The Thing About Tracy free porn video

The Thing About Tracy. By Tanya H. Part One. He was the one: I knew that with joyful certainty. Funny, handsome, articulate, bright, independent, his name was Dale and he taught maths at a secondary school only down the road from where I worked. We met at the gym, if you must know - though it isn't important here. It is enough that you know that in my twenty fifth year Dale was going to be gifted my virginity, such as it was. Bear with me please. Accordingly, I dressed to impress him. Surely nobody can go wrong with a black dress? Not too short, not too long, but with a split up the front to make it seem more decisive; not too low over my boobs, but not so high you couldn't see any of my cleavage and with just enough sleeve to show off my toned arms. For the sake of class and eroticism I chose black lingerie; lace of course, so he'd be able to see my nipples and also the effort in making my lady garden perfectly smooth. Mollie's idea: the boys love it, babe. As she'd helped wax my legs as well she wasn't impressed when I shook out a brand new pair of stockings. "Who wears stockings any more," she'd demanded, folding her arms like she'd won a legal argument in court. "Me of course, Mollie. You're watching me put them on." They were more expensive than anything I'd treated my legs to before; so sheer in fact that the delighted smile generated by the simple brushing together of my legs was enough to get Mollie to run her hands over my calves. She reluctantly agreed there might be some point to them after all. Heels, obviously; because the boys love them and so do I. I always get my 10k step target in at work, so flats are my friends there, and seized every off-duty opportunity to get tall with some stilettos. I chose my newest pair of black court shoes, with an elegant four inch heel and eye-catching ankle strap; completely superfluous, fiddly to fasten, but very sexy. Makeup I kept light, but sultry. Not wanting to clog his lips up with foundation I didn't wear any. Jewellery I kept delicate and understated, so as not to get in the way. In short, I looked gorgeous, even Mollie said so and she likes her girls looking more like boys and doesn't like boys at all. I didn't have to do anything with my dark hair - I'd chopped off my girlish locks two years ago, when little sister Beverly finally left home and I followed her. What remained made a low-maintenance bob; jaw length at the front, higher at the back. Mollie had done it for me, before I moved in with her. I think she'd hoped that cutting off my waist length hair might have been a precursor for coming out. However, even her bright friendship and promise of wild orgasms hadn't tempted me away from my plan to find and bed a man. Dale was impressed, thankfully as most of the effort was for him. When we kissed after the meal (my heart's dancing even now when I think back to it) and when his hands started to wander, when mine went into his trousers, then my dress came off and we fell onto his bed and I grew even more hot and slippery and excited and... The demon called me princess and I still ended up clamping my thighs together and asking him to stop. In fairness to Dale he was man enough to do just that. I hope his next girlfriend recognises his good heart. I suppose we might have made it work, without any sex to begin with and anticipating he might grow to love me enough to unlock me. We messaged a bit afterwards but I was too burnt up with shame and anger to try and that was that. He looked away while I turned my back and fastened my bra. He even helped me zip up my dress and called a taxi for me. "It's not you, it's me," I said, sadly on his front doorstep. "You don't have to try and let me down gently," he said. "I mean it." I shrugged, and the taxi came into view. "I'm fucked up." "Take care, Tracy," he said. I waved as I walked down his front path to the road because my throat was too tight to speak. "Thanks, Dad," I murmured to myself as I looked over my shoulder, but Dale's place was already out of sight. Part Two. My place of work has some good suicide opportunities. It's a railway station sitting in the Northwest on the West Coast Main Line, which is the route you'll take if you choose the train to get from London to Glasgow or anywhere in between. Only a few of those express trains actually stop at our station, we get lots of suburban trains instead, but the through services whoosh through at over a hundred miles an hour and there is precisely nothing to keep passengers away from them except a yellow line painted along the platform. The human body is an exceptionally well designed and resilient organism, but you step in front of an express train doing the ton and you are going to rapidly lose structural cohesion. Pick the right place on the platform at the right time of the morning, when the commuters are lining up for their trundle train to Liverpool, and you're going to spread yourself generously across them. Meanwhile, it will take a couple of miles for the affected train to stop and by that time any remaining, identifiable bits will have been deposited along the track side. It's an incredibly selfish, but spectacular way of finding oblivion. If you don't fancy that kind of sudden suicide you could use the overhead wires carrying the twenty five thousand volts needed to power the trains. You don't even need to touch one, if you get close enough that kind of electrical potency will jump a gap to sizzle you. While the water filled human will conduct electricity, we're not very efficient conductors and that inefficiency makes heat - a lot of it. Get close enough to the wire for 25 kilovolts to take an interest in you and it's goodnight. The smell you make will inspire one or two onlookers to turn vegetarian as well. Sorry if I sound macabre, but there is a dark sense of humour around these things on the railway. And we're trained to spot those who might want to use our railway station as a stairway to heaven. Firstly, it's the mark of a fine human being to help the desperate find their way from darkness, secondly we're a commercial organisation and it costs us money when a suicide closes the railway. The unofficial term is, 'one under.' I've seen one person step in front of a train and I never want to see another so when I saw a young woman loitering near the platform end, when the train she might have intended to catch had just rattled off towards Warrington, I casually sauntered over to have a chat. "Did you miss your train, darling?" She was on a bench, almost at the platform end closest to Manchester; the place where the train photographers gather when the light's better. With her head in her hands, the rounding of her shoulders and slumped posture I knew I had a problem. As I approached my hand dropped to the radio clipped to my belt. If I needed assistance I could speak to the duty supervisor and she could telephone control who could put a shout across their room to the area signaller who could stop the next trains through our station. "I'll get the next one." Her voice was dull and low, with a flat Yorkshire or Derbyshire feel to it; a long way from my melodious Liverpool lilt or the round Lancashire sounds most of the locals used. A notice highlighting the Samaritans' helpline number was visible on the fence over her shoulder, but she'd gone past that. "Where are you heading?" A sad snort. So I sat beside her. She wore baggy, faded jeans with ripped knees and Doctor Martin boots in black with dark red roses emblazoned around them. "Wanna chat?" She shook her head, shaking the blonde, wavy hair hiding her face. When I looked up I saw Hanna, my supervisor, down by the footbridge discreetly keeping an eye on me and gave her a little wave. "I'm not in a rush," I asked. Silence. "Is it a man, honey? Let me tell you, they're not worth it." Another snort. She looked up for the first time since I'd seen her and I almost swore. The facial lines and slight bulge at the throat contradicted my initial assessment. An ugly purple and blue bruise shone around his left eye. "Oh, god - sorry, I thought you were a girl." "I am a girl." "Oh bloody hell. Sorry again, what an arse I am." We'd had training on this; a tall, lighthearted and self-effacing transwoman from head office had come down to talk about compassion and openness when dealing with people like her. Accept you might make mistakes and be prepared to own them had been her advice. She lifted a hand to dismiss my apology, but I was hot cheeked and practically squirming with embarrassment. "Can I get you a coffee, to make up for my awful lack of tact?" "It happens," she said. "I'm sure it does, but I'm due a break and I get staff discount at the cafe over the road and I'd like to." She looked at me, properly holding my gaze for a moment, she had the prettiest blue eyes, before turning them back to the platform. "You know, I wasn't going to..." She nodded quickly towards the track. "But sometimes I sit and wonder what it would be like if I did." "Quick," I suggested. "But very messy." "I wouldn't do that to you. You seem too nice." "I'm Tracy," I said, offering a hand. If she took it I'd broken through and Hanna could stand down. "Tracy Crow." "Tracy Crow?" she said, looking at me from under her hair. "Not my first choice," I admitted. "But what can you do?" "I didn't like my first choice either," she said and I saw the first sign of a little smile baring small, even teeth. She offered a hand and I shook it firmly. "Caroline Canton." Caroline walked down the platform towards the staff exit, past the scattering of curious or indifferent passengers, with her head up and shoulders squared as though contemptuous to the double-takes and more discreet attention she attracted. I wouldn't say she was particularly masculine, I was taller than her, but she had a bony, angular look that made her clothes look awkward and took longer steps than maybe a woman would. Actually, as I made that judgement about her, I did allow a moment to wonder how a woman was supposed to walk. Admittedly my uniform skirt's straight cut wasn't made for striding out and my preferred off- duty heels hardly allowed big steps, but I didn't have an affected supermodel strut either - I just walked. The cafe was busy, a warm hubbub of noise and companionship that didn't seem right for our precarious relationship so we decided on a takeaway. "This is kind, thanks," she said when I'd bought her the promised coffee. She took a tall, black Americano with an extra shot. "Black and strong, like my men," she'd said, making the order. I had an extra hot, skinny latte and we agreed to share a lemon muffin. Then I led her to a quiet corner, by the old parcels office where we could enjoy the drinks. "This used to be the staff smoking area," I told her, taking a deep breath as though I could still taste it. "We have to go into the public car park now, there's a shelter on the far side. One morning, when it was honking down with rain, I looked at it sheeting over the car park and decided to give up. I haven't had one since." "Good for you," said Caroline. "My parents smoked, all the time. I hate it." She brushed hair behind her ear and accepted her share of the muffin. "It's become a very social, antisocial habit. The problems we used to put right while sneaking a fag here." I waved my muffin chunk at her. "Generally I like not doing it though, lemon muffins have more zing now." She saw me glancing at her blackened eye and lifted her eyebrows. "Domestic," she said. "Boyfriend?" I pressed gently. She shook her head. "You were right, it was a man, but family - my brother. Do you mind if I unburden myself? Only you did ask. Here's a thing, Tracy Crow; my dad died two weeks ago. Nobody told me until today." She pointed to her eye. "This is what I got for getting upset that I wasn't told. My brother, his name isn't important, is very much an example of an apple falling not far from the tree and believes in his dad's mantra that brothers should stay brothers and not dream of becoming sisters." In my experience, we're conditioned to ask, and be asked, about 'how we are' several times daily, by friends, family, colleagues, or people we barely know. That conditioning extends to providing a positive answer to that casual enquiry, even if we do feel shit. When we get an honestly negative response, it's a bit of a shock and I was initially lost for words. "You did ask," said Caroline, with a sigh at the end, to fill the silence. "I think brothers who can't accept the unveiling of sisters from a life of false brotherhood probably don't deserve the title." "Very true, but family being shit still hurts." "Amen to that, sister. Generally people are rubbish," I said, a broad holding statement to cover a variety of options. She brandished her Americano at me. "You aren't." That took my coherence. I muttered something modest. "Thank you, for taking the trouble for a lonely girl. You have some unique qualities, Tracy Crow. I have to go to work now." We shook hands again and she walked away, head high. Part Three. Coincidentally my Dad died two days later. A motorbike crash three years before had confined him to a wheelchair with no feeling from the waist down. Then cancer tiptoed up and withered him to death. He'd put on a brave face after the accident. All the energy and drive that had built his plumbing skills from him and a van into a thriving company employing eight people translated into not allowing disability to hold him back. Reinventing himself as a champion fundraiser for the local air ambulance trust that had saved his life, he'd become something of a local hero. But the cancer knocked all that out of him. By the time they discovered its existence tumours had spread through his body leaving palliative care as his only option. Cutting himself off, he'd gone home and waited to die seeing only his wife and children. Most of his children; three quarters of his children. Though I went to his funeral. Maybe to be sure he was actually dead. Throughout I maintained a stoic mask, assisted by subtle makeup, held Beverly's hand - my little sister - while Mum was dutifully flanked by David and Michael, my older brothers. We went through the motions, as every family should at the death of a father, and nothing was made of my absence during Dad's decline. Which was good, as I had no explanation they'd want to hear.. Until the wake. I hadn't planned anything. Throughout the gathering in the private rooms of a large, old coach house pub on the town's outskirts, I made all the polite noises required of a dutiful daughter. Sympathies were offered, and politely accepted, though I felt cold and disassociated with the memories, mourning and socialising going on around me. Drinks were bought, also accepted and maybe all the wine contributed to what happened. Towards the end of the night, when the need to get home and find comfort in pyjamas was screaming, Mum, Beverly, David, Michael and I retired to a cosy side room. Sonya and Jasmine, my sisters in law, remained in the main function room in passive acceptance of the planning Dad had done for his funeral and wake. In our side room a fire had been lit and on the table at the room's centre stood a bottle of whisky ringed by five glasses. The landlord fussed a moment to ensure everything was as Dad had specified, then left us to it. We sat and looked at each other. Michael and David were a little glazed by then. They had forsaken top buttons and loosened ties. Both were tall and well built, though Michael had a more powerful frame and David a runner's build. David was dark, like me, while Michael and Beverly had Mum's fair hair and complexion. Beverly clutched her purse and Mum looked vacant; she'd given everything to care for Dad in his changed years and the future must have looked empty. David poured the whisky. Not too much came my way, thankfully. I don't mind a drop or two, but preferred a little water in mine, much to Dad?s disgust. Once it was poured we drank a toast before Michael suggested we all gave a memory to finish the day. He went first, considering that his due as the oldest son, and recounted lovely memories of Dad helping him learn the plumbing skills. Those cosy times in the workshop doing man things had touched Michael's heart and inspired him into the world of plumbing and heating engineering. He?d been a natural fit to take over the business when Dad withdrew in his wheelchair. David jumped in next. He recalled, with moist eyes and a tremble in his voice, Dad on the touchline jumping around like a wild thing when he scored his first real try for the town's junior rugby squad. That encouragement had grown his love, and talent, in the sport and he still played for the town. Beyond that he'd become a Scout leader and successful PE teacher at a challenging secondary school in Stockport. Beverly looked at me. We'd never been especially close, especially since she went to uni and then went on to start a masters degree in marine biology, way down South in Portsmouth. You'd better believe how pleased I was that she'd got away from home to make her own life. I let her go next and she haltingly described how pleased she'd been one morning, running late for school, when Dad had taken the trouble to brush and plait her hair. I nearly puked; whiskey and stomach acid burnt the back of my throat. Her favourite memory had already been seared into my memory: in particular the way my dear daddy looked from me to my sweet little sister then called her his princess. I'd given up my university dreams that morning. Then they were looking expectantly at me; Black Sheep Tracy. I hadn?t intended to blow off, I promise. But I sat there wrapped in their drink fuelled maudlin and thought of my plans, my dreams. The red mist started to bubble. Then my fists clenched as I started to tremble, thinking of what I carried inside me now and the demons that chanted every tried a boyfriend in my bed. By the time they looked at me for my cherished memory of Dad I thrummed with anger. I should have left. But they pushed me. Maybe they wouldn't have pressed if I'd had more presence during his decline, but they heaved at me to take part. David even started to get angry: he threw in my face that I'd neglected Dad, ignored the family and been incredibly selfish. Mum asked him to leave it, in a quiet wretched voice, but his anger blanked her. He demanded the least I could do was to contribute something. That just prodded my growing anger into baring its claws. Did anyone notice my trembling, my cold face or blanched knuckles so tight around my handbag strap I could have snapped it? Of course not; I?m just Tracy. Who sees me? Through clenched teeth I said, "I remember Dad?s consideration, because he always wore a condom when he raped me." Silence. Mum whimpered, she looked at the table so right then I realised she knew. Amongst everything else developing around me the horror that my mum had known what my dad was doing to me froze me solid. David spoke first. "What? Is that some kind of tasteless joke?" "I wish it was." Michael's face turned white, then blood raged into his cheeks. "You selfish bitch." David frowned, holding his hands up in a placatory manner. He'd always tried to get between us when we fought. "Steady, mate." He may as well have kept quiet. "Right here, right now. He's been in the ground just a couple of hours and you turn on him already!" "You asked,' I said, rising to my feet. "Get out! Go on, get