This a continuation of the story of Alice, which was posted back in 2012 as The Shoplifter. You would be advised to familiarise yourself with it before reading the sequel.
https://bigclosetr.us/topshelf/fiction/34761/shoplifter
Now enjoy the travails of Alice and her employer Ms Adams and the 'dragon ' who is Ms Adams mother who Alice has been recruited to look after.

Dragon Slayer.
by Angharad.
(Please read, The shoplifter, and Alice before reading this or it won't make as much sense as it might.)

I gave Alice my keys to open the door as I carried the portions of fish and chips and my handbag. My laptop bag was still in the boot of my car along with all the clothes we'd bought Alice at the store. Mother was sitting in the lounge watching television. As she'd been on her own much of the day, I suppose it may have been for a bit of company, though I'm not sure how desperate I'd have to be to embrace Ant and Dec for company, but I suspect it would be up towards the high end.

"Hi, Mummy," I said leaning over to peck her on the cheek, "this is Alice, but we need to hurry to eat these chips before they get stone cold." With that, I dashed out to the kitchen to warm some plates and dish up, I left the other two talking.

The quickest way was to shove the plates in the microwave for a few minutes and plonk the take-aways on the radiator in the kitchen. Then while that was happening I dashed upstairs and threw off my suit swapping it for jeans and sweatshirt,the last thing I needed was chip grease on the skirt of a five hundred pound suit. Downstairs again and I reached the kitchen just as the microwave pinged. At least the plates would be hot. I called the others as I began to unwrap the food. Then I called them again, finally, I went into the lounge to see why they weren't coming and saw they were both laughing loudly at something on the telly.

"C'mon you two, this food is going cold," I said firmly and Mummy eventually rose from her chair and Alice helped her out to the kitchen - don't know why, she's perfectly capable of walking by herself, the old fraud.

The food was okay I suppose, but my mother and Alice seemed to hit it off very well together. I was waiting for the second shoe to drop as they were both on their best behaviour. I had told Alice not to mention how we'd met and also not to say how long she'd been a girl, doubtless, my mother will have all that out of her within a few days but for the moment I didn't want anything to prevent a favourable first impression.

After the meal, I grabbed Alice and told her to come and collect her stuff from the car while I got my laptop. I needed to download the letters from Shona for Alice to read and be ready to sign as Shona was popping over at eight, to witness them. It was now nearly half-past seven.

Alice carried her clothes up to her room, I showed her the layout of the house, it's four bedrooms and mother and I have the two larger rooms with the carer's room the next biggest and the box room mother's sewing room. I had my dad's old office downstairs which could have been a breakfast room originally. We eat in the kitchen unless we're entertaining, it's a big room since Daddy had it extended with plenty of room to have a dining table as well as all the usual paraphernalia required for catering, the utility room has the extra freezer and the washing machine.

She seemed quite pleased with her room and began hanging up her stuff in the wardrobe, a built-in thing we had done years ago, but it was still in good condition. I told her she would need to come down when Shona arrived to sign some letters and forms. I left her to finish off and ran down to my office to print off the various bits and pieces, Shona had sent.

When Shona arrived I called Alice down and let Shona explain what we were doing and why. "I need you to say that you have entered into this arrangement of your own free will, Alice and that no one is forcing you to adopt a female persona or lifestyle, do you understand?"

Alice said she did, then we did another few things about that and her change of name form, plus an application to the Department of Work and Pensions to get her a national insurance number and explain her new name and status. This we'd send off after she got the statutory declaration done tomorrow. Shona was coming to get her to take her to our solicitors and I'd stay with Mummy until they got back, then I'd go to work afterwards.

Then it was bedtime. I'd explained that the bathroom opposite her room was for the use of the two smaller bedrooms, Mummy and I had our own en-suites, so she put all her skincare things in the cupboard in there. I told her the following day she had an appointment with the doctor, to register and be checked over by the practice nurse and then to see Dr Emilia Swain, who had some experience of gender problems having worked at Charing Cross Hospital in their Gender Identity Clinic when she did her psychiatry training. Emilia was a friend of mine and I checked she was okay with it all before I made the appointment. The surgery was at the opposite end of the village along with the pub and church, we were up the modern end, our house was built in 1840.

