PART FOUR
GARY/1950s DIOR NEW LOOK

1

I’d known Mark at school - not amazingly well because he was in the year below me - but I’d been in the same form class as his sister Ellie. He’d seemed a fairly regular teenager - into his music and his Lord of the Rings films I remember - so I was a bit taken aback when another mate of mine sent me a link to an article in the Echo about the opening of the ‘Lucy 50’ hairdressers in Woolton and he told me that the young woman in the fifties dress in the picture was him. I remembered when I was working part time at the chippy I delivered a pizza to Ellie’s house and a girl with the most amazing legs answered the door. Was it her? I scrutinised the photo, but couldn’t be sure. I was in the Navy at the time - left school at eighteen to sign up - and when my mates found out that one of my old school friends was a tranny they’d ribbed me about it for weeks afterwards. That would have been in the last year of the five that I spent at sea. I was discharged when I was twenty two and went home to Liverpool. I’d learned plumbing whilst I’d been away, and had enough money saved up to buy a small van and some tools and set myself up in business.

About a year into the new job I got a call out to sort a problem with a leaking tap at Lucy’s salon. I’d driven past it loads of times - it was on the main drag in Woolton - and on those occasions I’d think back to getting sent the article and the girl I’d delivered pizza to. When I got the call I was intrigued to see if it really was her.

The salon was really cool. Outside a neon sign in a flowing, handwritten style said ‘Lucy 50’. Inside the walls were painted mint green and bubblegum pink, the floor was black and white chequerboard linoleum and the worktops around the basins were pink formica. And they had those amazing huge old hairdryers so you could hardly see the heads of the women that were under them. There were four or five young women who I assumed were the staff all dressed in period costume - big, flared dresses in polka dots or gingham, thin leather belts around tiny waists, scarves in their hair or around their throats. The atmosphere was buzzing, everyone was chatting away and laughing, and I felt, standing there in my overalls with my toolbox in one hand, so out of place it was ridiculous.

A young woman appeared from a room at the back and came to greet me. She was tall in three inch heels, and slim in tight fitting trousers that were cropped at mid calf and a t-shirt with a wide slash neck that spanned from shoulder to shoulder. Her chestnut hair was swept back from her forehead and wrapped with a short chiffon scarf that, like the rest of her outfit, and in contrast to the other girls in the salon, was jet black. Even with the passage of five or six years, I recognised her immediately.
She smiled warmly. “Hi! You must be the plumber. I’ll show you the problem.”
“I think we know each other. I was in the same class at school as Ellie.”
She looked at me closely, her blue eyes intent as she scanned my face. “It’s Gary, isn’t it? Oh my god, I remember you used to work at the chippy!”
“Yeah, that’s me. I delivered you a pizza once.”
She was quiet for a moment and then her face lit up as she suddenly remembered. “Oh shit, that was you, was it?”
I smiled. “Feels like an awful long time ago now, eh?” I thought about mentioning her legs and then thought better of it.

I got on with the job of fixing the leak and then sought her out again afterwards to let her know it was completed. We chatted again for a while about old shared acquaintances. Her eyes sparkled as she reminisced. Short tendrils of hair trailed down her bare neck and shoulder, brushing against her pale skin as she laughed.
I made to leave, and then stopped short of the door on my way out and turned back.
“I was wondering if you’d like a drink sometime? Catch up on old times maybe?”
Those blue eyes flashed again. “Yes, I’d like that. That would be great.”

We met up in the beer garden of The Lodge in Lark Lane. She was wearing a crisp white mens shirt tucked into a calf length silver sequinned pencil skirt, with a matching thin belt dangling from the waist, her hair loose in silky waves down past her shoulder blades, and every guy in the place turned to watch as she walked to the table where I was waiting. We fell into an easy conversation - about old friends from school, and about our respective fledgling businesses. Hers was longer established than mine and she told me how, as well as the salon in Woolton, she was about to open another place in town which she planned to call Lucy 51, and she’d also started to look at the possibility of starting something up in London too. She’d managed to build up a clientele amongst the footballer’s wives of the city, and where they went the local fashionistas followed. But she was a good listener too. I rolled out all my best navy anecdotes, and she giggled endearingly whilst the evening sun’s orange glow was filtered through her hair, making her blue eyes sparkle even more as she laughed. At the end of the evening, I walked her back to her car, and we kissed goodnight, and I knew, as I headed back home, I was already besotted.

