Author's note: Apart from obvious place names such as Bournemouth and London, all people, places and events are entirely fictional. Seacombe is a fictitious seaside town on the south coast of England. The story contains adult actions, some of which are naughty, but nice, and others are plain naughty and evil. Don't read it if you're not an adult, or if you may be upset or offended by the content. Apologies to PD James, from whose book I adapted the title, and gained the idea of the plot.

***

"Hi Chris. It's Suzanne. I need you to do something for me."

How typical, I thought, that those should be Suzanne's very first words since we had ended our steamy relationship almost a year ago. No, "How are you?" or, "Are you in another relationship?" or even, "Do you miss me?" Simply, "I need you to do something."

That had been the whole problem with our relationship. The sex had been incredible, but Suzanne wanted little else, except perhaps someone to perform a few trivial tasks or accompany her to the occasional official function. If she'd been born a man, she'd have had no problem in having a little wife who played the mouse to her dominant role. But I believe it will take a long time for human relationships to catch up with the changes in society that sexual equality has brought on. Plenty of women are turned on by rich and powerful men; but not many men by rich and powerful women; and certainly not me.

Whatever. Suzanne had departed to a high-powered job working for the European Commission in Brussels and I hadn't heard from her since, until that Wednesday afternoon, when the telephone in my home office rang.

"Hi Suzanne," I replied. "How are you?" I deliberately didn't respond to her demand.

"Oh, er, great, actually." She seemed a little put out at my diversionary question, which pleased me, in a childish way. "I've had a promotion since I've been here, and I'm pretty certain I'm going to get another one fairly shortly. And er..." she paused slightly, as though the thought of social niceties had just struck her, "How are things with you? Are you... seeing someone?"

"Nothing serious," I replied, when what I really meant was: no one at all. "How about you?" I asked. "Are you in another relationship?"

"I'm quite close to one of the Commissioners," she said, "but he's already married, so we're both quite happy to keep it low-key."

I idly wondered how much her career advancement had resulted from being 'quite close' to a Commissioner, but instead of pursuing it, I gave her the conversational lead she wanted. I was gaining no pleasure from prolonging this exchange. "You said you wanted me to do something."

"Yes." I could hear the relief in her voice that we had got back onto safer ground. "A few months ago, my niece, Lucy, died in Seacombe. As I'm her only living relative, I had to go there to identify her. The problem is that they want me to go over again and clear her effects from the cottage where she was living with her boyfriend. Only I'm right in the middle of difficult talks over the EU Budget, and I simply can't get away. I wondered if you could pop down there for me?"

Seacombe was a long way from London - a four-hour drive I guessed, so 'pop down' was not quite the phrase I'd have used. "It's a long way. Can't you get the boyfriend to send you the things?"

"Jason Farr? He was a real slime-ball, and it was all his fault. He was a drug pusher - it was him that got Lucy into drugs and it was a drug thing that killed her. Good riddance to him. But Lucy's name was on the lease agreement for the cottage, so it's my responsibility to get it cleared." She sounded more upset that her name might somehow be linked with drugs, than she was about her niece's death.

"Well, there are companies who will do house clearance for you..."

"But I don't know whether there's anything of value in the cottage. I need someone I can trust to go through it all.

"Look," she continued, "I'll be honest with you; I've tried several of my female friends in London who have all refused. I realise it's an unsuitable job for a man - but all you have to do with Lucy's clothes is simply stuff them into plastic bags and take them to a charity shop."

Suzanne always did find the way with words to goad me into action. Her comment about it being an unsuitable job for a man was a deliberate challenge - a reference back to a remark I'd made to her when she obtained her first project from the Commission - a report on the affects of pornography on males. I'd argued that a woman wouldn't have a clue what drives men to read pornography. She had proved me wrong - even I had to admit her report was not only unbiased, it was excellent. So of course, she had reasoned that I would now have to rise to her challenge.

"If there's any of Lucy's furniture in there," Suzanne was continuing, "do a deal with the landlord, or simply take it to a refuse tip. Obviously, take anything you want for yourself, but if you do find the family jewels around, or insurance policies or anything like that, then let me have them."

She didn't say what I was to do if I found any illegal substances; presumably, that was the real reason why she wanted someone else to take on this job. A person in the European Commission certainly could not be allowed to come into contact with illegal drugs. The thought didn't particularly bother me; I could either flush the stuff down the toilet, or contact the police. There was no skin off my nose either way, although I guessed I'd get involved in a far fewer procedural issues with the former.