out. Never speak to us again!" He followed me to the door, like I would say something else, but I had nothing for any of them. "Tracy!" said Mum, her voice trembling. That halted me. In the doorway, poised to turn my back on them forever. Michael took my arm, fingers clamping around my bicep and squeezing. He started pushing me. "Take your hand off me," I snarled. "I'm sorry," said Mum with such heartfelt, ineffectual regret I almost laughed, but Michael pushed me again, his fingers tight enough to bruise. I stamped my foot onto his and he howled as my wicked stiletto heel cut him. It made me stumble, then he slapped me - hard. I almost went onto my arse in the pub's function room where a few die-hard mourners remained. They were already expectantly looking our way. Our raised voices must have carried. "Mum knows," I said, to his face while my cheek bloomed red from his blow. Then I burst into tears and ran outside. Part Four. Two men and a woman were outside the pub?s front door smoking and the scent hit me like Michael had. As my skin tingled and mouth watered I had to fight down a big, horrible, addict?s urge to scrounge a fag from one of them. "Okay, darling?" the woman called as I hurried past, heels clattering, holding my breath in case I should taste their cigarettes and crave one even more. I waved a hand as I passed; I?m okay, it lied. Dad had caught me smoking one day, when I thought I had the garden all to myself and the wind would take the evidence away over the back fence. All the cool kids at school smoked and I thought it made me grown up and sophisticated. Under Dad?s gaze I?d coloured up, expecting a roasting - I was barely fourteen at the time, but he produced a packet of his own and we smoked together. It made me feel even more grown up, but that was probably when he decided I was old enough to bed. From somewhere behind me Michael shouted, "Don?t think you can just drop that shit then fuck off!" I stopped. Should have walked away. Didn't. "Steady on, pal." That must have been one of the smokers. "Mind you own business or I?ll knock you the fuck out." He probably could have done, very handy with his fists was my oldest brother. "You literally threw me out," I said, low voiced and trembling again. Slowly I turned to face him, folding my arms; widening my stance, tilting my head. "We're not done." "Fuck you." "You've a lying bitch, my Dad wouldn't do that." "What could I possibly get from making it up?" Those three smokers watched carefully, the potential entertainment we offered outweighing any dented machismo from Michael's threat. I didn?t know any of them, but I craved their cigarettes. Faint edges of their smoke teased, but didn?t satisfy. "You lying slag." "Slag?" That raised a laugh: a wilted, dying, empty laugh. "Typical small-minded man. It must have been my fault, is that what you're saying? Couldn?t he resist me? Poor little daddy's boy. Fuck you. Let me tell you what kind of slag I am; I have only ever been fucked by one man. One man, you arrogant, pathetic bastard. And you know his name." That stranger of a woman must have seen between the lines from the look of revulsion she made. She dropped (wasted) her half smoked cigarette, stamped it dead and grabbed the man closest to her. "You two need to sort this out in the morning when you're sober," she advised, leading her man towards the pub. "I told you to mind your own business," Michael snarled. "Bit hard when you're fucking yelling it practically into my fucking face!" I'd had enough. Making my stiff, angry legs obey me was tough, but I bossed them into spinning around and carrying me away from my brother, his rage and contempt. Can't say I was surprised by his reaction. It must have been way easier to believe I'd make it all up than accept a good man raping his daughter. Voices raised behind me, but my vision blurred, my cheeks dripped and I left them behind, almost running - awkward in my heels - without any real idea of where to go. I needed a taxi to get home, but would probably have to go deeper into the town centre to find one. Bass thumping from one of the nightclubs made me wonder if I could go in there and lose myself in some wild dancing. The craving for a smoke had its hooks deep into me though. Just one, to calm my nerves. A couple of minutes later, when I still hadn?t decided whether to dance or go home, I turned a corner and found, amongst a row of closed and shuttered shops, a brightly lit convenience store. It looked like one of the last independent stores, still managing to live in a gap between Tesco Express and the receivers, maybe a little shabby, but there would be a fine choice of cigarettes for me. Inside I found narrow aisles and the kind of things you'd need for a quick meal or a treat, some cat food you forgot on your big shop, or a Pot Noodle when you just couldn't be arsed. Behind the counter, like a palm fringed oasis in the desert, was the sealed off display unit where I could get my fix, calm my nerves and get myself back together. To face the rest of my life without a family. "Twenty Lambert and Butler please. And a lighter." The assistant was bent over a display, back to me, a man by his skinny hips, but with shoulder length blonde hair. "One moment." Dancing or pyjamas? I was no more dressed for a nightclub than I was for dancing. Why won't he serve me, I just want a single, guilty, don't- judge-me-cigarette! I won't have any more, just one. Why am I the one who feels like shit after everything I've had to go through for the sake of the ungrateful fucking family. "Tracy?" I'd been staring at the cigarette cabinet so intently, as though the power of my need could manifest a packet into my hand, I hadn?t realised the shop assistant had stood up. It was Caroline, her face shifting seamlessly from pleased to see me into naked concern. "Sorry to keep you, only I dropped... Oh, oh my god, look at your face! Are you okay?" "I..." was all I could manage. After another look at my face, then a glance towards the cigarette cabinet she put the two things together and pressed a bell by the till. As if the ringing triggered me everything turned inside out, the ground heaved at me, my vision went grey and I made some awful wailing noise while tears poured down my face. Perhaps I could have held it together if some stranger had been there to serve me without recognising my crisis. I could have walked out, trembling with surpressed rage, lit my cigarette, hated the taste and given the remaining fags to the homeless lass in the shop doorway opposite. Instead Caroline saw me, knew me and decided to help. Such a human touch caused me to wilt and shudder into an undignified display, sobbing and crying hard in Caroline?s arms until a very overweight man in a tattered hoodie emerged from the shop's stockroom and shuffled towards us. "Can I go early, Dennis? Family crisis, this is me sister, Tracy. She needs a cup of tea and a cuddle." I tried to protest, really I did, but the power of speech had deserted me. "Go in then, I'll lock up," Dennis wheezed. "You're the best," said Caroline cheerfully. With a last, longing glance at the cigarettes, without the strength to stop or revert to the taxi plan, still weeping with the sudden, horrible decompression of having voiced what I'd been too ashamed and scared to say for the last eleven years, I allowed myself to be led away. Even with her to steady me I almost fell out of the shop, went over on a heel and squealed as pain scorched up from my ankle. Caroline got under me, and I thought of how warm it felt to have somebody who could catch you. That reminded me of Michael's fist around my arm and being pushed from the pub's private room which in turn took me to my own girl's bedroom and Dad calling me his special princess as he eased under my duvet. That gem just made the crying worse, blinding me so convincingly I had no idea where I was being taken until I realised I was stumbling up some stairs. Wood scuffed under my shoes, from the echoes it sounded like a narrow, bare stairwell. I hadn?t been outside for more than a few seconds. "Just up here," said Caroline, soft and soothing. "Not far." Not far to what? Through the tears and pounding misery I summarised that I was going somewhere strange with a transwoman I met only once at a railway station where I?d been worried about her state of mind. The woman who had confessed to attending the station to think about what jumping in front of a train would feel like. What if she?d gone a few steps beyond wondering about suicide to fantasising about stabbing a stranger to death before chopping up her body and hiding it in Liverpool?s storm drains? Unless I was overthinking again. I bet loads of emotional women thought that while being led to their doom. We paused at the stair's head. In my state of disarray I found a detached part of me wondering who would come to my funeral. Then I felt sick at the thought of them planting me next to Dad in the cemetery. A door lock clicked, I smelt flowers and had a last, longing look towards freedom down those stairs before my shoes whispered onto carpet and I was lost in Caroline's flat. She left me on a sofa and went to put date-rape drugs in a cup of tea. "I don't want to put you out," I muttered. As the panic faded and that powerful drive for nicotine ebbed I was left feeling washed out, tired and stupid. While my nose ran miserably my shaking fingers made such work of trying to open my handbag for a tissue some snot dripped on my dress, near the hem. "I can't imagine you would," Caroline said, offering me a big box of Kleenex - man sized ones according to their box. Why would a woman have man sized tissues? There?d be a man somewhere, the one who would rape and murder me with Caroline completely under his control and luring women into the killing den for him. I blew my nose and dabbed at the mark on my dress. "I?m just being silly." "I work in retail, Tracy; I know what silly looks like. You?re a long way from silly. Silly doesn?t make you desperate for a fag again, does it?" "You don?t know me," I mumbled, half-heartedly. "I know enough to know I like what I know. And I?ve been through enough to recognise somebody else going through it." The bruising around her eye had faded, but I instinctively touched the hot place on my cheek where Michael had struck me. "Was it a man?" she asked, sitting beside me, but carefully leaving a gap between us. My throat clenched much too tight for words and I had to close my eyes over the next wave of tears. Answer enough, I supposed as I wiped furiously at my shame. I shouldn?t have said anything, shouldn?t have gone to the bloody funeral. I should have left them all guessing about all the reasons why Selfish Tracy would stay away. Why was it right to burden them with what had been done to me? Because it shouldn?t have been yours to carry, Tracy? Women carrying men?s shame. A kettle whistled and her weight lifted from the sofa. "Tea? Or wine. I have a cheeky red or a crisp, chilled white. Maybe tea and wine? I don't know which wine is the best accompaniment for tea." I should have stood up, thanked her politely and left. I could have walked into town, found a taxi and gone home. Only Mollie was at work, Carmen was visiting family in Cardiff and the place would be cool and lifeless. I'd end up staring through the TV or a book while my thoughts went along well trodden paths to dark places where I?d been made a princess. "I'm not going to be very good company." "Without you I'd have no company at all." She returned with a bottle of red and two glasses, then went back to the kitchen and fetched a pot of tea with two mugs and a delicate china milk jug. "I like pretty things and saw the jug in a charity shop," she said, following my eyes to the jug. "And I'm done pretending." "Pretending?" I murmured. A floral scent lifted from the tea pot. "Pretending I was Riley for a start." Just when I'd got used to thinking of Caroline as a woman. She brushed some hair back from her face as I looked up and for a moment those filters society had crusted around my eyes couldn?t make her a man or him a woman. I tilted my head, thinking about pretending. "Why did you pretend?" I asked, maybe to distract her from my own distress. Focussing on her was easier than thinking of me. "Expectations. People say, 'you're Riley' then that's what you do." "Expectations," I agreed sadly "Assumptions?" she said, as though I had been questioning her. "It must be very confusing." She laughed, without humour. "And the rest. Actually, it was confusing. Now I'm unconfused, I have certainty. Now I am learning to live with disappointment." "That people don't accept you?" "We're supposed to be talking about you," she said, reaching for the tea pot. "It?s Earl Grey. Do you take it with milk or lemon?" "I've never taken it at all," I said, watching her pour, but the liquid coming from the spout looked very ordinary. "Milk then. Only if you want to talk. It's not compulsory." "Do you mind if I take my shoes off? The straps are digging in: which is why I don't wear sandals, high-heeled ones at least: very unforgiving, flat ones are good." "Make yourself at home," she said. "They?re great shoes though, very elegant. You look great, really lovely." I started fiddling with the clasp securing the ankle strap on my right shoe. They weren't really appropriate for a funeral, being slightly too high in the heel and a little too platformed with the sole. Michael had given me such a disapproving look when I'd arrived at the church. Maybe I should have worn flats, but I felt good in heels and who was I trying to impress anyway? Me! That?s who. Dad had preferred his princess looking like a sweet little girl: no makeup, tight or revealing clothes for Tracy. Not until Beverly left home. The fucking clasp was stuck and the ankle strap dug in and I hadn?t worn my glasses and I couldn't see properly and I made a fool of myself crying again. Caroline put her arm around me and I cried into her shoulder for a while. Not so long that my tea went cold, but too long for a near stranger to have to endure. "What?s the matter, Tracy?" she murmured when the worst was done and I was still. "Never buy shoes with delicate buckles unless you have 20/20 unaided vision." Very carefully she extracted herself from my soggy touch, knelt before me and deftly unfastened both my shoes. Her fingertips touched me only very gently before she eased off my shoes and carefully moved them to one side. Like some kind of rag doll I sat there and let her, primly keeping my knees together in case she tried to leer under my dress, but she was the perfect lady. 'Thank you," I said, feeling blotchy faced and pathetic while gratefully stretching my toes. "You're welcome. I love your nail polish." The pearlescent, teal finish was spoilt slightly by the reinforced toes of my sheer, black tights, but I thanked her. I'd considered wearing black fishnet tights, believing them to add a little class with the right skirt and shoes. My courage failed me though and my heels made enough of a statement: in my mind at least. Caroline's toes were concealed by her grey socks, but her fingernails were bare, though neat and cared for. "Comfy?" "Much better, thanks. Never be tempted by the false promises of strappy heels." "I'll bear that in mind," she said, regaining her seat. Ghosts of her fingertips brushed my ankles. Quiet fell between us. I wondered if I'd said something wrong and what distraction I could use next time she asked me if I wanted to talk. Taking another tissue and I blew my nose then tasted my tea. Delicate, fragrant and refreshing seemed to sum it up. I told her I liked it and she seemed pleased. When I glanced at my watch it had gone past 11pm and I thought about making some excuse and heading for home where I could cocoon myself in soft pyjamas. There would be some kind of pap on the TV where I could lose myself away from anybody who would judge or condemn or call me a selfish bitch. Caroline had made me tea. She led me up to her flat when she should have been at work. She'd held me. Unfastened my shoes. She sipped some wine as I snuck a quick look. Her eyes were closed, but she looked restful, not sleepy. Waiting. Man or woman? My filters misfired again making her both. "I?d just come from my Dad?s funeral when I saw you," I said. I didn?t owe her that, but she deserved it. She opened one eye. "Sorry." "Don?t be. I shouldn?t have gone." "Oh. You didn?t get on?" A sad snort of a laugh. "Get on? Good choice of words," my voice flatlined. "I was his special princess." An aftershock of that rage pulsed again, signalling it wasn?t done with me yet. With its reminder my pulse raised, hairs lifted, eyes watered. A sudden, unwelcome urge to let her in on my horrible secret followed the anger. "He liked to get on me." The words and their barely disguised meaning left me flopped against the sofa, face angled towards the ceiling and utterly spent. For a few slow breaths I wondered if I?d cry some more, but my dry eyes just stared. Apparently the well was dry. "I should go," I said, without the energy even to reach for my wine. "If we?re going to have a game of ?who?s got the shittest dad?, I reckon you?ve won. And I thought I?d own that." "Do normal people have competitions like that?" "Who gets to say what?s normal," she asked. "Me and you. We earned it." Turning to face her, drawing my knees up onto the sofa and pulling my ankles tight to my bum I watched her another moment. "And we get to judge any further contenders for the competition." "Was he really that shit?" She reached out and touched the back of my hand. "Shit isn?t big enough a word to cover it. I would have to go to the top of a mountain and scream, excuse me, ?cunt? at the top of my voice, as long and loud as I could and even that wouldn?t come close." "You were so beautiful at the station when I needed you without knowing I needed you." "We learn to cover up, don?t we?" She shook her head. "I don?t even want to bring my utter small-minded bastard of a father into this, alongside what you just said, but yeah. We cover up. Endure. Pretend." "Until we can?t do it any more?" "Then they push us away." "My brother hit me tonight, when they asked; pushed; when they pushed me into articulating my favourite memory of my dearly departed Get On Daddy and I told them. I told them my favourite thing about him was that he was always so fucking considerate when he abused me that he would put on a condom so nobody would have to ask why his special princess was carrying the cunt?s baby." It seemed the well wasn?t dry, the well had miraculously refilled and spilled out all over the place. I did try to keep facing the ceiling, until I heard Caroline sob. She'd turned in on herself, hunched up with knees to chest while her shoulders juddered. I couldn?t leave her like that, could I? Not when she'd been so good to me. So I shuffled closer, wrapped her as best I could and mingled my sobbing and my tears with hers. Part Five. Mollie was a hairdresser by trade, but leukaemia took her big brother too soon and she worked her hair artistry around a second calling as a support worker in the childrens? cancer unit at Alder Hey hospital in Liverpool. When she got home from another affirming, draining, husking shift there and found me absent she sent this message. [ok, chik?] She had long since guessed I?d survived something, but I hadn?t had the confidence to give her the sordid details. She did know there was bad blood between