A couple of days later we met up again to see a film, and then I didn’t see her again for over a week whilst she was in London looking at properties. When she returned she rang me.
“Fancy dinner tonight? My treat.”
“Sounds good. Are you celebrating?”
“Signed a lease on a place in Islington today.”
“Fantastic! That’s great news! Congratulations!”
“There’s a place in the Albert Dock. It’s new. It’s a kind of jazz supper club thing. We can eat, and dance. Sound ok?”
“Sounds great!”
“Oh. I nearly forgot. Only catch is there’s a dress code - you’ll need to wear a suit.”

Like Lucy’s salon, the restaurant was a bit of a throwback. If you half closed your eyes, and didn’t listen to the accents of the other diners, you could have been in New York in the fifties. The musicians on the stage opposite the bar weren’t quite Miles or Dizzy, but the mood was cool and sophisticated. Coming from the navy, my uniform had taken the place of a suit, so I’d had to buy a new one earlier that week, together with a shirt and tie, and shoes. More familiar with overalls than looking smart, I was uncomfortable. The collar of the shirt dug stiffly into my neck and I eased my finger around it as I waited. Lucy, on the other hand, looked as though the place had been designed for her. I had a table opposite the door, and I watched her as she entered. The maitre’d greeted her like an old friend with a kiss to both cheeks and escorted her across to my table. She moved like a cat, an off-the shoulder velvet dress like fur, ruched at the waist, black stockings and heels. We ate, and talked. She told me about her business dealings in London, and I told her a tale about one of my jobs that week that made her giggle. For a brief moment the elegance gave way to a girlishness and a vivacity that made her all the more beautiful to me.

“You look good in that dress. It suits you. The off-the-shoulder thing.”
She smiled. “Wow. We’ll make a fashionista of you yet!”
I grinned. “I don’t know about that. But, if you don’t mind me saying, you’ve got a very sexy neck. If I was a vampire you’d be in big trouble.”
She laughed.
“You remind me of this place, you know.” I said.
“What? This restaurant?”
“Yeah. You’re always so poised, like you should have been an actress or something. And here you are with a plumber when you could be dating a duke, or a count, or something…”
She coughed. “You’re not so bad. You clean up pretty well, you know…” and she giggled girlishly again.
“You don’t mind? That I’m a working man?”
“Hey, I’m a hairdresser, remember, not the Queen of England.” She paused. “It’s all an act you know. Underneath all this…” she paused again. “I might look like a swan, but underneath the water I’m paddling like crap.” She placed her glass down and clasped her hands together and the remnants of her smile disappeared. “You’ve never asked me about being trans.”
I inhaled sharply. “I haven’t… I didn’t…I mean it honestly hadn’t crossed my mind. You’re beautiful, Lucy. You’re elegant, and graceful, and…”
“Trans,” she interrupted. “Do you know how difficult that is? I have to try twice as hard, no, ten times as hard as the average woman to look like this because every day when I step out of my door at the back of my mind I’m scared that someone’s going to call me out when I walk past - ‘look at that man in a dress!’” She paused. “And then the irony of it is that when I succeed in convincing everyone that I’m female, the fucking bank managers and fucking estate agents in London all think I’m some stupid Scouse bitch that they can talk down to because I’m a female.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…”
“I know. I’m sorry too.” She drew a deep breath and exhaled with a sigh. “I don’t want to ruin the night. It’s been so nice. But you need to see all of me. Not just the veneer on the outside.”
I reached across and took her hand. We were quiet for a moment. I sipped at my glass.
“You want to come outside?” She asked. “The sun will be going down just now across the river.”
We stepped out onto the quayside. The water was a silvery blue, at that precise moment the exact colour of her eyes. She leaned against the guardrail as the sun dipped below the horizon, my jacket draped across her bare shoulders as the temperature dropped.
She turned and placed her arms around my neck and kissed me softly. “Will you make love to me tonight?”
I kissed her in return. “I’d like that.”
“I need to ask you something though. First.” She looked up and shivered again, gently. I tugged my jacket tighter over her shoulders and wrapped my arms around her waist and pulled her in closer. The veneer had parted momentarily and a vulnerable young woman stood before me.
“I only had…I only finished my transition - my final surgery - a few months ago. I’ve not been with anyone since then. So you need to be gentle.”
I kissed her again, in affirmation.

