Stamp Part 5

The cooks and I had made a buffet which turned the afternoon tea into a stand around and chat session and a lot of various alcoholic drinks made the ladies very cheerful by the time they left. There was enough left over for the household to have a good meal which took the load off the kitchen.

Saturday was to be the big dinner. I have cooked for as many before but not with an unknown crew. So far they had done well and we decided on a choice of lamb, chicken and beef with me taking a punt on what quantities of each were needed. I guessed that Edith would have primed her guests to go for a red meat meal so that they would try the gravy. The cooks did extra breakfast which allowed us to go with a cold collation for lunch which would leave room for a big dinner. We did the lamb and beef in a slow cooker and kept the chicken back to cook when it was ordered, being quick to cook.

I did a big batch of gravy and Ivy commented that I had done rather a lot so I told her to taste it and guess if there would be any left. When she dipped a spoon in it and tasted she broke into a wide grin and said “I don’t think this lot will leave us any so we had better make sure we keep some back.” Daisy saw nothing out of the ordinary and Violet sipped it and told me that it was over Daisys’ head as she was a life-long spinster.

We never needed the chicken as everyone at the table wanted the slow-cooked beef or lamb and the talk got quite racy, or so the serving girls told me. At the end of the night we cleared up and the family was in the lounge, relaxing with drinks. Edith called to me to join them and asked me if I could carry on with them until Rose was back. She said that Rose had never taken holidays so, as soon as she was fully mobile, they were going to send her off for three months if I was happy to stay on. Of course I agreed as this was a plum posting.

Their other son, Zacharia, was introduced to me and he complimented me on the gravy. He said that I had obviously sampled Algy as I had got the taste spot-on. When I lifted my eyebrow he told me that his parents had decided to go from ‘A’ to ‘Z’ but the child-bearing had stopped with him. He said that Algy had been a bully to him when they were young and that he had tasted his brother more than once. “This is how he came to be the womanising brute and I became the bisexual in the family” he said.

On Monday Zac went off to the city and, before he left, he got me to make up some jars of my gravy for him to get his gay friends to sample. Life at the mansion settled into a much easier rhythm with just the house-hold to cater for. With the three sisters I developed some easy meals that tasted as if they had come from a restaurant and everyone was happy.

A couple of weeks later Zac was back with a girl called Julie and an order for twenty jars of my special gravy, a week! His gay friends had been absolutely blown away with the taste. Edith was brought into the loop and, over the next few weeks, we developed a system for me making large batches and putting them in labelled jars that Zac had brought with him. One weekend he asked me if I had invented similar gravy with the taste of woman which, he was sure, would go well with fish. When I said that I first needed to taste it myself he called Julie over and told her to spend the night with me for ‘research and development’. She was obviously bi herself and smiled. After the evening wound up she came with me to my room. I tasted the nectar of the goddess for the first time, as well as the second and third before I just had to throw caution to the wind and finish off the session being manly. Just before dawn Julie gave me a kiss and told me that my secret was safe with her as she may be able to spend more time with me, but just for the sake of research.

We did a fish lunch where my first effort at the experimental tartare was eaten for the first time by those who didn’t know that they were to be guinea pigs. Julie smiled when she had her first taste, oddly Edith did as well. There was a depth to this family that needed further investigation. His Lordship had obviously had a sheltered life but Zac told me that he wanted to take some jars back to town with him.

So the ‘Francines’ Favourite’ line was slowly built, our customers being gay and butch bars and clubs throughout the city. Zac had negotiated a price which gave all three of us an added income after the ingredients had been paid for and he collected the used jars for sterilising and reuse. I was working hard to make sure the quality remained the same and also started to see if I could make the two products as a dry powder that the customer could add boiling water to, just like the usual gravy mix.

One weekend Zac asked me if I could go to London with him on the Monday morning to visit one of our bigger customers who had a chain of clubs. Edith thought it would be a good PR job so I organised the sisters to do the Monday meals and left with him straight after breakfast. He was very chatty on the trip, much more than he was during his visits and I wondered if the weight of family pressure may be heavy on his shoulders. He was far more moved by his feelings than his macho brother and was a much nicer person for it.