me and the rest of the family and had bravely offered to come to the funeral. In between too much wine and crying at Caroline?s, I found a moment to reply. [Funeral and wake = big soap opera shit] [but r u ok?] [have been rescued by a knight in shining armour] [yay go girl!!! Hope he makes u drop ur yoghurt] [She] [many clapping hands emojis] [always knew you?d unrepress your inner lesbian] [in your (wet) dreams] [c u tomorrow?] [yes] There comes a time when you?ve drunk so much that even copious tears wrung from your stinging eyes can?t shift the alcohol from your system and you realise that even if you could stand unaided you?d never survive Caroline?s steep stairs to get to a taxi. Then I puked messily into Caroline?s toilet. She patiently held my hair back and stroked my back while I heaved. Afterwards she presented me with a chunk of dry bread and pint glass brimming with tap water. Crouched miserably under a blanket on her sofa I couldn?t think of anything to say to her other than sorry. "One more ?sorry? and I?ll get kinetic with you," she promised. I found the energy to rise from my misery and look for any sign of impatience or irritation, but her face looked open, though dark around her eyes told of midnight passing. "Kinetic? I couldn?t manage that. Sorry." "I?ll tickle you." "I?ll wet myself if you do. Then I?ll only apologise some more." "You can?t go home now," she decided. "I don?t want to be any trouble." She laughed, because I?d already been lots of trouble. "You?ve got through all my wine, sicked up in my loo and cried so much my shoulder has got wrinkles on it. But I don?t care. You must stay the night, you?re too wrung out to get home." "Been worse," I muttered. Which was true, but not for a couple of years; not since Mollie took me in and dried me out. To save your hair, she?d said. It?s too lovely to ruin with alcohol. Then I had her cut it off When I surrendered and let Caroline lead me to the bedroom those rape and murder fantasies had long since gone. In fact to have been killed right then would have been a blessed release. Though I dug in my heels when I saw the double bed. "Leave me on the sofa." "I?ll sleep on there." "No, no, no. I can?t take your bed." "I?m not taking it, I?m giving it to you." "Please. After everything else, leave me this little bit of self respect." We stayed there for a moment while I tried to find some strength in my legs to maintain some kind of determined stance in this standoff. "Under sufferance then," she said. "Thank you." I managed to make my own way back to the living room while she dug out a pillow and enough fleecy blankets to cocoon me in. When she came back I was trying, with little success, to find the flexibility in my shoulders to get my dress?s zip more than a centimetre or two from its top. "I?ll find you a t-shirt to sleep in," she announced from the doorway. "I know I?m pathetically needy, and I?m sorry, but could you help with my zip please?" Standing, I turned my back and felt the dress loosen as she unzipped me. Cool air touched my back. Sensing it was about to slip from my shoulders I clasped it to my bosom and wondered about the etiquette in times like this. What was the lady supposed to do? Though Caroline was a lady too. Taking a deep breath I decided she deserved that level of respect, so I let the dress slide down and overbalanced while trying to step free of it. Caroline caught and steadied me. "I?ll find a hanger for it," she said, taking it from me. "Thanks," I muttered, turning to face her, overriding my ingrained self consciousness about her seeing me in only tights, panties and bra. After all, Mollie had seen me like that a hundred times and she openly confessed how much she enjoyed her vigorous fantasies about me. Caroline was already walking back to her bedroom though, with my dress held to her like a woman in a shop having a first, tentative look to see if a new dress would suit her. Then she passed out of sight and I hurriedly stripped away my underwear and fought on the t-shirt before she came back. Fully intending to say thankyou and apologise some more, the day caught up with me too quickly and I don't remember her covering me with blankets and switching off the lights. Part Six. By the time Beverly went to uni and got distance between herself and home I?d finished with school and started work at Morrisons in town. With her safe I moved out and transferred to a different store closer to Manchester and tried drinking to dull the demons clawed into my back. One morning, at a horribly anti-social hour, an overwhelming urge to puke dragged me from a drunken coma to find myself sprawled on a sofa in a strange flat. Some lad I didn?t recognise had lifted my skirt and was pulling at my panties. Vomiting in his lap as he tried to explain he was just trying to make me comfortable clarified my capacity for consent for him. I managed to stagger outside and find a taxi and considered calling the police later in the morning only to realise I couldn?t remember where the flat was, never mind how I?d got there. Though I never let myself sink to that state again, my world warped so night became afternoon and my work supervisors became concerned about the hangover related sick days I pulled. Rainbow bars in Manchester?s Canal Street area became a place I could drink, get high and lose myself in music and dance without the risk of being raped or murdered and it was there that Mollie found me and picked me up. What started as a determined effort to seduce me survived my courteous rejection of her advances and turned into a friendship. Happily for me this grew strong enough for her to recognise the spiral I?d chosen and to grip me, deliver the kind of frank talking to I never had from anywhere else and take me in. Since becoming Mollie?s project I hadn?t woken up on somebody else?s sofa wishing I were dead. Barely able to roll off Caroline?s sofa and find my way to the toilet, I managed to empty most of my bursting bladder before my belly cramped and I started puking before I could change position. Trying to keep my thighs together and clamping a hand to my mouth I sprayed vomit on my legs and felt the last drops of urine run down my thighs as I turned to bend over the bowl. Once I?d done I almost wept to see the mess I?d made of myself. Stripping off the borrowed t-shirt I practically fell into the shower, mismanaged the mixer tap and screamed when ice water jetted over my skin. In my efforts to escape the freezing deluge I tangled in the shower curtain, slipped on the wet bath and almost knocked myself out on the towel rail. With a bump blooming on my brow I opened my eyes to see a concerned Caroline leaning over me asking if I was okay. "I am less than a gracious guest," I mumbled. "I hope the wine helped last night. Otherwise..." "I have discovered, through long and painful experimentation, that wine isn?t the answer no matter how seductively it whispers of its miraculous abilities." She reached out and helped me up. Consternation filled me when I realised I was perfectly naked and instinctively folded my arms over my breasts. Regaining a more dignified position sitting on the edge of the bath, I crossed my legs and watched her deftly sort the taps until hot water raised steam around us. Her eyes flickered towards my belly and I knew she?d seen the tattoo there. After last night's revelations she?d understand why I had the single word, ?mine? inked into my skin, low down over the supposed position of my uterus. The font was deliberately childlike, as though I had written it myself. The tattoo artist Mollie had recommended for the job hadn?t been given an explanation: maybe she?d guessed; there are many demons out there gleefully riding survivors. "Your shower, m?lady," she said, offering a hand again so I could negotiate the enormous challenge of getting over the bath?s edge. "You?re too kind," I said, aware that her eyes were firmly fixed to my face rather than my bare body. That confused me for a moment while thinking through a trans woman being attracted to men and realising that would be heterosexual. By then she?d drawn the shower curtain between us and was promising strong coffee. Her shower felt good and by the time I?d blasted my skin to a sunburnt pink the thumping behind my eyes had dulled while the nausea subsided. After finding enough energy to towel myself dry Caroline offered a potent brew steaming invitingly on her kitchen table. "When I was twenty I laughed hangovers away," I muttered, accepting a mug and cradling it like it were the holy grail. "And now you?re an old woman?" "Not so much," I agreed. Caroline was already dressed, making me feel like some lazy teen. She'd picked out grey cargo pants and a loose hoodie androgynous enough to have come from the men's or women's department of any high street store. "Early bird?" I asked. "I like to walk in the morning, before the town really wakes up. Assuming I?m not opening up the shop." The coffee felt and tasted delicious, burning a vibrant path down my abused gullet. "Thanks for last night. You were... Incredible. What you did for me -" She made a dismissive gesture as she interrupted. "Anytime." "Hopefully I won't be invited to another family funeral: ever." "Can you face some breakfast?" she asked at the very same moment my tummy rumbled. "In my twenties I would have feasted on cold pizza the morning after." Caroline pulled a face. "Yuck. That doesn't sound very dignified for a cosmopolitan lady like you." "Working class girl me, no pretensions." "I can offer working class feasts of corn flakes, coco pops or toast." "Exotic. What we need to clear the last fog of alcohol from our bodies is a proper fat boy?s breakfast, or at the very minimum a well loaded bacon buttie dripping with HP sauce." My belly rumbled appreciatively at the suggestion. "What do you say?" I went on. "I know just the place, a ten minute walk from here." She raised her eyebrows. "Are you going like that? I?m ready to go." "Good point." I considered the matter while I drained my coffee. "I have a dress, a jacket, shoes and a bra. All I need are tights, you don?t have a pair I could borrow do you?" She opened her hands apologetically. "Sorry, no tights." I didn?t have many female friends without a spare pair of tights balled up in a drawer somewhere. Even Mollie could be relied upon to find something for my legs in an emergency, but Caroline wasn?t a normal girlfriend. She was certainly a friend; I hadn?t felt so relaxed, albeit with a hangover, for a very long time. "I?ll have to go bare legged, it?s not far, the straps on my torture shoes won?t bite too much by then." "I will get you tights," she announced, standing up and striking a dramatic pose, like she was about to slay a dragon for me. "It?s eight thirty on Sunday morning." "We at Dennis?s Corner Shop pride ourselves on standing ready for any legwear emergency between 7 and 11 every single day, except Christmas and New Years Day. Do you want black opaques or tan sheers? I warn you, they aren?t the kind of 7 denier boutique nylons you?ll be used to." "Opaques please, but I don?t want -" "No trouble. Sit there, I?ll be right back." "Do you have a hair dryer?" I called, but she had already gone. I didn?t want to rummage through her things, as close as I felt towards her that seemed a step too far, so I started towelling my hair knowing I had a hair brush in my handbag that I could use to form some kind of shape with my bob; enough for a bacon sandwich at the station cafe. I did have a quick peep into her bedroom to see if there might be a hair dryer left out on a dressing table and saw, hanging on the wardrobe door, my dress. About to head in and recover it, I saw that arranged underneath it, like on a shop?s display, were my troublesome heels. No tights, no hair dryer. Her dressing table had some moisturiser, a hair brush and some hair elastics; beyond that it hardly looked like a woman?s bedroom at all. Apart from my dress and shoes. I heard her boots on the stairs and was towelling my hair as vigorously as my fragile state allowed when she got back, smiling and offering me a twin pack of black opaque tights from a brand I didn?t recognise. "Tah-dah!" she said, dropping them on the table. "Thank you so much. We can have a pair each." "You have them, I don?t need them." "It?s always good to have a pair stashed away for emergencies." She glanced through her bedroom door, maybe towards my dress, then looked down. "I?ve never had the kind of emergency that needs a pair of tights to solve it." Appraising her figure as best I could through her loose clothing an idea came to mind. "You can try it on if you like. My dress, I reckon it would fit." Something flashed in her eyes for a moment before she shook her head. "It wouldn?t suit me." My belly interrupted at that moment and she laughed. "And we haven't got time. You?ll be gnawing at your own arm if you don?t get some bacon quickly." As quickly as I could I wrapped my breasts in last night?s bra, unwrapped and hauled on the tights and was just arranging the waistband when she brought the dress in. I stepped into it, and turned my back smiling to feel her close the zip for me. Having recovered my glasses from my handbag, I was able to fasten my shoe straps myself then slipped on my jacket. "Ready?" "You look lovely," she said, opening the door for me. "It?s the tights, they finish the outfit." The stairs down from the flat were steep and narrow. Remembering the state I?d been in last night when Caroline had helped me brought uncomfortable spiked memories; the craving for a cigarette, Michael?s slap, David?s condemnation and Mum?s part in my abuse. But I pushed them back when I stepped onto the pavement for the sun shone down and cheered even this grubby sidestreet of our shabby town. Caroline scurried to keep up as I stepped out smartly, like I was in trainers and not four inch stilettos. "How the hell do you manage to move like that in those shoes?" she asked. "Years of practice," I said breezily, like it really had been that easy. Dad had hated seeing me in such overtly adult shoes. "You should try." She didn?t reply, I glanced over my shoulder to where she was steadily catching up and grinned. Fresh air and sunshine were finishing the work started by the shower and coffee. Even the shower induced bump on my head had stopped thudding. I could practically smell the bacon. "Look at you done up like a dog?s dinner," Alice, the Station Coffee Bar?s caustic owner, said when we walked in. "Walk of shame is it?" She folded her tattooed arms and challenged me to deny it. Her scarlet hair swung in schoolgirl bunches that combined with her bold makeup to give her more than a passing resemblance to Harley Quinn. She?d been a truck driver in the Army, worked through tours in Afghanistan and faced the world with a smile and sarcasm while serving all day breakfasts, coffee and cake to hungry travellers by our railway station. "How would you know this isn't my usual Sunday morning church wear?" She snorted in a derisory manner. "Scouse slapper like you? You'd be in church to nick the collection money." "I'm not a scouser, I'm from Cheshire," I reminded. "Ooooooh, Cheshire! Pardon me, your omnipotence. You didn?t deny being a slapper though, did she?" The question's last part she directed at Caroline who looked bemused to be included. "This is Caroline. Caroline, this is Alice Springer, proprietor of the Hardened Artery Bistro." "Nice to meet you, Caroline," said Alice emerging from behind the counter, wiping a hand on her apron before offering a handshake. "You should choose your company more wisely, Caroline," she suggested. " Don?t hang around with manky scousers like Tracy. You'll catch something." With the introductions and pleasantries out of the way, we settled down to breakfast, produced with a flourish and extra bacon to a discreet table in the corner where we couldn?t be overheard. "This is a treat," she said, appreciatively. "The least I could do." "You didn?t have to." "Last night you went above and beyond." "You?d have done the same. And you did, remember?" "They don?t get you? Your family?" She paused for a moment, looking at the last scrambled egg and beans on her plate. "Not getting me would imply there?s some room for getting me in the future." "Sorry." "The threat of tickling still stands for unnecessary apologies." "I?ve never met anybody like you before," I said. She raised her eyebrows. "Haven?t you? Amongst all the people you must meet at work? We are society?s chameleons, slipping unnoticed through the cis until..." She shrugged. "Until you wonder about this being your only chance at life and who the actual fuck you?re living it for. Sorry if I sound angry; only it makes me angry." "I don?t mean to pry. Or pick scabs." She shook her head. "You aren?t, you?re curious aren?t you? Wondering if I?m going to fit the stereotypes, maybe thinking about some of the things the less liberal media would have to say about me and all my brothers and sisters." "I think many women have been harmed by men and are naturally wary of them." "I?m a woman who?s harmed by men and women every day." Which I had no answer for. When the silence stretched for a moment she placed her cutlery down carefully and smiled. "Do you know what?s attractive about you, Tracy Crow? I?ll tell you, before you get self-conscious and change the subject. What?s attractive about Tracy Crow is that when she misgendered me at the train station the other day, she apologised and meant it; without getting defensive. And this morning, when you got dressed, you quickly got over trying to hide your body. Like you really saw me as a woman." "I do." "You have to make an effort though, don?t you. I saw it in your face a couple of times." A quick denial died when I saw the intensity in her eyes and set of her mouth. "Like I said, it?s new ground for me," seemed like a compromise. I followed it by reaching across the table and taking one of her hands in mine. Her knuckles were so white and tense I didn?t think she?d let me. "And I like you. And you helped me. It seemed an obvious way to respect you." Caroline grinned suddenly. "You let me see your boobs because you respect me? I like that." Her grin faded. "And I like you too." "Girls together?" I suggested, raising my coffee mug in a toast. "Girls together," she agreed and clanked her mug of tea against my brew. "That means a lot. I mean, like a lot." Part Seven. With breakfast done and Caroline needing to get ready for her next shift in the shop, I decided against trying my heels on a walk home and took a bus. The ride was only ten minutes, but better than subjecting my ankles to more stress from those garotting straps. My phone battery had inconveniently given up earlier in the morning leaving the town itself and the few passengers to entertain me. I got one or two funny looks, perhaps I was a little overdressed for a Sunday morning bus service, but I kept myself to myself and politely rebuffed any attempt at conversation. Home was amongst a development of flats, starter homes, shops and a primary school built on the site of a sprawling factory complex that had made metal furniture for over a hundred years. Our second floor flat lay on the edge of the site enjoying a distant view of the motorway and Pennines. Our neighbours were a pair of shift working coppers at the back then a bus driver, her husband and baby underneath where we could often hear the child screaming and the pair of them rowing. The experience made Mollie determined never to marry a bus driver or have kids. Sight of a distinctive, coffee coloured Mazda convertible parked close by the block?s communal entrance brought me to a standstill. I?d have run, as best I could if it weren?t for the fact that our living room window overlooked the bus stop and it was likely Beverly would have seen me already. After regaining my equilibrium with Caroline the last thing I needed was a confrontation with my sister. Reminding myself that it was my flat, even though it was actually Mollie?s name on the lease and I just lodged there, I squared my shoulders and went up to see what Beverly wanted. "Dirty stop out," said Mollie, giving me a kiss as I closed the front door behind me. I tasted coffee from her lips and gave her a brief squeeze before she closed with my ear and whispered. "Bev won?t say much, but suggested you?d dropped the mike and walked out of the wake last night." "Classic British understatement," I whispered back. "I'll put the kettle on, chick." "Legend," A practical kind of woman, Beverly had taken a very compact laptop from her bag and been tapping away before I?d got in. Probably marine biology stuff, maybe Instagram. She stood and shifted her feet nervously as I walked into the living room and I tried to read her intent. She?d got Mum?s height, but Dad's broad face and heavy features leaving her looking compact, bottom heavy and maternal. She wore over-tight jeans and a pullover, her brown, nicely highlighted hair, had been twisted up behind her head and secured with a substantial springed clip. "Tracy, you okay?" Which was encouraging. Conciliatory enough that my legs lost their strength and dumped me into the easy chair opposite her. "I suppose so. How's Mum." "So, so. It was a tough day for her. You didn?t make that up, did you?" Which made me sit up. "Why would I even do that? What kind of person do you think I am?" "What I mean is, you know... It?s Dad, our Dad. And then he's supposed to be a paedo!" "Supposed to be!" "It?s really hard to get your head around. I mean, horrible. Really horrible." I suppose I should have been ready for her to want to tell me how it had made her feel. Why would any of them be interested in me? One thing needed clearing up, though I suspected she'd already given me the answer. 