“Ms Wilson will see you now,” said the assistant.

I stood up and after a moment’s hesitation; I followed her into the very impressive office. The views out over East London were impressive.

They should be. We were on the twenty third floor of one of the large tower blocks that fringe the edge of the City of London.

Ms Wilson stood up from behind her desk and came to greet me.

“Thank you for coming Susan. Please take a seat.”

I was shown to a comfortable seat where after smoothing my skirt I sat down.

“Suzi, please get us some Coffee,” said Ms Wilson to the assistant.

“Coming right up.”

Ms Wilson picked up a buff folder and sat down in a chair facing me.

“Well, Susan, you have an interesting CV, very interesting.”

“Thank you,” I replied.

Then I added,

“Do you think you can help me?”

She smiled.

“Yes. Yes, I think I can,”

My hopes were raised.

“Look, I won’t beat about the bush. You would be the first openly Transgendered person on our agencies books. Now that I’ve seen you, I know that we can work together. There are a few other models like yourself but they are a good deal younger than you.”

Just then the assistant came in with a tray. On the tray was a pot of coffee and two cups plus a plate with some biscuits.

Ms Wilson did the honours and poured the coffee.

“Milk and Sugar?”

“Just a dash of Milk please.”

With a ‘dash’ of milk in the cup, she handed it to me.

“I’m Dorothy by the way. Enough of the Ms Wilson. It’s Mrs anyway. I’ve been married for almost twenty years and frankly hate this PC ‘Ms’ moniker.”

I smiled back at her.

“I do have one problem with your history. The Army Regiment you quoted was disbanded almost 20 years ago. Care to explain?”

“Certainly,” I replied as I opened my purse and took out a pencil and some paper. I wrote the name of the real regiment down on it and handed it to her.

“You were a member of…”

I put up my hand to stop her.

“Please don’t say it. Walls have ears you know.”

She smiled at me.

“The Catering Corps?”

“Yes. That is true. I’m afraid. Dishwasher first class reporting for duty.”

I stuck out my hand to get the slip of paper back. She saw the look of concern on my face and handed it to me.

“I think that should be forgotten. Not exactly sexy is it?”

I nodded my agreement.

“One important question I have to ask is, do you have any tattoo’s or visible body piercings? Despite their current popularity, all the models on my books do not have either of these. We prefer to keep it that way. Our clients like it as well. It saves hours of airbrushing in post-production.”

I chuckled.

“I’m clean Dorothy. Unlike most of my fellow squaddies, I never went in for that sort of thing.”

“Then I think we had better get you signed up right away don’t you but we are going to have to do something about your name.”

---

[Nine months later]

“That’s it Fallon! Hold it. Great!”

A fashion shoot was in full swing. I’d made a little bit of an impact on the Modelling scene since my first shoot. I was prepared to do things that other models shied away from in an instant.

This particular shoot had been going on for what seemed like hours. I was beginning to feel it. Physically, I was fine but my feet were about to raise the white flag.

My feet had been stuffed into pair of Jimmy Choo’s that were at least a size too small for me. That and the pure height of the heel were beginning to take its toll. As to the rest, I was enjoying myself.

Mind you, whenever I started to feel bored, all I had to do was to think back to my days in the Army and my tours of duty to Iraq and Afghanistan. Sitting in a camouflaged O.P. for up to a week watching the Taliban go about their business was a far cry from a fashion shoot on a country estate somewhere in Oxfordshire.

Actually, I knew exactly where we were because I’d shot more than a few Rabbits not 600yds from where we were right now when I was about 12 years old but I wasn’t letting the people I was with now about that. They were mostly townies and would not understand the ways of the country people. Many even turned up their noses at the frankly excellent bacon butties that the catering wagon supplied. I knew exactly where the farm was that the Bacon came from and I’d had more than a few beers with the farmer in the past. The past was just that for me, the past.

