Ok, so this is now the penultimate chapter, but it’s got dancing in it!

This is the story of Penny. A closet Transwoman thrust into the outside world 24-7 when she would rather go and hide away. Perhaps the title should be Welcome to Penny’s Paranoid World…

Ok, so this is now the penultimate chapter and not the last. Basically the last chapter has stretched into not two, but three chapters. Sorry about that. But the next one will be the last chapter. Sophie

From part Twenty Two
“Oh, you want to tie me up, make me a damsel in distress. Do you.” I say grinning.
“And have my wicked way with you. Don’t forget that. That’s the best part.”
“Could be arranged,” I say. “Just remember which room I’m in. Malcom will be very cross with you if you tie up and ravage Trish.” Then I add pouting. “She’s too old for you, anyway.”
John laughs.
“Anyway,” he says getting in and powering down the window. “I’ve got to go out to give the old girl a test drive to check everything is still working. Want to come.”
“Ok. Let just tak…”
“Can we come too?”
And now as they say, read on…

Three girls we had not noticed join us are standing just outside the garage watching us, grinning their heads off. How long have they been there listening to us, I do not want to think about.

I look over to John, I am sure my face is red. He pulls a face grinning and nods. I turn back to them.

“Ok girls, get in while I take these back and tell gran where we have gone.”

“Mum, that’s the supermarket.” “Well the back of it.” Adds Lizzy. All three girls managing to tap me on the shoulder to point out the passenger window at the large building as we pass it. It looks more like it should be a cinema. Maybe it was once. It is a small supermarket by UK standards, but nice to know where the food is kept. We carry on through the small town of Alvor onto the dual carriageway out of town we had come down to get here, which gives me an idea where John intends to turn round. Sure enough when we get there, John pulls into the dirt carpark opposite the airfield.

He turns back to the girls grinning. “Shall we go over and watch the skydivers.”

They tell us excitedly ‘Yes Please’ and I get the idea this is not the first time they have done this. After we have crossed the road to the airfields small carpark. We let them loose and they run ahead to climb on the low breeze block wall separating the car park from the airfield, holding themselves up grabbing the chain-link fence on top of it. As John and I reach them the Pilatus Porter I saw on the way in taxis past us on the short taxiway going to the runway. Its paint job making it look like New York taxi cabs have moved into the air taxi business.

I support Emily while John had a hold of Eve and Lizzy as they watched the Pilatus line up on the runway and with the brakes on, does a power check. Then the pilot released the brakes and the Pilatus surges forward. Nine seconds later it is climbing up away long before the end of the runway. The Pilatus PC6 is the ultimate STOL aircraft. That stands for Short Take-Off and Landing, Once past the airfield boundary she moves a bit off the centreline and begins a slow climbing turn to the left to gain height. The girls watched as the Pilatus circles around then swapping to climbing circles to the right getting smaller and smaller to the eye…

“Can we have an ice cream, now?” The twins are looking back at the ice cream sign outside the airfield cafe. Bored with watching a very small plane in the sky.

“In a minute. When we’ve watched the parachutists come down.”

“They’ll be ages, we could have an ice cream and come back and watch?” They inform us hopefully.

“In a minute, girls.”

High up the Pilatus straightens out above the airfield flying into wind as it fly’s away from the airfield. When they have gone far enough for the breeze to bring them back once the shoots are open, the pilot will chuck them out.

“Ok girls, watch. They will be dropping out any moment now, and then as soon as they have, the plane will drop like a stone so it can get back to the airfield before they start coming in to land.”

The girls watched with renewed interest as two blobs exit the plane. Well Em does as high up another two blobs fall out to head after the first two. The Twins are watching, but I think their tummy’s are metaphorically across the carpark in the café staring at the ice cream refrigerator. Up in the sky one blob is bigger than the other. The smaller one will be a parachutist with a video camera strapped to his helmet to record the bigger blobs fall to earth for posterity, and then to be endlessly shown to friends and relatives.

Because this is a tandem drop. There will be some unsuspecting adventure seeker who paid a load of cash to be fastened in an oversized baby harness to the front of parachute instructor. Who will then throw them both out of a plane, trusting a bit of material to stop them impersonating a tomato with a death wish falling off a kitchen counter. Mind you, if for some reason both the instructors’ parachutes fail to open. The instructor will have something soft to land on.

