Well, you know how little kids are.....or maybe you don’t, but, believe me, they can get some funny ideas. When I was really small, perhaps four years old....five at the most, I was watching TV one day and I saw all these people cheering and clapping and one was waving this golden statue of a man, looking so happy, something to do with acting, and it made them all so happy that I knew I had to have one, no matter what it took. I never forgot. It stayed with me year after year. I watched that programme as I got older and knew it was The Oscars.

Ever since I can remember I wanted to be a movie star, a famous actor. Even when I was little, like five, six or seven years old, I loved to show off, to be the centre of attention. I wanted applause and loved to have people laughing at me and saying how clever and funny I was. At family parties and other events I loved to dress up.....as anything.....a pirate; a superhero; a cowboy; an angel; a fairy; anything at all which would have them looking at me and laughing as I pranced and danced.

Later, I loved being in our school plays and any kind of dress-up opportunity that came my way. I happily played any part, including all the ones that none of the other kids wanted to play, like Alice, as in “Alice In Wonderland”. Of course, in an all-boy school I had a monopoly. You might think that such willingness to dress as a girl, even if only on the stage, would have got me into trouble with my schoolmates, but mostly they just accepted that I was a little weird because once out of costume I played the same sports as they did and just as hard as they did. When occasionally a fight reared its head I either smooth-talked my way out of it or, if I had to, actually fought, giving as good as I got. In other words I was a pretty normal kid apart from that dream of stardom.

As soon as I was thirteen I joined the local theatrical club. They wouldn’t let you join before that. Something about children not being allowed to take part in money-making theatrical productions. They’ve changed that law now, not that the club ever actually made any money even though they charged for entry to their productions. They were really a labour of love and enthusiasm and the sales only partly paid for the production costs.

I played any kids’ parts that came along, male or female, I didn’t care as long as it got me onto the stage. I was small enough to get away with either. I immersed myself in the classics, Shakespeare, of course, and more moderns like Wilde, Capek, Maugham, J.M.Barrie, Noel Coward and Ivor Novello. I played Peter Pan a couple of times, and Wendy once, although I really loved being Juliet, such a meaty part.

Don’t get me wrong here. The sex or gender of the character didn’t really matter to me, only the part itself. Remember, Juliet was played by boys for nearly 200 years. It was whatever got me on the stage. I just loved acting, and I always had this driving ambition to be the best. If that meant I had to play a girl, well, so be it, and I did it as well as I could. In costume I became the role, so that when I was Juliet I was really the girl in love with Romeo.

Anyway, doing female roles didn’t last too long since I began to go through puberty at fifteen, maybe a little late, but not pushing any envelopes. This was my signal to really begin to pursue my goal of becoming a big male star and an Oscar winner. Roles from Hamlet through to James Bond floated in my imagination. I took up Tae Kwon Do to develop myself and because I thought fighting skills could help my career.

Only one problem; I did not grow into the six-foot plus I always thought I would be, like my dad. Evidently I took after my mother’s side of the family and I stopped at five eight, just a little taller than her. Not only that but I favoured her in looks too, and didn’t get a ruggedly handsome chiselled face or a buff, muscled body. I remained sort of androgynous, a little girly even, and I stayed skinny, although I was pretty fit. For a while there I was crushed. It looked as though my ambitions were to be thwarted by my genes.

I’m not stupid and it didn’t take me long to realise that I was never going to be the big movie star that I’d always dreamed of being, someone like Cary Grant, Rock Hudson, Sean Connery or Clint Eastwood, so I downsized my dreams and told myself I would settle for being an ordinary honest actor and threw myself into earning a place for myself in theatre as soon as I left school, envisioning myself as one of those much-in-demand supporting character actors, a Paul Giametti perhaps, winning an Oscar purely for my acting skills rather than my dashing manliness and chiselled features. I was sure I could do it.

Well, let me tell you. It ain’t that easy. I was one of too many other young aspiring actors looking for that elusive part, and for a skinny seventeen-year-old those parts are not falling out of the trees. I knew I was a better actor than nearly any, if not all, of my rivals, but ability is not the only criterion.

Yes, I could have got much more work than I did. There are plenty of gay men in positions of influence in the English theatre scene and many of them were only too keen to have my slim figure and (I hate to admit it) pretty face close by. All I would have had to do was give a few cuddles, suck the odd dick here and there, jump into bed and I could have made an indecent living.

It wasn’t for me. Pride wouldn’t let me for a start. I knew I could act and act well, superbly, in fact. I had no particular hang-ups about the gays, but I had no desire to prostitute myself, and, make no mistake, those old queens were hunters. Let’s not even mention Sir John. He used to terrify me with his wicked hungry eyes. I came to half expect him to start drooling as he pawed me whenever he had the opportunity.

He was none too subtle about his desires or wandering hands. That old line about an octopus fit him well and my skin crawled when he was around.

I wanted to achieve my goal with my dignity...and my virginity...intact. Mind you, I had no objection to losing my virginity to someone attractive of the fairer sex, but unfortunately none of them seemed to be inclined to take my cherry. You never know, maybe the word had been put around that I was spoken for, or it could have just been my lack of traditional manliness which failed to impress the girls.

One of my friends saw me practicing my katas one day and suggested that I could try stunt work to back up my acting. If you could cut the mustard it actually paid better than the stage at the middle levels. So I enrolled in a stunt school. It wasn’t cheap and I nearly starved. Chip butties’n’HP Sauce with a glass of tap water was a meal far too often but I learned to sword-fight, get hit by cars, die realistically, and get hit in a brawl without getting hurt.

Because of my martial arts training I could already roll and fall and leap around in the manner required for film stunts. As a bonus I also knew how to ride a horse. Learning how to fall off was a lot harder though! Those things are tall and can move pretty fast and it’s a long way to the ground. You learn to respect jockeys, who accept it as an everyday hazard.

After six months at the school, working in McDonalds at night and all manner of odd jobs at weekends, and even the odd acting gig, I guess I graduated cum laude in a way. What actually happened was that one of the senior stunt co-ordinators for a major film studio was watching us do a routine one day and called me over when we had finished and asked me if I would like to join his team.

They were about to start an action movie with lots of kung fu and gratuitous violence and he was looking for someone like me, not too big and not too masculine, to be a stunt double for some of the actresses. Could I do it?

Apart from the stunts I would have to do some acting on the lead-up and at the end of the action to a point where a realistic transition back to the real actress could be effected. Some guys got a thing about doing female parts. Would I want to?

He carefully explained to me that I might have to remain in character for extended periods, sometimes even for the duration of the shooting, depending on how much “action” the star I was depping for had in her part. Some directors even used us for distance shots in order to give their expensive actresses a break or to avoid down-time when the lady concerned was afflicted by her monthlies or having a prima donna moment.

Hunger and ambition have a funny way of colouring your perceptions, not that dressing as a female bothered me in any way. It was something I’d done before and acting is just that; acting. It’s all about practice and dedication.

The hardest part was trying not to bite his hand off as I pretended to think about it. What I did was give him my best Juliet from the balcony scene and I had him grinning his head off after only two or three minutes.

“Shit, son,” he said, “If you were in the right costume, I’d be taking you in my arms this minute.”

I felt like preening, but I was more interested in the pay and how long the gig would last. Pragmatism rules, doncher know?

“I doubt you’ll have to speak much, even though you have the voice for it, but the actions and body language are very important and you’ll have to study your ladies pretty quickly.”

“You won’t find me lacking in application, sir. May I ask how long is the stint and what‘s the pay and what else goes with it?”

“Well, I won’t tell you the name of the pic, but it’s set in America and it’s about a number of girls kicking back against society. You will have heard of the stars, but they are not yet all fully on board so I’ll wait till they’re confirmed. Filming our stuff will actually be done in Vancouver, Canada, because it’s cheaper and the union isn’t so tough there.

“How long? At least three months, probably four. Pay; US$75 an hour and you won’t do less than a ten-hour day while the shoot’s on, including rehearsals, most weeks six days, but you get down-time for exteriors when the weather’s bad and of course there will be days when your lady has no stunts to do and you will be on stand-by. Insurance, travel and accommodation...all found... provided. We’ll take you there and bring you back, if you decide to join us.

“So say the least you can expect to earn is fifty thousand, US of course, with the extras thrown in. Costuming will be provided, naturally. You’ll have to take care of your own tax, and if you work out I can offer you a more permanent position. We’re always short of stunt-doubles for actresses. By the way, don’t get your hair cut.”

Fifty thousand US! Three months work! Pay my own tax! Woo-Hoo! And I love long hair!

I hadn’t earned that much or had that much work in all the time since I’d left school, eighteen months ago now. If I’d really been Juliet I would have wept and kissed him. As it was I just grinned like an idiot and said yes. I refrained from hugging myself and dancing a jig while he was still there.

Later, of course, I wondered if I should have asked for more. The human condition....greed.

