Taking A Change free porn video

Old Hotel. By Tanya H. It was an old country house, transformed into a hotel, set deep in the woods with a wide gravel drive and a sense of history behind its many windows, as though great people had walked past them and big decisions made there. Now it was a little faded, the carpet in the reception was worn and the pictures dulled but the receptionist was attractive, in a businesslike manner, in a crisp blouse and neat plait. She smiled warmly as I entered with my bag. "Mr Fisher?" she said in a honeyed voice. She was my sort of age, thirty something, with black hair that gleamed in the subdued lights and eyes of a startling blue. There was a wedding band about her slim finger. "Do I look like a Mr Fisher?" I asked, smiled and set down my bag. She was sitting behind the desk, I could just see the swell of her breasts down the front of her blouse. "34 years old, sandy haired, smart suit and good shoes. Definitely a Mr Fisher. I'm Hazel. How was your day?" "Tedious," I said and feigned a yawn. It had been a difficult day selling pharmaceutical products to hard pressed GP surgeries around the county with more of the same to follow tomorrow. The job had seemed like a good idea when I'd started, but I was mightily bored of it now. "I'm ready for a shower, a power nap and then something hot from the restaurant." "Let me show you to your room so you can get started then," she said. She called a younger woman from a back officer and I was pleased to follow the way her hips moved under her pencil skirt and the swishing sound her legs made in their gleaming nylon. My room was large, pleasantly warm and old-fashioned enough to have a big four-poster bed and stately carved furniture. Hazel showed me the en-suite, smiled again and left me to unpack. About thirty minutes later I was stretched out on the bed and seconds later I was asleep. I awoke into darkness, autumn was drawing into winter and the days were still shortening. The bed side light made the room cosy and I had about an hour before I was booked in for dinner so I rose, padded to the bathroom to attend nature's call and on the way back to the wardrobe for something to wear I caught my reflection in the full length mirror. "Not getting any younger Eddie, my boy," I said to myself. The last few years on the road selling pills and dressings was taking its toll on my waistline. Despite a strictish regime of staying away from cooked breakfasts and red meats in the many hotels I tripped through, the relatively regular jogging I did was not stopping the onset of middle- aged potbelly. With my pallid skin, dark body hair, long face and my receding hairline hair I did not consider myself attractive nor was I terribly confident around women. Having been single for most of my adult life I was getting resigned to the idea of being alone. Just before I turned away the air between me and the mirror appeared to shimmer, like there was heat source just below it. I blinked and when I looked at the mirror again somebody else was staring back at me. A woman. She had such a comic expression of surprise across her pretty face I almost laughed. Then I fully took in the fact that she was naked and standing in the exact spot where I had been admiring myself just a moment before. In fact it was so obvious that there must have been a woman standing where I was that I looked down - in case I was her! Whatever was going on the mirror was clever stuff, because when I looked down there I was with my flat chest, protruding belly and then Mr Floppy hanging contentedly right where he should have been. I looked up, to see what the mirror was doing now and was just in time to see the special effect looking up as well, as though she'd been checking out her bits too. Her movement was more dramatic than mine, for she had masses of deep red hair to get in the way. Indeed, as our eyes met again part of her face and all of her chest was obscured by hair. I'm not especially into red-heads, but her hair was stunning. The rest of her looked good too. I felt a slight twinge of guilt for staring at her, I'm not an overt oogler, but she was in my mirror, intruding on my room and I was naked too - obviously as a reflection, just, she was staring at me too. Anyway, she had a slim waist, round hips and a neat little nest of curls on her mound while her legs were long and gorgeous. Her skin was pale and smooth, even from here I could see the freckles across it. "Hi there," I said and waved. Her lips moved, they were full and delicious, and her wave mirrored mine exactly. Well, it should have done, shouldn't it? Wasn't that what mirrors were for? Dreaming, I muttered to myself and had a peep at the bed, in case the real me was