Chapter 2

We sat until I could stand, and she helped me to go to the dorms. I could hardly go up the extra stairs alone, but a long shower and some liniment helped me regain a steady posture. I sat on my bed and looked at the article until I had a bit more understanding. It looked like Bastien was under suspicion for drug trafficking and a possible murder. The Spanish and Portuguese police had a lot of circumstantial evidence but nothing concrete.

The next day was the first day of first year. We started the day with breakfast in the dining room, then had ten minutes to brush our teeth before we all stood with the rest of the school and all the teachers in the main hall. The Head made a speech of welcome back, and a welcome to the first-year intake. She then gave us a rundown on the basic rules. There were no songs, for which I was grateful. Then we were off for our first lesson, which was maths for me. I had worried when I saw how long the lessons were, with only five or six a day.

I found that our maths teacher, Roy “Chalky’ Benson, was not backward in living up to his name as the first student who was heard talking had a piece of chalk hit him on his head. As a teacher, though, he was brilliant. I soaked up his explanations on why and how things were done. I could see me learning a lot from him over the year.

Peter Pell was not so flamboyant, but taught English without the boredom of learning by rote. He could weave his words into wonderful pictures. I could see his English Literature lessons being equally interesting. This school took the language into new territory with a special course in Creative Writing led by Miss Rosemary Harrigan. The ‘Harridan’ started the year with an essay to be handed in at the lesson next week. It had to be based on ‘The Worst Bed I Ever Slept In’. That made it easy for me to write something truthful but unbelievable.

My last class lesson of the day was Art. This was a catch-all name for Art History, Art Appreciation and actually doing something ourselves. The first time we had Sam ‘Stromboli’ Richards was rather funny. He was a big man who wore a sports jacket with a big red spotted hankie poking out of his breast pocket. He was quite easy-going until someone raised his ire. That’s when he would erupt. He would shout “You boy!’ and throw whatever was at hand. He had laid in a ready supply of texta pens and erasers, which the offender would have to pick up and take back to the front. As the term continued, I found that I had a hidden talent for drawing. The last class of the first day was gym, where we were all graded in what we were good at.

That one started with everybody running the track, the ones dropping out being given other things to try. Penelope and I were still running when a halt was called so that we could hit the showers. The next time we had gym there was a list of other things we would try. I had to learn how to throw a javelin that time, along with Charles and a couple of other boys.

And so, the term progressed. I took Spanish as my elective and was ahead of the rest of the class by a country mile. I found out that my pronunciation was rural, and some of the words I knew were no longer in normal usage. The female lessons were difficult to start with. At the dressmaking class I declared that I had never used a sewing needle or a sewing machine. All the girls were set to making a blouse, with Charles and I making a shirt. When we had completed that, the roles were reversed, our teacher telling us that you can never know just what would happen. The year carried on with us all doing alternate items, trousers and slacks, shorts, and skirts.

Both Charles and I took the cosmetic elective. He wasn’t up for needlework but had hairdressing instead. I thought that the elective would be just everyone being taught how to do make-up. It started with the basics of what ingredients were in various cosmetics, when you used parts of flowers, and how to pick and process the contents. It appealed to my chemistry interest, and I found it worthwhile. As we progressed, we were taught the art of application, which was very difficult for Charles and me when it was our turn to be models.

Music was a bit of a rest. ‘Lofty’ Matthews was hardly taller than me, and word was that his walk was caused by a spinal injury from his time in the Falklands. I found that difficult to believe, considering his height, and also the way he talked with his hands. He would allow us to do our homework while listening to one of the classical masters. As most of the best pieces went for close to an hour, it worked out perfectly for everyone.

With religious instruction, half of the first year claimed to be atheist, and most of the others said they were pagan. That caused a shifting of classes in the third week, with us having history for an hour, then, instead of being able to do our homework, we had an hour of pagan, wicca, and druid history, with descriptions of various bloody rituals. It was a lot of fun and very informative. This school didn’t miss a trick to round out your education.

Miss Smithers was our teacher for general science. Each week we rotated through physics, biology, and chemistry. In third year, we would be specialising when we moved to the other side of the building. I was engrossed in my studies, with everything made interesting. I could see how they did so well in the final exams. Talk about exams, we had one every few weeks in every subject, to gauge how well we were doing so that remedial teaching could be set up.

The first time the gates were opened for a cross-country run I was ready, now doing three to four thousand metres on the track with ease. The cross-country run, however, had all of the runners in the school, many that I had never seen run. I took it as a training run, without being competitive, but still found myself finishing in the top ten, against runners four years older and much bigger. The track took us out into the big park, with dips and hills, woods, and open land. I loved it.

By the end of the first term, I could design and make a suit, talk fluently in Spanish but was still behind on the written word and punctuation. I was in the top five in every other class, but my main achievement was art. My drawing had come good in leaps and bounds. I was in demand by the dressmaking girls to draw the ideas they were dreaming up. I had also shown that I had a steady hand in the cosmetics class.

The first break was only a week or two, and we had around two-thirds of the school leaving for time with their folks. Penelope and I hadn’t left, so we spent some of the days taking the bus that passed the school and going into Warwick. She had been right when she said that shopkeepers love couples, especially pre-teeners with a little money to spend. When we hit the fashion shops, I could now offer knowledgeable advice.

In the second week, we went to see a new film that she wanted to see. We sat close together, and she didn’t mind when I put my arm across her shoulders. The credits were scrolling as we had our first kiss. Although we held hands on the way back, we separated as we got to the school. My mind was in a whirl, wondering about how easily we got on. We liked it so much; we went to see another film the following afternoon and didn’t wait for the credits to exchange saliva.

On the weekend before the second term, Bancroft came to see me and said that Bastien had never been declared dead, as it was thought that he had transferred to another vessel and gone overseas. He had the contacts, and the reason, to make it work. There were rumours of him being seen in Brazil and Venezuela, but nothing certain. If he was in this country, there was no record of his entry. Bancroft thought that he may have been using local muscle if he was behind the murders.

In the Christmas break, I was one of about forty left in the school. Penny had gone off to have Christmas with her parents but had left me a card and a gift. I had bought her a silver friendship ring which was in with the card she took with her.

Some of us went into Warwick to see the decorations and lights. We had planned to go in again to see a film but some of our group had nasty coughs, so we didn’t go. What was odd, was that the bus we would have taken lost its brakes and ran off the snow-covered road, going into a roadside ditch and rolling. Bancroft came to the school the day after, along with a detective inspector. They asked me if we were going to be on that bus, and why we didn’t take it. He told us that the brakes had been sabotaged and that the accident was a deliberate act. It was lucky that nobody was badly injured. Who could tell what the outcome may have been with twenty extra bodies on board. The newspaper called it an unfortunate accident, but I suspected that the killers may have found where I was.

The next incident happened in the spring. We had been running regular cross-country school events, but there was to be an interschool race, with the top ten of each of three local schools competing for a handsome cup and bragging rights. I had been in the top ten of most of our runs, but only because bigger boys had passed me in the last mile or so.

The race was a big event, with the public crowding the park and the three schools crowding our grounds. When we got away, I was in the first ten out into the park. There was a place where the track ran downhill between trees and my smaller body was usually able to get ahead. On this occasion, I turned my ankle on a tree root as we got near, which slowed me down while I decided if I could finish. Four guys from one of the other schools passed me and I slotted in behind them. At my favourite downhill section, I was thinking about a passing move when the leading runner stopped dead and dropped to the ground.

We all stopped to see what had happened. One of the other runners went back a little bit to push the following runners around the scene. It didn’t take long for a paramedic to come and see what had happened. I expect that he thought that it may have been a heart attack. I knew that I had been the target as I stood next to the piano wire stretched across the track, at the perfect height to have taken my head off. The leader had a deep cut across his chest and the paramedic called the police.

Our group didn’t complete the race. One of the others went with his friend to hospital and a policeman took statements from the rest of us. I could see that he thought that it was just vandals. Bancroft and the police inspector were back in the school the following day, and I was pulled out of a class to talk to them. I told them that when I stood next to the wire, it was a perfect height to cut my throat. I was still limping and had a compression bandage around my ankle, so they could see why I slowed down and lived.

The upshot of this was that there was a funding appeal for better security around the school. A month later, there was a double gate at the entrance, with the hut used by the gatekeeper having some screens to watch, showing the road outside in both directions. There were other camera placements to cover the running track gates. A row of razor wire was installed on the top of the already secure fence. We still ran the park track, but every race was preceded by a guy in a motorbike with a sharpened bar bolted to the head-stem.

I wasn’t allowed to go to Warwick with less than five others, which made it difficult for my relationship with Penny. We made the best of it and carried on with our learning. At the end of my first year, I was in the top five of my class, and in the top ten for the year. I could design and make a dress, which I had done for a few of the girls. I could sew, and do embroidery, all the things that the girls could do. I was getting very good with my Spanish, to the point that I would be able to talk to my relatives there, should I live so long.

For the summer break, Penelope had talked her parents into taking me with them on a long cruise. Bancroft agreed that I should be safe on board, and we set sail for a month visiting exotic places. Penny and I were able to carry on our relationship as well as a couple of twelve-year-olds can. I liked her parents, who would drag us around handicraft shops in every port. I think that I grew up a lot on that trip.

When we arrived back, Bancroft was at the port and took me on a grand tour of my heritage. I was taken to see the administrators, meeting them for the first time. We then zigzagged around the county to visit every shop, where I was introduced to all the staff. It ended with a quick trip to Europe to visit the shops there. I could understand the reasoning behind all this. I was shown to be a real person, who just needed a few more years before I took charge. If asked, I told everyone that I wouldn’t change a thing and that everybody’s jobs were safe. It was during this tour that I was shown the numbers, and the numbers were staggering. I was destined to be rich when I turned eighteen.

The thing that made me blub was when we went to see my house. I remembered it well and the sight of it brought back all sorts of memories that I had suppressed in my time with the Johnsons. We couldn’t go in, as it was rented out to a business couple. When I got to eighteen, I would be able to talk to them about the lease, or just leave it as a rental and buy a place of my own. It was the rent that was funding my day-to-day expenses with a little left as spending money, while my share of the business profits was going into a trust fund. I had learned to be frugal, while living in the closet, and that wasn’t going to change.

