transretrogurl

So, been riding the t-cycle again lately, bit down on the whole ‘am I a girl, am I a boy, am I an idiot’ set of questions that seem to bounce endlessly around my mind as I trudge through drab life. So it’s time to cheer up a bit – this blog post is all about 10 things I know now, as a seasoned frock wearer, that I didn’t a year ago. So let the fun begin….

10 – Amazon is utterly your friend. Until it isn’t.

I *love* Amazon. In the old days getting anything for my wardrobe involved either sneaking into the Transformation shops, feeling like everyone was watching and then almost sprinting to the car with a nondescript bag containing wig, frock and various magazines like I’d committed a capital offence, or trying to persuade my other half of the time to buy me something.

With Amazon it’s just so, so easy. Want some more nail glue, it can be in your letterbox within 24 hours. The range of fashion is superb and delivery is almost perfect.

Problem is, Amazon is too clever. My suggestions, which appear whenever I open the Amazon page, are, err, interesting. Hardware, electronics, esoteric food stuffs, 1950s floral day dresses, latest sci-fi DVDs. Spot the odd one out?

Plus I get some very interesting ‘do you want to buy again?’ emails, which have to be deleted very quickly if I’m casually scanning them on my phone. Add that to the fact I’m daft enough to use my ‘him’ email address for some mailing lists (Viv of Holloway, Lindy Bop and the like) and reading my email in public turns into some kind of pink roulette wheel.

But still, Amazon is the King (or Queen) of late night, drunken impulse purchases, and I have half a closet full of impulse frocks, some of which I could actually get away with wearing.

If ever someone hacks my account and looks at my order list they are going to be very confused.

9 – Some stockists of female fashion like T-Girls

I used to buy a lot of clothes for my other half as she was into retro stuff for a while when Sarah was dormant, and I was always impressed by the customer photo galleries, Facebook pages and Twitter accounts of these vendors. Partly because I had a woman sharing my head who constantly ‘oohed’ and ‘aahed’ at all the beautiful frocks, and partly because the pictures were all so nice.

When I started enjoying Sarah’s love of retro I started buying outfits from the same vendors that I had bought pretty things for my other half for, but this time in a larger size. Then I discovered Cindy’s ‘Boys Will Be Girls’ makeover studio and the first session I ever did was made up of frocks I’d bought specially from these vendors.

I eventually caved in and created a Twitter account, just to see if I could have a Tweet space for fashion obsessed retro T-Gurl. I then got the courage up to tag some of my favourite pictures that I tweeted with the tags of the vendors I bought the frocks from.

And one of the vendors liked that. A lot. They started liking all my Tweets where I mentioned them and then, last week, they actually retweeted one of my photos to their Twitter feed.

So Sarah is actually on Lindy Bop’s Twitter feed wearing one of her favourite frocks. Yeah, that’s a thrill and a half…..

8 – Lube tastes funny

Less said about this one the better. Suffice to say some places sell lube that has the consistency and feel of you-know-what, but tastes like the inside of a football. Still fun to play with though.

7 – Wearing a dress really makes you feel vulnerable

Now I always thought this would be the case but that it would be offset by my ‘impossible to keep down’ masculinity. Boy, was I wrong. Being shaped by a corset, wearing stockings and heels, a face full of beautiful makeup, a stylish wig on your head and then stepping daintily into a dress, putting your arms into the sleeves and feeling the zip close up to the back of your neck, that moment when the skirt falls onto your legs and settles around them, when you flick the hair off of your false lashes, it really hits home what you are.

I didn’t realise that so much of the personality I put out to the world is based on the clothes I wear. In some ways the drab stuff I wear, style-less and all the same, is like a set of armour that I can hide myself behind. People make a determination of me based on it which I’m comfortable with, and my personality flows out.

When I’m Sarah it is completely different. I feel feminine, and it soaks into my core. My steps become graceful, my wrists go limp, and I feel so, so vulnerable. There’s nowhere to hide, I am Sarah and the world can see. It’s a thrill, but you really start to feel the role that society has forced on women. Part of that feeling is so enjoyable, but part of it is terrifying. On the few occasions I’ve been out I tend to find somewhere safe-ish, a seat against a wall, and sit, delicately crossing my legs and placing my hands in my lap, while inside the drab me is screaming at me to leave, to go home.

