Chapter 2

When I was allowed to get out of bed I found that my wardrobe now had some of Suzettes’ old clothes in it. My mother told me that they had been saving the cast-offs for today and that there was new underwear and other items now in my drawers.

When I dressed I found that it all came naturally, able to do up my bra without a thought. In a blouse and skirt with open toed sandals I looked at myself in the mirror and was pleasantly surprised at how good I looked.

After lunch my mother said that she was taking my grandmother home and we had a group hug before she left. Suzette took me back up to my room and made me go through the contents of my wardrobe, trying everything on.

Over a period of about two hours we had discovered what fitted me and the ones that didn’t were put in a bag for charity. Of the ones that did fit me there were some that she said didn’t work on me and these were added to the bag.

By the time my mother came home I had discovered my starting style and was back in the blouse and skirt when she walked in.

“My, don’t you look the goods” she said when she saw me. I was told to add some tights that I would find in my drawer and that we would be going to Evensong, seeing that it was Sunday, and would meet up with the other members of the Meditation Group there. She said that we needed to let them know that everything was successful.

I queried the venue and was told that the church we would attend was Progressive and that we would be made welcome as it was a usual meeting place for the group on a Sunday evening.

When I questioned the relationship between witches and the church I was told that the church had, actually, picked up bits of the old gods to peddle their own brand of religion and that, while we got on with the Progressive crowd, I was to watch out for the Catholics as they tended to dislike our kind.

After I had put on the tights I was supervised while I did my make-up for the first time. It was a case of my mind knowing exactly what I wanted to do but the body still trying to catch up and Suzette gave me some tips on how I could support my arm to get an even line while putting on the liner.

In the end we all got into the Cruiser and drove to the church in Redhill. All of the group were there and we sat in the back, doing everything needed and singing loudly at the right times. We even gave generously when the plate came around.

After the service we all greeted the vicar and then it was time for me to properly meet the others who had been there for me last night. One by one I met Henrietta, Christine, Wendy, Margaret, Patricia and Roberta; the last three being a mother and two daughters.

Each one gave me a hug and welcomed me to the little group and I started to get a bit teary as I had never been so enveloped before. My time as a boy had been one of isolated competition with the other boys and a resistance to authority.

As a girl I was part of a bigger world of sisterhood and my heart was almost bursting with the love I felt for my sisters. I suddenly realised that, as we had been hugging, each one had passed a little magic my way and that it would take me a while to sort it out when I was alone.

Wendy had, I was told, the ability to see peoples auras and it came across to me as the ability to read peoples’ minds, but only if they were concentrating on one thing.

This became apparent when I hugged Collette.

She whispered, “Hey, Nutter, how they hanging?” I had the impression that she was more than interested.

I answered, “All good, Weedy, want to grab a bit?” and she giggled and blushed. As we all chatted I got the impression that the group, as a whole, was more like a sewing circle than they would admit to.

Discussion was centred on good deeds, cake stalls and charity drives. There was much talk of how long it would take me to be a productive member of the group. I held my peace as I was starting to realise that I had gained enough from them today to be the strongest one, other than my mother.

Before we broke up, Collette told me that I had a couple of appointments in Redhill on Monday and that she would pick me up at 8.30am to take me to my first, the Viva Hair and Beauty Salon where she worked.

Back at home I was shown the basic evening make-up removal ritual to bring it into my mind and I went to bed in a very relaxed state, considering what a momentous day it had been. Obviously, my pseudo memories as Amity were now strong enough for me to take it all in my stride.

Monday morning I was up, showered and dressed by 7.30am to tidy up after my mother and Suzette left for work. I didn’t do anything to my hair or face so that the Viva girls had a blank canvas.

Collette picked me up and she drove us into Redhill. The salon was in the Market area, just across the road from the Belfry shops. When Collette had parked and turned off the motor, she turned to me.

“Amity, I am so glad you have joined our little band. We are the youngest two and, as such, I think we should see more of each other.”

I knew what she had in mind so I leant over and kissed her cheek. “That’s my answer to that. It’s from Armand, who always liked you as Colin and Collette, as well as Amity, who likes you a lot as well.”

She asked me if I could read minds and I told her that Wendy had given me a little insight into peoples’ feelings, rather than thoughts.

“But, if you concentrate hard, I think I can see more detail. Think of a card, any card”.

She did so and I sat back and materialised the card she had been thinking of. She gasped. “But that’s tremendous. I’ve never seen that done before. I can’t wait to tell Mum.”

I asked her to keep it to herself as I was exploring all of the bits of magic I had been given on Sunday. I didn’t want those in the group to speculate on whether I now posed a threat to them. She promised to keep it quiet before we got out of the car and walked to the salon.

My first salon session was a whirlpool of thoughts and emotions as I had my hair washed again and then I had red highlights streaked in it before being given a very stylish cut and shape. My face was thoroughly cleansed and I was given a full make-up.

When I looked in the mirror I could not see any of the old me, not even the earlier me from the mirror this morning. They did my ears and I now had two studs each side. All the girls said I was beautiful and Collette gave me a big hug as I paid.

My next appointment was a couple of doors away at the Nail Boutique, where all my nails got attention and my fingers ended up sporting some quite long acrylics. After all this hectic beautification I walked over the road to the Belfry and strolled around looking into the shops.

I had made arrangements with Collette to meet her in the food court and, by the time she arrived, I had several bags from dress and underwear shops and a couple from shoe stores. We ate a light lunch and went to her car so she could drop me at home before going back to work.

When she pulled into my driveway and I had put all my bags on the grass, she got out of her car and came around to give me a hug before getting back in and backing out onto the road to drive back to work.

Going inside with my shopping I emptied the bags in the lounge and snipped all of the tags. I had been careful when trying everything on so was sure of the fittings. I took it all up to my room and put it away, making room by pulling out all of the old Armand things.

I knew that I was going to have to make a special shopping trip to get more shoes but I had enough inner and outer wear to get me by for now. As I did all this I thought of Collette.

As Armand she was so far out of my league it was unthinkable to have even thought about kissing her first, but now I felt that we were very well matched as friends. Back downstairs I tidied up the bags and tags and then took a garbage bag upstairs for my Armand clothes to go to the charity.

I then had a couple of hours to spare before the family came home so I went into my workshop for the first time as Amity. Standing there, I looked at the figures I had made.

There they were; Nelson, Napoleon, Montgomery, Rommel, all four Beatles, Neil Armstrong in his space suit, Wyatt Earp, Diana Rigg and Jayne Mansfield. Then there was the unfinished Stevie.

I had the sudden thought that, although I had considered myself to be pretty good at making the clothing, I was going to have to go back and work on all of them again. The fits were not right and the styling sucked.

I decided that all the men were on the second tier and that I would finish Stevie and rework Diana and Jayne first. I spent the rest of the afternoon sketching the new clothes for the three of them and thinking about who else I wanted to add to the collection.

All I could think of now were women. It then struck me that my sewing skills could be turned to making my own clothes and decided that I needed a tailor’s dummy and a full size sewing machine before anything else. I also spent some time exploring the extent of my powers.

We were sat down for breakfast on Tuesday morning and I had made myself a cup of tea when my mother asked, “Amity, why don’t you make your sister some toast?”

And I did – I materialised two pieces of toast on her plate, properly buttered and jammed as she liked them. We all gasped and I blushed, saying that it was a reflex action. They both had perplexed looks on their faces when they left for work.

When my mother and Suzette got home we had a good tea and cleaned up. Suzette went up to her room and I sat in the lounge with my mother.

I must have looked a bit serious as she asked, “Amity, there is something on your mind, can I help?”

“Mummy, I have been thrown into this and am just learning to swim but I feel that I have been given more than a lifebelt to keep me afloat. When all of the ladies hugged me Sunday I felt that they were giving me magic.”

She nodded and said that it was usual to impart a little bit of power to the new member to help them along.

“But I feel that I have been given more than a little. Think of a number, any number.”

When she did I told it what it was. I then asked her to think of any object and got it right every time. When I materialised the card she was thinking of she thought of a pack of cards so I materialised them as well.

“Yesterday I was told that you could not materialise anything bigger than a cricket ball so what about this?” I materialised a small portable television on the coffee table which was turned on to the BBC.

She gasped and leant forward to touch it.

“Go on, change channels, it is real and it works.”

She did so and sat back. “I’ve never seen anything like this. We had no idea you would soak up power like you have. Will this remain real?”

I said, “Not if we don’t want it,” and made it disappear.

I told her that I thought that we should keep my abilities quiet until I had mastered them and could then control my reactions. “Like this morning when you asked for a piece of toast, if I did that in public view I would be heading for the stake.”

She agreed and then asked if I was scared at what I could do.

“Yes, there are things that I have already done. Come to the workshop and I’ll show you.”

We went into the workshop where the figures usually stood on a shelf behind the work-bench but now were sitting around on the bench. When we walked in they stood up and waved to us.

“My God,” my mother said, “You’ve animated wooden figures. This is frightening, you could do terrible things with the right models.”

I told the figures to get back on the shelf and it was funny seeing them help each other to climb up. Once they were in place I de-animated them.

“Right, my girl! Tomorrow you can take the Cruiser and visit your grandmother for a few days, she can help you now.”

I told her I didn’t have a licence so she showed me hers and told me to produce one of my own. This I did.

I had a good night of deep sleep and, in the morning I showered, dressed and packed enough for a week, loading up the Cruiser. After I had tidied up the house I drove to my grandmothers’ house, my mother having rung her last night to warn her of my arrival.

When I arrived she welcomed me and showed me to the spare room to help me hang my clothes. She then told me that she had made an arrangement with some members of her group to meet for lunch and to spend the afternoon trying to figure out what had happened.

She said that she had only been told that I had gained more than expected but to wait until we were all together before I demonstrated anything.

Her group was an old fashioned coven with no thought of pandering to modern thinking so it was a hard-boiled group of women that I sat with after lunch. None had hugged me and I thought this was because they were afraid I may suck more out of them.

I was sat in front of six of the coven and asked to show what I could do. I started with materialising small items and they were impressed that someone so new could do this. I then moved on to mind reading and I sensed a level of discomfort in the group at this one.

We stopped for a drink and then I was asked if there was any more I could do. I materialised a plate of biscuits which everyone thought was a big move and then I materialised a television in the corner of the room already plugged into the wall and showing the afternoon show, which happened to be ‘Coronation Street’. This created a real sense of wonderment among the women.

I made the television disappear and then pulled a small doll out of my bag. I had bought it at a toy shop on the way over. I gave it to one of the women and told her to say hello to it.

When she did I animated the doll which said hello back and started squirming in her hands. She dropped it on the floor and the doll told her she was a clumsy bitch in a mechanical voice and walked off in a huff.

I de-animated her before she walked out of the door and my grandmother went over and picked her up, checking that it was a genuine store-bought doll and pulling the string in the back. The doll said Mamma in the mechanical voice. I was asked to go for a walk while they discussed me and I left the house and strolled around the block.

When I got back it had been decided that I would meet the rest of the coven in a full meeting and that we would have a group transfer to me in the hope that the combined knowledge and ethical sensibility would allow me to temper the powers I already had.

This happened the following evening in a glade in a nearby wood, a very atmospheric place. At the end of the evening I was almost full of magic but also full of the desire to keep it under control. No more animating inanimate objects.

I went home on Friday morning and was able to stay in the background on Friday evening at the meeting of my own coven. I sat next to Collette and I could sense that she was really happy I was here.

I could feel that a couple of the older members had sensed that I was different but did not know how to broach the subject during the meeting. Afterwards Wendy asked me if I had absorbed the knack of reading auras and I told her that it had changed for me in that I could now sense happiness or worry.

I told her who, in the group, was worried about what they had created in me. She agreed with the names I gave her and commented that I may have picked up more tricks along the way than I was letting on.

I told her I would show her a few when the time was right. She then told me that a previous member of the group, Donna, had not been known as Donner just because of her sparkling spells.

“Donna and her sister Bessie were both great witches and their aura was blue with yellow flashes. Yours was a light blue last week after we had created you; darker after we had hugged on Sunday. Now, your aura is very dark blue with vivid flashes which shows that you now possess a greater power than I have ever seen before. Like Donner and Blitzen, I will keep it secret as long as you want me to. Now, just show me one thing that you can do.”

I asked her to join me outside and to look at the driveway to the house. I materialised a motorcycle for her, made it start and then made it disappear. She gasped and said that this surely needed to be kept quiet as she had never seen something so large created out of nothing.

I gave he a hug and felt a little of my power pass to her and her eyes grew wide.

“I can read minds as well as auras!” she cried. ”It‘s a terrible thing to have. Please take it away.”

I held her hand and took it back. She gulped and said that she could never be able to control that sort of power and that I must be very careful in future.

At the end of the evening Collette asked me if I was available on Saturday evening to go and see a movie in Redhill. I said that I would love it. As I walked home with my mother and Suzette I told them that Wendy had told me my aura had darkened to deep blue with flashes.

“Oh my,” my mother gasped, “That is very interesting, Suzette has never been anything more than a light blue and she was born into the sisterhood.”

Suzette asked what this meant and my mother told her that I was growing to be a very powerful witch and had to work hard at controlling my powers. Suzette, ever the precocious one, demanded, “Show me, then.”

We had just turned into our own driveway and I quickly looked around to make sure we were not being watched and materialised a small dragon on the path in front of us.

As Suzette froze in place with her eyes wide and mouth open (as usual). I got it to incinerate a plastic gnome that I had never liked and then made it disappear.

The gnome was now a pool of melted plastic with a wisp of smoke rising from it. My mother and I caught Suzette as she passed out and carried her into the house to lay her on the settee.

My mother laughed. “I never liked that gnome but was too lazy to throw it out. That was even more amazing than anything else you have demonstrated. I gather that my mothers’ coven gave you their own combined magic.”

When Suzette came round we gave her a drink of water. I sat on one of the chairs and she looked at me in a mixture of wonderment and fear.

“Never let me have a dig at you ever again. It’s just too dangerous. How on earth do you control that power?”

I told her that it was a work in progress but could pass some to her if she wanted it.

My mother said that it may be an opportunity to see if I could, indeed, pass anything on. I knew I could but didn’t tell her that.

We stood in the centre of the room and I said, “If you feel it is too much, just break the hug.”

We came together in a group hug and I tried to filter what I passed over, keeping the ability for animation to myself but giving them a smaller dose of mind reading and manifestation powers. I knew I had other powers I had not even tested and kept them back as well.

When I felt that they had as much as they could control I broke the hug myself. They both stood there with looks of amazement on their faces.

My mother just said “Wow!” and Suzette told us that up to this point, she had considered the group as an interesting thing to play with but now realised that the playtime was well and truly over.

I sat them on the settee and made them practise their manifestation powers, starting with small items and moving into bigger ones. They both could materialise a portable television but my mothers’ wouldn’t work.

Suzette got excited about what she could now do and we stopped to have a hot, milky drink to calm everyone down. They could both easily read a concentrated thought and Suzette even had the power now to see auras.

My mother finally told us it was well over our time for bed and to get a good night in as we were going into London tomorrow to get me some more shoes and clothes.

It had been another big day and I wondered how much more strange my life could become.

Once we were all snuggled down I cast a small spell to the others to get them sleeping soundly and then dropped off myself.

Marianne Gregory © 2022

Chapter 3

Saturday morning we were all up bright and early and, after breakfast, we went off to the station in the little car. When we got there I could see why they used it as it was very easy to park. We caught the first train that arrived and travelled the forty minute trip into Victoria Station.

My mother told me, once we had walked to the Victoria Underground, that when I started at the Chelsea College of Arts I would need to take the Victoria Line to Pimlico and walk a couple of blocks.

We took the Circle line into the shopping part of the city and I spent a good couple of hours trying on shoes and boots. Suzette bought a few things herself. When we went to pay for them my mother brought out a debit card in my name.

“This card,” she told me, “Was taken out when your father was alive. It has several thousand pounds on it and I know that you will be very careful how you spend it. We did this as a legacy for you when you turned eighteen. I knew that you would need it if we recreated you before that time.”

I gave her a hug and used it to pay for my purchases.

We asked if we could leave the parcels at the shop for a little while and they put them behind the counter. We then went off to have a morning tea before browsing the dress shops.

I said that I had decided that I was now going to make my own clothes and intended to get my own equipment. We walked to the Macculloch and Wallis shop in Soho and I browsed the fabrics, choosing several bolt ends of good cotton and a couple of satin and rayon.

I picked a tailors dummy and arranged for it all to be delivered next Tuesday, paying with my new card. We then took the underground to Battersea and I was in seventh heaven at the Sewing Centre where I picked a good Janome with lots of features as well as an overlocker. Again, these were to be delivered on Tuesday.

We took the tube back into the city and had lunch before going to the shoe shop and picking up my bags. We then got back to Victoria and caught the next train back to Redhill.

I spent the afternoon re-arranging my workshop into a proper sewing room with space for the dummy. I then had a little bit of time working on a new outfit for Diana.

After tea I made myself beautiful and walked up the road to Collettes’ house. Janeen welcomed me in and told me that I looked really nice and that Collette was in her room trying to be beautiful as well.

She asked if we had an arrangement to meet a couple of boys and I told her that we didn’t, but who knows what may happen in Redhill on a Saturday evening.

When Collette came down she looked stunning and we both gave her mother a hug before going out to her car. As we were driving into Redhill we chatted about things and I told her about my day in the city.

We parked near the Harlequin Cinema and, as we got out of the car, she commented, “I think that we look good enough to score tonight.”

I said that it could wait until we had seen the film as we had all evening. We saw ‘Shining Through’ which was a lovely romance film and we were both trying hard not to smear our make-up while wiping our eyes.

When we left the cinema we walked to the Millionaires Night Club where we spent an hour dancing, both with each other and also with a couple of the local boys. They wanted us to go elsewhere with them but we said we needed to be home and left them after a new experience for me, a smooching session with a boy outside the club.

The boy I was kissing was called Jim and he seemed to know me as he called me by name when he and his mate, Tony, cut in on us while we were dancing. It seemed very easy to get into the kissing session.

Back in the car Collette said, “You know, having once been a boy I was interested in girls, even now, but I see the attraction in a nice fellow. That Tony is a nice guy; we used to hang about a bit at school.”

I said I had to agree but that I was too close to being male and I could not yet raise any enthusiasm for really wanting a man, especially for sex. I told her that for next Saturday I would arrange a room in London and try to get a couple of tickets for a show, staying overnight. We could leave after her Saturday work.

At my house we air-kissed and I got out, watching her go as far as her own driveway before I turned to walk up to our door. No-one was still up so I let myself in and went to my room, shedding my clothes and pleasuring myself for the first time as a woman.

It was so much better than my old days of masturbation and the wonderful thing was that I could dream about boys rather than girls, only now having the experience of kissing one to help me orgasm in a way I never could have considered possible.

I lay, panting, on my bed afterwards, a tissue held to my groin, and realised that I was surely the luckiest girl in town. I then thought that, towards my climax, I had remembered that I, as Amity in my previous, virtual, life, had actually had a relationship with Jim Steynes at High School.

My virtual schoolgirl had been with him, behind the bike shed, on more than one occasion and he had been the first to feel my breasts and I now recalled that he came in his pants once and I called him Jim Stains for a while after that. This was truly weird and I needed to ask my mother if my past had been planned or was just a product of the magic.

Sunday morning I took extra care in dressing, going for a slim skirt with my new boots and a pure woollen sweater. My mother asked me why I was dressed this way and I just said it was because I felt like it.

She asked if Suzette and I would like to go out for the day and we said it would be lovely. Suzette went up to her room to put better clothes on and my mother and I sat chatting until she came down. We got the Cruiser out and drove south to Brighton, where we visited the Aquarium before having fish and chips sitting on a bench by the sea.

It was a lovely day and we went on the pier and rode a couple of the rides, at least, my sister and I did. We tried to cram ourselves into a photo booth but had to end up having three sessions of two each.

When each strip came out we made sure we had at least one good one of each pairing. My mother looked at the ones I was in and told me that I was now the beauty of the family so Suzette had to be the brains. ‘Brains’ cemented the demarcation by sticking her tongue out at me.

We then had a walk in The Lanes before heading home. I found a little jeweller and bought a silver cross on a thin silver chain which I loved immediately and wore it after I had paid for it.

Suzette chose a pair of silver loop earrings and mother got herself a chain with her astrological sign as a pendant.

On the drive home I had a sudden thought. “I’ve just realised that I am a witch, sitting in a car with two other witches, and I am wearing a silver cross around my neck. Why am I not screaming with pain and having the shape burning my neck?”

