The Weekly Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3325 by Angharad Copyright© 2021 Angharad

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This is a work of fiction any mention of real people, places or institutions is purely coincidental and does not imply that they are as suggested in the story.
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David had done one of my favourites, salmon in watercress sauce with new potatoes, baby carrots and petits pois. He brought in a dish full of the veg with knobs of butter on the top. It felt so decadent as I remembered my student days when I'd make a tub of the cheapest margarine last as long as possible. I didn't eat beans on toast all the time, I ate lots of fresh vegetables as well together with coleslaw and lots of apples. I actually ate quite well for a small budget and probably more healthily than I do now because I can afford to eat anything I want, including meat. Consequently, I am heavier than I was in my student days, though I'm also aware that age and being post-operative, taking HRT and lifestyle are also factors.

"You going to eat or daydream?" asked Stella who was waiting for me to pass the new potatoes.

"Sorry," I said and gave her the bowl.

"What were you thinking of, it was obviously interesting as you were well away?" Stella asked.

"I was looking at this lovely meal and thinking about how I ate when I was at uni."

"What did you eat then, Auntie Cathy?" Sarah asked her curiosity piqued.

"If she hadn't bought that stupid bike, she'd have had plenty of money," Stella wasn't beating about the bush.

"Oh this sounds interesting," said Sarah, the rest of them yawned, they'd heard it a dozen times before.

"I used most of my student loan to buy a carbon fibre road bike."

"Tell her how much it cost," instructed Stella.

"About four thousand." I said blushing, "but it was pretty well top of the range, Shimano Dura ace..."

"That's a lot of money for a bicycle," observed Sarah.

"It was a lot of bike, only weighed about 5kg."

"Wow, that's light," she exclaimed and Trish yawned again.

"It was plastic rubbish," Stella teased.

"Plastic, they don't make bikes out of plastic, do they?" Sarah wasn't sure if we were pulling her leg.

"Carbon fibre, actually, which is very light and rigid."

"Falls apart if you hit it against something," Stella was still in playful mood.

"Does it?" asked Sarah.

"It doesn't do impacts very well, Stella crashed her car into the back of me and knocked me into a hedge, it was how we met."

"And it broke your bike?"

"Not quite it destroyed the rear wheel, but the rest of it was okay. Know I crashed it later when some idiot in a white van and a car decided to drive like lunatics down Portsdown hill and crashed, I jumped off the bike because I couldn't stop and the van ran over the bike. I was lucky really, the van driver hit a tree and died."

"Gosh, Auntie Cathy, you do lead an interesting life."

"Boring," muttered Trish and Livvie and Hannah giggled.

I concentrated on my meal and the chatter became more widespread. Sarah did ask me about my diet as a student and I said that I ate lots of bread and pasta for carbs and tins of beans or tuna for protein.

"She lives on tuna," cackled Stella.

"But it's got mercury in it, you're not supposed to eat too much of it," said Sarah anxiously.

"Yeah, I've been eating it for so long, that I actually grow when it gets warmer," I said repeating my only joke. Sarah looked bemused.

"Think thermometers," said Stella, "the mercury rises when the temperature does."

"Oh, yeah," said Sarah blushing, "we use the electronic ones these days."

"So do we in hospitals and the old ones had alcohol in them not mercury, it's too poisonous."

"Actually, mercury itself isn't poisonous because it's pretty inert, mercuric salts are extremely poisonous, but not pure metallic mercury." Stella looked at me as if I was mad. "To start with, you can't pick mercury up with your hands, it runs away from you."

Judging by the expressions on their faces, neither Stella nor Sarah knew that or had tried to do so like we did in our chemistry class in Bristol. But then, our chemistry teacher was quite inventive as well as entertaining and I learned a lot from him. Nowadays, pupils just sit around watching while the teacher performs the experiment because the schools are so risk-averse and terrified of lawsuits. Universities are almost as bad and our technicians and lecturers have to remind first-year students that dissection instruments and needles tend to be rather sharp and sticking a dissecting needle in your finger after it's been holding a dead rat to the dissecting board, is probably not a good thing, although the rat is probably cleaner than the student.

The last time I dissected anything, it was an already dead dormouse and we trying to establish a cause of death. All I remember was that the liver looked enlarged and did ask for some slides to be made of sections of the liver but I have no idea what happened to them. Dan may know but I wouldn't bet on it.

After dinner, we repaired to my study to do our sewing bee and Sarah pestered me for more details of Stella crashing into my bike. Trish had decided to go and do her homework instead.

So I explained that I was transitioning and taking oestrogens and had little boobs which I hid with a conforming bandage and that Stella had discovered in the bath that I was sort of half and half, my dangly bits were as yet attached to my body, despite her best efforts with her car.

They were all laughing at my description and I'm not sure how much sewing was done. When I then related the story of Simon fancying me, I was wearing Stella's cast-offs at this stage, and then me tripping up and pouring a glass of red wine over his best shirt and falling on top of him.

"So how did uncle Peter know about you from school?" asked Sarah. I was obviously the entertainment for the evening and Debbie was enjoying it all too.