I read a lot of accounts of us girls being out and about and am always impressed by the courage of the majority of us. Me, I’m a coward when I’m not dressed like an angry goth.

6 – Women’s underwear wasn’t really designed for dangly bits

1950s shape wear works a treat, the combined girdle and panties cover everything and give little me a comfortable tent to hide in. However, g-strings and the majority of women’s panties is like wearing cheese-wire. Wherever you put your extraneous and unwanted external genitalia it ends up getting squeezed, held tight or just pops out.

Yeah, I’ve read about tucking and pushing stuff back in but that seems very scary.

What I’ve learnt in the last year is choose your knickers carefully. Worst experience I had was *perfect* tucking where I was entirely flat at the front. And then I sat down and everything got crushed….

5 – Being a model is a lot of hard work

It looks so damn simple. Stand here, bend your hip that way, put your hand behind your head, smile sweetie, stick your little finger in the corner of your mouth. Now bend over, kneel on the floor, turn your upper body to the right, play with your hair, point your toes in your heels. Now smile, more teeth. Now lie down on the floor, cross your left leg over your right, pull your right foot up as far as you can, Push your hip up and out, make your bum look big. Now hold that.

I’ve gradually graduated over the last year to doing nine hour sessions and at the end of it I can hardly move. My back hurts, my hips feel like they have had rust injected into them, my neck hurts, my ears have lost feeling from the clip-ons,

And it’s completely and utterly worth every torn muscle, every mis-firing nerve ending, every numbed toe from squeezing my size 10 feet into size 8 yellow heels. Utterly worth it. But so, so hard.

4 – When you have an email conversation with an admirer the likelihood is it will turn very, very naughty very quickly

Well duh. It doesn’t matter how many times I remember, I always end up forgetting that the people I talk to are a: genuinely aroused by the imagery they see and b: think, probably correctly, that the horny looking woman in the picture is actually me.

Well yes, of course she is. But I’m just pretending. Aren’t I?

Anyway, with some rare and lovely exceptions the standard admirer conversation kinda goes a little like this…

Hi Sarah! I saw your pictures and just got to say, wow, you look good.

Ooo, thanks, I’m touched to hear that.

Your pictures always look so nice and the descriptions are so much fun.

Aww, thanks sweetie, I appreciated that.

So, ever sucked cock?

Umm, sorry?

I want to ride you like a dog.

OK, backing away metaphorically at this point…..

It always surprises me just how fast it escalates from ‘you are pretty’ to ‘do you have a gag reflex’.

3 – It’s depressingly easy to have a pregnant shape

It’s always been one of my quirky fantasies to portray Sarah as being, well, on the receiving end of the breeding process. There’s something deliciously feminine about the state, plus the implication that, you know, she did the horizontal folk-dance with someone.

So I occasionally satisfy the urge by buying a maternity dress, taking it along to BWBG and, at the end of the day, losing the tight corset and relaxing the stomach muscles.

Turns out if you’re middle aged that is way too easy and incredibly convincing, Especially after a day of holding everything in, assisted by some serious boning (cough) and ropes. The body just lets out a proverbial sigh and everything just slouches down into five months of instant baby. It’s just too easy, dammit. Still, the photos are fun.

2 – Heels are unbelievably sexy, and unbelievably uncomfortable

When I was a kid I was convinced I’d be a superb snowboarder, even though a: I’d never ski-ed and b: my balance is hysterically bad, what with being the height that makes you hit your head on door-frames. But I still thought I’d be really, really good at it.

Twenty minutes into the first lesson and I was in agony. The boots you wear have no give and your ankles just end up whinging, and then screaming.

High heels are like that.

I’ve heard many women complain about them and always put it down to sour grapes. As a bloke you can wear comfortable shoes whenever you like, but women, no, fashion and society says you need to be tottering around in unfeasible footwear that shapes your legs and accentuates the female aspects that make a man think you would be a very good sexual partner.

