This to Keep Me Quiet Ch. 01

Chapter One - It's Not Right Uncle John, For All Sorts of Reasons

Author's Note: This is a little two-part tale similar to my early stories. It has all the trappings of a Michelle Nylons story: a little incest, a little blackmail, a lot of sex and a surprising ending. I hope you like it.

Crystal Palace sat at the bar watching Melanie Starr singing The Crying Game. Melanie sang it so well that the club was silent and Crystal suspected that some of the patrons were actually tearing up. The shocking twist in the movie of the same name was no longer a secret of course, the movie had been released nearly a year ago but Melanie's poignant rendition of the classic was, in Crystal's opinion anyway, as good as the original by Dave Berry and better than the Boy George version used in the film.

Crystal slipped off the barstool being careful not to snag her pantyhose. The Horseshoe might resemble a fashionable nightclub in the gloom but when the lights came on after closing time all of its cheap tacky foibles were revealed including the odd nail-head protruding from the regularly-repaired ancient barstools that had claimed the hosiery of many a performer and customer alike.

She made her way through the dark club to the stage door with such familiarity that she was able to avoid the many pitfalls such as ripped carpets, uneven flooring and puddles of stale sticky beer that had been the bane of many a customer. She slipped inside and carefully climbed the four rickety stairs to the stage. The sound guy Steve was sitting at the deck and he nodded at Crystal and handed her a cordless microphone. Crystal remained in the wings until Melanie finished her song and congratulated her on her performance and gave her an air-kiss when she came off stage, both women being careful not to smudge their makeup.

Crystal took a deep breath and stepped into the spotlight. The spotlight followed her to centre stage accompanied by light applause from the audience and a wolf-whistle from some larrikin.

She did look splendid in her off the shoulder red sheath, the sequins on the bodice sparkled in the bright light; the thigh-high split displayed her long legs, sheathed in glossy pantyhose. She wore red six-inch heels to complement her dress, her 'stage heels' she called them because they were too dangerous to wear around the club. Her copper-blonde hair was perfectly coiffed and her heavy stage-makeup accented her emerald-green eyes and sculpted cheekbones.

Standing centre-stage with her legs slightly parted and her head bowed she waited for the intro to her song as the applause died down. Steve cued up the track and the intro to Our Lips Are Sealed wafted through the speakers. It was the Fun Boy Three version and Crystal sang it in her own style, her raspy-voiced rendition pitch perfect and soulful. She left the stage to raucous applause and more wolf-whistles and catcalls; the crowd was getting rowdy as the night was coming to a close.

Steve the sound guy cued up Are You Gonna Go My Way and left the sound board to play the pre-recorded compilation he'd put together over the weekend. Performing his secondary role as cellarman Steve went down to the cellar to tap another keg, although Barry Culpepper the owner of The Horseshoe Club would argue that it was Steve's primary role. The girls could work the soundboard if they had to.

Crystal made her way backstage to the dressing room, if you could call it that. It was a pokey dark alcove with nicotine stained walls that reeked of years of stale cigarette smoke, beer and cheap gin. Overlaying that was the smell of cheap perfume, makeup and hairspray. Melanie Starr sat before the vanity table removing her makeup.

"You're not staying to mingle with the punters?" Crystal asked, slipping off her six-inch heels and slipping her feet into the more manageable four-inch heeled version of the same shoes.

"Not tonight love. Eddie taped East Enders and we're going to watch it together in bed eating crisps and drinking pop," Melanie replied, standing to slip out of her blue sequin-spangled form-fitting evening gown. She'd already dispensed with her heels and hose and put them in a carry bag.

"Crisps and pop... that dress won't fit you if you keep that up," Crystal chided her, dropping her stage heels into her own carry bag.

"Fat chance of that. When we finish East Enders we work off the calories under the covers," Melanie started to put on her street clothes.

"TMI darling," Crystal waved a hand at Melanie and went back out to the bar.

Mingling with the customers after the show bought in a few extra much-needed pounds. Barry paid the girls a flat rate to perform and five quid per hour to mingle with the punters after the show. The girls also got free drinks although they weren't supposed to, and sometimes the punters gave them a tip. It was the girls job to keep the punters in the club and get them to spend money over the bar. If a punter bought them a drink, they pocketed that money too, splitting half with the barman.

