Chapter 12

Sunday morning, they were up and ready for church. Willow showed her parents the pathway across the field, and it was a pleasant stroll in the morning sun. At the church, they saw Maisie and Gina arriving, so the girls left the adults to talk and went up to prepare the organ for the morning service. Willow asked if Gina wanted to play the arrival music, and she sat at the keyboard and started doodling Bach and Beethoven piano pieces.

Chapter 10

On Sunday morning, the Rose family were at the church as the bells started their peal. Today, because it wasn’t a special occasion, the Reverend Russell was wearing a grey suit and his clerical collar. He welcomed them when they arrived.

“Good morning, good people. A little bird told me that my organist was tickling the ivories in a den of iniquity last night. One of my wardens rang me from the club to let me hear some of the festivities. It sounded like a good time. Are you ready for today, Willow?”

Chapter 8

Willow told her mother about her day on the way home, then allowed Wendy to tell her how her day at work was. They arrived home before Ashley and started preparing dinner together after they had changed. Willow was finding soothing to be preparing vegetables and learning how to cook, something that most girls go through well before they reach their teens.

There are five completed books of this story, with a total of 114 chapters. I figure that if I post them every few days, it will take the rest of this year to complete. Hoping that you all stay with it.
Marianne

Chapter 6

Chapter 4

Backstage was organised chaos. The theatre had been built with this kind of event in mind, so there were individual rooms for the different acts, with make-up mirrors and sinks. They joined Dianne and Barbara in their room, and the four of them went next door to the singing group. Willow was introduced around, and the leader told her that if she didn’t fit the rest of them to just mime. Zara insisted that Willow was perfect.

Chapter 2

The next morning, his mother was busy writing a list while Bill played the violin in his room. Around mid-morning, her mobile rang, and her husband told her that the two of them had an appointment at the clinic at two that afternoon. She went up to Bill’s room to tell him that she was going to get them sandwiches for lunch as they were going out after that.

They had some time together as she made their lunch and Bill looked at the list that his mother had left on the table.

Chapter 3

Walter drove us back to the agency in the bigger car, with me in the front and the others in the back. Before I got out, he gave me his business card and I told him my mobile number, which he entered into his own phone, ‘so we can coordinate the shoot details’. I stood on the pavement, and we watched him drive away. Janice laughed.

“I wonder if there are more like that at home?”

End of ‘The Girl with a Curl
On the day I left to go home for the holiday, I packed my bag and looked at the one I had done for my wall. It was next to the catalogue picture I had bought, and was a picture of Gloria, Judith, me, Monica, and Sally, as I remembered us on the first day that I had told anyone my secret. We were all in our jogging outfits, in the park, with me in the middle. I had straight hair and no make-up, but I still looked like a tomboy. That day was the first day on the journey that had brought me here. They do say that every journey begins with the first step, and that was the day that I had taken a leap of faith, on the way to becoming a ‘Girl with a Curl’.

Chapter 6

Before I left the doctor, I made an appointment for the following Friday to get my results. I would have to hang around for the opening sale if all the others were anything to go by. I went back to the hotel and had dinner there. I had an early night but didn’t sleep quickly. I kept wondering if I had done the right things today.

Chapter 2

I followed the girls to the café on a shopping mall called Above Bar Street. It wasn’t very far, and had everything you would need, especially banks. There was a branch of the one I used, just five minutes from the office.

We all had a light lunch, with me following the girls to try the salad. It would not have been a good look if I had ordered a burger. I did note the range that they had, for when I was here on my own. There! I was already thinking about being here for real.

This is a little story I wrote, before I started on a two-story set of serials. It introduces the reader to a place that appears in the following posts.
Marianne

The Flip Side

I didn’t get caught up in cross dressing until I was in my late teens. It was a slow, but inexorable process. I suppose it came about from my choice of work. I wasn’t good enough for university, so left school when I was sixteen.

Chapter 7

We were back home, and the roast was cooking, when Geraldine appeared. There were ghostly tears pouring down her cheeks.

Chapter 5

I took my phone off the charger and turned on the laptop. I looked up the Tate Modern and rang the number on the screen. When it was answered, I told them my name and that I had found some interesting drawings in the attic of the house I was living in and asked to speak to someone about authenticating them. When the girl asked me who the artist was, I told her that they were abstracts and some of a really beautiful woman, and that they all had PP in the corner. I added that there were notes in Spanish which I couldn’t read.

Chapter 3

The first time I went outside, she couldn’t get past the door. I went up to her room and put a couple of her rings in my pocket and tried again. This time, she was able to leave the house. I rode to the Duke, with her sitting in the sidecar. When we arrived, she disappeared after telling me that it would be best that I didn’t see her. It might be odd if I kept looking at an empty space.

In the bar, I saw the barmaid and she saw me.

“Hello, again. You are starting to be a regular.”

Chapter 1

When I was young, I was the butt of jokes in the family. My parents often threw up their hands and declared. “Marcie, you really have no idea!” My name is Marcello Gambino, son of Italian immigrants who had come to England to get away from the stifling weight of family history in the old country.

Chapter 4

Monday morning, I packed a bag and took the train to Nottingham. I found ‘The Kings’ and knocked on the door. Jake, himself, opened it and beckoned me in. It had the usual set-up with cameras and screens, but nothing was turned on at the moment, so there was no record of me arriving.

Chapter 2

“Why so long?” I asked.

“Look,” she said. “We can make you fool a guy inside a couple of days, but you will have to be able to fool girls in the club that you are one of them and they can spot a fake a mile away. Before we take you down you will be tested out here to see if you can pass the girl test.”

When I got to my underpants, I hesitated, and Jane laughed.

“Carry on, we’re all guys here at the moment.”

Chapter 3

After we had finished the phone call, we opened a new bottle of wine and Molly opened a packet of crackers and cut some cheese from a wheel in her pantry. We were more settled with each other than we had been in any time in our lives. I knew that I had been fundamentally different from our brother but had never considered that it would need two weeks of wearing skirts for me to understand why.