15/11/05
If it weren’t for the first-timers I would have given this up long ago. I think about the reasons for this almost constantly and I still can’t explain them - it all just boils down to a feeling I get. I mean, if anyone had told me two years ago that I would get bored with fucking for a living, well…
Maybe if I write some of this down it will make it clearer for me. It’s all so muddled at the moment. I’ve never had the discipline to keep a diary before, but I need to do something with these thoughts. They’re just bouncing around in my head like trapped moths looking for an exit. Sometimes I feel like my head will explode if I can’t let them out.
The first-timers keep me going. I think it’s the fact that it’s all new to them. We become desensitised so quickly. The ones that interest me are the men, testing the greenness of that fabled grass on the other side. I never get to find out who they really are, which ones are men and which are women, but I think I can tell. They come in two main varieties: the sluts and the frightened rabbits. A lot are a combination of those roles, switching from rabbit to slut as confidence and lust kick in. That moment of transition is what really does it for me. What did it for me.
16/11/05
Have you ever felt like killing yourself, but the only thing that stops you is that you just can’t be bothered? I feel like that all the time.
17/11/05
I wrote earlier about how I’d like to give all this up. The truth is I don’t know what else I’d do with my life. I would work seven days a week if they let me. When I’m not at work I don’t know what to do with myself any more. I don’t have any hobbies. If it weren’t for the anaesthetic qualities of alcohol and television I wouldn’t be able to cope.
I think I’m pretty bright, but I’m not that well educated. Apart from this job all I’ve done is no-brain retail work. I know in a right and proper universe work wouldn’t be my only reason to exist. Maybe one day I’ll find one of those universes.
18/11/05
Had another first timer today. I walked into the boudoir (that’s what the company calls it - sounds pretentious to me) and there she was, feeling herself up in that way most male first timers do: it’s like they’ve been programmed by years of watching women playing with themselves in porno movies. The first time they find themselves in that role it’s all they know how to do. It works, though - normally just watching that is enough to get me hard, but this time I got the feeling that I was watching the same movie again and again and that I knew all the lines too well to enjoy them. There was no trace of the frightened rabbit with this one - she ripped my shirt getting it off and almost knocked the wind out of me pushing me onto the bed. I looked into her eyes and tried to see the man inside, let myself imagine, as I entered her, that I was fucking the maleness out of her, but it did nothing for me. If it weren’t for the built-in functionality of the body I was wearing (outlaw biker number 7 - I do rough trade well, I’m told) and my natural acting ability it would have been a real let down for the punter, but I think I pulled it off. She had that flushed, spent look when I was done. I don’t think she even noticed me leaving.
I think about my motivations some times, my attraction to the first timers. I’m sure a shrink would tell me that I’m a repressed homosexual, and I don’t think I could argue with that. While I’ve never found men sexually attractive, as soon as I’m presented with a man in a woman’s form, well… Until I found out about BodyWorkz and talked my way into this job I never had that much interest in sex. For the first six months I was unstoppable. After that I learned to pace myself. Now, I just feel hollow.
But now even that seems to have failed me. It was just too much of a good thing. I found my dreams, made them real and then sucked all the life out of them.
19/11/05
I handed my notice in today. I only have to give two weeks. That gives me two weeks to decide what I’m going to do with the rest of my life. I’m forty and I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up. I wonder if it’s too late to become a fireman or a train driver.
20/11/05
Something weird happened today. Apparently the news of me giving my notice filtered up to the MD, Mr. Felcher, and he asked to see me. When I heard I assumed he was going to either wish me well or maybe tell me that he didn’t want to lose and experienced employee and ask if there was anything he could do to make me stay. Nothing like that, though.
For someone I assume is a very wealthy man he has a plain office. The desk was nice - oak and antique, but not enormous. A couple of nice paintings, unchallenging abstracts, hung on the walls, but the office looked, well, comfortable. I guess if I had a job like his I’d do something similar, but I always figured bigshots are going to want to be reminded they’re bigshots.
Felcher’s secretary showed me in and I sat there, at that large desk and waited in silence while he looked at me. There was nothing sinister in that look, nothing of the "I’m a big man and you’re a little one" attitude I expected. He just looked at me, his eyes telling me he was interested in something about me. After about a minute (and a minute in a situation like that is a long, long time) he said: "Tell me about it."