My mother laughed and told me it was all about perception. “You saw the cross as a thing of beauty and not as symbol of Christianity. You don’t believe it has any powers so it doesn’t for you. Other may believe differently. Some of the old time witches were more devout than the priests of their day so were easily affected by a cross being brandished in front of them.”

At home we had a light tea and I went off to my workshop to work on my new outfit for Diana. I knew that I could probably materialise it but the joy of making things was too strong. I then realised that I could actually use both methods.

I materialised a complete set of clothes for Diana, starting with underwear and then shoes with the final item being a little black dress. I shifted the shape of the dress until it looked right and then I had something, in my mind, to work to.

I cut some black satin and quickly made the new dress as a shift. De-materialising the one on the figure I then animated her and got her to put her arms up so I could slip the new dress on, then getting her back into a pleasing pose before de-animating her again. That certainly made it easier to dress the figures, in the past I had to make everything as a wrap and sew it together on the body.

On Monday morning I had a look in the paper to see what shows were on and then rang around until I was able to get a couple of tickets for Saturday evening. I was able to get us into Blue Angel with the RSC at the Globe so it was sure to be an interesting experience. It had toured earlier in the year to good reviews.

I was able to get a twin room at the Best Western on Buckingham Palace Road so we were set for the weekend. We could go in and out by train and the Globe was a walk, not easy but doable.

I worked on Jayne in the same way I had with Diana so had her dressed by the end of the day. I made her the yellow dress with black edging that she wore in the movie ‘Will success spoil Rock Hunter?’

I would try to finish Stevie before the end of the week. I had not realised just how hard the outfit would be when I chose her to make. All those flounces and frills would have been impossible for Armand.

Tuesday the carrier brought both of my deliveries in one hit and I was able to set up the sewing machine where the old one used to be and the overlocker went on a side bench. The dummy went in the corner for later.

A long while ago I had bought an end of a bolt of off-white rayon with the idea that I would make figures of Diana Ross and the Supremes but it had not happened. I now thought that I would make myself a sheath for Saturday evening.

I just needed to pick up some good thread and a zipper. I did this over Wednesday and Thursday, taking the Cruiser into Redhill for the extra bits I needed.

Friday evening we had a meeting of about half the group and it was interesting to see how my position was changing. I was no longer the new kid on the block but was becoming one of the group and my comments were considered seriously. I started showing some of the smaller magical tricks for their entertainment and they realised that I was able to control my powers.

When we finished we made arrangements for Saturday. Collette would take her bag with her to work with Babs in the passenger seat to drive the car home and my mother would take me into Redhill in the afternoon.

Collette told me that Tony, the boy she had smooched with on Saturday night, had seen her in the salon when he had come in with his sister. He had asked her out to see a rock concert in London a week tomorrow.

Jim had got four tickets and wanted to know if I could go as well. She had his phone number so we could let him know. The kicker was that it went very late and we would all have to stay overnight.

“Well, this may be the chance to see what the other side really means as I may have the opportunity to try the real thing. Think about it and we can call them next week.”

When I was alone with my mother on Saturday morning I asked her about my virtual life and whether it had already been planned out. She told me that the memories that I had of before my creation were ordained by the magic around at the time and would be set to suit the memories of everyone who would have had contact with me.

This was a bit hard to get my head around. “So, if the previous Amity had had sex with a boy, he would remember it but I wouldn’t?”

“No,” she said, “With a relationship as strong as that you would have known it almost as soon as you woke up on the Sunday morning. Things like kisses or fondling could be forgotten anyway but sex is way too much to just forget. You haven’t remembered such an event, have you?”

I told her that I had met Jim last week and he was very familiar with me and that I had now remembered some hanky-panky behind the bike sheds but no actual sex.

I told her that Collette and I may spend the following Saturday night in London with Jim and Tony and she told me to be careful as I was, indeed, fully female now.

“Does that mean that I will have periods?”

She nodded and told me that I would probably be due for one this week. Oh joy!

That afternoon I was taken into Redhill and met up with Collette at the salon. When she finished work we picked up our bags and walked to the railway station. In London we walked to the hotel and checked in, going up to our room and hanging our clothes for tonight.

Collette was impressed by my off-white sheath and when I told her I had made it she asked if I could make her something for next weekend with the boys. I told her to imagine what she wanted and I got the picture of her desire fixed in my mind while she described it.

We stayed in our usual clothes and went to find a place to have a meal. After the meal we went back and changed into our evening wear. We ended up having to take a taxi to the Globe and I picked up our tickets that I had ordered. The show was good and very professionally acted, as you would expect, and we took a taxi back to the hotel.

We were tired so we put on our nighties, hugged and got into the beds, falling asleep almost immediately. The sun was shining when we woke on Sunday morning and I made a bee-line for the toilet and shower.

When I was in the shower she followed my lead and we showered together. It was strange but nice. We dressed in the skirts and tops we had bought to go home in and went down to the dining room for breakfast.

Once we had eaten, we were sitting there drinking our coffee when she said, “I know that this has been an interesting weekend for both of us. Once upon a time I would have given anything to have shared a room with you for the night but last night I was just so happy to be a girl and to be your friend, does this mean we’re normal girls?”

“It depends on what you call normal,” as I changed the salt pot into a penis and back again. “We are, after all, witches.”

She giggled and wondered if she would be able to work any magic on Tony to make him bigger and last longer when they were together next Saturday night.

“Do you think they will want to sleep with us?” she asked.

“You bet they will. If the concert is any good we may have to pay for it in kind, maybe twice. I do hope it is twice, or even three times, I think that I may feel generous on the night.”

“Ooohh, you wicked thing,” she laughed, “I’ll not be able to get through the week, again!” We packed our overnight bags and left them with the reception and I paid for our room.

We then went for a walk down to the river and along the Embankment as far as The Tower, which was crowded with tourists as usual.

“How about we take a London Bridge tour, I’ve never done that.”

So we went to the ticket office and bought tickets for the tour. While the look at the giant machinery was good, it was the walk across the top spans of the bridge that I found fantastic. The view up and down the river from a position that was so iconic was almost breathtaking.

We caught the tube from Tower Hill back to the hotel, picked up our bags and walked to Victoria Station to get a train home. While we were waiting Collette asked me if I was happy being the new me and I had to tell her that I was having a lot of fun as well as my horizons had been expanded to unknown limits.

She wanted to know what I meant by that so I told her that although Wendy had given me the power to read concentrated thoughts, as I had shown her before, I had since developed a sense of aura reading.

“Now, this can be very useful sometimes as there is a guy just up the platform who has a very black aura at the moment and keeps glancing at us. Keep a hold on your bags.”

As I said this I reached into my own bag to get my little tube of pepper spray that I had bought the week before. I hardly had time to grab it before the guy got up and came towards us at a run with his hand out to grab a bag or two.

He got a direct hit as he reached us and tripped over Collettes’ bag landing flat on the platform. Luckily, a guard had seen it all and had contacted the railway police who took the guy away.

The guard said that there had been a spate of bag snatches lately and they were all very happy to catch the crook. He commented on our very fast reaction times and thought that we must both be professional sportswomen. I thanked him for his help and told him we both played womens softball.

Back home we took a taxi back to Nutfield and he dropped us off outside Collettes’ house. After he had left I gave her a hug and an air- kiss and told her that I looked forward to our next week end with the boys. I said for her to walk to my house on Wednesday evening as I should have her weekend dress to try on.

As I picked up my bag to walk home, I had a sudden pang in my lower body. I found, when I was back in my room, that I had some blood in my panty. My mother had put some supplies in my drawer and I called on my memory of the previous life to do what I had to do. Looks like it will be a quiet week.

Marianne Gregory © 2022

Chapter 4

The week was, indeed, quiet as I went through the joy of my period. It didn’t stop me making the dress for Collette. She wanted something with a shirtwaist top and three-quarter sleeves.

The skirt was full to the knee and she could jazz it up with puff petticoats to look very fifties. I made a very similar one for myself as I thought it would be interesting if we appeared together that way.

When she came over on Wednesday she tried it on and it was a perfect fit as well as being exactly what she imagined.

She exclaimed, "How on earth did you know what I wanted, even though I described it I thought that it may only turn out to be close. Oh! Now I get it, you could see it in my mind.”

When I put my own on we went and stood next to each other looking at ourselves in the mirror.

She remarked, “I think we had better keep these for coming home in, if Tony and Jim see us in these we may not even get to the concert. By the way, Tony has told me that the concert is at Wembley Stadium so I suggest that we both wear jeans for the evening as it can get a bit messy with beer slopping around. They will meet us at Victoria when we get the train in as they are going up in the morning. They have got us rooms at the Saint Georges Hotel so it’s only a short walk to the tube station on one side and the stadium to the other. It looks like they are really serious about this. ”

Friday night at the meeting it was very low key. We chatted about various up-coming fairs that we could have a stall at with a display of Wiccan keepsakes and pretend potions. All designed to give the normal people a little push towards the dark side.

I suggested that we could put on a display of duelling dragons or maybe turn naughty little boys into sweet little girls for a gold coin. I was sternly rebuked by Janeen for being flippant. They did, however, agree to a demonstration of ‘magic’ tricks that would be OK for the general public.

Saturday I had my overnight bag with me as I went into Redhill with Collette. Hers was in the back as well. As I was in town early I just walked around as the shops opened.

A lot of people smiled and said hello. It was a very different atmosphere from the hubbub that developed later in the day. I stopped at a little café that catered for the early birds and had a raisin toast and coffee.

At ten I had an appointment to get my nails looked at and spent a happy hour being looked after. Seeing I was in jeans I thought that a light blue polish top and toe would look good. It would also go with the light blue of my dress tomorrow.

Collette and I had lunch together before going back to the salon. She had wangled an early finish and was ready to get her own treatment when mine was finished. By the time we left the shop we both looked ravishing.

Picking our bags out of her car she locked it carefully and we went to the station to get the train. Just under an hour later we were pulling into Victoria Station and we could see the boys waiting for us.

Collette said, “I’m getting to be a bit unsure about this. I like Tony but I don’t know yet whether I want to have sex with him.”

I told her just to follow her thoughts and, if she didn’t want to have sex, just tell him or at least give him a blow job.

“I’m certain that Jim is going to want to sleep with me as he was working his way up to it at school. The way he kissed me the other night has shown me that he is more than interested so I guess you’ll be in another room with Tony anyway.”

The boys greeted us with smiles and we both were on the receiving end of long kisses before they picked up our bags and we started walking to the tube station. When I looked at Collette she had her arm around Tonys’ waist and he had his across her shoulder.

She saw me look and gave me a nod. I think she is going through with it. Jim had his arm over my own shoulder and I snuggled against him as we walked, my free hand going to the back pocket of his jeans. We needed to get a train to Charing Cross to link with the one to Wembley and, when we arrived, we walked to the hotel.

In the hotel the boys each produced a key. Jim looked at me with such desire in his eyes when he asked, “Amity, will you sleep in my room tonight?”

I said yes and kissed him. Collette and Tony had already disappeared into his room, the little minx!! Jim opened the door and put my bag on the bed, turning to kiss me. I broke it off and told him that if I did not hang my dress for tomorrow it would be all wrinkled so he allowed me to unpack, blushing when I pulled out a very sexy black nightie and draping it over the bed.

I looked him straight in the eyes. “I hope I don’t need that tonight, I’m looking forward to finally meeting Mr Stains himself.”

He held me in his strong arms and kissed me with tongue and a passion that made me want to lift one leg like they do in the movies.

When we broke it off I whispered, “Enough, I think it is time we had an evening meal so we are in good time for the show.”

He put on a jacket while I redid my lipstick and I put a sweater over my arm for later. Back in the corridor he knocked on the other door and a voice called “Go down and get a table, we will be along soon.” I think the minx was already exploring her feminine self.

We found the dining room and they had a table reserved for the four of us. Jim got us both a drink while we waited for the others.

As we sat there he said, “Amity, you know that I had an enormous crush on you in High School. Those times we spent behind the bike sheds were the happiest I have ever been. Since the start of summer I have wondered why I was so depressed and when I saw you at the club I realised it was because I wasn’t seeing you every weekday. When we kissed that night I realised that my crush is now more and I think I am falling in love with the post-school woman you are.”

I took his hand and said that he was my first and still only love and that he was the only boy to feel my breasts and tonight I would be his to love as he may.

“I am not sure if I love you too but I do think of you a lot and we may be able to take this all further. Let’s see how we connect, tonight.”

The others arrived looking flushed and I winked at Collette who smiled and nodded. We had a good meal and walked to the Stadium for the show, and what a show it was.

The first half was Eric Clapton and his band. Now Eric had been in the charts a full ten years before I was born and was a living legend to every guitarist in the world. He opened with the old Cream number, White Room, and halfway through did a duet with Bonnie Raitt.

Now, she was an artist that I didn’t know much about, except that she had a hit last year with ‘Luck of the Draw’ but together they did a cover of Bo Diddlys’ ‘Before you accuse me’ and she showed what a great guitarist she was.

Standing up there with her flaming head of hair I knew who my next figure would be. The first half ended with ‘Layla’ and he did ‘Crossroads’ as an encore. It was a great show and we were really happy we came.

The second half was Elton John, a totally different kettle of fish if you just went by the recordings but Elton, on stage, was a different person altogether. He opened up with ‘Don’t let the sun go down on me’ and, halfway through the set, introduced Brian May from Queen and they did a version of Queens’ ‘The show must go on’ before finishing off the set with ‘Candle in the wind’.

For an encore he brought Brian and Eric onto the stage and they did ‘The bitch is back’. It was a fabulous concert and I thought that it was worth at least three times tonight, if not four, if he had the stamina.

Before we left, I joined Collette in the ladies toilet and she told me that she had enjoyed her time with Tony before tea and admitted that she had used a little magic to improve his length and staying power and he was very much full of how manly she made him. I told her to keep it up and we can swap stories tomorrow.

Back with the boys we walked back to the hotel, saying goodnight as we went into our rooms. Jim was a bit hesitant now we had reached that point so I told him we had all night so not to worry about anything.

I pulled off my boots and then my jeans, standing there in my top and panties I pulled him towards me and we kissed. He was now eager to help me get rid of the rest of my clothes but I told him he had to get rid of his first, which he did with abandon.

When we stood together and naked we kissed and I put my hand down to finally feel Mr Stains without any protection. Ooops, protection!

“Jim,” I whispered, “I have just finished my period and am very broody. If we don’t want any little Jims around next year, you are going to have to wear protection; I have a few in my bag. I hope I got enough.”

He stepped back and gestured me to get one, which I opened and held between my lips. Kneeling down I used my mouth to slide it on his, now rampant, member. He pushed me back onto the bed and knelt over me.

“Oh, Amity, my darling, this is a dream come true”

He brought his mouth to mine. My arms went about his neck and I lifted my loins to meet his. He tried to hold back but I knew that the first time we were going to couple like rabbits so it didn’t worry me when he plunged into me up to his balls with the first push.

I used just a little magic to hold him back and it was a good five minutes before we were both shuddering with our simultaneous climaxes. I had my legs wrapped around his bum and was pulling him into me as far as I could get him.

He was heavy on me but I didn’t mind. I ran my fingernails along his spine and told him that he was a wonderful lover and that I was so happy to have met Mr Stains at last. He just kept whispering that he loved me between kisses.

Eventually he started to wilt and we needed to separate without leaving a big wet spot so it was back to reality for a few moments. He went into the bathroom and flushed the condom away while I followed him in and wiped myself on some toilet paper.

Back in the bedroom I told him that he now had some recovery time and I put my nightie on. We got back into bed and pulled the cover over us, lying there with me laying my head on his shoulder and his hand playing with my breast. We spoke about us and what future we may have.

He was serious about wanting me for his wife but I was still a bit unsure and told him that we would need to wait until I had put some time in at the College. He had a job, already, working in a garage in London that sold high-end cars.

He said that Tony was working as a salesman in a mens outfitters so they both had steady jobs.

Then, out of the blue, he asked, “Amity, darling, if I am your first man, why were you no longer a virgin?”

I gave his penis a little stroke and told him that I made wooden figures and had used an offcut to make a very realistic dildo which had done the job.

“It may not have been the real you that took my virginity but it was certainly you in my thoughts that night. You actually feel better now than you did then; your technique that time was a little wooden.”

As I continued to stroke him he started to get interested again. I raised myself to kiss him while keeping up the gentle stimulation. When he was nice and hard again I reached for my bag to get another condom which I quickly took out of its packet and then started to slip it on him, again using my lips to roll it on, finishing with my hand.

I told him to lie still and straddled him. I slid him into me and reached up to take my nightie off again. His hands were naturally drawn to my breasts as they were now easier get to.

I rocked back and forth and he massaged my nipples which made me pant with pleasure. Bending forward I kissed him and he put his arms around me and held me close while I made small movements on his penis.

Finally he could take it no more and, keeping it in me, he rolled me on to my back and I locked my legs behind his buttocks. My nails were raking his back as we both came again. Once again I felt his weight on me and heard his panting in my ear.

When he had rolled off me to lie on his back I got out of bed and went to the toilet for some paper. I eased the condom off him and wrapped it, using the rest of the paper to wipe him dry. Back in the toilet I made sure I was clean and dry and flushed the rest down the bowl.

I went back into the bedroom and he was starting to snore. I put the nightie on and looked into my bag for the ear plugs I had bought this morning in case I needed them at the concert. I put them in and his snores faded to a dull rumble.

I got into bed and pulled the covers over us to lie there contemplating the speed that you can go from reality to romance and back again. I finally had enough it and used my magic to levitate him slightly and roll him ninety degrees so that he stopped snoring when I let him down again. At last I could get a good sleep.

For some reason I woke early. The sun was already peeking through the window so I got out of bed and went to the toilet. While in the bathroom I decided that I may as well have a shower so did so, finishing off with using the talcum powder supplied.

Back in the room I dressed in my underwear and added stay-up stockings. I put on my new dress, did a little make-up, put my shoes on and let myself out of the room, taking the key with me. He was still asleep and snuffling quietly.

Down in the dining room I saw Collette at a table when I walked in so joined her. I gave her a kiss on the cheek and wished her good morning and she said that it should be but she was not so sure any more.

When I asked her what her problem was she told me that most of last night was fantastic but Tony just couldn’t get more than three. She brightened up when I told her he was one up on Jim. We were finishing our breakfast when the boys walked in, looking like they had been pulled through a hedge.

We asked them what they had on the calendar for today and they said that, as they were so close already, they wanted to visit the RAF museum at Hendon. I looked at Collette and said that it was not something I wanted to do so I thought I could go back to Nutfield.

She agreed so we went up to our rooms and packed our bags, taking them back down, giving the boys the room keys, a peck on the cheek and thanking them for the concert. Before we left we told them that they really should have a shower before going out in public.

We strolled back to the tube station laughing and chatting. We agreed that a boy is nice but we didn’t think we could put up with one full time. Neither of us could remember being as gross as those two but I told Collette that I may go out with Jim a few times more to see when the novelty wore off.

She said that Tony may have a few more outings but we really needed a more sophisticated companion if it was to be a long term arrangement. I pointed out that Jim worked in a car showroom and may be helpful in getting me a cheap car that had been traded in, so he would not be a total loss.

We caught a tube train back into the city and then another to Victoria. The train home was restful, in a way, and we just sat and looked at the scenery going past.

As we approached Redhill Collette said quietly, “I can’t believe I lost my virginity yesterday. I don’t feel any different and certainly don’t feel any loss of my innocence. I always expected that it would make me feel alive and energised and, hopefully, in love. I just have no feelings about it one way or the other. Do you think I’m weird?”

I told her she was absolutely normal.

We got off the train and found the car, putting our bags in it. Collette said “I don’t feel like going home so early. It would look like my weekend was a failure. How about we go somewhere as we are both dressed so nicely?”

I agreed and we discussed where we could go. We decided that, as it was a nice day, Southend would be good. We got on to the M25 and crossed into Essex at Dartford and then took the A13 towards Southend. I could remember being taken there when I was small to see the illuminations but had not been since then. Collette had never been there.

We did all the tourist things, riding a few fairground attractions and even taking the train out to the end of the pier. Out there it was just further away from the land and, to my mind, just slightly more boring than the landward end.

Back in town we had a good late lunch followed by a walk in the shops and then got back in the car and went home. All in all it was a pleasant visit.

Marianne Gregory © 2022

Chapter 5

Back home I got my bag out of her car, gave her an air-kiss, and walked to my house. It was a lovely evening and I was feeling great. I let myself in and was greeted by my mother and Suzette who wanted to know how my weekend had gone.

I told them that I had been careful but had fun and that the concert was great. I didn’t think they needed to know any details. Back in my room I separated out the items for the laundry and put away the ones I had not used.

