by Brandy Dewinter

Introduction

Pardon the over-dramatic illustration (by Royo, found at ImageNETion), but this story was as much about fighting my limitations as it was just a tale to tell. As a result, I thought a brief introduction would be in order. I wanted to explore things that are challenging for me to get my mind and heart around. In this case I had three specific objectives. First, there is a significant sub-category of stories in this genre dealing with embarrassment and humiliation of the protagonist. People are welcome to their own preference, of course, but I've never really understood the enjoyment of that. One of my objectives for this story was to see if I could create an antithesis to that approach - a character who refused to be humiliated. I wanted to consider a person who could achieve that not by refusing to do things that others would find embarrassing nor by being so arrogant that he just didn't care about the feelings of others, but by being sufficiently secure in his own self-image that his opinion of himself was not dominated by what others thought. To aid in that, I gave him a loving spouse, surely the most vital element of coping with any problems in the 'real' world. My second objective was to see if I could write believably about such a person, for that person would be as far from my own personality as I could imagine. Innocuous things make my cheeks flood with heat from embarrassment of remembered events that happened years ago, trivial things no doubt completely forgotten by the witnesses at the time yet still twisting in my heart. The idea of overcoming that sense of embarrassment and humiliation is as difficult for me to imagine as anything else about this story. The readers will have to judge if I have had any success. My third objective is a continuing one, born in large part from a story by Constance Grant. I had read in another source that all TGs are motivated by one of two urges. They are either transsexual, believing themselves to be of a gender different than their chromosomes would declare, or they are fetish transvestites, aroused by wearing clothes of the opposite gender. Clearly the 'forced' nature of many stories is an easy excuse for taking pleasure in something that makes one feel guilty and compatible with either or both of those basic attitudes. I am not qualified to judge the true motivations of others, but that seems overly simplistic to me. I thought it would be an interesting exercise to explore that in a story. Constance Grant showed a very believable character with a motivation different than either of those. I have tried to create such characters also, both in this story and in one called Lucky. Those objectives are, as I said, writing challenges that may get in the way of telling a more 'natural' story, or even a more believable one (the protagonist develops a feminine voice WAY too easily in this one). Again, the reader will need to judge, both whether the characters are adequately realistic with credible motivations, and whether my exploration of the idea has resulted in an interesting story. So, I hope you find the story enjoyable. If you want to comment, either publicly or in private, my guestbook and e-mail are active. Thank you for taking the time to read this explanation. Brandy Dewinter

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