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Chapter Three. They called me Arthur. Nobody knew any different. If you give a pair of exhausted parents the child they've just had together and point to its penis why wouldn't they go with the biology and say, 'boy'. Only I wasn't. By age eight I had developed such an all-pervading sense of internal girl that I couldn't hold it in any longer. Dad, going through his own struggles with divorce and allowing himself to fall in love with a man, told me I could be who I wanted to be and change my mind a hundred times as I went along - as long as I was happy. He told me he knew about living a lie. As a quick aside, I once asked Dad if he saw Fred and me as collateral damage from living his heterosexual lie. He tickled me for so long I nearly wet myself. Eloquent and reassuring? I thought so. Mam was dealing with her alcohol problems by drinking and enjoying herself with her new man when I came out. Her first reaction was to defensively wonder if my gender was her fault as well. We've moved on from there and she's been generally supportive, though our relationship is more niece and crazy-cat-lady-aunt than daughter and mother. Fred, my baby brother, never knew Arthur; by the time he'd grown to understand the difference between boys and girls I was fully established as his big sister. When he eventually asked about the unkind things people were saying about me at school he'd been surprised, then dismissive about how I could ever have been thought a boy. After that he got kinetic with anybody bad-mouthing me, and got into some trouble for it. As he dealt with his own troubles, I loved him boundlessly for his simple, unquestioning loyalty. School wasn't so good for me, most kids turned from me. I kept a few friends and made a couple more through my time in primary and secondary school, but most blanked me to avoid the condemnation of those who were more open in their bullying. Not only was I Clover who used to be a boy, and my assertion that I had never been a boy didn't go down well, but Clover who had two Dads. Gateshead still had a vociferous minority who thought homesexuality should have remained illegal. When I turned twelve, Dad got promoted to Station Manager and we moved away to Hexham. That was a happier time, I was girl enough to pass, mostly, and had learnt to pretend indifference to the callous curiosity my status sometimes attracted. At eighteen I went to college in Sunderland where I could anonymously study IT like any other skinny teenager before meeting Casey Guttenburg, of the gorgeous eyes and fiery feminism, who literally blew up in my face. Leaving college early, bruised from Casey's aftershocks, I got a job for Northern Rail station despatcher at Carlisle before deciding Manchester would be more open minded to a girl like me. I'd thought that would be far enough away from my childhood, but nothing stays buried in the information superhighway though, does it? The Sunday after the awful night with Lennie I stayed in bed and moped for far too long, reliving the evening's highs, but mostly agonizing over the awful lows. When late morning came and I tired of my own company under the duvet I heaved Liam from his shed then powered up the A57 to get the Snake Pass and its glorious bends under my wheels. The sun made a rare appearance and fired up the heather over the Pennines making them so beautiful I stopped in a pullover where the Pennine Way crosses the 57 and switched Liam off. Taking off my helmet I turned my back on the road and soaked up some sun through my leather, as well as the wild, hill beauty there. Feeling a little more cleansed, I roared into the Snake Pass and chucked myself through the bends much faster than usual and idly fantasised about how any wayward van driver, edging over the centre line, could make all my problems go away in a screaming flash. Happily I survived long enough to enjoy some al-fresco fish and chips in Castleton and for some ice-cold clarity to come to me. For all the good times I'd had with Lennie, something of the deeper person had been exposed. Did I really need the validation and companionship of having a boyfriend so much? No, I didn't. Armed with that certainty I phoned Lennie and dumped him. At first he sounded pleased I'd phoned; three missed calls and twelve messages spoke of his need to get in touch with me. He asked me how I was, told me his Mum had been disappointed not to have some time with me and made himself the jolly Lennie I'd known before. In fact, he talked so much I struggled to get a space to get to the point. "Lennie, there's no easy way to say this, but it's over. I'm not right for you." Silence. Then. "It can't be over." "I'm sorry, bu -" "I don't want it to be over." "But I don't think you and me are right for each other." "But you are right for me! You're perfect for me, Clover. I said I was sorry for last night, didn't