this trip) and polishing my nails for the next day. The following morning I made up very carefully and put on my smartest outfit, a camel suit with a beige blouse and black kid shoes. I then proceeded to check out as my "wife," and drove the hundred and twenty miles back to my relative's house, where I could now arrive as the very girl the neighbors would be seeing around for the next few days. And those next few days were sheer delight. Using her place as a base of operations, I took walks, went shopping, took short scenic drives, and even paid occasional visits to the park - all in the daytime, a brand new experience for me.

But eventually my misgivings about deceiving my wife got the better of me, so one night I very tenderly told her I was having problems again, a little bit about what I had been doing, and how terrible I felt about it. I didn't know it at the time, but that confession set the seal of doom on our relationship. I had made a serious and irrevocable mistake, and it began to prey on her mind from that night onward. Before long I realized that her image of me as a husband had been shattered and she was no longer able to accept me in that role... even sexually. And with that bond severed, we only began to grow further and further apart in other ways as well. I was hearheartbroken... and I'm sure she was too... but nothing I could do or say would weaken that mental block or alter her responses in the slightest.

This didn't all dawn on me at once, however (sometimes I'm pretty slow). For a time I merely moved all my feminine things into another apartment where, without my wife's knowledge, I commenced a strange sort of triple life - filling, besides my own regular identity at home, the roles of both husband and wife (under assumed names) at the other place. My neighbors, of course, seldom saw the "husband" (working during the day), but the lady of the house quickly became a familiar sight, whether working around the house or garden, hanging out the wash, or going shopping. I reveled in it while it lasted, taking long, sunny walks to the store or around the neighborhood. Naturally all this dream-time had to come from somewhere, so my work may have suffered for it. No matter. It was worth it.

But our marriage wasn't worth it, and as the situation at

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