there. It was empty. Of course. I turned back to the mirror-woman, hoping she'd gone. She hadn't. A slight frown was making a crease between her fine, arched brows. I realised I was frowning too. Her frown deepened. She licked her lips nervously at exactly the same time I did. The air shimmered again, just for an instant, but in that instant my dream went off a new tangent. It had to be a dream, there was no other rational explanation, for what had just happened. Without looking, just from the way that I felt, I knew that I had changed. Not only from the extra weight where it shouldn't have been, or the way my thighs now touched or the gap at the top of them where Mr Floppy had been until a few moments before, but because my view of the mirror was partially obscured by a curtain of fine red hair. It was like spun silk under my fingers as I heaved it back over a shoulder and it fell like a breeze down my back. Now I could see breasts in the mirror, full and high but not overly big, though they certainly felt bigger than they looked. When I looked down there they were rising smoothly from my hairless chest like they'd always been there. I had dark pink nipples and at any other time if I had been this close to nipples so pretty I'd have been a very happy man. "You need to wake up, Eddie," I murmured to myself and my voice felt tight and high in my throat. I put my hands on my curved hips. They felt soft and smooth, I could dimple the feminine layer of fat underneath and feel my fingers doing it. Up my waist I ran them until they found the bottom of my ribs and then I felt, through my breasts, what it felt like to have their weight gently cupped by warm hands. Did I think of them as my breasts? Well they must have been, because I was holding them and I could feel them. Almost reluctantly I let my hands fall to my side. I was probably going to need to blink any minute but I couldn't look away from the woman in front of me - the woman I had seemingly become. That heatless haze rose again and when I could see her clearly the woman in the mirror was clothed, in a very smart dark blue, uniform dress. My reflection and I both looked down at the same time and we were properly identical. Her dress was mine - I who had never ever worn a dress before. But this dress meant more than just women's clothing, it was a nurse's dress - knee length and flared. I wore a little fob watch pinned to my chest, black opaque tights and neatly laced flat shoes. Beneath a starched white cap, all that glorious red hair was pinned back and when I turned my head slightly I saw it gathered into a round bun at the back of my head. How had this happened? I felt a bra's band around my back, straps over my shoulders, I touched the bun, felt the cap and when I took hesitant step towards the reflection the dress rustled around my legs. I looked at the rumpled bed. A dream. I was dreaming I was a woman, a very attractive nurse. All I needed to do was get back into bed, go back to sleep and everything would be fine. So I turned my back on the mirror, held my head up so I couldn't see my bust or that dress and stepped smartly for the bed. Before I had taken more than two steps I felt cool air on my bare skin and I was me again - Eddie Fisher, Salesman. I almost whooped with joy, cupping my balls and swinging my hips so my cock swung around like it had always been there and I had never had a pussy. But the memories wouldn't go away as I dressed for dinner and I went down to the dining room it was if the ghost of that woman walked with me so I could imagine the way her breasts moved as she walked, how her thighs might feel brushing together or the caress of that hair around her shoulders. The restaurant was quiet that evening, just one waitress to look after the few patrons. She was a shortish, plumpish girl, with mousy hair and crooked teeth - though she had a pleasant smile and excellent manner. As I sat watching over her my salad I decided I had been a better looking woman than her, which was daft - I hadn't been a woman. It was a dream, a hallucination, a... I didn't know what it was, I couldn't explain how it had happened but the important thing was that it was over. My plans for the evening had centred on sitting in my room watching a movie and catching up on some reading, but I was apprehensive about facing the mirror again, so I went into the bar and found myself alone but for Hazel, who had swapped reception for serving drinks. "It's a quiet night tonight," she said, pulling me a pint. "And the usual bar girl has a couple of days off, to go and see her girlfriend in London. All very modern." She accepted the offer of a drink and came round to the public side to drink it, hopping elegantly