I then drew a bath for a long soak and a proper clean out of my sexual areas before drying myself and adding a little cream. I was a bit sore down there as well but it was, I think, understandable. In bed I lay and contemplated how I would act over the rest of the summer break. I thought that Jim would be good to get me a car but I determined that he was no longer going to have me in bed.

As it was now into July I needed to think seriously about my upcoming start at the Chelsea and wondered when they started orientation times. I would need to go into London a few times to get everything in place. Over the next week I took a good look at the papers that my mother had on the college.

I saw that I had a little time to spare as the term did not start until early September so I needed something to fill in my next two months. If I had been Armand still I would have gone up and down the road cutting lawns and weeding gardens but that is no job for a teenage girl.

I had the sudden thought that I could work in a dress shop and gain lots of experience with customers. I hauled our old typewriter out and wrote a resume which was half- truths surrounded by wishful thinking. I had used three pages of carbon paper so now had four copies.

On the Wednesday I went into Redhill and started my quest. The first two I called into were just not interested and the third took a copy of the resume and said they may call me. My fourth call was a shop in the Belfry that I had shopped in a couple of weeks ago.

Helen, the owner, remembered me as being discerning and told me that it was my lucky day. Her assistant had not turned up Monday and had her mother call the shop this morning to say that she was not coming back.

“She has been good but used to get into arguments with customers, telling them what she wanted to sell them rather than selling them what they wanted to buy.”

This was something that my powers would allow me to see exactly what the customers wanted. All I needed was to make sure I knew the stock.

She wanted to know when I could start.

“Why not now? If I can check out the stock today I could be able to work in the store tomorrow as well as the usual tidying up.”

So I was let loose in the store to pull out anything I wanted to look closer at and the last part of the day I was in the back room, looking at suppliers catalogues.

The next day I went into Redhill with Collette and was in the store before opening time to sweep up before tidying the racks. About ten we had two customers in at once so I took my first.

I asked her what she wanted and she told me she needed something for a wedding on the weekend. I asked her what sort of dress she wanted and she described the one in her mind.

I knew there were a couple in the shop that would suit so I told her to go to the changing rooms and I would bring her something to try. She had told me her size so I got the ones I knew would work and took them to her.

She was so happy with the look she ended up buying both. My first sale and Helen congratulated me. By the afternoon Helen was leaving most of the customers to me and spent much of her time checking stock and drinking tea.

I had one customer who was really a problem with what they wanted. It was a teenage girl with her mother and I could see that the mother wanted something demure while the girl wanted something off-the-wall while she described a dress that fell in between.

I ended up showing her a number of dresses, from the demure one her mother instantly liked to an outfit that wasn’t quite as racy as she wanted but did fit both their ideas.

As it was for a school dance I sided with the girl to tell her mother that it would be too embarrassing to turn up looking like her grannie. They took both with the demure one ‘for church’ so everyone ended up happy. Helen had been looking on and told me that I was a real find.

Collette came in while we were putting the try-outs back on racks and Helen greeted her with a peck on the cheek. She said that she had been told by the owner of the salon that Collette was one of her best workers and could see now why I was as good as I was.

After we locked the shop I went home with Collette and she told me that Tony had been in touch and wanted to have a foursome for the pictures Saturday evening but she had told him we were both busy at a dressmaking project.

She said that he would call her again and that I should expect a call from Jim. I said that we had better organise a project so they could see we were not lying. After lunch together on Friday we had a look in the drapery shop and she picked some material that we could make matching skirts out of.

When Helen saw the material she asked what I was going to do with it and she asked me if I would be interested in making special orders for her ‘special’ customers. When I asked why these were special she told me that she had a small group of men who would come in to buy dresses but it was always difficult to fit them properly.

I told her that we could do it if they would submit to a full measurement wearing the underwear as it would be no good to make something that fitted the male body and would then look stupid on their alter-ego.

She said she had the phone numbers of a couple of the men and would call them to see if they would come in, telling them that she could now supply their requirements.

She made a couple of calls and we had our first appointment for Saturday afternoon. We had quite a good Saturday morning and when the guy came in she introduced me to him.

He called himself Cathy and I took him out to the back room.

“Cathy, I know that doing this is a big thing for you and I want you to be as comfortable as you can be with this. Helen knows me as Amity but I was once, a lifetime ago, known as Armand but please forget that you know this.”

“I can fully understand what you want and am committed to help you be the best woman you can be.” I went out to the shop while he changed into his female self and went back in when he called me.

I took all of the measurements needed and then asked him to describe the dress he would like. Of course, I could see what he was after. For effect I had a drawing pad and sketched what I saw.

He was very happy with the design and I went out and got a couple of dresses that were close so we could finalise his idea. I then got him to change back into his male wear and I spoke to Helen about how I wanted to work things.

When he came out I got him to leave his bag with Helen and to join me in shopping for fabric. We went to the drapers and, with him pretending to be along for the ride, we looked at designs and materials, ending up with a few metres of a fabric that actually lightened his aura when he looked at it. He was afraid to even touch it in the shop.

Back at the boutique he paid a deposit and made an appointment to come back on Wednesday, just at the closing time. I told him to bring his full kit with him as he will be able to walk out looking good. I don’t think he really believed me.

Saturday evening Collette came around and we made our matching skirts. Well, they were matching in pattern but she ended with a pencil skirt and I made mine as a fuller drape. I asked her if she had she-males in the salon for make-overs and she said that it only happened now and then.

I told her that I may send a couple her way in future but to bring a make-up box over to the boutique when she finished Wednesday afternoon.

Sunday we went to church and I worked on my Stevie figure while starting a Bonnie Raitt one. I looked forward to working this week as I was having a lot of fun with it.

Wednesday Cathy came in carrying a small bag. He went into the back and Helen and I closed the shop once Collette arrived. When Cathy called that she was ready we all went to the back room.

I introduced Collette as his make-up artist and then showed him the dress I had made for him. He gasped when he saw it for the first time and Helen even had to sit down.

I thought that his choice of fabric was over the top but stunning. He carefully put it on and we then sat him down so that Collette could do her part. When Cathy had put the wig on it was a good looking girl that stood in front of the big mirror and admired herself. She had brought a pair of heels with her and the dress accentuated the bust line so that no-one could question her gender.

She paid her bill with a smile on her face and we left the shop to go to a café where we all sat and had a tea. Cathy was in seventh heaven in a group of girls as she always dreamed of.

She asked me, if she came in with material, whether I would make her some more dresses and skirts. Helen told her that we would be happy to but she was so good now she could come in and try on from the stock.

When she left us to go home it was one happy Cathy that walked tall with her heels clicking on the pavement. Helen turned to us and said that this could be the beginning of something big and we just had to see how it panned out. She gave Collette a twenty for her work and asked if she would be interested in doing some after-hours work if it happened.

Collette and I left her drinking another cup of tea and went home. On Thursday morning I got to the shop and Helen was a bit excited. She showed me some notes that she had made regarding costs and profits and told me that if we could work on a couple like Cathy in a week we could actually lift the profit margin by a considerable amount. I wondered if there was enough like Cathy to make it work but held my thoughts to myself.

During the morning I had to look after most of the customers as Helen was answering the phone and writing things on a notepad. I commented that she was pretty popular this morning and she told me that it us that was popular.

It seemed that Cathy had been so sure of herself that she had driven around to her like-minded friends to show off, even fooling their partners. All the calls were from men who wanted to be dressed by us and she had been making notes on what they wanted and getting their phone number so we could set up an appointment. She had told them that the work with Cathy was the first time we had done this and that we would have to organise things if we carried it on.

She asked me if I would be prepared to concentrate on the new project but she was a bit worried that the normal business would suffer without me. I told her that a friend had lost her job at the supermarket last week and I would bring her in to show what she could do.

Roberta, from the Group, had said on Friday that she had been a victim of downsizing and I knew that I could give her the power to do the job. Helen went off to the shopping centre office to see if she could do a deal on a bigger place as the centre was not fully leased and I looked after the shop, selling a couple of skirts while she was away.

She came back with some keys in her hand and we shut up, leaving a sign that we would be open again soon. Just a few doors from us there stood an empty shop which was about the same size in the retail section but had several rooms in the back. It had been designed as a medical centre which had never been leased out in five years.

It would be perfect to have a sewing room and a make-up / changing room while leaving room for our normal business. She told me that the management had been keen to let it and had offered it at the same rates as the present shop with a three year lease. They had even thrown in the changes to the signage and would cover the moving costs. It was a no-brainer and she had already signed up for it.

She said that she would buy a good sewing machine, cutting bench, dressmakers dummy and an overlocker if I was coming on board. I told her about my plans to go to Chelsea and she told me that she was sure that I would be able to make enough hours in the week to do this and that she would help me with my college projects.

I gave her a hug and we locked up to go back to the shop and open up again. As the shopping centre had a food court that was open after hours there was no problems should we need to have after hours appointments. Things were starting to look interesting.

When I met Collette to go home I asked her if we could detour to Robertas’ home. We knocked on the door and Patricia opened it. We asked to see Roberta and were invited inside. I explained to Roberta that there would be a full-time job available in the boutique at the Belfry and she was excited but unsure that she could sell dresses.

I got her to stand up and we hugged while I transferred enough of my power to let her see auras and have some insight into thoughts. I then got her to ask Patricia about the dress she would like to own.

“My word, I can see it!” Roberta exclaimed. I asked her if she would be able to find a dress that was similar if she had the stock to explore.

When she said that she thought she could I told her to meet me at the boutique at ten tomorrow and she would meet Helen and we would do a test. Next morning we got her to deal with a customer with me and she did very well.

As I was able to see the thoughts as well I could lead her to the right area of the stock and watched while she chose the one that I would have. Helen was very pleased and told her that she could start Monday morning.

Roberta gave us both a thankful hug when she left and Helen asked me how I did it. Well, I wasn’t going to tell her the truth, was I?

The rest of Friday was a whirlwind of customers wanting dresses. It seems that a wedding was taking place in Reigate for two TV personalities and, although it had been kept secret, the secret was now out and all the ladies in Redhill intended to be outside the church.

As there would be TV cameramen there, you just could not be seen in something dowdy. Between us we must have sold twenty outfits and Helen was beaming by the time we locked up. On Saturday morning we had a few stragglers for the big event and then it went very quiet.

We started planning the big move to the new shop and Helen gave me the keys and told me to go and work out the best use of the back rooms. On second look I saw that there were almost more rooms than we needed at present. As well as a small storage area for paperwork and office supplies, there was a kitchen and also both male and female toilets, both big enough for disabled use.

These were all right at the back and between these and the shop area we had two rooms each side, all with a small closed area with a sink. The retail area was a big rectangle with the door to the corridor in the middle so we would need to put the sales counter on one side and we could use one of the back rooms as a changing room.

There was enough space to put up three cubicles a side. The next room on that side could be for stock while the two rooms on the other side of the corridor could be for a special dressing room with shelving for more trans-appropriate items and a small make-up cubicle; the other would be the sewing and storage of customer fabrics.

I had a tape measure with me and sketched the layout with dimensions. Back in the boutique I measured the sales counter and discovered that it would fit the retail area nicely so it would just need moving. When the Centre closed on Saturday the management organised removal and erection of our signage while we rolled our racks from one shop to the other.

Sunday morning we were back again while the counter was moved and all of the electrics were wired up. It was just a matter of walking back and forth with bundles of clothes for the storage area and cleaning out the old shop of the tea making supplies. The last things to be moved were our shelving and the refrigerator and then the workmen took down our old changing booths and re-erected them where we indicated.

Monday morning the old shop now sported a sign which stated that we had moved with an arrow pointing the way. The new shop was slowly being forced into the shape we wanted for the browsing customer.

We only had a few during the day so it was easy going for the three of us, Roberta having started today full-time. It was a good time for her to discover our stock lines as she was hanging stock in the storage room and tidying up in the retail area.

The new kitchen was a great addition as it became a place of refuge after busy times. We had a shelf unit we could not fit into the retail area so we put it into the sewing room and arranged all of the supplier books on it for easy consultation.

On Tuesday I was told to go into London and get the items needed for the sewing room. At the Sewing Centre I ordered a bigger Janome, an overlocker, a dummy, cutting table, sewing table and a roller chair, paying by filling out a blank cheque that Helen had signed and putting the amount on the stub.

She had told me that, if it was going to work, we had better get the best equipment. They would deliver it all to the shop on Friday morning. I also got a bunch of pattern books so we could offer a personal service to our normal customers if desired. They told me I could order a pattern and it would be posted if we set up an account, so I gave all the details and signed as the responsible person.

Wednesday we had a carpenter in to fit-out the ‘special’ changing area with a large cubicle with a seat and plenty of hooks. He told us we would get the shelving we wanted in the following week as he would pre-assemble it in his workshop before bringing it in and assembling it in the room.

Helen had been on to the manager of the Viva about getting a small make-up area and the supplier had been in and measured the space, quoting a new unit with a proper mirror and a swivel seat that could be used with the sink already in the room. He did say that a proper hair dressing sink would be best so we had a plumber in on Thursday to do just that.

I had gone to see the manager of the drapery store to talk about zips, buttons and fabric and had set up an account with them, telling them that we could do alterations and would be able to make up clothing if they sent us a customer with a pattern and the fabric they wanted.

One of our customers from last week brought us in a photograph she had taken at the celebrity wedding in Reigate. It showed about a dozen ladies in our products lining the entrance to the church. We asked if we could borrow the negative so we could get an enlargement made to put in the window.

Thursday Roberta and I took care of the customers while Helen rang the contacts on her list. We would welcome four on Saturday and a couple more said they would come in near closing time during the week. We wanted to make sure that we only had one at a time in the shop. Friday we had the sewing equipment arrive and set it all up in the sewing room; we were almost ready to get under way.

Friday evening Roberta was full of her week at the shop and the others in the Group were quite supportive of what we planned to do. A list of potential replacements for the group was thought to be a handy bonus. I had not thought of it that way and was a bit amazed at their callousness.

Marianne Gregory (C) 2022

Chapter 6

Saturday morning Helen and Roberta looked after the shop while I welcomed our first customer to the new ‘Rebirthing Boutique’ as I was thinking of it. I took him through to the special changing area and got him to strip so I could do a full measurement, all the while chatting about what he was looking for and the look he wanted.

I had bought a pack of exercise books and wrote his femme name on the cover and listed all of the measurements on the first page. On the next page I sketched what I thought he wanted and he agreed that it fitted his imagined image.

I asked him if he had a corset or waist pincher and he said no so I asked if he wanted to try one when he came back and quoted him a cost. He agreed and we discussed what size we could get his waist down to. He agreed to come back the following Saturday morning and we went to the drapers to pick the material.

Over the course of the day I looked after the next three men in the same way. Monday morning I started cutting the four dresses and by Thursday I had them made up and hanging on a rack in the sewing room.

Our Monday and Tuesday visitors now had the fabric ready for me to start on their own dresses and I had been on to a supplier of corsets and waist controllers and ordered in a parcel of black and red ones.

They also sent me a catalogue of other ‘Trans’ products that they could supply. We could make quite a good profit if we sold these and it would allow our special customers to buy locally rather than having to go to London.

As they came back we got them dressed and Viva lent us Collette a half an hour for each make-up (as long as we paid her the same rate that she would have got). If they needed her we would have to do that part ourselves but, luckily, Roberta was pretty good.

As each one saw how good they looked I passed them over to Helen and Roberta to browse the stock and it was a real change for them to look at the dresses and skirts as a woman and able to feel the fabric, see how it looked on them and how they fitted with their new shape.

Helen was over the moon as most of them bought the dress we had made and usually took the waist controller as well as buying other items. It was turning out to be very lucrative.

I wondered that we would run out of this type of customer in a few weeks but, by the time I was ready to start my course, they were still coming in, even if at a, thankfully, slower rate. Now they were happy to be seen in our store they were coming back and buying off the rack, knowing that we could make alterations if needed.

By the end of August we had a steady group of about twenty to twenty five regulars and I knew that when some met another man in the store they became friends. They were becoming our friends as well.

On a few occasions Collette, Roberta and I had been asked to accompany small groups to a show as a girls’ night out and we all had a great time, sometimes getting hit on by groups of boys.

Collette and I had also been out with Jim and Tony a few times but it had not gone as far as bed again. I had, however, asked Jim to look out for a good car for us.

I now had my course timetable and it allowed me time at the shop to work with the special customers. We now had a good range of additional items they could buy, from stockings, corsets, padded bras and padded panties to a small range of make-up suitable for rougher skin.

Our front window now had a large picture of our wedding ladies with a banner saying ‘Belfry Boutique Belles’ and a smaller one of six of our special customers taken at one of our girls night out with ‘All these dresses made to order – enquire within’. I sometimes wondered which of the two groups were more pretty as our specials really did their best to look good.

The following week Jim called to say that a low mileage Audi had come into the showroom which had been traded on a newish BMW. I asked him if he could bring it around one evening so we could look at it. When he did my mother fell in love with it immediately and he left with the Cruiser so that his boss could put some numbers together.

He rang me the following day and gave me the bottom line which I thought was pretty reasonable. We discussed it as a family matter that evening and next day I rang him at work to tell him we would do the deal.

That evening he brought the Cruiser back so we could clean out our personal bits and pieces and to sign the paperwork. When he left with it we were now the owners of a lovely red Audi 80 Avant 2.6 litre.

Of course he wanted some reward for all his hard work and I spent the following weekend with him in a hotel in Bournemouth. It was fun, of sorts, but what he didn’t twig that his sudden onset of erectile dysfunction was down to me. Still, he was able to pleasure me with his tongue so considered that he was rewarded.

The shop was going strong and we had a steady stream of customers for special work. My main part of it now was to gauge the desires of our clients and do a sketch. Roberta was getting good at it as well but was not so hot on the drawing.

I would get her to imagine the outfit that the customer had imagined and draw it up myself if I had not been around for the initial contact. As I had started my course work we needed to employ a professional seamstress and we got an older woman called Kayla to work three days a week which kept us up to date with the orders.

Sunday I worked on projects for the college and went into the city Monday for a couple of tutorials. I was finding it much easier than some of the others in my group as I could see what the tutors wanted done as they were describing it and was getting very good marks for my projects.

I was very busy with my studies. One of the lecturers had taken me under her wing due to my advanced dressmaking skills and had given me the project of producing twenty outfits to be worn by my fellow students at an end-of-year fashion parade at the college. It would be judged as my term examination.

I was already well into the process and had spoken to the ten girls who would be the models and taken measurements. I had divined what they would like to wear and I knew that if a girl is wearing something they like, it will look much better on them. I also had promised that they could keep the outfits as the material was all supplied by the college.

As we got closer to Christmas we got very busy. We had advertised an evening dinner-dance for our customers and had booked a local hotel for the event.

I had to pitch in to help in the shop and also had the fashion parade to finalise. Luckily, one of the other students had musical experience and helped me put together the show. She suggested that, as we only had the twenty outfits to model, we needed something to fill some time in the middle so everyone could take their time changing.

I didn’t need to think twice before I suggested a mind-reading and magic act. The fashion show was on the first Wednesday of the month and I took the train into London. My lecturer, Judith Jericho, had gone all out to promote the event and had told me that we would be in one of the main lecture theatres that seated about a hundred.

We had a microphone set up on the edge of the lecture area and, at 11.30, Judith went to it and started the proceedings by welcoming the full house and explaining that the fashion show they would see was my term final and that I was a first term student.

She told them that every girl that walked out was dressed by me, even herself, as she stood resplendent in a creation that I had crafted for her. She told them that every woman felt good when they know they look good and announced that the show was just beginning.

My student pal started the tape and the first girl sashayed onto the platform. We had arranged it so that she would walk up and back, and when she walked up again she would move to the back of the area while the second girl came on. Of course, all the girls hammed it up and flirted outrageously with the audience, who lapped it up, seeing that most were fellow students. There was a bit of whistling but a lot of good humour.

Judith read from a prepared sheet until we had the first five lined up across the platform. They then walked off and the next five did their strut. I had made the first batch of dresses as afternoon to party wear and I must say they all looked good.

When the second five walked off Judith introduced me onto the stage. I had made myself an absolutely stunning evening gown and got a round of applause as I made my entrance.

I waved for quiet and told them that they were in for something different for ten minutes and then I performed a mix of mind-reading with conjuring. I picked out a few of the rowdier students to do the mind-reading with and their divinations brought some blushes from the subject with howls of laughter from the rest.

All too soon it was time for part two and I departed the platform to a huge round of applause. Then Judith took her place at the microphone again and took our audience through the next ten outfits.

