NEIL
My school days were long past, but they still rode me hard, revisiting when I least expected them, or perhaps when I was least able to handle the memories. I was deep in a sump well below Castleton when something triggered my memories and switched on the classic fear/flight responses. It took me several minutes to put them back behind their wall, as I lay in the cold and dark, seeing and hearing the other boys as they threw whatever they had learned from their parents at me. Thank god I was always so much bigger than they were at all ages. Sticks and stones would never break my bones, but what I understood of their words still bloody hurt.
Darkness. My regulator bubbling away; if I turned my head torch back on, the bubbles would show me the way up. The way out, though, was down, through the unoriginally named Cheese Press squeeze and then up to the Organ Loft before the wriggle out after the U-Bend. I checked my dry bag for the umpteenth time, and by ‘umpteenth’ I mean forty third. Two tethers: one to the dry bag, the other to my tanks. This was a long passage, so I was double tanking, and the Organ Loft was my only chance to change tanks above water, as well as to get some decent shots of the rock formations. All I needed to do was to get through the squeeze, which meant extending an arm first so that my shoulders could follow, and then breathe in…
The photos came out even better than I had hoped, both colour and monochrome, and I filed the reels away for later printing. The chiaroscuro effects in The Organ Loft had been extremely satisfying, even though I had been panting so hard after my first tank had run out as I cleared the Cheese Press. I had to hold my breath for a little bit until I got my body through the squeeze and then finned to that fragile division between water and air pocket. And breathe.
Two nights after the pictures showed themselves to me, the Robbins Gallery had their show, and that was where my life changed.
MADELEINE
Leo was so bloody insistent, as he always was.
“Mads, for fuck’s sake! Your stuff is great. How many times do I have to say that? Do you want to make a fucking sale or not? Let me send some of your stuff in”
“And if they don’t want to buy? Monochrome is hardly coffee-table, is it?”
“I thought you didn’t care about that sort of thing?”
“I care about my earnings”
“A point with which I can’t argue, much as I would be concerned with my commission. Look, let me pick what I think will be their sort of thing. And please: just go down to the show as well, smile nicely, or try to, do your best, and see what happens. Please. Your pictures should sell themselves, to be honest”
“Do you really think that?”
Leo huffed, then looked directly at me.
“Bloody well yes. That set from the old church, just as an example, absolutely. I want to send some of them to that editor. And that’s why I want you at the show. Customers just need a face, something to give them focus. Let them know who the artist is”
I snorted.
“A tranny?”
He winced.
“And do you need to tell people as soon as you meet them?”
I decided to avoid the explanation of how our lords and masters defined ‘sex by deception’ and set off home. My scooter ran faultlessly, the Jade Garden supplied some tastiness, and my bed was all I needed.
Yes, I went to the show, and yes, I sent, no risk, no chance of my old school friends, etc, some of my more personal shots. I didn’t have my face in them, so, as my thoughts went, I would be safe. I had used a camera behind a cheval glass set up so that what I saw in the mirror was pretty much what the camera was getting. I cheated now and again, using a digital set-up and a simple photo-editing suite, but that was purely to move the image in the frame, crop boundaries and so on. Film was the way, the truth and the whatever, but what I really thought, in essence, was that if I saw myself as an artist I needed my medium to be physical, even if it all to do with light.
The show surprised me in how many potential customers it drew, especially for a mid-week event. Leo was an irritating tick, forever pushing me forward to speak to people, despite his comments about my pictures selling themselves.
He had hissed at me when he saw how I was dressed, and as it was a pretty regular conversation between the two of us, I knew exactly what he meant.
“Hell, Mads! A bit more effort next time?”
“Leo, one: I travel on a bike. Two: high heels bloody hurt when you stand in them for too long. And it’s due to rain later”
“Well, you could at least try. Anyway, get out and mingle. Be that face, okay?”
I scanned the small crowd, looking for the usual archetypes and weighing up which ones to approach, and oh dear: my regular bank worker was staring at one of my nudes. Break up the flow of her thoughts before she managed the arithmetic.
“Hello, Clare”
“Oh, hi, Maddy! These are… Very arty!”
“Um, sort of the point”
“The shadows are the thing that caught my eye. You can’t see anything, you know, rude, but you know it’s there. Right tease, that is. Who’s the model?”
Me, in my bedroom.
“An amateur. I work with her a lot. She hasn’t really got the face for portrait stuff”
“Pity! The men will just have to imagine her”
“Why ‘men’, Clare?”
“Well, boobs and bums, right? Seen that bloke over there in the leather jacket? REALLY staring at your stuff. Just hope he keeps his hands out of his pockets”
“Sorry?”
“Pocket billiards?”
“Oh, for… I am going to try and forget you said that”
He was a big man, with an awful haircut and clearly unfamiliar with the concept of an iron from the state of his trousers, but the bike boots he was wearing absolutely gleamed. Clare watched as he moved along the exhibition, muttering phrases like ‘Hand shandy/ as he stared intently at each image, almost unblinking. I turned to look at her.
“Clare, my love, if he is doing what you suspect, he has some very odd ideas about erotica. That section is all pictures of an old church”
She sniggered, whispered the single word “Organs!”, and moved off to look at my colour work. I was still curious, though, so I walked over to the man I was thinking of as Mister Happy Camper, as he was so clearly intent.
“Are you looking to buy?”
It was like one of those cartoons, where a character literally jumps out of their skin, and as he turned towards me looking almost terrified I revised my opinion on Clare’s suspicions. Press on, woman. Perhaps he’ll bugger off.
“What do you think of my work?”
“The photography’s really good I like monochrome work the photographer should have put up more information it doesn’t say what camera or what the lens was or the exposure time of how it was lit or the film speed”
That is how it sounded, as if seven or eight sentences had simply lost all punctuation. Deep breath, and forget about monomanualism. He was clearly somewhere on that famous scale, which was a pity, because he was at least four inches taller than my five foot eleven and had absolutely gorgeous eyes.
I pulled myself up sharply. Where on Earth had that thought tunnelled out from? He was staring intently at one of my church pictures as he pulled a fondleslab from his rucksack, swiping at its face a few times before holding it up in an obvious comparison with my image rather than what I had suspected. My hands were already half way up to stop him pirating my work, but he was absolutely intent once more. I took a step to one side so that I could see what he was looking at on his device, and it turned out to be a picture of some really intricate rock formations.
“Are those stalactites?”
“Yes and stalagmites it is in a cave under Castleton in the Peak District but in the White Peak which is limestone and…”
He proceeded to pour out an absolute torrent of information, until I held up a hand before his face. That was when he smiled, suddenly becoming human.
“I am talking too much, aren’t I? I am sorry but it is the way I am and my Mum said----. Breathe, Neil. Count… My name is Neil. I take photos. This one is in a cave. It’s called The Organ Loft and is between two sumps”
A memory I didn’t know I had of some passage from a book tugged at my arm.
“Sumps? You mean underwater, don’t you?”
“Yes. There is a narrow part just before that one, called the Cheese Press. That’s why I have to use tethered bottles”
“You are talking about cave diving, aren’t you? Underwater, in the dark?”
Another human emotion emerged, and it was puzzlement.
“Of course. There’s no other way of getting there”
I shook my head, shuddering at the thought of what he was describing so casually, and changed the subject, or rather reverting to his original word deluge.
“Well, I’m Maddy Gibson, and this is sort of my show. The camera I used on that one was a…”
NEIL
The exhibition had been advertised for some seven weeks or so, but I had never heard of the photographer, a Madeleine Gibson. I wasn’t sure if they would be happy seeing my usual bike boots on their clean carpet, so I spent a couple of hours cleaning them before I set out. It was within walking distance, so I could have used other footwear, but neither trainers nor walking boots were really appropriate, which just left dress shoes, and they would have been silly paired with my chinos. It was also due to rain later that evening, and I didn’t want to soak my best shoes.
What had caught my eye were the sample images on the internet advert, showing a few monochrome pics as well as one utterly lurid shot of red wisps in mid-air, which I simply couldn’t fathom. Entry was free, with a ticket. I suspected that was simply to control numbers at the event. I walked in, showed my ticket, and started to work my way along the display. Unfortunately, what I really wanted wasn’t there: some description of kit and settings.
I really hate auto settings on a camera. The manufacturers always call it something like ‘best pic’ or ‘magic’ or something like that, and what can be meant by ‘best’ can vary from image to image. In fact, there can be several ‘best’ settings for each shot, as one setting will emphasise an aspect while others bring out different ones. A bit like Warhol’s prints, each in a different shade but using the same base image.
I had to look closely at the first few, which were classic chiaroscuro work, before I could work out what was actually in the frame. I eventually realised it was the edge of a naked shoulder and a hip, lit somehow, or perhaps edited, to achieve a very sharp separation of light and dark. There were a few of those, a couple with a hint of a breast, but never a face, even in silhouette.
The next shot almost made me gasp, for it was of a large pipe organ, obviously in a church, and the shot had been taken from below the level of the organist’s seat. It was so reminiscent of my own pic of---
“What do you think of my work?”
I nearly shat myself, but managed to hold back the yelp. The speaker was a tall woman, with quite a smooth contralto voice.
“Well, I take my own pictures, and I like working in monochrome. What I would have been interested in is some info about the kit and settings”
I took my tablet computer from my rucksack, calling up the scans of my shots in The Organ Loft. Yes! Almost exactly the same angle in each picture, looking upwards at the pipes and stalactite/stalagmite pillars, foreshortening them to make them seem even bigger, the shiny metal of the organ pipes reflecting almost as strongly as the wet limestone.
The woman had moved behind me, which was a little worrying, but I realised she wanted to see my own picture.
“Are those stalactites?”
“Yes. And stalagmites”
I was partway through a proper explanation, when my number alarm kicked in. How many words had I said? Breathe, Neil.
I worked a smile onto my face, apologised for my verbosity and introduced myself, before explaining where my photo had been taken, and how I had got there. Predictably, she was one of far too many people who simply don’t understand the delights of cave diving. I let her change the subject, back to photography, and ‘Maddy, as she introduced herself, gave me a proper package of info on kit, settings and why she liked monochrome work just as much as I did.
It was odd, really weird. Talking to women, or rather girls when I was at school, had been impossible, their thoughts so orthogonal to my own, along with the regular taunts of ‘Spacky Stracky’. Maddy was different, even though I kept missing some fine detail because I was word-counting to avoid gushing.
She left me with a piece of paper bearing the gallery’s e-mail.
“Your work is excellent, Neil. Leo—he’s the owner here—he might be able to get you some sales”
She was gone, off to chat with other potential customers, I suppose, and I walked home with paid-for copies of the organ and ‘shoulder and hip’ pictures. Had she been her own model? How?
MADDY
‘Neil’ left early, having spoken to nobody but me, as far as I could tell, and to Leo as he bought a couple of prints. What an odd man; so clearly on that spectrum, but when he smiled, oh my. I wondered what technique he was using to bring himself back into focus, as well as trying to predict whether he would end up like me, using Leo to punt out his work for filthy lucre.
Filthy lucre would have been fine by me, but thus far all I was getting was merely slightly smutty. That thought brought me a reminder of Clare’s suspicions re his relaxation in a gentlemanly manner. After I had stopped chuckling, I reminded myself that I was very unlikely to see him again, but resolved to keep an eye out for his own work. His eye for composition was superb, and he clearly loved chiaroscuro at least as much as I did. Never mind, woman. What will be will be, and probably not as good as hope was saying.
It rained all the way home, and despite the leg screens on my dinky bike, I got soaked. Clothes off and into the washing machine ready for the next load, warm shower, mug of hot chocolate and into bed in a very worn old nighty to browse a bit of interweb while I warmed up.
Sod it… I typed in ‘Neil cave diver’ and then tried to remember some other words. Oh yes: Cheese Press and Organ Loft.
He only had his own bloody website. Neil Strachan Photography held a fascinating collection of images, although I skipped past the ones involving crash-helmeted heads turned sideways in narrow fissures that were far too far underground for me ever to want closer acquaintance. There were others, though, and some of them were stunning. One set took me a little while to work out, and then realisation made me almost yelp with delight.
It was a small stream, clearly somewhere mountainous, and as the stream had chuckled along, cold air had frozen the water splashes, so that he had caught several flower heads looking as if they had been coated in glass. Best of all were a few small rocks. The same process had sheathed them in ice, but as what was clearly a warmer sun had heated them, the ice shells had sagged away from them, so that a perfect transparent cast hung at an angle before each one. He had an amazing eye for detail, and I stayed up gar later than I had intended, until I realised there was far too many images for me to get through in one go. Reluctantly I closed my laptop, leaving the washing up for the next day, and settled down for the night.
I worked through the site in easy stages, trying to do justice to each image, and yes: Mr Strachan had attached a full list of metrics to each shot. He might be---no. He clearly WAS obsessed with the detail, but he was bloody good at his work. I was almost jealous. Or should that be envious?
Three weeks after the event was when I nearly died.
MADDY
I was riding to the supermarket, ready for my version of a Big Shop, which is easy enough to fit onto even a small bike when you live solo, and it was a miserable day, joy to the world. I was musing on whether it was time to get some better footwear for the bike, or at least some waterproof over trousers that were actually proof against water, when the handlebars started to twist in my hand as the rest of the bike shimmied frantically from side to side. My hand let the throttle close, and thank god I didn’t grab the front brake, but as the engine slowed I coasted to a very wobbly stop, where I sat astride the little machine trying not to hyperventilate. What the hell?
As I paddled the bike into a side road and under a bus shelter, I realised what was up, or rather down, and that was my back tyre. Shit, shit and once more, shit. I took a seat in the shelter, which was keeping most of the rain off, and dug out my mobile. Who to call?
The RAC and AA did bike recovery, which was nice for their members, of which I was neither. Leo’s phone when straight to voice message, and my parents---. No. Not any kind of option there whatsoever. I checked the bus timetables under their glass covers, and there was a bus that would get me close to home, but that would mean leaving the Purple Pixie to be stripped by passing feral chavs. What to bloody do?
I took off my helmet, stepping out into the rain so that I could cry properly without it showing. FUCK! Story of my life in one neat package; and then I was laughing, as a seriously filthy analogy struck me, and suddenly the rain was too cold. Up and down, me. I settled myself onto the seat once more, and started the process of hunting down motorcycle shops on my phone’s mapping op. Surely one of them could offer a pick-up and repair, and hopefully a warming cuppa? The next few days would have to involve takeaways or deliveries, shit once again.
I heard engine noise, which was heading my way, and in the distance I could see a single headlight, and to my delight it was slowing down. It was a BMW from the tank badge, with a cylinder sticking out to each side of the engine, and the rider was staring hard at me.
“Maddy?”
I started looking for an escape route.