I had turned thirteen before we started second year. We had to move to another dorm, making sure our old one was clean for the new intake. Our new dorm was bigger, with ten beds and a bigger personal space. Next to it was a large bathroom with ten showers, so we could leave our washing items in place. Next to that was the activity room, this time with ten computers so that we could do our homework and save it, printing it for handing in. These quarters were close to a set of stairs that led straight to the ground floor, which we were told to use, so avoiding any contact passing the girls. There was only nine of us ‘Doe Boys’ as a couple had transferred to a different school, no doubt complaining to their parents about having to do female subjects.

Most of the classes ramped up a level that term, with the female subjects getting more involved. The girls now did one on feminine hygiene, while I had the cosmetic elective changed to hairdressing. My language classes now alternated between the Spanish and French. My art classes also saw me move from drawing to painting in different mediums and then concentrating on water colours.

A few of us had a new class to attend, which we were told to keep quiet about. Officially, it was called ‘hand/eye coordination’ and we were to say that it was apparatus gymnastics if asked. It was held in the basement of the school, a labyrinth of tunnels and rooms. The part we used was a shooting range, and we started with air rifles and pistols, moving through small calibre guns and on to larger calibre ones. By the end of the year, I could strip and rebuild several types of firearms and get every shot inside the rings.

When I spoke to the other boys, and they were all boys, I found out that most of them were either children of diplomatic envoys or from a military family, destined for placement in a good regiment when they left Longburrow. I was the only one from Doe House.

I say that I finished the year. It nearly didn’t happen and my last couple of months were just me with the firearms instructors, after normal class times. This was due to another attempt on my life.

I haven’t said much about the Magic classes. Over the first few months we were taught how to listen, with various teachers giving a monologue and us having to take a test on what we had heard. Later on, that monologue was given with a CD player pumping out popular tunes, so that we had to concentrate. Then there was TV sets showing stuff, the music and two teachers talking. It sounds daft, but I found that I was able to pick up conversation in a crowded classroom and follow it, blocking out other noises.

In second year, we started going to visit people outside. The evening of the murder attempt was a surprise visit to a children’s hospital towards the end of the second term. It was six of us ‘Doe Boys’, dressed as rabbits, complete with a fully covered head, fluffy tails, and big ears. Charles and I were Mopsies, with the other four as Flopsies. We went in a minibus, fully dressed, and played with the children for a few hours. Before we got into the bus to go back, Miss Smithers got a call on her phone which made her face go pale. Instead of going to the school, we went to the police station, going in the back way. We got out of our costumes and were given overalls to wear.

We were put up in a large cell, and given a good meal, while Miss Smithers told us not to complain while she went off. In the morning, she was back, with Bancroft and his friend, the police inspector, along with two of the three boys who shared the dorm. After we all had breakfast, we were taken to a lecture room and given the facts.

While we were entertaining the kids, there had been a gas leak in the heaters for our dorm. Only one of the other boys had been in the room when they thought that an ignition device had triggered a gas explosion that killed him and destroyed the room. The other two had been in the activity room at the time. The only news that had been given out was that there had been a gas explosion and that the police were trying to establish how many had died.

The other boys were now told about the previous attacks on my life and that this was the time to flush out the killers. One of the boys was given my bunny suit and a quick lecture on what we had done. He was changed into a set of overalls and joined the other five in the bus, all told that my life depended on their keeping the secret. The final lad was told the story he was to give the papers. That he had been in the activity room while the dead lad and me were in the dorm. The police would announce that two boys had died in a terrible accident, although they had found the remnants of the ignitor and the loosened gas connection.

I stayed in the police station while the remaining lad was taken back to the school in the back of a police van. I was sitting in the police canteen with a mug of tea when I asked Bancroft the question uppermost in my mind.

“What now?”

“Now, we make sure that nobody can recognise you. Then you go back to the school as someone else. There has to have been someone who told the killers which dorm you were in, and how to get to it. Either someone blabbed in the pub or was paid a handsome sum for the information. In the next couple of days, we will have trained police walking the perimeter fence to see where they got in. You, my lad, will be spending time at drama school, learning to be a proper young lady, then we can slip you back into Longburrow to complete your studies until the killer shows his face.”

“What about my friends. What about Penny?”

“She can’t be told until we catch the killer. I’m sorry, Tom, but you’re going to have to be strong until then. There will be a memorial service for the two of you, and the unfortunate lad that did die will get a proper funeral. His family will get a compensation package from the school, and a press release will go out to say that all the gas heaters will be replaced with electric ones. The school will replace all the clothes and personal effects of the other seven, and you will start with a completely new wardrobe. Your computer in the activity room will have the memory copied so that you can keep up with your studies while you’re training.”

Later on, he drove me to London, in the back of a car with darkened windows. My destination was one of his own buildings, where I was shown the room where I would sleep, given a cotton nightie that looked like a long tee shirt, pointed to the bathroom, and told to have a good shower, and a good cry if I wanted to, and to come back in the nightie and the robe that was also handed to me.

I took my time, the only tears being for what Penny will go through. I had no problem with the shampoo and other items in the shower, having studied them in first year. When I was dry and dressed, I went back to my room to find a girl hanging things in the wardrobe.

“Hello. I’m Elizabeth Mottram and I’ll be your teacher while you’re here. These are your new outfits, and I have all your new underwear and shoes to put away. Do you want to help me?”

“Hello Elizabeth. I guess that I’m either Francis Valerie or Valerie Francis. Maybe I’m Frances Thomas or someone else altogether. I can put my things away. While I do that, maybe you can tell me what happens now.”

Marianne Gregory © 2024

Chapter 3

As I put bra and panty sets in a drawer, she gave me the quick list of facts.

“The first thing is that this building is dedicated to giving our operatives a new appearance and background to fit in with the people they’re sent to look after. It’s no good to send an obvious westerner to keep an Arab safe. We do enough to allow them to do their job without attracting undue attention. Bancroft calls it the Drama School, and we teach men and women how to act, sometimes as the opposite sex.”

I was sorting out packs of different coloured tights as she carried on.

“We have a well-equipped salon to make your body look female, well enough to fool anyone without extremely close inspection. You’ll be an easy one as you will look like a pre-pubescent thirteen-year-old. That means just a hint of new breasts and hiding your little willy. After that, it’s just making your face more female and adding pierced ears.”

“That sounds permanent.”

“If you leave the holes alone, they could close up, or be closed enough not to notice. Your eyebrows may grow back, but that would take some time. No, the one thing that will take time is training you to think that you’re a girl and do it so well that nobody will question it. You’ll be going back to school in the girls’ dorm and doing gym with them. Hopefully, your enemy will show himself before too long, but if he stays off the radar to be sure that you’re no longer around, you may be a girl for one or two full terms.”

“Why a girl, and why back in Longburrow? I could hide out somewhere else.”

“You need to be totally different from your original look, and a girl is unexpected. As for the school, there are a lot of benefits with that. One is that you already know the place and it’s reasonably secure. Two is that there are some there to watch your back. Three is that it will give you the best education and also help to pass the time. If we put you in a safe house and home school you, you’ll be climbing the walls in a few weeks. If they know about Bancroft working with the administrators, they’ll be watching him now to see if he’s doing anything odd.”

“What about Penelope, she’s going to be sad?”

“The plan is for her to act normally for the memorial service, and then there’ll be a plaque put on the wall of the Warwick Cemetery noting your details. Nothing is going to be left to chance.”

“So, I go back to school and sleep in the girl’s dorm?”

“Actually, the plan is for you to go to the school as a late entry. You will be put into Mopsy House as daughter of a policeman who has just moved to the area. That way, you will continue your weapons training and will get self-defence classes in third year. The Mopsy dorm is some way away from the Doe dorm, and the normal lessons are in different rooms, so you won’t be mixing with your old friends. You won’t be running cross-country, but you can still run the track. Hopefully, we will find the mole in the school before too long. The police are running finance checks and background checks to see if something comes up.”

I was looking at the cosmetics that they had supplied and was setting them out on the vanity.

“Do you really think that it will take long?”

“Your enemy has played the long game so far. It’s been some years since your parents were murdered. It looks as if he had lost sight of you while you were in care. We think that he will make absolutely certain that it was you that died in the explosion. When he does contact the administrators, I expect that it will be from overseas. He will have to use his real name, even if he changed it. Then he will have to come and present himself in person. He won’t like that.”

“So, that’s when he gets arrested.?”

“If we’ve discovered who has been acting on his behalf, yes. We have to find the murderers of your parents and the lad that died, as well as the Johnsons. Then there’s the attempted murders with the bus and the wire. We’re all hoping that his men turn up at the memorial service, and then to check the plaque. That way, the police may be able to track their movements and see if they can get some DNA to match with traces that have been saved from all the crime scenes.”

When my new shoes were lined up, she took me to a canteen to have a light meal and then to the salon to have a quick inspection and my skin colour rated. She said that my hair was not long enough for extensions yet, so my early training will need a wig. After that, I was taken back to my room to see if I could have a good sleep. When I laid down, the efforts of the day caught up with me and I was out like a light.

The next morning was the start of my new self. I understood why a drastic change was needed but didn’t realise how drastic that change would be. After breakfast, with me still in a nightie and robe, I was taken to the salon for my first session. That started with any errant hair that dared to sprout below my nose was removed. That included my pubes, which were sprayed with something to deaden the nerves.

I wasn’t prepared for the next step as I had my legs put into some sort of frame which left my penis totally at the mercy of the ladies in scrubs. Making sure that my testicles were well inside my body, they pulled up flaps of skin and glued them together to hide my little fellow. After that I was fitted with small breasts glued to my chest, colour matched to my skin.

After a while for everything to set, they allowed me to stand up and walk around, so that I got used to the new feelings. Then I was allowed to dress. In a bra and panties, I felt as if they were right, as my crotch was now smooth, and the bra cups filled.

I was given a tee-shirt that showed my belly button and a skirt that only just hid my panties and then had to walk up and down for what seemed like hours. There was line on the floor which I had to place both feet on as I walked until it became my natural walk.

They gave me shoes with a block heel about an inch high. I then walked the line again until I could do it without thinking. Dressed as I was, Elizabeth took me to get some lunch and the afternoon was spent walking the line again with two-inch heels. My visits to the toilet were supervised, to make sure I did what I needed in a female way. By the end of that afternoon, I was proficient on three-inch block heels. Elizabeth told me that tomorrow I would be repeating the procedure in thin heels.

