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We were making love for the first time in more than two weeks, an unusually long break for us caused by a combination of incompatible work schedules and her monthly rhythms. Now here we were making up for the interruption and something different and unprecedented was happening to me.

My whole body seemed to be on fire with small electric shocks jolting through me, my skin an organ of its own. Sort of like the feeling you get when you light up your first cigarette in a week, when your skin tingles all over, but multiplied by one hundred or maybe even one thousand. I was lying in bed naked, on my back, my darling on top of me, and I looked down to see the nipple on my right breast standing upright like the eraser on the end of a pencil and just as long and hard. As Lucy caressed it between her thumb and forefinger my whole body twitched as nerve endings sent strange new signals. I couldn’t see the left one as she was nibbling and sucking on it as hard as she could, but I knew it was at least as hard and stiff as the other. I was writhing uncontrollably as the sensations seemed to focus on my groin and my cock stood up as hard as a rock. Then without a touch, I ejaculated. I came and came and came. The feeling was unlike any normal release. Every bone and muscle contracted with the spasm. Nothing like this had ever happened to me before and I lay there gasping and shuddering, spent but somehow craving more, wondering where this fantastic orgasm had come from.

“God, darling, how did that happen?” I managed to pant, when I came back down to earth.

“Wasn’t it great? Did you like it? I think it’s fantastic,” she said when she released my nipple from her mouth, grinning like the Cheshire Cat.

“Like it? Wow! Yes, but I’ve never felt anything like that before. Where did it come from? What’s happening to me?”

“Let’s talk about that later. Right now I think you’d better go and have a shower and get dressed.”

I did as she said and went into my bathroom. I tucked my hair into the shower-cap, stepped into the cubicle and turned on the water. As I soaped my chest my nipples were quite tender and a little sore, but they got rock-hard again and grew to the size of that pencil eraser. I could have sworn they were nearly half an inch long. As I rubbed them the sensation almost drove me mad, making me feel sexy in a completely different way from normal and then I came again, shuddering all over. When I finished showering I dried myself off, carefully patting my chest, and looked at myself in the mirror. My nipples certainly looked bigger than I remembered and the aureoles seemed bigger too, a deeper chocolate colour against the paleness of my chest,and there was a bit of puffiness there too, or was I just imagining things? Thinking about it I realized that they had become gradually more sensitive over the past few weeks, but it had sort of sneaked up on me until today when they were totally unprotected from the attention they had received.

I began to get dressed. I slipped on a suspender belt, a pair of panties and a bra, all white, putting in my falsies and applying some spirit gum on each side to fix them in place and stop them from shifting. I then put on a white knit roll-neck top with long sleeves that flared a little at the wrists. After a practiced rollup I stepped into and pulled on a pair of nylons, fastening them to my suspender belt with the hangers next to my skin underneath the panties before donning a burgundy-coloured slim-line calf-length pencil skirt with a slip lining and a rear slit that allowed me to walk with enticingly small steps. I hadn’t worn it for a couple of weeks and it seemed to be tighter round my hips than I remembered. Perhaps I was putting on some weight, I thought, but the waist still fitted just fine. In fact it looked better than normal and I was pleased with how it looked. Usually I had to wear my padded girdle to get that smooth curve that I craved, and although it gave me the desired appearance, wearing it made going to the toilet a real chore, so by preference I wore the suspender belt and panties.

Sitting down at my dressing table I began to carefully apply my make-up. I was conscientious about it, not only because I was going to go to work later but also because I liked doing it. I just knew it made me look so much prettier and, also because Lucy would always inspect me to make sure I was up to her standards. Next was a pair of dangly crystal earrings and I turned my head back and forth a few times to see them sway enticingly and to feel and admire them, then brushed out my hair and sprayed it into place. I checked my nails and decided they didn’t need any repairs, so I finished off with a small gold watch, a bracelet, and a thin gold necklace with a cross pendant. A few steps to the wardrobe to select and pull on a pair of white winkle-picker-toed sling-back shoes with a four-inch stiletto heel, since I wouldn’t have to worry about my height tonight. I do admit to loving heels as they make me feel really feminine and make my legs look good, and I do have good legs, even if I say so myself.

I stood and examined myself in the full-length mirror and liked the slim, tall girl reflected back at me, as I turned from side to side to make sure everything was in order. It was a requirement of my job that I dress smartly and I thought I looked both smart and elegant. I couldn't help but smile at my reflection, and she smiled back at me.I liked to kid myself that I looked a little like Jean Shrimpton...well, only a little.... maybe it was my hairstyle.

I titivated for a few more seconds, adjusting my skirt and top, and, when I was satisfied I grabbed a black leather jacket and a large white handbag, into which I stuffed my emergency repair kit and my purse and sashayed into the living-room with the delicate shortened steps that were all that the hobble skirt and heels permitted, to wait for my love. She came in barely a minute later. Tonight she was dressed completely in black, a figure-hugging dress with a boat neck and a knee-length skirt, black stockings and patent leather high-heels setting off her beautiful blonde hair. She was carrying a black woollen coat and a matching patent leather handbag. As usual, my heart skipped a beat when I saw her. Oh, how I loved her. She really was the centre of my universe.

“Well,” I said, “Are you going to tell me what’s happening to me?” It never occurred to me that she might not know.

“On second thoughts, Suzie, I think we should talk about it in the morning. We haven’t really got time to discuss it properly before we go to work. Anyway, it’s really nothing to worry about, so just relax and we’ll get to it later,”

I really didn’t mind waiting too much, as I loved discussing things in bed with her. We always seemed to agree things much more easily there, especially when we made love. So, anyway, off we went to work. We both worked at the Lyric Theatre in London’s West End (Shaftesbury Avenue actually). She was the principal make-up artiste and I was the cloakroom girl. My job might not sound like much but it was the best-paying job I had ever had, two pounds ten shillings a night plus tips. Lucy got thirty pounds a week but she really didn’t need it as she had money from her grandparents and a divorce settlement as well. She did it because she liked it.

The night at the theatre was normal. We had a hit and standing room only so things were a bit hectic. I helped out in the bar in the interval..always a mad rush... and it was 11 o’clock before I finished in the cloakroom. I remember I made nearly thirty shillings in tips that night. Afterwards we went for a couple of drinks with some of the back-of-house staff and a handful of the actors. Everybody as usual just treated me as the girl I appeared to be and we had a fun time until about one thirty.

Later Lucy and I went back to our flat and after showering we slipped on our nighties, climbed into bed together and slept. I woke at about 9 a.m. and made breakfast as usual and she gave me my glass of milk and the vitamins she always insisted I take. That made me feel like I was still at school but after nearly two years I was used to it. I knew she only did it for my own good. She had introduced me to all sorts of things I was ignorant about before I came to live with her, like washing my hair with shampoo and conditioner and flossing between my teeth, not to mention all the things that I needed to know about being a girl.

After we had eaten I cleaned away the dirty dishes and she said to me;

“Come back to bed and we’ll have a little fun.”

Off came our nighties and we started to play with each other. She liked being on top so when I had warmed her up with my tongue to her satisfaction she lowered herself slowly down on me and started playing with my nipples again. I couldn’t help myself. I began to buck like a horse being spurred. I was totally out of my mind, twitching and shuddering and thrusting into her as hard as I could go until we both exploded in one fantastic burst and lay there gasping for breath. God, my nipples were just so sensitive, and I thought I could get used to this very easily.

When I could talk coherently I said to her, “You have to tell me what’s happening to me. It’s fantastic, but why has it never happened before?”

“Darling, don’t worry. It’s just a natural part of the process of you becoming a girl.”

“What do you mean?” I asked stupidly, not understanding at all.

“Well, as the hormones start to work you will become more and more feminine. Your nipples and aureoles are the first sign. Soon your breasts will start to grow and I think maybe your hips and bum have already begun to develop a little. Your skin is already softer and will get softer still and you will get less hairy. As a side effect you will become more emotional for a while. In fact I’m sure you already are. I don’t want you worrying about any of this. You’ll love it when you’re all girl and I can hardly wait until you’re fully developed. I just know you will be absolutely stunning. In a couple of years you’ll be able to wear really low-cut necklines if you like. Maybe we’ll even get you some implants. You’d really like that, wouldn’t you? And just think of the tight skirts that will hug your hips and show off that lovely bum.”

“Hormones? But I’m not on hormones.” I was really flummoxed.

“Yes, you are, my darling. I started you on a proper dosage over two months ago.”

A block of ice settled in my gut and my skin crawled. My stomach turned over and I thought I was going to be sick. I began to shake and had to stop myself from hyper-ventilating.

“But why?” I got out when I had myself under control again. By this time she had me in her arms and was making soothing noises to calm me. “And how did you get them?” As if it mattered.

“There, there, Suzie. There’s no call to get upset. Relax now and I’ll explain. As to where I got them, that’s simple. A pharmacist friend of mine supplies them. They’re actually used in low dosages to treat severe acne. I’ve been giving them to you at that level since we came to London to make sure your skin stayed nice and clear. You must have noticed that you rarely get pimples like you used to when you were still a boy. I’ve upped the dosage over the last couple of months to make you more feminine because I felt you had settled in nicely to being a girl and we wouldn’t want you to develop any gross male characteristics, would we now?”

I was somewhat calmer now and absorbed what she said. When I thought about it I realized that she was right about my skin. Until about a year ago I had been prone to get pimples and I hadn’t had any for months. In fact my skin looked great, but I had put this down to the use of cleansing creams since I was regularly wearing makeup. Nothing had seemed any different over the last couple of months except that maybe I had become a bit more emotional and, of course, now I knew why my nipples were so sensitive and my hips and bum had started to grow. My brain was in a whirl. I didn’t know what to think.

I repeated myself, “But why, Lucy? Surely I was all right as I was, and why didn’t you ask me?”

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you, sweetie. You can’t just go on the way you are. If you’re going to continue as a girl you have to become a real girl, and the reason I didn’t tell you is because you’re such a sissy when it comes to making decisions.”

“I am NOT a sissy, why would you call me that? “ I said, with my lower lip trembling, “and you should have asked me.”

“OK, darling, tell me what you are then. You’re lying here in bed with me with your long hair done in a nice feminine style, trimmed and shaped eyebrows, long fingernails, toenails and fingernails all varnished in scarlet and you’ve got a boy’s body except for slightly enlarged nipples and hips. So what does that make you?”

“I’m a-a-a-a. Oh, you’re not fair. I-I-I don’t know what I am, but a sissy is just…” and I burst into tears. She cuddled me again and stroked my hair.

“Sssh, my love. I’m sorry, I shouldn't have called you that but at the moment you’re neither one thing nor the other. Just think, when you get dressed you will put on a bra and panties and put in falsies to give you a bust line. You’ll wear a suspender belt and stockings, a pretty dress or skirt and blouse with high-heeled shoes. You’ll make up your face, do your hair and wear some jewellery and generally make sure you look like a beautiful girl, and that’s what the world will see and that’s what you want them to see. You walk and move like a girl. You talk like a girl. You act like a girl. Your own mind tells you you're a girl. So wouldn’t it be better if your body matched your appearance? You know you love being a girl and it's what you've always wanted. You don’t want to go back to being a boy, do you?”

“No, you know I don’t, but it scares me, becoming a girl for real. I thought you loved me as I am. What about my willie? How will we make love? And I wouldn’t be like this if you hadn’t encouraged me.”

“I admit I “encouraged“ you to do something you were dying to do but were too scared to try, but you have to agree you love it and I never forced you to do anything you didn’t want to. Of course your willie will shrink and maybe not stand up any more but there are lots of other ways for us to make love, and I do love you. I’m doing this for you because I‘m sure you will be happier in the long run. There’s no need for you to be scared. I promise I’ll look after you, just like I have ever since we met.”

“But I love making love to you. What if you don’t like me when I’m a real girl?”

“I will, silly. I want you to be one hundred percent girl and I’ll love you even more when you’re totally happy with yourself. The last thing either of us want is you turning into a boy again.”

“Do you promise? You’ll never ever leave me? I wouldn’t know what to do without you.”

“I promise. Now be a good girl and do what I tell you.”

“All right.” I said. I still wasn’t convinced but I needed time to think and she always seemed so reasonable, while I got confused and tangled up, so I let my natural cowardice take over and postponed thinking about my situation until later.

Three days went past and, while everything was normal on the surface, my mind was chewing away while I continued to be a good girl and took my “vitamins” (most of them were actual vitamins. I checked) knowing I had to make a decision that would decide the rest of my life. Finally there was a day when I didn’t have to work and Lucy not only had to do two shows but also had some personal business to attend to and was out of the flat at 10 a.m. She would not return until maybe midnight. After she kissed me goodbye I went into my bedroom and got out all my mementos and photos of our relationship since we first met and sat down to consider what had happened between us. My first thought was that for me, up to now, it had almost been a 'fairy tale' come true and scarcely believable. I had never been as happy as I was in the last two years and I didn't want my happiness to end.

The first picture I looked at was of me, two years ago at 17, looking slightly nervous. It had been taken just before I met her. I was a skinny boy, weighing in at 133 lbs and 5 feet 10 inches tall. If I turned sideways I looked like a head on a broomstick. Years later I would realize that I was actually quite good looking in an androgynous sort of way, but that was with the benefit of some more maturity and, at the time, it never crossed my mind. All I knew was that from the age of about 14 I got hit upon by gay men (they weren’t called gay then; they were queers or bum boys or poofs) while girls generally ignored me or, if they noticed me at all, thought I wasn’t manly enough or I was sweet or, worse, pretty. Consequently, I didn’t have many girlfriends. It was also possible that some sixth sense told them that I wasn’t entirely normal.

My deepest darkest secret was that I had been dressing in my mother’s clothes at every opportunity since I was eleven years old. I didn’t know why I did it but I loved the feelings I got when dressed as a girl and even though my mother was the most unglamorous woman you could imagine I still envied her for being able to wear dresses and skirts and wished I could have been her daughter so that I could dress and be accepted as a girl. I would go green with envy when I saw pretty girls with lovely clothes and hairstyles and I knew deep inside that this was what I should have been. All these factors probably contributed to my raging inferiority complex.

I had left school some months before the snap was taken in a fit of teenage rebellion and had got a job as a Tracer, which was a kind of assistant draughtsman, a job that probably doesn’t even exist any more in the computer age. It was mind-numbingly boring and I was being paid the magnificent wage of four pounds two shillings a week. The only reason I stuck with it was that it gained me entry to the technical college where I hoped to learn real engineering. So it wasn't too surprising that I did not look particularly happy in that photo.

I remembered vividly the day that we met. It was a wet Saturday morning in early September 1959 and I was sitting in a Brighton coffee bar nursing a coffee and reading a book, just killing time, when a female voice said; “Excuse me, it’s awfully crowded in here. Do you mind if I share your table?”

I looked up and saw this gorgeous woman who was probably in her mid-twenties. My first reaction was that she must be speaking to someone else and I looked over my shoulder, but there was nobody behind me.

“I’m sorry, you surprised me,” I replied, flustered. “No, of course I don’t mind. Please sit down.” And I got up, as one did for ladies in those days, and held a seat back for her.

“Thank you so much. I hope I’m not interrupting you?” She smiled at me as I sat down again.

“My pleasure.” I said, taking my own seat again and expecting that to be the end of the conversation.

“What are you reading? Is it any good?”

“Oh, it’s just a science-fiction magazine. It’s OK I guess.” I think I probably blushed like a lobster at being engaged by this blonde vision, elegantly dressed in a royal-blue dress under her trench-coat style raincoat.

“I don’t mind science-fiction,” she said, “but I’ve just read this wonderful book called “Lord of the Rings”. Have you heard of it?”

Of course I had, and it immediately came to me that she could have been Galadriel, tall and slender as she was. I couldn’t tell her that, naturally. I could only think it.

“I‘ve read it too. Yes, it’s a great book.”

We chatted about passages and story lines and characters for several minutes and then the conversation drifted onto more personal lines. She introduced herself as Lucy and told me she had just moved to Brighton to take up a job in one of our local theatres as a make-up assistant for the coming Christmas season. In no time at all, my usual shyness forgotten, I was telling her about myself, my job, my life and generally gushing. She said that she had never actually been to Brighton before, even though it was only 50 miles from London and she asked me if I would mind showing her around a bit.

Mind? Mind? I couldn’t believe that this beautiful woman was asking me to escort her around in public, and agreed to meet her in this same coffee bar the next morning. Suddenly, over two hours had flown by and she had to go, leaving me sitting there dazed and stunned, mind in a whirl and already in love. As I gradually came back to earth I asked myself who I was kidding. I’d probably never see her again. She was just passing the time and she wouldn’t turn up the next day.

But I couldn’t take the chance, so I turned up early and lurked out of sight across the street to see if she would come. She was already there! My heart raced as I nonchalantly sauntered across the road trying to look as if everything was normal (as 17-year-olds do) and entered the café. She greeted me with a brilliant smile.

“Hello, John. I’m so glad you came. I thought I might have come on too strong yesterday and scared you off.”

And then we were away again, chatting as if we had known each other for years. She had this gift for relaxing me and getting through my normal defences. I took her for a walk along the promenade, past the Palace Pier and the West Pier to the Peace Statue at the boundary between Brighton and Hove (actually).She slipped her arm into mine and leaned into me like she was really my girlfriend. We went down onto the beach and threw pebbles into the water and laughed at how people came here to sit on the stones and dip themselves in the nearly freezing sea, assuming that the sun made an appearance now and again.

Later we had lunch in a nice little café. I should be able to remember which one, but I can’t. I was lost in her presence, but she paid and I wasn’t embarrassed. After lunch we walked again, with her hanging on to my arm again. She showed me where her flat was, in Black Lion Street in The Lanes, about five minutes walk from the coffee bar and the same from the theatre where she worked. Then it was over and she asked me to meet her the next Saturday, to which I agreed of course and floated off at least a foot off the ground.

The next several weeks went by in a blur. I took her on the bus to the villages of Patcham and Rottingdean, along the cliffs east of Black Rock, around the Royal Pavilion and Old Steine. We went to the cinema several times, and even rode the midget railway along the seafront. This occupied every Saturday and Sunday during that time.

Then one day, in early November, in our favourite coffee bar, she said she wanted to ask me to do something for her.

“Please don’t take this wrong, darling John, but I want you to move in and live with me. The way things are now, between your job and mine we only get to see each other at weekends and it’s not enough for me. I’m seriously asking you to give up that awful job of yours and come and live with me and look after my flat and help me with my household chores and shopping and suchlike. I’m more than happy to pay you and it’ll give us a lot more time together. I have a spare bedroom and you’re welcome to use it. For me, it’ll be so nice to come home to a friend and not be lonely and to have someone I trust looking after me.”

My mind was doing cartwheels at the prospect, because after the past weeks I was head-over-heels in love with her. I could hardly believe what she was saying to me.

“What would I have to do for you? What will I tell my parents?”

“Well, I’d like you to clean and cook, do the laundry, and shop for daily stuff, and just be there for me when I come home. I know it doesn’t sound that special but you would really help me because I’ll be working most evenings. As for your parents, that’s up to you of course, but you could tell them you are going to share a flat with friends. That would be true in a way, except that I’m only one friend, and maybe you could tell them that you’ve got a better job or been promoted. From what you’ve said I know you have been dying to leave home and I want you as company and a nice face to come home to and share my day with. I’ve been putting a bit of thought into this and I can pay you ten pounds a week and include board and lodging. Please say yes. You’ll make me very happy.”

“But I don’t know much about housework. I can do a bit of cleaning and I know how to shop but cooking and laundry are new to me.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll teach you in no time, and I bet you’ll even enjoy it.”

Of course I would, living with her and looking after her. I thought about it for all of thirty seconds just so as not to appear too eager.

“OK, yes, I'd love it. When do I start?”

“How about two weeks today? That’ll give you time to get organized and quit your job and we’ll have you in over a month before Christmas, so you’ll be well and truly settled.”

With the deal agreed she leaned across the table and gave me a big kiss and grasped my hands in both of hers. That almost stopped my heart right there, but it kept beating and after a few minutes I could breathe again.

During the next two weeks I made all the arrangements. I told my parents I was going to share a flat with some friends, without mentioning that it was one female friend, since in those days that would be called living in sin. I said I had got a better-paying job, which meant I could afford it, sort of implying that it was in draughting without actually saying so. I think they were actually quite relieved that I was getting off my backside and doing something. I hadn’t been the best company since I left school so they really didn’t mind me leaving home. I gave the required notice to my employers to quit my job and finished on the Friday. I moved in with Lucy the next day.

During the next few weeks she taught me the basics of housework, some of which I actually did know from helping my mum. She was far more particular than my mother and had higher standards for washing up and mopping and cleaning and dusting, and she wasn’t backward in telling me if I hadn’t done some task to her satisfaction. She was firm, not nasty, and I wanted to please her, so if she wanted something done better I just did it without argument. She taught me how to cook and within weeks I became quite good, in part because I discovered that I really liked it. I also learned how to wash and iron all the various kinds of women’s clothes except for those that had to be dry-cleaned.

She had such nice clothes that I was very tempted to wear them when she was out but I was terrified that she might catch me and throw me out, so I refrained and contented myself with feeling the textures and admiring the colours and patterns of the beautiful garments when I ironed them, contenting myself by just imagining how nice I would look in them.

