The Weekly Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3368 by Angharad Copyright© 2022 Angharad

---

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.
~~~~~~~~~
It was New Year's eve, a Saturday and the anniversary of my becoming a woman in the body as much as I was in spirit, along with me were Trish, Julie, Sammi, and Danni, quite a cluster in occurrences if we were talking medically or scientifically.

Of course, we're talking about people rather than in some abstract sense, all these were human beings as are all transsexuals but the hardships they face elsewhere are awful and countries as diverse as Russia and Iran were making life very difficult for sexual minorities, if not almost impossible. We shout and scream about injustices here but we are lucky compared to many places and there is still much to be changed here for women and gender-variant people. Scotland has tried to make it easier for them to apply for new birth certificates without medical intervention and while I wish life to be easier for all people I don't understand what was wrong with the old system.

I don't understand why someone with a male body should wish to be legally recategorized as female unless they were waiting for surgery to accompany it unless they were medically unfit for surgery. If you were adopting a female lifestyle but retaining a male body wouldn't that mean you were transvestite while there is nothing wrong with transvestites, they seem very different from transsexuals even if they are both still tiny minorities amidst the general population. I don't understand those non-binaries who want to be one thing one day and something different the day after, or who want to be no gender at all.

I'm not sure if people who haven't taken the long path I've taken to achieve being female should be classified as the same as me, are they claiming to be female by sex or just gender, and what's the difference if there is one? I know it's as complex as the chicken and egg story and I know that I can't get my head round it but I have to accept people if I want my own acceptance. People talk about spectra, where my type, a full-blown transsexual is the far end of the gender spectrum, altering our bodies to fit our minds and at the other end is someone who sexually fantasises about being a woman until they have an orgasm and then it is forgotten and they go back to being a man.

Perhaps the cross-dresser who dresses up as a female and gets sexually turned on doing so , has an orgasm while wearing woman's clothes, then satisfied he changes back to male garb and returns to his masculinity, stuffing his stuff back in the suitcase or closet. Is that just fetishism or what, the sexual release being about the clothes unlike mine, where if I dressed in male clothes, which unless they were too big would no longer fit across my breasts or hips and would be loose elsewhere, but I'd still consider myself a woman, and these days I'd still look like one in men's clothes?

I'm not quite sure what I'm trying to say except I don't quite understand what they have done in Scotland and life is too short to wade through the legal documents they discussed, so I suppose I remain in ignorance but wish everyone there a happy New Year, as I don't feel it likely that authentic claimants to the new status will be likely to wish to invade women-only spaces as sexual predators. I think statistically that it's almost unknown and they are more likely to be victims than perpetrators.

I was dwelling on this when Danni came into my study. She was very upset and in tears. "What's wrong?" i asked her.

"It's over between me and Fran," she lamented, " so you should be happy now."

"Why should I be happy to see one of my children upset?"

"You never wanted it to work did you?"

Was that true? It probably was. I didn't feel as bad about it lately because they were becoming less passionate and more affectionate and because I began to get to know Francesca, who free from the control of her awful father, was actually a really nice girl and I was becoming fond of her. "I'm sorry," I said to her and I felt that sincerely.

"She's talking about surrendering herself to the authorities pending the trial."

"Why can't she stay here it's better than remand," I offered.

"If she's on remand, it shortens any stay in prison and she'd be away from me."

"Do you want her far away from you?"

"It's not working here is it?" she looked at me with red-tinged eyes.

"I wasn't aware of that, except having to take a tough line with you over your course. How isn't it working?"

"We're in close proximity all the time."

"So, I thought that was the whole reason for it, and letting her be under house arrest was better than seeing her banged up."

"Yeah, it was initially."

"Danni, why has sharing the same large old house become a problem? It's a big enough edifice for you to be able to avoid each other quite easily?"

"We've been doing that."

"So?"

"So, it's no longer working, that's what"

I was aware that they were both adolescents, who often fail to deal with situations as adults would or even how they would in a few years' time. "Let me speak to Fran," I offered, "and see what she wants to do."

Danni shrugged and went off to her own room. I went up to Fran's room and spoke with her, she'd been looking at Youtube recipes. "Danni tells me you two are having a few difficulties."

"Nothing me leaving here won't prevent." She looked at me and I could see her eyes were also red and sore.

"Don't you like it here?" I asked her.

"It's lovely here and I've felt a freedom I didn't know existed before. I think I've also outgrown Danni and I need to move on for both our sakes."

"You're aware that your remaining free involves staying with me."

