Charlie Ringwald put a Consulate menthol cigarette between her lipsticked lips and lit up, drawing the smoke deep into her lungs. The smoke gave a false illusion of warmth on the bitter foggy night. She put her cigarettes back into the cheap handbag hanging from her shoulder by the thin vinyl strap and wrapped her arms around herself in a vain attempt to warm herself.

She was wearing a black vinyl miniskirt, mauve satin blouse, a short faux leopardskin jacket, sheer black tights and high heels. The way she was dressed and her stiff, perfectly coiffed red hair, which she’d copied from David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust heyday, heavy makeup and general countenance as she leaned against the rough redbrick of the railway underpass proclaimed in no uncertain terms that she was a Tom.

There were half a dozen other Toms or Brasses, pick your favourite British euphemism for prostitute, working the long dark tunnel in the early morning hours that Saturday. They were dressed similarly to Charlie, although some favoured boots, most wore stockings rather than tights, or pantyhose as they are referred to outside of the UK, and one adventurous young lady was wearing hotpants.

The Old Bill mostly left them alone, there were far more nefarious crimes afoot than prostitution to keep them busy. The women plied their trade along the slippery pavement, suddenly coming to life and strutting their stuff whenever a kerb crawler turned into the tunnel or a prospective punter walked along the underpass looking for a blowjob or a knee-trembler in one of the recessed archways let into the walls.

Charlie decided to finish her cigarette and call it quits for the night. She had made ten quid so it had been a good night, she’d make her rent and have some spending money for the weekend. Then a man entered the underpass from the southern end which meant he would pass her first, if he was a punter she could make one last score for the night.

The man walked briskly down the pavement and Charlie stubbed out her cigarette and struck a provocative pose, head held high to show off her pretty face. There was a single sodium vapour streetlight near both the entrances to the underpass and a couple of yellowing carriage lights mounted in the curved ceiling. She could see that he was dressed in coveralls and boots and wore a heavy duffle coat and as he approached Charlie she got a good look at him. He was dark haired and handsome and his face lit up when he saw her.

“You’re one my Flaming Girls,” he smiled at her.

“I’m what now?” Charlie had no idea what he was talking about.

“Never mind; what will this get me?” the man produced a five pound note from his pocket.

“Anything you want darling,” Charlie gave him her sweetest smiled and eyed the money hungrily.

For five pounds a punter usually wanted a girl to get into a car and go to the punter’s flat or a seedy hotel and spend the evening. Five pounds for turning a trick on the street in 1975 was almost unheard of.

“Come on then,” the man took her elbow and led Charlie into the closest recess between the brick and mortar abutments that supported the tunnel.

The recesses were perfect places for street prostitutes to ply their trade. They were dark, quiet, and provided an element of privacy and shelter from the elements.

The man stuffed the fiver into Charlie’s hand and she slipped it into her purse. He pressed her against the wall and kissed her. Charlie usually didn’t let punters kiss her but for a fiver the man could pretty well do as he pleased. Unlike most of her customers who smelled of cigarettes, stale beer, fish and chips or doner-kebab, this man smelt of aftershave and his breath was fresh. When he put his tongue into her mouth she let him and she reciprocated, returning the kiss and opening her legs slightly as he pawed at her thighs. He spent some time kissing her, which she actually quite enjoyed, he was a good kisser and the hands stroking her nylon-sheathed thighs felt soft rather than the rough navvy’s hands she was used to.

She squeezed his erect penis through his overalls and he grunted with satisfaction. He was well endowed and eager to use it. He put his hands on her shoulders and she took the hint and squatted down on her heels before him; kneeling on the filthy ground was out of the question and would certainly ruin her tights. She fumbled around trying to free the man’s cock from his overalls and he brusquely pushed her hands away and popped the press-studs open and a rather handy erection plopped out of his coveralls which Charlie stroked to full tumescence and then put into her mouth.

Some of the cocks she sucked tasted rancid but this one was quite clean and circumcised. She used her lips and her tongue on the engorged phallus hoping she could bring him off in her mouth and save herself the chore of actually having to fuck, but although the man sighed contentedly as she fellated him, he was not going to allow her to satisfy him orally.

He lifted Charlie to her feet and she obligingly leaned against the wall, pulled down her knickers and tights and bent over. She rummaged in her bag and produced a rubber which she offered to the man.

“I don’t think so luv; not for a fiver,” he grunted.

This was six years before AIDS was even heard of and most working girls would go bare for the right price.

Charlie tossed the unopened prophylactic back in her purse and took out a tube of KY jelly and smeared a healthy dollop on the man’s penis.

“Turn around, I want to look at you while we fuck,” he demanded.

Charlie turned to face the man and took in his handsome features. He lifted her legs and put his hands under her buttocks to support her as he jabbed at her entrance. He found his target and slid inside her up to the hilt.

He fucked her slowly, kissing her and caressing her as she locked her legs around his waist and put her arms around his neck so that with her back against the wall she was fully supported. Charlie seldom enjoyed copulating with customers but this man knew how to fuck and his cock was doing some amazing things as he slid it in and out of her tight channel.

She sensed the man was about to orgasm and she kissed him passionately and wriggled and writhed to stimulate him to climax. She was close herself and because she was going home after this she allowed herself to come. As her orgasm spread from the pleasure centres in her groin throughout her body she closed her eyes and she didn’t see the man reach into the pocket of his duffle coat.

When he slashed her throat the knife was so sharp that at first she didn’t register what had happened. She just felt a sharp sting then the flesh of her upper body felt warm as her lifeblood saturated her blouse.

The man stepped back, quickly putting his cock away. He held her against the wall letting her bleed. Her legs gave way and she tried to scream but her mouth was filled with coppery blood and all she could do was gurgle.