She didn’t need to teach me much about general shopping as I had worked for a greengrocer and knew my fruit and vegetables and general goods, but she insisted on everything being the best quality even if it cost a little more. I even cleaned the car,a Rover, which I hadn’t known she had, and she started giving me driving lessons.Seventeen was old enough for a Learner's Permit even though I wouldn't be able to get a full licence until I was eighteen

She also took me in hand in some of my personal habits, insisting that I had a shower or bath every day, washed my hair with shampoo and conditioner instead of soap, flossed my teeth, used a mouthwash and deodorant and changed my shirt and underwear daily, and put me on a daily dose of vitamins for health.

The week before Christmas she showed me how to stuff and cook a turkey, and so I made Christmas dinner with roast potatoes, peas, brussels sprouts and giblet gravy, with plum pudding (from Fortnum & Masons) and brandy sauce for dessert. I remember I couldn't get the sauce to burn because I didn't know you had to prime it with neat brandy, lit in a spoon. We had a good laugh about that after she showed me how to do it. I was really proud of myself and Lucy said it was delicious, the best Christmas dinner she'd had in years.

There were no shows that day so we went for a walk after lunch to settle our digestion and then she took me to her bedroom, undressed me and herself and gave me the best Christmas present I have ever had before or since. I could never describe the effect that had on me. I had had fumbles before but this lady knew exactly what to do and what buttons to press and I was totally blown away. I had just never imagined that making love could be like that, or some of the things that women liked.

After that I was her total slave. I would have walked over red-hot coals for her, and I still wondered what she saw in me. She told me she loved me for my innocence, sweetness and honesty but my inferiority complex always caused me to have those little niggling doubts.

However, there was no way I was going to upset the applecart and I continued to happily work as her household helper and general companion. As I grew more proficient I was able to do my chores remarkably quickly and we used the time left over for going out together as well as making love on frequent occasions. This was such a perfect time I almost couldn’t believe it was happening to me. Fairy tales don’t happen in real life. I was sitting looking at a picture of the two of us smiling happily at the camera as a tear trickled down my cheek.

Then came the day that would change my life even more dramatically. We had been living together for over three months and we went to the cinema to see a brand new movie called “Some Like It Hot”, a very funny film in which Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon were forced to impersonate girls in order to escape from the Mafia. We were still laughing when we got home and then she sprung a big surprise on me.

“I want to see what you would look like as a girl. I think you would be much more convincing than either of those two.”

I started to protest, although of course I was secretly dying to find out the answer. I had never worn make-up except for a smear of lipstick, which was all my mother ever used. She brushed aside my apparent reluctance.

“Come on, don’t be a scaredy-cat. I reckon you’ll look great and it’s just a bit of fun. I’m soooo curious.”

What could I do but go along with her? She told me to take off my clothes and put on a dressing-gown, and then sat me down at the dressing-table in her bedroom, facing away from the mirror, and started working on me with her cosmetics. This was, after all, what she did for a living. She applied creams and lotions and powders for what seemed like an hour, brushed my cheeks, forehead, nose and chin, outlined my lips with a kind of pencil, fixed on false eyelashes and spent ages working around my eyes. Then she took a blonde wig and put it on me, spending more time brushing it out before clipping a pair of hoop ear-rings to my ears and finally applying lipstick. I was bursting with curiosity and at the same time terrified of looking ridiculous, but she still wouldn’t let me look until she got out her camera and took half a dozen shots of me. I was looking at one now.

“OK, you can turn around now,” she said, giggling. “You’re gorgeous. I thought you would be, but I couldn’t be sure until I finished.”

I turned to the mirror and, sure enough, a very pretty girl looked back at me. Not Marilyn Monroe, I thought, but definitely female and very presentable. My reflection was all my most secret dreams come true and at the same time terrified me. This was the real me that I had always known was inside me and I wished with all my heart that I could look like this all the time.

“What do you think? Do you like yourself as a girl?”

“Not really,” I lied, but then my body betrayed me as my member stood up on its own accord and I blushed beet-red.

“See! You do! You can’t lie to me. You’re really turned on, and so am I. Come on to bed. I want to make love to my new girlfriend. I’ve never made love to a girl before.” She dragged me over to the bed and practically ripped off my dressing-gown, exposing my rigid penis.

“Ooh, look at that. Who says he doesn’t like it? He loves it,” and she quickly slipped off her skirt and panties and climbed on top of me. The next half-hour was totally wild.

When we had finished she said, “Wow, that was fun! Now, tell me the truth this time. You do like looking like a girl, don’t you?”

I just nodded; too scared to speak.

“Come on, I have to know. It really turns me on seeing you like this. Even if I have ruined your make-up you’re still really pretty and I want to do this again, but next time I want to dress you completely as a girl. So tell me true. Do you want to?”

“Yes,” I croaked, going dry-mouthed with excitement and fear at the prospect.

“I think it’s very kinky and I’m almost wetting myself thinking what I can get for you to make you look extra-nice. We’re going to have such fun. I think you’ve done this before, haven’t you? Tell me about it, go on.”

She seemed to like it and she wasn’t going to throw me out so I steeled myself and told her how I had a compulsion to dress in my mother’s clothes and it had been my most shameful secret for years. She asked me if I had worn any of her clothes since we had been living together and I told her I had been too scared to, because I had thought she might hate me if I did and she found out about it.

“I’m glad you didn’t,” she replied, stroking my cheek. “I don’t want you having secrets from me. Now it’s our secret, not yours. You poor boy, bottling that up all this time. Now that I know, I can help you,” and she took me in her arms and kissed me, which caused me to burst into tears, as much from relief as anything else.

I was on tenterhooks for the whole of the next week. I was dying to get dressed as a girl and have my face made up again and wear a wig so that I would look like a real girl. I was wondering what clothes she would choose for me and at the same time I was scared witless of how I would feel and if it would make a difference to our relationship.

The day came. It was a Tuesday, which was one of Lucy’s days off. After breakfast she told me to go out and get the grocery shopping while she got everything ready for me. It took about an hour and I was so nervous when I got back.

When I returned she told me to get undressed and have a shower, so I did. She followed me into the bathroom and soaped me all over with her perfumed soap, and then she took a razor and shaved my legs, my crotch, my forearms and my armpits. I wasn’t actually very hairy but she got it all and then made me shave my face even though I only needed to shave about once a week and I had done it just the day before. Then she made me wash all over again and rubbed a flowery smelling body lotion into my skin before letting me dry off. She finished by dusting me with a fragrant talcum powder and told me that I must always smell like a girl when I was dressed as a girl. I didn't need convincing. I really did smell good to myself and understood exactly what she meant.

Then she took me into her bedroom and placed a white suspender belt around my waist. She sat me down and pulled a near-black pair of sheer nylon stockings up my legs and fastened them to the hanger straps of the suspenders. I was shuddering with anticipation and the erotic feel of the stockings, which seemed to whisper on my newly-shaved legs. She then produced a pair of white panties with a kind of sleeve in them. When she had pulled them up my legs she took my penis, and with some difficulty, because it was getting hard, tucked it into the sleeve and adjusted the panties to pull me back between my legs. That was a bit uncomfortable at first but the pressure helped and it settled down. Next came a white bra with some padding to the cups. She fastened it on me and adjusted the strap lengths before inserting two rubbery-looking falsies, to which she applied spirit-gum to stick them to my chest and ensure they stayed in place. I held them for a couple of minutes until they were firmly stuck. I was in a kind of a daze waiting for the completion of my transformation.

Lucy gave me a wrap-around smock to wear and again sat me down facing away from the mirror on her dressing-table. She went to work on my face and I soon realized she was doing it differently to the previous week. She spent a lot more time round my eyes and singed my eyebrows with a taper before plucking them with tweezers. When she had finished my eyes felt almost stiff when I blinked. She did not do much to my forehead at first but fixed on a wig with spirit gum to keep it in place. I later found out that this type of wig had a very fine gauze strip at the front to give a natural-looking hairline. The strip was covered with foundation and powder and became invisible at normal viewing distance.

This time she did not immediately brush out the wig after completing my make-up, but got me to remove the smock. She held up and had me step into a beautiful black dress with a flared calf-length skirt and a form fitting top with long clingy sleeves and she zipped me up at the back to a kind of polo neck with a knitted rollover. The skirt had a built-in slip/petticoat that made a lovely slithery kind of noise when it brushed across my stockings. Only now did she begin to style the wig, which came down below the collar of the dress. When she was happy she clipped a pair of 3 inch golden hoops to my ears, strung a thin gold chain with a cross pendant around my neck and completed my jewellery with a small gold watch on my left wrist and a gold bangle on my right. A wide shiny black belt went around my waist and was pulled as tight as it would go.

I still was not the finished article. She produced a pair of black patent-leather shoes with pointed toes and 4 inch heels and placed them on my feet. They fitted perfectly! Unbeknown to me she had gone to a custom shoemaker with a pair of my shoes to match the size and had them made specially. At last the final touch was to apply my lipstick.

“Next time I’ll do your nails, but we’ll pick a day when you can leave the varnish on for a while.” She inspected me critically. “Not at all bad. You’ll do for now and we’ll get better with practice.”

“There’s going to be more times,” I thought excitedly.

She took me by the hand and escorted me to the three-way mirror in her room, me walking a little gingerly with tiny steps in my brand-new high heels, but with no discomfort.

I saw myself and nearly swooned on the spot with excitement, exultation....glory....jubilation.... mixed with abject terror and dread; total desire to be like this forever laced with the fear, shame and embarrassment of it. But in the final crunch it was the desire that won. I simply loved this different me. She...No...I was the dream that I had been hiding for years, the dream that I had thought would never be seen.

Of course I wanted more. Wearing my mother’s clothes, with no make-up or wig and stodgy old-fashioned underwear was a pale imitation of what I looked like now. From the brunette wig and hoop earrings, the made-up face with thin arched eyebrows, false eyelashes and highlighted eyes, painted lips, the lovely dress with the female shape inside it, the shapely legs in the sheer nylons, to the elegant shoes with their high heels, this was what I wanted to become. The idea of being able to go out into the world as a girl really excited me, even if it also terrified me at the same time but I knew I would have to do it. I just could not resist the desire, the urge to be and to be perceived by the world as I knew I should always have been.

Lucy, meanwhile, had grabbed her camera, and was dancing around taking photos from all angles. She kept on telling me how fabulous I looked and started to get me to strike girly poses. I was looking at one of those pictures right now and I still loved the way I looked that first real time. Girlish innocence stared back at me, wide-eyed and eager. I started to cry again as I wondered if it had all been some kind of game on her side. Was it genuine or was I some sort of idiot being manipulated? If I was rational about it, it didn’t seem possible as that occurred over eighteen months ago and had seemed very genuine, but why oh why hadn’t she levelled with me about the hormones?

She got me to walk up and down and pirouette and twirl and prance and took a whole roll of film, and I really enjoyed showing off for her. It made me feel so feminine and ladylike, comfortable and natural. She finally let me stop when she ran out of film. I automatically went back to the mirror and stared at my reflection all over again. I was entranced and I went weak at the knees and my pulse raced with the excitement and elation and terror of it all. But, best of all, Lucy liked me as a girl! I didn’t have to worry about hiding in the shadows any more.

“What do you think, darling? Didn’t I do a good job? Don’t you just love the way you look? I actually think you should have been born a girl. I have to say that even though I think you’re good looking as a boy you’re absolutely gorgeous as a girl.”

I gloried in her compliments and this time I just could not lie as I admired myself and struck poses to view myself from different angles, catching the sparkle of the light off of my earrings and pursing my lips into sexy pouts, batting my luscious eyelashes and dabbing at my hair to get it just so. Vanity, thy name is woman!

“Oh, Lucy, I really do love the way I look. It makes me feel so good and it really feels RIGHT if you know what I mean. I’m just scared you won’t love me any more if I look like this all the time.”

“If that’s what you want, sweetheart, you can look like that all the time. I’ll try and make you even more beautiful, and it turns me on so much seeing you like this. You do want to do it some more, don’t you?”

“I can’t wait. I'm going to hate taking these off. Can we do it again next week, or sooner?”

“Of course, that’s settled. We’ll do it as often as we can from now on and you’ll be my secret girlfriend, but right now I want you on your back on that bed with your skirt up round your waist and your knickers off. Move, girl!”

I did exactly as I was told and lay on the bed, a girl from head to toe except for one rather obvious attention seeking piece in the middle and let her have her wicked way with me, imagining all the time that I really was a girl.

When we were back to earth she propped herself on one elbow and stroked my cheek and played with my hair.

“OK, my love, if this is going to be a regular thing we have to get a few things straight. If you’re going to wear girls’ clothes then you must learn to become a girl. Wearing a dress doesn’t make you a girl. If you want to do this you’re going to have to work very hard. It’ll be a bit like rehearsing for a role in a stage-play, but harder. You’ll have to be able to convince everyone, including yourself, that you’re a real girl, so that they won’t think twice about you. That means that you will have to learn to walk, talk, sit, move, and stand and even think like a girl. You’ll have to learn to use make-up properly and choose the right clothes for the right times, go to the Ladies automatically when we go out, be a lady when men talk to you and all sorts of things that I haven’t mentioned. I have to know if you’re prepared to do all that. I’m happy to teach you but you have to be prepared to study. Can you do all of that?”

“Oh, Lucy, there's nothing I want more, as long as you still love me. Yes please. Please teach me.”

That was the start of several months when each week she would produce a new outfit for me to wear and through the week she would drill me in female behaviour and I dressed the part for my lessons. She was right. It was very hard work learning to be a girl. As she said, I had to walk, stand, sit, move and gesture in a different manner. Speech was not just a matter of talking in a higher-pitched voice but also using an entirely different way of phrasing and intonation. Women put a far more intimate emphasis in their conversation and say things in a way that men do not, using their faces and hands to project their feelings. I spent many hours with the headphones of Lucy’s tape-recorder clamped over my ears practicing in front of a mirror until this became second nature.

Make-up is a skill which girls learn over years with their mothers’ and friends’ help. How to dress and choose what items match and which outfit is suitable for morning and which for afternoon and evening needs a great deal of attention. Fabrics and colours, mixing and matching, accessorizing, are all things absorbed by girls over years. A boy starting from scratch has to catch up very quickly, but desire is a powerful motivator. I wanted to learn and I had a relentless teacher. While she wanted me to be perfect she also said that most people see what they expect to see, so you can get away with little mistakes as long as you correct them later. The theatre works like that all the time. The plays run more smoothly as the number of performances mounts up.

A month after my first dressing she considered I was ready to go out “en femme”. She called it a dress rehearsal, ha ha, likening it to pushing a fledgling out of the nest. Needless to say I was once more between terror, elation and anticipation, wanting to do it but scared to death. She picked a Tuesday evening so that it would be quiet, sternly supervised me to ensure I passed muster and we went to a pub close to the flat. I was even legal then, having turned eighteen a couple of weeks earlier.

I was wearing a black calf-length hobble skirt that ensured I took only short steps, a maroon ruffle-fronted blouse and a black knitted cardigan top. My shoes had only 2 inch heels so that I did not tower noticeably over the other customers. My wig was a pageboy in a mid-blonde colour and Lucy had done my make-up even though she was already teaching me to do it by myself.

We went into the saloon bar and I sat down at a table while Lucy went to the counter and bought us gin-and-tonics. We sat and drank and I began to relax, since nobody seemed to be taking much notice of us except for a couple of young men who occasionally looked our way, but Lucy said that was normal. They were just checking out a pair of good-looking girls and, whatever I did, not to look at them, except out of the corners of my eyes. We finished our drinks and she said to me;

“Now it’s your turn. Go and get us two more.”

“I can’t.” I squeaked.

“Yes, you can. Otherwise I’ll yell out to the whole bar that you’re a boy dressed as a girl.”

“You wouldn’t!”

“Try me.”

I believed she would, so with trembling knees I went to the bar with our empty glasses.

“Yes, Miss. What’ll it be?” asked the barman.

“Two gin-and —tonics, please,” concentrating like mad on my intonation and pitch.

He poured the drinks and brought them to the counter.

“That’ll be seven and six, thank you, Miss.” And I took the money from my purse and paid him.

I carried the drinks back to our table, feeling enormously pleased with myself. I had just had my first interaction with another person other than Lucy and the man had accepted me as a girl!

She said, “There, that wasn’t so hard, was it?” and I had to admit that it wasn’t.

Over the next weeks I gained in confidence as I went out more and more dressed as a girl. Looking back, she was gentle in introducing me to the outside world. We went to more pubs, and to coffee-bars and cinemas. All the while my tuition was continuing. She taught me the difference between day-time and evening make-up and made me practice putting it on and taking it off and the importance of moisturizers and cleansing creams to keep my skin in condition, and soon I became, if not as good as her, at least competent. She also showed me how to fix and style my wigs to complement the cosmetics and soon she insisted that, if I wasn’t going out shopping or on other errands, that I made myself up every morning and every evening before she came home. As often as I could I would also dress while at home and just enjoy the routine of being a girl for the day. It felt so comfortable. She took to calling me Joanne because she said I didn’t look like a John anymore and anyway it was a good habit to get into for when we were out. I didn’t mind at all. It was really reassuring to be recognised as a girl.

A defining moment came about two and a half months after my first full dressing. She had never taken me out to any of her theatre gatherings or events, saying she didn’t really know them well enough and, being actors, they might pick up clues that I was not what I appeared to be. She now thought I could pass. Some of her colleagues were holding a fancy-dress party to which she had been invited. Of course she suggested that it would be the perfect opportunity for me to “come out” as it were and go in costume as her friend Joanne. If anybody guessed I was a boy we would have the perfect excuse. I couldn't wait; I knew I had to go.

She chose a saucy French maid’s outfit for me, like you see in the stage farces, and I fell in love with it as soon as I saw it. It was just sooooo sexy, with multiple petticoats, seamed stockings and lace-trimmed neck and sleeves with a little white cap and 5 inch black patent heels to match. She chose for herself a 1920s flapper costume, complete with dangly beads and a long cigarette-holder that made her look quite sophisticated and off we went to the party. I was very relaxed about being dressed as I could pass the whole situation off as a joke if I was sprung. If anyone guessed they either said nothing or accepted it as party fun. In my heels I stood 6 feet 3 inches and a couple of the girls said I should be a fashion model.I admit I would have fancied being on a catwalk. I mingled and chatted, totally relaxed, had a few champagnes and got a little giggly and thoroughly enjoyed myself.

Later in the evening I even had to fend off advances from a couple of half-drunken men. Lucy teasingly said later that I behaved like a right not-so-little tart. I actually danced a couple of times! Afterwards we decided to walk home to get some air and clear our heads. It was about two in the morning, a nice spring night, and there were few people about. As we walked along the promenade we encountered a couple of police constables. I clutched Lucy’s arm, as it was illegal to cross-dress in England at that time, but one of them asked if we were all right, and when Lucy said we were fine, told us to take care and get home safely.

That night proved to me that I could handle myself in company and crowd situations. There was no stopping me after that. The very next day (or later that same day) I dressed in a tartan pleated skirt, an oversized men’s jumper and a pair of flatties, put on my day-face and a shoulder-length auburn wig, took a shopping bag and went out, greatly daring. I went up to the fashion end of Western Road and browsed the shoe-shops and the dress-shops. I went into Marks and Spencer’s and BHS (British Home Stores), to the ladies’ fashions, browsed to my heart's content and nobody took any notice. I wouldn’t have dared to do that as a boy.

It made me feel so free, so liberated. Later I went grocery shopping and the boy assistant almost tripped over himself to serve me, calling me Miss several times. When I went home I was walking on air. I had achieved what every girl does without thought every day and I gushed to Lucy and went on about it until she shushed me and with a small smile told me what a brave and clever girl I was. After that I spent nearly my whole time dressed in what I now thought of as proper clothes.

Oh, and I bullied her into buying me another couple of maid’s outfits because I loved dressing the part. Most days I would put on a uniform in the morning and become a real maid. My chores seemed so much more enjoyable that way and when I served Lucy her evening meal I really felt like a maid taking care of her lady.

I had, of course, to go and see my parents occasionally since I left home. This wasn’t a problem at first, but after I started to feminize I really had to watch myself and concentrate on behaving like a boy when I saw them. My mother naturally noticed my eyebrows, but I told her we were doing a play and it was necessary for my part. She may have been suspicious but said no more. I hadn’t cut my hair but passed that off as the fashion. My father grumbled that I looked like a bloody beatnik, and, if I wasn’t careful people would think I was a girl! By-and-large though, I think they just put it down to me being a teenager. I only saw them about once every six weeks (although I phoned my mum more often). I told them the job was going well and the flat was good and they were glad I was OK. They just didn’t know how OK I was.

Soon it was July 1960. I had been with Lucy over nine months, nearly six of them gradually becoming female. One day she sat me down and said;

“Joanne, darling, I’ve been offered a job back in London, and I want you to come with me.”

I was so relieved. My heart had missed a beat and I had nearly panicked when she said London, thinking she might go without me. She took both my hands and looked me in the eyes.

“They want me to be the principal make-up artiste at the Lyric Theatre and I want it, but I won’t go without you. I love you, so please say you’ll come with me. I have a lovely flat there and I want you to stay with me because you look after me so well and I couldn't live without you.”

“Lucy, you must take it, and of course I’ll come with you. Don’t think I’d let you get away.”