I? What more do you want? Flowers?" "I don't want anything else." "You have to give me a chance. Why won't you give me a chance?" It went on like that for a bit, before he came out with this - "You're making a big mistake. Who else will love you the way you are?" To which I said, "Bye, Lennie." Right after hanging up I blocked his number, a little disappointed to find my hands shaking. I shouldn't have to be scared of somebody who'd claimed to love me, but as I readied myself to ride home I knew with aching certainty I hadn't heard the last of Lennie. Before I could tidy up my hair and crush it under my helmet, my phone buzzed. Scared that Lennie must have used a different phone to message me, I snatched it out of my tank-bag and sighed with relief to see Tammie's name on the screen. [How was the big date, chick?] [BIG! I'm single again!] She called seconds later and I disappointed myself some more by bursting into tears. I wasn't sad for dumping Lennie, but for the whole thing being so disappointing and so shit. My first blow job had gone and would be marked by resentment and feeling bad; my first real passionate kiss with a lad? Wasted. And I'd thought Lennie would be brilliant. "I'm coming around, right now," she promised. "I'm out, on the bike. In Castleton." "You biked to Castleton! Hardcore!" "Motorbiked." "You have a motorbike? Can I have a go?" After a brief stop to pick up my spare helmet, I whisked around to her place on the other side of town and found her practically hanging out of the window waiting to see me. After a crap day full of self doubt, that's the kind of welcome a girl needs. By the time I'd switched off the engine she'd rushed outside, her eyes shining with excitement and never leaving me as I parked Liam, kicked down his stand then dismounted smoothly. "It's really you!" she said, clapping her hands and almost bouncing up and down. "Do that thing they do in the movies when the heroine takes her helmet off and then shakes out her beautiful hair into a perfect, shining fall down her back." Then her shoulders dropped and before I could put my helmet down she'd wrapped in a tight, sisterly hug. "Sorry, being insensitive. Sorry about Lennie." "Don't be. I'll tell you about it sometime. Where shall we go?" Robbie bustled from the house right then, drying his hands on a tea towel and looking so disapproving and protective at the same time I thought of some old hen and almost laughed. "Don't tell me you're actually going on the back of that thing!" "Clover's just split up from her boyfriend and needs some company," she said, taking my spare helmet. "True story," I agreed through a screwed up expression. "She can have some company in the front room." "Robbie! Stop being... you!" He sniffed. "You'll be careful?" "Scout's honour," I said, and sketched an approximation of a Scout's salute. We didn't go too far, Tammie's jeans wouldn't have fared well against the tarmac if something awful had happened, but when I was happy she could hold on and not lean out when I cornered I found some open roads where she could feel the joy. Having her hands on my waist felt good too, not to mention the grin she gave me when I rolled us into a Starbucks on the edge of town about thirty minutes later. "I want one," she said, running her fingers along the handlebars. "You can show me how, but first - a coffee. And a cake, I think we deserve cakes; break-up cakes." Maybe it was a bit callous to have an afternoon with her so soon after leaving Lennie, but the distraction of her light, open and friendly company was probably what I needed and I went along with it willingly. By the time I'd dropped her off I didn't feel so wretched; I waved goodbye to her, and Robbie when he came out to check on her. To finish off the day I cooked a curry from fresh ingredients, had a long, luxurious shower and then curled up on my sofa in my favourite onesie and watched Dredd again. Admirable. *** The following Monday I found myself nervously watching the clock and dreading the arrival of the 0837; I knew Lennie would be on it - he had a thing going with the roster clerk to be sure of seeing me. Lucky me. When getting ready for work that morning, with anxiety bubbling feverishly in my belly and putting me off my Corn Flakes, I found my rarely worn uniform trousers and almost put them on. "Really, Clover?" I said to myself, head on one side and glaring at my reflection while I held the trousers over my bare legs. You know as well as I do we wear clothes to keep warm, provide some protection from whatever we might be doing and to make ourselves feel good. Wearing those trousers wasn't going to make me feel good; they'd make me feel like I had to visibly apologise to the world for trying out as a woman. Some people will tell you gender is a social construct, infiltrated into society's consciousness by years of patriarchal conditioning. Some will tell you that women shouldn't