You can fit three tandem drops along with their accompanying videographer in the back of the Pilatus, you can get more in, but its extreme sardine’s time with each other if you do. With two lots gone, that leaves one more to go. So I told the girls to keep a look-out for the last pair of jumpers.

What the novice parachutists will have forgotten by now in this extreme moment of excitement/fear/blind panic and screaming their head off. Is that having exited a perfectly good working aircraft they will drop downwards gaining speed until they are dropping to earth at around 120 miles an hour, and when their parachute is deployed. They will in a second or so, slow down to 17 miles an hour! That’s pulling about 3½g.

The third pair dropped from the Pilatus. “Ok, watch the…”

…The pilot is quicker than I can talk. With the last of the parachutists having departed, having one last quick check the airspace below was clear. Has pushed the stick forward and the Pilatus has dived down looking almost as if it is going down vertically. It is not, it just looks that way. There is a flash of sunlight from the windows of big cabin door as gravity slides it shut. The Pilatus is now also doing a ninety degree turn as it drops taking it further away from the parachutist’s flight path back to the airfield.

“Is he going to crash?” Em asked.

“No. he just wants to get back down to the airfield before the parachutes do.”

The pilot dropped the parachutists ahead of the airfield into the wind so when the chutes open it will bring them back as they float down aiming to land in the airfields drop zone. On the Pilatus, the altimeter will be unwinding like a backwards clock having a nervous breakdown. The pilot keeping a looking out for the descending parachutists as he drops past them.
“He’s going to crash.”
“No he won’t, you watch and see.”

He is still coming down like an express elevator. The parachutes are now way above him as still descending, but not quite as steep as before he is curves around us to come back round to face along the runway. Almost there, he straightens out. Eases back on the stick to stop that express elevator desent, the flaps coming down as she crosses over the road and past the displaced threshold because of the roadway to drop down gently just beyond the piano keys. The main wheels kissing the runway, followed by the tailwheel soon after.

“Can we go and have an ice cream now.”

Only Em is still transfixed by the taxing plane. Maybe we have a budding pilot in her. The twins have already jumped down from the breeze blocks and are leaning back trying to pull John towards the café. They are laughing, each has a hold of a hand and are trying to pull him over to it and ice creams.

I help Em down and holding hands we follow them. As John gives up and he and the girls walk side by side heading over to the café.

“Weeeeeeeeee…”

The girls are running about on the beach, excited. Spinning and falling in the sand laughing and giggling. Em as well. They have taken me down to the beach with its golden sand to show me, before we go the short distance back to the villa. Must be all that sugar in the ice cream they had. John puts an arm around my shoulders, pulling me close.

“I love seeing them like this.”

I lean into him, my arm going round his waist. I am about to agree with him when my mobile goes.

“Hi… Yes, not far. We are down on the beach… Ok, be back in five minutes.”

I look up at John. “Evie.” and turn to the girls laughing at spinning around and getting dizzy and falling laughing on the sand. “Time to go, girls. Teas ready.”

There is just John and me still up. Everyone else has gone to bed. It is well past eleven. We are on the long white ‘L’ shaped sofa with a glass of wine. Well, I have a glass of wine, john has a glass of ice cold larger. We are snuggled up together listening to the sizzle of the log fire. Yes I know we are in the middle of a mini heatwave, but there is no heat from these logs as they are on the big television. I got the log fire off the internet on You-tube. Even in a heatwave there is something nice about listening to a log fire in the dark.

The girls loved tea. It seems there is a take-a-way fried chicken place on the roadside front of the hotel we dropped the Paterson’s off at earlier and Trish and Evie went over while we were out and got fried chicken and chips for tea. They were good old British chips shop chips. So tonight has been a help yourself Kentucky fried chicken-ish style fried chicken buffet. With fizzy pop for the girls, and wine and larger for the adults. Em told Evie and Trish about the skydivers and Eve and Lizzy asked what time Tiffany could come over in the morning. But were disappointed when we said they had to wait till Monday for Tiffany coming over.