“Thank you, darling,” and she gave me a big kiss. “I’ve got something else to say, to see if you like the idea. If you don’t we’ll just carry on the way we are. Why don’t you take this as an opportunity to live as a girl full-time? Nobody knows you up there and you can be my proper maid, except for when we’re out and then you will be my girlfriend. We’ll have to get you a permanent identity but I think I know how to do that. What do you think?”

I squealed with delight, the thought running through my head that this was only a small step for me now. I was virtually living as a girl all the time anyway.

“Can I really? Oh, Lucy! Yes please. Oh, yes! When do we go?” I actually did a little girly dance, twirling and jumping with joy.

“In about two weeks, sweetie. Now you’ve said yes, we’ll have to organize your hair and nails, get your ears pierced and get you some new shoes and clothes. We can’t have you looking dowdy now, can we?”

I went to see my parents the next day, carefully dressed as a boy, which was starting to feel strange. I told them that the firm I worked for wanted me to go to London (well, she was a firm, wasn’t she?) and I would probably have to work long hours, so I wouldn’t be able to see them very often, but I’d phone regularly. They accepted that and my mum told me to take good care of myself and let her know if I needed anything, and so I happily cut away a link to my former life. I felt a bit bad about it, but I was focused on the future with the innate selfishness of a teenager.

A couple of days later Lucy arranged for a hairdresser and a beautician to come to the flat and cut and style my own hair, which was now shoulder-length. I got a fringed pageboy cut, somewhat like Prince Valiant but longer and had it tinted auburn, and Lucy said the colour really suited me. So it was no more wigs for me, except when I wanted to make a fashion statement. I also had my ears pierced and keepers inserted into the holes, my nails shaped and coloured crimson and a facial that seemed to take half my flesh away but left me looking fresh and clean. The next day we went shopping for clothes and she bought me a huge selection of bras, panties,suspender belts, slips and petticoats, about two dozen pairs of stockings in various shades, including a few pairs with seams for me to wear with my maids’ uniforms.

We purchased half a dozen fashionable jersey-knit dresses in black, chocolate, maroon, forest green, navy and a striking one in crimson that matched my nails. She had already schooled me that I must generally wear darker shades to minimize my size. Then we went for skirts and tops and bought ten of each. Some of the blouse necks were lower-cut than I had previously worn but she said it was summer so I had to fit in, and anyway my Adam’s apple was just about invisible. We also got me a smart navy business suit in case I went for job interviews, although I couldn’t imagine myself doing that.

After all of this we went to get shoes. As I said before I had to get them made so I was a bit nervous of the shoemaker’s reaction, but all he said was;

“So you’re the young lady I’ve made several pairs for over the last few months. I’m pleased to meet you. You have elegant feet. Now let’s see what we can do today,” and we settled into the business of choosing suitable shoes to match all the clothes we had bought. We ended up with a dozen choices, which I’m sure delighted him, and he promised they would all be ready in a week.

All of this was costing a small fortune, but I had learned not to worry about money since being with Lucy. When I met her I had been a poor boy, but I found that by my standards she was VERY well off. Besides earning good money at the theatre, she had been married for a couple of years until she caught her husband playing around with another woman (the fool!) and got divorced, the net result of which was that he had to pay her twenty pounds a week in maintenance/support (alimony). As if that wasn’t enough she had a bequest from her grandparents that had bought her flats in London and Brighton, with some left over, and her mother had died of cancer two years earlier and willed her life insurance to Lucy. I would have been jealous but she was unstinting with me and I had never been short of money since we met.

We went home tired but happy, and then Lucy sprung a further surprise. She had had several special undergarments made through theatrical suppliers. These included padded bras, industrial-strength corsets and padded girdles to give me those “to-die-for” feminine shapes. I had to try them on and she nearly cut me in half with one of the corsets.

“And I thought all those actresses had such fabulous figures!” I wheezed when I learned how to breathe again. ”I must be down to an 18 inch waist.” Actually it was 23. The torture instrument had only taken 3 inches off my normal measurement. I was only going to wear these on special occasions, like when I impersonated Cinderella or Scarlett O’Hara at the ball. Lucy took pictures and I am looking at that tiny waist now, in my room. It really was to die for.

Two days later I took all my boy clothes, such as they were, to the Salvation Army. It was a strangely liberating act. Another piece of my past disappeared and the die was cast.

The following week we packed up our clothes, jumped in the car, and drove to London. I wanted to drive, as she had been teaching me, but she wouldn’t let me, as my Learner’s Permit named me as John, and that could have caused a problem if we had been stopped for any reason. A couple of hours later we arrived at her flat in Finborough Road, a few minutes’ walk from Earl’s Court tube station. She had arranged to have a company come in and clean and air the place and take the dustsheets off the furniture, so I didn’t have much to do except hang and fold our clothes and put our toiletries in the bathrooms while she took the car to the garage in the mews behind. It was a lovely flat, three bedrooms, two bathrooms, lounge, dining-room, kitchen and laundry, on two levels, very airy, with high ceilings and big windows.

I knew I would be happy here with her, and I had embraced girlhood completely. My only enduring fear was the prospect of being exposed. Because of my height I made a point of wearing flat shoes when I went out during the day. In fact Lucy was 5 feet 8 inches to my 5 feet 10, so if we were out in the evening and she wore 4 inch heels to my 3 inch, there was little difference in our relative heights. My fear was more imagined than real. Although it was never completely absent I was mostly able to lock it away in some remote corner of my mind.

A few days after we arrived and were settling in Lucy insisted that we went for a walk in the Brompton Cemetery, very close to where we lived. As we walked past the graves she was obviously looking for something. Then she stopped and said, “I’ve found the new you.”

“What do you mean?” I asked her.

“I think we can make you into Suzanne Wright. I don’t think she’ll mind.”

The dead girl was exactly one month younger than me, but I still didn’t know what Lucy was talking about. Then she explained that one of the plays she had worked on recently had in it a character that had taken on the identity of a dead man and got away with it. The ploy was very simple and she thought it would work for us.

So the very next day we went to Somerset House, the Central Registry for Births and Deaths in the UK, and just asked for a copy of my (Suzanne Wright’s) birth certificate, saying I had lost the original. Within half an hour they produced a copy and charged us ten shillings. Remember this was before computers were in general use, so cross-checking was not so easy, and in those days it was assumed that people were honest. We left the building giggling and I was on my way to becoming Suzanne Wright. I was holding that certificate as I sat in my room remembering.

The next moves were for me to apply for a Learner’s Permit for a Driving License in my new name, and get my photo taken for a passport application. I then enrolled at a local driving school, took the lessons diligently, even though I could already drive, and passed my driving test two months later. In the meantime Lucy called in a favour from a friend who she got to sign the back of the photos, attesting that she had known me for two years and we sent off my passport application. That came back with the new passport after five weeks. I sat looking at the pieces of paper that cemented me into my new persona. I have three documents proving I am Suzie and none proving me to be John, so why am I finding it so hard to accept that I am destined to be a girl? I worked hard to become what I am. What’s wrong with me? What difference do a few hormones make? I sat there in tears, confused and strangely lonely.

As soon as I got my Birth Certificate I began to be Suzie. Lucy called me Suzie from that day on and I stopped answering to any other name. I prayed to my new self that the baby girl whose identity I had taken would forgive me and perhaps get a new lease of life through me just as I was getting one through her. I AM Suzie, I AM! I AM!

While all this was transpiring we were settling into London life. For Lucy it was a return to the familiar but for me it was all new and exciting and I was doing it as a girl as well so it was double-dips for me. It was so good to be an eighteen-year old female at that time; the shopping, the crowds, the bustle, the theatre, the nightlife. People being nice to me, holding open doors, men giving up their seats on the tube, waiters seating me when I was in a restaurant, shop assistants smiling when they served me. The daily thrill of dressing in nice clothes, putting on make-up, getting my hair done and looking after my darling. Oh, I was just so happy!

Lucy included me fully in her life here, which she hadn’t in Brighton. Her explanation for that was that she didn’t know the theatre crowd there so well and I was still learning to be a girl so she didn’t want me to get hurt. Now I was more confident and she knew this crowd better. It seemed reasonable. Apart from doing my usual chores and taking the driving lessons, I would accompany her to the theatre in the evenings and sometimes watch the play, or I would go window-shopping in the West End while waiting for her to finish. As I said before one of the greatest kicks I got was looking at shoes or beautiful dresses and nobody took the slightest notice. In Brighton I had been extra-sensitive about my height but it seemed there were more tall girls in London and we would often exchange conspiratorial little smiles as we passed one another, as if there was a sisterhood of the lofty.

Occasionally I would go for a drink while I waited but rarely, as we nearly always went out for drinks after the show or to parties that lasted into the small hours. During these days I was thrilled to meet famous people like Peter Sellers, Hattie Jacques, Sid James and Peter Ustinov (and many others). One I remember with particular fondness was a very tall young man named Derek Nimmo. Mostly they seemed very nice and treated me well. There must have been some in that crowd who knew or suspected that I wasn’t a real girl, but they never let on, except on one occasion when a girl called Gwen, who I had seen a few times, said to me at a party one night;

“I think you’re like me.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t understand.”

“You’re a boy too, aren’t you?”

I think I must have nearly fainted and gone as white as the proverbial sheet. I know I nearly dropped my glass.
She grasped me by the wrist.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to shock you so.”

When I had recovered a little and thought about her words, I said;

“You said “too”. Are you a boy as well?” I couldn’t believe it.

“Yes, I am, just between us girls,” and she laughed.

“I would never have known about you. How did you pick me?”

“Don’t worry, my dear, it’s nothing you did. You come across as a total girl. It’s just that someone like me is extra-sensitive to the signs. You’re a little too tall, and your shoulders are a little too broad, and your hands and feet are a little too big and you’re actually a little too perfect as a girl. I think nobody except someone like me would notice.”

“But aren’t you XXXXXXX’s girl friend? How can you be a boy?”

“Darling, yes I am his girlfriend, but he likes boys and doesn’t want anyone to know, for the sake of his career, so we pretend and I take hormones to make sure I appear feminine. I love him and I don’t want him hurt, which he would be if the world knew.”

We talked some more and agreed to meet for coffee and a chat the next day.

I was fascinated by her use of hormones and she told me lots of details that I had never known. We swapped information about her boyfriend and my girlfriend. We were both glad to find another person living as a girl. Technically we were different. She was actually a homosexual and I was a what?? A boy/girl living with his/her lover, but not wanting to be a boy. She asked me if she could see me naked and I agreed, as long as we were both naked. We went to her flat and stripped off. I was intrigued by her breasts and couldn’t keep my hands off of them. She, in turn, wanted to fondle my privates, but we both drew back from going any further because we loved our partners. We parted good friends and agreed we would not divulge our secrets. I believed her and as far as I know we still are true to each other. For me it was very comforting to know that there was somebody like me out there. We still saw each other every now and again and had nice little chats over coffee and cakes.

Three months passed in London and I loved it all. Here I was, Suzie Wright. Lucy and I usually made love at least a couple of times a week. I looked after the flat and dressed as a maid at home most days. While we both treated it as a joke I would answer the door to deliveries and callers and watch them do a double-take. Sometimes I would put on a fake French accent and have an internal giggle while they tried to figure out what was going on. I loved wearing the uniforms and particularly the high heels and seamed stockings. It gave me a real kick and made me feel ever so sexy.

But there was one boy I treated as well as I knew how. That was the greengrocery delivery boy. I had done his job myself and I knew it was not as easy as it looked. He was a lovely lad and I think he would have liked to ask me out, but, of course, he never did, and I would have had to turn him down anyway. I just used to flirt with him. He reminded me of me in that other life. I guess it was strange, but I never had the slightest inclination to have any kind of sexual relationship with a man. It was enough that I had Lucy.

As time passed, days would go by when I forgot that I was a boy. Being a girl became routine, but not boring. I know my attitude changed. Things that upset me as a boy no longer bothered me. I was able, in some ways, to be more relaxed in my relationships with people, especially girls. I learnt an awful lot about girls! I became much more observant and noticed little details and nuances that I never saw before. So many of those lasses wore completely the wrong clothes and didn’t know how to do their make-up and hair properly. Huh, I knew I was better than them. Meow!

One day in October, when I had gone to the theatre with Lucy before work the house-manager came rushing in and took Lucy by the arm.

“Darling, would your girlfriend help us out? The cloakroom girl’s had an accident and we’ve got nobody to check coats.”

“Why don’t you ask her?” said Lucy. “She’s standing right there.”

He turned to me. “I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to be rude. Would you run the cloakroom for us for a while until we can make some other arrangements? We’ll pay you two pounds ten shillings a night, plus whatever you get in tips.”

I looked at Lucy, who shrugged and smiled. “Up to you, Suzie.”

“All right, I’ll give it a try and see how it goes.”

The temporary assignment became more and more permanent. Weeks passed and I was looking after the cloakroom five nights a week as it turned out that the other girl was happy just to work part-time. Once the audience was seated I would close up and help the barman to get ready for the mad rush at the interval, when we would both serve drinks as fast as we could go. After that we would clean up and occasionally I would accept one of his cigarettes, before returning to my big closet. Some of the patrons were quite generous with their tips and I often ended up with an extra pound or more at the end of the evening, which I regarded as mad-money if we were going on to a pub or club after the show (although in those days a girl wasn’t expected to buy her own drinks if she was in male company). Whatever I had left I spent on clothes, shoes or make-up, just like any other 18-year-old girl.

Shoes were my thing though. I LOVED shoes. I had a thing about them since I was eleven. I always thought women were so lucky to be able to wear such beautiful creations on their feet. I needed to get mine made-to-measure and I found a place which had a huge variety of styles and the shoemaker became a great friend of mine. I would go in and browse and he would suggest colours, heel heights, decorations like buckles and bows, whether to have stilettos or chunky heels, which style was in, like sling-backs or pumps, and I would have a lovely time choosing my next pair or three. In those days winkle-picker toes and stiletto heels were all the rage. He always called me Miss Suzanne and made me feel like Cinderella at the ball. A pair took a week to make and cost five pounds or more.

If I could have shopped at the regular shoe-stores the average price was about three pounds a pair. I loved going to try them on when they were finished, admiring them and my legs in those tilted mirrors they had on the floor, so that, if you get a bit further away, you can check out your skirt length and do a little pirouette. Lucy told me I was mad as I only wore some pairs a few times, but I had them if I ever needed that exactly-right pair for that particular outfit or that special occasion, didn’t I?

One thing that didn’t change was my devotion to Lucy. She was my rock, my muse, my haven, my guide, my shoulder-to-cry-on when I got scared of what I was doing, and my role model. I loved her in every way and I think most of all, I admired her. She was so cool and collected, elegant and beautiful. I wanted to be like her. In fact, I wanted to BE her. If only I had been born a girl. She was always there for me, and protected me. I thought we didn’t have any secrets from each other, but, as I looked at my favourite picture of the two of us in evening dresses, the tears rolled down my cheeks. Did she really love me or was she playing some kind of game with me? I had to know.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. I remembered the time when that picture was taken. It was early December 1960 and we had been invited to a ball. She looked absolutely stunning in a silver gown with a plunging neckline showing lots of cleavage, a full-length figure-hugging skirt split up one side to the knee, high-heeled silver sandals, and her blonde hair in an up-do, face immaculately made up as usual. In fact I looked pretty good too. I was wearing a torture instrument of a corset to get my waist small enough to fit into an emerald-green number with a high neck and no sleeves falling to a tight-fitting skirt. With a padded girdle my shape was very feminine. I also had matching sandals with 3 inch heels and elbow-length opera gloves. I was wearing my hair down and. of course, had my best face on. We both appeared tall and elegant. We were going to knock ‘em dead that night!

Then I recalled the conversation we had while we were doing last checks for each other, and I went cold as I remembered. Perhaps I had brought this on myself. I had said;

“You make me so jealous, darling. You look good enough to eat. I wish I had breasts like yours and that lovely figure. You’re so lucky to have been born a girl.”

“Well, Suzie dear, you never know your luck. Maybe one day your wish will come true. I am your fairy godmother after all. I’ll see if I can whip up a magic potion.”

We both laughed.

Christmas 1960 came and went and my life was still full and happy. I cooked a turkey and we had half a dozen of our friends round for Christmas dinner. I served in my maid’s uniform, pretending my name was Fifi and hamming up the French accent for all I was worth, as if we were doing one of those stage farces. We had tremendous fun and I even got a couple of big kisses from the men. Although I didn’t fancy them in a sexual way that chuffed me no end, because it showed that they accepted me completely as a girl. I think most people thought that Lucy and I were lesbians, and I could live with that.

I carried on looking at my pictures. There I was at my nineteenth birthday party, looking absolutely radiant as I blew out the candles on my cake with Lucy holding my shoulders. Other happy snaps with me in bright summer dresses or dressed for more formal occasions in elegant slim-line knitted outfits with little matching jackets.

I was being torn into pieces by these mementos of happiness and I knew I had to sort it all out when she came home. As much as I hated confrontation this was one time when I could not dodge it.

I had to face myself as well as her. Did I want to be a girl enough? I read the newspapers and the treatment of the likes of Christine Jorgensen, Roberta Cowell and recently April Ashley by rags like “People” and “The News Of The World” was truly horrifying. They wrote nasty pieces portraying them as freaks and abominations, inciting and publishing letters from readers that suggested, or stated outright, that they should not be allowed to live in our society.

This scared me very much. If I was to change my sex I did not want any newspaper getting a sniff of my situation. I did not think I could survive their scrutiny. I would be exposed to everybody who knew me, my parents, my former schoolmates, the theatre community and all of Lucy’s friends.

It was getting late. I put away my things and waited for Lucy to come home.

To Be Continued…

I then selected my tightest skirt, which happened to be the calf-length burgundy one that I had last worn just before Lucy had spilled the beans about the hormones. I remembered thinking I had put on some weight because it had hugged my hips so well…

While waiting for Lucy to come home I decided to have a shower, so I stripped off, turned on the water, got myself wet and started to soap up. As soon as I touched my nipples I began to lose control. The feeling was just so erotic that I could not resist the urge to keep on massaging them, twirling them between fingers and thumbs until they were absolutely rigid and my consciousness floated on a wave of pure ecstasy.

For I don’t know how long I succumbed to this mindless lustful joy, until, with a shudder that ran through every fibre of my body, I climaxed, and sagged gasping against the shower screen. My body was certainly giving me the message that it loved what was happening to it and wanted more.

I finished washing myself, stepped out and dried off, took off my shower cap and shook out my hair. Looking back at me from the mirror was the face and head of a girl set on the lanky body of a skinny boy. The only signs of femininity below my neck were the now obviously swollen nipples and growing aureoles on my chest with a suggestion of puffiness behind them, and the shaped and painted nails on my fingers and toes.

I imagined myself a couple of years in the future, with a pair of beautiful breasts backing those nipples, standing proudly out from my chest. I so wanted those wonderful symbols of girlhood. How lovely it would be to put on my bra and not have to worry about wearing falsies, to have real cleavage and be able to wear garments with plunging necklines; to be able to show my femininity...no, my female self... to the world.

I imagined my hips and backside with that shaping layer of feminine fat to give me the wherewithal to dress in tight figure-hugging skirts, that totally female curve below my waist. I would be able to sashay around in my high heels with a sexy little wiggle. I knew I would love those improvements to my body.

Most of my mind was telling me that Lucy was doing the right thing for me in giving me the hormones that would irrevocably reshape me into a female form. I should accept the inevitable. My destiny was to be a girl after all, wasn’t it? Wasn't that what I wanted....what I had already chosen? If not, what was I doing here, looking into this mirror?

Then I let my imagination wander further. In that future my penis and testicles, shrunken and useless, dangled pathetically; then ultimately no longer existed, having been replaced with a neat vagina, much more aesthetically pleasing. This was the last piece of the puzzle, no more gaff, only silken panties. I would at last be able to wear sexy bathing suits and go to the beach where my body would be admired by one and all.

Somehow I was torn by this prospect. I wanted it; I really wanted it; the completion of my desires. On the other hand the main function of a vagina, no matter how cute it looked, was to allow a man to thrust into a woman. The thought of a man having sex with me was revolting. I had never been sexually attracted to men and the possibility that my orientation might change to not only allow that but desire it was frightening.

Despite what Lucy said, suppose she was repulsed by it? Suppose she no longer wanted this new pseudo-woman. It was she who had introduced me to the wonders of a man making love to a woman; she who had taught me all the ways of satisfying each other. She taught me too well. No matter what other ways of lovemaking there were which did not need a penis I knew they could never replace the feelings I got when we climaxed together after a sensuous period of foreplay and penetration.

Standing there, my mind wandered more fanciful pathways. When we met, I had been like a dormant seed with a secret, hopeless desire to be a girl. She had taken that seed and planted it in fertile soil. She had watered it and nurtured it, placed it in a sunny spot and helped it to develop, growing into a beautiful flower with a delicate perfume. There had been no need for force, just tender guidance and education. Where she had led I eagerly followed, and the outside world admired the flower and the flower was happy with what it had become. That flower was now just beginning to blossom and ached to become a fully-fledged bloom.