wear trousers and others will insist that women shouldn't wear skirts. Others will maintain that I can't be a woman as I happened to be born with a penis or that I only want to masquerade as female to follow some fetishistic obsession with women's clothes and underwear. I say I'm Clover, I'm a woman and bollocks to anybody who thinks they can tell me how to live; and bollocks to Lennie for making me feel like somehow I can't wear my uniform skirt to work. (If I was being honest, years of ingrained, subservient apologies for being an uncomfortable, social conundrum were making me feel like I couldn't wear a skirt that morning and not Lennie - directly. Though it was clearly his fault I felt like that.) The trousers were returned, my skirt was fetched out and to say bollocks to all the people wanting me to conform to their narrow, world view, I treated my legs to some natural tan, sensually sheer hold-up stockings with pretty, lace tops. I did stick with my usual flats and as I strode down the hill to my station I looked smart, but ordinary. Only the pleasant swish of the lace stocking tops brushing together betrayed the boost my bruised, female self-esteem enjoyed from my choice of hosiery. Even so, to see Lennie walking stiffly down the platform, eyes down and slightly behind the 0837's driver made my fists clench and legs jitter. His driver was Carl Tuffnell, a compact, triangular shaped gym-bunny with a broad, black face, cropped hair and a couple more ear piercings than me. Carl had about ten years on me and twanged his words with a ripe accent, that to a Northern girl like me could have been anywhere South of Watford, but was - he proudly told me - pure South London. How he'd come to be driving trains in Manchester was complex and would be variously embellished depending on his audience and what day of the week it was. At a Christmas party I'd learnt, from drunken Carl's own mouth, it actually involved his little sister, some bad-people and the quest for a quiet life. I thought Manchester was anywhere other than quiet, but didn't much like London. Lennie blanked me. Carl greeted me like a lost friend, as usual, with a quick hug. As I made tea, and seemingly oblivious to the awkwardness between Lennie and me, Carl filled the quiet with bright updates about a weekend with his girlfriend and her daughter in Southport. Only when he'd gone outside to phone her daughter did Lennie finally acknowledge me. "Who's the girl?" "What?" Perhaps I could have said she was just a friend, some kind of mate - but I didn't owe him an explanation of who I spent time with - he had no hold over me. "Yesterday, riding your motorbike with you?" "Did you follow me?" "You blocked me, didn't you? Like I'm nobody." I trembled. Hopefully he couldn't see, but I couldn't be sure if fear or anger shook me. Perhaps both. You read headlines about people like him, but I didn't want to be part of the story. "You're too intense for me." "Who else is going to want you?" he snapped, almost spitting with vehemence. The phrase, 'dodged a bullet', came to mind when I saw him like that. But he'd played his hand too soon, revealed his real nature to me too early to really get any hooks into me. Anger bubbled up - I'm Clover Tilney, nobody treated me like property. "Very persuasive. You or nothing?" I folded my arms. "How sad it's come to this, but I'll take my chances." That clearly tasted of lemons for he screwed up his face. "I'll tell everyone about you." His last card, and a powerful one - blow away the wall I'd built around me since I'd moved down here from Newcastle. Was he really expecting me to cave in to that? Though the thought made me feel suddenly queasy. "Now you sound like a teenager," I said, with more calm than I felt. "I don't want to go out with you anymore, I don't want to be your girlfriend. It's over." At that moment Carl came back, sliding his phone into a pocket and pulling his mouth down at the corners when he saw both of us. "I'm guessing you two haven't kissed and made up yet?" Had Lennie been telling everybody at the depot about us? "Did you know Clover is a man?" That single moment stretched into a horrible cold and angry abyss of disbelief. My mouth dropped open. As my body ran cold, heat filled my cheeks. He'd done it, he'd said it! Told Carl about me. I replayed the memory, in case I'd misheard, but he'd done it. Don't let him see how he's hurt you! "You spiteful little shit," I said, quietly. There were security cameras covering the ticket window and booking office - in case somebody tried to rob me. Maybe there was audio too; had they heard him? I could almost hear the scandalised, excited voices spreading out from this disaster. 