Synopsis:

He looked angry, very angry. His little piggy eyes were puffed out. His face was
redder than beetroot. The veins on his bulbous nose seemed to stand out more than
usual and his hands were clenching and unclenching like he wanted to do serious
damage to someone's neck, presumably mine.

Story:

Working Girl 8

By

Susan Brown

GOVERNMENT HEALTH WARNING.

Please note that the following instalment has some strong language. Anyone of a
delicate nature should refrain from reading this story as it may affect you in the
following way: 1. Your mental disposition; you may be distressed and throw a wobbly
or 2. physically if you barf up, spill your ring or other vulgar terms for being sick. If
you do not have a delicate nature i.e. prone to attacks of the vapours etc. carry on.
The author accepts no responsibility for upsetting anyone, especially Paul Diggings,
who pulled my hair when I was 8 and should have known better.

He looked angry, very angry. His little piggy eyes were puffed out. His face was
redder than beetroot. The veins on his bulbous nose seemed to stand out more than
usual and his hands were clenching and unclenching like he wanted to do serious
damage to someone's neck, presumably mine.

In a flash of intuition, I realised that he was not happy with me and that I would not be
on his Christmas card list.

'YOU BITCH!'

'Sorry, do you mean me?'

'Course I do. How dare you leave me looking like a plonker in that restaurant.'

I was kind of speechless. Luckily, I heard a voice from behind me.

'Mr Davis, how nice to see you; lovely tie by the way.'

'Never mind my sodding tie. I want this cow out of here tonight; now in fact and she
can take her snivelling brother too.'

Sheila pulled me away from the door and stood in the doorway.

'Now Mr Davis, I'm a nurse and I can tell by your red looking face that your blood
pressure is way too high. Why don't you go home and give yourself time to cool
down before you hurt yourself.'

It was now that Davis, the hypochondriac kicked in and he went from red to pasty in
nanoseconds.

'Do I look ill?' He squeaked anxiously.

'Well, you are a trifle overweight, with signs of insipid crappyism, not to mention
halitosis and other disturbing signs. You should go home and go to bed. You will feel
better in the morning.'

'OK, I will, but I will be here at 11 o'clock and I want to see her and her brother
gone.'

With that, he left the building.

I sat on the bed, head in hands.

'What's wrong, honey.' Asked Sheila, anxiously. 'You don't look like a happy
bunny.'

I looked up at Sheila

'Look at me; I'm dressed as a girl and have had to go out in public looking like this.
I've been to McDonalds and had an incident with a flaming pickle. Then I got picked
on by the police force. I've been out to a restaurant with the slime ball from hell. Then
I got picked up by a lecherous taxi driver, got groped, and had an accident. I had to
run from the scene of an accident. I got picked up by some gay bikers and now, to

finish off the perfect day, I am being chucked out of this place which I laughingly call
home. To say I'm an unhappy bunny would be an understatement.'

'Saying that; it hasn't gone all that smoothly, has it.'

I just grunted. I had run out of things to say.

'Now Toni, don't give up yet. Remember the main thing is that you look all girl and if
you get that job, you will be able to find another place with the money you will be
getting.'

'I haven't got the job yet.'

'So, you will go to the interview then?

'I suppose I have no choice.'

'That's true. The only thing is…no I won't talk about this tonight.'

'What?'

'Well… don't be annoyed, but I think that it would best for you to keep in character
until the interview. It would give you time to be more girly.'

'More girly! Look at me; I'm more girly that the girliest girl could be. Bloody hell,
I'm even turned on when I look at myself and I have a great deal of trouble walking
sometimes.'

Sheila looked at me with concern and then smiled.

'Oh, getting a bit stiff down below?'

I was somewhat embarrassed and just mumbled, 'Sort of.'

'It's a small price to pay to get a decent job.'

'If you say so.'