It took a month to sort out all the details and I nearly starved while I waited. A couple of times I almost despaired, thinking it might all be some elaborate hoax, but eventually the paperwork was done; contract signed; air tickets delivered; accommodation details provided and instructions as to what I had to do after I arrived in Vancouver.

Then I did all the necessary things in London, said my goodbyes to my mum and dad. Did I mention I was an only child? I admit I fudged on what I was actually going to do. I told them it was to be a cameo part in an undisclosed movie and might lead on to greater things; not entirely untrue, eh? They were naturally proud of me.

“We’ll look out for you at the Oscars,” said my dad, obviously thinking he had made a huge joke.

“If only,” I thought.

“You take care of yourself now, and make sure to write,” said mum, hugging me and crying.

You can only do so many goodbyes and an eighteen-year-old doesn’t have that sort of patience, so soon they were all done and I was on my way. Heathrow to Montreal; a stopover and plane change and next stop Vancouver. I didn’t get much time in Montreal, but it looked like many a European city, down to a large number of its inhabitants talking French and being as snobbish and rude as any Parisian.

The next day I left for Vancouver. Canada's an awful big country and I got the thirty-thousand-foot tour; first forests and lakes, then miles and miles of miles and miles, mountains and more forests and lakes until we came in to land seven hours later.

I was met at Vancouver airport by a thirty-something man in jeans, check shirt and denim jacket waving a placard with my name on it as I exited from airside.

“Hi, Mike. I’m Clint. I’m your stunt co-ordinator,” he introduced himself as he pumped my hand.

It kind of surprised me that anybody was actually named Clint, except Eastwood, and this guy was only a couple of inches taller than me.

“Geez, kid, how old are you, sixteen?” as he took my two bags and shepherded me to a typical giant-size SUV.

“Eighteen, actually,” I gritted. Puberty short-changed me in the age-stakes too, but, of course I might not have got this gig if I was all manly and rugged. So, gift-horse, huh?

He grinned at me and said, “It’s lucky you look so young. Wardrobe’s gonna be real pleased for a change. They’ll have something to fit you without going to the tailors, and Make-up’s gonna eat you up, ‘cos it’s gonna be easy to make you look like one of the prettiest girls on the planet for the next three months.”

“Do you know who I’m doing the stunts for?” I asked eagerly.

“Didn’t you know? It’s Ange.”

“LaBelle? Wow! Do you really think they can make me look like her?”

He looked me up and down appraisingly.

“Reckon it’ll be a darn sight easier than puttin’ lipstick on a pig. And there’re so many tricks in the industry these days you could end up thinkin’ you’re really her,” he laughed. “They did tell you that you might have to stay in character for the whole of the shoot, didn’t they?”

“It was mentioned....as a possibility.”

“Well, lookin’ at you, I’d say it was near to a certainty. The gals in Make-Up are going to want you to have her hairstyle, rather than keep on fittin’ you with wigs. For them extensions are much easier, and actually will be for you too. You’ll find that doin’ the stunts when you’re dressed as a gal is a whole different thing. Your balance will be thrown out by the weight of breast forms and high heels will just kill you when you have to throw yourself around a bit. It’s a whole new ballgame and it’ll take some learnin’. Mike, I think you’d better get used to the idea of bein’ Michelle for the next three or four months.”

“Oh,” I said. “Is that usual?” It suddenly sounded like an awful long time and next-to-impossible to really make work or stay sane while you were doing it.

“Depends. On this one there’s a shit load of action and you’ll end up bein’ on screen almost as long as your lady. If you defrocked at the end of the day and refrocked next mornin’ you’d be spendin’ about an extra four hours on set every day. You’d soon get sick of that, believe me. It’s really much easier to stay dressed all the time. You’ll soon get used to it and none of our crew will give you a hard time; just the opposite. It makes everyone else’s job smoother and shorter and we all appreciate that. The other guys doin’ the girls’ stunts are all doin’ it. I did it myself a time or two when I was younger.” He smiled to himself and shook his head as if at some memory.

We arrived at the crew’s quarters about then, in a district of the city called Burnaby, not too far from the down-town area, so the conversation was interrupted. The complex was rather like an up-market motel and Clint carried my bags to a door, unlocked it and showed me in. It was more like a small flat with a living/lounge area, a kitchen with enough facilities to cook a light meal...breakfast or similar... separate bedroom and naturally a bathroom and toilet.

The furniture was comfortable rather than luxurious and included a flat-screen TV, DVD player and a desk-top computer. It made my previous digs look like a Victorian hovel, which wasn’t far from the truth anyway.

“Wow!”

“You like? We reckon we have to keep our people comfortable. When you come home after a day on set you’ll really need to relax. You might be bruised and sore and you’ll need to review what you did so we can iron out the bloopers next day. We also have a full-service dining room, a gym, a bar and lounge and an on-tap physio. I’ll take you down there and you can meet some of the guys too.”

So saying, he dropped my bags on the bed, gave me the keys to the room and took me out again. We went along a corridor and at the end and around a corner he opened a double door, showing me a large room with tables for about fifty people and a servery; a big canteen.

“Our dining-room,” he said. “Open for breakfast at 5.30 every morning and dinner from 6.30 t0 10 every night. They’ll do a packed lunch for you if you ask ‘em nicely.”

It was empty at that time of the afternoon but I could hear pots clattering in an adjacent kitchen.

“Come on. I’ll show you the bar and lounge,” pulling me through the cafeteria-style room to another set of doors at the far end.

We went through into a slightly smaller room with a well-stocked self-service bar on one wall, a counter with half a dozen stools and lots of low tables with armchairs scattered around, very comfortable and more than a little up-market. There were maybe a dozen people, men and women, all looking to be in their twenties, dressed casually, sitting around and turning to watch us with interest.

“You serve yourself. Drink whatever you like and as much as you like. A couple of rules. Alcohol is no excuse for not being fit to work in the morning. If it happens, you’re gone; history; no warnings. Rule two...no fighting. You get enough chances to let off steam on the set. Mind you, we haven’t had a fight for a couple of years now.”

He pointed at two extra-large plasma TVs mounted on one wall.

“Here’s where we get together to review the day’s work and try to figure out how to fix our mistakes or make a play look more realistic.” He laughed. “Although realistic ain’t really the word. Spectacle and style is what we’re after. This is the movies, not real life. By the way, there’s a DVD library which is slanted towards movies of our stars so you can bone up on their mannerisms and characteristics. Enough for now. I’ll show you the gym later.”

Turning to the seated watchers, “Hey, guys, this is our new recruit, Mike Stewart. He’s got Angie. Mike, I’m not gonna introduce you to all these individuals. You’ll just forget their names anyway, so we’ll let them tell you what they do and you’ll get to know them over the next few days.”

He ushered me over to one of the tables to a chorus of “Hi”, “Hello”, “Welcome” and the like.

I sat in a vacant armchair and nervously eyed my new colleagues. A blonde girl wearing a white blouse and black skirt stretched out a manicured hand with carmine nails. Close up, she was pretty masculine, but slightly built. She said in a baritone;

“Hi Mike. I’m Tom Tyler and I’m doing Meg, so call me Maggie for now. I think Angie will be really pleased with you. Hey, Clint, why don’t we surprise her and not show her Mike until he’s dressed?”

“Yeah, good idea. I’d like to see her face when she meets him too. She’s a good sport. It should be worth a laugh.”
There was a general chuckle all round.

Another guy waved at me. “Jim Mason. I’m a driver.”

Others introduced themselves, several fight specialists; another driver. Clint was right. I forgot almost all their names almost immediately.

A long-haired Asian girl in a tight black cat-suit and high-heeled boots came over. I immediately knew who “she” was.

“Hi, Mike. I’m Joe Chan and I’ve got Lucy. Call me Lou,” spoken in a sultry contralto. “You really will look like Angie when the Make-Up and Wardrobe crews finish with you. It’ll help a lot. She’s actually very nice but she gets some strange moods at times and she can be a bit of a diva, so she can be hard to work with.”

All in all, the crew went out of their way to make me feel at home, asking me questions about my background and talking amongst themselves (without leaving me out) about how I would make a really good double for Angie. I was the right height and build and my bone structure was very similar. A few little temporary extras, like a collagen injection for my lips, some eyebrow shaping, boobs, naturally, and I could be her sister. Everybody agreed she would be pleased.

At some point someone asked Clint what my “femme” name was going to be and he said he thought Michelle would do nicely. Somebody else pooh-poohed this.

“It has to be Lina, the second half,” he said and there was a loud murmur of agreement.

“OK. You’re Lina for the duration,” said Clint, gesturing to me. “That’s appropriate for being her other half.”

What could I say? Actually I was rather chuffed. It would help me to stay in character, so I just grinned and shrugged my shoulders and said in my best female voice, “Lina is pleased to meet you all.”

There was a moment of stunned silence and then we all laughed, with me making mine a silvery tinkle. Every good role starts with dedication and when I play a part I insist on doing it right.

