You meant it for evil - 04 by Maeryn Lamonte WARNING: This chapter has scenes involving a suicide. I have no personal experience of this, even though I remember once standing on a balcony at the top of a tall building wishing I had the courage to jump. I am glad now that I didn’t. I hope I have dealt with the matter sensitively and I beg your forgiveness if I haven’t. The whole room was a swirling, gyrating mass of humanity and I looked around in the confusion for a familiar face. When I found it, the blood ran cold in my veins. Sharon sensed my sudden stillness and leaned over to shout in my ear. “Did you find her?” I leaned back. This wasn’t going to be easy. I raised a finger to point. “Yeah. Er, I er… She’s over there. Talking to Phil.”

-oOo-
Sharon took the lead and we made our way through the writhing bodies on the dance floor. Even with her running interference it was amazing how many hands ‘accidentally’ brushed and groped my breasts and backside. Some of them were hard enough to leave bruises and by the time we reached the other side I was shaking with shock and anger from the experience. I leaned over to Sharon.

“How do you cope with it?”

“With what?”

“All the… you know… groping.”

I indicated my breasts and bum and her face went ashen.

“Oh sh@! I didn’t think about that. They only go for the really gorgeous girls and I’m afraid that includes you now.”

“But you’re at least as attractive as I am.”

“Nice of you to say so sweetie, but I’m not in your class. Are you ok to do this?”

She waved over to where my mystery girl from the previous week sat by the bar. Phil had turned away, trying to attract the barman’s attention; this was my chance. I gave Sharon a quick nod and stepped up behind my target.

“I hear you only make out with girls.”

She stiffened then spun around on her stool. Her eyes were wide as saucers and her mouth hung open in disbelief. She grabbed my wrists and pulled me towards her.

“You’re still alive? Thank heavens, but how?”

Phil noticed the commotion and turned to see what was going on. When he saw me he exploded.

“You again! What the f@*! are you doing here? Not just happy to balls things up between me and my ex, you feel the need to follow me around and sabotage everything else I do? I mean what did I ever do to you?”

What, apart from try to get me arrested for theft and prostitution? There were so many ways I could have answered that question, and none of them pretty, but that wasn’t why I was here. I managed to swallow my anger and disappointment in my friend and turned to the green-eyed girl next to me.

“Can we go somewhere and talk?”

Phil wasn’t having any of it though.

“No! You don’t just get to come in here and break this up. We were having a conversation and you have no right to interrupt. Now just back off, your presence isn’t welcome here.”

Sharon appeared at my shoulder and Phil turned to glower at her.

“Phil you need to listen…”

“No I don’t. You made it perfectly clear last night that you wanted nothing to do with me, so let me tell you I want nothing to do with you or your new friend, so you can just bu&& £r off back where you came from.”

He was making enough noise to get noticed. A number of large men in badly fitting tuxedos where edging their way towards us. I turned to the girl.

“I guess it’s up to you then. I mean I want to help, but I can’t unless you let me.”

Hope and despair were warring in her eyes; the outcome was as yet undecided.

“You don’t know what you’re asking.”

I took her hold of her hands and looked beseechingly into her eyes. The room seemed to be shrinking in around us and I could feel the importance of this moment. I glanced briefly at Phil and had a flash of his short and horrific future should he be transformed the same way I had been. He was too much of a bloke and for him to change into a girl; it would be even more wrong than I had felt for all of my life.

“You’re right I don’t know what I’m asking, but whatever it is, is it so much worse than what you’re going through now? I do know that however much of a tosspot this guy is, he would be destroyed by what you have in mind for him. No-one deserves what he would have to face and I think you know that.”

“But I can’t go back there, back to being alone.”

“Then you won’t. I promise you that you won’t be alone because whatever you have to face, I’ll face it with you.”

Hope was winning. The agony under the surface was receding. She stared at me uncomprehending.

“You’d do that for me? After what I did to you? Why?”

“Because no-one should face suffering on their own.”

The bouncers had arrived and were looking at the four of us for some explanation. Phil was only too happy to provide one.

