Oh Danny Girl free porn video

Oh, Danny Girl. By Tanya H. Six months and a day after my ex husband put himself in prison Danny asked if we could go for lunch together. For a moment fear made me silent and still. If I said yes the ex would appear again, raging at the shop window. 'Who have you been seeing, who have you been speaking to? Told you, Alice - people just want to take advantage of you, men like him just want one thing.' Then I pushed the fear down. The ex couldn't hurt me anymore, he was imprisoned, so I said - yes, that would be nice, thank you. Siobhan, my boss - and concerned enough for my welfare to be an honorary aunt - nodded approval. After all, it was only going to be a sandwich in the coffee shop I used to go to, before the ex. With him in prison I had control over me. Mum worried too, what Mum wouldn't. She'd sat with Dad through the trial and heard detail of their daughter's sex life no parent should ever have to hear. Dad, an ex-copper who would have arranged something unpleasant for the ex had the justice system let me down, had wanted me to move back in with them. At 28 I was probably a little old for that, even if it was well meant and superficially tempting. If I had moved away it would have been running, wouldn't it? Danny and I had always got on so going out for coffee together was long overdue. A kind, sensitive soul his pleasant good looks meant the lady customers always dragged their husbands towards his desk. Slightly unconventionally, he wore his mid-brown hair quite long, though he always gathered it neatly into a pony tail at the nape of his neck. I often thought he should have been given a billowing, full sleeved white shirt for work - then the middle aged women would have been buying holidays faster than you could say Jack Sparrow. Always clean shaven with a ready smile he had direct blue eyes and a North Yorkshire way with his words that came softer than the local accent I was stuck with. Looking back I think during the ex's worst excesses Danny's support had come from a distance - a smile, a cup of tea when I was low; perhaps he saw how my eyes were haunted and my cheeks hollowed and gave warmth without prying. Danny must have known something of my past, after all the ex had been to the shop a couple of times - he'd breached the court order there twice - but Danny never pushed, never inquired, never gave voice to his curiosity. Eventually he asked if he could join me for lunch. One lunch led to another. Then every lunch and I found myself looking at my watch in the mornings, waiting for the time to click around until Siobhan would look up from her work station, smile and say, 'Go on then, you two. Off you go, I'll mange here.' We worked, back then, in a travel agency on the high street of a largish, East Yorkshire seaside town. Siobhan managed it, and us, while Chrissie, Dawn, Sam and Kat were the part-time girls. Sometimes I wondered about having a travel shop in a town whose livelihood came from holiday makers, but folk who ran boarding houses, chip shops and amusement arcades needed breaks too. I enjoyed the work, the soft-skills suited me and the way I got on with people; it was satisfying too - selling dreams, anniversaries, occasions and memories. The money wasn't so good, but Siobhan ran a good team, I'd been happy enough there to have dug my heels in slightly when the ex had wanted me to resign and concentrate my life on him. After everything he did I was so pleased, and lucky, Siobhan kept me on. Though I had been there a while - my first job after college - almost ten years by the time Danny and I went to lunch and I knew the ropes confidently enough to stand in for Siobhan when she had time off. Not much of a life I suppose, a little house in the next village down, just a train ride away, an ordinary undemanding job and a spectacularly failed marriage - hi, I'm Alice Watts. Maybe that's why the ex came onto me - a little person with an ordinary life, I didn't stand out - didn't make a fuss. Only five foot three, the only thing that marked me out in a crowd was my good head of deep red hair - which the ex only ever allowed me to wear pinned up. Beyond that I was pale as a fish's belly, petite and quiet. The perfectly ordinary girl the ex could gradually, sweetly, horribly ease under his control. Enough of the ex. He'd stopped owning me then and I emerged, blinking from under his shadow I found I didn't need to be quiet any more. Danny listened to me - he let me finish my sentences, didn't contradict or subtly belittle. Danny's interest in me extended beyond what he could see. I became talkative again, he restored my love of conversation; when we were together we chatted about everything and nothing until one day he touched something the ex had buried, and restored some more of me. There we were, in that same coffee shop where the girls knew our names, when some stranger of a woman walked in - business smart in a fitted dress of charcoal grey, with a matching jacket and expensive handbag; hair sleek, shining and flowing about her shoulders, tall and sure footed in shining black stilettos. "Her shoes are amazing," Danny whispered to me when she'd sat down, crossing her legs with a slinky hiss of sheer nylon. "I have some like that." I almost put a hand over my mouth after I gave that up, stupidly scared to have opened a crack in the box I'd locked my old life in. "I think." "You think?" The ex hadn't liked me to wear heels. Apparently they made me a slut. Unless I was in the bedroom, wearing the kind of shoes that were frankly slutty, when they were okay; more than okay - compulsory. The ex hadn't allowed me to wear skirts or dresses or anything revealing, feminine or attractive. Except at home. That had even extended to ensuring I wore uniform trousers for work along with the company's long-sleeved blouses - never short sleeves. The worst of it... I'd gone along with him, accepted all that as him knowing the best for me. "I've got a pair like that." Hidden! I'd hidden them away when I'd realised the ex was throwing away things he didn't want me to wear. "You'd look amazing in shoes like that." Which made me wonder why I'd remained the Alice the ex had moulded. When I came out from the loo after that particular lunch I'd let my hair spill wild and free around my shoulders and down my back. People looked, Danny looked - even that super-smart business woman looked. "I've never seen you with your hair down," Danny said and that felt warm. "You look different, Alice," said Judy, my therapist, when I saw her for a scheduled appointment the next day. "I'm wearing make up." She inclined her head. "And a dress." "Do you like it?" "I do, and I like what it says about you." "I knew you'd see." "I don't think you need to see me any more." She kissed my cheek and