This time all the girls were in evening dresses that they wore with great delight. All stayed on the platform when they finished the walk and, as the last one took her place, Judith introduced me again and I walked myself up and back to applause.

She picked out some of the others for their input as one girl had made all of our hats and another couple had contributed all of the jewellery. While I was standing there I looked out at the audience and suddenly realised that most of the staff from my areas of study were there and they all looked as if they had seen something they liked but there were a few that oddly looked a bit dour, with auras to match.

Judith told us all that lunch was on her and not to change as we would be gracing the staff dining room as she knew that several of the other staff would want to speak to us. The meal was a happy affair and I could see that there had been a certain change in status. Not only for me, and my fellow students, but also for our lecturer.

I was sitting next to her after yet another staff member came over to congratulate us all on the show and I mentioned to her that she seemed to have gained something this morning.

“Amity, I have been put down by some of the others since I started here. They didn’t like the fact that I come from a poor part of the country and had earned my place through sheer hard work, rather than coming from a great fashion house. They have just been subjected to a display of sheer magnificence from more than one of my students today and I am getting some of the reflected kudos. At the end of the show I could see some of the other lecturers looking miffed and you should not be surprised if you get offers to shift courses next term. I can’t stop you if you do go but I would be very happy if you stay with my classes.”

I told her that wild horses would not drag me away and she smiled.

After lunch we all went to change and I hugged all of my fellow students and thanked them for their help. The three that had contributed the hats and jewellery both thanked me as they had heard at lunch that their term results would be boosted by today.

They all thanked me for the outfits which were now safe in garment bags to take home. Back at Redhill I went to the shop before I went home.

In the shop I arranged my dress on a shop dummy and Helen had a sign which read ‘Want something really special for Christmas or New Year parties? Orders taken but numbers strictly limited.’

As I had finished college for the year, just needing to go in to get my results and course details for the January term, I would be available to make up any special orders. At the price we were charging it was thought we would only get three or four orders but had to close the order book before the end of the week with a dozen dresses ordered. This meant that we had just on two weeks to make them.

In the meantime, we had our evening with our customers to see to. It was a good evening, a great meal followed by dancing. On our table we had Helen and her husband, Roberta, Collette and Kayla, our part-time dressmaker; as well as Suzette and my mother.

There was a newspaper reporter and photographer invited and they had been told that it was to be expected that all of the ladies had been dressed by the shop. The turn-out was, to my eye, glittering and our ‘special’ customers did not look out of place at all. Some had their wives with them and most had bought from us during the year.

We had no speeches or other entertainment organised so it took me by surprise when the partner of one of our ‘specials’ stood up and tapped a glass for silence.

As the group quietened he said “Ladies and gentlemen, I am here tonight because of Helen and her shop. If it wasn’t for them I would never have met the true love of my life. It was their skill and expertise that allowed this magnificent woman beside me to burst forth from her camouflage and grace my days. I propose a toast to Helen and her great staff and I thank you from the bottom of my heart.”

When everyone stood up and raised their glasses to us we all blushed. Helen stood after that and thanked the guests for their custom and wished them all the compliments of the season.

The last couple of weeks up to Christmas became truly hectic with the special orders and a lot of sales from our more up-market range. I needed to go into the college to get my results for the term and was pleasantly surprised at how well I had done.

In my cubbyhole there were several envelopes which I put in my bag to read on the train home. One was a Christmas card from Judith and three were from other staff members offering to ‘fast-track’ my career if I moved to their classes.

A couple were from fellow students which I put aside to answer. The last was out of the blue, though, it was an invitation to see the owner of a fashion house in the city in the New Year, with a contact number to ring. It looked as if 1993 was going to be an interesting time.

On our last trading day we had a big party for the shoppers. It was drinks and nibbles all day and the management had put up a stage so that community groups could put on shows. They were interspersed with some carol singers to have an almost continuous performance going.

Unlike the supermarket and gift stores we only had a few last minute customers in the shop and spent much of our time having a good time. We were all in our best outfits and we had taken Helen over to see the girls at Viva where they worked their own magic on her as a gift for sending so many, well paying, customers to them.

It was a bit of a surprise when the Centre Manager came in and thanked us personally for our input into the success of the shops in the second half of the year. It seemed that most shops had shown an improvement of their turn-over since we moved into the bigger premises.

She pointed to the newspaper article and photos from the Saturday evening and said that it was this sort of thing that brought customers into the Centre, even if they were not here to buy a dress.

Christmas Eve the whole Group met at our church to exchange cards and little gifts and sing carols. It was my first Christmas as Amity and I really felt special. My schooling was doing well, the designing was helping out at the shop and the only thing that I now missed out on was someone to kiss under the mistletoe. Collette and I had been invited to a New Year party so there may well be a chance for me then.

The New Year party was at one of the local pubs and was a very boisterous affair. Most of the revellers were old school chums, my problem being that when I went to school with them I was a boy.

I did score a number of kisses under the mistletoe and a couple were very nice indeed. Actually, the best one was the previous captain of the hockey team and she even squeezed my breast.

We opened the shop on the first Monday after the New Year and there were a few canny women wanting to exchange their Christmas dresses or even getting a refund. We exchanged the best looked after ones for eighty percent of the purchase price and there was a bit of grumbling but mostly everyone went away happy.

Of those that were not able to be exchanged we pointed out the various tears and stains that proved that they had been worn. We offered these women a voucher for a twenty percent discount on their next purchase. None of our ‘special’ customers returned anything.

The New Year meant a new term for me and I went in and spoke to Judith about classes. She wanted me to fast-track my courses as she thought that I had plenty of potential.

The term would finish in April and she wanted me to put on another fashion show, this time featuring dresses inspired by Princess Dianna, who had just let it slip that she wanted to divorce the Prince.

I, personally, thought that she had very little genuine fashion sense and was only made glamorous by the efforts of some good designers, although some things she wore made her look as if she should have been on the top of the Christmas tree.

However, the project gave me a chance to go full-out on glam. She had roped in my earlier colleagues and there would be a real push in jewellery and accessories as it would give them a chance to gain good marks as well.

My time shrunk a bit more in the third week of January. I walked into the shop on Saturday morning and Helen was there with a tall, good looking, guy with wonderful skin.

He looked a lot like one of our ‘special’ customers but was a whole level above most of these. He introduced himself as Hector Livingstone and told me that he was the leader of a drag troupe. He asked if I would be interested in designing their outfits for the coming summer season.

I took him through to our special room and he marvelled at what wonders we kept in stock, here in the back blocks of Surrey. I showed him some drawings of the more glam dresses we had made and on a hunch I showed him the photos of the second half of my fashion show.

I then told him that I was to make some more gowns for this term with Princess Di as the inspiration. He said that there were eight in the troupe and they all had their own ideas but he did want to do something about a similar look, whether it was colours or styles didn’t matter.

I asked him to think about what he wanted and to describe his own gown and I quickly got the gist of what was wanted and drew it for him.

When I showed him my drawing he sat there for a few moments and then said “This is marvellous, if you could get the others right we will order four identical dresses for each of my troupe. When can you start?”

I told him to slow down a bit and send in his other friends over the next couple of Saturdays and I will see what each one wanted before putting together a picture of the total package. As I showed him out, I pointed out the photo taken of our ‘special’ ladies that was in our window.

I asked him if he thought that any of these were men and he ended up pointing to a couple that he said looked a bit mannish about the face. I laughed and he was staggered when I told him that every woman in the picture was like him. He looked very closely and declared that whatever we did, we did it well.

Over the next couple of weeks we had his troupe through the shop and had drawn what they imagined they would look good in. A couple thought that they would look fantastic in sequined minis but we managed to show them something better that would also fit in with the others.

In that period I rang the number I had been given at the fashion house and was given an appointment time in the first week of February.

Marianne Gregory © 2022

Chapter 7

The appointment at the fashion house was on a Wednesday morning so I made an appointment with Hector at his rehearsal rooms in the late afternoon and worked my butt off putting together a folio of drawings for him and the troupe to look at.

We had eight different guys, all built a bit differently but, thankfully all reasonably slim and about the same height. I had a basic shape but each had subtle differences to suit the individual characters.

I then had to reproduce them to give four sets in different colours that I had been able to deduce from the sessions with them. It would allow them to be all the same or to mix and match on stage. On top of that I was still working through the project with my classmates to come up with ten Dianna dresses that were sufficiently different enough to be individual at the parade but not so far over the top that a normal girl couldn’t wear it at a party.

On the day of the appointments I had a carry bag with the two sets of drawings as I was going to drop in to Chelsea and run my drawings past the lecturer before I worked on the fabric selection. I went up in an early train and at the right time I entered the fashion house lobby.

It was swish, to say the least. The receptionist could have just sat down from a parade on the catwalk. I had met some snappy men dressers among my ‘special’ customers but the few I saw in this room could grace a magazine, and probably did.

I gave my name and was asked to wait for a few moments. After about two minutes a door opened and an elderly gent came out and walked to me with his hand out to shake mine.

”Amity, Miss Asquith, so glad you could come and visit us. I am Jules and I saw some photographs from your little fashion parade at the Chelsea. Come along inside and we can chat.”

He took me through the door and down a corridor before leading me into his office. It had dummies with dresses in various state of creation, tables with drawings and, on the wall, some of his creations photographed at different shows.

He sat me on an easy chair next to a table with glasses and a couple of bottles that looked like soft drink and asked me if I would like a drink.

I said no so he sat opposite me.

“Amity, when I saw your creations I was amazed that you could come up with such beautiful clothes and still be in your first term. I have spoken to your lecturer and she assures me that you are, indeed, the creator of the dresses as her own was made by you from her description of something she would like to wear. Is that your portfolio in the bag? If it is I would love to see what you have designed.”

I looked at him, realising that this may not just be a quiet chat.

“Jules, I do have to say here that I am not a designer as you are. I do not sit at my drawing board and come up with creations on a whim. I design to suit a particular person as we talk about what they would like. As such, you could say I am a bespoke designer. My bag does contain drawings but they are for the next fashion parade at the Chelsea. There are also some I have drawn for a drag troupe who want new gowns for their summer season. The only clothes I have made from scratch are for me and what I want.”

“Interesting,” he mused, “Could I see these drawings?”

I pulled out the Dianna set and explained that the project was ten dresses in the style of her gowns. We looked through them as I told him what each girl wanted and he said “Very interesting, what about the others?”

I packed the first sheaf away and pulled out the larger pack, telling him that the brief was to design stage wear for eight guys that could be similar but show their individual style. The four sets were because they needed to be worn nearly every night for four months of the season.

When he had finished and I was putting them back in my bag, he smiled.

“Now, let me get this right. I could not say to you ‘Give me my summer range’ but if I sat you down with a particular customer you would create something individual for her just from a discussion?”

“In a nutshell,” I said, “That’s about what I do. I have never even thought about creating something new unless I knew the person who would be wearing it.”

“Would you be able to show me how it works if I present you to a customer as a trainee designer?”

I said I could try and he pressed a button on his intercom and asked “Julia, dear, has Lady Appleby come in yet?”

The girl told him that she had arrived and was waiting for him in the studio.

“Come,” he said, “Just bring your sketch-book, there are plenty of coloured pencils in the studio.”

We left the room to go through another door and into a large, light-filled room where an elegant lady was looking at some pictures on the wall. She was dressed well but I could see that it really wasn’t ‘her’.

Jules went up to her, saying, “Lady Appleby, so nice of you to visit us again” as he air kissed her.

He then turned to me and said, “May I present Amity, a possible new addition to our little band. I have asked her if she could talk to you and design something for you that you may want us to make. I will ask you both to sit and, if you don’t mind, I will stay out of the conversation.”

Lady Appleby looked at me with a sense of amazement, “What could a teenage girl know of high fashion and what I could possibly want to wear?”

I cast a very minor truth spell at her ,“Lady Appleby, if you could just humour me for a moment. Where did you get what you are wearing now?”

She said it came from here, of course.

I took a deep breath and asked, “Do you like it?”

She glanced at Jules, who was looking a bit askance .“Not really, but it has the Jules label and that’s all I need to know.”

“Could we please sit and I will design something that Jules can make that you will love to wear.”

“That’ll be a first,” she huffed but sat.

My first question was what event she was buying for and she told me it was a dinner with an ambassador.

I asked her to think about the dress that she had worn that gave her greatest pleasure and she thought about something that she had worn as a teenager. I asked her to describe it and opened my sketch-book, taking a pencil from the table and started to draw, keeping it out of sight of both her and Jules.

I also asked her about dresses she had seen that took her fancy and made variations to my sketch as we spoke. After ten minutes I took the truth spell away and showed them my sketch.

Her eyes widened, “Oh, my God, that is glorious, just the thing for that dinner, what colour would you think would work?”

Her aura was shimmering in a pale red and I said “An apricot or maybe a little darker, perhaps with a slight sheen.”

Jules had got his senses back by now and looked at the drawing, considering the manufacturing and asked, “Would you buy one if we made it, Lady Appleby?”

“In a heartbeat,” she said, “and I have a few other occasions in mind where I could wear it if you made a few in a different colour.”

She stood and gave me a hug, saying, “Brilliant, you are so brilliant; you can get the girl out front to give me a call when I am needed for a fitting.”

With that she swept out of the room, leaving a gobsmacked Jules standing there with my sketch-book in his hand.

“What am I missing?” he asked.

“You design for designing sake,” I said, “If you look critically at the photos around this wall you will see that about half of them do not really look as if the woman wants to be in the dress. They are only wearing it because of the label. You only have to look at the pictures taken at awards, especially in America, to see that it is the designer with a single minded arrogance, not a melding of the dress to the person.”

“No-one has told me they didn’t like my designs before”.

He looked almost like he was about to cry so I told him he was famous and a lot of his designs worked for a lot of people but had had sometimes let his own ego push the envelope too far.

“I work with a dress shop,” I said, “And we are there to be an answer to our customers’ wants within the range of their purse, not to shovel something down their throats and act as if we had decided it was for their own good. Sometimes you just see the opportunity to have one of your designs in the public view and, at the time, it doesn’t matter to you who is wearing it and why. All I did today was to find out what the lady liked and when a woman is wearing something they like, it adds to the beauty of the dress.”

He looked at my drawing again. “Come with me.”

We went towards the rear of the building and walked into the dressmaking room. He showed the sketch to one of the women and asked her how long it would take and she said it would not be long as it was a very easy one to make up.

She then said, “This is beautiful, I could see that on Lady Appleby.” He asked why her in particular and she told him that she didn’t really know but it was just the design that the Lady would look good in.

He turned to me. “Amity, what you have done here is amazing. I want to take you back to the office and talk some more, but right now I will offer you two hundred pounds for this page as is”.

I smiled and told him he had a deal so he tore the page out and gave it to his seamstress, saying “You have Lady Applebys’ sizes on file, she wants at least one.”

“What colour?” she asked, and he looked at me.

“An apricot or slightly darker, with a slight sheen,” I said, “And maybe another couple in a pale turquoise and a very light green; I also think that she would love one in midnight blue velvet if you add some fur trim to the hem and collar.”

These had all been pictures in her mind and I know it was taking a punt but I needed to see if Jules wanted me in or not. We left to go back to his office where I put my sketch-book back in my bag. He got back on his intercom and asked the receptionist to have a cheque made out to cash for me when I left.

We sat back down, “If what you have done today works out, I want you as part of my team. I am happy to pay you a retainer if you can work your magic with my upper echelon customers only. I will pay you for each drawing you produce and I will create a new label that only the best people will be able to buy and it will be ‘The Amity Range, by Jules’. What do you say?”

I told him that if it happened that way, I would only see his customers by appointment as I needed to work through my schooling, to at least get a qualification. I also had my work in Redhill to consider.

He looked at me, “You would stay down there rather than come here and live the high life?”

“Why not, it’s my home and there are people there who depend on me, friends who I am not willing to walk out on. If you want me to create designs for you and the upper crust, then it has to be on my terms or not at all. Let’s just wait to see what the good Lady does before we talk more. Oh, and the name on the label should be Asquith Design from the House of Jules.”

“I like it, it has class.” He said and stood. “Please give all your contact details to the receptionist on the way out. I do think I shall be in touch. Now, I think I may have to go and sit in a dark room and contemplate all I have been told today. I never thought that my customers would not like my creations.”

I picked up my cheque on the way out, leaving all of my contact details including home, shop and the Chelsea. Their bank was only a few doors up so I went along and cashed the cheque in, putting my two hundred pounds in my purse. That would get me quite a bit of material for my own outfits this year.

At the Chelsea I went and saw Judith telling her about my ‘interview’ this morning. She told me that I had been underpaid for my drawing and should treble the amount for any more as Jules sold his dresses at around fifteen hundred to two thousand pounds each.

I checked my next attendance requirements and then went to the school café to get some lunch. A few of my fellow class mates were already there so I joined them and talked about the fashion show.

I showed them the picture of the dress I was designing for myself and said that I would pay for any jewellery and accessories that were made to suit it. The girls huddled together and came up with a figure of fifty pounds, which I gave them to seal the deal. Now I knew I would get something a bit special.

In the afternoon I went to my favourite fabric shop and bought some material, mainly end of bolts, and spent another hundred pounds, including delivery to the shop. I then went to the rehearsal rooms and met up with Henry and his merry band of men.

I had come to the conclusion, while talking to each of them, that Henry was the showman and decidedly male but the seven others were doing it for the chance to wear the clothing. When I showed them the pictures my hunch was proved right.

Henry said that the designs made them look like women and the rest agreed wholeheartedly. His problem was that he considered himself to be a drag artist and the others just wanted to be normal women.

I pointed out that he, as the ringmaster, so to speak, could look over the top but the others all wanted to appear as genuine women and this would add to the act. It would earn them respect when they did their miming to songs because when the audience started to think that it was truly them singing, the act would be a success.

In the end he was outnumbered and they ordered the eight outfits in the four different colours and we agreed on a price. We now had thirty two outfits to make before the season started.

On the way home I sat on the train and thought about the day I had just had. It had been a bit different but, overall, very successful. The next day I dropped the designs for the troupe with a note on the agreed price into the shop on my way to the station again for a day at the Chelsea hunched over a sewing machine once I had raided the materials store.

My next couple of weeks followed the same way and I was nearly ready for the fittings with my class mates. I must say that my other classes were giving me an appreciation of the history of design, as well as a wider knowledge of fabrics and the way they fell with different angles of cut. It was all, actually, very much based on physics; something I had been quite good at when in school as Armand.

The other thing that was improving was my drawing skill. I was getting faster at putting the ideas on paper and my new-found knowledge of fabric allowed me to depict the designs in a much more realistic way. I was sitting in the café one lunch-time and was idly reworking some of my Dianna drawings when Judith sat down opposite me after looking at the drawing.

“You know,” she started, “You are, by far, one of the most talented students I have had. Looking at the drawing, there, I have the feeling that you could go far as an artist. Hell, I would probably buy your first effort.”

I said that I had never thought about drawing other things and then asked her if she could think of a subject that she would like a picture of and describe it for me. I found out that she had a love of horses and she spoke about a couple she owned.

I allowed my hand to move as it wanted and found that my new knowledge of fabric also translated into an appreciation of skin and hide. When I finished I looked closely at what I had drawn and was pleasantly surprised at the picture that had resulted.

If I was happy with it, she was absolutely in love with it as soon as she saw it. She let out a shriek that made the whole room turn in our direction. I signed it AA and tore the page out of my book and gave it to her, saying, “You don’t have to buy my first picture, I shall give it to you.”

Over the next weeks I finalised my designs for the fashion show and had nearly finished the dresses for the ten of us, two from last term having dropped out. The event already had fliers pinned on the notice boards and Judith told me that she had to book the biggest lecture theatre in the college.

At the shop we were working on our spring and summer collection and we had a string of customers coming in to order dresses. I was not really needed very much as Roberta was getting much better at picturing the requirements and her drawing skills were improving as well. When she ran into difficulty she would just picture the dress in her mind and I would take it and sketch it for her, which didn’t take very long.

Actually, we didn’t have to make as many special orders as we used to, as our customers were getting much happier taking stock items and Helen had started to steer her purchases towards the sort of styles that we knew would move.

Kayla had worked hard at the bulk order and, by the end of March, they were ready to deliver. We hired a van with racks and loaded them up to take to the rehearsal rooms. When Helen and I delivered them it was a success, with the troupe going off and putting their dresses on, doing their make-up and giving us a show.

They were very good and even Hector actually looked more feminine, even if he didn’t want to. All of the others made appointments with Helen to come down to Redhill and get a basic wardrobe made as they all had decided to see if they could live the life as well as going on the stage en-femme.

