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Dinner in Portland |
On this occasion I was going to be working in Portland for several days during the summer, and was looking forward to the opportunity just to dress again. It had been five months since my last outing, and as you can well imagine, I was very much looking forward to it. I happened to mention to a few of my friends online, that I was heading north for a few days, and Kristi wrote back to say that she was in the area, and suggested we should get together for dinner. Although we had been corresponding for almost a year, we’d never met face to face, and to be quite honest, I either didn’t know or didn’t remember that she lived in Portland. She said she would invite a couple of friends to join us, and so the stage was set.
I got to my hotel in the late afternoon and immediately checked out the different ways to exit the building. (I lack the confidence of some girls to boldly walk through the lobby of a busy hotel, especially the bigger downtown ones.) To my pleasant surprise there was a fire exit at my end of the building. So getting out was easy. Better yet, the exit door was not alarmed, and it allowed my guest key to open it from the outside for easy re-entry! This was ideal for coming and going and attracting a minimum of attention. So I went back to my room to shower and start dressing. I had only just started laying my clothes out on the bed and deciding what to wear for the evening, when there was knock at the door. My first reaction was panic. I had the bed covered with all of my femme paraphernalia, dresses, wig, underwear etc., and I thought it was a member of the hotel staff who might conceivably ask to come into my room to... fix something. I very timidly called through the door, asking who it was. To my great relief it was Kristi, who had arrived a little earlier than expected, to pick me up. Kristi was already dressed, and looked very much the part. After just a few moments of awkwardness, natural for our first meeting, we settled down to chat and catch up on the plans for the evening. Kristi did most of the talking as I was concentrating on putting on my make-up. I say "concentrating" because after 5 months I was badly out of practice. I had to keep going through a mental checklist to make sure I hadn't forgotten anything. With Kristi sitting waiting patiently and the appointed meeting time approaching, I also had to put my make-up on faster than I ever had before. In the end, I was not super happy with the job I'd done, but it was as good as it was going to get. So off we went. It was a wonderful feeling to be out dressed again. And although it was daylight, I didn't feel the least bit conspicuous. We met up with Kristi's friends, Simone and Karletta near the restaurant. Karletta was enhomme this time, but none us minded because it added a certain amount of credibility having a man escorting us. It didn't bother Karletta either, and she turned out to be quite a character. It was a beautiful summer evening and we walked the six or seven city blocks to the restaurant. Perhaps it was the safety in numbers mindset, but I felt very confident being outside, and it didn’t matter in the least that we passed several groups of people on the way. No one paid much attention to us, even some guys that would have given me severe grounds for hesitation had I been by myself, caused no more than an undisturbed sideways glance on my part. To our disappointment and puzzlement we found the particular restaurant we had planned on going to was closed. There was another place, a gay bar, a block away and so we decided to check it out. There were several tall drag-queen types there and they certainly gave us a thorough once-over… and then ignored us. The place was quite empty and it only took us a minute to decide we would try one more time to find another place to eat. (If that failed, it was off to McDonalds for us!) We walked back to the cars, and were passed slowly by a police cruiser. The officer watched us carefully, but kept driving. We obviously didn’t pose much of a threat in his estimation. And he was right. We were lucky with our last choice of place to eat. It too was a gay restaurant, but a step up from the previous place. We were treated very graciously by our male waiters and none of them ever slipped in their gender specific pronouns – although we did… several times. The four of us had a very relaxed meal, with free-flowing, interesting conversation. It was such a thrill for me to be with like-minded people, people I could talk to about TG subjects, or anything else for that matter, and feel totally comfortable doing it. Kristi, Simone and Karletta were great and made me feel very much at home. I know we could have talked for a lot longer, but I had an important meeting the next morning and couldn’t stay out too late. Kristi also had to get home, and so we parted company, the best of friends. It amazed me to think that I could arrange to meet a group of strangers over the internet and hit it off with them so easily. I really enjoyed myself during the evening, and as I lay in bed that night, I wondered what I was missing by not being assertive and letting Jennie out more often. As I’ve said before, I believe it all comes down to personal choices and taking responsibility for those choices. I’ve made mine, and am reconciled to the fact that one can’t have everything in life, some compromises have to be made. |
