I apologise to all my readers for treating my heroine so badly. I didn’t think that the method of feminisation was any worse than others on the website, but I must have written a character who is real enough to feel sorry for. I promise to be kinder to the cast of my stories in future.
Here is the Happy Ending!
Chapter 4

During that night, while Fraser and I were snuggled together under the blankets, another blanket descended on the countryside. When I pulled the curtains aside, all I could see was white snow. We were too old for snowballs or tobogganing, so it was to be inside entertainment for a while.

Gordon was keen to play cards, but his wife begged off, saying that she had some sewing to do. The three of us sat in the library with our single malts and a box of matches each. We played five-card poker with rotating dealers. I could see that Gordon was competitive and had his best game at the fore. I decided that, if he cheated, I would show how it’s done.

It took about a dozen hands before I saw him drop a card on his lap as we finished. Two hands later, he swapped it with a card from his hand and ended with three kings. When it was my turn to deal, I shuffled until I saw an ace on the bottom and slid it up my sleeve for later. Two hands after that, I shuffled again and secreted another ace.

At the end of our betting, I won the pile of matches with my three aces. Gordon snorted.

“Lucky hand that!”

“About as lucky as your three kings, Gordon. Do you still have the other card on your lap?”

He looked angry, but then smiled.

“When did you pick that up?”

“When you did it. I stayed quiet and did a little cheating of my own.”

“You mean that you swapped cards? I never saw you do that.”

“That’s because I’m a professional, Gordon, not an amateur. And no, I’m not going to tell you how it was done. How about we agree not to be so eager to win, and just have fun. You may get to win some of your matches back, though I can’t guarantee that.”

Fraser was looking at us, concern on his face.

“Dad, have you been cheating in a friendly game?”

Gordon reached down and pulled up a low number card.

“Sorry son, but old habits die hard. This was how I bought my first motorcycle.”

“What about you, darling? I never saw you do anything out of the ordinary.”

I pulled two cards from my sleeve and laid them with the rest of the pack.

“Now we have a full pack, again, what say we just have a drink and play for fun.”

We played for fun, moving to twenty-one for a while to do something different. I could see Gordon fighting his urge to cheat, with it abating after a while. I think the amount of whiskey he had drunk had helped. When we had enough, we refilled the matchboxes and went to the kitchen for sandwiches.

In the afternoon, Fraser and I covered our bodies in woollen sweaters and Barbour coats. We went outside and I pulled my scarf up to cover my face. The garden was lovely, and we walked to the boundary, where there was a view of Loch Leven and the old castle on an island. In the crisp, clear air, it was really beautiful. We stood with a large oak sheltering us from the breeze and pulled our scarves down to have a kiss.

“This is a wonderful place, darling. Home for a wonderful family. I’m so glad you brought me here.”

“I’m happy that you came, my love. I know that I was out of line when I asked you to come and live with me. It must be this traditional setting, but I know that we can’t be together until your contract expires. Will you marry me then, and be the lady of the house after I inherit?”

“I’ll say a provisional yes, now. Provisional because I have another eighteen months on my contract, and the casino does have the opportunity to ask me to stay on after that. That gives plenty of time for us to cement our relationship, or to find that there’s things that come between us. You must know, with your diplomatic experience, that things happen out of the blue.”

Inwardly, I cringed. There was no contract, but I guessed that the batteries in my boobs might have run down by then. Hopefully, we may have caught all the cheaters that I had been hired to do. We stood, the mist of our breath hanging in the air, kissing and thinking about our inner wishes. I knew that I loved this man, but there was always a possibility of him falling for another woman. One that could give him babies and who lived in a social strata that would please his mother. As a statistician, one takes in all the variables.

We had a lovely time in Scotland. We went into Edinburgh to a show and did some shopping. I stood on the castle battlements and looked out on the city, stood beside the Forth and gazed at the most beautiful bridge built at the time, and Gordon tried to teach me how to play golf at St. Andrews. That was fun, as you could see where the orange balls we were using had gone by the tracks on the frosty grass. I was hopeless, and it wasn’t because I was a woman. I had no power in my swing, even when I got it right, afraid that I might dislodge something in my boobs.