Early April we had the fashion show and it was a success. Judith did the commentary in a glittering creation of silk, lace and taffeta that almost reflected the spotlight back on the audience. My eight class-mates all looked magnificent and I was no slouch, either.

It was again a pre-lunch show and we all gathered in the café in our fine gowns for a meal. Again we had a range of nice comments from the other students and staff. A week later I had a phone call from Jules, who said “I have been sent the pictures from your latest show; can you come in and see me tomorrow?”

The next day I was back on the train and fronted up to the fashion house on time. This time the receptionist smiled broadly when I walked in and she spoke into her intercom.

“Jules will be right out, Amity” she said and he was, almost immediately. This of course led me to think that they had me here because they needed something. Looking at his aura I could see that Jules was anxious about something and I was sure that I would find out very soon. He took me into his office and I immediately saw two new photos on his wall.

Stepping closer I saw that one was a magazine clipping, in colour, of Lady Appleby in her original Asquith Design dress, looking radiant and very happy. The other showed her in the black velvet at a ball, standing next to a film star. The dressmaker had done a great job in adding the fur trim I had suggested and, once again, the Lady looked pleased with herself.

A voice behind me said “You, young Amity, have not just opened a can of worms; I think you blew the top right off.”

He ushered me over to the easy chairs and I accepted a soft drink this time.

“Right, I will come clean and we can have a rational discussion,” he said, “As you can see from the pictures we sold the good Lady all four of the dresses you designed and I have to admit we did charge a premium which she happily paid once she saw herself in them. As such I am going to give you another cheque for six hundred pounds, seeing as you did give me four designs. My immediate problem is that I do not have your signature on a contract and we have Lady Appleby coming in to have you design another dress for her, no, make that three.”

I stayed quiet and he then carried on. ”On top of this, she managed to convince a friend of hers, who has never bought one of my designs before, to contact us about having a range of about five dresses made for different functions in the early summer. The lady is a Baroness and is seen at everything that remotely looks like a social occasion. If I win her I can start getting more highly paying customers. She wants my designer to visit her at her stately home in Wiltshire tomorrow.”

“I have to plead with you now. If we put you on a retainer of, say, a hundred pounds a week and pay you three hundred per design, would you sign on?”

I thought about it for a few moments and then asked “Was the dressmaker for the first dresses the one that we spoke to in the sewing room?”

He said that it wasn’t but was May, a talented seamstress who had joined them a couple of years ago.

“OK, I will sign on but I have one condition other than those I stated earlier. I want you to allocate May to all the orders we get as she made those dresses perfectly to my design but her additions in trim were brilliant. I want her to be with me when I talk to any future customer to guide me in any production problems I might be designing in.”

His aura had brightened considerably and we spent the time before the arrival of the good Lady in sorting out a contract I was happy to sign as well as getting May to join us in the studio.

When I left here today I was going to have to have a word with my lecturer as my spare time was being eroded, fast.

Marianne Gregory © 2022

Chapter 8

When Lady Appleby came in she came over to me and enveloped me in a big hug.

“Those dresses were absolutely ideal. It’s been a couple of years since I got my picture in the magazines and here I am with two inside a few weeks.”

I thanked her and introduced May, the dressmaker and part of any future projects.

Jules left us to it and we sat in some easy chairs. I asked the Lady what she was after this time and she told me that she had been sent tickets to the Broadway opening of ‘Tommy’ towards the end of the month. This only gave us a week to make and deliver a dress.

She intended to wear the turquoise dress we had supplied for the party on arrival but needed something for the show and after party. Her mind was a whirlpool of dresses and I slowed her up by asking, “Do you want to be elegant and fit in, or do you want to stand out and get photographed?”

That slowed her down and she thought a bit. “Of course I want to be photographed, I don’t want to be considered such a has-been that no-one wants a picture of me.”

“OK” I said as I opened my sketch-book and grabbed a handful of coloured pencils. “What do you think the other women will be wearing?”

She laughed “All in totally impossible dresses that need to be glued to the body or else hardly there at all. They are so predictable.”

“Tommy is set in the sixties and is a show about a mod who really is some kind of god. Did you have any involvement in the era?”

“Oh, yes” she smiled “I was in high school and mummy and daddy would often be in London and I spent many a weekend here. It was a lovely time.”

Her aura was turning a pleasant blue and I got flashes of her in various outfits.

“Did you have a favourite dress or even a favourite designer?” I asked. Bingo! A picture of her in a Mary Quant mini-skirt suit instantly appeared in her mind.

“Mary Quant,” she said, and started to describe the outfit I had seen.

I started sketching while May looked over my shoulder. I said “I don’t think that your status would allow you to appear in a mini these days, so how about we go with something similar but with a longer line and a more tailored jacket.”

I heard May take a quick breath as I was drawing. "Oh, wow!” she whispered, “the one you describe was red, wasn’t it?”

Lady A agreed and I said, “What about we do you something in a light blue with a similar design but a longer skirt and without the bolero jacket style.” I had the light blue pencil and quickly filled in the colour.

I added a few embellishments to the design and as I finished I could feel Mays’ hand on my shoulder. I showed the picture to her ladyship and she beamed.

“That would take a couple of years off my age, show me to be hip but elegant at the same time. I love it,” she said as her eyes took in the whole design.

I asked May if there would be any difficulty making it and she said it was straight forward with just the fabric choice needed. Lady A looked at us and said "At that time I always adored boucle.”

So there we were ten to fifteen minutes and I had earned some money. I told May to double check with Lady Appleby about trim so they could co-ordinate with her jewellery, tore off the page and gave it to her, saying, “It’s your baby now,” and went off to find Jules.

I found him in his office and he gave me the extra money made out to me on the cheque. I told him that I would open a bank account and give him the details so that any money I earn from him could be paid into it.

He thanked me for my input and I told him that May was running with it now but I still wanted her with me when we visited the Baroness tomorrow as she wouldn’t have the material required for a couple of days.

He said that he would send May in a car and the driver would pick me up at my home and drop me off on the way back. That’s my day sorted.

When I left I found a branch of my bank and used the cheque to open a new account under the name of Asquith Designs. They said they would send the paperwork to my home.

I then went into the city where I found the building where the fashion magazine was situated. Going in I asked for a form to take out a subscription and then asked where I should go to order photos. After filling out the form and paying my money I went to the counter where they took orders for pictures.

They found me the two with Lady Appleby and I ordered them in eight by ten and gave them the address they could send them to. I knew that if things carried on like this, I would need a record of my designs.

I then went and had lunch before going to the Chelsea to see Judith and, maybe, get my term results. When I got to her office her aura changed to a very dark blue when she saw me.

“Oh, Oh,” I thought.

“Come in, Amity, and close the door behind you. There are things we need to talk about.” I went and sat in front of her desk, worried that I may have overstepped some mark or another.

However, she smiled and said “I will firstly tell you that you have passed all of the courses for this term, the results will be posted tomorrow but I have seen the list.”

I thanked her for that information and waited for the ‘but’. She then pointed to the picture of her horses that I had drawn for her which had been framed and hung on her office wall.

“I look at that picture every day and smile,” she said, “However, there are some things about it that throw up questions that have been in the back of my mind for some weeks now. You have put details of markings on my horses that are exactly right and there is no way I could have described them to you to the inch. I must conclude, although it seems crazy, that you can read minds. Am I right?”

Busted!!!! I nodded my head. “Only pictures, I cannot actually see things that are not projected to the front of your thinking. I can also read auras and yours started as dark blue, meaning angry, to a lighter blue which means that you have the answers you need.”

She stood up and came around to me and bent to hug me. “You poor girl,” she said quietly, “Fancy going through life seeing all the colours all the time.”

I told her it sometimes helped and related the railway station incident.

“Seeing that you have this ability I can expect you to ace my design courses while you are here. With that in mind I will just need you to take the written exams and submit proof of outside work as well as organising a fashion show for me at the end of each term.”

I told her about the work that I was doing with Jules and she said that if I could produce pictures of my designs that have appeared in magazines she would be happy to give me a pass.

I asked her about getting copyright to my name and she wrote down the ones I gave her, Amity Creations and Asquith Designs, crossing my fingers that Jules had not submitted the second himself.

She told me that there were people in the school who handled such things as it came up regularly and that they will send me the paperwork when it has gone through.

“The head of the Art Department was in here the other day and asked who did the picture. When I told him it was my brightest student he insisted that you add the Arts to your studies and I can see you graduating with a double. Can you fit that in? Here are his course times for you to look at over the break.”

On the train home I had to sit and arrange my thoughts. I was now an employee of the Jules House of Fashion for special projects and with a regular wage. I also was certain that I would pass Design and just needed to work on my other courses to graduate.

On top of that I was expected to take on an Arts course. Thinking about that I started to think about subjects that I could draw and realised that, if I put my mind to it, I could come up with lots of pictures. One thing that the Arts course would give me would be experience in methods other than coloured pencil sketching.

I looked at the paperwork she had given me and saw that the Arts course also included model making. It would be fun to have one of mine walk into class and wave at the lecturer!

The next day I waited at home and when the driver tooted I went out to the car. I asked the driver, “If you can just wait a moment, I want to show May something and I am sure she needs to freshen up before we carry on.”

I led May into the house and I could see that she was anxious. “Right” I said “Toilet first and then we have a quick talk before we go back out.”

I think that I may have scared her a bit as she did need the toilet stop and when she came out of the powder room I said, “Yesterday you could see what I was seeing because the outfit she was describing was red but she had not told us that. Can you read minds?”

“A bit” she stammered “but not things you don’t want me to see and it is a bit blurred.”

“May, I am sure that there is magic in your family and we can discuss it in the car. Firstly, though, I am going to hug you and, when I do, you may find that your second sight is much clearer. I’ll answer your questions another time but we do need to make this work.”

She nodded and I hugged her to pass her some of the better powers of mind reading. When we parted her eyes were wide. “You gave me something but I don’t know how you did it!”

I said that we can talk it through but we needed to get to the car and get going. The Baroness would not be happy if we were late.

In the car we spoke about what the Baroness may like and we discussed the Lady Appleby and the light blue boucle suit. We agreed that it must have a silk blouse that would go with it and decided it must be white.

There also had to be a hint of red somewhere in the trim. After all, it was a show that was fundamentally part of British history.

I asked her surname was and it was just Smith, so I delved deeper into her family history and found out that her grandmother had been an illegitimate child of a maidservant and a chap called Crawley who was a famous author.

“Not just an author,” I said, “But one of the most notorious warlocks of the age. He actually lived in Redhill for a few years as a young boy but came into notoriety calling himself ‘666, the great Satan’. His name was Aleister and bedded many women by the use of what he called ‘sexual magic’. It was actually a simple spell and he used it often. That’s where your powers came from and it passes through the female line.”

“Will I have other powers I haven’t discovered?” she asked and I told her that she didn’t as far as I could tell, other than the one where she sees auras.

“You can tell that?” she whispered “I never told anyone as it is way too weird and I never wanted to be laughed at.”

I told her that it was a good one to have and to practise with it to see what peoples’ intentions were. I described the station incident as an example.

I am sure that the driver wondered what we were chatting about but it was a car with a partition between us and him so he couldn’t hear us if we kept our voices low. When we arrived at the stately home in Wiltshire he pulled up at the door just on our allotted time and we got out to be greeted by a maid who took us to see the Baroness in a sunroom.

She was, as to be expected, quite the elegant and well-bred lady but also a lot younger than I had expected. She ordered the maid to bring tea and then we sat to get down to business.

She needed several dresses. The first being for a ball in honour of a visiting royal from Europe and pretty easy to take her vision of a standard ball-gown and turn it into a drawing.

May helped me by adding comments about trim as I sketched. When we showed the result the Baroness approved it straight away.

Then there were dresses for an opening night at the opera, another for a royal garden party ‘because we always get invited to those’ and a couple to have as stand-by for other occasions that were still in the planning stage. She then said that she would need us to come up with some others for the second part of the season, as long as the first part was successful.

We worked through her ideas with the two of us visualising her desires. She looked at the final drawings and told us that we were brilliant and to just contact her about any fitting session. May asked if she could take measurements as we had none on file so I sat and noted the sizes as May called them out.

She gave us a light lunch and then called the maid to find our driver as we were leaving. May had the drawings, now with her notes added, and the measurements so the ball was back in her court again.

Back in the car she said, “That was fun, I wonder how many times we will be asked to do that?”

On the way back to my house we looked at each drawing and did some slight alterations to make the dress fit or hang better. I asked her if she went from Redhill on a train she could get home all right and she said it was easy so I asked her to stay for tea.

At my house we dismissed the driver who was happy to get an early finish to the day hire. We went in and I got us some drinks and showed her my sewing room. She loved the models and commented on the life-like dresses on the female ones. I told her that the men were all done a while ago and my skills had improved since then.

I started preparing tea for four so that when my mother and Suzette got home we could sit and eat. May asked me about my own magic and I told her that my family was quite strong.

She would find that out for herself when the others got home. Feeling a little naughty, I put four candles on the dining room table and lit them by magic for her and she had a laugh at that.

When my mother walked in she stopped short. “Well, just who have we here and why are the two of you so happy?”

I introduced May as a seamstress from the House of Jules and that she was my assistant for special projects for him.

We showed her the drawings from today and she exclaimed, “The two of you had lunch with a Baroness?”

May laughed and said we had spent time yesterday with Lady Appleby. I told my mother that I would explain the fine detail later but what we needed to do now was to find out what powers May had.

My mother put all the candles out with a sweep of her hand and said to May, “Use your mind, light one.”

She looked oddly at us and then sat with her eyes shut and concentrated. Suddenly one candle spluttered into life. She had a look of such wonder on her face when she opened her eyes and saw the flame.

My mother said, “Go ahead, light the others but keep your eyes open this time.” May stared at the others in turn and, one by one, they lit.

She did a fist pump and said, “Yes,yes,yes!”

We sat chatting for a while and then May turned to Suzette. “You get on so well with your sister, I am sure that, like all families, you would have had some falling out.”

Suzette laughed. “Not any more, not since she spooked me with her dragon.”
.
“Dragon? Where do you house a dragon in Surrey? I am sure that you can’t just go and ask a farmer for a field for your dragon.”

I realised that she thought it was a joke so I asked her to put the candles out again and moved so that I could hold my palm in a way that no-one would get caught in the blast.

I manifested my dragon but very small.

“Light the candles”.

There was a blast of fire and I made him disappear again. All that was left to show his time in our world was four candles alight. However they were now just a half of their original height as he had blasted the tops off them all.

She looked at the candles and my hand which was now empty and said in a small voice, “Can I come and live with you, please, can I?”

My mother said that she would love her to pop in as much as she could but we did not have a spare room because, “Amity has stolen the spare room as a workshop.”

“Look, let’s forget getting you on a train, I can drive you home while Suzette washes up.”

We freshened up and I went to get the Audi started. Leaving the house, after giving my mother and Suzette long hugs, she said, “Before today I thought I was alone in the world and wondered if I was just crazy. I now know there others who may be crazier than I am and I feel so much more complete. Thank you for today, it has been a revelation.”

We went towards the city and a bit to the east. She lived in the suburbs in Kent and when we got to her place she got out and, for some reason, so did I. I stood by the car and she came around and wrapped her arms around me in a big hug, “Thank you so much,” and kissed me on the lips, firmly. I wondered why I did it but I put my arms around her and kissed her back.

“Come inside” she whispered “and I will show you a good time, you poor thing.” Almost in a stupor, I let her lead me to the house, only pausing to hit the lock button on the keys.

In her flat she shed the satchel with the pictures and then we shed our clothes, kissing while we did so. In her bed we melded like a pair of matching rings and I had a couple of totally intense orgasms from her tongue probes so had to reciprocate. She could do things with her tongue on my breasts that I had only dreamed about and I was a quick learner.

Around midnight we were lying, side by side and holding hands when she said, “I think you may have cast a spell on me like my great grandfather,” and I told her that love and lust are spells of their own and no person can control them.

She asked “Was tonight love or lust?”

I said that only time will tell but I was feeling very good right now and hoped that it is love as I wanted more.

“So do I” she said, so we had another session but at a much slower pace this time.

She had work in the morning so I left around one. On the drive home I wondered if I was a lesbian, a bi or just side tracked along my quest for Mister Right. At home I was very quiet when I went in and was still asleep when the others went to work next morning.

When I woke up I found that I was very sticky in odd places but smiled as I showered it off. After breakfast I went into Redhill to the shop to see where we stood with that. There were so many ends to this candle I hoped that I would not be burning any fingers this year.

Marianne Gregory © 2022

Chapter 9

At the shop I found that my bolt ends had been delivered so I stored them in the ‘special’ room. Everything seemed to be ticking over nicely and I chatted with everyone for a while until Roberta commented, “You’re happy today. I would think that you may have got a good seeing to last night. Was it Jim or have you found another stud?”

I laughed. “About as far from a stud as it’s possible to get but I was satisfied and so was she.”

Roberta had once been Robert and understood the implications immediately, grabbing me in a hug. “That’s something I had thought about myself but have been afraid to try. I’m not sure my mother would understand.”

I whispered, “It’s all right, Bobbie, it may be a residual memory of when we were boys. Colette has the same problem and I have seen her looking at me oddly sometimes; but although I once had a crush on her it is not the same as I experienced last night.”

A customer came in so Roberta needed to get into salesgirl mode, something she had got very good at. I watched her work for a minute or two and then felt Helen at my side. She had an empty cup in her hand and asked me if I wanted some tea.

I said I would and she called to Roberta that we would be in the kitchen if we were needed. Sitting at the little table with steaming cups in front of us she said, “Last year was a very strange one. I started out wondering whether I would be able to stay open and then this magic angel came and asked for a job. Then I had more business than I could cope with and she went out and brought back another magic angel. The sales last year was three times more than my best year before that and it is keeping going at the same pace.”

I told her that she had learned a lot herself and the stock lines we now held turned over with a nice ting of the cash register.

“I have watched the two of you work often enough to see that you have a power that I don’t have but I have learned to start asking the questions that you do and I can almost see what they are talking about.”

“Would you like the power, just a little bit?”

She looked startled, “Could I?”

“The problem is that once you have the power it does not turn off when the door shuts. You have it all day, every day, and you may not want to know what other people are actually thinking. If you want, I can give you a little bit of the power to see what the customers are thinking about and, if you don’t like it, I can take it away again. I warn you, though, it is addictive.”

She nodded and I asked her to stand so I could hug her. When I did I directed some power into her and tried to also instil some ability not to misuse it.

Before we left the kitchen I told her that I had signed a deal with the House of Jules to help him out on special projects and that he was going to pay me a good retainer.

“I can let you stop paying me as I am hardly here some weeks” I said.

She shook her head, “No, what I pay you is a drop in the ocean against what you have brought me. I will continue your wage and will take whatever time you can spare. Now, quickly, tell me about these special projects.”

There was a back copy of the fashion magazine in the kitchen so I picked it up and found the first picture of Lady Appleby. I showed her the picture. “That was the first one I designed for them and he made four dresses in different fabrics and colours for her. The day before yesterday I designed a dress for her to wear at the opening of Tommy on Broadway and yesterday I was sitting with a Baroness designing dresses for her to wear at various events, including a royal garden party.”

“It all came about from my fashion show at the Chelsea last year and the one this term with the Dianna dresses. It has all been a whirlwind but I have told Jules that I need to be here and that he has to fit in with my plans. The problem is that the ladies who buy from him have no concept that other, less noble folks, have any free will at all.”

Just then we heard Roberta call from the door that the shop was filling up so I said, “Come on Helen, now is the time to see how you go with your new abilities.”

We had a steady stream of ladies with open purses looking for spring clothes and the cash register kept tinging in a very satisfying way. I could see Helen master the art of not looking too closely at her customer as she built up a picture and became unerringly correct in her choices when she went to the racks.

Even Roberta noticed and asked me if I had passed her any powers and I told her it was just for a test run to see if she could handle it. Roberta said, “Thank you, it was getting a bit tiring being the only one here with the sight.”

I took Helen off for lunch and sat where I could keep an eye on the shop while she went to get something to eat. She had a twinkle in her eye when she sat down with a salad filled roll on a plate.

“It was so funny. I asked the girl at the counter if she had any fresh rolls and she immediately thought of one she was keeping for her own lunch so I pointed to it and said that this one looked good. She had no choice but to give it to me.”

We ate our lunch in a calm silence and then I saw four women go into the shop and the auras looked wrong. I said “Go get the centre security, I think we have some shoplifters.”

I kept my eyes on them and I saw that one was keeping Roberta busy while three started taking items off the racks and going into the changing rooms and coming out empty handed.

