May 1986

In the interview room at Scotland Yard Robert Fellows looked pale and tired and he was still wearing the clothes in which he had been arrested, minus his belt and shoelaces. His brief, a barrister paid for by Robert's father looked remarkably composed in his Carnaby Street pin-striped suit. He was rake-thin and effused confidence.

Archie and Sandra got through the preliminaries, stating the date and time and identifying who was present in the interview room and issued Robert another caution. They had coffee and water bought in for everyone and then it was time to begin.

Archie and Sandra had reviewed all the evidence, working late in the night and after considerable discussion had finally agreed on a strategy. They would go all-in.

Sandra made a theatre of it, laying down the exhibits slowly and carefully one at a time. Archie began.

"Before we begin, I will tell you that you are being questioned in relation to the matter of the death of Charles Ward, also known as Charlotte Ward. In deference to the deceased it is our intention to use the name Charlotte Ward as she was identifying as her feminine self when she died.

"On the table before you my colleague has laid out the evidence we have, which we intend to provide to the Crown Prosecution Service," Archie waved his hands over the exhibits.

"First off I'd like to summarise your statement to us when we interviewed you. You claim that Charlotte Ward offered you regular oral services, which you accepted. But after a while you realised that what you were doing was quite inappropriate because you are engaged to be married and you stopped engaging in that activity a year ago."

"You implied that your relationship with Charlotte was nothing more than a casual fling."

"I'll now point out each of these exhibits and explain their relevance."

"This exhibit contains a postcard from the Ambassador Guest House at Brighton, the words 'a week to remember... I think I love Robert' are written on the obverse, it was found in Charles Ward's dormitory. Beside it are a registration card and a copy of the guest register taken from the Ambassador Guest House which proves that you spent a week there with Charlotte Ward and shared the same room."

The barrister was about to interject but Archie shut him down.

"You may consult with your client when I ask him a question, until then please remain silent sir," Archie continued identifying the evidence on the table.

"These documents are excerpts from our interviews with Wayne Jenkins and William Larkin also known as Wendy Larkin who claim that you had a long term intimate relationship with Charlotte Ward."

"These documents confirm that the latent fingerprints found on the kitchen counter of the cottage and on the door to the bedroom where she was found belong to you. This one confirms that the fingerprints found on Charlotte's neck matches the exemplars taken from you."

"This document here confirms that the skin and blood samples taken from you by the Scene Of Crime Officers match the samples taken from underneath Charlotte Ward's fingernails."

Archie took a beat to let the consequences of all the evidence on the table sink in.

"You were obviously lying to police about the extent of your relationship with Charlotte Ward and you lied when you said that you had never been to the cottage where she was found. Now sir, would you like to refute any on the evidence before you or provide an explanation as to how this evidence does not point to your involvement of the murder of Charlotte Ward," Archie couldn't help being pleased with himself.

Robert and his brief whispered between themselves, both their voices rising and becoming angrier.

"Despite my expert advice that he should remain silent, Mister Fellows wishes to make a statement," the barrister shook his head solemnly.

Robert Fellows looked abject and defeated. He was close to tears.

"This is what happened that night," Robert began.

Five days earlier

In the early hours of the morning, after the party was over, Charlotte sent the other girls back to their dorms while she emptied the laundry baskets into plastic bin liners to be washed and dried later in the day. She would strip the beds and remake them later. She went to her bedroom and checked on her stash of cocaine and the wad of money she had secreted in the wardrobe. She had made a tidy sum on the side selling the drug.

Wendy had taken the cash from the liquor sales and the upfront fee that the rugby team had paid for the use of the girls. She and Charlotte would divide the profits later and give Pamela and Janet their share.

Charlotte was closing the wardrobe when she became aware of a presence near the door. Had one of the team come back for a final shag? If so he would be disappointed, Charlotte had had enough for one night. She was half-drunk and coming down off her cocaine high.

"Well I'll be fucked. I thought you weren't coming to the party," she sneered at Robert Fellows.

