Episode 4 - More hotel adventures
This is another story of yet more hotel-related escapades. I was away with work for three days, which required two nights in a hotel. The client is one I visit quite frequently, so I am known at the local hotels, and other people tend to stay at those too if they're visiting the same client. My plan this time was to dress only en-femme if possible during my time in the hotel, and so I booked a hotel which was further away and where I wouldn't be likely to meet anyone who knew me or who might recognise me later in work. I chose an airport hotel because many of the guests are transient - only staying one night to catch a flight, people from a variety of cultures are there, and because such hotels are generally busy; I find that the best way not to be noticed is to hide in a crowd. I packed all my femme gear into my suitcase, and hung up my drabs in the car. The plan was simple: after work each day I'd change somewhere into femme clothes, and go to the hotel, drop off my laptop bag etc. I'd then stay en femme until I was nearly at work the next morning, stopping to change somewhere into my office drabs. By hanging my drabs up in the car, they wouldn't need to be ironed for work, and therefore I'd avoid the need for any drabs to be in my suitcase or in my hotel room at all. The day before I left for the trip, two new pairs of shoes (some pretty black ballerina pumps and Mary Jane heels) and a new pair of boots (flat-ish) had been delivered and I couldn't wait to try them on, so I took them with me instead of my normal shoe selection.
My femme wardrobe is far from complete, and I posess no ladies' trousers or jeans at all. I had never used this particular hotel before, and I was understandably nervous about checking in en-femme. (I should add at this point that I have short hair and stubble, so no wig or makeup for me (yet)). So I decided to compromise with the no-drabs rule and wear my jeans. I changed in another hotel car park, and put on a bra, camisole top and a black long-sleeve casual ladies top. Wearing my black opaque patterned pop-socks under my jeans, (as I underdress I'd worn them all day to work too) I wore my black ballerinas on top. After hanging up my work clothes carefully in the car, and I finally walked to the hotel and checked in.
The lighting in the hotel was quite subdued, and the ladies attending reception were polite and helpful. No-one seemed to notice what I was wearing really. I went up to my room, then realised I needed to borrow an iron so went back to reception to borrow one. I took the iron up to my room, painted my toe nails a lovely cherry red and ironed my selection of clothes whilst my nails dried. After a shower, I put on one of my wife's blue flowery summery tops over a strapless bra, with jeans and panties on my lower half, and nude pop socks with cream and pink polka-dot socks over them to protect my toes from the new boots. These completed the look - a trendy, casual girly look. After a bit of self-persuasion, I went down to the restaurant for dinner. I got lots of looks on the way in. The staff were very polite, especially the gorgeous blonde who was the reception committee. I sat on the middle table of three and at each of the others were seated two men - probably work colleagues. The men to my left laughed quite a lot and stared openly, whereas the ones to my right sniggered quietly to themselves and looked across occasionally. The novelty soon wore off though and they moved on to other thoughts after a few minutes. Then, the men to my left, left, and were replaced by a man who didn't even appear to notice me. The meal was very nice, and I left feeling much better than when I'd come into the restaurant. As I left, people looked out of curiosity as I passed. I stopped at reception for them to validate my car park ticket, and they were very helpful and polite. Then I went back to my room for the night and to choose my outfit for the next morning.
I got up at about 6:30, intending to go down to breakfast in a skirt, which is something I've never done before. After showering I dressed - nice panties and bra, with a cami-top, black opague tights, a black knee-length skirt, a light brown dress/top and the new black Mary Janes. I looked good, if I say so myself. However, I couldn't get up the courage to go down to the restaurant. I paced around - lecturing myself on how I was my own man and could wear what I liked - for over an hour. In the end, I had to go to work, so I brushed my teeth and left without breakfast. I was still en femme though. I sashayed through reception, heels clicking on the wooden floor. There must have been around eight people there, and one receptionist, who was on the phone and didn't see me at all. A couple of blokes gave me grudgingly appreciative smiles - one nodded his head slowly, not in a gay way, but I think acknowledging the effort and courage required. Maybe he was a CDer too; who knows?
