Phoebe moped around home for the rest of the week. She was unsure about calling Samantha because she didn’t know what to say to her over the phone and she didn’t want to stop her doing her job. In the end, late on Friday afternoon, she called Samantha.

“Hi Samantha, this is Phoebe.”

“Ha-ha, yes, I have been thinking about you. A lot actually.”

“I hope I’m not interrupting your work?”

“Oh good,” said Phoebe breathing a sigh of relief that she hoped didn’t make it down the phone.

“Would you be open to coming to Dinner tomorrow night?”

Phoebe burst out laughing.

“Great minds and all that.”

Then Phoebe’s legal training kicked in but she hoped in a nice way.

“As I asked first, how about you come to me?”

“Good. I’ll text you my address and how to find my front door. It isn’t exactly straightforward.”

“About seven good enough?”

“To be perfectly honest Samantha, I don’t have a clue. Is there anything that you don’t like?”

As soon as she’d said it, Phoebe hated herself. All her training was about not asking open ended questions. Luckily, Samantha answered directly.

“Nothing? That is a surprise. My friend Sky is so picky with her food.”

“No, I have no idea at all or should I say a bit of ‘wait and see’?”

They both laughed at her joke.

“Oh, and there really is no need to dress up.”

Once again, Phoebe had put her foot in it.

“Again, to be frankly honest, I really don’t have anything suitable to wear. Clothes and me really don’t mix. I’m not one of those shopaholic women. I’m sure that you know some of them yourself.”

Once again Phoebe had put both feet right in it and she was sinking fast. How dare she presume that Samantha was not a ‘shopaholic’. She knew that Samantha had fantastic dress sense and … She realised that she was up shit creek without a paddle. Samantha was really having an effect on her.

Luckily, Samantha came to her rescue and suggested that they met earlier in the day to hopefully rectify Phoebe’s lack of clothes suitable for going out with Samantha.

“Yes, I know where it is. Why?”

“Oh! Wait and see?”

Phoebe laughed.

“I’ll see you there then.”

When the phone call had ended, Phoebe wondered what she’d let herself in for. She’d agreed to meet Phoebe at a Self-Storage facility near the port in Shoreham the following lunchtime.

Five minutes later panic set in. Without really thinking thing through, she’d invited Samantha for Dinner and… and what if she stayed the night? Would she find all that dust that she’d been ignoring for months?

There was nothing for it but give her home a much needed thorough clean from top to bottom.

---

Phoebe called it a day just before midnight. The kitchen, bathroom and her bedroom gleamed. Well, they did if you didn’t look too closely at the curtains in her bedroom. They really needed to be taken to the cleaners but that would have to wait for another day.

Feeling totally worn out, she collapsed onto her bed and fell asleep still dressed in her cleaning clothes happy that only her sitting room come dining room remained to be cleaned.

Phoebe’ slept but only for a couple of hours. She woke with a start and realised that she still hadn’t a clue about what to serve her guest. She collapsed back onto the bed, her mind a total mess. Samantha had this effect on her which was causing her cosy and organised world to slowly disintegrate in a way that she’d never experienced before.

She’d been called ‘OCD’ at times in her past. Everything had to be just so. Not any more it didn’t. The habit of a lifetime had just blown away on a stiff sea breeze probably never to return.

Phoebe laid there for a good hour tossing all sorts of things around in her mind. She’d wanted a change and meeting Samantha had really brought that home with a bang. She was also sure that the changes would continue which both pleased her and troubled her. She was riding this wave of emotion and like all waves, she had absolutely zero control on when that wave would come crashing ashore onto some rocks.

---

The morning dawned and Phoebe felt as if she’d been through the wringer, twice! She took a long shower and gradually turned off the hot water. That was followed by two large mugs of black coffee. Slowly, some form of normality returned to her demeanour.

As she sat in the kitchen, Phoebe started to think about the day ahead. The question uppermost on her mind was… ‘what was Samantha going to show her at this storage unit? And what was so important that she saw it that day when she should be cooking dinner for the pair of them?’