"Yeah, I know it's this or remand. It's not fair on Danni if I stay, it is her home after all."

"That's true, but I'm afraid for you if you end up in remand."

"Cathy, I appreciate and am grateful for your support and hospitality, but I feel it's time to move on. After all, my counsel says I'm almost bound to get a custodial sentence, so I may as well get used to prison and they subtract it from the sentence."

"It would be an awful shock to your system, like nothing you can imagine amongst all sorts of people you've never encountered before."

"You forget I've had to deal with my dad and his associates, most of whom were very unsavoury and I felt very uncomfortable to be with. My dad protected me from most of them but even so one or two tried it on. Once he knew, I didn't see them again, dunno why?"

I had a few theories but now wasn't the time to discuss them. "I feel that you're only dealing with this in the abstract, it's going to be very uncomfortable in reality, verging on brutal." I was trying to shock her out of what I felt she was totally unprepared for, not that I had any experience of the justice system or injustice system. I was glad it was Britain as America had a retributive system and places like Iran were evil and totally brutal. Then again we had no system for trading with the authorities although they were well aware that she only shot her father to save my daughter who he was beating up and she seemed unable to make him stop. He might have continued until he'd killed Danni which may have been why I wanted to protect her, she had saved my daughter by taking extreme action. I appreciated it and had tried to show that in the way I had I had supported her.

"Does Danni feel the same about you leaving here?" I asked her.

"It's my decision, she seems unable to get beyond I might have saved her life, you're the same. I killed my dad and now I have to take the consequences, so you don't have to feel guilty any longer. I'm a big girl now."

"Any one of us could have killed your father that night."

"Yeah, well you didn't did you, it was me who did and now I have to pay the price for it."

"You don't have to leave here for while yet until the trial and what the judge and jury decide."

"You can't kill someone and get away with it."

I blushed, " You can in self defence and defence of others."

"I don't think that happens too often."

"But it does happen and that's what I hope we can show the court, so it was justifiable manslaughter in defence of yourself and Danni."

"I don't think they'll let me get off with that."

"Why not, I did."

"What? You've killed someone."

"Yes, I don't want to talk about it, but it does happen and the powers that be accepted that I defended myself, my adopted father and my kids as well as two injured policemen."

"Wow, that's quite a list."

"We were attacked by Russian mafia who were pursuing us, we picked up a police escort but they weren't equipped to deal with people wielding Kalashnikovs, I picked up a gun and emptied it into the car that was chasing us causing it to swerve into a loch. There were no survivors and I regret it, in terms of killing people, but I would do it again to protect those I love."

"When was this?"

"Quite a long time ago, it was up in Scotland and they have a separate legal system but It was shown that I had acted under extreme provocation and the powers that be, accepted it after an enquiry proved my story. The fact that I had saved two policemen who were wounded by our pursuers possibly helped my case."

"I can't believe what you are saying, Cathy."

"Well it's true but that's all I'm going to say. Now, you can obviously stay a bit longer and you never speak about your mother."

"Not much to say, she left when I was a little girl, and I've heard nothing from or about her since."

"Do you think your father killed her?"

"I don't know, If I thought he had, then I'm glad I killed him. He said he tried to find her and he failed."

"If she thought he was trying to track her down to punish her, possibly kill her, she'd have tried to stay hidden. Perhaps, we should try to find her?"

"I don't know, Cathy, she'd more or less be a stranger now with possibly another family somewhere."

"If she married again, she'd needed to have divorced George and he would have been able to find her."

"Gosh, that doesn't bear thinking about, d'you think she's still alive."

"Well, unless George found her or she suffered some other catastrophe, yes, after all, she'd only be in her forties."

"Why has this come up now?"

"Because what is going to happen next year is going to need all the support you can get and who better than a mother to support you?"

"She might not want to, breaking her own cover. I mean she might be someone else now."

"She'll always be your mother, and if she does resist helping us, I will try and make her see our point of view."

"You're not going to threaten her."

"I won't threaten her but I can reassure her George won't threaten her again although she could be due a cut of his estate."

"If she came to see me, she could have it all. I mean if I get sent down, I'm not going to need it for a while am I?"

"I don't know why I didn't think of it before, she could be a very useful witness against him."

"Eh?" she wrinkled up her nose.

"I need to speak to someone and you stay here, I'll sort it with Danni, don't you worry."

"Anyone else and I wouldn't have believed them, but you, Cathy, are something else."

"Um, maybe," I said as I went off to phone James.