Not far from my workplace I pulled into a hotel car park and changed into work drab, hanging my femme things up in the car to keep them nice for that night. Work came and went, another busy day, until at last I was free to leave and drive straight to my nearby changing car park. Changing took about 15 minutes, including a couple of pauses to make sure no-one was watching, but then I was back wearing the nice clothes I'd had on that morning. When I arrived at my hotel, around 6:30 PM, there were a couple of guys outside having beer. The weather was fabulous and I'd have liked to have done the same! (That's going on my list of things to do en-femme.) As it was, I sat in the car for a short while, all the time cursing that I've wasted so many hours of my life sat waiting for the coast to be clear. After about five minutes I got out and, remembering to be proud, smoothed down my clothes before locking the car and setting off across the car park. The heels sounded lovely. There was no reaction at all from the beer boys. I saw a few other people but no-one looked twice, though I caught a couple looking from the corners of their eyes. I went up to my room and had a wash, phoned my wife, spent a little while on this forum, and then left (this time without any dithering) to drive to a nearby Tesco Extra Superstore. I say nearby, but it was about fifteen miles. When I arrived at about 8:45 PM, I parked about 200 metres away from the entrance; I didn't want to get too close because the people who hang about outside the store tend to stare at cars which are parking close, and low-key is the aim of my game. As I walked down to the store, a family got out of their car a few metres ahead - the mum, dad and a boy who looked about 8. I don't like being near children when dressed, not because of what they may do or say, but because I can imagine parents going nuts, assuming that all CDers are some kind of pervs. But short of stopping dead in my tracks and looking *really* odd, all I could do was keep going. Happily, the whole family smiled at me, which made me feel a lot better. I entered the store, passing quite a few people who looked as though they might be CDer-bashers, but who didn't bat an eyelid. (I guess we CDers can stereotype as well as the next person!) I bought the food and drink items I wanted, paid and left. I had wanted to buy some opaque tights and some girly body spray, but I was near empty on my courage reserves for the day. On the way out, I saw one of the Tesco girls smiling and grabbing her friend to look, but it wasn't offensive in any way. I left and went back to my car without any further incident. I was so pleased with my escapades thus far, that I drove the five or so miles to a nearby service station to buy a coffee. The place was quiet, and I met only a few people, no-one looking twice. The lady serving the coffees was lovely, calling me "darling" and so on, which was fantastic. It was a bit of a shame that it was a take-out coffee, but I reluctantly made my way to the car and set off back to the hotel, sipping the coffee as I went. The hotel has two car parks, and I had been parking in B, but as that was full, I parked in A. When I got out of the car I noticed that this car park had a PIN keypad to raise the exit barrier instead of the ticket barcode reader that the other car park had. I also noticed a sign about the car park being for residents only and there being a £20 fine for improper use. On the way into the hotel there was a cross-looking elderly lady waiting outside to whom I smiled and said "hello", at which she smiled back. In reception I told the lady about my parking predicament - she was extremely helpful and polite, and there were other hotel guests milling about and not paying me any particular attention. As I headed to the stairs, two women were getting in the lift and their eyes boggled a bit. I was only going up one floor and I paused at the top of the stairs (where the lifts were) to hear what they were saying as they exited the lift. I was sure they'd be talking about me, but they weren't at all, which was encouraging. Once they'd gone, I went to my room, swapped my heels for my fabulously comfortable boots and sat down to write this. All in all, a thoroughly positive experience. Outside work, I didn't wear a stitch of drab - woohoo! Tomorrow I'm going to get up early and do breakfast in a skirt!