NEIL
I could handle being underwater, but rain was different. This was the sort of fine stuff that penetrated everywhere, especially down the back of my neck. I had splashed out, aptly, on some Rucka salopettes, but when worn over my other clothing they made me feel like a barrage balloon, and getting on and off the bike a dance against gravity and balance. At least I had done my usual trick with the current Beemer, and changed that death trap of a side stand. I mean, I had the Zed Thou as well, but the Beemer spoke more clearly to my soul in its simplicity. I was heading down Bradley Crescent, Vee Wipe doing a decent job for once, when I spotted a moped on its centre stand in a bus shelter, the rider slumped on one of the seats. As I slowed down, I recognised her. I stopped a bit quickly in front of her, and flipped up my visor.
“Maddy?”
Her head jerked up, and she flicked a glance to either side. She looked terrified. I shook my hand to say ‘No’, realising she couldn’t see me through the helmet. Would she remember me?
“It’s Neil in here. I don’t want you frightened. Are you all right?”
Keep the count going. Remember she can’t see your face.
“Hang on while I get this off the road”
There was an entrance to a sports ground a little past the bus shelter, so I rode the Beemer in there and set it onto its centre stand. Big chain lock through the back wheel, disc lock on…
Stop it. Tray and act like a bloody human, Strachan. I concentrated on my breathing till I could feel myself starting to function a little further into the ‘human’ bandwidth, then walked back to the shelter, undoing my helmet as I went.
Balaclava, man, Take it off. Smile.
“I thought it was you. Didn’t know you rode a bike. Is it having problems?”
She waved at the back wheel, her mouth twisting, an expression even I couldn’t miss.
“Flat! Nearly bloody came off, it squirmed that much”
“Can I look at it?”
“Got a spare one?”
“No, but I might have something at home that can fix it. I make my own mushrooms and do them in reverse and…”
I stopped the prattle as quickly as I could.
“I have something that might work. I will have a look at it and see, and then we can decide what is best”
“If you could…”
She stopped, shaking her head.
“I can wait here for you, as long as you aren’t too long. I’m starting to get really chilled”
“Where were you going?”
“Asda. My weekly shop”
“Ah. So was I. I have hard cases instead of throwovers”
STOP IT!
“I have a suggestion. I can fix the tyre, but I need to go home to get my kit. If I lock up your bike with my locks, I could take you to the supermarket and leave you there. You get your shopping, and I pick you up once I have fixed your tyre. Your bags will fit into my cases. I bring you back here, you then ride home. Day isn’t a wasted one”
MADDY
I had never actually been on what I thought of as a grown-up bike before, But Neil turned out to be a really calm rider. I lost count of the number of locks he applied to my Purple Pixie, but some of them attached the bike to a signpost, I suppose on the logic that Neil looked as if he could pick up my whole machine, possibly with me still on it. The ladies’ at the shop had hot-air dryers, and the attached café sold me a hot coffee. Neil was off straight away, and I did the rounds with my list before settling back down with another coffee. It was ninety minutes before he was back, meeting me as arranged in the café, where I had moved on to a hot chocolate and a toasted sandwich.
“How was it? Please spare the details”
Oh, you absolute bitch, Gibson. I tried to soften my words.
“Is it rideable?”
He nodded, clearly not trusting his own mouth, then started to speak more slowly. I noticed his fingers flicking next to his leg, and realised he was following some sort of counting routine.
“I tried using a slime mix. That’s a gel you blow into the wheel and it seals holes but there was a hole that was too big and—”
He stopped abruptly, looking up at the ceiling before bringing his gaze back to the table.
“You had a nail in the tyre. Holes like that can be sealed with a mushroom, which is a patch on the inside of a wheel. It has a stalk that goes through the hole, and that is why it is called a mushroom, even though mushrooms have stipes…. I have made a tool that lets me seal a mushroom from outside the tyre. I then put the slime mix in, my own mix, and let it get under the patch before pulling it tight. That pulls some of the slime through with the stalk stipe stem and seals that bit. Then I pump the tyre up, and that presses everything together before I cut off the extra bit of… stem. I waited half an hour to see if it was going down again but it’s still holding pressure so it’s fixed can I get some shopping. Before I take you back. To your bike”
I insisted on standing him a hot drink, noticing a few grazes on his knuckles. He caught my stare, and shrugged.
“I get worse cuts in caves. Oh, and I have a spare tyre for you as well. I went to a bike shop just in case the repair didn’t work”
Bloody hell: all of that on the strength of one conversation?
NEIL
I filled a basket with a few microwave meals and two pints of milk; once clear of the shop, I started to repack my cases to fit stuff in. My foot pump was bungeed to the top of the rear case, and I realised how useful it was that Maddy was tall, as it made it easier for her to slip onto the pillion. She really needed some better gloves, and her overtrousers were far too thin for my liking, but at least she didn’t try to ride the bike for me. Ten minutes after we left Asda, we were at the sports ground, and her little bike was still there. Once she was off mine, I set it on the side stand and started breathing so that I didn’t end up explaining the problems with said side stand. Maddy bounced the back of her bike on its suspension a few times to see how the tyre felt, then turned back to me.
“You have been amazing, Neil. How long will this repair last?”
I nearly put my foot in it yet again, and rapidly rephrased what would have been ‘You’ve let your tyre get very worn and it’s dangerous to do that (etc.)’ into
“I think you’ll need a new tyre soon anyway, so best thing to do is change it as soon as you can”
My mouth ran away from me, and rather oddly, I realised it was happening for once.
“I can do that for you”
She stared at me, and even with my problem I could see that she was weighing a lot of things up at once.
“You sure?”
I nodded.
“Absolutely. It’s only a dinky one compared to mine, so a lot easier. I do almost all of my own maintenance because [breathe] I know what I’m doing, and I don’t trust strangers”
She stared hard at me for a few seconds.
“Yes. I am much the same. Probably for a different reason, though”
She was still staring at me, which was making me wonder what I had missed this time.
“Neil, may I ask a favour?”
Suddenly, she was laughing, and as her face changed with the mood, I realised how strong her features were. I had not really learned to read beyond the more obvious expressions, but my mind was picking up all sorts of clues. Added to her own comment about strangers, I gathered she was another person carrying heavier loads than most. She turned away to wipe her eyes, and that was when I realised that she had been her own model, as the pose emphasised the curve of her shoulder and hip… and I realised I had missed something when she said my name once again.
“Sorry. I was thinking”
“So was I. What made me laugh… Look. When that tyre blew, I thought I was going to come off, be hurt, die, something nasty. I was…. Unhappy isn’t really the right word, nor adequate in any way. Then you come along, and bang, bang, bang: you not only solve all my problems, but spot another one, well before it’s obvious, and you solve that one as well. And here’s me saying, can you do me a favour?”
“It was ‘may I ask a favour’, Maddy”
“Same difference! Anyway, you’re sure the tyre’s fine?”
“Yes”
“Well, I am not doubting your work, but, well, I am still really, really shaken. Would you mind following me back to my place, just so I know I’m going to get there alive?”
I pointed at my own bike.
“I’ve still got your shopping in there”
“Would you mind leaving it there for now? Make the Pixie a little lighter? Oh, sorry. Neil, Purple Pixie; Purple Pixie, Neil”
MADDY
I had no idea what I was doing, or rather whether I was being an idiot, but there seemed to be no malice whatsoever in the big man. I couldn’t work out whether he was simply utterly clueless about sociability, or somewhere on that famous spectrum, but every so often, he smiled, and those eyes, oh dear.
I also wondered about OCD, given his finger counting, but that didn’t fit with the rest of his behaviour. What I was picking up, I realised, was someone with a very sharp focus and a lack of social awareness coupled with that bastard hag of self-awareness riding on his back. He didn’t just lack it, he was fully aware that he did.
The revelation came a few minutes later, when I saw how alike we were, in essence. I had watched other women all of my life, knowing who I was but unable to speak the words, out of fear. Neil…
Bugger it.
“Neil, how long would it take to change that tyre?”
“Half an hour but I haven’t got my tyre levers or the grease I use on the bead”
You are definitely being an idiot, Mads.
“Is there anything you don’t eat?”
“Marzipan and Marmite”
Oh dear.
“Would you have time to come back after I get home, with your tools and stuff? I could cook you something, or there’s a few places to eat near mine. Would you have time for that?”
“You don’t have to do that for me. I can do the tyre with no problems, though”
“I know I don’t HAVE to, Neil, but I would LIKE to. Just to say thanks. I saw what you bought at Asda, and I am certain I can find something nicer than your shopping. Oops”
“Oops?”
“That was a bit rude”
He changed the subject abruptly.
“Do you have more pictures to show me?”
“Oh dear me, yes! It’s my job, after all”
“Then if I come back for the tyre may I bring some of my own photos?”
I managed not to blurt out that I had been stalking him on line, but only just. He followed me back, I stowed my shopping while he gathered his tools, and sneaked out to the Little Waitrose for a posh ‘joint for two’, which went into my oven just before his return. I watched him from my front window as he worked, my thoughts tripping over each other as I did my level best to sort and file them.
I could sense no harm in him at all, not the slightest glimmer of a threat. He looked to be five to ten years younger than me, and while he was swathed in his rather bulky bike clothes he didn’t seem to be fat at all. And those eyes, oh my.
My nasty little mind was sniggering now, that I had already got him to fill one hole for me with his stalk/stipe/stem: was I angling for a different one to be similarly plumbed?
Shit. I dug out my diary and, yes, it was four weeks since the last time. There is a lot of wishful thinking about HRT, and some trans women claim they have a menstrual cycle, just without the messy bit. I am not sure about that, but I do know that ever since my body settled down to the removal of testosterone and the introduction of oestrogen, I do have a cycle of sorts. Not menstrual, obviously, but it shares one aspect with that process in that I get randy for a few days every four weeks or so. Not enough to be a problem, but still noticeable.
It had caused a problem with my ex, for he wanted it whenever we met, while I tolerated it only up to a point, except for when I really wanted it, and that was the end of my one LTR, if four months could fairly be described as ‘long term’.
Grow up, you stupid woman. Stupid trans woman. Stupid ugly trans woman.
An old joke came to mind, and I found myself laughing again. ‘I’m so ugly my vibrator won’t switch on till I put a bag over my head’.
Vibration… Pixie’s engine… I was so glad I had been wearing overtrousers, for my jeans were now soaking to get rid of the little bit of piss I had let out when the bike tried to go sideways, which was the only reason I had changed into a dress before Neil’s return, honest.
Up and down; I went to check on the joint in its little foil container, and got the ‘rowan and whatever glaze’ ready to add to the thing.
‘I’ll cook you dinner’, said the woman who couldn’t even get crackling to work on a pork joint.
NEIL
My hands worked without conscious thought as I swapped the tyres, while my mind ran at double speed. I couldn’t work out what she wanted, but she was being much nicer to me than other women had ever been. By ‘women’, of course, I included girls, for several had been the quickest and loudest with that name, ‘Spacky’. She wasn’t a girl, as she was a bit older than me, and she didn’t seem to need to faff. A decision was made, and she carried it out. Her nuances were like her pictures, and so many of my own, in being monochrome.
Never mind: my only planned task for that evening had been developing a couple of reels I had used on a windy day at Stanage Edge. They were sort of monochrome, as long as I kept heather or grass out of the frame, but held explosions of colour from some of the climbers I had included in the shots. If…
The tyre was done, so I took another few minutes to adjust and lubricate the chain and check the head bearings. Fine. Pack up my kit, lock it into my top box and collect my hand cleaner and photo case. Would she have a sink I could use?
When she opened the door, I saw she had changed into a dress, a sort of overlapping wraparound thing, in a dark blue. I liked it, was my thought, almost immediately followed by ‘I like it on her’. Careful, Neil. I slipped my boots off after I had stepped into the hall, noticing the framed prints on the walls..
My stomach reacted first, though, as my nose caught the aroma of roasting lamb, and my guts rumbled loudly. Maddy laughed out loud once more, which seemed to be her thing.
“When did you last eat?”
“Yesterday, I think. I have been busy and lose track of time”
I showed her my hand cleanser and wipes.
“Do you have somewhere I can use this?”
“Bathroom’s at the top of the stairs, to the right”
“Thank you”
“Do you drink?”
“No alcohol when I am on the bike”
“Tea, then? Or maybe a coke?”
“Tea please. White and without sugar”
I climbed the stairs to the room in question, and it was a little awkward, for she had things, underwear, hanging up by the shower, as well as a pair of jeans soaking in a bucket placed into the bath. Hands washed, and eyes under control, I left the bathroom, passing a couple of open doors. The second was clearly her bedroom, but the first opened on a very bare room, fitted with spotlights and a long mirror.
‘Shoulder and hip’, obviously. No sneaking around, Neil. And the roast lamb was calling.
MADDY
I plated up the carved ‘joint’, what there was of it, with a few of the cook-from-frozen roast potatoes and little Yorkshire puddings together with some steamed fine beans and set the two plates on my little table-for-four together with a jug of instant gravy and a jar of Waitrose mint sauce. A far cry of my usual dining in experience, which involved a cushion-based tray and an armchair. Neil was down in about fifteen minutes, his padded trousers and jacket now hanging by my front door, and I saw that he was most definitely not fat. I indicated the teapot under its cosy.
“Be Mother, please. That way you can get it at your own strength. I’ll take it as it comes”
Oh, stop it! And don’t even think of mentioning cream—it’s milk. Change the subject.
“What pictures have you brought for me?”
He launched into another mega-detailed description of some he hadn’t brought, that were awaiting development, and I held up a hand to cut him short.
“Neil! Now, I am going to be rude, sort of. I apologise for that, but I do need to ask. Please just listen for a few… I am going to guess you sit somewhere on the autism spectrum. Doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing, but there’s only so much detail I need. That anyone needs. An image should speak for itself. Please answer this with a nod or a shake of your head: do I offend you when I stop you speaking?”
He stared at his plate for a few seconds before shaking his head.
“Good man. Now, start again about the photos you haven’t brought. I will ask questions, and that should help with the pacing”
“I have a diagnosis of borderline Asperger’s”
I sighed.
“I had guessed at something like that. Is that tied in with the finger counting?”
He looked up sharply, and those eyes set me a little adrift, but his expression was of surprise rather than anger.
“You noticed that?”
I just nodded, and he smiled.
“I have a therapist, and she has given me some techniques. I know I talk too much, and she called it ‘spewing detail over people’. If I say more than twenty words, she tells me, I am probably talking too much. So when I feel stressed, I count”
“What happens if you are really stressed?”
“I forget to count. That’s a lot worse. I got called things at school because of it and they called me ‘Spacker Stracker’ for ‘spastic’ and my surname which is Strachan and---”
I raised my hand again, and the flow stopped. The poor, poor man. My problems were utterly trivial in comparison.
“That rule again, Neil, but this time either nod or shake, or say yes or no. Am I stressing you?”
