"You're not a girl are you?" she asked staring directly into my eyes. I lowered my head and shook my head timidly   Rainbow Girl - Part 6 - Antagonism by Alys

"What do you mean, you have nowhere to go, young lady?", asked Mrs Thomas, Hywel's mother, continuing to look at me very coldly, "I'm not in the habit of taking in any strange girl who turns up late at night claiming to know my son"

I felt the water dripping from my soaked hair down my neck and face onto my sodden clothes which in turn were creating a puddle on the porch, underneath me. The shock of Hywel's mother's antagonism was the last straw of a day of fear, shock and flight. The tears began to stream down my face. I turned away and prepared to go and find some shelter from the elements.

"I'm sorry to trouble you Mrs Thomas," I said in resignation, "can you tell Hywel that Enfys called, please"

"Who is it, Mum?", I heard a familiar voice call out from inside the house.

"Some girl who says she knows you, she's just leaving," she replied,"said her name was Enfys"

"What!", called out Hywel and there was a commotion as the door was opened fully.

"Enfys! Wait!", shouted Hywel as I was just about to open the garden gate of the house and get back on the pavement. I turned and saw Hywel bounding down the garden path. He looked at me.

"You are in a state. What happened? Come in and dry off. Have you eaten?" he asked.

I shook my head.

"You must come in"

I followed him in, past the still disapproving Mrs Thomas.

"You're soaking," he observed, "dry your hair a bit with this and then you must put some dry clothes on. I might have an old rugby shirt and some shorts that might be only a size or so too big for you."

I took the towel gratefully and attempted to dry my hair and and face. Hywel emerged from his room with some clothes and showed me to the bathroom and put the shower on for me. The feel of warm water on my chilled body was ecstasy and as I washed myself I began to feel more like a human being again. After some quarter of an hour of luxuriating I was brought back to the reality of my other need, food, by a knock on the bathroom door.

"Food's ready, Enfys, if you can get dressed and come now before it gets cold"

I dried quickly, dressed in Hywel's old red rugby jersey and shorts and wrapped a towel around my hair help it dry a bit more. I picked up all of my wet clothes but had a dilemma about what to do with my gaff, I wondered how could I dry it without the occupants of the house being aware of it. On an impulse I tucked it at the back of the radiator, out of sight.

As I entered the dining room the Thomas family, Mr and Mrs and Hywel, were putting away their fifteen minute scrabble set, taking the cloth off the TV and turning the sound back on just as the closing credits of Leader Cherie's address to the nation were fading away. Ever since the Entertainment Act was passed last year, viewing the speeches of the Prime Minister had been compulsory and this was monitored due to every TV being fitted, initially at the behest of the advertising agencies to count viewers, by a real-time monitor that relayed details of the channel being watched by every household. However since many people found these endless exhortations boring a recent phenomenon was the playing of specially shortened versions of board games while the picture was concealed and the sound muted. As far as the state was concerned everyone was watching these broadcasts while there had been a surprising boom in the sales of board games.

"Sponsored by Hasbro, tonight," commented Mr Thomas, a slightly overweight, balding man of medium height in his late forties.

"Doesn't the government realise how much they are helping promote the sales of scrabble and the other games?" asked Hywel.

"I doubt it," I remarked from the doorway, "since they probably believe their own propaganda"

The three turned to look at me.

"Oh there are you are Enfys....mmm that rugby kit looks better on you than it ever looked on me," said Hywel with a broad grin.

I blushed at the compliment.

Mrs Thomas took my clothes, grudgingly, and put them in the dryer. I had hoped that she would wash them but at least dry, if dirty, clothes would be better than wet ones in the morning. I sat down for some reviving homemade vegetable soup and chunks of homemade bread. As I ate slowly I gave the family a highly edited version of my 'adventures' after Hywel left me on the train. I left out all reference to the murders and to my other identity.

Some half an hour later I had just finished logging onto my fifth proxy server and was waiting for the connection to be made to my encrypted web-mail account. Hywel sat next to me, gently caressing my neck as I checked to see if there were any messages from my parents. There were none.

"I'm sorry about what happened to your parents and all the problems you had getting here," said Hywel as he kissed my cheek, "but I'm glad you're here"

"I'm glad too, Hywel, you really are my refuge in the storm"

I slid my back into him and put his hands around my middle as I turned to kiss him, gently. Our lips met and we turned our heads to fully engage in our kiss. I pulled his head down to me as his free hand moved up from my tummy to my left breast, squeezing me gently. As we caressed and kissed I felt something becoming stiff and pressing into my back, I felt my nipples swelling and something small lower down of mine began to unfortunately stiffen too.

Our voyage of mutual discovery was halted by the sound of Mrs Thomas's, slightly acidic voice.

"Enfys your bed is ready now! You two are taking an awful long time, what are you doing?!"

We broke off, Hywel wiped the lipstick of his face and we made our way a little sheepishly downstairs.

Some minutes later everyone bade me goodnight as I made myself comfortable on the sofa-bed. The Thomas's house only had two bedrooms, as many recently built houses in the cities did. The need for larger houses had declined as family sizes had reduced. Builders favoured such construction as they could put more on a building plot and thus make more money.

The aroma of fresh coffee next to me and a hand giving me a gentle shake aroused me the next morning. I had slept for a long time, after the strain of the previous day, and Hywel's Mother had eventually insisted on him getting me up so that they could use the lounge.

"This is New Hope 2 bringing you the Jerry and Julie show, Wake Up Britain!"

I lay back half watching the inane morning TV programme, while Hywel helped his Mother prepare breakfast.

"Today we are honoured by a visit to our studio by none other than the Prime Minister, the Right Honourable Cherie Bliar, Gracious leader of New Hope. Welcome to the programme."

"Well, Julie, if I can call you that......."

At this stage the welcome distraction of cooked breakfast took me away from more of the specious, anodyne comments.

I helped Mrs Thomas with the clearing up and washing up afterwards. While I was doing this I noticed that she seemed to be staring at me as if trying to see something through my clothes. I felt a little uneasy.

I was finishing drying the dishes when I heard her send Mr Thomas and Hywel to the shop to fetch some inconsequential items, my unease increased.

"Enfys can you come here please," came her voice from the lounge.

I walked into the lounge and over to the dining table where she was sitting with my dry clothes in front of her.

"Here are your dry clothes, you can change into them now, and give me those of Hywel"

I picked up my clothes thanking her for her kindness in drying them. I was just turning to go to the bathroom when she continued.

"You might need this too, I found it behind the bathroom radiator. Unluckily for your little subterfuge, a towel fell off the radiator and knocked it on the floor," she said holding up my gaff!

"I believe it's a gaff. It took me a while to find out what it was. It was only when I described it to Google voice answers that I eventually found a link to clothing of individuals who want to change sex"

"You're not a girl are you?" she asked staring directly into my eyes.

I lowered my head and shook my head timidly

"Before I throw you out of my house and ban my son from seeing you again, please tell me why you were fooling him!"