Soon after we went in for dinner and then, afterwards, suddenly tired, I went to my room, unpacked and went to bed and slept like a couple of logs, probably well sawn, until the alarm woke me at 5.30 a.m. I got up, consciously sat on the loo (I was Lina, after all), had a shower, dressed in distastefully male clothing and went for breakfast.

Very shortly I was joined by Clint, who gave me my itinerary for the day. We were working at Bridge Studios and I was to go first to Make-Up, where they would give me the right hairstyle, shape my eyebrows, plump my lips, fix me up with breast forms, remove unneeded hair and do whatever other minor miracles they thought necessary.

Then it would be Wardrobe’s turn. They would provide a selection of the costumes to be worn by Angie and make the alterations to accommodate my male body shape. When they finished with me, down to underwear and shoes, I would be returned to Make-Up and by the end of the day Lina would come back to quarters and be here to stay until filming ended. Stunt training would start tomorrow.

“How long have we got for training?” I asked.

“It’s just over two weeks till the stars arrive and, believe me, you’ll need every minute of it to get used to doing the work en femme. When we’ve got you kitted out you’ll bust your arse gettin’ it right.”

So...off to the studio, five minutes ride in the company bus. It was enormous, a gigantic cavern of a building, divided into sound stages. Before I could gawk too much I was delivered to Make-Up and the gentle charms of a fortyish dragon-lady who was introduced as Mad Maxine and her assistant Poxy Roxy, a twenty-something goth girl with a predatory look in her black-rimmed eyes.

They walked around me with hungry expressions on their faces, like a couple of lionesses circling a stunned gazelle. I wouldn’t have been at all surprised if they had started licking their lips.

“Strip,” Said M.M. “down to your jocks.”

I obeyed, scared of what they might do to me if I dawdled. I wasn’t going to risk fire and brimstone being rained on me, and Roxy looked like she would make one fine torturer.

When I stood shivering before them in my Y-fronts they leered at me and then at each other.

“Oooh, this is going to be such fun. A real canvas for a change,” from Maxine.

“Mmmmmm, just lovely,” replied the goth.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, luvvie. It’s just that normally we have to try and turn gorillas into fairies, and this time we only have to turn a pixie into a fairy. You’re beautiful,” and she patted me on the cheek.

“OK, we’re gonna have fun, but we aren’t going to hurt you. Here, sit down on the bed and I’ll tell you what we’re looking at doing. Don’t worry, none of it’s permanent, unless you agree. Hairstyle, obviously. We’ll give you extensions and you’ll need darkening a little. No big deal. Do you reckon you’ll ever want to grow a beard?”

Nervously I shook my head.

“Then what say we give you the laser treatment? You’re dark enough that three or four sessions will get rid of your beard forever and we can use it in your brow shaping too. Tweezering is such a bore.”

I had always hated the need to shave, even though I didn’t have to do it often. The thought of being beard-free for the rest of my life was enticing, if just a little scary.

“OK, sounds good to me.”

“Some collagen in the lips. It wears off after about three months. You really need to do it because she has lips like pillows....as I’m sure you already know. We’ll have to pierce your ears but that’s normal. You’ll need it for your next gig, I’m sure, and if you don’t, the holes close over. The rest of the face we can do with make-up and we’ll show you the ropes for fixing it yourself over the next couple of weeks, OK?”

I almost breathed a sigh of relief. Visions of my bones being broken and remoulded disappeared.

“Yeah, I can live with that.”

“Now for the body. You won’t need to go on some crazy diet. Boobs, naturally. She’s a pretty well-endowed girl. Have you ever worn breast-forms before?”

“No.”

“They’ll take a bit of getting used to. Sticking them on is OK and they‘ll stay in place for a week or better. First, they’ll throw your balance way off to start with, and the other thing you really have to watch is that you can’t feel anything on your chest, so you have to be very careful that you don’t stick your tits in a mangle, so to speak.”

“Let me assure you, I have no intention of doing that. Do they still have mangles in Vancouver?”

Both women laughed heartily. “Tits in the wringer” got hiccupped a few times to more chortling.

“Probably in the back-blocks, dearie, but we won’t go looking. You’ll see what we mean when they’re in place. No time like the present. Lie down and we’ll turn you into a reasonable facsimile of a girl.”

Maxine pushed me down onto my back and Roxy produced two large chicken fillets, breasts not thigh, which she proceeded to align on my chest.

“You have no chest-hair at all, so we can do this now, instead of waiting until you shower, so, when you do shower, you’ll already be a different person,” and she chuckled evilly.

So I lay back submissively while the wobbly objects were glued to my chest. I had worn falsies before but never appliances like these. When M.M. had stuck them on she got me to hold them in place until they were firm and I immediately understood what she meant. There was no feeling on the surface of my new titties. If somebody touched me up or sliced off a nipple I wouldn’t know.

“Turn over,” she said after five minutes, and I obeyed, yelping when Roxy pulled my underpants down.

“Don’t be a baby. We’re going to fix you up with some bum-shapers. It won’t hurt.”

It didn’t hurt and while the adhesive was drying she applied some gunk all over my legs and under my arms and on my fore-arms, that is, wherever I might have had hair except my head.

Ten minutes later I was ordered to shower and use the soap, shampoo and conditioner provided. It felt funny with my brand new breasts jiggling and my bum sticking out further than it ever had before but with me being unable to feel either protrusion. Drying myself was a comedy. When you can’t feel what you’re rubbing you don’t know when it’s dry. So you rub too long and then you realise you’re massaging your own tits and bum and all of a sudden you get horny and then, with two weird women standing there, your old fella stands up and they chortle themselves to death.

“Poor little man,” said Roxy, grabbing my cock. “I do believe you like being a girl,” and she rubbed my tool until I was a nanosecond away from climax.

With a sudden swoop she was kneeling in front of me engulfing my cock in her mouth and in seconds I came. Then she was standing again, grinning like the proverbial cat that got the canary and being high-fived by Mad Maxine.

She swallowed and said, “Well, that got him ready.”

They pushed me down onto the bed again, spread my legs and grabbed my now-limp tool by the foreskin and wiped it dry. Roxy took a small tube and spread a line of liquid down each side of my cock and pulled it down between my legs. The two of them then quickly pushed my thighs together and just stood there leering at me.

I was still in a state of shock. What had just happened was not only totally unexpected, you have to remember I was a virgin....or was I still? Did that count? What was the Bill Clinton take on that?

“What are you doing?” I finally managed to gasp out when I got my head back together.

“Consider it to be a bit like pulling a dressing off a scab,” said M.M. “You can either rip it off very quickly or you can pull it off slowly. Some guys object so we decided not to give you the opportunity. What we’ve done is super-glued your penis back so that you’ll have to sit down to pee for the duration and you won’t have any unsightly bulges when you’re dressed. It helps keep you in character and controls it when you’re in action. Don’t worry, we have the solvents to release it at the appropriate time.”

“That’s if you’re a good girl, of course,” interjected Roxy with an insane giggle.

“She’s having me on,” I thought, and then a cold shiver ran down my spine. What if she wasn’t? I dropped that thought very quickly.

“Well, thanks for telling me. What happens if I get hard?”

“It’ll be quite uncomfortable,” and they cackled like a couple of the Macbeth witches. I suddenly knew for certain why they called her Mad Maxine.

Roxy handed me a dressing gown....it had to be pink, didn’t it?

“Here, put this on. It’s time for your hair and face.”

I complied, surrender complete. Not that I had intended any rebellion, and allowed them to lead me over to a typical salon station with basins, mirrors, reclining chair and various torture instruments. I lay back again and they started in on me. For the next several hours I was lased, waxed, had my hair pulled and lengthened, washed and styled. My fingernails were extended and painted together with my toe nails. My lips were injected with collagen and vigorously and ruthlessly massaged by the Poxy one. I changed her name to Ming The Merciless.

At last the pair of them stood back and elevated the chair to a more upright position. I caught sight of myself in the mirror and knew that they might be crazy but they were true artists, maybe even witches. I looked like Angie’s sister, even though I was still not made-up, but with the unmistakeable pouty lips, arched brows and dark hair artfully tousled.

I examined myself critically with my actor’s antennae out. My nose was a touch too prominent and there were differences in my eyes, but I would certainly be able to pass for her in a dimly lit restaurant, provided you didn’t actually know her. I smiled at myself. I had good teeth, courtesy of the National Health Service, and I looked even more like her when I showed them. I would be a hit with make-up on and could hardly wait to see my finished self.

I assumed my role, pulling it on as if I was rolling my nylons up my legs.

“So what do you think? Are we good or are we good?” asked the pair in unison.

“Mmmmmm. You’re not bad. When are you going to finish me off?” in my best girly voice, my Juliet one.
It was their turn to gawp.

“I think we just created a monster,” said M.M. to P.R. who carried on gaping.

“No you didn’t. You made a screen goddess. Now where are my clothes?” I demanded imperiously, “and call me Miss Lina."

“Yes, Miss Lina. We’ll take you to Wardrobe straight away, Miss Lina, and when you’re dressed you can come back here and we’ll do your face. Will that be all right?”