'Look, I'm going back to my flat now. My big hunk of a man is coming home soon
and I want to show him some new moves. Mind you, I'm knackered ,what with you
and the job, so I might just lie back and think of England. I will see you tomorrow at
about 8, will you be up?'

'Yes, I have to pack remember.'

'Don't worry; we'll sort it. Are you OK to take your makeup off? I left some stuff in
the bathroom to use.'

'I'll be OK; bye.'

It took me about an hour to clean the gunk off my face and hands. I then had a bath
and must admit that I felt a bit better after that.

In no time at all, I was in my jim-jams and tucked up in bed.

In moments, I was asleep.

The next morning, I woke up with a start. I could hear a noise outside, so I wearily got
out of bed, scratching my rear end absent-mindedly and sauntered over to the
window. There was a police car outside and there was Mick and Dave, asking
questions of one of my Spanish neighbours. I quickly hid bravely behind the curtains
and inched open the window. I could just about hear what was being said.

'Can you tell us if a young lady lives near here. She about five foot seven, blond hair
hazel eyes and goes by the name of Toni something or other.'

'No entiendo.'

'What?'

'No entiendo.'

'Do you speekey English?'

'Como estas?'

'Pardon.'

'No entiendo.'

'This is no good, Dave, lets go have a cup of tea.'

With that the policemen got into the car, put on the siren and blue flashing lights and
screeched off down the road, leaving a trail of dust.

I quickly got dressed and rushed downstairs. My neighbour was still outside, cleaning
his car.

'Hi, Carlos, I heard what those policemen were saying.'

'Hello, Tony; they were being nosy.'

'Why didn't you speak English? Your accent is better than mine!'

'A little immigration problem; if I started talking to them, they may ask for my
details'

'Sorry?'

'I'm not strictly here in an official capacity.'

'Oh, I see. See you later, Carlos'

'Adios.'

I went back into my room and had a quick wash. I didn't need a shave. I noticed some
eyeliner still in the corner of my eye and hoped that Carlos hadn't noticed it.

After crunching my cornflakes, I started packing my meagre possessions.

A few minutes later, there was a knock at the door.

Thinking it might be Davis, I didn't answer it.

There was another knock and I could hear the sound of Sheila shouting something.

I carefully opened the door and saw that indeed it was Sheila; an angry Sheila; in fact
to be precise a downright, over the top steaming and fuming Sheila. I could almost see
the smoke coming out of her ears.

'That bastard.' She shouted as she exploded into my room.

I shut the door quietly and stood in the corner away from the human tornado that was
Sheila.

She was ranting and raving, not making much sense. I heard a few new swear words,
some of them quite new, which I made a mental note of, just in case I needed them.

After about five minutes of this, she sort of run out of things to say, burst into tears
and threw herself on my bed.

I went over to her and tried to comfort her.

'What's wrong, Sheila? Has something upset you?

As you can see, I am very good at stating the obvious.

Sheila sat up and looked at me. Her eyes were puffy and her makeup, which looked as
if she had not taken off since last night, looked a bit pandarish. Her hair was in some
disarray and her clothes crumpled. In short, she was a mess.

'The bugger's, buggered off.'

'Pardon.'

'My bloke, mate, boyfriend, lover or whatever; he's gone off, done a runner, pissed
off. Do I need to paint a picture?'

'Oh you mean Steve. I am sorry Sheila, what happened.'

I gave here a tissue. She blew her nose loudly, (it sounded a bit like an elephant in
distress) and then proceeded to tell me the whole sorry story.

'I waited for him to come home last night. I had cooked him a lovely meal, you know
candle lit supper, wine, the works. I even put on my sexy red Basque and fishnet
stockings. I was tired, but I still fancied some rumpy pumpy. Anyway, he didn't turn
up, so I threw the food in the bin and went to bed. It was funny, because he normally
rings if he's going to be late. Anyway, I woke up this morning to the phone ringing. It
was his best mate Phil. The dirty bugger didn't even have the guts to tell me himself.
Phil said that Steve had gone away with his girlfriend. Evidently, this girl, Sharon her
name is, and Steve have been going at it like rabbits for months and Phil caught them
out last night and chucked them both out on the street. The only good thing about it
was that she was in a flimsy see through nightie and he was just wearing his birthday
suit.'

