Tony Rendell was a dreamer. He’d been one for as long as he could remember. All the dreams he’d ever had since he was old enough to remember them, involved him becoming a famous woman. From an early age, he knew that he had been born wrong. His parents reinforced that view by embarrassing him by telling the family at almost every opportunity that his breech birth meant that he had to be wrapped in cotton wool all through his life. He didn’t but once his family had decided that this was how it was going to be, there was no way in hell that it would change.

As a result, the kids at the various schools he attended, and there were many, made his life hell. He was different to everyone else in that he loved classical music especially Opera and often dreamed of playing Brunilda in the Ring Cycle. His problem was that he was tone deaf, could not sing to save his life and could not play an instrument.

He did notice girls mainly because of his desire to be one. This really took hold when a new family moved in down the street and their eldest daughter started at his school.

The girl, Rosalind McPhail, had just had that teenage spurt in growth and was taller than almost all the boys in her year at school. If fact, she’d end up being 6ft 1in tall. Tony fell in love with her the moment he saw her. Tall, blonde, legs like drainpipes and brainy. She knew what she wanted from life and while it wasn’t that much different from Tony’s, she could sing and play an instrument.

Success came easily to Rosalind once she’d been ‘discovered’. She had a string of top-twenty hits before she was twenty. Like Adelle who came onto the scene about a decade after her, it was the range of her voice that made her a success. Rosalind also wrote a lot of her songs and also those of other artists. Today, she’d be considered a female ‘Ed Sheeran’.

Success in pretty well anything eluded Tony. He wasn’t a bad person. Far from it. He was just one of those people who disappeared into the background. He moved away from home as soon as he could do so legally. His parents really wanted to mollycoddle him for the rest of his life but he knew that he could never be the real person he wanted to be with them in the picture.

Tony never really amounted to anything special. He lost more than one job because of his daydreaming but he just shrugged his shoulders and got on with life and was pretty happy just being invisible.

Tony did have his 15 seconds of fame when he pulled a Police Officer from a burning car just before it exploded. The car had crashed while chasing a car that has been stolen at gunpoint from its owner. Tony just happened to be in the right place and at the right time to help out. He never thought of it as anything very special.

A lot of other people did think that is was special and as a result, he was awarded a medal for his trouble but when he turned up to receive it and for some strange reason, his name wasn’t on the ‘list’ so he was not let into the ceremony where he was supposed to be one of the guests of honour. The ‘Jobsworth’ on the door flatly refused to let him in so instead of raising a stink, he just went home and read a book. His medal came in the post a week later. It remained unopened on a shelf in his small home. To him, he had done nothing really remarkable or worth of such an award.

He still had his dream and that played a big part of keeping him going.

Rosalind meanwhile, had been through two high profile, and ultimately disastrous marriages, a miscarriage and several encounters with drugs and booze. The result was that her magic seemed to wane and it wasn’t long before she lost her recording contract. There was always another up and coming artist to be used and consumed and discarded for someone else a little later.

After a third stint in rehab, she faced up to her new reality and moved away from the toxicity of London to a small town in England well away from where she grew up. Here, she got a job at a Café and tried to rebuild her life. She began playing at pubs and the like. Very low key but it helped her recover some sort of confidence but it was a slow job. She was not going to rush back into the Music Business again in a rush. She just wanted to be happy.

Rosalind’s life turned around when she started taking her guitar and her voice into Hospitals and Care Homes. Her confidence came back in leaps and bounds. She loved just playing simple and often very old songs to people. They seemed to appreciate her efforts more than any of the thousands of people she played too at the height of her fame.

However, there was always something missing from her life and that was companionship. During her spells in ‘rehab’, her shrinks had identified this need and was part of the reason why she had gone from one disastrous relationship to another and to another. Now she had no one in her life and it was a problem for her. To put it bluntly, she was lonely.

It wasn’t that she had not tried to have a relationship but she was scared of repeating her past mistakes so they always ended before they got serious.

Tony had never really forgotten Rosalind and his admiration of her even if it was from afar even after more than fifteen years. When he happened to be passing through the town where she lived and he decided to take a break it was fate that he would go into the Café where she worked four days a week.

Tony recognised Rosalind as soon as he walked into the Café. For a minute, he was fifteen years old again.

“Are you ok?” asked Rosalind when she saw his ashen face.
“You look as if you have seen a ghost?”