There was an alarm clock in Alice's room and I told her she'd need to be up at six to get herself ready to help my mother up at seven. I also told her that she didn't need too much makeup partly because she'd probably still be doing it at lunchtime and also that I didn't want her going to the solicitor's looking like a Parisian whore or a piece of modern art. I suspected she'd played with makeup for a while as all teenage girls do, but this wasn't playing, this was real life and for both our sakes I didn't want her to give herself away because the gossip in a place like our village would be rife. Tongues will probably wag as it is because I'm employing a youngster, it took years for them calm down when they saw me kissing my girlfriend when I was fifteen - yes - I'm gay, and no I haven't told Alice because it's none of her business.

Despite having sorted Mummy out for the short term, I wasn't sure if Alice would stick it, I didn't feel relaxed so didn't sleep very well. My mind seemed intent on acting like a carousel on which the horses changed into VAT returns or Alice painting her face like a clown and me trying to make her tone it down. Consequently, I was a bit late getting up and by the time I got downstairs, Alice was boiling the kettle and making toast with a freshly painted face that for a first attempt was pretty good. I said so and she told me that Jo had explained every step in great detail and she'd done what she'd been taught. Life was looking up.

I showed her how to help Mummy wash and dress, she showered every other day and the hairdresser came once a week to wash and set her hair and trim it if necessary, sometimes she had a perm. That was Louise, a girl from the next village and I left it to her to advise Mummy on what she thought was necessary to keep her looking smart. Alice was a quick student and I began to hope she might stay awhile because she seemed to have a very good rapport with Mummy. I offered a silent prayer skywards though I doubted it would achieve anything because the others I'd sent hadn't.

Alice went off with Shona and I sat with Mummy enjoying a second cup of tea while she finished her breakfast of toast and marmalade. "So what d'you think of Alice then?" I asked her.

"She's a lovely girl. You said she used to be a boy but I can't see any boy in her."

"I only told you about her past because I felt you needed to know in case she said or did something out of character and it made you suspicious, instead now you can correct her and help her achieve her ambition of becoming as much a girl as she can be."

"Well, she's nicer than half the so-called women you got from those agencies, half of them hardly spoke English."

"Mummy, you squabbled or picked fights with all of them whether they were British or whatever, the fact they didn't speak English may have been an advantage because they couldn't argue with you then."

"I enjoy a lively discussion, you know that," she said with a sparkle in her eye.

"I know but just bear in mind, Alice is our last resort, if you upset her I don't know what we'll do."

"Put me in a home, you mean?"

"I didn't say that, but I can't run a store and look after you all day."

"You just go to work, Alice and I will be fine, in fact, we'll have fun." I wasn't sure if that was something that reassured or worried me.

Shona returned with Alice and after a brief word went off to her office, I checked all the forms she taken with her and that included three originals of the statutory declaration as some government agencies won't accept what they feel is a copy, the Passport Agency is one, though they do return it after they photocopy it, but then I do appreciate passports are used as proof of identity and that is big business in the crime world, so there has to be some effort to prevent it.

I photocopied those forms or documents we could and put everything in a folder to deal with when I got home, I felt that it would probably be quicker if I didn't leave it to Alice to do by herself, besides she had to do some dragon taming to do today, and so far, she wasn't doing too badly, the dragon liked her.

I'd shown Alice where everything was in the kitchen and told her what we were eating tonight and instructions on what to do, my mother could supervise as she did me when I was a girl. They'd also have to get their own lunch, but there was plenty of bread for sandwiches. I asked her to vacuum through downstairs and this I would expect to be done every day, with upstairs done once a week along with the stairs. Bathrooms would be done once a week properly and daily for a lick and a promise. I left it to her to organise herself as long as it was done and I also told her that while my mother liked her, she wasn't there to play with her all day, she was there to work.

Once in work, I sat and worried about whether I'd done the right thing for us, and also was I pushing this boy into becoming a girl because it was convenient for me? After a cuppa and an hour of VAT receipts, I phoned the bank and set up an account for her. Normally they wouldn't allow this but I'm a good customer and once I spoke with the manager, Peter Thompson, who I know through the Chamber of Commerce, he'd agreed to organise it and send the details, card and what have you, to my house as I gave that as Alice's address as well. I also got payroll to set up a transfer to this new account to pay her every month, though the money would come out of my money not the shop, tempting though it was.