squeezed my hands when my hour was done. "Go well, Alice. Come back if you need to, but I think you're strong enough now. You've come a long way." I thanked her, for the journey would have been longer, and rockier without her support. The following Monday I went to work as I always used to, before the ex. The navy-blue uniform skirt felt a little loose around waist, hips and bum, but I'd thinned since wearing it last - since I'd been allowed to wear it last. Stepping out from the railway station to the High Street my heels kept my steps shorter and I smiled at the clip clip clip I made. Since I turned fifteen and finally ground Mum down into letting me buy myself some court shoes, with a modest 2" heel, I'd practically lived in stilettos - essential wear for the shorter woman. These shoes, plain black court shoes, with a tapered four inches of heel, had been almost new when the ex had started censoring my wardrobe into the bin and I'd hidden them. To slip them on and stand tall made me feel more like Old Alice. I danced a few, contended steps around my kitchen before heading out to the train. Danny looked up as I turned the corner from Station Street, but men do that when they hear the tapping of high heels. I smiled to see him, then realised from the way he went back to his phone he hadn't recognised me. "Alice!" Recognition came when I was a few metres away. He glanced at my pencil skirt, then my ankles, finished on my heels and came back to make eye contact. "I knew you'd look amazing in heels." "I'm back." Another frown. "Did I miss you going away?" With my newfound courage I looked Danny in the eye, until the sea breeze lifted hair over my face. It felt good - wild and free. "Thank you." He frowned. I leant forward and kissed his cheek. When Siobhan climbed from her man's car, breathless and only a couple of minutes shy of actually being late, she did a proper double take at my appearance, threw the shop keys at Danny and swept me into a squashy, but very well meant hug. "Oh, Alice," she said to my shoulder. "I have missed you." I'd missed me as well. When I looked in the mirror - hair down, make-up tastefully done, legs out, a little cleavage bared - I felt like an free, independent woman again. Not the ex's puppet. The long slow, comfortable buildup of our relationship found us one evening walking away from a good Indian restaurant, pleasantly full of dupiaza and Cobra beer, bathed in moonlight and the warmth of being with somebody I looked forward to seeing every day. The simple pleasure of holding his hand filled my feet with barely controlled skipping. "I hope you don't mind," he said, quietly and looking straight ahead. "But I'm falling in love with you." With some effort I may have covered up the sharp gasp his words lifted from me. A jury and then an appeal court had concluded the last person to tell me that had been lying. "I know what you've been through, Alice.' "You don't." "I know some of what you've been through and if I'm pushing too fast, I'll back off - I swear I will, but that won't change how I feel about you." "The last man who loved me went on to rape me." A shit come back for a declaration of love, but when you've seen, heard and felt what the angry, possessive and utterly consuming distortion of love feels like; when you've bled from and been bruised by another's rage of love, then love bears fangs. "Oh, god - Alice, I am so sorry." He was too, his face hung with it. Regret dragged at his shoulders, they made his fingers go slack in mine as though ready to release me. "I probably shouldn't have told you, but he did it because I stood up to him. I was a little bit proud of myself. I sent him to prison." Maybe I should have apologised too, instead I started to pull my hand from his while hot tears filled my eyes; not just for what had been done to me, but for what I pushed away. Men are fragile creatures, after all, and I had just bluntly exposed the branding across me and my body screaming, 'Ryan was here'. Only he held my hand tight, pulled me towards him into an embrace made clumsy by my stiffness and shaking shoulders. But I bit back the sobs, stepped back very slightly and pushed his hands down to rest on my hips. With head up I held his eye. "You're not him. Nothing like. Love's scary. You scared me just then. But... Thank you. Thank you for falling in love with me." "It doesn't change how I feel about you." "Doesn't it? Even a little?" "It makes me want to punch -" I silenced him with a hand over his mouth. "No, none of that. This is about me and you, not me and him or him and you. There is no you and him. Understand?" When he nodded I took my hand away. "I love you, Alice. These last few months... seeing you, spending time with you, getting to be with you, being the one you smile to see... You've made me so happy." How did I feel? What did I feel when I sat in the front room of my little house, peeping around the curtains and waiting to see Danny's car come to whisk me away to the restaurant? That welling of joy when I realised he was outside, the warmth as I settled into his car and he leaned over to kiss my cheek and I turned so our lips met instead. Watching the clock wherever I was when Danny wasn't, waiting for the time to pass until I saw him again. You see, he was good for me - brilliant therapy. As much as Judy's patience and my own efforts had brought me from under the ex's cloud, Danny's love really skipped me towards the sunshine. And it was love this time. I thought I'd loved the ex, or some of the boys I'd gone out with before, but all that emotion paled besides the butterflies in me when I saw Danny each day, or heard him whisper my name, or brush his fingers over the back of my hand. Time passed; several months? It was hard to keep track. We spent a much time together as was possible; we embraced, hugged, kissed. I regularly found flowers and chocolates on my desk, gifts of pens, broaches and bracelets came my way, Siobhan loved the first earrings he bought me; for the first time ever I started wearing an anklet thanks to Danny finding me a pretty silver one. Nothing he did made me feel forced or uncomfortable - he let our relationship develop at my pace, never his. With all my recent experience coming from another's wholly selfish approach, his selflessness made me wonder if he did have some opaque agenda I would discover and hate. Surely it must be too good to be true that he never pushed the physical side? We kissed, held hands; we'd watch a movie together with my head on his shoulder and his arm around me, but nothing more. Did that mean he didn't want me, didn't find me attractive, thought me damaged somehow? Did he think me too fragile, that monsters lurked in me? Or did he just love me? Could it actually be possible that a man would respect me