"From tears? I don't think so. But if I was in your position, I think it might be nice if someone simply held me for a moment, just so my body knew I wasn't entirely alone." He allowed me to hug him and he sobbed in my arms, I wanted to cry too.

Easy As Falling Off A Kite.
by: Angharad
part 163

Simon and Stella teased me rotten when I got home, I'd asked her to pick me up. It got so bad that I threatened not to cook dinner if they didn't behave, which just meant that everytime I went into the sitting room from the kitchen, they both sniggered. I was in half a mind to poison both of them.

I did a stroganoff, and while it and the vegetables cooked, I sorted some more emails. I had another one from the bloke in Bristol, 'Looking forward to seeing me again.' I wondered if he was as interested in dormice as he was in me? If so did he know something from my past, well I spent quite a lot of time there, and until very recently, it was all as a boy.

If he did his research, or somebody at the BBC did, they may find that my degree at Sussex, was awarded to Charles not Cathy Watts. I had contacted them, and they had agreed to alter it, but I knew they'd have more important things to do, and it would take time.

We ate and drank a bottle or two of red wine, it always leaves me feeling heavy, so I only had two glasses, the rest being diluted with lemonade. Then it was straight lemonade on the rocks! I'm such a hardened drinker, I thought a screwdriver was something for putting screws in things and Tequila sunrise, is something that happens in Mexico every morning.

Simon was merry and fell asleep on the couch, Stella helped me, or rather she tried to help me clear up, but she actually got in the way more than assisted. I sent her off with a flea in ear, assuming she could locate her ear, which was doubtful as she'd missed her mouth twice and had gravy and red wine on one of her favourite tops.

She finished her meal sat in her bra, the top was in the wash - we needed to do one anyway, and Simon kept sniggering at her. I sat in the kitchen, the sound of the dish washer and the washing machine was preferable to Simon's snoring, which sounded like wild boar on heat - probably regulo five!

Stella went to bed before the two machines finished, I left the dishes but took the laundry out and folded or rolled it. I was too tired to put it in the tumble drier tonight.

I think Simon spent most of the night on the sofa, from the noises he was making it sure wasn't the tonic sofa! I went to bed and read for a bit, I was asleep by eleven. I was awake early too.

I had woken to hear Simon staggering up the stairs sometime in the middle of the night. I simply turned over and zonked again, until I had the dream.

I was back in school and handling a pet rat I had in those days, when it hopped down my jumper. It was in front of an audience of the entire fourth form, about a hundred and twenty kids.

I appeared to be doing a talk on rats, or keeping them, mine was a lovely champagne colour called, Goldie. She ran up my arm when someone frightened her and hopped down my jumper. I should have been wearing a shirt and tie under my sweater and a blazer on top of that. Instead I was wearing an open necked dress under a cardigan, the girls' summer uniform.

Suddenly, someone noticed, "Here sir, Watts is wearing a dress and his rat's gone down his bra!" This was followed by noisy laughter and the rat bit me on the breast. Yes I had breasts, and it hurt, then I saw the blood spreading over my dress and screamed in horror.

I woke up sitting bolt upright in my bed with sweat pouring off me, and it took a few moment for me to orient myself. Had I screamed? I couldn't hear any movement outside my door, so the inebriate siblings were still asleep. I went for a pee and eventually fell asleep again, hoping it was just my own cooking that was the problem.

Stella called me, just before she left, Simon had gone already How could they manage it? They'd drunk enough to float a battleship and were fully functioning, I was still sleepy and had drunk very little, it seemed ironic.

I showered and dressed, and after a piece of toast and a cuppa went to work. Agnew was already in. I checked my watch, I wasn't late, I began to wonder if the clocks had changed last night, but knew they hadn't and mine was showing the same time as everyone else.

I spent half an hour with the prof, he assigned me a group of first year students to tutor in a group! Oh boy anarchy will reign, maybe I could go sick, yellow fever! Yeah that's it I'm too yellow to face a group of first years. I had to see them this morning, oh shit!

"You are a household name Lady Catherine," said Pippa when she brought in a coffee for his nibbs and a tea for me.

"How do you figure that?"

"Seen this?" She handed me a copy of 'The Sun' with a caption of, 'Now you see me - now you don't.' There were three photos, one of me holding Spike, a second of Spike running up my arm, and the third of the tail and hind legs disappearing down my blouse. In the Mail, it was, 'Ready, steady, gone!'The Guardian, described it as the,'Disappearing Dormouse trick,' 'Don't try this at home kids, they are a protected species and need a special licence to handle them, or in the case of Dr Watts, wear them!' The Daily Express had a further picture of Dan the technician helping me to remove Spike, captioned, 'gotcha.'

The same pictures were in most of the London papers, the tabloids all called me Lady Catherine, the Guardian called me Dr Catherine Watts, and the Times called me Lady Catherine Watts. The Independent, didn't mention the story at all.

We had calls about cruelty to hamsters, hamsters I ask you! The RSPCA were visiting my unit this afternoon - who invited them? Somebody wanted to know if the dormouse was real, and another wanted to hire me to perform for their kids party. The last one had the professor and Pippa almost on their knees laughing. I enjoy a joke but this was fast becoming unfunny.

I finished my tea and the mince pie, Pippa had brought from home. Maybe I'd make some of those for Dad, when I went home on thursday evening.

I had arranged with Agnew to finish on lunch time on Thursday, I usually take stuff with me anyway, and as I was meeting this film maker bloke, he thought I deserved the time off, he also asked me do an extra tutorial with a young man from the first year that afternoon. "He was doing very well, but we think he has some issues he's not telling us about. He was seeing Dr Perris as his tutor, but I wondered if your lighter touch might get answers quicker."

