Dani - A Love Story

This story is set in Pennsylvania in the early 2000s. It is a love story, so if you're looking for "Wham! Bam! Thank you, (insert gender title here)" please feel free to leave.

Here's the usual disclaimer and preface stuff. This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to...etc., etc. The story is my property, so please don't "borrow" from it. If you should happen to enjoy it, please let me know, and let your friends know, too.

*****

Associate Vice President for Projects. What's in a name? Here I was in Pittsburgh as a point man for Nittany Computer Corporation of Austin, Texas. NitCom had been founded by a bunch of ex-patriot Penn State alums a few years back. It hadn't exactly taken off but had managed to more or less get along building online-order custom boxes advertised in the back pages of computer magazines. Since I was a Penn State alum, myself, with a double degree in computer engineering and marketing they had snapped me up.

Now the company was starting a joint venture with PennzMarket, a regional chain of Walmart wannabes headquartered here in Pittsburgh. The basic idea was to put a full-service NitCom store in every Super PennzMarket store, offering both ready built and custom built computers, as well as parts, accessories, and repair service. My company saw it as a way to expand its market share in the personal computer market, and PennzMarket saw it as a way to get one up on their competition. To that end I was frocked with my fancy title, given a team of marketing types and technical trainers, and shipped back to good old PA.

I had arrived in Pittsburgh on a Saturday so that I could have a couple of nights' sleep before showing up at PennzMarket headquarters to meet my counterpart, a Ms. Dani Williams, get the standard visiting fireman briefing on the company, and tour the workspaces PennzMarket had set aside for our use.

I arrived at the PennzMarket headquarters at about nine o'clock. A company functionary met me in the lobby, got me signed in, and arranged for my visitor's badge. Having completed these formalities, he escorted me to a conference room on one of the building's upper floors. Once introductions to the corporation's heavy hitters were complete, I was introduced to Ms. Williams.

She appeared to be your typical bright young female executive. She was wearing a well-tailored dark jacket-and-skirt business suit with a white wide-lapeled blouse open at the throat. Her hose were a light shade of beige and her shoes were black pumps with medium heels. Her auburn hair was up in a French braid and surrounded a handsome lightly made up face. She smiled with her lips and her eyes as we shook hands. "I'd like to be about the eighth or ninth person to welcome you to our humble headquarters," she said in a low-pitched but pleasant voice.

"Thank you very much," I replied. "I understand you'll be doing the briefing. I'm looking forward to it."

"Hope I don't disappoint!" she laughed, turning to go to the podium.

My functionary guide got me seated at the conference table. I quickly perused the welcome packet which was on the table, then put it down as the room lights dimmed slightly. So far so good. Dani wasn't drop-dead beautiful, but she was definitely easy to look at with no signs of a stand-offish, strictly business personality.

She was a highly polished presenter, with a firm delivery and good eye contact. She moved smoothly through PennzMarket origins and history, as well as its current market position in the tristate area and other financial matters. "Leaders of PennzMarket and Nittany Computer found that both firms wished to expand their market share and area of operation, and feel that by developing a symbiotic relationship, both could achieve that goal. So here we are."

She finished the briefing with slides of the headquarters physical layout and the specific spaces that would be allocated for NitCom use. "After we wrap up here, I'll take you on a tour of the facilities." She then turned the podium over to the senior vice president who made appropriate, predictable noises.

I studied her as we walked from department to department. She had a slim figure, not particularly front-loaded, and nice legs. Her small talk seemed to indicate that she was friendly, confident, and self-assured. After the project was well underway, she would definitely be worth checking out socially.

At the conclusion of the tour she showed me the areas that had been set aside for my team, and my office suite. There was an office/reception area for my newly acquired administrative assistant who would be joining me soon from Austin. My office was pretty much the size I had expected, was freshly painted, and had a large window with a nice view of the river.

"If everything is satisfactory, tomorrow I'll hook you up with the facility manager so you can work out your furniture and communications requirements. Would you like to join us for lunch in the executive dining room?" she asked.

"Sounds like a plan," I responded.