Helen came back with the two burly guys that patrolled the centre and I pointed out the shoplifters. As they had decided that they had stolen enough they turned to leave the shop, only to find that their exit was blocked by a couple of large blokes.

Of course there was the bluster, the ‘you can’t stop us leaving’, followed by the ‘can’t search us, it’s against the law’. The last coincided with the arrival of a couple of female police officers who took the four girls into our kitchen, one watching over them while the other spoke to us and took notes when I described the clothes I had seen them take.

The security guys guarded to exit while the two policewomen got the girls to remove their outer clothing, ticking off each item I had described as it appeared. When all were down to their underwear they were allowed to put their own clothes back on.

Ours was in a pile with all the tags still showing. One of the policewomen had called up a van and the felons were paraded through the shopping centre in handcuffs to be loaded up and taken to the police station. Helen took the pile of clothes and went over to the dry cleaning shop to get them all cleaned before they went back on the racks.

When she came back she remarked that our stock was so nice it was worth stealing. I said that I wondered if it was worth getting a criminal record for.

Roberta was upset at how they had put one over her and we told her that they must have done it countless times as they had been very good at it. I later heard that the police had been around all of the shops in the area with photos of the girls and had found out that they were, indeed, very well practised as no-one had been able to catch them in the act before.

When their homes were searched, the police found piles of clothes and small electrical goods which eventually found their way back to the real owners who also had big pictures of them with the note “Don’t serve any of these girls.”

I rang May the following day to see how she was getting on with the boucle and she told me that the only one she could get in a light blue also had a red and white twist in it but she thought it would work.

I made an arrangement to pick her up on Saturday morning and we would go somewhere together, perhaps bring an overnight bag. I quickly looked in the papers at local shows or events and found a show I thought we would like. I rang a hotel nearby and booked a double room, just in case we were too late to go home.

Friday I was back in the Chelsea to pick up my results and to look into the Arts Office. They told me I could start the next term and that I should be up to speed as the first two terms were drawing and they thought that if I sat the two exams they could credit me the terms I had missed. That sounded good so I arranged to get the fees paid,and organised two days at the beginning of the next term to see if I was up to scratch.

That weekend I took May to a zoo, a meal, a show and both of us to seventh heaven on Saturday night. Sunday was interesting to wake up in the arms of a girl who gave me a kiss and said, “I think it may be love.”

“You, my darling, may be right. In fact you are the rightest May I have ever met. I have never felt like this before and if it is love, then I want more.” So we did have some more before breakfast and checking out.

Sunday we went to one of the Art Galleries where we strolled, hand in hand, and I studied all of the pictures, their composition and methods of painting. They had a small exhibition of Leonardo sketches on loan and it was good to see just how the master portrayed so much with so few pencil strokes.

I gave her lunch and took her home, saying that I needed to sort a few things out for work next week. At her front door we kissed and she said, “Thank you for being you,” before she went inside. I went home with a big smile on my face.

Monday I spent some time in the shop first and then went on the train into London. I popped into the Chelsea to have a look at my cubby hole and found a note from the admin saying that my copyright applications had been processed and there was an envelope with the two certificates in.

There was also a note that I needed to pay the fees involved so I went to the admin office and gave them a cheque. I put the receipt in the envelope.

I then made my way to the House of Jules and asked if I could go and see May. I was let into the inner sanctum and went to the sewing room where I found her in a little area that had been set up just for my creations.

I gave her a hug and said I was just in to see the boucle material. She had made most of the dress and it was on a dummy. Boucle is not the easiest material in the world to work with but she had done wonders.

I noticed a pile of labels on the worktop and, when I looked at one, it read ‘Asquith Designs from the House of Jules’. I put one in my bag and then had a look at where she was with the Baroness order but she was still in the phase of finding the right fabric.

I asked if Lady A’s outfit would be ready in time and she told me it would be done before the end of the week and delivered before she flew to New York. It was cutting it fine but it would grace the Broadway red carpet on the night.

I gave May a little arm squeeze and said that I still tingled when I thought of Saturday night and wondered if we could do it again sometime. She smiled and said she was looking forward to it already.

Just then Jules came bustling in and cried, “Amity, thank goodness you are here. I have a lady in the studio that is insistent that you talk to her as her good friend, the Lady Appleby, has been singing your praises. May, you can take ten minutes and assist.”

“Jules, your urgency is not mine. You need to stop pandering to any woman who walks through the door if you want this line to remain sought after and, by extension, expensive.”

We followed him to the studio with May giving me a sketch-book. The lady waiting for us was not happy at being kept waiting and, as we walked in, said, “It’s about time. I need a dress for a very important party next weekend and I want you to design and make it, let me know when I can pick it up,” and then went to pick up her bag to leave.

“No, I do not work that way. If that is your way of ordering a creation you would be better off letting Jules create it for you. I am a bespoke designer and, as such, need you to sit and talk to me for at least ten minutes while I get an idea of what you would like as well as what you have looked good in before.”

“Do you know who I am?”

“No, but that doesn’t matter. If you are famous and rich enough to order one of my designs on a whim then I am sure that others would recognise you. Jules didn’t tell me who was waiting to see me and you have not had the manners to introduce yourself.”

I turned to go and, as I gave the sketch-book to a startled May, standing next to Jules who had gone white and had his jaw hanging open.

“Wait, please, I seemed to have forgotten my upbringing today. Please, let us sit as you say and talk. I am interested in you now, most young girls would have fallen at my feet and allowed me to walk over them. It is refreshing to find someone so young yet so feisty.”

I turned back, looked at her, “I am Amity Asquith and this is May Smith. Together we are Asquith Designs and will create something that you will look good in and also love wearing. Now, May only has a little while as she needs to get back to making an outfit for one of our exclusive clients so we had better sit down and start the process!”

“I am pleased to meet you both, I am Anna Oubis and I have made several romantic comedy movies over the last few years. I am sorry but I thought that every girl I meet would have seen them,”

She sat down then said. “Oh Jules, be a dear and get us some tea.”

I sat. “I’m sorry but I can’t think of any film I have seen that could be classed as romantic comedy. For me, romance is a serious business.”

I could see that May was having a problem keeping herself in check; whether through wanting to laugh or wanting to ask for an autograph, I couldn’t tell.

I opened the sketch-book at a clean page and asked “Now, to get down to the business in hand, what is the event you need a dress for?”

So we started the process of drawing out of her the sort of style she needed, the image she wanted to project and the clothes that she had felt good in on previous occasions. During that time Jules had come back bearing a tray with tea and biscuits on it and May had gained enough self-composure to add design elements.

At the end of a quarter of an hour we had drained the teacups, eaten the biscuits, completed a drawing and, I think, became friends.

When I showed her the final result she sat there stunned before a big grin appeared, “By the hairs on my arsehole, girl, I think you have really nailed it! Oops, that was a throwback to my younger days before I got class.”

Because of the time limits, I turned to a totally gobsmacked Jules and said “Jules dear, as this is a rush thing, can we have another couple of your best dressmakers helping May for a week? Make sure you tell them that she will be in charge.”

Without waiting for his reply I turned to Anna and asked “Have we got your latest measurements on file?” This led to her being taken to another room for May to take the measurements while I added them to the sketch page.

As she was about to leave, Anna hugged both of us and told us that we were a fresh breeze in her world and that we may hear from her another time.

May looked at me after she had gone and asked, “What in Hades have I got myself into knowing you?” and sat down shaking with laughter. “Oh, I don’t watch rom-coms, I take romance seriously! That was priceless and I think I love you even more for saying it.”

We were alone so we kissed and I then said “Back into you cell, minion, we have dresses to make and film stars to conquer! Don’t forget, whoever Jules sends to you, let them make suggestions but you call the shots. I am going to go and see him now and put the fear of god into him and it won’t need a dragon.”

We both had smiles on our faces as we went separate ways. I found Jules in his office so went in and sat in front of his desk, taking out the label and laying it in front of him.

“Getting a little forward, are we, Jules?” I said. “You could have asked me if you could put our agreement on the label before getting them made. I recall that I signed on with you to work part-time and that you would pay me for my drawings; am I right?”

He nodded and I pulled out my copyright paperwork and showed him the Asquith Design one, saying “Now, you have been good so far but I have to remind you that the agreement only covers the exclusive clientele who will be silly enough to pay the outrageous prices you are putting on my creations.”

Again he nodded so I carried on “I certainly do not want to see this label appearing on a range of dresses that I have not personally been involved in and I saw enough of the labels down there to last twenty years if they were only for my designs. So, what did you think you could do with my, now copyright, brand?”

He gulped. “I told that girl in reception to get the name copyrighted but I suppose she forgot. You have me over a barrel, Amity, what do you want?”

“What I want is for us both to come out of this ahead,” I said, “The Asquith Design label will only be used on the small amount of output that will make you a lot of money. For that to happen I will require another two hundred pounds per label used as payment for using the copyright. I am sure that you have plenty in the pricing to cover that. If you want to use the basis of any of my designs I will allow you to use the name Amity Creations on the label and will require fifty pounds for each label used in that way.”

“I have the copyright to that name here as well. That will allow you to have a new range that you can show on the catwalk. One thing is a must, though, these dresses can never, I repeat never, be in the colours that our exclusive clients have bought, and some changes can be made to differentiate them as well. I will also use the Amity Creations label on my own output for clothes I make up in Redhill.”

“That sounds reasonable, as long as you continue in the same way as it is at present. I agree, we can both profit on this and we can both retain our individual control. Anything else?” he asked.

“Yes” I said “May needs a bigger space down in the sewing room or even a separate room for herself and her helpers as they are needed. If it doesn’t work out you can always but it back to the way it was before. Also, on my designs May is in charge of the dressmaking.”

He smiled. “Amity, you are a witch, you know.”

“For such an observant comment, Jules, I think you can take May and me out to lunch so we can get on a friendly footing for the future.”

Marianne Gregory © 2022

Chapter 10

Jules took us to a small restaurant where we had a table isolated enough so that we could talk business. May was brought up to speed with the new structure and I could see that Jules was warming to the future.

I asked him to give May a raise and that slowed him just a little, until it came home to him that he was going to make a thousand pounds a dress more than his usual sales, without even needing to sweat over a drawing board.

Before I left them to talk further over dessert I told Jules that I had a window of opportunity between now and the start of next term in May to get as many of his richer clients in for their personal summer wardrobe.

Then I left them to it and went to find the label maker. It was tucked away in a little side street and, when I went in, the bell tinkled. I told them I wanted to order a box of labels with “Amity Creations by Amity’ and another with ‘Amity Creations by Helen’.

I intended that all future designs we put out of the shop would have the Helen label on them to denote that they were bespoke. The others I would use in anything I personally made, or had made. I was starting to think about designing High Street product and get others to make them up in different sizes and colours.

Over the next few weeks before term starting I went to as many art galleries as I could to absorb the vision and techniques of the masters and also some more contemporary works.

We had three titled ladies who made appointments for their very own Asquith dresses. May, now in a bigger room with two good dressmakers, had finished the boucle outfit which had, indeed, been a big hit in America as ‘funky yet fancy’ as one scribe put it.

The Baroness now had her spring wardrobe and Anna got her creation in time for her event. My bank balance was building nicely and I spent some taking May out to shows and, when we could, hotels.

Jules was looking happier as the days went on as the customers who found they couldn’t afford a bespoke design, plumped for one of his instead. To give him his due, he had learned his lesson and his own creations were less avant-garde and more aimed at the customer.

With all this going on as well as my time with the shop I hardly had much time with my family. I only got to the Friday evenings one in three weeks and often was not home between Friday and Sunday evening. My mother brought it down on me one morning when I was up in time for breakfast.

She demanded to know what was going on and I tried to explain that I was building a business, studying hard and diving deeper into my romance with May.

Suzette told me that Colette was upset that I hardly spoke to her these days and that I needed to relax a bit more. I countered her approach by asking her what she was going to do when she graduated from the LSE at the end of next term.

That set her back. “I don’t know yet. I suppose I will have to go around with my CV. I have had a look on the board at school but none of the jobs there looked exciting enough.”

I looked at her and asked. “How would you like to be the Finance Officer in an up and coming fashion house? You can work with me.”

“But you don’t have an up and coming fashion house.”

“How many weeks is it before you graduate? That’s almost enough time to build an empire.”

Back at the Chelsea I was given the course notes for the drawing course first term and then sat the half-written, half-drawn exam a couple of days later. On the way out I was given the notes for the second term and sat that the following week.

I found it easy to do the drawings as described as I could imagine them in completed form before I started. With my new-found concept of the less-is-more sketching I think that Leonardo would have been proud of my attempts.

I carried on with the Design classes but after Judith had given me my brief for this terms fashion show I only needed to attend her lessons to see the others in the class.

In the art class I started to learn how to use water colour and, in private, recreated my better dress designs in this medium and they looked great.

Jules called me in about once a week and he usually had a couple of appointments lined up for us, one after the other so it was keeping May busy with that. She and he were also getting very close to completing their collection of the Amity Creations by Jules fashion parade “based on the successful ‘Amity Designs’ dresses that have taken the fashion world by storm” and I had only needed to put in a few suggestions.

I was ordering photos from the fashion magazine with a regular phone call every issue. They had opened an account for me so it was not a surprise when one of their writers rang me to get an appointment for an interview with him and a photographer.

They had, of course, linked the Asquith name on the account with the Asquith name on the dresses. I wanted it to take place at a neutral venue and Jules suggested his studio.

By that time we had made about six dresses for Anna and, as I knew that she was a glutton for publicity, asked her if she would like to crash my interview on the excuse that she needed another outfit. I promised her that I would make her one myself.

On the day of the interview I was dressed nicely and we greeted the gentlemen of the press in the reception where we took them through to the studio, which had been tidied up a bit. The questions were very much along the lines of ‘how did you get so good so young’ and, when they moved into the making of the creations we got May in to take them through the process.

Of course, I mentioned my involvement with Helen at Redhill as well as our supplying Hector Livingstone with the stage clothes which were getting rave reviews in the entertainment press.

Once May joined us we put in shameless plugs for the upcoming fashion show and I got in with a plug of the one that would be at the Chelsea at the end of term.

The photographer had used three rolls of film by this stage and I hoped he had enough for when Anna turned up. And turn up she did.

The receptionist knocked on the door, put her head in and only just managed “Excuse me, Jules, but…” before Anna strode in like a tornado in one of my designs.

“Ooohh, press!” she cried “I’m all yours.”

One does not become a leading writer in a fashion magazine without realising that an impromptu interview with a famous actress is not an everyday occasion. The next half hour was all performance on everyones’ part.

Anna gushed about how good she felt in my designs and even got the writer to feel the fabric, thrusting her ample bosom at him. What she said as the interview started to wind up floored everyone else in the room.

“I just love speaking to you but I am actually here to talk to Amity, May and Jules about a little project of mine. We are starting to put together a movie that is set in the fashion industry. There will be bitchiness galore, love in twos, triangles and even squares; as well as some wonderful clothing that will make the film a classic. I have come to ask them if they are interested in supplying the wardrobe for the whole film.”

I hoped the photographer was as stunned as we were and didn’t get any pictures of us with our mouths hanging open. Jules, having been around a lot longer, was the first to react.

“Gentlemen, I think we could leave the offer in the interview but you, like everyone else, will have to wait for our answer. You do have a scoop and I can assure you that nothing will come out of this establishment until you have reaped the rewards of your ‘investigative reporting’. I think we need to now have a private talk with Miss Oubis to find out just how many items she is thinking of.”

The writer and photographer were escorted to the front door by him as May, me and Anna dissolved into laughter.

“That’s priceless,” May gasped, “It was a tour de force. How are we going to tell them when it falls through?”

“It was not a joke, May. It is a valid and honest offer that could be the turning point for all of us. I only looked at the script because it gave me a chance to play a serious part. You have no idea how getting to play the bimbo gets old quickly.”

I was sitting there with a lot on my mind. I then remembered an old pop movie I had seen on late night TV.

“There was an old pop movie set in the sixties that I have seen. Every dress in it was a Butterick pattern and it set the tone of the picture firmly in its era. Are you thinking of something set in the era of the movie, something with over-the-top creations or maybe a lot of simple but different designs that the girl in the street will want to wear?”

She replied that it would possibly be a mixture of all three and asked what I was thinking.

“I doubt that the public will believe that everyone in the film would be wearing high fashion outfits. I have been toying with the idea of designing High Street clothing that could be made in bulk by a third party with our own quality controls. We could get the bulk of the outfits that way with May and I creating the designs for the main characters and Jules can come up with designs that the fictional fashion house would be designing. That way we all play to our strengths and it would give the film a three-tiered look which the scriptwriters could work with.”

“I knew that you would be good value to know,” Anna said with a smile, “Let’s let Jules know what he is up for and then you and I can arrange for my very own Amity Design outfit, made for me by the wonderful Amity herself.”

I asked her if she would like to come to my house for Sunday lunch and we made a date for the following week. Before she left I asked her what she wanted and she said, “Something I wear every day, maybe a shift or shirt-waist; but definitely to remind me of the old days.”

I asked, “What old days?” and she thought of her time before she was a film star and was singing in a band.

“The band days,” she said quietly, “They were so much fun.”

“What era, the punk stuff or the sexy schoolgirl or, I know, the very early days when you wore the Egyptian stuff.”

“You’re spot on,” she said, “You have either looked me up or else you are a mind reader. Something from the ‘Anna Oubis and the Egyptians’ would definitely cheer me up.”

She left us to tell Jules what his part in the project was and I hugged May with a passion. She was trembling and I held her as she calmed down.

“Outfitting an Anna Oubis film, that is so far from what we are doing now it will take a lot of your magic to get it right.”

I said quietly, “Not magic, May, just a lot of hard work and careful preparation. I think it may be time for us to create a new company with the three of us as shareholders. We could raise the money for a stand-alone property with the film contract under our belt. I am sure that Jules will be part of it but we do need to allow him to come up with the idea himself. He is a good businessman and I am sure he won’t take long.”

He did stride in on us while we were still clutching each other and he raised his eyebrows.

“Poor May has been overcome with what went on today. I think she is settling now.”

She took the hint and we parted with her reaching for a tissue to dab her eyes. “What are we going to do, Jules, it will be huge!”

Jules patted her on the arm. “Don’t worry, May dear, I am sure we can come up with a way to make it work. All we need is signatures on a contract and we will be off and running. I think that the two of you would be better served in a new workshop as your involvement will be much greater than mine.”

May gave me a wink as she left to go back to her sewing room. Jules sat me down and said, “You set that up, didn’t you?”

I said that I had invited Anna to spice up the interview but after she had come in my script was thrown away.

“Before she left she outlined an idea which I like. I am able to create some of my weirder creations while you and May do the star outfits as well as making the general cast ones. Before I opened up as the House of Jules I was ordering third party fashions that I could sell at a lower price range. I still have friends in that industry. Do you want me to get them to call you?”

I laughed. “Jules, darling, you are a mind reader.”

Before going home I called in on Judith and told her that something may be printed in the fashion magazine that she could be interested in. I then went back to Redhill and called into the shop to chat with Helen. I also went and looked at my collection of personal fabrics and I found that I had bought a bolt end of a design based on rhomboids and stripes of Egyptian motifs.

I also had a bold fabric that would go with it. All I needed to see was which one worked better as a skirt. Before I went home I went to see Colette and make an appointment for a full make-over, seeing as I may be in the lime-light.

She asked me what I had been getting up to and I said, “A bit of this and that, lots of school work. A bit of designing when I get a chance. Actually, I have a customer coming around for Sunday lunch and then I will design her new dress. You may like to pop in and meet May as well. She and I are spending a lot of time together.”

Before the Sunday lunch Anna called to say that, if I didn’t mind, her husband was in town and would drive her down. I said that another seat at the table was not a bother and then started to plan the meal.

I told my mother that we would be having guests for lunch on Sunday. It would be May, one of my customers wanting a personally made dress and her husband. In Redhill I made sure I had all the makings for lunch.

As the weather was getting warmer now I opted for a cold cut, serve yourself table with lots of extras. Saturday I went and picked up May and got some drinks in on the way home.

As we were driving along I asked her if she knew who Annas’ husband was and she laughed. “Don’t you know? She is married to Cliff Bronson, the actor. He is a real dish and I lusted after him before I realised I was a lesbian.”

“Oh,” I said. “He is bringing her to lunch tomorrow.”

I reckoned that you could have heard her shriek on the other side of the dual carriageway. She shook and shuddered for a few moments and then said, “Girl, you really can tell them, last I heard he was in America making a new film.”

“Not joking, darling,” I smiled as I said it, “He is in town and she told me he was driving her down so I invited him to lunch as well.”

