NEIL
I could feel my face burning as she asked me, but she was sitting in such a relaxed way I could do nothing else but try my best. I had tried not to stare at her breasts, but I knew they were there, and my body was telling me exactly how well it knew the same thing, and I had no idea what I should do about that. Her question, though, wasn’t ‘what did I want?’ but rather ‘what might we want?’, which was a very different thing altogether. She was being so incredibly open about it; all I could do was try and match that, even though I could never do so.

Breathe, Neil.

“Maddy, I am not comfortable talking like this but I want to try. I think I have to. I ran away from you because I couldn’t control what I thought”

“Neil, I have told you. It’s flattering, nothing bad”

“Yes, but when it’s just me it’s not right”

Maddy grinned, which was a strange reaction, then almost purred.

“Oh do trust me, Neil, it is most definitely NOT just you! Do I need to explain that in more detail?”

“You were… You got aroused?”

“Oh, very much so! That is where the big issue lies. Neil, cutting to the chase, I am on hormone replacement therapy, and that gives me a sort of monthly cycle. In my case, it means I get randy. I was at a peak last time we met, and that was a month ago, so guess where I am now?”

I think she was expecting some sort of prurience about what her arousal meant, but the idea of HRT puzzled me. She certainly didn’t look old enough to be menopausal. Older than I was, but only a little.

“Why are you on HRT, Maddy?”

She seemed to sag.

“Source of most of my problems, Neil. I am on hormones because that is what a trans woman needs”

I found myself closing down in some way, but I reached out for another of my therapist’s tools, the divided sheet. It was nothing complex, simply a mental version of the conventional ‘for/against’ list. I needed it just then, because I suspected I really would shut right down if I allowed myself just to react. I must have sat silently for three or four minutes, eyes closed, before I opened them once more to see Maddy looking at me, her brow furrowed in what I thought was concern.

“Are you back with me, Neil?”

“Sorry?”

“You’ve been sitting with your eyes closed for ten minutes. Are you…”

She shook a head, knuckling her eyes.

“I can leave you alone, if that seems best”

Ten minutes. Oh.

“Maddy?”

“Yes?”

“Why did you tell me that?”

“Which bit exactly, Neil?”

“The trans bit”

She shook her head once more, and that was when I realised she was actually weeping, not just damp in the eyes. I had no idea what to do, as it was obviously very foreign ground for me. I knew the theory, I’d seen it in films and on the telly, but this was real, and there was no script.

“Maddy, I wasn’t shocked. It’s just like the finger counting, another technique from my CBT. My other CBT, not the compulsory basic training for my bike licence, that is, bit cognitive behavioural therapy”

She chuckled once under the tears, which was odd.

“What it is comes from decision making. I imagine a sheet of paper, with two columns, for and against. I’m supposed to work one out in my head before I make any big decisions. That was what I was doing. Why did you tell me that?”

She sat back on the bench, head hanging over the back rest as she spoke.

“Safety, Neil, and saving time. If I confess everything from the start, I don’t end up investing a lot of my soul just to watch it go straight down the drain. More time to move on, find someone else, and less damage when it falls apart. Safety? Well, double-edged blade, that one. People like me get killed if we get read by some people, who think we’re trying to trick them. They even call us ‘traps’, Neil. Another aspect of safety is… This is hard to put in simple terms, so here’s a what if. We could have met, we could have acted on how we both felt, and I could be in prison charged with serious sexual assault, sex by deception, all sorts of things. Rape, basically. Probably end up in a men’s prison”

“Why?”

“Welcome to my world, Neil”

MADDY
My world had always been the same, in essence. The boys I had secretly sighed over in school would have called me gay, or most probably much nastier things. The three men I had shared a bed with (never more than the one night in each case) had all been there for the same reason, which I had only realised far too late, but I had still fallen for another one, and then another, although I had stopped taking it further. At least I had managed to digest that lesson.

Curiosity, followed by slowly increasing disgust, then by departure and ghosting. I tried to get those ideas across to Neil, but he simply sat, face neutral, until I had arrived at the final detail, when he asked a simple question.

“What do you mean by ‘real woman’, Maddy? You’re real. I mean, I haven’t been imagining you, have I?”