Lunch was pleasant and uneventful. Dani and I shared a table with a couple of the company's young guns. They politely answered a few questions that had come to me after the briefing was over. "Well," I said as we were finishing our dessert, "I think I'll head back to the hotel and check in with the head shed. Then I'l memorize this welcome packet in case there's a quiz tomorrow."

"Okay," answered Dani. "I'll take you by Security on the way out to get your mug shot for your ID badge. It'll be waiting for you tomorrow morning."

"Great."

After the badge request formalities, Dani guided me back to the lobby. "Well," she smiled, "I hope you enjoyed your first day with us, Bowser."

My brain must have been running on central time. It didn't occur to me to wonder how she knew my college nickname. Hardly anyone had called me that since graduation. It didn't really strike me till I was in a taxi heading back to the hotel. She had mentioned that she, too, was a Penn State alum, but hadn't told me when she graduated. Had I known her there? Only my fraternity brothers and a few of their pin-mates or steadies had called me Bowser.

I more or less put the question out of my mind when I got back to the room and busied myself with reporting to my boss back in Austin and reviewing the materials in the packet I had received at PennzMarket. However, when I went own to the hotel bar to knock back a couple before dinner, the question resurfaced.

I kept running through a rogues' gallery of faces of girls I could remember whom I or anyone in my fraternity had dated back in those halcyon years. None had more than a bare resemblance to Ms. Dani Williams. Somewhere in the process I started adding pictures of the guys who dated these girls to the mix and, to borrow from the TV cop shows, I got a hit. William Dennis Williams. "You gotta be shitting me," I thought, but the more I studied my mental pictures of Mr. William Dennis Williams and Ms. Dani Williams, the more I began to think they were one and the same. That definitely called for a refill.

Dinner was basically an exercise in pushing food around my plate. Was this just the mother of all coincidences? If not, how would I deal with it? Would prayer help? Back in my room, trying to concentrate on reading an e-book on my laptop also proved futile. Damn! Maybe I'd walk into PennzMarket tomorrow and discover the similarity was all a product of my imagination. Right!

Anyway, being the bright, pragmatic young executive I was, I knew I should have a plan for the worst-case scenario. Okay, here were three possible scenarios: a) it was really just a coincidence and she'd actually been around the fraternity, b) she had been Willie Williams but had undergone sex-change surgery, or c) she was still had Willie's plumbing but was living as a female. Scenario a wouldn't be any problem and I could add her to my Pittsburgh dance card if I so chose. Probably I could deal with scenario b, although it would most likely have awkward moments. But scenario c? I wasn't ready for that. Not even close.

A guy who had been a fraternity brother, a guy you showered with, roughhoused and wrestled with, and occasionally slept in the same room with suddenly appears back in your life as a perv, a gay cross dresser. (I had heard that not all cross dressers were gay, but what were the chances?) If this were a fraternity reunion and someone showed up in drag, you would be in a position to accept or reject that person. But this was something very different. I would have to work closely with Ms. Dani Williams to make the PennzMarket - NitCom venture work. Damn!

The idea of calling the powers that be to try to get replaced up here briefly crossed my mind. But that was unrealistic. It was well past the eleventh hour. Any change now would seriously hamper the project, and it would pretty much trash any hopes I had of a bright future with NitCom. Talk about a rock and a hard place!

I considered myself fairly liberal. On an abstract level I could accept homosexuality and transgenderism, but I had never had any direct personal association with anyone from those groups. (Well, apparently I had associated, unknowingly, with at least one.) How was I going to deal with it? Rationally, it should be no big deal. Just go in tomorrow morning, say "Hi! Glad you're happy in drag," and get on with company business.

But we always carry the baggage that our upbringing and society foist off on us. It's one thing to feel inside that it's okay for people somewhere out there to be gay, but it's something else to outwardly accept gay persons. If word of the situation got back to Austin, I was sure that there would be those who would look askance if I did anything that could be seen as more than minimal politeness or political correctness in my dealings with Ms. Williams. What would happen if somehow I got past the transgender thing and outwardly acknowledged friendship with him/her? Shit, shit, shit!