Then something changed. The gardener had decided that the flower must be improved, and had begun to snip away unwanted pieces, to tie and bend the stem into the direction she wanted it to go, like a bonsai plant in a little pot, not permitted to grow beyond its allotted limits. Although the plant might end up prettier, it would not be its own mistress. People would admire the gardener for her skill and cleverness rather than the flower for its natural beauty. Could this be simple jealousy on my part, or was it the fact that she was in control?

I did not think so. If she had asked me, and led me through it, I probably would have agreed. After all, I had never been any good at defying her, nor had I ever wanted to. It was the fact that she HADN’T asked which so upset me. I was still a teenager and hated to be treated like a child by those who thought they knew better. It was that lack of consideration, that selfishness, the simple lack of trust from my love that hurt.

I resolved to tackle her head-on when she got home. Deep down, I wanted her to persuade me, to convince me that she was right and she was doing it because she thought I had asked her to do it by wishing to be a girl. I wanted her to reassure me that she would always love me, and even though there was a price to be paid, we would still be able to satisfy each other sexually and spiritually. I wanted her to tell me she was sorry for going ahead without asking me and to beg my forgiveness, to plead her case with tears in her eyes as she told me she loved me and always would.

I moved away and slipped on a satin nightie, which not so subtly reminded me what my body wanted by caressing my nipples with a silken touch, hardening them once again. I tried to ignore it and shrugged into a dressing gown. Then I went to the kitchen and got a large glass of white wine to keep up my courage.

I sat and waited until I heard the key turn in the lock. She came in looking worn out, and my resolve to confront her disappeared. She looked so tired and disspirited that I just wanted to hold her and comfort her.

“Hello, darling,” she said. “My God, what a day. I’m absolutely shattered. Get me a drink, sweetie, please.”

I did as she asked, and she sat at the table without even taking her coat off, taking a large swig as she did so.

“Lucy, can we talk? It’s important.”

“Oh, please, Suzie, can it wait till tomorrow. I can’t think straight at the moment.”

My steely resolve dissolved and my backbone turned to pure jelly.

“I suppose so,” I replied weakly.

“That’s a good girl. Give me a cuddle and I’ll go and have a shower before we go to bed.”

So she went to undress while I cleaned my teeth and went to bed frustrated. Amazingly, I fell asleep before she joined me.

I woke up in the morning in her arms. She was really making it difficult for me to be strong. I untangled myself, got up and did my morning bathroom routine. I was determined to be businesslike, so I put on my maid’s uniform, the black one, complete with cap and my hair up, seamed stockings and 5 inch patent leather heels, my petticoats caressing my legs. I made her coffee and poured her juice. I had my milk and vitamins (all of them) while the coffee was brewing. I took the two items into the bedroom, put them on the side-table and gently shook her awake.

“Mistress, here’s your coffee and juice.”

She sat up, yawning.

“Thanks, Suzie,” she said. Then her brain clicked into gear.

“Mistress? What’s wrong with you today?”

“Well, you are my Mistress now, aren’t you? I am supposed to do what you say, so I’m obviously just your maid. Will there be anything else, Madam?” I curtseyed and turned to go.

“Hang on, you. What’s this about?”

“I asked you last night if we could talk, Mistress, and you didn’t want to, so now I’ll assume my proper station in life as your plaything.”

“Aaah, this is about the hormones, isn’t it? You’ve been stewing for a week. OK, darling, let me get human and put on some clothes. Then we’ll talk and you can get it all off your chest.”

“Very well, Mistress.” I left the room, feeling rather pleased with myself. Ten minutes later she came into the kitchen. I made sure I was standing in a corner when she entered and I curtseyed.

“Is there anything I can get you, Madam?” I asked.

“Cut that out, Suzie, and sit down. Tell me what’s eating you.”

This was crunch time. Suddenly I didn’t want to do this, but I knew I had to, so I took a deep breath and started.

“When we met I was a kind-of boy and I fell head-over-heels in love with you. I thought you loved me too. Then you found out I wanted to be a girl and you helped me. You didn't hate me or sneer at me like I was scared you would and you encouraged me and taught me how to do all the things I needed to know to become a proper girl. It was all lovely and I was so happy and you were so kind and gentle with me. I worshipped you and I wanted to look after you forever. You never forced me to do anything I didn’t want to do, like when we came to London you let me choose if I wanted to live as a girl all the time. You fixed it so I became Suzie and then you...well you went and spoiled it all by giving me hormones without asking me. You’re saying I have to be a girl whether I want to or not.” By this time I was weeping and getting almost incoherent.

“Oh, this is so confusing! I really want to be a girl but I’m so scared, Lucy. I’m scared I’ll lose you and I’m scared I might change and start loving men, and you will decide you can’t love me without a penis. You’ll get used to doing things to me without asking and I’ll be no more than a toy to you. I’ll really just be your maid and you’ll treat me like a piece of furniture until one day you’ll get tired of me and throw me out. I want you to help me, not force me. I want you to tell me you’re sorry for not asking me. I...” I nearly couldn’t go on for sobbing, even though I knew I probably hadn’t made much sense.

“What if it all doesn’t work? What if I end up with a pussy that doesn’t have any feeling? Suppose the papers find out and hound me like they did April Ashley?”

She was bent over me, holding me in her arms and stroking my tear-stained face.

“You really are upset, aren’t you, my love? I don’t think we should continue this here. I want you to get undressed again and come back to bed, where I can hold you properly, and we’ll talk there.”

I kind of knew I shouldn’t, but I did as she told me and five minutes later we were in bed together, both naked. She held me and looked into my eyes.

“You have such pretty eyes my love. No boy should ever have eyes like yours, and your lips are the perfect shape to be kissed. Now, you silly girl, tell me again what’s worrying you and I’ll set your mind at ease.”

She knew just how to disarm me with her flattery, and the problem was I always fell for it. I didn’t feel at all strong lying there in her arms. I knew it was the right place for me to be, and I didn’t want to be anywhere else. I just wanted to kiss her and have her kiss me back, to snuggle into her and make love together. Nevertheless, I tried again.

“Lucy, you should have trusted me about the hormones. If you had talked to me and explained what you were intending to do, I probably would have agreed. Do you remember the night we went to the ball? We had a conversation and I thought maybe that gave you the idea.”

She looked nonplussed for a moment.

“What I remember about that night is the way you flirted outrageously with Richard and draped yourself all over him until the poor man was cross-eyed with lust, you awful little slut, and he could hardly walk because of the bulge in his pants, and you tell me you’re not attracted to men?”

I had to blush. Isn’t it funny how memory is selective? She was right inasmuch as I had been flirting with my escort, but it wasn’t because I was attracted to HIM. She looked like she was having much too much of a good time with her date Peter and I was trying to make her jealous, so she would take more notice of ME!

I went deep red and mentally brushed that aside.

“That was...well anyway it’s not what I meant. We were talking before we went, when we were getting ready. Don’t you remember?”

She obviously struggled with it and finally said, “Well, I do remember some silly joke about me being your fairy godmother, but what’s that got to do with anything?”

I gave up. This was not what I wanted to hear. Her memory could be selective too. I wished she had said she remembered me telling her I wanted to be a girl like her and she had thought I would be pleased if she waved her magic wand over me. That was why she had given me hormones.

“All right, tell me again why you decided to give me the hormones and why it is right for me.”

“Darling, we’ve been through that, but I don’t mind going over it again if it makes you feel better. Let’s go back to the beginning. Do you like being a girl?”

“You know I do.”

“Do you want to spend the rest of your life as a girl?”

“Yes, I do, as long as it’s with you.”

“Then shouldn’t you be the very best girl you can be?”

“I suppose so.”

“I think you should be, too, so all I was trying to do was help you become what you want to be. What’s so wrong with that?”

“We’re supposed to be partners. I remember you telling me once that we shouldn’t have secrets from one another, and you kept a secret from me.”

This is where I expected her to realise and tell me she was wrong, but she didn’t.

“Suzie, I didn’t want to keep a secret from you, but sometimes it’s necessary to do the right thing. I knew you would get all nervous and jittery, so I decided to go ahead and hoped by the time you realised what I had done you would like it so much you would be grateful to me. Surely you can’t believe I meant to hurt you? And you do like it, don’t you? You should see yourself when I suck your nipples. You’re on cloud nine.”

This was true, of course. I literally couldn’t control myself, but I was beginning to harden mentally, because we were talking about that most basic thing in a relationship, trust. She continued.

“Just think, in a couple of years you’ll have gorgeous breasts and a beautifully shaped bum and hips. Your skin will stay soft and you won’t get all hairy and muscled. We’ll put you on a course of electrolysis straight away so you won’t have to shave any more. Maybe we’ll get you a little facial surgery and, if you want, we’ll have your Adam’s apple shaved, although it’s hardly necessary, and your vocal chords tightened. We can decide then whether you ought to have a vagina or we just leave your willy in place. Of course, you should see a doctor as soon as possible so we can get you a course of injected hormones to boost your system. You will be such a wonderful girl and I KNOW you’ll be so happy, and you’ll be all mine.”

This time I kept control of myself. She had once said I could never keep a secret from her, but she had forgotten that she had turned me into an excellent actress. How else could I make the world think I was a girl? I just had to keep cool. What shook me was that she had put lots of thought into my transformation, far more than I had. She had my future all planned out.

“You’ve really thought it all out, haven’t you darling? You’ve taken charge just like you always do and done the thinking for me, because you knew I wouldn’t do it, and I suppose you had to. OK, I just want you to promise we won’t do anything unless we’ve talked about it first. No more surprises, please?”

“I promise, sweetie,” she said, but I didn’t quite believe her. She had already worked out her every move without talking to me.

“Are you all right now?” she asked me. I told her I was, though I was lying through my teeth. “That’s settled then. No more nonsense, Suzie. We’ll get started properly. I’ll arrange for you to see a psychiatrist next week and we’ll get you to a doctor for the shots as soon as possible. I’m sure those male hormones are a large part of your problem. Now, let’s make love.”

With that, she began to caress my nipples and I descended into a helpless rapture. When we had finished and I could think again I showered and dressed in my uniform once more. This time I really felt like a maid, like a servant or a child being told what to do by her mother. I suppose I was in a kind of state of shock, only able to carry on in a robotic manner. My mind was whirling. Whatever was I going to do? I was determined now to act normally, as if I agreed to her scheme, until I figured out what “I” wanted and who “I” wanted to be.

I now knew I would have to do something soon. If I went along with her, there would be no turning back within weeks, if not days. For once, I could not avoid making a decision.

A few days passed until she had to do another matinee. I was due to work in the evening. I rang the manager and said I was feeling unwell and couldn’t work that night. I packed a suitcase with enough clothes and shoes for three days, put my makeup into a bag, and took my savings from the drawer in my dresser. I had a little over 500 pounds, saved from what Lucy paid me to be her maid and the tips from my job as cloakroom attendant.

I wrote her a note, which I hoped she would still be able to read after my tears smudged the words.

My dearest darling Lucy,
I don’t know whether I’m coming or going. I so want to be your loving girl forever and ever, but I want everything we’ve got now, and I’m terrified of losing it. I have to go away for a few days, just to think, but I will call you soon,
I love you so much, it hurts,
XXXXXXXXXXXX,
Suzie

I walked out of the flat and took a cab to a small hotel which I thought was far enough away to stop her from finding me if she came looking. I booked in for three nights as Joanne and my boy surname, paying cash in advance.

I settled in, unpacking and hanging my clothes, my smalls going into drawers. As I did this I realised I had bought nine outfits and eight pairs of shoes to last for three days! I really was thinking like a girl automatically, although I did need all of the shoes because of my height. When I had finished unpacking I sat in the armchair to ponder my future.

I had brought all my mementoes as well. It seemed my subconscious was giving me a message. After half an hour of aimless thought I could sit still no longer and decided to go out and indulge in my second favourite pastime, window shopping and browsing through the fashion outlets. I went to the West End and admired the pretty clothes and the shoes, even though they would be too small for me to wear. Later I went to a News Theatre and watched a dozen cartoons and the Three Stooges. That too failed to cheer me up.

I felt so damned COMFORTABLE as a girl, but I was living for the day and had pushed the future away into a corner somewhere. I went to a Lyons Corner House for tea and cakes and sat there until the tea was cold. I wasn’t really thinking; my mind was in neutral and eventually I walked back to the hotel, kicking off my shoes when I entered my room. I’d been out for most of the day, so decided a good soak in the bath might do me good.

When I undressed I caught sight of myself in the mirror and I was suddenly sure I could see the beginnings of a swelling on my chest behind my enlarged nipples. How could that be? It should take longer for my bust to develop. I stopped and thought. Then I remembered that I’d actually been on a low-level dosage of hormones since we moved to London a year ago, and Lucy had increased that dosage nearly three months ago now. Maybe the initial level had been enough to suppress the onset of any masculine development and had prepared my body for more rapid feminization.

I put my hands on either side of these incipient breasts and pressed them inwards. Wow! There was no doubt. I had the beginnings of cleavage. I was both excited and terrified. I was on the way! I shifted my attention to my hips and bum. How could I not have noticed the development of the curves down there?

I examined myself further and saw my femininity becoming obvious. I had made my move only just in time if I did not want to go down that track, but the changes were leading me onwards like a siren song. I had my bath and, as usual, I could not resist caressing my nipples, which set my now familiar ecstasy into motion.

When I finished bathing I dried myself and got dressed in the sexiest outfit I had brought with me, a little black dress with long translucent sleeves and a boat neck. I wore sheer black stockings and a pair of 4 inch winkle picker stilettos, set off with a wide gold belt, a small gold watch on my left wrist, three gold bangles on my right, a triple-strand gold necklace and hoop earrings. I completed my make-up with a bright scarlet lipstick, batted my eyelashes at myself, donned a black bolero-length leather jacket, packed a matching black evening bag and went out on the town.

I was in a better mood. Seeing evidence of my development had somehow lifted me, made me feel more female. Amid all the turmoil in my head the pull of the feminine was irresistible and I wanted to exercise it. I caught a taxi to a pub called The King’s Arms in Earls Court, which was frequented by Australians. They made a lively and boisterous crowd. I knew a few of them and I knew Lucy was working and would not catch me.

Some of my friends were in there already and a nice boy named Ashley bought me a glass of Mateus Rose, a popular but fairly boring wine. I had a terrific time that evening. The company was fun and funny, and feeling a little wicked, I decided to play up to the flirting and the advances. Probably some of the boys were surprised to see me there without Lucy, who most assumed to be my lesbian partner.

Ashley offered to take me home at the end of the evening but I didn’t want to lead him on any more than I had already, so I refused but gave him a kiss before jumping into a cab to go back to the hotel. I had felt no sexual attraction to any of the boys I had been drinking with. They were fun, yes, but no more than that. If I was going to be a girl I was going to be Lucy’s girl.

I actually slept well that night.

After I got up in the morning, bathed, dressed and had breakfast in the hotel restaurant, I went out to do a little shopping. I only purchased three things and returned to my room, where I unwrapped my new items and stripped off to my underwear. I took off my bra and used solvent to remove my falsies. The first purchase had been a roll of surgical tape which I began to apply diagonally from under my armpit across my chest beneath my budding breasts, pushing each one upwards and inwards. It needed a little experimentation for me to find the best alignment, but soon I was satisfied.

I took the next of my items, a white padded A-cup bra with separated cups that fastened in front. I put it on and “voila”, instant cleavage! I was enthralled with the appearance of a distinct valley in the centre of my chest. Not only could I not help admiring myself, but I was soon in a state of semi-arousal as my for-once unprotected nipples moved slightly against the lining of the cups. It was lucky I was wearing a gaff.

I then selected my tightest skirt, which happened to be the calf-length burgundy one that I had last worn just before Lucy had spilled the beans about the hormones. I remembered thinking I had put on some weight because it had hugged my hips so well on that night. Stepping into it I pulled it up and immediately felt a difference as the material passed my hips. That skirt was tight! I zipped it up and it fitted me like the proverbial glove. I must have put on at least half an inch around my backside in the last couple of weeks or so. I would need new skirts in no time.

My third purchase had been a fuzzy white cardigan-style angora sweater, very tight-fitting and waist-length, so that it sat right on top of the skirt. I shrugged into it and did up the buttons, leaving the top four undone so that the valley between my little puppies was clearly visible. Lastly I slipped my feet into my highest pair of black patent heels, raising my height by 5 inches.

I turned from side to side as I looked in the mirror, and I walked backwards and forwards, taking tiny steps in the hobble-skirt, making sure I swung those hips invitingly as I moved. I was actually panting a little and my lips were half open. I batted my eyelashes at myself and giggled. I looked just like a woman on the make, ready to go into heat. I was tall and slender and nicely shaped. My God, I was turning myself on!

My penis was straining in its prison, taking in this erotic vision, yet it was a delicious torture. I wished so much that Lucy was with me at that moment. I think, for once, I would have been masterful, however incongruously that tallied with my appearance, thrown her on the bed and been the leader in our sex-play. But here was my quandary. I was dying to be a girl, but I needed to be equipped as a male to savour it. So what did that make me then?

I HAD to persuade Lucy to modify her plans. I would happily accept the hormones and my feminization. No, I would welcome it, but there had to be some way that I could keep my male parts intact. I picked up the phone and rang her. She picked up on the second ring. Good, she must have been waiting for me to call.

“Hello, is that you, Suzie?” she asked before I could say a word.

“Yes, it’s me,” I replied, and she launched into me.

“Where are you? I’ve been so worried about you. You silly girl, I want you to come home at once, do you hear me? You’ve got to stop acting like a child and grow up.”

I butted in. “Wait, Lucy. Listen to me. I’ve decided I do want to be a real girl for you. I’ll take the hormones. I’ll have the injections. I’ll do the electrolysis. I’ll even have the facial surgery and breast implants if you want me to. I’ll do anything you think I should, but we must find a way to keep my willy working. I must be able to make love to you. I simply must.”

“Suzie, darling, please come home and we’ll talk about it.”

“No, not until you promise me. I know if I come home you can talk me into anything. We have to deal with it now.”

“Suzie, I can’t promise you. I already talked to the doctors and it’s very unlikely you can function as a male when your body is fully feminized. You have to accept a little sacrifice to become a proper woman. I’ve told you and told you. I won’t mind if your cock doesn’t work and we can always replace it with a nice pretty vagina. Now stop being silly and come home.”

“I’m sorry Lucy. If there’s no way, then I have to stay as I am. I wish you could see me now. The treatment is working already and I think I look absolutely fabulous. I’ve got little breasts and cleavage. My hips are rounding out really well, and I had a chance to think about it. I feel so comfortable. Can’t we just go part of the way and get the best of both worlds?”

“You’re being unreasonable and illogical, sweetie. There is no “half way”. Another couple of months on the pills and with the help of some injections when we get you to a doctor, there will be no going back. Listen to me. In no time at all you will have forgotten that you were ever a boy. The memory of your male bits will fade away and you will adjust to being a full-blown girl. The psychiatrist has assured me she can help you through any difficulties.”

There it was again. She had been making all the decisions for me and had everything prepared without ever mentioning it to me. I knew then I could not go back. My heart broke at that moment and I began to cry.

“Lucy, I’m so sorry, but I can’t come home,” I managed to choke out before I put down the phone.

I collapsed on the bed and wept until I had no tears left. I had been so sure we could solve the dilemma, that she would realise and apologise; agree we would talk through everything together, the way couples should.

Eventually, I pulled myself together and knew what I had to do. I went out shopping again and bought myself some new clothes and a few other bits and pieces. When I returned to the hotel I was mentally and physically exhausted, so I did nothing more that night except go to bed, where I tossed and turned and periodically cried until I fell asleep.

The next morning I did my ablutions and used the new soap I had bought yesterday in the shower. I put on a dressing gown and started my preparations by removing all the varnish from my nails, then cutting my finger nails back to a short length. I lit a wax taper and singed off all of my eyebrows. For what I was doing no eyebrows were better than feminine ones. One of my purchases was a barbers’ hair clipper with a cutting head that would leave about an inch of hair on my head. I used it and cut off all my beautiful hair, of which I was so proud. I flushed those tresses down the loo, crying as I did it. When I looked in the mirror John looked back. I had never thought I would see him again.

Finally, I dressed in the boys’ clothes I had purchased yesterday, packed my lovely girls’ clothes and other bibs and bobs away and walked out into a future I did not want.

Epilogue

I cried myself to sleep for the first month but eventually you run out of tears. I never saw or spoke to Lucy again. I still love her. Joanne/Suzie still forces her way out occasionally. She still loves to go window-shopping in complete anonymity. Part of me wishes I was still her. But...Well there are always the buts and the what ifs, aren’t there? Choices.... Oh, Lucy.....if only...

I suppose, in the classic sense, I had run away from home. That sounds so juvenile and when you’re nineteen years old all that kind of thing is meant to be behind you. Mind you, I think I had extenuating circumstances. I’ll have to back up or you won’t understand. It's a bit complicated. I was born with a male body, but I wasn't a boy any more...well, sort of. I wasn’t really a girl either, although you could have been excused if you thought that I was, because I certainly looked like one, or hoped I did and that's what my mind said I was.

I won’t go into the history here. Suffice it to say that I had been living as a girl for more than a year and probably at least half-and-half for some months before that. Lucy was my girl-friend, lover, mentor, muse and guide. I had believed that we had no secrets from each other, and then one day I discovered to my absolute horror that she had been giving me female hormones without my knowing. Not only that, she had been doing it for a year, and at maximum dosage for the last three months.