'Have you heard, guess what? Clover Tilney, the blonde piece over at Brookmills, is a man, a fucking man!' Carl frowned, glanced at me then glared at Lennie. I didn't know who to watch; old-school Carl who might have some belief problem with me, or Lennie baring his teeth in a victorious grimace. How could he do that? For the first time since I'd taken my first public steps outside the house in a skirt, on my way to a new school one September morning, I felt stupidly self-conscious of the way I presented. Who was I to think I could get away with my hair in two symmetrical plaits, or the hoop earrings I wore; boys shouldn't wear a stud in their nose, or lipstick and eyeliner or they might open themselves to (well deserved) abuse and hostility. And a bra! What was I thinking that I was good enough to have breasts; hadn't I tricked Northern Rail to let me have a uniform skirt? Who do you think you are, Arthur fucking Tilney! "You horrible bastard!" I added, in case he didn't get it - for making me feel like shit again. I didn't deserve that, I wasn't hurting anybody. Lennie opened his mouth to speak, something equally unpleasant from the look on his face, but Carl stopped him when he cleared his throat. Here it comes, I thought, some more contempt. "That, what you just said," said Carl slowly. "Aint nobody's business but Clover's. Nobody's! Not your business, not my business. Understand?" "But she is!" he squealed. Probably didn't realise his error with the pronoun. "Out!" said Carl, opening the door to the platform. "Get your arse on that train." "I haven't finished my tea!" he sulked. "Tea what Clover made you! Out!" I practically sagged with relief, keeping my head up and my eyes on him while he tried to deal with the changed circumstances. "But -" "I am through telling you. Now!" He slouched out, eyes down. The door slammed. Carl turned to me, eyes full of a single question. I shrugged. "True story," I said. "Fuck's sake, Clover!" he said, brows clenched together. "I used my smoothest lines on you that Christmas after Tash kicked me out!" I almost said sorry, as if that could have made any difference - I'd been apologising for so long it almost came automatically when somebody found out. I should have got a badge made up; I'm Clover, I'm trans - Sorry. "You proper fooled me," he added while I was trying not to apologise. His frown smoothed away and he flashed a brief grin making the danger pass. "I'm not trying to fool anybody," I sighed, with an elegant gesture to encompass everything from my plaits to my shoes. "This is just me." "And you know what? It's the best you there is." Some of the tension went out from me in a big sigh, I sat abruptly on the edge of my desk. "This is not how I saw the morning, or weekend working out." "Shit happens, girl. Fuck's sake. Really? You know, no shit?" "Straight up." "The world's a strange and beautiful place." He glanced towards the platform, his train and Lennie. "I'll have a little word with shitlips out there, warn him, gently like, to keep his gob shut. He'll land himself in a world of shit if he shoots off like that about you." "Thanks, Carl. You're a mate." "No problem." He'd got her hand on the door handle before he turned with a frown. "Best have a word with the bosses, or somebody from HR, Clover. If he starts gobbing off about this he'll get himself disciplined and that'll mess up his chances of trying out as a driver. That'd be a shame, but it's his call. Anyway, might be worth having the HR wellbeing rep briefed early." "Tell the Company?" Another sigh. "I don't want to have to tell anyone." "We're in the 21st century, love. They aren't going to burn you." "I know, it's just... Thanks, Carl. I'm... It feels so unfair sometimes." "Life isn't fair. Anybody who tells you otherwise is selling something, that's a quote from the Princess Bride - good film, you should try it. See you soon, Clover. I'll beat some sense into Loose-Lipped Lennie." Before he could close the door behind him, he stuck his head around it and grinned. "I'll still try and chat you up next Christmas when Dinah's not looking." While rushing to think of a suitable response to that, he nodded towards the ticket hatch. "You've got a customer, darling." How long had she been standing there? A scrawny stick of a woman with over dyed hair pulled into a too-tight pony tail and with three children of indeterminate age clustered around her and another in a buggy sucking determinedly at a dummy." "Me and this lot to Picadilly, please, duck," she asked in a husked voice. Then as I typed the details into the ticket machine she added, "Boyfriend trouble?" A look of horror must have crossed my face to match my open mouth as I wondered what she'd heard, but she laughed. "Never heard nothing through your screen, don't worry - just picked up all the body language. Want some advice while you're still pretty enough to use it?" To be referred to as pretty was a tonic at that point, so I nodded wearily. "They're all shits, and I should know, 'cos I've tried a few out. Not a decent one anywhere. Get yourself a decent vibrator and some good mates to have a laugh with