Objection Sustained

*This one came from laughing about how even the best-laid plans get tossed when you're that into someone. Hope you enjoy two old softies breaking their own rules. Thanks for reading.*

My name is Ramon Gilbert, I am sixty-three years old, and I have been with James Hampton for going on eight years now. He is sixty-one, retired from public defense, and he still talks like he is cross-examining a witness even when he is just asking if I want coffee. We met at a legal-aid fundraiser when I was fifty-five, started dating six months later, and I have never once regretted answering his question about the shrimp forks.

This week the suitcase sat by the front door like an accusation. Three months in Geneva for a fellowship, three months of me rattling around the house alone. A few nights before he flew out, he did something I did not expect. He sat down at the desk in our shared home office, the one cluttered with his old case plaques and my framed certificate from paralegal school, and he typed.

"I'm making a list," he said, pecking at the keyboard with two fingers the way he always does. "You've been talking about this for two years. So we're doing it properly. Tonight. Before I leave."

I had been talking about it. Crossdressing, I mean. I had brought it up twice over dinner, sort of sideways, the way you bring up anything you are scared of. Both times he had said the same thing. "Then let's do it, honey." Both times I had changed the subject.

He printed the list and turned around in the chair with it in his hand, all business. The paper even had a header.

"Ramon's Debut: Rules of Engagement," he read out loud. "Rule one. No lingerie until the final scene."

I laughed. "You can't be serious. You typed that up in ten minutes."

"I am completely serious. Structure is a gift, Ramon. You of all people know that. Rules make things feel safe, and safe makes things feel good." He set the paper on the desk between us. "So. Rules. We follow them strictly. Agreed?"

"Agreed," I said, and shook his hand like we were closing on a house.

He went to the closet and pulled out the garment bag I had not known was in there. Inside was a midnight-blue dress, knee length, with a neckline that made me hold my breath. Next to it in the bag were black pumps, my size, which meant he had gone through my closet and memorized my size, which meant he had been planning this longer than one evening.

"I'll be in the kitchen making the pasta," he said. "When I come back, we start. One piece of clothing at a time, with verbal approval. That's rule two."

He left the room and I stood there holding the garment bag, and that is when I did the thing I am about to admit to. I had bought the lace briefs two weeks ago at a shop across town where nobody knew me. I had been keeping them in a drawer like contraband. Rule one said no lingerie until the final scene, and James was in the kitchen, and my hands were already pulling my slacks down.

I stepped into the lace and pulled it up and stood very still. It felt cool and tight and completely wrong and completely right, and my heart was loud in my ears. I am a retired paralegal, I have spent my whole life following rules, and there I was breaking rule one before he even finished the garlic. I tucked myself back into my slacks and sat down on the edge of the bed and waited, thrilled and a little ashamed, which turned out to be a combination I would get to know very well that night.

* * *

James came back with two glasses of wine and set them on the dresser. "Ready? Rule two. One piece at a time. You show me, I approve out loud, then the next piece. Verbal approval, Ramon. I want to hear you say yes to yourself."

"I know what verbal means, counselor."

"Then start."

I hung the dress on the closet door and laid the pumps on the bed. Then, because my hands were shaking and I wanted them busy, I picked up the garter I had also hidden away, black with a little satin bow, and I sat on the bed and started fastening it around my thigh before I remembered what I was wearing underneath and what the rules said about both.

"Ramon." James had gone very quiet, wine glass halfway to his mouth. "Is that lace I'm looking at?"

I looked down at my slacks, at the black lace waistband just visible where my shirt had come untucked. "It might be lace."

"Rule one says no lingerie until the final scene."

"I know what rule one says."

"And rule two says one piece at a time, with verbal approval, and you are currently putting on a garter I did not approve." He set his glass down. "Well. I suppose we are already in violation of two rules. Two violations inside of five minutes. That's got to be some kind of record, even for this house."

"Are you mad?" I asked, and my voice came out smaller than I meant it to.

He crossed the room and knelt in front of me and took my hands. "Honey, no. Look at me. I'm not mad. I'm delighted. You couldn't wait even one rule. That's the most alive I've seen you in months." He smiled, and it was his real smile, the crooked one from the fundraiser. "So let's rewrite the rules instead of pretending. New rule one. Lingerie is allowed. New rule two, an exception. Garters may be fastened without approval, because apparently they make you reckless and I like you reckless."

"That's not how exceptions work," I said.

"I'm retired, Ramon. I make up the law now. Stand up and let me look at you."

I stood, and he did look, slowly, from the lace at my waist down to my bare feet on the carpet, and he said, "Yes. Approved. God, yes." My face went hot all the way down my neck.

* * *

Rule three was typed on the list in bold: No touching below the waist until the outfit is complete. He had written it himself, so of course he was the first one to test its limits.

I was standing in my socks and the lace and the garter, stepping into the dress, and I knelt down to buckle the ankle strap on the first pump. My fingers were not cooperating. The little buckle kept slipping, and I was frowning at it, tongue between my teeth, when I felt James's hand settle on my hip. Just resting there. Warm through the lace.

"Rule three," I said without looking up.

"I know what rule three says."

"Then move your hand, counselor."

"Rule three says no touching below the waist until the outfit is complete. My hand is on your hip. That is your waist. So technically I am touching at the waist, not below it. The rule is silent on this point."

I turned my head and looked up at him kneeling beside me, silver hair and that courtroom face, and I had to laugh. "You're going to lawyer a rule you wrote yourself?"

"Objection overruled. Buckle your shoe."

His hand stayed on my hip while I worked the buckle, and it did not move, and it did not need to. The second shoe went faster because I was rushing, and he noticed that