“I suppose it will just have to do,” I said sweetly, my nose in the air, as befitted a beautiful and famous movie star.

They took me along a short corridor to a much larger area, absolutely packed and stacked with rails of clothes, shelves of hats and more shoes than Imelda Marcos ever owned. They towed me over to the person in charge of the empire.

I swear this whole place was filled with odd-balls. The woman looked exactly like Dame Edna Everage, complete with a pink bouffant hairstyle and over-the-top glasses, but greeted me in a Roedean accent.

“Oh, hello, Angie my deah. What a lovely surprise. We thought you wouldn’t arrive for at least two weeks. What have these two scallywags been doing to you, eh?"

The two scallywags doubled over, laughing.

“Zoe, you’re either going blind or we have done our usual superb job. This isn’t Angie. This is her stunt double. You may call her Miss Lina.”

I put out a hand, making sure to keep it limp and bent at the wrist. I was "in character" now.

“Pleased to meet you, Zoe. I’m Lina, and I hope you can find me something nice to wear.”

She took my hand and twirled me around, twice.

“Holy shit. Since when did Clint and his gang staht using real girls for their stunt doubles?”

Poxy Roxy and Mad Maxine were having a ball with this situation, hugging themselves and looking for all the world as if they were going to wet themselves at any moment, thighs pressed together and feet apart. Well, let them have their fun.

“Lina is a boy, Zoe. Believe it or not. She’s just such a lovely subject for transformation. Now let’s see if you can keep up with us with your costuming.”

She looked me up and down again, walked around me, touched my breasts and ran her hands down past my waist to my hips and bum. She pulled the dressing gown open and gasped.

“This is going to be such a pleasure. I actually have clothes to fit you without going to the seamstresses. If you don’t mind I’ll just do you generic Angie for the next few days and then we’ll kit you out properly later. I suppose you’ll be throwing yourself around in training, so we’ll pick something you can work in while you’re getting used to female clothing. What’s your waist measurement, dahling?”

“I’m a 27 inch waist.”

“OK, some plain white bikini panties; doesn’t look like you’ll need a gaffe. Bra will be a 38D if you’re doing Ange and we’ll cinch you down to a 25. That shouldn’t be too painful. Now, we won’t bother about stockings right now. You’d just ruin them in practice. I’ll give you a couple of pairs of panty-hose for the evenings.”

She rummaged around on one of the nearby shelves and handed me half a dozen pairs of panties and bras, all white, and the promised panty-hose, a dark grey.

“Put a pair of those on, luvvie. The others will keep you going for a few days. I know you will get unbelievably sweaty doing those awful stunts, so you’ll need enough to be able to freshen up afterwards. Maxine, don’t you dare economise on deodorants. My clothes are meant for ladies and ladies always smell nice. Ah, here we are, a few nice cinchers. Come here, dear. I don’t suppose you’ve ever worn one of these before?”

I had been putting on my bra and panties; no big deal, leaning forwards to centre my breasts in the cups. It was a relief not to have them flopping around (they were quite big). The bra pushed my cleavage upwards and inwards. From my point of view it was quite spectacular.

She produced the waist cincher and showed me how to fasten it and then tighten it. I could feel the pressure as it pulled me in to a 25, making me breathe a little shallower, but not too bad; nothing I couldn't live with.

Zoe ran a tape measure around me, checking. 38-25-36, and then she went to a rack and selected a white cotton dress, very simple, form-fitting, boat neck, short sleeves above the elbow, mini-length to about mid-thigh, back zipped and with a built-in lining. She took it from the hanger, unzipped the back and held it for me to step into, which I did. She pulled it up into position, settled it and zipped me up.

All of a sudden I felt incredibly sexy. That dress hugged me like an old friend, the satin lining caressing my body, and I knew we were made for each other.

“I’ll give you six to carry over. Now for shoes and we’ve got you basically done. Oh, except for some exercise gear and a purse. Every girl has to have a decent purse.”

She went over to the shoe racks. “Size?” she asked.

“Eight in mens, about C width.”

“British or American?”

“British.”

“Mmmmmm. OK, let’s try a 9  ½.” She picked out a pair of white sandals with what I guessed to be a 3 inch heel, open-toed, lots of straps, including behind the heel.

“If you’re going to be jumping around, you need something that will stay on as well as something you can walk in. Here, try these.”

She definitely had a good eye. They fitted perfectly, and made my toes look good too. I walked up and down, trying them out. They actually helped to counter-balance the heft of my boobs by making me walk more upright. I was beginning to feel very comfortable. I concentrated on shortening my stride and placing my feet one in front of the other. I could feel my hips swing.

She grabbed me by one hand and pulled me in front of a three-panel mirror. A close approximation of Angie stared back at me. God, I’ve got great legs. I smiled at myself. I was a little breathless, partly because of the waist cincher but also because I was excited by the girl in front of me. I felt my imprisoned member stir and willed it down before I got too uncomfortable. A girl shouldn’t get excited looking at a girl, should she?

“Thank you, Zoe.” I pivoted from side to side to get myself from different angles, preening unashamedly. The dress was wonderfully simple and simply wonderful and I resolved to put on a pair of the panty-hose when I got back to my quarters. I knew they would set my look off really well.

“You’re welcome, sweetie. Here’s your bag and I’ve put an extra pair of sandals and a pair of marabous in with your spare underwear. You’ll need some sports bras, shorts and tights for working out, so I’ll get them and the dresses delivered this afternoon,” and she handed me an enormous white shoulder-bag. If I was into shop-lifting I could hide a K-Mart’s contents in that bag.

“Are you sure you’re a man?” eyeing me quizzically.

“I’ve already told you. I’m Lina. Do I look like a man?” I responded haughtily, before giggling and clutching her arm.

Everybody laughed.

I turned to the terrible twins of Make-Up. “Can we go and finish me off now? I really want to see the finished product.”

“I’m coming too,” said Zoe, and we all trooped back down the corridor.

The zany duo popped me back into the salon chair, draped a coverall over me and proceeded to rub in creams and lotions, brush and pat. Every step they took they explained to me exactly what they were doing.

“Remember, less is more,” quoth Mad Maxine as she used lots more, it seemed.

When they had done my face overall they got stuck into my eyes, no false lashes today they said, although the time would come, just mascara and eyeliner and shadows of different shades, all carefully explained, and finally those gorgeous lips of mine, reddened, bee-stung. Their running commentary made me think I would be a smá¶rgá¥sbord of fruit salad. All these powders and unguents were peaches and plums and apricots and berries. I had information overload and their instructions went in one ear and out of the other.

But when I saw myself I went weak at the knees, even though I was still sitting down. I fell in love with me there and then.

I don’t know how to explain this. My psyche was still male, yet I was looking at someone who was all girl. I wanted to take myself in my arms and I wanted to melt against the luscious glossy lips that I saw before me and kiss me. My mind’s eye saw me in a gorgeous evening gown walking down the red carpet, smiling radiantly as I clutched my Oscar, a star at last. Dream On, Mike.

After an age gawping at myself, and in considerable pain at groin level, I got out of the chair and sashayed around, still admiring myself.

“Oh, shit. It really worked. I do look like her.” I barely remembered to stay in character.

Maxine and Roxy looked offended. Dame Edna just looked, with a dreadful beatific smile on her face.

“Of course it worked. What do you think we are, charlatans?”

“I’ll never be able to do my face by myself,” I gently stroked a cheek, scared of something cracking.

“Don’t worry, dear. Just put on mascara and lippy in the morning and we’ll fix the rest for you when you get here. You’ll be doing it like a pro in two weeks. We promise,” and MM and PR hugged me. “You are our masterpiece and we’re going to make sure everyone knows it.”

Eventually I was loaded into the bus and taken back to stunt person heaven, escorted by Zoe, both of us loaded with various bags and hangers of my male and female clothing, cosmetics and toiletries. When we arrived she came into my rooms with me and organised my closets, pushing the stuff I had brought with me from England to the nether regions. She left, promising to send over more skirts, tops and accessories in the next few days.

I got myself settled and after a while I went along to the bar, reckoning I needed a drink before facing my colleagues. It was 5 p.m. already and I thought it wasn’t too early and the rest would be back soon. I poured myself a pretty weak gin and tonic, giving myself lots of ice, not the way the Brits normally do it (one lump or two?) if you’re lucky enough to get ice at all, that is.

I hadn’t even sat down after turning from the bar when a dozen people burst through the double doors and propped in a sort of melee as the front ones stopped and those behind kept on coming.

Jaws hit decks.

There was a chorus of “Fuck Me’s” and “Holy Shit’s” and “Where did she come from?” until Lou and Maggie elbowed their way forward and walked around me a couple of times, grinning like sharks.

“Mike...I mean Lina...is that really you?” asked Maggie. “Jeez, I wish I could look that good,” somewhat spoiled by the baritone.

“You really will knock ‘em dead. Wait until Gerry and Angie see you,” from Lou.