or you'll end up like me. Alright?" For all the damp anticipation of where my life might be lurching next I found her my Number One Customer Service Smile and swapped a crumpled wad of cash for some tickets. "Already got one," I assured her, woman to woman, "But thanks. You've got to keep looking though, haven't you?" "Leave it too long," she said, waving a hand along her straggled body in its jogging suit, "and your options reduce on where you can go looking. Take care, love." Which may have been the strangest encounter I'd had with a customer, but I wished her well, set the kettle to boil and messaged the family. [Why does it seem that all the good men are gay or Fred?] Fred's robust and loyal girlfriend, Maia was first off the blocks from that one. [Dump him. DO NOT on any account give them any wriggle room whatsoever.] Followed a second later by; [Don't let Fred think you like him or he'll get ideas above his station.] [I know where they'll never find the body.] That came from Fred. Dad - [Fred hides everything under his bed] StepDad - [Come home at the weekend. We'll do pizza, movies and dancing] [Now we're all coming] Maia agreed. [Pile On at the Dads'!] That was Fred. All very jolly. I sipped my tea, sold more tickets and hoped for a world, in Northern Rail at least, where nobody cared that Clover used to pee standing up. As I slouched up the hill, homeward bound after work, my phone rang, making me twitch - only Tammie. Thinking I must find a special ringtone for her, I found a smile to mix into my hello. "I'm going to order pizza," she said, "Only I always order too much for one. How would you fancy coming to help me out?" "Is your minder at home?" She laughed. "Summoned to spend the night at his parents', so we won't be seeing him.." "And he hasn't locked you into the tallest tower with a dragon minding the key?" "I'll let my hair down and you can shimmy up." "It would have to be a short tower!" "Are you coming, or what?" "I've already left, this is a recording." "Okay, what pizza does Clover like, Miss Recording?" "Anything without pineapple or fish. I need to get changed, I'm just on my way home from work." "Who cares, come as you are. Right now! Why are we still talking about this?" That put some vigour into my walking - pizza with Tammie, just the thing to help me get over Lennie and his big mouth. Paranoia had me checking over my shoulder several times in case Lennie were stalking me some more, but if he was he'd blended in too well for me. Tammie met me with a big smile and a glass of wine, which I politely declined. The pizzas arrived right then, probably too much for the two of us, never mind Tammie on her own, but we did our best and she promised the rest would do for a fine, Student Themed lunch for the following day. She poured me some more fruit juice, led me into the lounge and plonked me on the sofa. I curled my feet under me and let my head slump onto the backrest. Tammie drew the curtains against the gathering evening and switched on a table lamp giving the room a cosy feel. Her weight settled beside me "He gave me some shit today, at work," I said, eyes closed, in response to the unspoken question in her soft eyes. "What a twat," she said, with feeling. "He went full-on tosser very quickly!" "Why are people so horrible?" I said, but it wasn't Lennie that came to mind, but Casey Guttenburg. She'd been my first proper girlfriend, a wiry, spike-haired bundle of energy from Sunderland who knew with youthful certainty that men were the problem and she wanted nothing to do with them. Maybe I should have read some warning signs from that, but the three months we'd had as an item had been such fun, the most alive I'd felt since going girl, that I'd just assumed she'd fallen for me the way I had for her and that love would be enough. Wrong. Horribly. In her eyes I'd remained the enemy and my infiltration of women's spaces a cruel deception. "Not everyone." Tammie touched my hand. "Only the ones I fall for," I said, with a sad sigh. The weight of too many rejections came back onto my shoulders. They trembled under the burden again until I couldn't stop stupid, blind, lonely tears running down my cheeks and soaking into Tammie's pullover when she pulled me in for a cuddle. "You'll find someone," she promised. "They all reject me in the end," I sobbed, unthinking - Casey's scream distorted mouth filling my heart. I knew then I'd have to tell Tammie. I'd have to make space between us, look her in the eye and tell her. If her upbringing and ideals, if the group consciousness of the Liverpool and Burnley Moretti's had no place for the trans then so be it. I couldn't waste any more emotion on being her friend if she was just going to hurt me as well. Let's make a clean break. Sniffing back the tears and wiping my eyes dry, I pulled back , took a deep breath and held her eye. "Look, Tam, you need to hear this. I've got some big news