“Good girl, now just lie there while I get your knickers before they get bloody,” the man whispered.

He let Charlie fall to the ground and then he tugged at her panties until he had them free and put them in his pocket.

“One more souvenir and this will soon be over pet,” his voice was almost soothing.

He ripped the earring out of her right earlobe and pocketed that as well.

“Ok nearly done,” he sighed.

The man ripped open Charlie’s blouse and began to use the knife on her stomach.

“Oi! What the fuck are you doing!” Charlie heard one of the other brasses call out.

The woman’s voice sounded like it was coming from far away, she was losing consciousness and the pain in her belly was unbearable, she welcomed the darkness when it came.

*****

Charlie woke up in a strange bed on a hard mattress under stiff white sheets. She opened her eyes and saw that it was a hospital bed, her heartbeat was being monitored by an ECG and there were tubes attached to her body. Her throat was sore and her mouth tasted stale and metallic, her belly burned and a nurse leaned over her and adjusted something and she fell back into darkness.

The next time she awoke she felt a little better but her throat was itchy and her stomach throbbed with a dull ache. A doctor stood at the base of her bed looking at her chart. He looked up at her but didn’t smile.

“You are in Chelmsford public hospital. You have suffered knife wounds to your throat and abdomen; you’re lucky to be alive,” he said coldly.

“A nurse will give you some ice chips to suck on to partially quench your thirst but you are still nil by mouth,” he slammed the chart closed and stared at her.

“What happened?” Charlie said, her voice hoarse and her words no more that whisper.

“That’s what the police will be asking you as soon as you’re fit enough to talk to them. I’ll let them know you’re conscious,” the doctor turned on his heels and left the room.

A nurse came in and positioned an over-bed table and raised the bed so that Charlie was sitting up.

“Take one chip of ice at a time and suck on it until it dissolves. Don’t rush because you’ll choke,” there was no compassion in her voice.

“Those tubes going into your veins are providing you with fluids and a steady flow of morphine; if the pain becomes worse press the button and I’ll up the dose,” it was the nurse’s turn to leave Charlie alone with her pain.

Charlie tried to recall what had happened to her and her memory started to return. She could recall everything right up to the man slicing open her belly and a rope of her intestine protruding like an unwanted bicycle inner-tube. The other working girl crying out, the man cursing and running away, the brass screaming for someone to dial 999, the cold creeping into her body and then the blackness, the glorious blackness that took away the pain.

*****

“I'm Detective Sargent Robin Sparrow. I’m aware of the irony so no need to make a pun about my name,” the man in the rumpled suit said brusquely.

As if Charlie was in any condition to crack jokes. She had lain in the hospital bed for another day after she gained consciousness being tended to by the surly nurse and sporadic visits by the equally sullen doctor. Charlie felt like she was the offender rather than the victim.

“Charles Huxtable Ringwald, of flat 7 Crown Road Chelmsford, born April twelve nineteen fifty two, expelled from Thomas Street College at eighteen and changed name by deed poll to Charlie, arrested three times for soliciting in a public place and released with a formal warning on each occasion,” the Detective said dourly.

“That’s right but my name is now Charlie Ringwald and I identify as a woman,” Charlie replied.

“Be that as it may mister Ringwald you are not legally a woman,” Robin grunted.

Charlie was used to being treated this way. The term gender dysphoria had not yet been coined and although there were many men living as women in England, they generally did so in secrecy.

“You’ve summed up my life in one sentence, do you have any actual questions for me?” it still hurt to talk and Charlie took frequent sips of water.

“This is a preliminary interview. I understand you are still in pain but I would like to record your recollections of the evening you were assaulted,” Robin looked down at his notes, not meeting her gaze.

“I personally believe it was a case of mistaken identity; your punter paid for sex with a woman and when he realised that you weren’t what you professed to be, he stabbed you in retaliation,” the detective sniffed.

“But there are some in the Serious Crime Division that believe your case could be tied to the Essex Slasher.”

Charlie was already pale but she went deathly white at the mention of the Essex Slasher; a madman who had mutilated and killed five women and was still on the loose.

“Tell me everything you can remember about the evening,” the detective raised his eyes and looked at Charlie expectantly.

*****

Don’t let Ruffe Ingersoll’s Scandinavian heritage fool you, he is a third generation Londoner working for the scandal-sheet known as The Daily Sun. He calls himself an investigative journalist but he is better known in journalistic circles as a muckraker.

It was he who had famously snuck into the Fleur de Lis Gentlemen’s Club and taken a picture of Lord Mycroft Huntington chained to the wall dressed in stockings and suspenders being paddled by a voluptuous lady wearing fetish leathers and high heels. After the story broke the MP resigned his seat in the House of Lords and retired to his manor house and drank himself to death. He couldn’t stand the shame.

Ruffe got a ten pound bonus for the story and the accompanying photograph.

But Ruffe was not some thug; he was intelligent and articulate and was also a bit of a charmer. When he arrived at Chelmsford public hospital he saw his brethren journalists clamouring at the entrance to the women’s section of the hospital. Ruffe had visited the underpass where the crime had taken place and taken some photos and chatted up a couple of working girls who were still plying their trade despite what had happened to Charlie.

“Well she was always different if you know what I mean,” a middle-aged strumpet wearing a miniskirt, laddered stockings and too much makeup sniffed.

“She kept to herself mostly; she was special, she attracted that type of punter,” the woman patted the side of her nose with her finger.

Ruffe fished a one pound note out of his pocket and the prostitute eyed it greedily.

