(aka Bike) Part 1620 by Angharad Copyright © 2012 Angharad
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“Stel, have you ever heard Henry talk about this ghost of a laird’s wife up at Stanebury?”
We were drinking tea after I returned from taking the girls to school.
“I didn’t think your rational mind believed in ghosties and ghoulies and things that go bump in the night?”
“I don’t but I was thinking about it last night.”
“You’ve seen her, haven’t you?”
“Seen who?” I lied blushing, or at least feeling hot–perhaps it was the tea?
“You have seen her–go on admit it, you’re blushing like a school girl who’s just realised she was changing her drawers with the lights on and the curtains open.”
“I am not!” Why is it when one lie doesn’t work we tell another which isn’t going to work any better than the first one?
“Cathy, why don’t you just admit it, no one’s going to think any less of you?”
“I wish I could believe you.”
“Honest, cross my heart to lift and separate.”
“Oh, okay, I think–I only think–I saw her.”
“Aha, so your science isn’t much use now is it, Miss Dormouse.” She cackled like an old witch.
“You promised me you wouldn’t tease me.”
“So, I lied.” She snorted and giggled to herself. I just glared at her.
“You’re a rotten rabbit, d’you know that?” I said and she roared with laughter. It was several minutes before she calmed down enough to listen let alone say anything coherent.
“So, what happened?” she asked, I’d almost forgotten what we were talking about I felt so stupid.
“It doesn’t matter now,” I rose to get on with some of my chores.
“Yes it does–what happened?”
“Why should I tell you, you’ll only laugh?”
“No I won’t, c’mon little sis, sit down and tell big sis what happened.”
“Have you seen her?” I asked and she avoided eye contact. “So you have.”
She spluttered a reply which was lost in translation. I related what had happened and what I thought I heard the thing say. She nodded and explained she’d just seen her and wasn’t aware of anything being said.
“I suspect it was just my unconscious playing tricks, but I’m not sure because it went so cold.”
“Perhaps you’d fallen asleep, it always feels cold when you nod off and wake up with a start.”
“Nah, I was awake I did an hour on the survey stuff and it was the cold which drew my attention to it, felt like the back door was open.”
“I don’t recall it being particularly cold, but I was a kid at the time.”
“A kid?”
“Well, I’d done my hairdressing and was thinking about nursing and she appeared as if to tell me that I should do the nursing.”
“So does she appear in times of crisis?”
“Sometimes, or to tell you to pull your finger out if you happen to be mistress of Stanebury. Seeing as you’re not, I’ve no idea why she turned up–maybe she came south for the winter.”
We both laughed at that one.
“One thing is certain,” continued Stella.
“Which is?”
“She only appears to females–so any lingering doubts you might have over that...”
“Nah, if she’s that old she probably needs glasses.”
“Cathy, why can’t you admit that while your body might be imperfect, your spirit is obviously female?”
“I don’t know if I can believe in such things other than as a metaphor for will, as in will-power.”
“Cathy, you’ve seen people’s spirits, you’ve even shoved ’em back in people’s bodies. You of all people should be able to accept that.”
“It doesn’t fit my map of the universe, Stella, and I haven’t seen anything yet which makes me want to change that view.”
“What about last night?”
“What about it?”
“Your nocturnal visitor.”
“Could be anything, I might have nodded off and dreamt it, hallucinated it with tiredness, been mistaken...anything.”
“Including the Auld Wifie coming to inspect you as a future mistress of Stanebury.”
“That wasn’t one that I was considering.”
“Cathy, get real. This thing is real, whatever it or she is, it is only visible to women, to females because it’s attracted to their female spirit. You’ve seen that Old Testament thingy, Shekhi–whatever, she only comes to women.”
“Does she? I have no idea.”
“She gave you the power to heal, she told you her essence was strong in you.”
