MADDY
I settled back against him as we continued down the lane to our digs, his buttock flexing against my hand, his own hand on my hip, and I was feeling almost blissed out. Sod what they had said at school, sod what had been written in the Register when I was born, this, the here and now, or there and then: it was right, fitting, proper. And I had the right dress with me, and shoes to go with it, because my own paranoia had been so worried there’d be a dress code for the dining room.

It wasn’t just that, of course, my life being what it was. I rarely got read by haters, finally, but a few hints tended to reduce that incidence even further. A skirt and heels make statements that can blur someone’s vision, even if I have to be so careful.

We were still cuddled up when we arrived at the hotel, and I got a sunny smile from the receptionist as she saw us.

“Got a package for you, Miss Gibson”

“Great! Can you grab the lid, Neil, and I’ll get the others?”

I simply walked up the stairs, trusting him to follow, and as I passed a mirror, I caught the reflection of our receptionist, and her gaze was clearly following Neil’s arse. My mind snorted ‘Mine!’, and I wobbled slightly as that guilt leered at me once more. Fake woman. Vulnerable man.

I kept my smile for him, though, until we were at my door.

“Come in, Neil. Can you unpack the helmet? Ta”

I tossed my new gloves onto my pillow and brought out the other box, which held an intercom..

“This is for us, Neil. I didn’t fancy a long ride..”

Shut up, mind.

“… without being able to communicate. Have you used one of these before?”

His expression turned bleak, and I understood, interrupting before he could answer.

“Nor me. Never had the need for one, but I would like to share this ride, rather than endure it. You are more of an engineer than me, obviously, so go and get your trousers, then shower, and you can set that thing up while I do the ironing”

NEIL
I did as I was ordered, and after dropping off my chinos I puzzled out the electronic device. Little speakers attached to the inside of each helmet, in the obvious places, and a combination microphone and transmitter/receiver clamped to the lids’ lower rims.

The assembly and testing helped me calm down a little, but my thinking in the shower was a swirl of thoughts and ideas, along with very hard questions.

The day had been wonderful, to be honest. Maddy was lovely, and she was being amazing towards me. I had never held anyone the way I had been holding her, and when she had slipped her hand into my hip pocket, it had felt, it had been…

My hand did what it had been yearning for, and it was intense, and very, very quick. I made sure I had cleaned myself thoroughly, and tried to forget the scent of her hair and the feel of her hip against mine, just for the moment.

I knocked at her door at the appointed time, after realising that we hadn’t exactly planned everything, because I was in the other trousers, as my clean ones were in her room. She opened the door holding them, tutted, and pushed me towards her bathroom before I could do more than glance at her.

“In and change, Neil! I’m nearly ready. Here are your strides”

It was still steamy, and I could smell her scent, and there were woman’s things in there, and for once I was grateful I had just shamed myself in the shower and was thus far less likely to embarrass myself the way I had that first time in her house. I slipped off my shoes, pulled on my neatly ironed trousers, and stepped back into the bedroom.

“Could you pass me the brush, please? Oh: I like the view, but you might want to zip up your fly before we go out”

She must have caught something in my expression, because she was swift to start apologising. I tried to say it wasn’t important, but she was adamant.

“Neil, can I add one thing? I am someone who makes bad jokes, usually rude ones, as in smutty. If I make them towards you, they are not meant to hurt or belittle…”

Suddenly, she was laughing again. When she had managed to regain control, I asked the obvious question, and she was off again.

“I am so sorry, Neil, but it was that word, and you will never, ever be little, oh my god no!”

A memory came back in a rush, of her face twitching when I had mentioned my two different types of CBT, so I asked what the joke had been that time, and once again she was lost in hilarity.

“Neil, darling, no, not laughing at you. I want to laugh with you, never at you. It’s just, well, there is at least one other meaning of CBT”

“Which is?”

“Um, it’s a sort of sadomasochism thing. Cock and Ball Torture”

She still hadn’t finished, as she started to say how she had much better ideas for cocks and balls and…

“Maddy!”

“Sorry”

“That is the hormones talking. Can I go to the pub with the woman instead, please?”

She looked slightly ashamed, and as I realised I was obviously getting better at reading her face, she simply said that it wasn’t just the hormones.