“She’s a tranny luv. Good looking though and very feminine, you’d never know to look at her. I’m sure some of the tossers that went with her never suspected,” the woman reached for the note and Ruffe let her snatch it.

“Thanks for the information missus; you’ve been very helpful,” Ruffe gave her a brilliant smile.

“For another oner you can shag me up the back of the viaduct,” the woman’s bright-red lipsticked lips parted to reveal a row of ill-fitting dentures

Ruffe smiled at the pun that the uneducated tart didn’t realise she had made.

“Thank you madam, maybe next time,” he took her hand and kissed it gallantly.

So Ruffe had a vital piece of information that would make a great headline for The Daily Sun: Sixth Slasher Victim Survives! Transvestite Prostitute Lives To Tell Tale.

Ruffe was getting hard thinking about it. This could be his best story yet. He scoffed at the crowd of reporters waiting uselessly near the women’s wing of the hospital and made his way to the men’s wing. He was wearing his best suit and he stopped to purchase a large bouquet of flowers and box of Milk Tray at the gift shop.

He found a pretty nurse and chatted her up and soon found out the information he needed. Ruffe was surprised to see the door to Charlie’s room was unattended. He’d expected to have to lie to a uniformed policeman about being Charlie’s uncle but it proved unnecessary. He slid past the nurses station at the end of the ward where the on duty nurses were drinking tea and gossiping and made his way to Charlie's room. He slipped inside and closed the door.

Charlie was asleep and he put the flowers and the chocolates down on the bedside table and studied her. She was not wearing makeup and her dyed red hair was a bird’s nest but she still had a pretty face. There were lines on her forehead and bags under her eyes but that was to be expected for a woman who had almost been disembowelled and had her throat cut. There was a large bandage around her neck. He picked up her chart and scanned it quickly, he was a speed reader.

Ruffe was a lot of things but he was not prejudiced. He moved in circles where people came from all sorts of ethnic backgrounds mixed uninhibitedly, sexuality was often blurred and gender was decided by how you presented yourself. Booze and drugs were consumed with relish, sex with any gender and any number of partners was considered cool and people pretentiously thought of themselves as ‘arty’ and ‘with it’. Ruffe didn’t mind what they thought just so long as they let him in on the gossip and offered him free booze. Ruffe had no animosity or bias against the transvestite prostitute lying in the hospital bed; she was just another story.

Ruffe fussed with Charlie’s hair, giving her a fringe to embellish her pretty face. She was pale and needed makeup and he would certainly like to get some glam shots of her later but for now he wanted her to look vulnerable and victimised. He opened her pyjama top a little so that the wounds on her neck were visible. He wondered if there was any way that she would let him photograph her stomach while the wounds were still fresh.

Ruffe took out his Cannon F1 35mm camera and took a series of stills. He opened the blinds a little to let in more light and then closed them to get a couple of shots of Charlie with shadows on her face.

Charlie stirred and Ruffe quickly put his camera away, although the bulge it made in his suit pocket would be obvious to a trained observer or someone who wasn’t groggy with painkilling drugs.

“Hello Charlie, I bought you something,” Ruffe held up the flowers and chocolates.

“Who are you?” Charlie roused herself out of troubled slumber.

“I’m Ruffe Ingersoll,” Ruffe gave her his best smile.

“You’re a vulture. How did you get in here?” Charlie made a vain attempt to find the nurse’s call button.

“Wait, wait, wait, wait, sweetheart,” Ruffe intercepted her hand and held onto it.

“Do you know where you are?” Ruffe asked.

“Chelmsford hospital,” Charlie replied.

Her voice was till hoarse from the attack and tubing that had been forced down her throat during surgery.

“Yes that’s right Charlie. But you’re in the men’s wing. Your chart is written up as Charles Huxtable Ringwald and I know that’s not your real name is it Charlie? You changed it by deed poll. They’re treating you like a man for no good reason aren’t they?” Charlie said in a pitying voice.

“I’ve lived with those prejudices all my life, why should they change now? And how come you know so much about me?” Charlie withdrew her hand.

“I talked to a few of you colleagues at the underpass,” Ruffe’s smile never left his face.

“Deirdre Edwards I bet. She ask for money? I bet she did. When she was in school she’d show you her knickers for a bite of your toffee apple,” Charlie winced in pain when she smiled at her own joke.

“Then I made few enquiries of my own. You’ve had it rough Charlie, not many could live the life you do, and now you’ve survived an attack from the worst murderer we’ve had in England since Jack the Ripper and the Old Bill are treating you like you’re the criminal,” Ruffe said sympathetically.

“Bollocks! You shouldn’t be here. You just want a story,” Charlie grimaced again and reached for the water.

Ruffe intercepted her and poured her a glass, carefully handing it to her.

“Am I right in what I said though?” Ruffe took the glass from her when she’d took a few sips.

Charlie sighed.

“I’ll give you fifty quid,” Ruffe got down to business.

“The tabloids are going to make up a story anyway so why not tell me your story and I’ll print the truth.”

Charlie went into a coughing fit she laughed so hard. That caused her stomach to remind her of the indignity done to her as sharp pain lanced her innards.

Ruffe wetted a flannel and patted Charlie’s forehead with it soothingly and offered her more water.

“I want fifty quid. I want makeup and a hairbrush. I want a nightdress and knickers. I want a packet of fags. And after I tell you what I’m about to tell you, you get nothing more until you come back with all those things and a contract for twenty quid for every follow-up piece I give you,” Charlie folded her hands on the bedcovers.

“You’ve had it hard haven't you? Always having to scheme and battle to make a quid,” Ruffe said soothingly.