With Melanie heading home that left Crystal, Bianca and Pamela to work the crowd. Crystal hated schmoozing up to the punters but it came with the job and she did like to hear the accolades regarding her performance. Bianca and Pamela were sitting with a crowd of high-rollers who had come into the place slumming it after a night out in the West End. Crystal went back and perched on her favourite barstool and hoped that she would be left alone for the rest of the night.

"Can I buy you a drink?" the baritone voice came from behind her and Crystal turned on her stool, a forced smile on her face.

The smile froze when she saw who was addressing her. It was Alan Wright, a co-worker at the financial institution where Crystal worked during the day.

Alan studied her face and a spark of recognition passed across his face and then vanished.

"Sorry. Thought I recognised you from somewhere else; anyway, can I buy you that drink?" his face was handsome when he smiled.

The blonde wig, the heavy makeup and the poor lighting helped keep Crystal disguised. She doubted the management at Stills and Shipley Financial Services would condone her extracurricular activities as a cabaret singer in a seedy nightclub.

"Yes you can. Gin and tonic please," Crystal gave him her best painted smile.

She deliberately kept her head low and avoided making eye contact.

When the drinks came Alan put a finger under Crystal's chin and lifted her face.

"Even in this awful light you are beautiful," he said.

Crystal blushed. She was used to being hit on; it came with the territory, but this was different. She knew this man, even though he didn't know who she was.

"And that song was amazing; you sing so well," Alan kept laying on the compliments.

"I'm Alan. Alan Black," he offered his hand awkwardly.

Crystal gave him a bemused smile; she knew he was lying. He too had secrets to keep; sneaking around sleazy cabarets late at night was not considered de rigueur for a London banker.

Crystal took his hand but when he leaned in to kiss her cheek she pulled away.

"I'm sorry. I'm new at this," he blushed and stammered.

"New at what?" Crystal couldn't help but be amused.

"Nightclubs. Party-girls. Late night drinking," Alan managed to smile again.

"Are you calling me a party girl?" Crystal harried him.

"No! No! No! That's not what I meant. I meant hostess... no that doesn't sound right either," Alan stammered and Crystal pretended to be shocked.

"What about if you just refer to me as a performer?" Crystal came to his rescue and smiled at him, genuinely amused at his discomfit.

She patted the stool beside her and Alan sat down. At first she had hoped that he would just buy her a drink and move on when she showed him disinterest, but she was amused by the fact that Alan didn't recognise her. She was probably playing a dangerous game, she had no rights working in a club like the Horseshoe but Alan Wright shouldn't be here either.

When he was settled at the bar Alan seemed more relaxed, although when Crystal caught him staring at her long legs sheathed in the glittering stage hosiery he blushed. She smiled at him and patted his hand.

"You know most of this isn't real. Most of it is just padding and lipstick and powder, as Dave Edmunds sang back in the seventies," Crystal took a sip of her drink.

Alan studied Michelle's pretty face and long, pale, elegant neck; he was fascinated by the little heart-shaped mole in the hollow.

"Well I think you look beautiful and you sing beautifully too," Alan moved his hand to her knee.

Crystal stopped smiling and firmly removed his hand.

"Buying me a drink doesn't mean that you get to maul me," she reproached him.

"Patting your knee is hardly mauling you," Alan baulked.

"Ok. Thanks for the drink Alan, I think I'd better get changed and go home; I also have a day job I need to tend to," she smiled wanly at him.

Alan looked at his watch.

"Shit! Is that the time? I have to go too, I have an important meeting first thing this morning," Alan finished his drink and stood up.

He held out his hand and Crystal took it to steady herself as she alighted from the stool. Her long fingers were elegantly embellished by bright-red acrylic fingernails. She stumbled a little and Alan pulled her close to him to stop her from falling.

Her soft body pressed against his and he inhaled her perfume. He leaned into her, his lips millimetres from hers and then he whispered in her ear.

"Elvis Costello's version was better."

"What?" Crystal looked confused.

Alan was still holding her close.

"Girls Talk. There are some things you can't cover up with lipstick and powder. You said it before. Dave Edmunds. But the Elvis Costello version is better," Alan gave her one final squeeze and let her go.

