I slept badly that night. My sleep was interrupted by thoughts and dreams about the changes in my life—my body, my work, a new house, Key West . . . Some of the changes had been wonderful, others not, but they were all stressful. And I felt very stressed that particular morning.

I knocked on Marilyn’s door. “Come in.”

I was surprised to see that she was up and had showered. She usually slept late after a night of heavy drinking. She was sitting at her dressing table combing her hair. As I moved closer with the tray, I saw that she had put on a little lipstick, and I caught a hint of perfume.

“Gino is coming today,” I guessed.

“He’s been living at a short stay hotel. He’ll be here before noon.”

Had she’d called him last night, after our talk, or this morning? “I wonder what would have happened if I hadn’t given permission.”

She didn’t respond at first, and for a moment I thought she hadn’t heard me. Then she turned to me. “First, it’s not your permission to give. It’s my house. And second, all you had was a choice, to stay or to go. You decided not to go. That pleases me. If you had decided to go, you would be packing now.”

“Just like that.”

She was bored with the discussion. “I want you to make a good impression. Put on your formal uniform. I’ll wait for him in the dining room.”

“This—“

“You are dismissed.”

I went downstairs and finished picking up the remains of the party. I tried to control my thoughts. I was going to be thrust into an impossible situation. Gino was my wife’s lover, and he knew all about me.. I didn’t know which was more upsetting. I didn’t know what to feel or how to react. I wasn’t a woman and I wasn’t a man, either. I was the maid. I held that thought. I was the maid. That was my position, my role in all this. What I had been at some point in the past didn’t matter. We were in the present. If I kept that in mind, everything would be clearer.

By eleven my work was done and the house shone again. I showered again, and put on light makeup and a little perfume. I changed into my black uniform with a white cap, white hose and patent leather shoes, and pulled my hair back. I studied my reflection in the mirror. A maid looked back at me, nothing more or less.

I was lucky that the doorbell rang before I had too much time to think. I remember the walk to the door, the sound of my heels clicking on the tile foyer and the feel of my nylons as my legs touched. Things were never going to be the same again. I took a deep breath, opened the door and smiled. “Good morning, sir.”

Gino stood on the doorstep, a suitcase in each hand, in slacks and a polo shirt. I could see dark hairs at the neck. He shifted his weight awkwardly. “Hi,” he said. “I’m Gino . . .”

As if he hadn’t remembered last night. “Yes, sir. I’m Suzee. Please come in.” I swung the door wide.

He stayed on the porch. “I—ah. I just want you to know—“

“You’re expected in the dining room, sir. Please come in.”

He picked up his bags and shuffled inside. He looked around as if he’d never seen the house before. “Look, I don’t know; this is—“

I liked it that he was so uncomfortable; it was the way I would have felt if the situation was reversed. And as nervous as I was, I was steady by comparison. It gave me strength I didn’t suspect I had. “You can leave your bags here, sir. Don’t worry about a thing.”

He put the bags down and looked at me. “I don’t know how I should—uh--this is--“

“You are very welcome here, sir. You’re expected in the dining room.” I looked him in the eye. “Call me Suzee. I am the maid. Think of me as the maid. Everything will be fine.”

“Suzee.,” he repeated.

“You are the guest. I am the maid. It will be fine.”

“This is a big change for both of us.”

“Well, it’s a new home for you, sir; but I’ve been the maid for a long time. This is who I am now.”

He gave a thin smile. “Ok, Suzee. Thanks.” For the first time, he relaxed a little. “You’ve got class. Where should I put these?”

“I’ll take care of them, sir. She’s in the dining room.”

He seemed to want to talk some more, but nothing came. “Well, OK then, Suzee. I’ll see you later.”

When I picked up the first suitcase I regretted not allowing him to help. He’d handled them with ease, but I needed both hands to move one, and wrestling up the stairs to the master bedroom. I unpacked for him, placing his clothes in the dresser I had used. It seemed like a long time ago. Gino’s clothes were wonderful to touch. The suits and shirts were well made, with expensive labels, but the casual clothes were my favorite. The fabrics were bold in color and a little rough to the touch. Everything I’d touched in more than a year was feminine. And even though they were all clean, a slight masculine smell clung to them.

