In June of 1982, Amber and I could have celebrated our seventh wedding anniversary. However, our divorce was finalized a month earlier. We would have celebrated this anniversary the same as we had celebrated the last five years of our marriage. Not at all. By September of that same year, I was working for Joske’s of Texas in Dallas, Texas, at Northpark Mall.
Shortly after our divorce, I decided to leave Spokane. I tried living in Denver for a few weeks, but this did not work out. I moved on to Dallas Texas. Joske’s of Texas was a regional fine line department store regional nature and I worked there for about a year and a half. During this time in Dallas, I spent a lot of time and money at strip clubs — trying to prove to myself that I was a man. I ended up leaving Dallas for two reasons. I’ve recently gotten a DUI ticket and spent some time in jail. So, personally, life was not going well. At work, I had applied for a promotion and that did not happen. So I decided maybe Dallas was not the place for me, and I moved back to Spokane.
Back in Spokane, I was rehired by Kmart. There were many familiar faces, and as suc,h many knew my story and about my divorce. Those who knew my story were sympathetic and non-judgmental. They saw me as the victim, and many expressed the sentiment that they had always felt Amber was doing me wrong. Of course,e they did not know the whole story. They only knew that Amber had cheated on me — even with some of my co-workers.
I work this position for about fifteen months and I did not feel I was really getting anywhere. So I decided to give Dallas another try. I felt Dallas offered opportunities Spokane could not offer. So I moved back to Dallas. As s luck would have it, the position I had held at the time of my move previously was available. I easily found reemployment with Joske’s of Texas. Plus the store manager made a promise to me that I would soon be seeing the promotion I had sought earlier.
I did see that promotion into management and was transferred to Prestonwood Mall in north Dallas to manage Housewares and Luggage. Shortly after my transfer to Prestonwood. Joske’s of Texas was bought by Dillard Department Stores. I was made manager of the Home Fashions department and held the position for two years.
I worked for Dillard’s department store for about two years before leaving to work for Lord and Taylor at NorthPark Mall. During my four years of employment in Dallas, I became increasingly uncomfortable with the lie I was living in terms of portraying myself as a male while secretly having strong feminine desires. I took a roommate who would room with me for the last couple of years that I was in Dallas. I tell the story of the last days of my roommate situation in the article below.
As Robert was my roommate, it was a challenge to keep my life as a crossdresser secret. One day, he had to go into my room and the closet due to a circuit breaker issue. He became aware of my cross-dressing habits. After the incident described in the article above, we had a falling out, and I told him that he would either have to move out or things would have to change. At that time, he made known that he knew my secret. He felt like this was something that he could hold over me, which he could not. Instead, this threat just makes a difficult situation impossible.
About a year before, I had bought a book by Tony Robbins titled “Awaken the Giant Within”. I found the book to be very motivating. It called for me to make different decisions regarding my life and to raise my standards. So, as a result of losing my roommate — putting me in a financially tough place — and my increasingly self-evident gender identity issues, I decided that it was time to move back to Spokane and begin to explore my gender identity. It should be noted that I considered doing this in Dallas. However, I just felt Dallas had an LGBT scene that might be too intense for me. So I decided to move back to Spokane yet again.
As usual, I bought a ticket on Greyhound and made the journey by Greyhound bus. This gave me two days to think about what I wanted to do with my life once I arrived in Spokane. My mom met me at the bus depot. At the time, she lived in about an hour and 20 minutes north of Spokane in snowy country, and it was February. So she decided that what we should do is wait and get a fresh start in the morning. So she got us motel rooms, and we both retired to our individual rooms. I’ve been on a bus for 2 days, so I told her I really needed to sleep and she understood.
So my first night in Spokane, I found myself in downtown Spokane at a motel, relatively just a few blocks from Spokane’s gay bars. This was exactly the scenario I had been hoping for. As was my common practice, I ran out tothe grocery store and bought myself a half case of beer, then I returned to my motel room to change.
This was to be my first night out and fam to a gay bar. I had been to this bar before, years before, but always did so in mail mode and never more than just as a place to hang out and party and drink beer. I spent 2 hours or so getting dressed, drinking beer the whole time. It was only a few blocks to the gay bar I intended to visit, but I decided I would take a cab that evening. I felt really nervous about calling a cab, and I made it clear to the dispatcher that I would be crossdressed as a woman. She seemed to suggest that this was no biggie, that it was very common for them, which made it comfortable for me.
When the cab arrived, I left my room. We were on the second-floor landing, and so the staircase required me to walk by my mother’s room to reach the steps down to the parking lot where the cab waited. As I walked by her room, I could still hear the TV playing. This is not necessarily mean that you were away, but for a moment, I consider knocking on the door and reintroducing Veronica to my mom. However, with the cab waiting, that did not seem like a good option at that time.
It was a weekend night, so when I arrived at the bar and walked in, there were only half a dozen or so people there. I ended up sitting down at the bar and ordering a beer. I remember thinking of seeing it a woman sitting at the end of the bar. She was obviously much older than me. And like me, she wasn’t truly a woman; she was simply presenting herself as a woman. I remember at the time thinking I did not want to be her when I was that age. Now I am that age, several years older, and to a certain extent, I have become that woman.
A man sat down beside me. We had a conversation, it must have lasted around 30 minutes. During this time, I let it be known that this was my first time out and fam, and being a kind soul, he gave me some tips and pointers about the clubs and Spokane and what to expect. At one point, he said well I need to turn in got stuff to do in the morning and he headed out the door.
I waited about 30 seconds, and then I could not take it any longer. I jumped up for my bar stool I ran out the door I saw him already well down the street, and I called out to him. We were close enough that we could have a conversation, and I suggested to him that I had a motel room nearby if you would like to swing by and visit for a little while. Of course, he understood my meaning, and he let it be known that he was not into individuals such as myself. I had really wanted to get laid right at that moment, and if his answer had been different, I have very little doubt that I would have been laid that night. Feeling rejected, I turned and went back to the bar. A little while later, I had to have a bartender call me a cab, and I returned to my room, where I undressed and went to bed. The next morning, my mom and I headed north to her home, and I spent several weeks there before I moved back to Spokane and before I had a chance to re-experience or make a second attempt at going out to a gay bar.
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