and what I wanted? Certainly I loved him a little more each time we cuddled up and never went any further. Until one weekend we went bowling; his suggestion and my first time for ages, way before the ex. My bumbling ineptitude was matched only by Danny's patience in showing me, over and over, how to launch a ball down the track and knock skittles over. A willing learner, my motivation to learn was improved by being in contact with Danny as emphasised some finer point of bowling technique. It might sound a little cliche'd, but towards the end of the game the relationship between instructor and student headed away from pure sport towards something more Dirty Dancing. On my last turn I did manage a clean sweep, or whatever you call it, with two balls. Points-wise, Danny remained a clear winner, but he celebrated with me like I'd just won a gold medal or something. We high- fived, embraced, whoop-whooped before finally I kissed him and he kissed me back. Now this wasn't out first kiss, but it was our first Kiss and by the time we separated my breaths came fast . Heat coloured my cheeks, only heightened by the amusement of some teenagers on the next door lane, and I found Danny's arousal pressed to me, clear even through his jeans. Clearly uncomfortable with my effect on him, he tried edging away; ever the selfless gentleman. With a hot, internal flush of delight I knew the time had come; I wanted - no, I needed to feel that hard, wonderful bulge slipping inside me so I kept moving myself to him until he gave up and let me hold my body to his erection. I took him home (dragged him home), shushed his protests and stripped away my top and bra so he could finally see my breasts - hoping he'd like them, petite as they were. Even when I was practically throwing myself naked at his feet he stayed frustratingly shy of touching me, as if a man's fingers against my breasts or inner thighs could stir ghosts and freeze my passion. It took me unfastening his jeans and boldly pushing my hands inside to show I wasn't going through the motions for his satisfaction. My cheeks were red and burning with arousal, my nipples ached for his fingertips; I wanted him - I needed him! At last he smiled, finally getting the messages I was transmitting, when I took one of his hands, brought it to my lips for a kiss, the placed it, palm first, to a breast. "I love you," I said, the first time I had been able to give voice to what I'd been enjoying for some time. "You I love." And it was so worth the wait; the weight of a man, the slow and steady movement as he filled and stretched me; arching my back, pushing my body hard against him, digging my nails into his back and screaming a long orgasm. I wept a little afterwards, while he tried to comfort me - clearly horrified he'd done something awful - but the tears ran with happiness. You see, I'd always imagined that when I finally found the courage to take a man to my bed again my ex's ghost would swoop to wail of what he'd done to me, what we'd done together and the things I'd done at his insistence. The ghost never came, or if it did I never saw it - because Danny felt so different. The ex's sex had him at its centre leaving me an accessory to his needs, his fantasies and fetishes. As good as the sex had been, I'd been a passenger, never Alice - a canvas for him to work his wishes upon. Danny made love to me. He explored me with a curiosity and delight that made me wonder how many women he'd been with, though his attentiveness and confidence suggested experience or a very good teacher. Nobody had ever loved me so completely. When I told Siobhan Danny was moving in with me she smiled, patted my hand in her maternal way and wondered if it was a bit soon. Eleven months had passed by then - eleven months where every night I went home on my own I thought about what we would be doing if we were together; every night if we slept apart I'd rest my hands against my breasts, brush fingers over my labia and think about the ways we could be loving each other. "I have a good feeling about this," I said. "I feel really good about it." "I just don't want you rushing into something - after Him." Which was lovely, well meant, but unfounded. Danny was no ex - I'd looked for the signs; being a survivor compelled me to. Firstly - I could disagree with him, in public or private. We had different views: politics - he was more left wing than my cautious centre-ground ideas; food - I enjoyed meat, he was firmly vegetarian; religion - he was live and let live, I thought the whole thing ridiculous. Secondly - he didn't try to influence what I wore or who I spoke to. Occasionally I deliberately wore clothes he didn't like to try and tease a controlling response, but he was happily cool even with a pair of quite ugly shorts and some clumsy, wedge-heeled ankle boots. The big test came when I rejoined a gym and I showed him the new running tights and top I'd bought to replace the ones the ex discarded. He complimented me on my figure, closely outlined in lycra as it was, before starting an enjoyable, penetrative fitness session that may have used more calories than a conventional workout. Even when I came home from my induction and spoke of my very handsome trainer, he didn't lose his good nature. Even a little bit. A keeper, as they say. So Danny moved in to my little house and I wasn't sure if I could have been any happier. I remember waking up one Sunday morning, a little later than usual after a long, wonderful evening that had carried on into nightime and then past midnight, to decide my last ex nightmare must have been months ago. Instead I enjoyed wet, Danny dreams, though the best thing about them was waking up beside him so I could bring the dream to life. Then he found the courage to buy me lingerie - not an easy find for a slight woman like me; I'd been gifted lingerie before, by the ex, but that (and I will stop comparing everything Danny does to the things the ex did) was about him packaging my body for his gratification. Danny lovingly wrapped the whole experience for me, though he certainly enjoyed it too. First came a deep, hot bath - with bubbles, candles and chilled wine. Then, when I was glowing, he dried and wrapped me in a satin dressing gown - beautiful and black in itself - to lead me to our bedroom. More candles gave a soft, seductive glow. Having learnt how I loved to have another brush my hair, he brushed it to a soft shine before easing the dressing gown off my shoulders and away from my body. I'm sure you can imagine how I felt by then, from my stiff, aching nipples, through the warm tingle enlivening my skin to the insistent, wet pulse in my labia. If I was to be naked, and visibly aroused, I decided he should lose his shorts and T so I could see how he was enjoying himself, though he