“I know, I know–look I appreciate what you’re saying but there are two problems–first, I have a real problem with all this mumbo jumbo stuff–it has to have a cause which is not supernatural–there is no supernatural–just superstition, all the rest is physics and chemistry. Second, I’m aware of my past–okay, I was a girl with a plumbing problem, but even if I pretend that’s true, I know it’s different. I know the truth.”
“Which is?”
“I was born a male and converted to female.”
“Could we rephrase that a little?”
“How d’ya mean?”
“You were born with a male body and a female spirit and soul and I think mind as well. That has been corrected as much as possible. You are legally female, your life is a female, shit–even your bikes are women’s ones.”
“So is that your masterstroke–your proof that if you ride a woman’s bike you must be female?”
“No, only if all the other bits are there as well. It’s not as if you ever grew into a man is it?”
“Hang on, I’ve got to feed the baby.” I picked her up out of her bouncy thing, she’d begun to whimper and cooed ‘Ma ma’ at me when I picked her up.
“She has no doubt what you are, does she?”
“I’m not aware that babies are very eloquent in discourse–jeez you little bugger–stop biting.” The baby giggled and bit me again.
“I suppose that happens to all men.”
“What does?” I asked Stella.
“Getting their tit savaged by a woman-eating baby.”
“Stella, your logic doesn’t follow.”
“Neither does yours, Catherine Cameron, now tell me, why are you scared of embracing femaleness?”
“I’m not,” am I? If I am it’s not something I’m conscious of. “I mean I see myself as female when I’m with Simon and I know he certainly does.”
“So what’s the problem then?”
“I told you, I became female by law and had to have my body altered–you didn’t, so we’re different.”
She picked Fiona out of the carrycot and began breast feeding her, “Yeah, very different.” She said a then laughed like a drain, waking up Catherine who started sucking like a vacuum cleaner.
Comments
I just wish
That when Cathy said “Could be anything, I might have nodded off and dreamt it, hallucinated it with tiredness, been mistaken...anything.â€
Stella had responded "...an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato."
Whether it's intentional or not, Ang's portrayal of Cathy here reminds me of Scrooge's protests to Marley
Wasn't that Scrooge
I seem to remember that line from A Christmas Carol. I think that's how he described Jacob Marley. We don't have a SOPA problem here, do we?
Portia
maps
if map and territory don't agree with each other, is the territory at fault or the map?
Yes
of course it is! Geography? Sahara Dessert - no wonder that my custard tastes like soggy sand.
S.
That takes me back
“Honest, cross my heart to lift and separate.â€
I think it might have been Playtex, but it was a long tme ago.
S.
C'mon Cathy
What is it going to take for you to believe? You've seen about as much proof as there is to give, and unless Angharad wants to shock us *again* and give you a near death experience (and the only milestone near is the 4.5 episode year milestone in approximately 22-23 episodes), I don't see anything more.
A discourse ...
A discourse on ghosts and spirits?
Cathy should at least have got it by now. We are what's between our ears and if we have any part of us that could be deemed spiritual or soulful, it's gonna reside between our ears. Ipso facto if we're female between the ears then that's it, we're female irrespective of piety, spirituality, or sexuality.
Stella's right and Cathy's un-nerved by that simple fact.
A very philosophical chapter Ang but let's not beat about the bush,(Maybe that's a bad choice of metaphor.) Cathy is a girl!
Still lovin' it.
Bev.
OXOXOX
*Rolls eyes*
I can empathize with Cathy's insecurity of being female. I have been full time for 22 years now and post surgical for nearly 12 and am still comparing myself to the 'real' women of the world.
But what I do roll my eyes at is wondering whether even having her mother reincarnate in front of her would make her change her mind.
Kim
Enjoyed the end of chapter situation
After all of the discussion on Cathy's femaleness, she and Stella are sitting there at the end of the chapter nursing their babies.
Lurking self doubt.
It seems to be her fatal flaw, and she is not alone. I think that most "new women" have it, and certainly a lot of genetic women do too. It doesn't seem right that she still fusses with it. Perhaps one day the Stainbury woman and the Shekina woman will get together and tickle her until she gives in?