Dinner was a more interesting meal. I remained in the short skirt and heels to join a number of other operatives in various stages of learning a disguise. I was expected to talk to them as if I was a teenage girl and I think that I did quite well. One guy even declared that the protection game was going crazy if a teenage girl was being employed.

Elizabeth told him that I was an Annie Oakley on the range. That evening we met in the basement range, and I outshot him in every calibre. The rest of the group applauding me every time I put a round into the centre rings. He did concede defeat graciously and shook my tiny hand in his chunky one. After that there was no question whether I belonged there.

The following days saw me walking the line in all sorts of shoes up to four-inch stilettos. My skirts and tees were changed as we went along. I learned to move in long skirts and heels, and then spent a day walking up and down steps in long skirts without stepping on the hem and falling over. These days Elizabeth would be talking to me and wanting answers in a girls voice. Being pre-pubescent it was easy for me to fall into talking with a breathy voice.

Only after I had succeeded in all of this I was back in the salon. This time they checked the previous work to make sure it was all still holding together. Then came what I had expected some days before. The manicure and pedicure was first. That was followed by extra nails and a couple of days picking things up, doing up zips and buttons, and every other thing that I was likely to come across. Even opening a can of soda was totally different to the way I would have done it before.

The next few days saw my doing all this with a wig stuck to my head, with the hair hanging down to my chest. That took a few days to totally master, learning how to push it away from whatever I was doing with a natural movement. It also took a lot more time to look after.

We finally came to what I had thought would be much earlier. Back in the salon I had my ears pierced and then they started to teach me about make-up. Every facet of make-up was explained, and I had to follow instructions until I got the applications right. I didn’t tell them about my previous experience and two days later I could had been a make-up girl in a movie studio. And it was definitely a girl who stood in front of a mirror one afternoon.

The reflection that I saw was that of a typical teenage girl wanting to look good for a date. I was leaving the building for the first time in a month. There was a group of us going out to test our new personas on the unsuspecting public. The venue was a family friendly place, and I was the child of one of the men and one of the women. Elizabeth and a couple of the other instructors were with us to see how we got on.

I had my new identity now. For the last few days I had been Francesca Emily Mottram, with everyone calling me Francesca or Frankie. I had been given the surname so that Elizabeth could play my mother, if needed. We had a good time at the venue, not a lot of drinking as that was frowned upon with operatives. They had a juke box and I found myself dancing with a few of the group.

I was shocked when a boy about my age cut in and we danced. Even more surprised at a slower number and him holding his arms out. I was now girl enough to take him up on it and we moved around the floor in a slow embrace.

He told me his name was Bruce and I told him that I was Francesca as he nuzzled my neck and I smelt the odour of man for the first time as a girl. When my group called that it was time to go, I gave him a kiss on the cheek and thanked him for a lovely time. On the way back, I pondered the new sense of smell. I had never thought what I had smelt like as Tom, only having a vague appreciation of what girls smelt like.

Elizabeth asked me how I got on when we met for breakfast, and I told her about the new sense of smell. She told me that I had carried myself well and that I was ready to be returned to Longburrow as a Mopsy.

There was a suitcase in my room when I went back to it. I packed it carefully, folding things so they didn’t crease and putting pairs of shoes in bags. I was told to pack a travelling bag with things for an overnight stay and a change of outfit for the next day. That afternoon I was back in the salon to have the wig removed and given a pixie cut, my own hair now long enough. I was taken to Norwich in a car then booked into a hotel for the night. I was given a folder with details of my cover with enough to allow me to say that there were things I didn’t want to talk about.

My cover was that my father had been transferred to Coventry and that he had paid for my tuition at the school. There were problems with my mother that were family matters only. I was an only child and had gone to school in London. It had been a bad time for me and best not spoken about. It was due to this that I had a regular visit booked with the school nurse to make sure I was coping. That was the chance to make sure my glue was holding on and to check for any sprouting of hairs. I wasn’t on any hormones or blockers as it was thought that I would be back as Tom well before puberty started.

I read the cover information until I was happy with it and then took a walk to the lounge room fire and burnt it completely. The next morning, I was on a train from Norwich to Warwick to start my second incarnation as a Longburrow student.

I was picked up by a new person at the station. She said her name was Julia and that she was the House Mistress of Mopsy House, where I would be a student. I acted dumb and asked questions as she drove me to the school. There we entered through the double gates with a stop so that the man could check the car for any extra passengers.

Up in the girls dorms I was shown to one that was some way further to the back of the school. The view out of the windows was over the running track. There was introductory package on the bed and Julia told me that she would give me an hour to unpack. There was the usual toilets next door and an activity room further on. After I had unpacked and put my things away, I pushed the suitcase under the bed and wandered past the toilets and into the activity room.

It had windows on two sides with a view over the grounds. One window looked towards the gate to the park, and I could see the camera on a pole. I was sitting by the window and looking out when Julia found me.

“It’s lovely, isn’t it? That gate leads out to the public park and is open for the cross-country runs. Do you run?”

“Just a bit of track, but a long run might be fun.”

“That’s good. Come along Francesca, I’ll show you the school.”

She gave me the tour and I tried to look as if it was all new and asking questions to which I already thought I knew the answers. Some answers were not as I expected now that I was a Mopsy. There were places that I used to go that were not for me until I got into third year. The Mopsies and Flopsies were treated as lesser mortals in the first two years.

I was issued a whole new set of school athletic outfits. For a couple of days I ran the track, starting off slowly as I hadn’t ran for a long time. On some days I was joined by other girls, and I began to make a new set of friends as one of the lower classes. When we did start the next term, I found that I hadn’t missed a lot. Perhaps the Mopsies were behind the Does, so I only needed a couple of weeks with the books to fill the parts I had missed.

The dressmaking classes were more towards mending and stitching rather than making actual clothes and I kept my drawing abilities quiet. With the firearms lesson I was trained in the use of a small-calibre pistol that could be carried in a handbag. I found that it took a lot of practice before I hit the proverbial barn door at any distance.

I kept my head down and mixed with my new crowd until the end of term and the end of my second year. Only then did Elizabeth get in touch and arrange for me to be picked up on the first day of the summer holiday. I had my case packed and was ready to leave when she arrived. She greeted me like I was her daughter, and we left the school in her car.

When we were some way from the school, I asked her what had been happening.

“Well! The memorial service was lovely, and a lot of your friends had a little cry. There were three guys there who stood out and it was possible to put a tracker on their car while they were in the line to leave the church. That led us to a house in the East End of London. With that, we were able to get their names. They were all Spanish-speaking thugs who had been in the country since before your parents were killed.”

“That sounds like a good move forward?”

“Yes. The landline and nearby phone boxes were tapped, and their mobiles monitored. They rang a man in Brazil once a week to give him an update. They did go and check the plaque and took a photo which they sent to him. The Brazilian police are difficult to work with, so we sent someone to check him out. He managed to get a photo and we could match that with his earlier ones. It is Bastien Sanchez, and we were able to find out what name he is now using. We pulled our guy out as soon as we knew that.”

“What about the mole in the school?”

“That was the music teacher. They had caught him in a honey trap and forced him to unlock the door to the dorm stairs. The police found indentations in the ground on both sides of the fence where they had used a stepladder to enter the grounds.”

“What about Lofty?”

“He still teaches music, but we are keeping an eye on him. They ring him every week to ask if Tom has come back under another name. He hasn’t seen you so doesn’t know about the new girl in the school.”

“Where are we going?”

“Frankie, you’re my daughter and we are going on holiday. This summer, the two of us will be having a quiet tour of France and Spain. We may even stop off at Pontevedra to see where your mother came from. It will allow you to use your French and Spanish. The teacher has told me how good you speak both languages.”

That was going to be nice. She gave me a new passport in my new name, with the F in the right place. We stopped overnight at the Drama School where my glued bits were checked out and my hair given a new style. We were on the train to Paris the next day. When we had booked into the hotel, we both spoke French as we explored and visited a lot of museums and art galleries. Of course, with such wonderful dress shops there we couldn’t help ourselves. She gave me a necklace and matching earrings for my fourteenth birthday. We even shopped at Valerie’s in Paris.

We went further south, and I found that I was a good swimmer in a bikini. All the way we were spoken to by nice boys. In Toulouse we were taken out for dinner by a man and his son who we met at the hotel. It was an interesting meal with the man chatting Elizabeth up and his son trying it on me. There was dancing and I could feel his manhood against my stomach. Elizabeth and his father disappeared for a while and I found myself in a quiet corner of a terrace with the lad’s hand on my breast and his tongue halfway down my throat,

I realised that I had crossed the line between Tom and Frankie when we went into the hotel gardens, and I helped him cum. In my mind I was just staying in character, but I did like the power I had over him. Back on the dancefloor he declared his undying love and we kissed some more. When we saw his father and Elizabeth again, she was looking flushed but radiant.

The next morning, we had left before breakfast with guilty consciences. We had breakfast at a roadside stop and when I looked at her, I just said “Mother, what did you do?” and broke into giggles. That broke the ice, and she asked me how I had got on with the son.

“We danced, we kissed, and we went into the gardens, and I rubbed him up the right way. It was interesting and a little naughty, but I made him so happy he said that he loved me. I think that he must be about fifteen, so I’ve had my first older man. How about you?”

“We danced, we kissed, and we went to his room where he screwed me. It was nice to be wanted by a man with a good cock that he knew how to handle. I’m almost moist to think about it. I hope we score a few more before we go home, Frankie. Bancroft would be proud to know how well you are living the new life. We won’t tell him, though, will we?”

We did score again with two Spanish brothers in Valencia. We were staying in the Hotel Balneari and were having a moonlight swim when we were joined by the boys. The older brother would have been late teens while the younger was about fifteen. Elizabeth got out of the pool and sat on a daybed. The older boy pulled one up beside her and sat. The younger one joined me in the pool.

I guessed that they worked in the kitchens or did cleaning but were nice enough. The young one swam beside me as I did laps and we talked. When I turned to swim back, I saw the other boy and Elizabeth in a steamy kissing session on the daybed, with his hand down into her bikini bottom.