“Don’t try to wank me off Ruffe. I was right the first time, you’re a vulture but you’re obviously a smart vulture, you got yourself in here. Do we have a deal?” Charlie stuck out her hand and Ruffe shook it.

He pulled up a chair next to her and took out his notebook.

“You don’t get everything Ruffe. Not yet. I’ll tell you what happened to me on Saturday morning under the railway viaduct but the rest you have to pay for,” Charlie’s throat was sore but she went on.

Ruffe wrote down everything Charlie said never once interrupting her even though he had a thousand questions and wanted more details. Charlie was right. There was money to be made out of this story and a series of follow-up pieces would keep the masses enthralled, his editor happy, and Ruffe’s pockets filled. For now his headline scoop would do. He’d ask for a hundred pounds and if the Daily Sun wouldn’t pay it, he’d take the story elsewhere.

Charlie told Ruffe most of what she could remember about the lead up to and the actual attack but she couldn’t remember every detail and she deliberately withheld some information. Ruffe’s mind was ticking over thinking of the mileage he would get out the story. Not just the attack itself, but Charlie’s backstory, a story about the poor women forced to sell their bodies on the streets of Essex, a story about how Charlie had been treated after the attack… it was a goldmine!

They both heard brusque voices outside the door to Charlie’s room and Charlie looked panicky. Ruffe kept his cool and slipped the chair back under the table near the window and slid into the ensuite bathroom putting a finger to his lips and winking. He closed the door but left it ajar.

“You look a lot better mister Ringwald,” the doctor picked up Charlie’s chart and began to scribble.

“That’s Miss Ringwald,” Charlie replied.

“Whatever; you’ll soon be well enough to go into the public ward,” the doctor said dryly.

Detective Sargent Robin Sparrow had followed the doctor into the room.

“Are the police going to let a woman who was nearly murdered out into a public ward? A ward which is not compatible with her identified gender?” Charlie said angrily.

“The police have no control over hospital policy and procedures,” Robin pulled the recently vacated seat out from under the desk and placed it beside Charlie’s bed.

The doctor fussed around, taking Charlie’s blood pressure and looking at her wounds.

“They’re healing nicely. I’ll have a nurse come and change the bandages when the Detective Sargent has finished,” the doctor said before departing.

“What now?” Charlie sighed.

“Some follow up questions. We have your story but now I’d like some details if you’d please,” Robin opened his notebook.

He grilled Charlie for more details about the description of the man who attacked her.

“Anything else, anything out of the ordinary?” he asked, giving Charlie a glass of water only after she asked for it.

“There’s nothing ordinary about seeing your intestines in your lap,” Charlie sneered.

“Any minute details, anything in particular that might help us identify the man or link him to the crime?” Robin ignored her sarcasm.

Charlie thought hard.

“Yes. He said something strange when he approached me. He said ‘you’re one my flaming girls’; I don’t know what that meant,” Charlie furrowed her brow.

Robin looked hard at Charlie and then wrote down what she had said and underlined it.

“We err… we err, didn’t find any underpants at the scene. Were you wearing any?” Robin blushed when he asked the question.

“Of course I was wearing knickers! What do you take me for? I remember now. He took them; he said he wanted them before they got blood on them. And he took my earring,” Charlie put a hand to her right earlobe and felt the scab where her attacker had torn out her earring.

Detective Sargent Sparrow visibly stiffened and wrote something in his notebook, his face earnest.

“Does that mean something? Him taking my pants and my earring?” Charlie asked.

Robin Sparrow didn’t answer; he just stared at his notes.

“You don’t like me do you? Is it because I’m a brass or because I’m a transvestite?” Charlie asked, she was tired now and wanted to be left alone.

Detective Sargent Sparrow got out of his chair and stood over Charlie and gazed at her, moving his eyes up and down her body, finally settling on her face.

“I don’t know how you can stand yourself. If he’d killed you he’d likely have done the world a favour, you’d be better off dead,” he said through gritted teeth.

He closed his notebook and left the room.

Charlie had heard worse but this man was supposed to her protector, her saviour. She turned on her side and drifted off into a dreamless sleep.

Ruffe slipped out of the ensuite bathroom grinning like a Cheshire Cat.

“What a fucking story!” he whispered to himself and almost skipped down the corridor.

The nurse came into Charlie’s room while she was sleeping and threw the flowers in the bin and stole her chocolates.

*****

Walter Middleton opened the garage door using the remote control clipped to his visor, he loved modern gadgets. He parked his Bentley in the four-car garage, his wife’s new blue and white Ford Cortina was parked closest to the door that let into the main house.

Walter got out of the car and stretched; it had not been a long drive but morning twilight was just breaking. He opened the boot and took out the carry bag and went over to the little workshop attached to garage, he unlocked the workshop door, entered and locked it behind him.

He took off his suit jacket and put it on a hanger then his trousers and folded them neatly over the back of a chair. He unlocked and opened the large tool box that had never had a tool anywhere near it and gazed at the contents with awe. He became tumescent immediately.

Laid out in the top tray were six resealable plastic bags each containing a pair of panties and a single piece of jewellery. His fingers caressed the bags lovingly, then he opened the carry bag and took out Charlie’s knickers and earring and put them on the workbench. He put the knife down beside them. He opened a drawer and took out a resealable bag ready to take the next trophy for his collection.

Beside the box of resealable plastic bags were ten packages of Pretty Polly sheer stockings. Walter opened a package and took a single stocking out of the cellophane wrapper and placed it carefully on the bench next to his new trophies.

He bought the most recent of his Flaming Girl’s knickers to his nose and inhaled. Walter hadn’t known she was a transvestite until she had pulled down her tights and bent over for him, but it didn’t matter. When he first saw her and she became one his Flaming Girls, her fate was sealed. Her perfume lingered on the satin panty and when he held them up to the light he could see two little stains on the back panel.