A part of me really welcomed those hormones. After all, I would not have been living as a girl if I did not want to be one, and the feelings that they gave me were sooo good. The other part was scared silly of the consequences. If I continued I would no longer be able to function sexually as a male. What if Lucy no longer loved me or wanted me when that day came? This was 1961 and transsexual was a word of derision, scorn, shame and guilt,and if the papers got hold of it, notoriety and finger-pointing. There was also a feeling that my beloved had betrayed me by not sharing the decision with me. I was torn in all sorts of ways. Like I said, I was nineteen years old and I didn't know how to deal with it.

I had packed a bag and left our flat, leaving a tear-stained note for Lucy saying that I needed to get away and think, and so I had booked into a small but comfortable West London hotel for three days, hoping I could get myself straightened out. After a couple of days I had convinced myself that I had a solution, even though I knew in my heart that I was probably kidding myself. I would accept taking the hormones but we would stop short of emasculating me.

I had rung Lucy to put this to her and she had promptly poured cold water over my brilliant idea and further frightened the living daylights out of me by calmly laying out the path for my future transition into girlhood. The fact that she seemed to have planned everything for me without talking to me just served to highlight my fears that the trust between us was no more. I had put down the phone and then cried for hours......a typically girly reaction, you may think.

When I had cried myself out I began to seriously consider my options. I could go back to Lucy, but to the teenager that I still was it seemed like surrender and I would have to eat large chunks of humble pie, as well as agree to her plans, and the paranoia remained.

I could go and live on my own, but that appeared to be a sort of dead end. Even though I had been living a female life I had few real contacts other than Lucy and I would have to make a clean break of it. The only verifiable skill I had was as a cloakroom attendant at The Lyric Theatre, not really a solid foundation for any new career, and I would have to give that up or face Lucy every day. I thought perhaps I could get a job as a waitress or a shop assistant, but the more I thought about it I knew I just did not have the confidence to make a go of girlhood on my own. I needed that support and I would be very vulnerable without it.

The third possibility held little charm either but at least I could handle it and I still had some friends, if I could make contact with them again.

I could go back to being a boy.

At least I could go home, back to Brighton, for a while, and find my feet. I didn’t want to do it. I really, really didn’t want to do it, but the more I thought about it, it seemed to be the lesser of three evils. After all, only two years ago I had been a pretty ordinary, boring, more or less regular boy. Now I had experienced over a year as a girl. I would always have that, a beautiful memory. Very reluctantly I decided this was my least worst option. Sometimes life serves us up with a shit sandwich and we just have to eat it.

The next morning I went out and bought myself a complete set of male clothing. Thank God for Marks and Spencer. Isn’t it funny? Nobody thought it strange or in the least bit out of the ordinary for a girl to be shopping for men’s clothing but if I had gone out as a boy shopping for women’s clothes I would have received all sorts of weird looks.

So there I was in M&S dressed in a black jersey knee-length dress, nylons and black high-heeled pumps, face neatly made up and my shoulder-length hair properly brushed, black patent bag over my shoulder, going through the shirts, trousers, underwear, shoes and other bits and pieces in the menswear section. The irony wasn't lost on me.

The other items that I purchased were a bar of Imperial Leather soap (Lucy had always emphasised how important it was to smell right) and a set of barbers’ clippers.

I returned to the hotel, unpacked the clothes and sat for a while to steel myself for what I had to do. Then I stripped naked and put on a peignoir since I didn’t have a dressing gown. I mentally tried to prepare myself for the fact that I would never again wear lovely clothes or shoes. I sat at the dressing table, wiped off every last trace of make-up and carefully removed the varnish from my fingernails and toenails. Then I cut them short to normal male length. Next I singed my eyebrows clean off, easier to explain no eyebrows rather than thin elegant, arched, feminine ones. I went into the bathroom to cut my hair, so that I could flush the long tresses down the toilet. The clippers should leave me with about an inch, sort of like a crew-cut.

I took a comb in my left hand, plugged the clippers into a power-point and turned them on. As they began to buzz I started to cry and my hand was shaking so much I didn’t dare to move it towards my hair. With the tears welling out I couldn’t see in any case. I wiped my eyes, calmed myself down, and tried again, and then again, and yet again, but each time with the same result. I finally turned off the machine and decided to have a shower first.

When I got into the shower I took my new soap, not unpleasant, but undeniably masculine-smelling, and began to lather myself, including my hair. It might be easier to handle cropping it after a good soap wash, no shampoo or conditioner. If it felt and smelt nasty I could make myself believe it would be better short.

Of course as soon as I started to wash around my breasts and nipples I began to lose control. The sensitivity imparted as a result of the hormones was too much for me and I could not stop myself from rubbing, squeezing and fondling myself until I climaxed with that now-familiar all-over spasm, gasping and shaking and tingling as though being hit by a myriad electric shocks. I wondered how long it would be until that utterly fantastic feeling disappeared, and wished with all my heart that it would stay with me forever.

I rinsed off, stepped out of the cubicle and dried myself, leaving my hair damp and combing it back from my face. I found a scrunchie and tied it back into a ponytail, thinking I could cut everything downstream of that off in one go and then shorten it all over. Actually it felt awful without conditioning, really coarse. Lucy had taught me the proper way to care for my hair. I looked in the mirror and decided I made quite a passable boy with my hair pulled back like that and no make-up or eyebrows. I then thought it might be a good idea to try on my new clothes before cutting my hair. If I could see myself as a boy it would put me in the right frame of mind to shear my locks.

I dressed in my new male clothes, underpants, singlet, socks, trousers, shirt, shoes and a V-neck pullover, having a little difficulty with the shirt because the buttons were on the wrong side and my fingernails were too short. I surveyed myself in the mirror, adjusting my collar. Not bad, I thought, if a little uncomfortable, and reached up to tuck back a stray lock of hair and...froze.

The way I did it was so unmistakeably a girl’s movement, totally feminine. Okay, of course I should have expected it. After all this time as a girl I was going to have to practice being a boy again. I turned and walked across the room, then swung back so that I could watch myself in the mirror. My reflection minced towards the glass, with delicate little steps, hips swinging, arms held at a completely inappropriate angle for a boy, elbows tucked in. Right. Lengthen the stride, feet parallel, arms down by the side, lean forward a little, keep that bum still. Deep breath. Try again.

I tried and tried and tried and it would not come. My body betrayed me. It just would NOT do what I told it to. I remembered when I had become a tracer (a sort of junior draughtsman) a couple of years ago. I had spent the first few months doing nothing but alphabets, upper and lower case, until the Chief Draughtsman deemed me ready to touch a real drawing. One day I went to write a letter to a friend, expecting to write in the cursive way that I had learned as a kid and I always had. I couldn’t do it. My hand would not obey me. After a few attempts I just let my hand do what it wanted to do, which was to write in those alphabets I had been practicing day after day, now ingrained in my nervous system and requiring no conscious thought, and I have written that way ever since.

That’s where I was now with my body. Lucy had made me practice....practice...practice for months learning how to move as a girl, to walk, to sit, to bend, how to hold my arms and hands, body language, head movements, and then I had had another year of living that practice and watching and copying other girls, blending in. I didn’t have to think about it. It was now instinctive. I couldn’t unlearn it in a day, if ever. Perhaps I didn't want to....

I had another thought and addressed myself or at least my reflection. “Hello, John. Welcome back, I think. Can you deal with this?”

Now, it’s difficult to recognise your own voice when you’re listening from the wrong side of your ears, but of course it was a girl’s voice welcoming *me* back. No surprise there. After all, I had been speaking like that for well over a year and practiced and practiced with the tape-recorder and headphones on a daily routine for months before that. So, talk in a lower register, easy, right? Yes, that part worked OK, but the inflection and cadence was still a girl talking to a boy. The way the words were pronounced and the phrasing was definitely feminine, as was the expressiveness in my face as I spoke.

I tried again and again and again. All I ended up doing was sounding and looking as camp as a row of tents.

I had thought... well, I suppose actually I hadn’t thought.... going back to being a boy would be easy. After all I had been one for most of my life. Technically speaking I still was one, but my act had become the reality, the role had taken over the player. The girl within me was the reality.

I sat on the bed and wondered what to do. Even in that simple action my knees automatically drew together, my ankles crossed and my hands clasped prettily in my lap. If I tried to go out like this, dressed as a boy, I would either get torn to pieces by the first gang of Mods or Rockers that I encountered, or mobbed by the nancy-boys out looking for fresh meat. Let’s face it, with the best will in the world I could only be described as EFFEMINATE.

Apart from my body, I think my sub-conscious may have been giving me a message. I must have sat there for an hour, maybe more, thinking what I could possibly do. All sorts of conflicting thoughts ran through my mind. Did I want to be a girl or not? That was a no-brainer really. Did I want to dress in beautiful clothes or not? Would I really like to have breasts? Did I want to never wear high heels again? Did I like wearing make-up or not? Did I like looking after Lucy? Was I too cowardly to do what I wanted to do?

And suddenly this great wave of relief swept over me that I hadn’t cut my hair. I still had my beautiful hair, and NO WAY was I going to chop it off. Maybe in those few minutes there I grew up. After all, hadn’t I wanted to be a girl for at least the last seven or eight years that I was sure of? And I had just come within a whisker of throwing away my destiny. For what? Teenage hang-ups? Immature reactions? A lack of courage? I braced myself and made that fateful decision. Yes. I decided that I was going to be a girl. Me. I would go home to Lucy and *I* would tell HER what I was going to do. Somehow I knew she would listen to this new me.

First though, I had to repair some damage. I wanted to look good; cool, calm and collected, elegant, sexy, and totally feminine when I got home. If I was going to be a girl for the rest of my life I was going to be the very best girl I could be. I rang down to reception and a girl answered.

“Good morning,” I said. “Is there a salon nearby which you could recommend, where I can get my hair and nails done, and maybe a facial?”

“Yes, Miss. There’s one we often send our guests to, just a few doors down the road. I use it myself. Everybody says they’re very good. Would you like me to see if I can get you an appointment?”

“Yes please. Could you? Any time say after an hour from now.”

“I’ll ring you back,” she said, and hung up.

Sure enough she called back five minutes later.

“I’m sorry Miss. The best they could do was 2.30. Will that be all right?”

I looked at my watch. It was now 12.05. “That will be just fine. Thanks very much. Can you confirm for me?”

“Certainly, Miss. I’ll do that,” and she rang off again.

I had been staring at my lovely delicate ladies’ watch, which it had never occurred to me to change. Wouldn’t that have been a dead giveaway? Sub-conscious again, or just an oversight?

Never mind. I stripped off my male garb (and the watch!) and headed back to the shower, where I used a bar of Lux (carefully not exciting myself when I washed) and proper shampoo and conditioner and came out smelling like a lady should. I dried myself, thinking about how much I would like breasts, and combed and brushed my hair out without really trying to style it, a quick blow-dry was enough, presentable would do for now.

Then I got dressed in REAL clothes, again not too snazzy at the moment. I would do that after the trip to the salon, but it felt so good to put on proper panties and a bra (even though I had to fix my falsies. I longed for the day when I wouldn't have to do that). I didn’t bother with suspenders or nylons for the present, only a floral just-below-knee-length full skirt with a built-in petticoat and a plain white blouse, no jewellery and a pair of black patent shoes with two-inch heels. I did a very light make-up job on my face. That was all going to get scrubbed off anyway, but you have to be neat when you go out. I finished off with the watch, two bangles and my favourite gold-chain necklace; no earrings to get in the way when they did my hair. Finally, I applied a little scent to the back of my ears and my wrists, sniffing appreciatively at the floral smell.

It was a little after two when I made my way downstairs, a pink cardigan draped over my shoulders and black patent handbag dangling by the strap in the crook of my left arm. I stopped at the front desk to thank the receptionist for making my appointment, and get the name of the place. She was a pretty brunette, probably a couple of years older than me, looking good in a white blouse and a blue uniform skirt and jacket, her make-up perfectly done without being overdone.

She smiled at me as I thanked her and she gave me the salon’s name and address on a sheet of hotel notepaper.

“If you don’t mind me saying, Miss, you hardly look as though you need to go. You look so elegant.”

“Why, thank you very much.“ A little flattery is always good for a girl’s ego.

“It must be nice to be tall, just like a model,” she sighed.

I had to laugh. I always regarded my height as a curse, not a blessing. “Actually, it embarrasses me.”

“Oh, no. Don’t be like that. You’re very striking.”

“Well, at least I usually don’t get lost in a crowd,” I said, and we both laughed as I headed for the door.

Sure enough, the salon was only a hundred yards or so along the road and I got there about five minutes early for my appointment. The receptionist asked me to take a seat and told me that Angela would be doing my hair today. I sat and picked up a copy of Vogue, looking at the latest fashions as I waited. Trousers for women? I wasn’t sure I liked that, but the models in the magazine looked very feminine and the pants looked very smart. Maybe if I had a nice bum it would be all right.

My reading was interrupted by a thirty-something blonde in the obligatory pink uniform smock. “Miss Wright? I‘m Angela. If you’d come with me we’ll get you started.”

“Please call me Suzie,” I said as I got up and followed her to a chair near the back of the shop.

She took my cardigan and bag and hung them in a little cupboard behind her work area as I sat in the big swivel- recliner.

“OK, Suzie, what are you having done today? Hair, obviously. Nails? Dear, dear. Whatever did you do to them? Your eyebrows? Well, they’re going to need some attention, aren’t they?”

“I seem to be having a bad few days,” I told her, making it all up on the fly. “I was lighting the gas and I took too long, and, POOF, no eyebrows. I was lucky I had my hair tied back. The nails? I was getting chips and splitting and I got so frustrated. I thought it’d be better to start over.”

“Right, dear, we’ll get Linda to give you some nice new ones. She’s our nail-lady. I’ll do your hair and we‘ll do a bit of magic to make it look like you’ve got some eyebrows when we give you your facial. I can feather in some liner so that it doesn’t look artificial. With a pretty girl like you it really won’t be that difficult. I wish all my customers were as easy as you.”

So saying, she spread the coverall over me and gave some signal that brought Linda over. She tut-tutted over my nails and produced a huge tray of false nails, which we proceeded to match against my pared-down ones. I was awfully tempted to get inch-long talons but settled on extensions of about three eighths of an inch, maybe a little more, much like what I had cut off. She went off to get her witchware ready while Angela swivelled me into position for shampoo and conditioning.

Most of the afternoon passed with me being pulled by the head, the hands, or the feet, my only input being to select the colour of my nails and tell Angela how much body I wanted in my hair-do and agreeing to the highlights that she suggested. I spent ages reading the fashion magazines while under the hair-dryer, with Linda doing my toenails and then laid back while my skin was peeled off (or that’s how it felt) when I had my facial. When asked how I wanted my face done I said “Dramatic. Tonight’s a big night.” I’m sure they thought I was up for a big date with a man.

Finally, after about two-and-a-half hours of pampering and teasing I was allowed to see the results. My hair was full-bodied, with blonde highlights, which I thought looked gorgeous, my make-up was sexy, but restrained, and my new nails were a rich burgundy, matching my lipstick. Yes, I thought, not bad, considering where I was at this morning. And, oh yes, I had eyebrows, which was a big relief.

“Well, Suzie, aren’t you a picture?” said Angela. “You make my job worthwhile.” And then she whispered in my ear, “You really must get something done about your beard, my dear. It’s starting to show.”

I looked at her aghast, but she just smiled and patted me on the shoulder. “Between us, just a tip,” she said. “You’re a lovely girl.”

When I paid the bill I purchased the nail polish and the lipstick and left a more-than-healthy gratuity.

I walked back to the hotel thinking about Angela’s little aside to me. I had thought that I was really careful about my beard, and it wasn’t much of one anyway. I usually only shaved about once every five or six days, but it brought home Lucy’s predictions that if I didn’t take some action now I would gradually become more and more masculine. This was watershed time all right. Now that I had surrendered to my true desires to be female and feminine I had better make sure that I took the necessary steps to preserve myself and nurture my inner and outer girl.

I entered the hotel and looked for my friendly receptionist, but there must have been a shift-change and a pleasant-looking man in his thirties was on duty. He gave me a smile and a hello as I passed the desk.

Back in my room at just about 5.30 p.m. I knew I could not get home before Lucy went to work. I mentally tossed up whether to let her know I was coming or just turn up. I decided that it was better if I told her, so she had something to think about before we faced each other, and so I rang her.

She picked up almost straight away, with a breathless, “Hello.”

“Lucy, it’s me, Suzie. I’m coming home tonight, so you had better be prepared for a chat when you get home from work.”

“Oh, darling, just come home and we’ll get everything straightened out, I promise you.”

“We’ll see. I want to look you in the eyes when we talk, so that I know I’m getting the truth.”

“All right then,” she sounded uncharacteristically meek. “I really have missed you, you know. Hurry home, my sweet.”

“I’ll be there when you get in. Bye for now.”

I still had to restrain myself from melting. It’s not only physical reactions that become ingrained. I cradled the phone eventually after sitting for several minutes with the receiver pressed between my breasts.

Well, with that little confrontation over, I could get down to business. I wasn’t going to waste my afternoon at the beauty parlour. I stripped off again. It seemed that today was my day for striptease. I slipped into my peignoir while I decided what I was going to wear tonight. I finally decided to show her my new cleavage. I had found that with surgical tape strategically applied beneath my budding breasts, an A-cup bra and some tissues I could produce convincing, if not massive, cleavage, so I proceeded to work alchemy on my chest and when I had adjusted everything I had a lovely little cleft between my boobs. I loved it, and it made me very aroused. I really had to swat Percy into behaving himself. There was a mix of fear, delight and outright confusion at the mixed messages my body sent me.

I went for simple but elegant. Suspenders and stockings of course, very sheer and dark. Black satin panties and a silky black knee-length half-slip under a form-fitting black hobble skirt coming just below my knee, with a small slit that let me walk, and the white angora cardigan-type top on which I left four buttons undone. A pair of black sandals with 4-inch heels and the black woollen three-quarter length coat with karakul cuffs and lapels that I really liked would finish me off. For a little flash I wore 3-inch gold hoops in my ears and a necklace with a longer chain that permitted the pendant to nestle between my breasts. Lucy wouldn’t see the whole ensemble of course, but it made me feel pretty good when I surveyed myself in the mirror. With my hair done nicely (think Marianne Faithfull) and an evening face on I could have knocked ‘em dead if I wanted to. I waved my burgundy nails around and touched one to my lips to check the match. Perfect. I only needed to touch up my lipstick before I went out. I took off my coat and packed quickly. I didn’t bother to fold all my stuff properly as it would be unpacked before too long. I debated whether to chuck out my worn-once boy outfit, but decided that would be wasteful. The Salvation Army could use it.

When I had packed I rang down for a porter to come and pick up my things. While I was waiting I looked at myself again and asked myself how I could have been so stupid as to imagine I would ever again be a boy. When the porter came I grandly gave him a ten-shilling note and asked him to arrange a cab for me. Then I went down and settled my bill while he handled my case and the cab. The receptionist asked if everything had been satisfactory and I assured him that it had. I went out to the waiting taxi with my case already on board and told the driver to take me to Finborough Road. I arrived home about nine and the cab-driver carried my bag up the front steps for me. It’s amazing how men assume that women are too weak to carry their own bags. We let them keep on believing that of course. I gave him a decent tip too.

I was so glad to be home. I loved that flat and I loved the woman it belonged to. Never mind that we might have a blazing argument later that night. I now knew in the deepest recesses of my heart that we would thrash all our problems out. What she didn’t know was that I was not the same girl who had slunk out of here three days ago. If we made love tonight it would be on my terms and she would be on the bottom. So there!

I let myself in and immediately took my bag up to my bedroom, unpacked all my things, the girly things that is, and hung them or packed them away in drawers. The boy clothes I stuck in a laundry bag for disposal, a waste I know, but a lesson I had to learn.

I went and inspected the rest of the flat. Three days without my care and attention showed. I sighed to myself. However would Lucy manage without me? It wasn’t as if the place was actually dirty, but her bed was unmade and there were three days-worth of clothes to be washed and ironed. The dusting could have been done better and the shower and washbasin were just a little greasy. In the kitchen she had washed up but the dishes stood undried on the sink. There were no pots or pans out because she hadn’t cooked, of course. I couldn’t really blame her. Even though she had taught me, she wasn’t very good. Oh, well. I would fix it all up tomorrow.

Ten past ten and I decided to pour myself a glass of wine. I made it a large one. She wouldn’t be home until 11.30 at least. I was quite relaxed as I sat down in the living room and kicked off my shoes. Suddenly I was dying for a cigarette. Both of us were only social smokers and I went hunting through the drawers of the sideboard and found a half-packet of Rothmans and a box of matches. My hand trembled when I lit that cigarette and took a deep drag. Yes, me, little Miss Cool-Calm-And-Collected, as the nicotine buzz hit me and I gulped down some wine. Come on Suzie, get a grip of yourself, girl. It’ll all be OK if you just keep your nerve.

I paced up and down as I smoked and drank. When I finished I went back to the kitchen, rinsed and dried the dishes and cups before putting them away, rubbed a damp cloth across the table and looked around for something else to do. I went up to her bedroom and made the bed, gathered up the dirty clothes, changed the towels in the bathroom and took the old ones and the clothes down to the laundry. I nearly started the washing machine, but managed to restrain myself. Slow down you silly cow. Go and check yourself out. You want to be slim, elegant, feminine and ladylike when she comes home, right?

