I was stunned by what Barbara had just said about becoming a sperm donor.

“Say something even if it is ‘No’?”

“I never even considered having another child.”

“Well, and thanks to the bracelets, we are going to have a new start in life, aren’t we?”

“This is a big… A big surprise.”

She laughed.

“And?” I asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Good. If there is one thing that I have learned from this thing with the bracelets and that is not to make snap decisions. Act in haste, repent at leisure seems rather apt.”

Barbara smiled back at me. Then she sighed.

“Why could be not have met years ago? You are a good man… or should that be woman? Either way, I don’t even want to think about my old life. “

There was an uneasy silence in the room.

“What do we do now?” I asked.

Barbara smiled.

Then she took my hand.

“I would like to experience you inside me… Before… before we change for good.”

I remained silent for several seconds.

Then I drew her to me.

“I’d like that very much,” I whispered.

---

The next morning, our slumbers were disturbed by the children. They came into our bedroom as we were contemplating getting up.

“Dad,” said Jon slightly nervously.
“Christine and I have been talking things over.”

To my shame, I groaned. Jon glared at me.

“It isn’t like that,” retorted Jon.

“We think we are being very sensible,” added Christine.

“Well, what is it that you two are being sensible about?” asked Barbara.

“We’d like for me to get pregnant before Jon changes for good.”

The two youngsters looked lovingly into each other’s eyes.

I looked at Barbara who was having difficulty holding back a laugh.

“What’s so funny?” asked Christine.

“We… We were talking about this last night and we both thought that this was an option,” I replied.

“And is it a good idea?”

“That depends my dear,” said Barbara.

“Depends? On what?”

“Are we totally free of your father or not. At the moment, we just don’t know. With that tracker he put on our car, there is always a chance that he’ll find us before we transition.”

From their reaction, neither of our children had considered that option.

“But didn’t he get on a Ferry? Or something?” asked Jon.

“That might be true but the ferry goes to Belgium but it also comes back and he could have been on the next one back to Hull. We just don’t know.”

The two youngsters looked downhearted.

“As I said, Barbara and I discussed this last night. I’ll make a few calls and may well have a solution to the problem. Neither of us think that we should delay our transitions any longer than we absolutely have to. That means sooner rather than later.”

Both Jon and Christine looked sad. Barbara came to my rescue.

“Just hang fire you two and we’ll sort things out as quickly as we can.”

For once they deferred to our wishes. To me this was a sign that they were growing up.

After they’d left us alone, Barbara climbed on top of me and said,
“Ok Buster, what is your wonderful solution?”

She’d winged it to support me just now and it was time for me to come clean.

“I thought that we could look into sperm donation.”

“We? What’s this ‘We’ thing?”

“Well…”

Barbara reached down between my legs and squeezed.

“Ok. Ok!.”

“Out with it or I squeeze even more!”

“If you are agreeable then perhaps I could donate as well.”

A look of absolute horror came over her face.

“If you think I’m going to have another two to three years of stinking nappy changing, you are very much mistaken. Are we clear on this?”

“Yes darling.”

She squeezed again.

“Yes, it is perfectly clear so only Jon to donate.”

“You learn fast.”

She let go and then kissed me.

“There, that wasn’t so hard was it eh?”

---

As they say, ‘the best laid plans’ and all that, events conspired to throw our desires into the rubbish bin.
Two evenings after we had decided on Jon donating we had a visitor in the shape of Mr Harcourt. The look on his face told us that it wasn’t a social call.

“Your former husband is back in town,” he said directly to Barbara.

“We thought that we had got rid of him?” asked Christine.

“We thought so too but he is a very determined person.”

“I guess that this means there is no time to faff around and most of us need to change once and for all?” I said sadly.

“Yes, that it what we think. We he has linked Jon here with you two. That means it is time for you three to not only change for good but to move to your new home,” said the visitor.

“How long?” asked Jon.

“We’d like you to change tonight and move in two days. It really is time to leave the past behind you and move on with your lives.”

Jon and Christine looked woefully at each other.

“We know that you two were hoping to start a family but I hope that you realise that your personal safety is more important than bringing a child into this world. I’m sure that when things settle down, something can be arranged around that.”