Dr Perris was a cold fish, which was his specialty, sea fish. He'd worked at Southampton for some time helping with their oil spills team, studying the effects upon fish stocks and so on. He'd managed to transfer a grant from the government to continue his study on breeding stocks of fish and environmental change, from Southampton to Portsmouth. As there was money on offer, Andrews grabbed him with both hands. He could be a bit gruff by all accounts, and maybe frightening for younger students, especially girls.

I went off to do my group tutorial, there were six of the monsters waiting for me, two boys and four girls. I was in jeans and trainers with a polo-neck jumper and cardigan.

"Hi I'm Cathy Watts and I'm going to be doing this group for the foreseeable future." That was a lie, because I wouldn't be with them after Christmas, but they didn't need to know that.

They introduced themselves, Tim, Ivan, Siobhan, Louise, Sharon and Lesley. They seemed a nice enough bunch, although we had to get the disappearing dormouse joke out of the way.

All of them were having a slight problem with course work, in particular practicals. We spent an hour running over dissection of the rat and it's anatomy. If only they knew how squeamish I was? I hated chopping up things that resembled animals, once they'd been made small enough to go under a microscope, I could play all day.

It turned out two of the girls had similar problems, the boys were either thick or lazy, probably both, and the other two girls didn't like their lecturer. Takes all sorts I suppose.

I ate a sandwich while doing some more emails, another of Pippa's lists which Agnew had delegated to me. Thank God we weren't doing an entomological survey, with my luck I'd get to supervise beetles, of which there are more species than any other group.

I was still busy at the 'puter when there was a knock at the door. For some reason I didn't remember my afternoon tutorial, I was so involved in sending snotty replies to stupid professors in different universities, of which Oxbridge seemed to have their share.

"What now Pippa?" I growled and turned around to see a trembling student.

"Lady Catherine?"

"Dat's me, who are you?"

"Steven Naylor, I was told to come and see you."

I looked blankly at him, "Why?" Then my brain cell fired, "Tutorial?"

"Yes ma'am."

"My students call me Cathy, are you a Steve, or Steven or Stevie?"

"I like Stevie," said this very quiet almost mouselike voice.

"Shut the door and pull up a seat."

He walked over to me and gave me the limpest handshake I'd ever had. It made mine seem butch.

"Tea?" I asked and made us each a cup. "Okay, I hear you're having problems with keeping your work up to scratch?"

"Yeah, it's nothing, it'll pass."

"But you won't according to the marks I was shown."

He went pale and looked at the floor. I gave him a few moments. "I'll be okay, I just got behind a bit."

"Why was that?" I was trying to give him a chance to open up.

"It's personal."

"Okay."

"Is that all you're going to say, okay?"

"Yeah, if it's personal, it's personal. I can get the thumbscrews and rubber truncheon if you like."

"I'd prefer you didn't." He blushed.

"So would I. They made me clean the blood up last time."

"Ugh," he answered. We paused for a few minutes and I decided to test some hunches.

"So how long have you known?" I asked him.

"Known what?" he said.

"About yourself?"

"Jesus, is it that obvious?"

"What's his name?"

"Fuck! How do you know?"

"Have you had blood tests done?"

"I'm scared." I watched tears roll down his face.

"So would I be."

"They say you used to be a boy, is it true?"

"What do you think?"

"I don't know, I can recognise another gay from across the street, but you seem to be giving out straight girl vibes. You're also too pretty to have been a boy."

"Nah, that's just the makeup."

"You're not wearing any, are you?"

Oh shit, I'd forgotten to put any on I was in such a rush. "So are you going to tell me about it?"

It turns out that Stevie is gay as I suspected and has had a fling with a sailor, who has now gone back to his ship and someone told Stevie, the guy has HIV. How did I know, I didn't, it was a guess.

"How did you know?"

"Female intuition, I don't know, it struck me as a possibility and I tested it."

"They say women are good at picking up on gay men."

"I suppose you're quieter than most young men of your age group. Also you didn't make any comments about me or my juggling trick with a dormouse, which the papers liked. It was at a press conference."

"I didn't see it."

"So are you feeling ill?"

"Not really just shit scared."

"They have counsellors at these clinics."

"Yeah, I know but how can they prepare you to die. I'm too young, I'm only eighteen." He sobbed and I moved to hold him.

"Careful, you don't want to catch anything," he snapped pulling away.

"From tears? I don't think so. But if I was in your position, I think it might be nice if someone simply held me for a moment, just so my body knew I wasn't entirely alone." He allowed me to hug him and he sobbed in my arms, I wanted to cry too.

I held him for a few minutes before it suddenly occurred to me that Stella may be able to help him. "I have someone who works at the GU unit. Like me to give them a call?"

"I dunno, once they test me, if it's positive, my life is over."

"No it isn't, with the drugs they have now, you'll be able to live a normal life for years."

"I won't be able to have relationships, huh! Relationships, first one I have and it fucks me up big time." He sounded angry now.

"Until you have the tests, you won't know. So you're running around in circles. If you have the test, it might be negative and you can just get on with life as before." I felt like saying, but use protection.

"Would you like me to come with you?" I offered.

"I dunno, dunno if I'm gonna go yet."

"If you wait until you get ill, it's probably going to make things harder, surely the thing to do is to deal with it as soon as possible, and that's assuming you are positive. It might just be malicious gossip." I almost said, you know what gays are like for that. Thank God I didn't.

"Would you come with me, to the clinic I mean?" he asked.

"I said I would, so yes I will."

I made the appointment there and then, for tomorrow afternoon - my early finish! Oh bugger, but I suspected Stevie's need was greater than mine. And I thought I had problems.

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