Walter had really liked that she had climaxed, unfortunately not many of his Flaming Girls had, but the conclusive evidence was right there, two little dried semen stains in her knickers where it had dribbled when she came. He found it no more repulsive than the crusty vaginal discharges in the crotches of the other Flaming Girl’s knickers, he liked that he had some part of their physical being remaining on the totems he collected. He picked up the earring and wiped the blood off the hook with a tissue dipped in methylated spirit and then he carefully wiped his knife.

He loved the smell and texture of blood, the way it sprayed from a severed artery, the way it percolated from a dissected belly, the sweet, metallic aroma of it when it was fresh and bright red. But blood can be a nuisance as he found out when he first began to collect his Flaming Girls. Blood gets everywhere and on everything, hence the collection of coveralls and boots in the locker in the corner, brand new still in their wrappers and boxes. Half a dozen duffle coats hung in the locker for when he had to do his work outside.

Walter had stopped at a services on the A12 and had taken his little suitcase with him to the bogs. The toilet block was decrepit and filthy but it served his purpose perfectly as the building was located well away from the petrol bowsers and the café which reeked of fried food and over-steeped tea. He had taken off his duffel coat, his coveralls and boots and put them into a plastic garbage bag; he washed his hands, cleaned his knife and changed into his suit. The plastic bag went into one of the two huge garbage skips behind the toilet block and then he drove up to the bowers to top off his tank.

There were a couple of prostitutes leaning against the wall near where the trucks pulled up, all miniskirts, stockings, high heels and over-fussed hair. One of them was a redhead but she wasn’t a Flaming Girl, she didn’t immediately excite him like the transvestite prostitute had tonight. He knew as soon as he laid his eyes on Charlie that she was a Flaming Girl. Thinking about what he done to her caused his penis to dribble pre-ejaculate.

Walter sighed and pulled the Pretty Polly stocking tight over his erect penis and bought Charlie’s panties to his face and inhaled her perfume. The memories were fresh and came flooding back: ejaculating inside her, her own ejaculate dribbling into her panties, the look of surprise as the knife sliced through her neck, the gush of blood down the front of her blouse, the stifled scream when he opened her up and then that look of surprise transformed into a look of disappointment when she realised her pathetic life was over. But for one brief moment she had become engulfed by flame, she had burned brightly but then she had fizzled out like all of them did when they died.

Walter rubbed himself and the stocking darkened and a globule of semen extruded from the toe as Walter climaxed. There wasn’t much; most of his semen was inside the Flaming Girl’s anus.

He was sure the girl was dead, he’d slashed her throat and started to disembowel her but the old tart had interfered. He was tempted to give her the same treatment as Charlie but she wasn’t a Flaming Girl and she didn’t deserve it. Walter had simply walked back down the railway underpass and along the dark street to where he had parked his car. The plastic he had used to cover the driver’s seat and the floor mat had gone into the same skip as his coveralls.

The semen filled stocking went into the bin and Charlie’s panties and her earring went into the resealable bag and took pride of place beside the other trophies in the tool box which he closed and locked. The knife went into another resealable bag and he hid it in the hidey-hole behind a loose piece of skirting board.

Walter took his suit with him to the main house and tossed it into the hamper to be dry-cleaned, then used the downstairs bathroom to shower. He changed into clean underwear and pyjamas, padded upstairs and slipped under the covers next to his sleeping wife. She snuggled up to him.

“Another all-nighter?” she asked, still half-asleep.

‘What a stupid question,’ he thought.

“Yes dear,” Walter patted her plump buttocks and immediately fell asleep.

He dreamed of his Flaming Girls and had a nocturnal emission. His sex drive was insatiable.

*****

Ruffe returned the next day with the fifty quid, the makeup and hairbrush, a packet of Consulate and lighter and a wispy pink rayon baby-doll nightdress and matching panties. He put them down on the over-bed table along with the morning edition of the Daily Sun.

“There you go Charlie, I’m a man of my word,” he grinned.

The money and the cigarettes she put in a drawer in the bedside table then she opened the makeup box. There was a mirror built into the lid and Charlie went about brushing her hair and then using the cosmetics.

“Help me out of bed,” Charlie said.

The tubes had been removed from Charlie’s arms but she still had difficulty getting up. Ruffe was a lot stronger than he looked he took most of her weight as she unsteadily gained her feet. He knew what she was about to do and he really wanted to get pictures of her ruined belly but he didn’t ask; he needed Charlie to trust him. He turned away while Charlie removed the faded cotton pyjamas and underpants that the hospital had provided. Slipping to the panties and nightdress completed Charlie’s transformation and she felt normal again.

“Do you mind?” Ruffe bought out his camera.

Charlie nodded and tried to pose as best she could while Ruffe snapped away. When he had finished taking his shots he helped Charlie back into bed and took a couple of frames of her sitting up in bed.

The makeup had made an amazing difference to Charlie’s appearance. She had looked ‘plain but pretty’ before, now she looked downright beautiful. She hadn't done her ‘working-girl’ makeup but instead had applied the cosmetics carefully to highlight her best features. Ruffe had only just realised that she had amazing emerald green eyes, the kohl and mascara brought out their full effect. Her dyed red hair, which she wore stiff and spiky on the street was now brushed out into a soft bob which complemented her unblemished alabaster complexion.

“There he is! That’s the fucking cunt!” the door to Charlie’s room burst open and Detective Sargent Sparrow stood there accompanied by the doctor, two uniformed policemen, and a policewoman.

Ruffe knew what was coming and he stuffed his camera inside his jacket pocket to protect it.