The younger one asked me if I would like the same and I told him that I was only fourteen and on my first period. I stopped when I got to the shallow end and stood. He stood and wrapped his arms around me then gave me the most toe-curling kiss. As we were kissing, I saw Elizabeth and the boy walk by. Elizabeth told me to give her an hour or two.

Marianne Gregory © 2024

Chapter 4

We both got out of the pool, and we walked hand in hand, down to the beach. We would stop every so often to kiss and he wanted to fondle my breasts. Eventually, we came up onto the promenade and into a park which gave us some privacy.

Not only was he fondling my breast as we kissed, now he was stroking my groin. Had I been a true girl I would have been ready to have him ravish me. I reminded him that my lower half was out of bounds, but I could make him happy.

We laid on the ground and he was on his back with a tent in his trunks. I kissed him and then kissed his stomach, with my hand pulling his trunks aside to allow his cock to rise in the air. I had never been big, and I could see that he had never been small. I stroked it and kissed it and felt for his balls as I licked him.

I took my time and he seemed to like it. When he did come, he cried out in pleasure, and covered his chest in cum. That’s when I came, for the first time in my life. We laid there for some time afterwards, cuddled and kissing. Then I stood and we walked back to the pool where I dived in and swam some more, mainly to wash the crotch of my bikini.

After a few more laps, I got out and gathered up the towels. As we were walking towards the hotel, his brother came out and the two high-fived before both of them giving me a kiss before walking away. I went up to our room to find Elizabeth on her bed with a very satisfied look on her face.

“Was he worth it, mother dear?”

“You bet. He must have been reading books, the things he could do. How was yours?”

“Enough for me to ask if there’s something I could take to make me more like a girl. I think I got away with him fondling my breasts, but if a boy wants to kiss them, I’ll be outed.”

I went and showered before getting into my nightie. Elizabeth roused herself to have a shower as well. As she passed me, I could smell something different. It was the smell of sex and a woman’s juices.

In the morning, we were heading south. At Alberic, Elizabeth found a doctor to give her a script for birth control pills, which I started taking with two washed down with water. She told me that there was enough hormones in them to get my body started, especially as I hadn’t reached puberty yet.

Two days later we arrived in Alicante to stay at the AC Hotel for a few days. Then we went on to Murcia, where Elizabeth picked up a nice man and I spent a fun time with his son, a little younger than me. We played games in the hotel games room and ate ice cream until the sated couple came back to get us. I think that the lad had no idea about what his father was up to. I would have been in the same boat at his age. After Malaga, we stopped off at Gibraltar.

After that, we went into Portugal and stopped at Lisbon. I was enjoying the trip, but more importantly, I was enjoying being a girl. It was good to get good service and smiles wherever we went. We didn’t score boys for the rest of the tour, but Elizabeth as already happy. The pills must have been working because I could feel an itching under the glued breasts.

From Lisbon, we went north to Porto, where we met with one of the other operatives. He gave us the news that nothing had happened in England, but that there had been more phone traffic between Bastien and his thugs. He took us to the main police station, where we were introduced to an inspector who had the open file on Bastien’s activities before he escaped.

The file was thick and contained several cases where he had been under suspicion for murders. Elizabeth assured the inspector that things were moving which might shake Bastien out of his tree. Once apprehended, she told him, he would be deported to Portugal to face the music. I was not revealed as the heir to my parent’s fortune.

We went north to Pontevedra, checking in to the Galicia Palace Hotel and walking the streets of the town. We found out where the family business was situated, with distant cousins of mine running it. It was a modest fruit and veggie shop, and I could see why my grandparents left town. We bought some bananas and the girls in the shop commented on how much I looked like them. I didn’t believe them as they were beautiful.

We didn’t stay long and crossed back into France after a night at Donostia - San Sebastian, working our way up the coast until we arrived at Bordeaux. Then we ended our tour in Paris for a few more days. I had been kept safe, had fun, and learned a lot about history. More importantly, I had learned a lot about being a girl.

Back in England, we stayed at the Drama School for the rest of the holiday, with me getting hormone shots and hair extensions. When my breasts were unglued, I had enough of a growth to wear an A-cup bra. I was assured that the growth would accelerate with the shots I was getting, and that the nurse at Longburrow would continue the process as I worked through third year.

Elizabeth also took me to a clinic where they released my willy for a while. Long enough to coax some semen from it to check for viability and then store. I was told that when I had got further in my transition, it was unlikely that any future samples would be any good.

When Elizabeth took me back to Warwick, I was one of the first to be moved across to the other side of the school. As a Senior, I found that the sleeping arrangements for third years was four-bed rooms with ensuite to be shared by four girls. I would be joined by three others that I was friends with. All had seen me naked and didn’t suspect that I was anything but one of them.

When I was given my class schedule, I found that some of the subjects that I had taken as Tom were back on my list. I was doing dressmaking again, along with a class in self – defence and the shooting. In Art, I was down to do drawing and painting. I was having to be very careful not to repeat pictures I had already done as Tom.

The school filled and we started the year. Now as a girl, the dressmaking class was more suited to me. I lied a bit when I told them that my mother had taught me to sew, and we were quickly making things to wear in future classes. I was still taking French but had shifted from Spanish to Italian. My time speaking other languages had made me realise that I was quite good at it.

I was now taking Physics and Chemistry, but had not continued with Biology, not wanting to dissect frogs. My English classes were good, with me getting good marks for my essays. The teacher thought that I had a vivid imagination. I wondered what she would have said if I told her that I was a boy, pretending to be a girl, because someone wanted to kill me.

In the art lessons, I went from the water-colours that I had used as Tom, to oils. I painted scenes that I remembered from the summer trip, getting good marks, and feeling a bit proud of my output.

When I got to the Gym classes, I found myself running the track in a group that included Penelope. After a couple of laps, we were well in front and loping along. She started to talk, asking me for my name. As we ran, her questions got more pointed, until she suddenly stopped dead. I stopped and went back to her as the other runners passed us. She glared at me.

“All right Francesca. You’re Tom! You let me believe that you were dead and then Charles told me it was all a smoke screen to keep you alive. How could you?”

“Penny, fiddle with your shoes and then start running again or else we’ll stand out. I’ll tell you all about it but don’t give me away now. The killers are still out there and waiting to see if I turn up again. Now, calm down, breathe, and let’s do a couple more laps. I’ll meet you after dinner, you choose a place. I’m as sorry as I could be to let you think I was dead, but I was told that everyone had to act naturally to make it work.”

She took a shoe off, shook it to release an imaginary stone while I put my hand on her shoulder to steady her. When she stood, she smiled and thanked me before we continued the running. While we were still running alone, I heard her speak quietly.

“It’s still light after dinner, meet me at the first tee on the golf course. I’ll bring the clubs and we can share them.”

After dinner, I went back to my room and changed into a skirt and tee shirt, adding sneakers and a bum bag before I left. The other girls assumed that I had a boy on the go as I did my make-up.

Penelope was waiting at the first tee when I arrived. She had taken care with her dress and make-up, which made me happier. When I walked up to her, she looked carefully at my face and then put one hand behind my head and pulled me in for a kiss.

“I’ve been thinking, Frankie. You wouldn’t have made me sad without a reason, you are too nice for that. Let’s play and you can tell me all about it.”

She hit off and when I addressed the ball for my drive, she said, “I missed you so much.”

When she was about to hit her second shot I said, “I missed you too.”

That made her grin and she deliberately hit the ball into the trees. I was about twenty feet behind her, and I hit mine into the trees as well. We left the club bag and went into the trees to look for the balls. Once out of sight we held each other and kissed passionately.

“I liked you as Tom, but I think I love you as Francesca. I’ve accepted you as my soulmate, even more so now you’re looking so beautiful. Let’s forget the golf and go and sit in the stand at the track. You can tell me why and how you became so girly.”

“All right, Penny. I have missed you and I’m sorry that you had to suffer so much after that explosion. I’m still in mortal danger if the killers realise that I’m still around.”

We forgot the balls and she put the bag into a locker. We sat in the stand, and I told her everything, from the night of the explosion to my returning to school as Francesca in the Mopsy House. She listened quietly until I finished. I asked her to keep my identity a secret. Then she had just one question.

“Are you taking anything to transition?”

When I said I was, she kissed me and whispered, “Good, you’re so much better as a girl.”

When we went back into the school, she went to her room, and I went to mine. I took off my outfit and put on a nightie before cleansing. I laid in bed feeling guilty. I hadn’t told her about the boys in Europe. Well, a girl doesn’t kiss and tell, does she?”

The term ran its usual course, with Penny and I running together and sometimes going into Warwick with a bunch of girls, going to the pictures and kissing in the dark, then meeting the others for a snack before going back to the school. We were starting to be considered as a lesbian couple, not the only ones in the school by a long shot!

I started doing self-defence lessons and joined in with the girls when they opened the gates for a cross-country run. Being out of longer distance training, I ended back in the field, but I didn’t want to stand out.

Throughout the term, I had my regular visits to the nurse to check my progress. When the break came around, Elizabeth picked me up and we went shopping for bras with a bigger cup size. I was catching up with the other girls in my room. I knew this because we would have a check, every now and then, to see who had the biggest.

We also took the oil paintings I had done. Elizabeth had shown some pictures that I had sent her to a gallery. They were keen to add my small collection to their stock. We took them in, and they were very nice, getting Elizabeth to sign an agreement on my behalf for me to get my share of any sales. That’s when I began another personality, that of Emily Mottram, painter.

The second term was much of the same, with my body slowly changing through the effects of the hormones. My skin was softer, my breasts were growing steadily, and my thoughts were more feminine than masculine. I was slowly becoming just like every other girl in the school.

The school year moved on and there was still no sign of Bastien. The business was going well, from what I had read on-line. Penny and I continued our clandestine romance and vied for the title of the best runner in the year. I continued to develop as a young woman and my willy had almost shrivelled away to nothing. My breasts had a growth spurt along with me getting a few inches taller since I had been Tom.

There I go! It was only by physical comparisons that I remembered my life as Tom. I was so busy trying to be the best girl I could be that the past was slowly fading. I was Francesca now and intended to be Francesca for the rest of my life. I had to smile. I was really out of the closet now!