to unload on you." She brightened up immediately, which I wasn't expecting. "Ooh, I like this game. You're married, no pregnant; on the run from a horrible gang, you're a man, you're a billionaire heiress who has to do a working job before you can claim your inheritance." She practically beamed with excitement. Then she really saw my expression and her smile dropped. "It's something serious isn't it. Are you dying?" "No! I'm ridiculously healthy, nothing like that. Oh bloody hell, here goes - I used to be a boy." "Really? You? Trans? Didn't see that coming." "You literally just said it!" "That was just me being... Hugely insensitive? Sorry, really sorry." "You don't have to be sorry! I'm the one who's ... Oh, Tam - that's not even flickering my insensitivity meter, believe me." "You're really trans?" "Sorry." There I was again, apologising for my existence. "I thought it was all like, stocky and stubbly. You're really cute." "But?" "I didn't say a 'but', that was you." "There's usually a 'but' when people find out." "Maybe you're putting in 'buts' where there aren't any intended." "I usually get them thrown at me. Hard." "And you told Lennie the Twat and he kicked off? What a complete arse!" "No, the other way around. He found out himself. There was this girl I went out with, when I told her - she really kicked off, posted some shit about me on Facebook, really hurt me. The police were involved and -" "You went out with a girl? Before you, what's the word? Changed over?" "No, she was way afterwards. She'd only ever known me as a girl." "You went out with a girl?" she repeated , frowning. I hit the Earth with a bump. Tammie was going to be cool with me being trans, but the lesbian, bisexual bit was going to stick in her throat. How unbelievably, perfectly ironic. "Sorry, I didn't think..." The words to try and soothe this development faded away. Thinking I should probably make some excuse and go before it got ugly between us I swung my feet onto the floor. Before I could stand or say anything else, Tammie threw herself across the short gap between us and clumsily pressed her lips to mine. The contact was brief, but real. I smelt her perfume, a lingering remnant of pepperoni and even the slightest brush of her breasts on mine. Then she jerked back and clapped a hand over her mouth. "Oh, God, Clover. Sorry!" "You kissed me!" "I am so sorry." I shook my head. "Don't be. You're - " "Curious?" she suggested. "Keen?" "What about Incredible Tim?" "Oh him?" her shoulders rounded down. "He loves only Tim and the potential revenue from Italian restaurants that comes with getting into the Liverpool Morettis. He's not my sort, so not my sort. Of course Mum thinks he's my sort, Papa thinks he's the dog's danglies and everybody who thinks they know what's best for Tamsin thinks he's my sort." "And what does Tammie want?" I said quietly. She laced her hands together in her lap and stared at them. "When Tammie's alone, she thinks about Clover." "But now you know I'm -" "You and your 'buts', Clover. You know, most of my family think I'm just a silly girl who doesn't know what she wants." I noted the evasion, but didn't press it. "You're an optician, that's clever, brainy stuff." "I fall in love very easily." She looked at her hands again. "When I was fifteen I fell in love with an older man; I thought him really cool, really way-out and OMG exciting. Actually, he was a loser, a proper waste of skin, only I was too wrapped up in being the grown-up in a relationship with a real man to see. So I ran away with him, to Cardiff of all places." She snorted sadly. "When they found me, six months later I was pregnant. Just a silly girl, you see. Papa knows best, of course, and he made me have an abortion. Then I fell for a lecturer at college - married. Her husband caught us together so she lost him and her job. They only let me go to university in Liverpool because I could live at home and the only way I could persuade the family that I could move out after graduating was by agreeing to house share with Robbie. When I started going out with Tim the whole lot of them breathed a sigh of relief. But now I've fallen in love with you, Clover." Love? From another? The Dads loved me, Mam probably did in some abstract, hazy way of her own; Fred and I were close while Maia and I triangulated female affairs in the family and got along well enough. Casey had said she loved me, then stabbed me with a pen when it turned out I wasn't the girl she'd fallen in love with, or a girl at all in her view. Would the Liverpool Morettis just see me as the next unsuitable person for Tammie to fall in love with? "Of course, my parents won't approve, and you're looking for a man after the last girl you dated went psycho on you." I reached out, took both her hands in mine, lifted them and kissed her knuckles, first left and then right. Tammie's lips parted and her breath caught as she watched