The funny thing is I knew just what he meant. After a few stumbled words it all started coming out: the satisfaction I had felt in the early days of the job, how it had all become empty, about how the first timers were the only thing that still interested me, how I couldn’t make myself care any more and how that was destroying me. All the time he just nodded, that calm, interested look on his face.
After I had finished talking I felt drained, but in a good way. I felt like my feelings had been a boil that my words had lanced. I knew they were still there, but for a short time they didn’t seem as important.
"I understand," Felcher told me. "I understand better than you might imagine. We have a few things in common." I waited for him to continue. "I’ve become bored with much in my life as well, especially my sex life. It hasn’t had quite the same devastating effect on me as on you, but it still leaves me feeling empty and unfulfilled. The difference is where you discovered what excited you some time back I’ve only just made myself face up to it. As I said before, we have a few things in common."
Felcher looked embarrassed. He got up from his desk and walked over to the window, looking out not so much for the view, I thought, as to avoid looking at me. "I’ve heard from your supervisor a while back that you were in danger of burning out and I knew you’d be leaving us soon. Have you got something else lined up?"
I told him no.
"I thought so. Well, I have an offer for you. I can’t think of any way of putting this that won’t sound strange, so I won’t even try. I want you to be my mistress."
There was a long, awkward pause from both of us. At first I thought I must have misheard him, but quickly realised there was no way I could have. I waited for him to elaborate, but he seemed completely stuck. "Mistress?"
He turned back from the window and looked at me again. After a pause he nodded. "Mistress." I could see his cheeks reddening. "I know in all the time you’ve been with us you’ve only ever worn male bodies. I’ve checked your records. I assume this means you’ve never been a woman, even with all the opportunities you’ve had."
"No."
The corner of his mouth lifted in what could only be loosely described as a smile. "You see, I’m looking for what you would call a first timer. The idea excites me as well. You would be well paid for the time the affair lasted and I would keep you in a comfortable manner. We don’t have to be friends, if you don’t want. The primary thing I’d want you for is sex, but if we can talk as well I’d like that. Does all this make you uneasy?"
"Very," I admitted. "Maybe it’s because it’s unexpected. I mean, it’s not like the whole idea’s new to me. I just never saw myself on the other side of it."
"Well, there’s plenty of time to think about it." His manner changed abruptly and I could tell our conversation was over for now.
"I’ll let you know," I said.
The bus journey home felt like a dream. My face felt hot and there was a sick feeling in my stomach. All I could think about was Felcher’s offer, but not in any way that was useful to me, just loose ideas not meshing.
Even now, writing this down, I still can’t make it feel real. I need more time.
21/11/05
A day’s paid leave. I spent the day thinking about Felcher’s offer, as he wanted me to. I can’t say the idea of being a woman excites me. I feel comfortable enough in my own masculinity that I’ve never felt the temptation of a bit of gender swapping. Maybe that’s just an excuse, but it feels true.
But there’s another angle: I’m tired of being me. Maybe being this woman Felcher wants me to be will be some kind of release. Say goodbye to Martin for a while and spend a mental holiday as Martina, coming back to myself refreshed and whole. That’s the idea, anyway.
I don’t know if I could cope with the sex. I mean, Felcher’s no oil painting. He’s pushing fifty, I’d say, and has a set of jowls on him that remind me of Richard Nixon. The idea of that face staring down on me while he pushes his dick into me does nothing for me. Maybe it’ll feel different when I’ve got tits.
I just wrote ‘when’. ‘When I’ve got tits’. It sounds like I’ve made my mind up, but I feel no certainty. Maybe you never can be certain about a decision like this. At least it would be something I’ve never done.
If I’m honest about it I’ve been a whore for the last couple of years. What difference does it make if I’m a woman as well?
22/11/05
Howard (no more Mr. Felcher - not if we’re going to be lovers, he said!) took me shopping for bodies today. As MD he obviously has access to the whole BodyWorkz line, including the prototypes. The bodies I’ve worn before feel real enough, but the only bodily functions they support properly are movement, senses and sex, missing out niceties like eating, sleeping and excretion. The newer ones are as real as the anti-cloning laws allow. The only way anyone would know one wasn’t human would be by dissecting it.
I told Howard it would make more sense if he just picked out the one that attracted him most, but he insisted that it had to be one that made me comfortable as well. I thought about telling him nothing about the situation made me comfortable, but decided it was a bad idea.
I thought at first we were just going to look through the catalogues they show the customers, but Howard decided it would be better if we looked at the real things. We went round the warehouse, looking at what seemed to be an endless row of corpses in glass coffins, row after row of sleeping beauties waiting for Prince Charming to animate them.