The only solution seemed to be to take one for the team and hope that any negative effects would be minimal and transitory. Maybe I could screw a hooker on the steps of the state capitol when I got back to Austin. Nah, all that would prove was that I hadn't gone totally gay. It wouldn't prove I wasn't bisexual. Not to mention the legal consequences. Time for teeth gritting, facade building, and forced smile practice.

On that dubious note, I went to bed. Surprisingly enough I slept rather well. I did a lot better with breakfast than I did last night's dinner. By nine a.m. I was walking up to Ms. Williams in the PennzMarket lobby. "Hi!" she said cheerily, "Have a good night?"

Right out of the chute it was time to prevaricate. "Oh, yeah. The hotel has a nice piano bar and serves good cocktails." I flashed my rehearsed smile.

"Oh, good. Well, I thought we'd go to my office first. I've got you set up with the facilities manager at ten so you can decorate your new home." Yup, no doubt. Looking beyond the eye shadow, mascara, and feminine eyebrows I was positive this was definitely the same person who had been Willie Williams, my fraternity brother back at State. I managed to maintain idle chit-chat with her(?) as we went up to her office.

Once there she offered me a chair and sat down beside me, turning toward me. "Sorry I slipped up yesterday," she began in a serious tone. "I could tell you didn't recognize me and I wanted to leave it that way. The Bowser thing just sort of slipped out."

That seemed plausible enough. "It didn't really strike me till I was half way back to the hotel."

"Are you okay with it? With me? With Dani Williams?" she asked. I couldn't really read her eyes.

"To be brutally honest, no, I'm not," I replied, managing to maintain eye contact. "But I don't see what the Hell I can do about it."

"Needless to say, I'm disappointed, but honestly I shouldn't have expected much more," she said with a note of sad acceptance in her voice.

"Why the Hell didn't you give me a heads-up?" I responded petulantly.

She paused as if trying to frame her answer. "I did consider doing that, but I was afraid I'd scare you off. When I found out you were coming, I did a little checking. I knew you were the right person for the job."

When I didn't react, she continued, "I thought maybe I could pull it off. Right up till I shot myself in the foot calling you Bowser."

I didn't know whether to be flattered or offended. I did feel a tad stupid for not having done some checking of my own. "I guess the ball's in my court."

"Don't think badly of me, Bowser. Modesty aside, I know I'm the best person in PennzMarket management to bring this project off successfully." There was a certain pride, a certain fire in her eyes.

I expected that if I had done my homework, I'd have come to the same conclusion. "You planning to keep calling me Bowser in public?"

"If you can deal with it. Anybody asks, we were just college friends."

I wasn't anywhere near comfortable with the whole thing. Time to cut to the chase. "Who here knows about your...er...about you?" I stuttered out.

"Just upper management and a few select folks in human resources."

"And they're okay with it?" I wanted to blurt out, but caught myself. It was obvious they were, but I did have to ask, "Does anyone in Austin know?"

"I'm pretty sure not." I prayed she was right.

"Well, I guess we gotta go out there and win one for good old Gamma Mu," I said, rather less than enthusiastically. I aded a canned smile for good luck.

"Rah, rah," she said, but her smile seemed scarily genuine. "Let's go get you situated," she added.

And so the adventure began. Over the ensuing months the project went smoothly. Everyone from both companies was optimistic about its success. The members of my on-site team worked well with their PennzMarket counterparts. NitCom in-store manager, sales, and technician trainees progressed well in their training.

Dani and I were able to work easily together to resolve the few problem issues as they arose, but our social contact was limited to the occasional long lunch outside the building. During those lunches Dani shared much of her personal story with me.

She had struggled with her sexual identity since before puberty. She had been fortunate at home. When her father had asked if Willie had any questions at the end of the "birds and bees" talk, Willie had only two. The first one was did boys ever fall in love with other boys and have intercourse with them. The second was could boys ever decide they wanted to be girls and live that way. Dani chuckled as she mimicked her father's surprise and discomfort. To his credit, her father had been a child of the sixties and he had answered her questions honestly without pontificating.