pushed away my hands when I reached for his glistening erection. My pretended, disappointed pout vanished, replaced by excited curiosity as he unwrapped the gifts he'd bought. First panties - low on the waist, hardly anything more that two elegant triangles of lace and satin in a delicate cream shade. He helped me into them, drawing them slow and smooth over my legs, making caresses along my inner thighs and circles behind my knees as I gasped. They snugly cupped my hot pussy and outlined my swollen lips so perfectly he drew a finger over them, so quickly and softly I called him a tease. Then a basque. Having never worn such a thing before I was entranced as he edged the straps along my arms, gently eased my breasts into its lace cups and wrapped me in it, fastening the beautiful garment one hook at a time and leaving me happily embraced in lace from waist to chest. The novelty of its stiff boning making me feel like a Victorian princess. Pushing the basque's suspenders under my panties he had me sit before unwrapping a pair of wonderfully sheer and practically invisible silk stockings. I'd worn stockings before, of course I had, but never silk and never had been so intimately and attentively dressed in them. Danny drew them over my legs with obsessive care, a little at a time, kissing the bare skin just before he covered it with silk. As he got higher over my thigh I felt his cock tip brush my shin and leave a faint wet smear. He whispered an apology and pulled himself away, before I shushed him and at the first opportunity ran my silk clad toes over his cock. Then another late night led to an early morning until I fell asleep, tight in his arms - so deeply, happily in love I could have laughed, giggled and cried all at once. The following Monday I wore my new basque, with more conventional nylon stockings, under my work skirt and blouse to work, feeling like the most exotic woman in the world. Every move I made reminded of the beautiful lingerie under my bland work clothes and of Danny dressing me. Had there been the opportunity to drag him into a stationary cupboard that day he would have been taken there several times. Sadly, neither Siobhan nor the customers gave us a moment to ourselves. "Do you compare me to the ex?" Danny asked one day. He'd had that slightly pensive line between his brows for a day or two, so I knew something was coming. We were out walking together; Danny liked being out and walking - me? I would walk, to get about town, but as a leisure activity? No thanks. I'd been hiking with him several times, so I could be with him and see the light in his eyes and the smile on his face when he topped some ridge and could stare out at some view or other. Mostly he'd go off on those arduous kinds of hikes on his own, but we did do a lot of walking together and that particular day, when we were ambling along the promenade and eating ice cream, he asked, "Do you compare me to the ex." "Of course." "You didn't even think about that." I squeezed his hand and offered a lick of my ice cream - I had salted caramel, he was on chocolate. Honesty had become my policy with men, fragile creatures remember? "Why should I? I'm a survivor. I protect myself by looking for signs." He stared out to sea a moment and the wind teased our hair. "Controlling and coercive behaviour?" "I haven't noticed any yet." "But you are looking?" "Hardly at all any more." We walked a little further, until the ice creams were done, when he leant on the railings and looked over the sand to watch the waves without really seeing them. I knew he had something on his mind so I put my arm around him, rested my head on his shoulder and waited for him to find the steel to tell me. If I'm being honest I waited to be quietly, gently dumped - the ex's shadow too far reaching for Danny to live under any more. Who could blame him? Tears pricked my eyes as I imagined what he might say. "Alice, have you ever wondered what it would be like to be the opposite sex?" That came from out of the blue, and I completely missed the significance of what he'd just exposed as I recovered from the rejection I'd supposed for myself. "I honestly don't think I have." As much as I could see the imbalance between the genders in our society, and it frustrated and scared me to see how horribly women were treated elsewhere in the world, as much I had experienced the worst a man could do to a woman I felt the slow, but steady tide of progress towards full equality. I would have loved to have the same opportunity, implied respect and status in society, but actually be a man? No thanks. I enjoyed being a woman, I'd enjoyed learning it again with Danny. "I do. All the time." He said it very quietly and in the silence that followed I tried those words over and over in my mind, trying to find some way I could have misinterpreted them and then wondering what to say in reply. To my credit, what I didn't do was stiffen up or pull away from the close embrace I shared with him. "You're not happy about that, are you?" he said, while I tried out options for a reply. "Have you ever told anybody that before?" "My sister. Nobody else." "Did she react immediately?" "No." "It's a big statement, Danny. I was trying to think of the right thing to say." "The first thing that comes to mind?" "I love you." "Even now?" "Why would it change?" "I've just told you I wish I was like you. A woman." "Once again, why would my love change? Unless you want to be become some horrible cow, with a filler-pout and over-dyed hair and big, horribly false boobs and orange skin and sceamingly awful fashion sense obsessing about Instagram likes and You Tube make-up videos." "Wow! Never have my dreams been so cruelly dismissed." We laughed, maybe with relief, embraced. Kissed. Embraced and kissed again. "Thanks," he said. "I mean, really thanks. I've been agonising about finding a way to tell you for ages." I tugged him into motion again. It was a spring evening, we had taken the walk after work and though I had swapped heels for walking shoes the sea breeze was a little too cool and intrusive under my skirt to be standing still for long. "I'm happy you did. That you trust me enough to tell me." We walked a little further, arm in arm and I asked him, gently, if he wanted to talk about it. "It's complicated." "I imagine it is. Break it down, give me the basics. I know nothing about it." "Okay. I'll do my best. You know those times you've caught me looking?" "At other women?" "And you teased me for it?" "I could have got jealous." "You're not the type." "Yes, I know those times." Danny was a leg man, he liked to see a woman in a skirt; he liked to see a woman in a skirt and heels; he could hardly help but look at a woman so dressed. One of the things about falling in love with Danny was being happy