjoying feeling sexy and powerful, as several other women have admitted to doing on various bulletin board forums that I have read). I imagine the other women looking upon her with envy, and the men doing so with hunger and longing. And the memory and my images always fill me with regret, and make me sad and hungry with longing for what can never be: I am not even good to look upon as a male, much less in a skirt and heels. I'm the gorilla in a tutu up on stage at the Kit-Kat Klub in Bob Fosse's movie, 'Cabaret.' When Joel Gray's character sings "If you could see her through my eyes, she wouldn't look...Jewish...at all," I don't even make it on that score. Yuck.

You'll allways be beautiful

a next section would be great not a bad start

SO SAD, BUT SO TRUE. WELL DONE

makes me feel i'm not alonew; thank you

I can't do anything or say anything that can express my feelings. So I just shed a tear of joy and extreme sadness that you have told the story of my time, feelings, and the way my life goes. I will have my day in the sun, sometime just not right now. Thank you and keep on writing.
DeeAnne

DITTO!!

You have definitely captured my thoughts and feelings with this one.  I too am left with the same questions, desires and misgivings.  How do you get the one you love to accept your other self?  The older I get, the more I worry about having lived only half a life and looking back on things I HAVEN'T done from the perspective of "regrets".  

Thanks for putting this into words, I just may ask my wife, the love of my life, to read it.  Maybe it will open the door for understanding a little more. . .

Melanie