'Beverly, did he ever... to you?" A look of plain, shocked revulsion took her face and held on. Answer enough for a long sign to leave me exhausted and heavy, sinking into the chair?s cushions. "He never did, Tracy. Nothing like that." "Thank god." "It doesn?t bear thinking about. To be honest, I thought all the attention he gave you... the way it was perfectly clear who was his favourite, that really pissed me off. I really resented it." Which made me sigh some more. "Mum?s gutted," she said suddenly. "I mean, she?s in bits about it. And the boys are... well, you know the boys." I thought I had, right up until Michael called me a slag. "What did Mum say, afterwards?" "Not much, David took her home pretty much straight after you went. Michael said we weren't to breathe a word of what had happened or what you said. Or to speak to you." That prodded a sad, resigned snort from me. "Tracy, this could tear the family apart. Mum?s struggling anyway with him going and then this." From somewhere I found some stiffness for my spine and sat up a little. "Meaning what?" "We just need to manage it, let the fuss die down, let us move on and get back together. For Mum?s sake." It took me a moment or three to work through what she?d just said and what I thought she meant. "Move on? Pretend it never happened?" "Just, never..." "Never speak of it again?" "For the family, Tracy. You understand, don?t you?" "Did you ever wonder why I decided not to go to uni? Remember I used to tell you about how I wanted to go to Canterbury or Winchester, Exeter or Plyouth? Remember? Anywhere that wasn?t the North West. And how I changed my mind about that gap year trip around America with Emma Bailey? She went on her own, had a brilliant time, I saw the pictures on Facebook. Did you ever wonder why I changed my mind and didn't go?" She shook her head. "I just thought you?d changed your mind. You never seemed to like school that much." "It doesn?t matter." She screwed up her face in incomprehension. "Only it does matter, but not if I have to explain. How am I supposed to go on with you all and pretend everything was all smiles and laughter at home?" "I didn?t mean... I was only -" "I know, but there is no ?only? any more. Go on, go and tell them Tracy?s really angry and rejected. Tell them she?s hurting and they know where I am." "It?s the family. Don?t you care?" "Bye, Beverly." Mollie appeared at the doorway, arms folded in case Beverly wouldn?t go quietly. However, with cheeks flaring my sister stood, snatched up her tablet and hand bag then stropped from the flat without another word. The front door slammed, but I was gone beyond her and sobbing into Mollie?s embrace thinking over and over how I should get tucked into some wine or vodka or anyfuckingthing I could drink and drink until I passed out and never had to wake up ever again. Part Eight. Carmen, Mollie?s girlfriend, lives with us most of the time, with Mollie really, but sometimes she vanishes for days at a time doing marathons, endurance runs, 10k challenges; anything involving running. Right about the time Mollie got stuck into rehabilitating me Carmen took me to a gym and got me into running as well. I'd never done it before. While I was growing up the boys had done lots of sport, but I never really had an interest while Beverly and I didn?t feature on Dad?s sporting encouragement radar. I couldn?t do it at first. Sounds stupid, doesn't; who can't run? It's instinctive, right? Then it clicked. One morning my breathing got into shape, I found my rhythm, settled into a stride to suit my long legs and wide hips and I was off. The evening after the day after the wake, with Beverly?s incomprehension and Michael's contempt to lift me I furiously pounded the treadmill, faster, longer and harder than before. I sobbed while I ran, screwed my face against the pain and ran. People stared, one of the fitness staff came over his face creased with concern. Speechless, tears pattering the treadmill I waved him off and ran on: faster faster faster. Afterwards I could hardly stagger, never mind walk; legs and chest burning, tits aching, stumbling out into the rain to drag thick air into heaving lungs. I hurt in incredible ways, all over my body, but it felt wonderful, like I was alive, like I'd made a hurt of my own while the endorphin dump almost made me giggle. Did you know I wanted to be a physiotherapist? Why would you? I hadn?t mentioned it. In fact I mention it now because Mollie had done a sports massage course at college before she decided hairdressing would be more fulfilling. She should have pursued it because as skilled as she is at her chosen profession, she has soft, gentle, tactile hands ideal for finding the knots, strains and tears in a person?s body. Even she couldn?t reach into my soul and soothe the breaks there, but when I got back from the gym she did her best with me on the rug before the fire in our living room. Some wine was involved, but not in the life changing amounts I?d been screaming internally about; enough to make me mellow, nothing more. Enough to gentle the transition from embrace and clothed to naked and stretched out along the mat before the fire. She laid a cushion there for me to pillow my aching face and I lay there passive and heavy while her hands worked through my knotty shoulders and tingling legs. Soft piano music played around the edge of awareness while the neighbours were neighbourly and peaceful. Even the backdrop sounds of town, railway and motorway were subdued as if creation wanted something soothing for Tracy Crow. Warm and sleepy, drifting with the oils she worked into my skin I was comfortably overwhelmed by the patterns she made through my skin. She kneaded my spine, one bump at a time with such confidence, such dexterity that I sublimed into a blob of ice cream softly melting in a warm room. Best of all was the comfortable, friendly blank space where normally I had my thoughts clamouring and stamping their feet. Even when I realised why I was getting warmer and why my hips were rocking ever so slightly I felt content. Even when her hands circled my buttocks and traced a fingertip line along the cleavage between them. Without really thinking about it I moved my right knee out a little and a few minutes later gasped when a slender finger dipped inside me. "Is this really what they taught you about sports massage?" I murmured, concentrating on the smooth in and out of those two fingers, not the implications of whose fingers they were. "You know, this would be easier if you turned over." "I'm not a lesbian." "So you keep saying, but I never met anybody more in need of a therapeutic wank than you." So I turned onto my back, eyes tight shut. After I moved she left my legs closed and went back to slow, hypnotic movements around chest and shoulders, careful to avoid my breasts, making sure I?d gone back to my sleepy state before encouraging my legs apart again. As my breathing quickened she took one of my hands and set it to continuing what she?d started, sometimes moving my fingers to encourage something she thought I might like. No words passed between us, we made no sounds except the more and more frequent gasps I made as our cooperating fingers moved faster and deeper. When I was done, with chest heaving at the room's warm air, my skin glowing and aftershocks almost as good as the original orgasm still making me twitch, she covered me with a fleece blanket and bent to kiss my brow. "Thank you," I murmured as the power to speak came back. "You?re welcome." "Nobody ever made me cum before." "And that, Tracy Crow is a tragedy I was pleased to rectify." "I?m not a lesbian." "Good job it was a therapy wank, not sex." Part Nine. To say thank you for Caroline looking after me so well I decided to take her out for dinner. When she agreed, though sounding a little reluctant, I went ahead and booked a table for two at the town?s only vegetarian restaurant, The Green Dragon. Mollie knew the restaurant owner, Hattie and head chef Gemma, but I hadn?t been before, mostly because I had a weakness for red meat. However, Hattie and Gemma couldn?t give a toss about who held hands with who and what variations of gender identity might express themselves there. If there was ever a venue in town where Caroline might be persuaded to relax, the Green Dragon would be it. However, getting a recommendation from Mollie and her curiosity about why a determined straight and meat eating girl like me would want to know whether the rainbow waving Green Dragon was any good, led to one of our very infrequent rows. "I want to say thank you to the woman who rescued me the other night," I explained, having given Mollie the full explanation behind my melt-down. She went quickly from shock to anger before apologising for the therapy wank in case she?d triggered something, even though it had clearly only triggered a wonderful orgasm. After that we cried together. Then I had to explain why I wanted to know about the Green Dragon; I could have lied, but that wasn?t how Mollie and I worked. "Her name?s Caroline, she?s trans and I think she?d be more comfortable at the Green Dragon." "Him," Mollie said, almost like a reflex. "Her." "Baby, men like him are literally trying to erase women and worse, strip away our rights." "Men like him! You haven't even met her." "I don't need to." "Drunks like me? Hairdressers like you?" She pursed her lips, like she was going to have to say something distasteful. Or explain something a little complex for my heterosexual brain. "Tracy, you can?t change sex. It's just make believe and clothes fetishism, not to mention colonising women's spaces that we have fought to establish." Because it was Mollie saying this and I loved her I kept my cool. "Those are just words, clich?s." "True words." "Like little girls loving their daddies? Like she could have stopped him if she really didn't want sex? Like lesbians just need to be fucked by the right man?" "No, not like that. That's not fair, Tracy." "There are two women in my life who have wrapped me in kindness and understanding. She's one and I'm ready to punch the other one." "I once went on a dating app -" "You, on a dating app!" "Don't interrupt." "Sorry." "And hooked up with a man who claimed to be a woman. When I found out he was actually trans and said, politely, ?no? he called me a transphobe because I wouldn't date him." "Was her name Caroline Canton?" "No, but -" "You can?t base your assumptions about a whole group of people based on one knob on a dating app. Christ, you must have been swamped with arseholes trying to smooch their way into your knickers. Even if they knew you were gay." "That is hardly the point." "It absolutely exactly is the point." We stared at each other for a moment, like a pair of confrontational cats neither of whom really wanted to get into a fight. I broke the impasse. "Can we have, as a start point for Caroline, that she literally saved me last Saturday night and she's a really sound person?" Mollie considered this for a moment. "Taking you in and looking after you like that was a fine thing. I don't accept trans ideology, but your friend is welcome here and I won't be rude when I meet, if I meet... her." Which is why I love Mollie. (Not a lesbian.) And why I knew she?d like Caroline. "Why did you pick Caroline?" I asked when I went to her flat for the second time. She smiled to see me, a heartfelt smile of relief and pleasure I wasn?t particularly used to. Like she hadn?t expected me to come back. "Did you ever hear of Radio Caroline?" she said while pouring wine. I had not. "An independent ?fuck you? radio station broadcasting from a ship in the North Sea to escape big business and the BBC?" I still hadn?t heard of it. "Well, that?s where I got Caroline from." She wore nondescript black trousers, somewhere between jeans and slacks, along with a black shirt and a black, leather biker jacket. On her feet were those flower patterned Doctor Martin boots she?d worn that first day I met her at the railway station. Her hair hung loose around her shoulders. I pointed out we didn't have much time as the table was booked for seven thirty. She observed, correctly, that it was only six pm while the Green Dragon was no more than fifteen minutes walk, even if we did some window shopping on the way. That prompted me to unzip my holdall. "Makeup?" she protested when I produced my makeup bag. "Not too much, so you can get a taste for it." She didn?t say no, though a small line of consternation appeared between her brows (which also needed a little work). "I?m not sure about that." "Why not?" "I never wore makeup before." "You don?t have to. You can wear a lot, or a bit, or just do your eyes, or your lips, either or both. But, it?s what you want, not what you think other people want. Expectations, remember? People are always trying to control women and people are trying to control you even being a woman." Producing a nice, subdued lipstick I thought would suit her I uncapped and extended it. "Here is a lovely shade of ?fuck you? to them all." Then I retracted it and replaced the cap. "Only if you want to. Because if I tell you how to be a woman then I?m no better than the people telling you not to do it." When she still looked sceptical, or nervous - it was hard to tell the difference - I tried a different angle. "It?s the rainbow waving Green Dragon, not the Conservative Club. And it?s dark outside. And I?ll clean it off if you don?t like it. Before I set to with the slap I showed her some hair fixings from my collection. Again, doing something feminine with her hair made her nervous so I had to promise not to go too fiddly. I?d only brought enough to do a bun or a plait anyway. In the end I did both by brushing her hair to a shine, weaving it into a single, high plait and then circling that around itself until I pinned it into a bun. It changed the shape of her face and, with a few wisps artistically left around her brow, looked very feminine. She pored over the look in the mirror while exploring what I?d done with her hands. "Do you like it?" I asked. "You made it look very easy." "Practice. I?ll happily show you how." "Really?" That little line reappeared between her brows. "Why?" "To make up for the missing Mum, sister, bezzie influences when you were a girl? Because I like you? Because I sensed a need when I was here the other day" "A need?" "Now your hair's up I can do your face." Her cheeks were perfectly smooth, making me wonder what her shaving routine was. I knew Kara, from the ticket office at work, used Immac on her top lip because we talked about it, but I wasn't sure about bringing it up with Caroline so I didn't. I'm not one for creating a doll like, perfect finish with foundations and the like so I don't and didn't for Caroline. Eyes are worth taking trouble over and she kept commendably still while I amused myself with liners, shadows and mascara. "You're not making me look like a drag queen, are you?" she asked at one point while I thoughtfully examined her eyelids and my eyeshadow palette. "The wise person avoids using royalty comparisons around Tracy Crow." "Sorry." "I was a princess for too long." Reminding me that the whole daddy/family/funeral/wake thing felt strangely distant. Perhaps the therapy wank and Project Caroline were helping. Or I was compartmentalising more than usual. Either way I didn?t want to test the theory by over-thinking. The simple, sisterly companionship of doing Carolinie?s hair felt too good to waste "I used to practice makeup on my sister," I said, slightly diverting the subject, though I had often done it to make her look a little older while I wasn?t wearing it at home.. "She came round last Sunday, after we had our breakfast." "How was that?" Caroline asked with the mascara wand perilously close to her eye. It might have been considered risky to discuss family in such a vulnerable position. Unless she was very trusting. "She wants me to keep quiet about darling daddy for the family's sake." "That doesn't sound very supportive." "I asked her to leave." "Bold." "Your eyes?" I pulled back to get a better look. "How do I look?" she asked. "Strong." "Isn?t quite what I was thinking of." "I think simpering and cute might be out of reach, but you look feminine. In fact, you remind me of my favourite English teacher." "A female one I hope." "Katrina Shaw was very obviously female and boasted a very strong personality." "In my dreams," she sighed. "You have one and the other is a work in progress." She looked up then and gave me a shy grin. "Which one is which?" Lipstick was applied and I promised to show how to do all this herself. Then, with her face enhanced, I reached into my holdall and shook out a long black skirt. Doubts invaded her expression as she looked it over. It was simple A- line style, calf length and light, the black fabric speckled with random white dots while a split up the left side would give safe, tantalising glimpses of a knee. As one of my favourite skirts I'd worn it a lot in the six months since it caught my eye on a sale rail in the town?s New Look store. The one I wore myself was a similar length and had a similar, slightly longer