"You're a bit late but I'll throw you a sympathy fuck if you don't mind going sloppy seconds. Well that's sloppy third, fourth or fifth; I've had so many cocks inside me tonight that I can hardly remember," she smirked at him.

Robert was drunk and belligerent and he studied his ex-girlfriend with distain. Gone was the cute pixie bob. She was wearing a black, shoulder-length wig styled with a fringe that rested on her brows. Her makeup was heavy but her mascara and eyeliner had run and her lipstick was smeared around her mouth.

Her cerise satin blouse and black leather miniskirt were creased and stained with booze and dried semen. Her legs were sheathed in laddered fully-fashioned flesh-toned stockings and her feet shod in black stiletto high heels. She looked exactly like the whore she had become.

"How could you have come to this Charlotte? You're a whore with no self-respect," he leaned against the doorframe, a bottle of ale dangling from his fingers.

"But I won't always be a whore Robert. This is just a means to an end. After my gender reassignment I'll get a new identity, move far away from London and get a decent job," Charlotte leaned against the wardrobe.

"But this! This is so demeaning. I have to listen to the lads talk about what goes on in this filthy rat-hole and it disgusts me," he brought the bottle to his lips and took a slug.

Charlotte put out her hand and Robert passed her the bottle. She took a sip and smiled at him.

"Let me tell you fairy story Robert," she took another drink.

"I don't have time for your ramblings Charlotte; I'm going," he made to turn away and Charlotte moved into him.

"No! Listen! Listen to my bedtime story and you will sleep so much better," her face was inches from his.

"There was once a naïve young princess, except she didn't know she was a princess, she thought she was a hag. Her parents told her she was a hag and sent her away to a cold dark castle to work as a dreary domestic where she would learn how to improve herself because she was worthless," Charlotte stopped to take a sip from the bottle and then continued.

"A handsome evil prince trapped the princess and made her service him and his friends; they demeaned her and used her as their slattern. But the evil prince discovered that he wasn't really evil, he had compassion for the slattern and he rescued her made her into a princess again. The handsome prince worshipped his princess and kept her safe and she felt loved."

"But the prince's father, the king, decreed that the prince should marry another princess, a better princess, a real princess. The princess he was with now had beguiled him; she was really a hag pretending to be a princess. The handsome prince banished the hag and told her that she wasn't a princess at all. She was nothing but a slattern, a pretender, a worthless whore."

"So the naïve young princess hardened her heart and became the hag, the slattern and the whore. She did it so she could amass a golden casket with which she could travel to another land and once again transform into the princess she believed she was. She would be happy living far away from the handsome evil prince, the evil king and her evil parents."

"But her heart would be forever broken because no matter what he had done to her, the naïve young princess would always love the evil prince," Charlotte was crying, tears ruining her already smudged makeup.

Robert put his hands on Charlotte's shoulders and held her away from him.

"I'm sorry Charlotte but we could never be together; it just wouldn't work. You know that," Robert sighed.

"I loved you Robert. I know we never used those words while we together but I'm sure it was love. Was I wrong?" she implored him.

Robert pulled her into his arms and held her close.

"If there was some way for us to be together, yes... but it's impossible Charlotte," Robert kissed her hair.

She nuzzled his neck and he turned her face to his and bought his lips to hers. They kissed. The kiss was soft and affectionate and then Charlotte slipped her tongue into Robert's mouth and kiss became passionate and needy.

Robert guided Charlotte towards the bed and she lay down for him. He lay on top of her kissing her hard, tearing at her clothes. She ripped open his shirt and tugged at his belt buckle, she unzipped his fly and pushed his jeans down to his knees. Her blouse was open and Robert pushed her bra out of the way and suckled her diminutive breasts. She found him hard and dripping and she stroked him to full tumescence.

Robert moved his mouth back to hers and kissed her fervidly as she opened her legs wide for him. He pushed up her skirt, moved aside the gusset of her knickers and slid himself inside her.

