CHAPTER 51
It was the start of things, and to my surprise I wasn’t rushing into things the way I had assumed. Larinda and Rachel had got Jill out of the nest, and all of the stories I had read on that particular website had been full of the same trope, the same repeated concept: that once the plunge was taken, the ‘new’ woman never looked back. That wasn’t true, and, in fact, without constant prodding by my lover and my friend, Jill would have remained a purely domestic goddess. Things came to a head after our first Christmas together.

“You don’t really expect me to go through bloody Debenhams in a skirt?”

“Well, I am not bloody cycling there and back, girl, and I doubt Rach will!”

“Aye, but, you know…”

“Crawley is far enough away for you to be safe, and the shops are better than the Belfry has ever had! Skirt on, face on, tits in! Move!”

I couldn’t help it, and started to laugh. Larinda frowned.

“And that is funny how, exactly?”

“Sorry, pet, it was just a mental picture, aye? When you get all bossy like that, I just saw you then in a leather corset and boots rig, aye? With a whip?”

“Well, there is an Ann Summers in the Martletts…”

There was a definite twinkle there, and she added with a broader grin “…matching outfits?”

I looked over to Rachel, deliberately misunderstanding Larinda’s suggestion, and got an even broader grin from my friend.

“Yeah, he might just go for that. Nice stockings, decent make-up job, posh perfume, handcuffs, girl never knows her luck!”

It struck me, just then. We were laughing and joking as any three people would, but more than that it was as three women. My appearance was slowly changing, as weight came off and a much better diet did things for my skin, but it wasn’t that. It was as Larinda had said: I was now coming across as a girl, my learned and camouflaging behaviour steadily being discarded, and up till then she had stayed the course. She seemed to be learning to put aside her sexuality to an extent, to see beyond whatever image I was portraying, see me as the man---the person she loved. At some point, I knew, there would be another crisis, but for now she was steady, and sure, and always there for me.

She grabbed the car keys and threw me a ready-filled handbag, and we were off, all of us, despite my arguments, in heels. I mean, the two of them practically lived in them, and I did have some nice ones now, but it was still odd to be wearing them in public.

“Shut it, Jill! Look stupid, odd, yeah, two girls out of three in nice shoes and the other one dressed down, yeah?”

“Aye, Rach, but I’ve not walked that far in them for years!”

“Then you’ll just have to do the link-arms bit, my girl. Stop complaining or you won’t get any cake”

“You are evil and nasty and cruel”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Toss you for sitting in the front?”

She won, but in the end let me have the seat on the basis that Larinda wouldn’t want to stoke HER leg. We parked right on the roof that day, and Rachel wandered over to the rail to watch the planes approaching the airport.

“Jill…”

“Aye?”

“I haven’t said anything before, but, well, New Year’s Eve…”

“Yes. When is he coming down?”

“I know it’s not normal, yeah, to want to have somewhere to hide”

“Rachel, that was just ‘yes’. I don’t think you’ll need to hide, like, but the answer will always be yes. Want one of my kidneys? Same answer. I owe you, you and this old dominatrix here”

Larinda slipped an arm around my waist. “Jim? You having him down for the weekend? What about the pub?”

“He says John will be about, and he’s got a relief manager, so it’s all covered, and he said that it would be nice for once to be on the other side of the bar and outside a few beers and---“

“Rachel…”

Larinda’s voice was calm, but slightly amused. “Slow down just a little, yeah? We know, we’ve both been there, I was like that when we first met, so breathe a little between the words. Helps”

“Sorry…look, coffee and cake first, or sales?”

I grinned. “Coffee first, then sales, then coffee and cake, then sales, then…”

Rachel looked back and forth at the two of us. “Then drop me off and screw like weasels the rest of the day? Sounds like a plan”

I had to laugh. “And you don’t plan on doing the same come the weekend?”

There was a really evil grin there now. “I rather doubt the word ‘weasel’ will bear any relation to what he’s like, Jill! Anyway, if the answer’s yes, then I’ll get a couple of towels for your bathroom. I do believe your shower’s big enough---oh, Larinda, you naughty girl! I meant for him, not for shagging in!”