onto a stool beside me and crossing her legs. Her skirt rode up a little, baring a little thigh and she tugged absently at her hem. Her shoes were polished, pointed and spike heeled. I found myself staring at them and wondering if the red-head in the mirror wore shoes like that. Then I realised Hazel was talking to me. I blinked and apologised. "I asked about tomorrow, Ed," she said. "Two surgeries down the road, an out of hours unit in Reading. Then home." "You sound a little weary of it." I sighed and sipped my drink. Hazel slipped off her shoes and swung her feet under her, circling her fingernails absently around one ankle while I spoke - she was quite distracting. "It's a good living, I admit, and my bank manager is happy, but... It's a bit, well... It's not very satisfying. It doesn't have much heart." "Try working in a hotel," she said, with a little laugh. "Actually, I love working here. I used to sell cars, that is truly soulless." "You look happy enough," I said. "My heart's not in this, my sales figures are starting to slip and I don't really care - even though I may not get a bonus this year." "What else could you do? With heart?" I sipped my drink and shrugged carelessly. "This will sound daft." "I don't suppose it will," said Hazel. "Unless you want to be a unicorn." I snorted. "I seriously thought about being a nurse when I left the air force." "Why didn't you?" "Oh I don't know. Not very butch is it." "Lots of men become nurses, you idiot - don't you watch Casualty?" We laughed together for a moment. I sipped my drink and the image of the woman in the mirror crept back into my awareness. I could almost feel that dress move around me. "If you don't enjoy what you do, why not change?" she pressed. I shrugged. "It would be such a massive change, less money, crap working conditions, bad bosses." "It can't all be bad. Lots of people do it." "It's a calling, I think." "Then answer the call," she said, as though it were as simple as that. "It's a bit more complicated than that," I started to say, but checked myself before the first syllable. Because it wasn't. I had no dependents, no girlfriend; my mum and dad had separated not long after I was born and he had gone to Hong Kong and died before I could get to know him. She was in a care home on the South coast - a severe stroke meant she didn't recognise me. I only had myself to please "I suppose I do need a change," I sighed. Hazel leant forward and touched my knee in a friendly, supportive way. "When change comes, you should take it. See where it will take you." First I took myself back to my room, yawning widely and looking forward to trying out that wide bed. Glancing cautiously at that mirror I was pleased to see no mysterious females there, just a tired looking scrawny bloke. Pleased and maybe a little disappointed - after all, the girl in the mirror was everything I was not. As I settled under the bed clothes a guilty fantasy stole through my sleepy mind. How would it be if I was her? If I was inside that beautiful body... Somehow it became daylight in my room, the curtains were open and stirred by a warm breeze through opened windows. The woman was sitting at the dressing table, I was watching from behind and to her left. She was leaning into the mirror, pouting and deftly applying lipstick with a well practised ease, looking as natural in my room as I was. Her coppery hair was tied back in a thick, French plait and she wore just a cream coloured bra and sheer black tights through which I could see pink, floral print panties. I hardly dared to breathe, in case she became aware of me and screamed to have a strange man watching, but after she finished with her lips, after she had replaced the cap on her lipstick, she turned and gave me a warm smile. "It's really okay," she said. Her voice was smooth and soft, rounded with a West Country accent like mine. While I was still trying to think of a reply she turned back to the mirror, lifted a mascara wand and started darkening her eyelashes. "Who are you?" I asked after a moment or two. But she just smiled again, methodically brushing her lashes thicker and blacker. Then, with a dislocating whirl, I found myself looking at her face from close up. She was concentrating, looking hard at the lashes around her left eye. Up came the wand from its bottle, closer and closer to my eye until I wanted to blink. I held the wand still, so close I could barely focus on in. I licked my lips - they were smooth and slick. I swallowed nervously, then touched the mascara wand to my eyelashes and combed mascara onto them. "It's really okay," I whispered to myself, "It's a dream. It must be, I don't know how to do make up." My eyes looked darker, lovelier with mascara, but