I went back to my bedroom and spent fifteen minutes primping nervously, checking my make-up several times over, fussing with my hair and pushing non-existent stray strands into place, adjusting my skirt and sweater, making sure my jewellery was just-so, spraying a little more scent onto my wrists and neck, and a touch into my cleavage. Nervous? Who? Me? No way.

I heard the key turn in the lock downstairs and almost rushed down to meet her until I pulled myself together and descended the lower half of the staircase sedately. I wished I hadn’t left my heels in the living room. It would have been nice to use my extra height to dominate her a little. I gasped when I saw her standing just inside the front door.

She stood there with her keys still in her hand, swaying slightly, and peered at me with glazed eyes. Her lipstick was actually smeared!

“Hallo, Ssuzhie, darling. I’m sso glad you’re home. Help me with my coat, will you?”

She was drunk, totally blotto. I had never seen her like this.

I went over to her, took the keys from her hand and her bag from her arm, and put them on the hall table before taking off her coat, which set her to giggling. She lurched as the coat came free and I caught her round the waist. She staggered into me and her arms went around my neck. I stood there supporting her with her coat in one hand.

Her face was close to mine and I smelled gin, lots of it. She hiccupped.

“Ohh darling, you don’t know how good it is to shee you. I wanted you to come home sso much. I wanted to apolo.... apologizhe.....shay I’m ssorry. I never meant to hurt you,” and she burst into tears and hung around my neck with her face buried in my shoulder.

I managed to dump her coat and get my other arm around her and led her stumbling up to her bedroom, while she wailed, “I didn’t want to hurt you,” and similar sentiments. I tipped her back onto the bed and undressed her with the greatest difficulty, heaving her around like a sack of potatoes to get her dress off. I went to get some tissues and face-cream to clean up her tear-stained and still made-up face. When I got back she was snoring.

My oh-so-sophisticated and self-possessed Lucy was snoring like a pig!

As I cleaned her up I couldn’t stop myself from giggling. It was such an anticlimax. Here I was, done up to the nines, all prepared to fight and argue and lay down the law, nervous as a cat, and THIS happened. Oh, Lucy, I loved you then. You were no longer my goddess on a pedestal, but a normal vulnerable woman, just like me.

I finished cleaning her up, tucked her in, kissed her on the brow and went to my own bedroom to sleep, feeling pretty good about everything. Hee, Hee. I might have a ball in the morning. I could play the aggrieved party to the absolute hilt, although truthfully I was a little bit hurt, she was drunk and obviously well kissed when she knew I would be waiting and wanting to talk. We shall talk, Lucy, we have to.

I awoke about eight and I could hear her in the next bedroom, still snoring, but much more gently, so, after the usual ablutions I dressed in my black maid’s uniform, went and picked up the wreckage from last night and hung it all nicely, except for what went in the wash, and went to the kitchen. I had a glass of milk and my vitamins, with a double dose of hormones to make up for what I had missed during the last three days. Then I made her coffee and poured her juice, putting two aspirin on the tray too, and went back up to her bedroom. I placed the tray on the side-table and gently shook her awake.

“Good Morning Mistress,” I said.

She groaned as she came awake, opened her eyes and saw me. She launched herself at my neck and wrapped her arms around me, causing me to overbalance onto the bed. It was just as well I had put the tray down. She showered me with kisses and started to cry (again!).

“Suzie, Suzie, Suzie. Oh, I’m glad you’re back. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I was so stupid. Please believe me, I never meant to hurt you.”

Now this was more like what I wanted to hear. I felt that somewhat guilty satisfaction that you get when you’ve been proved right, but I also felt a surge of love.

“How are you feeling this morning, Mistress?” I asked her, still playing with her.

“Rotten and great, all right? You don’t fool me. You’re not pulling away and you’re accepting my kisses. You still love me don’t you?”

“Mmm. Maybe,” I replied. “Kiss me a couple more times and I’ll tell you.”

She did that and held me so tight I wound up lying next to her and, of course, had to put my arms around her too, and then I burst into tears as well and we had a lovely, satisfying cry together in each other’s arms. Suddenly there was no need for recriminations, only explanations.

I stroked her hair, still ratty from last night. “Your juice is getting warm and your coffee’s getting cold.”

“I don’t care. I have this wonderful maid who will make me more if I snap my fingers.”

“Oh yeah. If you snapped your fingers this morning I reckon your head would explode.”

She laughed and winced at the same time. “However, I know a sure-fire cure for a hangover, and I don’t mean aspirin,” she said. “Undress now, fair maid, and give me my hangover medicine.”

Well, I did of course, and I don’t know if it cured her headache but I certainly didn’t have one afterwards. And I made the running while she lay underneath me and submitted to my ministrations, until she had a silly smile on her face.

“I suppose we have to talk, but I have to have a shower first. I really STINK.”

“Very well Mistress, as a lady’s maid it’s my duty to help you.” So we both got clean again. It took some time, because I had to shampoo and condition her hair and then she insisted on soaping and cleaning my nipples, reducing me to another helpless orgasm. She was right. I did get her a fresh coffee and juice. She still took the aspirin though.

Freshened up, we sat in our dressing gowns at the kitchen table and she eyed me a little nervously.

“Look, I know I come on strong at times. I don’t want to sound like your Mum, but you can’t believe that I ever meant you any harm. I only want what’s best for you. Yes, I should have included you in all the decisions, and I didn’t and I’m so sorry. It wasn’t because I didn’t trust you. It was because I knew how scared you were of the consequences, and I sort of thought I could ease you past that fear. I know now it was wrong. It took nearly losing you to make me see that.”

She reached across the table and grasped both my hands in hers. I held onto them and looked her in the eyes.

“You don’t know how close you came to losing me. I almost went back to being a boy. It was only after I got dressed and almost ready to do it that I discovered that I actually had no choice but to come back to you.”

She gaped at me. “You were going to go back to being a boy? How could you even think about it?”

“Well, it seemed to be the only road open to me. I thought you didn’t trust me and that meant you didn’t really love me. The only thing that stopped me was that you schooled me so well in being a girl that I just physically couldn’t do it.”

“What do you mean, "schooled you so well?" And why couldn’t you do it?”

So I told her how I had got dressed in my boy’s gear and then found that I still moved like a girl and couldn’t stop myself, no matter how hard I tried. Then I had thought about my voice and the same thing happened. Whatever I did I still sounded like a girl trying to sound like a boy. I had practiced so much and drilled femininity into my very bones, into every fibre of me, that there was no turning back. The hormones didn’t actually matter.

“When I sat and thought about it I knew I had to come home and have it out with you. I finally grew up and faced myself. I’m still scared about some of it, but as long as you do trust me and hold my hand along the way, we’ll be all right.” I remembered and snickered. “I was all fired up to have a real row with you last night, and then you came in pissed as a newt. I really wanted to fight, but.....”

She blushed fire-engine red. “I only meant to have one to steady my nerves, really, because I was afraid you might not listen to me, and that didn’t do the trick so I had another, and another. I honestly don’t remember how many. You know I don’t drink that much. The last time I got drunk was when I found out that that useless prick of a husband of mine was sleeping with my best friend.”

“I know, and you were blathering on about how sorry you were and how much you loved me, and I knew it was true and I forgave you then and there. What is it they say? “In vino veritas” Well, you’d had lots of vino, so out came the veritas.”

“You rotten little chit! You forgave me last night and you didn’t tell me until now!”

“You knew I forgave you when we were in bed this morning. I wouldn’t have made love to you if I hadn’t. So don’t try that injured innocence stuff with me. There’s going to be a few changes round here and if you don’t behave you might end up wearing the maid’s uniform. Besides, I want to know who mussed your lippy.”

“Oh...um, I really don’t know, sorry. Just some guy who was handy.” From looking a little glum, she suddenly smiled brightly, “Ooh, will you beat me too? Please! Please!”

“I’ll think about it, but only if you promise not to enjoy it. On second thoughts, you’d make an awful maid. I’d have to follow you around making sure you cleaned up properly. As for cooking, well, I like to eat decently cooked food, so I’ll either have to hire a chef or do it myself.”

“Bitch!” she laughed at me, and a few seconds later we were wrestling. Somehow our dressing gowns came off and we were naked again and kissing each other all over. My cock came to attention and she grabbed it and towed me back up to the bedroom and then we were on the bed and cuddling.

She looked me in the eyes and stroked my hair. “Don’t ever leave me again,” she whispered. “Promise?”

“As long as you tell me what you want me to do, and we talk it through, OK?”

“It’s a deal.” So, of course, we made love again to seal the deal, much more satisfying than a handshake.

Lucy asked me if I still had the men’s clothes and I told her I did, but I was going to give them to the Salvation Army. She asked me if she could see what I looked like in them. She hadn’t seen me as a boy in over a year. I obliged her by not only wearing them but pulling my hair back tight, just as I had in the hotel. She got me to walk around and fell off the bed laughing as I sashayed across the room.

“You make the girliest boy I’ve ever seen,” she gasped through tears of laughter. “I tell you what. Keep the clothes for the next fancy-dress party we get invited to. You’ll be a sensation.”

So I did keep the clothes and, sure enough, some months later we went to a fancy-dress bash and I was the hit of the evening. Everybody thought I was hilarious. How ironic, eh? A boy dressing as a boy, who no way could be mistaken for a boy.

The very next day I started electrolysis to get rid of that pesky beard. If anyone tells you becoming a girl is easy send them on a course. No pain, no gain? Well, there’s pain all right, and yes, the upper lip is murder but I guess there’s gain. It was great when I didn’t have to shave any more. Five months later I went back to Angela’s salon for a facial and make-up job. I specifically asked for her when I made the appointment.

“I didn’t think I’d see you again, Suzie,” she said when she came to get me to start the treatment. “I thought you were just a recommendation from the hotel.”

“I was, but you gave me something to think about and I had to come back and let you know it meant a lot to me.”

I watched her carefully while she did my face and saw her eyes widen and then she smiled at me.

“Good girl! Smooth as the proverbial baby’s bottom, but much prettier. This makes my job even easier.”

She leaned closer and whispered, “Does this mean you’re going all the way? None of my business of course.”

“Yes, it does.”

She squeezed my hand. “Be happy, and invite me to the wedding.”

“You may have to wait a while, but if it happens I promise I will.”

She finished me off and did a great job. I looked like a princess. I thanked her and promised to come back, and I meant it. She had been very kind to me.

Lucy and I discussed our next moves and decided, first the psychiatrist, then the doctors. When I went to see the doctors (endocrinologists) I was armed with a letter from the psychiatrist telling them that I was a prime candidate for sexual reassignment and recommending immediate hormone therapy. Knowing that the medical men would not be happy that I had already been taking hormones the letter also said that I had been treated for severe acne and that there had been an error in the prescription which had resulted in some partial feminization. After some initial grumbling and doctor talk they examined me and pronounced me healthy, took blood samples, grumbled some more and, on my second visit, gave me two massive injections in my bum. Well, they felt massive, anyway. There were daily pills to continue with and more injections to come.

No turning back now, girl. I was committed and I have to say it was a relief. No more agonizing needed. In the next few weeks I had my Adams Apple shaved, although I hardly needed the procedure. In a way though, the act of having it done was evidence of my new determination to go through with my transition.

I would like to say that it was all plain sailing from then on, and perhaps it should have been, but I guess human beings will always want to tinker and make things better even when they’re not broken. I was required to go and see the psychiatrist every week for a monitoring session, in other words to make sure I wasn’t going nuts as I turned from a boy into a girl. As a part of the sessions she used hypnotherapy to soothe me and “iron out any little hang-ups” which sounded reasonable enough.

Some months into my transition I started to have these strange dreams. I remembered when I was a little girl how I loved playing with my dollies and how I used to love it when my Mummy dressed me up in pretty clothes to go to other girls’ parties. I remembered going to school and playing jacks and skipping with my girlfriends and running away from the boys and all sorts of female things.

Now, on an intellectual level I knew that these things hadn’t happened, but my memory kept insisting that they had. At first I thought it was some kind of weird side-effect of the hormone treatments.

I told Lucy what was happening to me and she went ballistic.

“It’s not the hormones. It’s that bloody shrink. She’s messing with your mind. We’ll see about this.”

Together we went to see the psychiatrist and asked what she was doing. She blandly told us that she was just making sure that my mind and body were aligned. We pressed her to tell us where this would end up. It would mean that by the time I was physically a girl I would have a complete set of memories of myself as a female, from childhood to the present.

I would only be able to remember myself as a boy with the greatest difficulty, as though in a dream. I asked how this would affect my feelings towards Lucy and she told us that they would be entirely appropriate. I would consider Lucy to be a good friend or an older sister, enabling me to relate to men on a sexual basis.

That was when the pair of us went ballistic. After a lot of shouting and arm waving, threats and invective, our friendly psychiatrist petulantly agreed she would play no more mind games and would reduce the impact of the suggestions that she had already implanted in my mind. She seemed awfully miffed and disappointed that we hadn’t appreciated her efforts.

The lesson here was–never trust a psychiatrist! They’re mad! I know the reaction nowadays would be that this was malpractice, but nobody had ever heard of such a thing then. This, after all, was the era when Hans Eysenck ruled the roost and advocated “curing” abnormal psychological conditions with drugs, hypnosis and electro-therapy.

Over the next two years my body changed completely. God, it seemed so slow at the time, but it did give me a breathing space, which I probably needed. My body became virtually hairless within a year and of course my beard had gone in months.I suppose like any boy who ever dreamed of becoming a girl I was fascinated and delighted by my developing breasts. Since I couldn't see them grow on a day-by-day basis I got Lucy to take pictures of me (naked) at fortnightly intervals, and when the photos were developed we would pore over them eagerly comparing the size of my nipples and aureoles with the previous snaps and admire the increasing curviness and prominence of my bustline as well as my hips and bum.

Lucy claimed that she helped them develop to the maximum extent possible because she massaged them every day and sucked my nipples to make them protrude properly. Whether or not it was true I never resisted her efforts.I Oliver Twisted her all the time.

After about eighteen months my puppies stopped growing at about a B-cup (with a little stretch of the imagination). They were nice, and I loved them, but with my height Lucy and I both considered I could carry a bit more without looking like Diana Dors, so I had them augmented to a C-cup. When the pain, bruising and discomfort had subsided about three weeks later they looked really nice. Of course, the extreme sensitivity of my nipples was long gone, but there was now much more of them for my lover to kiss and fondle and normal was still pretty nice. I had to get a whole new wardrobe of bras amd tops of course. Such agony!

My hips and bum had acquired that shape that I had desired for so long and my waist settled at 25 inches. I was no longer angular. All my parts seemed to flow into one another in smooth curves. I could have admired myself in the mirror for hours (and I did!) All these changes made my movements even more feminine. The subtle changes in centre-of-gravity pushed my breasts forward and my tush backwards and made the latter sway seductively in a perfectly natural manner.

My dick had continued to operate for about a year, although it gradually became harder and harder (no pun intended) for me to reach a climax. Lucy did not mind one bit as she would have multiple orgasms while I was still plodding along waiting to cum. In fact, she sometimes went cross-eyed with pleasure, which broke my concentration and left me soft and giggling, so that I would have to start all over again. Then one day it just went on strike. No amount of kissing, sucking, stroking or playing would make it stand straight, and the funny thing was, after all my misgivings and fears about losing my ability, that I didn’t really care. Lucy said she would miss it, and when the day came, we should give it a decent burial with full military honours for fine upstanding service. In the meantime it served to pee through and we found other ways to play.

Shortly after that I asked the doctors if it would be a good idea to be castrated, as it seemed to be a waste of time to have testicles any more. Surprisingly, perhaps, they said it would be better to leave it go until I underwent the final transition.

By the end of 1963 the only reminder of my boyhood was that now limp appendage between my legs. Not having to worry about bulges or falsies simplified my underwear no end. Bra and panties were all I needed and I learned what a wonderfully versatile garment a bra could be, from totally demure to utter trollop. Down below a quick tuck was all that was necessary, although I still wasn’t game to go swimming. I was twenty-one years old and VERY sophisticated. I was the best dancer of the Twist that I knew.

It was a time of great changes not only for me, but for the world and Britain. While I was somewhat self-absorbed we had gone through the Cuban missile crisis, President Kennedy had been assassinated, men had gone into space, and the music scene had been transformed by The Beatles and the Rolling Stones. Despite not being into boys I had a real crush on Charlie Watts. He was just sooo cool! I met him (and the others) once, after a performance they did at The Marquee, which Lucy had got us into, and he was really nice too. Not only music, but the clothes were getting so elegant and with-it. This girl Mary Quant, who was only about Lucy’s age, had opened a boutique in Chelsea, just down the road from where we lived. She designed the most fabulous gear, and once I discovered it I wouldn’t be seen dead in anything else.

I had given up my cloakroom keeping at the end of the previous year and Lucy and I had decided that I should have an independent income stream just in case, even though she had made me the sole beneficiary of her will. That was money I did NOT want. I looked around and found a little salon on Fulham Road near the junction with Finborough Road, on the fringes of the fashionable areas. I considered I knew a bit about the importance women attached to looking good and, because of Lucy’s tuition, I was more than competent in make-up. I also thought it would give Lucy an interest if she ever wanted to leave the theatre.

I had a brainwave and went to see Angela, the beautician who had been so nice to me. I told her what we were thinking of and asked her if she would like to be the manager if we went ahead. She leapt at it. It was closer to home and she had a few ideas she wanted to try out, with my agreement, of course. I then took her to see Lucy, who liked her on sight and we set the whole thing in train. Two months later I was the proud co-owner of my very own business. Angela was a raving success. She had the manner to set the clients at ease and make them feel special, just as she had me. I would go in after lunch and do facials and make-up under her supervision, but mainly learn from her the tact to deal with customers, some of whom were right bitches, but you kept them sweet if you could.

Angela became a very good friend. She knew what I was, of course, having picked me at our first encounter, but she always treated me like she did any other girl. Perhaps she was the favourite auntie that I always wished I’d had. The nearest she ever came to criticism was to chide me for not inviting her to my wedding (because she was a hopeless romantic), but once she knew about the relationship between Lucy and me she accepted that marriage could be in the mind as well as in the law. Anyway, she ran the business with a velvet whip and we were soon doing very well, including her, because she was on a share of the profits.

One of the reasons I had given up the cloakroom job was that rumours about me had started to spread in the circles we frequented. Medical practitioners are supposed to have a code of confidentiality, but it probably leaks through nurses and assistants, specialists and technicians, and their girlfriends and boyfriends. Some people stopped talking to me and others whispered behind their hands, and still others seemed to be embarrassed by my presence, not all, but a significant number. I never encountered outright hostility, but we thought it would be a good idea to head things off at the pass and so I quit and ended up going into the beauty business.

Apart from being part-owner and cosmetician, I was also Angela’s favourite guinea-pig for new hairstyles. I wouldn’t let her cut too much, but other than that I had, in short order, platinum, black, ginger, streaks, purple (ugh), highlights, extensions, curls, bangs and god-knows what else. Sometimes Lucy would collapse when she saw me, but more often she would say;

“Angela’s a genius.”

Of course we made sure that Lucy was a customer too, but she insisted on staying her natural blonde self and refused all but the most basic styles. Angela would give her grief about her having no sense of adventure and Lucy just smiled and said she was right and she could practice on me. Thank you very much, darling!

At Christmas, Lucy asked me if I was ready. I knew exactly what she meant and said I was. In truth, I could hardly wait to get rid of my poor little dick. Maybe that shrink had kept on doing the odd bit of manipulation after all. I wanted a vagina. I no longer feared it as an entry to my innermost self for men but thought of it as a proud symbol of my passage into womanhood.

“You know,” she said, stroking my cheek, “I really regret that I didn’t marry you when you could still pass as male, and it’s too late now, but, just in case you didn’t know, you are my soulmate forever. Now, I haven’t booked anything yet, but here’s a proposal. We fly to Singapore in April and we arrange for your surgery at the end of the month. I’ve checked that the doctors can schedule you in. I’ve allowed for a couple of weeks in the hospital and a couple of weeks swanning around after that, for recuperation and relaxing. We’ll get back here at the end of May or early June. How does that sound?”

“Oh, Lucy, it sounds wonderful and, as usual, you give me absolutely no choice.”

Intermission.

My gaze wandered slowly and carefully over the tables on the grass between the cafe and the beach. I could hear the waves shifting the shingle some fifty yards away, today a gentle, soothing noise. He wasn’t there, but then I had come early on purpose so that I would be first. I went inside the cafe, ordered and paid for a long black with some milk on the side and carried the tray out to one of the tables at the edge of the grass.

If this didn’t work out I wanted to be able to get away quickly with as little fuss as possible. I sat in the shade of the big umbrella planted through a hole in the middle of the table. For a change it was sunny and warm, with a gentle breeze, not like the usual Brighton summer at all.

I stirred in some sugar and a little milk. Then, distractedly I sipped the coffee and noted the lipstick smear on the lip of the cup, so I got out a tissue and blotted my lips, inspecting the result in the mirror of my compact. Sharks were circling in the soup inside my stomach, trying to devour the enormous butterflies circling just above them, and the soup was bubbling too. I was so nervous because I really wanted this to go well. I’d had a few too many disappointments of late and hoped that I'd seen the last of them for a while.