After that we sat down together on the sofa and watched a dvd. Les Visiteurs, a French film which caused groins of complaint from the girls. At first they were confused until Godefroy Amaury de Malfête (played by Jean Reno), a knight from 1123 is sent with his manservant by mistake to 1993, where they promptly attack a French postman’s yellow post van as the devil's chariot. That got the girls laughing as the two attacked and destroyed the post van and then cause chaos throughout the film until they managed to get back to their own time.

But that was then, and now we are all alone on the sofa and feeling a little amorous and kissing.

“It’s late, maybe I should take you to bed and do wicked things to you.” John whispered to me.

“Promises, promises.”

John chuckled. “Well in that case, a dares a dare.”

“Give me five minutes… Hmm, make that ten minutes.” I say, grinning as I get up all set to hurry to our bedroom and do a quick change and tart myself up, but instead as I head for the archway I see a frightened little girls face standing their clutching Fred. I hurried over to her. “Hello sweetie, can’t you sleep. Did you have a bad dream?” I say as I bend down and hold her.

Emily nodded worried.

“Would you like some of mummy and daddy’s favourite biscuits and some milk?”

Em said nothing, but slowly nodded her head again.

“Ok, come and sit with daddy while I get it. And maybe he will put My Neighbor Totoro on the tv. Would you like that?”

Em slowly nods her head as I pass her over to John who takes her in his arms and gives her a cuddle.

When I come back the film is on. I have a tray with butter biscuits and three glasses of cold milk on it. John stands up as I get there and whispers to me. “She said when she sleeps the witch from the film tonight says she is going to turn her into a chicken and eat her.”

At the start of the film Jean Reno’s knight comes across villagers saying a witch has turned their men into chickens and piglets.

I nod and sit beside Em and cuddle her while we both nibble butter biscuits together. Em watches cuddled up against me, my arm around her. It is not long before having eaten up her biscuits, she has moved up onto my lap and as she gets more tired her head gets heavier on me. until she is laid on me only half watching Satsuke and her little sister Mei in the forest, as she tries to stay awake watching the film until she is fast asleep snuggled up against me, her head on my growing boobs. When the film ends John tries to gently lift her from me, but she grissles in her sleep, tightening her arms around me. In the end John helps me up, moving her up a bit till her head rests on my shoulder as we try not to giggle. She may be a slim little thing, but she is getting really heavy now.

“Ssshh, you’ll wake her up,” we whisper to each other.

This is not the first time we have gone through this. It has happened a number of times back in England with Em glued to me like a limpet after having had a nightmare. David our doctor said she should get over it eventually once she has decided in herself I am not going to disappear and leave her. When she is like this she reminds me of a baby laying against its mother’s chest and I have to stop a big silly grin breaking out all over my face.

After several attempts to put her in her own bed we give up and take her to bed with us. We were going to sleep on top of the bed in this heat anyway. John undresses me as best he can and whispers that this was not quite what he had in mind tonight when he was thinking of undressing me earlier in the evening. Making me giggle. I sleep in my slip with Emily snuggled up to me in the middle of the bed between us. Yes. Positively not the way John had planned the evening to end!

During the night Em shifts to her usual position when in bed with us. John must have put a cover over us during the night as well as when I wake up we have a light cover over the both of us. When I wake I can no longer feel John in bed with us. I have become use to him being their beside me. Something that seemed so strange when we first began sleeping together when I left hospital.

I slowly open my eyes to the morning sun to see John standing dressed on his side of the bed looking down at us. The trace of a smile on his face.

“You all right.” I ask.

John nods his head smiling. “Yeah, I just get a kick out of seeing you both laying their together.”

Monday morning Tiffany’s parents drop her off. They will pick her up when they come to dinner tonight. After Evie, Trish and me prepare a picnic lunch for everyone, we all hit the beach using the Toyota Previa to ferry the cool boxes and camping chairs for the adults down to the beach. Although John went back to check the pipes and anything else he could think of, rather than lay on the beach.

Evie nudged me. “You will have to get use to that. He is just like his father. Not happy unless he is taking something apart. All farmers you will find have a secret tractor fetish. They all keep their first tractor hidden away in a barn, even if it is a complete rust bucket and then spend a small fortune restoring it.”

