The Weekly Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3382 by Angharad Copyright© 2023 Angharad

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This is a work of fiction any mention of real people, places or institutions is purely coincidental and does not imply that they are as suggested in the story.
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I was trying to repair a pair of tights that I had snagged, I was using invisible thread, the problem being that you can't see the wretched stuff. I was minded of the old joke of, 'I went to buy some camouflage trousers today but I couldn't find any.' Well, I didn't say it was funny. The light was fading slowly and making it even more difficult. At last, I managed to thread the needle and start sewing, gently pulling the two sides of the snag together, there'd be a mark in the nylon but it was up on my thigh so none would see it and I could live with that.

Simon came into my study, "So that's where you were hiding," he announced sitting close to me on the sofa.

"I wasn't hiding, I had mending to do."

"You are the wife of the fourth richest family in Britain and you spend your free time mending things, why?"

"Because it was the way I was brought up and I can, we live in a throw-away society and I don't like it, it does nothing for anyone and damages the environment. Some companies think that even people are dispensable and then they wonder why they can't recruit anyone."

"Well, I'd like to spend some time with my wife, the lady I love, and fancy dreadfully." to be fair he'd been tied up with work for a couple of weeks and he hadn't been home let alone made love to me.

"Okay, let me just finish these tights, I snagged them on Friday as I was coming out of the office, and caught them on the corner of a box I was trying to move."

"Just chuck them, you can afford a new pair, let's go up to bed," he said nudging me and of course, I jabbed my finger with the needle.

"Ouch, will you be careful, I told you why I'm mending them, there's one of your shirts there, you tore the seam under the arm, remember?"

"I thought you'd chucked that."

"I paid a small fortune for that shirt so I'm blowed if you are going to chuck it just because I had a small tear in it."

"Well, it's not as if I can wear it again, is it?"

"And why not?" I felt he was just being a little too casual with his clothes.

"I am hardly able to wear mended stuff to work am I, in my position?"

"Here, tell me which one I repaired," I said throwing the shirt at him.

"How am I supposed to remember which arm it was?" he said back examining the shirt. "Which was it?" he asked being unable to see where I had machine stitched the tear. "Which was it?"

"Seeing as you seemed to imply everybody would be able to see the repair, you tell me."

"Um was it the right one?" he asked a little quietly, unsure of his choice.

"You tell me," I replied still sewing my tight with a sore finger he had caused me to jab.

"I can't tell which one," he admitted.

"So you can still wear it to work then?"

"I suppose so," he reluctantly agreed.

"Good, it can go back in your wardrobe."

"Which one was it?"

"Neither, I just sewed a button back on that one."

He then examined the buttons, "I can't see which one of those you did."

"You won't," I replied rather smugly.

"I didn't know any of my buttons had come off," he said.

"It was after the washing machine, I saw it when I was ironing it."

"Thank you," he said unaware that I hadn't touched the buttons but had sewn the underarm seam but if he knew that he wouldn't wear it so I told a little white lie."Have you finished those bloody tights yet?" he asked.

"Just and they're only bloody where I jabbed my finger when you nudged me."

"I'm sorry, I wait two flipping weeks to see you and then do something stupid like that in my impatience to be with you."

"It's hardly terminal," I said back, "The most I'll have to do is remember to wash my haemoglobin out of them next time they go in the machine. Come on let's go to bed then." We did and lay there sweaty and breathless and of course, I had to rush to the bathroom and have a little wash, I wondered if having a cervix would stop it oozing out of me. I have to ask Stella when I remembered and there were no children around. They always seem to be when any personal stuff could be discussed by us adults, especially now that Danni sometimes goes to bed after we do.

Did I mention she's seventeen and having driving lessons and eyeing up my old Jaguar, Mr Whitehead's old one. She seemed to think I'd promised it to her ages ago. I hadn't but we would provide her with a little runabout if she behaved herself and passed her test.

I turned over on my side and Simon spooned around me which I had missed for the past couple of weeks, I twinged up inside me, it had hurt a bit and there was just a smear of blood in the ooze that came out. I had rinsed it out on the bidet and put some antiseptic cream up there and hoped it would sort itself out before it met Simon's enthusiasm. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad he still loves me a shows it, I still love him very much, but sometimes it's like having a lovesick labrador and I keep wanting to say, "Down boy." Of course, I don't but it is tempting. I'll have to remind him tomorrow that I am a bit vulnerable up there, he should know, he really did hurt there once before and I had to have a surgical repair. He should remember, he had to wait six weeks for it to heal. He was on about blue balls syndrome which I think is a nonsense, it seems men are very suggestible which is why they think they are dying with a cold or man-flu as they call it. So enforced celibacy is likely to incite some form of hypochondria like blue balls.