“Who’s Gerry?” I asked.

“Alzheimer, the director.”

“What an unforgettable name,” I thought.

Sipping my drink, I was inspected by the mob and, as centre of attention, like any good actor, I hammed it up a bit, striking poses with a hand behind my head and one leg bent in front of the other. Clint came over and took my hand. I thought he might start dancing with me, but he gave me a hug and remarked what a find I was.

The atmosphere became party-like and the cooks and kitchen staff all came and eye-balled me, laughing, clapping and oohing and aahing. This outfit were nothing if not professional though, and in due time we went into the dining room and ate.

Mindful of the warning not to drink too much I went to my rooms straight afterwards. Lou came with me and helped me undress and remove my make-up. That was so thoughtful of her, even though she was a guy too. Oddly, she gave me a goodnight kiss and said, “Sleep well, little sister.”

Next morning I was up at five and quickly sorted a sports bra, shorts and top to go and do my katas, wearing a pair of my sandals to the gym. Christ! What a lash-up. Between heels and boobs I was all over the place, clumsy as an ox. It was only after my regular half-hour that I was getting any semblance of balance. I was a little dispirited when I returned to my rooms for a shower, but by the time I had done that and dressed properly, as my mind told me, I felt really good when I saw my mascara-ed eyes and apricot lips in the mirror, admiring my legs again.

It was six when I got in for breakfast and was greeted with a chorus of grunts or “Hi, Linas,” and treated as though I was part of the furniture that I almost felt miffed. Fame is a fleeting thing, it seems. Sigh.

Breakfast over, I went and got my enormous tote-bag, stuffing it with spare panties, make-up and deodorant, and joined the rest of the crew on the bus.

My first stop at the studios was at the Mad Women’s Den, where they did my face again, patiently spreading fruit all over me and explaining what they were doing. More stayed in my head this time and they both gave me a kiss before releasing me to the wild.

And wild it was. We girls were practicing a karate fight where we kicked arse on six thugs who were supposedly trying to rape us. The choreographer was a tartar and I was the dummy of the show because my balance was all off, but they were all very patient with me and after several hours Clint called a halt and we wiped the sweat off and sagged into canvas seats.

He went off and came back with a bearded guy, talking animatedly, and waving at techies and cameras.
Beard said, “OK, we’ll give it a first run,” and started to organise sound booms and issue directions. Then he caught sight of me.

“Ange, what the hell are you doing here? Get out of there before someone from the insurance company sees you and doubles my premiums. You know you’re not supposed to go anywhere near the action.”

Then he stopped and ran a handful of fingers through his hair.

“What the hell are you doing here anyway? You’re not due for two weeks. What’s going on?”

All our guys were grinning fit to bust, and Beard was getting a bit antsy.

“Clint, what the fuck are you pulling?”

Clint stepped forward, grinning a real shit-eater.

“Gerry, I’d like you to meet Lina, stunt-double for Ange.”

“Lina, this is Mr. Gerry Alzheimer, our director.

“Pleased to meet you Mr. Alzheimer,” in my sweetest voice, and extending my hand.

“Call me Gerry.” He examined me from head to toe as he took it.

Thank God he told me to call him Gerry. It was much easier to remember.

He turned to Clint. “Are you shitting me? When did you start using girls for stunts?”

“His name is Mike Stewart, Gerry, and that’s a gotcha!”

Alzheimer looked at me again, walking around me and undressing me with his eyes. I felt like a side of beef. He shook his head.

“Is that true?” he asked me.

“Yes, sir,” I fluted, fluttering my eyelashes.

He started to laugh. “Wait till Ange sees you. Boy, we’ll have some fun.” Addressing the whole crew, “Nobody’s to tell her, right?” and he got a general murmur of agreement, with lots of grins and chuckles.

“Clint, if this kid can act, your crew gets bonus rates whenever I can use.....Her?.....whatever... to dep for Ange.”

I got a few claps on my bare shoulders when he said that, some of which nearly flattened me.

Then it was back to work.

The next two weeks were murder. Practice, practice, practice. I practiced stunt after stunt, as did we all, and I learned to do them all in dresses and heels or tights and heels, or skirts and heels, or shorts and heels, until my boobs and heels were part of me. My katas in the mornings became smooth and graceful.

Then I went to my make-up lessons every day on arrival at the studio, and Mad Maxine and Poxy Roxy hammered into me all the different treatments of fruit, until I could blend eye-shadows and apply liners and lipsticks and glosses, foundations and face-creams and blushers to somewhere near their satisfaction and shade my breast forms in so you couldn’t see the join with my skin. The dressing table in my room gradually filled up with jars and tubes and brushes until it was just like a real girl's.

On top of that I had tuition from Zoe in the wearing of various feminine garments, suspenders and stockings, body suits and corsets. Even tops and blouses required attention. Every couple of days she would issue something new for me to wear and drill in, insisting that when Ange arrived I would have to sit side-by-side with her and get dressed in the exact same outfit to satisfy the continuity girls.

Finally I would go back to camp and take a stack of DVDs back to my rooms after dinner, where I would imitate her movements and mannerisms and patterns of speech and accent until they became mine. I almost forgot that my real name was Mike and I think that the crew did too.

Mr. Gerry Whatsisname used me on several occasions to rehearse scenes starring Angie so he could check camera angles and lighting and such and, true to his word, paid the crew extra when he did so. Naturally this made me quite popular and the guys (and girls) really looked after me. I got used to being treated like a lady, doors opened for me, chairs pulled out at mealtimes, drinks brought to my seat at the bar, comforting arms around my shoulders. It’s seductive you know...

After two weeks and two days the lady herself appeared. Everyone knew she was coming and I was terrified. Two weeks is woefully underprepared in London theatre. Normally we would rehearse for at least three times that. OK, so I had been doing her 24/7, but even so I was not confident that I could carry her off when confronted with the original.

She strode onto the set that morning like a goddess, dressed in tight jeans, 3 inch heel boots and a tight black top with a scoop neck and short sleeves. She had such presence that you could feel the indrawn breaths as she passed by.

“Hi, Gerry. Are you ready for me yet?” to our director.

“We nearly finished it without you Ange. You’re going to be lucky to get paid.”

She eyed him haughtily. “What are you talking about, you miserable son-of-a-bitch. If you’re trying to pull some kind of stunt I’ll phone my agent here and now.”

Gerry Thingy grinned at her. “Ange, I have somebody you have to meet before you do one of your famous meltdowns.”

All my good friends and colleagues started pushing me to the front of the throng, while I was trying to melt into the crowd. Gerry grabbed Ange by the hand and led her towards me. My two true-blue “girlfriends” Lou and Maggie peeled away from in front of me, leaving me face-to-face with the woman I had been impersonating for the last few weeks.

Angie was simmering, close to the boil, when she spotted me. Gerry was grinning like a fool.

It was almost like seeing a cat arch its back and prepare to leap, and then she did a classic double-take and really looked.

“And just who the hell are you?” staring straight at me, no longer hostile, just stunned.

I gulped, a bit of stage fright hitting me. “Ms. LaBelle, I’m your stunt double.”

She came right up to me and stopped inside my personal space, reaching out and grasping me round the neck with both hands, not tightly, more a caress.

“My God, are you a man or a girl? What’s your name?”

“I’m Lina, Ms. LaBelle, for the duration of the shoot. I’m here to make sure you don’t get hurt.”

“Yeah, OK. You didn’t answer my question. Are you a man or a girl and what’s your real name? Gerry, I won’t have a girl doing my stunts,” turning to Mr. Whosis, but arms still clasped behind my neck.

She gazed deep into my eyes and I fell in love there and then. I’m sure she knew, such was her power.

“Ms. Labelle, my name is Mike Stewart and I’m a man, but it’s my job to be you for the next few months and I always try to do the best job I can.”

“I can see that.” She released me and walked around me a couple of times, then she grabbed me around the neck again and kissed me . tongue deep into my mouth, as passionately as I had ever been kissed before. She broke it off and stroked my hair, all the time keeping her eyes boring into me, while I tried to recover my breath and slow down my racing heart.

“Welcome to my family, Lina. You are now officially Lina LaBelle and you are mine. You call me Ange, understand?”

She turned to our director and laughed. “OK, Gerry, you got me. I owe you one, you miserable bastard. So let’s get started.”

Gerry tugged on a non-existent forelock, smirking away, and said, “Yes Miss Ange. Whatever you say Miss Ange. Sheez, who’s running this show?”

She slapped him playfully and they went off to her trailer arm-in-arm. She looked over her shoulder and winked at me as they left.

From the next day forward, she and I sat together as we got dressed for the day’s shooting in identical outfits, with two continuity girls checking every item of our clothing, make-up, hairstyles and every little thing to make sure we were identical. She didn’t say much, but she held my hand and squeezed it as we stared into the mirrors in front of us while we were being worked upon.

