Squirrel Cage (16 page)

I moved into a marketing role.
Sales people soon learned to tap my skills and I found myself traveling extensively.

We had spent most of the day discussing our products with executives at Tandy Corporation.
We had a radical new high capacity disk drive with removable cartridges.
Tandy had keen interest in the design.
All morning long, I spent a great deal of time discussing implementation requirements into existing Tandy computers.

The engineers understood clearly what would be required for full implementation.
Tandy had been scaling down their development efforts and the products they offered.
They were getting rid of their other business lines (like leather crafts) to focus on technology.
Their personal computers were well known and they were doing well at the time.
They recognized the need to turn technology quickly. It was well known that the world was about to race ahead in technical innovation.

New products had to be developed quickly and made available in months.
A multi-year development cycle would no longer serve demand.

As engineering met with executive management that afternoon, it was clear that Tandy could not invest resources to integrate our disk drives. Our company was a new start up.
There was significant risk.
They were obviously uncomfortable as they pondered the potential that our company would not survive.
My sales guy was desperate. He was losing a big deal quickly.

“What if we did the development for you?” I
suggested
.
My sales guy shot me a look of wonderment which quickly turned to a scowl.

Tandy’s VP of marketing returned the serve “What do you have in mind?”

Another door of opportunity opened. “If we could develop a fully enclosed system and were to develop the drivers for it, you wouldn’t need to spend anything on engineering costs.
You could just resell the box.” We were a disk drive company. That is how we viewed ourselves.
The view of marketing in the 80’s was antiquated.
You had to know what you were selling.
We had to change our view of selling hardware into selling storage solutions. That was intuitive to me.

We spent the rest of the day
frantically conveying the vision to my engineering group back home
over the phone
.
Yes we could do it.
We quickly evaluated developing costs and then estimated a price structure.
By the time we left, very late that afternoon, we had a 10 million dollar contract. Sure
,
there were many problems to resolve but I felt very happy that I helped do something significant to land the largest deal in our company’s short history.

“Do you know what time it is?” interrupted
Squirrel
. I glanced at my watch. “You know that you are running late,”
Squirrel
reminded me.
I had set up a meeting with an online friend.
My sales guy wanted to take me out and celebrate the deal.

“C’mon David, let me buy you a drink.”

“You know Ron
that I don’t drink. And besides
, I’m exhausted.
Would you mind if I just went back to the hotel?”

“Hey no big deal David.
You just won the car for me.”
We hadn’t been doing well selling our unpackaged drives.
An award was offered to the sales crew.
The top selling individual would have a Rolls Royce to drive for one year.

I didn’t care about sales at the moment.
I wanted to get out and meet my new friend.

“Okay then, let me drop you off at your hotel.”

I rushed to my room and called Craig.
I had met him online and he had labeled himself as a cross dresser.

“Would you mind if my wife tagged along for dinner?” he queried.

“That sounds delightful!” I replied.

I quickly prepared myself for the outing.
I shook with anticipation as I hurriedly readied myself. The weather in Dallas was hot.
I had learned from a very negative response in Miami that dressing up in “foo foo” was not advisable.
With this in mind, I brought only dressy casual clothes in my travel bags.
I donned nice cream colored slacks, flat penny loafers, and a light weight peach colored blouse with short sleeves.
I adjusted my hair as I checked my face.
I didn’t look too bad, but I could see evidence of dark facial hair even though I had shaved very closely.
This was always a problem for me and I had to apply more makeup than I liked to cover the dark pores.

“Cindi, you look very nice,” said
Squirrel
.
I agreed.

I stood on the curb in front of the hotel as I waited for Craig and his wife to arrive. It was hot and I hoped that I would not start sweating. I did not wait long.
I thought briefly about how I looked.
I had spent only a few minutes to get ready.

“Oh I hope that I look okay.”

“You look fine Cindi,”
Squirrel
told me.

The dark blue Mercedes pulled up along the curbside.
Craig quickly recognized me.
I was the only one standing on the curb.
Both he and his wife quickly stepped out of the car and introduced themselves. Craig was an obstetrician
and was dressed in boy clothes
.
His wife Melinda worked as an illustrator for a local chip maker.
“I’ve made reservations at a nice quiet restaurant where we can talk,” mentioned Craig.
“I hope you’ll like it.”

Within minutes
we
were in a nice restaurant. We quickly ordered and began our conversation.
Melinda was interested in my work and we discussed in some detail my professional life and the exciting details of my company’s new contract.

The meal arrived and we lightly picked at the food as we chatted.
Craig’s pager started to beep loudly.
He retrieved the pager from his pocket and checked the number.
“It’s the hospital, will you excuse me for a few moments?” he stated as he stood up to go to a pay phone.

“Great, this is going to be a short evening,” I thought to myself.

Melinda saw the disappointment in my face.
“Don’t worry Cindi, he gets these calls all the time.”

“Okay,” I said not knowing what else to say.

