Easy As Falling Off To Sleep.
by:West Dorset District Council
part:the bit that comes after the one before.

I was so tired when I got back to the car, I had to sit for a few minutes in order to get my head back to the task in hand. I drove home very carefully and parked up. I weed and went straight to bed, barely managing to get my clothes off first. I slept like a log not even going to the bathroom in the night.

I awoke with the alarm causing the radio to blare. It was 'Classic Fm'with Vivaldi and his 'Four Seasons'. Not one of my favourite groups. It eventually managed to drive the sleep out of me and I dozily made my way downstairs and made some tea. It refreshed me and once I'd breakfasted and showered, I felt pretty good. My acceptance by my father, had lifted a huge weight off me, just as I realised my acceptance of myself with the help of Marguerite, had done similarly, earlier. The sun was shining and the sky was blue, however, for me I felt like a blind woman who was only now able to see colours, cured by some miracle of science. How could she relate to them if she had never seen them before?

How would I relate to this climate of acceptance, of me just for being me. No more worries with the people who mattered to me, it's more than I could have hoped for so maybe my prayer had been answered by Marguerite's God, not the one I'd been brought up with - the jealous God of the Old Testament.

Maybe, the law of averages would and I have just equalled things out a bit. I must have been due some good luck by now. Though, I suppose that many would think I actually had had my share of it and just couldn't see it.

My body wasn't much masculinised if at all, and the hormones I took seemed to change things quickly and effectively. My hips are an inch or two bigger than they were and my waist is a similar amount smaller. My breast growth is good, with nice nipples and areolar formation.

I stood in front of the mirror applying some makeup.My face was heart shaped and there was no sign of facial hair except a peach fuzz, nor of a brow ridge. Puberty had passed me by and I was so lucky. I rubbed moisturiser on my neck, there was no thyroid cartilage or Adam's apple of any sort. Given my situation, I was very lucky, I really did look like a woman, but so I should, I was a woman. I winked at the face in the mirror and she winked back - she wasn't my type.

My GP, Dr Smith, had done some tests when I first confided in him. I was androgen insensitive to a large extent and once the hormones predominating in my body were changed to oestrogens, things changed rapidly. My oestrogen receptors worked even if the testosterone ones didn't. It also meant I didn't need an androgen blocker, so my liver might last a bit longer than otherwise.

Why couldn't I have accepted all this before others pointed it out to me? Probably because I could only see the fear that others would spot some aberration and see me for what I was, or thought I was. They saw me for what I really was, a woman.

I glanced at my watch, it was nine and I needed to sort something out.

A single phone call did it, and I started to pack up my stuff for the weekend. Finally, I made up sandwiches and soup for my dad. Then I moved my car and started up the Mondeo. It had been in the garage for a few weeks but it started first time. I pulled it out on to the drive and parked my own car in the garage. I also spotted the bike rack my dad had bought years ago. I might play with that another day, although I had my own anyway.

I dropped off the stuff at the hospital and leaving my father was a real trauma. Both of us were in tears, but I was able to give him a laugh before I went. The postman had brought my new driving licence, the ones with the holder's photo. I thought it was awful, he thought it was nice.

"I've got your car, and I think the run will do it good."

He nodded but looked a bit worried.

"It's okay, I'll drive carefully and it is all insured." He accepted what I had said more with resignation than enthusiasm. I wasn't that happy either, his car was too big. Or it was for me, I felt like I was driving a lorry.

As I drove back to Portsmouth, I was glad he'd gone along with my scheme, although he was innocent of it. I had a different car, I wondered who now would recognise me from it. Very few for some time. just that I could pass anonymously for a while made me feel safer. I wish I knew who these creeps were and I could tell the police.

On the motorway, the Mondeo was even quicker than my little Mercedes, it absolutely ate the miles and I had to be careful of my speed several times, which is more deceptive in a larger car. I was listening to Abba when some idiot in a Porsche went past at about a hundred and something miles an hour. My own speed had crept up to nearly ninety and I felt myself blush as I realised it. The Porsche however, seemed to have no such inhibitions, it was one of those with the aerofoil sticking out the back. He left me for dead, so trying to calculate how fast he was going was impossible.

Half an hour later, he was on the hard shoulder with a big police BMW, all lights flashing parked right behind him. I tried not to feel a sense of schadenfreude, which if my limited German remembered, was a feminine noun meaning a malicious delight. I wondered if German men didn't experience it? Was being catty a female thing? Not in my experience as some of its best exponents were men.

The traffic slowed and came to a standstill. I didn't have satnav in the Mondeo, so I couldn't do all sorts of detours to avoid it. I called Stella on my handsfree and told her I was stuck in traffic. She philosophised and told me not to forget she was going to do my hair. I had forgotten.

It was an hour and a half later that I got to the cottage. Stella came out to greet me and remarked," Gosh, your car has grown up. I'll have a go later, see how it compares to the Saab."

"Sorry Stella, it's my dad's car and he made me promise only I would drive it."

"Bah! He won't know."

"I will."

"Spoilsport! How is the old sourpuss anyway?"

"I took him down the pub last night, he got pissed on a pint and half of beer."

"Cheap date," she said laughing.

"Where's Simon?" I asked as we went into the house.

"Up in his bedroom refusing to get up until you gave him a blanket bath."

"What? I have no idea how to do that."

"Now is your chance to find out, Nurse Cathy, this is your life. Please follow me to a studio where all your friends have been excluded and only your enemies admitted. It makes for better television."

"Not in my case, I don't know enough people to have friends let alone enemies."

"What about the fan mail?"

"What? Oh, those yeah, well except those. Oh, I also found a priest who may marry me one day."

"Thass no good, I want you to marry Simon not some hard up cleric."

"To marry me to Simon or whoever takes my fancy then."

"What? called a male voice from the bedroom above, "I've got first refusal."

"Too late, she's wearing an engagement ring."

"What? She can't be. I shall just lie here and pine away."

"It's my mother's."

"I thought it was, I'm just trying to wind him up, lazy bugger!"

"Aw c'mon, Stella, he is in quite a lot of pain."

"So much that he managed to move the portable telly from my room to his. Unless he teleported it."

"Well he would wouldn't he, telly-port? Gedditt?" I laughed and so did she hitting me on the shoulder.

"You brute, that hurt." I complained.

"Not half a smuch as your pun."

"I'm not well," the groans were emanating from Simon's room.

"Don't worry, Nurse Cathy is about to do her first enema," said Stella sailing through the door.

"No she fucking isn't," was the reply.