The two uniformed coppers roughly took hold of Ruffe, driving his hands painfully up near his shoulder-blades and frogmarched him out of the room. They took him to the stairwell and commenced punching him but the blows were mostly ineffective as Ruffe covered his face with arms. The policemen threw him down the stairs and he tumbled onto the landing below.

“Fuck off Ruffe and don’t come back you piece of scum!” one of the policeman shouted after him.

“Wooden-tops!” Ruffe gave them the forked fingers and scampered down the stairs when the constables came after him again.

It took Robin Sparrow a while to realise that Charlie was wearing makeup and female night attire because he was so angry he could hardly see. He slammed the door shut leaving just himself and the WPC in the room with Charlie.

“You fucking bitch!” Robin glared at Charlie.

“Sargent. Sargent, settle down, you’re doing yourself no favours here,” the WPC said calmly.

“What did you tell that shit-raker?” Robin was wheezing he was so angry.

Charlie was just happy that Robin had called her a bitch; he’d inadvertently acknowledged her as being female.

“I only told him what happened to me. I didn’t tell him about the things that obviously piqued your interest, the things you so enthusiastically scribbled in that little notebook,” Charlie said calmly.

“Bullshit!” Robin seethed.

“Why are you so angry?” Charlie asked, perplexed that he would be so furious.

“Here! Look at this!” the detective flung the newspaper that was sitting on the table at Charlie.

Charlie straightened the newspaper out on the over-bed table.

Sixth Slasher Victim Survives! Transvestite Prostitute Lives To Tell Tale the headline read.

What followed was pretty much the exact story that Charlie had told to Ruffe Ingersoll about her attack; at least he used the words ‘the name of the victim has been withheld’ in the text, saving Charlie the indignity of besmirching the family name. A picture of her asleep sans makeup, looking defenceless, the wound to her throat covered by a large bandage, graced the text. Inside the paper Ruffe had padded out the story, summarising the Exeter Slasher’s previous murders and making comparisons to Charlie's ordeal.

Then she found a sidebar: Police Torment Slasher Victim.

‘Detective Sargent Robin Sparrow leading the investigation into the transvestite prostitute’s vicious attack told the Slasher victim that the Slasher would have done the world a favour if he’d killed her because she’d be better off dead.’

The story that followed alluded to Charlie being discriminated against because she was transgender.

“He heard you say it. I didn’t tell him,” Charlie said matter-of-factly.

Robin Sparrow turned on her, his screwed up face was so red that Charlie though he was having a heart attack.

“He was here!” Robin screeched.

“In the bogs over there,” Charlie pointed to the ensuite bathroom.

“And you didn’t think to tell me!” Robin seethed.

“Why should I. You’ve treated me like shite since you first saw me. I’ve done nothing wrong and I’ve been mutilated and you and the doctors treat me like dog-shit sticking to their shoe,” Charlie refused to cry, she was made of sterner stuff.

The policewoman interjected at this point.

“And all that stops now,” she said.

“I’m WPC Glenda Savage and I’ve been appointed as your police liaison officer. I have been assigned as point of contact between you and the police officers investigating your crime.”

WPC Glenda Savage was a pretty woman in her late twenties with blue eyes and cupid-bow lips; she had a halo of black curls surrounding her pretty face. She filled out her tight-fitting dark-blue uniform but she carried the weight well and she had a fine set of legs sheathed in non-regulation fully-fashioned black stockings, her skirt sitting a lot higher above her knee than was mandated by the police uniform manual Charlie would bet.

Charlie pegged Glenda as being a no-nonsense type who didn’t mind speaking up to those in power, even if they were men.

“So how has all this come about? What's changed?” Charlie asked.

“Can you answer her question please Sargent Sparrow,” Glenda said firmly.

“Because of the newspaper article I was dragged before the Chief Constable and made to explain myself. He appointed Glenda here as your liaison officer while the case remains active,” Robin Sparrow said, the bitterness in his voice evident.

“And?” Glenda encouraged him.

“And I have been directed to deal with you as I would any other female victim and I am to apologise,” he said in a hoarse whisper.

“Is that my apology?” Charlie asked, but you could tell she was amused.

“That’s all you’re getting. I’ve got work to do. Even more so now that Ruffe has spilled everything we have on the case,” Robin grumbled.

“He didn’t spill everything Robin. May I call you that?” Charlie deliberately taunted the detective.

“He’s chosen to hang onto some vital titbits; just like you have,” Charlie sipped water again.

“Titbits?” Glenda interrupted.

“We withhold certain facts from the public. It’s helpful to weed out the loonies who confess to every murder they read about. You know about Lenny the Loop?” Robin began.

Glenda nodded. Lenny the Loop turns up at Chelmsford Police Station every time a major crime is reported in the media and confesses. He often wears fancy dress and is obviously mentally unstable.

“But keeping some of the facts secret helps us weed out the other more serious false confessions or so called eye witnesses who just like to get involved in the case,” Robin explained.

Charlie wrinkled her brow.

“Say for example someone came forward to give evidence in your case. When I interviewed them I could say something like ‘her white blouse was almost dyed completely red because she’d lost so much blood’,’” Robin offered.

“But my blouse was mauve,” Charlie interjected.

“Exactly. So if the person agreed with me about the blouse being white I’d know they were lying but if they corrected me and told me the blouse was mauve I’d be very interested,” Robin said authoritatively.

“There also facts in evidence or exhibits that could prove to be exculpatory or inculpatory evidence when we find a suspect,” Robin had a self-satisfied look on his face.

“My earring! If you found the earring that was ripped out of my ear on a suspect it would make him a credible person of interest,” Charlie remarked.

