This is the story of Penny. A closet Transwoman thrust into the outside world 24-7 when she would rather go and hide away. Perhaps the title should be Welcome to Penny’s Paranoid World…

A few hours every morning as Penny keeps me sane. I look after my mother, Jenny, who suffers from dementia. What had started as keeping a gentle eye on her in years past has gradually become a twenty-four seven life of looking after her for the past seven years. Yes, it can be frustrating. How could it not be. I do not really have a life of my own anymore.

But what really, REALLY, pisses me off is when people say how wonderful I am for looking after her and not putting her in a home. Why would I do that? She is my mother, she went through hell with my father looking after me and my sister. Why would I discard her now in her hour of need, when she needs someone close to her she can trust and hold onto to keep her sanity.

Okay, rant over. But it really pisses me off when people say that.

Anyway, it is about ten past seven on a weekday morning. Looking out the kitchen window into the back garden I can see it is a bright blue sunny day with high up in the sky wispy little clouds on show. Cirrus clouds if you want to get technical about it. Sunglasses will be a must. And to top everything it is one of my special days

And what makes Tuesday so special you may ask? Well, every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday the milkman comes to the village in the small hours of the morning to drop off everyone’s milk for the next couple of days. That means so long as I go out before seven or at least just after that time, I can go down to the gate as Penny and collect the milk without fear of anyone spotting me all dressed up. Even the mad jogger with her flapping pony-tail is not out until after seven-thirty. If you were to ask me why it is such a thrill to go roadside all dressed up in my heels and everything, the truth is I don’t know, but it is
.
As I said in our little village nothing ventures out and about until after seven-thirty. That is when the London workers hit our lanes with an old fashioned Le Mans start from their driveways for the Next Village Railway Station Car Park Grand Prix, a Monday to Friday fixture featuring a high speed saloon car race along our narrow winding lanes to the railway station car park in Mid-Steeping roughly a mile and a half away from us to bag the best parking spot for a quick evening getaway for the return home race. After the mornings Grand Prix, it is the turn of the school double-decker bus making its trawl through the local villages to arrive at ten past eight to take the older kids off to Saint Bart’s Church of England Secondary Modern School in the nearest town, as well as any adults brave enough to travel with the marauding brats into town at that time of the morning. Then twenty or so minutes later it is time for the four young mother’s in the village to walk their young offspring to join the six other slightly older kids waiting at the bus stop for the mini-bus that will take them to the junior school in Mid-Steeping.

After that the village is empty of traffic apart from the odd bod off to the supermarket until it is coming home time. Oh, bar the odd dog walker of course, we have a few of those and not forgetting the mad jogger out again trying to kill herself with exercise and heart attack in the afternoon. The only other daytime entertainment in the village is the occasional lost delivery driver misdirected by Sat-Nav down through the village and after fording the river at the bottom (easy in a lorry) where they find having gone round the bend on the other side of the river… they find it is a dead end about a hundred yards further on. Then having to reverse all the way back to our little road junction before they can turn around. That is when they usually find out speaking to a villager that they are actually looking for another village entirely that is twenty miles from here.

There is as well the occasional fisherman sneaking off work and heading down to the river to spend the day lazing with a bit of nylon dangling in the water.

So, having settled Mother down with her cuppa soup of choice and the BBC’s breakfast telly coming through her headphones. I grabbed the milk bottle carrier and step out the back door into the morning sunshine. Henry our aging cat is lounging on the old wooden picnic table at the bottom of the garden. He gets up expectantly and waits watching me.

“You could always jump down and come over here yourself you know.”

Henry stands his ground the tip of his tail twitching, waiting for me to walk over the wet grass to pick him up. We both stand playing the ‘waiting still’ game until I get fed up and give in and head across the lawn getting dew on my toes while trying to balance on them to stop my heels sinking in the grass. As I bend down to pick him up the little sod jumps down and dances off just keeping in front of me out of reach until we hit the path where he immediately rolls over his paws straight out daring me to walk past him or try and pick him up. His claws at the ready to grab my hands or ankles, whichever should come close enough for him to grab. I bend down on my haunches my weight on my heels.

“Come on, then.”

Effortlessly he rolls upright and hops up onto my shoulder turning and purring in my ear before turning round again to settle on the towel I have draped over my shoulder. Standing up we restart with Henry hanging over my shoulder happy today to watch where we have just been rather where we are going.