She twisted in the passenger seat and looked me straight in my ear. Well I couldn’t take my eyes off the road. “You are going to be the death of me, you know. I don’t know how many more shocks I can take. But, come to think about it, I am taking them more in my stride. Do you think that he may give us all a hug and a kiss before he goes?”

On Sunday morning May and I made ready. She had slept with me in my smallish bed but we had made it cosy. We both dressed and made up very nicely.

I told her that Colette from down the road may pop in and that she and I had gone to school together but that she was a couple of years ahead. I got my Mother and Suzette to dress nicely as well.

Suzette was sullen, saying, “Why all this preparation for just a customer?”

I took her outside and faced her. “Suzette, the people who are coming to lunch are not just customers. They are the key to our future. There is a project that we will talk about today that will ensure my, and perhaps your, future if you want to be part of it. I told you that I would put something in place to give you a job. Today you get a chance to see who I have been dealing with these last few months.”

When their car pulled into our driveway I went out to greet them. Anna gave me a hug and a kiss on the cheek before introducing her husband, Cliff.

I saw straightaway why May had lusted after him and it made me nearly scream when, instead of shaking my hand, he pulled me into a hug and a kiss on the cheek, saying, “So I finally get to meet the famous Amity who my wife has been raving on about for too long now. I am now happy to put a pretty face to the name.”

May had been waiting by the door and he said “So this is the famous May, the goddess of the scissors and sewing machine.”

May nearly passed out when he pulled her to him and gave her a kiss as well. I think that there was one cheek that wasn’t going to get washed tonight. I ushered them both into the house where my mother was unsure how she should react.

Anna and Cliff put her and Suzette at ease by giving them both hugs and kisses. Suzette looked at me with a face of wonder as it sunk into her just where I now stood in the world. I served out drinks and we all tucked in to the cold collation.

My guests both said that they were happy that I had offered them something simple but so tasty, as so many times they had walked into dining rooms where the table was groaning with exotic foods that they both found hard to digest.

Of course, the chatter veered towards the project. Cliff said that he had looked at the script and he thought there could be a place in it for him as he wanted to act opposite his wife in a serious role.

Anna brought up the wardrobe ideas and I told her that Jules had suggested that we create a new company to manufacture the dresses and other clothing, with May and I moving into a new building to put together a team.

Cliff said that he had friends in the real estate business, having dabbled in it himself. He said he would get them to talk to me about the size and location. Anna said that it should be located close to the studio so we could react to any urgency.

My mother had been following this with interest and asked, “How many outfits are you talking about, twenty, fifty or more?”

Anna said, “Oh, at least a several hundred, it is going to be an extravaganza about the fashion industry. Jules will be creating the fashions that the company I work for. They will be avant-garde and a bit quirky. Amity and May will be providing all the outfits for me and, at least, five other stars and we will wear a different outfit in every scene as befits fashion icons. Then there are the general cast and the extras. We are planning a few crowd scenes and fashion shows so there may be a hundred outfits on any one set.”

Suzette was following this and the numbers spoke to her. “What budget do you have for costume?” she asked.

Anna smiled. “Ooohh, about ten million, tops. I we can get out of it for less we will be happy. Remember, this is a film about the industry so everything we wear needs to reflect that. Jules charges about fifteen hundred to two thousand for his items, the ones I have with Asquith Designs on the label set me back between two and a half to three, each. I still cherish the first one she designed for me and wear it when I want to feel good.”

I told my mother to sit and I will get a picture she can see, then went into my workroom and came back with the magazine portrait for her to look at.

Suzette was sitting quietly and Cliff looked at her and asked “Are you feeling all right? You look a little peaky.”

She smiled, “A few weeks back my sister asked me if I would work for her up and coming fashion label when I graduate. I laughed it off at the time, especially when she said it may take a few weeks.”

Anna said “If you are half as good as your sister in what you do, you will be OK with me, Suzette. I am sure we could work together, this family is awesome.”

Marianne Gregory © 2022

Chapter 11

When we had finished the meal, Suzette and I packed the dishes in the washer while my mother chatted with our guests. May was regaling her about some of the odd ladies she had made dresses for and when she mentioned that a few had been men my mother said “Wouldn’t that be difficult?”

I said “Mother dear, have you looked at the photos in the window of the shop?”

She nodded so I carried on. “One is of a lot of local ladies at a celebrity wedding and the other is a group at a party.”

“Yes,” she said, “They all look beautiful, are they all wearing your creations?”

“Mother,” I said, “They are all wearing our creations and the party group are all men.”

“Never!” she snorted. “They all look wonderful.”

I tried another tack. “Do you remember the do we put on in the pub before Christmas?”

She nodded and I finished with, “At least a quarter of the women in that room were not women and no-one saw them as anything but women. That’s what we have been doing at the shop, on the side, and it is very well paying. Just ask Helen when you see her next and ask to see the back rooms.”

“That reminds me, Anna is here to get a new dress that she wants to make her happy. The rest of you chat and we will be right back.”

I led Anna out to my workroom where I had hung the new dress in a garment bag.

She had a look at my models. “I am devastated, there is not one of me,” she laughed.

“Anna, I have to admit that I have already made your new dress. It was inspired by your description, my imagination and a picture that a friend of mine used to have on her wall. She was a big fan before she found out about boys.”

I took the dress out of the bag and she gasped and then hugged me, saying “It’s glorious, just like the old stage outfit but much classier. Well, it would have to be as the original one was so short that if I bent down you could park a bike in my bum.”

Before I could say anything she was shucking her dress and put the new one on. “Just wait and watch Cliffs’ face when he sees me in this, I met him when I was in this band and he was a frustrated singer who worked as a roadie just to be in the industry.”

She opened the door and rushed out with me following with her own dress over my arm. She walked into the lounge calling, ‘Cliffee, what do you think of this? Do you think I could feel happy wearing it?”

I watched his face move from surprise to interest to total devotion as he went to her and kissed her hard.

As they kissed, oblivious of all around them, there was a knock on the door and I went and let Colette in. She came into the lounge just as the two lovers finished kissing, took one look at them and promptly keeled over.

“At last,” cried Anna, “I have met someone involved with you who acts like a proper girl. Cliff, darling, get the kit from the car, if you would, we have a normal girl in our midst.”

He went out and came back with a bag that had smelling salts, Aspirin and cold compresses that you could run under cold water. Anna looked at us, “We have learned to be prepared, this usually happens quite often.”

When Colette opened her eyes she was flapping her jaw like a fish. I helped her to her feet. “Colette, come and meet our guests, I can assure you they don’t bite and are usually friendly.”

Cliff pulled her into a hug and a peck on the cheek and then Anna did the same. I could see Colette get a little wobbly again so I sat her down and explained.

“Colette and I went to school but she was a couple of years ahead of me. It was her picture that allowed me to create the dress. She is a top-line make-up artist and it is down to a lot of her skill that our men were able to be turned into women.”

“Are all the girls around here as good looking as you lot.” Cliff asked, “I’m going to have to send some talent spotters down her to see if we can sign a few up for the industry.”

That caused a laugh and Colette finally found her voice. “Am I dreaming?”

“No, Colette, these people are as real as we are unless they are on the screen. We have been discussing a movie that Anna wants me to make clothes for.”

She looked at the dress that Anna had on. “My God, that is so much like the one you used to wear in the band, except longer and a different colour.”

We all had a laugh and Anna went to her again and gave her a hug, “Thank you precious, that is a great compliment to me as well as to Amity, who made it. I think I will wear it home, do you want the one I came in as a keepsake?”

Stunned, she just nodded so Anna took the dress from me and said, “Go on and try it on, you look about the same size.”

Colette went to my bedroom to change and when she came back she looked like a star and we all told her so. My mother got her camera and we spent a little while taking pictures.

Then Anna said, “Colette, Amity said that you are a beautician, do you think you could give me a look to match the dress?”

Colette was, by this time, back to her usual self and said she could, easily. I went and got my make-up case and she sat Anna on a dining room chair and proceeded to change her into an Egyptian Goddess. She took a brush and did a few things to her hair as well.

When we put a mirror in front of Anna she gasped. “Colette, my girl, you are a bloody genius. It would take two girls at the studio hours to get near this.”

She then looked at me. “Did I hear you right when you said that you turn men into women at that shop?”

I said it was so and she looked at Cliff. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking, my darling?”

He laughed and told her he was already ahead of her.

She asked, “When can I see this photo you have on display?”

I looked at my watch and told her that the shopping centre would still be open as they had the cinema and food court.

“Right, I think I am going to give this look a public outing, it will be fun!” and she stood up. I asked that they wait a few minutes while I warned the centre management.

I went to the phone and called the security guy and warned him that he was about to have a riot of screaming girls on his hands and to prepare for it. I then rang Helen at home and asked if she could possibly go to the shop as I had an important client who had suddenly developed a wish to see it.

She said she would be there. My mother got the Audi out and I went with her and May. Suzette and Colette went with Typhoon Anna and the ’Hunk’ Cliff.

We parked near the closest entrance to the shop and when we walked in I saw Helen chatting to a security guy. I knew he was a film buff because as soon as he saw us walk in he was on his two-way, no doubt calling up reinforcements.

I led the merry band over to Helen and introduced them and Anna bent down and looked at the photos in the window.

“No way that these good-looking babes are blokes,” she exclaimed. “A couple look like horsey women and I’ve mixed with enough of the upper crust to say they would not look out of place at Ascot.”

Helen opened up and put on the lights and I showed Anna and Cliff the back rooms. It was the first time May seen my inner sanctum so was equally intrigued.

I showed them a couple of the notebooks as they only had the femme name on them. Along with measurements and notes and my original design sketch I also had an after picture taken in the food court for some of our ‘specials’.

Anna and Cliff looked at them and he asked, “So these are all men when they walked into the shop?” I nodded. “That does it,” he said, “I am certain we could get Joe, Billy and Eric into the picture now.”

Anna then explained that a few of their friends wanted to be in the project film but it was almost an all-female cast and, although all three were gay, they refused to act as one because they already had a career playing straight men.

Colette was with us and she put surnames to the list, and Anna said, “Yes, they are busting to do a film like ‘Some Like it Hot’ but do not want it known they are themselves in it. They would go on the credits under false names.”

When we went to leave there was a crowd outside the shop who all started screaming when they saw the film stars.

“Oh dear,” Anna said, “I think we may have started something, I just hope they don’t tear my lovely dress.”

I looked at my mother and she nodded so I got Colette and Suzette and the four of us went out the shop door and called ‘quiet, please’ as we cast a calming spell over the crowd.

As the noise died down I called out “We have some honoured guests in the shopping centre today. I know you are all excited but they are real people like us and will chat or sign for you as long as you keep it polite. Anything else and the security guys will call the police; the station is only five minutes away. I suggest that we all go over to the food court and allow them to get a drink while they talk to you.”

Of course, a small compulsion spell worked wonders as well so they opened a pathway for Anna and Cliff to go and sit down and the next two hours was very pleasant with everyone getting pictures taken by the centre management as well as the local paper.

Anna finally stood and called out, thanking them for their kind welcome to the Belfry and said that she would be back for the opening of a new movie that they were going to make as Redhill had made it possible. There was applause and cheering as we left before the two spells faded.

On the way back to the cars she walked beside me and said, “I don’t know what you four did in there but it was pure magic.”

I laughed. “You had better believe it, sister.”

Back at the house my mother put the kettle on and we all sat around for a quiet cuppa before they left.

Anna said, “I saw another picture you had, it was a group of girls on a stage and they looked fabulous?” I said it was Hector Livingstone and his troupe at rehearsal with the stage outfits we had made.

Cliff said, “Didn’t someone send us four tickets for their show?” and Anna said she thought so.

Anna looked at me and said “I’ll go with you and May, it’s not Cliffs’ thing.”

“Well, Kayla made all the dresses in the shop, maybe she would like a night out as well.”

“Done,” exclaimed Anna, “I will look for them when we get home and let you know the date. Come on, hubby of mine, it’s time to go home and you can recreate the first time you removed my Egyptian dress, but no tearing at it this time!”

He laughed. “It’s all right, my darling, I think I have learned a little decorum since those heady days.”

We walked with them out to their car and they both gave everyone a hug and a kiss before they got in.

As Cliff was getting into the driving seat, Anna rolled her window down. “I think that we are going to have fun with this film. Colette, if you can keep a secret about our three friends I want you to be their personal beautician on the set, are you up for it?”

I think Colettes’ squeal said it all.

Back inside, around the kitchen table with another cuppa in front of us, it felt like we had just survived a storm.

Suzette asked. “Sister dear, do you still want me to work for you?”

I went around and hugged her, “Of course, when I make promises I try to keep them. I know you will be great at keeping the finances in the black. Just you get your certification and we are off.”

My mother asked “How many of those photos of your designs are out there?” so I went and came back with the pile of pictures that I had bought and we looked through them with May pointing out some of the design features.

Colette came over to me and hugged me closely. “There I was, just thinking you didn’t care about me, and all the while you were working hard to build an empire. I’m sorry I doubted you and thank you for asking me round today. It was a bit of a shock at first but it became so much fun I don’t know if it was all real.”

The phone rang and when my mother answered it she held it out to me and said “I think it’s for you.” It was the centre manager on the other end and she thanked me for bringing a movie star to the centre but asked me to give her more lead time.

I told her it was on the spur of the moment and that Anna and Cliff had promised to come back when the new film was showing so she could have the chance to do a lavish reception then.

When I hung up my mother asked what was wrong and I told them that it was just that she was unhappy at not seeing the stars in person.

Before Colette left she gave May a hug and told her that she was the luckiest girl in the world to have snagged me.

She then hugged me again, saying that if I could let her have a label she would sew it onto the dress I made for her and she would have an instant classic. I took May home and we went to bed. I didn’t get back to my own until after midnight. It had been quite a day and it was just the beginning of the journey.

The next week I tried hard to concentrate on school work. I was in art class, painting Anna in the new dress, when I had an inspiration.

After that class I rang her at the studio and when she came on the phone I said “Anna, dear. I am sorry to be a pain but I have to come up with a fashion show at the end of term and I wondered if I could do one called ‘The ten ages of Anna’ using recreations of some of the clothes you have made famous. I could work from slides if you could send me a few?”

She said she could but I could borrow the originals if I wanted so I told her that we had to make everything from scratch, including all the jewellery and accessories. She asked me to keep her in the loop and after I hung up I went to see Judith to tell her what the next fashion show was going to be called.

She was in her office with a magazine in front of her alongside a steaming cup. I told her that the end of term fashion show would be called ‘The Ten Ages of Anna’ and she picked up the magazine and passed it to me.

“Perhaps this has something to do with that. You are going to be the centre of attention around here if that works out.” The headline read ‘Chelsea Student to Make the Entire Wardrobe for the Next Anna Oubis Block Buster’.

The article was basically the interview and pictures of my work for Jules but the bulk of it was the chat with Anna and her offer. I quickly scanned it and passed it back to her.

“Ouch!” I said, “That is going to make life difficult, isn’t it?”

She laughed. “Not difficult, bloody impossible! The Head has been on the phone already and so has the Dean of Arts and the Dean of Design. You are the first fashion designer to make it big while still at school, all the rest have been actors or sculptors. They have asked me to arrange a meeting this afternoon so it is good to see you now. I will give their secretaries a call and arrange it now.”

I sat and looked through the magazine while she was on the phone and, when she put it down for the final time she said “Freshen up, we are on deck in twenty minutes.”

So a half hour later we were sat in the Heads palatial office with tea and biscuits in front of us. The Head mainly wanted to know if I was going to drop out now I had fame and fortune and I assured her that I would finish my courses to the best of my ability.

Both the Deans said that I was a star student and I blushed a lot. The upshot was that I would be given even more leeway to continue my career as long as I kept my marks up.

The Dean of Design did make one suggestion that resonated when it was mentioned that there was still another eight girls in my course and all were very good at what they did, especially what they had come up with for the two fashion parades we had done so far.

The idea was that they would have their own final assessments included with what they could come up with at the fashion parade. Judith said she would put a note in all our cubby holes to arrange a class meeting to discuss the show and I was allowed to go about my business.

Firstly was to go and talk to admin about my copyrights and the path to creating a company name. They gave me a form, which I filled out and paid them the fee. I was told it would be submitted and I may have to alter the name if it had already been used.

My own magazine would be delivered to the house so I went and bought one at a newsagent to look at in depth. I saw that there were a number of pictures I wanted so made my way to the publishing house and fronted up to the photo desk to place my order.

The girl behind the counter told me that I was entitled to a free copy of any that I was in and that, if I wanted, I could see the entire shoot proofs and choose from ones that had not made it to print.

That took up an hour or more and when I walked out they told me they would send the thirty pictures I had chosen but only charged me for twenty that I wasn’t in.

By the time I got home my mother was there already and had my magazine open in front of her. The phone was off the hook and Suzette was sitting looking through a sheaf of papers from a local industrial property office.

I put the phone back where it should be and it rang almost immediately. It was the local paper asking for a comment and I told them that I would talk to a single reporter in the shopping centre tomorrow morning.

As soon as I hung up it rang again and it was Jules, absolutely over the moon at the coverage. I told him I would see him next week. This time I hung up and left the phone off the hook. I needed to get a number that only a few people knew. Perhaps it was time to get one of those mobile things if they had got smaller than a house brick.

Actually, I didn’t have to bother as a courier knocked on the front door just after my mother and Suzette had gone to work. He had a fairly big package for me and I signed for it and took it through to the kitchen and opened it up.

It contained six boxes of mobile phones, with chargers and a note from Anna that said, ‘Amity, these are property of the studio. One each for everyone involved with the film. Let me know which one everyone gets and I will get the numbers recorded in our call record. They all have been charged and are connected to the network. Choose one and ring me on my number below so I can get in touch. I knew that your home phone will be useless for a while, I’ve been through that myself.’

I pulled one out of the box and looked at it and realised that it could fit in my bag and did not weight a ton. I had a quick read of the instructions and turned it on. Once it said I had a connection I dialled Annas’ number and she answered straight away. She told me that they were all paid for by the studio and remained their property until the film was in the can and then they would be written off.

She told me how to access the phone book on it and there were a lot of names and numbers which she told me were people I would be dealing with in the future. As I gave the others out I was to tell them to ring her so she could add them to the list and told me to read the instructions so I could add them to my own list. It all seemed complicated but I was sure I could work it out.

I set to and turned all the phones on. I made post-it notes with names for the other five and stuck them on the boxes. Looking at the instruction book I added the five numbers to my phone book and went through the same process with the others. We would now have ready access to each other.

When I finished I rang the House of Jules. When I got on to Jules I told him that the house phone was off the hook and gave him the number of my mobile, asking him to give May the number as well and that I would have a phone for them both the next time I came in.

That done I made myself ready and took the Audi to the shopping centre, along with two of the phones, leaving one on the table for Suzette.

I parked and took one into the Viva Salon, giving it to Colette and telling her why she has it. The other one I gave to Helen as I thought that she may well have more involvement in the movie. This was firmed up when I asked her about getting bulk supplies of simple designs made by a third party and she said she had a few friends in the trade that did just that.

I then went and sat in the food court to await the reporter. He arrived and I insisted he buy me a cup of tea and a bun before we started. He got one for himself so we sat and chatted instead of a hard-nosed interrogation.

He asked about my early life and I told him what I could, always hoping that the magic had changed all the paperwork and records involved. When we got to the film part of it he said that he was unhappy that one of his colleagues scooped him the other day with the story about film stars here.

He then asked me about the weird control we four had over the crowd as his colleague had said that they all seemed too polite and well behaved.

I just told him that we had just let them know that they could have a couple of minutes of mayhem or a much longer time if they calmed down and that the crowd had obviously taken the peaceful option.

I pointed out that just about everyone had got a picture taken and that Anna and Cliff had been very open with their answers to some very odd questions. “It was a win for everyone, so what do you find strange?” I asked. He was at a loss to answer that one.

I told him that it was more likely that the film was going ahead and it was up to the studio to give out any more information. I had nothing to add because I had not yet been told of the scope of my involvement, only that I was to design some outfits for the main characters.

He seemed happy at what he got and gave me his business card if I had anything that he could use and I told him that I would be sure to let him know. After he left I went back to the shop and sat down with Helen to discuss bulk manufacture.

Over the next week I went to see Jules and May at the House of Jules and gave them the phones, telling them that they should be used for film business only and to limit the calls to those on the phone book.

I spent some time with May, who was a little miffed I hadn’t seen her for a week but calmed down when I explained that before long we would be spending a lot of time together.

I also had the meeting with my class mates. Anna had been true to her word and had sent me a batch of stills and slides of her career in the bands and some of her better films.

