Easy As Falling Off A Bike.
by Angharad.
part 7.

Stella waved me to stay put, while she went out the bedroom door and I heard her call back, "Hi Simon, back already, is it still raining?"

My heart was pounding,I wanted to quieten it in case Simon could hear it downstairs. Compared to this, the pounding in my ears from a hard hillclimb, was nothing. I felt really frightened, who was Simon?

I tried to rationalise things. Why am I worried? Well for one, I stood here dressed in women's clothes, in a relative stranger's house, with no money and no easy means of escape and no one else knows I am here. What if they were hostile? What if Stella was telling Simon all about me and arranging for him to kill me? My heart was pounding so hard now that I thought for a moment I was going to have a stroke or something.

Standing up, but scared to walk about in case it brought Simon up the stairs, I caught sight of someone in the mirror. I nearly jumped out of my skin, there was another woman here I hadn't seen. Shit, there's three of them!

I spun around, but there was no one there. God, I'm seeing things now. There was nowhere for her to go. I turned around again and I could see her in the mirror once more, but I couldn't see myself. Was I already dead and this some fantasy as I left my body, lying inert on the roadside somewhere?

There was no one there, then I looked once more in the mirror and this time raised my hand, so did she. My God, it's me and I didn't recognise myself. Jesus, Mary and Joseph what has she done to me?

Momentarily, I forgot about the couple downstairs so absorbed was I in my change of appearance. Christ it was different from my usual attempts. My hair was so different, which made a huge change to my overall visage. I shook my head in disbelief and she did too. I was stunned, not to put too fine a point on it.

Somewhere many miles away a voice called but I hardly registered it, I was looking at my makeup, wow, it was so, so erm, good. Yeah, good it was obvious but subtle at the same time unlike my usual clown stuff. Wow! It was all I could say.

"Cathy are you all right?" called Stella and this time I heard it.

My voice, it's going to give me away, oh bugger! I walked towards the landing and almost whispered back, "I'm okay."

"What?" called Stella.

"I'm okay," I whispered again.

"What did you say?" she yelled.

Oh fuck it, here goes, "I'm okay," I called back deciding that whoever Simon was he knew I was there anyway and probably knew all about me, especially if he was going to kill me.

"Come on down and meet Simon," called Stella from the foot of the stairs.

Why is that there are never any handy weapons lying around in the average British household? I mean if Stella and Simon inhabited one of those huge country houses they always have in Hitchcock films, I could snatch a sword from a display on the wall or from a suit of armour stood at the foot of the stairs and do a Douglas Fairbanks, seeing off the villain and getting the girl.

I caught sight of myself in the bathroom mirror, there were a number of flaws in my scheme, not least the lack of weaponry and with the mirror's reminder, I was the girl. Shit, where is Douglas Fairbanks or Errol Flynn when you needed them? Forget that, given their womanising reputations, I might actually be more at risk from them than Simon.

Who was Simon? I mused he must be the fiance who did surgery on ants. Yeah, sure he does. Stella was standing at the foot of the stairs watching my descent, not made any more elegant by the boots.

"I've told him you're a girl I ran into," she hissed at me.

"He doesn't know..." I gestured at myself.

"No, why should he?"

I shrugged my shoulders, "Okay." My stomach did somersaults killing half the butterflies that were flying around it at Mach 4. What am I doing, trying to con some strange bloke into thinking I'm a girl? If he's blind and deaf, I might have half a chance otherwise he's going to spot me in seconds.

My life seemed to flash before me, or my previous escapades in my preferred role. There weren't that many, just as well as I was only a couple of stairs from the hallway.

My first starring role was discovering my cousin's clothes when they came to visit when I was about three, she was a few months older. I got some laughs from that, although my dad didn't take too kindly to it.

Then in school at the Christmas nativity play, the girl who played Mary went sick just before the performance, I was an extra angel but seemed to have all the lines off pat 'cos much of the time I was an unnofficial prompt. I was dragged off stage, dewinged, rewrapped in dress and headscarf and whipped back on the stage before I could say, "Angel Gabriel," I took some stick for that, I can tell you but my delivery was excellent. Mind you I only had three lines.

Not having anyone my size at home, I didn't really have much chance to borrow clothes until I was big enough to use my mother's stuff. There I was at fourteen dressed like a thirty five year old, nah, not good memories. I was also still screwed up about what I was not helped by my small appendage. In high school that was going to give me a hard time - no pun intended.

Then finally, my escape to uni, I managed to build up a small collection of things mostly uncoordinated because I was so nervous that I'd be caught buying them or wearing them, or simply hiding them.

After three years, shortage of cash and fright meant my wardrobe had grown very little, it was still minuscule compared to a biological woman of my age. I reached the bottom step.