I suddenly realised that the same may be said for me. I thought back to my days as Frank and remembered times that I had reacted in ways that would be impossible for me today. Now well over three months as Francine I had stopped even thinking like Frank and I came to the realisation that there would be no going back. I had a good job, if a bit temporary, and a whole new life as a female, along with all the benefits and drawbacks that go with that life. It did not bother me to ensure I dressed well and had perfect make-up every day as that was what it was all about. I now found that I liked to look good, if only in the mirror when I was alone, and that I was now held in some respect. All I now needed was the time and the money to make it permanent.

We went to one of the big clubs and were shown into a room where Zacs’ friend was sitting with a couple of other guys and an older woman. I was introduced to Tommy, the club owner and Geoff, Bill and Veronica, some of his friends from his well-heeled circle. Tommy was effusive at the success of the two gravy tastes and the passed the baton onto Veronica. She started by saying that the beef gravy was an absolute masterpiece but that she could only follow the advice of her colleagues regarding the tartar sauce. Her two companions were smirking at this.

It turned out that she was one of a family who owned a big gravy manufacturing company and that she wanted to launch a new range of ‘Francines’ Favourites’ to the national market. She said that she was prepared to offer us an unbelievable sum for the rights and the recipe and that she would set her R&D labs on to making it into a dry powder suitable for tins. I told her that I was very close to achieving that myself, already, and she smiled and told me that she would offer me a bonus amount it I could deliver that inside the next month.

With just my third of the original offering I would be able to fund my total transformation and the bonus would set me up for a few years unless I went stupid. I thought that I could not get any more stupid than getting my dick inverted and I wasn’t one for the high life. However, the thought of shopping for a new wardrobe without having to worry about the cost was very enticing, indeed. Zac and I conferred and we came to a handshake agreement that morning. Veronica then asked if I would be interested in working with their R&D to develop new tastes in the gravy range as I obviously had the attributes of a good sense of taste, combined with the chef skills to make it into a reality.

The whole market was starting to bring forward odd tastes in ice-cream, biscuits and confectionary so Veronica had decided that gravy was not going to be left behind. I told her that I was committed to working with Zacs’ parents until their usual cook was ready to resume and that it would be up to six months before I would be free and Veronica told me that this was not a problem as it would take almost that long to put together a production line for the first two flavours. The two guys said that they would send me a list of tastes that they were thinking about and Veronica said that I would get a bonus for every recipe.

We rang Edith and told her that there was a windfall coming her way and that I would explain it when I got back to the mansion. An appointment had been made with Veronica to meet with her and her legal eagles the following Monday at the head office. After that I would be very comfortably off and Zac and Edith would be just that little bit richer. Zac went off to do his usual business and I had a taxi ride to the main shopping area to walk into dress shops for the first time as a woman and try things on.

I did like a few dresses so put them on lay-by and took some bags of new underwear with me to the station to return to the mansion. Well, I say underwear but lingerie would be more to the point. It was my first foray into wearing sexy things and it was a real turn-on. I took a taxi from the station to the mansion and, that evening, discussed the future with Edith. She had spoken to Rose, who had been adamant that she did not need a holiday and would be coming back to work as soon as her foot was good. That gave me a window between being here and working with Veronica to sort my body out.

That all worked well. I stayed with Edith until Rose was back and it was very funny when the other sisters started telling her that her methods had been left behind. The sisters had turned into thinking chefs and my last weeks were just supervising and working on some of the ideas that the R&D sent my way. I finally developed the dry powder versions and we made enough of this to ensure that our customers would not go short before the volume production hit the shops.

Zac found me a nice apartment within my new budget and I moved there and registered with the medical profession. Being a private patient I was able to bypass the usual hurdles and presented myself for my first day at the factory as a well-dressed and capable woman, now totally able to do 90% of the things that a woman can do. It worked out very well, as Zac and I proved. I even had a fling with Algy but he was far too brutish for me.

What was lovely that everyone gave my new self, and my new body, the stamp of approval!

Marianne G 2021