Dani's mother was brought into the discussion. Willie's parents got him to explain why he asked those questions. Willie had discovered he had a crush on one of his male classmates but had not really understood what it was. Also, he had always enjoyed playing with girls more than playing with boys. He been fascinated by women's clothing and what he had viewed as the female lifestyle. A couple of his female classmates had occasionally let him dress up in their clothes.

Counseling for Willie and his parents had followed, but it was objective and not an attempt at intervention. His parents had allowed him to build a female wardrobe and "dress" in the privacy of the home. His mother had helped him learn makeup and female grooming.

By the summer before his senior year he had started going by Danny/Dani rather than Willie when he was home from school. He had lived pretty much full-time female every summer, even going on a vacation with his parents as a girl. At the end of that summer the family had discussions concerning whether he would try to go to college as a girl or gut it out as a guy. Everyone agreed that it would be best (and easier) to go as a boy and then spend summers as a girl. The issue of hormones came up and it was decided to wait till he graduated from college. He started on them immediately after graduation. Dani went off to grad school at Pitt.

I was amazed at how easily and calmly she had told me the story, and even more so at how fortunate she was to have such supportive parents. I had thought they were pretty cool when I had met them at fraternity parent affairs, so I wasn't all that surprised. "Glad you opted for Dani rather than Wilhelmina," I quipped, not knowing what else to say.

The project kept us in close contact but very busy so time slipped by pretty quickly. Dani and I often traveled to the Super PenzMarkets who would be hosting NitCom stores to brief the stores' management and oversee preparation of the NitCom stores. I found myself becoming move and more at ease around Dani. In off moments we reminisced about the good old days in Strange College and mutual friends. I found myself checking out how she dressed and carried herself. It was as if I were eying a "born female" associate. On a Friday as we were nearing the planned end of my involvement with the project I received a call from the senior vice president in Austin. The company wanted to make my position in Pittsburgh permanent and they wanted me to fill it. He did offer me a narrow window to turn down the position without prejudice and return to Austin. I realized it was time to take stock of the situation.

To start with I had to admit that I found myself attracted to the person that had been my fraternity brother Willie Williams and was now my professional associate Ms. Dani Williams. Part of me was wanting to go beyond friendship with her, to share the intimacies of a couple, to see her face on the pillow next to me as I woke up in the morning. But there was still part of me that was aghast at that idea. I had never been faced with the problem of choosing a position on homosexual couples, particularly a couple in which I was one of the principles.

More importantly, could I enter into a physical relationship with a person who was still biologically a male? When such a situation occurred, would I find it repulsive, find myself repelled by her penis and being expected to touch it, to take it into my mouth? And the whole anal thing? If I did let things progress to that point and could not follow through, what would that do to Dani? Even if that were not a problem, could I withstand the slings and arrows of the homophobic sector of society? Could I defend Dani from them?

By the following Friday I had decided that discretion was the better part of valor, or maybe he who fights and runs away lives to fight another day. I had never consciously conveyed any romantic interest to Dani and if she had any for me, she was keeping it to herself. It was time to fold the tent and head back to the ranch.

I came into the office early that day. Dani and I were scheduled to drive out to McKeesport to be on hand for the gala opening of the first retail NitCom store within the local Super PennzMarket. I took a few minutes to compose an email to my boss telling him I was planning to opt out and come back to headquarters. I dressed it up with a couple of plausible (I hoped) reasons for the decision.

I met Dani at her office and we headed down to the parking level to pick up a company car for the trip. "Damn!" she said. "Remember that memo I gave you yesterday? I was gonna bring a copy."

"It's on my desk. Want me to go back and get it?"

"No. I can get it. You go check out the car and meet me by the elevator. I'll grab a couple of coffees on the way," she added as an afterthought.

"Sounds like a plan," I smiled in reply.

After a little rigamarole with the company motor pool person, I got the car and drove it to the elevator area. Dani was waiting with the memo and coffees in hand, but I noted a concerned look on her face. When she was in the car and we were rolling, I asked he if anything were wrong.