“If this worries you, Neil, I am sorry, but you have been really lovely to me. I don’t get… I have never really had that, just a few men who have satisfied their curiosity over a few years, and nothing more. You are something I didn’t expect, and I am bloody nervous, frightened I will scare you away. Please try and understand me. Please see if we can, you know, keep this going?”

She was facing away from me, as she spoke, staring into a mirror as she did something with her eyes that proved to be dabbing them dry. I forced myself to take a few steps forwards so that I could feel the tension in her shoulders, which I tried to knead out.

“Oh, that’s lovely! I don’t want you to stop…. But. Could you pass me my jacket, please? I have so many innuendos flying around in my head, and I am terrified of letting them out. I need some cool air to clear them”

“Maddy?”

“Unhunh?”

“An example?”

“Oh god, so many… I’ve already got you out of your trousers, but you came in long pants”

MADDY
Actually, I suspected it had been in short ones, because what I had seen through his open fly looked very like the sort of seepage that some men get for quite a while after their climax. I didn’t need to know, although I wanted to, but if anything seemed guaranteed to terrify him away, that would be high on the list.

I had pushed the boat out a little for him, with a dress I loved, a knee-length wrap with a side buckle and half belt If I crossed my legs one way, it was demure. Done the other way, the wrap fell open, and most of my thigh would be on show. I had left the bras in my case, as they would have shown at the front, and while I had a pair of flat shoes in my ‘bigger’, I was trying out a pair of heels for the walk to the pub. I shoved Neil out of the door after a last flick of mascara, to repair the slight damage caused by my body’s attempt to cry, and followed him downstairs. He took my hand again once we were on the street, and it was done so naturally I wanted to weep. HRT and cycles, yet again. I found myself scurrying to keep up with him in my heels, and he noticed, slowing his pace, right up until we were reminded that Durham City has an awful lot of cobbled streets, which left my heels sliding about. The pavements were flagstones, so we stayed on them until our pub appeared, the other side of one of those cobbled streets. Neil looked at me, smiled, and then just picked me up and carried me to the other side, where he set me down again, which was obviously his way. See a need, fix it.

I did rather doubt that he could have fixed that need so easily if it had occurred before today, however, and I did notice where his eyes were pointing. Fair exchange is no robbery, of course.

The pub was called ‘The Crook’, with a sign showing a shepherd’s implement rather than a man in a stripy shirt and mask, or a Tory, and seemed to be a proper old-fashioned place, with no less than six hand pumps on the bar and two tap-and-spile barrels behind it. Neil’s eyes lit up.

“I think this is my kind of place, Maddy!”

“What, a pick-up joint?”

A very brief moment of confusion was followed by a burst of laughter.

“Well, I got that one straight away! Tell me what you would like and find a table”

He was almost masterful on familiar ground, which left me feeling warm and fuzzy. I am not into domination stuff, but for the moment he was just being sort-of-my bloke, and it felt good. I hugged myself to him, reading the pump labels.

“Ooh! They’ve got Canny Lad in. That’ll do me. Menus?”

He stretched out to grab a couple, and as he did, I kissed him on the cheek.

“What was that for?”

“Being nice. Next round is mine, and the food”

“No. You bought our present”

“Well, the food’s… Does it work okay?”

“Find a table, Maddy. I’ll tell you then”

There was a little nook with two seats in it, and I settled into one of them, legs folded the safe way. Five minutes later he was back, with a pint and a half of the ale. I coughed, pointing at the little glass.

“Where’s the rest of it?”

“Oh. I thought ladies…”

“Neil, we’ve agreed I’m a woman. Nobody mentioned ladies”

“Yes, but we agreed you had to obey the Lady Line”

Much, much quicker in his banter.

“Neil, you seem a lot more relaxed in here. Is it because it’s a pub?”

“Um, I suppose so. Partly. I’m used to pubs. And it’s a strange pub, so we won’t see anyone we know”

I pointed to the bar, where our new friend Robby was getting outside a glass of something lighter than ours.

