I arrived to find Beverly back in her now familiar seat in the village hotel being amused and entertained by her newly found she-male and transsexual friends. All trace of the anger and frustration from the afternoon's encounter seemed to have evaporated as the group discussed dresses and bridal outfits for the forthcoming wedding. They welcomed me with open arms and eyed Beverly enviously before congratulating her once again at having discovered such a wonderful companion to share her life.
"And a 'lipstick lesbian' to boot love. You're a lucky girl Bev."
"We're both lucky girls." Chirped Beverly as she made room on the settee for me to squeeze in beside her.
As we sat and chatted a waitress supplied us with drinks and we spent the rest of the evening being introduced to other residents of the village. Beverly positively blossomed and I hugged myself with silent satisfaction as I watched her circulating freely amongst the she-males, transvestites and transsexuals who regularly frequented the bar. She even spoke to a couple of gay guys who had wandered in and when I queried her about it later she just shrugged easily.
"I didn't feel threatened Ruby. In fact I didn't feel threatened all night. This village is a terrific place; it's like therapy. In fact, I'm going to buy a flat here."
"I thought you wanted to live in my cottage in New England."
"We can have a pierre-de-terre' in Manchester can't we. It only takes a few minutes to travel across in the Albatross."
I had forgotten of course. The Albatross had reduced the whole world to a village. I still hadn't adjusted to the concept and I grinned to myself as I contemplated the grief and heartache it would bring to immigration departments and nation states when world citizens could live in Africa, work in Europe, lunch in Asia and club the night away in America or Australia. I grinned at Beverly and hugged her tight as I finally grasped the portent of her remark to the Spanish captain in the cabin of the Albatross. I'm an Earthwoman and this is Earth!'
"Whatever you wish Beverly. With the money I make from the prosthesis business and your income from development of the anti-gravity engine we'll be able to afford an apartment in every city."
"I'm not that greedy. It's just that I like it here."
"D'you intend keeping your transvestism a secret?"
"Originally I did, yes. I felt so threatened, but this place is so cool and people are so friendly. Anyway it's no matter now. One of those two transsexuals at the bar is lawyer and she's dead keen to see a trannie make it to the top of the business world. She say's that once one of us has got a toehold in the industrial world they won't be able to sack us from our jobs when we 'come out'."
"I'm not sure I follow."
"You can be dim sometimes Ruby. Just think! If the company that builds the space ships is owned and run by a transvestite and a lesbian, then the whole work force can be what they like. It'll be like an umbrella to shelter any person who has any 'problems' with his or her sexuality. There won't be any sexist or racist or fascist bastards to persecute anybody for being gay or lesbian or transsexual or transvestite or anything. Just remember how you were made to feel vulnerable and threatened when you came out as a lezzie at the FreeThinkers Journal; and that's a liberal intellectual organisation!"
I thought back to exactly that time. How people made snide remarks behind my back how hushed conversations were shut down when ever I approached; how little sniggers and titters followed my every step. The worst of it was that I had still had some bisexual leanings and it had wounded me deeply to learn that the one boyfriend I thought I could rely on for support had betrayed me and rejected me out of hand when I had 'come out'. It had made my life a hell.
Strangely I had not adopted Beverly's ideas and instigated a 'positive discrimination' policy towards gays etc. However, I had done something similar for maimed, disabled and paralysed individuals. I realised I had been slightly remiss in not doing as Beverly intended and I felt mildly guilty. She had shown me the light. I hugged her tight to me as I whispered to her.
"So you intend to employ only gays and trannies and suchlike?"
"Oh gosh no!" She smiled. "I intend to employ people on merit first. I'll have to if I'm to maintain standards of workmanship and stuff. Look at how well made Albatross 2 and 3 are. It's just that there will be a positive discrimination towards gays and trannies if there's nothing else to choose."
While Beverly spoke the transsexual lawyer rejoined us and we hammered out some important questions. As the evening passed our discussions became more open until it almost became a public meeting. The lawyer was adept at handling such events however and things progressed smoothly. By midnight we were ready for bed and the lawyer studied us enviously as we made our excuses. In fact several envious but grateful eyes watched us leave for our ideas had become common knowledge amongst the clientele. Out of the fifty or so in the small hotel that night about forty had lost their jobs because of their sexuality. Most had lost their marriages and the remainder had been unable to find a job. Many were going home to a lonely flat with no companion. Many were capable, intelligent, imaginative people who had lost good jobs in high places and were now reduced to low paid menial jobs in the service sector. Beverly's policies would change all that and if it was multiplied in factories around the planet the social implications were enormous.
Contrary to general preconceptions we found that the one thing we could rely on in the village was discretion. Beverly's secret transvestism was not going to get out until the legal structure and control of the company was bound up and watertight. Nobody was going to use her sexuality to have her declared insane or incapable and thus deprive her of her ownership of the rights to antigravity.
We woke the next morning expecting to find the town alive with reporters and gutter press looking for some obscene angle to our forthcoming marriage but we were pleasantly surprised to find all our arrangements still a secret. The village community could be tight lipped and protective when it wished and we were grateful to it.
Beverly and I got married in a quiet, little used inner city chapel attached to a mission hall in central Manchester. Even the visit to the registry office attracted little attention although the lady registrar was only convinced of Beverly's 'true' legal sex after personally witnessing a medical examination with a lesbian gynaecologist attending.
Even then the gynaecologist was asked to prepare and sign a document attesting to Beverly's 'true' condition. It was the one single unpleasant indignity that Beverly was forced to suffer and although it hurt her deeply it was a price she was prepared to pay. The registrar had the decency to apologise after explaining she was required by law to make certain the wedding was legal. She backhandedly complimented Beverly by observing that she looked far too much like a woman to ever be accepted as a man.