“Oh, sorry. Seeing you again took me back to St Wilfreds.”

Rosalind laughed.

“That was a long time ago. A very long time ago indeed.”

“We used to get the same bus to school every day,” said Tony.

Rosalind looked closely at him. Then she said,
“You’re Tony, aren’t you?”

He nodded his head.

“I didn’t know that you knew I even existed. You were always the centre of attention.”

Rosalind smiled.

“Look where that got me eh? Serving teas in a Café.”

“But you had all those hits? You were always in the papers.”

“Yeah, and two failed marriages and a whole load of other shit and you quickly fall back to the bottom of the pile. Fifteen minutes of fame and all that…”

Tony chuckled.

“Some of us never really got off the bottom.”

“Didn’t you get some award or something? I seem to remember reading about it when I was in rehab…”

“Yeah. Fat lot of good that did me. The jobsworths wouldn’t let me into the ceremony. I didn’t mind that much. I just did what anyone would have done.”

“Really? I don’t think so.”

Tony shrugged his shoulders. To him, what was done, was done and there was no going back.

“What about you? I mean since you shall we say fell from grace with the Record Companies?”

Rosalind laughed. It had been a long time since anyone had used such a nice description about the end of her career.

“I work here most days but I still perform but too much smaller audiences. I find it strangely therapeutic.”

“Do you want to go back to the old life?”

Rosalind laughed.

“No chance. It is a mugs game. All the mangers, agents are there to leech off your work. Now I might earn forty quid a night and it is all mine. No one apart from the Tax Man taking their cut makes me feel great in a strange way. What I do, I do it for me.”

Then she laughed.
“That’s almost the name of a Robert Palmer song.”

Tony thought that he’d better order something.

“Can I have a tea and that last piece of that Lardy Cake?”

Rosalind laughed.

“Good choice. I’ll bring them over to you.”

Tony went and sat down. He watched Rosalind make the tea and all sorts of memories from his childhood came flooding back. A few tears almost formed in his eyes but he fought them back. Despite the fact that a good number of years had passed, Rosalind was looking very good. She had obviously looked after herself despite what had happened to her in the interim. To him, she still looked as desirable as that first day he’d seen her at the bus stop waiting to go to school. He remembered her in her school uniform black skirt, black tights and white shirt. He remembered that due to her growth spurt over that final summer, the skirt was certainly indecently short. But, to all the adolescent boys in his class, she was to be worshipped but from afar and in his case, a very long distance. He gave a little shudder when his gaze got a little too close for her then boyfriend. The result was a broken nose and everyone claiming that he’d walked into a door rather than a very large fist.

Rosalind brought him out his stupor when she arrived with the tea.

“Thanks Rosalind,” he said sadly.

“Cheer up, it is not the end of the world!”

Tony shook his head.

“I don’t know about that. Read this,” he said handing her his phone.
“This came as I was parking my car before coming in here.”

She read the message with incredulity. It was a text from his manager telling him that he was not to return to the company as it had gone into administration. Then he showed her the second text message that told him in no uncertain terms that he was to return the company car by the following Friday ‘or else’ legal proceedings would be commenced without delay.

“So, I have no job and no prospects. That seems to be my life all over. It seems that history does repeat itself in my case.”

---

Despite neither of them being particularly religious, their guardian angel was saddened by the plight of two of the good people under his watch. He formulated a plan and submitted it to his superiors.

After some discussions, clarifications and few final modifications, the plan was approved. Their dreams of being decent people was going to come true but nothing would happen overnight.

The first seeds of the plan were planted in Rosalind’s mind during a dream. When she woke up, she could not get Tony out of her mind. She’d come to the opinion that he was a nice person just down on his luck. The new-found confidence she had from her performing made her find out where he lived.

Rosalind had a huge number of reservations about going back to the town where she grew up. Many of the people she grew up with still lived there but she overcame her fears and went to visit him. It didn't take her long to find out where he lived.

“Oh Rosalind! I was not expecting to see you again,” said Tony when he opened the door.

“I hope that I am not bothering you?”

“Me? No, you aren’t. Please come on in. Please excuse the boxes. I’m packing things up. I’m having to move out. Now that I don’t have a job, there is no way I can afford this place.”

Rosalind knew that she’d come just in time.