split, though mine was pleated and instead of the white dots it had bold red poppies on a black background. "Simple, elegant, feminine and won?t look out of place on your skinny hips," I suggested. "I?m not sure..." "You can wear it with those Doctor Martin boots; very on-trend." "I?m not sure if I?m ready." "You already have a pair of tights." "It?s really lovely of you to think of this," she said, indicating her hair and make up. "But..." She gave a long sigh. "The knocks I?ve had, actual and verbal... I don?t know. What if somebody takes the piss." "Would you like to wear it?" "It does look lovely." "Listen, if you want to be a girl, and I mean really go for it, you have to accept that whatever you do it will be wrong. If you wear a skirt you should wear trousers and if you wear trousers you should always wear a dress. High heels mean spitting in the face of every feminist who ever protested the patriarchy, but only childless, miserable lesbians wear flats all the time. You?ve already chosen to be the woman you know you are or you wouldn?t have exposed yourself to all those knocks and now you can choose what kind of woman you want to be. But the skirt is an option for your wardrobe now - your choice. Wear it for you or don?t wear it for you, but don?t not wear it for anybody else but you." Her expression became strained. "Don?t not wear it for anybody else but you?" "You can write that down or make it into a meme if you like." "Your favourite English teacher would go mental if she heard you using double negatives like that." "She always encouraged us to use English creatively. And you know what I mean." Standing, I held the spotted skirt in front of me and raised my eyebrows. "Tempted?" "Very. But... I don't know." "I'll call that a yes. You get changed while I have a pee." "Tracy?" I halted, hand on the door handle, and turned to smile at her. "Are you sure?" "It?s a helping hand into the sisterhood." Being a woman is nowhere close to being defined by clothes, particularly in this enlightened age where so much of women?s fashion derives from traditionally masculine styles, but in my experience there is an undefinable feel-good factor about wearing nice clothes. When I got out of the loo I was pleased to see Caroline, with a nervous smile, just settling the skirt around her waist. She opened with, "If it looks awful?" "Are you going to give me a twirl?" "No!" "It looks great on you." "You?re sure?" "Give me a twirl. Like this." With a little of the grace carried over from schoolgirl dance classes I did a pirouette so my skirt flared out and my hair spun. Caroline pulled a sceptical face, but did twirl around fast enough to lift the skirt and show her lower legs. When she stopped, almost overbalancing, her eyes sparkled and she laughed with such obvious delight I hurried over and gave her a hug. "I?ll call a taxi," I said, when we parted. "Let?s walk," she suggested, cheeks flushed. "It?s not far." So we walked, the scuff of her heavier boots complimenting the click of my heeled ankle boots. A pleasant, cool evening had developed and we walked in silence through the town centre towards the Green Dragon. I noticed her head was down and thought perhaps she was avoiding eye contact with the few passers by until she suddenly spoke. "Leg out, leg in, leg out, leg in, leg out leg in! I can?t believe I?m doing this. Look at the way this moves!" "You must have been tempted before," I said, looking down at the way her leg did appear through the skirt?s split. "Massively, but my heavily entrenched internal transphobia kept telling me it was a stupid idea. I just needed a kick up the arse. Thanks ever so much for doing it." "My pleasure. Simple pleasure should never be denied." "I never had a friend like you, Tracy. I never met anybody like you. Never even heard of anybody like you." She looked so alive when I glanced her way I smiled. For everything I?d been through, for all the pain I?d boxed away, the simple satisfaction of putting a smile on the face of another human behind raised a glow in me. Not just another human, but one who saw themself excluded from the conventional layers of society most of us took for granted. We turned a corner on the Cornhill and the evening breeze hit us, flattening my skirt against my legs and blowing my hair away from my face. The Green Dragon lay down a narrow street, hardly more than an alleyway really, and had once been a proper drinking pub before the owners did a midnight flit, the building was repossessed and left vacant so Hattie and Gemma could step in and turn it into a restaurant. The place was about half full as we stepped in; a couple of family groups and some couples, but nobody gave us more than a passing glance. Caroline adopted that same unseeing aloof air I?d noticed that first meeting as we walked along my station?s platform. A smiling waiter met us, confirmed my booking and led us to a pleasant corner table off to one side then left us with menus. "It looks nice enough," she said. "Are you a regular?" "In a veggie place! Do I look like a fad eater?" It did have a nice air to it though, a mixture of the original low ceilings and erratic layout married to more modern decor, lighting and decoration along with a rich variety of dragons peering out from nooks and shelves around the place. From the description Mollie had passed of a pixie haircut dyed a pastel pink colour I decided the tall lady in a well cut trouser suit behind the bar was Hattie, the owner. British reserve prevented me from going over and casually dropping Mollie?s name before her. "Your dragons weren?t well known for their vegetarian lifestyles," Caroline said. "High blood pressure and cholesterol problems must have finished them off then." We ordered red wine then I chose some kind of cheese and vegetable tart thing while Caroline went for a stroganoff. While waiting for the food we enjoyed the wine and Caroline grinned to see the lipstick print she left on her wine glass. Then her face fell and she leant in. "That chubby brunette over there, by the bar, has read me. She keeps whispering to her boyfriend and giving me funny looks." "She doesn?t like my fishnets," I decided. "She thinks I?m a slut for wearing fishnet tights in public and is deciding whether or not to put in an emergency call to the morality police." "Don?t look!" Caroline protested, but I turned and stared anyway. She looked to have ten years and ten stones on us, but had the decency to look away when she saw me staring. "It?s a rainbow place; there are two lads over there making the dreamiest come to bed eyes at each other like they?re about to throw all their meals and cutlery and condiments on the floor and start bonking on the table and she?s annoyed about my tights!" "She isn?t and you know it." "Bollocks to her. Here?s our rabbit food, eat up and I?ll buy you a kebab on the way back to your place to fill us up." However, the food was very good while the portion sizes were enough that I knew I wouldn?t need a kebab chaser. When the waiter came back to check on us I was impressed enough to warmly compliment the meal. Throughout we chatted about inconsequential things, carefully avoiding any references to family, leaving me pleased I?d taken the trouble to ask Caroline out. She was easy company, especially when she relaxed enough to ignore that brunette and seemed ready to forget her circumstances and enjoy the meal. Until she got up to head to the ladies, carefully ignoring the whole world, until she got her hand on the toilet door handle. "Sorry, mate, but I think you?ve got the wrong one," said the brunette, in a jarring Southern accent and loud enough to carry through the whole restaurant. Caroline went white, then pink, snatching her hand back from the door like it had electrocuted her. I could see her dithering, while the woman turned back to her pudding with a satisfied smirk. Her boyfriend made a wet chuckle. Maybe I should have ignored it, or let Caroline look after herself, but she?d put herself out for me and I?d been manipulated enough in my life that I hated bullies. Caroline?s mouth dropped when she saw me standing, she shook her head frantically as I stropped through the intervening tables and tapped the brunette on her shoulder. "Excuse me, mate, I?m guessing you think you?re the vagina police," I said, in a curious tone. "You what?" she said. "You heard. Only the door to that toilet has a picture of some kind of stick person wearing a skirt or a dress, but doesn?t say anything about a vagina." Turning, I grinned at Caroline. "On you go, we?re done here." "Who wants a bloke in the toilet with them?" snapped the woman. "You like peeing with the cubicle door open then, mate?" "Don?t you ?mate? me!" "Don?t you speak to my wife like that!" the man interjected, putting his spoon down. "Can?t she speak for herself?" I asked. "Now you look here -" he started, but I ignored him and turned back to her. "How about you mind your own business, mate?" "You?re going to make me?" "Is there a problem?" Hattie must have seen the trouble brewing and come over from behind the bar. "The self-declared toilet police were hassling my friend here," I said, nodding to Caroline who still hadn?t moved. "I just needed to pee," said Caroline. Hattie looked from me to Caroline then back to the woman. "All looks fine to me. More drinks, anyone?" "It?s an insult to women, that?s what it is," said our new friend, the expression she chose suggesting she'd like to grab some handfuls of my hair. The belligerence went from me like a switch had closed. Looking at her body shape I thought of the taunts and jeers she'd likely endured at school, and beyond. She might not have had an easy life, and that didn?t entitle you to criticise others, but I lost the energy to judge her. Can you imagine the cheap criticism levelled towards me for not seeing my father while he lay dying? "Wouldn?t life be lovely with more compassion and empathy?" I said. "Love your nails, did you get them done in town?" "Are you taking the piss?" "I think you?re right," said Hattie. "The Green Dragon?s laid back enough that this lady can use the bathroom without being challenged again and we can all enjoy our evening. And your nails are stunning." Caroline had her pee in peace in the Ladies?, the big lass finished her dessert and Hattie knocked off the drinks from our bill. We left a generous tip and walked home laughing. "Mate, you?re walking on the cracks in the pavement," I said to her, trying to imitate that husky, Southern accent. "Excuse me, mate, but you can?t use this pedestrian crossing, it?s showing a green man," she countered, "Nobody ever stuck up for me like that," she added. "I thought everyone would be too embarrassed and look at the floor. I?d have to blush and then some knob would have complained about me going into the mens? and I'd have to use the disabled. Like I?m some kind of cripple." "People are the problem," I reminded, taking her hand and squeezing it. She returned the gesture, but surprised me by not letting go of my hand. "We often talk about how easy it would be working at the railway station without people. Imagine how easy your job would be without people. People are always the problem." "Do you think I?m asking too much?" she said, and the light had gone from her voice. "Is it such a great big Godzilla of a nightmare that my brother has another sister? He wished me dead. Dead, Tracy! My own brother wished I was dead rather than trans." That got her a hug, there on a street corner with the cool wind tangling our skirts and tickling her with my hair. I held her close and thought about how lean and tight her body felt against mine; about how much like a man she felt right then. Except for the emotion, the sheer unfettered emotion; that open, unrestrained release that felt so much like all the women I?d ever known. I could have offered something bland, about people needing time to adjust, about the scale of change needed in somebody?s head to shift a brother to sister, but that wasn?t good enough for Caroline right then. "You?re not the problem," I whispered to her. "You?re just you, the best you. And you know, they tell us family will be there when we need them, but friends are what you need when it turns shit." Mollie came to mind then, and a couple of people at work, one or two outside, but centre of my thoughts was the woman who'd wrapped me up and taken me in at the lowest point in my life; the woman in my arms right then. "I?ve got you, Caroline," I said. When she sniffed and looked up, loosening the embrace I offered her a tissue and watched her smear it with tears and mascara. She snorted at the sight. "It?s an evening of firsts," she said. "Thank you, Tracy. You?re the best." We walked some more, still hand in hand. "I knew when I was little," she told me. "I used to look at my big sister, at her clothes and the way she was, then I thought about me and my brother and the expectations on us; and I knew who I felt more like. But what can you do? Dad made radiators in a Bradford factory. Me and my brother had to play football and love football and we had to go with him to all the matches. And if I tried to tell him I hated football, that I didn?t want to go and see another freezing fucking football game he got mad. At me and mum, ?cos it were her fault I were too soft. Kerry, my sister, she left home three weeks after she turned sixteen. Joined the Navy she did, went to Portsmouth, couldn?t wait to get away. Hardly ever seen her since, and who could blame her? She works on those brand-new, Carlos Fandango fighters in America now; didn?t even come back for Dad?s funeral. Put us all behind her, she has. I don?t blame her." Imagine if I had run at sixteen? I could have done, probably not anything as drastic as the Navy, but I could have found something to take me away from princess moments under my duvet. What would that have cost me? Exposing Beverly to that kind of abuse would have been worse than enduring it myself. What if Caroline had merely endured? "When did you come out?" "To them? I didn?t. I never had the bottle to stand up to my old man and the brother. I tried to tell Kerry once, a bit clumsily. She thought I were trying to tell her I were gay. Anyway, I gave up. I started growing my hair at college, Dad went mental about that, but I moved away, came out to my tutor at college. She laughed." Another little snort. "It wasn?t my best time." "That?s really shit, on many different levels." "You?d better believe it. You?re okay with me unloading on you like this?" She wouldn?t let go of my hand, not that I was really trying to get it away. "Go for it, I?m fascinated and outraged at the same time." "Thanks." She flashed me a quick, nervous grin. "But I?d gone too far, even with just telling her. So I decide to say ?fuck it? to the world and start social transitioning. I saw a doctor who referred me to a clinic and I?m still waiting, two years later, to start HRT." "That?s really brave." "Really? Big, brave girl that I am, I became a practical recluse. Family found out through a third party I thought I could trust so that cut me off from them. That?s when I moved to this side of the Pennines thinking to start over: new town, new people, new me." Which took us to her front door, or the door leading to the stairs leading to her front door. "And your dad?s funeral and nobody telling you?" "Bingo," she said, heavily. "And then you found me." "We kind of found each other." "Best thing I did for ages, wandering up to your station and looking all pathetic on the platform until you took pity on me. Listen, without sounding cheesy and everything, do you want to come up for a coffee? I have wine." "Last time I drank wine at your?s I puked, lots. And I have an early turn tomorrow, zero seven hundred on the platform ready to dispatch the first Up train to town." "Just one?" It would mean a taxi, not the bus, but riding the last bus to my side of town at that time of the night didn?t always mean a happy ride, so I agreed. Just one and her face lit up so I knew I?d made the right call. Besides, after her exposing herself on that walk back I couldn?t have left her hanging, could I? One glass led to two, but no more, and we sat curled up on the sofa and talked of inconsequential things, the way two girls might have done in other lives, and then I called a taxi and wished her good night. After kissing her cheek again. One girl to another. Part Ten. I couldn?t have asked for an easier day at work the next day. Trains ran to time, none of the passengers breached the intolerable neediness limit and Alice was worryingly polite in the coffee shop when I popped over for a sandwich at lunch time. Plans bubbled in my brain, all centred on a neglected girl I could hardly stop thinking about. As the station buzzed with the usual mix of commuters, shoppers and general travellers, I took some time to watch my myriad mixture of sisters going about their business. You can imagine the mixture; fat and thin, tall or short, dark or pale, long hair, cropped hair, coloured hair, no hair, piercings or none, tattoos or clean, makeup or natural, young and old as well as old trying to be young and young trying to look old. What bound us all? Shared experience? Who would have shared mine? Some of my sisters would have known worse, but what shared nightmares could be expected to bind us? Biology? How could something as simple as that decide something as magnificently varied as our brains? And where could Caroline fit in amongst that wonderful variation of womankind? Wherever she wanted, that?s where. Then, after lunch, I spotted a small figure on a bench on the side of the road opposite the main entrance and everything else stopped as though a spotlight had been shone on that woman and all the other noises needing my attention had been switched off. Before I could go and say hello, or ?You knew didn?t you?? a very large and out of breath woman determinedly demanded direction to the female toilet. By the time I had turned back Mum had gone. I couldn?t decide if I was relieved, angry or disappointed. Or a bruising mixture of all three. Hurrying to the staff locker room, waving apologetically at my supervisor's frown, I found my phone and called her. Her phone rang twice, while my heart thumped and couldn't think of a single thing to say to her. She hung up on me. I shrugged and put the phone away. The next time I looked I saw that under two warm messages from Caroline was the following instruction from Michael: [STAY AWAY FROM MUM U TWISTED BITCH] Point taken. Much, much later when I woke and reluctantly got up for a pee I checked the time on my phone and found a single word messaged from Mum. [Sorry] For a few minutes I lay tense under my quilt wondering what she was sorry for. For coming to the station and then walking away? Maybe for telling Michael I?d called. Or the big trumpeting foot stamping elephant in the room: sorry for knowing what Dad was doing to me. If she knew, how did she find out? Then the biggie: how long had she known? I'd been six weeks past my fourteenth birthday the first time he came to my bed. You might have thought the real biggie would be: why didn't she do anything? I didn't want to ask that, it came perilously close to another important question: why hadn?t I done anything? I could have reported him at any time from age fourteen to five years later when Beverly finally left home. Too many mixed messages. I went back to sleep and nightmared of being a princess