The Blue Necklace Ch. 06

This is a love story with sexy bits - and not too many of those. Indeed, if you're not into the whole transgender thing then this story may not work for you.

What is more, this is chapter six. If you haven't read the other five then please do. It will be better that way

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"I don't suppose that's the only outfit you bought," Andy asked when I returned to the lounge. "It's very smart and very sexy but not quite the thing for hitting the town on a Saturday night."

"Well, duh!"

"Don't 'well, duh' me, young lady." I stuck my tongue out at him for calling me 'young lady'. "If we're going out then you need to get changed first. You do fancy a night in town?"

"I'd love to but if you knew how much I'd spent today you'd realise why I can't. I'm completely broke and you wouldn't believe the state of my credit card. It looks like nights in front of the telly and a diet of beans on toast for the foreseeable future."

"Nights in front of the telly? Come on, you didn't buy all that clobber just to sit around the house. It's lucky for you that, tonight, I'm picking up the tab; you and me, babe, we're hitting the town."

"If you put it like that...." I hurried off to change. A pair of skinny jeans, a scoop necked top, the zebra patterned flats and this girl was ready to go out and party.

The best thing that can be said about that night is that, thanks to Andy, I got home safely. Right from the get go I had completely forgotten to allow for the fact that tolerance to alcohol is a combination of practice and, more importantly, body mass. Tiffany, when compared to Tom, had neither and was therefore vulnerable. I had a couple of glasses of white wine with the meal in the bistro and that was enough to make me squiffy. After that we hit the pubs and the clubs and, as the alcohol took away my inhibitions I danced and drank and drank and danced until....

My memories of the latter part of that evening are fractured at best and mostly accompanied by hot flushes of acute embarrassment. I hadn't been that drunk since my student days, possibly even then. I vaguely remember the taxi driver refusing to have me in his cab... the long, long walk home... Andy holding my hair back as... I'm too ashamed to recall it all. One thing is for certain, I wasn't pretty, or glamorous, or attractive.

I was woken by the Sunday morning sunshine breaking through the crack in my curtains and landing on my face. I rolled over and groaned, my head thumping and my stomach growling. At least I seemed to have made it back to bed. Not that I had much recollection. Across my room my clothes were neatly folded over the back of my dressing table chair. I would never have left them like that. Oh my god! Andy!

A quick burst of panic washed through me until I realised that I was still wearing my panties. If Andy had been where he shouldn't then surely he would have removed them. A wave of guilt cut through the headache and nausea. Sweet caring Andy had put me to bed and, yes, he had undressed me but I knew in my heart that he hadn't, for one moment, taken advantage. I owed him a massive apology so I struggled out of bed, threw on my dressing gown, and stumbled through towards the kitchen. After a quick detour via the bathroom I made myself a much needed cup of coffee and took it through to the lounge where Andy was watching Match of the Day. Normally we round off Saturday night with this but it had been too late and we, or at least I, had been too drunk to watch when we got home.

"Good morning! How's the head."

"Don't ask."

"I think you had maybe one or two too many last night."

"One or two? That's understating it. Andy, seriously, thanks."

"Thanks? What on earth for?"

"For looking after me, for getting me home, for getting me to bed and... everything."

"Well, someone had to look after you."

"And, once again, that person was you. Thanks."

"No problem, no problem at all," Andy mumbled and I could see I was embarrassing him.

"Have they shown the Arsenal match yet?" I said, changing subjects.

"No, it's only just started."

"Mind if I join you?"

"It's your flat too."

I sat down on the sofa next to him and, without even thinking about it, snuggled up to him. He put his arm around my shoulders and, together, we watched the highlights of the previous day's footie.

I guess this was just what I needed because, by the time Alan Hanson and Mark Lawrenson had finished their overblown analysis, I was feeling a lot better. I also realised that my dressing gown had gaped open and I was giving Andy an eyeful. However, he had seen far more than that the previous evening and, if he was looking, he was far too much of a gentleman to let me catch him at it.