“Yes”
“Is there something I can do to ease the stress”
“Talk to me like you’re doing”
He drew in a long breath, then another, and suddenly he was talking almost normally.
“My therapist says I need to have boundaries set to curb my verbal diarrhoea. That’s her term. That’s why the twenty words thing. If you can keep me within boundaries it might work”
“Would you like that?”
More breathing, then a grin, and yet again, oh my.
“I don’t get to speak to many good-looking women, or any women at all, so yes please”
MADDY
“Riiiiiight… Now, we both prefer monochrome, but you mentioned colour. Shall we get the pudding served, so we can clear the table to look at your portfolio?”
He hoovered up the ice cream I offered, so it wasn’t long before the table was cleared, dishes left soaking for the moment. That was what I normally did, but he didn’t need to know any of that. His portfolio was a large folder of paper prints, and one set caught my eye, as while it looked monochrome, there was a tiny dot of colour down near the bottom edge. I stood on the brake several times, but we got there, and in summary, the bite-sized chunks made perfect sense. I could feel the commas and full stops reasserting themselves in his speech.
“That was a winter walk on Snowdon. With the low cloud and the snow, it looks monochrome, but there were a few walkers out. That was someone’s woolly hat, in really bright orange”
“Was that where you got the idea for those Standing photos?”
“Stanage. It’s in the Peak District and… Yes. The rock’s naturally a sort of grey colour, but a lot of the climbers wear stuff even brighter than that woolly hat. To get the shots of them at the top, I had to lie down in the heather to avoid getting any in the frame. Grey sky, grey rock, bright colours popping out”
“Why are they all off to one side?”
“Rule of thirds, sort of. And it makes them look small against the architecture”
“Sorry?”
“The clouds and rock. Like the Organ Loft images, compared to your church organ I bought a copy of that one and one I call ‘Shoulder and Hip’ and”
“Neil”
“Sorry”
“Stress? What is it?”
He actually blushed, which was sweet.
“That’s you in the photo, isn’t it? Um, not wearing clothes?”
I nodded, and for once he bounced straight back.
“I saw the spotlights and the mirror when I came out of the bathroom. Is that where you did it?”
Another blush.
“I meant, is that where you took the pictures?”
“Yes, it was”
“Can I see how?”
For a second, I wondered if he was suggesting I strip off, but he was speaking clearly and the blush was absent.
“Shall we finish your selection first, Neil? These ones look really weird, unearthly sort of thing”
“Ramshaw Rocks, near Leek. Nd this one’s from The Roaches, which are nearby”
I couldn’t help the ‘fuck!’ that burst from my lips.
“He’s bloody upside down! And no, Neil: no comment about him only being sideways”
The most natural laugh I had heard so far.
“That’s a climb called ‘Sloth’. I abseiled to the side of it.”
“I can see why!”
“It’s not that hard, really”
He was clearly in his own world in more ways than one.
“Come on. I’ll show you how my silhouette system works. Had more than enough frights for one day”
I led us up to my little studio, feeling oddly pretentious as I thought the word, and explained how I set up the spotlights, using the mirror to assess the image, camera locked to a tripod aligned with the cheval glass and on a long cable for remote shutter release, taking a burst of five shots each time to improve the odds of getting a decent image. I turned to see what Neil thought, and caught him mid-blush once more.
“What’s embarrassing you, Neil? I don’t want you stressed if we can avoid it”
Once again, he started breathing deeply, which was clearly another of his calming rituals, and then ducked his head.
“It really is embarrassing. It’s the photo, that ‘shoulder and hip’ and it’s a really great composition, but it’s you and you’re naked in it and I’m standing next to you and”
Hand up.
“Neil… Neil, are you saying you find that picture erotic? Simple answer rules”
The longest and deepest of breaths.
“Not just that”
“What else?”
“It’s very erotic. And I’m standing next to it. To her. To you. Sorry. I better leave”
He was gone before I could think of a way of stopping him, and I then spent the night awake as I tried to work out why I wanted to stop him at all.
NEIL
I could feel my face burning as I dragged my lid on after stuffing my Rukkas into the top box and setting my portfolio rather more carefully into a side case. I was on the bike and rolling before remembering to zip up my jacket. How had I let my mouth run away like that? I knew the answer, of course, but my shame was distracting me, along with the pressure in my trousers. I was praying she hadn’t spotted the bulge, but I knew from that burning sensation that she must have spotted the blush.
Why hadn’t I just lied? How much had I in the flat? Not a clue, for once, so I decided I better make sure it was enough, and I ended up back at Asda, where I realised that I couldn’t risk bottles in hard cases, so I ended up with e three litre box of wine, six bottles of Old Peculier and three bath towels to wrap them in.
I could still taste the lamb, even after the ice cream, as it was repeating a little due to the state of my nerves setting my guts churning. Shit. There was an edition of a logic puzzle magazine at the magazine rack, along with a couple of camera magazines I hadn’t read, and as I spent far too much money I could feel my stomach settling a little.
Back onto the bike, and home, and I turned the lock on my dark room door, putting the key into my sock drawer so that I wouldn’t end up trying to develop the Stanage shots whilst inebriated. I had nothing planned for the following day, and I intended to get drunk so quickly that I would lose relevant function before…
I recovered the key, and put ‘shoulder and hip’ into the dark room before repeating the key trick. No. Not giving into that temptation, not now that I knew her.
Had known her, rather. There was no way I would ever be able to face her again. I got up once more to add my laptop and phone to the contents of the dark room, just to be safe.
The mid-morning sun was full on my face through the uncurtained window, the previous day’s rain having blown through on its way towards Lincoln and the North Sea, who were welcome to it. I checked the clock, finding the time to be nearly eleven thirty, so more late morning than mid. I was still fully dressed, lying on top of the bedclothes with half of the duvet folded across my middle.
Tea. Orange juice, tea and paracetamol. I could spend the evening in focus after an afternoon of hangover recovery, and do some justice to the black, white, colour pictures I had taken at Stanage. I had a bowl of milky cereal to help settle my stomach, wincing as I saw how much inroad I had made into the wine after killing all six bottles of OP, and after unlocking the dark room I recovered my laptop and started checking prices on a new lens I had seen featured in an article in one of the magazines, one of the few clear memories I had from the night’s debauch.
And without any conscious intent, I found myself back on Maddy’s website, and three more prints somehow ordered themselves, all of them of the same type as the one I had hidden in my dark room.
MADDY
That was the last I saw or heard from Neil for quite a while, though I found myself thinking about him almost obsessively. I couldn’t work out exactly what I felt, but a huge amount of it was an almost crippling sense of combined shame and sympathy.
He had shot out of my house, clearly covering a stiffy, and my dirty little mind had gloated, remembering Clare’s little comments about hand shandies and pocket billiards, before another part of me slapped that down.
He was, in the end, almost crippled, in a way that didn’t show unless you spoke to him: invisibly disabled, that was it. What sort of personal life, intimate relationships, could he have had if a silhouette of my hip had him so aroused he was floored by shame? You are an utter bitch, I told myself, far from the first time, while that nastier part of me tried to remember how big the bulge had been.
Fucking hormones!
Bollocks to that. I had two photography conventions lined up for the coming week, as well as a meeting that Leo had arranged with a possible technical customer. My least favourite work, to be honest, because everything had to be precisely lined up, trade marks to the fore, and this particular slice of ennui was a producer of computer motherboards, oh god. My passion for photography was driven by my artistic sensitivity, not as a simple record. A person’s portrait can be tweaked so many ways, especially if there is a strong interpersonal relationship; old machinery may be shot in so many styles of lighting, and of course there was my chiaroscuro work, but, shit.
Electronic components. On a flat surface. With a fixed camera and no shadows if at all possible. Square in the frame. Sod that for a game of artistic soldiers, but at least it paid a large part of my bills. And it filled my time usefully when the weeks span round to the awkward days of my personal Cape Horn.
That thought tickled me, lifting me a small way from my sense of failure and shame with one young man. Rounding the Horn, oh yes, but without the Kenneths, Hugh or Betty.
Two weeks went by without incident, although involving far too many mother boards and inline water filters as well as the work I really, REALLY hated, which was electrical components for a bloody mail order parts catalogue.
Bills, Gibson, and payment thereof. That trip to Durham was coming soon, and if I managed to get the hotel I had my eye on, I was anticipating some brilliant sunrise and sunset shots of the cathedral.
Two weeks indeed, and I checked the sales summary on my website, eyes blurred after several hundred too many shots of resistors or inertia switches or bloody dilithium crystals for my mental wellbeing, and started to relax. I had made a couple of hundred sales of physical prints in the previous fortnight, and while that wasn’t a huge quantity, it certainly gave me some nice wiggle room. Leo handled that side of things for me, as there was no way I could personally print so many A4 and A3 copies. I started my usual scan down the sales reports, looking for patterns in purchaser locations and popularity of images, and spotted a little nugget buried among the others.
Three sales in this town, all nudes, including one where part of my breast had popped into view when I had pressed the shutter release just as the postie had dropped a couple of heavy magazines through the letter box, making me jump. Right… email address…
‘[email protected]’. If that wasn’t ‘my’ Neil, then I had just entered the Twilight Zone. What to do?
NEIL
I managed to pull myself together after a few days, though I still found it confusing each time I looked the prints. I had framed them all, and hung them on the dark room rather than elsewhere, so that they might inspire me at work, even if I couldn’t see them properly, rather than distracting me in ways I didn’t want to confront.
I was heading towards the Dales for some caving, without my diving rig this time, but with a full set of photo gear as I intended to stop off in York and Tadcaster for some architectural work. The weather was set fair for a change, and I decided to take the Kwak for a change. The plan was a complicated one, with two days in Hawes exploring some of the pots there, as well as getting some pics of the karst scenery, before heading up into the top end of Weardale, where they had done a lot of hushing. More than two thousand feet up in the Pennines they had mined lead by filling dammed pools before releasing a flood to strip the surface layers of the ground to reveal galena, from which they would smelt out lead, as well as some silver. One of the eroded gullies is said to be one hundred feet deep, and there are lots of old industrial relics on the slopes. All grist to my own personal mill, I thought, before realising the unconscious pun.
The ride was actually quite pleasant, the Kwak handling the winding Dales roads nicely, and I got some seriously useful shots around and under Buttertubs, including a few very satisfying colour shots down the Pass itself and some waterfall effects after I had abseiled partway into one of the Tubs, jumaring back out. The limestone pavement to the South West swallowed four rolls of film, metaphorically, and for the rest of the week I was booked into a bed and breakfast in Garrigill, a short walk from the George and Dragon. That area had always fascinated me when looking at the map, because all three of the area’s main rivers, Tyne, Wear and Tees, started almost at the same spot. No caving, but plenty of huge skies and windblown rushes interspersed with boggy pools of slime.
My sort of country. I rode out one day through Alston to Hartside for some mixed film and digital long shots of the Lake District, and then took a seat in the pub for a sober meal and the use of their wifi. I had mail.
Did I have mail.
‘Hi Neil. I know this is the Neil I met because this is the contact mail on your website. Please believe I am NOT stalking you! I really like your work, and absolutely enjoyed our session swapping tips and experiences. I think our tastes are almost identical, so I will say that I have had a horrible time doing catalogue work for electrical component retailers. I am NOT going into any more detail because it would bring back memories of how boring it is. But it pays my mortgage.
Now, please believe that this is not a complaint. I was disappointed when you left so abruptly. Not angry, not disappointed in YOU, just a little surprised. You had done so much for me that day, and I enjoyed the evening we managed, as I have said.
I saw that you had bought some of my prints, and want to say that if you want any others, please just ask. How could I dare to charge you after your chivalry?
Now comes my own embarrassing bit. With what you said, I worked out why you felt you had to rush off, and I am neither angry, nor offended, but flattered, that a handsome younger man found me that attractive. I have issues of my own that get in the way of any more than casual relationships. To be honest, any relationships at all have been like hens’ teeth in my life. I will explain at some point, but that sort of requires that we communicate.
I have put my mobile number at the foot of this mail, but don’t feel pressured to use it. It would be nice to hear your voice again so that I know you are okay, and I promise not to complain if you hit me with verbal diarea (sp?).
Maddy Gibson’
I sat for a few minutes as my pie and mash cooled down, then closed down my email and opened my own website. As I had suspected, she had left a few comments on some of my images, so I looked up my sales page, and as I had suspected, she had bought five of them, matching my own purchases shot for shot. The only difference was that I do not offer nudes, and at that thought a little corner of my mind giggled and wondered if she had been disappointed. Before I realised it, my hands were at the keyboard, and a return mail was off and running.
MADDY
I was in one of those odd tea shops, near Old Elvet Bridge, where cold drinks are served in empty jam jars instead of glasses. I had taken a room to the West of the Cathedral, my window looking across the river to the towering Cathedral and the sprawl of the Castle. I had calculated that I would have the twin bonuses of the morning sun haloing the stone giants and the evenings giving me a warmer, brighter glow. That all depended on decent weather, of course, but so far my first two days were holding up. I had booked a walk around the inside of the massive church for the following day, complete with a photography permit. There was a price to pay, of course, and that involved a couple of formal portraits. Ah, well: at least they weren’t going to be of thermostats or nipple clamps.
What on Earth? Sodding HRT cycle! I took another bite of my posh ham, artisan cheese and suspicious mushroom toasty just as my phone bleeped. I had mail, apparently. I opened up the screen, and it wasn’t from Tom Hanks.
‘Hello Maddy
Thank you. I have been so worried I had offended you with what I said. Yes you are attractive but I am not right, not completely.
I have now edited this message seven times before sending it. Unsurprisingly I have no idea how to talk to women but I did enjoy the evening before I disgraced myself. I will say the same thing to you, that you do not have to pay to get copies of my pictures. It’s only fair.
I am away from home right now so here are some digital pictures from today’s lunch stop
Neil’
I opened the first of the attached images, and laughed out loud, for he had added a caption: ‘The other sort of MAMIL’, A pub car park, clearly, filled with motorbikes and lots of people in full sets of leathers. I did a quick search for MAMIL, getting ‘Middle Aged Male In Lycra’ with rather a lot of pictures of less-than-svelte sports cyclists, before I finally got the joke: ‘In Leather’.
The other images were zoomed and unzoomed shots of the same scene, and I immediately recognised them. I started typing.
‘You’re at Hartside! I’m in Durham!’
I hit ‘send’, then immediately typed another.
‘I’m on a break doing my own stuff on and in the Cathedral. Do you take portraits? I have to take a couple in exchange for a permit to shoot in the Cathedral. If you do one it gives us more time to explore’
Sent, and then then my sensible head kicked in. I typed as quickly as I could, in case I had frightened him off already.
