Coming Out

by Swan, Tarn

  Coming Out

  &

  A Letter From Steven

  A supplement to ‘Swan Songs’ the first book in the Stardust Diaries series

  Smashwords Edition

  Tarn Swan

  Copyright © Tarn Swan 2012

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  Table of Contents

  Coming Out

  A Letter from Steven

  Coming Out

  Concerning how Twinkles came out of the closet and why I put him back in it, and also a peep back at how I came out of the closet and stayed out.

  When my secretary and good friend Karen announced she and fiancé Paul had finally set a wedding date I was delighted. They’d been courting for long enough. At that point in time I’d been seeing Twinkles for almost two months and we were still at a madly in lust stage of our relationship. As such we selfishly considered socialising with each other to be far more important than socialising with anyone else. As a result we’d more or less cast ourselves adrift from the world and were in danger of developing prison pallor as a result of spending too much time indoors. When not at work we were either under his bedcovers or mine. Plenty of people had heard about Twinkles, but few had met him. When Karen sent me an invitation to the wedding she made a point of writing it out to: Tarn & Guest…aka the mysterious boyfriend you’ve been guarding so jealously and keeping in the closet…bring the boy out and soon because we want to see who’s been putting the sparkle in your eye.

  I duly asked Twinkles if he’d do me the honour of accompanying me to the wedding. He said yes and then asked if there were any chance of him being allowed to be a bridesmaid, because he’d always wanted to be a bridesmaid and wear yards of rustling taffeta and a fragrant floral headdress. I regretfully told him that Karen had all the bridesmaids she needed, which disappointed him a bit, well okay, a lot. Being bridesmaid at a straight wedding would have been a large and very fancy feather in the cap of his feminine doppelganger, Miss Stardust Twinkles.

  People often ask me how I could have fallen for a man who likes to wear women’s clothes, and doesn’t it mean I’m just a closet heterosexual or something? The truth is I didn’t fall for a man in a frock. I actually fell for a good-looking boy in a suit. I made the acquaintance of Mr Jonathan Lane before I ever knew of the existence of his alter ego, Miss Stardust. He came out to me about being a transvestite early in our relationship. It’s not something you can really keep hidden for long. He said that as soon as he suspected our relationship was going to be something more than a few grunt and groan bed sessions, he felt he had to put me in the picture about this other aspect of himself, even if it meant being rejected, which in his experience it usually did. His philosophy being it was better to be hurt sooner rather than later.

  To be perfectly honest, Jonathan wasn’t the type of man I usually went for in the first place, either in appearance or personality. I usually gravitated towards quietly athletic, masculine men. The type who liked to keep fit, but who weren’t obsessed, men who were well toned, but not too muscle bound, blondes usually. I had a thing about blondes back then. Jonathan was, and still is, lightly built with short brown hair and a boyish, fresh-faced complexion. He also has a slightly effeminate tone to his voice, which combined with an overt style of presentation leads most people to immediately assume he’s gay, and of course he is, but that said it’s not always a guarantee. I have a cousin who speaks exactly the same way and in addition walks, or rather prances, like a figged horse, but he’s not gay. In fact he’s begat more kids than a Biblical Patriarch.

  There was a fair amount of astonishment in the family when I turned out to be gay instead of him, though as my aunt Helen disparagingly said, what could you expect with a name like Tarn? She blamed my parents. Apparently if they’d named me Dave or Pete or something more obviously masculine then my chances of being gay would have been greatly reduced. The fact that her own daughter, my cousin Debbie, drives a Heavy Goods Vehicle and is more butch than Bruce Willis, is something she refuses to acknowledge. The gay gene is strong in my family.