She took my hand and we walked along the quayside for maybe fifty yards or so, and then stopped.
“Here.” She said.
“What? You live here? Wow! Nice!”
A glass screen took us back inside and Lucy chatted briefly to the concierge whose face, like the maitre’d’s earlier, gave away the delight he clearly enjoyed in spending even a few brief seconds in her company. I’d visited the Albert Dock before, but never any of the residential apartments that occupied the upper floors. Lucy’s flat was just how I’d imagined them, all brick walls and vaulted ceilings supported off cast iron beams and columns. Metal windows framed the remains of the sunset over the Mersey that we’d witnessed earlier from the quayside.

She took me by the hand “Come on, I’ll give you a tour” and in the bedroom she wrapped her arms around my neck. I kissed her along hers, from earlobe to shoulder, inhaling her scent. She moaned softly and my hands burnished the soft velvet that wrapped her body. I fumbled with the zipper at the back of her dress and she whispered into my ear “There’s a hook at the top” and giggled softly, her hands in turn unbuckling my belt. I slipped her dress down her body, peeling the sleeves from her arms, and she stood before me. She was wearing a black satin basque, soft lace cups supporting her pale breasts, a matching ruffle of lace at her hips, from below which suspenders ran tautly along each thigh to sheer gloss stockings. For a moment she looked up at me, vulnerable again. “My god, you look absolutely beautiful” I exclaimed, almost involuntarily, and she smiled, and we tumbled onto her bed.

I kissed her again along her neck, alternating kisses with gentle nibbles of her skin this time as I worked my way to her shoulder. She moaned again, louder now, wrapping her leg behind my back, my hand clasping her backside, tracing the line of her suspender. I rolled on top of her, positioning myself between her legs but she stopped me. “Remember what I said outside. Let me go on top.”

We rolled back and she straddled me, her legs either side of my waist, her hands spread wide on the mattress. She arched her back and lifted herself up until she was poised over me, the hairs at her groin brushing my tip. She paused for a second and then lowered herself, the moist lips of her vagina sliding slowly, millimetre by millimetre, over my glans. I moaned, and tried to push back so I would be further inside, but she kept her back arched to control how far I was able to go in, flexing up and down. With each drop of her hips she’d slide a little further until eventually her lips slid around the whole head of my penis, and she gasped. For a moment she paused, then she began to slide up and down again - my whole shaft this time, each downstroke taking me further and harder into her. At last she bottomed out on my pubic bone, groaning with pleasure. I gripped her backside again with one hand, my other over her shoulder, pulling and pushing her now, up and down, faster and harder, grinding her into me. She moaned harder now, and as I felt her body tense and convulse it pushed me in turn over the edge, and I pulled her down to my belly as we climaxed together.

We lay there in each others arms, panting. She stretched her legs straight, with me still inside; brushed her hair from her face and kissed me.

2

And that’s how we ended up in a regular boyfriend/girlfriend kind of thing. I say ‘regular’; I never really felt like I got to see Lucy as much as I’d have liked to. She was always busy. If she wasn’t in London getting the new salon ready to open she was working every evening in Liverpool - running special out-of-hours appointments for clients, or just general admin. We’d see each other most, but not all, weekends. We’d maybe have a meal out on a Friday night, and then go back to her place and spend most of Saturday in bed. But even then she’d often end up working on the Sunday.