to wear a skirt and heels to please him. Not because he asked, or demanded, or sulked if I didn't, but because he smiled when I did. Because he loved so much to run his hands over my legs when I dressed them in something sheer I loved to wear nylons for him: not because he said I was a slut for having bare legs, or for wearing a skirt at all, but because I loved that he loved my legs in nylons. "It's envy," he said. "I used to think of it as jealousy, because the feeling came so intensely, but it's not jealousy - that's an angry emotion, a negative one. Envy is right, I envy the women I see around me." "Do you envy me?" He laughed, awkwardly. "Yes. As much as I am hopelessly in love with you, I envy you your life. The things you do, the way you are, the way you dress." "I'm more than my clothes. Being a woman is more than lace and heels." "That probably came out wrong. I know it is, I know what people say about men who wear women's clothes, but that's not it. Not all of it, though the clothes are a big part of gender, aren't they?" I considered that for a few moments. "If we lived in a place where men and women dressed the same, had the same hair cuts, did the same work. Would you still want to be a woman?" "Yes." "You didn't think about it." "Alice, I am a woman. I just don't look like one." That left a lot to think about - the man I loved thought he was a woman. That was a big leap to take, for I'd seen him - every bit of him there was to see. I'd taken his cock deep into my pussy, I'd lovingly, contentedly sucked and licked it until he'd come in my mouth and I'd swallowed what he'd released over my tongue. I'd caressed and massaged his body as he'd touched mine. He was my man, my boyfriend, my lover - Danny; tall, handsome, male. A woman? "I'm a master of disguise," he added when I didn't say anything. "A mistress of disguise?" I suggested. We were maybe two miles along the foreshore away from town by now, the path mostly obscured by blown sand - the beach to our left and dunes of gorse and marram grass to our right. The coffee we had drunk from before we stopped for an ice-cream was sitting heavily in my bladder and I knew I wasn't going to make it back to town for a pee. Instructing him to watch for other walkers I took myself a few paces into the dunes, lifted my skirt, pulled down my tights and panties then squatted. "Stop looking," I snapped, when despite the urgency I couldn't let it flow under his eyes. The relief was wonderful, if undignified and when Danny turned from his duty to watch again I wasn't able to stop. He kept checking his watch, but I surely wasn't going for that long. "Do you still want to be a woman? Still envy me?" I asked, rearranging my clothes. "You do it so well, how could I not?" Which, I suppose, was a compliment of sorts. The idea that Danny's love for me might be too good to be true, that there must be a catch, was something I'd often wrestled with. I did consider that perhaps his gender frustration might be the catch - if so, I felt strong enough to dismiss it as a problem. (What if he changes his gender and leaves you, Alice?) Sometimes, under a stagnant wash of self- doubt, I agonised whether some fault of mine fired Danny's woman envy. Perhaps I wasn't woman enough? Maybe I was too much a woman; should I wear less make up, dress differently? I resolutely told myself he would feel that envy whatever kind of woman I presented as, that he loved me for myself. To try and help I found myself wondering if I should buy him some women's clothes and offer whatever in my wardrobe would fit. I felt a warming intimacy to even think of offering him my clothes, though I wasn't sure what would fit. My heels certainly wouldn't. He'd already told me of earlier, experimental cross dressing, before he'd left home. You could sense the shame in his voice when he told me, like he'd been doing something evil. I wondered if he had tried on some of my things, but didn't ask. If he felt the need to tell me he would, but I didn't want to push him into discomfort. I rather enjoyed the deeper connection between after he'd found the trust and confidence to open up about his gender envy. One afternoon, when he was tramping the Derbyshire Dales, I took myself shopping for some new shoes and a top and found myself looking through the skirts and wondering what would look good on a tall, slender girl. In the end I decided on a long, light and slightly flared black skirt with a front split to make it a little more interesting - guessing that a size 12 should be comfortable for him. A little more exploring found him a pair of very sexy, satin French panties and some sheer nude hold- ups with lace tops I knew he'd feel good in. By the time I got home with my shopping I'd endured a crisis of self confidence over my presumption. Maybe he'd hate the skirt, maybe he'd be annoyed or embarrassed with what I'd done. As it happened, I needn't have worried. He bounded through the door, smelling of peaty earth and fresh air, swept me into his arms for a tight squeeze then patiently stood with his eyes closed and hands out while I draped the skirt over them. "Something for when the mood takes you," I explained when I let him open his eyes. For a moment he stared with mute incomprehension at the garment. That pensive line returned between his eyes. "It's a skirt!" "Well done, Sherlock." "For me?" "I already have one like that." "I don't know what to say." Now I was frowning. "If you don't like it..." "Oh you daft lass. Nobody ever did anything like this for me before." Before I could reply I was inside another tight hug. "I'd never have expected anything like this." He said to my neck, in between kissing it. "I like to find you gifts." "But a skirt?" "Why not a skirt?" "I was blown away when you were so comfortable, amazed that I could have that acceptance from you. I thought it would be just passive, never imagined you'd do anything like this." That warm feeling again - when you do something right for somebody special. He was delighted with the stockings and panties too, though it was few days before he built the courage to wear them in front of me. He did report the skirt fitted well, and I didn't begrudge him trying it in secret. I wanted happiness for him, not compulsion. So when he shyly appeared at the living room door wearing a plain, asexual t-shirt, the skirt and stockings it was a moment for both of us. Clothing sends such strong signals about gender identity in our society that I felt deeply unsettled by my head's confusion between skirt and Danny. Having steeled myself to reveal nothing more than a welcoming smile, I patted the space on the sofa beside me until he sat nervously. "What do you think?" Tension practically twanged in his voice, he perched on the edge of the sofa ready for me to run away