The Maldives were idyllic, and much quieter. We swam in a warm sea, made love on the cooler nights, and were just us, together. I learned more about Fraser and his plans for the future, his career path, and the things that made him hard. The last allowed me to lead our time in bed, especially when the first time hadn’t given me an orgasm. We bought rings for each other at the airport shops, no flashy diamonds, but nicely decorated gold bands to show our love for each other.

Back at the casino, I was waylaid by Silvester, who wanted to tell me how the competition had panned out. He had been there when a ‘disorientated attendant’ had crashed into the girl, knocking her to the ground. Over her protestations, the organisers insisted that she be checked by paramedics. When they shone a torch into her eyes, they discovered the magnifying contacts. That led to the rest of her things being examined, so discovering the oversize bangle.

He laughed when he told me that when Humbolt was taken from the table, he protested loudly that he never cheats. Of course, when his glasses were examined, the receiver and tiny speaker were seen. He was booted out of the competition, forfeiting his entry and any winnings. There was a blacklist notice sent to all the poker competitions with details of his plan.

“We were never spoken about as discovering his cheating, which we’re happy with. Mistress has authorised a special bonus for you. We won’t add anything to your scoreboard, Jacquie, but you have our sincere thanks for your observational skills. We should be able to wrap up most of the others on our list, this year. They tend to arrive in town for the spring and summer.”

“That will be nice. Will I be able to leave, then. I had a week in Scotland with Fraser and his parents, and he wants me to become the next Lady Ashworth. If I’m here for more than a year, he may get away.”

“We’ll see what we can do. It will be all down to the cheaters coming into your clutches. Mistress is very happy with you, and happy that you’ve stayed serene after the way we treated you.”

We settled back into a routine leading up to spring and the new season of horse racing, theatres, fashion shows and society weddings. For some weeks, I was allowed two days off before it got busy, so would stay overnight with Fraser. One time, when he picked me up, Gordon was with him.

“Dad is going into hospital this afternoon and should be out by Friday.”

“It’s nothing important, Jacquie. Just some tests and a bit of a probe. I’ll last another fifty years.”

“I’m sure that you’re right, Gordon. Did Geraldine come south with you?”

“No, she had some committee thing to attend. They all want you on board when you have a title. Load of bunkum, as far as I’m concerned.”

We went for lunch, then dropped Gordon off at the hospital before spending a few hours catching up with our horizontal jogging. Fraser had to work on the next day, so I went into Parliament with him, taking the tour before meeting him in the dining room. It was amazing how many of the members and assistants I had met over a card table, with many being very friendly.

Fraser was looking uncomfortable, and, after the fifth person to say hello, he asked me how I met all of these men.

“Your mother said that she would rather you had fallen for a girl from a better social strata. What she doesn’t understand is that every night I spend in the casino is as social as any society ball. On top of your proposal, I have had at least six others. Three that I remember were from European princes. I have spent time with a lot of men who your mother would never have guessed, many so security minded that the social papers would not have even known they were in the country. I have spoken to hundreds of well-connected men and women since I’ve been at the casino, and I’m likely to be speaking to hundreds more before I walk away to be yours, and yours alone.”

“I’m sorry that the little green man emerged for a moment. There have been some in this room that would never have even noted my existence until you have been sitting with me. I expect that some may even ask how we’re sitting here, having lunch together.”

“Just tell them that we’re engaged, and that they may get an invitation to the wedding, if they’re lucky.”

He had to work for the rest of the day, so I took a taxi to the main boutique street and used my credit card a few times. I had checked my account this morning and had a good bit that I could spend. I did buy a very sexy nightie for Fraser to ogle at. He didn’t get back to the apartment until after ten, and the sight of me watching the television in the nightie took his mind off his empty stomach. We had a snack around midnight.

The next time he picked me up, he was quiet. On the way into the city, I asked him what the problem was.

“It’s father. That session in the hospital found bowel cancer which has spread to other parts. He’s upbeat, and didn’t tell me what they said, but I guess that he may only have a few years left. I’ve always considered him unstoppable. It made me think a lot about mortality and the need to live every minute as if it’s you last.”

“We will live every minute, darling. If he has an idea of his likely death, we’ll have to get married so that he can see us in the church, and he can kiss the bride.”

“That will take some organising. I have a sister in Australia, married to a grazier. She’ll have to be given enough time to come back. There are other aunts and uncles all over the place. The more I think of it, the more I want to elope.”