I watched her, drinking up her mannerisms, walk, gestures and her wonderful smile, copying them at every opportunity, particularly when I was back in my rooms. She watched me too. She was always there when I was doing the stunts for her, sometimes clapping softly when Gerry said it was a wrap.

A week went by and she fronted me at the end of shooting one day, taking me by the hand and pulling me close.

“Come to my trailer.”

I was mesmerised and would have gone to Hell with her. I remember we were both dressed in short tartan skirts, black tops, leather jackets, black tights and calf-length boots. It was not a particularly glamorous get-up, but she could have made a hessian sack look good.

She pulled me up the steps to her van and through the door, closed it behind us and proceeded to strip me while simultaneously snogging me like crazy. I was soon returning the compliment and her clothes were landing in a heap on the floor with mine. Before long we were both naked except for panties and entwined around each other. She knew what she was doing and I was following willingly.

She pulled me over to the bed, a double intended for her to rest during the day, not meant to be slept on at night. She ripped off my panties and felt for my cock.

“What the fuck? Where is it? You told me you were a man!”

It was still glued back between my legs and I was so hard that it hurt like hell.

“I am. Make-up didn’t want any bulges so they glued it back.”

All of a sudden I saw the famous temper. She swung around and grabbed the phone, punching in a number instantly.

“Maxine? Ange here. Listen you crazy bitch, did you glue Lina’s cock back between her legs?”

“Buzz, mumble,” from the other end.

“I don’t care. I don’t give a shit. I want to use it. You get your fat arse over here this instant with the appropriate solvents or you’ll be looking for a fucking job in Siberia tomorrow, capisce?” and she slammed down the phone.

“I’m sorry sweetie. You should have said and I could have had it fixed before.”

“Well, it’s not exactly what one talks about to another lady.”

“OK, but you can drop that sexy voice when we’re in bed together. You may look like gorgeous Lina but it’s Mike I want to hear.” She crouched above me, stroking my hair. “They really did a great job on you. God, it’s a turn on imagining making love to yourself. Move over, Narcissus.”

There was a knock on the door.

“Come!” She called imperiously, and Mad Maxine practically scuttled through the door, carrying a tray.

Angie got off me and pointed at my crutch, showing no embarrassment at our nakedness.

“Unglue it. Now! And if it doesn’t work afterwards I’m going to glue the lips of your cunt together and throw the solvents away.”

“It’ll be alright, Ange, I promise,” said Maxine as she poured some liquid onto a cotton wool pad.

She was sweating as she dabbed the pad along the length of my imprisoned penis. Within seconds I could feel the solvent working and my member began separating from the skin of my groin. She continued rubbing the stuff in and within a minute I was free. The operation had not stimulated me at all and my tool just lay there, limp. Ange snarled when she saw it.

“Take your gear and get out of here you silly cow. You’d better start praying it works.”

Maxine left even quicker than she’d entered.

Ange turned to me and grabbed a tube of aloe vera, which she started to massage into my crutch.

“You poor boy. Why did you let them do it?”

“They took me by surprise, and I suppose I’m naive, too,” I replied as Mike.

My cock was definitely responding to her ministrations, straightening and hardening nicely. It was good to see the little (well, not-so-little) feller again after it being M.I.A. for a couple of weeks. Ange was almost purring as she gently stroked along its length.

“Your voice is nice. I do love English accents. I’m going to make you keep talking to me....later, though.”

She stopped rubbing my now fully erect and throbbing meat and swung herself back astride me. She leaned forward and kissed me passionately. She took my nipples between her fingers.

“I wish you could feel that. Don’t you?”

I could only emit a strangled gargle. I was still trying to catch my breath after the kiss.

She moved her hands down to my groin again, kneading the base of the protrusion.

“Are you a virgin?”

“I’m not sure. Does a blow-job count?”

She chortled. “No you silly thing. You have to put it all the way inside.”

“Then I’m a virgin.”

“Not for long.”

She grabbed me by the shaft and stretched her lips apart with the other hand, gently lowering herself onto me as she did so, wriggling a little until I was fully embedded as far as I could penetrate and she was sitting on me with a demonic grin on her face.

“Now you’re nearly not a virgin, but to give you the certificate we have to make both of us come.”

She began to move up and down and to grip my dick with her vaginal muscles, giving me a rippling sensation over the length of my penis which made me gasp and shudder and reciprocate by thrusting against her when she rose. I can’t exactly describe the feeling. You have to have done it to fully appreciate what I mean, but control was not in the vocabulary. The sensation pulled at all my senses. Feeling fled from all other parts of my body into that one protuberance, building and building until all the pent-up sensation released in one mighty heave and I felt a rush of warmth and wetness from her gush over me too.

“O-o-o-o-h. Wow, Mike. That was nice. We came together on your first time. I’d say that’s a good omen.”

She leant forward and kissed me and I kissed her back. Then she extracted herself, rolled over and laid next to me, holding me in her arms so that our faces were only inches apart.

“Now you can talk to me, sweet boy. I want to know your life story.”

So I told her; only child, mad about acting, obviously not superstar material, downsized ambitions, good money as a stuntman, right material for doubling for female stars and here I was. She was a good listener. Most actors and actresses are, because it helps them to pick up clues that they can use in their roles.

She stroked me while I was talking; cheeks, hair, arms, groin; enough to keep me slightly aroused without going over the top. When I was finished she looked at me, something unfathomable in her eyes.

“Maybe there’s a way we can help you achieve your ambition. Let me think about it. In the meantime....” and she lowered her mouth onto my cock. She gave a much better blowjob than Poxy Roxy and then I lost my virginity for a second time, if that’s possible.

“Go and have a shower, Lina, and we’ll get you back to base.” Somehow that signalled the end of our intimate session and I reverted to my Lina voice. She nodded her approval.

When we were both dressed she checked my make-up just as thoroughly as did Mad Maxine and declared herself satisfied before she called her chauffeur to come and pick me up. She draped her arms around my neck and looked into my eyes again. I was lost.

“We wouldn’t want everybody to think we’d been shagging, would we?” and she laughed fit to bust.

“I have a reputation to protect and you need to get one.” She kissed me, quite gently. “Go home now, Lina, and we’ll do this again soon.”

The driver took me back to our HQ and as soon as I walked into the bar every eye was on me, with knowing grins the order of the day.

“Got laid, did we?” asked Clint, and I’m afraid I gave it away with a blush which must have doubled for a traffic light. It didn’t go unnoticed and there was a general laugh.

“It’s OK, kid. You don’t have to say a word. Most of us have worked with her before.”

I almost leapt to her defence before I realised how stupid that would be, but it hurt me knowing that I wasn’t her one and only true love. Nobody made a really big thing about it though. I got a few slaps on the shoulder and a lot of ribald winks, but that was it and the evening soon became the normal post-mortem and review session.

After that she would take me to her trailer maybe once a week and I had to be Mike when we made love. She seemed to take an interest in me apart from the purely sexual. She got me to take over my portfolio, such as it was, and discussed seriously the shots of me in various productions and my promotional material.

“Poor Mike", she sighed, one afternoon. “You’re never going to be like Troy (her husband) or Harrison, are you? It’s not fair. You can out-act both of them.”

At work she always took a keen interest in the stunts and applauded quietly when we did one successfully. Gerry Al-whatever frequently used me for scene-setting and distance shots when Ange didn’t have any other commitments for the day. I worked away at being the best Lina I could possibly be, refining all those nuances that I gathered from observing her.

Except for that couple of hours each week I was her. I became great friends with her, as a twin sister should, and we often sat together chatting about girlie things when neither of us was on camera. I found that our tastes in clothing and shoes and make-up were very similar and we would even do each other's nails as we chatted away. When we walked together I was told that people cuold not tell which of us was which from behind, and even sometimes from the front. I treasured those times and I almost forgot my real name was Mike.

Then, all of a sudden it seemed, “Suzie’s Seraphim” was shot and in the can for editing back in the main studios.

We had an after-party. I was Mike again, back in pants, comfortable shoes (oh, how I missed my heels) and a shirt, with only my hair in a pony-tail and the residue of my collagen-inflated lips and thin eyebrows to remind me of the last four months. I felt awkward and naked without my make-up, missing the brush of my skirt against my legs and my balance was all off without my boobs and shoes. I really had immersed myself in her....in all possible ways. She was there and she came up to me and embraced me and kissed me passionately. The assembled crowd all cheered like mad and made lewd remarks, and it was all I could do not to burst into tears at the thought of losing her. I was still Lina in my mind, her alter ego, as well as being her lover.

I wanted to stay with her, to be her....or at least a part of her....for the rest of my life. I guess that's what love does to you.

She held me close and slipped a card into my pocket and whispered in my ear.

“I’ll be at home for a couple of months. Email me and come and see me. Please,I really mean it.” She gave me the 1000-watt look and kissed me again before turning away and circulating in the gathering.

Nothing happened the day after the party. We were all truly well hung-over. There was no need to curtail our drinking since we didn’t have to turn up for work. The release from four months of tension required a bit of a break, and I for one had never developed a big tolerance for alcohol anyway.