G
Easy As Falling Off A Bike pt 1620
Why can't Cathy accept the fact that she is WOMAN! ? Does she need to get pregnant?
May Your Light Forever Shine
To answer your question?
It's almost too difficult to understand if you're not transgendered, which you've repeated on these pages. So many of us have been told since we were little that we are not true girls. That we are somehow false or pretend. Growing up without any affirmation to say 'YES, you're right, we see you and love you and accept you.' Instead, many of our families and friends reject the idea that we know who and what we are. My own father beat me for wearing a dress when I was eight. Many of us struggle with our feminine identity, and feel inauthentic and inadequate for that reason. Not just not accepted, but rejected and made to feel wrong somehow. What Cathy seems to express frequently even with the support of her family is that she isn't authentic; those plaguing doubts that shout that she isn't 'real.'
Some have vaginas that go nowhere. Organs that never existed and others that remain and make us ashamed to look at ourselves. No womb to hold a child. No breasts to suckle a babe. Infants that only bless our embrace if we have friends or sisters who give us that joy for a fleeting moment. Only adopting because no wizard or ring or great shift ever existed that would make us whole. Yes, some of us are joyfully blessed by spouses and mates with children we sire, but there remains a void, oddly, that even fathering might not satisfy. So to ask that question?
To suggest what you have is painful, since it truly is what so many of us wish to have but will never experience in this lifetime; obviously Cathy never will get pregnant. That longing and void in our bodies and hearts! Please think about what you say when you respond in regard to this issue, since you likely never will know how Cathy feels, or any of the rest of us for that matter, okay?
Love, Andrea Lena
Um, who says she won't get pregnant?
Sheikinah and the blue light have been working on that body for some years now. Who knows what is inside by now. I've been waiting for Cathy to have her first period for some time now.
I think it's virtually impossible ...
Dear Andrea,
Just how many gender spectrums are there?
I believe it is almost impossible for heterosexuals to understand the uncertainties and doubts that plague any of us who are not firmly at one of the two ends of the gender spectrum. (I even doubt my self that the spectrum is linear.)
As a child I also endured those vicious and insensitive strictures declaring that I was NOT a girl so why did I try to say I was. I said I was because there were strange feelings in my brain that desperately wanted to be able to have children. I was firmly told, not only by family memberes before I was six, but by doctors when I was aged six to twelve that I would never have children because I was NOT a girl.
The real hurt was not realising that I was intergendered, not transgendered during those early years. Their various tests put me somewhere inbetween and that leaves you in LIMBO but in 1952 intergendered was unheard of. Consequently they branded me a boy and after twelve years of age they hung me out to dry. Trouble was I felt like a girl MOST of the time and would have liked to have lived as a girl most of the time but by no means all. A sort of flip-flop pendulum thing but not so regular. I can only liken my gender thing to being bi-gendered, not even androgenouse because my sexuality is clearly male, (I like females so much that I married and became a father, albeit a father who eventually grew breasts.)
Sitting somewhere within the spectrum is the main reason I see gender as something entirely within the brain but it took me decades to accept this. Like all transgendered or intergendered people, I lived with the feelings of inadequacy, unfulfillment, fraud and consequent despair because I could only father children and not bear them. If my body matched my gender, I'd be a fully functioning bilateral hermaphrodite but it doesn't and I'm not, nor will I ever be. It's taken fifty years to accept this and I'm still not reconciled to it but I have to live with or end it.
I fully understand Cathy's insecurity, it's like standing close to a mountain-top and knowing you'll NEVER reach the summit.
Much food for thought in this chapter and we all know why.
As to heterosexists doctors who only seem to accept Infrad red or Ultraviolet, I, as a rainbow, lost confidence in them years ago.
Bev.
I wanted too make
a comment, But being as everyone has said all i wanted to say i guess i had better stay silent.... That is of course if i had not made a comment about wanting to make a comment which meant that ... Oh, Never mind i'm rambling now... Guess i will just have to be quicker off the mark tonight :-)
Kirri