Another blush swept up his face and he was looking at his knees. I didn’t need an explanation, for I knew what the cause of that particular blush most probably was.

He wasn’t imagining me, but he had most probably spent part of a night doing exactly that. What a shitty mess.

“Maddy?”

“Yes?”

“You have told me an awful lot about you. I should do the same with me”

“That would be an honour, Neil. Thank you. And thank you for not just walking away”

“Why would I--- Oh. People have done that? To you?”

“Far too often. Sometimes they have hit me before they left. That’s one of the reasons I get that bit out as early as possible”

My mind sniggered again, and I suggested it piss right off.

“I wouldn’t know about that, Maddy. I got hurt in other ways. I told you what they called me at school. I had my dreams, just like yours, sort of. Practical jokes. One time…”

Yet another long pause, as he stared over to the massive old building.

“Once I had a classmate. Katie Spencer was her name, and she was lovely. I mean that she looked lovely. I gave her a card on her birthday once. She asked me if I fancied her and my… my condition didn’t filter my answer and I just said ‘Yes’, so she asked me if I wanted to go to the pictures one evening and it was a new Star wars film so I went to stand where she said to meet her and the whole class turned up and laughed while she kissed some other boy who was already her boyfriend and they took pictures of me and---"

“Neil!”

“Sorry”

“It’s not a problem, not from you, okay? You were going to tell me how your dreams match mine?”

He looked down at his knees once again.

“Winter is worst. I use a hot water bottle. But I dream of someone warm there instead. Someone I can hold. That’s my dream. Not being alone in the night”

“What about the day?”

“That too, but that means knowing someone will be there for the night as well”

“Do you get nightmares, Neil? I do”

“No. I just stay lonely”

My heart nearly broke with that simple confession, and I was supposed to be the poor suffering martyr, not him.

“Neil2

“Yes?”

“Please listen to what I say before you answer. I’ll point at you when I have finished, okay? Just so that I get the whole message out”

“Go ahead”

“I know your body reacts—no, please wait. Remember? Thank you. I know your body reacts, you know that mine does. That’s not bad, it’s not wrong. It is just something that happens. I want to ask if you can try something with me”

I pointed at him, and he simply said “What?”

“Could you hold me, please? Or let me hold you? Just for comfort?”

Wordlessly he nodded, and I slid across the bench until our hips were touching, which was when he spoke.

“Shoulder and hip. That’s what I call that first picture I bought of you. This is shoulder and hip”

I took his arm and laid it over my shoulder before snuggling into him properly, a scent of soap and some simple deodorant coming from his trembling body. I reached across him with my spare arm and pulled myself even closer.

“Thank you. We have about an hour before our first appointment; do you mind if we just sit like this for a while?”

“I would like that”

His trembling eased, and to my delight he had clearly been listening, for he settled his chin gently on top of my head, murmuring, “Not imaginary. And you’re so warm…”

He was still stiff, and no, I don’t mean that way. A better word would be stilted, or perhaps awkward, in how he held me, his right arm lying down the side of my own rather than wrapping me, but it was still more than just pleasant.

“Neil?”

“Yes?”

“Thank you. If this feels awkward, we can always stop”

NEIL
I couldn’t stop my hands shaking, but I concentrated on what she had said, her hair blowing onto my face in the light breeze. I wanted to wrap her right up, but if I did, I might end up touching somewhere else, and I was worried about my reaction.. I kept my arm outside hers, and tried to find a calm place, and to my surprise, that is what happened.

It gelt good, but it also felt natural. I still had the divided sheet up, and a nasty thought sat there: if she was transgender, would that mean easier to become intimate with? Desperate, maybe?

I really didn’t want to go down that route. I had met her as a woman, and I really couldn’t see her as anything else. At least the rest of my thoughts were all on the positive side of the dividing line, which meant… Oh. I had forgotten that we had another task. I didn’t want to move, but if she was willing, there was another way. I gathered my courage.

“Maddy?”

“Yes?”

“Could you please sit up? I had forgotten something”

She slowly disengaged, her mouth slightly twisted, and I tried a smile again.

“I am not pushing you away, Maddy. We have another job. If I am taking you to Hadrian’s Wall, we need to fins a helmet and gloves. Can we look on the map and see…”

She had her phone out in two seconds flat, and yes, there was a shop a short walk away, which would give us time for the purchase, before our appointment.

