“Hi Mummy,” greeted Bekka, “I did a picture, Daddy is Mum-Stephanie tonight.” “Yes, darling, I can see,” said Mary as she walked over to the playpen and knelt down to hug our daughter. “Don’t worry Bekka, Daddy’s not going to be Mum-Stephanie much more tonight.” A Mother’s Love - Vol. 3.01 by Alys

“Non! C’est impossible!”, shouted the angry French hotelier down the phone, before he ended the call.

At the fifth rejection of the day I slammed the phone down. It had been a difficult and frustrating day trying to persuade some hard pressed European hotel owners and activity organisers to increase their discounts for Adventure Travel. So far I’d only managed to shave a few percentage points off a small number of accounts. It wasn’t going to be enough to avoid redundancies. The whole holiday trade was going down the pan.

I sat back in my padded office chair and took a sip from my glass of water. I looked at my watch and realised it was time to head off to pick up Hugh and Bekka from the creche. I rapidly logged off the computer and locked the desk before standing up, smoothing my skirt down and adjusting an errant bra strap. I picked up my handbag and started for the door.

The phone rang.

I hesitated. I only had a few minutes to change from my female outfit and pick up my daughter before the creche closed.

I looked at the caller display. I had to take the call.

"Stephanie ici......."

*****************************

Fifteen minutes later I burst through the door into the nursery, "Sorry Janis, there was a call....."

The young woman smiled up at me from the rocking chair where she was entertaining my youngest child, Hugh, by making faces, while Bekka, my daughter, was carefully dressing and undressing her Cabbage Patch doll.

"Don't worry Stephanie, I know you're doing your best for the company. Anyway Hugh, Bekka and I have enjoyed ourselves for the last ten minutes."

I picked up the children’s bag and put the strap over my shoulder and then reached over to take Hugh from Janis’s arms. I called over to Bekka.

“Time to go now Bekka, love, fetch Ashley.”

“Mum-Stephanie, I did picture,” she informed me as she stood up and walked over to grasp my hand with her right hand carrying her doll in the other.

Janis pointed at the bag and nodded.

I smiled back, “OK, Bekka we can show it to Mummy later.”

I turned back to Janis, “Have they been good today?" I asked.

"Great on the whole, Bekka was as sweet and cheerful as always and played with the other children, although maybe Hugh is getting another tooth, he was a bit grizzly this afternoon but otherwise he's a pet," Janis responded.

I quickly strapped my bundles of joy into the double pushchair and turned to leave the nursery.

"Stephanie aren't you forgetting something?"

I looked round to see Janis giving me a funny look, "What do you mean? Isn't everything in their bag?

"Not the children’s stuff, you, your clothes. Stephanie, aren't you going to change? I thought Mary doesn't like seeing you in women's clothes."

“I’ve got no time now, I have to get home to make our evening meal and feed the children. If I’m lucky I can change before Mary gets home.”

“I bet she’ll be glad when you’ve weaned Hugh.”

“Me too and then I won’t have to be Stephanie in the office when I’m dealing with customers in case they see me go off to breast feed,” I reminded her.

She smiled, “Yes, that’ll save on laundry too.”

I bade Janis a good evening and made my encumbered way along the corridor from the creche to the lift. The office was deserted as it was now after 6pm and it was quite dim apart from the ghostly glow of the computer monitors on the desks.

“Late tonight, Ms Jones,” asked John, the caretaker as I exited the lift on the ground floor of our North London office block.

I pushed the children over towards the little office where John controlled the building’s basic functions. I had always tried to spend a little time with him every time I saw him. I also owed him a personal debt after he saved me from a serious sexual assault the previous year.

“Been trying to get more discounts from our European hotels. We need to save money somehow.” I explained, even though I knew John would have a pretty good idea of the state of the company with the continual reduction in the numbers working in head office over the previous twelve months.

“If anyone can do it, I’m sure it’s you Ms Jones,” he responded, “I’d hate to have to take redundancy now with six more years till I retire, not many jobs for ex-caretakers in their mid-fifties.”

I touched his arm, gently, a gesture I would be very unlikely to use when I was in male mode, “Don’t worry, John, you’re the most important person here, I’d be long gone before you ever lost your job.”

I turned the buggy and began to move for the main exit, “Good night, John and give my best wishes to Mrs Everrit.”

“Thanks Ms Jones, good night and give my regards to Mary,” he replied before he pressed a button on his control desk to open the doors for me to leave.

I pushed the children through the opening and then turned and gave him a last wave, a gesture that Bekka copied to John’s evident amusement as he smiled at us.

