A chance encounter on a rainswept street with a young transitioning girl.

Persephone

Vandals had kicked out the glass on both sides of the bus shelter depriving its sole occupant of most of the protection it might have offered from the slanting rain. Chloe slowed the car to take a closer look at the half-huddled figure. She was not dressed for the weather; no jacket, not even a sweater and the mini skirt would have been brief at the height of summer. They were a young woman’s clothes, soaked and stuck to a slender body, but there was something intangible, perhaps the way she stood, that betrayed her birth gender. Chloe slowed to a halt alongside the shelter.

‘Would you like a lift home?’ she called through the open passenger’s window.

It took a few seconds for the counterfeit girl to realise that Chloe was speaking to her. She peered through the rain and asked ‘Home?’

‘Where you live’ Chloe said ‘I’m in no rush and I’d hate to leave you out in this’. The waif nodded her assent and opened the door.

‘Where to?’ Chloe asked, taking a second to turn up the car’s heater.

‘Ashburn Road’ her passenger said with a suppressed shiver, and then fell silent.

‘What do you call yourself?’ Chloe asked hoping to jolly a little conversation from her.

‘Same as all my friends call me’ she replied ‘Stevie’

‘You didn’t want to take a more feminine name?’ Chloe continued but Stevie remained silent until the car turned into her road when she pointed out her building.

Standing in the car’s half-open door she turned to Chloe and said ‘Thank you… err would you like to come in for coffee?’

‘That would be lovely’ Chloe said with a smile.

‘Make yourself comfy’ Stevie said gesturing towards the sofa ‘I’ll be back in a mo but I’ve got to dry off’

Chloe looked around. Everything seemed nearly new, not too cluttered and a little too tidy for someone Stevie’s age. It was not a big place, a ground floor maisonette; it had a combined living room and kitchen and she guessed one bedroom. Properties in the area were far from cheap, even to rent and she wondered how Stevie made ends meet.

‘I’ll just get the kettle on’ Stevie said reappearing ‘Hope instant’s OK that’s all I have I’m afraid’. She had stripped to her underwear and was towelling her long dark hair as she padded barefoot to the kitchen not noticing the older woman’s following gaze. Stevie’s body was neither that of a young man or woman but something that hovered between the two. Her limbs were long and slender, too long to be perfect perhaps; her hips flared only slightly but Chloe could almost see the woman Stevie would become. Nowhere was this more apparent than her small bust — a promise puffed up by underwires of course yet wholly a part of her.

Stevie laid the coffees down on the table between them, and flopped down into the other chair folding her legs beneath her. She began breaking into chunks a pomegranate she had also brought in from the kitchen. Chloe sipped her coffee watching Stevie bite at its sweet seeds.

‘Careful Persephone’ she laughed ‘or you’ll choke’

‘Who’s Persephone?’ asked Stevie dribbling a little.

‘Oh just a Greek girl’ Chloe said ‘she got into trouble over some pomegranates’

‘It’s a pretty name though’ Stevie repeated it several times in succession ‘I wouldn’t mind being called Persephone’

‘But how would you shorten it?’ Chloe asked ‘You wouldn’t want to be called Percy or Phoney would you?’ Stevie giggled losing a little more of the fruit to her chin.

‘Sephie’ she said ‘You could call me Sephie. Everyone else would have to call me Persephone though’. She beamed.

‘This is a really nice place’ Chloe said trying to strike a balance between curiosity and prying ‘Do you live here alone?’

‘Oh no’ Stevie said ‘my boyfriend lives here too — he’s just not in town this week’ She turned again to the remains of the pomegranate.

‘Is he away often’ Chloe asked

‘He lives in London and only comes here about one in every three weeks’ Stevie paused ‘He’s married’ she looked away.

‘What do you do with the rest of the time?’ Chloe said leaning forward to place a hand on Stevie’s knee.

‘Oh nothing much’ she said ‘I visit friends, even stay with them if I’m lonely’

‘You could always come and stay with me’ Chloe said lifting Stevie’s chin so their eyes locked. Stevie smiled again broad enough to wrinkle her eyes.

‘That would be really nice Mum’