"Oh god Robert," she sobbed and wrapped her arms and legs around him.

He was impatient and insistent. He had longed to be inside her again for so long. He missed the feel of her tight anus gripping his cock like a slick silken glove, the way she had of contracting her sphincter and the membranes inside her anus that evoked extreme pleasure. Her fingernails scratched his back and her silken-clad legs rubbed against his tender flesh increasing his gratification.

Charlotte rose to meet his thrusts and Robert could feel that she was hard inside her cum-soaked knickers, she was deliberately pressing herself against his belly to maximise her own pleasure.

She kissed him desperately, mewing and crying as she clung to him and writhed beneath him.

"I love you Robert," she sighed and he felt her orgasm.

Her anus contracted and quivered and a warm wet puddle oozed through her panties and smeared his hard belly. She bit his lip and drummed her heels on his back as she convulsed in a paroxysm of lust and pleasure. Robert pressed her down on the bed and drove himself deep inside her and erupted, his cock quivering as he unloaded his seed.

"Say it Robert! Say it!" she pleaded.

"I love you Charlotte. God help me, I love you," Robert screamed.

Robert lay on top of her exhausted as he came down from his orgasmic high. Charlotte lay still beneath him, her arms by her side and legs wide open. They said nothing for what seemed like an eternity.

Then Charlotte started to laugh.

It started as a soft chuckle and built to a full on cackle.

Robert was bemused. He looked at her confused.

"You romantic fool! How do you think Rebecca Delaney is going to feel knowing her future husband was not only fucking a transvestite whore, but he told her he loved her," Charlotte's emerald green eyes were cold.

"Do I send her a letter or do I tell her face to face? I probably won't do it soon. I'll wait until you're married and I've transitioned, it will be more believable then."

"'Hey Becky, you'll never guess what happened while your husband and I were in college?' I can see the look on her face now."

"The thing I will nurture is that you will never know when I'm going to do it. You'll live with the threat like the sword of Damocles hanging over your head waiting to fall," Charlotte made to get out from under Robert but he kept her pinned to the bed.

"You really are a whore aren't you," Robert's eyes were cold; any love he had for Charlotte had dissipated.

"No. I'm the naïve young princess," she glared up at him.

Robert put his hands around Charlotte's neck and squeezed. At first she didn't struggle she just looked up at him with her vacant green eyes. They were soulless; she had no fear.

Robert squeezed harder and Charlotte's face began to bloat and become red, her tongue swelled and her ears began to ring. She finally began to struggle. She raised her hands and tried to break Robert's grip on her neck, scratching at his hands with her long fingernails.

Then her vision began to blur and finally blackness overcame her and she lay still, her arms fell to her sides.

Robert leapt off her, his anger replaced by fear. He realised what he'd done. If he was caught his life would be over. Robert quickly dressed and looked around the bedroom to see if he'd left anything that would incriminate him. He noticed the beer bottle he had brought with him and snatched it up. He took one quick turn around the cottage and left. Halfway up the pathway he stopped and vomited. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve and hurried back to his dorm.

*****

May 1986

"Are you admitting that you strangled Charlotte Ward to death?" Archie asked bluntly.

"I am," Robert put his arms on the table and lowered his head onto them and began to sob.

"Interview suspended while the subject consults with his legal counsel and police draft a statement for the subject to sign, after which Robert Fellows will be formally charged with the murder of Charles Ward, also known as Charlotte Ward," Archie could barely keep the triumph out of his voice.

*****

Archie and Sandra were the heroes of the hour. They had solved the case and there was undoubtedly some schadenfreude at seeing a rich, entitled, toff brought down. Archie and Sandra knew from their investigation that Charlotte had been no angel but she had been poorly treated by almost everyone who should have loved her. Robert's ever-changing emotions and treatment of her: first using her for sex and sharing her with his friends, then showing her acceptance and love followed by a complete turnaround when he cast her aside and derided her, must have been crushing for Charlotte.