“Then it might be that I have come at the right time.”

“Please take a seat. Can I get you anything? I haven’t packed the kettle and tea-pot yet.”

“No, I’m fine thanks,” said Rosalind as she sat down.

“What do you mean about ‘the right time’?”

“I may have a job for you,” she said getting right to the point.

“What? Working with you? In the Café?”

Rosalind smiled.

“Sorry, no, not working with me. From to time, I visit some care homes and sing for the residents. One of the homes, River View, needs a caretaker. It also comes with a small flat.”

Tony was stunned by the offer.

“But… why me? You don’t know me from Adam?”

“You seemed so down when we last met. I would be too if I’d been told that I’d lost my job by text message. It is so very impersonal and, in my opinion, totally unprofessional. So, I wanted to help if I could. I hope you don’t mind? If you do, I’ll go away and never bother you again.”

Tony was stunned. Here was the girl he’d had a huge crush on as a teenager sitting in his home offering to help him. This sort of thing just didn’t happen to him… ever.

“I don’t know what to say.”

Rosalind smiled.
“How about ‘Yes, thank you very much Rosalind, I’d love to see what the job is all about?”

Tony realised that she was teasing him.

“All of that and… Thank you. This means a lot to me. I only wish that there was some way I could repay you?”

Rosalind laughed.

“If you get the job, then you can take me out for a pub meal when you get your first pay-packet. Deal?”

“Deal!” replied Tony.

Rosalind handed him a sheet of paper.

“Here are all the details about the job. My number is on there as well. Let me know how you get on.”

Once again, Tony was dumbfounded.

Rosalind could see that he was a bit lost for words yet again so she stood up and went towards the door.

“Rosalind, please don’t go,” pleaded Tony.

She smiled.

“I have to. I have an early start in the morning. The regulars will be wanting their ‘Full English’ at half-six on the dot as usual. Don’t be a stranger at the Café when you get that job, ok?”

He managed a smile back at her before she left him alone.

Then he cried for quite a while. No one had ever helped him like that before. It was quite unnerving to him.

---

His guardian Angel was pleased by their encounter. The hints that had been sown in Rosalind’s mind had worked perfectly. Now it was Tony’s turn.

Once again through a series of fairly vivid dreams, Tony saw his future. Each time he woke up a little more of the picture that had been seeded remained in his conscious mind. Even so, he was unsure about the next step.

In the end, he applied for the Caretakers job and after a single interview, he was hired. Tony now had not only a job but somewhere to live and importantly a small van that came with the job.

Suddenly from having nothing, he had a job, a place to live and some wheels!

Tony was as ever, a bit of a coward. He didn’t tell Rosalind that he’d got the job. He decided to wait until he’d moved in before telling her. What he didn’t know was that Rosalind had been told that he’d accepted the job when she made a visit to that very care home to play and sing for the residents.

She was pleased for him but slightly hurt that he didn’t tell her about the job. However, after some thought, she realised that this was Tony being Tony. That thought was planted in her mind by the ever watchful, guardian angel.

Tony was much being Tony so he was both determined to get his new home perfect before asking Rosalind to visit but in the end, it was about as good as it was going to get so he overcame his nerves and asked her to come and visit and have dinner with him at his home rather than going out to a pub.

Rosalind was only too pleased to accept but she was troubled by some subtle changes in his demeanour and appearance. It troubled her so much that she fell asleep thinking about it.

That night she had another dream courtesy of her guardian angel. She awoke the next morning a lot happier with both herself and what was happening with Tony. Rosalind was however troubled by what it might lead to. This left her with a different problem but a problem nevertheless.

Rosalind, despite some nervousness about visiting Tony’s home, was pleasantly surprised by how he’d made the place his own and the meal was a delight.

It wasn’t until later that night before she realised that Tony was indeed changing almost before her very eyes. As the evening went on, he became more and more effeminate. What troubled her when she thought about it later, was that she didn’t mind one little bit.

She lay in bed that night trying to decide if it was the bad experiences she’d had in the past with men or something else that was making her not concerned about Tony but her own reaction to what was happening in front of her eyes.

---

Her concerns faded in insignificance when compared with what she found two weeks later when she turned up at the Care Home where Tony worked to play at a Birthday party. She’d booked a pianist to accompany her using the upright Piano that was at the home.