I stood up, extending a hand to her.

“Coming?”

She took my hand and stood up to face me, eyes slightly narrowed, but when I shifted my grip her eyebrows rose and her smile slowly returned. Our hands stayed together all the way to the shop, and my heart rate stayed up as we walked. I had so many phrases running through my head I felt it might burst, as the balloon might pop, the other shoe drop, and so on. Burst head, burst balloon, burst heart if I didn’t calm down.

Maddy wriggled her hand after the first fifty yards of walking, her fingers sliding between mine, and my heart rate spiked again. I started telling my body how right this was, and then my eyes were scanning the other people in the street. Memories of that awful night outside the cinema; how many of those we passed were silently laughing at me?

Another part of my mind, not the cynical bit, was telling me not to be so stupid, for how could anyone feel anything other than envy in seeing the woman beside me?

All of that makes me sound like that common wrong idea about being schizophrenic, which I am not, not in the sense of being a cluster of separate personalities. My therapist tells me it is simply a close focus, and I am still capable of picking up social cues, just not immediately. If they are too subtle, I can miss them altogether, but I am handicapped rather than disabled.

I had asked her if that wasn’t just another word for the same thing, and that had brought a smile.

“Not at all, Neil. I am using it in the sense of professional sprinting, the original sort, or whippet racing”

“I’ve seen that”

“Notice how the traps are staggered, some forward, some back? That’s a handicap. Slower dogs, or slower sprinters, get a head start. Supposed to make the finish more exciting. That is a handicap. Now, I am going to say something which isn’t a formal diagnosis here, but a guess. It’s a personal opinion, more exactly. The dog or sprinter who starts right at the back is there because they are thought to be the fastest in the field. I wonder that about you”

I had a handicap, but that didn’t mean I was slow. It actually made a lot of sense to me.

“Neil? Drifting away again?”

“Thoughts, Maddy. That’s all”

“Nice ones, I hope”

I squeezed her hand.

“How could they be anything else right now?”

The shop had a decent selection of lids, from simple open-face polycarbonate ones to expensive full-face carbon fibre helmets, which were rather outside my price range. I was looking at the boots, just in case, when Maddy called me over. She was standing at the till, holding a bag and two boxes, as well as a receipt.

“I was going to get those”

“Neil, you have already bought me a tyre, so it’s my turn. I have a lid, I have some gloves, and I have a present for both of us. This nice man has agreed to do us a huge favour, as well”

The man at the till grinned at me.

“The way you two walked in here, how could I not? It’s on me way hyem, anyway”

Maddy shook his hand, speaking to me over her shoulder.

“He’s going to leave these at the hotel, Neil. Save us humping them round the Cathedral. Thanks, Robby: you’re a star”

“Ne bother, pet. What’s the bike?”

She left me to answer.

“Um, I have a BMW R80, but I came on my other bike, which is a Kawasaki Zed Thou. The bores have been lapped and…”

To my surprise, he was actually listening, and when he asked about the Beemer’s side stand, we were away. He had just bought an old Suzuki GSX1100 Katana as a restoration project, so I told him of my experiences of the 659 Katana, which of course was shaft drive, like the Z1100 Kwak, and…

“Neil? Appointment”

“Sorry Maddy”

Robby was laughing.

“You must think we’re a right pair a trainspotters, pet!”

She winced slightly before reaching for my hand, with a smile.

“We’re away, Robby. Thanks so much for your help today”

“Like I said, pet. Ne bother. Gan canny, the pair a you”

She towed me out, then started laughing again.

“Bloody trainspotters indeed! What am I going to do with you? Do NOT answer that question, and don’t ask me what I answer I’m giving myself”

I tried to give her what my mother had described as a Paddington stare, and she laughed happily.