Then Mr Harcourt looked at me and winked. I knew what he was getting at.

Mr Harcourt opened the bag he was carrying and produced a thick folder.

“In here are your new identities and everything you will need to know for your new life.”

Then he turned to me.

“Your notice period is up in two weeks. We have arranged for a removal company to do the move once you are no longer working. Your new home has some furniture and the like which should do for the time being until the rest of your things get moved. The details of the movers are in the folder. First off, a Taxi will here arrive just before midday. It will take three of you on the first leg of the journey your new home. If ‘he’ is watching and tries to follow, we will make sure that his car breaks down before you have gone even half a mile. He will not be able to follow you.”

He let that sink in for a few seconds.

“Also, in the folder is the forwarding address for your mail. It is different to your real address. We will make sure that you get the mail safely and unopened. We think ‘he’ is getting quite desperate and there is no knowing what he’d do if he found you. That’s why there must be no delay to your moving south.”

Mr Harcourt left us alone a little later.

When I returned to the back room where we were sitting, the atmosphere was dead. No one was speaking.

“Come on now, don’t be so down. We’ll get through this.”

Barbara put her arm around her daughter to comfort her.

All of our bracelets were on the table. The folder lay there as well untouched.

I picked up the folder and opened it.

There were four clearly marked clear packets that had all sorts of things including passports and credit cards inside. I handed them out.

No one took up my challenge to look at them.

There was also plain brown envelope in amongst the identity documents. It didn’t have any lettering on which made it stand out. I looked inside and removed the contents which were a set of photographs.

As I looked at them, I could see that they had been taken locally and within the past few days. In each of them was a man. He was captured in various locations around the town including outside the College that Jon attended. On the surface it looked like that he was waiting for someone but if you looked closer, you could see that he was searching for someone.

I spread them out on the table. When Christine saw the images, she gasped.

“How could he? Won’t he ever get the message that we are done with him?”

“That’s why we need to put on our bracelets and be done with the old us once and for all.”

There was a general silence around the table. It was broken by Jon.

“Well, if no one else will start then I will,” he said defiantly.

He put on the bracelet and sat back.
“I’m done with Jon. Bring on Fiona.”

Slowly Christine and Barbara did the same with their bracelets.

---

The next morning, I was greeted by a squabble between Fiona and Barbara over who should get a turn in the bathroom next. Christine had raced ahead and bagged it.

“If I may interject?”

The two women looked at me with distain.
“I have a job to go to for a few more days so how about you two go downstairs and get the Breakfast organised so that I can get washed and shaved. I really don’t want to be late. I’ve never been late to this job and I don’t want to start now!”

Both of them looked at me and slowly nodded their heads.

I smiled.
“Soon, you will be somewhere else entirely. I hope to dear god that our next home has more than one bathroom!”

Their reaction told me that they’d forgotten what had been agreed the previous evening.

I left the three of them sorting out things to take with them and also packing up their other things ready for the move. Their initial early morning grumpiness had gone.

---

The day started normally but I wasn’t prepared for one of the passengers on my second trip of the day. My route for the day was the No 2 service to Higherford via Nelson. Waiting for me at the Bus Station was ‘him’, the man from the pictures and Barbara’s former husband. He bought a ticket to Nelson. I was so startled at seeing him that I nearly didn’t give him the correct change but I recovered enough to make sure that he had the correct amount.

As I drove through the streets of Burnley towards Nelson, I glanced at him a few times in the CCTV screen. He was sitting upstairs right in the front. I guessed that it would give him a good view of people in the street without them noticing him. Thankfully, this particular route did not go anywhere near my home.

As we approached Nelson he came downstairs and rang the bell indicating that I should stop the bus at the next stop.

I opened the doors after I’d stopped and he hurried off the bus. I looked at my watch and saw that we were two minutes early. I shouted to the remaining three passengers,

“We are a bit early so I’ll sit here for a couple of minutes.”

I didn’t move the bus but watched him turn down a side street. I saw the sign, Victoria Street. I wondered if he had a place to stay in the area but he stopped at the first car that was parked in the road and got into the driver’s seat.