me. When I was done kissing her hands I smiled and shrugged. "I think I just want somebody, boy or girl, who will care enough about me not to care about me." Her lips moved as she repeated that to herself, twice. "That's really profound," she decided. "I like the way your lips moved when you kissed my hands. You have a really lovely mouth. Has anybody ever told you that?" "No, nobody has said that." "I will love you enough not to care about you." "What about your parents?" "There's just me and you right now, Clover. If you hold still I think I'd like to kiss you again." There were loads of good reasons why I shouldn't have held still, and gone home, against only one reason why I should - being with her made me feel good. More than good - she was the ideal medicine for the way I felt. Kissing Tammie felt different to anybody I'd ever kissed before. Softer, slower, deeper were words that would describe her kisses, wonderfully lacking in Lennie's adolescent excitement, or Casey's barely suppressed aggression or even Liam's nervous restraint, which had been cute because it reflected my own. Best of all, beyond her taste, the faint scent of her body and perfume, and the warm touch of her breasts on mine, was the distinct feeling that she wasn't in a hurry to get anywhere. Unlike Lennie, she seemed content to let her hands softly caress my back, though I did feel fingertips edge under my skirt's waistband, Her mouth came soft and tactile, her tongue gentle and loving; we might have stayed like that for hours were it not for a rapid onset of guilt that I should be so deeply kissing somebody else so shortly after letting Lennie go. "It's not you," I said, answering the quizzical look in her eyes when I pulled back. "Too soon?" she guessed. I nodded, miserably. "I'll wait," she promised. "And Tim is history." "Tammie, don't rush -" She put a finger on my lips before I could tell her not to rush into anything. "He's not the man I want to be with, even if I did want to be with a man, which I don't - in case you hadn't noticed. I knew you'd be a good kisser." "What about your parents?" "I'm 23 now! I can't live for them any more. I'm an optician, I can do that anywhere - it doesn't have to be Manchester." "You don't have to rush -" "I'm not rushing, I'm waiting; waiting for you, Clover. This feels right; steady, not rushed." *** Just when I got home, with my hand on the door handle, my phone buzzed with a message from Tammie. [Dearest Clover] That looked formal, old fashioned and sweet at the same time. Nobody had ever called me Dearest Clover before, though I quite liked being somebody's dearest. [I don't want you to think I'm just a silly girl.] Ominous. That read like a 'letting you down' kind of opening. [Because I can be a bit silly, and I have been very silly in the past, and I'm a girl.] Which sounded very much like Tammie. [Just like you.] Was that her trying too hard? Stop overthinking everything, Clover! [While I'm waiting and not rushing to be your girlfriend, I hope we can go on being girls who are friends. I'd like that. A lot.] Girls who were friends? I liked the sound of that too. I messaged her directly and told her so. [Are we going to be biker chicks?] I liked the sound of that even more; she pushed all my buttons. *** All that week at work I became paranoid that everybody in the Greater Manchester division of Northern Rail knew my past. Had the driver of the lunchtime stopper to Sheffield ignored me because I disgusted him or because he just didn't see me wave from my office window. Wasn't Elaine the Guard usually more friendly? When the 0837 Crews came down for their brews and biscuits where they inspired more for the titillation of speaking with The Freak than my chocolate Hobnobs? I didn't see Carl until Friday, just as I was shutting up for the week. He stuck his head through his cab's dropside window and gave me a thumbs up. "All secure," he reported and waved cheerily as the train revved up for its departure. "What's secure?" Tammie asked, showing off in my heels again having paid rental for them with an Americano and low-fat, lemon muffin. She had taken over a bench on the platform outside my office. "Haven't you heard?" I said in a scandalised tone, louder than normal due to the diesel engines lumbering the train away. "Heard what?" Her face shone with curiosity. "Apparently Clover Tilney used to be a stripper in a seedy, backstreet, Amsterdam brothel!" Her expression collapsed into disappointment. "Oh, that. Old news, nobody cares." Catching hold of my ID lanyard she pulled me down, and I didn't resist at all, so she could pass a kiss to my lips. Definitely a girlfriend kiss, not the kind of kiss girls who were friends would share. I pulled back before it could get protracted, kissing passengers was probably beneath the dignity of a station master, after all. "Oh look, there he is, Lennie the Stain," she said brightly, and waved. With