With the footie over I went to take a much needed shower and, above all, brush my teeth. A session with the hair dryer, another of the previous day's purchases, got my shaggy mane back under control and I got dressed in comfortable underwear, skinny jeans and the pink sweatshirt. This left me feeling something approaching human and ready to face the rest of the day. I went back out to the lounge.

"How about I cook us some lunch and then I've still got some shopping to do."

"More clothes shopping? I thought your card was maxed out. That's how you got me to pay for all last night's drinking."

"It's not clothes and, yes, my plastic is pretty damaged but I still need a full length mirror. I was thinking of hitting that flea market they've set up in the old mill. There are plenty of second hand shops; I don't think I can afford new. The thing is...."

"What's the thing?"

"Getting a full length mirror in my car will be quite a squeeze. Can we go in yours?"

"We?"

"Oh, come on, it will be fun and I promise no clothes shopping."

"I guess I've nothing else to do this afternoon."

"Thanks, Andy, you're a sweetie," and I gave him a little kiss to show how much I appreciated him.

So it was that, an hour or so later, we were wandering around together, wondering at the junk that some people expect others to pay money for. The thing was that we were having fun. I know for a certainty that I was but, more importantly, Andy kept humming to himself, always a sign that he's in a good mood. At one point I suddenly realised that we were walking hand in hand. What is more, it felt right. I remembered Jenny saying we were smitten with each other. I still wasn't convinced about 'smitten'; I just knew he was comfortable to be around.

We finally tracked down the mirror at the back of a stall with a collection of appalling junk. We dug it out and set it up so that we could look at it properly. There in the glass stood two people whose whole body language spoke of togetherness and I rather liked what I was looking at. Andy caught me looking and we shared a smile. The stall owner wanted fifteen quid but we finally got him down to a fiver. With the deal done I went to lift it but, as soon as I tried, Andy stepped in and took it from me. What is more, once we got back, he also insisted that it was him who carried it inside. Much as I appreciated his chivalry I was also a little miffed. Hey, Andy, it's OK, the mirror is made of glass, not me.

Sunday evening was spent together on the sofa watching telly. Once again I had snuggled into him almost before I knew what I was doing. The thing is, it felt so comfy in the crook of his arm and he didn't seem to mind. In fact, he ended up stroking my hair which was really nice. In the end, though, it was time for bed. We both had work in the morning.

The week ahead followed pretty much the pattern of the previous one. I would wake up as Tiffany, go through the change and do my normal morning routine as Tom. My working day was spent as Tom but, as soon as I returned home, I would change back and spend the rest of the day as Tiff.

I was fast learning that, although I had been given body in near perfect condition, it was now up to me to look after it. That didn't mean that I didn't still have Tom's body to look after as well and I was quickly finding that the two were totally separate. It would have been lovely to have changed into Tom, washed and dried my relatively short hair, and then changed back to Tiffany to find her long locks washed and dried. No such luck. Similarly, although I had spent the whole weekend as Tiff, Tom's beard had still grown and, come Monday morning, he still had two days' worth of stubble to shave off.

And this wasn't limited to just basic hygiene. I found out that Tiffany's shaven armpits needed regular maintenance. My nail varnish also needed redoing and, although removing the old as easy enough, I didn't have the steady hand that Jen did when it came to reapplying. I cheated a bit with my toenails in that I asked Andy to do them for me. We sat on the sofa and I put my feet on his lap. Did I feel something stirring in the undergrowth? Still, at least he enjoyed it as much as I did.

And that, of course, raised the thorny issue of the sexual attraction between us. Right from the start Andy had made it more than clear that he had the hots for Tiffany. Did I reciprocate? At that point I was too scared of the whole sex thing to answer. Oh, there was no denying that I felt good when he was around and that, when he put his arms around me, it sent shivers up and down my spine. However, the thought of actually doing the deed, of having him invade my still mostly unexplored 'lady bits', of letting myself get that close to him, was more than I could contemplate.

That wasn't to say that I was sexless. I was still having 'those' dreams and they were getting increasingly intense. What is more, although, and I'll stress this again, Tom never had any physical attraction to Andy, when Tiffany had bumped into him wearing only his boxers she had fully appreciated the view and had speculated at length about the bulge between his legs.