‘Sorry if I’m making assumptions but if you are that close and I have a permit for the castle and the church I am sure I can talk them into letting you in with me, especially if you do one of the portraits. And I think it would be a real shame if you missed the chance on this one. I have another offer as well, and that’s the Roman Wall. I could drive you’
No reply. So much for that idea, then. I packed up my bits, leaving half of my toastie, and headed back to my little hotel.
NEIL
I closed my laptop before stowing it in its padded holder in the top case, fastening my lid and setting off back through Alston The town has a microclimate, as it sits in a dip between the summits of two high passes, Hartside at one thousand eight hundred and seventy feet, and Wearheads at two thousand and twenty four. I had been out to the hushings at Great Dun Fell, reputedly the highest metalled road in Britain. It had been a good day, the early mistiness and then overcast allowing some very moody shots, followed by clearer skies and an awful lot of colour from MAMILs of both types. I intended to wander down to the George after I was back, but decided to check my mail again using my B and B’s free wifi.
Three messages, all from Maddy. I read through them quickly before lying back on the bed, stunned. So close…Did I want to do a portrait? I could handle that.
Did I want to see the Wall, again? Of course I did, and snooping around that huge cathedral, with official permission, oh yes indeed.
Did I want to see Maddy again? That was a much harder question, because it brought another one with it. Did I want to see her? Yes. Could I handle it? There, I had no idea at all. My hand found my phone by itself.
“Hello, who is this?”
“Maddy?”
“NEIL? How great to hear you again! Where are you? Still at Hartside?”
“No, I’m in Garrigill. It’s near Alston, and all three of the local rivers rise near it and---”
“Neil. Neil. Breathe. Okay?”
“Sorry”
“Not a problem. Did you get all of my messages?”
“Just the first one, when I was at Hartside. I didn’t get the others till I got back to me room”
“Right. What did you think of my suggestion?”
“I can do portraits”
“I know you can, Neil. What about the Wall?”
“That would be good, but I’m puzzled. How will you drive me?”
There was a short silence on the line, and a hint of a whispered ‘shit’, before she spoke again.
“I don’t know, really. I thought I’d look at hiring a car, but, well, I hadn’t really thought it through, had I?”
Not just me, then.
My next question, “What clothes do you have with you?”, brought a bark of happy laughter, which confused me.
“What did I say?”
“I am so, so sorry, Neil. It was just… have you ever watched any Mel Brooks films?”
“Young Frankenstein”
“Monochrome, yeah. Fits. One of his others, it plays on a cliché. The man—and this is not you, okay? Just explaining. The dirty phone caller who growls ‘tell me what you’re wearing’ to the woman at home alone”
I felt the blush, but before I could apologise, she was talking again.
“You’ll have a plan, am I right?”
More breathing control as I felt the sweat bursting from my palms.
“I meant do you have outdoor things? Boots? Waterproofs?”
Calm, Neil.
“A helmet?”
MADDY
Shit. Of course! I had been juggling my available funds, looking to see where I could fit in the cost of a hire car without needing to cut spending somewhere inessential, such as on groceries. Why was I so keen to see this man again? It wasn’t just his eyes, that was for sure.
“I have my usual walking kit, Neil, and I could get a helmet. I’m pretty sure of that. What’s the plan?”
“Hire cars are expensive. I have my bike. If what you describe is what you had when I picked you up before, it’ll be fine. You just need a helmet”
“You’d… sorry. I was going to ask if you would do that, and then, well, you’ve already done it. Right. Cathedral job’s in two days. I have another four before I have to head back. What about you?”
“The same. Where are you?”
I gave him the hotel address, and he grunted something.
“Neil?”
“Yes?”
“Could I… I don’t want to risk upsetting or frightening you. Please don’t think that. I ‘m just curious, and I mean nothing more than that. I would just like to ask some questions that might be a bit personal, and I don’t want you thinking the wrong things. Do you mind?”
He was silent for a long time, before his next words.
“Are you trying to be nice to me, Maddy?”
For fuck’s sake: what the hell had people done to the poor bastard?
“Yes, Neil. I’m doing my best, okay?”
“Then ask, and I’ll try and do mine”
“Okay. You said I was good looking. I don’t often get told that. Could you please tell me if you still think that?”
I could now hear his breathing, but I really didn’t believe he was in Clare Country right then.
“Yes. Yes I do”
His voice was softer, but still clear.
“Neil?”
“Yes?”
“My turn, okay? You have absolutely lovely eyes, and when you smile, I…”
Inspiration, just the once, grabbed my mouth immediately, rather than a couple of hours later.
“When you smile, it lights up the room. What can I do to make you smile more often?”
He was silent for even longer, just the shushing of his breath, but I caught a catch in it, the poor bastard.
“Maddy?”
“Yes?”
“Find a helmet. I will take us along the Wall. Your job is to do the research for the best spots”
And then he cut the call.
I settled down in bed, later that evening, and started counting my blessings. There seemed to be far more in my bag than Neil held in his.
NEIL
I couldn’t really sleep that night, my nerves all over the place. What if I got another stiffy while talking to her, for example? I woke again at about four, and realised I wasn’t going to drop off again. I rolled over in bed to light up my computer, and yes, there was a room in Durham. Before I could chicken out, I booked it. I doubted that the B and B would complain, as they would keep my money for the extra nights, and kept the space to fit in another guest.
The trouble was that I was aroused once more, but I didn’t feel it would be the right thing to do given what she had said.
‘Lovely eyes. Lights up the room’
I knew it could only end in disappointment, almost certainly—No. For me, not for both of us.
The day was productive, as I covered some of the shingle fields beside the nascent South Tyne as well as the sheen of the setts in Alston’s high street after a rain shower passed through. I was always fascinated by the way water changed the reflections from and colour of rocks, as well as how frost worked so much magic.
I stashed the rolls with the others, and headed back to my digs, where the rest of my things were waiting for me. A quick farewell and thank you to my hosts went a little off track.
“Why the rush off, Mr Strachan?”
“A friend, Mrs Milburn. I didn’t realise they would be in Durham while I was here”
“What are you planning?”
“I have a portrait to do, then we’re going to the Wall”
“Ooh! I did a school trip there! Digging up a town: Vindolanda. Can I make a suggestion?”
“Please do”
“There’s a place, a little temple. Bit hidden away. Thing is, us here, well, when all the roads close in Winter, we expect it. Poor lads from Rome, well, all new to them, aye? Place is called Brocolitia. It’s a little yemple, and I always imagine it full of lads, all fuggy, doors shut against the weather. To me it’s what the Wall is about. Not bloody Sycamore Gap. Silly bloody film, that”
As I straddled my bike, Mrs Milburn said something I only half heard, but it seemed to be something about ‘her’ having sense. I set off back to Alston for the right hook into Weardale and the long, long descent to Durham City.
It wasn’t a bad ride, although I saw multiple sites that absolutely shouted for another visit. Durham’s traffic was a little difficult, but being on a bike solved most of the problems, and my new hotel had a back yard for the bike. My sleep wasn’t conspicuous by its presence, even though I had to wait into the evening before they confirmed I did have a room, so ended up very tired.
Breakfast was wonderful, though, and I steadily worked my way through porridge, yoghurt, full English…
“Neil!”
She was sitting down as she spoke, waving at the waitress for another pot of tea.
“You didn’t say you’d be here. You should have said”
“I didn’t know if I could get a room till late”
MADDY
He was sitting in the hotel dining room when I managed to drag my sleepless body from its pit. He was on the Full English lardathon, but as that was my own intended naughtiness, . Who cared? I took the seat opposite him and ordered a second pot of tea. He didn’t seem to realise how much his presence had thrown me, but it was so clearly a failing that was a feature, to mangle a meme. It was an act of the same kind as his buying me a new tyre, in that he saw something he thought needed doing, and bang, it got done.
I lowered my voice.
“Remember when we spoke at the show? When you told me about letting you know when you spoke too much”
“Yes”
“Well, this is a bit like that. Some things you need to discuss before you do them. I…”
Wind it in a little bit, Madeleine.
“I am not unhappy you are here, Neil. I am just surprised. If you had texted me, or called, saying you were coming to the same hotel, I wouldn’t have had such a surprise”
Pause once more, then try and lift it.
“It’s not a nasty surprise, though. I am really glad to see you. Why this hotel, though?”
He put down a forkful of black pudding.
“It was the only one I knew of”
“And so?”
“I booked a room but when I got here they said I had to wait till after ten o’clock because my booking hadn’t been done properly but they weren’t sure if another booking had been really cancelled and I had to wait until they were sure I could have the room but I set my alarm so that I didn’t miss breakfast”
“Pause, Neil”
He blinked.
“Sorry, Maddy. I… What you said. Eyes. I haven’t had anything said to me like that before”
To my astonishment, he continued speaking, in as normal a manner as anyone else.
“Usually it’s been abuse, things like ‘Spacker’. I know I get it wrong; it’s an interface problem. I need a filter”
“Could I help?”
Once again, he simply stared at me, but then he smiled, and things were so much better.
“You already are, Maddy”
Relief slapped me hard, just as my own plate of grease arrived.
“Then we need to have a bit of a chat on the way to the appointment, then, as well as, if you still want to, that is: find a helmet, and gloves. Could you please do me a favour in a couple of minutes?”
“What do you need?”
“Over by the toast machine. They’ve got crumpets, and I love crumpets, with butter and blackcurrant jam”
I couldn’t help the laugh that followed, because there I was, looking at his eyes and talking about crumpet, oh my. I found an excuse for the laughter, somehow.
“Neil, I have spent a lot of time in hotels, and when I was just starting, things were really tight, so I used to make sandwiches from the Continental breakfast, usually ham and cheese, and sneak them out wrapped in paper napkins, hidden in my handbag. That would be my lunch”
Count your words, Gibson. Don’t gush. That’s Neil’s job---
The unconscious double meanings just kept coming, and there was another one. Bloody HRT. Neil asked simply “And so?”
“Oh, it was one of the chain hotels, and I had thought I had sneakily sneaked my food, when one of the waitresses called to me as I left the restaurant. She held up a paper bag, asking if I wanted it for my lunch, and did I fancy some fruit as well”
It was Neil’s turn to laugh, which was nice, and I tried to bury my Freudian slips as that part of my mind wondered how he would react if I simply ripped off all of his clothes and…
Panic. That’s what he would do. It was an odd feeling, though, realising how much I did simply, physically, fancy him. It wasn’t just his eyes and smile, but once again that need to be wrapped up, held in strength and warmth, something I had never found, or at least not for long.
No. Do not announce it is ‘crumpet time’.
“Could you please do the trick with the toaster, Neil? Then I need to do my teeth and stuff. Once you’re ready, do you want to knock” NOT ‘me up’ “on my door? I’m in room twenty three”
“Okay”
After I had indulged myself with two crumpets, I left him to head off to his own room while I did my post-breakfast ablutions, wondering whether to change to a lower-cut top before remembering I was going to a church, and my own confusion was ramping up as that bloody cycle hit. Sod it, Gibson. Grow up: go with the flow, and see what comes up, and stop with the internal innuendo.
He knocked twice a quarter of an hour later, and I led him out of the hotel, pointing out where I had set my focus for the dawn shots I had taken, and the sunset contrast images.
“How tall is the tower, Maddy?”
“About two hundred feet, I think”
“We… I have pictures of The Organ Loft, and your photo of the real organ in that church, and they were all taken looking up with a lot of foreshortening. Can we try that?”
“We have the portraits to do”
“We can try the vertical shots on the way in”
“Works for me. Hang on a second”
I stopped walking when we reached the river bank, spotting a vacant wooden bench.
“Time for that chat, my friend”
He looked apprehensive, but settled himself on the bench, a clear distance between us. Don’t touch him, Mads. My traitor mind sniggered a quiet ‘yet’.
“Neil, none of this is going to be threatening, or painful, I hope. I need to clear some things up, for both of us, and I’d rather do it safely. Are you okay with that?”
His eyes were on the twin towers at the front of the Cathedral, but he was still talking.
“I will try, Maddy”
“Okay. You described me as attractive”
“Yes”
“You said you felt other things—no! Please: safe?”
He slumped back down, but he was hunched now, hands trembling slightly. I made sure I kept my hands away from him, despite the urge to reassure him with a pat or a squeeze of shoulder or hand.
“Neil, those things, they aren’t a problem. They’re rather flattering, to be honest, and I don’t get flattered much. I don’t get flattered at all by good-looking men. Not honestly, that is, and I don’t think you are actually able to be dishonest. I have dreams, Neil, and one of those is to do with my height”
“What’s wrong with your height?”
“It’s high, Neil, that’s what. Just once, I would like to feel small, pretty, precious. Sheltered. My height spoils that idea”
“You are pretty”
“Thank you, Neil. I know which of my prints you bought, and there’s a story there. I had set up the camera, lighting and so on. I normally take shots like that is sets of five, just in case, and as I pressed the button, the postman startled me”
His head turned suddenly, and I understood, waving a hand yet again, trying not to laugh.
“No, Neil! Not like that. Just put something heavy through the letter box, and I started, which is why you can see my, well”
I waved at my chest, and his eyes flicked down, but came back to mine almost immediately.
“Neil, yes, I have some. Two of them. There is nothing to be ashamed of if you find them, you know. So buying that print causes me no problems. It actually shows something of a victory in my life”
I turned slightly towards him, making sure I slid a little further away as I did so.
“I wasn’t always pretty, Neil, if that’s what I am”
“You are”
“Thank you once again, and you can keep telling me that all you want, but what you see has taken a lot of work. I have to tell you some important things, and it is best I do so right now. First, you are someone I find very attractive, physically. Well, at first. I mean, I still do find you physically attractive… Start again, woman. You are also kind beyond words, but that filter you mentioned, interface, whatever, I think that has marked you. I have another issue, but it has had something of the same effects. Tell me what you see, Neil. Please”
“A tall, pretty woman”
“Pretty in what way?”
“Um… Eyes that smile, mouth that laughs, long legs, um…”
He was starting to blush, but the next comment burst from his mouth almost of its own volition
“Lovely hips and lovely, um, er”
A word too far, but he did sort of wave at my chest, and I nodded.
“Thank you, Neil. Can you see how I am in no way offended? Could I do the same for you?”
He nodded, that same sharp, single movement.
“Okay. First things I noticed were your eyes, and they are lovely, even more so when you smile”
“Lights up the room, you said”
“Yes, and it does. You are also a big man, and I think you could put your chin on top of my head if we were standing together. Big enough to wrap me up, make me feel small, precious, as I said. But, and this is a big but, and an important but, and a final question before I say this. If we were to try getting close, closer than just friends, would that please you?”
NEIL
I could feel my face burning as she asked me, but she was sitting in such a relaxed way I could do nothing else but try my best. I had tried not to stare at her breasts, but I knew they were there, and my body was telling me exactly how well it knew the same thing, and I had no idea what I should do about that. Her question, though, wasn’t ‘what did I want?’ but rather ‘what might we want?’, which was a very different thing altogether. She was being so incredibly open about it; all I could do was try and match that, even though I could never do so.