"It's not difficult," she continued.

"I suppose not." I sighed, thinking about all the good times we'd had together. I guess I owed her something. It was also true that my computer consultancy business had been so busy that I hadn't had a break for months, but I was now in a lull between projects - I could afford a little time away from work. A trip to the seaside - even in April with the current forecast of continual showers and chilly weather - would make a nice change provided I didn't try to rush the job, as Suzanne would obviously like me to do.

"It's a good drive," I said, "and it will probably take some time to clear out the cottage. I may need to spend a few days down there."

"No problem. The rent is paid until the end of the month, so you have almost two weeks. I'll email the coroner's office, who are holding the keys, and tell them you'll be picking them up, and I'll email you with all the details. Thanks Chris." And she was gone.

After I put the phone down, I turned that conversation over in my mind several times. I had intended to ask a few questions about her niece's death, but she had abruptly rung off, perhaps predicting my questions and unwilling to discuss an issue which disturbed her.

On the other hand, if I was going to stay in Lucy's cottage, using her mugs, sitting in her chairs, and sleeping in her bed, perhaps I, too, did not want to know too much about her. After all, it was an unfortunate fact of life that young women are dying all the time - car accidents, cancer, drugs - and you can't get emotional about their deaths - unless you knew them.

So when Suzanne's email had come through, I deliberately didn't try to look up the details of her death on the web. The email gave the address of her cottage, the coroner's office, and the landlord's agent.

Like Suzanne, Lucy's original surname was Richards. But she'd been calling herself Mrs Lucy Farr, using her boyfriend's surname, although there was no record of them ever having got married.

Hell, I thought that habit had died out before Lucy was born.

Suzanne had added a note at the bottom of the email, "You don't have to tell anyone they weren't married or what her real name was." No doubt it was not concern for Lucy's reputation that had prompted that rider - more likely she was worried that her own name might be linked to her drug-user niece!

***

The drive down to Seacombe the next day was an easy one. I deliberately left later, rather than earlier, thus avoiding the normal horrendous congestion around the M25, and once I was clear of the motorways and suburbia, the traffic dropped to a trickle, the sun came out from behind the clouds, and the journey became enjoyable. I found a pleasant pub to stop for lunch, and consequently arrived in Seacombe around three pm.

Conveniently, the coroner's office and landlord's agent were within a minute's walk of each other, so after picking up the keys from the coroner, I called in at the agents and got an inventory of the contents that I'd need to check were all present when I handed the property back to the agents. A few minutes later and I was back in my car, heading for the cottage.

In Britain, there are two meanings of the word, cottage. The first is the classic chocolate-box picture of a small house, probably hundreds of years old, set deep in the countryside or in a small village. In more recent years, estate agents have purloined the word, and used it to describe any small, elderly house they are trying to sell, usually in the middle of a town, almost certainly a terraced house.

With Lucy's boyfriend pushing her onto drugs that led to her death, I wrongly assumed that their cottage would be a run-down version of the latter. So I was surprised at the quiet country lane on the edge of Seacombe, with the scattering of small country cottages spread along it. Lucy's cottage was almost at the end, at the point where the tarmac ended and it turned into an unmade road. It looked absolutely delightful, apart from one boarded-up window.

Inside, it was certainly compact - just a kitchen and main living room downstairs, with a bedroom and bathroom upstairs. Not much in terms of rooms, but the rooms were by no means tiny, and they were nicely furnished, although the window in the bathroom had been broken and boarded-up, and there was no natural light. I guessed the place was mainly used as a holiday cottage, for most of the essentials, including plates and cutlery, a TV and small Hi-Fi were on the agent's inventory.

The only problem was that everywhere was covered in a layer of white dust. At first, I thought it was simply because the place had been empty for some months. Certainly, I would need to clear it up before bringing in my suitcase, or getting anything out of the cupboards or drawers, otherwise, the contents would quickly become as dusty as everything else.

But after I'd found a vacuum cleaner, cloth and spray cleaner and started to clear up the mess, I realised there was a more sinister cause. This was no normal dust - it was fingerprint powder. Presumably, after Lucy's death, the police had fingerprinted the place to find who had been involved in whatever drug dealing Lucy's boyfriend had been up to. I sighed. An all too close reminder of the untimely end met by poor Lucy. On the other hand, it meant I probably would not have to deal with a cache of heroin under the floorboards - the police would have already thoroughly searched and taken away any illicit substances.

