Easy As Falling Off A Bike.
by Angharad.
part 22.

I sat up in bed and tried to wake myself up. If Simon was leaving in forty minutes and I wanted to grab a lift I needed to hurry things up a bit. I stopped and thought, 'whose car is he going to use?' maybe he would borrow Stella's or she'd run him to work or to the pub or whatever? Maybe I was crazy and should lie low until after he'd gone? Then I remembered my bike, shit! I needed to stay with my baby until it was somewhere safe. Whatever the siblings were going to do, I needed to know and get to my bike.

I nipped across to the bathroom and washed quickly, my hair was a mess compared to last night, but it would do - I still looked vaguely female.

As I shot back to my bedroom, wondering how I could impose on Stella for a clean pair of pants, I found some on the bed. I was really beginning to like my mentor, or her foresight. I gave the bra a quick sniff, I could wear that again.

I borrowed a quick squirt of the deodorant spray that had miraculously appeared on the washbasin while I was in the bathroom, alongside a hair brush I hadn't seen before. "Bless you Stella," I muttered as I brushed my hair into a tidier mess. I had a lot to learn about being a girl.

I jumped at the door being knocked, standing there in my bra and pants, then I heard Stella's voice calling me from the other side of it. I gingerly opened the door and she handed me a fresh tee shirt and some jeans. "I think they'll fit, you'll have to wear the boots again. I thanked her profusely and withdrew to dress.

The jeans were stretch ones and fitted well enough for me feel comfortable, they were however tighter than any I'd previously worn and sitting down was going to be a learning experience especially with a certain redundant appendage tucked back somewhere near the main seam. I wondered if I wore them for more than a few days if I would still need surgery. Yes they were that tight. They did however, fit well over the boots and I felt quite reasonable in my appearance.

Grabbing the little bag I been loaned the night before, I carefully went down the stairs. Stella made me do a twirl and nodded her approval, we exchanged smiles.

Simon looked up from behind his paper and nodded 'hello'. He looked me up and down and asked, "Are those the clothes you were cycling in?"

"Good lord no," I laughed back, I just borrowed them from Stella.

He dipped his paper again, "I thought they might prove challenging on a bike," he then folded up his paper adding, "They look better on you than they did on Stella."

"Huh!" was said loudly from behind me, "that's my brother, ever the diplomat! Bastard!"

"Come on you two, Stella I need you to run me to the garage and we need to get Cathy and her bike home. Cathy, get yourself some cereal or toast for breakfast."

At the mention of that magical four letter word, I suddenly began to like Simon much more. Maybe he wasn't such a predatory cad?

"I might be too busy to take you," pouted Stella.

"And I might just be too busy to pay your tax and insurance next time," Simon voiced in irritation.

Stella made a great play of consulting her diary, "Oh what a surprise, it's my day off."

"You told me that last week," riposted Simon.

"Well sometimes they change my shifts," she argued back.

"They haven't for the past two years," Simon called back.

"Bastard! Why has he got such a good memory?" she complained to me.

I shrugged my shoulders and poured myself some cornflakes.

Not many minutes later, in a borrowed denim jacket, I sat in the back of Stella's car as she drove us to Simon's garage. I kept quiet, listening to the conversation between the argumentative pair.

"Why can't I pick up Cathy's bike and run her home?" argued Stella.

"Because I said, I'd do it."

"You're just trying to get her alone so you could ask her out."

"Nonsense, I can ask her anytime I want, can't I Cathy?"

"Erm, what?" I replied intelligently, my attention having been taken by Stella nearly running down a milkman. She was a bit reckless with a car.

"Simon thinks you are waiting for him to ask you out."

"Erm, does he?"

"You lying minx, I didn't say that at all, I said I could ask you out anytime and that I didn't need to get you alone to do so."

I began to feel rather hot again, there was that other four letter word beginning to raise it's ugly head again, and I was anxious. I cringed as Stella just missed a cyclist, maybe it would be safer to let Simon drive me?

"So would you like to go out with me Cathy?" Simon turned and looked directly at me.

"I ah, erm I um." At times my verbal fluency was astonishing.

"There, see she has some sense!" sneered Stella at her brother.

"She didn't say no, did you Cathy?"

"Erm, um..." I stumbled to get my brain and mouth coordinated to do more than eat and drink. Part of me was flattered and part of me was terrified. Yet beneath all of it was this frisson, I actually felt more alive than I had for a million years. Okay, that is a slight exaggeration, but you get my drift. I blushed even more than when I'd got into the wrong bed last night, if that was possible. Part of me thought Simon was at times quite the gentleman, it was the other times that worried me.

"Well?" asked Stella loudly above the screech of tyres as she swerved to avoid a group of schoolkids on a zebra crossing, "stupid place to put a crossing outside a school!" she said equally loudly.

"I erm, don't know..." I mumbled, "I erm..haven't got anything to wear." I said feeling in my present guise I could legitimately use that old standby.

"Wear what you did last night," Simon offered casually.

"They were borrowed from Stella," I said defensively.

"They're in the boot of the car, you can keep them." Stella said making me wonder whose side she was on.

"There we are that's settled, tomorrow night, I'll pick you up." Simon beamed at me, then snapped at Stella, "That was the garage back there as you know damn well."

"Oh sorry, it was such a rivetting conversation I must have missed it," she said laying the sarcasm on with a shovel. She then did a handbrake turn which frightened me half to death and after spinning the car around screamed into the garage forecourt. I felt myself go quite pale and my breakfast attempted to escape by the same route it had entered my stomach.

Simon exited the car and went to talk to some bloke in the office. "So you wanna date my big bruvver?"

"I erm don't really know, I hadn't thought about it as being a remote possibility a day ago."

"Nah, I suppose not. He's got his good points, his salary being most of them. So make him take you to a really expensive restaurant or theatre or both."

"That sounds a bit mean and excessive," I whined back.

"Cathy, you're a girl now, exercise all that power you have, give him the run around, they love it. It's man the hunter bit, capturing his female. If this was the Stone-age, he'd be bashing you on the head and dragging you back to his cave."

"Erm, if this was the Stone-age, you wouldn't have knocked me off my bike in the first place," I corrected her anachronistic metaphore.

"Duh!" she squealed and then we both laughed.

"Thanks for the offer of the clothes again," I said smiling at her.

"Oh it's not a loan, you can keep 'em, they did look better on you so do the jeans, so you can have those too. Simon was right, but don't let him know it."

"I don't know how to thank you," I said feeling embarrassed at her generosity once again.

"Make him work for his date," she smiled at me.

"I'm not sure I know what you mean," I blushed back at her

"Oh I think you do," she said as Simon walked back towards us.