When she arrived, she was told that the pianist wasn’t coming but she heard someone playing the piano. Being the inquisitive sort, she went into the hall that was decked out for the party to see who was playing the piano. At first, she thought that it was a resident of the home but the vibrancy of the playing mystified her.

Rosalind was not prepared to find Tony tinkling the keys.

“Tony? I didn’t know you could play the piano?”

Tony grinned.

“Neither did I until a few days ago. I moved it from the store room into here for your event and so that the tuner could do his thing on it as per your instructions. When he left, I just sat down and … started playing.”

“What do you mean started playing?”

“Just that. I’ve never tried to play before. I can remember Mr Wallace at school telling me to get out of the choir because I was tone deaf and could not hold a note. His parting words told me that I couldn’t even get the timing on a triangle right.”

Rosalind remembered the music teacher from their days at School. He was a bit of an ogre but he nurtured anyone with any degree of talent. He’d helped her a great deal.

“What can you play?”

“The piano?” replied Tony grinning.

Rosalind just looked at him and then laughed when she saw the joke.

“What songs silly?”

“I don’t know. I just hear a tune and I seem to be able to play it. Just as the dream said I could.”

“You dreamed this?”

He nodded his head.

“I must be dreaming,” moaned Rosalind.

“No Ros, we are here and now.”

She wanted to tell him not to use that shorthand name for her but thought better of it at the last moment. Instead, she rummaged in her bag and produced some sheets of music.

“Can you read this?” she asked as she put them onto the music stand that was on the front of the piano.

Tony just smiled and started to play.

“You can read music?”

“It seems so. Never tried before.”

Rosalind just shook her head and said,
“Move over.”

Tony moved over to the left-hand side of the stool. Rosalind sat next to him and started to play the song along with him.

It didn’t take her long to realise that he was more than good, he was brilliant. She tried a little ‘improv’ and he got it in a flash.

At the end of the song, she said,
“You are good. Are you really, really sure that you haven’t been playing since you were a child?”

Tony looked at her for almost a second. Then he said,
“Nope. Before the other day I had never even tried to play. As I said, I wasn’t even allowed to sing in the choir at school.”

“About that... Have you tried to… sing since you got this new found, talent?”

“No. Not even thought about it let alone tried.”

Rosalind hesitated for a second. Then she flicked through the sheets of music. She soon found what she was looking for. It was one of the pieces that she performed at the care home. It always was well received.

She started to play. Tony tried to join in on the piano. She shooed him away.
“You sing, I’ll play.”

Bang on cue, the pair of them started to sing ‘The Hills are Alive’ from ‘The Sound of Music’.

After a bar and a half, Rosalind stopped playing.

Tony was singing in a Mezzo-Soprano voice. That should not be happening. It just wasn’t possible.

Tony stopped in mid verse when he realised that Rosalind had stopped playing.

“What’s wrong?”

Rosalind tried but failed to stop a tear from running down her cheek.
“Was I that bad?” asked Tony.

Rosalind shook her head.

“No… You were perfect but…”

She looked him right in the eyes before saying,

“You were singing in a Female voice.”

Then she added,
“You were singing in a mezzo-soprano voice. Men just don’t sing like that. Unless…”

“Unless what?”

“I think in the past, that boys had their balls removed, castrated before their voice broke. This allowed them to sing as a mezzo-soprano until their late twenties.”

He went white in the face.

“You have changed you know?”

“Eh? How?”

“You seem…”
She stopped and almost didn’t continue.

“You seem more feminine.”
There, she’d said it.

Tony sat there and didn’t say a word for a while.

“I have been feeling a bit odd recently,” he admitted.

“You were in a bad place when we met again. Perhaps this change is for the good?” asked Rosalind.

“I… I’m scared.”

Ros took hold of his hand. It felt soft and smooth.

“I’m here for you. You know, that don’t you?”

“Ros?”

Without even thinking about it, she leaned over and kissed him. Tony responded.

---

After the show, Tony took Rosalind to his flat for some tea. Neither of them said anything for a while.

“Tony…?”

“I know, I’m a complete plonker.”

Rosalind smiled and shook her head.

“No Tony, you aren’t. Believe me, I’ve known more than a few total plonkers over the years and you aren’t even close to being one.”

“But I feel so different now.”

Rosalind smiled again and took his hand.

“It is because you are good at something, very good indeed.”

