Changing Roles
By Julie Dawn Cole
Chapter 27

I couldn’t believe that I’d just said that. It sounded so girly, and he’d trusted me to be his right hand man as MD. Had he taken advantage of me because of my nature and exploited my weaknesses and lack of experience? Since Emily had arrived, I’d seen how far short of being a strong leader I fell short.

Jack took my hand and pulled me toward him and put his other arm around my shoulder. ‘Look Julie we’ve both had a lot of support from dad, and I was very envious of your relationship with him, and it caused me to do some stupid things. I wanted him to treat me like a son and I felt he had the relationship I wanted with you and not me.’

‘Jack I worked for him and he was just my mentor.’

‘But put yourself in my place I was suffering from gender confusion, and I had mixed up emotions. I always knew that I was a boy, but dad had a hard time accepting that. So I needed to earn extra kudos and outperform you. I studied hard to prove myself and got a job in the city and moved to London where I lived and was accepted like this as a man. But it was high pressure and was taking stimulants to give me extra energy and stop me keeling over. The only break I had was when I went for private treatment for top surgery, but it wasn’t possible to sit still. I worked long hours from my apartment and eventually I went back to work, but it was far too soon. I needed extra boosters, and it was expensive and assed expense on top of the treatment, so things got worse not better.’

‘So are you saying all this was the result of my relationship with your father?’

‘You were the son that I wanted to be spending so much time with him. It’s a strange twist to see that now I’ve become his son and when you both meet, he’ll see you were always really a woman. He made a big mistake.’

‘But I never did anything to deflect his attention away from his family. He didn’t show me affection just professional support and guidance and as opportunities came up he pushed me forward.’

‘Yes, but I had to leave home and make my own way. It eventually became impossible for me to meet the targets I set myself. I knew that if I’d had a fair deal as a boy I could have achieved so much more and made him proud.’

‘Jack he was proud of you. He never said anything about you living as a man and always referred to you as Jackie. He said you were in a man’s world and outperformed all your male counterparts.’

‘It came at a price, and I had a breakdown and got into serious debt, and I had problems with other types of dealers rather than those in the City.’

‘So that is why George took a break and was out of contact. To help you sort out your life?’

‘Yes. I packed in my job and recovered whatever we could and moved north. Eventually once dad got things sorted out, we looked for something to do to give me income and occupy my time. This place came on the market. I spotted it as a result of my frequent visits around this part of Manchester after it was recommended by a family friend. I made lots of new friends in the community around here. It was hard at first since FTM were not commonplace. More MTF, crossdressers and lesbians were in the minority. I found a few places that I liked and had a few relationships, but dad was keen to ensure I didn’t get too involved with drug pushers. He arranged for consultations and proper hormone treatment, and it didn’t take long before I could pass as male without any challenge. My voice dropped and since I’d had initial surgery it meant I no longer had to bind. I built up my upper body strength at the gym. Best of all was that since I left London dad has treated me like the son I always wanted to be’

‘All this must have been a big change and a lot of financial outlay? I could never have afforded it and even more so now.’

‘Yes, but I had some great friends in London who saw me struggling and they wanted to help. Most were female colleagues who wanted me to break free of my dependence on drugs and they saw my priority was to overcome my financial problems. They gave me good advice for investments and dad provided the funding, so he took the risk and bank-rolled me.’

So, it seemed I’d gained Jacks trust and he was assuming I needed help too. It did sort of confirm that George had taken advantage of his position and possibly had carried out some sort of fraud or borrowed company money. However, he was no fool and surely, he never expected to get away with it if it were true. I wondered if he borrowed money and got in too deep himself. He wouldn’t steal it as far as I was concerned. I needed to see him face to face.

Then Jack suggested we pay a visit to meet a friend at a bar/club close by that he’d regularly frequented. He asked if it could be just the two of us since Emily would stand out like a sore thumb and he hoped that she wouldn’t take offence if she wasn’t included. Why was he trying to split us up? I doubted that Emily would agree if asked and she was keeping a close eye on me.

‘If it makes you uncomfortable, I can ask someone to join us to distract her whilst you and I chat to my friend. It might help you to understand how my father was able to raise the funds so quickly that he used to free me from threats that caused me to behave so stupidly down in London.’

I couldn’t believe my luck. This might just prove to Emily that George did nothing wrong, so I nodded my agreement. Jack assured me that since Emily wouldn’t let me out of her sight then he would arrange to distract her whilst I had a talk to his friend. He said that he’d already recognised her preferences, and she would like the venue that was one of the top three venues in the Gay Village for one side of the community. I was guessing what he meant by his remark, but I didn’t think he was as smart as he thought. I was sure that Emily was astute enough to realise that it was better to blend in at Jacks place and give the impression she was gay to avoid suspicion. She already seemed to trust me enough to object or to intervene unless she felt I was in some sort of danger. Jack seemed to be underestimating her like most people seemed to do before she turned the tables on them.