I wasn't finished. A bit of eyeliner would make them more mysterious, would counter the shimmering blue depths of my eyes that weren't really mine. The eyeliner already had a perfect point and I held my breath as I drew it carefully around my left eye and then the right. Perfect. I looked critically, not bad for a guy who knows nothing about cosmetics. In my dream I stood from the stool, stepped away from the dressing table and stretched up onto my tiptoes, my arms pushed up towards the ceiling. I felt lithe and alive, full of energy and life. There was the suit I would wear today, a grey pencil skirt and fitted jacket, draped and slack from their hangers in the open wardrobe. There, on the floor near the bathroom door, were the heels I would slip my feet into before I went for breakfast. My perfume was light on the air circling the room. Waking into chilly darkness I was disorientated for a few heartbeats. The bed was comfortable under me, the covers snug over my body. The room was still. I needed a piss, but had a thumping erection. It was pulsing in my hand. "Just a weird bloody dream, Eddie Fisher," I said into the dark, trying to balance the urgent need to pee with the sexy attraction of holding my cock. Masturbating was the only sex I got and I enjoyed it. I stroked it a couple of times, up and down, and it felt good. But my bladder protested so much I rolled from the bed with a groan and shambled across the room, stumbling into the dressing table stool and then tripping over a discarded shoe. The bathroom light was blinding as I stood there wiling my erection away, hopping from one foot to the other with the desperation to piss. At last it drooped sufficiently and I arched a long stream into the toilet bowl groaning with the satisfaction of releasing the pressure. I splashed some water over my hands, yawned, rubbed my eyes and turned for the bed when I was rooted to the spot by the shoe I had tripped over minutes ago. There had to be a reason why there was a woman's high- heeled shoe lying on its side on my hotel room floor. It was black, suede and almond toed; the heel was slim but not quite stiletto fine and maybe three inches long. There was fine strap, unfastened now, which would cross the arch of the woman who wore it. Surely I wasn't dreaming within a dream. It felt like I was awake. The toppled shoe lay innocently in the pool of light cast into the bedroom from the bathroom. I took a couple of hesitant steps, squatted and picked it up. The sole was scuffed from use, the heel a little worn. The strap was kinked from where it fastened into the delicate, gold buckle. I couldn't imagine what it would feel like to wear a feminine shoe like this, but for just a wild, disconnected moment, I thought about slipping it on and then fastening the strap. Like it would fit on my big foot! Like it would look anything other than grotesque on my pale, boney, hairy foot. I dropped it like it might scorch me. But it's twin was just a couple of feet away. And, hanging from the wardrobe door where I had left my jacket and trousers was a pale grey jacket and beside it a matching skirt. The light was dim, but the garments stood out against the dark furniture and the almost rectangular shape of the pencil skirt was distinct. My suit had been charcoal in colour, almost black so this had to be a dream. Though the carpet was soft and resilient under my toes, the night air cool across my bare skin. The skirt felt real to my fingers. With a guilty feeling, like I was stalking through a woman's bedroom driven by some fetish or perversion, I slipped my fingers under the hem and found a slick, satin lining. How would this skirt feel swishing around my legs, the way Hazel's had earlier? Further dream time mystery lay upon my dressing table. I had dreamt of lipstick, eyeliner and mascara, now they had become real lined up neatly beside a round hairbrush and a pair of gold, hoop earrings. Without thinking I lifted a hand and touched my earlobes, but there was nothing there - no sensation they were pierced. I picked up the lipstick, removed the cap and twisted the base to extend the curved point. It was a red-brown shade, suited to a red headed woman and the memory of how it had felt in my dream was so real, so perfect I had almost touched it to my thin, male lips before I remembered myself with a start. With a strangled cry of frustration I wrenched open one of the drawers and swept the make up inside before slamming it shut. If it wasn't a dream I was going mad! I should wake up. I must wake up! About to stomp across to the bed, to dive in and pull the covers over my head I glanced at the mirror. Instead of me in my boxer shorts the woman was back, caught in the act of