None of the people I worked with knew I’d been anything but other than a regular ‘grunt’ of a Private in the Infantry. I’d actually been an NCO in ‘The Regiment’. If I said anything more than that, I’d have to kill you and believe me, I can do that in ways that would make you faint in an instant.

Mind you, there were more than a few prima donnas on the other side of the camera that I had to work with regularly that I’d like to murder in a variety of very unpleasant ways. A good number of my model colleagues were very much in agreement with my dislike of most of them.

The light was just starting to go when the shoot finished. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief. Everyone, including the client seemed happy with the results of the shoot.

I retired to the caravan where we’d been getting changed during the day. The other model on the shoot, Nikki was already getting changed into the clothes she’d arrived in.

“Shut that door, it’s getting cold out there!” she shrieked when I came in.

I chuckled. She was only wearing a pair of knickers and boy was she attractive with those curves in all the right places, if I’d met her in other circumstances I’d be trying to get her into bed in an instant. Sadly, she was engaged to a photographer who was a total plonker who’s only asset was a big dick that he liked put to frequent use. He’d even tried to get into bed with me. I warned him off that if he tried it again, I’d cut his dick off and make him eat it.

That actually gave me a lot of ‘cred’ and marked me out as a lesbian. That was fine by me because I fancied women not men.

When we were changed, Nikki and I dashed from the caravan to the car that had been provided for us. It was now raining hard. The shoot had almost been cancelled because of the weather but we’d done the job in between the showers. Now it looked like the rain was here to stay for the rest of the day at least.

We dived into the back of the car. Nikki said to the driver,

“Home James!”

“Yes Miss!” replied the driver with a smile on his face.

The driver was an older man called Dave. He liked working with us because we weren’t the prima-donna types unlike most of the other models on the agency’s books.

He started the car and immediately, I knew we were in trouble. The wheels were spinning and we were going nowhere fast.

“Dave, less revs. Try to go backwards to get out of the hole that you are digging fast.”

As soon as I said it, I regretted opening my mouth. Dave was a pretty mild-mannered man but he hated anyone commenting on his driving.

“Do you want to try it yourself Luv?”

I looked at Nikki who was trying not to snigger out loud.

“Why not, I can’t do any more harm now can I?”

Dave went bright red in the face.

“Well, go on then!” said Nikki with a huge grin on her face. She obviously thought that I'd make a total fool of myself.

He got out of the front and I took his place. Thankfully, I was not wearing heels but a pair of almost flat-heeled boots.

I adjusted the seat so that I was comfortable and started the engine. Then my Military training kicked in and twenty seconds later, we were free.

I got out of the car and as a slightly angry Dave began to get in, I whispered in his ear,

“I had to drive trucks when I was in the Army.”

He looked at all 5ft 8in of me with incredulity.

“You were in the Service?”

“Yep. Catering Corps.”

He’d been in the RAF Regiment some years before. He wore a lapel pin with the crest of his regiment on his jacket.

He gave me a big smile and a little peck on the cheek.

“Thanks love but keep this quiet eh? I’m supposed to be the driver not you…”

“Keep what quiet?” I replied as I got in the back.

---

A couple of hours later, Dave dropped Nikki and myself off outside the Docklands property where we both lived. As Dave drove off, Nikki asked,

“How did you twist him round your finger like that? You know he takes his driving seriously?”

“I just told him that I learned to drive in the Army. He’s ex Air Force so from one ex-serviceman to another, there was no problem.”

Nikki gave me a look that said, ‘really?’

I didn’t want to reveal any more about my past so I changed the subject.

“Are you seeing Dirk tonight?”

“Nope. He’s left already for Milan Fashion Week.”

“Aren’t you going to Milan? You went with him last time...”

“The bum didn’t invite me this year. God knows that I dropped enough hints and we have a quiet few weeks what with Milan, Paris and London in the spotlight but no, he went off on his tod.”

“Yeah great, the bastard. The upside of not going means that I can catch up on some sleep and hit the gym for a few hours.”