You can’t beat early morning in summer for that fresh clean air smell of overnight rain unpolluted as yet by the fumes of petrol and diesel engines. I love it, I’m in a summer dress wearing strappy heels, can feel the gentle breeze on my naked arms and legs.

Henry moves around to face front as we near the garden gate, stopping mid-way for a quick purr in my ear to let me know he loves me and I grab him before he can leap down putting pin holes in my shoulder through the towel. He wants to be by the gate so he can slip through it the millisecond it opens so he can race out to chase the pigeons off the front lawn before they can fly off. For some reason he hates. No, make that, loathes, pigeons. Any other bird he couldn’t care less about apart from being a potential meal. That said there is an old bird he lets eat food off his plate while he is eating. I should take a photo of them really before the bird dies of old age. When you look at it, it looks ready to expire any second. It is sort of a tired dull brown colour, with a mix of grey feathers sticking out all over the place and looking like it has just come through a hedge backwards. It stays away from the other birds, but hops up to eat cat food beside Henry.

That said, Henry chases off the pigeons whenever he sees them. He then sits under the phone wires they take refuge on to spend the next couple of minutes giving them a right earful of cat talk for having been on his lawn.

I continue past the car to where the gate use to be to collect the milk bottles waiting for me.

With the milk in the fridge, and Henry having joined me for his breakfast of chicken and dry cat food on the little metal café table we have had since I was a small child, on the small patio outside the kitchen door. His technique is to take a mouthful of chicken, dump it in the dry food and then alternate between the two as he eats. This allows the old bird to peck away as well at the same time.

After a quick check that mothers ok (she’s asleep), I head outside with a cup of tea and the baby alarm to sit with Henry enjoying being ME, taking my breakfast of a plain soft French baguette with of slices of bacon and two eggs sunny side up joining them to spread runny gold over the bacon and in the other hand Britain’s answer to the world’s problems, a cup of tea.

Henry is busily washing his whiskers on my lap when his head snaps round to face the corner of the bungalow and freezes, waiting, watching. Moments later I hear the side gate close.

Shit!

I must have left the gate un-done when I went to fetched the milk.

Shit, shit, shit. I am about to be exposed. My chest is tightening and all I can think is. Please don’t faint. Please don’t faint. I know if I was to grab Henry and run for the kitchen, I would never make it and they would hear my heels clattering away like crazy, anyway.
Fuck. It will be all round the village by lunchtime. You know the weird loner guy who looks after his mother at the bottom of the village. Well! He dresses up as a woman. What’s his name found him all dressed up in his back garden this morning. I cannot describe how sick I feel at the thought of it spreading round the village.

The next moment Clair my next door neighbour comes round the corner full of the joys of spring smiling broadly at me, as I just about to have myself a heart attack. Even though she does not know about Penny. She is my friend and can keep a secret. Henry relaxes, since he knows Clair and goes back to his ablutions. He thinks her garden belongs to him anyway, as she makes a fuss of him and gives him smoked-salmon when he visits her.

“Hello Penny, sweetie, glad I caught you.” She stops by me, bending to study my face. “Wow! Make-up really makes you look younger. That is just so unfair, I’m really jealous. Mind if I help myself.” She points to my empty cup.

I sort of nod my head, unable to speak. On a summer afternoon we often sit out here with a cup of tea and natter. In the winter we stay in my small kitchen and natter.

This has to be a weirdest dream I‘ve ever had. Because please god please let this be a dream. Please let me wake up in a minute wanting to go to the loo in the middle of the night or something. I close my eyes and in my head tell time to stop. Yes I know, stupid to think I can do that. But desperate moments and all that.

Clair and I have been friends for around five years, ever since she and her husband moved in next door. I was already looking after mother full time by then. But then that is the everyday me, Paul, male of the species. Not Penny, woman, female of the species. Someone she has never met. No one has ever seen or met Penny apart from Mother and Sukie the beautician who taught me how to put on make-up last year. Oh, and Jasmine who pieced my ears at the same time.

Clair comes back out and I open my eyes. Well the stopping time thing did not work. She has two cups of tea delicately balanced on the cake tin she brought with her and sits down. Handing me a fresh cup grinning and opens the cake tin, handing me a plain ring doughnut with a milk chocolate coating with a tissue. She knows they are my favourite.