again. Part Eleven. I?m not a lesbian, as I hope you?ve noted so far, but I know my way around a gay bar: thank you, Mollie. If you?re the kind of woman living with a bad history from masculinity a gay club is a safe place to dance, get pissed and generally let your hair down without constantly getting creeped on by unwanted testosterone. Sometimes the lesbians will have a try, but they are generally much gentler, don?t usually get so stroppy with polite rejection and will still dance with you even if you don?t want to kiss afterwards. Mollie again. Best of all, if you pick the right Manchester club, hardly anyone will care that your plus-one is an over nervous Caroline in her first dress. "Tell me again why this is a good idea," she asked, obsessively pulling at her hem while balancing on a tall stool beside a high table on the edge of the bar. "You?ll look like a tourist unless you relax," I told her, crossing my legs. My purple skirt was very short and my black tights very sheer, like my top. "Oh my god, I am so envious of you right now," she?d said in the hotel room watching me pull the top down so it covered but didn?t really conceal me or my black bra. She was already dressed in a short sleeved, flared and shortish black dress, smooth black opaque hold-ups and suede ankle boots with neat, experimental heels. "Your time will come," I said, checking myself in the bedroom?s mirror and smoothing my skirt over my hips. Then I caught myself and turned to face Caroline, my head on one side. "Would you rather I wore something else?" My other option was a dark green, fitted mini dress I?d bought only a few hours before. The sort of dress I might have worn to a slightly formal dinner, I thought it a little too plain for a night of cocktails and dancing in Manchester. I didn?t want to make Caroline feel too out of place though, or that she wasn?t good enough to really, properly dress up. "You?ll turn heads, but I love seeing you like that." "Turning your head?" "I?m only human," she admitted. "When my mates at school were dressing up, I dressed down," I said slowly, staring at myself in the mirror. "I maintained a twee picture of innocent, don?t pull that face, girlhood until I left home." I'd already done my eyes, making them very dark with precise, black sweeps at the corners and a shimmering blend of purples over my eyelids. The last part of my make up was a dark purple, almost aubergine shade of lipstick. "Now I dress for me, away from work at least." "You look stunning," she said, watching as I rubbed my darkened lips together. "One life," I said and smiled at her. "But you know that, don't you?" We'd taken the train to Manchester, creating some space around ourselves by taking up four seats around a table between us and our bags. Caroline wore trousers and a shirt again, but added eyeliner, mascara and lip gloss as well as tying her hair into a bouncy, high ponytail. Maybe she still looked nervous, as though the whole world was reading her. She certainly kept her eyes down, but I was alert with a glare to challenge anybody who looked twice at her. After checking into a hotel we went shopping. I?d never been conscious of other people watching me before, I developed the thick skin and ability to tune out most men. Maybe I was over sensitive, but seeing some of the sideways glances people sent Caroline?s way really started to piss me off. "You get used to it," she said after dragging me into a coffee shop. "Do you?" "Absolutely. It?s why I don?t make eye contact and ignore them. I?m different, unusual; people are mostly curious. Only a few are hostile. Sometimes I just pretend I?m the first blonde woman to be seen in a mysterious, oriental city; you know, where people are curious, but not hostile." "You must get tired of it though." "Probably, and my confidence is a small, timid thing, which is why I hadn't really gone for the whole, (kaboom!) major changes to my life until you made me wear that skirt." "I made you!" "You get people, men, staring at you though, don?t you? You must do, you?re so pretty." "Thank you, but I ignore the dirty bastards." "See?" I didn?t, but let her think I did. It wasn?t the weekend for introspection though. It was to be a girly weekend of shopping, dancing and cocktails. To get pissed, let our hair down (metaphorically in my case) and show Caroline what potential she had. So we shopped, ate dirty then got back to the hotel to ready ourselves for Canal Street and its rainbow lights. After the first couple of pubs she relaxed, maybe when she realised she wasn?t likely to stand out amongst the wild, open and multi-coloured folk who swirled around us. We drank and chatted, smiled and laughed before we found a place where I could dance; until then my feet had hardly been still. As much as I?d wanted to give this weekend for Caroline, I was unwinding myself, enjoying the glow of the cocktails from fingertips to toes and everywhere in between. The deep, persuasive beats warped through me and I?d barely touched my first drink before I was away moving through the crowd to find my place on the dancefloor and spiral up into my moment. "I?d never thought to see you like this," Caroline said, later on. She had to come really close to my ear so I could hear her. I glugged down water then sipped my drink. A smiling, innocent-faced girl in the toilet had sold me a tablet and I was buzzing, keen to dance some more, but recognising I must hydrate. I wasn't going to make that mistake again. "It?s safe," I shouted back, loving the way the lights caught in her bright eyes and glinted from the newly pricked studs she now wore in her ears. Another one sat in her left nostril, its pretty jade colour matched the shade I?d applied to her finger and toenails. She?d been chatting with another couple of t-girls; she looked comfortable and at ease, legs crossed, shoulders back, sipping her beer like a pro. She introduced her new friends to me, but I lost their names in the lights, noise and my own pulse. "Nobody cares who you are or what you?ve done or what you wear or who you kiss in here." Beyond that, nobody would try and touch my arse, spike my drink or see me as meat. "I got that," she said, with a grin. We went on to share a girly moment together, in the ladies?. Leaning over the sinks to refresh lipstick with a friend was just routine for me, but I caught a look in Caroline?s eyes as she took out her lipstick and that made me smile. The simple things we take for granted! "Dance with me," I insisted afterwards, taking her hand and towing her from her seat. She tried to resist, but one of her new friends pushed as I pulled. She looked stiff and self-conscious at first, not as tuned into the moment and music as me, but persisted until she chilled and started to flow. Witnessing the moment when she finally found her place lifted delighted laughter from me. It was amazing to see her when the music finally wound into her, when she closed her eyes and tuned everything else out. It was almost as if she?d just shrugged away her stale old life leaving a new Caroline to soar with me. The stiffness eased from her, she flowed, danced, made sinuous shapes with her arms. She entranced me with the swirl of her dress, the lines of her legs and graceful arms; her ponytail?s motion even made me wish for long hair again. I laughed again to see her, knowing she?d found what I?d craved; the ethereal joy of separating the moment you?re in from the life outside. In the minutes that followed I could hardly tear my wide eyes from her; there was Caroline. Not the woman struggling with the boy shape she?d been locked inside for so long, but the woman blossoming. Watching her made me feel light inside, like gravity had lost its interest in me and I could soar over the other dancers, circling Caroline and enjoying her. Then, the most wonderful revelation burst through me; as though seeing Caroline so transformed opened my eyes to who I had always been. "You?re beautiful," I shouted and in that wild, supercharged moment I loved her. Closing into her space I lay my arms over her shoulders and matched my flow to hers. "You?re beautiful, Caroline. Beautiful and I love you." So I kissed her: full on the mouth. Her eyes widened. Pulling her close, so we had to still somewhat, I pressed my lips to her. After a moment she relaxed and kissed me back. I thought my heart must burst into fireworks with that kiss. Heat poured from her, she tasted sweet and sour, her lips were slick and her tongue became a joy when she touched it to mine. I loved her embrace tightening around me, the firm press of her body to mine. When we parted for breath I could hardly snatch anything into my lungs. Her wide eyes shone, her lips were parted. "You kissed me," she said, leaning close so I could hear her. "Tell me you didn?t like it," I said and kissed her again. She didn?t need to say anything. She showed me. Then we danced again, but everything had changed and we danced together. Even without any contact we moved as closely as ballroom dancers and our eyes never parted. The rest of the nightclub might have vanished, leaving only the lights and the beat beat beat rising through us and giving me wings. The other dancers became shadows, eddying and flowing around us; ghosts of an old life. My world condensed to Caroline; my body sang, my skin sparkled and I grew so wet I knew I must take her and wrap her, open myself to her, ride and envelop her. When I ran her from the club into the wonderful night air the pulse between my legs felt like the dance rhythms, my breasts ached to be touched. I rode the crest of excitement like I?d never known, glugged more water in the taxi and kissed her again, feeling the joy of her hands on my legs and her breath on my skin until we could fall out at the hotel. I needed her, I needed music, I craved losing myself and ran fingers through her hair, under her dress. Her legs felt like silk through her stockings as I unzipped her boots and tossed them aside, pushing her onto the bed and lifting her dress. She resisted slightly when my hands reached her stocking tops, that little line appeared between her brows again and I kissed it away. "Nothing matters right now," I breathed into her. "You?re your own beautiful you and I?ve fallen for you. I want you, as you are and I?ll love you whatever you?ll become and wherever you go, but here and now I?m yours and you?re mine." I might have babbled some more; excitement, ecstasy and alcohol bubbled ferociously inside me, but she softened her expression and let me reach under her dress to pull her panties down. "I love you, Caroline," I said, eyes locked on hers and my hands found her own excitement. She felt as wet as me. "You beautiful, beautiful girl." My tights tore in the hurry to get them down, my panties went down the side of the bed as I straddled her, lifting her wet to meet mine then lowering myself smoothly to engulf her, throwing back my head and laughing with delight as she filled and stretched me, letting my weight settle onto her. We kissed, moved, fucked. She pulled away my top and unclipped my bra so I could throw it aside. Her hands with their painted nails looked exotic and gorgeous, cupping my breasts and teasing my stiff nipples as I rode her. Sometimes slow, sometimes fast, always in a joyous rhythm, like our dance. As the pleasure built, as the heat inside me boiled and raged I made myself watch her face loving her, the woman, my friend, my lover, until my muscles clenched tight around her and I cried out. She pulled me down, kissed me hard, then groaned herself, pushed herself deeper into me and I felt her release. Laughing, moaning, crying out, another orgasm shuddered through me to match hers until I couldn't hold myself up any more and slumped down to her, flattening my breasts to her chest. Darkness. Silence broken only by the sounds of our breathing as we lay together, constrained by the narrow bed. Goosebumps ran over my skin as I cooled so Caroline pulled the duvet from the other bed and laid it over us both. "Do you really?" she asked softly, her fingers toyed with my hair and explored the shapes of my ears. It took me a moment to work out what she meant. "Does it feel so strange that I could love you?" "The things you said." "Mollie always knew." "Knew what?" I was tight enough to her cheek to feel her confusion. "I'm gay." Saying the words made me tremble again. "Gay?" "It took you to show me." "Tracy? I don't understand." "I just needed to find the right woman." "You're not just saying that because..." "We made love? Do you think I wanted that because of your cock? I watched you on the dance floor, Caroline, and I fell in love with you." A cold thought splashed me and I lifted myself on one elbow so I could look down on her. Though her lipstick was ruined and heavily smeared with mine, her eyes glowed and she'd never looked more beautiful. "You prefer men?" She shook her head. "I'm confused. You're gay and I'm a woman who hates to be away from you so I'm gay too. Aren?t I? If I love you, Tracy and the way your body is pressed to me right now feels like the most wonderful thing ever, am I a lesbian? I'm only just getting used to being out as a woman." She took a deep breath. "And you were off your tits. High as a kite. This isn't just...?" "You're a woman, I'm a woman. Right now I'm high on you, Caroline. I love you. Is that so tough to accept?" "I'm not used to that." "You will be." I moved my fingers slightly, resting them high on her thighs where her softened cock lay. She tensed when I touched its tip. My nipples stiffened and I brushed them into her. "If we do it again, slower, will you believe it wasn?t the cocktails? Or the tablet?" "It may take more than just one more try," she whispered, beginning to respond to my subtle finger movements. "We've got all night," I suggested and she kissed me. The kiss went on for some time, fully silencing any demons that wanted to gibber about princess time. Part Eleven A. Though they didn't give me up that easily. It was my first time sharing a bed with a lover so I lay deliberately awake for some time just enjoying the pretty sounds signalling her sleep, the sleek nakedness of her and the sexy glow as my body slowed down from those orgasms. Obviously we tried again as we woke together and our collective excitement grew, but this time was different: she talked to me. I tried, I really did, but as much as I loved the patterns she made over my skin and happily opened my legs to her; as much as her kisses brought gasps and shudders from me, she talked. Nothing princessy either. She said things you'd suppose any girl would want to hear; you're beautiful, I love the shape of your breasts, I can?t believe how smooth your thighs are. I'm not any girl though, I had to roll onto my side and show her my shaking back. "It?s not you, it?s me." "If I triggered this, then it's me," she said, wrapping me tight, but careful not to let her cock touch me. Those words, and what lay behind them were worthy of consideration. We lay quietly for some time and I listened to the city's sounds. "I love you, Tracy Crow." "Even though I'm messed up?" Maybe I could only enjoy sex when drunk or high. Perhaps I would have to boom out some banging dance anthems to find the place where I could make love. "I knew that before I loved you." Right there was the love; unconditional, powerful and mine. Love enough to smooth the tension from my spine. The kind of warm, comfortable love that made a bruised girl like me roll around so I could look into her eyes to match her soul to her words. "Nobody ever loved me like that." Except maybe Mollie, but hers was subtly different in its origins. And realisation. Though something about Mollie?s love prodded another realisation. Reaching between us I found Caroline?s soft cock and as I kissed her I touched it. "Don?t speak, while you touch me," I said as my hand moved and she grew hard. She nodded, returned my kisses and let her soft hands work their magic over my skin. Not a word passed between us. Therapy sex? Success. Part Twelve. Mollie looked smug when I told her. We were sitting at the table in our kitchen; me, her and Carmen. She?d come with her parents from Hong Kong and worked in IT for the local NHS trust. I always thought of her as some inscrutable nymph sent to our mortal plane to observe our funny little ways; or as a cat trapped in a woman?s body. She kept her shining black hair waist length and wore men?s clothes with women?s shoes. It felt weird to say it. "I hate to admit it and feed your ego, but you were right. I?m gay. Well, probably bi, but way up the spectrum at the colourful end." "I knew it," Mollie said, but her smug superiority changed to delight. "I knew it," she said, leaning over to kiss me. Carmen smiled indulgently. She?d been appraised about the therapy wank only a day or two after it had happened and bought me chocolates so I?d know she didn?t mind. "And who is the lucky girl who turned your head when Mollie couldn't?" Carmen asked with a twinkle to her tone. I looked at Mollie and she pulled a face. "Her name is Caroline," I said. "Don?t look like that. You cannot fail to have noticed how happy I am about this." "But... Tracy..." she started, though lost her words very quickly. "You don?t like Caroline?" asked Carmen. I had thought Mollie might have briefed her: clearly not. "She?s trans," we both said together. "I cannot understand why you would waste your -" Mollie started. "Do not let anything ugly come out of your mouth right now," I said. "But, Tracy!" Carmen interjected smoothly. "Let?s go out for dinner; all four of us. To celebrate Tracy coming out. Soon." Caroline was unsure, but I fluttered my eyelashes and eventually she said yes. We booked a table for four at the Green Dragon. Carmen wore a tuxedo, stylish trousers and a dickie bow tie, Mollie swirled in wide- legged culottes and a corset top while I wore an ankle length, narrow dress and Caroline went tactically understated with trousers, blouse, waistcoat and medium height heeled boots. She?d been practising and moved well in them. I think her outfit must have cracked some of Mollie's hardliner stereotyping, as did her usual closeted manner with strangers. By the end of the pleasant meal, when we were preparing our goodbyes, Mollie adopted a thoughtful expression, produced one of her business cards and handed it to Caroline. "Good to meet you. And good work with this one." She nodded at me. "You've put the sparkle back in her eye. Come and see me, I'll do your hair and your nails." "What?s wrong with my hair?" Caroline asked as we started the walk back to hers. "She has a waiting list, you know she's the most sought after lesbian hairdresser in the Northwest, probably the entire North of the country. It means she likes you, you pudding." "All these people liking me. I hope it doesn't go to my head." I took her hand and made her cross the road, heading away from her flat over the shop. "You?re a likeable person, I?m on record as stating you?re a loveable person and that I do love you." As there weren?t many people about we shared a quick kiss. Then I tugged her back into a brisk walk. "We should go up Dobby Hill. The moon's up, it's not too cold. The town looks great from up there. In fact, it's the only time the town looks great." "Tracy?" She sounded thoughtful. "Hello." "What if all this between us -" "Love you mean?" "What if it?s you making a psychological transition from straight to lesbian?" While pondering