By now, we were standing outside the lift. Nikki lived on the 4th floor and I was on the 5th.

“Are you going to see your family?”

“What family? They didn’t like the idea of me becoming a model. ‘Not a profession with prospects’ was a phrase used quite a few times when I told them.”

That was a big lie. My family had disowned me when I announced that their son Edward was now called Susan. It would be even worse now if they found out that my professional name was “Fallon”.

We took the lift up to our homes. I said goodbye to Nikki and began to think about what I’d be eating for dinner.

After the obligatory shiver as I remembered my ‘coming out’, I got on with fixing myself something to eat. That bought a small smile to my face.

Many other models seemed to exist on two leaves of Lettuce and forty cigarettes a day. I on the other-hand, liked my food.

The previous month I’d invited a few other models for diner. Most of them had not even played with the food I served. It was all ‘too fat’ even the bits that contained zero fat, zero calories and zero taste if you ask me.

I’d just sat down to eat when there was a rapid knocking on my front door. With a sigh, I got up and went to answer it.

After a quick look through the peephole, I opened the door to find Nikki in what looked like a terrible state.

“You look awful, come on in and you can tell me what’s wrong”.

She didn’t reply but came in. Her eyes were red. She’d obviously been crying.

“Come on into the kitchen. I was just about to eat.”

She sat down on the other side of my small table and glared at my plate of food.

“You can’t be going to eat all that?”

“Yes, but it can wait. Why have you been crying?”

She didn’t answer but showed me her phone.

I looked at it and saw her fiancé Dirk in bed with another woman. The other woman was another model and a colleague of ours, Natalia. A dumb blonde from Minsk.

I understood her angst. Last week they’d been planning their wedding.

“Who sent it?”

“I don’t know. But it is clearly from someone who is in Milan.”

“How do you know that?”

“That’s the hotel room where we stayed last year. It is where Dirk always stays when he’s in Milan for the shows.”

“It was… Oh never mind,” she wailed.

“You are better off without him. He obviously can’t be trusted.”

“But what am I going to do? I agreed to move in with him once he was back from Milan. I’ve given notice and they have someone already lined
up to take over from me. I don’t have anywhere to live?”

I thought for a moment.

“When is he due back from Milan?”

“Next Saturday why?”

“You have until then and a few days after to find a new place.”

“Ah! I wasn’t thinking straight,” she said apologetically.

I reached over and gently took her hand.

“Don’t worry, you have a shoulder to cry in if you need it,” I said softly.

“Why are you so nice a person when everyone else is so… so bitchy all the time?”

“I guess, my time in the military taught me a few good lessons?”

“Along with peeling spuds then?”

We both laughed. My supposed time in the Catering Corps was a source of amusement for many of the people we worked with. A quick joke about my time in the kitchens and the mere thought of all that food made them change the subject pronto. Food really is a taboo subject in most of the Modelling World.

“If you haven’t found someone by next Friday then you can come and stay with me. Think of it as your ‘Plan B’. but quite how we are going to get all your stuff in here I don’t know?”

“Are you sure? I don’t want to be a burden on anyone.”

“I could be a bit bitchy and insist but I won’t,” I said smiling.

She looked at me seriously for a second and then saw the funny side of what I’d said. Then she laughed.

I was still holding her hand so I leaned forward and kissed her. After a slight hesitation, she responded. The kiss went on and on and on. After what seemed an eternity we came up for air.

“What just happened?” she asked.

“I kissed you and you responded. That’s what happened.”

She sat there blank faced.

“Nikki, you said that I’m not like the rest of the models. Well, neither are you. I guess that’s why we became friends. To be honest with you I’ve fancied you something rotten since that shoot we did on that floating gin palace. We were the only two not to get sick before we left the harbour. I wanted to tell you then but you were involved with someone else. Now you aren’t so I kissed you.”

Nikki didn’t say anything straight away.

“If you want me to forget what just happened then I will. No questions.”

Nikki looked at me with sad eyes.