Even after thought I had put in the idea of being a woman had been fairly abstract until I started looking at all the bodies, picturing myself looking out through their eyes. Most of them were young and pretty, as dictated by demand, but there were also a few for specialist markets. I thought about picking an obese granny or a multiple amputee, just to spite Howard.
I saw him looking at one model in particular. Maybe he felt awkward expressing a preference, maybe it was some king of subtle psychological manipulation - either way I had to look too. I found I was surprised by his choice, but only because it was so obvious. She looked like she was in her late teens, pretty in a perky, cliched way: blonde, blue-eyes, button nose and medium sized tits. I had thought Howard would want a woman with more character.
I leaned over her, trying to imagine I was looking into a mirror, but it didn’t click. I could see my face, reflected in the glass of her coffin, superimposed over hers. It felt like a premonition.
I shrugged and said: "It’s your money."
23/11/97
It all happens tomorrow. It almost feels like I’ve been told I have a terminal illness and have a short time to put my affairs in order. The sad thing is I have so few affairs to order. This has been a sobering experience. It’s made me realise that while I have acquaintances, colleagues and some-time drinking partners I have no actual friends. Tomorrow I will disappear for an unknown length of time and there is no one who will really notice, beyond a casual question or comment, that I am gone. Maybe Felcher realised this about me before I did and knew that would make me easy. Sometimes I feel he knows me better than I do.
Felcher says he will keep up the rent on my bedsit and send someone round every few days to do some housework and make sure my possessions are all right. I suppose I should be grateful, but there’s so little there I feel attached to it seems like a waste of effort. I haven’t even been able to think what to pack – clothes will be a waste of time and I can’t find anything else I’d want to take. It all feels like anchors to a life I want to leave behind. Maybe I’ll just box everything up and give it to Oxfam.
I want it to have happened already. I’m not looking forward to it, really, but at the moment everything feels like a fever dream and I need the clarity that the reality itself will bring. I can’t make anything make sense at the moment. I’ll try again tomorrow, when I’m someone else, when I’m her.
24/11/05
Well, I’ve been given my own room. It’s nice. A bit girly, but pleasant enough.
Howard’s hardly spoken to me. I suppose he’s giving me time to adjust before he makes any demands. Before he tries to get his money’s worth.
So, what does it feel like? I still have two arms and two legs. I’m a human being (or at least a good facsimile of one) not some strange alien beast. I have the weight of breasts hanging from my chest, something I find I’m already noticing less than I thought I would. I’m smaller and lighter, which makes me feel somehow less confident. How do women cope with looking up at men all the time?
When I came here, after the transfer, I sat quietly on the bed for about ten minutes. Then I went through to the en-suite bathroom and took all my clothes off and looked in the mirror. Even though I knew what I would see the strange face and body looking back still jarred. I touched everything, every curve and crevice, to find out what it all felt like. Flesh feels like flesh, but the permutations were strange and exciting. I wondered why I hadn’t tried this years ago.
I found myself falling into the routine I’d seen so many first timers follow. I hoped I didn’t look as silly doing it. Masturbation was different. I found the juices of my new genitals a bit off-putting at first, but the newness of the sensation made everything that bit more exciting. I came quickly, a number of times. It felt more intense, but the best part was not feeling the slight depression I normally get afterwards. I don’t know if this is something to do with being a woman or a feature that BodyWorkz builds into the newer models. I must ask a real woman some day.
As good as all that was, I feel cheated. Maybe I’ll find the words to explain this as I go on. I expected too much to change, I think. I thought that this would make me a different person. The problem is I’m still me, just a me that has nice cheekbones and no dick. Maybe I’m not giving it time.
25/11/05
Maybe I’ll learn to like sex as a woman. My first experience, last night, was less than ideal. I wasn’t prepared for the discomfort. I’ve never been buggered, so I can’t really compare, but the feeling of having something stuck into me was strange and difficult.
Howard tried to be good to me, trying more in the way of foreplay and understanding that I’ve ever given any woman who wasn’t paying for it, but I never really got turned on. He’d even thought about his lack of sexual attractiveness and borrowed a body for the night: Spanish Stud number 12, if I’m not mistaken. Not one of my favourites to wear, but he tends to be popular. Once he got going he was like an enthusiastic puppy, bouncing all over the place, nipping and licking. Sometimes it was all I could do not to laugh at him.