  Debbie herself has never come out of the closet as a lesbian. As she said to me once, there was no closet big enough to conceal her in the first place, so she’d never tried hiding in one. People could draw their own conclusions and take her or leave her just as she was. I like Debs, but to be honest, I doubt anyone could take her, not even Bruce Willis, not without the aid of a small army and several heavy machine guns. She’s a tough lady. Twinkles is terrified of her. He reckons she has so much testosterone raging through her veins she could probably make a fortune as a testosterone donor. He says she could wipe out male infertility just be donating the amount she has in her little finger, not that he’d ever dare say it to her face, not without Bruce Willis and a small army standing protectively in front of him.

  As I said, before I digressed, Twinkles was not my usual type at all. In fact he was the antipathy of it, but there was something about him, some innate charm and a sweet vulnerability that captivated me from the moment I walked into his place of work to buy my mother a birthday gift. When he smiled and asked if he could help me, my balls just about drew up to my naval and I got so hard so fast I feared for my zipper. I almost had what Robert Kinsey, the sexual scientist, described as, ‘an explosive discharge of neuromuscular tension,’ an orgasm in other words. He bowled me over.

  If you could see him smile you might understand my reaction. He has the most beautiful smile. It can light up a room. It’s sexy and slightly mischievous. It still makes my toes curl with pleasure. I staggered out of that jewellers shop feeling like I’d been hit over the head with a blunt instrument. My mother was consequently showered with gifts, as I attempted to confirm that, first, he was actually gay. Making assumptions is all very well, but more often than not they can be the wrong ones (remember my cousin) Second, if he was indeed as gay as he seemed, I needed to ascertain he was available. He was, and was, and yes, he’d love to go out to dinner with me. I think my mother would have preferred him to play much harder to get. She’d never had so many gifts of jewellery and she was rather enjoying it.

  We’d been dating for just short of a month when Jonathan decided it was time to come out of the closet with regard to certain matters. One Friday evening he invited me over to his place for a meal. It was the first time he’d done so and I was pleased. We usually ended up at my house, so it felt like we were moving on a stage. I’d invited him into my private territory and now he was doing the same, it was an exchange of trust.

  I arrived at his flat clutching a bottle of his favourite red wine and a box of the continental chocolates I knew he had a weakness for, while wondering whether I had enough condoms in my wallet to get us through a night of unbridled passion. Imagine my surprise therefore when a woman opened the door of Jonathan’s flat, a remarkably glamorous woman with high piled blond hair, wearing a revealing little black evening dress.

  She gave me a rather diffident smile, invited me to enter, relieved me of the wine and chocolates and then asked if I’d like a glass of wine from the bottle already open on the table? I thanked her, while thinking she was a tad overdressed for eating pasta at a friend’s house. She wouldn’t have looked amiss sailing down the red carpet at an Oscar’s ceremony. She was beautiful. Still, I couldn’t help but feel a bit miffed that Jonathan hadn’t told me he’d invited a third party to what I’d expected to be a cosy dinner
for two.

  Putting aside selfish considerations I introduced myself and asked where Jonathan was? There was a brief pause, and then she said:

  “It’s me, Tarn darling, I’m Jonathan.” She bobbed a mock little curtsy, “or as I’m known in certain circles, Stardust Twinkles. I thought it was time to make myself known to you in my entirety. What do you think?”

  My jaw literally dropped. I was stunned. I honestly hadn’t recognised him. Even his voice was different. I swallowed, but couldn’t think of a single thing to say. Had I been the fainting type I would have crashed to the ground there and then. There was a prolonged uncomfortable silence, which Jonathan broke first.

  “I’m sorry, Tarn. I’ll understand if you don’t want to see me again.” He ran into what I assumed was his bedroom, slamming the door shut.

  I flopped down on the couch, thoroughly taken aback. Call me naïve, maybe even plain stupid, but I’d picked up no clues to prepare me for his bombshell, his blond bombshell. I knew he liked fashion, he frequently commented on ladies clothes and accessories, especially the pretty and more glamorous items, but it hadn’t occurred to me that he did so because he liked wearing them. I though he had an interest in design or something. He’s a very artistic man. With hindsight I could see he’d been dropping hints and sprinkling clues. I’d just been blind to them, perhaps wilfully. Of course I knew about cross dressers in all their many variations, but not at first hand. They were part of a particular crowd, but not my crowd.