“Are you for real?”

“I think so. If you stick a pin in me, I will bleed so I guess that make me real enough.”

“I’ve been so blind. There you were right under my nose all the time.”

“No Nikki, I have been very careful. No one knew of my desire for you.”

“But… there is so much about me that you don’t know.”

“Same here. We all have some baggage that we carry around with us.”

“But what if you don’t like me when you find out?”

I smiled at her.

“Did you murder someone?”

“No? Why?”

“Then whatever that baggage is, is fine by me.”

“What if I don’t like your baggage?”

“Then I help you find a place to live and we call it quits.”

“Did you kill someone?” asked Nikki returning the favour.

I paused for a second before answering. At that moment, I decided to be honest with her. I knew that I’d have to be open and honest right from the start if we were going to make a go of our relationship.

“Yes, I did. At least ten people.”

“You are kidding me?”

I looked at her with a straight face.

“There is something that you need to see. Then you will understand.”

Nikki had this bewildered look on her face.

“You weren’t in the Catering Corps, were you?” she asked.

“No, I wasn’t but I did two tours of Afghanistan and one of Iraq.”

“But…” she started to say something but thought better of it.

“Please get yourself a drink and sit down. I need to get something from my bedroom.”

I walked into my bedroom and realised that I was shaking.

Then I thought that I’ve gone this far and there really wasn’t any backing out now.

I undid the locked box that I kept under my bed and removed a photo album.

With a sigh, I headed into the sitting room. Nikki was standing in the middle of the room holding two large tumblers of Scotch. It was going to be one of those evenings all right.

“Please take a seat. I have some pictures to show you.”

She sat down on the couch. I sat next to her and took one of the glasses from her.

“This is me at my passing out parade in Catterick,” I said as I opened the album at the first page.

“But…” said Nikki in a shaky voice when she saw me in uniform.

“Yes Nikki, I was a man.”

“Shit,” she exclaimed and proceeded to down at least half of her scotch.

“I didn’t know.”

“So far only one person at the agency apart from you knows and I’d like to keep it that way.”

“This is me eighteen months later when I joined the ‘Regiment’.”

“What regiment?”

“Here is a picture of our badge.”

I showed her a picture of the famous ‘Who dares…” badge.

“You were in the Special…”

I cut her off.

“We just call it ‘The Regiment’”

I turned the album to almost the last page.

“That’s me at my last parade. Sergeant Edward Smart at your service. I left the Army a week later. Eighteen months later I transitioned and became Susan otherwise better known as Fallon.”

“So yes, I killed at least ten Taliban. Those are the confirmed kills. Do I regret it? Not in the slightest but that second tour made me determined that I needed to stop living a lie and become the person that I should have been namely, a woman.”

Then I added,

“If the Taliban got hold of me now they would delight in making me death as painful as possible. There is a special place in their version of hell for anyone who is LGBTQ.”

Then I chuckled.

“Dealing with the Taliban was sometimes easier than some of the assignments we get to do. A lot less bitching and complaining.”

“I’m shocked,” said Nikki after she’d emptied her glass.

“I never expected that in a million years.”

Then she looked at me with a straight face.

“I need to think this over if I may?”

“Nikki, I wouldn’t have it any other way. Shacking up with another woman is one thing but shacking up with someone who was once a man and a highly trained soldier as well is another thing entirely.”

She smiled.

“That’s what I like about you. Always so rational.”

I smiled back at her and thought, ‘it is a good job that I am so rational. It would not be a pretty sight if I ever did lose my temper’ with anyone.

Nikki left me a little later. The place seemed empty without her even though she was right below me.

I picked at my food that night. My mind was on other things. The same applied to getting to sleep. I suppose I must have drifted off because I was woken up by someone banging on my front door.

Still half asleep, I opened it without checking who it was first.

It was Nikki. She looked like shit. I guess I did as well especially as I hadn’t taken off my makeup from the previous day.

“You look like shit,” she said as she marched inside my home.

