Too close to home

Something happened yesterday that gave me a feeling I'd not experienced in a long time: fear of discovery.

First, some background. I'm not "out" at work. My work colleagues are some of my few friends who don't know about Becky. Every tranny, when deciding who to tell, works through a complex formula, which includes such variables as:

• the general cool-and-grooviness of the person they're thinking of telling


• how likely they are to find out anyway


• the possible consequences of them knowing


• the possible consequences of them not knowing


• how likely they are to tell other people


• the possible consequences of them telling other people


• last, and not least: how much fun it will be to tell them

I'd run through this fuzzy-logic algorithm in my head and decided that, despite it being an excellent jape to tell everyone that I'd scored 9.6 as Becky on Hot or Not, when the office average was a paltry 4.5, the potential for ribbing and general manly piss-taking forrr-eeeeehhh-verrrrr, just didn't seem to make it worth it.

Actually, I did tell one office colleague. Let's call him X. X doesn't work in the same department as me at the moment, but he used to. About 2 years ago we went on a course together that involved an overnight stay, and I ended up telling him about Becky. I mainly did it to discover if there'd been much gossip about me in the office since I'd started my extra-curricular activity. He reassured me that there wasn't much gossip, and people were pretty much clueless. And he was generally pretty cool about it, in a "whatever floats your boat" kinda way.

So. Anyway.

I was just about to go to bed last night when I picked up my mobile to read my messages. I tend to put my mobile on silent all day, then forget to turn the speaker on again when I get home. So often there's a queue of messages waiting for me.

There was a missed call and a text message from X. "Just finished a frantic call from Y. He was surfing the net to find out more about the sex-change at our place and came across Becky's Site. I don't know if he'll say anything but thought you should have a heads-up."

Shit. Y worked a few yards away from me, and if he'd told X, who else had he told?

Nothing like getting a text like that just before you go to bed to guarantee a sound night's sleep.

Not.

The next morning eventually rolled around and I got into work, determined to make the first move. Y was a good chap, and I was pretty sure that he'd not blab around work, but there was a niggling doubt in the back of my mind that he would. By daybreak i'd decided it wouldn't be the end of the world if everyone knew (at 3AM I'd convinced myself that the townsfolk were going to fire me out of a cannon into the Wash), but I still wanted to be the person to tell them. If it came to that. I hoped it wouldn't.

First thing on arrival next morning I fired off a message to Y saying "Hi! I know that you know... X told me because X knew. Wanna chat at lunchtime?"

The rest of the morning at work was the usual mix of panic, boredom, and de-motivational team meetings. And then we went for the chat...

The cannon firing is booked for the town square on Monday. Chantelle off of Big Brother is booked to light the fuse.

...high speed rewind noise...

And then we went for the chat...

Of course he was cool about it. He'd actually had just as sleepless night as me. Partly from the shock, I think, and partly from trying to think of a way of telling me that he'd found out about it. It was actually his wife who'd been searching the net for info on a TS who's been in the news from our workplace. She'd seen my site and worked out pretty soon that I must work in the same department as her husband.

He offered, without being asked, to keep schtum in the office, which is great.

Life is good. Phew.

But I've learnt not to publish blog entries which make it too obvious in one page who I am and where I work. I've taken down the old blog entry (called Close to Home), which basically said "I work with Person Z in this capacity". Not a good idea if Person Z is in the news, and your site is fairly high in Google's search for him! I've also learnt to trust people to be cool a bit more.

Thanks for being cool Y! Oh, and Mrs. Y! :-)

If you ever fancy coming out and meeting Becky one night, let me know! G'wan, you know you want to give that new car a good run! ;-)