Breathe, Neil.
“Maddy, I am not comfortable talking like this but I want to try. I think I have to. I ran away from you because I couldn’t control what I thought”
“Neil, I have told you. It’s flattering, nothing bad”
“Yes, but when it’s just me it’s not right”
Maddy grinned, which was a strange reaction, then almost purred.
“Oh do trust me, Neil, it is most definitely NOT just you! Do I need to explain that in more detail?”
“You were… You got aroused?”
“Oh, very much so! That is where the big issue lies. Neil, cutting to the chase, I am on hormone replacement therapy, and that gives me a sort of monthly cycle. In my case, it means I get randy. I was at a peak last time we met, and that was a month ago, so guess where I am now?”
I think she was expecting some sort of prurience about what her arousal meant, but the idea of HRT puzzled me. She certainly didn’t look old enough to be menopausal. Older than I was, but only a little.
“Why are you on HRT, Maddy?”
She seemed to sag.
“Source of most of my problems, Neil. I am on hormones because that is what a trans woman needs”
I found myself closing down in some way, but I reached out for another of my therapist’s tools, the divided sheet. It was nothing complex, simply a mental version of the conventional ‘for/against’ list. I needed it just then, because I suspected I really would shut right down if I allowed myself just to react. I must have sat silently for three or four minutes, eyes closed, before I opened them once more to see Maddy looking at me, her brow furrowed in what I thought was concern.
“Are you back with me, Neil?”
“Sorry?”
“You’ve been sitting with your eyes closed for ten minutes. Are you…”
She shook a head, knuckling her eyes.
“I can leave you alone, if that seems best”
Ten minutes. Oh.
“Maddy?”
“Yes?”
“Why did you tell me that?”
“Which bit exactly, Neil?”
“The trans bit”
She shook her head once more, and that was when I realised she was actually weeping, not just damp in the eyes. I had no idea what to do, as it was obviously very foreign ground for me. I knew the theory, I’d seen it in films and on the telly, but this was real, and there was no script.
“Maddy, I wasn’t shocked. It’s just like the finger counting, another technique from my CBT. My other CBT, not the compulsory basic training for my bike licence, that is, bit cognitive behavioural therapy”
She chuckled once under the tears, which was odd.
“What it is comes from decision making. I imagine a sheet of paper, with two columns, for and against. I’m supposed to work one out in my head before I make any big decisions. That was what I was doing. Why did you tell me that?”
She sat back on the bench, head hanging over the back rest as she spoke.
“Safety, Neil, and saving time. If I confess everything from the start, I don’t end up investing a lot of my soul just to watch it go straight down the drain. More time to move on, find someone else, and less damage when it falls apart. Safety? Well, double-edged blade, that one. People like me get killed if we get read by some people, who think we’re trying to trick them. They even call us ‘traps’, Neil. Another aspect of safety is… This is hard to put in simple terms, so here’s a what if. We could have met, we could have acted on how we both felt, and I could be in prison charged with serious sexual assault, sex by deception, all sorts of things. Rape, basically. Probably end up in a men’s prison”
“Why?”
“Welcome to my world, Neil”
MADDY
My world had always been the same, in essence. The boys I had secretly sighed over in school would have called me gay, or most probably much nastier things. The three men I had shared a bed with (never more than the one night in each case) had all been there for the same reason, which I had only realised far too late, but I had still fallen for another one, and then another, although I had stopped taking it further. At least I had managed to digest that lesson.
Curiosity, followed by slowly increasing disgust, then by departure and ghosting. I tried to get those ideas across to Neil, but he simply sat, face neutral, until I had arrived at the final detail, when he asked a simple question.
“What do you mean by ‘real woman’, Maddy? You’re real. I mean, I haven’t been imagining you, have I?”
Another blush swept up his face and he was looking at his knees. I didn’t need an explanation, for I knew what the cause of that particular blush most probably was.
He wasn’t imagining me, but he had most probably spent part of a night doing exactly that. What a shitty mess.
“Maddy?”
“Yes?”
“You have told me an awful lot about you. I should do the same with me”
“That would be an honour, Neil. Thank you. And thank you for not just walking away”
“Why would I--- Oh. People have done that? To you?”
“Far too often. Sometimes they have hit me before they left. That’s one of the reasons I get that bit out as early as possible”
My mind sniggered again, and I suggested it piss right off.
“I wouldn’t know about that, Maddy. I got hurt in other ways. I told you what they called me at school. I had my dreams, just like yours, sort of. Practical jokes. One time…”
Yet another long pause, as he stared over to the massive old building.
“Once I had a classmate. Katie Spencer was her name, and she was lovely. I mean that she looked lovely. I gave her a card on her birthday once. She asked me if I fancied her and my… my condition didn’t filter my answer and I just said ‘Yes’, so she asked me if I wanted to go to the pictures one evening and it was a new Star wars film so I went to stand where she said to meet her and the whole class turned up and laughed while she kissed some other boy who was already her boyfriend and they took pictures of me and---"
“Neil!”
“Sorry”
“It’s not a problem, not from you, okay? You were going to tell me how your dreams match mine?”
He looked down at his knees once again.
“Winter is worst. I use a hot water bottle. But I dream of someone warm there instead. Someone I can hold. That’s my dream. Not being alone in the night”
“What about the day?”
“That too, but that means knowing someone will be there for the night as well”
“Do you get nightmares, Neil? I do”
“No. I just stay lonely”
My heart nearly broke with that simple confession, and I was supposed to be the poor suffering martyr, not him.
“Neil2
“Yes?”
“Please listen to what I say before you answer. I’ll point at you when I have finished, okay? Just so that I get the whole message out”
“Go ahead”
“I know your body reacts—no, please wait. Remember? Thank you. I know your body reacts, you know that mine does. That’s not bad, it’s not wrong. It is just something that happens. I want to ask if you can try something with me”
I pointed at him, and he simply said “What?”
“Could you hold me, please? Or let me hold you? Just for comfort?”
Wordlessly he nodded, and I slid across the bench until our hips were touching, which was when he spoke.
“Shoulder and hip. That’s what I call that first picture I bought of you. This is shoulder and hip”
I took his arm and laid it over my shoulder before snuggling into him properly, a scent of soap and some simple deodorant coming from his trembling body. I reached across him with my spare arm and pulled myself even closer.
“Thank you. We have about an hour before our first appointment; do you mind if we just sit like this for a while?”
“I would like that”
His trembling eased, and to my delight he had clearly been listening, for he settled his chin gently on top of my head, murmuring, “Not imaginary. And you’re so warm…”
He was still stiff, and no, I don’t mean that way. A better word would be stilted, or perhaps awkward, in how he held me, his right arm lying down the side of my own rather than wrapping me, but it was still more than just pleasant.
“Neil?”
“Yes?”
“Thank you. If this feels awkward, we can always stop”
NEIL
I couldn’t stop my hands shaking, but I concentrated on what she had said, her hair blowing onto my face in the light breeze. I wanted to wrap her right up, but if I did, I might end up touching somewhere else, and I was worried about my reaction.. I kept my arm outside hers, and tried to find a calm place, and to my surprise, that is what happened.
It gelt good, but it also felt natural. I still had the divided sheet up, and a nasty thought sat there: if she was transgender, would that mean easier to become intimate with? Desperate, maybe?
I really didn’t want to go down that route. I had met her as a woman, and I really couldn’t see her as anything else. At least the rest of my thoughts were all on the positive side of the dividing line, which meant… Oh. I had forgotten that we had another task. I didn’t want to move, but if she was willing, there was another way. I gathered my courage.
“Maddy?”
“Yes?”
“Could you please sit up? I had forgotten something”
She slowly disengaged, her mouth slightly twisted, and I tried a smile again.
“I am not pushing you away, Maddy. We have another job. If I am taking you to Hadrian’s Wall, we need to fins a helmet and gloves. Can we look on the map and see…”
She had her phone out in two seconds flat, and yes, there was a shop a short walk away, which would give us time for the purchase, before our appointment.
I stood up, extending a hand to her.
“Coming?”
She took my hand and stood up to face me, eyes slightly narrowed, but when I shifted my grip her eyebrows rose and her smile slowly returned. Our hands stayed together all the way to the shop, and my heart rate stayed up as we walked. I had so many phrases running through my head I felt it might burst, as the balloon might pop, the other shoe drop, and so on. Burst head, burst balloon, burst heart if I didn’t calm down.
Maddy wriggled her hand after the first fifty yards of walking, her fingers sliding between mine, and my heart rate spiked again. I started telling my body how right this was, and then my eyes were scanning the other people in the street. Memories of that awful night outside the cinema; how many of those we passed were silently laughing at me?
Another part of my mind, not the cynical bit, was telling me not to be so stupid, for how could anyone feel anything other than envy in seeing the woman beside me?
All of that makes me sound like that common wrong idea about being schizophrenic, which I am not, not in the sense of being a cluster of separate personalities. My therapist tells me it is simply a close focus, and I am still capable of picking up social cues, just not immediately. If they are too subtle, I can miss them altogether, but I am handicapped rather than disabled.
I had asked her if that wasn’t just another word for the same thing, and that had brought a smile.
“Not at all, Neil. I am using it in the sense of professional sprinting, the original sort, or whippet racing”
“I’ve seen that”
“Notice how the traps are staggered, some forward, some back? That’s a handicap. Slower dogs, or slower sprinters, get a head start. Supposed to make the finish more exciting. That is a handicap. Now, I am going to say something which isn’t a formal diagnosis here, but a guess. It’s a personal opinion, more exactly. The dog or sprinter who starts right at the back is there because they are thought to be the fastest in the field. I wonder that about you”
I had a handicap, but that didn’t mean I was slow. It actually made a lot of sense to me.
“Neil? Drifting away again?”
“Thoughts, Maddy. That’s all”
“Nice ones, I hope”
I squeezed her hand.
“How could they be anything else right now?”
The shop had a decent selection of lids, from simple open-face polycarbonate ones to expensive full-face carbon fibre helmets, which were rather outside my price range. I was looking at the boots, just in case, when Maddy called me over. She was standing at the till, holding a bag and two boxes, as well as a receipt.
“I was going to get those”
“Neil, you have already bought me a tyre, so it’s my turn. I have a lid, I have some gloves, and I have a present for both of us. This nice man has agreed to do us a huge favour, as well”
The man at the till grinned at me.
“The way you two walked in here, how could I not? It’s on me way hyem, anyway”
Maddy shook his hand, speaking to me over her shoulder.
“He’s going to leave these at the hotel, Neil. Save us humping them round the Cathedral. Thanks, Robby: you’re a star”
“Ne bother, pet. What’s the bike?”
She left me to answer.
“Um, I have a BMW R80, but I came on my other bike, which is a Kawasaki Zed Thou. The bores have been lapped and…”
To my surprise, he was actually listening, and when he asked about the Beemer’s side stand, we were away. He had just bought an old Suzuki GSX1100 Katana as a restoration project, so I told him of my experiences of the 659 Katana, which of course was shaft drive, like the Z1100 Kwak, and…
“Neil? Appointment”
“Sorry Maddy”
Robby was laughing.
“You must think we’re a right pair a trainspotters, pet!”
She winced slightly before reaching for my hand, with a smile.
“We’re away, Robby. Thanks so much for your help today”
“Like I said, pet. Ne bother. Gan canny, the pair a you”
She towed me out, then started laughing again.
“Bloody trainspotters indeed! What am I going to do with you? Do NOT answer that question, and don’t ask me what I answer I’m giving myself”
I tried to give her what my mother had described as a Paddington stare, and she laughed happily.
“Yes, it’s naughty, but I am allowed. Let’s go to work, Big Man”
It was actually quite amusing, for Maddy introduced me as a colleague who had come to share the load, and we ended up doing two portraits each, because the Verger or Dean or whatever his title was demanded it as a fee for allowing two ‘snappers into God’s house’ rather than the one already agreed. The four portraits were of the same two people, each snapped by one of us and then the other. Thankfully, we were then set free to roam, within limits set put in a couple of visitor guides, and I started to get what promised to be decent monochrome shots with my Pentax along with some close detail using the macro lens on my Canon DSLR. Neither of us said a word for a very long time, but for once it felt natural. I was concentrating on things like mason’s marks and shots up into the huge vaulted space, and of course the organ, while Maddy was capturing light beams through the stained glass, dust motes dancing there, and the fossils in the black Frosterley limestone. I usually drift away when working, caught up in the detail, but this job was different, because there were two of us, working together, if separately, and each time I looked around I would see Maddy, tongue tip showing as she considered a composition, or simply smiling back at me.
MADDY
The cheeky sods! I had hoped to save time by sharing the portrait work, but hey. I suppose bringing Neil in as a ‘colleague’ was a bit of a try-on from me. I watched him as we started to work, and it was a revelation as I saw the positive side of his condition, which was focus. Yes, that could be a joke, but it certainly helped him get what turned out to be some wonderful images. There was even more to surprise me, for instead of doing what I had expected---
My turn to pause. I had anticipated several hours of complete silence, with Neil ignoring me entirely as he entered his own little world rather than the one I had earlier welcomed him to, but every so often I caught him looking across to me, and when I smiled, he smiled back. That rude part of my mind sniggered yet again, and commented that I might be getting close to the point where ripping off his clothes might lead to a satisfactory conclusion after all. Roll on the next fortnight and the lower part of my cycle.
That brought a lot more introspection, because I was starting to see him in a slightly different way. I realised I was starting to tune into his way of seeing the world; not joining him there, but recognising what he saw, how he saw it, how I could help him see further.
And, more to the point, he did seem an absolutely sweet man. And absolutely shaggable, of course, and that wasn’t just my HRT’s opinion. The ensuing surge of guilt caught me by surprise, as Nasty Mind suggested I was preying on someone all too vulnerable.
Shit. Smile nicely at the nice man, Madeleine, and boot that thought where it hurts.
A little while after that thought, he actually called me over to see a line of black marble inset into the floor.
“That’s the Lady Line, Maddy. Women used to be banned from the Cathedral by the monks. Couldn’t get to see Saint Cuthbert’s tomb. Then the monks agreed to let them in, but they weren’t allowed past this line”
“Why the change?”
“So they could charge more people the entry fee. You have to stay this side”
How subtly sweet that was, so typical of the man I was learning to see.
They were ready to kick us out eventually, which surprised me in a dazed way, as I had lost all track of time. We packed up and started a slow walk back to the hotel, and to my delighted surprise, Neil simply took my hand again.
“Maddy?”
“Still here, Neil”
“I know, and that is very nice. Thank you. What are the meals like in the hotel?”
“Tolerable”
“Well, there is a place I read about. It’s supposed to do good food, but it’s a pub”
I kept my tone as innocent as I could.