The sensation of having Howard suck my nipples and clitoris wasn’t exactly unpleasant, but at the same time I couldn’t get into it. He ended up having to use Vaseline. I let him. As I said earlier, it’s his money.
Afterwards he held me and told me how it would get better. Most women I’ve slept with seem to get clingy and emotional at this stage. I just felt cold and distant and I hated myself for it.
Today has gone a bit better. I busied myself in the morning by exploring the wardrobe Howard has bought for me. Women have more fun with their clothes than men. I’ve never found clothes that interesting, so I’ve tended to go for cheap and functional, but I think I could learn to enjoy women’s clothes. The feel of a dress is so much freer and, well, unprotected. Also the sense of transgression gave me a thrill I haven’t felt since teenage misdeeds. And the lingerie… Maybe if I experimented with the lingerie it could give me the erotic edge I need to get into the idea of sex.
There it is again. Sex. I can’t stop thinking about last night. My big problem was I wanted to be the man. I wanted to do the thrusting and penetrating, not be the vessel to be filled. I’ve put on a woman’s body, I’m wearing women’s clothes in a woman’s room; Howard has even started calling me by a woman’s name - Martina. But I’m not a woman. I don’t think it’s something you can learn.
With the first timers and the ones who kept coming back under different faces, they were there to fill some need. They either felt themselves to be women or were expressing some in-built need to experiment and blur the boundaries a bit. But that’s not me. I’m a man. I can’t help that.
Actually that’s not fair. I’ve been a woman, in body at least, for just over a day. That’s not enough time to decide anything.
26/11/05
Howard took me out in public today for my first outing as Martina. We had dinner at a nice little Italian restaurant where they all seemed to know him.
I’m glad this body can eat. Food doesn’t taste quite as real as when I was me, but it’s still a pleasant sensation. The best part of it, though, was also the worst: every man in the restaurant kept either staring at me or sneaking glimpses, looking away when I met their eyes. I guess it didn’t help that Howard had bought me a low-cut black evening dress to wear. He had even brought in a beautician to help me with my makeup. When I had looked in at myself in the full-length mirror before leaving I had turned myself on, so I could sympathise with these men. I even quite enjoyed the attention, but at the same time I wanted to tell them all the mistake they were making, that they were just looking at an animated shell, occupied by a man they probably wouldn’t even like.
Howard was charming. Men are so different around women, or at least women they want to impress. For my part I found myself laughing at jokes that weren’t even funny.
In the taxi on the way home, however, we both fell silent. I found myself feeling almost a sense of loss that I could not relax into my role properly. Martin kept coming up to the surface, with all his doubts and self-loathing. I was getting tired of him.
27/11/05
Maybe it was the wine, but the sex was better last night. It didn’t feel quite so uncomfortable. I still can’t say I liked it, though.
Howard was working all day, so I sat around watching daytime television. The children’s programs were mindless enough to numb me and I stopped even noticing when the commercials interrupted them. By the time the afternoon came around it was all cookery programs and chat shows. One show was hosted by one of Oprah’s spiritual heirs; I didn’t catch her name, but they all blur in my mind anyway. She had with her a couple of members of a splinter group from the Hemlock Society, calling themselves Right to Death. Their argument was that anyone had the right to choose the manner and time of their death, not just those who were terminally ill or whose medical treatment had been considered economically unjustifiable. One woman argued that simple depression was cause enough for euthanasia. The world, she said, had enough of us greedy westerners sucking the life out of it. The will to die that was spreading so quickly in Britain and countries like it was down to Gaia doing some housekeeping, ridding herself of a few parasites. The audience booed, and the evangelist and psychologist the host brought later on demolished the argument to everyone’s satisfaction, but I was left with an uncomfortable feeling the woman had been right. I’ve written in these pages about not wanting to go on living, but until that point suicide had never seemed like a real option.
I took down the phone number at the end of the show and called them. I got through on the fifteenth attempt, but when I heard the woman’s voice answering I had no idea of what I was going to say. I put the receiver down without saying a word.
Anyway, it’s silly thinking about killing myself while I’m in this body. It’s not my property, and if I "killed" it anyway my mind would just trip back to its frozen home.
Silly.
28/11/05
I never signed a contract with Howard, so I guess there’s no penalty clause if I back out now. This can’t be any fun for him. If we are as alike as he thinks then I found that I got my thrills from the first timers when they responded, when they became the exaggerated women of their dreams. If I had a punter who was responding the way I am now the whole thing would have been an empty duty. It’s only fair to both of us that I give it up.