I did hesitate for a few seconds before opening the Jiffy bag lying on the doormat beneath the letterbox, along with a pile of junk mail and free newspapers. It had obviously been delivered subsequent to the police search, since it hadn't been opened or covered in fingerprint powder. It was addressed to Mrs Lucy Farr, and it had a return address of a company in Seacombe, so I found a pair of scissors and slit open the bag.

I wasn't quite certain about the contents of the two clear plastic bags inside; each appeared to contain a skin-coloured garment, and the packing note referred to them as a Bustlet and Hiplet, and came with an apology: "This completes your order. We regret the extensive delay in delivering these products for reasons outside of our control." Obviously some kind of clothes that Lucy had ordered for herself. I took the things upstairs and popped them on top of the now-clean dressing table. I could put it inside the bags of clothes I would take to Oxfam next day.

It was only at that moment that I noticed that the mattress was missing from the bed. That was really a nuisance. Not only had I been counting upon sleeping there for the next few nights, having brought my own clean bed linen, but a quick check on the agent's inventory showed that it had been provided and they would certainly be expecting it still to be there when I handed the cottage back. If I didn't buy a new one, the agents would charge me an extortionate price for replacing it.

It was almost six pm. Many shops would already be closed. My only hope was to find an out-of-town trading estate with a bed store. I groaned, and pulled the Yellow Pages from its shelf.

***

It was eight o'clock, dark, and pouring down with rain by the time I returned - a mattress filling the inside of my car to the point where I had to drive with my head twisted down to my shoulder. Fortunately, I'd chosen the cheapest - and consequently the thinnest - mattress the bed store had in stock, so, with a bit of assistance from the store, I'd been able to double it up and feed it through the rear hatch. At least there had been a McDonald's on the trading estate, and I'd popped in there for a Big Mac, so I didn't need to eat. Without further ado, I could get straight onto the difficult handling bit.

But I seemed to have even more of a fight pulling the mattress out of the car than I'd had getting it in, and then I had to carry the thing up the narrow stairs and around the tight bend at the top, and finally plop it down on the bed. The combination of the rain, and the sweat that was pouring off me by the time I'd finished, meant my clothes were wet through and I felt cold and miserable.

The cottage was heated by night storage heaters, which had unfortunately been set to their frost setting, and were completely cold. I turned them right up, but of course, would not get any heat from them until the early hours of the morning.

Fortunately, I had switched on the immersion heater as soon as I'd arrived that afternoon, so the water was plenty hot enough for me to take a shower. I pulled off my sticky clothes, ran the shower and stepped inside.

Of course, it wasn't until I had stepped out of the shower and dried myself off on Lucy's towel, that I realised my clothes were still in the suitcase in my car. Damn it! The things I had been wearing were soaking wet and felt most unpleasant. Still there was a flowery dressing gown on the back of the bathroom door and, wonder of wonders, it was large enough for me, although I can't say it did anything for my masculinity.

I switched on the heated towel rail and draped my clothes over it. Hopefully, by morning they would be dry enough to put back on again. I certainly wasn't intending to go out to the car that evening wearing the pretty dressing gown; Sod's law would dictate that someone would come out of the cottage opposite at just the wrong moment!

I had a rummage through Lucy's drawers and wardrobe - I hoped wherever she was, that she wouldn't mind - and pulled out a pale blue sweater and a pair of jeans. I'd been expecting them all to be too small for me, but in fact they were both quite a loose fit.

A quick check on other clothes hanging in Lucy's wardrobe established she was a size 18, which surprised me. Suzanne was tall and very thin, a shape made fashionable by Princess Di all those years ago, before people realised her associated health problems. Suzanne had determinedly remained thin ever since, and rather foolishly, I'd assumed her niece would have been the same.

Which of course got me thinking about the two items I'd pulled out of the Jiffy bag, which if I remembered correctly, were called a Bustlet and a Hiplet. I went over to the dressing table and shook the two items out of their bags. I picked up the nearest and held it up in front of me. It was like a skin-coloured crop top, with a long neck, and with painted rubber nipples protruding from the front.

"Adjustable Bustlet," said the heading on the leaflet packed with it, followed by, "Be the breast size you want to be, depending upon your mood." I smiled, and sat down at the dressing table. This sounded like a good read.

"Be the breast size you want to be, depending upon your mood. Feeling shy? Then go for the little girl look. Want to get noticed? Then instantly become the biggest girl in town. So quick and simple to change, you can alter your breast size in the cloakroom! Includes Sensotouch for the ultimate in touch sensitivity."

