Dithering Woodlice (aka Bike) Part 695 by Angharad

For some reason, I couldn’t sleep. I was tired, perhaps overtired, so my mind drifted in all directions, except to relax and allow me to sleep. Obviously, Stella’s suggestion crossed my mind several times. It was a lovely thought, I’d been right all along, but I knew it was fallacious. I was biologically male, or shall we say, I used to be, now I was physically, a eunuch but one with a penetrable pudenda, so it was effectively functional.

That was the reality. So talk of ovulation was nonsense–except my mind kept saying, ‘but what if it wasn’t?’ Of course it was. I had no ovaries, unless they’d spontaneously generated from somewhere, I had no fallopian tubes for these miraculous eggs to convey themselves to my non-existent womb. As well there was no cervix and my vagina–yes I have one of those–is a cul de sac.

As I’ve said before, I’m pure Darwinian when it comes to miracles. If they’d existed in Darwin’s time, his daughter’s life would have been saved. They don’t, so for some reason, I seem to have got turned on my Simon’s hairless willie. There ain’t no eggs, so there’s no ovulation.

I don’t remember falling asleep, we don’t do we, it’s waking up which is remembered, especially when you feel like death. I was so tired, and those three monsters arrived at about six. I’d had three hour’s sleep. No wonder I was crabby and unable to wake myself.

When the radio came on at seven, I hit it harder than I needed to, to terminate it’s noise. Even if they had started the headlines with, Cavendish wins the TdF, I couldn’t have given a damn. I sank into slumber once again.

At eight, Simon woke me with a cuppa, to say he’d sort of supervised the girls in washing and dressing, but he couldn’t do their hair. I looked at him blankly as if he was talking a foreign language. I saw the tea and accepted it.

“It’s gone eight,” he repeated and I smiled at him. I sipped the tea and glanced at the clock, it was ten past eight. Oh bugger. I gulped down the tea and jumped out of bed berating him for letting me sleep. “I tried to wake you, we thought you were dead at one point.”

“Wishful thinking,” I snapped back.

“Maybe,” he sighed and left me to quickly wash and dress.

I was downstairs about twelve minutes later, wearing the first thing that fell out of my wardrobe, jeans and a jumper. It wasn’t very warm, so maybe it was a fortuitous choice. I literally threw two sandwiches together for the girl’s lunches, and chucked in a few assorted bits and pieces. They were lucky they didn’t get some dog biscuits.

We made it to school on time, but only just. I parked alongside a 4x4, one I recognised and shuddered as I did so. As we rushed into the school entrance Mrs Browne-Coward was leaving. “Lady Cameron.”

“Mrs Browne-Coward,” I acknowledged.

“You didn’t see anyone near my car yesterday, did you?”

“Which one is yours, again?”

“The Evening Sunset Range Rover.”

“The orange 4x4? No has someone scratched it?”

“No, thank God, but one of the tyres was flat, yesterday.”

“Was it? Mind you they do that now and again, slow punctures or faulty valves. I had one myself recently, took the garage ages to sort it out. Can’t get the service nowadays, can one?” My little heart was racing nineteen to the dozen as I traded lies with this oaf of a woman. “I went off four wheel drives after I crashed Simon’s Porsche into his Boxster.”

“Isn’t the Boxster the Porsche?” she queried.

“Yes, so was the four wheel drive, had to get the muse cottage rebuilt, he was quite upset at the time, his nanny lived there.” Where was all this rubbish coming from and did she believe me.

“You smashed up two Porsche’s and a cottage?”

“Yes, up in Scotland, on the family’s estate, they won’t let me take my car into the castle grounds now. Simon says, I’m safer on a bicycle, but I made him buy me another car. I’d like another Mercedes, but that one caught fire on the motorway…”

“Nice to see you Lady Cameron, better move my car, in case I’m blocking someone else in. Bye.” She practically fled the field of battle. I think she believed me because people tend to lie the other way, making themselves seem better than they are, not worse. Oh well, at least she’ll be gone before I go back to the car.

“Hello, Lady Cameron,” said a familiar voice.

“Headmistress, good morning.”

“Did I see you talking to Mrs B-C?”

“Yes, she apparently had a flat tyre, yesterday.”

“Indeed, took her three hours to get it fixed.”

“That’s the problem with those things, the wheels are so big and heavy as are the nuts behind the wheel–I mean holding the wheels on.”

“I’m sure you do,” she smirked.

“How is the little girl who had swine fever?”

“Swine flu, Lady C.”

“Isn’t that what I said?”

“No, you said, swine fever.”

“Goodness, I’m definitely losing it.”

“I doubt it. From what I hear, you are one of the strongest people around.”

“Who told you that? Trish?”

“No, it was a very reliable source. Did you manage to get the girls reading to you everyday while they were off?”

“Yes, they nearly completed the Well of Loneliness during the week.”

“Did they now? It took me a great deal longer and I was seventeen and wonderin’ what was so awful about it. I found out, the laborious prose.”

“Wrong book, they were reading some Famous Five thing, about a well.”

“I see, that sounds a bit more suitable for young minds than Radclyffe Hall.”

“A stately home, is it?”

“No, Cathy, she’s the author of, Well of Loneliness a rather ponderous lesbian story.”

“Oh, that Radclyffe Hall.” I’d never heard of her, yes I had, but I’d never read the book, didn’t think I’d bother now.

“It would have been easier to visit a stately home than read the book, I can tell you,” the headmistress smiled. The fact that she was a nun and reading such literature, did that make her gay? Is that what she was telling me? Did that mean she fancied me? Oh shit, let’s get out of here.

“Oh, look at the time, I must go, headmistress.” I nodded at her and ran out of the school. Driving home I stopped at a little café and had an espresso and some toast. By the time I got home, I’d probably be hyper on some sort of caffeine trip, but it was either that or wander about like a zombie all day. I mean, I don’t even like espresso, so it was pure self sacrifice.