They celebrated at the Trunk and Brick pub, the Scotland Yard local. Most of the Special Crimes Division attended the celebration and Glenda Savage led the conviviality and she had her beau Ruffe Ingersoll with her. Many drinks were consumed but Archie and Sandra moderated their intake, they would have their own special celebration later.

Archie went to use the toilet and was waylaid by Ruffe Ingersoll in the back corridor of the pub.

"So Archie, the story is that a rich university student at a private boarding school killed another rich university student. That's enough to tickle my readers fancy but there must be more to it. What was the motive?" Ruffe offered Archie a cigarette which he declined.

"Nothing more to see Ruffe. Anyway, you know I can't discuss the details of the case; you'll have to wait for the trial for all the dirty secrets to be revealed," Archie replied.

"That college is shut up like a clam; no one is talking and Chelmsford Police are more silent than Scotland Yard," Ruffe considered the glowing tip of his cigarette.

"If there was nothing else to see other than two students falling out and one killing the other there wouldn't be this veil of secrecy. Did you know the college has requested a gag order and the Fellows family have put pressure on the CPS for the trial to be held 'in-camera'?" Ruffe wrinkled his brow.

"Looks like you're shit out of luck then Ruffe. The police aren't talking, the students and faculty at Chelmsford college can't talk and if the if the trial is held in-camera you'll never get to hear what happened other than the facts released officially by the Chief Constable," Archie squeezed past Ruffe and made his way back to the throng.

Archie and Sandra were standing at separate tables surrounded by well-wishers but they kept glancing furtively at each other and when they considered everyone had drunk enough that their absence wouldn't be noticed, they slipped away.

They took a minicab to Archie's new flat, kissing and canoodling in the back during the journey.

Archie's flat was little more than a bedsit but it was neat and clean. He turned on the floor lamp and went into the kitchenette to pour wine and when he turned around Sandra had removed her dress and her brassiere and let down her hair. She had worn makeup to the interview and she looked lovely to Archie who always found her alluring.

She was not a fashion model by any means and she looked her age; years pounding the beat, working late, eating bad, drinking too much and smoking had taken their toll but she had a womanly figure and ethereal beauty that entranced Archie.

He put down the drinks and took off his jacket and stepped into her, kissing her softly. She mussed his hair affectionately as they kissed, she could feel his hardness pressing into her but he was not impatient, she always had that effect on Archie.

"Make love to me Archie. I want to feel loved, to feel needed," she whispered.

Archie picked her up and carried her to the bed. She watched him undress and opened her arms for him when he came to her naked and rampant. They kissed and her fingers gently stroked him, feeling him become fully erect. Archie stroked her breasts and toyed with her nipples, smiling when she gasped with pleasure as he gently caressed them. He was torn between using his mouth on her breasts or to keep kissing her but she made the decision for him. She refused to break their long lingering kiss.

Sandra slipped her tongue into his mouth and squeezed his cock, delighting in the firmness of it, the heat, the girth, the manliness. Archie put his hand between her legs and stroked her vulva through the wispy translucent nylon; there were no granny-panties today. He parted her labia and rubbed her until her knickers were soaked and she was mewing and pressing her pubis into his hand.

She was ready.

Archie put his fingers inside her knickers and stroked her clitoris whilst slipping two fingers inside her vagina. Sandra bucked and drove her tongue into his mouth; she was forcefully directing his penis to her sex. She had opened her legs and magnificent legs they were: long and shapely and sheathed in silky sensuous hold up stockings. She still wore her heels.

Archie relented and climbed onto her, resting on his elbows, his legs between hers. Sandra wrapped her legs around his and moved them up and down to encourage him, rising up off the bed, insistently grinding her pubis into his.

"Put it in me," she whispered and Archie obliged.

Easing aside the gusset of her knickers he slid his throbbing cock into her wet, buttery quim. Her legs closed around him and held him close so that his movements were imperceptible. His quivering member was buried inside the woman he loved and they kissed and held each other, hardly moving, their pubis crushed together stimulating her clitoris while her vagina palpitated around his quivering rod.