Reading the instructions, it appeared that the breasts on the Bustlet could be inflated with water to make them any size a girl wanted. I couldn't help but be amazed just how gullible some people are at buying such a device and expecting blokes to be taken in by it.

I stared at it. Just for a laugh, I thought, I could put it on and fill it until I'd got a superb pair of mammaries, and have another laugh about how stupid they looked. Well, why not? I'd got the rest of the evening to myself, I could hardly go down the pub dressed like this, and I didn't even fancy sitting downstairs in Lucy's clothes, in case the Mormons came knocking on the door, trying to save my soul. They'd be in for a shock!

So I took off Lucy's sweater, pulled the Bustlet over my head, pushing my arms through the armholes, then pulled the garment as far down my chest as it would stretch. Well, I had to admit that, when I looked in the dressing table mirror, everything appeared all right. The join at the top was hidden under my chin, and I could hardly see the join where my arms protruded. Even the breasts looked like - well - breasts. Admitted, they weren't inflated, so my tits were hardly bigger than normal, but without my chest hair and with the rather prominent nipples, they looked just like the tits on a slim sexy woman - Suzanne, perhaps.

Still, the real test would come when I filled them. I went into the bathroom, taking the dressing table stool with me so I could sit at the washbasin. The flat, flexible piping was exactly where the instructions had said it would be, underneath the lower edge of the garment, and I pulled it out. The end fitted snugly over the hot tap and I turned it on.

Sure enough, my breasts started to fill out, and although I'd been pretty sceptical about them a few minutes before, I had to admit that as they filled, they looked bloody good - in fact, they looked exactly like the real thing.

Whilst still holding the pipe onto the tap with one hand - I'd had plenty of experience of being liberally sprayed with water whilst connecting washing machines and the like - I raised my other hand to cup a breast. Well, that's where the illusion failed. I hadn't let the hot water run though the tap before fitting the pipe, so my breast was full with cold water.

But hot water was now coming out of the tap, and I could let it continue to fill my breast until the temperature was about right. Only then did I turn off the tap, pull off the pipe (fitted with a one-way valve, the instructions said, so my breasts didn't immediately deflate) and stand up so I could look at them in the mirror on the bathroom cabinet.

What a pair of beauties!

Never before had I been this close to such a large pair of knockers. OK, you can see them in porn magazines and on the internet, but never before had I seen them on a real woman. Except, of course, I wasn't a real woman! What a bloody pity! For the first time ever, I thought about what I had missed.

"Don't be stupid," I thought, "these aren't real tits, just inflatable ones." But, I had to admit, incredibly realistic-looking inflatable breasts. It crossed my mind that perhaps one or two women whom I'd recently dated might have been wearing a Bustlet - although inflated to only the half the size of my two. Why would any woman, I wondered, choose to have surgery, when she could have a beautiful-looking pair as easily as this?

Of course, what really spoiled my look in the mirror was the head above the torso - mine. I hadn't bothered to shave recently - I only did that when meeting clients - and I had several days' growth. Having lived with a few women, off and on, during my life, and being a fairly curious person, I'd always taken note of what women did to enhance their beauty, so on a sudden whim, I wondered whether Lucy had any face wax - after all, that's how some of my girlfriends had got rid of unsightly facial hair.

I took my stool back into the bedroom and sat in front of the mirror. A quick rummage through the dressing table drawers and I found Lucy's face wax.

"Hmm," I thought, "this is going to hurt."

***

Forty minutes later, I sat and stared in the mirror, astonished at the face staring back at me. It had almost been as though Lucy had been sitting at my shoulder, advising me on what to use at each stage, and where everything was stored. Perhaps even, I thought, goading me on at each step to achieve an even more realistically feminine look.

Sure the waxing had hurt quite a lot, but the little voice inside told me that if women like Suzanne and Lucy could put up with it, then so could I. Afterwards, I'd smoothed a little cream over my wounded skin, and then figured that a little camouflage make-up would disguise its raw appearance. Then I'd added a little powder, and gone on to trim my eyebrows with a pair of Lucy's tweezers.

After that, I'd discovered some brown contact lenses in a drawer. Although in the past, I'd never been able to get used to lenses, I managed to get these in without difficulty. What's more, the prescription was more or less right for me. Then I'd found some mascara and eyeliner, and gone on to use a little eye shadow. Finally, I lined my lips with a pencil, and then used gloss to give my lips a wonderful sheen. The piece de resistance had been when I'd rummaged through the cupboard next to the dressing table and found a shoulder-length wig of dark brown - almost black - hair.

