Carefully

The silence stretched between Melissa and I. My proclamation seemed to have sucked all the air out of the room, the only sound that invaded our space was my heaving breathing from my run and the soft music coming from the headphones that were still gripped in her hand. I could see her mind spinning as she tried to understand the words that I had so casually dumped on our relationship.

Melissa’s face seemed to portray every emotion available to her, from sadness, to happiness, and somehow managed to land back on anger. “What the fuck do you mean you are a failure? Did you get Missy fire?! I don’t understand.” Her heels clicked against the hardwood floor as she turned and flung the headphones in her hand onto the couch and stalked into the kitchen.

A whole new wave of failure seemed to roll over me. Now I was making my tired and overworked wife stress out because I wasn’t strong enough to do what she needed me to do. Frustration caused tears to well up in the corners of my eyes as an onrush of emotions hit me like a hammerblow to my chest. “No, no, nothing like that. I just…” My words trailed off as I watched her pull out a pair of glasses and pull the bottle of tequila from the freezer.

“So you aren’t fired? Missy still has a job?” Her eyebrow quirked up as she brought the glass out and handed it to me. My fingers reflexively closed around the glass as she left it with me and collapsed onto our couch.

“That’s not what this is about. You still have two jobs. But honey, I can’t do what you want. I can’t be the person you keep asking me to be. I’m not good enough at it.” My throat went dry as I admitted my failure to the love of my life. Without thinking of its contents, I took a drink of the tequila and almost spit it out as it hit the back of my throat. Coughing as the booze went down my throat, I took another more hesitant sip as I waited to see what she would say.

My eyes never left her face as she reached down and pulled off her heels, letting each one thud to the floor, before she curled her legs up under her and sipped her own drink. Frustration and anger seemed to war across her face as she processed what I was saying. “I don’t understand Darren, where is this coming from? When I left hours ago, everything was fine. You were perfectly happy sitting in your office and typing away. You looked perfect. What happened while I was gone?”

I took a third sip of the drink as I tried to find a way to say what I needed to say to her. My mind raced as I tried to think of a way to explain to her how I couldn’t do it. The words started slowly, then began to tumble from my lips.

“I… Everything was fine when you left. It…it all started when Kylie video called me. We were talking and she told me that she wanted Melissa to call her, not Missy as she hung the line with me.” I swallowed and continued quickly before she could interrupt me and stop me from telling my story. “It was then that I really started questioning if this could even work. If one person knew, then everyone would know sooner or later. Especially someone from HR. So I started to try and think about what I could do to make it better.” Another drink and I could feel the warm feeling in my stomach begin to spread as I realized I had yet to eat a single thing that day. “

Melissa’s eyebrow raised in question, but she kept herself silent as she waited for me to continue on.

“So I decided to see if I could take this farther, if I could do better. Maybe it would work. I mean, you seemed to think it was possible, so I had to give it a real try. I went and took a shower. And… well just fucking look?” I pulled my shirt up and then the leg of my sweatpants, revealing my new fully smooth body. “I shaved everything Melissa. Look at me? I look like some pansy! Fuck I even tried on a pair of your shoes!” By now I was pacing around our living room as I let all my frustrations and failure out. “But of course I fell and damn near broke my ankle! And that wasn’t even in a corset or with tits, or anything else you seem so hell bent on making me wear. How the fuck am I supposed to be Missy if I can’t look sexy like you do in a pair of your heels? Not only that? But if I do look sexy in a pair of high heels, how the fuck am I supposed to be your husband? I just… I can’t do it Melissa, I’m fucking failure.” Downing the rest of the booze, I also collapsed onto the couch and laid my head back to stare up at the ceiling. My earlier run combined with my emotional tirade and the booze in my system to drain me as I closed my eyes and waited to hear her speak.

I could hear her sip from her own glass as she sat on the other end of the couch. Her silence was killing me, but I knew from our years of marriage that she would take her time to respond to something like what I had just dropped on her. Still, the words that finally broke the silence were not what I expected.

“What shoes did you try on? Did they fit?”

My head snapped up as I turned to look at her, the incredulous look on my face only seemed to make her smile grow wider. “That’s what you want to know? I tell you how much of a failure I am, tell you how this whole scheme is going to fail, tell you that your co-worker knows… And that’s what you land on?!”

Her smile turned into a grin and she giggled softly at my incredulity. “Of course it is honey. I know Missy is a shoe girly, but Darren is new to this. Plus, I want to know what shoes were so important that you just had to try them on.”

I stood up from the couch and stomped into the kitchen. I could tell that drinking like this was a bad idea, but I was so flustered and upset that it somehow seemed like a good idea anyways. “I’m not new to this Melissa. It isn’t a thing. Look, can we just drop which shoes and focus on how we can move past this? I can’t do it. I’m just not capable.”

Melissa’s sigh was full of patience as she continued to perch on the couch and watch me across the apartment. “Is this all because you tripped the first time you wore heels? You are going to throw away our entire plan, because you won’t work on learning a new skill?” She pursed her lips and shook her head. “You can do this Missy. You just need to work at it, like anything else.” Another pause lent weight to her next words. “You can’t give up just because you aren’t good at it the very first time you try it..”

I winced as she referred to me as the alter ego we had created. That wince intensified as she brought up a fight that we had been having since our earliest years. It was true that I had the habit of only doing things I was good at. I was self aware enough to realize that it was likely what had led to us being in this whole situation. If I had been more willing to put myself in an uncomfortable position at my job, I might not have been laid off. Or might even have been able to find a new job.

“Even if I could do it, there is just no way this is going to work. Kylie…”

Her voice cut me off before I could continue. “Kylie always knew, baby. She is an old college friend. She was in my sorority. Hell, you have met her!”

“Wait, it’s that Kylie?” Her nod at my question allowed me to realize something else. “Wait, she knows that I dressed up in your clothes?!”

Melissa’s laughter filled the room as she set her glass down on the coffee table. “Well, she didn’t till today, so I’m sure the phone call with her later will be funny.”

Cradling my head in my hands I leaned against our kitchen counter and groaned. “I’m never going to live this down. How the fuck am I supposed to be your husband and be your alter ego? I just… I can’t fucking do it.”

Melissa’s arms wrapped around me from behind as she pulled me up against her in a hug. “What you wear doesn’t make you my husband or not Darren. Nothing is going to change that. You are the man I married. You will always be the man I want to spend my life with.” Her hands turned me around and she stared into my eyes. “The fact that you are willing to try this for me is the sexiest thing you have ever done! It just proves how much you love me. I love you Darren.”

Her words of love and affirmation washed over me. They seemed to strip away my objections as I realized just how important this was to her. I could feel her love for me, and I knew that I loved her with all of my heart. My mind seemed to cycle through things and I realized that I had somehow managed to simultaneously fail to trust and obey the love of my life. I sighed as I realized how much I must be letting her down. My eyes dropped to the ground as I stood there unable to look my wife in her eyes. “I can’t do it.” The words were almost a whisper as I tried one final time to make her understand how I felt.

I felt her finger under my chin as she brought my gaze up to hers. “If you could do it? Would you?” Her question was spoken softly, but the weight of it hit me in the chest like a baseball bat.

“I will always obey those I love.” The words tumbled out before I could stop them.

“Good, then we have work to do. I’m gonna prove we can make this work. Now, strip.”