“Look, I was quite happy sharing a quiet drink with this lady here when she turns up. She is serious bad news; been screwing up my life since I first crossed her path a week ago. She got me arrested, turned my girlfriend against me and caused us to break up, and now she’s here along with my ex trying to mess with my life even more. I’d greatly appreciate it if you could have them leave us alone.”

The bouncers looked at me then turned to the woman next to me.

“Excuse me miss, is this true?”

I held her eyes, willing her with everything I had to make the right decision. Whatever was inside her was tearing her apart. It would be so easy to turn away from this, to go back to the way things had been, to choose SNAFU over FUBAR.

“Miss? I’m sorry are these people bothering you?”

She tore her eyes away from me, the anguish in their depths palpable even at this distance. A coldness spread through me; I hadn’t managed to get through to her. We were going to be thrown and and there was nothing I could do for Phil.

“I’m afraid there’s been a bit of a mix up. You see this is a friend I’ve been waiting for. I tried to explain it to this gentleman, but I think he misunderstood me.”

The relief was so great my knees almost buckled under me. I let out a strangled sob which had the bouncers looking at me oddly for a moment, but for right now they were more interested in Phil.

“I’m sorry sir but I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

“Oh come on! Can’t you see she’s done it again? This isn’t right, this isn’t fair.”

Two of the heavies hooked an arm each under Phil’s armpits and started dragging him backwards toward the entrance. Sharon gave me an apologetic look and I waved for her to follow them. I didn’t really like the idea of her chasing after Phil, but maybe something good could come of it. I turned back to thank my companion, but now that she’d made her decision, the agonised tension had gone and what remained was a sorrow so deep and overwhelming that any words I might have had caught in my throat.

I led her to a quiet table right at the back of the club. A waitress approached us almost immediately and I ordered us a couple of coffees. They would be expensive and quite possibly undrinkable, but the club would insist on us having something on the table.

My mystery woman sat across from me in silent misery and I left her to her thoughts until the waitress returned. The coffee was strong and smelt burnt. I handed over a ten pound note and received far too little change. This was all incidental. I reached across and squeezed a hand.

“Tell me.”

She let out a long despairing sigh and nodded.

-oOo-
She looked across the dance floor to the entrance. With her chin she pointed out the less fortunate lonely hearts sitting ever hopeful just inside the door.

“I used to be one of them.”

I didn’t comment. If it were true it wouldn’t be the strangest thing that had happened this week.

“My Dad used to call me mighty maid. ‘Strong and sturdy,’ he would say. ‘You’ll make some farmer a good wife one day.’. He thought it was funny, but he never saw how much hurt it caused me, especially coming from him.

“I made it through school and got used to being ignored by both boys and girls. I was one of the quiet, dependable ones who no-one ever notices. Do you know how lonely that can be?”

I shook my head. I remembered loneliness but it wasn’t the same.

“I moved here a couple of years ago, took a clerical job with a firm of solicitors and became part of the wallpaper. On a Friday nights I’d go out clubbing and sit like all those hopeful Harriets over there waiting for the day when Prince Charming would come and sweep me off my feet.

“It didn’t happen of course. I tried to make friends with one or two of the others, but they saw that as giving up and I guess they were right in a way.”

She took a sip of her coffee and grimaced, then let out a desperate laugh.

“You know you’ve hit rock bottom when even the coffee tastes this bad.”

I smiled and waited for her to continue.

“One Friday evening, about a year ago I suppose, a group of guys came into the club where I was waiting. I was sitting on my own, minding my own business and sipping away at a drink I knew would only add to my sadness and loneliness.

“One of the lads broke away from the group and came over to me, offered to buy me a drink. I mean he wasn’t Brad Pitt or anything, but he was kind of cute. Kyle his name was and I couldn’t believe he was actually talking to me. For some reason he stuck with me through the evening. He bought me drinks, talked to me and made me laugh, listened to me when I could muster up courage enough to say anything, offered to dance with me. It was a magical evening and ever so very slowly I lowered my guard and started to believe that I might have found someone who actually cared for me.

“Then right at the end of the evening, all his mates came over and he stood up to join them. One of the group looked at me then over at my companion and said, ‘alright you win.’ Everyone in the group pulled out their wallets and handed over a twenty pound note. I looked up at Kyle and asked him what was going on.

