“Be like water, my friend” Bruce Lee said. It moves, adapts, fills whatever shape will hold it. In my world, that shape is usually are usually sheer stockings and high heels.

Some men arrive in suits that still smell faintly of boardrooms. Others in tradie boots, the day’s dust clinging to their cuffs. And some arrive with a secret underneath, lace knickers made of silk, a small rebellion pressed against skin that’s never been allowed to want softness. I have met men who want the full transformation: wig, nails, stockings, heels. Others prefer a single piece that feels like a quiet handshake with themselves. Half carry weight in their shoulders, a trace of stubble, bodies trained to endure. None of it disturbs the spell. The tension is the beauty, tenderness folded inside strength, the way a man with calloused hands handles something delicate as though it might break.

They never come to shock me. They come because there is nowhere else to rest. The world celebrates difference on stage but hesitates when it meets it up close.

Most keep a hiding place: a suitcase behind coats, a box marked tax, a drawer pretending to hold spare cords. Inside there is perfume from another suburb, clothing folded around a small hope. It isn’t imitation. It’s release. When a man pulls a slip over his head, you can see the strain drain from his shoulders like air leaving a tyre. The sigh arrives late, weighted. Some call it a fetish. Most call it relief.

They joke: “Maybe I was born in the wrong wardrobe”. I tell them wardrobes don’t have genders. Only hangers. And questionable lighting.

On my Darker Menu there is a section called Transformation A or B. It is not drag and it is not costume. It is sanctuary with softer light. Sometimes we build the whole picture: a fitted dress that shows what’s real, or something loose that moves like water. I teach them to walk in heels without watching their feet, to let the spine remember grace. I blend foundation over the day’s shadow, trace liner slow enough to steady a pulse.

Some of of them live what Bruce Lee said without ever realising it. Be like water, he said, shapeless, adaptable, strong enough to wear down stone. These men are not trying to become women; they’re trying to stop being statues. When they slip into something that glides or let foundation soften their jaw, they are not losing masculinity, they’re letting it flow. Power doesn’t vanish in softness. It just finds a different shape.

Other sessions are quieter. A man sits on the sofa pulling on black sheer stockings, the fabric sliding as if it remembers skin. No mirror, no persona. Just skin meeting what it was never meant to know. I have zipped dresses over broad shoulders, fastened corsets on chests that could split timber, and seen tears form not from shame but from the shock of being seen. It is sexual, but not in the way people think. The arousal is about me and the clothing together: the fabric, the surrender, the mirror saying yes for once. For once, he is witnessed without being edited.

Some arrive with bags of midnight purchases, tags still on, sizes guessed by instinct. Others come empty-handed and whisper, You choose. That request always weighs more than the clothing itself. One man wore something delicate beneath his jeans for the entire drive, checking the waistband at every red light. When he stood before me and unbuttoned, his hands shook, not from fear of me, but from the risk of letting his truth breathe.

You start to learn the patterns. The man who brings his own wardrobe already knows her name. The one who lets me decide is still meeting her. Both are brave in ways they may never say. Braver than most men who think bravery requires a V8 Commodore.

When the hour ends, the dress is folded carefully, perfume lingering in the air. He checks his reflection once more before stepping back into denim and duty. Shoulders go up, phone comes out. The world comes back. Each one thinks he’s the only one. Maybe he is.

Outside, the world keeps moving. A man with long dreadlocks sat at a public piano in QVB, his hands shaping a melody older than he was. A woman in leopard and lace leaned close to listen. A tradie paused mid-work, half-smiling, half-confused. Three strangers, one current, nobody turning away.

Some men chase power. Some chase peace.

And some finally learn what Bruce Lee meant.

To be like water. To move, to rest, to take the shape of whatever truth will hold them.

What they wore goes back into hiding. The feeling doesn’t.

***  This piece is inspired by Bruce Lee’s philosophy, and the many men who’ve learned to move with the current rather than against it.