“But what if it is a flash in the pan and tomorrow I wake up and I’m tone deaf again?”

“That won’t happen if I have anything to do about it.”

Her comment caused their guardian angel to burst out laughing. The plan was going very well. It was going so well, that he initiated the next stage right there and then.

Tony sat looking at Rosalind.

She noticed this.

“A penny for them?”

Tony went red in the face.

She squeezed his hand gently.

“What is happening to me? I don’t feel like I did before.”

“What’s different?”

“When you were singing ‘My Way’ earlier, I just wanted to be up there with you.”

“What? Singing a Duet? It is a pretty good song for that.”

Slowly, Tony shook his head.

“No. I said it wrong. I… I wanted to be you, wearing the dress and everything. I’ve always dreamed of doing that ever since I was a small child. I admired you at school but it was because I wanted to be you. Does that make some sort of sense?”

Rosalind smiled. She’d noticed the changes in him. Then she thought,
“perhaps those dreams are coming true?”.

“Well? Why not try it on now?”

“No…” replied Tony as he withdrew his hand from hers.
“It’s not right.”

She smiled.

“If you want to try it then we can do it together.”

“I’m scared…”

This time Rosalind was not going to take no for an answer. She got up from the table and came around to his side. Then she took hold of his hands and gently eased him up from his chair. Then she kissed him.

It had been a while since she’d kissed anyone but like riding a bike, it soon came back. They kissed with a passion that surprised both of them.

When they broke apart, they were both slightly breathless.

“What happened?” asked Tony.

“We kissed. That’s what happened.”

“But…?”

“Didn’t you like it? It sure seemed so while we were doing it.”

“Yes, I did. But…?”

“But what?”

“As we kissed, I imagined myself becoming a woman.”

“So?”

“So? Is that all you can say?”

“Why not become a woman. We are the fairer sex and to be honest, the old you didn’t have much luck as a man now did you?”

“That’s as maybe but…”
He was lost for words as Rosalind stripped naked in front of him.

“Ros!”

“Shush Darling.”

For an instant Tony wanted to ‘run for the hills’ but his guardian angel soon removed that thought from his mind.

He also didn’t react when Ros started to undress him. He’d never had anything remotely like this happen before.

He still didn’t react when she put her dress on him and zipped it up.

He felt good when she brushed out his hair and styled it into a more feminine shape.

Ros finished her work and stepped back. Tony was almost invisible. The new person was appearing right in front of her. Normally, she would have run a mile but thanks to the thoughts that her guardian angel had implanted she smiled.

Then she led him into his bedroom.

“Here you are Darling. Don’t you just look divine and so feminine.”

“W… What’s happening to me?” uttered Tony.

“Shhhhh Darling. Just go with it. I think this is the real you emerging from your cocoon. I kind of like the new you.”

He looked at her with tears welling up in his eyes.

“Really?”

“Yes.”

Then she kissed him long and hard once more.

“That good enough for you?” she asked slightly breathlessly when they came up for air.

“I… I think so,” replied Tony with a smile on his face.

He flicked some stray hairs away from his eyes. This caused Ros to start laughing.

“What’s up? What did I do?”

“Darling, you flicked that hair away from your eyes just like a woman.”

An expression of pure panic came over Tony’s face.

Ros saw this and took his hand.

“Is that so bad? After all, I’m a woman.”

Sadly, her words did nothing to allay his fears.

Their guardian angel noticed this and made a movement. This placed an idea into Tony’s mind.

“You don’t mind if I turned a woman?”

Ros took his hand and squeezed it.

“As I see it, you have had a pretty bum deal from life until we met up. Getting fired by text is lower than low. Becoming a woman would allow you to start again wouldn’t it?”

Then before he could respond she added,
“And you have someone in your life who cares about you.”

“Eh?” came his slightly startled reply.

Ros smiled.

“Me silly.”

“But… what about your dreams? Don’t you want a family?”

Ros laughed.

“That’s what caused two of my marriages to break up. They wanted a child but I was so busy with my career so I refused.”

“But… that was then? What about now?”

Ros smiled back at him and squeezed his hand.

Up above, the guardian angel waved his hand in her direction.

“If you are willing then I am,” said Ros.

She didn’t wait for a response. She kissed him hard. At the same time, she deftly removed her dress from his body.