“He told me it was a kind of bet. If he chatted up the ugliest girl in the place and made her believe he fancied her, they’d all pay him twenty quid each, and with over a dozen people in the group that was going to be the easiest few hundred quid he was going to make that week. No hard feelings he told me then disappeared with his mates, all of them laughing at the tops of their lungs. No hard feelings, what did he know?”

Her voice had dropped to a quiet murmur, her shoulders slumped. I rubbed her hand and squeezed it. A tear slid down my cheek and dripped into my coffee with a surprisingly loud gloop. She roused herself for the next bit.

“I ran out of the club as fast as I could; I don’t think I even picked up my coat. It was cold outside and it was raining but I didn’t care I just kept running, trying to get away from the memory of that laughter. Even in all of my miserable life I had never been so humiliated, never felt so totally, utterly without hope as I did then.

“Eventually I found myself on one of the bridges. I don’t remember which one, but the barrier along the side wasn’t that high. I stepped over it and looked down at the cold, black water and wondered if it wouldn’t be easier just to let the river have me. I doubted anyone would notice that I was gone, or if they did whether they would care.

“I was brought up a Catholic so I knew that what I was considering was a sin, but I didn’t care. Even death couldn’t be worse than what I was going through then and there. It felt like I had no-one to turn to, no-one who could possibly understand or sympathise. I was on my own and screaming inside.

“I’m not sure even now if it was a totally conscious decision, but I let go of the bridge and fell. No-one cried out, no-one noticed. Then I hit the water; f@*! it was cold. I could barely breath, barely keep myself afloat. I drifted away from the bridge so fast I couldn’t believe it then I was being pulled every which way by the current. The cold gripped me so quick it seemed only seconds before I could barely move my arms and legs. I was foundering, water filling my mouth then my lungs. That was agony, but it didn’t last long. Soon there was no feeling at all, no pain, no cold, no nothing.”

Her voice had taken on a flat, unemotional monotone, but it seemed as if I relived every bit of her torment along with her. The coffee was cold and a waitress hovered momentarily before deciding, wisely, that we needed to be left alone and scurried off.

I waited. There was nothing I could do but wait. I’d told her that I would stay with her whatever and I wasn’t about to go back on my promise. Whatever hell she was reliving, it passed. She looked up at me with her impossibly green eyes. They were glassy and tinged with something like madness; quite frightening.

“It would have been a mercy if that had been the end of it. Do you know what hell was like for me? It was the same loneliness I had experienced in life, the same depths of despair, only now I was utterly alone. No-one to turn to, no hope of finding anyone, no hope of it ever ending. Time seems to run differently there; a hundred years, a million, a billion; it’s all the same. I was lost and alone and screaming and utterly insane for so long I can’t even think of the numbers to describe it.

“Then there was this voice. Half comforting, half mocking. ‘Poor Mary,’ it seemed to say, ‘so lost, so alone.’ I thought it was another symptom of my madness, that it wasn’t real, but it persisted and eventually I listened.

“‘It isn’t fair,’ the voice echoed my own sentiments. ‘Why should you suffer like this when those who did this to you are still wandering about laughing at you? Why should they escape this torment while you endure it alone?’

“‘What do you want?’ I screamed, over and over and the voice was silenced for a time. When it returned it spoke directly to me. No more taunting, but straight to the point.

“‘What would you say if there were a way to escape this? If you could return to the world and bring revenge against the sort of people who drove you herein the first place, would you do it?’

“So help me I would have done anything to escape the misery at that moment, but to have an opportunity to pay back those monsters who had destroyed me so completely, so carelessly. ‘Yes,’ I cried out, ‘yes, yes, yes.’

“I remember the laugh. It was like the madness inside of me, but it wasn’t a part of me. It was a horrible laugh with no humour to it; nothing but malice. I didn’t care, that listless drifting through my own unfathomable misery was over, the anger in me was drawing me up into a deep impenetrable blackness, then everything was still and for a while I slept.

“When I awoke I was in the flat you came to last week. There was a man in my room sitting on the end of the bed. He was wearing a dark suit and a bowler hat and leaning on an umbrella. He allowed me a moment to gather my wits then he spoke in a clipped, precise voice.