an unseasonal chill I turned, thinking he must be on the platform. It wasn't so bad though; there was his face, angry and glaring through the train's rear cab windscreen. "I don't think he's happy for us," Tammie said, watching the train, and Lennie, trundle out of sight under a bridge. "Already over it," I said, trying to sound lighter than I felt. Our moment had been spoilt. "He can commiserate with Tedious Tim." She hadn't told me much about the last moments of her relationship with Perfect Tim. I did learn she'd taken the trouble to meet him for coffee and let him go over a latte. Apparently he'd put as much effort into trying to change her mind as he had in trying to keep her and quietly walked out leaving his drink. When I asked about her parents' response she adopted an enigmatic look, no easy thing for Tammie, and said, "As expected." I took that to mean it hadn't gone down well. "Robbie will have been briefed to be extra vigilant, no doubt," she added. To be honest, Robbie didn't worry me. I'd already categorised him as the kind of man who'd be ballast in an emergency, but Bruised Lennie had just seen me kiss Tammie. Perhaps the warning Carl had delivered would keep him away from me - he needed to move on. With coffee drunk I excused myself back into the office to change from uniform into my leathers, with Tammie watching closely, fascinated by their weight and texture not to mention the way I shimmied into the close fitting trousers. "And I'll need to get some like that before I can ride with you?" "It's much safer if you do." "You look really hot in them," she said, running her hands over my bum, again stepping over the line between girlfriend and girls who are friends, but we both knew that idea was increasingly obsolete. "You will too," I said, kissing her cheek. "Don't forget a helmet, get one sized in a shop - don't buy online." With a final kiss and a promise I'd take care, I donned my helmet and took off for the M6 North and the home visit. I don't much like motorways on Liam; the speeds are so high and the general levels of concentration around me so low sometimes it's hard not to obsess about all the different ways I could get minced. Normally I'd plot a route via A or B roads, or take the train, but time was short. However, the journey passed without incident and I rolled up to the Dads' not long after 8pm. There I was greeted with the passion and enthusiasm deserved by an emotionally wrung out daughter. To strip off the week's trials in a long hot shower, then sit down to them with cake and pizza in my best PJs felt like hot chocolate for the soul. I fell asleep with my head on Dad's shoulder while we watched the Paddington movie, again. On Saturday I took a train into Newcastle to see Mam. We had good coffee and shopped for a couple of hours. I tried on a couple of dresses and ended up buying some more ankle boots, with gorgeous heels, and some cute, fairy shaped, dangly earrings for Tammie. They made me think of Titania from the Midsummer Night's Dream and I knew she'd love them. Mam's new boyfriend, a mechanic from a Scania franchise in Jarrow, met us for lunch in a smart pub by the station. He had big, stained hands and deepset eyes under a receding hairline, but clearly thought a lot of Mum. Best of all, both of them ordered fruit juice to go with their meals. He wasn't keen on meeting my eyes, or really talking directly to me and my suspicions were confirmed when he went to the loo and Mum admitted she'd told him my provenance only a few days before. I shrugged it off, his problem not mine; at least he had come to meet me and had shaken my hand. After that, the Metro took me to South Shields where Fred and Maia bought me ice cream and walked me around the promenade. The North Sea's wind whipped loose hair into a wild thatch and make me pleased for the jeans and biker jacket I'd worn. All in all, a hectic, but good day - affirming my place in the world and the love I could depend on. When I got home late Sunday afternoon I felt much refreshed and ready for a week of Tammie highs and Lennie challenges. In fact I found a message from her on my phone when I got inside and had the chance to look at it. [Let me know when you get home, I've something to show you. Love T.] [Just landed.] I replied [See you soon.] As much as she'd said she liked me in my leathers, I felt a little travel crumpled and maybe a little ripe, so I stripped off my leather and base layers, brushed my teeth and pulled on a midi length, coral coloured jersey dress over some clean underwear. I didn't have time for anything other than a quick dab of lipstick, laughing about why I was rushing to impress her, before the doorbell rang. Hurrying downstairs in a swirl of my dress I had thrown open the front door and invited Tammie in. Before I realised it was Lennie filling the doorway, he'd pushed his way through the door and made it across the doormat.