“Oh, right. Does it also do good beer?”
“It’s a free house and has a very good write-up from CAMRA the Campaign For Real Ale”
“So you would be drinking beer, then”
“Yes. They probably do wine for women”
“Strachan, THIS woman wants a decent pint! What do they have on tap?”
“I don’t know”
I let go of his hand after tugging him closer, and slipped an arm around his waist, slipping my hand into his back pocket. He trembled for a second, before slipping his own arm around my waist, though he kept his hand above my hip. I squeezed him a little. No, not with my hand, but where it was sitting did not feel flabby.
“Then we shall have to see what they can offer, Neil. Now, pick up the parcels, and I will have a shower and get changed. Where is the pub? Any uphill or downhill stuff to get to it?”
“Why?”
“Shoes, Neil. Choice of. A woman thing, okay? So give me an hour to shower and change, then come to my room and I’ll show you our present. I’m in room---”
“Twenty three. I remember, but I don’t know how hilly the walk is”
“I’ll just have to take my bigger bag, then. No biggy. Well, slightly bigger. You’ll ned to change as well; you’ve got dusty knees after all the lying and kneeling you did. Spare trousers?”
“Yes”
“Hang on; would these be the ones you wore to my show? When we met?”
“Yes. Why do you ask?”
“Because they will need a good session with a steam iron, most likely. Slight change of plan: bring me your trousers before I get in the shower, and I will see what I can do”
MADDY
I settled back against him as we continued down the lane to our digs, his buttock flexing against my hand, his own hand on my hip, and I was feeling almost blissed out. Sod what they had said at school, sod what had been written in the Register when I was born, this, the here and now, or there and then: it was right, fitting, proper. And I had the right dress with me, and shoes to go with it, because my own paranoia had been so worried there’d be a dress code for the dining room.
It wasn’t just that, of course, my life being what it was. I rarely got read by haters, finally, but a few hints tended to reduce that incidence even further. A skirt and heels make statements that can blur someone’s vision, even if I have to be so careful.
We were still cuddled up when we arrived at the hotel, and I got a sunny smile from the receptionist as she saw us.
“Got a package for you, Miss Gibson”
“Great! Can you grab the lid, Neil, and I’ll get the others?”
I simply walked up the stairs, trusting him to follow, and as I passed a mirror, I caught the reflection of our receptionist, and her gaze was clearly following Neil’s arse. My mind snorted ‘Mine!’, and I wobbled slightly as that guilt leered at me once more. Fake woman. Vulnerable man.
I kept my smile for him, though, until we were at my door.
“Come in, Neil. Can you unpack the helmet? Ta”
I tossed my new gloves onto my pillow and brought out the other box, which held an intercom..
“This is for us, Neil. I didn’t fancy a long ride..”
Shut up, mind.
“… without being able to communicate. Have you used one of these before?”
His expression turned bleak, and I understood, interrupting before he could answer.
“Nor me. Never had the need for one, but I would like to share this ride, rather than endure it. You are more of an engineer than me, obviously, so go and get your trousers, then shower, and you can set that thing up while I do the ironing”
NEIL
I did as I was ordered, and after dropping off my chinos I puzzled out the electronic device. Little speakers attached to the inside of each helmet, in the obvious places, and a combination microphone and transmitter/receiver clamped to the lids’ lower rims.
The assembly and testing helped me calm down a little, but my thinking in the shower was a swirl of thoughts and ideas, along with very hard questions.
The day had been wonderful, to be honest. Maddy was lovely, and she was being amazing towards me. I had never held anyone the way I had been holding her, and when she had slipped her hand into my hip pocket, it had felt, it had been…
My hand did what it had been yearning for, and it was intense, and very, very quick. I made sure I had cleaned myself thoroughly, and tried to forget the scent of her hair and the feel of her hip against mine, just for the moment.
I knocked at her door at the appointed time, after realising that we hadn’t exactly planned everything, because I was in the other trousers, as my clean ones were in her room. She opened the door holding them, tutted, and pushed me towards her bathroom before I could do more than glance at her.
“In and change, Neil! I’m nearly ready. Here are your strides”
It was still steamy, and I could smell her scent, and there were woman’s things in there, and for once I was grateful I had just shamed myself in the shower and was thus far less likely to embarrass myself the way I had that first time in her house. I slipped off my shoes, pulled on my neatly ironed trousers, and stepped back into the bedroom.
“Could you pass me the brush, please? Oh: I like the view, but you might want to zip up your fly before we go out”
She must have caught something in my expression, because she was swift to start apologising. I tried to say it wasn’t important, but she was adamant.
“Neil, can I add one thing? I am someone who makes bad jokes, usually rude ones, as in smutty. If I make them towards you, they are not meant to hurt or belittle…”
Suddenly, she was laughing again. When she had managed to regain control, I asked the obvious question, and she was off again.
“I am so sorry, Neil, but it was that word, and you will never, ever be little, oh my god no!”
A memory came back in a rush, of her face twitching when I had mentioned my two different types of CBT, so I asked what the joke had been that time, and once again she was lost in hilarity.
“Neil, darling, no, not laughing at you. I want to laugh with you, never at you. It’s just, well, there is at least one other meaning of CBT”
“Which is?”
“Um, it’s a sort of sadomasochism thing. Cock and Ball Torture”
She still hadn’t finished, as she started to say how she had much better ideas for cocks and balls and…
“Maddy!”
“Sorry”
“That is the hormones talking. Can I go to the pub with the woman instead, please?”
She looked slightly ashamed, and as I realised I was obviously getting better at reading her face, she simply said that it wasn’t just the hormones.
“If this worries you, Neil, I am sorry, but you have been really lovely to me. I don’t get… I have never really had that, just a few men who have satisfied their curiosity over a few years, and nothing more. You are something I didn’t expect, and I am bloody nervous, frightened I will scare you away. Please try and understand me. Please see if we can, you know, keep this going?”
She was facing away from me, as she spoke, staring into a mirror as she did something with her eyes that proved to be dabbing them dry. I forced myself to take a few steps forwards so that I could feel the tension in her shoulders, which I tried to knead out.
“Oh, that’s lovely! I don’t want you to stop…. But. Could you pass me my jacket, please? I have so many innuendos flying around in my head, and I am terrified of letting them out. I need some cool air to clear them”
“Maddy?”
“Unhunh?”
“An example?”
“Oh god, so many… I’ve already got you out of your trousers, but you came in long pants”
MADDY
Actually, I suspected it had been in short ones, because what I had seen through his open fly looked very like the sort of seepage that some men get for quite a while after their climax. I didn’t need to know, although I wanted to, but if anything seemed guaranteed to terrify him away, that would be high on the list.
I had pushed the boat out a little for him, with a dress I loved, a knee-length wrap with a side buckle and half belt If I crossed my legs one way, it was demure. Done the other way, the wrap fell open, and most of my thigh would be on show. I had left the bras in my case, as they would have shown at the front, and while I had a pair of flat shoes in my ‘bigger’, I was trying out a pair of heels for the walk to the pub. I shoved Neil out of the door after a last flick of mascara, to repair the slight damage caused by my body’s attempt to cry, and followed him downstairs. He took my hand again once we were on the street, and it was done so naturally I wanted to weep. HRT and cycles, yet again. I found myself scurrying to keep up with him in my heels, and he noticed, slowing his pace, right up until we were reminded that Durham City has an awful lot of cobbled streets, which left my heels sliding about. The pavements were flagstones, so we stayed on them until our pub appeared, the other side of one of those cobbled streets. Neil looked at me, smiled, and then just picked me up and carried me to the other side, where he set me down again, which was obviously his way. See a need, fix it.
I did rather doubt that he could have fixed that need so easily if it had occurred before today, however, and I did notice where his eyes were pointing. Fair exchange is no robbery, of course.
The pub was called ‘The Crook’, with a sign showing a shepherd’s implement rather than a man in a stripy shirt and mask, or a Tory, and seemed to be a proper old-fashioned place, with no less than six hand pumps on the bar and two tap-and-spile barrels behind it. Neil’s eyes lit up.
“I think this is my kind of place, Maddy!”
“What, a pick-up joint?”
A very brief moment of confusion was followed by a burst of laughter.
“Well, I got that one straight away! Tell me what you would like and find a table”
He was almost masterful on familiar ground, which left me feeling warm and fuzzy. I am not into domination stuff, but for the moment he was just being sort-of-my bloke, and it felt good. I hugged myself to him, reading the pump labels.
“Ooh! They’ve got Canny Lad in. That’ll do me. Menus?”
He stretched out to grab a couple, and as he did, I kissed him on the cheek.
“What was that for?”
“Being nice. Next round is mine, and the food”
“No. You bought our present”
“Well, the food’s… Does it work okay?”
“Find a table, Maddy. I’ll tell you then”
There was a little nook with two seats in it, and I settled into one of them, legs folded the safe way. Five minutes later he was back, with a pint and a half of the ale. I coughed, pointing at the little glass.
“Where’s the rest of it?”
“Oh. I thought ladies…”
“Neil, we’ve agreed I’m a woman. Nobody mentioned ladies”
“Yes, but we agreed you had to obey the Lady Line”
Much, much quicker in his banter.
“Neil, you seem a lot more relaxed in here. Is it because it’s a pub?”
“Um, I suppose so. Partly. I’m used to pubs. And it’s a strange pub, so we won’t see anyone we know”
I pointed to the bar, where our new friend Robby was getting outside a glass of something lighter than ours.
“Say hello when you get the rest of my drink”
As he walked over to the pumps, I crossed my legs the other way, and when Robby turned to wave at me, I smiled and raised a glass. He looked my way for a little longer than necessary, so it had been effective. I crossed my legs back as Neil approached. As he set down my second half-pint, he stared at me.
“Did you do something to tease Robby? He looked very pink”
I switched legs again.
“Who, me?”
Neil was blushing hard, so I made myself decent again and picked up one of my glasses, feeling a little guilty again.
“I’m sorry, Neil. I’m just, I don’t know, feeling, you know?”
“Randy. The HRT”
“No. I was going to say ‘happy’, if that wasn’t a bit obvious”
“Happy, you say?”
“Absolutely, and that is partly because this is a lovely city, and I have had a lovely day of catching what I think will be lovely images, and profitable ones to boot. And because I am with a lovely man, who has been absolutely lovely to me”
“Thank you”
“And of course, I’m still randy. I will have the fisherman’s pie, please”
That allowed him to pay for the meal, which I had decided he could do following his comment about the intercom.
NEIL
Robby had sounded as if he was choking.
“Christ, marra, Neil, that is… You’re a lucky man”
I hadn’t understood what he meant until I had returned to the table, and Maddy had crossed and recrossed her legs. Together with her plunging neckline, I was in danger of sensory overload. When she spoke about her randiness, I was nearly lost again.
Pub. Food. Steak and ale pie, with mash and peas. Count down the stress. I carried our little metal stand with its number back to our table, and she was back in ‘modest’ mode.
“You are in danger of overloading me, Maddy. If I start to wobble again, please slow down”
“I’m sorry, Neil. What I said about teasing, yes? This dress, it’s something that makes me… It’s good for teasing, and I bought it for that, to tease a man, or maybe please him, one or both, a man I thought had feelings toward me”
I found my mood changing to concern and care rather than stress, for this was Maddy hurting, and… And this was nothing like it had been with that nasty Spencer girl and her friends. Show Maddy you care, Neil.
“What happened? Did he hurt you?”
“Not physically. I, we had arranged a meal, and I had bought this dress, which, with the memories, shit. I should have worn something tonight with less freight attached to it”
“How did he hurt you? If you’d prefer not to talk about it, I will understand”
She sighed, long and slowly.
“Neil, I would like you to get to know me, to understand why I can be so up and down, and all of that story is part of me. I have had three, I don’t know what to call them. Standard practice is to call them ‘lovers’, but none of them were. They were just fuckers. Sorry”
“Not a problem”
“This was the last of them. He’d taken me out a few times, and he was really smooth, good looking in a way. Drove a Range Rover, which should have been a red flag. This dress… We arranged the meal, and I had it all laid out, with candles, the whole package. I had hopes, real ones, so I had gone all-out. New undies, really silly heels, and this dress. He always liked sitting next to me in restaurants, rather than across, so he could have a bit of a grope, I suppose, and see down my top.
“I did the leg crossing trick, and he leered and said it was a nice dress, how did it fasten?, and I explained”
I noticed her slowing down, losing courage perhaps.
“Maddy, how does it fasten? Is that some special secret?”
“Er, no. It’s a wrap. I put it on like a shirt, then pull this side across first, where a couple of buttons hold it in place, I then wrap this side across, and there’s this round buckle here with a little half belt thing that secures it”
“That’s what you told him?”
“Yes, except, I was standing up, and…”
She was starting to shake now, so I moved closer to her, putting an arm over her shoulders, until she turned her face to my chest.
“Don’t want to get mascara and that on your shirt, Neil”
“Don’t worry about it. Go on, if you want to”
“I was standing…. He asked how easy the buckle was to undo, so I said like this, and undid it, and the dress is half open. ‘Buttons?’ he says, so I do, and I’m standing there in an open dress, which I let slide off my shoulders so its just tiny knickers, stockings, suspenders and heels, and I am feeling so bloody seductive. ‘Fuck me’, he says, so I just say ‘Yes please’, and he does, and I do, and it was amazing, and I’m lying there on the bed still in everything except my dress and knickers, expecting a cuddle, but no"
“No?”
“Neil, I can smell food, so please, not now”
She sat up, turning on a smile as a waitress approached with our food.
“Which a yeez two lovebirds as got the fish pie?”
NEIL
I pointed at Maddy, who smiled as she accepted her dish.
The waitress indicated a dessert menu, I thanked her, and she was off to another table.
“No cuddle, then, that time?”
She knocked back most of her second glass---where had the first one gone?---then looked up at me once more.
“No, Neil. No cuddle. He wiped his cock on my knickers, dressed, called me a disgusting freak and told me to cover myself up before he puked. I don’t mean he puked, it was what he said before he left, and…”
“Maddy”
“Neil?”
“It’s okay. I’m here, not him”
“At least he didn’t hit me afterwards. I don’t think that’s in you at all, is it?”
I paused before answering, that divided sheet in front of my mind’s eye, the left hand column filling up with words like ‘pretty’, ‘talented’, ‘clever’, and the nasty part of my mind was absent. There was no sign of ‘hurt’, ‘desperate’, et cetera; instead, my thoughts wrote ‘need’.
I didn’t see that as ‘needy’ as someone who was forever whining, but more like a child in search of comfort. How could anyone act the way that man had, and to someone as lovely as the woman sitting beside me?
“Neil? Are you feeling okay?”
“Sorry, Maddy. Just angry. Angry at him. I mean how could. Arsehole!”