When we got to the summer break, Penny asked me if I would go with her parents on a coach tour of Europe. I checked with Elizabeth who said that it could be a good experience. The tour was close to six weeks away, staying at castles and great houses with only a few nights in hotels. It was expensive and Elizabeth convinced Penny’s folks that she would pay for my ticket, even though they had been prepared to pay for Penny’s ‘bestie’.

I asked Penny about the handicraft shops, and she told me that they was being run by a manager, with her parents gracefully stepping back from the everyday running. Part of the tour would be offset as a fact-finding and research project into the handicraft shops that we come across.

I had a wonderful time, being with my love and even sharing a bed with her every night, seeing that we had been allocated a shared room by the tourist company. Over the course of the six weeks, we explored each other, and I satisfied her most nights. As we laid, cuddled and warm, we talked about the future. I told her that I had preserved some semen so we could have a baby if she wanted one. That started her crying, and she held me tightly.

We saw a lot of wonderful places and I could converse with any Spanish, French or Italian speakers, being pulled by her parents into translating for them in the various craft shops that we visited. I took lots of pictures on my new phone, so that I could paint them in fourth year. Elizabeth had supplied me with hormone pills, so I didn’t have to have shots, and it was funny when Penny and I were chatted up by boys. I know that I could have gone off and kissed them but held back to save Penny from the embarrassment.

That was until about four weeks into the tour. We were in Helsinki and two gorgeous boys hit on us. I could see that Penny was conflicted, so I pulled her into the toilet and asked her what she wanted to do. She sobbed as she told me that she wanted to taste her boy. I told her that it was something she needed to get past, so we made ourselves pretty. When we got back to the boys, we were ready for them. We joined them in the park to look at the Odotus sculpture and each couple found a spot to hide.

I had told her to insist that she was in her period and that she would only have her mouth available. While I was coming in my panties, and my boy was groaning in ecstasy, I heard her boy doing his own groaning. I was busy swallowing cum and smiling as my boy kissed me, telling me, in bad French, how much he loved me.

When we stood, we met up with the other two and went back into the town, kissing as we parted and watching them as they walked away from our hotel entrance. Penny was quiet as I had expected her to be. We went up to our room and quickly undressed. I put my panties in the sink and washed them as Penny came in the bathroom to shower. That’s when I saw blood on her inner thighs. I went and held her as she shuddered.

“Did he hurt you, my love?”

“Only for a few seconds, Frankie. Then it was pure heaven. Oh! Frankie, my darling. I’ve let you down. When I had him in my mouth, I couldn’t help myself, I was so horny. I pulled my panties aside and sat on him and he felt big and so wonderful as he filled me. I’m not a virgin anymore.”

I held her close as I realised that we were moving into another stage. One where we were both girls who liked boys. One day I would experience something similar. I knew that we would remain best friends, and likely be bridesmaids at each other’s wedding, but we would not be walking down the aisle in matching outfits.

We showered and redressed in fresh outfits, then went down to the hotel ballroom to join her parents. When they asked if we were having a good time, we both told them that we were having the best time in the world.

That stopped our nightly sex. We cuddled and talked into the night, but from that day on, my tongue wasn’t good enough. Over the next few weeks of the tour, we scored more than once and Penny became a proper woman, while I tasted boys until I could almost tell where a boy had grown up by the taste of his cum. We had found a chemist to sell her some birth control pills in Estonia, as well as buying a pack of douche bags in the Helsinki hotel chemist. I just hoped that it was enough to stop her becoming pregnant, as her newly woken hormones made her ready for any cock that waved at her.

We arrived back at school, fifteen years old and women of the world. It was a heady mix, as our female studies moved into the area of sex, babies, and STDs. Unlike some of our classmates, we both knew a little about the first few lessons.

I started painting from pictures I had taken on the tour, taking a bit of liberty with the aspects. What came from my brushes were recognisable views, but with something about them that made you wonder. In the first break we took them to the gallery, where I was given a cheque for my sales. They looked at the new works and told us that they would be on the walls at double the price of the first ones.

After Christmas, which I spent with Elizabeth, she got a message that Bastien had contacted the administrators and declared that he was the rightful heir to the family business. When they had replied, they told him that he must present himself, in person, to take a DNA test. He replied that he was otherwise engaged for a little while but would see them as soon as he could.

Bancroft sent an operative to Brazil to find out what was keeping Bastien there. The report that he brought back was that Bastien was in prison, on a drug peddling charge, and wouldn’t be out for another five years. By that time, I would have reached my adulthood and would be in charge of the company, something that I wasn’t feeling that good about.

Over the course of my time as Francesca, I had seen Margaret around, and Penny was still friends with her and Charles. I hadn’t been in any classes with Charles and was sure that neither of them knew where Tom had disappeared to. Margaret and Charles had been a couple, for a while in the third year, but had drifted apart, or so Penny had told me.

One day, Penny and I had finished our training run and had showered and dressed, when we saw the two of them at a table when we went for dinner. We went and sat down with them. Penny introduced me as her friend Francesca Mottram. That’s when I saw something with Charles that I had seen in the eyes of other boys. He told me his name and we shook hands, with him holding on a little long. Margaret insisted that we stand and hug.

We talked as we ate, and Penny related some of the fun we had enjoyed on the bus tour. Charles didn’t say much, but I caught him looking at me with an intensity that should have made me uncomfortable. It wasn’t as if he was trying to figure out who I was, I could see that he had accepted me as a girl. It was that doe-eyed look that I had seen in the eyes of boys I had sucked, usually after the sucking.

Penny picked up on it and spoke as we walked to the next class.

“Charlie has fallen head over heels for you, my girl. I saw that look in his eyes that tells you that you can treat him like a door mat, and he’ll come back for more.”

“I know, I saw it too. I wonder if he’ll get mad when he finds out who I really am.”

“Don’t tell him. You’ll have time over the summer break to make the change permanent. He doesn’t have to know. As far as he’s concerned, the old you is long gone.”

That almost made me stop dead in my tracks. She had hit on the one thing that I had been holding back on thinking about. Did I want to be a complete girl? Come to think about it, with the companionship that being a girl in a bunch of girls gives you, the smiles and good service, the power over men who want you, and the joy of dressing in wonderful clothes, how could I even contemplate of going back to being Tom, even if all the changes could be reversed.

Marianne Gregory © 2024

Chapter 5

We saw a lot of each other as the school year drew towards its end. Charles was like a puppy dog with me, ready to help me sit, ready to get me drinks, and I expect he would be ready to hump me given the chance. Needless to say, I didn’t give him that chance.

The end of the fourth year would be another change with our lessons. When we had been graded and would only continue with subjects that we could be certain of passing with the big exams at the end of the fifth year. For me, that could be everything I had been studying that was on the National Curriculum.

Thinking about this, it prompted me to ask Julia, the House Mistress, what happened if we passed enough exams to go on. She told me that Longburrow took us to the first exams, and I would move to another school, Warren, which was in Oxford, alongside the University, but not connected to it. It would be the University that would grade our exams next year as well as after two years at Warren.

When I had a chance, I rang Elizabeth to ask if my schooling had been paid for through University, should I reach that far. She told me that there was plenty of money to take me to whatever University I wanted to go to. I then asked her about having the operations to make me female, seeing that I was so far down the track.

“That’s not a problem, Frankie, if you’re sure about it. You’ve been passing as a girl in a girls’ dorm for two years. I’ll organise a visit to a specialist for a couple of days after you start the summer break. If we can get you into a clinic then, you’ll be a complete woman when you start fifth year. You’ll be sixteen when you go under the knife, and able to make your own mind up.”

We knuckled down for the end of year exams and there wasn’t a lot of socialising. I had produced several paintings, which I was told would be certain would get me a good mark. I was now fluent in Spanish, French, and Italian. My maths and English studies were good, and so were Physics and Chemistry.

We had a final exam in dressmaking, where we had to design and make a wedding dress to fit ourselves, using the needlework and embroidery as well. It was a big ask but I made one with big enough seams to let it out should I want to wear it at my own wedding. I had one of the other girls take a picture of me which I sent to Elizabeth.

Some of us also had a final exam in shooting, being taken to the local range to shoot over neutral ground. I didn’t beat a couple of boys who were bound to join an elite regiment, but I did get close enough to be given a special award as the best girl.

When Elizabeth arrived to pick me up, she had a big garment bag for the wedding dress, which she thought was truly beautiful. The Headmistress had asked her to call into the office, and I joined her, wondering what she wanted to see us for. It turned out that I had passed nine exams with commendations in every subject. As such, I was going to continue with these in fifth year. She said that the school didn’t go all out to praise individual students, but if they did, I would be singled out.

Elizabeth told her that it made her a very happy mother, and that I was going to get a special holiday over the break, which would bring me back for fifth year as a new, and invigorated, woman. As we drove towards London, I told her that she was wicked, and telling porkies was enough to send her to hell. She laughed.

“Frankie, my girl. I was only telling her the truth. You’re having a holiday that you can only take once in your life, and by the time you start fifth year you’ll be that new woman.”

She was right, as usual. The specialist took one look at me, asked a few questions about my commitment, and signed me off for the operation. The second week of the break saw me in a private clinic with the best surgeon in the business. Two weeks before going back to school, I had changed my name to Francesca Emily Valerie and had a bank account opened in that name, banking a considerable cheque that the gallery gave me. Elizabeth transferred my other earnings into it, and I was given a debit card to use.

Elizabeth told me that I would get a new passport in that name. “A real one, this time!” I spent a few days giving my card a hammering at lingerie shops. Seeing that I could make my own outer wear, it was only underwear that I needed. I also had a Valerie’s card that I could use, linked to my trust fund. I was told that I still needed to stay below the radar until I was eighteen, so any visit to the administrators would be on hold until then. All they knew was that I was still alive and doing well.

Fifth year was full on. I had the idea that we were going so far along every subject that the following exams would be easy. I worked hard and did well. I also went a little further with Charles. We were at the kissing and cuddling stage, and he wet his pants the first time his hand felt my breast under the very sexy bra. Before Christmas, I took him into the bushes beside the golf course, finding a nice spot to let him have his way with me. It was way better than the dilator and even the vibrator I had bought.

Elizabeth and I visited the Christmas markets in Germany and we both scored with nice German boys. I was determined that if Charles was to be mine for life, I would have something to measure him by. So far, he was standing up well.