"I was always being mistaken for being a girl and that coupled with very long hair, which I grew to annoy my dad as well as to pander to my own needs, and the headmaster, who was an absolute ogre, loathed me a feeling that was mutual. I told them of the pond dipping episode and helping to rescue the old man who'd fallen and how it got in the local paper and Murray was very angry about it.

Then about how he made me do the Lady Macbeth role in the school play when they'd usually used girls from the girl's school next door. He had hoped to make me so uncomfortable that I left, but I was determined that I wouldn't let him drive me away, so he upped the ante and made me wear the costume for a month while we were rehearsing - nowadays, he'd be done for abuse or cruelty, then he got away with it probably because my father agreed with him.

Sarah was shocked when she heard how Siân loaned me her uniform and I wore it to school with makeup and how Murray nearly had a stroke he was so angry, he was practically frothing at the mouth. I told them that I was a target for all the bullies but I sometimes got my own back, one of them broke his hand punching at me and I dodged it, so he hit the wall. Another ran into a door that I just happened to open onto him and laid him out, another I knocked a desk over and it landed on his foot and broke some metatarsals - he was in plaster for a few weeks. I told them how most of the boys and one or two teachers, called me Charlotte and I was made to present one of the woman guests visiting the school with a bouquet, can't remember what that was for now. All in all, I must have spent three months wearing dresses or skirts to school, which seeing as it was a boy's school and apart from one or two teachers, I was the only one who was dressed as female made me a rather obvious target.

Sarah was astonished, "And I thought I had it rough, it was nothing like your experiences."

"I was okay until the TERFS found out at Sussex," said Debbie realising at the same moment that she hadn't told Sarah she was also TS.

"What you're trans too?" gasped our surprised nanny.

"Yeah, surprised you hadn't picked up on, Cathy did with milliseconds, didn't you boss?"

I shrugged, happy to let someone else provide the entertainment, happy that Cindy, who was expected to come, cried off because she had a bit of a cold. Danni was happy to hear about how Debbie dealt with the press by turning up looking like a model after a makeover by Julie and Phoebe. I well remembered that day and how surprised I'd been and how proud I was of her in taking them on head-on, partly because she didn't want to expose me.

I'd not had any problem at Sussex because I hadn't declared myself as either sex and half thought I was a grungy girl wearing boys clothes and the rest thought I was a gay boy. My body was already showing some signs of my AIS as my hips and bum were too tight in boy's trousers so I had to wear women's, my waist was also slim and I suppose I had bigger nipples than most boys and slight fatty deposits underneath them, but it wasn't until I took oestrogens that my body really developed and it was all female.

"Why did they harass you at Sussex?" asked Sarah of Debbie.

"Well, Cathy got away with it because they weren't sure about her, I made the changeover in full view of everyone, and Professor Herbert was very supportive but the TERFS got in on the act and spread their poison as far and wide as they could, they even tried it on here, but Cathy threw them out."

"'Scuse my ignorance, what are TERFs?"

"Oh you don't know the jargon?" said Debbie surprised that Sarah didn't know. "Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists."

"Ah, got it," said Sarah nodding, "Wasn't there something recently about some woman professor at Sussex who was one of those?"

"There was, she was on Woman's Hour, on Radio 4 and I thought she was a psycho lesbian by the end of the interview, she was pretending to seem so understanding but the underlying message was she had no tolerance of transsexual women and refused to acknowledge that we were should even be called women, god help anyone who was trans and regarded themselves as lesbian, that really showed her true colours."

"Was she lesbian, then?" asked Sarah and Debbie nearly collapsed laughing, even Danni was smirking, she'd obviously heard something of the story.

"Just a tad," I answered.

"She was one of the angry brigade at Sussex and Prof Herbert asked Cathy to give me a temporary job. She employed me as a technician and I got into teaching here, all thanks to Cathy, she even rents me a house."

"Goodness, I am in the best household in the area for being transgendered," said Sarah blushing while looking at us anew. That was why Uncle Peter asked you to take me on, wasn't it."

"I'm not sure how much he knows, but he was one of the boys at school who tolerated my eccentricities unlike most of them. He also heard that I was working at the university and worked out who I was, although he wasn't sure until he met me. He went to UWE at Bristol and my secretary knew him from there, he was a lab technician and the rest is history."

"You know how much he respects and admires you, Auntie Cathy?"

"So he said but I didn't know if that was a ruse to get you a job or if it was genuine."

"It's genuine, he was amazed that you'd coped with the abuse in school, got a degree and then did a master's here and also a PhD, considering your history, and then to become a professor and marry into the richest family in the country and get a title as well, he was well impressed."

"He didn't know who I'd married, so he was quite surprised when I told him."

"It's like a fairytale, talk about Cinderella, she's got nothing on you, Auntie."

"Would her carriage be pulled by dormice in Mummy's fairytale?" chirped Danni, possibly to show she was still awake or even as a device to keep her awake.

"Oh definitely," replied Debbie.

"Who wants a cuppa?" I asked, all the talking I'd done was making my mouth dry and it would give me a chance to wind up the bee and I could get the kids to bed, especially as their nanny was sitting here with me. Thus ended another day in paradise.