  Forgive me if I go off at a slight tangent here, but sad to say that even in these so called enlightened times there’s a tremendous social prejudice against effeminate gay men, transvestites and transsexuals, and it comes from both the straight and gay communities. I think in part the prejudice, and general lack of respect, stems from feminine phobia. There are straight men who still view femininity as inferior to masculinity, and there are many gay men who view women as beneath their contempt simply because they feel no physical attraction towards them. This prejudiced attitude extends itself to gay men who display what is commonly seen as feminine characteristics.

  Anyway, leaving aside social politics, of which I know nothing and returning to personal history, a part of me wanted to get up, walk away, and not get involved in something so completely outside the sphere of my experience. I guess I was one of the prejudiced I’ve just preached about. The situation with Jonathan directly breached my personal comfort zone. I was a regular gay man. I dated other regular gay men, not women, or men dressed as women. It was all too confusing. I wasn’t sure of my ability to handle breasts, and the pair he had stuffed down the front of his frock looked like they might take quite some handling. What if I dropped them or something?

  The sound of sobbing penetrated the closed door and I knew it was too late. I was already involved and I couldn’t walk away leaving Jonathan hurting. I got up and went into the bedroom. He’d dragged off his wig and was curled up tightly on the bed crying as if his heart were breaking. I couldn’t bear it.

  Lying down beside him I gathered him into my arms even though it meant getting makeup all over my shirt. I suddenly appreciated what Paul went through whenever Karen had a torrential outburst. I spoke gently, “I would have preferred being primed verbally first, rather than you setting up the scene you’ve just set up. It gave me a real shock.”

  “I know. I saw your face. I thought you were going to faint. I’m so sorry,” he gazed at me and though his eyes were smudged with a messy collage of mascara and eye shadow I still couldn’t help but think how pretty they were. “I didn’t know how else to broach the subject. Anyway, I thought you must have had some inkling. I mean I’m more Glam Damsel than Vince Diesel aren’t I?”

  “Vin, it’s Vin Diesel.”

  “Whoever,” he sniffed miserably.

  “You should have told me straight away.”

  “Oh come on,” there was more than a touch of acid in his voice. “I wouldn’t have seen your frigging arse for dust. You’d have turned Road Runner, meep, meep and away, just like all my other boyfriends. I wanted to hang onto you. I really like you. I thought if you got to know one part of me first, and liked it enough, then accepting the other part of me might be easier.”

  I suddenly felt unreasonably jealous that he’d ever had any other boyfriend but me, which told me everything I needed to know. Dress, wig, makeup, high heels, it didn’t matter, well, not too much, we’d get round it, somehow. He was still the man I’d begun to lose my heart to, if it wasn’t completely lost already.

  “Come on, Jonathan my man,” I stood up pulling him with me. “Let’s get you freshened up and you can tell me all about your feminine side over dinner.”

  “Twinkles, I like to be called Twinkles, or Twinks. It’s silly I know, but my friends call me it and I feel far closer to it than I do to my real name.”

  I swallowed and gave a cautious nod, “okay, Twinkles it is.” His smile, even through the devastated mask of his makeup, made my toes curl with pleasure. As the tag line to Vin’s film Riddick goes: ‘all the power in the universe can’t change destiny’ so why fight it.’ Why indeed.

  Thus it was that my own sweet boy came out of the closet wearing a dress and make up. Life would never be quite the same again, and it wouldn’t be easy, but I would learn to adapt, somehow.

  By the time Karen and Paul’s wedding day came round, Twinkles and I were a definite out of the closet item, though we hadn’t moved in together. On the morning of the wedding I decided to call for him early, which as things turned out, was all to the good.