“I could say the same about you,” I replied half joking as I shut the door behind her.

She turned around and smiled.

“Have you got any coffee? I’ve run out…”

“In case you hadn’t noticed, I was still sleeping. There is plenty there,” I said pointing to the kitchen.

“Get some on to brew while I put some clothes on.”

Before I could turn away to head back into my bedroom, Nikki grabbed my arm and gave me a kiss.

“What was that for?”

She grinned and said,

“Just making sure that I remembered yesterday correctly.”

I shook my head and headed for the relative safety of my bedroom.

“Coffee’s ready,” came the cry from Nikki some ten minutes later.

“Be right there,” I called back as I finished getting dressed.

We sat down on opposite sides of my kitchen table. We’d done this sort of thing many times before usually when something bad had happened
with one of her dates.

“This text arrived during the night.”

She showed me her phone.

“Sweetness, got busted for C. Can you transfer 2500 euros to bail me out? Love Dirk.”

Trying to remain expressionless I asked,

“Well, are you? Are you going to send it?”

“Like hell I am. This was posted on his Instagram account several hours before,”

She flicked to another app on her phone and brought up a picture.

There was Dirk, with several Italian beauties at some party. Clearly visible on the table in the shot were several lines of ‘C’, or Cocaine.

“Did you text him back?”

“I was going to but decided to let him stew a bit. Cold light of day and all that…”

“What are you going to tell him?”

“Something like, ‘I don’t do drugs and you know it so why should I help you out?’”

I smiled.

“Sounds good. You might like to add, ‘We are done and your number is blocked from now on’, or words to that effect…”

Nikki nodded and drank some coffee.

Less than a minute of frantic operations on her phone later and she had sent the text.

“Now what are we going to do today?” she said slightly triumphantly as she put her phone down on the table.

“I don’t know about you but I’m going to get some exercise. You can come too if you like? It might take your mind off that ‘love rat’?”

“At the gym?”

I shook my head.

“No. In case you hadn’t noticed that yesterday’s rain has gone and it appears to be a nice day. My plan was to hop on the DLR over to Greenwich and run in the park there. Then head to a pub for lunch.”

Well, I thought to myself, that wasn’t bad for a spur of the moment plan now was it…

“Ok, I’m in. I mean that if we are to have a thing then it is better to get to know each other properly isn’t it?”

I couldn’t fault her argument.

“That’s a deal. I’ll meet you downstairs in half an hour. I mean thirty minutes, not thirty-five or forty.”

“Ok,” she replied not altogether happy as such a short deadline.

“You don’t need to put on your work face. I’m going to wash off yesterday’s dregs and that’s it. We have fairly recognisable model faces but no one knows what we really look like without our work faces on. Well that is true until the paparazzi get on our tails that is.”

Nikki laughed.

“I’d better get going then,” she said as she stood up, finished her coffee and left me sitting alone in my kitchen.

It was then that I started having second and third thoughts about shacking up with her. It seemed like a good idea yesterday but in the cold light of day, I could see all the obstacles.

I weighed up all the positives and negatives once again and as before, the positives came out well on top.

---

Exactly thirty minutes later I was waiting for Nikki in the lobby of our building. As I’d expected, she was late but only by a couple of minutes so I forgave her.

“Ready for some real exercise?” I asked.

“Real? Isn’t the Gym real enough?”

I just smiled as we trotted the half mile to our nearest DLR station.

Twenty minutes later we arrived at Greenwich. Being a Saturday morning, it was fairly busy but soon we’d crossed the main road and were in the Park.

“Ok. First, we do a warmup,” I suggested.

“Eh?”

“I did say that this is real exercise. That means we warm up and warm down. Just follow my lead.”

For the next ten minutes, I led her through a series of movements designed to warm up our whole body. To my surprise, Nikki kept up with my movements very well.

“Right,” I said as we caught our breaths.

“Two laps of the park.”

Nikki sighed and together we set off.

