CHAPTER 25
Karen was trembling with nerves.

“Look, Steve, I know I'm not that much older than you, but it would be a way of keeping the fucking social workers from getting at you if Ada goes. We've talked it over with her, haven't we, Bri, and she is happy with the idea. You've had so much shit we can't bear the thought of you having any more”

Em was grinning, and nodding in agreement, as the Jag rolled smoothly North. I slid over to cuddle up with my prospective mother, and as I reached over to join Em into the hug Brian cracked a joke about me always wanting to cuddle up with his wife, but just this once he would let it go. Tom was laughing, up until the point when I suggested he was feeling much the same about Miss Stephenson, and Brian turned to crack a joke over his shoulder just as Tom dropped his head into his hands in mock embarrassment just as the bullet went between their heads and totally shattered the passenger door window.

Brian stood on the brakes instinctively and the large bike shot ahead, the pillion in his leathers and full face helmet turning to look over their shoulder and raising a large pistol. From somewhere, I don't know where exactly, Tom had produced the largest pistol I had ever seen, and as he shouted “Keep it steady Brian” calmly shot the man in the face, through his helmet and the windscreen. His dying spasm took the bike completely off course, and a rider and an obvious corpse slammed into the road surface as the bike highsided and spat them off. Brian started to brake, as did the other drivers, and Tom just sad “NO! Keep going!”

Brushing the glass off him, he dug out the fitting I had always seen as flash and over the top, the radio telephone, and cranked it up. His voice was oddly calm, entirely dispassionate, for someone who had just killed at least one man.

“Operator....thank you. Emergency services please”

“Thank you, police.”

“My name is Tom Skinner and I am in a blue Jaguar, licence plate bravo romeo india two treble zero. I have just shot a man who attacked our vehicle with a handgun. I am North of Hilton Park services on the northbound carriageway. Nobody in our vehicle is hurt”

“I believe it is an attempt to kill a prosecution witness in a major murder trial. They were on a large Ducati motorcycle.”

“Yes, I have a licence. I am formerly of the Diplomatic Protection Service”

“I intend to keep driving until I am satisfied the vehicles near me are police”

“Thank you”

“Brian, keep on course for home. I will tell you when we can stop. Girls, Steve, eyes open, please.”

He had a small notebook out and was calmly recording the events, but I saw his eye twitch, just a bit, as I leant forward to squeeze his shoulder, the draft roaring in through the shattered window. Twenty minutes later, we saw the first blue lights, and then there were four Rovers around us, and Emily swore.

“They've got soldiers in with them!”

We were shepherded off and led to a training camp up by Warcop, to be joined an hour later by the others in Sid's car, and three days later, with plastic sheeting over the shattered window we were allowed home, where armed police stationed themselves around the place as the big boys broke in some more doors and removed a few more people with no more than reasonable force.

We went back down after the weekend to take another unexpected and totally unusual stand in the box to recount our near miss, with many more people in the dock, and after that, when we were all dismissed, and the court was settling down to the truly nasty shit that made my story look like a cake walk, the stories of blunt trauma and saw marks, of shallow graves and rose bushes, Tom muttered to me.

“Kid, thank you. If you hadn't made me blush, that cunt would have had me. I owe you”

I hugged him, which made me feel just a little like a girl, but not that much. He smiled at me.

“There are times when I realise why I took my old job, and this is one of them. Let's make sure that bitch gets buried, and all of her friends. Yes indeed....and I think it is time I stopped havering and dragged Sally out before she gives up on me, or some twat gets lucky

“Steve, I know you might not feel like it at the moment, but life is good, and even when it isn't it's better than being fucking dead, so you hang onto your lady there. She's diamond, and if you don't mind I shall have a go at your teacher, because this has got too much to bear on my own.

“And don't tell my boss I sad that, OK? You of all people know where I am coming from”

I did, and while I had never been there, this good man was having to deal with the fact that he had calmly, dispassionately, killed two men, for the rider had died from a broken neck.

He had been another policeman. The gunman had been one of my customers. What the fuck was wrong with this place?

At least, for us, the trial was over. That night, I made love to Em as Valerie had suggested,and with the judicious application, to my shame, of a number of mental images of Karen in some interesting positions, what was left of my old self woke up a little bit,and it was enough for us both to be happy, in a way, to be less of a girl.

The hormones I had spoken of in court were still vital to my health. Having stopped the intake of my natural supply by terminal surgery, I needed the replacement doses just to allow my bones to develop properly. I had continued to grow, just a little, and reached five foot five and a vital and important half, and as I ran the grounds and pounded the track I went from pallid, undernourished waif to slim, fit female athlete. Yes, that was the look I had, and there were boys who would hang round the track to ogle as I ran. How more confusing could life get?

I had persuaded Em to start jogging, and Karen took her in hand in the gym, and as we both hit seventeen she was really blooming. My Emily was beautiful, not as instantly striking as Karen, but beautiful, in a slow-burning way that cut me to the soul when she ducked her head and those green eyes looked out from under a drift of dark curls,or when those same curls lay damp on her flushed forehead as she came to orgasm with me. I realised that while she had gone with me at first partly because I was there and I was available, she stayed with me because she truly loved me, and as she bloomed into a woman that was now capable of turning heads in her own right, it was my head she wanted filled with desire.

The hormones kept me moody, though, and sometimes there would be dark times, arguments that any couple would have, but made worse by the fact that every time we did argue, I would hate my body and blame it for everything, and Em would see, and make some joke about how much she loved my tits, and do something to them that made me forget whatever it was we had argued about.

I know, really know, that Emily is at least inclined to bisexuality, but whether that was in her from the start or learned from me I can never know. One of our biggest arguments came when she first remarked, as we shopped in Debenham's for some clothes for a posh dinner Brian was having, that I would look good in some dress or other. Tom started to look concerned as my face reddened,and before my stack blew he intervened.

“Em...just remember what being n a dress means to Steve. Think of the Allisons”

I was still angry. “ I need a piss. Where's the gents' ?”

“Use the ladies' “

“I can still do it standing up, they didn't cut that off!”

“Steve, just think. I would have to come in with you, and that leaves Emily out here on her own. Use the ladies', nobody will complain.”

“Why can't I for once just be allowed to be a man?”

“Stephen Jones, if you act like this you are not being a man, you are being a spoilt brat, and you deserve to grow up better than that, so for once do as you are told and make my job easier, OK?”

I was still fuming. He suddenly grinned. “You know, you could be on Doctor Who, one of his bloody stupid assistants, companions, whatever. Every time he tells them not to go somewhere, what do they bloody well do?”

That broke the mood, and I laughed as I said “Yeah, but I'd need to practise the panting and the screaming. 'Oh–gasp gasp–Doctor--gasp gasp!' “

Em giggled. “Lover, you have the panting and the screaming down just right, in my experience,” and Tom blushed, and the next day the two of us started learning to fight.