About a couple of months or so after we’d first got together I went down to London on the train on Friday evening after work to meet her. We’d had a great weekend just touring the sites and eating in some nice restaurants and, for once, Lucy hadn’t mentioned work at all or had to take any work-related calls. We were on the train back to Liverpool on the Sunday night and I just blurted it out.
“I love you.”
She looked at me and smiled, and kissed me gently on the cheek, and then turned to stare out of the window. It wasn’t the reaction I’d hoped for. But I wasn’t too downhearted. I rationalised that she probably needed time to think. She’d been so busy. I’d taken her by surprise. I was sure that she’d reciprocate soon.
Several weeks later, one Saturday after we’d enjoyed a lazy sexy morning in bed together, I told her again. She’d smiled again, and kissed me, but the tiny split second before the smile there had been something else - irritation almost, as though she hadn’t wanted me to say it. But her phone had rang and, by the time she’d finished her call, the moment had passed.

Later that autumn the refurbishment work to the new salon in London was finished and it was ready to open. Lucy had planned a huge opening party with a fifties fancy dress theme at a hotel just down the road from the salon. We’d booked rooms there for the weekend. Early on the Saturday evening we’d been in our room, getting changed. Lucy had bought a dress for the party at an auction. ‘Christian Dior New Look’ she’d said it was, and it had cost almost as much as I’d paid for my van. It was black, off the shoulder, with a tapering neckline, a tiny waist, and a very full skirt. The hotel room had felt like it had been stuffed floor to ceiling with netting underskirts that, somehow, were now all in place underneath it. There was a wide brimmed hat to go with it, as wide as her shoulders, in the same fabric. I’d helped lace her into a tight corset so she could fit the dress, and she was sat at the dressing table doing her make up, happily humming away as she traced her lips with a cherry red lipstick. If she looked cool and elegant in her everyday clothes, she’d dialled it up to eleven for the party. Had Grace Kelly been there, she would have been taking notes.

In contrast to Lucy’s mood, I was feeling ill at ease. I wasn’t looking forward to the party at all. I didn’t know anyone who would be there apart from Lucy. I felt like I’d have little in common with them - women who could afford to pay several hundred pounds on getting their hair done, and their husbands and partners who were, presumably, equally wealthy. And there was I - a plumber from Liverpool. I was physically uncomfortable too. I was never happy in a shirt and tie, and Lucy had hired a fifties style suit for me to wear that was wool, and particularly itchy. I longed to be in my overalls, happily ensconced fixing a leak under someone’s sink. Lucy had finished her make-up and was pinning her hat into place, nervously pacing around the room, her tall, glossy heels clicking on the wooden floor. I stood up, and made towards her, thinking to kiss her now she was ready. But she held me away, at arm’s length.
“Don’t try to give me a squeeze! You’ll get wool off your suit all over my dress!”
I didn’t really intend to say it. It wasn’t premeditated, it just spilt out. “You don’t love me do you?”
“Oh, Gary! Don’t be silly, Let’s not talk about this tonight, not with the party…”
“Why not? Now’s as good a time as any.”
“Gary, I don’t want to have a big deep conversation with you right now.”
“But it isn’t deep, is it? All you have to do is say it. ‘I love you.’ Just like that.”
“Please Gary, let’s not…”
“Tell me! Now! I’m not going to move until you say something.”
“Don’t start giving me ultimatums!” Her eyes flashed, the blue now suddenly cold as ice.
Maybe I should have backed down at that point, and things might have turned out differently. But I didn’t. “If you walk out of that door without telling me how you feel, you’ll be going on your own! And I won’t be here when you get back!”
Her eyes flashed again. A dozen different emotions raced across her face. Her mouth opened and closed without her saying a word. And finally she looked at me calmly. Our eyes locked together. Three, four, five seconds passed. And then she opened the door and left.