So now, as I looked in the mirror, I wasn't looking at myself, but at a woman, naked from the waist up, exposing firm, large, rounded breasts, and a face which, although not particularly pretty, was definitely female beneath the make-up.

What was truly amazing is that I'd had so little problem with the make-up. Most women seem to take ages to do the simplest make-up jobs, but without any previous experience, I had totally transformed my face.

I grinned back at the reflection. "Thanks Lucy," I said to it. "You were a great help with the make-up."

I shuddered, suddenly cold, as though a draught had come through the open window, but a glance around showed that all the windows were as tightly closed as when I had come into the house. I turned my gaze back to the mirror. What really spoilt the effect, I decided, were the hairs on my lower body. I glanced downwards. For my legs, I thought, I would need all the wax Lucy had, and more, if I wasn't careful.

***

In fact, Lucy had plenty of wax, which proved sufficient to do my arms, legs, and the rest of my torso. I'd even given myself a nice triangular patch around my genitals. The next stage, I reasoned, would be to put on the Hiplet. I wasn't quite certain what it was, but since Lucy had purchased one, then I wanted to wear it. I found the instructions for the Hiplet and read a similar blurb to before.

"Be the shape you want to be, depending upon your mood. Want to look the little girl? Then stay slim. Want to get noticed? Then instantly get the biggest curves in town. So quick and simple to change, you can alter your hip size in the cloakroom! Includes Sensotouch for the ultimate in touch sensitivity."

It was strange, I reasoned. Most women I knew (especially Suzanne) had wanted to be as slim as possible. They would use girdles and waist-clinchers to pull in their shape, but I'd never heard of women trying to add inches to their hips. Personally, I'd always found a round arse and shapely curves added attraction to a woman, but just try telling that to a modern woman! I read a bit more of the instructions.

The Hiplet was normally worn by transvestites!

So why had Lucy bought one? Okay, the instructions did say that women who wanted to gain curves could also use it. There was even a special instruction enclosed to show how to push the artificial vagina inside a real vagina, allowing 'fully-protected sex without a condom'.

I pulled the Hiplet over my legs and up my body. There was a gusset hanging from the front, and I had to feed my prick inside a pouch, and then pull it back between my legs and fasten it. A glance in the mirror confirmed it appeared to function like an invisible panty-girdle, slightly compressing my waist, but not adding appreciably to my dimensions.

A further look at the instructions told me to pull out the piping from the waistline, and attach it to the tap in the same way as I'd done for the Bustlet. Five minutes later, I had a wonderful round arse and well-padded hips. I needed some clothes, and with a shape like I had, something far more elegant than the sweater and jeans I'd put on earlier. I turned to the wardrobe.

***

No one could have guessed that the person facing me in the mirror was anything other than a woman, with vivacious curves in all the right places. I had on a black dress with a deep scoop neckline. I wore black, high-heeled sandals, having first painted my toenails to match the colour of my acrylic fingernails. I had a dazzling necklace, which matched the long earrings hanging like chandeliers, almost to my shoulders.

I still couldn't believe that, without a moment's hesitation, I'd pierced my ears, when I discovered that none of Lucy's earrings were clip-ons. It had hurt a bit, but nothing as bad as the waxing. I knew that I'd have to take care of the piercings for a few days, but what the hell, I looked fantastic!

I was ready, I reasoned, to go downstairs. So what if a couple of Mormons did come knocking on my door? I could flash my tits at them and tell them to piss off and go and bother some other poor women.

Anyway, it was almost ten pm. Far too late for any casual callers to come knocking at the door. I paced around the bedroom a little before trying to walk downstairs - I didn't want to fall arse over tit in my new heels - but quickly got the hang of it, even managing a sexy little swing of my hips as I did so. I went downstairs.

***

Considering the police had presumably been all over the cottage, I was a little surprised that they'd left Lucy's supply of wine untouched. I'm not accusing police of being bent, you understand, but I would have thought they'd have sent all those bottles to the police laboratory for 'checking'.

I found a rather nice red wine. In fact, every bottle in Lucy's wine-rack looked 'rather nice' - she had obviously not wasted all her money on drugs, and she certainly hadn't wasted it on the wine. As I took the first sip, it tasted excellent. I switched on the CD-player. One of those smoochy, romantic songs was already in the deck so I let it play - it matched my mood. I sat down on the settee, and relaxed. Yes, this wine really was excellent. I replenished my glass and wriggled down in the settee. It really was very comfortable, and I'd had a long, hard day. I closed my eyes and relaxed.