“Don’t even think that! It would be terrible to snub your parents like that. Your mother and I will see that everything that needs to be done, is done. All that you will need to do is book the cars and the honeymoon. I’m sure that Gordon will be still going strong for a few years more.”

We had a restrained day before he started to get his spark back. I stayed upbeat for him and didn’t press him for more when he rolled on his side after just one session of lovemaking. The next morning, he seemed much better.

The year rolled on, and the casino got busy with tourists and seasonal regulars. During spring, I had success with two significent cheaters, adding another two cards to my scoreboard. Fraser and I were part of ministerial parties at the big mid-week race meetings, with me able to shift my time off. He was being given more responsibility, and I was being included in invitations to events. I had to lay it all out for Silvester, and he was happy to give me some leeway. He told me that there were just two pests left to exterminate, and, when I had ticked them off, I would be able to spread my wings until the end of the year.

So, I became the socialite that his mother wanted, and she started to thaw towards me. It was the end of June when I noticed a guy at my table who gave off the wrong vibes. He was very intense, watching me to gauge my own skills. Two hands later, one of the other players left and his place was taken by another one that I immediately took a dislike to. This one was loud-mouthed and obviously knew the first one I had noted, seeing the looks they gave each other, as well as the derogatory remarks that they quietly exchanged.

I asked the control room to watch them both, just in case. A few hands later, the loudmouth made a play so audacious I was immediately suspicious. The quiet one took out the hand. It was then that I realised that they were speaking in code, telling each other the cards they had. Nobody came down from control, and, when it came time for my relief, Sandra came by to tell me to carry on another session.

By the end of the session, I needed a pee and to give my feet a rest. That’s when a large contingent of security guys took both players away. I was relieved and went off to the rest room. I was having a cup of coffee when Silvester came through the door to the control room.

“Well done there, Jacquie. We never knew how they did it, but with you keeping them in some sort of line, they started repeating comments. We recorded every word, and we eventually managed to relate the comments to the hands they were holding. They haven’t been working together for very long. When they were working alone, they did the usual card swap, but were both very good at it. So good that I doubt that you saw them do it tonight, while deflecting your attention with their banter. We have it all on record, though.”

“They swapped?”

“A few times. As I said, they are both very good. It took us looking at the vision in slow motion to pick it up. No bad thoughts about your skills, it was your inner sense that picked them out in the first place. They both have skills in disguise, and you could have passed them in the street tomorrow and not recognised them.”

“That’s a relief! I would have been mortified at missing the swap, otherwise. Is that the full list ticked off?”

“It is. If you do weekends and holiday times, you can take more time during the week. Get that Fraser to marry you and be the wife of a possible future Prime Minister. You’ll need all the time you can get once he starts campaigning. We’ll have a discussion and see if we can let you go before Christmas.”

That made me stop and think.

“If I am put into the spotlight, will the back story that you supplied hold up?”

“I’ll talk it over with Mistress. We may have to pad it out a bit more and you’ll have to revise your story. You’ve been worth all the expense that went into your alterations, and you really have turned out to be an attractive and sociable woman. I would hate to see your previous history exposed. That would be very bad for us.”

For the rest of the summer, I worked weekends and the long weekends, with a drop in pay, but it was worth it to spend more time with Fraser, even going up to Scotland on my own to spend some time at Kinross. Eventually, his mother came to accept me for who I was, and, together, we looked after Gordon, now in some pain and starting to lose his grip on reality.

I talked it over with Geraldine and Fraser, and we organised a wedding in Kinross, so that Gordon could be there to see it. His mother and I wrote out the invitations, and his sister came over from Australia to stay with us at the house. We walked down the aisle on a Monday at the beginning of September, had a very short honeymoon as he had to work, and I had to go back to the casino on the Friday.

I don’t know how much Gordon took in, but he did smile a lot on the day. It was the end of November when Fraser inherited the title. I was allowed to leave the casino and go to Scotland to help Geraldine recover from her grief. She decided to go to Australia to be with her daughter for a while. Fraser took leave without pay in the middle of December but retained his contacts with the party.

We settled in as Lord and Lady Ashworth, with a constant stream of visitors from local groups, keen to recruit us for various causes. We let them all know that we would think about them once we had reorganised our lives. We had a quiet festive season, retaining the cook and a couple of girls, but trimmed the estate as we were young enough to look after ourselves. The gardener retired, so we organised a firm to come in every couple of weeks to keep things tidy.