“‘Once a week,’ he said, ‘on the evening before the Sabbath, you are to find a man deserving of your wrath and use those feminine charms of yours to lure him back here. One kiss will transform him into what you once were: Weak and powerless; helpless to change his fate. He will wake in the morning alone with a note beside him — they have already been prepared, in that cupboard over there — which will instruct him to on how he may dress and when he must leave. Let him discover for himself how fine a world he has helped to build, how well it protects pathetic little creatures like he has become.’

“I wanted to know how I would be able to tell who was deserving and he said that I had been given a beauty that would scare away all but the most arrogant, that if I were unsure I was permitted to warn people off, but only with the phrase, ‘I only make out with other girls.’ He said that only the most depraved would be turned on by that, only the most conceited would consider it a challenge to be met.

“He left me with a warning: Miss one week, walk away from one person before they decided to give up, use any warning but the one I had been given and the deal was off, my life would be forfeit, things would go back to the way they were.”

“You tried to walk away from me.”

She managed a weak smile, but wouldn’t be side-tracked.

“That was thirteen weeks ago. I’m ashamed to admit I enjoyed it at first. To go from being helpless, invisible, weak to having that kind of power was a heady drug. My first victim had such an ego, he thought the world turned about him. He was so good looking, athletic and tall; so tall I could hardly reach to kiss him. And when he changed I was consumed with a vicious delight, laughing manically as he shrivelled into this pathetic little thing. Then realisation dawned and I was outraged. I wanted him to be ugly, to be unnoticeable, to go through the same loneliness I had endured all my life and here he was transformed into this perfect creature.

“A voice in my head told me to wait; it was better this way and so I did. I watched from a hidden place when he woke and first saw what he had become. He screamed then screamed again when he heard his voice for the first time. He found the note and read it all the time moaning, ‘No. No, no, no.’ he sat in the shower for an age, his perfect legs pulled in close against his body, his tears mingling with the stream of water that couldn’t wash away this nightmare.

“I remember his moan of despair when he opened the closet and saw the choice of clothes left for him. I was filled with a visceral delight in his misery and followed him as he left the flat, watched as he tried, without hope of success, to convince his incredulous friends of who he was and how he had become this nubile creature.

“Over days he wandered about looking for some way out; someone, anyone, who might help him. He found someone. A pimp in one of London’s seedier areas took him in. He was so pathetically grateful he didn’t realise his danger, not until the pimp started knocking him around, giving him drugs to make him more suggestible, controllable. I left him utterly crushed and hopeless and it felt wonderful.

“There were others, eleven more before you. Some took their own lives rather than become something they despised, others gave in to the inevitable and sold their bodies until they couldn’t stand to live with themselves anymore. They all took their lives in the end.

“At first I knew a deep sense of satisfaction that each of them was suffering the way I had for so long, I mean they deserved it didn’t they? It became harder to convince myself of that, but by then I was enjoying my new life too much. People looked at me differently; they actually saw me, appreciated me. I liked the way I looked and I wasn’t prepared to give this up even if I had doubts about what I was doing every Friday night.

“I so desperately wanted to find the guy who had been cruel to me; if anyone deserved what I could do to him it was that rat b&$#@^d, but he didn’t come back to the club where we’d met and the police were getting suspicious. I started to move around, trying different places for a couple of weeks before moving on, which is how I came to be here last week.”

She looked into my eyes, tears streaming from her own and managed a quavering half-smile.

“You were different; nervous, thoughtful, kind. I tried to scare you away but somehow you persisted, like a puppy who keeps on following even when it’s been shouted at and kicked. I only had the one warning and it didn’t seem to matter to you. You wanted to be friends for heaven’s sake!

“You don’t know how torn I was that night. I knew that you weren’t the type to take advantage of another person, that you didn’t deserve to be destroyed the way I had destroyed the others. You even seemed the kind of guy who would have taken time to talk to the old invisible me. Whatever I tried to do to turn you away without going outside the restrictions of my agreement didn’t make any difference. I sat there hoping some more eligible guy would decide that you were batting way outside of your league and come take me away from you, but it didn’t happen. In the end I couldn’t go through with it. Whatever the consequences to me I couldn’t put you through what I’d done to those others. I made as though I were going to the toilet and left the club.