They lay like that, allowing their passion to rise in a slow burn, feeling the pleasure spread through their bodies, made all the more intense because they were hardly moving.

Finally Sandra began to whimper and shake and Archie sensed her climax, it triggered his own and he held onto her like limpet, barely moving as his penis erupted and ejaculated causing Sandra to writhe under him as her orgasm intensified.

They lay sated, locked together, neither speaking, just content to be in each other's embrace.

"I love you Archie. Always have, always will," Sandra whispered in his ear.

"I've loved you since I first time I kissed you," Archie replied.

Nothing more was said. They enjoyed the silence.

Finally Archie rolled off Sandra and lay on his back studying the ceiling and imagining a life together with Sandra.

"You know I never wanted to be with a policeman, but here I am. How is that?" Sandra turned to face him.

"Convenience?" Archie replied.

He cringed when Sandra punched him in the arm.

This resulted in a wrestling match which quickly evolved into more love making.

*****

Ruffe waited in The Plough public house near Chelmsford railway station nursing a pint. He looked up when a large muscular man looking very uncomfortable in a shabby suit entered the pub and looked around; he had a carry-bag on one arm. Ruffe nodded at him and Douglas Quinn made his way over to Ruffe's table, stopping at the bar to purchase two pints.

Quinn put the pints down on the table and the carry-bag on the floor and Ruffe stood up and shook his hand. They sat and quickly got down to business.

"You know that you are subject to a court imposed gag order don't you?" Ruffe turned on his pocket-sized tape recorder.

"Well when you've heard my story you can decide whether or not to print it, I don't care if they put me away, I've done porridge before but I doubt they will, it would be too embarrassing," Quinn took a long pull on his pint.

"First off I want confirmation that you will give me the five hundred pounds we agreed on."

"If the story is worth it Mister Quinn; absolutely," Ruffe reassured him.

"Ok. Here we go," Quinn began his tale.

"I've always hated Francis Lister, the Headmaster of Chelmsford Private College. He's a stuck up twat who has always looked down on me. He treated the goundsmen and maintenance staff like shit and in the end he fired them all and then re-hired them as contractors halving their wages."

"When the coppers came and interviewed me I could have said a lot more than I did but I kept schtum; I might be a mere labourer but I'm not stupid. I don't think the CPS could charge me with lying to police but they could certainly charge me with withholding or spoliation of evidence. I'll take my chances."

Ruffe had heard and seen some astounding things during his time as an investigative journalist but when Quinn told him about four transvestite students effectively operating a brothel on the grounds of the university he was quite astounded. Quinn made no mention of the drug deals Charlotte was making on the side.

"On the night of the murder, or more correctly in the early morning when the murder was committed I had been working as a bouncer to keep order at the rugby team's piss-up. Everyone except Charlotte had left and I was about to leave too when young Robert Fellows arrived at the college and went inside so I stuck around and hid in the bushes. I was too tired and too pissed to go home so I was going to sleep in my office."

"Fellows was inside the cottage for a while and when he left he was noticeably agitated; so agitated that he threw up. I waited until he was well gone and was about to go into the cottage when then I saw that cunt Francis Lister come down the path from the opposite direction. I hid in the bushes again and waited."

"You'll want to give that to the police after you've printed your story," Quinn nodded at the carry bag on the floor.

Ruffe picked the bag and looked inside. There appeared to be a liquor bottle wrapped in a plastic bag.

Quinn told Ruffe what happened next.

*****

Five days earlier

Charlotte waited until she heard Robert leave the cottage before she got up off the bed. She had blacked out and lost consciousness but she had recovered just after Robert left the cottage.

"Fuck him! Now he really has something to worry about," she said; her voice scratchy and her throat swollen and sore.

She got unsteadily to her feet and made her way to the bathroom where she drank from the tap and rinsed out her mouth. She looked at herself in the mirror. Her neck was bruising and her eyes were bloodshot but other than that she felt well. She buttoned her blouse and washed her face and then fixed her makeup.