Tony responded and they headed for the bed while their lips were locked together.

---

Much later, and as they lay together in bed Tony began to worry. Ros was fast asleep with a smile on her face. He was concerned that the emotion of the moment had got both of them rather carried away and that he’d live to regret it.

His guardian angel sensed the concern and planted a thought in his mind.

Tony relaxed as he realised that wherever happened he’d be there for Ros no matter what he looked like. Then he had a tinge of regret.

He was not going to be a typical father. How could he with the pretty obvious breasts he was growing yet last night, he had no trouble ‘getting it up’ but for how much longer? Was his chance of siring a child just a one-time thing?

Once again, the angel moved to ally his fears. The angel already knew that Ros was with child. This was all part of his master plan.

Ros went home to get changed before going to work. She felt good with herself and with life.
Tony however was rather more subdued as he worked cutting the grass of the Care Home. At least it was a solitary job and he could work on his thoughts alone.

Sadly, by the time he’d finished the grass cutting he was no further forward with his thoughts. The warmth of the day was also making his budding breasts itch like mad. His phone rang as he was walking into the outbuilding that served as his base for outdoor operations.

“Oh, hi Ros,” he said when he answered the call.

“Not so bad. You?”

“Lunch?”

He looked at his watch and was surprised to find that it was almost lunchtime.

“Sure,” he replied.

“You will? Ok, I’ll see you soon.”

Ros had surprised him by offering to bring his lunch to where he was.

---

The Care Home had once been a Public School for Boys. The building he was in was the former Cricket Pavilion. It had a veranda that provided shade from the midday sun. Tony moved a dusty table and a couple of equally dusty chairs onto the veranda and wiped everything down in preparation for their meal.

He’d just finished when he felt that he was being watched. He looked up and saw Ros.

“Oh!” he exclaimed.

“Aren’t you pleased to see me?” asked Ros with a smile on her face.

“Yes but… but you are here before I’m ready.”

Ros grinned.
“I could go away and come back again you know?”

“Please don’t do that.”

Tony’s uneasiness around women was evident to Roz. She put down the basket of food that she was carrying and embraced Tony.

A tear welled up in his eye.
“Don’t cry on my behalf. I’m not.”

“I’m just so happy.”

“Then dry your eyes and we can talk as we eat.”

A sense of foreboding came over Tony but he held his silence as he setup their food.

“Having more second thoughts?” asked Ros.

He nodded.
“I thought that cutting the grass would help me think but it hasn’t.”

“Then let my delicious food help you out,” suggested Ros.

At the end of the meal, Tony was no further forward. Their guardian angel planted a thought in their minds.

“I thought the it might be nice for you to spend some time as a woman?” suggested Ros.

Tony laughed.
“I had the very same thought myself.”

“What have you got on this afternoon?”

“Er?” said Tony as he thought.

“Nothing that can’t be done another day.”

“Don’t you have to be here if… if a light bulb needs changing?”

Tony laughed.
“The team leaders can do things like that. If there is a real electrical problem or a water leak then they also have contact numbers for the right people. I’m not qualified to do that sort of thing.”

“Then let’s go shopping this afternoon and get you something nice to wear?” suggested Ros.

“Are you sure about this? What about your boss at the Café? Won’t they mind?”

Ros grinned.

“I am the Boss. My agent was caught ripping me off and after I sued him, he settled out of court. I used the money from that to buy the place. It won’t make me rich but it does provide a steady income.”

Tony’s estimation of Ros went up a few more notches. He felt sad as well as happy. Despite all her troubles she’d somehow come out on top which was something he’d never had a chance to do.

“Why so sad?” Asked Ros when she saw his body language.

“Oh…”
“I was just admiring how you seemed to succeed even with everything you have been through,” he replied with a definite sigh in his voice.

“Tony, there were several times when I nearly ended it all. But… but since you came into my life, for some reason all that simply does not matter any longer. All I seem to think about is us as a couple living together and loving each other.”

Tony nearly got up and legged it at the mention of love but his guardian angel had made sure that any negative thoughts like that were banished from his mind.

Ros saw the blank look on his face.

“Didn’t you hear what I just said? I’m falling in love with you?”

“I heard it. I just don’t believe it. Is it the old me or the new me? The female me?”

Ros had thought a lot about this in the preceding days. He guardian angel had been pleased that she’d made up her own mind without any prompting on his part.