We left to indulge in a wedding bash of truly earth-shattering proportions as virtually the whole gay village turned out to celebrate. It was only because of the tumult in the village that the press picked up the ground waves of some earthshaking developments. It was all too late however. By the time their gutter vultures had arrived, Bev and I were off to my cottage on our honeymoon. We left a very murky trail because we travelled via Switzerland and France to pick up Cold Albatross and warp to America in secret.
After spending a couple of weeks at my cottage we left Earth to spend several months amongst the Amphs enjoying the company of our numerous children. We finally left the Amphs to resume our work on Earth but happy in the knowledge we were never more than a couple of 'days' warp time away from our children.
Six months later the first commercial space ship with a gravity engine was built in Manchester and departed from Liverpool for the planets.
We had discovered that the huge 'ship sized' spacecraft were better handled from large open stretches of calm water because of the supportive equalising forces of water-borne buoyancy. During launching and landing the hugely disruptive forces of accumulating and dissipating anti-grav were best discharged over the same calm stretch 'displaceable' water. It was quite a sight to watch the mighty craft imprint a huge 'footprint' into the water as they commenced or ended their journeys.
Liverpool, with its wide river Mersey, was the nearest suitably large area of calm water and operations were consequently started from that once great city.
Now many old grandfathers could once again revisit their youth by taking their grandchildren down to the banks of the River Mersey at The Pier Head to relive the sight of 'The Big Liners' once more docking in the river. Our activities also brought a new lease of life to the old derelict Manchester Ship Canal as the spacecraft ploughed to and from the building and repair yards at Trafford Park for maintenance.
Our new venture had returned prosperity to two large depressed cities. One were the space ships were built and the other were they were docked. It was Beverly's way of saying thank you to those two old rival cities for saving her life and sanity. When she was child beggar and prostitute on the streets of Liverpool, the generosity of the people had kept her alive without them knowing or understanding the conditions she suffered. Secondly when she found peace and security in the gay village in Manchester.
I had never thought of Beverly being a philanthropist but then there were still many sides to my wounded partner I had still to discover.
The final seal of bliss to our marriage was when I discovered I was pregnant to Beverly. She was ecstatic at becoming a father and yet hugely envious of my condition. It was my first real insight into the duality of her transvestism.
Each night she would fondle my growing lump and squeeze as close as she dared in an attempt to somehow assimilate my condition to herself by proximity. I never realised just how much she envied women until that time. The final delight was discovering it was twins. That particular night as I whispered the news into her ear I suddenly realised how I could alleviate her envy. I suggested that she share in the breast-feeding of the twins. She let out a squeal of delight and her mood improved immediately.
Some months later when she had started taking the hormones to stimulate her milk she visited me in the hospital and secretly revealed the damp patches inside her nursing bra. She had timed her dosage to perfection for the following night my labour pains started and I was delivered of the twins in the small hours of the morning. In our private ward our lesbian medical friends helped us to breast-feed the twins while I recovered from the delivery. Three days later we were released from hospital and returned to the cottage to commence our new life as a family. Every day we could be found sharing in the secondary delights of motherhood as we sat facing each other sharing blissful smiles and each nursing a suckling twin in our arms. Beverly's happiness was at last complete.
THE END.
Authers Note.
I have written several other stories exploring various aspects of gender disphoria.
One is titled 'Mindful'. This novel (350'000 words) has yet to be published.
It is based upon a boy named Ian who begins to hear voices at age 3 then is discovered to be TV at age 6. After trouble as a child he is placed into care and abused by his carers and doctors. (Electroconvulsive therapy, chemical aversion therapy, psychiatric councelling etc, etc, etc.)
When all these medico-psychiatric theories only prove that transvestism is virtually incurable the doctors throw him on the scrap heap and he is left to rot in child care. (Who would adopt a nine-year-old psychotic, paranoid, schitzophrenic, transvestite?)
He is brutally abused in care. (This is a common thread in many of my stories.) Finally he kills his abusers and escapes to live as a child prostitute on the streets. He is finally picked up unconcious one winters night and placed into a nother care home that is run properly. His intelligence is recognised and he is treated well but his transvtism is explored and he is placed on experimental drugs to alter his physical sexual development. As he takes on a girls appearence he changes his name from Ian to Iona. At puberty the telepathic organ in his brain matures and he discovers that the voices that have tormented him all his life are in fact other peoples thoughts.
He discovers this through close contact with an autistic idiot savant who cannot speak but discovers he can communicate through
iona's telepathy. Their relationship intensifies and the doctors think it is becoming a homosexual ralationship. They are separated and the idiot savan commits suicide by throwing himself off a clock tower.
The story then tracks Iona's life until her final end as she dies protecting her telepathic children.
The second Novel has no name as yet.
A TV child is discovered during physical examination to be fully functioning bilateral hermaphrodite.
Drugs and surgery enable her to conceive and impregnate.
Her friends are seriously injured in a minibus/train collision and they emerge as amputees.
Their combined intelligences explores medicine and genetic engineering until they manage to graft themselves onto genetically compatible horses.
The friends become latterday centaurs with various sexual variations in their new anatomies.
Human sex organs between the forelegs whilst still retaining equine organs in the rear.
It's quite a perverse story but tastefully handled.
I am looking for a publisher for 'Mindful' because the transvestism is so mild and tasteful it could almost be accepted into mainstream
publishing. The exposure of abuse in care is a far stronger theme and it is dealt with from the victim's point of view.
That's all for now. Bye and good reading.
Bev.