The following day I had a session with Clint. He told me we had been paid some 50% over what we had expected, largely because of my success as Lina and Jerry’s (sorry, Gerry’s) use of me as an acting substitute for Ange which had saved the producers millions of dollars. The company had agreed to give me a $10000 bonus on top of my share of the earnings so nearly $100,000 was going into my bank account. He asked if I wanted to go back to England and I said I would rather have a look around America, so he agreed to give me the equivalent air fare.

The company was going to relax for a couple of months or maybe a bit longer but if I wanted to do the next gig I was more than welcome and they would give me an hourly rate of US$100. I said I reckoned I would take him up on that and we parted most amicably with him having my email address to let me know where and when our next assignment would be.

I finally got a few days to look around Vancouver while I cleared the necessary hurdles for me to go to the States. It's a nice city, with those inlets and harbours reaching right through it and these magnificent mountain vistas everywhere you look, but I was marking time.

Tourist visa for the USA in hand, I wasted no time in heading for Los Angeles, where Ange was supposed to be. Funny place; forget sunny California, it was grey and misty, but call it fog and the locals haughtily told you it was the “marine layer” which somehow made me think of a broody seagull.

I checked into the Ritz-Carlton, secure in the knowledge that I had a decent future income stream and $100K burning a hole in my pocket, an 18-year-old (who looked 16) on the ran-tan. I got a couple of old-fashioned looks at reception, but these suddenly turned to smiles when I produced my Platinum credit card and they had run a discreet check on it. The same happened when I hired a car, although I could at least produce a licence with my age on it. They charged me extra for insurance. Both the hotel and the car-hire were actually surprisingly inexpensive.

Settled in and my meagre possessions unpacked I emailed Ange letting her know I was in town and where to get hold of me. Then I got a map from the concierge along with some advice on the best tourist spots and took off in my Toyota Prius, feeling virtuous about being “green”. I actually hardly needed the map as the GPS in the car told me in a sexy voice where to go and how to get there. So, with little fuss I visited the La Brea tar pits, Topanga National Park, cruised past the “Hollywood” sign, and went along Wilshire and other LA musts. I got back to the hotel wondering what one does on one’s second day in Los Angeles if you don’t want to go to Disney, Knottsberry Farm or Universal Studios.

The car was taken by the jockey. Quiet night coming up, I thought; a meal and go to bed.

As I passed reception the clerk called out to me.

“Excuse me, Mr. Stewart, sir. There’s a message for you. Urgent. Ms. Angelina LaBelle asks that you ring her the instant you get back. It’s probably on your computer too, sir, but she was most insistent that we delivered the message to you in person.” He passed me an envelope.

“Well, thank you,” I said.

“Sir, may I ask if you’re related to her? I can see a family resemblance,” very deferentially.

I decided this was worth milking.

“Between you and me, we’re very close. I’m from the English branch of the family, but she doesn’t generally like it to be known that she has noble blood, if you take my meaning, VERY noble. My grandmother is a great fan too,” and I winked at him, before turning on my heel and heading up to my room with her phone number clutched in my hand.

The phone leapt into my hand as soon as I got into the room. It must have been a personal number because I got straight through to her, no flunkies in between.

“Hi Ange, I got your message. I was out sightseeing.”

She laughed. “That must have taken all of half an hour. Hey, Mike, I’m glad you’re here. Are you free for dinner tonight?”

“Well, I was going to have a burger, but.....”

“Don’t piss about. I’ll send the limo for you at seven, OK?’

“Shall I bring a toothbrush?”

“Nah. I think I might have a spare somewhere, and, if not, you’ll have to share mine.”

“Oooh, gross,” I said in Lina-speak.

“Be ready, love,” giggling as she put the phone down.

So I showered and shampooed and conditioned and blow-dried and put on my best jeans and a decent polo shirt and a pair of $300 Tods. Carrying a denim jacket I went down to the lobby at about a quarter to seven to await the limousine.

Word must have got around that I was related to royalty, because I was approached by a bellboy as soon as I exited the elevator (lift to me).

“Do you need your car, Mr. Stewart? I’ll get it brought around.”

“No, it’s OK. Ms. LaBelle’s driver is picking me up.” I namedropped shamelessly. "I’m just a little early. Will you let me know when he comes?” and I slipped a ten into his hand.

“Certainly, sir.” If he’d had a forelock I’m sure he would have tugged it.

Americans get so turned on by royalty, while we just yawn.

I sat down in one of the lobby chairs and grabbed a paper. A glass of sparkling water (probably Perrier) with ice magically appeared at my elbow and I smiled at the girl who delivered it.

My cool was a pure facade. I was dying to see my lovely Ange again and hoping that things would be the same between us. Of course, I also knew that the atmosphere of the movie set was a thing of the past, but she had sounded genuinely pleased to hear my voice and she had responded to my call much quicker than I expected. I was still in love.

The car arrived exactly on time and the hotel staff came and got me, just about forming a reception line to bow me out to the forecourt. I almost asked where the red carpet was, but restrained myself. You mustn’t overdo it.

I jumped into the stretch Merc, said good evening to the driver and was whisked away as soon as the door shut. We drove for about half an hour, leaving the freeway for a winding road which climbed into the hills. Behind me the city lights lay spread out like a sparkling carpet as the twilight faded.

“Where are we going,” I asked, curious.

“Ms. Ange lives in the canyon country, sir. We’re nearly there.”

A minute later he put a cell phone to his ear. It must have been on “silent”.

“Yes Ms. Ange.... In about two minutes...... No, no problems.”

We turned into a driveway and went through a set of automatic gates before coming to a stop.

My door opened and Ange, dressed in tight black pants and an electric-blue billowing blouse, leapt into the car and dragged me out, wrapped herself around me and gave me a serious smooch, before moving back and giving me a patent 1000-watt grin.

“Oh, Mike. It’s lovely to see you. I was worried you wouldn’t come. I really missed you.” She directed herself to the driver. “Thanks, Carl. We won’t need you until the morning. You can put the car away.”

Hanging on to my arm and leaning into me she steered me through the front door. The hall was as big as my Vancouver rooms and opened onto a typical Hollywood living/lounge area, the size of a decent house, which in turn opened on to a huge patio and pool, all obviously designed for lavish partying.

“It’s a nice night. I thought we’d eat on the patio.” She put her arms around my neck and we kissed again. She really seemed glad to see me and I knew I was glad to see her. Her raised eyebrows and smirk as we pressed together told me that she knew just how glad I was to see her.

She gave a little wiggle and burst out laughing, teasing me.

“Later, darling. First I want you to do something for me. Then we eat and talk. And then..... But now, a drink, to celebrate.”

There was an ice-bucket with two bottles in it, on a stand next to a table laid for two, with several different kinds of glasses amongst the cutlery. She grabbed one, and with the ease of much practice, popped the cork with just a few wisps of “steam”, no waste like racing drivers.

She gave me the bottle and took two flutes, holding them out for me to pour the bubbly. As I poured I saw that the champagne was Taittinger 1998 Blanc de Blancs. I’m not James Bond (oh, if only!). I put the bottle back in the bucket and she handed me a glass. We clinked, and she said, “To us.”

I drank, and although I’m no connoisseur that stuff was like angels’ tears going down the throat. I looked into her eyes.

“Wonderful,” I croaked.

“Me or the champagne?”

“Both, but you told me you come later.”

“I will, very definitely. In the meantime, another glass?” lovely lips parted, so provocative.

She poured two more, and we linked arms in a lovers embrace as we drank.

It was a lovely evening and she flipped a switch and put some music on. It was a really cool guitar, bluesy with jazz and pop elements.

“That’s Robben Ford,” I exclaimed. “Fancy you liking him.”

“Yes, he’s great, isn’t he? You know, I really wanted to be a guitarist when I was a kid, and I really tried, but I just don’t have that kind of talent. I could listen to him all night, or Clapton or Larry Carlton or Jeff Beck.”

“Our tastes are pretty similar. They’re all favourites of mine.”

She reached out and stroked my cheek. “See how much I have to learn about you and you about me.”

She poured us another glass of champagne, opening the second bottle in order to fill the glasses.

“Now I want to ask that favour.”

I would have done anything for her, maybe short of committing suicide. I waved my glass, feeling the first effects of the alcohol.

“Anything, Ange.”

She came in close, her free hand gently stroking my chest.

“Will you be Lina for me tonight, until we make love, just like Vancouver? Maybe I’m twisted, but there’s just something so erotic about looking into your eyes when you’re Lina. You look so much like me, but not like me. When I look in a mirror I see all the little things wrong with my face, a wrinkle here and a crease there, but when I look at Lina I see perfection. Small differences, yes, but no blemishes. Will you do that for me?”

“Ange, I’m the one that sees perfection, but, yes, I’ll do that for you.”