"Maybe I'll come and listen to you sing again sometime," Alan smiled at her.

He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed the back of it.

Crystal gave a sigh of relief when he headed to the door.

"That was close," she said to herself.

Crystal headed back to the dressing room and sat at the vanity and removed her high heels. She carefully guided her acrylics under her wig and prised it loose, wincing a little when patches of the glue stuck stubbornly to her skin. She brushed out the wig and carefully arranged it on a wig stand then she removed her wig-cap, really just the panty of a pair of pantyhose with the legs cut off, and brushed out her hair. Her own hair was brunette, shoulder-length, long and straight.

She used moisturiser and towelettes to wipe away her heavy makeup and went over to the small sink to wash her face with soap and water and dried it on the towel hanging from the rusty nail. The towel was still damp from when Melanie had dried herself and she found a dry corner of it to pat her face dry. She carefully removed her acrylic nails and tossed them in the bin. She bought them in boxes of twenty sets for a quid.

Crystal sipped the gin and tonic that Alan Wright had bought her, the ice had melted and it was insipid but she was thirsty. She struggled out of the red sheath and noted that a couple of sequins had fallen off during her performance; she would sew on replacements at home tomorrow. The dress was designed so that she didn't have to wear a bra and she carefully removed her lifelike breastforms, once again wincing when the glue proved difficult to budge. Patience was required; the breastforms were expensive and she didn't want to damage them.

She wiped her recently shaved chest with a flannel to remove any remnants of the glue then she slipped out of her red satin panties and dug the hip pads out of the panty of her dance tights. She was lucky that she had full shapely buttocks and didn't need padding there. She shimmied out of her flesh-toned, shiny, seventy-denier dance tights as they were correctly called, although the generic term pantyhose was used by the girls, and removed the surgical tape holding her genitalia in place against her perineum. She stood up and tensed and relaxed to lower her testes from her inguinal canals down into her scrotal sac.

Crystal put on underpants, jeans, a longsleeved stretch t-shirt and pulled a woollen jumper over and then put on thick woollen socks and ankle boots. She carefully put the dress in a garment bag and the wig into a silk bag and packed everything into her ripstop carry bag. She brushed her hair again and put on her overcoat.

Crystal looked at herself in the cracked and spotted full-length mirror. Her transformation back into Michael Tanner was complete.

Michael picked up the garment bag and carry bag in one hand and hooked them over his shoulder so that he had one hand free to open the door. He left by the back exit of the club after signing out.

It had been a good night; his performances had been well received. He was just a little disconcerted that he had ran into Alan Wright but he was certain that Alan hadn't recognised him. He smiled wryly to himself as he walked home in the cold and the dark. If Alan Wright had realised that he was caressing the knee of Michael Tanner dressed in drag he would have had a fit. He sniggered to himself as he let himself into the small walk-up flat where he showered quickly, set the alarm and went to bed.

*****

Michael had an interest in women's clothing for as long as he could remember. He adored the feel of silk, satin, nylon, lycra, rayon and the tickle of lace against his body. The flick of a hem against his thighs, the freedom he felt when wearing a skirt or dress, heels and hose were almost indescribable. It wasn't really sexual, at least not until he entered puberty, it felt comfortable... it just felt right.

When he was younger he had borrowed items of clothing from the laundry basket, his sister was only a year older and her clothes fitted him. Then his mother's clothes fitted him too as he got older and bigger. He remained slim and svelte and grew his hair long. He was confronted by his mother after his sister complained that her brother had been wearing her clothes, although his mother suspected that he had been wearing her clothes too.

Michael broke down and confessed his obsession with dressing enfemme to her and she was as understanding as any mother could be. Her husband had abandoned his wife, son and daughter just after Michael's birth and she had been forced to become resilient and self-supporting.

Michael was sent to see a phycologist who diagnosed him with mild gender identity disorder, as it was called at the time, possibly linked to the absence of a male role model but more likely deeply rooted in his psyche. The phycologist didn't observe any traits in Michael that indicated that he actually wanted to physically become a woman; he didn't seem to want to undergo gender reassignment. Michael just seemed happy to spend time dressed as a girl. It comforted him; made him feel special.