"Almost as good as new," she smiled at herself in the mirror.

She went back to the bedroom and took her stash of cash from the wardrobe and went into the lounge and poured herself a drink and lit a cigarette. The liquor and the smoke burned her throat but she didn't care. She put her feet up on the coffee table and was counting her money when the door opened and a figure entered.

At first she thought it was Robert come back to see if she was alright but when she saw who it was she smiled.

"What the fuck do you want headmaster? Very unlike you to come to my club; in fact you've never been here. Is fucking me twice a week in my dorm not enough for you?" Charlotte blew smoke in Francis Lister's direction.

"Don't call me headmaster here please Charlotte," Francis stood at the counter twiddling an empty vodka bottle.

"This place really is a shithole isn't it?" he looked around at the detritus scattered around the lounge and kitchen.

There were half-empty spirit bottles, mixers, can and bottles of beer and the packages they came in.

"We make do with what we have and you get your cut so it serves its purpose," Charlotte sipped her drink.

"No one would ever believe that four transvestites are running a brothel on the grounds of my university," he shook his head and laughed.

"Well that works out fine for us all doesn't it?" Charlotte smiled back.

"But they would believe that one of my students is dealing A-class prohibited substances and that would be really bad. Bad for the school and bad for me because the police would be all over the university asking questions. A couple of trannies bonking the football team would be considered harmless fun, no harm no foul, just another upper-class sex scandal that would soon be forgotten," Francis spun the liquor bottle on its base.

"But selling cocaine is hardly a little bit of weed is it; not in the quantities you are selling it."

"Who says I'm selling," Charlotte fluttered the notes in her hand as if she was riffling playing cards.

"It stops now Charlotte! That's final!" Francis crashed the vodka bottle down on the counter to emphasise his point.

"No it doesn't. You're in too far headmaster. What if I tell the board of trustees that the incumbent headmaster is fucking one of the students who is confused about her gender? 'He told me that if I dressed all pretty and let him bugger me I'd get preferential treatment. I'm so confused... I don't know if I'm a boy or a girl.' I could carry that off don't you think?" Charlotte smirked.

"'He saw me dressed as Elvira last Halloween and followed me to my dorm. He was so big and strong and I was so frail and feminine and I couldn't stop him seducing me'. They'd like that story and let's face it, there is an element of truth there, is there not?" Charlotte casually ashed her cigarette.

"So why don't we just let sleeping dogs lie and you don't have to worry about being publicly humiliated and out of a job forever and likely lose your wife too," Charlotte leaned over the table to get to the ashtray.

Francis Lister snatched up a plastic shopping bag off the counter and leapt across the room. With lightning-fast reflexes he whipped the bag over Charlotte's head. Standing behind the chair he was able to pull the bag tightly closed around her neck and hold her down as she struggled. Within three minutes she was unconscious and two minutes later she was brain dead. Francis held the bag in place until he was sure she had stopped breathing.

Even dead Charlotte weighed next to nothing and Francis carried her to the bedroom and laid her on the bed. He posed her, lifting her skirt a little and spreading her arms imperceptivity at her side. He softly brushed her cheek with the back of his hand and left her.

He took the money off the table and put it in his pocket and wrapped the vodka bottle in the plastic bag he had used to suffocate Charlotte. Then he left the cottage. He stopped briefly to look back at the faint glow coming from the cottage windows and tossed the plastic bag containing the vodka bottle into the bushes.

"One For The Team; where the fuck did she ever get that name?" he pondered out loud and then turned away and began walking.

The End

Author's note: I know some of you are disappointed that Charlotte died halfway through the story and she deserves our sympathy but she was a strong character and I hope you can appreciate the good and bad in her.

For those unhappy with the ending to The Flaming Girls, I hope you are happy with the resolution provided in this story.

As usual I appreciate your feedback, both positive and negative, and I hope you did enjoy this story.

Michele Nylons

19 May 2020