// -- sleep -- //
I awoke at 5:30 AM, Breakfast didn't start until 6:30 and I tried to go back to sleep until 6. However, my mind started running over the possibilities of the morning and the adrenaline started pumping even while I was still in bed. At 5:45 I gave up trying to get back to sleep and got up. I was going home that evening so I removed the red nail varnish from my toes and showered. Two nights previously I'd trimmed back the hair on my legs as much as I reasonably could without upsetting my wife, so they didn't look bad, especially under tights. I had already decided my outfit the night before, so I dressed in a grey pinstripe knee-length skirt with a smart blue blouse. Underneath those were some pretty pink La Senza panties, a white lacy bra, white cotton camisole top and tan coloured tights. The outfit cried out for my new Mary Jane heels, so of course I had to answer its demand. After only a short time dithering in my room I opened the door and stepped into the corridor. A man was walking towards me and I instinctively ducked back into the room and shut the door. Dammit! I was determined to go to breakfast dressed, and yet I'd immediately hidden from the first person I'd seen. After two minutes I steeled myself, left the room again, and this time I actually made it downstairs, taking the lift because I was feeling brave. Reception was empty, but the breakfast area was bustling with staff and a dozen or so guests. The staff were very polite and friendly, especially the women. None of the guests looked twice, stared or laughed, which was nice. My worst enemy was the floor, which was highly polished wood and extremely slippery. I'm used to walking in heels on smooth surfaces, but this was something else. Although my heels were only 2.5 inches, I slipped at least three times, which was rather embarrassing, although no-one else seemed to notice. If they did, they hid it well. They sat me at a table in a discreet corner, where I was out of sight of the main restaurant section. There was one other person in that area but I didn't see him even look up. It was a self-service breakfast, so I teetered around getting coffee, juice, cereal and yoghurt before settling down to breakfast. Yes, I had the shakes, but not nearly as badly as the first time I had breakfast en femme.
After breakfast I left and took the stairs (got to fight the onset of the expanding midriff) back to my room uneventfully, where I packed, brushed my teeth and made ready to leave the hotel. I got in the lift with my case and bag on floor 1 and pressed "0", but to my dismay the lift went up to level 3, a short journey during which I vowed never to use lifts again. The doors opened and a man got in wearing a suit, carrying a suit carrier and wheeling a suitcase. He was mid 40s I'd say. I expected an awkward journey, but I said "Morning" and he said "Morning", and I moaned that I'd wanted to go to the ground floor but the lift took me to 3, and he moaned that the hotel was warm and that the air-con in his room hadn't worked. So it was a very typical British lift conversation really, which was nice. I sauntered through reception, no-one really taking much notice and had a bit of a walk to the North car park. A Transit van with two men inside was following slowly, and I couldn't work out if it was because they didn't want to run over the suitcase I was wheeling or if they couldn't believe their eyes. Maybe if they'd only seen me from the back they thought I was actually a woman (not that likely really). Who knows? As I opened the car and loaded the case into it, they turned right, the passenger still looking, though his face was devoid of expression.
I let myself out of the car park using the information kindly provided the night before, and drove back to the Tesco store. After the usual ten-minute internal argument in the car I got out and walked into the store at about 8am. No-one payed any attention initially. I noticed, as I walked the aisles, that the sound of my heels was generating a rapid ping-pong reverb effect, which unnerved me a bit as it sounded extremely loud to me - a hazard of an empty store I guess. I went to the cosmetics section and chose a pretty pink nail varnish and some Charlie "Chic" body scent. I then walked over to the ladies clothing section to look at the half-price sale items. It felt good to be open about my intentions and because there were some full-length mirrors there I was able to hold items up against myself, which was the closest I could get to trying them on. Around this time I noticed a few members of staff making seemingly unnecessary journeys past the end of my aisle, one girl smirking like mad. I guessed that word had got out and they were coming to have a look at the freak, but I might have been wrong. Either way, I made my way to the self-service checkout, paid, and left. There were no problems at all on the way back to the car, and I drove to my changing-car-park to get back to drab.
Time fully dressed en-femme before work: just over 2 hrs. Goals achieved: dressing, having breakfast, leaving hotel, shopping for femme items, all in a nice smart skirt outfit and heels. Unintentional new experiences: being in a lift with someone else and having a chat. As far as I'm concerned, that's a pretty good start to a day! It's a shame it was all followed by a day in work, but as least I was underdressed. Over the whole trip, apart from when I was actually in work, I spent the whole time dressed, and it was thrilling from start to finish. I highly recommend it.