“There was still the possibility that I might make it to another club, but you wouldn’t take the hint even then; chased me out of the club, offered to walk me home, did all that cute, awkward, slightly pathetic thing about wanting to see me again. I couldn’t help it, I was so lonely and you were just the kind of person I would have chosen for company. I had no intention of taking it further, just to have a coffee and share a bit more of your life.

“I don’t know if it was part of what I had become, but I was so drawn to you. I wanted to kiss you, wanted you to kiss me, but I didn’t want you to change. It was tearing me up. You asked if I wanted you to leave. Yes I wanted you to go, to be safe. No I wanted you to stay to make me feel wanted by someone who was worthwhile, someone who was kind and caring.

“In the end I had no control. The kiss happened despite everything and I was so glad that you would be with me for a while longer, so excruciatingly sad that there was a price you would have to pay for it. I wanted you. I wanted to feel your body against mine, wanted to give you something, anything, to make up in some way for what I had done to you. I wanted to say I was sorry. Then you turned to me and said…

“I couldn’t believe it; couldn’t stand it. Here I was completely destroying your life and you telling me you wanted to show me how grateful you were. It was so very sweet and so very, very bitter. When we were done I felt worse inside than I could ever remember, even my worst torment after I died wasn’t this bad.

“However much I might have wanted it otherwise, you had given me another week. The rest of what I had to do seemed no worse than what had already been done. In the early hours while you were still asleep I got up and put one of the notes on the bed. I couldn’t bear to follow you when you left, couldn’t bear to think about what you were going to go through or how your life might end.

“This whole week I’ve been unable to think of anything else. I’ve wrestled with whether or not I could do this again, whether I could risk meeting someone else like you. I nearly didn’t come out tonight, but I was too weak, too scared of going back.

“And now impossibly you’re here and I am so, so sorr…”

She broke down then, her face twisted in anguish. All the misery and torment that had been churning around in her for so long welled up then and spilled out in a primeval cry of desolation. I hurried round the table and threw my arms around her, holding her to me as she shuddered and moaned in abject wretchedness.

Around us the party crowd gave us worried looks and kept clear. The club’s heavy mob looked unsure of what to do and left us for the time being. She turned distraught eyes to mine.

“Why? Why do you care? Why would you be so kind after what I did to you?”

The words were a cry from the depths of her soul. I felt my eyes brimming, my heart twisting and tearing as I was caught up in her pain. I tried to answer her and the words tangled and tripped over the sobs that poured from within me.

“How… how could I leave you at a time like this? You’ve been through so much, I couldn’t, just can’t leave you on your own. Not any more, not any more.”

It was her pain and I was feeling just the tiniest fraction of it. How could she bear it? How could she even exist in the face of such agony. There were words rising up inside me, they weren’t mine to say, but somehow they needed to be said. I held her tight to me, shaking with my own tears.

“I love you.”

And the torrent of anguish was renewed. How could she contain so much? How could she…

-oOo-
All things have an end, even sorrow. I felt wrung out, drained of all emotion, all life and she hung limp in my arms. There was a discreet cough and I turned to see a smartly dressed man with an apologetic air about him.

“I’m sorry ladies but I have been asked by management to escort you from the premises. I’m afraid you’re disturbing the rest of our customers.”

He must have been right at the bottom of the corporate food chain; from the look of him and the distaste he felt in his task, he would have delegated it if he possibly could. I nodded at him and eased — what had she said her name was? Mary? — to her feet. There was no fight left in her. Her eyes were blank and her face slack as she allowed me to lead her after the man. He took our tickets and collected our coats for us, helping us into them before holding the door open.

“I really am sorry. I… this is wrong, but I have my instructions.”

I gave him as much of a smile as I could manage. I imagine it looked grotesque through my ruined makeup.

“It’s ok, we’ll be ok.”

He smiled back, not entirely convinced, as we stepped out into the cold.

We set off down the route we’d followed the previous week. Mary offered no help other than a willingness to be led, but by some trick of memory, each time I turned a corner I found myself reminded of the directions we needed to follow. We found a block of flats and I remembered her saying, ‘Well, this is me…’ in front of it. I reached into her purse and found a set of keys. The third one fit the lock and I led her in and up the stairs.