“I don’t really mind but the new you does seem, to have so much more going for her than the old one,” she replied smiling sweetly at him.

“That’s easy for you to say. You aren’t the one changing.”

“I’m having to change as well you know. If someone had said to me six months ago that I’d fall in love with someone who was changing into a woman right before my eyes, I would have laughed back at them and told them not to be so silly. Now, it is happening and I just know that it is not only the right thing for you but for me as well. It just feels so right and natural.”

Their guardian looked down and smiled. Once again, a few subtle thoughts placed at the right time were reaping dividend. His only problem was Tony’s reluctance to take the next big step. He was sure that the next day or so would change all that.

[two days later]
Toni was still struggling with her bra. Ros took pity on her once again and helped her lover to get it correctly positioned on her body.

She stepped back and looked at Toni and smiled. Almost all trace of Tony had gone and Ros was puzzled. She was sure that it hadn’t been all their doing but she was past caring. The new Toni had been fantastic in bed and the aftermath of their lovemaking had left Ros feeling happy in a way that she’d never felt before.

She also felt sad that if Toni’s changes carried on for much longer, she was sure that it would not be long before Toni would not be able to satisfy her in bed.

Up above, their guardian angel smiled and implanted a thought in her mind.

Ros has this sudden thought that life would be almost perfect if they had a couple of children. She’d never had even the faintest desire to be a mother until the last day or so but now seemed like the right time for both of them.
Unbeknown to her, she was already pregnant with twins. The angel had made sure of that.

“A penny for them?” asked Toni.

Ros smiled.
“I was just admiring you and how much you have changed these past weeks.”

Toni smiled and kissed Ros on the cheek.
“All down to your hard work my dear.”

“Bollocks! It is you that has changed and I love the new you.”

“And will you when ‘it’ goes?” she replied looking downwards.

“Then we’ll have to improvise, won’t we?”

Ros saw Toni’s uncertainty. She took her hands in his and said,
“I’m not going anywhere unless you are at my side. Understand?”

“Yes but…”

“No buts about it, I’m here by your side. Now, we have to finish getting dressed if we are going to make our dinner reservation.”

She was not going to take no for an answer.

[one month later]

“You are looking very nice today, Toni,” said Mrs Davison who was one of the residents at the care home.

“Thank you, Mrs Davison,” replied Toni.

Toni was wearing her gardening clothes. A green ‘boiler suit’, brown work boots and carrying a stout pair of gloves.
Toni put the compliment down to Mrs Davison’s increasingly frail memory but nevertheless, it was nice to receive a positive compliment of any kind.

In the weeks that followed their decision to ‘go for it’, Ros helped Toni grow into the female way of life. What astounded Toni was that no one had commented on the somewhat abrupt change from Tony to Toni. Neither of them realised that this was all down to their guardian angel. Toni started thinking about changing her name from Tony to Toni but was shocked to find that all his documentation was now showing the name Toni.

“Have you had anything to do with this?” a puzzled Toni asked an equally puzzled Ros.

“No but hey, it is what you wanted isn’t it so don’t complain.”

“But… someone must have done it. The question is who?”

Their guardian angel planted a thought in Ros’s mind.

“Ours is not to reason why. Ours is but to do and die”

“Don’t you go quoting Tennyson at me,”

Ros had a hard time stifling a laugh.

“What is so funny?”

“I seem to remember that none of the boys at school passed English Lit. You were all too busy chatting us up!”

“Not me,” protested Toni.
“I was too busy trying to stay out of the way of what they now call ‘Jocks’ to even begin to learn poetry.”

“Yet, you recognised a line from one of the classic poems? How do you explain that then?”

“I don’t know, I really don’t know but it isn’t the first time something strange has happened is it?”

“What do you mean?” asked Ros.

“Think back to when you found me playing the piano. I’d never done that before. I was tone deaf and could not play musical instrument. Then there was my voice and singing. What have you to say to that then?”

Ros thought back and realised what Toni was saying was true. But before she could comment, Toni added.

“It is almost as if we are part of some game or are subjects in some sort of weird experiment? But by who and what for?”

“Shouldn’t that be ‘whom’?” suggested Ros.

Toni just glared back at Ros.

Their guardian angel looked down on the couple and shook his head. It was time for direct action just as his boss had predicted.