“You’re not just a pretty face are you Charlie?” Glenda complimented her new ward.

Robin had to admit that he was surprised at this strumpet’s intelligence. And there was no denying that she did have a pretty face.

“Can I go now?” Robin looked anxiously at his watch.

“Doesn’t he outrank you? Why is he asking if he can go?” Charlie asked Glenda.

“Technically he does outrank me, but because I’ve been appointed personally by the Chief Constable as your liaison, I have ultimate authority when it comes to dealing with the victim, in this case you,” Glenda explained.

“Please tell the Detective Sargent that I accept his half-arsed apology and he can fuck off any time he likes,” Charlie said to Glenda, deliberately ignoring Robin.

Robin didn’t wait for Glenda to repeat what Charlie had said. He sulkily turned away and left the room, resisting the urge to slam the door.

Charlie burst out laughing and Glenda joined in, Charlie laughed until her throat hurt and then stopped abruptly. She was surprised that Glenda had joined in the laughter, she had a feeling that she and Glenda just might get along.

“You shouldn’t laugh at him; he’s your superior,” Charlie said when she had finally stopped giggling.

“He’s an officious twat but he’s smart. If anyone is going to solve this case he will,” Glenda smoothed out her uniform which had become rumpled when she belly-laughed.

Glenda was a big girl and her uniform was ill-fitting, she’d obviously put on the weight since joining the police.

“He’s also kind of handsome, in a ruffled, smudgy, unkempt kind of way,” Charlie teased.

“Oh I’ve got my sights set on someone a lot higher than a Detective Sargent; I’m not giving this away to any underling,” Glenda struck a pose.

Charlie was now convinced that she and Glenda would get along just fine.

“Can you help me out of bed?” Charlie asked.

Glenda assisted her but Charlie was already finding it easier to get around. The pain in her abdomen was now just a dull throb and except for her throat being sore the wound on her neck didn’t bother her.

Charlie took the cigarettes and lighter from the drawer and made her way over to the window above the table and chair set against the wall. Glenda watched amused as Charlie lifted herself onto the table and opened the window. Then she saw Charlie put a cigarette in her mouth.

“Oh no, no, no! You’re not doing that in here!” Glenda shrieked.

“Oh pants! I’m having a fag and no one is stopping me!” Charlie said defiantly lighting the cigarette.

She sighed with gratification and blew a plume of smoke out of the window.

Glenda locked the door and joined Charlie at the window, settling her ample bottom on the desk.

“Gimme one of them then.” Glenda held out her hand and Charlie handed her the cigarettes and lighter.

The two women sat side by side on the desk near the window, turning their heads as necessary to blow smoke out the window. There was contentment; they obviously liked each other and a bond was forming between them already.

“So what’s it like being… you know? How did that come about?” Glenda nodded down at Charlie’s crotch.

Charlie took a deep breath and then told Glenda her life story.

Charlie had never really been a boy, she certainly wasn’t the son her father desperately wanted and her mother longed for. As early as she could remember she had eschewed manly pursuits. She didn’t want to play with dolls or pine for a pony but Charles liked all thinks feminine. From an early age he had dressed in his older sister’s clothes; she had told him that Charlie could be girl’s name if he wanted it to be and she treated Charlie like a sister, playing dressup and snuggling under the covers reading. Fairy tales when they were younger and progressing to serious novels and even the classics as they matured.

Charlie was not good at ball games but was quite agile with his svelte frame and he excelled at indoor athletics and at running both short courses and cross country. This came as some consolation to his parents who were well aware that their son was very effeminate and was being encouraged by his sister Joan who they constantly riled on to stop.

“Why can’t you accept Charlie for who he is or who she might become?” Joan had screamed at her parents one day after being admonished.

This had resulted in a back-hander and confinement to her room for a week. They tried the same heavy-handed tactics with Charlie but the more they hounded him, the more he pushed back. As a last straw the wealthy Ringwald family took Charlie to a behavioural specialist.

The physiatrist described a litany of feminine behaviours which he had catalogued including: feminine posture, gait, arm and hand gestures, feminine inflection in speech, as well as interest in feminine clothing, games and conversation topics. Using classical behaviour modification techniques he set about extinguishing the problematic behaviours in Charles. Enlisting the help of his parents and occasionally teachers to provide rewards and punishments corresponding to behaviours identified as wanted or unwanted. They were instructed to alternately praise or ignore him depending on whether he showed feminine or masculine behaviours.

As an act of defiance Charlie turned up to a family party wearing a skin-tight bodysuit, heavy makeup, dyed flaming-red hair and platform shoes. She was fifteen at the time and claimed to be doing her David Bowie impersonation but she knew deep down it was just an opportunity to be out publicly whilst dressed enfemme.

Charlie started dressing unconventionally at school, wearing makeup with her long hair coiffed different ways. It was the experimental seventies and she wasn’t the only one doing it but she bet she was likely the only one wearing satin knickers over sheer tights under the regulation school uniform they had to wear every Friday. Her dress style was androgynous, not exactly feminine, but certainly not masculine. The school was progressive and expensive but still adhered to an old-fashioned moral code.

Charlie was dressing as a girl almost constantly while she was at home and identified as girl not as a boy, her father had given up on her and her mother drowned her disappointment in gin.

Sex was confusing for Charlie. She knew that when she was dressed enfemme she had a hankering for physical comfort of some sort with a boy. She was also aware that some of the boys at school were taking a particular interest her and unnervingly an uncle had snuck into her room and had her sit on his lap while he stroked her thigh and did something to himself that she couldn’t quite make out. Her mother came in and found them and after a shouting match the uncle left, never to return.