“All a long time ago, Neil”
“Doesn’t change things, does it?”
“Life goes on”
“Maddy, my turn, yes?”
“For what, Neil?”
“To try and get my own feelings out. Can you help me do that?”
She nodded, still eating as I spoke, and I wondered if it was a sort of reverse angle. She cuddled up to me to alleviate her own stress, and sat away so as not to stress me.
“I was ashamed that time at your house. I was, you know what. I bought your picture, that first one, and then some others”
She smiled, and it was a happier one.
“My friend saw you staring at that first one. She was making jokes about hand shandies, Neil”
“Sorry?”
“Wanking”
“Oh! No! I couldn’t do that! They are lovely compositions, and they are, um”
“Erotic? They are meant to be”
“Yes, but like I said that evening, they’re you and and and that would be wrong”
She set down her fork, and then looked at me, her gaze direct.
“Could you finish your meal, please. I’m done, and I am going for more beer. I fancy the Badger’s Bum. You?”
“Nonesuch?”
“Done. Hold that thought”
I watched her walk to the bar, and tried to imagine her as she had been in the cathedral rather than the clear image flashing in my mind, of that dress sliding off.
MADDY
“What can I get you, pet?”
“Um, a pint of Badger’s Bum, and one of Nonesuch, please”
“Was it your lad you sent back for the rest of your drink?”
“It was that”
“Not like that round here. In the clubs—working men’s, not night clubs, aye? The lasses there, they all drink halves, but they buy them two at a time, like. Neck their pints quicker than their lads de, Ah tell you”
He laughed, and nodded over towards Neil.
“He seems right canny, your lad. He play rugby?”
“No, but he is, indeed, right canny. Now, are you able to set up a tab?”
“What, another one?”
“Sorry?”
He pointed at a card clipped to a bundle of till receipts.
“Your lad set one up when he ordered the food. Add these two to it?”
“He is therefore indeed a canny lad, then. Thanks”
I walked back to our table, and after I had settled back into my seat, I stayed away from Neil. Let him speak without distraction.
“Want to carry on?”
He nodded, wordlessly.
“The pictures. I thought it wouldn’t be right”
“It wouldn’t bother me”
His next words came out in a rush.
“And I don’t need a picture because I just have to think about you and that’s enough”
Poor sod.
“Neil?”
“Could I please hold you?”
“Oh, Neil, I was just about to ask you to. Just a second…”
I settled against him, and then, before he realised what I was doing, I kissed him quickly on the lips.
“Why, Maddy?”
“Because I think we both wanted to, or rather I know I did, and really think you did as well. And it lets me say… I know what you did in the shower. It was, well, when you forgot to zip up. No!”
I pushed him back down, pulling his arm back around me.
“Neil, can you understand how flattering it is when you say things like that? How do you feel now it’s, you know, happened? No shame, remember? Did you enjoy it?”
“Oh yes. It was… But it’s not right”
“Important question time, and I already know the answer, I hope, but I want to be sure you do. That man, Nigel was his fucking name, he got his fix, but he also found disgust. With me. Sort of shame, I suppose. What about you?”
Once again, he went silent, before speaking again after the shortest of his pauses.
“Not disgust, Maddy. Not towards you, ever. It just makes me feel like I’m sex-mad”
“Takes two, Neil. Can I ask a favour?”
He turned to look down at me again.
“Anything”
“May I kiss you again?”
That time lasted rather longer and was much nicer.
We had two more pints each, but an impulse made me decide to cheat when I went for the last one, and I paid off the tab before my poor Canny Lad could stop me. He simply carried me across the street again, but even though I dropped as many hints as I could, he didn’t come to my room.
Well, not until three in the morning, that is.
NEIL
I simply couldn’t sleep, and I had always had a bit of a blind spot around other people’s bedtimes. I walked along the corridor and tapped lightly on her door. There was the sound of shuffling, and then her voice, whispering through the door.
“Neil?”
“Yes”
The door almost flew open, and she grabbed my arm and dragged me in, whether to stop me being spotted by anyone else or to stop me changing my mind, I didn’t know, and it didn’t really matter. Once again, she stared straight at me, truth or dare.
“Are you here to say good night or to stay?”
“Um, it’s chilly”
“Thank god. I’m on the right side, towards the window. That bag got clothes in?”
“Yes. For tomorrow”
“sensible man. Come on, then”
She was wearing a long and loose cotton night dress, and before she got back into bed, she blushed and asked if I would like her to take it off.
“Please don’t. Can we just be warm together, this time?”
She nodded and pulled down the covers on what was going to be my side of the bed before getting under them on her side. I stood for a few seconds, then joined her.
It felt odd being limited to one side of a bed, and even more limited when she rolled over to cuddle against me. Once again, she lifted her head to kiss me, and I tried one of those things I had read, opening my lips slightly, and she made an odd noise in her throat before pulling away.
“Could you please spoon with me, Neil? Lie on your side and hold me?”
I did as she asked, and she was warm, and so was I, and for once sleep came quickly, perhaps helped by the alcohol. Maddy had a very soft snore, which was soothing rather than annoying, and the first thing I noticed was the morning sun, and the second the pressure of her backside against my rather embarrassing erection.
I started away, and she pulled my arm back around her.
“Don’t you bloody dare! Can you please get rid of that T-shirt?”
I didn’t know what I should do, but I pulled it over my head as Maddy squirmed beside me, and then she was naked and cuddled up to me, a hand pulling gently at the hairs on my chest.
“Neil?”
“Yes?”
“Would you mind getting rid of the boxers as well?”
I started to wriggle out of them before realising that my hands weren’t the only ones pulling them down, but when I raised my knees to get them over my feet, my legs knocked her hand away, so she went back to playing with my chest hair before she pulled herself back up, and the kiss this time was fierce indeed.
“Sorry about the morning breath, Neil”
I went to reply, no, not at all, but her mouth was already back on mine, and then her hand went down, and all of a sudden I was ruining her sheets.
“Oh god, Neil! Are you… can you? How soon?”
She stopped speaking, looking me once again in the eyes.
“This is the moment of truth, as they say. Are you staying?”
“I need to get up, Maddy”
“FUCK! Not again!”
I turned to look at her, and even I could see the terror on her face.
“Maddy, please listen”
“What?”
“I want to get a towel to put over the mess I made. That’s all”
“You’re not leaving?”
“Why would I?”
“You don’t want to?”
“Why would I want to, Maddy?”
I was back as quickly as I could manage, feeling slightly odd in being utterly naked in company, but it still felt right. Maddy was watching as I walked past her.
“You are gorgeous, Neil. Please don’t freak out, but… Get back in, cuddle up, okay? When I am at this part of the cycle, I carry something with me. I use this with it”
She showed me a little clear bottle of some sort of sloppy jelly.
“I watched you as you went into the bathroom. Oh god, did I watch you! I think, the state you are in… I’ve prepared myself already. Could you please lie on your back?”
I did, and she pulled the covers around her shoulders before throwing one leg over me, and she was warm, and her breasts were heavy in my hands, and I was still stiff. When her climax hit, she was sobbing. I didn’t get there again, not until half an hour later, when we both did.
That time, I had been on top, and as we lay side by side on yet another towel, Maddy chuckled.
“No need for silly undies then, oh my!”
I had a rush of confidence to my head that amazed me.
“So I don’t get to see that?”
“Oh god, Neil! Keep talking like that and we will never get out of bed, and I’ll probably never walk again. I’m going to need padding for the bike, I’ll be that tender”
“I have some padded trousers”
“Sorry?”
“You could wear my Rukka salopettes. Those sort of blue waterproof things of mine?”
We continued to tease each other well past breakfast time before dressing, in my case temporarily before changing into my bike kit. I left behind some of my stuff, like the portable floodlights, so that my:
What should I call her? What had she said the standard term was? Lover? Girlfriend sounded silly. I settled on ‘woman’, for that was what she was, and right then, well, we sort of belonged to each other, and we definitely fitted each other. As Maddy said, oh my.
I carried my cases along to Maddy’s room, where we packed what we would need, and then saved our backs by taking the lift down.
“Morning, you two! You missed breakfast”
I could feel my face heating, as the receptionist clearly know what we had been doing, but she carried on in the same breezy tone.
“There are some sandwiches for you if you want, and we just need a confirmation that you still need two rooms. Or not”
Maddy looked surprised.
MADDY
What the fuck?
“Sorry?”
Our receptionist looked a little red.
“Please understand…”
I took over.
“I know what you’re thinking, er, pet. We, um, relationship. Just hit another level “
The woman smiled.
“I see, I think. Do you want to keep separate rooms?
Neil raised a hand.
“Do you have people who need a booking, like when I tried?”
“Absolutely!”
“Then could we leave these cases here while we move my stuff?”
“Of course! I am afraid, as you’ve prepaid, I’m not allowed to give you a refund”
Neil simply smiled, saying it wasn’t a problem, before towing me back to the lift. As the doors closed, his confidence vanished.
“I should have asked you first, shouldn’t I?”
I kissed him, yet again, thinking exactly that, but rather than simply agree, I smiled up at my wonderful bear.
“And do you think I would have said no?”
That smile came back almost, but not quite, immediately.
“Not really, no”
“Then let’s get it done, and hit the road, Mr Strachan”
“Your word is my command, Miss Gibson”
Oh my.
The simple logic of our modes of travel dictated that neither of us had piles of luggage, so we only needed to make two trips down the corridor before we were back at the reception and returning Neil’s key.
“We’re putting extra towels in your room for you. Have a lovely day, both of you”
Neil led me into the hotel’s back yard, where his bike was parked, and it appeared very different to the BMW, being fully-faired and looking rather slab-sided, but to my relief the saddle was long and flat rather than the set-up I had seen on a lot of so-called ‘sports’ bikes, where the rider sat almost inside the machine, leaving an elevated postage stamp sized affair for the pillion. The hard case Neil called his top box wasn’t near enough for use as a back rest, but then again I had no intentions of leaning that far back when I had a warm man to hold onto.
Oh my.
Once my helmet was on, Neil attached the intercom unit and tested the system. It was slightly confusing seeing him speak in front of me and having his voice come from inside my lid, but it was definitely going to be less lonely on the ride, and with that thought I slapped Naughty Mind once more because the double meanings were far too obvious.
Out of the yard, the engine feeling very smooth, through the city traffic and onto the A1, before turning off near the Angel of the North. Neil’s voice was clear over the wind noise.
“Would you like to go there tomorrow? There’s a lot of oxidation I’d like to capture”
I bent forward slightly so that I could hug him.
“That would be lovely, Neil!”
“The map shows a load of dual carriageway until we get to a place called Heddon, when it gets more open. Single carriageway. Local roads. Called the Military Road because it was built during the Jacobite Rebellions to make it easier to move troops across the country and a lot of it was made by pulling down the Wall and…”
“Pause, Neil. No need to be nervous”
He did pause, then started again, in a much more normal tone.
“Novelty, Maddy. Having you there. That hug. Nothing bad, just new, and I need time to get accustomed to it”
“Do you want to?”
MADDY
I realised he might not immediately get the point, so asked again, before he could answer.
“Do you want to get used to it, Mr Strachan?”
He actually laughed, and I could see his grin in my imagination, shining out of his helmet,
Stop it! Bad mind!
Neil’s next words set me laughing with him.
“What is it you say, Maddy? The answer is ‘Oh my yes!’, of course”
Over the bridge and onto the road to Hexham, until it was time to peel off (I said stop it) for Heddon and the open countryside. There was a little vibration coming through the saddle, and I could still feel where Neil had been, and where he was was right in front of me, and I really couldn’t remember a time I had been happier, except when I had woken from surgery and knew that it was finally bloody gone.
It was almost a dead heat, though. That was how happy he was making me.
NEIL
Maddy’s weight affected the handling a little, but she knew how to ride a bike, and as she was fastened onto me rather than the Kwak’s grab handles, things went very smoothly. I couldn’t stop remembering how she had felt that morning, and when she joked about my getting used to it, I almost lost control of the bike. Only the slightest of wobbles, but still.
I had spent a while on the internet on my first night in the hotel, looking up details of the wall, especially the place Mrs Milburn had suggested. Part of my condition is a very acute memory for detail, which has often been a similarly acute source of pain, but it means I can look at a map, for example, and then follow the memory of it. I rarely get lost. The turn off for Heddon was peculiar, for the road went left from the major route before turning to head straight back at it on the original line of the Military Road. The major road cut straight through it, so I had to turn right, left over a bridge and then right back onto the line of the Wall again. It looked fascinating on the map, and let me swing the bike a little.
The day was beautiful, with a light breeze from the South West sending small clouds across the blue. There were so many attractions pulling me along the road that I had to force myself to slow down and narrate the earlier ones for Maddy’s benefit.
“Can you see that gully on our left?”
“Is that what’s left of the Wall?”
“Sort of. It’s called the Vallum, and what you have is a ditch to the North, the Vallum, the ridge of the Wall, then behind it a road called the Stanegate”
We passed a cluster of reservoirs and a pub, as Maddy asked questions I suspected were designed to break my flow of verbal diarrhoea; they worked. Her presence was becoming a comfort rather than something that aroused me, and I was enjoying the long, straight road as it allowed me to enjoy the wide skies and far horizon.
I spotted a few flagstones in the grass by a recess in a field wall as I slowed for a tractor, so at a T-junction I turned and rode back to them.
“What’s up, Neil?”
“I think this looks an interesting spot, Maddy. Short walk to see if we can get a worthwhile image?”
A five barred gate let us into the pasture, a few sheep staring at us as I led the way to the Vallum, incredibly clear in the ground, and we walked along it for a little way, until I found the old quarries by a wood that I had spotted on the map. We were hand in hand, of course.
MADDY
I was still obsessively counting my blessings as we got back onto the bike, because Neil wasn’t just rushing us to the Big Ticket sites, as I thought of them, but finding surprising detail. The Vallum made a sharply defined change in its line at that spot, and I actually sat down to get the best angle. Bugger monochrome; the colours of the grass and sky simply screamed at me to include them. Perhaps I should drag Neil down beside me, I had thought, and bugger what passing strangers might think. Oh my, as he had said.
We set off again, and the next stop was to snap a small section of exposed Wall, before dropping steeply down to a river crossed by a very old-looking stone bridge, upstream from a weir.. Neil turned left after the crossing, then left again to a car park at somewhere called Chesters. I was steadily realising how much research he must have put in, but when had he had the time? After I had removed my helmet, I asked him.
“Oh. On the internet my first evening at the hotel. They had a table in a store room, and let me sit in there while I waited. Used my laptop”
“Which explains why I didn’t see you till the morning. Very detailed planning, Neil”
He smiled yet again, and yet again it was ‘oh my’, but I really needed to sort his hair out, and…
“Sorry? Miles away”
“I said that sometimes my condition is, can be, useful. This is one of them. This is a Roman camp, museum and the remains of a Roman bridge, and…”
I simply let him speak, but kept hold of his hand, and despite the temptation to back into him for a cuddle by the river, I stayed to his side. Keep that game for later, Miss Gibson.