screaming or something. "It looks good, I love the way it moves." "Do you really? I feel a bit daft." I pulled him back into me, swung my legs over his lap and sat on his knee. "Enjoy the skirt, but be quiet now." I waved at the TV where one of my favourite films was on, "This is the good bit." Over the next couple of weeks his confidence grew and I slowly adjusted my internal gender filters. To be honest, it was easier that I expected. There was Danny in a skirt and Danny in trousers - either way it was just Danny. Once or twice I did his hair into more feminine styles, but he didn't fancy make up so I didn't push that. Deep down he was still bothered about looking more like a man than a woman, even in lipstick. Maybe he thought it would be easier on me, I don't know. Events overtook us before we could take it further. As our confidence grew in his slow exploration of womanhood we started enjoying shopping trips together, to build his wardrobe. An attentive student, he soon picked up the art of elegance in high heels, but I often wondered if he wanted to take it further. After all, he'd told me he wanted to be a woman, not just to dress as one; or try and adopt some stereotypically over-feminine, giggly mannerisms when he cross-dressed. When I mentioned this one evening, he smiled knowingly. "I'm me, I'm a woman. I don't need to try and act like one," he said. "I'm just me." Maybe I stared a moment, then smiled. He'd just made perfect sense - take the gender away, what have you got? Danny, you've got Danny. Who I loved. There were always questions though. When you scratch below the surface of boy and girl gender's a complex thing and complications that had been on the edge of my awareness were now firmly centre of attention. Like; "Do you want to transition? Or even live as a woman?" "Maybe later on." "What's stopping you?" "Being very happy." "You'd be happier as a woman." "I'm happy now, Alice and a don't want to lose you." Or: "What about men?" "I'm a lesbian." "If you're a lesbian and I love you, am I a lesbian too?" "You can be whoever you want to be, Alice." Interesting. As a woman in love with a biologically male woman was I a lesbian? I'd had sexual encounters with women, but that had been at the ex's insistence when he'd decided a three-in-the-bed session with his wife and a woman he'd met god only knew where was a thing to tick off on his sexual adventure list. As much as I thought I'd be repulsed to have a sexually aroused woman before me, with the ex telling me how to touch her, I found her quite pleasant. Her skin had been wonderfully smooth, I'd touched her through sheer hold-ups, satin panties and enjoyed her. It excited me more than perhaps it should when I'd been instructed to kiss her nipple, to tease her breasts - I enjoyed exciting her. Though I hadn't liked her taste. Maybe I was a latent bisexual. That woman's legs came to mind one evening when I was enjoying Danny's newly shaved legs through some of our stockings. By then we didn't have Danny's or Alice's hosiery, just stockings or tights we dipped into as and when we needed some. If he noticed we were low on a particular shade or type he'd shop for more. Anyway, his legs felt good through the nylon - they felt good without any hair over them. I enjoyed them - smooth man's legs in women's stockings, sensual to caress the results from Danny, stiff, erect and proud, were exciting too. Did the arousal growing in me from the contact make me a bit of a lesbian? Just in case I gave him a long, delicious, teasing blow job proving, to myself, I still enjoyed a man. My parents liked him too. Mum became anxious at the mention of a new boyfriend. She'd urged me to leave the last one long before I was ready to accept he was a monster. Dad hadn't liked him at all, but had always buried his contempt - for my sake. I'm sure you can imagine how Danny had felt when I took him to the Northumbrian coastal town and the old fisherman's cottage they had retired to when he left the police. Dad had taken me to one side, when we were leaving after a fine weekend with them. "He's a good 'un, Ali. Good to know. Well done, girl." He'd taken Danny along the coastal paths, they'd been out almost the full length of the Saturday, leaving me and Mum to share a bottle of wine, potter about in her garden and go for tea and cake in the local bakery. A success. Danny's Mum and Dad lived in New Zealand, so I didn't get chance to meet them until we received an invitation down to Oxfordshire for the christening of a cousin's firstborn and his parents announced their attendance at the event. We decided to make a long weekend of it and booked ourselves into a nice looking hotel apparently converted from some small, country manor house. We treated ourselves to a room of a higher standard and were not disappointed - it was warm, old-school and luxurious, with ancient carved furniture, a gorgeous four-poster bed, a large very ornate mirror and spacious en-suite. That it was room thirteen bothered me not one bit, superstition had no fold over me, I kicked off my shoes and bounced like a child on the bed's thick mattress while Danny made tea. Thanks to a lovely evening in the company of Danny's parents and his sister - three very welcoming and entertaining people - it was past eleven before we got up to the room. I think we'd probably have stayed longer, time passed very quickly with them, were it not for their jet lag and our church appointment next morning. Looking forward to some hotel sex, and feeling the opportunity slipping away with all Danny's yawning, I took myself into the loo and was just washing my hands when I heard Danny say something. In the water splashing I must have heard him wrong, but I thought he said, "Alice - you need to see this, my reflection in the mirror has turned female - there's a girl looking back at me." "You what?" He didn't answer. Emerging from the bathroom I was just in time to see him, perfectly naked, totter away from the mirror and faint by the bed. I'm not the kind of girl to stand fluttering her hands over her mouth while staring wide eyed at a catastrophe rearing up in front of her. Though I wasn't fast enough to catch him, I did manage to keep his head from thumping the floor. I even retained the capacity to note his serene smile, even as I called his name and shook him firmly by the shoulders. With nothing to show why he'd fainted, neither of us had drunk more than a few glasses of wine, I heaved him onto his back, checked his airway and breathing then rolled him into a recovery position. Still no sign of waking; his eyes stayed closed and that contented smile still haunted his lips. Maybe a minute I waited, watching, assessing - trying to look on the episode objectively. Was there some underlying problem he hadn't told me