Fingers trembling a little I took a cigarette from the packet of B&H in my bag, fumbled a bit with my lighter and lit it, puffing nervously. I don't smoke much but I definitely needed one now. While I dragged the smoke into my lungs and felt the tobacco buzz that I craved I reflected on why I was here.

I was here to meet a man who had once been my best friend....that was assuming he turned up. Our friendship had begun on our first day at high school. We had gone to different primary schools and lived on opposite sides of the town, so we had never met before, but since we had both passed the 11-plus exam here we were at Hove County Grammar School for Boys. I remember looking at this little kid, black-haired and olive-skinned, much shorter than me, with a cocky swagger when he walked. He might have been small but it didn’t seem to bother him. He had grinned up at me and said:

“I’m Geoff. What’s your name, skinny?”

I should have been insulted, but the way he said it was friendly, not hostile, and I needed friends because I didn't know anyone else there.

“John,” I replied, and then we were telling each other where we lived and which primary we had gone to. Both of us liked football and followed The Albion even though they were hopeless and would never get promoted, and we both biked. I never knew what it was and I was not game to ask, but he seemed to like me and I liked him right back. All these years later I smiled inwardly at how odd we must have looked then, a beanpole and a dwarf.

I found out as time went by that he was a tough little bugger. He could out-fight kids twice his size. There was no give in him and he was incredibly fast. Mind you, he’d had lots of practice at home with three older brothers to stand up to. Mostly he managed to talk his way out of trouble with a combination of cheeky charm and a smooth tongue. I wasn’t too surprised to learn that he was part gypsy, which gave him even more kudos in my young eyes.

I was, as you may have gathered, a skinny only child, severely lacking in social development. My advantage was a pretty good brain, unfortunately coupled with a mouth that was way too smart for its own good and didn’t know when to shut up. So it was me that was always getting into trouble and him who ended up saving my bacon, even though I was much bigger than him, well, taller at least.

We went all the way through high school together, best friends, even when we fought occasionally, as best friends sometimes do. We had no secrets from each other, except for my one big secret that I had dared not tell anyone, even him. We hung out together after school, and as we got a bit older, went to the coffee bars which were the thing in those days, and hunted girls. At least, he did. My ever-so-smart mouth always seemed to fail me when I needed it.

He was the most amazing Lothario you ever saw. In spite of being short (he never topped 5 feet 5 inches) he could pull the birds like nobody you ever saw. His dark good looks and curly hair, coupled with that Romany charm and his smooth tongue, brought those girls in like fish on a line, and I just trailed in his wake, sometimes picking up the leftovers if I was lucky.

He liked them with pretty faces and big boobs and no brains to speak of. They melted in his arms, and gave him whatever he wanted, although,to be fair,if you asked him how he had made out, he just gave you that big shit-eating smile and said a gentleman never told. The prick. But I could only envy him the success that the easy charm brought with it.

He could be dangerous to be around too. If he was in the mood he was a real practical joker. I remembered one time when we were sitting in a coffee bar and a guy a little older than us was sitting minding his own business, reading a newspaper at an adjacent seat. Just for fun Geoff set fire to the bottom of the paper and laughed himself sick when the poor man jumped up and down trying to extinguish the flames. I got blamed and was going to get hammered until he confessed, and with his usual charm got the guy to see the funny side of it after promising to buy him a new paper and another cup of coffee. He sent me to get the paper while he got the coffee!

I had last seen him when we were both 17. He left school a little before me, after finishing fifth form, and got an apprenticeship on the railways in quantity surveying, which took him to Ashford, a railway district centre 70 miles away where he lived in digs. I stayed on at school to get my A-levels, but ended up leaving not too long after in a fit of teenage rebellion, and some months later my life took a turn in a totally different direction, which is why I am sitting here now dressed as I am, in a Mary Quant design, my auburn hair long, brushing my shoulders, face lightly made up, and flat shoes so that I won’t tower over him too much if he actually shows up.

My name is Suzie now. I started living as the girl I wanted to be six years ago. The secret that I never dared to share with Geoff, or anyone else, was my conviction that I was a girl, which began to take an ever-stronger hold on me from about the age of 11. It would probably have remained an unfulfilled dream except for the love of my life, Lucy, who recognised the real me inside me and encouraged and nurtured me until I completed my mental and physical metamorphosis into womanhood. Although I’ll never be a complete girl I am now as close as someone who was born male can ever be and I am content with my life.

I completed my physical make-over with a couple of operations in Singapore, of all places, about nine months ago. I know you’ll be curious. Yes, I’ve tried out the new plumbing, and, yes, it all works. I was worried before that it would not be as good as having a penis, even though that last piece of my male gear hadn’t actually worked for a couple of years before my final change.

I didn’t need to. Yes, it’s different, but in many ways not that different, just nicer and neater and the feelings are more intense and you can keep on going. The only problem I have is that I don’t really like men that way. Probably disappoint the surgeon that I don’t get the full appreciation of his skills. Oh well, I suppose you can’t have everything.

He’s late....maybe he won’t come. I decided to have one more coffee and if he’s still not here when I've finished, then bugger him. Just another line through another name in the address book. The way things are going I won’t need an address book any more anyway. One of the downsides of being transsexual is that suddenly an awful lot of people don’t want to know you.

The main reason I was here, back in my home town after six years, was to try and make peace with my parents. I had written to them three times, trying to explain what I had done and why. I had phoned them too. Each time the receiver slammed down in my ear, so I thought I’d give it one last try and went to see them. I guess by then I knew it would be a disaster, and it was. My mother wept and said I had murdered her son. I suppose in a way she had a point. My father just called me a fucking pervert as he nearly threw me out of the door.

I had written to Geoff too, told him what I had done, enclosed a picture, and proposed this meeting. He hadn’t replied.

He couldn't actually, because I deliberately omitted a return address. He was my last chance to salvage something from this trip into the past. Maybe he didn’t get it...couldn’t make it....didn’t want to...

All of a sudden there he was. He hadn’t changed at all; well, a little older, of course, but still the same old Geoff, walking with the same old swagger, swarthy complexion and black curly hair and handsome face....why hadn't I realised how good-looking he was before?.... making him look quite a bit like Tony Curtis. He was coming straight towards me. I raised a hand and gave him a timid little wave. He didn't react.

Oh, Christ! What would he think? I was suddenly terrified. I really, really wanted this to work.

He reached the table, pulled out a chair and sat, all without saying a word. He stared at me, his gaze stopping at my boobs for a few seconds. He spoke.

“Bloody Hell. You never did do things by halves, did you?”

I stared back.At least he'd not called me any rude names.

“Get your eyes off of my boobs, you randy little bastard.”

He laughed.

“Well, your mouth hasn’t changed, at least.”

“It IS still me in here. Only the outside is different. What do you think? Are we OK?”

“Well, apart from the fact that you’re fucking gorgeous and I’m getting a hard on just sitting here looking at you.....”

I couldn't help laughing.

“You always knew how to sweet-talk the girls, didn’t you? What I meant was, can you accept me this way? Can you deal with it?”

He leaned forward, put a hand over one of mine, and said the nicest words I’ve ever heard.

“What are friends for?”

The End (For Now)

We sat at that table with the big red and white striped umbrella on the lawn outside the coffee bar, the gentle sea breeze blowing across the grass, the sun actually shining for once, not your usual English summer, and just looked at each other. He still had his hand over one of mine. My long coral-pink nails curled around his fingers, holding him there.

My heart had leaped when he told me we were still friends a few moments ago, and we seemed to be frozen there for a little while. It was one of those moments that brands itself into your very soul and you wish would last forever.

I can hardly begin to tell you how happy that had made me. We had first become friends, best friends, at the age of eleven and had continued in that relationship for the next six years until he left school and went away to work. I stayed on at school for a while, imagining I might go to university, but that hadn't come to pass and I had not seen him again until today, another six years later. Even after all that had happened in those years I had never forgotten him. He had always had a special place in my heart.

“Well, go on then,” he said. “Stop looking dopey and spaced-out and tell me all about it.”

“About what?” I played dumb, knowing what he wanted, but savouring the moment.
.

He laughed and took his hand off of mine. I wished he hadn’t. It was so comforting, almost intimate. He waved both hands at me.

“You, of course. Why? How? When did you know? Where have you been? What have you been doing with yourself? I did come looking for you, you know, when I came back to Brighton, but nobody seemed to know where you’d gone. I even rang your mum, but she was pretty vague and just said you were in London working. She didn’t even have your phone number.”

It was my turn to laugh, more than a little bitterly, seeing that she had finally disowned me only a couple of days ago. “Oh, she knew my phone number all right, but she didn’t like you; never has....thought you were a bad influence.”

“Jesus! Me? A bad influence? Look at you now. I didn't have anything to do with that.”

“I know, I know. None of this was anything to do with you. She won’t even talk to ME now, and God knows I’ve tried.”

“Well, I guess that doesn’t surprise me. You do come as a bit of a shock, you know. The only thing I found out was that people said you’d been seen about town with this gorgeous bird a few months before. I didn’t believe that for a moment. You were such a dumb-shit with women. Anyway, quit stalling and start telling.”

“That bit was actually true. That was Lucy. She was my girlfriend and still is, believe it or not, the love of my life. You'd like her, although she's not your normal sort. Well, after you joined the railways I went back to school to get my A-Levels, but it didn’t work out. They were still treating me like a kid and it got up my nose so I left a couple of months later. I got this ratshit job as a tracer and I was spinning my wheels until she came along and, like they say, took me away from all that.”

“Shit, did she ever. OK, from the beginning. I have to get my head round this.”

I took a deep breath. Please let him understand.

“I remember it started when I was about eleven, maybe even earlier. I always felt like I was the odd one out. I used to get these uncontrollable urges to dress in my mother’s clothes. Yeah, I know, glamorous she is not. I’m sure if I’d had a sister I would have dressed in her clothes, but I didn’t, so I had to make do with what I could. So I used to dress as a girl as often as I could at home. I couldn’t tell you or anyone else. I was so ashamed and scared that if anybody knew they would kill me.”

“But why? What did it do for you?”

“It made me feel right inside. Somehow, it made me feel that this is how I should really be. I don’t expect you to understand. There I was, a boy, and I didn’t want to be one. I should never have been one. I wanted to be a girl. No, even that's not right...I WAS a girl, really.”

“But you always seemed to be interested in girls, not boys. You weren’t much good at picking them up though.”

“Look, I don’t understand it all myself. I’m NOT interested in boys, not even now. I don’t know what that makes me, but that’s the way I am, like it or lump it. Anyway, I went all through school hiding what I felt like and by the time I left I was resigned to the fact that it would always be a dream and I’d just have to live with it as best I could.”

“So what changed?”

“Lucy came along. Oh, it wasn’t like that at first. She picked me up, so you’re right, as usual. It wasn’t my skill with women, just plain dumb luck, being in the right place at the right time. I went to live with her, just looking after her and an opportunity to get away from home. Then, when we’d been together for about six months we went to see "Some Like It Hot". You remember, the movie where Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon had to dress as women to escape from The Mob?

"Anyway, when we got home she made up my face for fun, to see what I looked like as a girl. I was so excited I couldn’t hide my feelings from her and it turned her on too. I had been so afraid she would hate me if she found out, but she didn't. She worked out pretty quickly that I liked it way too much. Then one thing led to another and she helped me, showed me how to dress properly, to move and to speak like a girl,and soon I was going out dressed as a girl and loving every minute of it. I couldn't get enough of it. It felt so right and I just knew this was the real me. I was like an addict, I guess you’d say, and she encouraged me and taught me what to do, how to really be a girl, not just a boy in a dress.”

“Yeah, I can understand it turning her on. You’re sure as shit turning me on.”

I grinned at him. “Pour a bucket of cold water over it, mate. We’re friends, remember.”

“Uh, yeah. That’s right. Can you put a bag over your head or somethin’?”

“Shut up, dickhead, and listen while I finish." I slapped his hand playfully. "It became permanent. I not only dressed as a girl all the time. I BECAME a girl. I lived full-time as a female for over a year and almost forgot ever having been a boy. Then Lucy put me onto hormones. Boy, did we have a row about that, but she convinced me it was for the best and actually it was what I really, truly wanted when I got over being terrified, so I carried on taking them and gradually my body got into harmony with my mind and my soul, I suppose you would call it. A year ago I had the operation and I’ve never been happier or more comfortable with myself. The only problem is that there are other people who do have a problem with it, like my parents, but I have to live with that. So what about you?”

“I already told you. I can live with it. I’ve got a confession to make, though. When I got your letter and the photo of you I sort of didn’t really believe it, so I actually got here early and scoped you out from where you couldn’t see me.

"I didn’t know if I could face you or not, but when I saw that you looked like your twin sister I decided it was genuine and I couldn’t just walk away without at least talking to you, so I wasn’t late at all. I was scared.” He looked uncharacteristically shamefaced.

It made me giggle and this time I put my hand over his and held it. He didn’t flinch at all and returned my grasp and it came back to me that I really, really liked this man.

“That’s OK. So was I. You don't know how much I needed you to be OK with me, especially after the disaster with my parents.” I said. “Now it’s your turn. What have you been up to?”

“Not a lot...at least compared to you. I’m still with the railway, but I’m working here in Brighton now. I qualified, of course, so now I’m supposed to be a Q.S. (quantity surveyor). I got married to Carole three years ago. Too young. Never should have done it. It was a train wreck and she left me eighteen months ago.”

I remembered Carole. He had had an on-again off-again relationship with her while we were still at school. She was one of his less ditzy girl-friends, very attractive and with the pre-requisite big boobs, but she had made it plain she didn’t like me. She would probably like me even less now. Then, I swear, he blushed like a beetroot.

“Can I ask you something?” he said in a kind of bashful voice, and went on as if to get it out before he changed his mind. “Can I see you? You know, really see you, and see what you look like now.”

“What the fuck do you mean?”

“Can I see you naked?” He looked everywhere but at me. I don’t remember ever seeing him that embarrassed before.

“Why would I let you do that, you horny little bastard?”

“No! No! It’s not....I mean....I don't mean it like that, honest. I’m curious, that’s all, and we’re friends, aren’t we? I mean, I used to see your skinny bones in the showers at school all the time, and I wondered what you look like now. If you don’t want to, it’s OK.”

I thought about it for a while. He had come through for me, after all. What would Lucy say? She’d probably cheer me on. She always reckoned I was a wimp. Anyway, what could be so bad about doing a small favour for my best friend?

“All right, then, but there might be a price to pay. If you’re game we’ll go to my hotel room. I’m staying at The Grand.”

“What price?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t worked that out yet. Well, do you want to or not? Make up your mind.”

He swallowed. I could see his Adams Apple bob up and down. “OK, let’s go then.”

We got up and I tucked my arm into his. We walked across the lawns towards The Grand with me towering over him by five inches, but he had recovered his composure and strutted like Napoleon out with his Josephine, no humility in sight. I felt so proud of him. We reached the hotel five minutes later and went up to my room on the third floor. None of the staff batted an eyelid as we marched across the foyer and into the lift. In lesser hotels some officious flunkey may have tried to query our entry.

We went into my room, a nice sea-view suite with high ceilings, a bathroom and a dressing room. God, it’s good to have money after you’ve been poor. To think I once washed dishes in the basement kitchen. Those WEREN'T the days.

I could see he was impressed although he tried not to show it. I went to the walk-in wardrobe and hung my jacket. You have to look after Mary Quant gear. Then I turned to him and said:

“How do you want to do this? Will I find some suitable music on the radio and do a striptease for you, or will I just rip it all off and throw myself on the bed with my legs apart?”

He gulped. “Look, just undress normally. Please, I’m not trying to be a bastard, honest. When I’ve seen what you look like I’ll go.”

“You’ll go when I say you can go. I just decided, that’s part of the price.”

I would never have said that to him when I was a boy. Being a girl gives you power.

I decided to give him a bit of a show anyway, so I kicked off my shoes and hitched up my skirt and slowly undid the hangers that held up my stockings, and then I sat on the bed and rolled the nylons down my legs, as raunchily as I could, letting him get more than a glimpse of my panties. I stood again and took off my top and then shimmied my skirt down to my ankles and stepped out of it. I paraded in my bra, panties and suspender belt while I picked up the outfit and hung it. His jaw wasn’t quite hanging down but his mouth was open.

Suddenly, I felt in full control of the situation. Here I had a man practically drooling over me. It was all I could do not to openly giggle.

I stood in front of him, undid my bra strap and threw the garment on the bed. His eyeballs were on stalks, glued to my breasts. Then I did the same with my suspender belt. Now clad in only my panties I did a pirouette so that he could get a good view of my hips and bum as well. Then, while still facing away from him I took off my panties as well, keeping my legs close together so that he still couldn’t see my pussy. Slowly, I turned to face him again, legs now a little apart and gave him a full frontal view.

His mouth was open even wider. I was afraid his teeth would fall out.

“Seen enough?” I asked him, after about thirty seconds.

He flopped into the room’s armchair with a stunned look on his face.

“Shit! You’re so beautiful. And it suits you. I remember you in the showers at school. You were all bones and angles. You’ve got softer and rounder and smoother all over. Such lovely boobs.” He dried up.

“Well, Geoff, you’re seeing the best that money can buy and those surgeons can carve.”

I pirouetted again, slowly, savouring the moment.

“I can’t get over your pussy. It’s the nicest I’ve ever seen.”

“Yeah, and you’ve seen more than a few, haven’t you? I suppose I should take that as a compliment. Well, you got what you wanted. What now?”

“Can you put something on? You’re driving me bonkers.”

I went and got a peignoir from the wardrobe and slipped into it, deliberately sashaying across to sit on the bed.

“Now it’s payback time,” I said.

“What do you mean?”

“I decided on my price. It’s your turn to strip. You’ve seen me, now I want to see you.”

“Hang on a minute. I didn’t agree to that.”

“Oh! Scared are we? What happened to the tough little Geoff I used to know, then? Since when have you been afraid to strip in front of a woman? What have you got to be ashamed of?”

“Yeah, but you saw me in the showers too, and I don’t have anything different from then.”

“How do you know I was looking? And anyway, that was over six years ago. Maybe you’ve shrunk. Still thinking of me as a boy are we?” I taunted him.

He reddened. A slur on the manhood always works. “OK, OK, OK. I'll do it.”

He stood and took off his jacket, throwing it over the back of the armchair, sat down again, took off his shoes and socks. He pulled the shirt-tails from his waistband, undid the buttons and slipped it off, laying it on top of his jacket. Then he undid his belt and unzipped the fly on his pants, letting them drop to the floor before stepping out of them and adding them to the pile on the armchair. He stood before me in singlet and underpants. The bulge showed very clearly. He doffed the vest in a single motion and just dropped it on the floor. He was much hairier than I remembered, dark and curly and, all of a sudden, I wanted to run my fingers through his chest hair. My mouth went dry.

Then he almost hesitantly dropped his underpants. As though released from prison his cock stood straight out. Was that a compliment too, or only normal male lust?

“Now I know why you’re so short,” I said. “All the extra growth went into your dick. If you could stand it on your head you’d be at least two inches taller than me.”

“All right, you‘ve had your fun. Can I get dressed now?” He asked almost angrily.

“No,” I said. “I want to look at you for a bit. It’s different now. You’ve put on some muscle and you’ve got more hair on your chest, and this little feller is bigger than I’ve ever seen him. If we’re going to be friends we have to know what each other look like, don’t we?”

A voice in my head was telling me I’m not interested in men and I was telling it to shut up. There are exceptions and there was one standing in front of me.

“It’s not little!” Wounded male pride broke through.

"No, it's not, is it? It's much bigger than the one I used to have."

I reached forward a hand, almost as if on automatic, and ran a fingernail down its length. He quivered like a hound waiting to be set after a fox. I shouldn’t have done it but I couldn’t resist. It seemed to get harder and longer. It looked beautiful.

I loosened the tie on my peignoir and let the garment drop to the floor, so that we stood there, both naked, facing each other. I don’t know what came over me. I gazed into his eyes and said, “Just between friends, OK?”

Then I dragged the fingernails of both hands through his chest hair and down his body to his groin. I got goose-pimples all over. I bent my knees and knelt in front of him as I did it, so that I ended up with his cock in my hands right in front of my lips. The little voice kept on saying, “You don’t like men.” And I kept on saying, “Shut the fuck up.”

That rigid rod in front of me was like a magnet. My tongue crept out and licked the tip of his dick. My hands had a will of their own and pulled back along his shaft, taking his foreskin with them. I felt like kissing the mushroom on the end and then engulfing the whole shaft in my mouth. What the hell was happening to me? I couldn't believe I was feeling like this. I mentally shook myself and stood up again and held him by the cheeks with both hands.

“Don’t!” he croaked, so I kissed him. It was a proper girl-boy kiss and he responded properly. His arms were round my waist and his cock was slipping between my thighs. I felt my nipples swell and harden as they pressed against his chest, tickled by his hair. I somehow hadn’t noticed myself getting wet too. My heart was beating like I don't know what.

I broke off the kiss and pulled away from him, but only so I could take his hand and lead him over to the bed, where I pushed him down on his back and spread his legs. He lay there like a stunned mullet while I climbed onto the bed and knelt in the Vee between his legs. I grasped his tool with both hands and gently pulled them down the shaft so that his foreskin rolled back completely, exposing a swollen purple helmet.