striding through the room, naked and gorgeous but for a pair of black, lace trimmed French panties. Maybe I should have just got into bed. Maybe if I had done that I would have woken and everything would have been right and proper. But I stopped, faced her, watched her watching me. Her head was tilted inquisitively, her hair tumbled around her shoulders. Her lips moved. "It's really okay," she said. There wasn't any sound, but I knew that's what she'd said. Then she reached out towards me, and I was close enough to imagine that her arm might emerge from the glass and pull me in. I took a step, then another, and even though she was supposed to be the reflection and I was meant to be real I reached out too, as though my fingers could really find hers through the mirror. A static crack made me flinch as my fingertips found the cold glass. I jumped back, as though stung. Those fingertips were tingling with the aftermath of a mild, electric shock. The glass was black now, I couldn't even see the room in it. Wriggling my fingertips experimentally I found they still worked okay, but the tingling was intensifying, growing warmer, but not uncomfortably so - not like a horrible bout of pins and needles, or when you get so hungry you start to lose sensation. It was quite pleasant, like a massage, or a warm bath, or sunshine. Despite the room's gloom, there was still just the bathroom light on, I could see my hand in perfect detail, down to the lines on the skin, the arcs of all the dark hairs across the back of it as though it were under an unseen spotlight or glowing subtly from within. Bringing my fingertips together I didn't notice any different in how my sparked hand felt, but the heat spread to my left fingers as well and I rubbed my hands together, as though I were washing them. Now both hands were full of that ethereal heat and I felt myself smile at the sensation. There was a stirring inside my boxer shorts now as I slipped my hands across each other. Maybe I should slip my hands in there, caress my cock into a thumping erection and spread that sensation there too. Instead I rubbed my hands up my arms, like spreading shower gel along them. The hairs lifted across my body as I touched myself, my breath caught with the sensual pleasure of my own skin under my hands. As much as I was used to the lonely pleasure of playing with my cock, such enjoyment usually came with the mechanical act of making my cock hard with one hand, maybe looking at some pictures on my phone, and then just wanking until I came. I'd never taken the time to enjoy the feel of my body, to explore the shapes of my arms, my bum, thighs and belly. Had I ever taken a moment to explore my nipples, or the lines of my face before? I probably hadn't; just go straight for the cock - that's what we do. Not now, not in this dream within a dream. Though I pushed down my boxers and stepped free from them, I made love to myself without so much as brushing a fingertip through the pre-cum that drooled from my cock that craved to be touched. It felt like I was burning up, that my body was shining, but so warm and wonderful it just heaped pleasure upon pleasure. I teased fingers along the crack of my ass, the super-sensitive skin behind my knees and inner arms; the back of my neck and jawline all enjoyed the heat from my charged fingers as I stood there in the centre of my hotel room, oblivious to everything but my own body. I ran my hands through my hair, which came thick and full, tumbling away from my scalp like it had been penned inside for too long and was aching to be free. There was a cry in my throat when it whispered and slid around my shoulders, it fell like a breeze down my back, cloaking my arms, touching my nipples. Shaking my head gently, just to feel the silken caress of the hair, I sensed a line was about to be crossed. Without caring to think, I stepped over it willingly and lifted my magical hands to my chest. This time when I felt my nipples press into my palms, it was only seconds before they were pushed away and filled by soft, resilient curves. I knew without looking what that new weight was I laughed with the suddenness of the transformation. I stroked down my flanks until I found the tips of my pelvis and loved the way my hips pushed at my hands, spreading them with every heartbeat. I clasped my amazing hands to my bum where the skin became smooth and tight and round and full. I made my thighs sleek and soft, my calves silken and my feet petite. At the end, when I was almost all girl I straightened, running my fingertips up my legs, around my groin and up my flatttened tummy. I circled my full breasts and combed my hair, stroked my eyelashes and curved my brows, then I returned to my cock - still jutting proud in front of my new shape. With my left hand I cupped my balls, with the right I clasped my cock the way I had done so many times before. It responded to the touch with a pulse, like I was about to cum, my balls squirmed in their sack and the more I stroked my cock the smaller it became. As gently as I caressed my balls, they pulled from my touch and vanished inside. I was breathing heavier now, soft high pitched gasps breaking the room's quiet, lovingly playing with my cock and though it shrank it never grew soft, remaining stiff and pointed until it dwindled too small for me to grasp. When I ran a fingertip around its remnant, I cried out with the sudden flash of ecstasy - as though all the nerve endings and pleasure that had been spread amongst my inches of penis were now concentrated into what remained. Amongst a long, dreamy sigh I spoke aloud to describe what it had become aloud, "my clitoris." Where my balls had been my other hand found warmth and liquid, folds and a slit. Did I dare run my finger between those lips - my labia - to explore the vagina within. I could almost feel it growing up inside me, spreading past a new cervix into a womb then branching into fallopian tubes and at the end of them... My remade testicles would become ovaries. Was all my sperm transforming into perfect eggs? My legs shook as though they were about to give way. Like a drunk I stumbled back, away from the dark mirror and found the bed. I collapsed backwards across it, legs and arms spread, hair fanned out, breasts trembling. I was a woman. I should have been horrified, I should have been surprised, shocked, screaming! I giggled. My shoulders shook now, the movement carried to my breasts and I was laughing; laughing with the joy of what had just happened to me. Laughing with pleasure to fight my hair from under my head and pull the covers over my nakedness, laughing to let a finger find the opening to my pussy again. The laughter stopped as I let the finger in. I went quiet with surprise for that simple act was just wonderful, so heartstoppingly gorgeous tears rose in my eyes. I was a woman. It was amazing. Of course it was just a dream. To be honest, it was hard to decide where life ended and dreams began. In the morning's fresh light I sat at the dressing table, with the stool beneath my bare bum, and stared into the mirror. A woman stared back. It was like the dream from last night, with the sunshine and the cool morning air and a woman sitting before a mirror. This time she was perfectly naked and this time there was no Eddie Fisher standing just behind her watching her apply her lipstick. This time she was Eddie Fisher. "It's really okay," I said in my chocolate and satin voice. I smiled at my reflection and it smiled back. If it were a dream the lipstick, mascara and eye liner would be on the dresser, but they weren't. There they were, in the drawer I'd swept them into during the night, carelessly laid atop a cream bra, some flowery panties and a packaged pair of sheer, black tights. What could I do? Scream and shout, smash the mirror, throw those woman's things around the room? Beat my breast, tear my hair? The police would come, I could tell them I'd been the victim of some horrible trick and I'd be sectioned, sent to a secure unit somewhere for the therapists to unpick my disconnections. But I didn't feel disconnected. I didn't feel horrible. Perhaps I could have felt numb or tired or stunned, but I felt none of those things. I felt powerful, alive, humming with energy - fully charged. I closed the drawer, stood and walked back to the bed smiling at the sensual roll of my hips, the gentle sway of my breasts. Having never felt beautiful before I had a moment before the mirror for a slow twirl, letting my eyes fill with curves, lifting onto my tip toes to shape my legs, lifting my hair away from my face. There was no discord between the me and the mirror's reflection this time and I stood there for a couple of minutes, admiring my new body and challenging it to show the old, male version, daring it to take away what I'd been given. I was certain that wouldn't happen. In my mind's eye I dressed myself in that dark blue nurse's dress again, some pale green scrubs. I could start my training this coming January if I worked fast; I would never have to sell bandages again. Reality came like a splash of water across the face. Eddie Fisher sold pills - the scrawney middle-aged bloke. Not Eddie Fisher the gorgeous red-head. As a woman I didn't exist, no school certificates, air force discharge papers, driving licence, credit cards, yahoo account, pension - nothing. Even this room was booked for Mr EB Fisher of Sentinel Pharmaceuticals. Mr Eddie Fisher