CHAPTER 14
I awoke lost, something tangling my legs, and started to wriggle a bit before I remembered.

No dreams, no visitors, just Ginny still snoring beside me as she lay in on her day off. I slipped out and a few minutes later prodded her awake to the cup of tea I set beside the bed.

She grunted, trying to sort out her tangles with her fingers while attempting to wake up enough to talk a little less like a zombie.

“You day off, as well, Price? Got girl duty planned for you today. Dinner guests tonight as well, so shopping run. Mmmmmm tea….nightie fit OK?”

I kissed her on the cheek, and she winced. “God’s teeth, Annie, it was bad enough being tickled by that fucking fungus you had, now it’s sandpaper on my face. Got to do something about it, mate!”

I knew exactly what she meant, and why she said it. Permanent removal would be an obvious part of any transition, but there was no way I could move to that. No way I could ‘pass’, as it was described, no way I could ever go that far. Did I want to? My standard fantasy, the one I retreated to when I wanted to drift off, was all wish fulfilment. It went like this:

Something happens, something vague and barely specified. I find the magic lamp, or my body gets colonised by some alien nanomachines, or the tooth fairy appears, or whatever, it doesn’t matter. What is important, though, is the result. I collapse (theatrically, of course) and two weeks later wake up in bed, perfect in every way. My boss is waiting by the bedside, full of noble concern, assuring me that the Force and colleagues will be there to help me through this terrible time.

He arranges for Ruth to come and take me shopping dressed in my old sweats and trainers, and she sets out to help me get basic underwear, slacks, etc, but I end up getting decent clothes, after a proper fitting, decent bras, nice ones, and a dress, fitted bodice, flared skirts; I can see it in my mind’s eye because I have seen it so often in life.

And Ruth and I sit and have coffee and cake, me in my new dress and some low heels, and she asks me why I have gone so girly, and I say well, Kirsty, I always have been a girl….and there are other episodes, where I turn up under Waterloo Bridge for the CM ride, and greet all of my friends, wearing a girly smock top over leggings, and none of them know me, but I smile and promise all will be revealed later, and magically none of them recognise the bike they always see me on. Magically, that’s the word.

Utter drivel, of course, but that’s what wish fulfilment is. I never got the story much further as I dozed, but it wasn’t meant that way. Just a pleasant, happy thing to try and send me to sleep without other visitors, a dream that could never be. Now Ginny was touching on reality. That was a different game altogether. There was no way I could play that role credibly. Sally had been spot on with her guess about Richards, I had followed her lead with my facial hair. It made the point; I wouldn’t just look stupid in a dress, I would look fucking ridiculous. I looked stupid in the nightie, of course, but that didn’t bother me. I was with family, and that made the difference.

Ginny woke up properly, and chivvied me along as she allowed me the treat of a bacon sandwich for breakfast. Grilled, of course, and neither rinds nor butter, and in a wholemeal pitta, but it was sort of a bacon sarnie and it tasted like manna. Onto the bikes and into Crawley. Under her instructions, I was on the tourer, with empty panniers front and rear, while as usual she was on Ladyboy, so half of my pannier space seemed to be given over to locks of various types. We secured everything outside the County Mall and clopped in.

“OK, Price, we have two things to do here. One is to get in supplies for tonight, so I can do justice to our guests, and the second is pure girliness. It is a well-worn cliché, but we are here to window shop. There is logic in it, though. I want to give you a chance to show me your style, your taste, and if I am with you it looks a bit more straight couple shit. That OK with you?”

She dropped her voice. “And if I keep calling you Price, I won’t fuck up, so take it as it is meant, mate”

There are a lot of clothes shops in and around the County Mall, ranging from teenage girl trapping kit to more---comfortably fitting items for ladies who lunch, dine and generally ingest calories as if the seven lean years are starting next week. Like I had been, in other words. My friend led me from shop to shop, window to window. Yes, no, maybe, bloody hell never, how much?

Ginny was thoughtful, clearly making little mental notes as we progressed. We sat on the mezzanine having coffee, and she prodded me a little.

“You are definitely into the feminine stuff, Price, not the tarty, but you do seem to favour dresses just a tad”

“They are so immediately female, Ginny. No argument about what they say, no ambiguity. They are what I dream of…no, I better put that right. It makes me sound like some bloody fetishist.”

I was a little out of breath at that. I mean, I wasn’t just telling her my deepest, darkest and most dreadful shame, I was opening the curtains and letting the light onto it. This was new ground for me indeed. I paused for a while, trying to frame my words so as to make as much sense as possible without getting lost in fear of what I was admitting.

“Ginny, see, a dress of the sort I like is made for a woman. It fits her closely, bust to hip. What it shows is all female, it has to be, or the dress won’t fit. That’s why I like them, because if I could wear one it would be because I was the right shape, and I never will be. Look…there were those two dresses in Ashley, aye? One of them was all floaty softness, and the other was that buttoned one that was all fitted bodice and half sleeves. Quite a low neck as well. Now, a man could wear the first, and it would look OK, but the second is for a woman. That is why I love that sort of thing, it’s an ‘if only’ “

“So you would wear the other one?”

“Like hell, Gilbey, you wouldn’t get me near it. I would look absolutely stupid, a real pig in knickers, aye? I have enough problems without adding an extra one”

“Price….”

Ginny softened her voice. “You would though, if you could, wouldn’t you?”

“Oh, Ginny, if you only knew…!"

She whispered to me. “I know, Annie, I know very well”

She gave me a look then, and if I was ever telepathic it was just then, just for an instant, when her mind shouted to my own, “not now”. We sat for a while in silence, until she began to giggle.

“Who’d have guessed it, Price, fucking slingbacks. Never in a million years would I have put you down for slingbacks. You, Price, are a tart!”

“And what would you wear, Virginia dearest?”

“To tempt my beloved? Why what else but a light coating of baby oil and a couple of roses! Seriously, I spend so much time either in cycle shoes or trainers I haven’t bothered for years, and as I’m a long string of piss heels are a bit excessive.”

I started to laugh, and Ginny looked puzzled for a while.

“What is so fucking funny, Price?”

I dropped my voice as low as I could. “I know, really know, what I am, but I am no longer sure about you. No interest in shoes–sure YOU are female?”

Coffee looks particularly revolting when it comes out of nostrils.

We carried on round to Sainsbury’s, where my panniers were filled with a herbivore’s delight, which included several Savoy cabbages. I reminded Ginny about the no farting agreement, and she just told me to watch and learn, grasshopper. Back at the flat she astonished me by using leaves of the cabbage to line a dish, and what came out later can only be described as a green pie, filled with mixed stewed vegetables–butternut squash, onions, carrots, all sorts of stuff, bound together by sticky rice and wrapped in the cabbage. Quite a production.

“You can have alcohol tonight, Price. You won’t have more than three glasses, though. Deal?”

I thought about that, and realised something important. I wasn’t missing the alcohol, I was no longer needing it to sleep. Sleeping next to Ginny left me vulnerable to prods and hugs when my terrors came, and that meant they rarely got a head of steam up. Before being given her company I had had a simple choice, either to get shitfaced and comatose or to stay sober and allow the demons a playground. I remembered my worry about whether my body chemistry had yet been completely screwed by the drink, and it seemed not. One small victory.

I should really have guessed who we were having for dinner, as it was a trio of Kate, Sally and Stewie. Sally took one look at my chin, said “Ah” and nodded to Ginny. Kate smiled at her reaction, and Stewie….

Stewie. Stewie just stepped forward to me. “Good to see you again, Annie”

Kissed me on the cheek and walked in with his wife.