It didn’t take long to reach Les Filles that was a place I’d visited and was better known as Filles. I already knew that it was a very lively nightclub and music venue and likely to be full even pn a weeknight with a queue outside most evenings. It was one of the larger venues and the most popular with the lesbian community as one of the longest-running gay clubs in Greater Manchester, It advertised itself as "Manchester's Favourite Gay Venue" and it was also popular with transgender and transvestites but less so with gay men.

Jack was well known by the 2 large bouncers guarding entry, so we were allowed to jump the queue and go straight in walking past the ticketing and payment kiosk. He also was able to order our drinks without fighting his way to the bar. Whilst he stood out dressed in male clothes this was not unusual since a large percentage of customers and all the bar staff were similarly dressed even though they were clearly young women.

Jack caught the attention of one of the bar staff who immediately came over to us and came from behind the bar to speak with us. She looked very androgenous with short hair and make-up. She stooped a little to kiss me on both cheeks. She was very beautiful and a few inches taller than me even though I was wearing heels. I guess she’d have been described as an Amazon and this seemed to be verified by a strong handshake. She moved to welcome Emily and introduced herself as Jo short for Josephine that was verified by her nametag that said she was bar manager. This was the first time since I’d first met Emily that she seemed awkward and unable to speak. Her cheeks were flushed, and she was clearly caught on the hop and couldn’t disguise her awkwardness. Their eyes seemed to lock for ages before Jack intervened and told her that we were there to meet her boss and would she mind looking after Emily to give us chance of a personal discussion.

We were directed upstairs to a private lounge where Frankie was waiting. Clearly Jack and Frankie were good friends and after introductions Jack explained that Frankie was a 25% shareholder in his bar and they were working closely together. Frankie’s father was a close friend and former business associate of George and they’d gone to school and college together. They’d dated and then married twin sisters hence Jack and Frankie were cousins.

After Jack explained about my relationship with George it became clear that she was familiar with what had happened at work during the period George was CEO. She seemed to know all about the removal of key personnel, so Jack then explained that I had been Georges Managing Director and I’d was not involved. Also, that I’d been demoted and that I was now the PA of Georges replacement that had brought about my change in lifestyle and appearance. I had the impression that Frankie had immediately recognised that I was cross-dressed or in transition. Frankie asked if I felt more comfortable dressed as a woman and although I was shocked by her question I nodded and whispered yes. Jeck explained that George had never met me with this new appearance and that he was unaware of my desires and passion for dressing. He then emphasised that by accepting the job as PA it had given me the opportunity to witness some of the investigations that were taking place that were pointed at George who was suspected of fraud. He had arranged for George and I to meet so that I could fill him in with more detail and discuss a strategy to counter the allegations before things got serious.

It soon became apparent that Frankie had been deeply involved in sorting out Jacks problems when he was in London and that she, or her family, had loaned money to George that he’d seemingly paid back in full. I wasn’t sure how much and how directly she’d been involved because it seemed that the two families were very closely allied. Frankie and her family seemed to own a lot of properties around Manchester and a few were in the Gay Village. Frankie preferred to focus his attention to Les Filles which was a big attraction to lesbians. I wondered how Emily was going on and if she felt comfortable.

Because Jack had good connections it did seem as if a plan had been made based on their knowledge of the financial markets and it did seem that his friends had quickly rallied around and helped George. The money he had borrowed had been used to invest in shares in companies who were involved in initial public flotation with advance information provided so George had the chance to buy at low prices and then sell as share price increased rapidly in value and just before they peaked. It didn’t seem legal, but it seemed commonplace amongst the closed community of investors based in the City of London. It was explained that it was a case of identifying the best runners and riders in advance, just like horse racing and that there were no guarantees of success. I didn’t know what Emily and her uncle would make of this information if I decided to feed it back. Perhaps George had still needed other income or access to working capital through diverting company funds that I was pretty sure would be investigated. I was unfortunately now in receipt of information that I wouldn’t be able to refuse to disclose under oath and I hoped it wouldn’t come to that. But Emily was smart enough to keep a record of who I’d met and attempt to connect the dots if I tried to keep things to myself.

It wasn’t difficult to identify Frankie’s family name and I had no doubt that Emily had done this already and searched on google to find out about their business empire. I guessed that she may have already checked to establish if they were registered through Companies House. It turned out that they were in fact registered as a property development company and all the directors would be listed that I was certain would be quickly compiled.

Then to my surprise Frankie said that she would help me if I decided to leave the company and could offer a job with their company more in line with my experience and previous status. but it might be wise to carry on in my current role for now to avoid any suspicion at least until after I’d met up with George. She felt that I needed the chance to talk through things. She then asked for some information about my new boss so that she could check her out. I tried my best to answer without giving any clues that it was Emily. I hoped that she wasn’t going to do anything stupid.

I thanked her for giving me the opportunity to unload my problems and for her kind offer and promised to keep in contact through Jack. We went back down to the bar to find Emily but she was nowhere to be seen. Jack found out that she had been dancing with Jo and that they’d been around until a few minutes ago.