was booked to meet the practice manager at the local surgery at 1130. However, Miss Eddie Fisher had a rumbling tummy and if she was going to face the world she was going to do it after a cup of coffee and a breakfast. I had everything I needed right here to put on a brave face and present myself as the world's newest citizen. Hazel had seemed like a nice person, she wouldn't begrudge me some bacon and eggs. Everything had seemed so easy in the other dreams and this carried over into this one. I stepped into the pretty panties and eased myself into the cream, lace bra with a surprising lack of fuss. The bra was exceptionally comfortable and I enjoyed the feel of it lifting my breasts. I took the tights from their wrapping and my hands were so soft I didn't snag them at all as they changed my legs from a pale, milky white into smooth, shaded black. I took a moment to make sure the seams were lined up along my toes, that the wasitband was flat around my slim middle and then brushed my legs together. That slippery hiss was lovely and the sensation of the nylon across nylon made me smile again. My hands knew what they were doing with the make up, there was a muscle memory from somewhere that kept my eyeliner straight and lipstick on my lips. A familiarity with brushing masses of thick, wavy hair made short work of tying it all back into a bushy ponytail high on the back of my head. My fingers felt ready to wind it all into a plait, but I was getting too hungry for that. I didn't even stumble with the female sided buttons on the blouse, managed the back fastening of the skirt without a fumble and decided to leave the jacket for when I faced the world outside the room. The skirt moved around my legs with a sensual whisper, the satin lining feeling like a cool, sexy breeze over my tights. Then I picked up those heels, slipped my feet into them and fiddled the straps closed. I stood slowly, wobbling a little on the narrow heels, feeling how my feet were arched, keeping my back straight and shoulder back, head up. There was a woman looking back at me from the mirror. She looked perfectly at ease with herself; smart, elegant and feminine. Me. Making for the door my body knew how to manage the heels in the same way my fingers had known how to make a pony tail and fasten the bra strap. I felt tall and graceful. The skirt must have helped; though it had a small split up the back it was narrow enough to keep my steps short. It was only when I was stood there with the door handle in one hand and the room key in the other that I realised that without pockets in my skirt I had nowhere to put the key. Or my wallet, phone, loose change and any of the other clatter I would normally carry around in pockets. I needed a hand bag. It was beside the dresser - compact, black and leather. I was going to have to get used to carrying one from now in the same way I was going to have to get used to bras and menstruating, people staring at my boobs, being patronising, trying to get me into bed. All of top of training to be a nurse! Life felt like an adventure again! I dropped my room key into the hand bag and, swinging it merrily, swished, clicked and swayed my way down into the restaurant. Nobody stared, overtly at least, nobody screamed or pointed that there was a man in a skirt at the hotplate helping himself to breakfast. The waitress smiled at me, an elderly gentleman stepped aside to let me go ahead to the coffee machine. I picked up a complimentary newspaper and studied the world while I ate. Nothing had changed - the wars, injustices, crimes, the bizarre and occasionally joyous were all reported and pictured just they had been yesterday and would be tomorrow. That a middle-aged rep had discovered a little zest for life, along with an appreciation for a good pair of tights, went unnoticed. Until I left the restaurant and headed back to my room past reception. Hazel was sitting behind the desk with a warm smile and a perfect, gleaming bun exactly centred on the back of her head. "Miss Fisher?" she called. I took another couple of steps and she had to call me again before I realised who Miss Fisher must be. "Sorry, I was miles away," I said, stopping and half turning. A sudden need to pee filled me. I watched Hazel nervously as though she were about to denounce me. "I really like your shoes." My brows came together slightly in a frown. "You look very elegant in them." "Thank you," I said slowly, like it were still a trick. Maybe I would instantly transform back to Eddie there and then and she would laugh derisively at my hairy legs and big feet exposed under the skirt. "I think there might have been a mistake with your booking," she went on, pushing a slip of paper across the desk