As soon as Roger walked through the saloon-style doors, Kent reached for a glass. He'd never before seen a man in such need of a drink.
If the dark rings under his brown eyes weren't enough, his incorrectly buttoned-up shirt and mop of dishevelled brown hair clearly used to more attention than it was currently getting were a clear indication that Roger wasn't at his best.
He pounded the first beer that the bartender offered, and as he began to ask for a second, looked up and was abruptly entranced by the large man's eyes. They were so oddly, deeply blue, yet somehow warm. Trustworthy.
Roger was a social drinker at best (his only real vice) and so as he took a large gulp of the next drink that Kent laid out in front of him, it was already starting to hit him. He sighed; there was no one else in the bar - which wasn't unusual for a Wednesday afternoon - and he'd come here to try to cope with his new living situation.
It didn't take long for Roger to unload his woes on the friendly-looking bartender.
Without breaking eye contact, he opened his mouth, and the turmoil that had been his last few days began spilling out. Kent just nodded in sympathy as Roger described coming home two days prior to discover his prim and proper wife dressed in leather and made up like a whore.
"It was like...Jesus, I dunno. Everything about her was just
wrong
. Even her tits seemed different! ...not that she let me near enough to see, of course. She said that I wasn't ever going near her again, and she...oh, god...she
recoiled
when I reached out to touch her. Can you imagine? She felt sick at just the idea of touching me.
"I felt like someone had taken my Trish away from me, and replaced her with...oh god, I couldn't even tell what she was. Some kind of man-hater. That's it, that's exactly it: it was like she hated me."
Even as Roger spoke, he tried to distance himself from the words coming out of his mouth. It was difficult to cope with the changes that had so abruptly taken hold of his wife, and he still wasn't quite sure that it was real. As he spoke, he pondered the bartender's strange attire - was the bow-tie part of his required uniform, or was the large man just an eccentric?
Even as his mind wandered around the room, however, his eyes never broke eye contact with Kent's as Roger explained his wife's refusal to answer any questions, the fact that she'd already made up the couch for him to sleep on ("as a special favor" - he wasn't worthy to sleep on the ground outside, she'd been quick to clarify). He'd been heartbroken and confused, but that was nothing compared to what had happened the next day...
"I came home from work really hoping that she'd cooled down a bit and we'd be able to talk. At first I'd thought she wasn't there, but then I heard noises coming from the bedroom...geez, I mean...I knew she was mad, but it was obvious, just from the sounds, that she'd brought someone else home and was fucking them in our bed.
"I've never heard her use such language, it was unbelievable. I opened the door, and - oh god, I feel sick just saying this - I could have sworn she was in bed with Julia. Our daughter.
"She didn't stop when she saw me come in, either, she just grinned this huge cruel grin, took a swig from a massive bottle of whisky, and kept going. The girl must have realized something was up though, because she looked up and I saw that it wasn't my baby girl being fucked by the strap-on, thank Christ. It was some teenager who looked just like her. She freaked out and left, and me and Trisha had it out.
"I don't know if she did it to hurt me, like she knew I was coming home, or if she just lost track of time. But I found out that she's been sleeping around pretty much the whole time we've been married. I don't know how I never noticed before, and she just didn't seem to care...it was like our marriage meant nothing to her, like it never
Roger paused, his hollow eyes never leaving Kent's huge and passive "I loved her, I really did. But I think I know why Julia's been locked in her room for the last two days. I think my wife tried to...do soething with her.
"It's been hell since then. I should be going home now, but I just...I can't face it. I don't know what's happened to my Trisha, but Jesus Christ, I dunno. I don't know what to do."
Kent was the one to break the eye contact, his gaze running up and down the middle-aged man's fit body. He paused, as if chewing over what to say next, but when the large bartender spoke his words were slow and deliberate.
"Why don't you just admit to her that you're a crossdresser?"
"No!" Roger recoiled at the question, his eyes meeting the older man's once more. His face went white as Kent's words sank into his brain.
"You don't think...you don't think that could have anything to do with it?"
At Kent's gentle nod, Roger lowered his head in shame. The man was right - of course his wife hated him. Of course she was disgusted. He'd never had the guts to tell her, but since he'd been a child he'd been attracted to women's clothings - frilly things; dresses, skirts, blouses...but most of all panties.
As he'd grown, so had his obsession, and when Roger had first met his wife, he was barely able to get an erection without thinking about panties, without imagining himself wearing them - thongs, granny-panties, bikinis, boyshorts...
Even though he'd never been able to confess his bizarre fetish to his wife, she must have suspected. The drawer that he'd never let her near, his insistence on making love with the lights off. From time to time she must have felt the strap of a bra under his shirt, the silk of the panties around his ankles as they made love.
And at least once, she must have questioned where he went on weekends.
The internet had been a game-changer for Roger; they'd gotten their first modem hooked up a few years after their marriage had begun, and once he'd discovered that there were others like him, he knew he had to meet them. He knew he had to find out.
The first meeting he'd attended had simultaneously been the most freeing and the most shameful moment of Roger's life. Freeing, because he'd realised that he wasn't alone, that other people had the same urges and the same need as he did.
Shameful, because it confirmed what he'd suspected for a long time...he was a freak.