The girls had been right, in the end, and I felt as if I was breezing through the sales. I ended up with two new pairs of winter boots, one flat and the other heeled, a lovely calf-length skirt that I got to try on rather than order on spec, plus odds and sods of daily wear such as tights. The sort of things I wouldn’t normally wear through in my purely domestic incarnation, but that I would need to replace far more regularly as I changed over. And once again, that realisation: this was actually happening, it wasn’t a game. I was finally out of the blocks, and even if I got a few sideways glances, and the odd glare of hatred, this was now my life. I was still, though, book-ended by two friends, both of whom I loved, and that made all the difference. You can bear an awful lot if you have friends around you, not just because they are there to share the load but because they give themselves to you as a reason not to fail under it.

We sat in Druckers, three middle-aged-ish (sorry Rachel) Ladies Who Shop, and had café latte and cake, shop bags resting like pets by our heels. Larinda’s gentle stare took in all of me in one slow sweep.

“You are actually happy, love, ain’t you?”

I smiled back. “How could I not be? This is almost everything I have ever wanted, everything I knew I would never have, so as I said, how could I not be happy? Look at me: a girl, just about, with someone I love, someones, that is”

I took both of their hands. “We had Christmas yesterday, aye, but if you see what I mean, this is Santa for me. It works, like, far better than I ever dreamt it might. I know there’s a lot left, aye, but, well, it’s like I’m at some hotel, all I have to do is wait for the lift and it’s up to my room”

Larinda was a little moist in the eyes at that, and Rachel seemed to have some make-up imperfection that needed a quick fix. Larinda put away the tissues.

“When do you next see Alec?”

“Week after New Year’s”

“Well, that’s decided, then. Jill goes, not Rob. Let the dog see the rabbit thingy, OK?”

I had to try and change the subject. “But I’ve seen your Rabbit…”

“No distractions, or I won’t get that leather rig you were on about. No, I think it’s time you got right out of hiding”

She looked across at Rachel, who had a little frown of concentration.

“Might not be quite so easy, Larinda. I mean, I can’t have her back all the time, and even if we get the office on side, there’s still the traders, and fuck knows how they’ll react. It’s…look, Jill, don’t take this wrong, yeah, but look at you now. How do you feel? Girly enough?”

“I always feel girly, Rach, that’s been my problem, like”

“No, no. I mean, how do you feel you look? We’ve stuck you in heels and a skirt, and what do you wear on a control visit?”

Suit and cycle clips. Ah. I nodded. “Aye, won’t be as easy to, what’s that word? Present? It won’t be as easy to present in trousers”

Larinda snorted. “Could always get that corset…might make the cycling a bit harder!”

Rachel nodded. “We need to work on your diet, so that cake is your last for a while…shit, it would be the holidays, you’ll be doing more pigging out in a few days. After January, then, we get down to it, the three of us. And that reminds me. We have an evening out in five days’ time, so what do we need? Trapping kit!”

Larinda was back to full humour at that. “Don’t you mean seduction kit?”

“Nah, none of that crap. Done the seduction bit; all I need to do now is get him horizontal. And, er, sort of vertical…”

Watersheds, we climb to meet them, and then we cross. That was the last day I wore anything other than Jill’s clothes for anything other than work, and Rachel was doing the digging on that one. It would come, in time, for good or bad, but I felt it would be mostly good. First, we had a weekend to get through.

Three of us, three Ladies Who Await Passengers, myself in my new winter boots, the ones with the heel, and that gorgeous new skirt, the tailoring actually giving me reasonable hips, and I could feel Rachel’s hand trembling in mine. The automatic doors opened, and half a house stepped through them. His eyes flicked to me, to Rachel, and back to me.

“How Jill! Howay here and giz a kiss before that one tyeks aal the others!”

He walked over to me, and I found myself hugged, gently, and his stubble rasped my cheek as he kissed it softly. He whispered in my ear “And noo Ah can see whe ye are, lass. Pleased te meet ye”

And so we went back to our house, and changed, and Karen and her husband and the son who had adopted her joined us, and we girls became Ladies Who Drink and Dance Around Handbags, and we got very, very drunk, and Rachel and Jim stayed attached to each other by a variety of means throughout the evening.

And I couldn’t remember ever being happier.