I took off her coat and eased her onto the sofa, then set off in search of the kitchen. I wasn’t even out of the room before she turned in my direction.

“Don’t leave me.”

It was a heart rending plea and it stopped me in my tracks.

“I was going to look for some coffee; something better than that club was serving.”

Was that a ghost of a smile? I offered her one back.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

I banged around in the kitchen making more noise than I normally would. I don’t know it seemed like a way to tell her I was still there. It didn’t take long to find everything I needed and while the coffee was brewing, I went back into the living room, over to the music centre and her CDs. After some browsing I pulled out Fauré’s Requiem. I wasn’t sure how appropriate it would be but the music fit the mood somehow. I went back into the kitchen to fetch the coffee and sat down beside her.

We sat in silence and I sipped at my drink, closing my eyes as the familiar flavour calmed and renewed my jangled nerves.

“That thing you said back in the club…”

She couldn’t look at me, but there was a hint of hope in her voice. I didn’t know where those words had come from, didn’t know what to do with them. I couldn’t lie, but neither could I deny them to her.

“Not in a sexual way, but I’m here for you for as long as you need.”

She managed a grateful smile and took a sip of her own drink. Some of the colour returned to her cheeks and she turned towards me, still hunched in close about her mug.

“Tell me what happened to you, how you survived.”

So I did. From the moment we met right through to earlier that evening when I had found her with Phil. I held nothing back, even though she winced at the hardships I’d gone through, they were all a part of it and mattered in the outcome. When I reached the part about my encounter in the park her eyes took on a faraway look and glistened softly.

“I wish…”

I waited for her to finish but she couldn’t.

“Never mind, go on.”

There wasn’t much left to say. She actually laughed at my description of the shopping expedition and the madness of it all.

“She seems like a good friend this Sharon.”

“You have no idea.”

Her eyes dropped and misery flooded back in.

“No you’re right I don’t.”

I reached out a hand and squeezed her arm.

“Then let me show you.”

She smiled at me sadly.

“No time.”

She nodded at the clock on the wall; the minute hand was just catching up with its smaller companion, pointing heavenward.

An oppressive feeling entered the room and a man dressed in a dark suit with bowler hat and umbrella, just as she had described, followed it. The smile on his face was one of smug satisfaction.

“You broke your contract, I’m afraid this is an end to it.”

Mary stood up and set her coffee cup down. She stood straight and looked him in the eye.

“I know and I’m ready.”

She turned her eyes to mine, betraying a wistfulness in her expression.

“I only wish…”

The man brushed an invisible speck from his sleeve and in a moment’s distracted impatience responded.

“Wish what?”

“I only wish that I had the chance to say how sorry I am, for everything.”

If only I had words to express fully what happened next. The room seemed to become physically brighter, the sense of oppression receding, snuffed out as though it had never been, and there was someone else in the room.

The man in black stepped away, raising his hands as though the light hurt him.

“Hey, no fair, this one’s mine.”

“You know the rules, she reached out for forgiveness.”

“But she’s dead. She shut herself off from everyone around her then threw herself into my arms.”

“And you brought her back.”

With cry of frustrated rage and his face contorted with fury, the man in black disappeared in a blaze of flame leaving only an acrid smell behind. The newcomer turned to Mary.

“Come on dear heart, there’s someone I think you should meet.”

As he turned recognition dawned. He looked so different now but somehow he was the same man I’d met in the Park.

“I know you.”

He turned to me and smiled.

“Have a wonderful life beloved. I’ll see you again, but not for some time.”

With that the light flared brilliant white and suddenly I was sitting alone.

-oOo-
For the third time in a week I found myself wandering the streets of London alone. Mary’s flat had turned oppressive and unwelcoming once I was there on my own and I had left soon after.

This time it was different though; I was warm and I had somewhere to go. Even so the inadvisability of wandering around after midnight in a quiet suburb, especially as an attractive teenage girl, nudged me to walk quickly and before long I was back amongst the Friday night crowd. I didn’t join them, but I was glad of their proximity. I found a bus stop and, before long, boarded a bus that would take me back to Sharon’s.