Unpacking didn’t take long. I put his suitcases under the bed, wondering how long he would be here. I found myself hoping that it would be a long time. The thought surprised me. How could I possibly think that way? I shook my head to clear the thought and unpacked his toiletries in the bathroom. I experienced that same sense of unfamiliarity in handling masculine things—his razor, his aftershave. I found my hand lingering on the bottle.

I pressed the intercom buzzer once as my signal to Marilyn that I was finished, and went to my room to wait. It was an uncomfortable couple of hours. I had come to terms with Gino being in the house, even being in bed with Marilyn. I used her name, even in my thoughts; I didn’t think of her as my wife or that I was her husband. That was all in another life. In this life, our marriage existed only on paper, a sort of joke when you thought about our real roles. The part that made me uncomfortable was simple. I was afraid I was finding him attractive. I was at war with myself. The male part of me was straight as ever. No matter how much my body changed, gay sex had no attraction. And if I wasn’t a woman, how could I be attracted to a man without being gay? There were no answers, only questions. And she did not summon me the rest of the day.

At eight the next morning I knocked on the master bedroom door and heard my wife’s voice, “Come in.”

The bedclothes were everywhere and the room reeked of sex. My wife was on her stomach, her hair tousled in every direction. Gino was next to her, sleeping on his back, the sheet pulled up to his waist. His breathing was deep and regular. She raised one finger to her lips and nodded briefly in Gino’s s direction as a signal for quiet.

“I’ll sit the coffee by the bed, Ma’am,” I whispered, and turned to leave.

She whispered as well. “Wait, Suzee. Come here. Get on your knees. I don’t feel like looking up at you.”

I didn’t know what to think. She’d said I would be like a wife to both of them, that she was not going to be strict with me. But her tone of command was unmistakable. I kneeled by the edge of the bed, my hands at my side. I saw that Marilyn wasn’t wearing a wedding ring. We were at eye level.

“Suzee, there are some new rules now.” There was the strict voice again, as when I first started being the maid. The tone was even more chilling for being whispered.

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“First of all, we need formal introductions. Suzee, this is my boyfriend Gino. From now on, he will be living here. And sharing this room. You will obey him as you obey me. You will do anything he asks, absolutely anything, without hesitation.”

“I’m the maid,” I whispered, not a whore.”

“You’re both and you know it. And I have to start off on the right foot with Gino or you’ll never know your place. Suzee, what is your job?”

“To serve your needs, Ma’am.”

She looked my straight in the eye. “Right now I need a cock.”

I was confused and upset. Her tone frightened me as much as her words. She saw my expression and smiled. “Not yours, silly; I took that away from you. There’s nothing down there that’s any use to a woman. I meant Gino’s, of course.”

“Then--I’ll leave you two alone, Ma’am.”

She shook her head. “Gino is tired. We’ve been fucking half the night. Suck him till he’s hard, Suzee.”

“But Ma’am—“

She was very calm. She had thought this through. My reactions had been foreseen. “In two seconds one of two things will happen. Either you’ll be on his side of the bed or out the door and on the street.”

I was shocked, of course; what happened to the woman who’d talked to me so sweetly about what our life would be like the day before? But now was now. Dressed in a maid’s uniform, with eighteen months of training and being fisted, I simply was not capable of ignoring that tone of voice. She had the power. It was her house, her rules, and I was dressed up like a maid . No, I wasn’t just dressed up—I was the maid. “Ma’am, please—“

“And I don’t care which. If you’re not going to do your job you’re fired.”

As I remember it, there was never a moment I made a decision, yes, I will suck his cock. There were a lot of little ones. There was the decision to get off my knees. I found myself standing up. Then my legs moved and I walked around the bed. I looked straight ahead but I felt her eyes on me. I came around to Gino’s side. He was still fast asleep. I was grateful for that. Then I felt my hand stretch out and take hold of the sheet. As I watched, my hand moved the sheet away. There was Gino’s cock, nestled in a thick patch of pubic hair. He was the hairiest man I’d ever seen—far more body hair than I’d had when I was a man. I wondered what it felt like, and I found my hand exploring his chest and stomach. It felt wonderful, so warm, so like fur. So masculine. I was shocked to find my nipples becoming hard. It was arousing me to be thinking about sucking his cock. I felt so confused; it felt so wrong, even disgusting; and yet the more I thought about it, the more natural it seemed. As I thought about it, my hand moved lower; but then I stopped, just above his cock. Gino was motionless.