Those and a load more questions had to remain unanswered for the time being. The question of what to wear had to come first.

She reasoned that if they were meeting at a storage unit, something might have to be moved so black leggings, black ‘Chelsea boots’ and a dark top that was not exactly new seemed to be the order of the day.

As she put on the leggings she realised that her one and only pair were getting rather thin. A good look in the mirror revealed not only a panty line but she could see the colour of her knickers. That was not good. Then she had an idea.

After a good rummage in her bedroom which at the start of the day looked nice and tidy and was now anything but, she found an old denim mini skirt. With an intake of breath and a bit of a prayer, she stepped into it. It fitted… just but would have to do. She made a mental note to throw it out and get a new skirt at least one size larger. She was no longer a fairly skinny sixteen-year-old girl about town. Then she laughed. She’d never been a ‘girl about town’ when she was sixteen or seventeen let alone now!

---

With one eye on the clock, Phoebe put on some makeup. ‘Less is more’ was flavour of the day. She was sure that Samantha would be perfectly made up but this would have to do.

Feeling at last happy with her state of mind, she put on her jacket and left her home only to return two minutes later. She hadn’t realised just how persistent the rain was. She put on her waxed cotton jacket that had been a present ‘for going away to University’ from her Grandmother. That was the last time she’d seen her alive. Two short months later she died. Out of respect she’d worn the jacket to the funeral which had not gone down well with some of her relatives. Once she’d explained why she was wearing it, most of them calmed down. Only her father remained intransigent. He said ‘you are not coming in the car wearing that thing!’. That was his word which in her family home was a good as passing a law. She was left to get two busses to the church which resulted in her missing the service. Luckily the vicar took pity on her and gave her a lift to the crematorium much to the chagrin of her Father. They’d not spoken since. He thought it should be Phoebe who should apologise and she thought that it should be the other way around. The ‘Mexican’ standoff had lasted ever since and the new Phoebe was even more determined to live her life as she thought fit and not how her family wanted it to be.

The very thought of having a multitude of children in quick succession fathered by god knows whom which seemed the norm in the part of South Wales where she’d been brought up made her shudder. That was not her in any shape or form. Never had been and would never be if she had anything to do about it.

She put those memories behind her as she went down the hill towards Preston Park Station. She knew the timetables back to front and upside down from her time commuting. There was a train that would take her to Shoreham due in ten minutes if it was on-time. She chuckled. Since the May timetable change, services running on-time during the day had been almost an event worthy of headline news on the BBC they were that bad. Still she hoped that if it was running that it would be only a few minutes late.

To her surprise, the train was on-time. She chuckled to herself. ‘now that I don’t need them to run on time, they do!’…

---

Samantha was surprised to see Phoebe waiting for her outside the storage units. She’d driven over from Lewes in the pouring rain.

She leaned over and opened the door for Phoebe. As she did so, she noticed a red car pull into the entrance. She swore. ‘Fuck!’.

“Sorry love, not you but that jerk who has been following me off and on all week.”

Phoebe half turned to look at the ‘jerk’ but stopped. She closed the door and buckled up the seat belt.

Samantha drove slowly to a container in the far corner of the site and stopped. They both looked around and as yet, there was no sign of the red car.

“What are we doing here?” asked Phoebe.

“With that tail, leading them up the garden path I hope.”

She dug around in the centre console and extracted a tool.

“This is a valve removal tool. You take off the dust cap and…”

“I know, unscrew the valve and let his tyre down!” said Phoebe as she completed the sentence.

Samantha leaned over and gave her a brief kiss on the lips.

“That will have to do for now. Well, until we get rid of him that is. Are you up for it?”

“Yes.”

“Good. If you leg it, you should be able to get to his car and do the dirty while I open the unit I have here and appear to be doing something inside. There isn’t anything inside but an old dressmakers dummy and some furniture that really needs sorting out.”

Phoebe took the tool and without hesitation got out of Samantha’s car and disappeared around the back of some other containers.