“I’ve known about Craig for many years, Cindi,” she said, knowing what I wanted to ask.

“How do you deal with it?” I asked.

“At first I didn’t know what to think. I had no experience with this sort of thing. I thought that I would lose my marriage at first. But it has never gone beyond cross dressing at home.
One day,
I started buying things for him.
Right now I’m fairly ambivalent.
We still love each other very much.”

I was shocked. I thought that this sort of thing would surely break up any marriage.

“You look very nice Cindi,” she went on.
“May I make some suggestions?”

“Oh, I would really like that,”
I answered. There are situations in life where you learn valuable skills. My situation taught me how to take criticism as a reward. S
he went on to provide me with some tips on my hair and makeup.

That took all of
five
minutes and Craig had not returned. “Tell me about what you do,” I
asked
Melinda.

She started out by
telling me
where she worked.

“No,” I said attempting to correct the direction of the conversation.
“What do you enjoy doing, what are your interests outside of work?” I had learned long ago that the quickest way to get to know someone was to skirt the professional conversation and get right to the hobbies and recreational activities.

Before long we were talking about her hobbies which then turned to shopping and then on to fashion.
I enjoyed all of this.
Briefly, I felt very comfortable.
Squirrel’s
spinning exercise wheel shut down. Squirrel was
on break
.
I focused my entire mind on dinner and a pleasant conversation.

Some twenty minutes later, Craig returned.
“False alarm,” he said as he sat down.
Melinda and I acknowledged his return and then quickly resumed our conversation as Craig sat on the
sidelines
.
Craig had been very patient with me online. I was a novice in a complex world where realities were always overlooked by ignorance. His invitation to visit, he knew, would give me the chance to interact as an adult with others. I could test waters in a comfortable environment.

After dinner, we retreated to their home. Melinda excused herself to get ready for bed.
Craig invited me into his spacious den. I slouched into a comfy recliner and he sat on the floor, leaning against his desk.
We continued conversations we had started on line and never been able to finish. We opened the lid on our vessels of desires and hopes. Craig still had trepidations about his
cross-dressing
.

“Are you satisfied with just dressing in women’s clothing?” I asked.

“Sure, I’ve been doing it for years.
I have no desire to do anything else. My only discomfort is worrying about Melinda.”

“Craig, I really don’t think that it is much of an issue for
her
,” I
said
.

We discussed Melinda for a while as he revealed the true weight of what he must have unleashed upon her. His musings were still unresolved.

“Did yo
u always cross-
dress?” I continued.

“No, I had no desires until we got married.”

“Why?” I asked.

“I don’t know. I know that I like it. It’s a turn on.”

We explored my quest for physical proof for my condition. “Cindi, I don’t know what to tell you. There are hints that researchers are exploring. But there is nothing yet. You already know about the classifications proffered by the psychiatric world.
They have described the condition but have no real clue as to what causes it.”

“But Craig, have you ever been driven like I have?” I queried.

“No I haven’t
,
Cindi.
I know who I am and where I fit in. I’ve never felt the urge to venture out of the house. My
“
hobby
”
, as I call it, is only that. I use it as a release and enjoy breaking tradition
al bounds once or twice a month.
”

I realized that I could never restrain my feminine self to one or two times a month.
“It’s one thirty in the morning Craig. I really should be getting back.”

“Oh, I am shocked at how quickly the time has passed.”

“Well we got started late,” I replied.

“Yes, we did at that.”

I hardly slept all night.
Squirrel and I discussed every detail. The part I enjoyed the most was talking with Melinda. I was a born again teenager exploring beyond the lines of normalcy. Stone barriers previously defined for my existence dissolved before my consciousness.
In light of the fact that I had no expectations set by my parents in my secret life, I had to find my own. To what measure should I test the waters? I had no idea. I only knew that our short time together was the calmest
twenty
minutes I had in recent history.
Twenty
minutes free of the constant rattling exercise wheel. Squirrel had gone to sleep and hadn’t bothered me until I returned to my hotel room.

After I returned home, I had a chat with the VP of sales in his office.
“Barry, the prize for getting that contract was a Rolls Royce.
I understand that will go to the sales guy.
But what do I get?”

He smiled wryly as he paused to think of an answer.
“David, you get to keep your job.” I didn’t know how to take it. He wasn’t kidding… oh yes he was. He revealed how pleased he was with what I had done. “Sales bonuses go to the sales guys David. If you want to move into sales, we can look at some possibilities. But I’d be happy if you would continue to support my sales team.”

I thought about it very briefly. That would mean I could travel frequently. Cindi could break out more. “I’m happy right where I am Barry. I enjoy going out with the sales guys” I responded quickly.
He thanked me and I left his office.

*****

Two years later, I was attending a trade show for my company in Boston. I liked Boston.
It was the city where I first ventured out as a woman some years before.
I had gone to see a movie.
I snuck in right after it started and back out right before it ended. I could still remember the smells of the rain and the wet autumn leaves.