Something to Declare 1

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 A Fiddle]

Something
to
Declare


by Cyclist

 Violin Bow]

Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1
[Book now on Kindle]

It’s a ghost day. The time spent in bed half dozing has made little impact on the deep pit of tiredness that would get worse as the first night shift bit, but there was no choice. I get up, shock myself with a shower, and fumble something to eat.

Baked fish, some new potatoes, steamed foliage…..yawning already. Four nights to work, and my tits hurt. All my life I have slept on my front, and it’s only when I finally start becoming myself that it causes problems. Finagle lives, and is keeping a very personal eye on my well-being.

I have only a fortnight to work before the Big Weekend, but the previous week(ish) has been enough. A string of seven days on the trot had been preceded by two “rest days” that had been swallowed by court duties, resulting in nine days’ work without a break. Nine days of arseholes from both public and colleagues….meh.

One day I will have to fix the shower. I set the screens, walk back to the bedroom, turn it on, walk back to the bathroom, shower, etc., and back to the bedroom to turn it off, and I am doing my little bit of feminine faff by using two towels, one above my breasts and one around my hair. Observation, a wonderful thing, and the damp hair is held without spraying the walls as I walk back to the bedroom. Towel dry, hang them both on the radiators, and check my legs for foreigners. Nothing new there, not since the last waxing, anyway.

Then comes the ritual wrapping of the elastic bandage around the assets that, let’s face it, wouldn’t be noticeable if the uniform wasn’t so utterly unfit for purpose. Contract signed, first shirts delivered, company goes bust. Deep joy. If I wore any form of bra, even a T-shirt sports bra, it would show, so I wrap the elastic, compress my bosom, and then slip a vest over the lot, just in case.

I’m digressing…..those assets may be small, but ye gods they make the point. Points. I’m 34. For 34 years I have pretended to be someone I am not, and at some point I intend to be me. But not just yet. Not just now.

Into my commuting kit, the lycra not flattering me, bum too small and chest too flat, and I set the lights a-flashing and dice with the Friday night drunks to the airport. Lock the bike in its little space, change into the Tool of the Establishment uniform and head up into the terminal. This is my worrying time, that I will get picked for a random rub-down and some security drone will ask why I have my chest strapped. This is one of the times I want to cry. There are only so many times I can claim a rugby injury, and some day my luck will simply drain away.

Today is one of the good times, I escape with minimal attention, and head round to my station. I’m a Customs Officer, working to keep all sorts of nasties out of the country, from heroin to counterfeits, but I have no powers over bad dress, not even in the Season of the Flying Vermin, when the skiers flow through in a whining, whinging torrent. No, this is Summer, and the season of the muffin top, the bad tattoo and the stupid woolly hat. Listen, sonny, it’s in the nineties, you are wearing a woolly hat…..course it makes you look kewl.

Biting the inside of my cheek, I realise how much angst I throw out on strangers. I don’t know whether it is the years of deceit I have had to practice, or more simply if I have a low tolerance of people with a hazy grasp of reality when it comes to their appearance, but I find I am increasingly acerbic towards the externally-challenged. Of course, it doesn’t help that I am so worried about the weekend coming, the first weekend I plan to spend as myself. Will I be read? Of course I will. Will I care? Not unless someone takes me to task…the only place I will have issues is at the ceilidh. And that, of course, is utter bollocks. How could I not care? The options…of spending a whole weekend crying in my tent, or of cutting and running, or of finding the courage to dive in headfirst and try to swim with the sharks I am dreading.

Damn, Dave has been talking to me for some time. Get some control …we have a target at eleven off the Caracas, and I have been handed the back-up position. We head on down to passport control as soon as it chocks, and he stands out in the queue like a goat in a wolf pack. Up to the Channels, Dave takes him, the false bottom is found, and he runs.

I take him off at the knees, Sue and Dave right behind , but he still struggles. His elbow smacks me in the ear, but I punch him on the shoulder and his arm goes limp. I have the lock on, Dave has his legs, and Sue cuffs him as I present his wrist for the other bracelet. Dave says the words, and we get him to his feet and into the back office. Sue is talking as I hyperventilate.

“Shit, Steve, you are always bloody there, what would we do without you? You OK? He caught you a good one there!”

Yeah, yeah, yeah, the big hard man, the dependable tackle and backstop for the team. If you only knew.

“Aye, Sue, just a bit of a clout. Had worse, Dave will tell you that”

She laughed. “Yeah, mate, and given out one hell of a lot more!”

We booked him in, and went through the rigmarole of property list, photographs and handover of evidence that a job entails and by the time it was all done it was about time to go home. I had resolutions, I had ideals, and yet I still stopped off at the grocers on the way out and bought a litre of wine.