The rest of the day was pretty routine and I stopped off at the supermarket on the way home and got some items to fill up the fridge. When I got home, I changed while Alice made me some tea. Mummy seemed in a better mood than I was used to and the place looked reasonably clean and tidy. The fluff and pencil shavings I'd deliberately left in my office and the dining room respectively had gone, so the floors had been vacuumed.

Dinner was spaghetti bolognese which isn't too demanding and it was nearly all cooked. I agreed from the outset with all parties that Alice would be part of the household and would thus participate in most things we did as a family, that included dining, so she would eat with us unless she chose not to or we had a legitimate reason for excluding her. In reality, it felt as if I was supervising a family member rather than an outsider, but except for the shoplifting, she seemed a genuine person when she was given the opportunity to be herself. While this may show me to be too trusting and naïve, she was aware if she betrayed my trust, there would be severe consequences and if she was sincere about wanting to transition to a woman, then staying with us and being employed would give her a flying start.

Apart from her chores, she had found time to play with Mother who promised to teach her to sew. As Mummy was a trained dressmaker and tailoress, Alice could have done worse for a tutor, though I admit I rebelled when she wanted me to learn how to sew as a girl and only did the compulsory bit in school. After dinner, which I helped clean up, Mummy went off to watch telly and Alice came with me to my office and we went through the paperwork and she also told me about her encounter with her new doctor - she was euphoric because Emilia had given her oestrogens, albeit a low dosage. She had told me she might, doctors sometimes do this because it lowers libido, so if you have someone who is transitioning because it turns them on, the pills will often show it. I didn't think that was the case with Alice, but I was no doctor. The surgery dispenses its own prescriptions, so she'd come home with the pills and started taking them already.

Emilia had warned her that she would possibly encounter more nausea than breast growth for the first few weeks as her body got used to the pills and she tried to warn me she may be unwell in the mornings. I pointed out that morning sickness in pregnancy, which is not an illness, had to be dealt with and while I'd be reasonably sympathetic, I needed her to pull her weight as I was paying her and not working her too hard. I gently reminded her that being female came with its downside and she should consider herself fortunate that she didn't have periods, they'd been a nuisance ever since I was eleven.

I reminded Alice to talk with her mother regularly and checked with her that she was doing so. On one Sunday I heard her talking in the kitchen and realised she was on her phone. "I'm all right, bye," I asked if she'd been calling her mum and she blushed and said she had.

"Is it usually that short a call?" I asked a little surprised.

"I'm only calling her at all because you asked me to, she doesn't really care about me."

"How do know, she is your mother."

"Yeah, I know but she's only called me once since I've been here and that was to ask me if I minded if she cleared out my room because Jack's son was moving into it."

"Oh, how d'you feel about that?" I sounded like a counsellor.

"I don't care, she doesn't care about me so why should I care about her. You're more like a mother to me than she ever was, especially once she knew I was trans, she couldn't wait to get rid of me."

"I'm sorry." There wasn't much more I could say but I noticed despite her declared indifference to her mother, the tears in her eyes said something else.

"I hate her," she said quietly and then burst into tears. My mother appeared at this point and I waved her away. Being my mother she completely ignored me and walked over to Alice and hugged her.

"What's wrong, child?" Said my mother holding the weeping girl.

"Her mother has just given her old bedroom to her boyfriend's son," I informed my mother.

"Oh you poor girl," she said cooing as she held her.

They went and sat at the kitchen table, Alice trying to avoid messing her makeup while dabbing her eyes with a tissue. I felt there was little I could add to the matter as I'd told her several times she was welcome to stay with us as long as she wanted, on the proviso that it meant as my housekeeper.

I boiled the kettle, usually, a cuppa helps calm people down, so I busied myself at that, perhaps also feeling some discomfort by being told I was more like her mother than her birth-mother. I didn't want to have that happen but it seemed to be doing so despite my best intentions.

"There, there, you tell your gran all about it," said my mother and I nearly dropped the tea caddy.

"I'm sorry, Gran," sniffed Alice. I wasn't sure how I felt about what was happening but it wasn't reassurance. I don't want a daughter, especially one who was already an adult, well, sort of one. I'm a gay career woman, a businesswoman not a mother substitute. Alice was only here because I needed a domestic cum carer, it wasn't an act of charity, it was a contract of employment. I didn't need this nonsense from my mother. There had to be barriers between employees and family, having said that, in the months since Alice arrived the old bat has been happier than... well since my dad died. Dammit, this wasn't going as I intended at all.