I pretended to be looking at my timetable as he drove out of Victoria Street and into Manchester Road. As he turned in the direction of Nelson I breathed a sigh of relief and after checking the traffic, I pulled out and carried on with my journey.

I was due to be relieved by another driver at the end of the trip back to Burnley. As far as I was concerned, that could not come soon enough.

As soon as I was back in the Staff Canteen at the Burnley Depot, I called Barbara.

“Where are you?” I asked quite urgently.

“Oh good. No, I saw your ex. Not only that I carried him as a passenger out to Nelson.”

“I don’t think he associated me with you.”

“Ok, safe journey.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. The three of them were on a train heading towards London from Preston.

I called Mr Harcourt and told him of the encounter and also gave him the registration of the car that ‘he’ was driving. I was told that this was a new car to them and received his thanks.

For some reason, the rest of the shift was very boring indeed.

---

The episode with Barbara’s former husband reminded me of my former wife. I still had the pictures of her on my old phone. Jon had copied them over from his while we were in Tenerife. Possibly out of spite but to draw a line under our relationship with her, I sent them to her and her husband. I also sent a text saying,
“Don’t try to contact Jon or myself again, you are dead to us. We are moving and we aren’t going to tell you where. I feel sorry for your current family. They don’t deserve you.”

Once I’d received notification that it had been delivered, I switched off the phone and removed the SIM Card. I dropped it in the rubbish and then I did two factory resets. In my break, I took it to a Pawn shop and sold it. That was the end of another part of my old life.

Fiona called me that night. The three of them were in Poole. Theirs and my new home was given the seal of approval by them all. Not only did the master bedroom have its own bathroom but there was a large family bathroom upstairs and a small toilet with a shower downstairs. That should stop any squabbling about who goes first in the future.

I put the phone down and listened to a now silent house. It felt strange to be alone in what had been my home for longer than I cared to remember. I looked around feeling a bit sad that I’d be saying goodbye to it within a week.

---

Ten days later, I was with the girls unpacking the furniture and all the other stuff that the removal men had delivered that afternoon. I looked on at them with a good deal of envy. It was as if they didn’t have a care in the world. I sighed and said to myself, ‘soon, soon’.

A week after I’d moved down to Poole everything was reasonably straight in the house. Fiona had enrolled at the local college and was preparing for her exams. Christine was working at a Café near the sea-front while Barbara had just had a second interview for a job at a local school. That left me as they called it ‘twiddling my thumbs’ until I started training for my new job.

On the following Saturday evening, we had a family dinner. At the end, I said,

“I’m going to put my bracelet on tonight so don’t go having all the fun before I get used to my new body!”

They all laughed and gave me a hug.

“There is one thing that I need to say before we go much further.”

I paused.
“Well several things actually.”

I took a deep breath.
“Firstly, because of the rushed departure from Burnley, Jon was unable to donate any sperm before he changed. However, I donated some of mine on my way down so it is available if you and when it is needed.”

“Secondly and by far the most important to me is that we all have a chance to build a totally new life together here. I’m sure that this time around we won’t make the same mistakes as Barbara and I did the first time but without the two of you coming into our lives last Christmas, I’m sure that Jon and I would still be in Burnley middling along like we have done for years so lets’ all make the most of this second chance eh!”

That night in Bed, Barbara said as she clipped the bracelet around my wrist,
“Thank you darling for doing that with your stuff. I’m not saying that I will use some but you never know eh?”

The last thing I did as a man was to make love to her and boy did it feel good but as I fell asleep I couldn’t help thinking that I was not the only one who was going to enjoy exploring my new body in the morning.

I chuckled to myself when I remembered what I’d used to say when driving a bus and reached the end of the line. It seemed very appropriate for our current situation.

“End of the Line, all change, all change.”

The End.
[Authors Note]

I wrote this tale as a sort of antidote to the many tales where a lost boy goes into a ‘shop’ and gets something and suddenly becomes the girl of his wet dreams.
Life isn’t as simple as that. I wish it was but it isn’t. I hope this tale makes the magic seem more of an aide to starting a new life with people you love.