“Here, sugars good for shock.” She looks closer at my face. “God, this is so un-fair. You look, maybe, thirty-two.” She harrumphs, “Ha! Maybe thirty-five on a bad day. You are one lucky cow.”

I smile, I am forty-seven to her forty-eight, and she knows it. Sukie said the same sort of thing about me looking younger. But let’s get real. No-one plonks on make-up and earrings and loses fifteen years. No one is That Lucky.

Clair is still studying my face.

“That is just so damn un-fair on the rest of us… Still,” she smirks with a wicked glint in her eyes, “you’ll be in demand for dinner parties, there’s always a shortage of unattached attractive females in their thirties to partner the divorced guys around the dinner table. And god knows there are enough of them around nowadays. They’ll stop lusting after their friends wives with you at the table. And start lusting after you. Better learn how to repel boarder’s, girl. And how to run in those high-heels. You’re going to be a popular dinner guest with the men.”

Yeah, more like the village pariah, I think. They will be terrified to be sat next to me or even speak to me in case anyone thinks they are gay.

Clair starts to eat her own doughnut watching me. I think I am just sitting there still in shock with my mouth stuck open. Let’s be honest, when I finally come out I expect to be a shunned by everyone. Maybe even have to move. This is a very conservative area. That is why I put off living as a girl or having a sex change until after mother passes away. She maybe as dotty as a fruit cake, but she would notice and would be hurt by people being nasty to me. I would never do that to her. And to be truthful I do not know if I have the courage now to face the scorn as well, and I don’t I have enough money left to fund a sex change anyway. To fund anything, really. So, short of winning the lottery or robbing a bank it is all an academic idea.

Those that do change I think are the bravest people in the world. I just do not think I am that brave. I have hidden away, lived undercover for far too long. I think it is engrained in me now.

What I did not expect, was to become in Clair’s view, ‘Target for tonight’ for lonely local farmers. I grin, it makes me think about all those sheep and farmer jokes. Naughty girl!

I had gone through this moment so many times in my head where I told Clair about myself and what her response might be. And none of them were remotely like this.

“Come on, seriously,” she says intently looking at me, pulling my attention back. “Eat up. It’s good for you, Missy”.

She giggles. “I feel like I’ve just acquired a little sister. This is so much fun.”

Wonderful. For some reason I cannot imagine I want to burst out giggling uncontrollably. I start eating the doughnut just to keep myself quiet.

Clair carry’s on watching me. Swallowing some tea and smiling very pleased with herself. “This has got to be the real you. Paul was a fake. Hi there, Penny.” She gives me a little girly wave.

I smile slowly and nod and nervously return the wave.

“Guess you’re wondering how I know? Hey, Hun.”

I nod, but think no, not really. I just want to go inside and hide pretending this never really happened.

“Well,” she leans back in the metal chair stroking Henry. Seeing as the little traitor has left me and gone across the table to let her adore him. “You’re not as careful as you think you are, sweetie.”

She’s very, very pleased with herself.

“Putting the bins out late at night in high-heels for a start, you don’t have to be wearing a dress, the sound of those heels carries in the night air. And despite having the hedge in the back garden between us, you can still see through it, and sometimes I glimpse this lovey woman putting out the washing, or sitting with your mother with Henry in her lap.” She stops, sighs.

“Also when I sat with Jenny a couple of weeks back. Remember, when you went to the dentist. Well, you were in a rush and left the photo she has of Penny out and I asked her who it was.”

Clair gives me a big smile, “She told me it was Paul, then Penny, then Paul, then Penny. Anyway, she really wants to go out shopping with Penny by the way. She was pretty adamant about that.”

I slowly nodded. That’s not going to happen. Not in a million years. Penny is not stepping a foot outside the house from now on. No doing anything that will give anyone a clue or draw attention to her. Well maybe in the back garden soon as I have put a padlock on the back gate. But that is all.

“Oh, and she wants you both to come to our village coffee mornings from now on. She use to go you know before… well anyway that’s Penny of course, not Paul. And… the next one just happens to be today, my place, this morning. Eleven for eleven-fifteen. Don’t be late.”