---

“Hello? Is there anyone here?” came a voice.

Toni was putting away some pots. The flowers that had been in them were finished for the year and were now on the compost heap.

“I’m in the back,” she replied with a weary sigh. It had been very hot that day.

The owner of the voice found Toni washing the pots.

“Hello. My name is Angel. I understand you have a bit of a problem with what has happened to you?”

“Who the heck, are you, and what are you trying to sell me?”

Angel laughed. Toni was just as he’d expected. Normally, Angel presented a male persona but for this part of the mission he’d adopted a female image.

“I’m not trying to sell you anything. When you started playing the piano, you played part of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto number 3. When Ros came in you were playing ‘You’ve got a Friend’. Am I right?”

Toni’s body language told Angel that she was right and it was time to continue.

“So?”

“You aren’t part of some weird experiment. Far from it. This is real life. My boss’s boss decided that you needed a totally fresh start and Rosalind needed a good person in her life. I looked back in your past and found that you had met before. It was no accident that you two met again. Then there was this desire to become a woman. Something that you had dreamed about but really never explored. We put a few things together and this is what we have. We didn’t expect that Ros would fall for you so rapidly.”

“But…” he continued.
“As you are getting on so well together we let things go until last night when you said, and I quote…’It is almost as if we are part of some game or are subjects in some sort of weird experiment? But by who and what for?”

Toni remembered those very words and wondered where the camera or microphone was that this… this person had used to record their every word.

“I see that you are still suspicious. That is only to be expected. Please allow me to demonstrate a little of what I can do.”

Suddenly, Toni found herself raised about a foot from the floor. Then she was turned around through a full 360 degrees before being lowered down to the floor. At the same time a thought was planted in her mind Angel hoped would quell any further doubts.

“Most of the time we work by gentle manipulation. I just planted a thought in your mind about giving a bunch of flowers to Ros when she comes home from work tonight. Am I correct?”

Toni was indeed thinking those very thoughts. He was still worried.

“I’m not an ogre of even a bad person. We want to see both of you happy with your lives after all the disappointments that both of you have had over the years.”

Toni could not disagree with those words.

“I’ll leave you know. At least you know that there is someone looking out for you.”

Angel turned to leave but stopped and said with a smile on her face.
“Oh, and buy the way Ros is pregnant. She is expecting twins. She’s at the Doctors at this very moment. She won’t know that it is twins until the first ultrasound in a few weeks but you had better make that bunch of flowers a really big one if you get my meaning?”

With that Angel left him alone.

Toni was tearing herself in two. One part of her wanted to leap for joy at the thought of becoming a parent and the other part of her wanted nothing more to do with being a woman.

Eventually, the part about being a parent won the battle. Then the ages old desire kicked in and ‘wham bang thank you ma’am’ and she was one million percent behind being with Ros and being a parent.

By mid-afternoon, Toni was looking forward to seeing Ros that evening. She’d realised that if becoming a woman meant having Ros in her life and being a parent then she’d go with the flow. Before Tony had moved here neither of those things were even remotely on his radar. Her last thoughts as she climbed into her car was ‘I’m so lucky to have been given this opportunity’.

Up above, Angel smiled. That thought had not been planted by anyone. It was all down to Toni herself.

That evening, Ros turned up at her flat somewhat nervous about how she’d tell Toni about the baby. As she entered, she was met by Toni who was carrying just about the biggest bunch of flowers that she’d ever seen.

“Eh?” was all she managed to say.

Toni’s smile was beaming.

“Congratulations are in order don’t you think?”

“How…? How did you know?”

“I guessed. You didn’t use any tampons that you pestered me so much to provide so I guessed that you had missed your period.”

Toni’s eye went up as she said a mental thank you for that thought.

“I wanted it to be a surprise but then I was worried about how to tell you. I guess I needn’t have worried then?”

“We have a lot to talk about so I made some of your favourite comfort food, ‘Shepherds’ Pie’.”

Ros thought to herself, ‘why did it take me so long to find this wonderful person?’.
“And don’t even think of giving up the Café. I’ll be a stay at home mother to our child,” said Toni almost putting her feet right in it and saying ‘children’.

Ros smiled back at Toni and thought, ‘Life is good at last and I have a good woman at my side’.

Up above, their guardian angel smiled and drew a line under their storyline. Their mission was complete.

[The End]