Evie and Trish talk about the calendars the men have in the workshops with tractors and combines and other self-propelled farm equipment with young ladies draped all over them wearing high-heels and a total lack of other clothing apart from a pair of stockings. Often with their legs further apart than they should be.

“Every wife should always have a pair of sheer black stockings, a suspender belt and a pair of easy to kick off high-heels in her holiday seduction emergency box,” adds Trish.

“And especially at home for when he’s thinking about the farm and not you.” Says Evie grinning at Trish.

Then turning to me with a sly grin and twinkle in her eyes. “Hhmmm, and just why are you smirking like that young lady, that’s not a, ‘what you just said is funny,’ smirk. That’s a sneaky you know something we don’t know, smirk.”

They both lean over to me. I smile and tell them. “I might have just happened to have pair of sheer stockings and high-heels in my luggage.”

“Not hold-ups are they, they bunch around your knees after a bit of prolonged action.”

Evie looks at her friend with a raised eye-brow. Trish holds her hands out smiling. “Hey, after a hard week of playing Dr Kildare, Malcom needs something to take his mind off work.” And adds nonchalantly. “And I don’t mind if I help out with that.”

At that Evie and Trish burst out laughing until they both look at me waiting.

“I might just happen to have a suspender belt with me as well.”

At this they snigger. Trish telling Evie. “The girls come prepared.” And they start giggling all over again.

When they had calmed down, Trish looks at me and Evie seriously.

“When we moved into our first flat, it was up in the attics of an old building in Edinburgh.” She groans. “On the sixth floor and no lift. Can you imagine what it was like carrying the shopping up.” Then grinning licking her lips. “We did it like that in every room and outside on the flat bit in the middle of the roofs as well in the first week. It was in the middle of long hot summer.”

Then adds chortling, “thank god they didn’t have those drone camera things in those days. Medical students can be quite inventive when it comes to sex.”

At which point they both broke up laughing and giggling again.

Trying not to laugh I looked back down the beach to the girls chatting and playing in the sea water with other girls they had met.

The Twins are already asking if Tiffany can stay for a sleepover tonight. The three of them really get on well together and even Emily is enjoying playing with them. Although the twins tend to boss her about and she has to do what they want if she plays with them. They really do want her to join in with them and are very protective of her. But I still half expect to find her asleep in our bed again tonight.

“Suzy. Have a bit of shut-eye. Its ok, we will watch the girls.” That was Evie. I did. And I was out like a light as soon as my eyelids closed.

I wake to gentle nudging from Trish holding a 99 for me. The ice cream staple of any seaside wherever the British descend in mass hordes. Be it at home in the UK or abroad in Europe. A 99 is a cornet wafer of soft ice cream with a short chocolate flake stuck in it. That along with fish and chips and a Sunday roast regardless of whatever the outside temperature is. The Brits are here in large numbers regardless of how many Belgium or German towels hit the pool sunbeds at five a clock in the morning.

John and I are slow dancing on the patio to Michael Buble’s Save the last dance for me. I have on my cream dress with big red poppies all over it. It is strapless with a slightly curved top that delicately shows off my boobs to anyone standing in front of me and indecently so to anyone if they should happen to be standing up against me. And I do just happen to be lightly pressing up against John as we dance - I’m making sure of that.

My boobs have been roaring along with a life of their own ever since my world changed after Malcom gave me those injections when I first went to the Q.A.M.C. It is as if they have been trying to make up for lost time ever since. Which also means they have been a bit tender a lot of the time since I woke up in hospital. They had a head start due to the boob job my sister paid for me to have when they were doing the exploratory look-see down below. I messed that up by dropping into a coma afterwards. But the girls never stopped growing from that moment on. By their joint effort of boob job and growing spurt I am closing in fast on a C-cup which Malcom says is about right for me. The boob job took me to an instant B, and my own growth should take me to maybe a little bit past a C-cup by the time they stop growing. I do hope they go no further than that. C is ok, D is to much.