What a coincidence. There just happens be a meeting of the Piranha Club on the day she has caught me out. That by the way is the name I know the village men call the woman’s group behind their back. And me, THEIR. That is REALLY not going to happen. I have crossed Piranha Club members before. When we moved in fifteen years ago I had some trees cut down in the front garden to put a drive in. There had been complaints as I was parking on the grass verge outside in the lane as I had no drive. Then I got a letter from the county council telling me I was not allowed to park there. Then the same woman who had lead the complaints about me parking, complained again to them about me cutting the trees down to build the drive. Where the hell was I supposed to park the car.

“Nooo. I don’t think so. Some of your members think I’m a close relative of the devil.”

“Oh, don’t be silly and so dramatic. Anyway, it’s all arranged. We discussed it at our last meeting that it was about time Penny and her mum joined us.

“What! You told others about me!”

“Sweetie, the only person who thinks Penny is a secret in this village is you. All the girls know.”

“All!” Now I really do feel sick.

“Of course, all of them. So no excuses. Eleven-fifteen next door. Don’t be late or we will come round to find you.” She smiled to herself and added. “Oh. And we’ve signed you up to the W.I. as well. Jenny’s already a member of course. We need more bodies their too. So don’t change, you look lovely. Remember, no show and we will come and get you.”

Oh crap. Now I am really in trouble. I know Clair, she would too.

She put her cup down. “Anyway, Sweetie. Must run. Better go and do John’s breakfast or he will be grumbling he’s being abandoned again if it’s not on the table five seconds after he comes down. Don’t be late.”

She gets to the corner and turns back smiling. “Oh, and the other give-a-way was last week when you took Jenny out for walk round the village in her wheelchair. I stopped by you in the car for a chat. Remember.” I slowly nodded. “You know I really like those earrings that you were wearing. You know, the ones that are just a gold chain you thread through the ear and just let hang down a couple of inches.” She grinned, “So light you can forget you are wearing them… You did!”

I had just bought them and tried them out just before we went for a walk. I loved the idea of four inches of little chain hanging down from my ears. How could I forget to take them out. Idiot.

“You know Sweetie, you swapped from being a boy who liked being a girl to a girl who was pretending to be a boy at least six months ago. It’s time to finish the job and enjoy the benefits of being one the superior sex. Ciao!” and with one last stroke of Henry who had follow her, was off back home next door.

I sat shocked by what Clair had said. Looking after Mother 24/7 has left me permanently tired and careless without realising it. I had not realised just how careless I had become. Henry mewed and jumped back up onto the table.

“Hello traitor.” And rubbed him behind the ears the way he likes.

Before I can give it more thought there is a noise from the baby alarm, Mother is awake and trying to push her little table away from her chair. That means she wants to go to the loo.

Henry has sprawled himself across the metal surface watching me get up without a care in the world. Rolling onto his back with his head upside down he stretched out his paws into the air trying to reach me. I move my hand and let his paw pads press into my fingers. Henry started to purr again.

“It’s alright for you laying there, some of us have work to do.” Henry rolled over onto his other side twisting to keep watching me as I left him.

“Stand-by for Action!”

The bath seats little electric motor whines as Mother descends into the bath water.

“Dum-der-Dum, Dum-der-Dum, Dum-der-Dum,”

“Dive! Dive! Dive!” Mother sings out laughing, then warbling “StiiingRaay, StringRay.”

Then her bottom meets the bathwater and she screams.

“Too Hot… Too Hot, Too Hot.” She yells, panicking.

“It’s okay, I’m putting cold water in.” I hurriedly tell her.

The water really is lukewarm already. But feels hot to her. I pour some cold water from a jug I have ready behind her and swish it round till she is happy and hit the descend button again and the bath seat hits bottom. She happily starts washing and singing ‘High Hopes’ to herself.

“Ok, call me if you want me.” I tell her, but she is not listening.

I gently close the bathroom door, leaving her to her ablutions, which she can do just fine by herself. Normally I would try to grab a cup of tea, or more likely with unfettered access to her chair, gather up the half a ton of scattered paper tissues and crisps in the chair and on the floor around her foot cushion. So I do that. But the question on my mind is do I take mother to the coffee morning or cry off. And if I do that, will Clair make good her promise to bring the Piranha Club round to fetch us. I have a horrible feeling she would too. She has decide Penny’s coming out. And that is what is going to happen regardless of what I want. I can hardly hide behind the front door while she demands entry outside it. Anyway she has a set of door keys in case of an emergency. So she can just sneak around the back and let herself in the kitchen door while I hide behind the front door. No way am I letting that happen. So this is happening. No way out of it. God help me.