But it wasn't Andy's physical attributes that got to me. It was his slow smile, his infectious sense of humour, the way he slipped his arm around my shoulders, the way he made me feel cared for, the way he looked after me, the way he looked at me when he thought I wasn't looking.

And then, come Wednesday and we'd been out to a pub quiz with Jenny and Patrick. It had been a great evening and the four of us had had a right laugh. OK, so we had both had a couple of pints, just a couple in my case, I had surely learnt my lesson there, but that was neither here nor there. What's more, we'd been holding hands under the table; silly really but nice, very nice. We had just got back and were together in the kitchen doing last minute bits and pieces when he just put his arms around me, pulled me into him and kissed me.

Oh, Andy!

I felt weak at the knees and, if he hadn't been holding me, I would have fallen. I kissed him back, just as urgently, feeling the thrill run through my body. Every nerve seemed to tingle and my body cried out for his touch. I felt his hand slip under my tee shirt, a little rough but that's the way I wanted it. He pulled me tighter, closer and, through our clothes, I felt the full extent of his passion.

And then it all went wrong. I couldn't help it. I started to panic. I wanted to continue but I was too scared, scared of letting go, scared of surrendering. Andy, like this, was such a force, a force I couldn't control, a force that threatened to overwhelm me. It wasn't that I didn't trust him, it was more like I didn't trust me. This was all careering out of control. If I didn't stop now then...

Just like last time I squirmed away.

"I'm sorry, Andy, I'm just not rea...."

"Not ready! Seems to me you're never bloody ready. Come on, Tiff, can't you see what you're doing to me? All I want to do is kiss you; is that seriously so wrong?"

"But you want more than that; we both want more than that. It won't stop at kissing and, I'm sorry, but I'm not ready for what comes next. Please, Andy, I know I'm being a bitch but if you could just see it from my side."

"See it from your side. That's all I ever do. How about you trying to see it from my side."

"It's not that simple. Ever since I became a woman...."

"Became a woman! That's half the problem. You're neither one thing nor t'other. A woman wouldn't come on to me like you do and then keep pushing me away. I wish you'd never bought that necklace. It's brought us nothing but trouble."

"Andy! You don't mean that!"

"Bloody well do. I'm pissed off with all this. I want my friend Tom back; I could rely on him. Tiff, you're a great girl, really you are but... you're a ball busting bitch; do you know that? Fuck it, I'm off to bed." He stomped away and I heard his bedroom door slam with an awful finality.

I stood there, tears streaming down my face, wondering why had it gone so wrong, wondering why Andy was being so unreasonable. Wearily I took myself off to bed.

When I got to my room I was in turmoil. Ball busting bitch, was that really what I had become? Didn't he realise how hard this all was for me? But, as I cooled down, I began to appreciate that I was blowing a bit hot and cold and there was no denying how much I had hurt Andy. He said a woman wouldn't have pushed him away. Well, maybe she would but not after encouraging him so much. I'd been having so much fun as Tiff that I hadn't really appreciated it from his side. I wasn't prepared to go as far as to say he was right but I could see how living with Tiff was more trouble than it was worth. He'd been kind and generous and giving and what had I given back in return?

On the other hand, what he seemed to want was more than I was prepared to give. Why did it always have to come down to sex? He was right about one thing. Life was a hell of a lot easier when I was Tom.

The more I thought about it the more I realised I'd just been being selfish. I'd been having so much fun as Tiffany that I hadn't thought through all the ramifications. I'd ended up putting Andy in an impossible situation, dangling myself before him while not being prepared to go the last mile.

I could only see one answer; I had to stop indulging myself. Tiffany could go on hold for a while, possibly forever. For the sake of my friendship with Andy, if nothing else, it was time to go back to being Tom.

I got undressed and, before I got into bed, I changed back. For the first time in over a week I slept the night as Tom. I won't say it was better but it was safer. The necklace, and Tiffany, could stay safely locked away; it was fun while it lasted but in the end it was too much trouble. Maybe it simply wasn't meant to be.