“What the fuck are you doing?” he gasped.

Silly question. I didn’t answer. It’s hard to talk with your mouth full. I had plunged onto him like a vacuum cleaner. It didn’t take long for him to climax. I could feel that extra swelling and hardness just before he came. When he did I thought he’d never stop, but I swallowed it all. My God. My first blowjob and I loved it. And I don't like men.

I slid up the bed and lay beside him. He still looked stunned. I kissed him again.

“I’m no expert on men,” I said. I tried to continue but he interrupted.

“Coulda fooled me.”

“As I was saying, I’m no expert on men but I reckon you haven’t been with a woman for a while, going by what you had in storage there.”

He hesitated before he spoke. “Actually, I have to admit I haven’t slept with anyone since Carole went. She sort of put me off girls. I picked up a few, but when it came down to it I couldn’t follow through. Not until just now, anyway.”

“So you admit you like boys then?” I teased, stroking the hair on his chest.

He laughed. “You’re no boy. I doubt you ever were, and you just proved it.” He had begun playing with my nipples in an absent-minded sort of way during this exchange, keeping them hard, and I was still wet and unsatisfied. Then he surprised me, twisting half over me and taking one of my nipples in his mouth and teasing it with his tongue. A thousand little electric shocks coursed through my body.

My hand drifted down and grasped his shaft. It had already stiffened again and I really wanted it inside me.

I don't like men. I gave it a few strokes and it got harder. I could feel the muscles straining as it swelled and became even more rigid. I knew I really wanted it inside me.

“Well, are you the only one who’s going to have any fun, or are you going to return the favour?” I asked him.

“You seem to be the one in control here, so why don’t you tell me?”

By way of reply I straddled him and slowly engulfed his tumescent tool with my pussy, feeling it every inch of the way until it was in as far as it would go. Wow! What a marvellous feeling! It seemed to be splitting me apart but making me squeeze back harder with every inch of penetration but I was so wet that it just slid in smoothly. I put my hands on his chest and entwined my fingers in that curly dark hair. We looked at each other and I knew it was not lust I saw in his eyes, just as I knew it was not lust in my own. This was the same look that Lucy and I shared, dare I say it. LOVE.

I started to use my internal muscles and gently pump up and down before I lost my nerve. >I DON’T LIKE MEN THAT WAY . He swelled inside me. My body didn’t care what my mind said I didn't like and told me so in no uncertain terms, the sensations becoming more and more intense, taking me into a country where I'd never been before. I was soon moving faster and stroking longer, my muscles squeezing against his swelling, and Geoff was in counterpoint beneath me. We seemed to go deeper with every stroke and then my mind sort of went blank as all will left me and my body arched, straining every muscle and tendon, and I CAME and he did too. I think I may have screamed.

Seconds later I collapsed and rolled off him to lie next to him, panting.

“Well, well. So you got some fun after all, did you?”

I punched him in the arm, weakly. “It was all your fault. You started it. You’re the one who wanted to see me naked.”

“Just like a woman. Blame me, but I didn’t set the price. Anyway, who gives a shit?” He put his arms around me and kissed me again.

I kissed him right back and all my reservations about not liking men....well, this man.....melted away. we continued to nuzzle each other and one thing led to another. My nipples were carved out of stone and he had this beautiful THING jutting out from his groin. This time I was on the bottom and I guided him into dock.

The encore was even better now that my mind wasn't telling my body any lies. I could get used to this very easily. The surgeon could be proud of me now. My equipment was doing what it was designed for and doing it very well, I thought.

Later we got up and showered together and dried each other off. He started to get hard again when I towelled between his legs.

“Stop it,” he said, “or we’ll have to shower again.”

“I could live with that.”

“Yeah, so could I, but there’s one other thing I want to ask you to do for me.”

“God, haven’t I done enough already?”

He reached out a hand and fondled my cheek. “Yes, Suzie, love, but humour me, OK? Do you have any high-heels with you?”

“What, are you getting kinky now? Of course I do.”

“Will you go and put them on for me? The highest ones you’ve got.”

I went and got my four-inch pumps and put them on, and then struck a pose in front of him, looking down at him with a nine inch advantage, stark naked except for the shoes. He grabbed one hand as if for a dance and slid his other arm around my waist, then stepped forward and buried his face in the cleavage between my boobs, kissing first one then the other, backwards and forwards. I couldn’t stop laughing as I pushed him away.

He looked up at me with a huge grin on his face. “Windscreen wipers,” he said. “I’ve always wanted to do that, but I never had a girlfriend tall enough.”

I was still laughing when the words sank in. “Girlfriend?” I don’t like men that way, but I could make an exception in his case. What would Lucy say? I was sure she would like this cheeky little bugger and I suddenly knew for certain that I had room in my heart for two.

“Do you mean that? You’d better or I’ll flatten you.”

“Course I mean it you silly cow. We’re still friends aren’t we?”

I’d seen that shit-eating grin before. I loved it.

THE END

P.S. Will grovel for comments! Tell me if you DON’T like it too. Your input may improve my writing.

Second Choice

0001

by Joannebarbarella

---

He tried very hard really, but being so short and because he loved the two of us to wear heels, he often wound up talking to our breasts, none of which held up their end of the conversation.

Also he delighted in sticking his face into our respective cleavages and giving us a good old-fashioned windscreen-wiper nuzzle, but he took such open pleasure in it, grinning that face-splitting shit-eating grin when he did it, that neither of us could get mad at him, and, let’s face it, it was fun too and how can you not melt when somebody looks so much like Tony Curtis.

Other than that he got an almost permanent crick in his neck from looking up to try and make eye contact. To make it easier for him we used to hold most of our conversations sitting down. That way we could be serious, and, after all, we were trying to plan a wedding, amongst other things.

It had been mid-November when we confirmed that Lucy was pregnant, so we wanted to have the wedding before she bulged too much and thought we would have to have it before the end of January (that’s 1966) when she would be four months gone. What a terrible month to have a wedding! Particularly in England!

One thing which was both a shame and a relief was that it wouldn’t be a white wedding, since both Geoff and Lucy had been married before. The romantic in me really wanted to see my darling in a gorgeous wedding dress with all the trimmings, and me as the maid of honour in something almost equally stunning, without overshadowing her of course, Geoff would wear Ascot style and look very handsome in pearl-grey. But it was not to be.

Anyway, we unanimously agreed that to hold the ceremony in either London or Hove (actually) in January was neither desirable, practical nor comfortable. No howling gale, rain, sleet or snow was going to mar the big day, nor even low cloud and drizzle, not if we could help it. We wanted sunshine and blue skies, thank-you-very-much. So that meant…Abroad…. But there’s an awful lot of abroad.

We thought about Singapore or Thailand, but they were a long, long way away, and even though they would be nice and warm it could rain at any time, as Lucy and I remembered from our stay there a year and a half ago when I had my operation.

The South of France beckoned, but might be nearly as cold as home and no guarantees on the weather either. To cut a long story short we had a collective brain-wave and serendipitously settled on Bermuda. I grabbed our Encyclopaedia Britannica and found we could expect daytime temperatures of up to 70 degrees Fahrenheit, heaven for us Brits, just like midsummer. Yes, it might rain, but apparently it was usually showers, and we might even be able to swim, something I had sworn I was never going to do at Brighton or Hove (actually) ever again.

We could fly direct in about seven hours in the new Boeing 707s, not too long for us. Lucy immediately started looking for a nice hotel and swiftly found out it wasn’t that easy as a lot of Americans and Canadians took winter holidays there to get away from their own cold weather. However, that confirmed to us that we had made a good choice, so Lucy, who can occasionally be tenacious, kept trying.

Up and up the food chain of hotels she went, until eventually she booked a week in early January, after the Christmas/ New Year peak, at The Royal Palms at a cost which would leave us quadriplegic (two arms and two legs) but that woman never knows when to stop, and we could actually afford it. Geoff nearly had a heart attack, but I quietened him down by saying it was my wedding gift, while Lucy and I winked at each other. We would have a suite but I also made sure she booked a room for Angela, the manager of my salon, who I had long ago promised an invitation to my wedding. While it wasn’t actually MY wedding it was probably as close as I would ever get.

I had a huge sudden pang of jealousy, the whole green-eyed bit, which I quickly suppressed. But it wasn't fair. He was mine. She was mine.... and I was missing out.

While we were in booking mode, Lucy got on to BOAC (British Overseas Airways Corporation) and got four First Class seats. Hey, if you’ve got money to burn, have a bonfire, and, hopefully, it was a once-in-a-lifetime event.

So there we were, the little Misses Efficiency, everything organized except the clothes and all done by the end of November. The wedding was going to be a couple of weeks earlier than we planned, but we reckoned we could live with that. Lucy had even managed to book a marriage celebrant and an appointment on the hotel lawns for the ceremony through the hotel. Once you deal with hotels of this calibre they may charge the earth, but they certainly come through with service.

All done and dusted, eh? Sit back and relax until January, eh? You should co-co. First there were our clothes to worry about. We were going into summer (or near enough by our standards) and there was only winter stuff in the shops. The wedding outfits and we had to take account of changes in Lucy’s body between now and then. She would be in her fourteenth or fifteenth week and, while it might not show too much, it would need to be accounted for. A bride must look her absolute most marvelous best on her wedding day.

She insisted that it was her responsibility to organize not only her own gown but mine too.

“Trust me, Suzie. I’m going to pick something special for me and I will pick something equally special for you. You know I’ll never let you down, but I want to keep it a secret and make our man gasp when he sees us,” and she gave me a hug and a kiss and wound me around her little finger as usual.

She let me go around trying to find gear for before and after, not easy at that time of year and bearing in mind that I wouldn’t know her sizes until just before we went. I also took Geoff in hand and led him bleating and squealing to a bespoke tailor in Jermyn Street (much better than Saville Row. Who’s a snob then?) who had him laughing when he asked which side Sir dressed and had to explain what he meant to a young man from the sticks.

Then we had all this catching up to do. I insisted that we go and spend a week with Geoff in Hove (actually) because Lucy had never been to his place and I thought she just HAD TO see where her fiancé lived and how he managed himself; so off to Hove in early December. Lucy was impressed with the flat in The Drive but Hove was something else. It showed its true colours; windy, wet and bleak. The lovely garden didn’t have a leaf or a flower in sight. The badger was smart enough to be hibernating. A walk along the seafront was a battle to go in the right direction against the wind and stop yourself from being blown into a gallop when you went in the other direction. And then you had to dodge the spray from the giant waves smashing against the sea-walls.

You know this is why the English went out and conquered the world, don’t you? They were just looking for somewhere decent to live, and the Scots and Welsh egged them on all the time because a Scottish or Welsh winter was even worse. I’m not sure why the Irish joined in. It was probably because they thought if we found somewhere nice we would go away and leave them alone.

We never did of course. We found all these wonderful places like America, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand and decided it was much more fun being miserable and whingeing at home. Nothing like a good grumble in the morning, and we couldn’t run out of topics for conversation with weather like ours.

Anyway, our short Adonis won himself a lot of Brownie points with his future wife for being neat, clean and tidy and washing behind his ears without being told, as well as having a nice place. His parents welcomed us with open arms, I guess on the grounds that anyone was better for their son than the awful Carole to whom he had been married before. I didn't make a meal of my past and they were perhaps too polite to mention it. Besides, he wasn't marrying me. Shit!

While we were there Geoff told us that a transfer opportunity (a promotion, actually) to Waterloo (the railway station in London, not where Napoleon got creamed) had come up and he was going to apply. If he got it we could all carry on living in Finborough Road. Lucy and I crossed our fingers and our toes and everything else we could think of. We had Lucy’s flat in Brighton any time we wanted a break. We might even be able to pick some decent weather.

I sent out Wedding Invitations, obligatory, but given our circumstances there weren’t too many. I didn’t bother with my family and Lucy had none left. Geoff’s parents and brothers and spouses naturally. Did I mention we went to meet his parents? We all got on amazingly well, although we didn’t mention my background. There wasn’t any need. After all, he wasn’t marrying me. I know, I know, I'm repeating myself. Honest, I was fine with it.

Another burst of jealousy. He should have been mine.

Then it was Christmas and we didn’t stint. We invited friends who we knew could not come to the wedding to come and see us, to meet Geoff, to have a drink and the closest to our Christmas dinner, cooked by yours truly. It was almost a tradition now that I served dressed in my French maid’s uniform, hamming it up with my most outrageous accent and flirting like crazy with both the boys and the girls. I tried to have fun and not be a wet blanket, I really did, but there was a kind of sadness in my heart. I think I hid it pretty well.

Lucy, as usual, saw through me.

We were in bed one night when Geoff had to go back to Hove (actually) and she cuddled me and stroked my hair and kissed me.

“Suzie darling, please trust me. You’re not going to be left out of this marriage, I promise. I know you feel I’ve stolen him sometimes, but I haven’t and I couldn’t if I tried. It really is going to be the three of us and four before too long. We WILL be a happy family and he and I both love you too much to lose you or let you go in any way. We’ve talked about you too, you know, and you’re the glue that holds us all together. I can even put up with your singing if you just cheer up.”

That made me believe her! I snuggled in to her and returned her kisses and cried and resolved to put my jealousy behind me.

Christmas done and over with, we normally would have gone out and seen the New Year in, but there was just so much left to do. We were going on the 4th of January and what with holidays the shopping time seemed to vanish. Geoff got his promotion and we decided that we could stay at Finborough Road. Lucy and I joined hands and danced for joy and then dragged our man into a threesome and whirled like dervishes (does anyone know what they are?). We went to The Ifield that night and celebrated. Geoff and I got tiddly, while Lucy sipped a shandy like a good mother-to-be.

I went with Geoff to collect his suit, which the tailor insisted he tried on in case there were any last-minute adjustments to be made. I giggled as I asked him if he was correctly “dressed” and the little bugger felt his crutch and grinned one of his shit-eating grins, but he looked SOOOO handsome. I knew Lucy would be proud.

I went around collecting things I had ordered and, for a change, organized Angela, who had gone all of a tizz-woz with excitement. I tried like hell to get Lucy to tell me what she and I would be wearing, but she just smiled a Mona Lisa smile and told me to be patient and I wouldn’t be disappointed. I was worried because she was just beginning to show and I did so want her to look her best.

Packing, packing, packing. You would not believe how much stuff we were taking. Well, maybe you would. It was just as well we were going First Class or we would have had a separate plane to carry our gear. I tried to peek at the wedding outfits but Lucy was too cunning for me and had the dresses all sealed up in opaque wrapping.

The 4th zoomed up on us and we went to Heathrow on a freezing-cold, bleak, sleety day, congratulating ourselves on our foresight. In those days BOAC treated First Class passengers like royalty. They should have too. We thought we had bought the plane, but we checked in and went to the VIP lounge and drinks came and flunkeys flunked. We sipped champagne and sneered at the weather outside until they ushered us on board.

Lucy and I had flown before, not First Class, but we had been on a jet. Geoff and Angela were gob-smacked, neither having flown before, let alone in this style. We concentrated on keeping their mouths closed and stopping them drooling like idiots when the caviar came round. We were supposed to be sophisticated, for Christ’s sake. Fortunately none of the stewards or stewardesses were of that peculiarly English type who like to put their customers down. They were all nice to us.

We took off, ate, slept, ate some more, drank champagne (except for angel Lucy) and found that the excitement of long-range airline travel is mostly boredom. So we were pleased to land in Bermuda in the early evening with the sun still shining and these wonderful islands set in an azure sea, the coral reefs clearly visible.

Disembark into a pleasant 65 degree-ish evening after leaving winter in Britain and you immediately feel you are in Paradise. Customs and Immigration took no time at all and then we were in the hotel limousine on the way to the hotel. We passed through the “capital” Hamilton and then we were at The Royal Palms. It was nearly dark but we could see these lovely turn-of-the-century mansions and a whole row of quaint cottages, which I fell in love with at first glance and hoped we would be staying in.

YESSS, we were in the cottages. The hotel staff didn’t blink an eye-lid at our ménage-a-trois, but poor Angela was shuffled off to a room in one of the mansions……didn’t seem to mind a bit. In fact I could have sworn she had her eye on the good-looking porter who carried her bags. I quite fancied him myself; that lovely milk-chocolate skin and brilliant smile.

We were taken to our cottage, which was a kind of self-contained suite, with two connecting bedrooms (one with a king-size bed…goody), a lounge and two bathrooms, with a verandah opening on to the lawns. It was lovely and I could immediately picture Lucy making an entrance in her wedding outfit, whatever it was, I thought with a pout. I would be a pace behind her.

We had allowed an extra day before the ceremony, so the marriage would be on the 6th of January 1966. We had checked that it was an auspicious day in the Chinese calendar, with great fung shui.

Also it allowed a few special guests to get in and settle themselves before the wedding. Geoff’s parents were coming and his youngest (older) brother, who would be his best man. It turned out that none of them had liked Carole and they wanted to see him married to a nice girl this time.

Angela was to be a bridesmaid and I was Maid of Honour. God, I was still jealous, but I knew this was for the best, so I swallowed my pride and smiled. We all met in a spacious cocktail lounge and had a drink before going off to bed. Angela seemed so eager that I was suspicious. I’ve got a dirty mind.

So off to bed we went, but tired by the long day and the time change we just went to sleep in the huge bed, entwined in each other. We sort of lazed the next day away. We made sure that all the arrangements were in place, but the hotel staff told us to stop worrying. They had even organized a wedding cake. Everything would be OK. They had done all this hundreds of times before.

We walked around the town, went and looked at the beaches and the clearest, bluest water we had ever seen, had coffee and lunch, strolled and shopped a little. I bought bikinis for us girls, and we relaxed. The calm before the storm.

Early the next morning Lucy and Angela and I took over the big bedroom and banished Geoff to the small one. His brother and father were going to come over from their hotel and give him a hand. His mother joined us. She and Angela brought their dresses over so we could all change together, and titivate after we got our hair done and before we went out for the service. When Agnes arrived Lucy finally unwrapped the dresses for herself and me.

I gaped. They were identical and I loved them. The other three laughed at my reaction.

“You…..You…. Lucy, I should kill you. And you…” I turned to Angela and Agnes. “You were in on this! You knew! And you didn’t tell me! You….You….” I ran out of steam.

“I told you to trust me,” said Lucy. “Did I tell you true?”

I burst into tears, tears of happiness.

“But we can’t do this,” I wailed. “Lucy, you’re the bride, not me.”

“I’m the official bride, yes, and my name will be Mrs. Stoner,but we all know who the real bride is, don’t we?”

“Are you all in on it? Does Geoff know?”

“Yes, he knows. We didn’t want him dying at the altar, so to speak.”

I turned to Agnes Stoner.

“But you know what I am, don’t you?”

“I know who you were, my dear, and I see who you are. My Geoff hasn’t stopped talking about you since you came back, and I haven’t seen him so happy in years. If you can make him happy after that bitch he was married to before, you’ll do me, daughter-in-law,” She took Lucy’s hand, “Daughters-in-law. I don’t think either of you will have any mother-in-law problems.”

It took me fifteen minutes to stop weeping and hugging them all. It was just as well we hadn’t got to make-up stage. I got myself sorted out, but every time I looked at any of them I couldn’t stop myself smiling. All of them were rotten bitches and I loved them.

We all had our hair done. Angela got a bit sniffy about it but finally admitted the girls did a good job. Lucy did all our make-up, so who could complain. Agnes looked ten years younger and kept on admiring herself. Lucy whispered in her ear and she positively beamed.

Then came the dresses. Agnes had a beautiful aqua full-skirted number. Angela’s I knew was a gorgeous coral-pink, knee-length, petticoated creation with a deep neckline and long flared sleeves.

“I’ve got a date with that lovely porter afterwards, so I hope you don’t mind if I slide surreptitiously away,” she smirked. We all shook our heads and laughed.

Lucy and I had identical dresses, white, full-skirted, a little above knee-length, rustly petticoats, a deep vee-neck, which I just knew Geoff would bury his nose in later in the afternoon, long lacy sleeves with flared cuffs and some appurtenances to round them off. You can wait to find out.

We were all ready and had finished inspecting each other when we heard the Wedding March start outside. Agnes and Angela pulled aside the curtains and opened the patio doors.

Lucy and I joined hands and stepped out onto the lawn, tippy-toeing a little so that our heels wouldn’t dig into the grass. We stepped across a few paces to stand next to Geoff and his brother.

The marriage celebrant called the vows for Lucy and Geoff and rings and kisses were exchanged. Then Geoff said to the celebrant:

“I’d like you to do something a little unusual if you don’t mind. I know I can only be married to one wife at a time, but can you pledge my undying love to Suzie as well, that I will honour her just as I honour my wife, as long as we both shall live?”

The man looked somewhat shocked, and turned to Lucy, who beamed at him and nodded vigorously.

“Please, it’s OK. I approve 100%”

So he said:

“Do you Suzie, pledge your undying love to this man, as long as you both shall live?”

“I do.”

“And do you Geoffrey pledge your undying love to Suzie, as long as you both shall live?”

“I do.”

“Then you may kiss to seal this pledge.”

And the three of us kissed.

I bet we’re the only married people who have wedding photos with two French maids, patent high-heels, black seamed stockings and saucy aprons, one on each side of the groom, kissing him.

Who knows what comes next?