I was so glad I was a woman but then again the Home Secretary was considering making certain women-only spaces off-limits to trans women. I took umbrage at that after all I was supposed to be registered as female. I notice that someone had written to the i and stated just that, she had spent forty years living and working as female so what was she supposed to do now? I didn't know but I was horrified that I could be excluded from some places. It made the whole business of changing sex pointless to some extent. I suspected both I and the woman who wrote the letter to the newspaper would just ignore it.

The Tories are becoming like the Republicans and I suspect also targeting minority groups, especially it seems, trans people because they are a very small group of people despite all the headlines, and although the activists would probably make some sort of noise eventually, they won't be able to stop that stupid and cruel woman, we have as Home Secretary, changing the law. Of course, the mess in Scotland didn't help, it reminded them we exist, only for their sport now they can't go chasing foxes. The Tory party really is like the nasty party and is like to be so until their policies destroy too much of both the environment and society. As you may gather, I don't much like them and I would suggest we bury them about ten metres deep, because deep down they are really nice people. I wondered if ten metres was deep enough and then I fell asleep.

Simon wanted to make love again the next morning and was mortified that I was bloodied the night before from his attention, it almost made his morning woodie subside, which at least meant he could empty his bladder without spraying half the bathroom as he normally did. I usually wiped it all up after he went back to work if not before. I had a cloth and a bucket stashed in the bathroom cupboard for that specific task. Men, still without him I suppose I'd have to buy more batteries!

Breakfast was a bit of a downer because Simon had become really quite upset. I wasn't, I'd rinsed it out again and added another dollop of antiseptic cream and although it was still twingeing, it wasn't too bad. We had bought the younger girls an Easter egg or chocolate of some sort, the older ones preferring legal tender, and they grumbled when we issued them to the children.

"But it's Easter, you always give us chocolate at Easter," protested Trish who seemed to think she was entitled to both.

"You had money, you said you preferred it," Simon said rather more forcefully than I expected or she did.

"Yeah, but...", she attempted to reason.

"No buts about it," he snapped interrupting her. She left the table close to tears.

I had small chocolate bars for the older ones too but now was not the time to mention it in front of Simon and the younger ones. The kids left us alone for a while and Simon said quietly, "I can't believe I did it again, hurt you that is."

"I'll live," said trying to make light of it.

"Yeah, I suppose. I'm sorry, Cathy, if I lost you... that would be the end of my life."

"Hey, I'm not going anywhere," I responded as jocularly as I could, "Hey, did you see that exposé in the Guardian about that anti-abortion group, it seems they have links with evangelical churches in the States and were saying all sorts of untruths about abortion. I think they should be prosecuted, the last thing a young woman needs is to be told all that crap when she is trying to decide whether or not she goes for one. This is all Trump's doing ultimately because after he rigged the Supreme Court with evangelicals they seem to have felt the confidence to poison people all over the world. Evangelical Christianity bears as much in relation to what Jesus taught as Easter does."

"Eh, I thought Easter was their big thing," said a surprised Simon.

"Easter outdates Christianity and I'm afraid the resurrection is just recycled Mithrasism, besides Easter is about the fertility of the earth which we are destroying by the minute and many cite the Bible about that, god gave us dominion of the land and its beasts. Yeah, the god that man made in his own image."

"Hush, if the kids hear you it'll be like Trish causing problems all over again." Simon tried to caution me but I had the bit between my teeth.

"How have they got away with it for two thousand years?" I asked him.

"I think it's because most of them feel it gives them a sense of hope."

"Yeah, a false one. No sky fairy is going to rescue them or save the planet, are they?"

"I don't think so but I don't feel a right to tell them so.

"As an educator I do, there are so many lies out there, the Tories and Republicans are all liars, the anti-abortionists and the anti-vaxxers are as well and so much comes from American evangelical churches, how do we stop them, the bastards."

"I don't know, darling, " he said and kissed me. "I love you when you're on your soapbox or off it, you are still the only woman I have ever loved. Sometimes I wish we could use the passion you feel for other things."

"Yeah, well just remember while we're having our passionate moment somebody is still destroying the earth and our passion won't have much significance without it."

"Have you ever thought about registering as a contraceptive, because you just killed any passion in me."

"Oh," I said and went out into the garden where Tom and Danni were planting stuff with help from Sarah.

"Practical biology," she called and I just shivered in the cool breeze wondering what Simon was feeling.