I look down at my painted toes and bare legs. Stockings? I nod to myself. Yes, it may be summer, but the Piranha Club are a pretty posh lot. I doubt there will be bare leg among them. That means old fashioned nylon RHT stockings (no seams) in my case, as they are all I have. No tights (pantyhose) I prefer stockings, ok. When you dress for yourself and yourself alone at home, you wear what you want, don’t you. Well, just enough time to put them on before mother wants out of the bath. I dash into my bedroom, kick off my mules and grab a suspender belt and a packet of my favourite nude grey stockings.

I am about done when the doorbell goes. Damn, what now. Clair checking up we are still coming round I suppose. I fix the last straps metal clasp in the nylon and let my dress drop down quickly stepping into my heels thinking Clair could just as easily have phoned. She doesn’t need to come round in person. I am a bit miffed at her for doing this.

“Clair,” I say. “I’d… Oh.”

Crap, it’s the postman.

“Hello. I need this signed for.” He smiles at me. Has he not recognised me? No he has not, thank god, for small mercies. Sorry god. I must stop saying ‘God’ all the time.

“Oh, sorry. Thought you were someone else.”

His laugh is friendly. “Yes, I gathered that.”

He keeps smiling as I signed the screen and smiling give it back. He glances at it and a frown crosses his face. Bum. I didn’t even think about that. It never occurred to me before now. Paul, Penny. Same initial, same surname still of course, so same signature. One he recognises. Just the wrong face and wrong sex staring back at him. Shit.

“Thought I would swap sides.” I say rambling. “The girls have better restrooms. And it makes sense too, makes it easier to take mother to the loo when there isn’t a disabled loo around.”

And that is a reason for becoming a girl, I think? Shut up will you.

“I’d never have guessed.” He is still smiling at me. Still talking.

“One of the blokes at work, another postman. He has gone over all girl too, but you can still see he was once a guy. But you.”
He whistles a kind of Wow, whistle. But not the sort of two tone one girls hate builders doing.

“You, I would never have guessed. And you look younger as well.”

We have always had a laugh about things while commenting on the weather, that sort of thing as the mail was being handed over. Nothing personal. But this is different. I suddenly become very aware in his eyes I am The Girl in this conversation. Before we were equals. Now I suddenly feel at a disadvantage, despite being five seven and now add to that, five inch heels as well. He is still taller than me, must be six foot six and time seems to have stopped. He seems to loom over me.

Mother breaks the spell wailing from the bathroom. “I’m cold.” Followed by the sound of tearful sobbing.

“No peace for the wicked.” I say glancing back at the bathroom door. How the heck did I get to be outside the front door?

“I better go.” I nip back in closing the front door wondering what just happened.

“Well, you’re looking great, very dateable.” He says grinning as the door closes.

Thanks. I think. Blushing. I flip the lock, and lean against the door thinking, ‘What the Hell do you think you were doing out there’. That is all you need. Flirting with the postman, turning him into an over sexed randy male with the hots for you. Idiot. Stupid idiot.

Sobbing from the bathroom gets my attention again. I go and stick my head into the bathroom. “It’s alright, don’t worry. I’m just going to get some hot towels for you, and get your clothes.”

She reaches out grabbing me tight with a wet hand.

“I’m so cold and lonely. I thought you’d gone to town and left me.” She shakes and shivers. At eighty-eight, I can have the bungalow heated up like the tropics for her and she will still be cold. Old age can sometimes be a cruel mistress to those who live to reach it
.
I take the small towel from the radiator I’ve had warming for this and put it over her shoulders.

“Ooo, that’s lovely.” She smiles back at me. The last few minutes gone from her mind instantly.

“I know. Just let me get the towels from the tumble drier. Won’t be a moment.”

I mean, I’ve never flirted with anyone before in my life, so how do I know what is and is not flirting. Anyway, I am very much a lipstick lesbian girl in a male body. Have been all my life for as long as I can remember.