We chose the ten that we thought we could work with. The early times were picked by a few of the more ‘poppy’ girls, leaving the movie outfits for the rest of us. I had decided that I would wear a recreation of the first dress I had designed for her. With the photos at hand, everyone had a project to do.

Marianne Gregory © 2022

Chapter 12

I spoke to the industrial building people that Suzette had suggested. I looked at a few places and one stood out as likely. It was at Purley, about halfway between the house and London and very close to the film studio near Croydon. It was set in its own fenced grounds and was a mixture of workshop, warehouse and offices.

We discussed the numbers to buy or lease and I promised that I would get back to them when I had a signature on a contract. I also spent many evenings with Suzette, going over the figures and projections. She was fast becoming excited about what we could do. I had always thought that the business with Jules would never make me rich, famous in fashion circles maybe, but never rich unless I broke away and formed my own studio.

What made Suzette excited was my concept of taking the basic designs for the film and turning them into High Street product that we didn’t have to make, only store and deliver.

Of course, once the effect of the film faded we would need to do things to promote the lines that eventuated but I was sure we would come up with something when the time came. After I had a lot of things straight in my mind, I rang Anna and asked if we could have a meeting with the studio as I needed certainty before going ahead with the new business.

That meeting was set up and May, Suzette, Colette and I met with Anna, Cliff and the studio bosses. I walked out of there with signatures on a contract to supply the outfits for the entire cast.

They had estimated, from the storyline, that the main characters would need twenty or so changes of the top shelf items while the minor characters only needed about ten and the extras would be able to get away with three each that they could mix and match among themselves for different scenes.

It was then brought home to me that we would be supplying all the small number of male characters outfits as well. The director promised to send me a listing of numbers, matched with the occasion that the scene was set in, so that I could start planning.

However, the bit that set Suzettes’ heart racing was that I had an up-front payment of two million pounds with the promise of another two similar payments as the film was shot.

The bit that caused May to smile was when I told them that the contract should read an agreement between the studio and Yamma Fashions, the registered name of the company.

Colette also had a contract to provide beautician services to the six main characters; Anna, her three make-overs and two other stars. She had enough money there to leave her job when needed and commit fully to the film.

On the way home from the meeting we stopped at my bank and Suzette organised a business account with the cheque. May had left to go to the city to tell Jules that we had the contract and that we would be moving the bespoke manufacturing to a dedicated site as soon as we had it ready.

We would still go to his studio to interview clients for the Asquith Design dresses. When May told the two girls who were working on these projects that we would be shifting the manufacture they both gave Jules their notice so they could continue to work on my designs.

Three other things happened before the end of summer. The first was that we had the fashion parade at the Chelsea and the second was Suzette graduating with honours.

The fashion show was an absolute hoot. We had all finished our costumes from the photos and I was talking to Anna and she wanted to see them. She sent a mini-bus to the school and the ten of us snuck out in our finery and was taken to the studio.

She greeted us and gave all of the students, and Judith (who was not in costume this day), a big hug, saying that they were all spot on but different enough to be new. She showed us through the sound stage where they were starting to set up for the film.

She was very interested in the accessories and the fact that all of them were made by the class. Then she got very serious. “If I organise it so that the accessories and jewellery in the film are all linked to your contract, could you other girls join Amity to make them for the film?”

They all looked stunned and then, one by one, they all said yes they would. I assured Judith that I would be able to pay them a wage and they could do the work in the new premises, rather than load up the school facilities.

Judith said “Well, that makes it easy for me to give you all passes next year as you will all be putting out products that everyone will see. I think the Head is going to love this.”

As we were boarding the bus, Anna then asked the date of the fashion show and, when told, thought a bit and asked if she could join us for it and talk about the outfits from her memories of them.

Judith hardly drew breath to agree and had a silly smile on her face as we drove away. On the way back I got the driver to stop at Purley so I could show them the factory that I now had the keys for.

It had the Yamma Fashions sign over the door and, when I took them in they explored the various workrooms and picked the ones that they could use. I asked the specialists if they could give me a list of the equipment they needed so we could fit the rooms out.

The day of the fashion show we helped Anna get into the building without being seen. The demand for seats had been huge as everyone wanted to see what we would come up with.

We all changed into our costumes and Colette, who was now working only part-time at the Viva Salon, did the make-up.

Anna had brought the Egyptian dress, which was going to be fun as the recreation of her original one was the first one on the catwalk. The big auditorium was packed and there was an audible gasp as Anna walked out.

This one would be going down in the history books.

She strode to the microphone in her new Egyptian dress. “Hello, fans. Anyone out there who has their head up their arse their whole life may not know me. My name is Anna Oubis and this fashion show is called the Ten Ages of Anna.”

We had organised a fellow student to do the projections of her in the original outfits and the first came up on the screen above us as our first girl walked out with our version of it.

Anna regaled the crowd with anecdotes about her time wearing it and did point out the shortness of the original outfit, saying, “Of course, I have more class these days.”

We then went through her punk phase with our model having enough fake metal hanging off her to make a few car parts. Then it was the band that got her into the film industry as she looked like a film star already when she sang.

We worked through the movie outfits and, by the time the eight girls were lined up across the front of the auditorium, she had the crowd in stitches. She then got serious and asked them to quieten down as she had something a little more serious to say.

“Some time ago I went to a fashion designer to get a dress. I got more than a dress as I walked out of there with two new friends who are going to help me, along with these brilliant girls you see before you, to make my next film. One of those friends could not be here today but the other is Amity Asquith who will now model that very dress she made for me.”

I walked out and did my thing to great applause.

She then said, “There is one dress you have not seen yet as we did promise ten. A couple of movies ago I played a royal pain in the arse – oops, make that a royal princess. In that film I had a scene that was set in a ball. I present to you one of the most influential teachers I have ever met, one of your very own, Judith Jericho!”

My lecturer glided out on to the stage area in a concoction of silk, lace, taffeta and billowing underskirts that I had made. It was very hard to walk in, I know as I had tried it. Her appearance brought the house down and we all took our bows as the applause continued.

In the end, Judith had to go to the microphone to say that we would be in the staff dining room for lunch, if anyone wanted to say hello. We filed out and Anna gave us all a hug as we passed her, waving to the crowd as she followed us to the side room.

I had made Judith a nice shift to change into as there was no way she could get through the doors to the staff room in that dress. After she had changed she gave us all a hug as well and had a very broad grin on her face as she took us to the staff dining room where we had a table set up for lunch.

The fact that the two Deans and the Head sat with us was enough to make the rest of the staff a little more polite when they came to talk. The Head was a great fan of Anna and they had a good chat about their favourite movies.

As it wound up, my class and I went back to change into normal clothing and Anna also changed back to the jeans and top she had come in. As she was about to go she gave me the three tickets for Hectors’ show, saying she would call me and let me know where we would meet to go in together.

Suzette graduated in a beautiful dress I had made for her and she was radiant. I had made my mother a new dress as well and I had my off-white shift I had worn before.

We now put Suzette to work to put together the new company, organising the management structure and allocating funds for employees. The three original stake-holders were me, May and Jules and then Anna said she wanted to be in it and put up some money.

That worked through, we needed to put the two extra seamstresses onto the books, as well as my eight classmates as casuals so they could still do their course work. We had the factory painted out in nice neutral colours and all the extra equipment was ordered.

There would be mark-out tables, cutting benches, sewing machines, irons, stocks of material and all the odds and ends that we would need. I recreated my ‘interview room’ in one of the offices and got a big box of notebooks and sketch pads.

The other thing was leasing a couple of cars, one for me and one for Suzette, as well as van fitted with clothes racks for when we started deliveries.

Our third occasion came along one Saturday evening when I took Kayla with me to pick up May. I had made Kayla a long gown for the evening and another for myself. May had made her own, the last one of hers that would come out of the House of Jules.

We rendezvoused with Anna and transferred to her limo after I had parked and locked mine in a secure car park. At the theatre we were treated like celebrities and shown to a box by Hector himself.

The full show was good, the theatre was packed, something he had told us happened every night, and the gowns looked stunning. The cast did their mime acts so well you could swear that they were the ones doing the singing and the comedy routines were pretty funny as well. Kayla lapped it all up as it was a good night out for her.

At the end of the show, after the applause, Hector came out on the stage and said that tonight we had some special guests. He told them to look up to the box and he called out that Amity Asquith, the designer of all the costumes in this show was here and Anna said “Stand up dear, and wave” which I did.

He then said we also had Kayla Jones from Helens Boutique in Redhill who made all of the dresses. Kayla was embarrassed but also stood and waved. He then introduced Anna Oubis, the famous actress and she also stood a waved regally.

When she sat down she said, smiling, “Bloody third in line to a couple of dressmakers, I can't believe it!” and then cracked up laughing.

I managed to get good marks in all of my subjects and a few of my pictures were chosen to be hung in the school art show, alongside our ‘Ten Ages of Anna’ costumes on mannequins.

The Dean of Design had requested that the school would keep them and each of us was given our next terms fees as payment. The other girls were very happy at this.

They also spent the summer break working in Yamma and sitting with Anna to come up with the jewellery and other accessories that she thought we could start with. I had a list of the sorts of general outfits that would be needed and it didn’t take long to draw these up and get the dressmakers working on them. We had a photocopier and copies of these went to Helen to source in different sizes and different colours.

The big thing that I had to work on was the better creations for Anna and the other stars. I already knew what she liked so I could work on hers without needing to interview her again so we made appointments to go and see the other female stars in their homes or at the studios where they were working. Gradually we built up the range that we would need.

The three guys were a different matter. I asked each of them to come in one at a time. Eric was the first one to come and see me. He was very anxious about playing a woman and said he had never done anything like it before. However, when I asked him about the sorts of dresses he liked to see on women his mind pictures were so detailed I could have made his dresses from photos of his images.

I did a number of sketches and when I showed him he blushed. “How did you know? I only ever did this in total privacy and have never even been outside.”

I got him to strip and took his measurements and when I asked what size bra he usually wore he told me. I asked him to come back at the same time next week and to bring his femme underwear, shoes, hose and bag as we would supply the rest.

When he came in for his next visit we had Colette on hand and got him into our own little salon. When he left it he was hairless from the eyebrows down and smelt nice. He put on his own underwear, which was all up-market, and we fitted him into his first outfit.

Colette did his make-up, nails and added a well-fitting wig which was then styled. We had shoes in his size that went with the outfit and when he was ready I showed him what he looked like in the mirror.

To say he was shocked was an understatement as we had to get him sat down for a little while and bring him a glass of water.

I cast a very slight feminisation spell over him that allowed him to walk and talk to match his looks and then said, “We will have a walk around the factory first and then there will be someone you will have to meet.”

As we walked and looked at the processes and talked to our busy workers he became less Eric and more Erica, to the point where it started being a natural way to act.

We were in the sewing room when Suzette came to us and said that there was a Billy in the front office for his interview.

I asked, “Erica, how long have you known Billy?” and she said it must be years.

I said “How long do you think you can go before he twigs who you are?”

She thought it would be about thirty seconds and I said, “I don’t think he will twig at all, let’s go and see who is right.”

In the front office I met Billy. “Look, there are a couple of things that I have to look at first. Why don’t I let Erica show you around the place first and then she can bring you to my interview room when you are finished.”

I went back into my interview area and tidied up all the signs that Eric had been there, folding his male things and putting them into the case that he had brought his female underwear in. I sat with Colette and chatted until there was a knock on the door.

Colette opened the door and Erica stood there with Billy, who was looking a bit red in the face. They came in and Billy sat down while Erica stood by the door with a lovely, wicked smile.

I think I may have won the bet. Billy said, “Miss Asquith, I am here so that you can try to make me look like a girl for the film. I don’t think I could look as good as the three of you but I am here to try. Now, can you please tell Erica that I am a closet gay so that she stops coming on at me?”

I asked him how long he had known he was gay and he said it was years. I then asked him how long his friend Eric had known about it and he said he didn’t know that.

Erica spoke up. “From the time I saw you feeling the material of a dancers costume and smelling the scent, Brighton 1985, I think it was. We were playing young blades about town in that farce.”

The look on Billys’ face was wonderful to see. He turned and looked at Erica and stuttered “Er,er,Eric, surely that’s not you?”

Erica came over and kissed him on the forehead. “Of course it is, Billy Willy. I never thought I could fool you at all yet here you are worried that I may be throwing myself at your feet.”

She then said, “Amity, dearest, you certainly are an angel. If I can have my case I think I will go to the studio and see how many more of my friends see me as someone new. And then, while I look the part, I am going to go dress shopping.”

I gave her the case, another with more outfits in, a hug and a kiss on the cheek, saying, “Go kill ‘em, girl,” and she strode out like Wonder Woman to face the new life that she had just started out on.

Billy still looked a little pasty so I gave him a glass of water. He asked if he could get close to that look and I told him that I thought he may match it, if not exceeding it.

We then got down to his style and his likes. I sketched several outfits as we spoke and I showed them to him. He gulped a couple of times and promised to come back the following week with his femme underwear for his make-over.

As he left, Colette said “One down, two to go.”

When he did come back we took him through the salon experience before he dressed in his underwear and we dressed him in a new outfit and Colette did his make-up and hair.

As to be expected, he was amazed and pleased with his new look. Once again I cast a mild feminiser spell over him and then said “The last time you were here Erica showed you around the place but I doubt that you took much in. Let me give you a tour and then you can practise your new personality on your old friend, Joe, who is due for his first appointment in half an hour.”

That time was hilarious as Joe was totally sure that no-one thought him gay and that Willow was, indeed, madly in love with him by the time they returned to my office.

After the great reveal he sat there with his eyes shut. “I was only doing this because I wanted Billy and Eric to be happy and now I want you to make me look as good as they do. I have had coffee with Erica several times at the studio over the past week or so and I never twigged that she was anything but a genuine girl, maybe an extra but a beautiful one. She does not walk, talk or act like the Eric I knew.”

Willow said “Josie, sweetheart, perhaps you can have coffee with the two of us tomorrow. I am meeting her at a cafe in Croydon this afternoon and we will be planning our take-over of Annas’ movie.” She sashayed out with her two cases and the hug and cheek kiss from me and Colette.

Joe said, “Oh God, Billy was always the strong one, what have you unleashed on the world?” We did his interview and made his appointment for the following week. He didn’t know that he would be joined afterwards by Willow and Erica who would be taking Josie shopping.

And so 1993 carried on. In August we had a girls’ night out with me, May, Suzette, Colette, Roberta, Josie, Willow and Erica; my eight class mates and Judith going to see U2 on stage at Wembley.

It was a great concert with Salman Rushdie, who had been in hiding since 1989, coming on stage to give Bono a hug. The funniest part was when a group of about ten lads decided that we were game and pestered us and the single ones among us reciprocated.

We all went to a pub afterwards and they had a disco going. May and I were dancing together, Judith and a couple of the taken schoolgirls were sitting at a table guarding our drinks and I watched with wonder as Suzette, Colette, Erica, Willow, Josie and five of my classmates danced very closely to their partners and even snogged while they danced.

The last term of the year passed without too many problems. Me, and my classmates, were getting almost a free ride though the courses with our outside activities taken on as credit to our marks.

My paintings were going well and I had taken my Shania Twain model into the first modelling lesson and then only needed to learn working with clay as it was deemed that I had woodworking mastered already.

May and I had moved into a small house we had found in Purley and Helen had come through with our factory warehouse now a quarter full of low-cost clothing based on the movie outfits, all with Yamma Fashion labels. Jules had supplied his quota of outlandish outfits and we had paid him for them, with a discount, of course.

I had earlier moved all of my dressmaking equipment to the factory and now cleared out my other stuff to my new home, allowing Suzette to set up an office at my old home. My mother often visited us at the factory and was very supportive of our efforts.

The same can’t be said of the rest of the coven who were all a bit miffed that three of their number had embraced the business world. This was lessened when we employed Colettes’ sisters, Babs and Jacqui, as well as Robertas’ sister, Patricia, who was put into the shop to help Helen with the bulk supplies.

We managed to calm the older members by giving each of them a personal ‘Amity by Amity’ outfit to wear at the Christmas party.

The filming had started and we delivered the outfits for particular scenes as required. Anna told me that filming was a hoot when she got together with the ‘three amigos’ and Cliff told me that this would be the last movie he would make with her as his action man ones were much easier to do, even if he sometimes found himself hanging from rock faces or buildings.

Our term fashion show was easy as we put on an ‘Outfits from a Movie’ show with ten outfits soon to be seen on the big screen. May and I had a steady stream of appointments with customers that Jules had set up and the walls of the factory offices were becoming covered in photos of our designs that had been pictured in the magazines.

We had a big party for our Redhill customers and there was also one put on by the studio. All in all, it was a good year, especially when another cheque from the studio arrived.

May and I saw in 1994 together, alone in the house and the midnight hour passed while we were making love. Filming had stopped until the second week of January and we spent the time up to then taking stock.

I had put feelers out about stores who would like to stock our clothing range and Helen was already selling ‘Yamma Fashions’ in the shop. A few of her friends were carrying us as well. We all knew that the demand would not hit until the film came out but sales were already worth having. Our warehouse was filling up with lots of different outfits and I had plenty to show anyone who wanted to think about stocking our lines.

In the week before we reopened for business I got a call from one of those I had sent information to and he came down, with his buyers, to visit us and inspect the products. They were impressed with the photos that adorned the walls and pleasantly surprised at the quality products that we could offer.

I told them that we insisted on good quality, well made outfits and that only then would they have the Yamma label.

I told them that once we had finished supplying the outfits for the film we could start producing a better, more expensive range that I would put an “Amity Creations’ label on. These would all be made here and would be much smaller numbers in a restricted size and colour range.

I had some of our film dresses that had not been supplied yet to show them and we came to an agreement that day, to be followed up by a written contract to supply his thirty shops across the country.

When we waved them off May held me close. “Isn’t that the next step you have been waiting for?”

I said it was indeed and rang Suzette to tell her of the likely orders to come in, the numbers and the pricing and she said, “You did say that an empire may take longer but I think you are nearly there.”

When everyone gathered on our first day of trading for the year I got them together and told them the news. It made them all happy that we now had a future beyond the film. We were now supplying jewellery, handbags and hats under the same label.

The film was eventually finished and we got our third cheque which made Suzette very happy as we were already trading with enough income to pay the bills. It would allow us to expand, if needed, and also put on a couple of representatives to go out and see who else needed our product.

That was not needed for a while as, when the film came out and we all had a walk on the red carpet, it was a smash hit with the critics loving the rom-com/bitchy/glorious clothes/love and craziness of it.

Our warehouse emptied almost overnight and we spent a lot of time and effort getting more in. We did have a glorious party at the Belfry where all of the stars were feted at the opening of the movie there.

Our ‘special’ customers were over the moon to meet Josie, Willow and Erica; three girls like them whose disguise was broken early on and who were all now living full time as women.

All three said that their careers were much more assured as women so it had been a win/win for them and even more so as they all had boyfriends as well.

My eight classmates and I graduated in the middle of the year and we all had a party to celebrate, inviting everyone who had been involved with our success. Judith was now a regular visitor to the factory, bringing new students to see how things were done.

One odd thing was that, towards the end of the year, a gallery wanted to put on an exhibition of my drawings, paintings, models and my efforts at sculpture.

Anna and the other stars of the film were now coming directly to the factory to buy ‘Amity by Amity’ gowns for special occasions so I was kept busy and also improved my own dressmaking skills.

We had the factory extended to give us more warehouse space as the supply and delivery side grew. We also put on more dressmakers to meet the increasing demand for the ‘Amity Creations’ designs.

We now had a full office with girls coping with supply and delivery paperwork, income and expenditure and everything else that a successful business needs. One thing we did do was supply all of the employees with their clothing for work and I must say they all looked good as they left at knock-off time.

As the year drew to a close we had a Christmas party in the factory and a lot of our friends attended as well. We put on a good spread and it was a jolly affair.

Helen called for me to give a speech and I stood on a chair and told them all that I was proud of them and that they were the ones who had made ‘Yamma’ a household name among the discerning public. There was a cheer when I told them that we were in line to supply outfits for a film sequel, this time set in Paris. There was another cheer when I told them that Jules had been invited to have a showing at the next ‘Fashion Week’ and that he wanted us to supply the outfits as he didn’t have the capacity to supply the expected demand.

I ended my speech with, “A few years ago I underwent an experience that changed my life. During that time I felt great pain and when the pain went away I said ‘Are we done now?’”

“I can stand here and ask that same question again but I now know the answer already. No, we are not done now, we have only just begun!”

Marianne Gregory © 2022