CHAPTER 42
Morning light coming into the tent, filtered by the material, and my left arm still asleep where Eric was lying on it, my nighty twisted yet again and our legs somehow tangled up inside the bag.

I managed to get myself out from under him without waking him, and made use of one of the pee bottles as a matter of some urgency.

There was no way I could go out dressed as I was, so I struggled once more into cycle tights and a fleece shirt, which I promptly removed. Ow. When had that happened? I touched the puffiness on my chest tenderly, but happily, before digging out the softest base layer I could find to slip on under the fleece. Barefoot, I left him burbling away in his sleep and found Steph standing outside the bigger tent with a track pump and some lube.

“Morning Annie! Why the big grin?”

I lifted my upper clothing to show her, and she chuckled and hugged me.

“I remember that day, so well. It was finally something to show me that I might have a life. Took me ages to get out and live it, but still…I think the boys have just lost two cycling partners. We are going shopping! One thought…what with the moobs that you still have, if you were to try, you know, a bra…..just a thought. Tea?”

“Aye, but let me take one to sleepyhead in there before we settle down, aye?”

Kelly was just emerging from her own tent as I took the mug back to ours, and I couldn’t resist giving him a kiss on the cheek to wake him.

“Mmffmm, what was that for?”

“Being you. Tea?”

“Please. Riding out this morning?”

“No, I have another mission. Look…”

I lifted my tops again, and showed him. “See?”

“Oh…the pills and shit are starting to work then?”

He lifted a hand and…oh shit, I grabbed his wrist and pulled it away quickly.

“Sorry, did that hurt?”

“No, not at all, that was the problem. Do things like that and I have no idea what will happen, except it might be upsetting at the moment, so let’s leave it, aye? Steph and I are popping into town to get a couple of things I am going to need. This is where I realise I had a few too many beers last night, or I would have felt this.”

“Yeah, though, perhaps it was all the leaping around that inflamed them?”

“Perhaps, but it does mean I am going to have to start being a lot more careful, aye?”

I left him to his tea, Tabitha there to make sure he didn’t do anything naughty, and joined the girls as the breakfast started to take shape. Geoff was already in full cycling kit, and he gave me a Look that asked why I wasn’t similarly prepared. Steph intercepted it and shot it down.

“We have girly necessities today, love, so we are going shopping. You enjoy your ride, we’ll see you at lunch time”

Eric was soon out, also in his kit, and after a light breakfast of bacon and egg sandwiches, they were off. Steph had clearly filled the others in on my development, and Jan was casting a careful eye over me.

“Yeah, I think we could. The hair’s not as long as we could hope for, but it’s shaggy enough to get away with. The beard’s gone….hmmm, Annie, are you waxing or shaving?”

“Huh?”

“Legs, love”

“Ah, shaving. Arms as well. Chest has been zapped, thankfully not much there. It hurts….”

Jan was nodding. “With the fat you still have, you are about a B-cup, believe it or not! Now, how big are your balls? I know what that answer will be, but you know what I mean”

I knew exactly what she meant. This was a surprise, but could it work?

“How, that’s the way ah should start a day, like, surrounded by bonny lasses!”

Jan smiled. “Morning, Jimmy, Mark, you know where the mugs are! Pot is still warm. Mark, put Kelly down first”

The two youngers were reacquainting themselves, and that appeared to require some close buccal contact, which rather suggested that the previous night’s leave-taking had been quite warm. Jimmy squeezed past me to the rack, and as he poured a couple of mugs of tea he muttered to me in that oddly precise way he seemed to use when trying to make himself understood.

“Mark telt us what y’are. Just a bit of advice, hinny, de not wait ower lang te live thy life, or ye’ll end up looking like me”

I pulled back, so I could see his face clearly, and he just smiled and winked. “Ah’m a musician, pet, a performer, like, and what ah hevvent seen on the rurd, whey, ye bugger”

A grin and a tip of his cap, and he was off with the tea.