towards me. "Would you mind just checking it for me please?" Now I didn't feel so comfortable or confident in my woman costume, like I couldn't carry it off in front of this person who had been female all her life. "Your name, would you check it for me please?" she pointed to the boxes on the form she was offering . Her nail was perfect and deep purple. I read the name and then read it again. Miss Edith J Fisher, Serenity Pharmaceuticals. Edith? An old name, perhaps bringing to mind an elderly lady with shapeless clothes and swollen feet. But it was also a soft and feminine name, which could be shortened to Eddie, I supposed, if I really wanted to. I wondered what the J stood for. There would have to be something in my hand bag which would answer that. A driving licence perhaps. "It looks okay," I said. "Oh good." Having half turned away, I stopped and faced Hazel again. "Our chat last night." She raised her eyebrows and smiled. "Really made me think. I'm going to do it - hand in my notice from this shitty job and apply to be a nurse." "I think you'll be much happier," she said, stood gracefully and extended her hand. It was warms to the touch when I shook it. The contact brought with it a slight aftertaste of the warmth I'd felt spreading across my skin after I'd touched the mirror. It lasted only a moment, but when I looked at Hazel again I knew that more than just a shared gender joined us. "You too?" I said, hesitantly. Another smile. "You won't look back, Edith. None of us do." Her desk phone rang then, with an apologetic shrug she answered it leaving me to make my way back to my room with a hundred thousand questions whirling through my head. By the time I'd sat on the edge of the bed and looked inside my purse to find, from my drivers licence, that my middle name was Jodie, I'd decided that none of them needed answering. I packed quickly and neatly, ready for my first appointment of the day and an eventual trip back to my flat in Yorkshire. Then, for a final check, I phoned the surgery I was due to be visiting and after being on hold for only a reasonable amount of time, spoke to a young man on their reception. I told him I was ringing from Serenity's Head Office thinking that there had been a mistake in the booking process for a rep, could he confirm that he was expecting one this morning. After a few clicks on a keyboard he said, yes. Edith Fisher would be meeting the practice pharmacist at 1130. I thanked him and hung up. With a long satisfied sigh I turned to the mirror and gave it a thumbs up. It appeared everything had been thought of. The next adventure was going to be driving my car in heels, or so I thought, as I presented myself back at the hotel reception to check out. Hazel and her smile were there waiting for me, along with another, younger woman. She had long blonde hair, in a messy bun, was quite tall and looked stunning in a long, slender black dress, bangles and neat flat pumps. Her name was Hannah, and she was the barmaid who had been visiting her girlfriend in London. Whoever her girlfriend was, she was a very lucky woman! "Have you ever worked behind a bar, Edith?" Hazel asked, taking my key from me. "Ages ago." "In a restaurant?" "Not so much." "Hannah's just handed her notice, I've been expecting it. Look, in between now and when you start your nurse training... Would you fancy helping me out here?" "It's a great place to work," Hannah said. "You'll get a room, left alone when you want to be, and Hazel's a great boss. She knows all kind of useful stuff." She touched one of her long, beaded earrings in a movement that might have been casual. "I mean really useful." "Can I think about it?" I asked, looking at Hannah, trying to see if there were a man behind her too. "Of course," said Hazel. "Thought about it. Yes." I enjoyed it so much, I almost didn't want to go off the Bristol Royal Infirmary as a student nurse. But in my heart that's what I wanted to do and that's what I did. Now I'm a ward sister and more tired around the eyes than I ought to be. I'm softer and less defined around the middle and my boobs droop a little too much after two hungry babies. Hazel is godmother to one and Hannah to the other, by the way. Was nursing everything I hoped it would be? The money's terrible, the organisation's crap and conditions always seem to get worse; I still love it. My husband's a copper, so he's in the same position. Most nights we're too tired for a conversation, never mind sex, or a social life, but the kids are doing well at school, they play lots of sport, have lots of friends and cause us only a reasonable amount of grief. Am I happy? Yes I am, but perhaps the better question would be, am I happier? Who knows. But I believe I am.