Back onto the bike, and a change in scenery as we continued, the road undulating a little through a few worrying blind summits, sometimes shaded by small copses, so that there was an added dazzle risk. I realised I was starting to fret a little, as this was by far the furthest I had ever ridden on a motorbike. Neil’s riding, however, remained as steady as ever, as we followed the ever-clearer Vallum, various other lumps and bumps showing in fields which were now more open moor than paddock, while the sky somehow seemed to be expanding. It was gorgeous, and I realised that if I had been driving that proposed hire car, I would have missed almost all of it.
Neil turned into another, smaller car park right next to the road, after explaining that it was somewhere recommended by his landlady in Garrigill. There was a van selling snacks and hot drinks, as well as quite a few other motorbikes
“It’s a short walk, Maddy. Shall we get a cuppa before we set out? I’m a bit dry”
There were some folding chairs and two camping tables by the van, so I dug out the bag of sandwiches as Neil ordered our drinks, then I automatically produced my purse to pay. Meil’s hand clamped firmly, not painfully, on my wrist, and the coffee man laughed.
“How, man! If ye divvent want a lass who’s happy to pay, leave her with me!”
Neil paid, smiling, then released me.
“Sorry, my friend, but this woman’s mine”
Oh my.
Mister Coffee laughed again.
“Aye, Ah can see! Lucky man: thought o’ playing the Lottery?”
“No need. As you can see, I’ve already won”
We walked over to the little cluster of furniture, and I whispered to Neil.
“Keep talking like that and you’ll still not get into my knickers”
“Oh…”
“They won’t fit. I’m teasing, Neil, but I do have a serious question”
“Go ahead”
“You seem to be more, I don’t know, fluid? Fluent? I really don’t want to say ‘Normal’, because that would imply, you know”
“Abnormal?”
I shuddered, but nodded, and he took my hand once more.
“It’s you, Maddy. Sometimes, I don’t see what other people are thinking. Sometimes I think I do, but it turns out that I’m wrong”
“Like that time at school? That girl?”
“Exactly that. And so I worry about what others might think, and with you…”
“You got it all wrong, and beat yourself up about an imaginary offence?”
He nodded, as ever in that simple, sharp way.
“I know you’re with me. I know that you are looking after me. That makes a big difference. The man doing the coffee, what I said, well, I spent some time trying to work out who you are. Please don’t joke just now. It was something you said, about that man, about the word ‘lover’. I don’t think that’s the right word. ‘Girlfriend’ sounds silly”
“What did you choose, then?”
He looked at me, and it was clear he was slightly worried, but he still found his voice.
“My woman, Maddy. I hope that’s all right”
NEIL
Her face moved through several expressions, but settled finally on something that tried to mix shame and joy, as if she had been caught doing one of those ‘naughty but nice’ things they spoke of in telly ads, then squeezed my knee.
“Not snogging you in a car park, Mister Strachan, but yes. In more ways… It is more right than you can know, right now. You…”
She trailed off, with a last squeeze of my leg.
“Get this lot down our necks, then, and off on our walk. What do you have to show me here?”
“Mrs Milburn, my landlady, she described it, what she thought of it. She surprised me”
“How so?”
“It was the way she gave me a real picture of it, as it must have been when it was sort of new. My blindness, Maddy. I just assumed she wasn’t that sensitive, but it was almost poetic, the way she put it”
My woman smiled happily.
“My word, aren’t you doing Venus on the half shell!”
“Sorry?”
“Emerging fully formed and…”
She was suddenly bright pink.
“Sorry, but, well, Botticelli, and then a memory of you walking into the bathroom to get that towel, and, oh my”
“Botticelli?”
“A very, very famous painting, my man. I’ll show you it later. You know, it throws me a little when I realise how many gaps there are in your general knowledge”
I started to apologise, but once again she gave me the hand wave.
“So much sharing to do with you, Neil. I am looking forward to it, really”
I found my next words hard to get out, and she noticed.
“Safe, Neil. Remember? What do you need to say?”
It felt like I’d swallowed a stone, but it would choke me if I didn’t get it out.
“That sort of name thing. I never had a girlfriend, not once”
“Not a problem, Neil. You’re with me now, and now is where we are, not the past”
“Maddy”
“Neil?”
“I’ve… That word. You thought I was going to be like that Nigel, didn’t you?”
She winced, looking away.
“With my history, well, it was sort of a worry. Please don’t get upset if I say you frightened me, because you didn’t. My own paranoia frightened me, that’s all”
I reached for her hand, the need to speak too powerful to resist, even through the fear.
“That word again, Maddy. I’ve… I’ve never had a lover”
She did her hard stare thing once again.
“But you are hoping?”
I nodded.
“Neil?”
“Yes?”
“Bugger what people may think”
Her kiss was so passionate I thought I might faint. Oh most definitely my.
She pulled back eventually, eyes moist.
“Come on, Strachan. Places to go, photos to take. Hands to hold”
We gathered up our debris, and as we put it into the bin next to the coffee van, the man called out to us. As one, we said “Yes?”, and he smiled, rather than grinned.
“just wanted to say thanks to you two. It’s a canny place to work, here, aye? Watching you two, the day’s even brighter. There’s a couple of freebies for you when you come back, if you like”
We both thanked him, and as we walked through the kissing gate, he called after us, “And buy that lotto ticket!”
The path led us around two and a half sides of one of those playing card shaped Roman forts, now reduced to a set of turf banks, the rest of the meadow, field, expanse of green swept by waves as the wind made the grass into a sea of green, and just as we came in sight of the temple we walked into a small crowd, clearly the owners of the other bikes. I woke up sharply, as several of them were wearing backpatches, which was most definitely not something I wanted in my world.
One small group of around eight people were standing by a trio, two women and a man, while what we had come up against was clearly some sort of security cordon. One very big man stared at me for a moment, before relaxing slightly. He was Welsh, from his accent, which was a little out of place.
“If you’re here to visit the temple, give it some respect, butt. But you won’t be going any closer until they’re done”
Maddy squeezed my hand, and stepped between me and the biker.
“Sorry, we didn’t know, Can we ask?”
He nodded.
“Girl there, the taller one. She’s just setting her parents free. What’s your interest in the temple?”
I started to repeat what Mrs Milburn had told me, about soldiers behind a closed door, a little piece of home and comfort, and the bearded man smiled.
“Proper respect, aye? I thank you, and so do the spirits of this place. Ah---see? Flying free, just as they lived!”
The taller girl had thrown what I knew must be ashes into the wind, and was being embraced by another woman and a massive man. I looked over at our own new friend, and he was crying. He muttered something in what I assumed was Welsh, sounding like ‘down shook ar uh gwint’, and then effectively, but without touching us, made sure we were standing to one side as the ‘ashes’ party walked back towards the car park.
Maddy was clenching my hand until they were out of sight.
“Where are your parents, Neil?”
“They retired to Spain years ago. They don’t… Mum says I am too much hard work for her”
“Your father?”
“Er, he just does as he’s told. I just don’t… I haven’t spoken to them for years”
“Oh”
“Yours?”
“They live in Warwick, as far as I know. When I came out, they threw me that way”
“To Warwick?”
“No, Neil. Out”
She barked out a laugh, one of those I was learning to recognise as showing she was trying to make a joke out of something painful.
“I’m your actual self-made woman, Neil, though I did have a bit of help from a surgeon”
It was my turn to take the lead, because she needed me, so I turned her to face me and did my best to recreate the passion with which she had kissed me in the car park.
It seemed to work.
MADDY
The bikers were long gone by the time we arrived back at the car park, but the temple had been fascinating, and a rewarding place to shoot. I tried to time my shots so as to catch it both in cloud shadow and in full sunlight, as Neil told me more of what his Mrs Milburn had said, and he was absolutely right in that she clearly had the vision of a poet. I remembered a line from a Richard Thompson song about ‘a soldier’s small comfort’. Once I understood its purpose, the tiny temple carried an impact far beyond its size.
“Neil?”
“Yes?”
“Can we come back here some day? Bring all of our kit, and do a really thorough session? I can see so much of this as worthy of another show… Neil?”
He was only bloody weeping, but the reason slapped me hard in the face.
“Neil?”
“Yes?”
“What you said about that word. It is a long term thing, so please forgive me if I start thinking beyond tonight. Now, we have free drinks to claim, and still plenty of daylight, and I am sure you still have a lot to show me. Where are we eating tonight?”
“Where would you like?”
“Would you be okay with the hotel? I really don’t want to be slip-sliding in heels on those cobbles again”
“Don’t wear them then”
I tried to do my purry sex-kitten thing, which was actually crap.
“Don’t you want me to look nice?”
He simply said, “You always look nice to me”, and that was me told.
Yes, we saw more things, and I was amazed at the way the land tilted up in stacked, slanted slabs. There was so much to capture, and my man must, had to, bring me back.
I insisted we stop in the city centre so that I could buy some Needful Things, which meant that I was able to re-enact that scene with Nigel, in that dress, unloading its freight, with an ending adjusted towards the fucking wonderful, which, to be honest, it was. The fucking, that is.
I lay in Neil’s arms afterward, and puzzled over two questions: could my life get any better, and how long it had to be before I could safely use the word ‘lover’.
Or would I fail in that, yet again?
NEIL
We did spend some time at the Angel, which left both of us in silence for quite a while, simply because there were so many surprising details to record, but our time was running out. Maddy was going home on the train, so I had to ride back alone, which was a wrench. I was starting to get used to sleeping as a couple, but it was so much more than the sex, which was what it was: amazing. It wasn’t the thing that had me rapt, though, which was simply her existence. It looked at my loneliness, and denied its existence; my sense of worthlessness was laughed at.
‘This woman has chosen you. Yes, you. You, that one that thinks he’s worthless. Are you some new sort of stupid?’
I was buzzing with happiness even in the town traffic, and once I had the bike locked away, I texted the single word ‘back’. My phone chirped almost immediately.
‘Train failure ahead of ours. Where we eating assuming I get back at all?’
That was a question I couldn’t answer immediately, so I started setting out my rolls of film, each canister labelled with date, place and whether colour or monochrome. Once they were stacked in the dark room, I pulled my memory card from the DSLR and started my laptop for the download. As soon as that was running properly, I sent Maddy my answer.
‘Without an ETA I can’t book anywhere. Come here and order a delivery when you arrive?’
Her reply was once again a quick one. I could never seem to learn that two-thumbed phone typing; I just ended up with a screen full of typos mixed with the wrong ‘predictive text’.
‘Would be nice. Would be nicer if I had an address to give the taxi driver’
Before I could reply, I received another.
‘You got shower, bath or both?’
I sent back my address, adding that I had a bath with a shower over it, a high-pressure electric one.
‘THX. Washing m/c?’
I confirmed that yes, I had one.
‘How big a bed?’
That threw me more than a little, and I wondered if she had assumed I lived some sort of single man monastic existence.
‘Big enough’
A longer pause. Another chirp.
‘What are we doing tomorrow’
I pulled out my desk diary, just to be sure, although I already knew the answer. Once confirmed, I sent my answer.
‘I have a class to deliver at three o’clock. Nothing else’
This time, my phone rang.
“Hello?”
“You didn’t tell me you’re a teacher, Strachan”
“I’m not”
“Delivering a class?”
“I do occasional stuff at the local tech college. Photography stuff course. It’s not really teaching”
“Close enough as makes no difference, Neil. You free in the morning, then? Have you time now to do a breakfast shop? Got bread for toast, eggs, that sort of thing?”
“Will do. I need milk, anyway”
“Right. Our train’s moving at long bloody last. See you soon”
She hung up, but a text arrived a few seconds later.
‘Not saying this on a crowded train but at least I know you’ve already got my sausage ready. Crumpet?’
MADDY
It turned out not to have been a failed train so much as one that had failed the rest of us, by damaging the overhead power cable in some way, which meant two things, the first being that all the train power went off, including the lights.
The bigger issue was that while they were sending a diesel loco to pull stranded trains onto the opposite running line, which still had power, by definition, on a stretch of track that actually only had those two lines, we were in a huge game of contraflow. By the time I arrived at my final station, I felt like shit, and really felt I must stink, of armpits and sweaty crotch. I was regretting taking a suitcase, because without it I might have been able to squeeze most of my stuff into Neil’s cases.
Of course, I couldn’t actually have done that, but it was still a nice thought, and I will confess to spending a lot of my forced waiting time running through daydreams. He needed that haircut soon, as well as a tweak to his wardrobe, and perhaps I better slow down.
That had always been one of my failings, a tendency to dream two quickly. Post transition, especially post-surgery, I had felt whole, transformed, me at last, a real woman, entire and complete, and so on and on and on in all its naïve splendour. Nigel had merely been the last dreadful choice in the series. Hugh had split my lip and blacked one of my eyes, while Drew had literally whipped me out of bed with his belt so that I had had to lock myself in the bathroom while he ripped the bedding apart, as if to somehow erase what we had been doing.
I still went off with fucking Nigel, though. Once a fool…
Wherever I was going with Neil, though, seemed to be completely different. When we had first met, all I had seen were the lacunae in his behaviour, the things that ‘normal’ did or didn’t do being mirrored in him. Once I had managed to tunnel past his shame, then see him in what he thought of as familiar ground, I could see the man behind the condition. And while he was incredibly inexperienced at, well, IT, whether it was by great good fortune or some incredible instinct, he pressed all the right buttons. I hadn’t felt anything so intense since fucking Nigel.
Then again, Nigel had most definitely fucked me.
I suspected I was being stupid, still dreaming through rose-tinted hope, but I was definitely going to stick with it. Pandora’s bloody curse, maybe, or, just perhaps, a final chance at a life.
It was getting late when the cabby set my bag on its side in his boot before checking Neil’s address in his road atlas.
“Yup. I know that street, love. Not that far, really”
“I know, mate. I’m just absolutely shattered, and this case is heavy”
He grinned back at me, before pulling away.
“Don’t I know it! You been buying bricks?”
“Camera kit. My work”
“Where you been?”
“The City of Durham”
“Supposed to be lovely there!”
“It is. I’m just glad to be home. Bath, then bed for me”
“Need someone to wash your back?”
“Cheeky man! No, I don’t, because that job’s already filled”
“Lucky man. This is you, and that’s six pounds, please. Now, I’ll help you out with your bag, and I will wait till I’m sure you’re safely in”
“Thank you”
“No problems. Here’s our card, and have a nice soak”
He did indeed wait until I was at the door, and it was open, and Neil was there to take my case and camera bag into his hall, and my cares and me into his arms. I was home.
And my man had bought crumpets. Oh my.