“Say hello when you get the rest of my drink”

As he walked over to the pumps, I crossed my legs the other way, and when Robby turned to wave at me, I smiled and raised a glass. He looked my way for a little longer than necessary, so it had been effective. I crossed my legs back as Neil approached. As he set down my second half-pint, he stared at me.

“Did you do something to tease Robby? He looked very pink”

I switched legs again.

“Who, me?”

Neil was blushing hard, so I made myself decent again and picked up one of my glasses, feeling a little guilty again.

“I’m sorry, Neil. I’m just, I don’t know, feeling, you know?”

“Randy. The HRT”

“No. I was going to say ‘happy’, if that wasn’t a bit obvious”

“Happy, you say?”

“Absolutely, and that is partly because this is a lovely city, and I have had a lovely day of catching what I think will be lovely images, and profitable ones to boot. And because I am with a lovely man, who has been absolutely lovely to me”

“Thank you”

“And of course, I’m still randy. I will have the fisherman’s pie, please”

That allowed him to pay for the meal, which I had decided he could do following his comment about the intercom.

NEIL
Robby had sounded as if he was choking.

“Christ, marra, Neil, that is… You’re a lucky man”

I hadn’t understood what he meant until I had returned to the table, and Maddy had crossed and recrossed her legs. Together with her plunging neckline, I was in danger of sensory overload. When she spoke about her randiness, I was nearly lost again.

Pub. Food. Steak and ale pie, with mash and peas. Count down the stress. I carried our little metal stand with its number back to our table, and she was back in ‘modest’ mode.

“You are in danger of overloading me, Maddy. If I start to wobble again, please slow down”

“I’m sorry, Neil. What I said about teasing, yes? This dress, it’s something that makes me… It’s good for teasing, and I bought it for that, to tease a man, or maybe please him, one or both, a man I thought had feelings toward me”

I found my mood changing to concern and care rather than stress, for this was Maddy hurting, and… And this was nothing like it had been with that nasty Spencer girl and her friends. Show Maddy you care, Neil.

“What happened? Did he hurt you?”

“Not physically. I, we had arranged a meal, and I had bought this dress, which, with the memories, shit. I should have worn something tonight with less freight attached to it”

“How did he hurt you? If you’d prefer not to talk about it, I will understand”

She sighed, long and slowly.

“Neil, I would like you to get to know me, to understand why I can be so up and down, and all of that story is part of me. I have had three, I don’t know what to call them. Standard practice is to call them ‘lovers’, but none of them were. They were just fuckers. Sorry”

“Not a problem”

“This was the last of them. He’d taken me out a few times, and he was really smooth, good looking in a way. Drove a Range Rover, which should have been a red flag. This dress… We arranged the meal, and I had it all laid out, with candles, the whole package. I had hopes, real ones, so I had gone all-out. New undies, really silly heels, and this dress. He always liked sitting next to me in restaurants, rather than across, so he could have a bit of a grope, I suppose, and see down my top.

“I did the leg crossing trick, and he leered and said it was a nice dress, how did it fasten?, and I explained”

I noticed her slowing down, losing courage perhaps.

“Maddy, how does it fasten? Is that some special secret?”

“Er, no. It’s a wrap. I put it on like a shirt, then pull this side across first, where a couple of buttons hold it in place, I then wrap this side across, and there’s this round buckle here with a little half belt thing that secures it”

“That’s what you told him?”

“Yes, except, I was standing up, and…”

She was starting to shake now, so I moved closer to her, putting an arm over her shoulders, until she turned her face to my chest.

“Don’t want to get mascara and that on your shirt, Neil”

“Don’t worry about it. Go on, if you want to”

“I was standing…. He asked how easy the buckle was to undo, so I said like this, and undid it, and the dress is half open. ‘Buttons?’ he says, so I do, and I’m standing there in an open dress, which I let slide off my shoulders so its just tiny knickers, stockings, suspenders and heels, and I am feeling so bloody seductive. ‘Fuck me’, he says, so I just say ‘Yes please’, and he does, and I do, and it was amazing, and I’m lying there on the bed still in everything except my dress and knickers, expecting a cuddle, but no"

“No?”

“Neil, I can smell food, so please, not now”

She sat up, turning on a smile as a waitress approached with our food.

“Which a yeez two lovebirds as got the fish pie?”