The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 2989 by Angharad Copyright© 2016 Angharad

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This is a work of fiction any mention of real people, places or institutions is purely coincidental and does not imply that they are as suggested in the story.
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“What’s the matter, Babes?” he asked cuddling me.

“It was horrible.”

“Care to share?” he’s so up with buzz words and other meaningless platitudes imported from the colonies. He even knows who Kim wossername is.

“I dreamt I was back in school.”

“As a boy or a girl?”

What did that mean? “I was dressed as a girl, it was when Murray tried to make me leave the school by making me play Lady Macbeth and I was supposed to wear skirts for the rehearsal period so Siân loaned me her spare uniform and ten coats of mascara later, I wandered into school. Murray did his crunch. He half expected me to either to stay away or to look like a boy in a dress. When I looked like a girl in a school uniform, he made me stand out in front of the whole school and introduced me as Miss Watts and warned everyone to treat me with respect.”

“That’s a bit of a contradiction isn’t it? Making you wear skirts and then tell everyone to respect it. The average teenage boy is a total psycho and respects nothing including himself—wasn’t that inviting them to attack you?”

“Quite, and it happened. My dream was a flashback to when Keith Brownlowe and two or three of his friends grabbed me and tried to make me give him oral sex.”

“Bastards,” muttered Simon.

“I managed to suggest that if he made me do it knowing I was really a boy, then he must be gay. His erection shrivelled faster than a slug in blast furnace. He took a swing at me and missed hitting the wall just as Mr Whitehead interrupted them and told me to hop it while he read them the riot act.”

“I expect he had a good idea what was going on.”

“Well I was down on my knees when he burst into the toilets.”

“What did you say you were doing?”

“I told him I was looking for a button.”

“In the boys’ toilets?”

“It was the best I could do on the spur of the moment.”

“Would you like to see if we could find young Brownlowe and visit some retribution upon him?”

“What good would that do?”

“It might help you to stop dreaming of these things.”

“What if it doesn’t?”

“You need to speak to Anne Thomas.”

“She’s a very busy lady and I’m sure she has needier patients than me.”

“That’s of no consequence to me, if it’s still upsetting you, you need to do something about it.”

“I’ll see.”

“What was his name again, Keith Brownlowe, is that with an e on the end?”

“Why d’you need to know?”

“Just for completeness.”

“Don’t do anything will you?”

“I’ll see,” he said giving me back some of my own medicine.

I eventually got back to sleep and when I woke he’d gone. I was then too busy with sorting the kids and getting them to school and then myself to work, to worry about Brownlowe with or without an e.

It was a couple of days later that he mentioned Brownlowe again. “Found him, he still lives in Bristol.”

“Who does?” I’d forgotten all about it.

“Mr Keith Brownlowe, with an e. He’s the same age as you and went to the same school as you. He’s a psychiatrist.”

“You’re joking?” I gasped, it shouldn’t have surprised me, psychiatrists can be awful bullies.

“Yes I am,” he smirked and I hit him. “Ow, you hit too hard.”

“Well that was a rotten trick.”

“He works at aerospace.”

“So what?”

“I wondered if you’d like to come with me when I confront him for his bullying and depravity.”

“Why would I want to do that?”

“So he can apologise to you.”

“We were kids, Simon.”

“You were fifteen, old enough to know better which as a girl I’m sure you did, but so did he because he was sixteen. He knew what he was doing as he does now. He’s got two convictions for assault and one for receiving stolen property.”

“Let’s just leave it be, Simon; I don’t want him beating you up or the opposite happening and you getting a conviction for assault or GBH.”

“Attempted murder might be more correct.”

“Please, Simon, let it just die.”

“I will let him die, serve the bastard right.”

“If you do go and see him, I’ll leave you.”

“What?”

“You heard me.”

“Why for god’s sake?”

“Because I asked you not to.”

“But I’m doing it for you.”

“No, you’re doing it for you. I want nothing more to do with him, so please respect my request.”

“But he deserves it, Babes.”

“He might well do, but I don’t want you to do anything to him.”

“Okay, I won’t.”

“Nor pay someone else to do it.”

“How did you know what I was thinking?”

“You’re predictable at times, Si.”

“Is that necessarily a bad thing?”

“I didn’t say it was either.”

“Well then, keep this out,” he poked me on the nose.

“The matter is closed, now if you do anything to him or cause someone else to, there’ll be unfortunate consequences.”

“Like what?”

“Divorce.”

“You’d really go for that?”

“Yes, wouldn’t you? Especially if you got sent down from the bank.”

“It’s a bank, Cathy, not Oxford university.”

“Okay then, sacked, because that’s what they’d do.”

“It would be worth it.”

“How could it be worth it if it leaves us all worse off, including the children who’ve never heard of this man?”

“I’m sure they’d want me to avenge you.”

“I don’t care whether they do or not, I don’t want you to.”

“All right, I won’t do anything to him.”

“That includes calling in his mortgage.”

“Jeez, Cathy, you’re no fun anymore.”

“It would also make you look like a bully in my eyes and possibly those of the children.”

“Meee, a bully. I didn’t try to make you do something intimate you didn’t want to do.”

“I wouldn’t have done it anyway.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“When Mr Whitehead intervened, I was milliseconds away from grabbing him by the short and curlies and giving it a hard yank.”

“What’s a tough American got to do with it?”

“What?”

“You said you were going to use a tough American.”

“When?”

“Just now.”

“I didn’t,” did I?

“You did, you said you were going to give him a hard yank.”

“Simon, that was self defence and it never happened.”

“But it would have done, wouldn’t it?”

“Quite possibly, why?”

“And you have the nerve to accuse me of violence. Take the plank out of your own eye, Missus.”

“Simon, I love you so much, please don’t tease me.”

“Or you’ll feed my goolies to a tough American?”

“Yeah, something like that.”

“Bitch,” he muttered and I lay there laughing until the tears came.

“Next time you have a bad dream, you can sort it yourself.”

I humphed and turned over to lie facing away from him but I was glad when he cuddled in behind me and put his arm around my waist.