“Yes, it’s naughty, but I am allowed. Let’s go to work, Big Man”

It was actually quite amusing, for Maddy introduced me as a colleague who had come to share the load, and we ended up doing two portraits each, because the Verger or Dean or whatever his title was demanded it as a fee for allowing two ‘snappers into God’s house’ rather than the one already agreed. The four portraits were of the same two people, each snapped by one of us and then the other. Thankfully, we were then set free to roam, within limits set put in a couple of visitor guides, and I started to get what promised to be decent monochrome shots with my Pentax along with some close detail using the macro lens on my Canon DSLR. Neither of us said a word for a very long time, but for once it felt natural. I was concentrating on things like mason’s marks and shots up into the huge vaulted space, and of course the organ, while Maddy was capturing light beams through the stained glass, dust motes dancing there, and the fossils in the black Frosterley limestone. I usually drift away when working, caught up in the detail, but this job was different, because there were two of us, working together, if separately, and each time I looked around I would see Maddy, tongue tip showing as she considered a composition, or simply smiling back at me.

MADDY
The cheeky sods! I had hoped to save time by sharing the portrait work, but hey. I suppose bringing Neil in as a ‘colleague’ was a bit of a try-on from me. I watched him as we started to work, and it was a revelation as I saw the positive side of his condition, which was focus. Yes, that could be a joke, but it certainly helped him get what turned out to be some wonderful images. There was even more to surprise me, for instead of doing what I had expected---

My turn to pause. I had anticipated several hours of complete silence, with Neil ignoring me entirely as he entered his own little world rather than the one I had earlier welcomed him to, but every so often I caught him looking across to me, and when I smiled, he smiled back. That rude part of my mind sniggered yet again, and commented that I might be getting close to the point where ripping off his clothes might lead to a satisfactory conclusion after all. Roll on the next fortnight and the lower part of my cycle.

That brought a lot more introspection, because I was starting to see him in a slightly different way. I realised I was starting to tune into his way of seeing the world; not joining him there, but recognising what he saw, how he saw it, how I could help him see further.

And, more to the point, he did seem an absolutely sweet man. And absolutely shaggable, of course, and that wasn’t just my HRT’s opinion. The ensuing surge of guilt caught me by surprise, as Nasty Mind suggested I was preying on someone all too vulnerable.

Shit. Smile nicely at the nice man, Madeleine, and boot that thought where it hurts.

A little while after that thought, he actually called me over to see a line of black marble inset into the floor.

“That’s the Lady Line, Maddy. Women used to be banned from the Cathedral by the monks. Couldn’t get to see Saint Cuthbert’s tomb. Then the monks agreed to let them in, but they weren’t allowed past this line”

“Why the change?”

“So they could charge more people the entry fee. You have to stay this side”

How subtly sweet that was, so typical of the man I was learning to see.

They were ready to kick us out eventually, which surprised me in a dazed way, as I had lost all track of time. We packed up and started a slow walk back to the hotel, and to my delighted surprise, Neil simply took my hand again.

“Maddy?”

“Still here, Neil”

“I know, and that is very nice. Thank you. What are the meals like in the hotel?”

“Tolerable”

“Well, there is a place I read about. It’s supposed to do good food, but it’s a pub”

I kept my tone as innocent as I could.

“Oh, right. Does it also do good beer?”

“It’s a free house and has a very good write-up from CAMRA the Campaign For Real Ale”

“So you would be drinking beer, then”

“Yes. They probably do wine for women”

“Strachan, THIS woman wants a decent pint! What do they have on tap?”

“I don’t know”

I let go of his hand after tugging him closer, and slipped an arm around his waist, slipping my hand into his back pocket. He trembled for a second, before slipping his own arm around my waist, though he kept his hand above my hip. I squeezed him a little. No, not with my hand, but where it was sitting did not feel flabby.

“Then we shall have to see what they can offer, Neil. Now, pick up the parcels, and I will have a shower and get changed. Where is the pub? Any uphill or downhill stuff to get to it?”

“Why?”

“Shoes, Neil. Choice of. A woman thing, okay? So give me an hour to shower and change, then come to my room and I’ll show you our present. I’m in room---”

“Twenty three. I remember, but I don’t know how hilly the walk is”

“I’ll just have to take my bigger bag, then. No biggy. Well, slightly bigger. You’ll ned to change as well; you’ve got dusty knees after all the lying and kneeling you did. Spare trousers?”

“Yes”

“Hang on; would these be the ones you wore to my show? When we met?”

“Yes. Why do you ask?”

“Because they will need a good session with a steam iron, most likely. Slight change of plan: bring me your trousers before I get in the shower, and I will see what I can do”