The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 2369 by Angharad Copyright© 2014 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

“You’re home early, where are the girls?” asked Jacquie.

I looked at the clock it was three, I had half an hour before they emerged from school. I switched the kettle on. “I think I had someone who was a journalist or some other scurrilous occupation try to con me into thinking he was transsexual and to help him.”

“Why?”

“That’s the sixty four dollar question,” I replied making us both some tea. I’d just about have time to drink it and skedaddle off to get the girls.

“Isn’t it a bit old hat now?”

“Tell that to the Daily Wail, they have stories about sex changes or pictures of pretty transsexual women most weeks. A couple of weeks ago they were accusing the Tavistock Clinic of offering sex change drugs to children.”

“What? They weren’t were they?”

“No, a woman replied in the Guardian about having a gender dysphoric child who was on testosterone blockers while she was assessed for possible hormone therapy.”

“Girls,” said Jacquie.

“Yeah, most are boys who want to become girls.”

“No, you were going to collect the girls.”

“Oh poo,” I swallowed down my tea and dashed off to collect the four mouseketeers, remember we now have Danni as well, who presumably would be Dor-tagnian. Thankfully the traffic wasn’t too bad and I got there just in time. I walked back to the car with the four of them and as we got back in the car Trish asked who was taking photos of us.

As I glanced up a car, a black BMW drove off at speed. I had to turn mine around to get out of the parking space so there was no point in me trying to pursue it. None of us saw the number plate, even eagle eye, herself.

“What was that about, Mummy?” asked Danielle.

“I don’t know but I suspect it’s connected to some strange bloke who appeared at my office just on lunch time.” I suddenly thought, he handled a water bottle and we dashed back to the university for me to bag it in case something illegal happened. Of course, the girls wanted to see the dormice so we popped down the labs and they watched through the two way mirror glass, the dormice oblivious of being observed.

I told them briefly about the interview I’d had with the man.

“Was he one of us?” asked Trish.

“He could have been, if not he’d been well briefed.”

“What, he had on two pairs of knickers?” she gasped.

“No, you dipstick, he’d been trained what to say and how to say it.”

“So why was he photographing you?”

“Presumably so he can sell his story to the tabloids if he’s not working for one already.”

“Why?”

“We’re Camerons, and they look for any opportunity to cause embarrassment to Simon, Grampa Henry or the bank. Because I was transsexual I’m a potential target being an item of curiosity to tabloid newspaper readers.”

“Does that mean we are too?” asked Danni.

“You could be though as minors they’d more likely come after me, something like, The banker’s wife who turns boys into girls.”

“But you don’t,” protested Trish, “I was already a girl when I came to stay with you.”

“You didn’t make me a girl, that idiot Pia did.” Danni sounded a little resentful, so was she still regretting staying as one?

“You didn’t make Julie or Sammi one either, they were girls already, weren’t they?” asked Livvie.

“Yes, girls, but remember Billie as well, so that’s five plus me in one household, which is very unusual.”

“It’s a cluster effect due to too many hormones in washing up liquid.” Trish was off on one of her theories.

“I suspect people taking hormones and weeing them out afterwards would have more affect than washing up detergent.” I challenged.

“Whatever, it’s in the water system and making men improvement.”

“I think you mean impotent.”

“Yeah, whatever.”

“What does that mean, Mummy?” asked Meems.

“They can’t get it up no more,” offered Danni.

“Can’t get what up? Asked Meems looking perplexed.

“Their dicks, what else?” said Trish loudly.

There was silence then guffaws from the back of the car. Trying to shut them up only made things worse, so discussions on subjects like Brewer’s droop were held while I tried to concentrate on the driving.

At nine years of age, I’d never heard of half these things, so how does Tish know about them—wiki I suppose. Mind you, I hadn’t heard of half the things they accused my visitor of having, from fallen arches to premature ejaculation. They seemed a little biased seeing as none had met him.

Somehow I managed to get the car home without going the wrong way down a oneway street, or missing the drive—something I managed quite recently and was still living down—I was somewhat distracted at the time.

“Some bloke was taking photos of Mummy,” declared Trish to Jacquie and Stella.

“Who was that?” they asked so I told Stella about the meeting with the effeminate young man in college.

“So how did he get in there let alone find you?”

“We don’t know but suggest he had a friend or bribed someone to smuggle him in.”

“But why?” asked Jacquie, “It don’t make sense.”

“Transgender people are a small minority in the general scheme of things and because we’re so far removed from how other people think about gender and themselves, they find us a curiosity at which they can point a finger and laugh. The other reason is some of us changeover quite young and make reasonable females, some are even beautiful and the tabloids like to include pictures of pretty trannies.”

“Why?” asked Jacquie.

“Presumably for men to drool over or consider they’d like to have sex with them.”

“Uggh,” was her response.

“I couldn’t agree more, but that’s how some of these people’s minds work. Just look at the reaction of Jamaicans in Kingston towards gay or transgender people, they’re happy to pay them for sex but claim to be straight themselves.”

“That’s like, hypocrisy,” said an angry Jacquie.

“Welcome to the real world,” quipped Stella who was equally disgusted but knew such things existed.

I made us some tea while Stella regaled us with a story someone had told her that morning in work. Her informant had been touring down in the South of France in the Oc. They’d seen all these eastern European women sitting by the roadside before they twigged they were all sex workers. Just along the road a way were several mattresses, so they don’t even use cheap hotel rooms.

I expressed my revulsion and wondered what the French authorities were doing about it, Stella just shrugged suggesting it was organised crime so it just disappeared and reappeared somewhere else once the police got interested.

How could people get away with turning others, usually vulnerable young women, into sex worker slaves, and who in their right mind would want to?

“I got the number,” declared Trish waving a piece of paper about.

“What number?”

“The car taking photos, I took a photo and using some software Sammi gave me managed to blow it up until I could see it.”

“I think I’ll ask Jim to trace the owner.”

“I’ve done that, it was hired.” Trish puffed out her budding chest.

“Damn,” I said.

“Wanna know who hired it?”