The rest of the school year was hectic, with me studying hard and only painting to relax. When I looked at what I produced, I could see stress in the pictures. When we took them to the gallery, they were over the moon and told me that the asking prices had just doubled again. I was still signing them as Emily Mottram, as that was what the school still had me listed as.

The final exams took over two weeks to sit. When we had finished, Charles asked me if I would stay with him at a hotel in Warwick, to celebrate. I packed my best nightie and wore black underwear with a slinky slip dress. We had dinner, went dancing, and then went to our room to screw like rabbits into the early hours. In the morning, he gave me a box with a ring in it and asked me if I would marry him.

I told him “Maybe” and to hold on to the ring until we had finished our studies. Elizabeth had arranged another holiday for us, which I think was more for her than it was for me, so I didn’t see Charles over the summer, even though he called me every week. We were in America when I got a text to tell me that I had passed all nine subjects and was to start at Warren at the beginning of the next term. A package would be delivered to me at the Post Office address we had given them.

The next call I got from Charles wasn’t good news. He had graduated, but hadn’t passed enough to go to Warren, so his parents were going to start him as a stylist in one of the salons. I commiserated with him and told him that I would be at Warren, so, if he could be at a salon near Oxford, I would drop in to let him work on my hair. He wasn’t a happy boy when he hung up on me.

We were six weeks in America, seeing all the sights and trying the different foods. We stayed in good hotels and we both shared our beds with the occasional boy. I was becoming quite good at the sex part, with every boy happy to have been with me. I might come across as being a bit of a slut, but, to me, it was all research into a concepts that I was toying with for the stores when I take over. I had found that the Valerie’s stores were a little mundane, if classy. I wanted to add a range of clothing that some might call clubwear. We could dress a lady for the afternoon tea, or for the races, but we fell short with that demographic that was trying to snare her man.

There was something else that I was wondering about. I thought that we could add a beauty salon to every store, so that a customer could get a make-over to suit the outfit she had just bought. My initial idea was that they could be called ‘Frank’n’Style’.

Back in London, I picked up the package and went through the paperwork. I needed to find my own accommodation in Oxford and asked Elizabeth about that. She told me that someone would find somewhere. The subjects that I needed would be pared to five, so I could drop four. The classes were more like the University method, with lectures and assignments. There wasn’t a place for me to paint, so the accommodation would need a room with a good aspect so I could set up a studio.

When it got close to starting at Warren, I was seventeen and living in a flat within walking distance of the college. It was my own place, free and clear, and I was told that if I had two years at Warren, then three years at Oxford, I would be able to sell it for a profit. There was one room with a sunny aspect, where I set up an easel and brought in a range of oils. I had a big source of inspiration with my pictures from America. For the first time that I could remember, I was on my own, had to cook for myself and clean up afterwards.

I was still listed as Francesca Mottram at Warren, so hid my new passport in a small safe that was set in one wall of the bedroom. The classes I took were Maths, Physics, English Literature and both French and Italian. All would set me up for several University courses later on. The teaching methods took a week or two to get used to, but they did give me plenty of opportunity to do research and even some painting. Elizabeth had given me a new computer with a big memory, a printer, and best of all, a thirty-two-inch monitor that allowed me to view my big collection of photos so that I could get inspiration for a painting. I also started taking pictures of the wonderful buildings around Oxford.

I kept myself focused during the two years at Warren. I only socialised with other Warren girls that I had known at Longburrow, including Penelope and Margaret. Penny and I would go clubbing occasionally, to score boys and get a good seeing to, but it was just sex for both of us. Until she met Chris, a University student who had his own flat, his own car, and a family manor house in the Cotswolds. After that, she was often out with him, or else staying at his home over the weekends. Without a wingman, I tended to stay home more, getting on with my studies and painting.

While I was painting, I would think about how my life had changed over the ten years since my parents were killed. I thought about the boys I had bedded and realised that I hadn’t really been committed to any of them, even Charles, my first true lover. I couldn’t see me standing in church with any of them.

That’s when I started painting from my imagination, rather than from pictures. My next six paintings became my ‘Star-crossed lovers’ series, with them all with a couple in an intimate moment with something odd going on. Then I started a series which I called ‘Racegoers’ where I imagined people at race events and used my drawing skills that I had honed during the dressmaking classes to picture wonderful outfits.

I would go to stay at the Drama Studio during the breaks and we would take my latest offerings to the gallery. They now had my banking details and would pay my sales directly into that. I could see, from my bank statements, that the price of my work was going up every year. It was during the Christmas break in my second year that I saw Bancroft for the first time in ages.

He was seriously excited when he told me that my nemesis had been killed by another inmate in the Brazilian prison. From what he had been told, it had been a difference between drug gangs that caused a riot, with several inmates being killed, Bastien being found in the prison laundry with a number of stab wounds.

This had occurred a couple of months before, but I hadn’t been told at the time because the three thugs were still around. What happened after, he said, was almost comedy. The three, now unable to talk to their boss and running short of funds, decided to rob a bookie, not knowing that they were under a loose surveillance. Of course, the robbery didn’t go as they planned and all three had been arrested. They had been deported last week to face criminal charges in Brazil. I was free of any danger and could now follow my parents’ path.

My problem was that I didn’t want to just become the chairperson on a board. I was taking my own path as a successful student, likely to attend Oxford, as well as a successful and commercially accepted painter. Tom couldn’t come back. I was now fully committed to be Francesca Valerie and forge my own future. When I did get accepted at Oxford, I asked them to change my name and showed them my passport as evidence. I still signed my paintings as Emily Mottram to keep them at a distance from my real life. It was in the summer break that I stood with Penny as she married her man, her baby bump hidden in her flowing dress.

After Warren, Bancroft took me to see the administrators. The company was the same, but the people looking after Valeries’ had changed. None had been there when I had been to see the company before. We sat in the boardroom, and I was given a summary of the assets and the turnover. Now I was eighteen, I would be allowed to take over as chairperson. I told them that they were doing a great job and that I still had University to work through.

I started University in an Arts course, studying Art History. This gave me an insight into how others had worked, as well as all the different mediums that had been used. My thesis was on the evolution of Commercial Art over the years, with me drawing examples of different eras as part of my argument. Over the three years I was at Oxford, I would get emails from the administrators to tell me the latest figures. My parents had chosen well, as nearly every site was doing well, even the overseas ones.

That started me looking at the business papers and taking an interest in the stock market. One day, I read an article about the chain of ‘Beatrice Beauty Salons’ and how they were having problems with cash flow, as their rents were climbing. I emailed the administrators and asked them if they could carry out due diligence on the salons, with a view to buying the chain when it was cheap enough. I explained that I had the idea of salons in, or near to, every Valerie’s store.

I had graduated and was having a rest when my phone rang. The administrators told me that the salons were about as cheap as they ever would be, and I told them to make a take-over bid. I looked around my Oxford flat and made the decision to move to London. I travelled into the city and spoke to real estate agents, finding a nice apartment, not far from the Drama School. It had a spare bedroom with great light for me to use it as the studio. Three weeks later, I had moved in and put the Oxford flat on the market. That sold inside a week, to an overseas student starting at the University.

I was starting to get involved in the business, something that I thought would never happen. I hired a car and driver and went to visit every store. This took six weeks, and I ended up as quite friendly with my driver, Sally, a blonde in her thirties who thought that visiting every one of the stores was a hoot. At the flagship store, in London, I got the manager to organise a discount card for her. At the last store we visited, I got the manager to let her loose on my account as a thank you for a safe trip.

At every stop, I told them that they were masters of their own destiny and that nothing would change while they did well. We did discuss the idea of in-store salons. Only a few were big enough to put one in, but several managers told me that there could be premises close by which may be suitable. I could tell them that we owned a chain of salons, so would be closing the non-profitable ones and that there would be plenty of equipment that we could utilise.

The administrators had a small team looking after the salons, and they were very quick to find the ones we should close. We had paid enough for Charles and his parents to walk away, his folks moving into retirement and Charles opening up his own salon, where he was the chief stylist. We transferred some into nearby Valerie’s and shut the others, sending the equipment to the other stores big enough to fit them in. We retained a lot of the staff, with some happy to move out of London. The salons were re-branded as Frankie’s Faceworks and started to get quite a bit of business from day one of opening.

In the new year, I set myself the task of visiting the overseas stores. I called the car company and asked if Sally was able to travel to Europe for about six weeks. The six stores were in Paris, Marseille, Madrid, Seville, Turin, and Rome. We left London on the train to Paris, where I had made an appointment with the manager.

The fact that I could talk to her in French made my job a lot easier. The stock was a lot more European, and I saw some very good brands. I wondered why we didn’t have these in Britain, other than the London store. At the end of the second week, we had been to Marseille and had crossed the border into Spain. Here, I was able to speak Spanish to my managers and discuss business. We were a two weeks in Spain, and when we drove north again, I told Sally to head for Cannes, where I had organised a few days at a hotel, just for a rest. Sally and I were able to relax before the next leg.

The manager of the Turin store had not been able to see me for a week, so we went directly down to Rome, where I spoke to the manager there in Italian. In their store, I saw a brand that I had never seen before. It was from the House of Antoin and was told that it was a company co-owned by our Turin manager and his sister. I put a lovely dress on my account to wear some evening. We had a couple of days in Rome before backtracking to Turin to meet Antoin Ferrari, the last manager on the list.

When he walked out of his office to greet me, my heart lurched. He was about my height, a little older than my age and very handsome. We discussed his store and the future in Italian, until he spoke to one of the salesgirls in French. I asked him about his name, which was French in origin, and he gave me a sunny smile, telling me that he was born in France, son of an automotive engineer, and the family had moved to Turin when his father had been offered a job in an auto manufacturer there. From then on, we spoke a mixture of French and Italian, depending on the meanings we wanted to convey.

He invited me out for dinner that evening, and I accepted. I was careful with my preparations, using a little lube, just in case. I wore the dress I had bought in Rome. He picked me up at the hotel entrance in one of the bigger Alfa Romeos and smiled when he saw what I was wearing.

“My sister will be happy to see you looking so good in that dress, Madam Valerie. That’s one of her new designs,”

“They told me that it’s a brand that you have an interest in, seeing that it bears your name.”

“Madam has been doing her homework, just as a good owner should. Yes, we are co-owners of the dressmakers, but she is the designer. The reason that I couldn’t see you before is because I had to be in Milan to sign the documents for us to be part of a fashion show in six weeks. She is at home, wracking her brains for some killer designs for us to launch.”