“Come on,” my wife said softly. “It’s not going to bite you. Do it.”

My hand moved that last inch and I touched him. My nipples were hard now. My body seemed to be betraying me; I still thought of myself, inside, as a man, a straight man, but my body was telling me otherwise. It told me that I wanted that cock. I closed my hand gently around it, running my fingers over it. Except for that drunken episode in Key West I could barely remember, I had never done this before. And this was different. This was broad daylight, stone sober, in front of my wife. And the more I touched him, the less I cared about who I was. I just wanted that cock. And not just in my hand . . .

I lowered my head and stopped with my lips just above his cock. I could smell him now, salty and sweaty and very masculine. Not at all like me just then; I was hairless and perfumed and powdered and feminine. But to touch him with my lips, to take him inside me, --there was still this masculine part of me fighting against this.

Marilyn saw my hesitation. “Do it,” she said impatiently. “It’s not like you haven’t sucked cock before.”

I closed my eyes took him gently inside my mouth. He tasted of come, and of my wife’s pussy. And at that moment I stopped thinking of myself as a man. How could I? Here I was, dressed as a woman, sucking on the cock of my wife’s lover. Any man would have run away, and I didn’t. The last part of me that was male died then and there.

I didn’t know how to give a blowjob, so I just kept my head still and slowly began to massage his balls and the base of his cock. His balls were huge, bigger than mine had been when I was a man, and far larger than the little peanuts between my legs now. After a while I became a little used to the new sensations and I began actually sucking on the head of his cock. And then his cock began to grow. And grow. I was afraid I would chock and pulled back a little. But his cock grew as fast as I could pull back. I could feel the blood pulsing inside it. I tried to open my mouth further, to soften my jaw, to give him more room inside me. I felt soft, yielding, feminine. I had felt this way with my wife for a long time, but this was no pretending; I was letting another man’s cock have its way with me.

When it finally stopped growing, the head completely filled my mouth all by itself. My hand was wrapped around the shaft, but there was cock above and below my fist. I had no idea exactly how big he was.

“Look at the birdie,” Marilyn said. I opened my eyes as she snapped a photo. “Don’t stop, cocksucker,” she said sharply. I didn’t. And I didn’t care as she took more photos. I didn’t care because I wasn’t a man anymore. And not only was I a woman, I was one who was enjoying herself As I became more vigorous Gino began to stir. First the pattern of his breathing changed, and then his limbs began to move slightly. First his legs began to move slowly back and forth, and then his hips started to move in time with me. But his eyes still didn’t open. He seemed to be dreaming. I knew what he was dreaming about. I started to wonder what it would be like to have him come in my mouth, to have the power to draw his seed right out of him . The thought gave me a sense of power in a way I’d never considered.

His eyes opened a little, looking up at the ceiling and not focused. He was a deep sleeper. I sucked his cock with abandon, experimenting with everything that had ever been done to me, everything I’d read about. And I realized that, when I’d been a man, I had never understood oral sex. It wasn’t the woman being subservient; the woman is in control. The man is helpless in her mouth. She sets the pace, she decides slow or fast or deep or shallow. I understood now that it was an act of surrender by the man to the woman. And that turned me on even more.

I glanced up. Gino was close to coming, and he was fully awake now. He was looking down at me; from the expression on his face he’s only now realized that the mouth on his cock wasn’t Marilyn’s. I saw surprise, confusion, embarrassment flash across his face; and then he put his head back and let his mouth slack open a little, surrendering himself to the pleasure of the moment. The pleasure I was giving him. He was so close now; I could feel the beginnings of throbbing in his cock . . .

“That’s enough, Suzee,” she said. “You are dismissed.”

I rose on unsteady feet and returned to my own quarters. As I left the room I tried to ignore the activity in the bed behind me. Against orders, I threw off my uniform, threw myself on the bed, and masturbated in my bra and panties. It took only moments before I reached a limp climax.