She stopped for a minute, blew her nose again and continued her sorry tale.

'They were pulled in by the police for exposure and lewd behaviour and only got out
this morning after their solicitor got them some more appropriate clothing. Steve
actually had the gall to ring me up just after I spoke to Phil, asking for a lift home! I
told him to piss off and that I was burning his stuff and if I ever saw him again I
would make sure that he would sing falsetto for the rest of his life.'

I immediately crossed my legs as she said this. The mind boggled.

'You're better of without him. At least you didn't marry him.'

'That's true; he was the sixth man to let me down and I'm beginning to think that I
might be jinxed. Anyway, now that I've got that off my chest I will never speak about
him again. Thanks for listening, Tony.

'That's OK.'

Sheila looked around, looked at my packed cases and then said. 'Oh God. I forgot
about you having to move out; you have problems too.'

'Yes, I have to find somewhere fast. I suppose I could doss down under a bridge
somewhere until I find somewhere more permanent. The weather's not too bad at this
time of year and the *meths will keep me warm.'

'Sheila looked at me. She had a thoughtful expression on her face.

'What?' I said.

'I have a brilliant idea. You can move in with me.'

'I can't, I'm a man remember and anyway what would Davis say.'

'Sod Davis, what he doesn't know about he doesn't worry about. Anyway, you will
be living with me as a girl not a man and when you get that job, we can share the
rent.'

'I'm not living with you as a girl!'

'Why not? If you want that job, you will need to really get under the skin of being a
girl. If you are good, I'll let you wear trousers occasionally, but lets face it kid, you
make a much more convincing girl than a boy. Look, I'm going upstairs to sort out
and then throw Steve's stuff in the dustbin. If you want to come and stay in the flat,
just come up. But if you do come, I want to see Toni the girl not Tony the boy.'

She left me to sort my thoughts out. I sat on the bed and tried to work out what I
would do.

I felt that fate or whatever was corralling me into doing what didn't come natural to
me. Ever since I started this girl thing, things had happened to me. Nasty things. I was
an emotional wreck; up a creak without a paddle and would probably have to spend
the rest of my life in therapy.

Then I remembered how I looked and felt, dressed as a girl. The silky fabrics; the way
the dress swished as I walked; the fact that I looked so pretty. I got up and went over
to the cracked mirror over the sink. I looked at the rather plain face in the mirror. It
was face that didn't look too manly to tell you the truth. A single tear ran down my
face as I realised that the only way forward that I could see was trying to pretend I
was a girl. The trouble was, if I became a girl what would happen to Tony?

Just then, there was another knock at the door. I went over and opened it.

It was Davis.

He had a smirk on his spotty, ugly face.

'Not gone yet?'

'Um…I'm just packing.'

'Where is that sister of yours? I want to give her a piece of my mind.'

'She's er… gone back to live with our Mum.'

'Pity, anyway, I'm just going for a nice healthy fry up breakfast and I want you gone
when I get back.'

'What about returning my deposit.'

'What deposit?'

I gave you  £500 when I came here.'

'Where's the receipt?'

'You didn't give me one.'

'Tough titty then. Anyway you owe me for back rent, so I will be kind and call it
quits. Remember, be gone when I get back or I'll send one of my nice boys around to
break a few of your fingers.'

With a final smirk he turned around and left.

Ten minutes later I was outside Sheila door.

I knocked and she opened the door, smiling.

'Hi Toni, you look nice. Come on in. We are going to have so much fun!'

*Meths: methylated spirits. A cheap non-taxed way to keep you thoroughly drunk.
Not to be recommended for anyone who wants to keep his or her liver intact.

To be continued

Copyright Susan Brown 2005

Notes:

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