This is the third dress I have tried on. There is an hour before we need to go next door. Clair said to say in the white summer dress I had on, but I think she more sort of meant stay girl, not to change back into man stuff as I would usually do so by nine in the morning in case someone called. Like the Postman! Har! Well, too late for that one. But there was still was Tesco’s supermarket home delivery driver, the district nurse, the Doc, the cleaning lady, they were all regular visitors among others. And they would all have to know.

So which dress to wear. I finally put on the dark blue one with the scoop neck with a Vee cut which shows off my cleavage without being slutty, but clearly shows the person wearing it is a woman of the species on account of showing her boobs. I have two kinds of boobs. Natural and Cleavage. Natural are glue on fake boobs, the bouncy kind you can buy on the internet that look real under clothes. Cleavage is a different matter altogether, it is like an iceberg, nine tenths of it under cover. Just take one of those bras that ups your size by two sizes, a pair of falseys, and your very own man boobs, add together and Wow! Real boobs that can be exposed to the view of real people up close without frightening the children and giving the game away. But sadly no bounce.

I glanced at my watch as I wait for my nails to dry, fifteen minutes left before ground zero. Normally I only paint them on Sundays when I know we would not be having visitors. I like painted nails, on both fingers and toes. Women’s nails look kind of un-finished when left plain. But not black polish, I really do not understand why some women like black nail polish. they just make nails look dirty. Think my nails are dry now. Better get my stockings back on.

“Mother, do you want to go to the Loo before we go round to Claire’s?”

“Are we going out?”

“Yes, round to Claire’s coffee morning.”

“I want to go shopping. You promised.”

I did not, but, “We’ll go shopping later.”

“I want to go, Now.” she turns and buries her head in the side of her chair and sulks big time. She’s a little girl at the moment.
Now which shoes to wear. I put on the pee-toes and go back to put Mothers shoes on her.

“Sure you don’t want to go to the loo?”

“Noo.” That is said with a hard shake of the head. She has slipped back to when she was six or seven and still living with her gran. It is strange, but you really can see the little girls face in hers when she slips back like this. It is the wonder in her eyes. You may be looking at an 88 year old face, but you can see the child there clear as day.

We are just going out the front door when in a big whisper she tells me “I need to Pee-pee!”

With her on the loo I decide to change shoes and go and put my expensive black six inch heel courts on and then once on decide to change them for my comfy five and half inch black mules that I practically live in. I change my earrings as well for the little drop pearl ones from the normal long tinkling dangly ones I wear at home.

“All done?”

“Yes. Are we going shopping?”

“No. we are going round to Clare’s. She is having a coffee morning. We’re going there.”

“You said we were going shopping.”

“Later. This afternoon.”

“Noooow. Now. We never go shopping.”

“I promise, after Clair’s.”

“That means Never.”

I had my back to the front door now and pause. I have never been out dressed this way in the day time. While I was more comfortable in my mules, nylons and dress etc. than I ever would be in men’s clothes. I still paused, I had never been out front in a dress passed seven-thirty in the morning before. It was now nearly eleven-thirty. I gripped the door handle tight and close my eyes waiting for sanity to take effect, for all this to turn out to be a dream.

I sigh, better get on with it. The Piranha Club are waiting next door, so with a deep breath I open the door and pull mother’s wheelchair outside into the sunshine.

With no bolts of lightning striking me, or stones raining down from up above hurled by an angry mob. It was kind of: So that’s it, what’s the big deal. There is just a pleasant feeling of warm sunshine on my face and shoulders. As we passed the car, I moved the wheelchair sideways a bit to stop mother grabbing a door handle. For someone with no strength it is surprising how strong a grip she can have when she wants. First time it happened I thought I had broken her arm for all the noise she made in the supermarket. Little old ladies with dementia have the same instinct as little children when it comes to supermarket shelves within arm’s reach. Items I do not want find their way into the shopping trolley if I am not careful to be found at the check-out.

I feel kind of crazy, light headed out in the lane pushing mother past the hedges between the driveways of our homes. The sound of my heels on the road seems enormous. Then my lips tighten as Clair comes round from the back of the house to greet us as we go up the drive.

“Hello Sweetie. Hi Jenny. Come on round the back, everyone’s in the sun room, and you can bring Jenny’s wheelchair straight in that way.”

I looked up to see a sea of female faces, the Piranha Club is out in force. They turn to us as one smiling, as we entered.

To be continued…