“Enough of this Madam business, Antoin. Call me Francesca, or call me Frankie, seeing that you’re taking me to dinner.”

He took me to a good restaurant where he was known, and we had a lovely meal. Afterwards, he asked me if I liked dancing, and I told him I did. We went to a night club where we had a few drinks, a few laughs, and a lot of dances, his hold getting tighter as the night wore on. We ended up back at his house with me in his bed.

I was redressing when I noticed one of my pictures on his bedroom wall. It was one of the ‘Racegoers’ series. I asked him about it.

“It’s one of my favourites, Frankie. I have a couple more of the series downstairs. Sometimes Rosetta would look at them for inspiration. The outfits are exquisite, but we think that copying them would be illegal.”

“Not if the artist gave you permission.”

“I’ve asked around, but there is just the one gallery that sells her work, and they don’t have an address for her. It’s frustrating to see such good design but not able to use it.”

“Take me back to the hotel. Tomorrow, I want to meet your sister and I might be able to help her with that inspiration.”

He drove me to the hotel, letting me out of the car after a goodnight kiss. In the morning, I told Sally to take herself and the car back home, giving her a wad of cash to spend on the way. I said that I was staying on in Turin for a while and would fly back.

At the Valerie’s store my legs went weak when I saw Antoin again. He gave me a hug and a quick kiss before introducing me to Rosetta, his younger sister. He left us to talk, and she showed me some of her work on the racks. I asked her why the brand wasn’t in other Valerie’s stores outside Italy.

“We aren’t very big, Madam. We are at full stretch to supply what we can here. The fashion show in Milan is a big thing for us, if we can be noticed, we may attract some support to move to a bigger building and employ more seamstresses.”

“Would you accept support from me?”

“Would you? That would be marvellous. All I need is some new designs.”

“You have a picture of racegoers at you home. This is something that I can support you with today.”

I pulled a hotel greeting card from my bag. Inside, I had drawn one of the outfits from the picture, with the rear view next to it. Underneath, I had written, ‘I give Antoin Designs my permission to use my fashion pictures as a basis for their designs’ and signed it with the same signature as on the picture.

She took a look at it and had to sit down.

“You are the artist who painted those pictures? Antoin loves them. He has tried to track down the artist but wasn’t able to find her.”

“That’s because I was going through University and have changed my surname since. My middle name is Emily, and the Mottram part was because of a little problem with someone trying to kill me before I took over my parents business. It kept me safe through High School.”

She giggled.

“That’s almost an Italian opera, Madam.”

“Now, I’m Francesca Emily Valerie. I’ve told Antoin to call me Frankie, so you start to call me that. Do you prefer Rosetta or Rosie?”

“I’m Rosie in the family, Frankie. By the look on Ants’ face this morning, you might be family too, before long.”

Marianne Gregory © 2024

Another festive season approaches, another year of my postings comes to an end. I would like to wish all the staff at BC a Happy Christmas and a Safe New Year. I'll be spending my time writing more to post. To all my readers, thank you for the kudos ticks and all the comments, good and not so good. There are a lot of very competent writers on this site, my thoughts are with you all.
I certainly wish all of you the best for 2025.
Marianne

Chapter 6

When she stood, we hugged and then went to look for Ant. She waved the card and he looked at it with wonderment. Then, he led us into his office, where he closed the door and held me tight as we kissed. Rosie watched us with a huge smile on her face.

When he let me go, he opened a cupboard and took out three glasses and a bottle of Chianti. He poured three small glasses and we each took one, Rosie smiling and me wondering about something that looked like a family tradition. Antoin explained before we touched glasses.

“Francesca, it has become a Ferrari tradition to celebrate good luck with a toast to the Virgin. We are not good churchgoers, but we believe that it is the female goddess who makes good things happen. I propose a toast to Frankie, who is also Emily, a great lady, and a great dress designer. Prosit!”

We all took a sip. It was a nice red wine, and it made me smile with them. Antoin looked at me and asked.

“What are you going to do now, Frankie? You can’t come into our lives, and my heart, and just leave us.”

“I sent my driver and the car back to London. I’ve extended my stay in the hotel. If you want me to, I’ll help Rosie with the dresses for your show and stay on until that’s over. I do have one condition, though.”

“There always has to be a condition.”

“It’s simple. When the show is over, the entire line is to be a Valerie chain exclusive. I’ll get our buyers to make a good order, big enough to fund an expansion of the production. When other buyers see that you have the chain behind you, they’ll be asking for their own exclusive lines. Rosies’ designs are beautiful. Beautiful enough for me to buy, and I can pick from anywhere.”

Rosie looked shocked, then asked her question.

“Can we base it on the Racegoers pictures? I look at the ones we have, and I would love to see the complete dresses, a lot of them only hint at their beauty.”

“All right, I’ll look at your pictures and we can draw up the designs good enough to make. I can help make the originals. The ones in the pictures were just figments of my imagination. I have most of my pictures on my laptop, at the hotel. We can print off the other pictures in the series and work with those.”

Antoin took my hand.

“Frankie. You’ll need a good printer for that. I have one in my office at home. The other pictures we have are there as well. Surely you don’t have to stay in that hotel when I can look after you?”

I put my glass down and used my hand to touch his cheek.

“Antoin, I thought that you’d never ask.”

We kissed again, while Rosie topped up her glass and drank about half. She waited until we came up for air before she called “Prosit!” We all toasted the future of the Antoin Designs label.

We left her at the shop, and he drove to the hotel. It didn’t take me long to pack, but, as the maids hadn’t remade the bed, we put a sign outside the door and made use of it before I checked out. I didn’t know what it was about this man that made weak in the knees and tingling in the groin. I wondered if it could be love or just lust. Whatever it was, I wanted to hang on to it.

I stayed with them at their house, working with Rosie on designs from the pictures. I expanded the dresses in the pictures to full designs and Rosie made her own adjustments to them to be right for the models she had booked. In the last couple of weeks, she drove me, in her little Fiat, to her workshop, where I met her three seamstresses. There, the five of us made the chosen dresses for the fashion show, calling in the models to try them on so we could adjust the drape.

When we took them to Milan, prior to the show, I introduced Rosie to the three buyers from Valerie’s that had come to have a look. I had called the head buyer and told him that I had already committed the company to a good order for our chain but wanted him to have the final say. I didn’t tell him about my part in the business.

I sat with Antoin for the show, while Rosie was backstage with the models and the seamstresses, working as dressers. There were three other designers showing their wares before us. Each one going up on the catwalk to bow to the applauding crowd with their line of models. I had never been to a fashion show before and it was all very glitzy and a bit over the top.

At last, it was the turn of Antoin Designs. I sat, entranced, as the models strutted their stuff, making the skirts swing and flow, smiling to the crowd and being glamorous. Because that’s what the collection was, Glamorous with the capital G. Where the other designers had shown a range of outfits, from every day to clubbing, we had concentrated on the one aspect that I had wanted to add a long time ago. It was a range of club-ready outfits that were for women wanting to snare a man. They certainly snared this audience of both men and women.

When Rosie came out with the final line-up, she called to us to go up and receive the accolades. I stood and looked out at the buyers, a lot of them men, and my head buyer gave me a thumbs up. Afterwards, there were several buyers from other chains who wanted to speak to Antoin. He told them that the collection was slated as an exclusive to the Valerie’s chain, but the company could produce others to their own particular specifications. I added that they could order similar styles, but not in the colours that Valerie’s would be carrying. No-one asked me who I was, just assuming that I was part of the Antoin Designs team.

That evening, we had a dinner with my buyers, the models, and the dressers. It was a happy occasion, with the buyers giving Antoin written orders for the range, to be delivered to all of the shops. The next day, he had more orders from other fashion shops, with the buyers having taken pictures of the collection and then photo-shopping them to find colours they liked. By the end of the day, there were orders from six different outlets, in six different colourways. With examples in each of the popular sizes, it made a hefty order book. Something he could take to the bank and ask for a loan with.

He didn’t have to go to the bank. I had enough behind me to bankroll the expansion for a one-third stake in the company. He brought in his legal people, and we signed agreements by the end of the week. Two weeks later, the new premises were leased, more seamstresses hired, and the production began. It was a lot easier with the basic collection being repeated in different colours, giving us a mass production line from the start.

I had flown to London and back several times during the process to keep up with the business, but generally found that things were moving smoothly. The one thing that I hadn’t had time for was painting. I mentioned this to Antoin, and he told me that his parents had a house on the coast at Savona, overlooking the beach. He said that they would love to meet me and that they had a spare room which he knew would be ideal for a studio. That way, I could be close to him and Rosie, but also allow me time to paint. He took me down there after the new factory was running smoothly, and I met his parents. They were both lovely people, mainly French speaking at home, and the house was in a glorious position, right on the beach. He stayed with me for a couple of days and took me to the shops to buy an easel, canvasses, and paints. Once I had set up, he left me to sleep in his bed and went back to look after the shop in Turin.

I was a month with his parents, with him visiting every weekend. They looked after me like a daughter, or maybe a daughter-in-law, and I was able to produce ten pictures that I liked. I had taken inspiration from the beach and the surrounding area.

One evening, they had a guest and his wife for dinner. They introduced me as Ants’ fiancé, even though he hadn’t asked me yet. I wondered why they were here and found out that they owned an art gallery further up the coast. The Ferraris had several nice pictures on their walls, and I discovered that they had all come from this gallery. They wanted to see my pictures, not knowing that I was already selling pictures in a London Gallery.

When I showed them what I had done, they got serious.

“Madam Valerie. These are wonderful! Would you allow us to exhibit them in our gallery?”

“That will be all right, I’ll pay for frames.”

“No need for that, Madam. We will supply those. We can sell these for a lot of money to the rich tourists. Not only that, but we also have a friend in the tourist office who will pay you for the rights to photograph them and reproduce them as postcards. They have captured the scenes so beautifully.”

They noticed that I hadn’t signed them. I picked up a fabric marker and signed ‘Ferrari’ in the corner. I told them that I already sold works as Emily Mottram and that Antoin had some of my paintings in his house in Turin. They told me that they had seen them and that I was worthy of being permanently hung in a proper gallery.

