How could she be so forgiving? I didn't understand... Caught with the evidence of my secret on my face, my body, and in my hair, I was frozen by her stare as she stood in the bedroom doorway, eyes wide as teacups.

“Oh,' she said, too shocked for anything more.

I had lied to her! I wouldn't have blamed her if she had left me in that instant, but she stayed. Why? How?

We sat together on the bed. I took her hands in mine and our eyes spoke before our mouths ever opened. She wasn't afraid, wasn't horrified or disgusted, I could see that easily. A knot I hadn't realized was in my chest loosened. How much I had expected for her to turn on her heel and run if she ever were to find out, but here she sat and waited patiently for me to explain.

I took the longest breath of my life. This was it. I'd held my cards close to my chest for so long, afraid to show what I'd been holding. Carrie's silence urged me on, a silence I felt I could fall into like an embrace, a silence that waited to accept me. It was strange to realize how much I suddenly wanted to lay my cards on the table and tell the world about the hand I'd been dealt.

“What is... all this?” She started the words for me, her fingers gingerly touching the gel in my hair, falling to trace down the tie on my chest. Her eyes passed over the suit I wore, lingering on places that were no longer familiar.

“My name is Annelle,” I said. “But inside I have always been an Andrew.”

“Oh,” she said, an exhalation, a realization.

“I...” What could I say? Here was the woman I had loved, still loved, and I was telling her that I wasn't the woman she had been loving all along.

“All those nights you said you were busy or tired?” she asked.

“I was out, dressed like this, trying to convince the world - and myself - that I could be this,” I replied.

“And those clothes I saw in your closet?”

“Mine... I lied when I said they were my dads, that I was keeping them as mementos after he had died.”

Her eyes were wide, so wide, but she was still here! Still with me.

“I have a confession,” she said, and there was a trace of uncertainty in her voice. Her hands tightened around mine.

My heart dropped six feet below the floor, but I was confused. If she was going to say what I thought she was going to say, why was she pulling me closer?

Her hand came back to my hair, touching again. “I love this,” she said.

My heart changed direction and hit the ceiling. What? Shouldn't she be angry? I had kept this from her! This could end our relationship! It would change everything!

“I've been wanting to tell you for so long,” she went on. She sat closer still, one hand holding mine to her chest, the other on my shoulder. “I love you. Don't forget that. But I... I think I've lost my interest in women.”

Oh my god. And I thought my secret had been big.

“Seeing you like this,” she rushed on, as though afraid the words wouldn't come out fast enough for me to hear before I ran out on her. How the tables had turned! “I've never been so turned on in my life! This is like... it's like my fairy godmother came down and turned my pumpkin into a penis!”

I was incredulous. I burst out laughing, disbelieving. She joined in, laughing with me.

What luck! What a beautiful moment. This was... insane!

“Wait here!” She was up and out the door faster than I could blink.

I didn't have long to wait before she returned, carrying a shoebox.

“I bought this a few months ago and never had the courage to tell you,” she said, putting it on the bed and kneeling beside me.

“Open it.” Her eyes were embers, bright and burning into me.

I lifted the lid. My jaw fell. I picked up the strap-on, it's leather harness heavy in my hand.

“Try it on, baby.” Her fingers flew, popping open buttons on her shirt and wiggling her short little skirt off.

My blood was pounding in my veins, almost too loud to hear her. But I'd heard. I watched her getting naked, her supple body coming to rest on all fours on the floor in front of me. There was a tightening in my crotch. I licked my lips.

My fingers reached forward and traced the silky valley of her cleft, teasing her lips open. She hadn't been kidding when she'd said she was turned on. She was wetter than I'd ever seen her before.

With a moan she pressed back into my hand. “Stop that,” she panted. “Put it on! I want you in me!”

I stood and started to take the suit off.

“Don't!”

I paused, fingers on the knot of my tie. “Don't?”

“Leave it on. Just slip it on over your clothes.”

I thought I was going to have a heart attack. Not only was she ok with my need to be a man, she wanted it. She wanted me, wanted my cock inside her. I pulled the harness on over my trousers as quickly as a could so I would have a cock to give her. Fixing the gorgeous black dildo into the hole, I knelt behind her, a hand on her pert little bottom to steady us both.

She was looking at me over her shoulder. My eyes met hers. We smiled together.

I slid into her and felt a rush like nothing I'd ever known. Watching her pussy lips stretch to take me was the hottest thing in the world, right then. Her moan was loud, her back arching, her hips angling to bring me deeper.

I put my hand around the base of the dildo, taking up a rhythm and feeling it slide in and out of her body. Juice was dripping from her swollen pussy, soaking my tool and my hand. I brought my fingers to my mouth and sucked them clean.

She pushed back into me, wiggling her pretty little ass, throwing a teasing glance at me. I responded by pounding harder and watched as her eyes glazed over.

“Oh, Andrew...” Her voice was raw with lust and I just about came to hear her say that.

“Say it again!” I panted. “Say my name!”

“Andrew, Andrew, Andrew...” She was whimpering.

I slid a finger inside her wet hole, mirroring the shape of the dildo, feeling her inner muscles tighten around me. She was coming already! Oh how she trembled! Her body shook like it never had when I'd been a woman with her.

It was the best thing I'd ever seen. I was flush with a new feeling of triumph.

I fucked her until she stopped, then pulled her into my arms, my cock sliding free. Yes, my cock. At that moment I felt I owned it, it was mine and I had made the woman I love cum with it.

We crawled into bed after that and held each other for a while. She let me take the suit off when it grew too hot, but made me put the strap-on back on so she could feel my cock against her ass while we spooned.

“I love you,” I whispered into her ear.

She smiled at me. “I loved you yesterday,” she said, “and I love you even more today... Andrew.”

Nothing could have felt more right than that.

"I still love you tomorrow." I pulled her closer, face buried in her sweet scented neck.

I could feel her smile as she pressed back into me.

What else was there to say? 'And they lived happily ever after.'

I believed we would, with all my heart.