The phycologist explained that there were thousands of men and boys who liked to dress like a woman in the privacy of their homes and they were not in any way abnormal, not was their crossdressing linked to any sexual deviancy. In the nineteen eighties the spectrum of gender dysphoria disorders, as it was coined back then, was only just being understood. She recommended that, provided that Michael did not show any abhorrent behaviour, he be allowed to continue to dress as a girl in private. Obviously it was best kept a secret.

Lucy Tanner was a progressive woman who was fiercely protective of her children and always did what she thought was best for them and allowed them to experience the world in their own way provided they were not doing anything illegal or dangerous. She sat down with Michael and Janet - Michael's sister, and explained what the psychologist had said. There were very few secrets in the Tanner household.

Michael would be allowed to dress enfemme at home and Lucy and Janet would keep his secret. Lucy would buy him his own small wardrobe of female attire that he could wear in the confines of his bedroom or around the house if it was safe to do so but his secret must be kept. As progressive as the world was in the nineteen eighties, transphobia was still rampant.

To Michael and Lucy's surprise, Janet was supportive of her brother's penchant for crossdressing. She not only kept his secret she actually helped him in his quest to look as feminine as possible.

Sixteen year old Michael Tanner walked into his sister's bedroom in the winter of 1986. He was wearing a black denim miniskirt, mauve satin blouse with puffed sleeves and padded shoulders, sheer nude pantyhose, and strappy four-inch heels with a small platform. He was adept at walking in heels having been getting around in them now for over a year. His brunette hair was cut in a shoulder-length bob which he could get away with as being fashionable at the time. He'd had the same hairstyle for so long that people just associated it with him as part of his style.

"I want you to show me how to wear makeup," Michael said a little sulkily to his sister.

Janet was sitting cross-legged on her bed and she looked up from the book she had open in her lap. Her face lit up.

"About time Michelle, you look so good when you're dressed but without makeup you're just not finished," Janet grinned.

Michael had adopted the name Michelle when he was dressed enfemme. At first his mother was concerned but the phycologist said that it made sense because although his dysphoria had not progressed beyond crossdressing Michael would want a girl's name because while he was crossdressed he identified as female. Both Lucy and Janet were careful not to misgender Michael or Michelle: Michael was he, him, his and Michelle was she, her, hers.

By the time Michael turned eighteen he could pass convincingly as a woman. His makeup skills exceeded those of his sister; he had closely watched and mastered female mannerisms, even his voice when dressed was a sultry sexy feminine rasp. He and Janet even put on little performances for themselves: fashion shows and song and dance routines. Although Lucy allowed her children latitude, she had to admit that she was little concerned when Janet started to treat Michelle as a pet project, almost like a younger sister. She tolerated their little dress-up performances but she would be glad when Janet left home. She and a girlfriend had saved enough to get their own flat.

Two thing things happened around this time that profoundly affected Michael. One was illicit and remained a secret; the other was quite traumatic and had a tumultuous effect on Michael and the Tanner family.

The first thing happened the day before Janet was to move out of the family home. She and her girlfriends had a hen's night to celebrate her last night living in the family home. Janet came home drunk and tried her best to sneak upstairs to bed without waking her mother or her brother.

As she passed Michael's room she saw a light under the door and feeling playful she decided it might be fun to play a prank on her brother. She opened the door a crack and saw that it was Michelle not Michael lying on the bed reading. Michelle was wearing rayon babydoll pyjamas over stockings and suspenders and was still in full makeup. She had her back to the door and was concentrating on her magazine. The room was lit only by the bedlamp over which was draped a red gauzy scarf which gave the room an eerie pink glow.

Trying not to giggle Janet slipped off her heels and slipped into the room in her stockinged feet, carefully closing the door behind her. She tiptoed up to the edge of the bed and was about to grab Michelle by the shoulder and shout "boo" to scare her.

But just as she was about to grab Michelle, Janet realised that Michelle was reading a pornographic magazine and masturbating. Her long sleek-skinned cock protruded out of her baby-doll panties and she was slowly stroking it. Janet recognised the red nylon knickers that Michelle was rubbing on her cock. They were hers.