Two laps became four and then we ran backwards up the hill to the famous observatory. Nikki was keeping up so I increased the tempo a bit.

She lasted one more lap before calling a halt.

“Enough. You beat me,” she panted.

“It is not a contest Nikki. This is how I burn off all that apparently horrible food that I eat. I try to do this at least twice a week.”

“Just let me rest a minute, ok?”

“Only a minute.”

We set off again but at a more sedate pace. After another run backwards up to the observatory, I set off back down towards the park exit at a fast walk.

We crossed the main road and did a lap and a half of the Naval College gradually slowing our pace.

“Was that the warm down?” gasped Nikki.

“Yes, it was. Ready for some Lunch?”

“You bet,” she replied.

“Come on then,” I said as I set off on a steady trot towards the riverbank and the pub that was our destination.

---

“I’ll have the Steak and Kidney pudding please,” I said to the waiter.

“Salmon salad for me please,” said Nikki.

“You will be hungry later you know,” I said after the waiter had gone.

“Hummppph.”

“I can feel the pounds coming on around my hips just looking at that,” said Nikki as she eyed my meal.

“We burnt off a load this morning and as we didn’t eat much yesterday then I think the inputs and the outputs are about equal. Besides, I like to eat properly at lunchtime if I can.”

Nikki just glared at me.

“How far did we run today?” she said changing the subject slightly.

“Only about five miles,” I replied.

“Only? I have not run that far since I was a school when we were forced to do cross-country in winter,” came her grumpy reply.

I smiled.

“Then we will have to get you properly kitted up in full battledress and a thirty- kilo backpack. Then we shall see how you get on?”

“Eh?”

“We used to run a full marathon in full kit. Combat kit, rifle, helmet and a fifty-kilo backpack,” I said quietly.

“Now you are joking,”

I grinned,

“Only a little. It was only twenty-five klicks. If the instructors were feeling really mean they make us do it again in full hazmat kit. If you didn’t lose at least five kilos on that run then you are clearly not human.”

“So today was just a bit of light exercise then?”

I shook my head.

“I’ve lost a lot of my strength since… since I lost my balls,” I whispered.

Nikki nearly choked on a lettuce leaf when she grasped what I’d said.

---

A we walked back to our home from the DLR station, Nikki asked.

“Didn’t you ever want children of your own?”

“Yes and no. Yes, I did but no I didn’t want to have them only for me to go and do what mine did a few years down the line. It wouldn’t be fair to my partner or to them,” I replied using my stock answer.

“Why do I get the impression that there is more to it than that?”

“Really? To do what I did meant giving up on so much. The vast majority of Male to Female Trans people live alone. Some have partners and even families but many have been totally rejected by their whole family. You don’t do what I did or any of us for that matter lightly. I’ll probably not be invited to my parent’s funeral. If I was, then part of the family would make it abundantly clear that I was not welcome. That is all part of the world we live in.”

“Do you think that when they see ‘Fallon’ on TV or in the papers, they know it is their son?”

“I doubt it. You have seen how different I look from back then.”

We’d just reached our block when I said,

“Why don’t I come up to your place and we can start sorting out the stuff that you can move to mine and the stuff that you can’t?”

“Why are you doing this for me?”

“Because I’m falling in love with you,” I said without thinking.

Nikki just stood there with her mouth moving but no sound came out.

“You said that without blinking and without hesitation and certainly without deviation,” she muttered when her brain and mouth returned to some form of synchronisation.

I’d been thinking rapidly in those few seconds. I’d put my foot right in it. There was no going back now.

“That means that I meant it. Things like that, I don’t mess around. You know that am pretty direct when it comes to important things. You are important to me and I to you I hope.”

“I don’t know what to say,” said Nikki.

“Say nothing until you have an answer. Take your time and think about it. Then we can have a sensible discussion and work things out.”

“And if I say no?”

“As I said, we can work it out but you won’t be homeless. I wouldn’t do that to you.”

Nikki mouthed ‘thank you’ back to me.