this I took her hand and held it. Mollie had warned that overt displays of same-sex affection were likely to attract unwelcome attention from more 18th Century minded locals, but the moment felt worth the risk. "Like you?re some kind of halfway house?" "I?m not even halfway until I get my bits turned outside in. When I get post-op you might get confronted by my new foo, have a panic attack and run screaming for a man to bed." "The way you talk!" I said, pulling her closer so we were arm in arm. "Panic attack! Have you been rejected so often now you?re expecting it?" "I have plenty of experience." Honesty was the only thing for that moment. It would have been too easy to make some bold statement of love without compromise, but Caroline needed to know what I felt about her and the prospect of her surgery. "We?re a complex pair, aren?t we?" "You?re stalling," she said. "Perhaps. I?m trying to choose some words, and getting myself a little emotional." She must have recognised the tone of my voice as she stopped and turned me to face her. We were part way up the hill by now, the town behind us and my feet were starting to complain about the shoes they had been made to do this walk in. A dog barked somewhere and a car revved, but the sounds felt very distant. I felt safe enough here, with the nearby houses in darkness, to let her put her hands on my hips. "When I was going through the lowest point in my life you picked me up," I said. "You took me in, a near stranger, wrapped me and bathed my wounds. That?s who I fell in love with. You could have been a man or a woman right then, it was you who shone. But, you?re a woman. I think of you as a woman, I love you as a woman and I?ll continue to love you, wrap you and hold your hand while your body changes to fit your mind. And I?ll keep sucking your cock until it can?t be sucked any more." She laughed. Lifted her face to kiss me. "And then?" "It will be an adventure for both of us." "What if you don?t like it?" "I?m looking forward to trying." We walked a bit further until we found the hand gate leading to the park over Dobby Hill. It was locked at this late hour, but we helped each other over the wall as I?m sure countless lovers had over the years. Then at the crest, under the oak tree that crowned it, we sat on the bench and looked out over the patterns of streetlamps, the streams of red and white lights still thick on the motorway and the jets lifting from Manchester Airport. Holding hands led to an embrace, to kissing, passion then making love. We were slow and sure, constrained by clothes, enjoying each other, the view, cool air and sense of peace. Afterwards, with Caroline softening inside me, still as a picture under the moonlight, I reflected on the place I found myself in since the revelation of the dancefloor in Manchester and the very welcome feeling that my life had turned a strange, but exciting corner. "We?ve both come a long way since that day at the station," she said as we rearranged our clothes. "Let?s not go back. Let?s keep facing forwards," I said, pulling my dress down. Even as I made the words and she embraced me I knew it wouldn't be that easy. Not with families to manage; nor with all the voices calling me princess. Or with the issues I would bring down on myself by standing tall as Caroline?s girlfriend. Caroline?s girlfriend? What a wonderful place to be. "Where are we going?" she asked after we climbed the wall again and I turned her away from home. "The scenic route." "You know what time it is, right?" "Time is an illusion." I kept hold of her hand and considered taking off my heels, but it wasn't much further and the additional growing discomfort kept me focussed. "The cemetery, Tracy? Really?" "Be a mate and help me over the wall. You can wait here if you like, I won't be long." "Be long to do what?" "Pay my respects to someone." "A bloody vampire?" she muttered, but lent her strength to mine to repeat the undignified scramble up and over a wall. This time I tore my tights, but it was worth it. A few minutes later we?d found the grave, a relatively fresh one with a recently placed, angular gravestone at its head. Caroline put her arm around me. "Your dad?" Her voice was very soft. "Buried here is my abuser. The pervert who dirtied my life. I still hear his voice and the things he said to me when he came to my bed. Only the words weren't for me, they were for him; his justification for fucking his daughter. I heard them every time I got hot and wet with some lad I really liked so I turned cold and stiff. You broke that hold on me, my beautiful girlfriend. Thank you." Tears ran down my face again. Caroline tried to wrap me, but I stepped away leaving her puzzled. She looked even more confused when I reached down and took off my shoes. The grass came cold and damp underfoot. "Tracy, what are you doing?" "Taking my tights and knickers off. What does it look like?" I had to lean on the gravestone while making the whole process look difficult. My exposed legs looked very pale and felt cold under the moonlight. "I should have worn stockings. Here, hold them for me; don't lose my panties, they're full of your DNA." She took them, looking bemused. "What are you doing?" "Told you; paying my respects." With my dress trapped around my waist and straddling the floral tributes arranged along the grave I went for a squat, then changed my mind about the same time Caroline realised what I meant to do. "Oh my god, Tracy. You cannot be about to -" "I?m not going to have a shit if that?s what you?re worried about. Can you just steady me, grab my elbow or something?" "You think I want to be a part of this!" "You?re already aiding and abetting me by carrying my underwear. Come on, I?m getting cold and I?m absolutely bursting. This would be so much easier with a cock." "I?m not doing it for you!" Taking most of my weight on my grass-bound left foot, I rested my right foot on the gravestone which seemed to aim my bits at the inscription across the stone?s front. The moon shadow obscured the words, but I hadn?t come to read them. Despite the pressure in my bladder, twenty odd years of social conventions and the unusual position I?d put myself in were as effective as a cork in the end of my urethra. "Come on, princess," I snarled at myself and that magic word did the trick. With a satisfying hiss I made a high-pressure jet and only had to shift my hips slightly left to bring it onto target. "Who?s a fucking princess now, you nasty cunt," I snarled at the grave. Caroline had giggled when I first splashed the grave, but that silenced her. More tears fell and steam rose as I did my best to cover the gravestone?s face before the pressure dropped and I shook the last drops onto the grave, imagining them filtering down through the soil and soaking into the coffin. Silence fell again. Caroline?s eyes were wide, as though she expected agents from the cemetery police to rise up from camouflaged observation bunkers, or the local police helicopter to whisper up from behind Dobby Hill and fix us with its searchlight. While I started trembling, she offered a quick hug, then, more practically, a tissue from her handbag. She waited while I mopped up, then returned my underwear, keeping me steady while I shimmied my panties up and stuffed the spoiled tights into my handbag. Then she gave me another tight embrace and kissed my neck. "Better?" I snuffled into a fresh tissue and nodded, then gestured towards the grave. "Sure you don't want a go?" "As much as I would have liked the opportunity to repeatedly kick the bastard in the balls, I will maintain my dignity, thank you." "We could have taken it in turns," I said, bending to recover my shoes. Part Fourteen. "Mollie has something to say to you," Carmen said two nights later. She was sitting on our lounge floor painting my toenails a vibrant colour called Fuchsia. I was also sitting on the floor attending to Mollie?s; hers were going sky blue. To make the third side of the pedicure triangle Mollie was making Carmen's toe nails a shade described as cobalt blue. The three colours had been selected by the medium of a blindfolded lucky dip from my disorganised nail polish box. Classic FM made a slightly pretentious background to our concentration and a nice Australian malbec circulated freely. Mollie cleared her throat. "I was thinking that maybe your Caroline would like to move in with us." My Caroline? What a lovely idea. I tried to imagine the look on her face when I asked the question. That kind of offer, that level of acceptance would be something special for her. "That's pretty good of you, actually really good of you." "There is one condition though," Mollie said, with a little smile. "Which is?" "She has to swear long, complicated and bloody oaths to the fickle lesbian goddesses to never, ever leave our toilet seat up." I threw the bottle of nail polish remover at her. Luckily the lid stayed on. Part Fifteen. Mum appeared on the bench outside the railway station again the Friday after I pissed all over her husband?s grave. It was a grey day promising rain before I?d get home and the world seemed heavy and sighing repeatedly. The prospect of going home to find Caroline waiting kept a spring in my step and a twinkle in my smile right up to the moment I glimpsed that slight figure on the bench. Instead of the full-frontal walk from the main entrance, which might have given her a chance to withdraw, I made a wide flanking approach through the old parcels gate, went behind the taxi rank to cross the road and get to the bench by the cover offered by Alice?s cafe. She had her phone in her hands, but had most of her attention focussed on the station entrance until I sat at the opposite end of the bench. From nowhere came a ghostly need for a cigarette. Surprise opened her mouth and widened her eyes. She dropped her phone. Before Caroline I would have hurried to pick it up for her. "Tracy!" she blurted. "Hello, Audrey." I folded my arms and crossed my legs watching her shrink a little under my verbal slap. "I... How are you?" "Things are looking up. I?ve fallen in love. With a woman. She?s moved in with me. What are you doing here again?" It sounded too angry to be the happy revelation that I had finally found somebody to fall in love with. Confusion added to the discomfort I read in her face. "Oh." When her eyes filled with tears I almost moved down the bench towards her pain, but I wasn?t that woman any more. They?d practically made me an orphan. "Tracy..." That was the only sound she could make before her voice cracked and her shoulders started shaking. Tracy the Almost an Orphan shuffled along the bench to put her arm around the crying woman because she?d have done that for a stranger contemplating self-destruction on the platform end. Though the action left me feeling like a passenger in my own body, there was some consolation to realise my father?s perversions and associated rejection hadn?t made me a complete monster. "I?m so sorry, Tracy," she sobbed. Folk walking past looked solidly ahead, the way they do when passing beggars or the homeless. I ignored them while red hot spikes of ?what the fuck are you sorry for? smashed through me. "Let?s have a cup of tea," I said. I couldn?t have made any offer with greater depth than that and didn?t want to have the conversation we both needed right there. She shook her head. "Can I come and see you? Can we meet somewhere? I need..." What did she need? For a heartbeat Orphan Tracy filled with contempt and the need to get up and walk away, to leave her behind. What had she done for me? How had she protected me from my monster? Then I breathed again and knew I hadn?t been consumed just yet. If that man had been prepared to rape his daughter what might his wife have had to suffer? "Come for tea. Next week. Would you like to meet Caroline?" Keeping my voice even made me tremble. "Caroline?s your..." she paused. "Girlfriend?" Michael and David would go ape when they found out; Traitor Tracy?s a dyke now! I could imagine the wailing and gnashing of teeth as they added my sexuality to the belief in the lies I?d told about their dad. "I?m really happy. Considering." Considering. That went home. "I don't know, love," she said, wilting. There might have been a hundred reasons why coming for tea with us next week might be inconvenient. I chose the one suiting my belligerence. So I stood and smoothed my skirt, giving her the opportunity to ask me to sit again. "The offer's there, Mum." When she didn?t say anything I went back to work. Beverly phoned later on. No message, no warning, just the phone ringing on the kitchen surface while I cooked dinner. We took it in turns when work patterns allowed and I was making halloumi curry. When I saw who was ringing I ignored it. Less than thirty seconds later it rang again, still Beverly. Fearing the worst I picked up. "Mum?s really upset," she started. "Hello, Bev. How are you?" "Did you hear what I said?" "So it?s an accusation not an observation?" "She said she?d come to see you." "I invited her around for tea." "She?s just lost her husband of thirty years." "What do you want from me, Bev? To go public and retract what I said? Take out a full page advert in the local paper and tell the world that everything I said about being raped was a lie? Would that make you feel better?" From the silence I thought she'd hung up, but when I looked at the screen the call was still connected. Then I heard faint, but pained breathing. "I lost my dad, Tracy. Only I lost him twice. It?s really hard." I wanted to scream down her experience of it being really hard with my own. After all, what the fuck did she know about it being hard? Apart from losing her dad: twice. First he dies then his memory?s ripped up. I?d had to live through that betrayal every day of forced family life since the first time he?d pulled my pyjamas down and pushed my legs apart. "What if he?d been noncing-up somebody else?s daughter? And she?d gone to the police? Would you expect her to keep quiet?" "But that?s - No. No, I wouldn?t." The onion smelt close to burning in the pan and I needed to get the halloumi from under the grill. Beverly had gone quiet again and I wanted to hang up, but didn?t. If I?d cut her off maybe I?d never have heard from her again and, despite everything, I loved my little sister. "I?m sorry for what he did to you, Tracy." "Thank you." "And I thought through what you?d said about why you didn?t go to uni. And it matters. What you did." "I love you, Bev. I love all of you. I should have kept quiet at the wake, for you all. Fuck knows I?d kept it quiet long enough. Imagine how the business and Michael?s livelihood would have been fucked if people saw ?Crow and Son Heating Engineers? on the side of a van and thought there was a paedo coming to their house. Or David at school or running his Scout troop? ?Like father, like son,? people would have said. There?s enough stereotyping about scout leaders and PE teachers anyway. There was no point in saying anything and every point to keeping the whole nasty secret to myself." "It makes me feel sick," she said. Her voice sounded clotted and I could picture her face as she cried. "And I feel worse knowing you stayed at home until I left." "Because I love you." "And I thought you were a cow because you were so obviously his favourite." "That doesn?t matter." "But it does. It all matters, Tracy. Everybody let you down." I had to turn off the hob and grill at that point, otherwise the smoke alarm would sound. Then I slid down the cupboard until my arse hit the floor and I could rest my head on my knees. Salt water ran down my cheeks and phone as I hunched there, listening to the remote sobs from Beverly?s end. We didn?t do anything else but cry at each other for a few minutes. The kitchen door opened then closed again, I heard Carmen shout for Caroline before footsteps scuffed the tiles and arms went around me. She tried to take the phone away, but I shook my tear streaked head and kept tight hold of it. "Who is it?" Caroline asked. I tilted the screen so she could read Beverly?s name. "Who?s that? I should go," Beverly said. "Don?t go. It?s Caroline. My girlfriend. Did mum tell you I?m gay?" My wonderful girlfriend pulled me tight, stroked my hair and dabbed at my cheeks with a tissue. "Caroline?" "Hi, Beverly." "Does she know about, you know... Dad?" "I told her everything, before we started dating." "She must think I?m awful!" "I really don?t," said Caroline. "I think I?m awful." "The only person who should feel shit about this is dead," I said emphatically. Only that wasn?t true. Mum had some part in this, but it wasn?t the right time to ask Beverly about her or what she?d known. Before we said goodbye we agreed to meet up on the next weekend she could get away from uni. Hopefully we?d be able to sort things out between us and she?d get to meet Caroline. Part Sixteen. Caroline?s chemical transition started the following week. The waiting lists for people to see a gender specialist are truly disheartening, particularly for kids. I suppose you could argue that there are other priorities for a creaking healthcare system, but surely a more nuanced approach is needed when people are killing themselves for lack of treatment. Anyway, Caroline got her appointment, saw the specialist and was prescribed the hormones needed to ramp up her transition. I sat on the edge of our bed and watched her apply the first patch to her upper arm and grin. "Anything yet?" she asked, looking down on her chest. "My girls took three years to mature, and I?m only a C cup" I said, pulling her down for a hug. "One step at a time," she said and grinned again. Having applied for a checkout job at the local Sainsburys supermarket (better pay, conditions and prospects than her previous retail outlet) she was invited for an interview and spent some time on buying a new suit from Next. With her new outfit, growing confidence, Mollie?s highlights and waves in her hair, subtle makeup, pretty hoop earrings and shorter steps she?d gone beyond that bony awkwardness I?d seen that first day at the station. I might have been biassed, but when I looked her over before the interview she looked like an athletic, narrow hipped and small busted woman. Sometimes she forgot to soften her voice, but gentle coaching from me, Mollie and Carmen had transformed the way she presented. None of us wanted to conform to last century ideals of how women should be, and you should have seen us slouching around the living room in our pyjamas, but we recognised that a more traditional demeanour could only help Caroline pass without really compromising our feminism. She got the job and to celebrate the four of us went into town for more excellent rabbit food at the Green Dragon followed by some overpriced wine at a trendy bar on the other side of the river. By the time a taxi tipped us out it was almost midnight, I was carrying my heels and we were all giggly drunk. I paid the driver, Carmen needed the loo desperately and Mollie said she?d go up and get the kettle on. Caroline slipped an arm through mine and walked me to the entrance to our road where we could see the big, full moon lifting and washing the bland sodium street lamp glare with its magic silver. "I wouldn?t change a thing that led me to this moment with you," she said. "We?d have found each other, no matter what," I said. As much as I loved each and every day waking up alongside her, there was a lot I would have changed in my past. Or