  I entered the flat to find him standing in the middle of the tiny sitting room. He gave me a beaming smile and posed, hands held out like an actress at a photo shoot.

  “What do you think, Tarn darling, do I look wonderful or not?”

  I was speechless, not because he looked wonderful, which in an over the top way he really did, but simply because he had done the exact opposite to what I’d told him to do.

  Over the preceding weeks we’d discussed the subject of wedding apparel in great detail, and now here he was, dressed like a larger than life Susie Wong. He was wearing a startling fuchsia pink, skin-tight Chinese silk dress, slashed to the hip, with a black mandarin jacket, black stockings and pink patent high heels. The ensemble was topped off with strings of gleaming pearls and matching earrings. He looked like a Hong Kong Hooker, a relatively classy one I hasten to add. He’d easily have turned a neat profit.

  Folding my arms I glared at him, “we talked about this, didn’t we?” He ignored me.

  “I’ll just get my handbag from the bedroom and re-powder my nose and then we can go to this quaint little monogamous dedication festival.” Blowing me a charming, disregarding kiss, he then turned and walked towards the bedroom, doing what my father would have termed in relation to my sister when she was young, the Maryann wiggle and flounce. It was a cheeky little gesture made with the backside and it spoke more eloquently than words. In Twinkle’s case, it clearly said ‘fuck you, Tarn.’ Cheeky didn’t begin to describe it, nor did provocative. It was pure up yours defiance. I suddenly realised, with shattering clarity, why, when my sister had done it, it had made my dad just about hit the roof.

  In my sister’s case it had frequently resulted in her wiggle i.e. her backside, being spanked. They say that he who dares wins. Not in our house. If you dared dad, you usually lost. He was and still is an old fashioned kind of man, not rigid, because he could always be reasoned with, but by the standards of the day, definitely strict. Misbehaviour brought consequences. I have a very clear memory of the last time I personally incurred consequences from my father. It occurred for a number of reasons, not least because it was the day I came out of the proverbial closet. Okay, I feel another tangent approaching. Take a seat and make yourselves comfortable because it’s a long one.

  I was, or thought I was, a mature man of fifteen, soon to be sixteen years old and thus beyond parental consequences. I’d bunked off school solidly for a fortnight to bum
around town being a public nuisance with a gang of lads I didn’t really like, or have anything in common with. What I did have was a major crush on the gang leader, Trevor Ledbetter. He was a blond haired, blue-eyed god and I couldn’t stop thinking and fantasising about him. It was awful and rather tragic in its way. He was obviously straight and had a string of girlfriends. I wasn’t sure what I was, or more truthfully I was confused and frightened by my perverse sexuality and kept hoping and praying it would go away and I’d wake up normal.

  At night when I closed my eyes and wandered into that hormone encrusted, teenage fantasyland, Trevor was the object of all my horny little desires. I got through more Kleenex than a common cold research centre. Leaving lust aside, I think getting mixed up with him and his friends was my way of trying to prove I was one of the acceptable lads. Perhaps I was hoping their perceived normality would rub off on me.

  My fortnight of being a member of the macho mob ended abruptly one Thursday afternoon. After a fruitless, boring morning wandering aimlessly around a cold, wet town centre, we went into W.H.Smiths to browse the magazines. A lad called Michael Brown pushed a copy of Playboy up his coat sleeve and the others started to do the same until half the soft porno magazines on the top shelf had disappeared.

  I wasn’t happy with this turn of affairs. Quite apart from the fact the magazines didn’t grab my interest that much, theft was a step beyond where I was willing to go. We ended up having a falling out when I refused to do my bit in the thieving stakes and walked out of the shop.

  My hero Trevor turned nasty and accused me of being a whining, spineless little snob. He said he was sick of me hanging around all the time and I could piss off before he decided to punch my teeth out. I was cut to the quick.