Samantha meanwhile, opened the doors of the container and disappeared inside hoping that Phoebe could disable her unwanted tail.

Phoebe managed to get to the red vehicle without being seen by the driver. There was no one in sight so after taking a deep breath, she knelt down at the rear of the car on the passenger’s side. It didn’t take long for the air to start escaping from the tyre. It quickly went flat once she’d removed it completely.

With a bit of a smile on her face, she screwed the valve back into the tyre. Then she legged it back to Samantha hoping that the driver would not put 2 and 2 together.

As she turned the next to last corner, she literally ran into a man. Then she had a flash of inspiration.

“Do you own a red car?” she asked the man.

“Yes. Why?”

“One of the tyres is flat!” replied Phoebe with a grin on her face.

“Why you!” said the man as he lifted an arm. He didn’t strike her but instead ran off towards his car.

Phoebe ran to the container where Samantha was waiting. Samantha saw the look of success on Phoebe’s face and locked up the container without waiting for an explanation. They both got into Samantha’s car.

Samantha stopped at the entrance where the man was looking even angrier than before.

She lowered the window and said,
“You can tell my father that I’m meeting with my lawyer and you and he are not invited. Understand!”

“Why you little…” said the man. He had anger and revenge in his eyes.

Phoebe leaned over and said,
“You really do need to stop following my client or I’ll get a restraining order on you. Stalking of women is frowned upon by the law these days. You can tell your client to stop or we will take you and him to court. Do you understand that?”

The man glared at both women. Slowly he nodded his head.

“Good. Now we will be meeting to discuss legal matters with my client. Any more interruptions will mean getting the Police involved. Before you start thinking that I’m just some unqualified paralegal, I am a fully qualified Barrister who just happens to have a one hundred percent success rate in court. So, do you really want to carry on stalking my client or not? Up to you. If you do then I will make sure that you are arrested for stalking. That would not look good on your CV now will it? When you get out of jail that is…”

Phoebe didn’t wait for a reply. She operated the button to raise the window. Samantha took the hint and drove off.

Phoebe sank back into her seat shaking like a leaf.

“We ain’t Thelma and Louise that’s for sure,” she said as Samantha drove onto the A27 road and headed west.

“Oh, I don’t know. That was pretty good in my eyes. You gave him both barrels and then some,” said her partner in crime.

Then she added,
“I took a number of pictures of you wagging your finger at him just in case.”

“Where are we going now?” asked Phoebe trying to change the subject.

“A little place called Ford. Do you know it?”

“Sort of next to Littlehampton? Also, home to an Open Prison and an old WW2 airfield.” replied Phoebe.

“That’s the place. Besides the Prison and where there are car-boot sales there is an industrial park.”

“What’s there?”

Samantha smiled.

“A veritable treasure trove. That’s where we will solve your clothes problem.”

Phoebe didn’t like the sound of that but relaxed and let Samantha do the driving.

The car was so smooth and quiet. This was the first real journey she’d made in an electric car. Everything about the car said ‘expensive’ but from the way Samantha zoomed past a slow-moving car it was worth every penny of whatever it cost. Phoebe was too polite to dare to ask how much it cost but she knew that is wasn’t cheap.

After a few minutes, she saw that Samantha’s left hand was really doing nothing. Phoebe put her right hand into hers. The both smiled at each other.

“I missed you,” said Phoebe quietly.

“Same here,” replied Samantha and gave Phoebe’s hand a squeeze.

“We are going to have to do something about that man,” said Phoebe as they got stuck in the traffic around Worthing.

“It is all down to my father. He wants me out of my home even though my grandmother specifically gave it to me in her will. He had to pay all the inheritance tax himself which went down like a lead balloon. We have hardly said a civil word to each other in over ten years. And he insists on calling me ‘he’ or ‘it’.”

Phoebe knew that there was a lot of history behind what Samantha was talking about. She decided to keep quiet in the hope that Samantha would find the right words to tell her all about what had gone on between her and her father.