about? Some medical issue that had just overcome him. Taking a moment to slow my breathing, to calm my racing pulse, I took up my phone and dialled 999. No signal. None on Danny's mobile either. Luckily the room still had a landline down to reception. Another check - he breathed on slow and steady. A woman answered on the first ring and I explained the situation as calmly as I could. "Room thirteen?" she said. "Yes. Can you call an ambulance please?" "I'll be right up." I told her I didn't need her, I needed a paramedic, but she'd already hung up. A firm tap on the door came a couple of minutes kater, during which Danny's condition had not changed. Having made myself a little more respectable with a top over my nightie, and used a blanket to preserve Danny's modesty, I opened the room to a tallish, older, dark-haired woman. She wore a smart skirt suit and despite the time of the night hardly a wisp escaped from her neat, French plait while her subtle make- up looked flawless. Her name badge said Hazel and while she looked concerned, warm even she did nothing soothe my spikes of anxiety - I wanted an ambulance crew. "How long?" she asked, kneeling beside Danny. "Just before I called you." "What happened?" Danny seemed unmoved by the attention, which is a shame for he'd have liked the cut of her suit and shape of her legs. In fact, he appeared so calmly asleep a flush of uncertainty warmed my cheeks. Like I really was a silly girl who'd panicked when her boyfriend nodded off - hardly a survivor at all. "I was in the bathroom, he said something I couldn't quite hear. When I came out, I saw him walk away from the mirror and collapse." "The mirror?" said Hazel, glancing towards it. "Did he say anything?" "I'm not sure that's really relevant. I think he needs help, he's never done this before." Hazel turned to me, then frowned at Danny. "He's sleeping." "He never just fell asleep like that!" "Did he say anything about the mirror?" She peered over her shoulder towards it again. "...no..." Hazel bared her teeth in a quick grin. "I'll take that as a yes. Sorry I didn't get your name?" "Alice." "Alice, your boyfriend is fine. He really is just asleep, but here's the thing... How about you head down to my office, the night porter will get you a glass of wine or a cup of tea, whatever you want, and I'll deal with this." Possibly the strangest thing I'd ever been asked to do, and the ex had made some unusual demands of me. "I don't think so." 'I didn't think you would. Do you love him?" "I think you'd better leave." "Alice..." she took a deep breath. "What's happening here hasn't happened exactly like this before, though every time is different. Something amazing, wonderful and life-changing is happening to him right now. I promise you'll find it easier if you wait downstairs until it's done." "I'm going to call the police." "Look." She lifted Danny's right hand towards me. About to make some caustic comment, and work out how I was going to escape her lunacy to call the cops, I almost ignored his hand. Then I did peep, almost instinctively. Then I stared. My mouth may have dropped open. She showed me a hand, where Danny's hand should have been and attached to Danny's arm. But it wasn't Danny's hand. It was more like my hand, though a little darker, in so much as it was unmistakably a woman's hand - perhaps the kind of hand Danny would dream of having, with slender, elegant fingers and even, oval nails slightly longer than he usually kept them. A woman's hand attached seamlessly to Danny's wrist. "What..." "I can understand what you're feeling, really I can." "...is going on?" "Danny's going to be a woman, right here, right now." "Rubbish!" "He really is." I stood, tossed my hair over my shoulder and lifted my chin. In the end I hadn't been cowed by the ex, I'd held his eye across that courtroom and never flinched, never accepted for a second all the things he'd tried to make me feel for myself and for him during the trial, so I wasn't going to be intimidated by this madwoman. Even if I did feel like I had edged into one of those freaky horror movies the ex had liked to make me watch with him. "You need to go downstairs and call an ambulance." "Neither you, nor him needs an ambulance, Alice." she forced a little smile, but stepped away from us. Her eyes filled with such warmth and empathy I frowned again. "He'll be fine, watch him, hold him when he wakes. Come and see me then, okay? I'll be downstairs. It really would be easier if you came down too, but I understand that you can't. He really will be fine, he'll be beautiful." "Wait!" I forced when her hand was on the door knob. That hand on Danny's arm didn't look so weird now because his forearm looked smoother, like the hair had gone. His arm hair had gone! She waited, poised and serene, her half-smile almost reassuring. "I don't understand." "Neither do I. But it will be fine." "You can't make him a woman. What if he doesn't want it?" "What if he does?" Those words made me look from her insanity to Danny. The muscle definition on his right shoulder was smoothing even as I stared. Hazel walked a couple of steps from the door. "He does, doesn't he? He loves you enough to have told you. You know, don't you?" I shook my head, silently. "It can't, he can't do this." "It happened to me, what's happening to her." "Impossible!" "I know." Her hand rested briefly on my shoulder. "I'll be downstairs, with the kettle on when you're ready." The skin around his left nipple had a puffed, swollen look to it while the nipple itself was bigger than its twin. I remembered my chest looking like that, when I was ten; that girlish excitement seemed fresh in my memory - I was becoming a woman, I'd need a bra. "Danny? Wake up." I knelt beside him and a tear ran down my nose. It hung for a moment, quivered and fell, splashing upon his neck where his Adam's Apple shrunk. Danny slept on, peacefully unaware of what was being done to him; of what was being done to us. Now his other nipple was swelling, his chest looked wonky with just one breast bud, but the other was clearly coming. "She'll be fine," said Hazel. "What about me! I love him. HIM!" Still he didn't stir, even at my angry flash. I made an ugly, choked, guttural laugh. "I'm not a lesbian." "You love who you love, Alice." "His life! It's his life, his Mum and Dad are here somewhere. What will you say to them? 