would I? Wasn?t the heart raising, hairs lifting, breathtaking feeling to see Caroline smiling at me from a shared pillow worth it? I turned her towards me, studying her face; her eyes almost lost in shadow, but for the moon spark caught in them. There in those eyes was my future, the shape of my growing peace and contentment. Of course there were still things to resolve, and a lot of pain to keep throwing over my shoulder to keep it behind me, but Caroline had already shown herself willing to share the effort. "I love you, Tracy Crow." Putting the cherry on the top of our cake. "And I love you, Caroline Canton." We kissed for a moment, the late hour making it discreet, then turned and headed for home, hand in hand. Welcoming fairy lights shone around our living room window above as Carmen or Mollie made it cosy. "There you are," said a tall, broad shouldered man looming up from the shadows near the entrance to our building. The cosy warmth drained in an instant as he closed so the streetlamps illuminated Michael?s hairline and craggy brow. He staggered slightly as he came towards us, blocking the way to the flats. "Who is it?" Caroline hissed as I stuttered to a stop and stiffened. "Hello, Michael. How are you?" "I?m pissed," he said, slurring the s sounds. "Pissed off. Fucking pissed off with you." "This is my oldest brother. Caroline, this is Michael. Michael, Caroline. Caroline?s my girlfriend, in case you hadn?t heard." "Girlfriend?" He lurched to a stop. "You?re a lezza? A fucking lying lezza. A lying lezza slag?" Caroline gasped. Michael belched. "She?s a fucking dirty liar," he added when the wind had gone. "Time and place, Michael," I said, stiffly while measuring the distance to the block?s door. I could probably make it before him, but while I punched the access code to open the lock he?d be on us. "We should talk about this when you?re sober. It will be easier for both of us." "Fuck you! My dad?s dead. Dead! And dead twice." He took a step forward and furiously tapped his brow with one finger. "Dead here now, you killed him in here, you dirty fucking slag. Killed my memory of him with your fucking lies." And I laughed. I shouldn?t have, but I did. I laughed into the absurdity of his ridiculous denial. Obviously I shouldn?t have laughed at his pain; it was as real as mine and came from that same betrayal, but why should I be the one to be rational all the time? Wasn?t I a little drunk too? Even as I laughed and his face darkened I saw the truth in him. He could call me a liar as much as he wanted, he could name me for the kind of woman who?d enjoy opening her legs to any man, but he knew. Mum must have told him, Beverly might have spoken to him. Whatever the source of his corroboration he knew what had been done to me and he grieved for his dad. Only he?d got stuck in the angry stage, fuelled it with drink and come to confront me. And I laughed. The revelation didn?t help, perhaps his angry response and the misdirected blame just fuelled my own rage. Caroline tried to help; I felt her fingers tighten on my arm trying to lead me away, but the only bit of me that noticed her was a passive, disregarded and dwindling part of my awareness. Everything else boiled red. I went from negotiation, through contemptuous laughter to boiled scarlet rage in seconds. "Slag? You call me a slag? You pathetic, stupid, blind, ignorant man. You think I opened my legs to tempt him, that I flashed my tits for him? That?s what you think? Jealous are you? Want some do you? Want to have some of what your precious fucking daddy had?" While he growled and Caroline pulled, I wrenched at my trouser fastening so hard the button popped and vanished. I practically tore the zip and opened the trousers, lifting my sparkly top so the moonlight picked out the lace edge of my panties and the accusing word, ?Mine? tattooed under my belly button. "Come on then, come and have what your daddy enjoyed so much if that?s what you think of me!" Not the most conciliatory attempt at deescalation you'll ever see. Nor did he take it in the shaming way others might have done. With some kind of illegible roar he swung for me. Caroline and I both saw it coming and cancelled out each other's evasion: I ducked one way and she pulled me the other. Sick lights flared through my narrowed vision and my head snapped back. Strangely enough there was no immediate pain, just the numb realisation that he'd actually hit me. Really hit me. Not a red-cheeked slap like last time. By then I'd unbalanced, gone over backwards and tangled with Caroline. The back of my head smacked down into the concrete path and my night was done. Part Seventeen. I woke dry, cold and invaded by tubes. When I sluggishly tried to turn my head I found one up my nose and while summoning up the energy to raise my right hand to move the tube in my nose revealed one running into the back of my hand. They?d also put one up my urethra, but I didn?t notice that one immediately. My mouth was so dry and my tongue so crusted I couldn?t even express any kind of outrage about the tubes. Crusty too were my eyes and even when I did get them open I couldn?t get anything into focus so I closed them again. When I tried again it seemed a little easier, maybe because the room felt darker, less scorching. I saw pale yellow walls, some impressionist prints, curtains drawn over a window and some kind of TV shaped machine at head height on a stand. And a woman. Even though my mouth felt like a sand pit, the sight of her, even with my mostly focussed eyes, brought a smile of my own. It looked like she was sleeping, head tilted back and eyes closed. Memories of the resilience of her neck under my lips made me smile again, those cheeks against mine. I longed to see her beautiful eyes again. "Hello, gorgeous," I croaked, reaching for her with an arm that felt three times its normal weight. Though her hair seemed over long for the Caroline I remembered, flowing down over her left shoulder in a lovely, golden cascade. Its tips drew my eyes to the V cut of her summery top and the soft shadow of a creamy cleavage. "How long have I been asleep?" I whispered. She smacked her lips together, mumbled something, then came to slowly, looking around the hospital room like she'd never seen it before. "Oh, hello," she said, seeing me staring and I realised it wasn't Caroline. Her voice was too high, too light for my love. "She'll be right annoyed she missed you," the familiar stranger said. "I'm Kerry, her sister. She's gone for a shower, well I made her go. Lass were getting a bit gamey, if you know what I mean." "Kerry?" I muttered, frowning and trying to sit up. It didn?t look like I was ready for that yet, or my body had been turned into porridge. "Navy Kerry?" "That?s me. Flew in yesterday, thought of surprising my little sister and found her by your bedside. Just taking my turn on watch. How are you feeling?" I gave up the unequal struggle against gravity and slumped back. "It?s good to meet you. I have no idea. How long?" "Three days. Nurse'll give you the technicalities, I'm a mechanic, me. I fix jet engines, ask me owt about a Pratt and Whitney F135 and I'm on safe ground. Biology though? No chance." She beamed at me, as though that explained everything. Then reached over and touched my hand. Her fingers were slender, like Caroline?s, but she had short, practical nails and oil engrained around them. "Anyway, enough about me. Before Caroline comes back and gets all emotional I need to tell you what a diamond you are. Done my sister proud you have. She told me all about you." "She saved me," I whispered back. When I came to next it was Caroline sitting there, obsessively holding my hand and looking so completely Caroline I smiled through the daze muddling my thoughts. "You never said you and your sister looked so alike," I mumbled and she laughed. "I thought I?d been out so long you'd got boobs." "Nothing yet! Welcome back. I've been so worried, I missed you so much and love you more. How are you?" Actually there was a lot more than that, so I couldn't get any kind of a reply in so I lay there, closed my eyes and let her wash through me, a warm, gentle wrap of love that finished with her laying her cheek to mine and laughing while our tears mingled happily on their way down to the pillow. If you ever have to endure surgery to tidy up a bleed on the brain, such a loving reception is highly recommended. The machine beeping away to monitor my heart rate upped its tempo and a nurse popped his head around the door to check on me, grinned and left us to it. Caroline hurriedly filled me in on the events I'd coma'd through; it sounded very exciting and just the sort of thing I would have liked to have seen. Apart from Michael being arrested, I wouldn't have liked that. Or Caroline weeping over me because she thought I?d died while Mollie, more practically and less emotionally, called for the emergency services and helped Carmen roll me into a recovery position. "I went a bit daft for a few minutes," Caroline admitted unhappily. "But you went down so hard and your head made such a horrible sound (she shuddered when she said that) and I couldn't get any response from you and Michael was standing there like a broken puppet. It was awful!" You might think remorse had rooted him to the spot until you'd heard him mutter that he'd just killed his own sister. More people heard him shout, 'She made me do it,' right before he ran off. I did enjoy the sight of the two sisters together though; from the way they lolled against each other they might have been sisters forever. The sheer gratitude in Caroline?s eyes when she looked at Kerry grew that warm place in me as well as a wonderful sense of being part of something bigger than the pair of us. My head hurt and I'd found stitches, swelling and scarring where they?d made a flap of my scalp to get into my cranium and soft out the bleed in my head. They hadn?t shaved my hair and assured me the scars would be well and truly covered. Like every other scar a man had ever inflicted on me. "He says you provoked him," said the spotty copper who came to interview me. "Exactly how did I provoke him into punching me and knocking me out?" I asked, caustically. To be honest, I wasn?t sure if I was fit to be interviewed. The painkillers? wooziness interspersed with thudding headaches and frequent naps meant I wasn't a hundred percent sure what was going on around me. Sometimes I?d be there with one person holding my hand, Beverly for example, and then I?d look up and Caroline would be sitting there reading a book. My surgeon assured me I was doing well and would be at home in a few days. "He says you exposed yourself to him," the copper explained. She looked at her notebook. "You pulled your trousers down." Colour rose in her blotchy cheeks. "Said you offered yourself to him sexually which is why he pushed you away." "Did he tell you why?" I asked, trying not to laugh with the sheer incredulous release of his version of the assault. She shook her head. "I?ll tell her if you won?t," Caroline said. The copper looked interested. She worked in a specialist domestic violence unit and probably enjoyed putting abusive men in front of a court; she?d probably seen and heard all kinds of stories in her time, but I wonder what she?d think of mine. Mollie and Carmen visited with flowers, grapes and love. Mollie rested her hand on my thigh, lifted her eyebrows and wondered if I needed a therapy wank while Carmen kept watch. Though my catheter had gone, I politely declined so she took a vibrator out of her handbag instead, concealing it under my pillow in case I?d need it later. Then she dug out her tablet and showed me houses from various websites. It seemed our lesbian commune was thinking of going upmarket and finding a bigger house. With Caroline able to contribute and Carmen having been promoted she thought we could afford a place away from arguing bus drivers and wailing babies. I told her I didn?t want to go too far away from the town; Dobby Hill curated a happy, exciting memory now and I fancied more outdoor sex up there while drunken opportunities to defile Dad?s grave would be reduced if I needed a suspicious taxi driver?s help to get to the cemetery. Beverly turned up with David and his wife. They looked uncomfortable with my dressing and bruising and what I?d said at the wake. Nobody really spoke, until they were close to leaving when David leaned over and embraced me. It was awkward, given the pile of pillows I was leaning against, but it was the first contact I?d had from that brother for almost as long as I could remember. "We?re with you, Tracy," he said. "All of us; me, Jasmine, Beverly. With you." Jasmine rested her hand on my shoulder. She had powerful perfume and long, strikingly flamboyant fingernails. "We need to spend more time together." "We?ll be stronger together," said Beverly. Mum didn?t get that memo though. You could feel her dancing around the difficult, for her, topic of damage limitation and lingering loyalty to her oldest son. "Think of the family, Tracy," Mum pleaded the next time she came. "The family!" Maybe I should have just told her I didn?t want to press charges. Then it would all go away and Michael could believe what he wanted without having to fully confront who his Dad had been. Instead I stared at the ceiling, then the way the lights outside distorted the patterns on the curtains thinking about men creeping into their daughter?s beds or men sweet-talking their evil into women and then heaping their shame onto women?s shoulders. "He wants me to drop the allegation," I said. "He thinks that I?ll be too ashamed to tell the police and potentially a court why we were screaming at each other. Once again he?s got it all wrong. I?m not ashamed and I told the police everything." If I hadn?t Caroline would have done and it wouldn?t have been right to have sat there like a stereotype while I let another talk for me. I told them not because I wanted them to get righteous about a dead man?s perversion, but so they?d understand the anger between me and Michael, why I?d done what I did and why he?d said those words. I didn?t need revenge, but I wasn?t going to lie or roll over for a man anymore. "All he has to do is plead guilty to assaulting me and this doesn?t have to go to trial," I told Mum. "Dad?s shame is not my shame. I carried that for too long for the sake of the family and I won?t any more." Mum cried then, but I didn?t. She looked away, but I didn?t. "And you knew didn?t you," I said, each word as cold and perfectly formed as a crystal dagger. That made her draw in a slobbering, ragged sob of pain. She half rose in the seat, about to run for the sanctuary of the hospital beyond. She froze. Maybe she sensed that if she ran from me then she and I would be done. Folding my hands together I stared stonily her way and gave her time. I had plenty of that. Mum sat down again. "He told me himself," she said in a timid little voice, fixated on the squirming hands on her knee. "On the last day he was really himself, before his mind went, before he actually died." She paused for breath and wiped her nose with a damp tissue. Part of me didn?t want to hear, I could have screamed for her to leave and never trouble me again. The nurses would have made sure she left me alone, but I stayed so still I practically hummed; like a steel joist under horrible pressure. "He asked if you were coming to see him and I said you?d probably come later on, when you finished work. I said how busy you were, but he interrupted me. ?She?s not coming, is she?? I told him I?d call you, persuade you, but he just shook his head. ?I need to see her,? he said. ?I need to say sorry.? It upset him." She glanced up then, looking for a reaction, but she wouldn?t have been able to see my teeth clamped together so tight they creaked. Maybe she saw how white my knuckles were. He needed to say sorry! Fuck that. Tracy Crow was not handing out absolution like a corrupt priest. "Did he tell you what he needed to say sorry for?" Mum nodded. "He said... he told me... that he?d... forced himself on you. Once." Silence. I would not be the one to break it. Then: "Tracy, it wasn?t just once. Was it?" I had a look, even though the meds were thinning out and I?d rather have closed my eyes, fallen asleep and woken to Caroline?s smile and love. Instead, Mum sagged in her chair looking older and more frail than a woman of her age should. What I wanted to say was, I am not responsible for this. And I wasn?t. Maybe Mum suspected what Dad had been doing, probably she didn?t because suspecting that of the man you?d made your life, home and family with was a pretty big step nobody would ever take lightly. He?d been so careful, engineering time when he could be alone with me. If I tried to avoid those times he?d make some almost opaque comment about Beverly or let me see her braiding her hair while making the kind of princess comments that meant I?d have to open my legs in other circumstances. How would Mum have known? "No. It wasn?t just once," I said, but softly. "Oh God, Tracy. I?m so sorry, I didn?t know, I would have..." The real Tracy Crow came up for air then, broaching the hot anger; the Tracy Crow Mollie had seen, that one Caroline had touched. The one I wanted to be. I reached for her and she came to me. Had you come into the hospital room right then and seen us, you might have assumed ours was a scene of a mother soothing her daughter enacted in a million homes across the world. You would have had to look closer, to have known us and our stories better to realise how I consoled her. I wrapped her in forgiveness that had been earned and not asked for, stilled her shaking shoulders with a specific love I thought lost, but which flowed unharmed from wherever it had hidden. I am Tracy Crow. I survived, I was changed, but I am all me and all my own. Nobody defines me. Except Caroline. Part Eighteen. "If we were to get married, what do you suppose it would look like?" "Married?" "Don?t you imagine what your wedding would look like?" "It is, according to certain sections of the more conservative minded, every girl's dream." "And?" "A woodland glade. With moss on the trees and lights hung in the branches so they look like fireflies." "Lovely. That sounds properly perfect." "And everyone wears fairy wings. Apart from that they can wear what they want as long as it's brightly coloured and has sparkles." "Not the traditional granite church and stoney faced relatives?" "We don?t have so many of the latter and they probably wouldn't let us in the former." "Kerry would have the rings and Mollie would give us both away." "And a ceilidh afterwards? I went to one once, when I was little, and it was such a laugh. All laughing and wonderful music and people just happy and enjoying themselves; just the thing for your woodland wedding under the summer stars and firefly lamps." "It sounds perfect." "Are you asking?" "Are you saying yes?" "Don?t you have to ask me first?" "When did we ever do anything conventionally?" "Yes." "Yes?" "Wow! Are we engaged?" "Are you still asking?" "You haven?t actually asked me yet?" "You already said yes." "How do you know what I was agreeing to?" "I would dearly love to look at you every morning and know you were my wife." "And I would love to have you as my wife." "Is that a yes?" "I?ve never felt so loved or so in love." "I have never experienced the joy of falling in love a little more every time I see you." "Yes."