I took pictures of them as they were carefully loaded into their car. They took my banking details for my share of the sales. The next weekend, I thanked my hosts and went back to Turin with Antoin. I stayed with him for a week before flying back to London. Rosie asked me about designs for the shows later in the year. I said that I would join her to work through them when she needed me.

Back in my apartment, I spent a few days painting another of my ‘Star-crossed Lovers’ series, just for my own wall. It was me and Antoin in a setting similar to a scene from Anthony and Cleopatra, and much more detailed than my usual works. I got a nice frame for it and hung it in my bedroom.

When I visited the London shop, I was told that the new line was selling well, and that there would be a new order after the Autumn shows. I rang the Turin factory and spoke to Rosie about what she had planned for that season. She told me that there were invitations from London and Paris to show the brand. We talked about what was needed and I agreed to fund another two designers if she could get good ones that followed the brand ideals. I suggested that we set up another factory in England to supply the UK shops, which were doing well.

Not being up to date with real estate, I got in touch with Bancroft, inviting him to dinner at the Hilton to thank him for his past help and to pick his brains. When I told him what I had been up to, he suggested that I speak to the company that was still administrators of the overall Valerie brand.

When I went to see them, they sat me down in a boardroom while a small team brought me up to date with the numbers. Since we had added the ‘Frankie’s Faceworks’ to the bigger shops, the numbers had shot through the roof. The first three months of the addition of the Antoin range had added to the turnover and profit.

When I told them that I was a one-third owner of the Antoin label, and that we had invitations to Milan, Paris, and London for the Autumn shows, they all concentrated hard. I described what I thought we may do in regard to setting up a manufacturing base for the brand in the UK, with designs and samples sent from the home base in Turin. If we could get a couple of designers, we could develop samples which we could sent to Turin for approval.

I sat back as they discussed what could be possible. What they thought was possible was way beyond anything I had imagined. They came up with a proposal to open a manufacturing factory in London, with all new equipment and a workforce of experienced seamstresses, who were readily available now that a lot of clothing came in cheap from Asia. They were adamant that they could organise it to have the high standard that Valerie and Antoin represented.

I called Rosie to tell her what was being discussed. She was reticent until I told her that the proposal was for a manufacturing facility to take all the volume work that she was now doing in Turin, leaving her facility space to work on special orders and designing new collections. She reminded me that, thanks to the Milan show, she was designing seven different lines for the chain buyers, and having the extra space to separate these would be good.

I told her that I would get back to her when my companions had something to move forward on. By the time we had spoken, and I had asked her to pass my love on to Ant, the team had researched available commercial sites that had previously been used for clothing manufacture, had picked one of the newest ones and had arranged a viewing with the agent.

That afternoon, I was in a group that looked at a large commercial building, still with the brand that I had known as an early teen across the front. Inside, it was reasonably tidy, without any equipment as that had been sold at auction. It had all modern facilities and good offices, including a design studio and sample-making room. To my mind, it could be too big, but that did allow room for expansion.

The others in the group were in a huddle and I had to ask what they were discussing.

“We’re talking about making this the Head Office for the Valerie and Antoin UK brands. There’s enough room and it would get us out the confines of the administrators. You’ve advanced the company to the point where we could work directly for you, so making sure that you get our full attention.”

“How many of you would I be taking on?”

“Around fifteen, if we get a few that have worked on the Frankie salons. Between us, we have the skills to make this a world-wide brand. It just means that you say yes.”

“I’ll get Antoin and Rosetta over in the next few days. If one of you could act as my PA for a while, we can get things moving so that Rosetta can concentrate on the Autumn collections.”

We wound up with the agent ready to hand us the keys to have another look. I was introduced to Brenda, a cute blonde who had struck me as on top of what we had discussed. She had her own car and took me back to the apartment. I rang Turin and organised Antoin to pick us up the next day, while Brenda arranged two business class ticket to Turin.

The next day, we were in Turin, with Brenda seeing the Turin store for the first time, meeting Antoin and Rosie, then getting a quick tour of the manufacturing facility. She asked all the right questions and Rosie told her the minimum number of dressmakers we would need, the best sewing and cutting machines to buy, and a lot of other information.

We all had dinner and discussed what was being put forward. We stayed in Turin until Friday when the four of us flew into London. Saturday, we went to look at the factory. Saturday night we had a large dinner party with the rest of the team and the deal was struck. Saturday night, Antoin stayed with me in the apartment and saw his picture on the bedroom wall. It had the effect of giving him a little more stamina.

Sunday, the two of them flew back to Turin to start the process of transferring the manufacturing to London. They were certain that they would be able to continue employing the best seamstresses and cutters. Brenda had assured them that there was a good pool of seamstresses in London when we started advertising. I had Sallys’ phone number and rang her to ask if she wanted to drive for me, full time. She jumped at the chance. I told her to see about getting a good car and refer the dealer to me for payment.

Monday, I was in the administrators with the team, working out a way that I could take over their employment while them having a place back with their old jobs if needed. The CEO told me that if they stuffed up, they were unlikely to be wanted back, so they had better make a fist of it. As a group, they all resigned. As a group, they were given all the data regarding my companies. As a group, they collected the keys from the estate agent and were moved into the new Head Office by the end of the week, with orders placed for equipment using the list Brenda had given them.

A week later, I had a call from Sally to go and see a car dealer. I met her there with Brenda driving me. We negotiated a deal for three cars on lease and Brenda organised the paperwork and payment. One, we could take immediately, with the registration to be posted to a PO Box that the team had arranged. Sally drove that one home to pick me up on Monday when she started working for me.

One of the team was acting as our human resources, so Brenda had taken Sallys’ details to have her on the payroll. That following week saw the factory cleaned and the office furniture delivered. The machinery and cutting tables would be delivered the following week. Sally was picking me up every morning, and Brenda had set up an office for us. For someone who had not wanted to be tied down, I was laying down roots.

We had a deadline to work with, so a few of the team had set up a large office to handle the Valerie business. What I hadn’t realised was that I was already responsible for the staff of thirty-one shops, adding up to over two hundred men and women. The numbers were frightening, now I was at the centre of things. I was about to add another forty or fifty to that number, on top of the twenty or so on the team already.

It took three weeks before we could take the first shipments of cut dresses from Turin, with our first machines being operated by some older women, some who had worked in this factory before. It was starting to come together. Before I flew to Turin, to help Rosie with the designs for the shows, I got Brenda to work out a roster for each of the team to be driven to every UK Valeries’ store to see, for themselves, what they were looking after. Previously, they had just seen the data. Sally was tasked to take them. I reminded her that she still had the card I had given her and to let each of her passengers have their pick at the store of their choice, on my account.

In Turin, Antoin picked me up and introduced me to Giano, the new manager of the Turin store. I checked out the store with him and then we went to see Rosie in the factory. She was busy on a drafting board, designing, when we went in. The bulk of the factory was now busy making up new designs that she, and the other two designers, were creating. She assured me that it was now much easier with the manufacturing removed.

I stayed with Antoin for two weeks while I helped her with a few drawings of my own, but she was now confident enough to be her own woman. At the end of the first week, Antoin proposed, and I said “Yes.”

Three weeks later, we were married in the chapel at Warren. I could wear the wedding dress that I had designed, and made, all those years before. We had flown Rosie in as the only bridesmaid, along with his parents. There were a few guests, Penelope and her husband, Margaret, and hers, a few of the other girls from Warren and their husbands, some of the staff from both Warren and Longburrow. Last, but not least, was Bancroft, his new wife, and Eliabeth and her husband.

We had a working honeymoon, firstly seeing the organisers of the London Fashion shows, then a similar meeting with the organisers of the Paris shows, followed by the Milan shows. We then joined his parents in Savona, sleeping in his bed and being looked after by his mother. We visited the gallery, where we bought two complete sets of greetings cards with my paintings on. That’s when he saw that I has signed them ‘Ferrari’ all that time ago and he kissed me right there in front of all the tourists.

Two weeks later, we were back in my apartment and knuckling down to organise the shows. We needed to book local models for each one and that took a while, making sure that they were the right size. We were looking at models with figures, none of the stick-thin girls for the Antoin line.

By the time that the first show came around, we were all ready. The London factory was already making the different sizes of the new ranges, with the extra space being used as a warehouse. We were now making every Antoin dress that was sent out to our European stores, as well as the other chains that we looked after as good as we looked after Valerie’s.

Rosie had used her time and space well, sending us the samples and cut pieces to copy. The shows were all on top of each other, but all the local models turned up, looked good, and brought the house down. Before Christmas, we were looking at a second factory and staff to cater for the new orders.

Rosie had met a nice guy, and they were going steady. She delegated much of her work to the other two designers and the employed a third. Before she stepped back, Rosie designed a range of wedding dresses, with the one I had made as the top of the line.

In London, Antoin and I also moved back from the front line. The team, now numbering forty, was led by a new CEO, poached from one of our competitors. She was a real professional in the fashion business and had made her own things for years. She fitted in perfectly.

I was still the sole owner of Valerie’s but created a Public Limited Company, with Ant and I as thirty percent owners, each, Rosie with ten percent, and the other thirty percent allocated to the team, with the proviso that they could only sell them to someone else working for us for ten years. Although we had nothing to sell when we were launched on the stock market, the shares were quoted at fifty percent higher than the original value, such was the market backing of the company.

Ant and I bought a house on the Italian coast, some way from Savona, at Ospedaletti. It was close to the border with France but quiet enough for us to settle. There, we kept an eye on our company, enjoyed our own company, made friends and I painted. Over the years I sent paintings to Savona, signed ‘Ferrari’ and others to London, signed ‘Emily Mottram’.

When some of my paintings were shown in a genuine Art Gallery, they contacted me to paint something for them, on commission, to headline a retrospective of my work. That summer, we attended a totally different showing than we were becoming used to.

Later on, the other shareholders put in a bid for our sixty percent of the business, with an up front and progressive payment amount that we couldn’t turn down. I finally applied for an Italian passport with the name of Francesca Emily Ferrari, and we bought a real Ferrari to get around in.

We never adopted any children. I never told Ant that I had once been a boy. We lived the high life with other A-Listers, moving towards our dotage traveling the world and meeting other rich people at the fashion shows that Antoin Designs were in. Life was good for the child who had lived in the closet.

Marianne Gregory © 2024