Joan had started to date and she told Charlie what she got up to with her boyfriends. Kissing or snogging as they sometimes called it, letting the boy touch her budding breasts and even put his hands under her skirt but not inside her panties. She was going to marry as a virgin she said, but she admitted to masturbating her best boyfriend. Despite the so called sexual freedoms of the nineteen seventies, most teenagers weren’t having intercourse until their late teens and good girls saved their virginity for the man they intended to marry.

Charlie was enthralled with her sister’s tales but she knew that she didn’t have the right equipment to satisfy a boy in the conventional way. She certainly knew how to masturbate and it was one of her favourite pastimes when she fantasised. She had heard the boys at school talking about fellatio but she guessed correctly that they were just boasting. The pornographic movie Deep Throat had just been released and they were all talking about it.

She had also heard rumblings of anal sex or ‘taking it up the wrong ‘un’ which was said disparagingly about homosexuals. Charlie didn’t think of herself as homosexual because in her mind she was a girl; she had just been born with the wrong plumbing.

By the time Charlie was in her late teens she’d had a couple of boyfriends and they had kissed and cuddled and even stroked each other to orgasm but she suspected that they were just homosexual boys looking for a same-sex partner but she wanted a boy who saw her as a woman. Brian Hennessey was just such a boy. He wooed her slowly over three months, at first just showing interest, then befriending her and doing innocuous things like taking her to the movies or studying together but he encouraged her to dress enfemme for him whenever they were alone and before long they were lovers.

That is they’d kissed, cuddled and masturbated each other but Brian was impatient to go all the way. After discussing it with Joan who was now engaged to be married, Charlie made up her mind that Brian could have her virginity and they planned it perfectly. Brian rented a cheap hotel room and anxiously waited for Charles to arrive and transform into Charlie. Brian put on some soft rock music ostensibly to mask the anticipated moans of pleasure through the thin hotel walls he’d explained, and doused the overhead lights leaving on the bedside lamp to make it romantic.

Charlie dressed sexy for him in lingerie she had purchased especially for the evening. She wore a red and black satin and lace basque which she liked because it covered her meagre, almost non-existent breasts, expensive black fully-fashioned stockings, red and black nylon panties to match the basque, shiny black high heels and lashings of makeup and perfume.

Brian was hard just looking at her.

They lay on the bed and Charlie took Brian in her hand and stroked his hard cock, usually he would reciprocate but this evening he didn’t. Charlie didn’t mind; this evening was all about pleasing Brian.

When he guided Charlie’s head down to his groin she didn’t resist like she had in the past, she took him in her mouth and suckled his hard penis. His groaning and the swelling in her mouth excited her; she was in control. She bought him to extremis with her lips and her tongue a number of times before she allowed him to release into her mouth. He held her head tight to his groin and pumped her mouth full of creamy semen which she swallowed greedily; her own cock was tenting her panties and dribbling pre-cum.

It took Brian less than fifteen minutes to be ready to go again and this time Charlie lay back on the bed with a pillow under the small of her back, her legs hanging over the end of the bed. Brian lubricated his cock with K-Y jelly and lifted her legs high in the air. He positioned his glans in her puckered bud and Charlie smiled up at him.

Brian slowly penetrated Charlie with his long sleek cock. When it was buried in her all the way she nodded. It felt wonderful, the hard flesh filling her passage, pressing on her prostate and stretching her sphincter.

“Fuck me,” she whispered.

Brian did, but not for long. He came after about half a dozen thrusts because Charlie's tight anus caressing his cock with its velvety flesh was just too much. Charlie came too, filling her panties with her hot spend at the same time Brian ejaculated inside her.

They were not done. They fucked all evening trying out different positions and taking breaks now and then to have a drink or a smoke and then going right back at it. It was during one of those breaks while Charlie was using the bathroom that Brian’s best friend Stephen Smith let himself out of the wardrobe holding his instamatic camera and a carry-bag full of exposures. The soft rock from the radio and their absorption and fascination with each other’s bodies had masked the whirring of the camera as Stephen took a series of X-rated exposures. Stephen had stopped taking pictures at one stage to masturbate, watching Charlie and Brian fuck.

The term ‘slut shaming’ had not been invented yet but that’s what happened to Charlie. The Polaroids were passed around Thomas Street College and people gossiped, sniggered and pointed at Charlie who eventually snagged a photograph from one of the students. Brian Hennessey’s broken nose and fractured jaw was the reason Charlie was expelled from college.

The scandal and the pictures was also the final straw that got Charlie kicked out of home. With nowhere to live and because none of her family wanted her, Charlie ended up on the streets making a living the only way she knew how. Even Joan was forbidden by her husband to let Charlie into their home. When the family found out how Charlie was making a living to support herself she was disowned.

“So that’s what’s it like being… ‘you know’, as you put it,” Charlie snubbed out her cigarette and took it to the bathroom and flushed it.

Glenda was standing, staring at the floor when Charlie came out the bathroom.

“What’s wrong with you standing there like one o'clock half struck?” Charlie made her way back over to the bed.

“It’s… it’s just such a sad story,” Glenda looked up and Charlie could see tears forming in her eyes.

“Don’t you dare feel sorry for me! This is my life! This is how I choose to live. Don’t think that I haven’t had the do-gooders, usually carrying a bible, come to me on the street and offer me salvation and offer to cure me and change me back into the man I was born to be,” Charlie said angrily.

Glenda walked over and looked deeply into Charlie’s eyes.

“You are a beautiful woman Charlie. I wouldn’t dream of trying to convert you into something that you’re not. I just think life had been unfair to you,” Glenda softly stroked Charlie’s cheek, her fingers drifted down to the bandage on her throat.

To be continued