And go back to what?
29/11/05
I’ve tried telling Howard how I feel. He didn’t seem too surprised. He’d have to be stupid not to have seen it wasn’t working, and whatever he is he’s not that.
"What now?" he asked. I said nothing. I had nothing to say.
He paused for a long time and his cheeks reddened in the way they do when he’s embarrassed. "I’ve got a confession to make," he said, and stopped again.
I sat back in my chair and crossed my legs. I remember thinking that’s one thing I’ll miss about this body: crossing my legs. The shape of the hips and legs, the lack of balls made it easy and the feel of nylons and a skirt made it a pleasure.
"I’ve been watching you," he said eventually. "Video cameras in all the rooms, everything being taped. You know. And the telephones. I’ve been monitoring the telephones."
I suppose none of this was a real surprise. I was his plaything, after all. In his position I’d want to keep those memories on tape and protect my investment at the same time. It was easy to rationalise.
"I’ve got to know. Do you really want to die?"
There was something about the way he asked it – a lack of concern, but a strong interest. This was not a man who was going to try to talk me out of anything. If he had asked: "What can I do to make things better?" I could probably have come up with a sarcastic put-down or some glib lies to get him out of my hair. The way he was asking, however, I could only answer honestly. "I think so. I’m not that sure, but I can’t think what I’ll do otherwise."
Howard nodded. "What if there were another option?"
I’ll finish talking about this tomorrow. I don’t know if I can make it make sense enough to fit it into words.
30/11/05
Howard says there will still be something left of me afterwards. When he saw that this upset me he reassured me that I probably wouldn’t be aware of it.
All these times I wished I could be someone other than me and now it’s finally going to happen. It feels like impending death, which I suppose it is. My memories will be gone, as will most of what makes me me. I’ll just be the raw material for someone new. The real Martina.
He tried to explain how it would work, something to do with a new personality template, but I neither understood nor cared. The words just washed over me. The mechanism doesn’t matter.
It’s funny. It really is. In my life I’ve found a few things that I’ve felt like I needed, that weren’t just whims. I’ve had possibilities opened to me to fulfil these needs that until a few years ago never even existed, and each time the reality has turned into so much less than I’d hoped. This time if that happens it won’t be me who has to worry about it. It feels irresistible.
5/12/05
Howard has made me think things over for a week. It would have taken him this long to organise anyway, so I won’t feel too honoured. Apparently his R & D people are creaming themselves at getting the opportunity to try out their ideas on a real live human. BodyWorkz’s legal people aren’t so excited and I’ve spent a lot of the week signing legal documents in an arse-covering of a scale that could probably have saved Richard Nixon from impeachment.
I didn’t need a week to decide. If I’m honest with myself I’ve known all the time what I want. This way I get to live and die at the same time. Put like that it sounds like I can’t lose.
Tomorrow it happens. No more Marty Nicks.
I declined Howard’s kind offer of a going-away party (my phrase, not his). I won’t know if I’ve got anything to celebrate until it’s too late.
Anyway, Howard’s offered to pass these pages onto Martina. I think it’s important that she knows where she came from. The start of her new life is going to be confusing enough.
I wish her every happiness.
11/12/05
Howie and I went to Martin’s funeral yesterday. It felt like it should have been raining, but it was just overcast. After reading Martin’s diary I think he would have liked it to have rained.
Maybe someday I’ll understand him. I know he’s in me somewhere, but after reading what he wrote I can’t connect with any of it. I feel guilty for thinking it, but I don’t think I would have liked him very much.
The funeral was nice. The only people there were Howie, a few people who worked with Martin and myself. It was an open casket, so I went up to pay my respects to him. I looked for some trace of me in his face but I couldn’t see anything I recognised.
There was a party after the funeral, a sort of wake. I don’t think it was meant to be a real party, but I couldn’t help enjoying it. I got talking to some of Martin’s friends. They were all so nice to me. Howie had told me not to let any of them know who I used to be, but I found I got on really well with them anyway, despite feeling like I was lying to them. George, Martin’s old supervisor, gave me a peck on the cheek as we were leaving.
I can’t believe it’s only two weeks until Christmas! I haven’t felt so excited since I was a little girl! Joke! I know I was never a little girl, but there’s a feeling of Christmas tucked away in the back of my mind somewhere. Maybe it will come clear some day. I hope so.
(c) 1997 XoYo