The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike) Part 1208 by Angharad Copyright © 2010 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

“Who was that?” asked Simon as we left the restaurant. I showed him the card. “What did she want?”

“A chat–she said she’d been following my career with interest. So I half expect headlines in New York of English Lord marries sex change scientist, or worse.”

“That would be wrong then wouldn’t it?”

“If you say so,” I shrugged.

“I’m a Scottish nobleman, not English, despite the accent.”

“Ah but lots of Americans think, Britain is part of England, so Scotland and the bit west of Bristol, the woad country, is also part of England.”

“I’m aware there are red-necks up in the Boondocks or whatever they call them, but there are also some very sophisticated and extremely well educated people there, too.”

“I know, I’m just thinking the worst because the sort of reader it appeals to likes to read stories of Princess Di being alive and well and living with Elvis–mind you that applies to people over here too. Your average Daily Express reader likes to read about Princess Di or that little girl who was abducted in Portugal.”

“So, Princess Di abducted little Maddie, would be a real coup? Oh bugger it’s raining.”

“That’s not the worst of it, Si.”

“What isn’t?”

“The rain.”

“It is to me, I’m getting bloody wet.”

“Try–the car isn’t where I parked it.”

“You’re joking,” he practically ran to the car park only to see there was a space where Pepper had been. “You did lock it?”

I nodded.

“D’you know the number?”

I shook my head.

“The plod are going to love us.”

“Problems?” asked Delia Duttine, who with her husband had walked out from the restaurant.

“Looks like our car has been stolen,” stated Simon.

“Can we offer you a lift?” asked the reporter’s husband.

“We wouldn’t like to impose upon you, and I’m sure the restaurant will call a cab for us.” I tried to avoid using their hospitality partly because I didn’t want them to know where we lived.

“Yes, that would be brilliant, if it’s no bother,” said Simon accepting the offer–honestly, a few spots of rain on a Savile Row suit and he panics.

We got into their car, predictably a large BMW, sliding into the back seats. “At least this rain will get rid of the snow.” Said, ‘Call me Arthur,’ Duttine. Simon agreed while I felt Delia watching me through the corner of her sneaky eyes.

They dropped us at the end of our drive and we ran up to the house and let ourselves in through the front door. “I didn’t hear you drive up,” said Stella.

“No, we didn’t, some nice person stole the car outside the restaurant.”

Her response was one of embarrassed disbelief and she laughed which stopped once we’d convinced her it was real. Simon found the documents and called the police to report it.

He came back ten minutes later, “They are absolutely infuriating–when was it taken–I mean, how the bloody hell do I know? I told the tit on the other end of the phone what I did know and that we couldn’t report it earlier because we didn’t know the number. He asked me if I’d been drinking–honestly, as if I would.”

“It’s irrelevant anyway, I was going to drive, it is after all my car.”

I fed the baby after changing into my nightdress–it buttons down the front, so the boob slug can get to her repository. The girls are mostly wearing pyjamas, except Julie, who now has a small bust and likes to flaunt it with low cut nightdresses. I don’t like jammies, they feel funny on my legs now, sort of restrictive. I know I wore them for years, complete with tie cord on the trousers, but I’ve worn nighties ever since I left home to go to university, although I had to be careful they weren’t spotted by my mother when I came home in the holidays. In those days I only had one anyway, and I kept it in my rucksack–my father used to call it my handbag, which it was in more ways than he knew. I kept my bra and pants in there with my couple of things of makeup.

It’s funny that many crossdressers use lipstick whatever age they are, even though lots of younger women don’t. But then, it’s also said they tend to dress more like their mothers than contemporaries because that’s who they base their models on. I wonder if that applies to ones with sisters?

I was sick of having to hide stuff at home and at uni, in my room in case someone ever came back with me. On the two occasions I had a girl in my room, they were envious of my teddy, which I’d had since I was months old and which my father did throw out when I was twenty after one of our regular arguments.

Mum bought me another one, because she considered he didn’t have the right to dispose of someone else’s property. I agreed with her on those grounds and also because I thought he was a real prick.

These things went through my mind as I fed the baby. I was glad I’d forgiven Dad for most of the things he did to me, partly because I can see what he was trying to achieve, although his strategy was completely wrong. He was trying to toughen me up–he did, it made me more resistant to his efforts and more determined that I should transition one day. Now if he’d been a bit more subtle and built up a good relationship with me, he could possibly have tried moral blackmail which might have succeeded in keeping it at bay for a bit longer–because I wouldn’t have wanted to let him down. Thanks to his brutality, I didn’t really give a toss either way and for a long time I didn’t have much value for him either. He did fund me through university, I didn’t get much of a grant because he had quite a good job–he was a partner in the firm, and I’m grateful for that, but the law required him to do so and he liked being able to say, he’d funded me. He did use it as attempts to blackmail me but I was too resistant by then.

Like I said, I’ve forgiven him most of his abuses–the beatings, the destruction of my property, the innuendo and verbal abuse–because I really don’t think he knew any better. Added to his evangelical church, it was almost inevitable we’d clash and he’d drive me away or I’d leave. In the end I left.

What is unanswered is whether he’d have mellowed to accepting me as his daughter if Mum hadn’t died and left him with me as his only close family–he hated his sister, who was like Harry Potter’s aunt in Rowling’s series of books. Would he have mellowed and met my ultimatums to accept me or lose me? Or did that happen only because he had the stroke and for the first time in his life actually needed me? We’ll never know.

Simon was asleep when I got to bed–I wasn’t sorry, my birthday had been a trifle too eventful for my liking and I was content to close my eyes and hope for a better day tomorrow.