Everything had turned around so quickly it was unreal. So much of the evening had been filled with pain and anguish and it seemed as though it were going to end in the worst way possible, then without warning, just one simple wish and everything had turned around. Was it really that simple?

I let myself in but the flat was empty; of bipeds at least. I went into the kitchen and made myself a hot chocolate, putting down a few saucers of milk for Toby and co. I then set to waiting for Sharon. I had so much to tell her and in the aftermath the memories were fading and distorting too quickly.

I held on ‘til one o’clock, but by then the events of the previous day had caught up with me. I managed to stay awake long enough to shower and brush my teeth, but my head had hardly touched the pillow before I was asleep.

I woke with a warm peaceful feeling suffusing my body and something small and soft kneading my bladder through the bedclothes. I pushed the duvet back to find Toby quietly making his presence known and lifted him up before something unpleasant happened. He squirmed out of my arms and dropped to the floor looking back at me expectantly.

I clawed the inevitable tangle of hair out of my face and looked across Sharon’s un-slept-in side of the bed at her alarm clock. Seven o’clock. I groaned and swung my legs out of bed; all the while Toby twitching his tail at me.

“Yes your majesty, certainly your majesty. Would your majesty be kind enough to permit me the use of the bathroom before I tend to your needs?”

His majesty offered one more twitch, which I took as the generous dispensation I’d been looking for, and I ran past to take care of the business he had made all the more urgent.

“Dogs have owners but cats have staff, is that the way it is?”

There were three of them butting my bare legs with self-obsessed urgency as I opened a can of cat food and shared it between three bowls. I added a little of the dry mix, just as I’d seen Sharon do, then set the bowls down.

All urgent matters attended to, I looked around for anything that might tell me what had happened to Sharon. The answerphone showed no new messages and there were no notes anywhere. I shrugged; she was a big girl and it wasn’t’ time to worry yet.

The lounge was still cluttered up with bags from the previous day’s shopping trip, somewhat disturbed by various cats exercising their curiosity, so the first order of business had to be sorting them out. I didn’t have anywhere to hang them yet, but if I made the bed and started laying them out then, one we could use the living room for its designated purpose, two I wouldn’t have to worry about claws and mucky paws ruining anything before I had a chance to wear it and three (and possibly most importantly) I would be able to find something to wear today.

It didn’t take that long and I was relieved to discover that the cats’ investigations hadn’t resulted in any noticeable harm. I wasted a lot of time holding up dresses, skirts and blouses in front of the mirror, swirling about, remembering how they’d looked and felt when I tried them on then discarding them in favour of something else. The few times I had dressed as Ken, I had always put on a skirt or dress. I loved the feel of nylons against my legs and the gentle caress of a skirt as I moved about, but I didn’t have anything to prove now and I could choose from absolutely anything. In the end I picked out a pair of close fitting jeans and an oversized stripy sweatshirt then headed off for my morning shower.

It was odd, this wasn’t too far from the clothing I would have worn on a weekend when I was a man but as I sat brushing out my hair, I felt just as girly as I had in anything I’d worn over the previous week. Maybe it was the bra I could feel underneath my sweatshirt, maybe that I could feel as well as see the differences in my body, but I felt like I was home. No more pretence, no more trying to fit into someone else’s idea of who and what I should be. This was me and I felt so good I could have hugged the world.

I checked the clock; half past eight and still no word from Sharon. Ok it was still early, but something didn’t seem right. She wouldn’t just disappear and leave it this long without telling me, and surely she’d have expected me to come back here to sleep.

I wandered over to the telephone and picked up the pad where Sharon had scrawled her mobile number earlier in the week. I picked up the phone and punched the relevant buttons.

“Hiya roomie, how’d it go last night?”

She sounded chipper enough which put my growing fears to rest.

“You would not believe; I have so much to tell you. I wanted to say it all last night but then you didn’t come home. I was getting sort of concerned that you didn’t leave me a message or anything so I figured I’d call. Sorry of this is too early.”

“It’s no big, we were just having breakfast.”

“We?”

“Yeah, Phil and I kind of made a night of it.”

“You what?”