How else can I sleep?

CHAPTER 2
Finally that week’s work was over and I was ready for the festival. I was absolutely screwed; I mean, what does a girl take to a folk music weekend, especially when the girl is officially and mostly physically a bloke? I decided that I would simply take all the usual impedimenta apart from some bras. I don’t mean I wouldn’t take bras, I mean everything would be ‘the usual’ apart from the addition of a brassiere or two. Well, a brassiere, anyway. I only had the one.

I suppose it’s time I said hello properly. My name is Steve. Or Steph. I am male. Or not, depending on what evidence you believe; my birth certificate says “male”, my genitals say the same, but everything inside has always expressed a different opinion. If you don’t like it, go and read something else. This is my story, and I will tell it as it was, and is, rather than how people might wish. I spent all of my earliest life in a silent scream of “It’s not FAIR!”, until I settled into a sort of armed truce, an accommodation with my lack of fit, and slowly, but steadily, started to fall into smaller and smaller pieces. After far too long, I found an NHS shrink that appeared to understand my inner voice, and…

Work is the problem, I don’t have many friends outside, so there isn’t anyone else’s opinion to worry about. Work, though; a climate of machismo and banter, of real men and harder women, and it scared the real me half to death at the thought of how they would react. In the end, I looked elsewhere, and decided the festival was to be my big unveiling, hence the worry about what to take. So…..bra. Tent, bike, sleeping bag, fiddle and bra. And a Welsh rugby shirt, wrth gwrs…

I had real hopes for the weekend. No, not the great romance, not A Bloke; I was so screwed in my head that I had no idea what I was, which way I swang, because my hinges were seized, but I hoped for a chance to be me, to be a girl, to play music in my own little world of creativity, to dance–and yes, to be asked to dance and to dance as a girl. Ye gods, I had dreams, and in reality I knew the best I could expect would be staying in my tent to avoid the laughter that I knew would come my way.

Still I loaded my bike and set off for the station. Alea iacta est.

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Comments

This is good

Like the 'steamed foliage' and "Listen, sonny, it’s in the nineties, you are wearing a woolly hat…..course it makes you look kewl."

Will there be more? I hope so.

Susie

Well, am working on a serial

Well, am working on a serial basis. Writing second bit as we speak (sort of)
Thank you

Thanks Susan!

I thought it was the year not the temperature!

Ok, so I'm stupid.

LoL
Rita

Age is an issue of mind over matter.
If you don't mind, it doesn't matter!
(Mark Twain)

LoL
Rita

The Die is Cast

littlerocksilver's picture

There is no turning back. Every journey begins, etc. I think I like this.

Portia

Portia

Welcome!

A nice, original voice, a different setting, and an interesting protagonist. What's not to like?

Welcome to Big Closet. I hope we see more of your work sometime soon!

___________________
If a picture is worth 1000 words, this is at least part of my story.

Thank you. I have a plot

Thank you. I have a plot squirming in my mind, and hope my prose can live up to it

I'm going to

agree with Susie Heywood. This is really good. I'm sucked in by the mixture of a little bit of angst and really funny wit.

Bailey Summers

Yes me too!

I agree and welcome to BC!

LoL
Rita

Age is an issue of mind over matter.
If you don't mind, it doesn't matter!
(Mark Twain)

LoL
Rita

Very good

My name is Steve. Or Steph. Says so much look forward to the next.

0 out of 5 boxes of tissue and 3 gold starsDesHS.jpg

Goddess Bless you

Love Desiree

Goddess Bless you

Love Desiree

Something to Declare 1

Like the pic of the violin, is your character a violinist?

    Stanman
May Your Light Forever Shine
    Stanman
May Your Light Forever Shine

Might

...be. The tale will tell you!

Finally started!

I've been busy with other stories until now, but as it's a 'light' night on the new story front and this has already reached part 40, I figured I'd better give it a whirl before I get too far behind and have to start an EAFOAB-like reading-fest to catch up!

Good general intro - it'll be interesting to read what happens at the weekend... and after!

 

Bike Resources

There are 10 kinds of people in the world - those who understand binary and those who don't...

As the right side of the brain controls the left side of the body, then only left-handers are in their right mind!

Well, now... this has got me

Well, now... this has got me hooked right from the start. No time to chat, I have some reading to catch up on.

...Lora

Voice

Took me a little while to find my voice here. My first ever extended work of fiction.

Your Little Ploy Worked

joannebarbarella's picture

So I've read it for a second time and enjoyed it for a second time, and I honestly can't remember a difference in the text.

Still I know things niggle at authors and they get all thingy about imagined shortcomings. I do it too,

Joanne