Evie and Trish are dancing with their hands laid back on sun beds by the pool chatting. I do not think I will ever be able to chat to someone the way those two do with each other. They were best friends at school in London. Then Evie ended up in the village when her parents decided to move to the country and bought the bungalow that Zoe and Donald now live in almost opposite Apple Tree Farm. That was how she met and was wooed by Johnny, the Farmer’s son over the road. Trish had stayed with Evie and her parents at times while the girls were still at boarding school. Years later when Malcom become head of surgery at the Q.A.M.C, they bought Canberra House which was up for sale.

The girls were huddled over giggling and eating crisps by the hi-fi, whispering to each other watching us dance.

I chuckle. “I’ll show them.”

“What Suzz?”

“The girls are watching us dancing and giggling.”

John stiffened. “You don’t think they could hear us last night, do you.”

We never did anything last night. We were still too tired, but the conversation was rather fruity. Anyone who heard it would think John kept me chained naked to the bed back home.

I grinned. “No, I’m sure Evie would have had a word with us by now, if anyone did, don’t you think.”

“Well, yes, I guess.”

“Still.” He bent close to my ear. “It gave me lots of naughty ideas of things I might do to you if mum had the girls one week-end.”

I opened my mouth in mock shock. Then grinned. I was already holding the hi-fi remote in one hand to stop a squabble among the girls, i.e. between Em and the Twins from starting up again, over who had control of the music.

“I’ll show them.”

John laughed. “What.”

“I put the discs in, so I know what disc is where and what track to play.”

“Mmm?”

“Just follow my lead and do what I do.” I said trying not to laugh and keyed in the disc and track and waited for Booker T Ford’s Time Is Tight to start playing.

I waited until the guitar and drums start and the organ kicks in, then winking at John and as the second part of the organ broke in, I half turned from John letting go of him, my arm moving as if walking and made one step away and froze, counted to three and made another step towards the girls and froze again. And did the same again. Carrying on my frozen walk towards them as the music played.

The girls had stopped giggling and stood watching me open mouthed trying to figure what I was doing. Em who had been home with a dicky tummy a couple of weeks ago, grinned. I had done this to amuse her and she started towards me doing the same. Out the corner of my eye I saw John start towards the girls doing it as well. Finally Lizzy and Eve giggling and laughing started towards their father. Only Tiffany stood still unsure what to do.

I broke my frozen look and smiled at her. “Come on, Tiffany, join us.” And beckoned her to join in. That was all it took and she started after Em who was copying my moves. I could hear Evie and Trish giggling to themselves watching us.

As Em and I past, I snapped my head to face her, she copying me a moment later. Next move as I moved I opened my mouth in shock and flipped my arms up at the elbows in surprise. Then faced forward snapping my arms down as I was past Em, and then did it all again as Tiffany and I past. Then started to turn and head for the twins and John.

The frozen walk dance thing was based on what The Shadows had done in their concerts when playing Time Is Tight. The girls giggling and laughing as they look at each other. When it finishes, Abba’s Dancing Queen starts playing and they keep dancing with John messing about with them. Evie and Trish waved me over and then delighted in telling me they had both videoed us and intended to put it on You-tube for everyone to see.

“Really!” I said exasperated.

I was not going to fall in the trap of saying you can’t do that. I could see the gleam in their eyes that they were up to something.

“You look really nice this evening, Suzy.” Evie said to me looking up at me smiling.

“Thank-you.” I said, smiling back. “You don’t look bad yourself, you as well, too Aunt Trish.”

On the ladies side we had all made an effort. Nice summer dresses, heels as well for the grown-ups. As a treat as we were by ourselves with no one else present. I let the girls have some made-up on as well. Eye shadow, lipstick and face powder put on by me and Trish. So they could surprise their grandma. They were all too young to wear made-up out in public as far as I am concerned.

“And are you wearing stockings tonight, Suzy. In this heat?” Trish asked me with a face of total innocence.
Time to be wary here I think. I’m sure I know where this is going. “I might be.”

More giggles from the two adult children in front of me.

“Hey, John.” Trish called to my other half, now over by the drinks trolley getting us both a drink. A non- alcoholic one in my case, I hope.

“Are you on a promise tonight? I think your wife is feeling frisky.”

“Aunty Trish! Really.” God. They are worse than the twins. And I know I have just gone red faced.

To be continued in… The final chapter – ok, I’m pretty sure about it this time!