'You love who you love?' His job, everything. What about that?" She squatted next to me, held my chin and forced me to look at her. "This changes her life, her history. There has only ever been... Danielle." Her eyes shone, deep and compelling. "If you come downstairs with me, maybe you'll only have known Danielle as well. I don't know, maybe it's too late for that. Too much has changed already." "What are you talking about!" "It's never happened like this before. The mirror, it makes some men into women - to make them better. It turned me into a woman, I have never looked back - I was born to be a woman, the mirror saw that. It made me like this. It does its thing, I have no control over it, but it is making your boyfriend female right now - look, you can see her changing." "No!" "Her whole past life is rewriting, Alice. It happened to mine, even my Mum thinks I was always her daughter. Everything of Danielle's will change. Look at the clothes on the bed." I looked. Looked again. When I'd put the call in there had been my discarded skirt and top, my tights, panties and bra crumpled on the floor beside his jeans and shirt. Now - two skirts, mine in denim and short, the other longer and flared. Two bras intimately tangled in each other, discarded by two lovers - mine was red, the other black. Danny's bra? Danny's panties? Two pairs of abandoned opaque tights made squiggles on the carpet. "Oh god! Make it st..." Danny wore a breast now, a little girlish breast - maybe an A cup, but still a breast. If the black bra was anything to go by he was going to be bigger than that, bigger than me. What would I see if I pushed that blanket below his hips? I had no right to ask that it be stopped - no right to be so selfish. "His parents will only remember a daughter." "What about me?" More tears, I didn't try to wipe them away. What about my Danny? (Easy, Alice - he isn't yours; the ex taught you that.) "I don't know. I think you may remember her as she was, you're here... seeing it." "Leave us alone now." "Come downstairs when you're ready, I'll put the kettle on." I didn't move or look away until I heard the door shut leaving me alone with Danny - Danny with the softer face. Under my fingers his cheeks were untroubled by stubble. To me he remained male, but others would mistake him for a girl. Was his hair thicker? Longer? When I peeped under the blanket he gone from being lean. Wider hips? Smoother skin? Perhaps I had collapsed, not him? Lulled by the easy acceptance of his parents and sister maybe I'd downed more than a couple of glasses of wine, maybe a whole bottle making this my uneasy, drunken nightmare. "Don't leave me, Danny. I love you, I need you." As if my words could stop this, as if I had the right to. When I pressed a fingertip into his tummy, his abs were still evident, but under a smooth layer of new subcutaneous fat. More was laying down under the skin on his thighs as his legs changed their lines. He'd never have to be self-conscious about muscular calves under sheer nylon now; never want longer jumpers to cover the bulge he made at the front of his skirts. His balls, the lovely cock I had enjoyed so much dwindled even as I stared. As though I could hold it into this world and prevent its reduction into a clitoris I took hold of his cock, gentle but firm. Moving my fingers along it I willed it to grow, to feel his heat and power fill it, but it stayed cool to the touch, shrinking further. Bending low, so my hair trailed across his breasts and my tears spotted his tummy, I kissed its tip. One last kiss, for all the good times. His balls squirmed under my hand, then retreated inside him. I should have looked away, but car-crash fascination kept me locked onto the tight skin, formerly a scrotum, as it stretched and reformed. The dark line along it split, rolled back and opened, folded back into labia. Rosy colour flooded those new lips and what remained of his cock withdrew under a neat hood. My boyfriend had vanished into a new shape of round hips and full breasts, flattened slightly as he lay content on his back. No sign of the man now, nothing male. "Not my boyfriend," I choked falling back against the bed, pulling the blanket over his body - her body - as though by hiding her I could prolong the fiction that Danny hadn't gone. For a moment I crumbled, I rocked, back on the edge of a yawning wide dark place where once the ex had forced me. Flashbacks are any survivor's curse, but Danny had lifted me away from them with his love, his compassion - his essential, human Dannyness. Now, having watched his body blur into something else I fractured into hateful memory. There I was, on my belly - sobbing again - as the ex tugged and yanked at my trousers. What had we argued about? Why had I even argued? He'd expected any resistance to have been soothed and squeezed and crushed by then. He'd said it was my fault, I'd made him do it with that late-in-the- scheme-of-remoulding-Alice spark of defiance, made him cross my last line, forced him to enter the only part of my body I'd refused him. And he'd laughed, as I wept with the pain like a burning spike shoved up and into me. Laughed over me, laughed at my pain, my cowed surrender. "Now I own every part of you." "I'm not going back there," I said softly. "I'm strong." Calm clarity cooled those fears; I wiped at my tears. No more followed. "I love you, Danny." What if she were hit by a bus? Smashed and crippled. What if I had to change her nappies and mop her drool, what if she were burnt or slashed? What if she were a man or a woman or any combination of woman and man? I loved him, her, they. Imagine the fun we can have. (You won't like her taste.) She's lovely. (A woman.) The woman I love. Danny Danny Danny. Her name still lifted a smile to my lips. I'd still smile to see her each day, wouldn't I? Yes, I would. She'd still hold back the nightmares, still love me for my sake and not hers. Who did I love the body or the person? Danny hadn't gone anywhere I stooped to kiss her brow. As if she were a bewitched princess and I the charming prince who'd hacked a path through a generation of briars, her eyes flickered open - the same blue eyes. She blinked a few times, saw me, smiled - the same warming smile. She looked sleepy and beautiful. "Alice?" her voice came cotton soft. "Hello, sleepy." Her hand, smaller now, but just as strong, found mine and held it. "I had the most amazing dream." She didn't know! "What was your dream?" My throat clenched, but the smile I lifted for her didn't falter. "Alice? Are you okay?" "What did you dream about?" "I dreamt I was a woman and you still loved me." You love who you love, and I loved Danny, Danni, Daniel, Danielle, Daniella. Looking into her wide, long lashed eyes I knew I didn't have to go back - I'd always been stronger than that. I'm not just a woman or a lesbian, not a victim, not a survivor - I'm Alice. So I slipped my hand under her blanket and guided it to the warm, soft pillow of a new breast. I squeezed it softly and her eyes stretched wide, her lips parted in wonder. I kissed her again, on her slack mouth - my love, my heart, my Danny. "It's not a dream,' I murmured when one of her hands had joined mine. "It's true, every bit."