---

The next two days were so busy that it left little time for either of us to think let alone discuss my proposal. Nikki had a huge amount of ‘stuff’. A lot of it was earmarked for going into storage. Neither of us were working on the following Wednesday so I booked a van and roped in a couple of my ex-Army friends to do the heavy work.

Their reward for their help was to go down their local with two models in full ‘war paint’ on their arms. The amount of street cred that they’d get would be huge. Both of them were under my command when I was in the Infantry. They could be relied upon to keep their mouths shut when needed. Besides, they owed me a few favours for bailing their sorry arses out of a few foreign jails when we’d been on exercise and they’d lost out in the inevitable post exercise drinking binge.

Our first evening together was one for relaxing. We had an early start the following morning. Nikki was strangely quiet which was strange for her.

“Penny for them?” I asked.

“Eh? Oh! Sorry, I was miles away.”

I just smiled.

“This place is so different to mine,” she said.

“In what way?” I asked knowing the answer.

“It is so tidy but strangely homely. I had never noticed that before.”

I chuckled.

“You can thank Sergeant Major Murdock for that. He drilled the need to be tidy into a previously unruly and untidy eighteen-year old. It has saved my life on at least one occasion.”

Then she looked at me with a serious look on her face.

“Is ‘us’ really going to work out? What with rebound and all that?”

I smiled back at her.

“That’s why I never said or did anything to reveal how I felt about you until you are no longer in a relationship. I know from bitter experiences that relationships take time and work on both parts to succeed. Living together like this will soon let us know if we can stand the sight of each other. I’m willing to work at it if there is any chance of us being successful.”

“There you are being all logical and rational again. In so many ways you are a woman but in others… I don’t know if it is your training or something that makes you think things through the way that you do.”

“Are you willing to try being a proper couple?”

Nikki smiled.

“I… Oh fuck, yes why not. It isn’t as if I have anything better to do at the moment now have I?”

The grin on her face gave the game away.

That was the sign for us to get together properly for the first time.

Everyone at the agency noticed pretty quickly that we were an item.

---

Nikki’s former boyfriend arrived home a week later and wanted to carry on as if nothing had happened. He barged in my or rather our home demanding that she should leave with him right there and then.

“I’m not going anywhere with you Dirk. I’m in love with Fallon. At least she does not play around with hookers and snort lines of Cocaine.”

“Fallon? That little lesbian?”

“Don’t forget that I’m here Dirk. So, what if I’m a little lesbian? That means I have zero interest in a drugged-up philandering loser like you.”

I could see some white powder on his nostril hairs. That wasn’t unusual for a habitual snorter of ‘C’.

“Why you little…”

He didn’t finish his sentence but tried to slap me in the face. I could see it coming a mile away.

I grabbed his hand out of mid-air and before he knew it, I’d twisted his arm behind his back and at the same time I kicked him with my Jimmy Choo shod right foot in the back of the knee. He went down like a sack of potatoes.

“You… Tramp. I’ll get you for this.”

“You and who’s army? I can take you anytime, anyplace believe me.”

“Bollocks. You got lucky.”

“No Dirk. I had years of training in the Army just to take down numbskulls like you. I can do it all day and all of the night or perhaps your Cocaine addled brain can’t understand that?”

Then Nikki chimed in.

“You are finished with the Agency. You know the rules. No Drugs and you are a close to being if not already an addict. I’ll put the word out tomorrow and then no one will work with you. You are done. I told you that we were done and why.”

Then she came and stood by my side.

“I’m going to marry Fallon and worms like you won’t be welcome. Now get the fuck out of our home!”

I took my cue and literally dragged him out the door. A final kick in the backside and he took the hint and disappeared.

Once I’d locked the door behind us, I took Nikki in my arms and said,

“Did you mean what you said just now?”

“I did. I do and I look forward to saying ‘I do’ very soon.”

With a huge smile on my face, I lifted her up and carried her to bed.

[the end]