The Waistcoat Slip

I've been married to Regina for six years. She's thirty-three, I'm thirty-four, and in all that time I never told her I like wearing her clothes.

Here it is. I like her clothes.

Not in a jokey way. Not a "haha I wore your robe once" story at a party. I mean I've stood in our bedroom holding her black sheath dress against my body and felt something go off in my chest like a starter pistol. And I never said a word about it. Six years of nothing.

It started small. It always does. Her robe left on the bathroom hook. The smell of her lotion. One night I put the robe on just to see, and I sat on the edge of the tub and thought, well, that's that, I'm a guy who likes wearing his wife's robe, big deal. Except it wasn't a big deal. It was quiet and warm and it made my hands steady somehow.

Then it was her heels. Just standing in them by the closet, two minutes, once. Then her scarf. You know how it goes. Nobody plans a landslide.

Regina manages Pomegranate & Pine, this farm-to-table place over on Halsey. She's worked there five years and she's good at it. She comes home smelling like rosemary and draft beer and she talks with her hands even when nobody's listening. I do pharma sales, which means I drive a lot and smile at people who don't want to see me. Some weeks the only time we're really together is Tuesday morning over coffee, both of us scrolling our phones like it's a joint hobby.

I'm not blaming the marriage. Let's get that straight. I just wanted to surprise her. Our anniversary was the Friday before Valentine's Day, six years since we got married, nine since the night she spilled cabernet on my lanyard and laughed instead of apologizing. I wanted to walk into her restaurant and be something she'd never seen from me. The entire plan was that, more or less. There wasn't much plan past that, honestly.

So Thursday night, while she worked the late shift, I went to the closet.

Her spare hostess outfit was in the garment bag on the left side. Black sheath dress, size 8, knee length. She keeps a spare because she's spilled things on herself at work more than once and she doesn't do the walk of shame through a dining room in beet juice. Stockings in the drawer, the sheer black ones. Heels on the top shelf, three-inch, black patent.

I laid it all on the bed like it was evidence.

I stood there a long time in my socks and boxers. My hands were doing the shaky thing. I kept thinking, you can still close the closet and go watch TV. Instead I stepped into the dress.

It went up over my hips and I pulled the zipper at my side and the fabric settled against me and I said "oh" out loud to nobody. That's dumb but true. The dress fit. Not perfect, my shoulders are wider than hers, but it fit, and it hugged me in a way that made me stand straighter without trying. Men's clothes hang on you. Women's clothes, good ones, hold you. There's a difference and I felt it in my spine.

Stockings next. I sat on the bed to roll them up my legs and I nearly lost it right there, just from the whisper of nylon on my calf. Then the heels. I wobbled across the bedroom, caught my balance on the dresser, and looked up.

The mirror.

I looked like somebody. Not Stephen in a dress. Somebody else, somebody with good posture and a secret. I stood there grinning at myself like an idiot and my reflection grinned back and we were both kind of thrilled.

The makeup was harder. Her kit sits on the bathroom shelf and I've seen her use it a thousand times and somehow every pencil looked like a weapon. Lipstick first, a dark red, and my hand shook so bad the first line went crooked and I had to wipe it off with a washcloth and start over. Eyeliner nearly killed me. I got one eye decent and the other eye looked like I'd lost a bar fight. Second attempt was better. Not good. Better.

I looked at the clock. 9:40. She'd be home by 11:30. I washed my face, hung the dress back in the bag, and sat on the bed in the dark with my heart doing about 140.

I would like to claim I slept fine. I did not sleep fine.

* * *

Friday I drove to the restaurant at 5:30 with the garment bag folded on the passenger seat under my coat. Traffic on Burnside was brutal. I'd told Regina I'd "swing by around close for a drink," which was technically true and also a lie of omission the size of a dress.

In the parking lot I changed in the car. This is not glamorous. I knocked my knee on the steering wheel twice. I got the stockings and heels on in a Honda Civic, which I do not recommend, and I buttoned my long coat over everything and walked in.

The dining room was packed. Two deep at the bar. Every table full, the kitchen clearly drowning, tickets chirping. The hostess stand was empty.

A woman in a chef's coat came around the corner with a table map in one hand and pure exhaustion on her face.

"You the temp from the agency?" she said.

I opened my mouth.

"Thank god, we're slammed. June called out and I've got a forty-five minute wait and no door." She shoved the map and a black tie into my hands. "You know how to run a door? Seat in sections, rotate left to right, don't double up section two, it's Tracy's and she'll bite. Name?"

My name. My actual name was right there in my throat.

"Stephen," I said.

"Stephen, you're a lifesaver. Tie's for the stand, dress code. Coat check is the closet behind you."

And she was gone. Into the kitchen. Just like that.

I stood at the hostess stand holding a table map and a necktie with my coat buttoned to my chin and a full face of eyeliner on and I did not correct her.