As I approached my car in the staff carpark I considered John’s mental agility in dealing with my varied gender roles. Usually in the evening, when I had had enough time to change he referred to me as ‘Mr Jones’ and gave his regards to ‘Mrs Jones’. However whenever I was unable to change before leaving he would refer to me as ‘Ms Jones’ but Mary would no longer be my spouse and would just be my friend.

“Oh well, not for too much longer...” I said to myself as I adjusted my bra strap after belting the children in the car.

I sat down in the car and adjusted the seat belt across my breasts.

“I’m going to miss my two built in pillows when they’re gone,” I muttered as I started the car and slowly eased myself down the narrow ramp of the car park.

The journey home along Holloway Road was slightly easier than usual, given the lateness of the evening and I made it home only twenty minutes after my normal arrival time. As I crawled up the ‘expressway’ I considered how flexible Bekka was in addressing me. In male mode I was ‘Daddy’, while in female ‘mode’ I was ‘Mum-Stephanie.’ This sometimes caused confusion if we were together in a public place and I was about to go to work, when anyone overhearing her would assume that Mary and I were a Lesbian couple.

I rushed the children into the house, put Bekka in her high chair with a pot of yoghurt and banana. I placed Hugh in his bouncy chair, which seemed to amuse him while I transferred the casserole from the fridge into the oven to cook.

There was just time to make myself a quick instant coffee before Hugh lost interest in the mobiles on his chair and remembered it was time for something contained securely in my blouse.

***************************

Fifteen minutes later I had finished feeding Hugh and was changing him, after taking Bekka from her high chair and putting her in the playpen. I heard Mary’s car pulling into the drive and cursed quietly to myself, “Damn I ran out of time.”

“Hi Steve, I’m home,” she called from the hallway, “have a good day?”

“In the kitchen, love,” I replied.

I heard her walk the few steps and opened the door to the kitchen. I tensed slightly waiting for the criticism.

“Oh you’re still ‘Stephanie’,” she commented, coldly, “I thought you’d promised to change before coming home.”

“Hi Mummy,” greeted Bekka, “I did a picture, Daddy is Mum-Stephanie tonight.”

“Yes, darling, I can see,” said Mary as she walked over to the playpen and knelt down to hug our daughter.

“Don’t worry Bekka, Daddy’s not going to be Mum-Stephanie much more tonight.”

She turned to me, “Can you go and change now, you know how much I dislike seeing you in those clothes.”

I handed Hugh over to her, “Sorry about the clothes I had to make.....”

Mary interrupted, “I don’t want to hear any excuses and to be honest there seem to be too many of them these days. I sometimes wonder if Stephanie is ever going to be gone from our lives.”

Silenced by her icy comment, I made my way to our bedroom, undressed, putting away my blouse, skirt and jacket in the separate section of my wardrobe, with placing my undies in the washing basket. I pulled on a loose t-shirt and some jogging bottoms and then removed my make-up.

I was about to make my way back to the kitchen when the sway of my boobs reminded me that I needed something to restrain them. Mary hated me wearing a proper bra when I was in male mode, so I removed my t-shirt and pulled on one of my stretchy sports bras and then replaced my t-shirt on top.

When I got back downstairs Mary was finishing putting Hugh to sleep in his cot. I took Bekka to the bathroom and run a shallow bath for her. She sat in and began splashing and playing with her bath toys.

I heard Mary coming up the stairs.

“How was your day, love?” I asked as I reached to hug her.

She came towards me, was about to return the gesture but then at the last second she pushed me away, “Urgh, you should have had a shower, I can still smell my perfume on you.”

I looked at her, feeling a little crestfallen, “Sorry, Mary I thought you’d want me to help with Bekka.”

She stood a few paces away and looked at me carefully, “Steve I could have waited a few minutes for you to smell a bit more masculine.”

“Sorry.”

There was a pause and then she asked me, “Because we needed me to work again how long did we agree you’d breast feed Hugh?”

I thought for a moment, “didn’t we say about eight months?”

“We did, since he could be safely weaned onto solids and soya milk.”

“We’re almost there then.”

“Steve we reached eight months almost six weeks ago.”

“Sorry, I’ve been so busy at work, I hadn’t kept track of the time.”

“Tell me Steve, have you made that appointment at the clinic yet?”

“Mary, you know the situation at work, I’m doing everything to save the company....and my job.”

“Yes, I know how hard you’re working,” she replied with a gentler tone than before, “ and I’m sure everyone appreciates your efforts.”

I smiled at her and then turned to redirect Bekka’s efforts from splashing to washing.

I was surprised by my wife’s next sentence.

“That’s why I phoned up myself and got you an appointment tomorrow....for your mastectomy!”

End of Vol. 3.01