The next election was a year away, so Fraser started attending party meetings to get his feet under the table. We kept the city apartment, as we expected to need it once the election campaigns got into full swing. In the spring, Fraser went back to work, and we went and stayed in it for the foreseeable future.

Silvester had sent me a text to tell me that my ‘paperwork was ready to pick up’. I took an Uber to the casino. It was odd to be just visiting. When he met me in the reception hall, he took me to see Mistress. She gave me a hug and told me that I had performed well, and that she would be happy to donate towards Fraser’s campaign or host a reception in the casino.

She congratulated me on my wedding, and gave me an envelope, which she told me not to open until I was back in Scotland. I stayed in my old room for a few days, revising my new and improved back story. When I thought that I had it right, Silvester grilled me as if he was a journalist and I really had to think on my feet.

They had put together my history which wasn’t that far removed from real life, but with me born as a hermaphrodite. I now had a birth certificate and school certificate, as well as a new degree in my new name, all obtained through their lawyers after they had put a name change through. If asked the truth, I was to admit to having corrective surgery at a late age. I even had the hospital records of my actual procedures to prove it.

The certificates and the envelope went into a file folder and everything else was shredded. I went back to the apartment to start a new job as Fraser’s campaign organiser. He would be standing in the electorate where the apartment was and had lived there for more than five years.

My sensitivity to body language stood us in good stead, as I was able to pick the ‘helpers’ who weren’t going to help; the supporters who only want to have a hold over the new Member, and the good ones who were keen to help without their own agendas.

On the night that the votes were counted, Fraser won the seat. He was, however, in the opposition for this term. Even the Minister that he had worked for had lost his position. The title that he had inherited wasn’t one that put him into the Lords, so he was able to dream about the Prime Ministership, as they all do.

He was given the post of the Shadow Minister in the same area where he had been an assistant, and we settled into a new routine. When the House was sitting, we were in the city, and when it wasn’t we would relax in Scotland. I found myself at the sort of social events that would have pleased his mother, now meeting a lot of my old customers in a different setting, including my old boss and his sons. They didn’t recognise me, but Mistress and I would sit out some of the dancing, while our husbands were busy talking shop. Sometimes, I had the feeling that she was waiting for me to say something, but she never pushed it. I wondered if she wanted me to ask about the casino but I knew not to mention it in public.

As his star started to rise, I was helping Fraser until he was allocated a Personal Assistant, rather than a young ministerial assistant. I then started being asked to join committees. I sat on a few, mainly ones that pushed for more equality for women.

Over the years, we became a couple who were invited to more and more events. I had met the King and other royals, I had danced with the princes who had offered me their hand in marriage, and Fraser became more and more a man who was slated for better things.

After a second term in opposition, he was elected by the party to be the leader. That’s when the searchlight of the media was turned on us. As the youngest leader in history, with a beautiful wife, the Ashworth’s were spoken about as the ‘New Kennedy Dynasty’. That really made me smile.

I had been asked questions on several occasions but was asked to sit in a studio for a national current affairs show. They wanted an in-depth interview. For the first time in years, I looked for the file with my papers in, meaning to sit quietly and remember my story. I knew that my parents, and my sisters, would never recognise me, and was never going to give my ‘dead name’ on the show.

When I found the file, the envelope was still there, unopened. I opened it and pulled out a card. It had been professionally printed, and the only word on the front was ‘Gotcha’ in large red letters. Inside was a picture of a pair of breasts, looking perky. Over the picture was handwritten - ‘To Jacqueline Kennedy, with thanks from the staff at Bunnies’.

Under the picture was written – ‘No bombs in the boobs. Enjoy them without worry’.

I sat down on the nearest chair and started laughing so hard that there were tears in my eyes. It was a good job that Fraser wasn’t home. I poured myself a stiff drink and raised my glass in a toast to Mistress and Silvester, who had me living in fear with one of the best bluffs I’d ever seen.

At the party after the next election, when I had been catapulted into the position of being the wife of the Prime Minister and likely to be moving to Number Ten, I saw Mistress and gave her a hug.

“I finally opened your card.”

“What did you think?”

“That you’re wasted as a society icon, you would have made a hell of a gambler!”

Marianne Gregory © 2024