Samantha stopped at a roadside burger van.
“They do a good cuppa here,” remarked Samantha as she got out of the car.

Phoebe followed her and they ordered two ‘drivers teas’. With them in hand, they walked back to Samantha’s car.

Once inside, Samantha said,
“I owe you an explanation about so many things.”

Phoebe noticed that Samantha was unsure about what to say. This was totally out of character for her. She let Samantha take her time.

Samantha reached into the back of the car and pulled out a photo album. She put it on the centre console. She didn’t open it right away. Instead she said,

“If you want to bail out when you see what is inside, I’ll fully understand. Not everyone can handle this.”

Phoebe smiled.

“I’ll try.” She said,

Samantha opened the album. There was one picture on the first page. It showed a man, a woman and a young boy.

“That’s my father, mother and….”

Then in almost a whisper she added, “me.”

It took several seconds for Phoebe’s mind to grasp what was on show in front of her.

“I knew from about the age of six, that I should have been born a woman. My gran saw this as clear as daylight.”

Then she turned the page.

Again, there was one photo. This time it was of a young girl aged about ten.

“That’s me in my first dress. That was the first day in my life that I felt happy. I felt as if I’d been reborn. Gran and I went up to Croydon by train and we bought it together. I changed into it on the train coming back to Lewes. Gran was so pleased to see her granddaughter so happy.”

Phoebe looked at Samantha. She could see a tear forming in the corner of her eye.

“From that day on, I spent as much time as I could with Gran. Dad didn’t mind as he was always up in London doing his business. Mum didn’t work, Dad said her place was in the home. With servants, she had nothing to do so she turned to drink. She eventually went a bit bonkers and was committed. He never told me where she was or is. He moved on and has had a series of escorts ever since.”
Samantha paused for a second.

“He’s never really been able to accept that I no longer his son but his daughter.”

Phoebe’s mind had done about ten ‘ctrl-alt-del’ reboots by now an was just about operating again.

“You are trans?”

“Guilty as charged I’m afraid.”

Phoebe sank back into the car seat.
“Oh fuck! It all starts to make sense now!”

Samantha looked horrified.

Phoebe leaned over and kissed her briefly.

“Samantha Mason, you have come into my life and not only turned it upside down but inside out and ten times over. I think I have fallen in love with you. Sitting here right now, is the only place I want to be.”

Samantha froze solid. She’d never had anyone say that to her and especially when she’d just told them about her past.

“You don’t mind? You don’t mind having a relationship with someone like me?”

Phoebe looked Samantha right in the eyes for several seconds. Then she replied,
“I honestly don’t know for the long term but at the moment, I’m like the Elvis song, ‘All shook up’. To have a relationship with someone is a rarity for me so I’m kinda flying blind here as I expect you are to some extent. I say, let’s go for it and see where it takes us eh?”

They kissed for a long time. Phoebe felt Samantha relax in her arms.
Then Samantha’s words from the end of their first encounter came into her mind.

Phoebe could not stop herself from laughing even though their mouths were locked together. This caused them to break apart.

“What was so funny?”

“I remembered what you said to me at the bus stop that first night.”
Before Samantha could answer, Phoebe carried on,
“You said, ‘Perhaps you aren’t a lesbian after all’. I now know what you meant.”

They both laughed.

“I tried to let you know but you called me and… well, here we are,” said Samantha.
“I felt something about you the moment we started talking in the pub. That’s why I kissed you. My heart went bonkers when you responded to my kiss. Then you called me and…”
“But I had to tell you the truth about me today if there was to be any future in us being together.”

Phoebe looked Samantha right in the eyes.
“I’ve never even felt remotely like I do now about someone as I do about you. I meant what I said just now. If this is what love is, then I want it all, I want it now!”

This time, Samantha laughed.
“What’s so funny?”

“You just quoted a line from a Queen song.”

They both laughed again.

“It’s true, I do,” said Phoebe.

“Same here,” whispered Samantha as she wiped a tear of happiness from her eyes.

[to be continued]