First time I put heels on I couldn’t help myself from giggling out loud. The feel of them is great, that odd balance and the sexy way it makes it impossible for you to move at anything other than a delicate, slow pace.

Fifteen minutes later I was sat on a sofa, gently massaging my stocking covered feet and staring in disbelief at the black patent f*ck-me heels stood by themselves on the carpet.

How could somethings so utterly beautiful be so painful?

It hasn’t got any easier and from conversations with women about it it gets worse. Yet I can’t resist or turn down a pair of 6inch+ heels every time I see them.

No pain no gain, I guess….

1 – When you’re out and about as a woman peeing becomes an exercise in hilarity

Saving the best for last. I always dreamt of being out as a woman, of excusing myself from the date I was on to walk sexily into the toilets, remembering to go into the ladies as opposed to the gents. I’d sit delicately on the loo, my skirts held gracefully around me as I peed, gently applying a little loo-paper before sliding my silk panties up and smoothing my skirt down, checking my lippy in the mirror to see if it was still kissable before heading out, my heels clicking deliciously on the tiles in the bathroom.

It is so not like that.

For a start, whenever I’m dressed I’m wearing padded pants or silicon thigh pads to accentuate the figure (due to hormones I don’t have those fat areas), a corset, stockings or tights. And I always have long nails which, while being utterly femm and beautiful, turn my hands into Edward Scissorhand-esque talons of doom.

Add heavy lids due to over-sized eyelashes, long hair that always wants to be in my eyes or mouth, and your starting at a very different place from the fantasy.

So here’s how it has actually gone.

I excuse myself from whoever I’m with and head, gently, to the toilet, trying to walk in a feminine way while ignoring the cramps in my shins and thighs. I get to the bathrooms and seriously consider going into the gents because it feels wrong to head into the ladies, but the urge to wee forces my hand and I step gingerly across the barrier into the ladies.

First of all I find myself in a queue. A queue. What on earth is that about. I stand with my legs crossed, my heels at odd angles as the line of ladies shuffles forward slowly.

Finally I get a stall and I totter into it as fast I as can, locking the door behind me before taking a deep breath, or as deep as I can with the boning of my corset holding my ribs in an unnatural place.

Then comes the inelegant battle of nails versus nylons. My bladder is aching as I gently try to slide my long red nails between the skin and the nylons. It takes four attempts and I gingerly roll the tights down, followed by the padded panties, the cheese-wire underwear, and I sit down with a sigh of relief.

And nothing happens. Turns out the corset squeezes everything down there so tubes are restricted. So I sit there, my skirt up around my waist, listening to the discussions of very loud and very proud drag queens at the mirror four feet from my angled heels with the stockings down around them as they discuss sexual positions.

Before my bladder bursts it finally finds a route to my equipment and a thin trickle occurs, not exactly a relief but at least something is happening. I can literally hear the queue outside planning to kick in the door and burn me at the stake, so I squeeze the corset in an odd direction and et voila, normal pee stream. Of course I’m sitting down and everything feels just odd, but hey, urine. Not going to complain at that.

After an excruciating period my bladder finally declares itself empty. Cue talons versus tights in reverse, coming close to scratching my thighs in my belated efforts to get the stockings back up. Then standing, bumping my elbows as I attempt to pull the tight dress down over my thighs. I remember to pull the flush like a good girl, then unlock the door and step out gracelessly, sliding on the tiles and catching myself in front of the mirror.

No time to check the lippy, the line looks angry at the wait, so I tip-toe past them with a blushing face, whispering sorry and wanting the earth to open up and swallow me.

By the time I get back to the table and slide in gently there’s another drink waiting for me and literally as I sit down the bladder goes ‘err, I need to pee again’.

Sigh. 🙂

So not exactly the carefree girl skipping into the perfumed toilet, her sundress swishing around as she smiles in the mirror. But hell, still a lot of fun and you can’t help but blame yourself in that kind of situation.

Note to self – drink shorts when out as a girl.

So there you go, a year of femininity reduced to 10 pithy moments of amusement. Still wouldn’t change a thing.

Stay beautiful and plan your toilet-breaks with military level precision, sweeties…..