Breakfast was as nice as ever, and I drank enough tea to make me dread the trip to town. If what I thought was being planned turned out to be true, then I might have problems.

I got into a pair of mtb shorts on Steph’s advice, and a loose enough top not to chafe went over a soft vest that Jan provided, and then two of us were riding off the site to the shops. As we rode, Steph asked the question I was expecting.

“Will this be your first bra?”

“Er, no, but it will be the first one I have actually needed. Haven’t had one since I was about sixteen”

“Ah.”

What a wealth of comprehension in one syllable. We rolled on to the complicated junction near the station and climbed the little hill to the main shopping area, where there was a Marks and Spencer. We locked up the bikes, rather carefully, and Steph led me into the store. I hovered at the door for what seemed like an eternity, until she all but dragged me in. To my surprise, she took me to the Customer Services desk rather than to the area I had assumed we would hit, and there she asked, as politely as I had ever heard her be, to see the duty manager.

That turned out to be a small woman in a charcoal suit with an odd habit of wrinkling her nose when concentrating. As I stood there, shivering with embarrassment, I caught a small part of their conversation, particularly the initials ‘”HRT”, and the puzzled rabbit became a hawk. In glasses, but still a hawk.

“Right, Ms…?”

“Price. Annie Price”

“Hmm. Do you get many jokes about that?”

“Er…this is going to sound strange, but nobody has yet dared”

“Well, Ms Price, perhaps we could step into my office”

The three of us went in, and the hawk was back. “Mrs Woodruff, as vague as you were about your friend’s medical treatment, I can spot a man a mile off. Or, in this case, a soon-to-be-ex-man, am I correct? Oh, relax, and I am Sandra, by the way. We get the occasional cross-dresser in here, so we have developed a semi-official tolerance policy. As long as they do nothing silly in the fitting rooms, we let them be. You are different though, may-I-call-you-Annie. From what…”

“Steph”

“From what Steph says, you are in need of something more fit for purpose, that, well, fits. What are you intending to buy, apart from underwear?”

Steph said “Well, some slacks, perhaps a simple blouse or two, that’s about it”

I shook my head. “No, no. We need to do this properly. Sandra, you can tell a man a mile off, you say. I am that bad?”

She smiled, and the hawk became a Beatrix Potter mouse. “My dear, I meant only that I can spot a man in a dress a mile off. I can see what you are, but I can also see what you are becoming. The chubbiness helps, of course, but I am guessing that you have been a lot bigger. Your hair–well, it can work, it just needs to be a touch more tousled. The rest of you; hmmmm. A touch of make-up, nothing much---you do have lovely skin for a man–er, I mean, well, it is. You were about to interrupt your friend’s order?”

“Yes. What I need is a couple of items for my chest, obviously. I was thinking of a camisole or two, something like the vest that Jan leant me, perhaps. Bras I am unsure of, but given what I have decided then we shall have to go that way. Put simply, I spotted a very nice sundress on the way in, and if you have one in my size…”

She hawked up again. “You know your size?”

“Sixteen to eighteen at the moment, depending on label. And I need shoes”

Steph started to laugh. “Slingbacks, for walking round a field?”

I grinned at her. “No. Something flatter, perhaps a maryjane type, aye? Something I can dance in”

I saw the realisation light up her face, and cut her off before she could embarrass me further.

“Steph, love, when any shoes you buy can’t be tried on in the shop, slingbacks make sense. They’re adjustable…”

“Ah! I see!”

Sandra busied herself and very efficiently measured me, at a 38B, just about as Jan had guessed, and then there was some trying on, and a coffee in the office with Sandra, who was being absolutely delightful. I gave her the edited version of my life, as Steph squeezed my hand, and then she asked the question.

“So, is there someone else on the horizon? Ah, Annie, you do blush most delightfully. Is this for him?”

I nodded. “I want to dance tonight”

Sandra went back to the mother mouse. “I can spot a man a mile off, but I can spot a woman when she sits with me. He is a lucky man indeed. Does he know?”

I lifted my head. “Oh yes, yes, he knows!”