To tell the truth I had really missed being Lina. Four months of wearing the persona as well as the clothing and the make-up had sort of soaked into my bones. The fact that Ange loved Lina had a lot to do with it, of course, but the stunt gang had treated me like a lady and I liked that too. Knee-jerk, hard-wired behaviour, perhaps, but real nevertheless. When I was Lina I felt so comfortable and natural. I was a girl in their eyes, and in my own.

“I hoped you would say yes. C’mon, I’ve laid out Lina’s stuff in my dressing room. Bring the glasses.”

She grabbed me by one hand, the remaining bottle in the other, and me with the two glasses, and practically dragged me upstairs to a room bigger than a normal master-bedroom with wardrobes and closets and a huge make-up table, which practically was surrounded by searchlights. No blemish would remain undiscovered in there.

“Strip! No Mikes are allowed in here. Shower!” she pointed at the cubicle. I giggled, under the influence of the champers. She hiccupped and we both fell about laughing. I took off my clothes and shook out my hair, letting it fall to my shoulders and fan out. It was obvious what my body was thinking, except that “thinking” was not the right word.

She stepped forward, spread my hair and fluffed it out. Then she took my cock in her hand.

“Maybe we should change to Plan B. What do you think?”

“What was Plan A?”

She hung around my neck and nuzzled me, not answering.

I was beyond control, not drunk but definitely high. I could not take as much champagne as she could. She had had more practice.

“I’m yours to do with as you will, my lady,” I think that’s what I said.

“Definitely Plan B,” and she proceeded to strip too.

Soon we were standing face-to-face and closer-than-close, stark naked and pawing each other passionately. She turned me so that I was facing my reflection in the mirror and she stood by my side. Even without makeup my face looked like hers.

She turned us back to face each other. We looked into each other’s souls and she led me to her bedroom with a king-size bed that could have left me like a sailor ship-wrecked on an island, struggling to find another survivor.

Our eyes were still locked together as she pushed me down and straddled me, panting.

“I know you’re not dressed, but be Lina for me, please. I want Ange and Lina to be one tonight.”

I let Lina take over my body and brain and kissed my alter ego greedily. My male parts slid into her so easily, but once in it was as if it didn’t matter who was male and who was female. Two lovers entwined so closely that they were a single being. We were Angelina.

We made love for hours it seemed. It ended when her stomach made these loud gurgling noises, most unromantic, and we both wound up laughing ourselves stupid as I put my ear to her tummy and imitated the sounds coming from within.

"Gurrrkkk, bluuurrrppp, ubbbblee, blooop, blooopp, bbbbuuuubbbb."

We went and showered together, shower caps protecting our hair. When we were dry she led me back to the bed and produced a pair of breast forms and proceeded to glue them on me as I lay looking up at her.

“This was Plan A, before I so rudely interrupted us,” she explained, holding them in place and nuzzling me.
She let me get up a few minutes later and handed me a white bra and panties. I put them on and tucked myself back easily since all passion was still drained. Ange was dressing at the same time, in identical undies. She produced matching caftans in a kind of golden brown swirling psychedelic pattern and we slipped into them before sitting next to each other at the giant make-up station with the searchlights illuminating our faces.

“Match me, “she said and we made our faces up, with me copying her every move until we finally blotted our glossy lips.
She inspected me thoroughly and then began to brush and comb my hair into a do as close to hers as possible before fixing three-inch hoops into our ears. At last she indicated two pairs of white sandals and I took the larger and put them on.

She pulled me across to a triple mirror and we again stood side-by-side gazing at our reflections, sisters.....not identical, but close. I felt better than I had since the movie in Vancouver. I was Lina again.

“What do you see?”

“I see us, Ange and Lina.”

“How badly do you want that Oscar?”

“Every day, every waking moment...and in my dreams too.” I laughed a little bitterly.

She waved her hand at the mirror. “There’s the answer. You’ll never make it as Mike, but as Angelina....”

I continued to examine us, and the stark truth of her statement penetrated my head and terrified me.

“Come on. Let’s go and eat and then we can talk.”

So saying she led the way downstairs, her arm around my waist, and into the kitchen, where she started to bustle around, pulling a couple of decent-sized steaks and a big bowl of salad from an aircraft-carrier of a fridge.

“Where is everybody? Surely you have help?” I asked her.

“Troy’s on location, doing his new movie, and I gave the staff the night off. I wanted it to be just us. We have important things to discuss.”

The steaks had gone onto a grill and the smell was devastating. Our stomachs were singing a symphony. I set about tossing the salad with Italian dressing to take my mind off it.

“We like our steaks rare, Lina, and our salads green with the Italian. We eat healthily and we exercise a lot. Being Ange is hard work and I think you have to start learning now.”

She dumped the steaks onto a couple of large plates and I carried the salad bowl as she took them to the table on the patio. We sat down together and she twisted the top off of a bottle of Merlot.

“I do like these screw tops, much easier than corks,” as she poured us a glass each.

She raised her glass and reached across to me. I took mine up and we clinked.

“To an Oscar and to us.” We toasted.

She talked as we tore into our steaks.

“Here’s how I see it. A bit of background first. I said it’s hard being Angelina. That’s because of the demands of the business. They want you here and they want you there, all at the same time. Do this movie; go to that ball or dinner; act for this charity; be glam all the time; promote this brand; smile for the bastard paparazzi......on and on and on. It can really wear you down.

“When I saw you in Vancouver I had a sort of brainwave. You look so much like me I thought * what if there were two to share the load?*. Then I thought you would never go for it. After all, it would mean you’d have to be my double 24/7. Then you told me of your dream, and it was obvious to me that you would never make it as a man.”

She reached across and took my hand.

“Not because of lack of talent. I soon saw you had that in spades, as well as dedication. But as a woman you could make it and I can give you a head start. It depends how hungry you are; how much you really want it.

“Do you want it enough to become a woman?”

That question was a show-stopper. Did I? My dream. I couldn’t answer her, but Lina was saying "yes! Yes! YES!" inside my head.

“A little bit of surgery on your face and you will be indistinguishable from me; your nose and a touch around the eyes. Collagen to your lips is easy, and eyebrows.....we’ve done that already. It’s the rest which you really need to think about. You have to be prepared for the demands that they put on a female star. Nude scenes....sex scenes. You won’t be able to hide anything. It has to be all the way, real boobs, real pussy, the real thing, all the way.

“If you agree, I’ll teach you to be me. You’ll become Ange. It won’t be quick. First we’ll have you doing the off-screen stuff, the charity shows, the visits to sick kids, schmoozing with hangers-on, doubling for me when I go to visit my girl friends.”

Some of the tension went out of me. Everybody knew, or thought they knew, about her lesbian affairs. It was the meat of gossip media.

“So you’d be shagging while I work? Sounds like the Seven Dwarves theme.” I tittered in full female mode. “Go on, Jezebel.”

“We’d ease you into the movies, until you’re doing it all, and with your talent, it won’t be long. I really believe you could have that Oscar in five years if we pick our movies right.”

“WHY?” I just about yelled at her. “Why would you do this for me?”

“It’s not just for you, darling. The whole scene has been getting too much for me. I need to get away a bit, but I have so many commitments. If I had you depping for me we would share the load, and I would get the glory of the Oscar too. We would know it was you, but the world would think it was me. I don’t think I’m actress enough to win. I’m pegged as a sex symbol, but I know you could do it, ever since I watched you in Vancouver.

“I would pay you of course. Allowing a five-year target I offer a million dollars a year minimum, plus full wardrobe, all surgeries and the usual perks, car, accommodation, travel, etc. Of course a lot of that will be picked up by sponsors and promoters. Don’t forget, I earn at least five million per film and I do two to three a year. I’ll happily put you on a split when you’re in there replacing me. Money is not a problem.”

“What about us? When I’m a girl, I mean.....I mean if I’m a girl.”

She cupped my chin in both her hands. It was too far across the table for us to kiss. She gazed into my eyes.

“I will cherish you and we will love each other. I know how to cherish a beautiful girl, especially when she’s me. That’s my ultimate turn-on, believe me.”

“What about Troy? Would I have to go to bed with him? I don’t think I could do that. And what would he think about all this?”

She laughed. “Read the gossip columns! I probably won’t be with him much longer, so I doubt you’d ever be faced with going to bed with him. As for our little scheme, we just won’t tell him. We’ll fix you up with an apartment and he’ll never know.”

“You don’t love him then?”

“I suppose I do, in a way. He is a nice guy, but he’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer, and marriages in this business have a habit of ending sooner rather than later. We’re never together for a start. Either I’m off filming or he is, not conducive to long-term relationships. Then there are all those bitches out there, dying to take him away from me.”

Troy was a hunk, a typical Hollywood leading man, but somehow he gave the impression that it was all a bit of a joke; that he did not take himself seriously, when he was doing interviews with Oprah or Letterman, a part of his charm perhaps.

She looked at me shrewdly. “You’re going to do it, aren’t you? I can tell.”

“I...I...I’m not sure. It’s scary. I need to think about it.”

She was right, of course. I was going to do it. I was scared to death and I liked being male, but....I was an actor. What a challenge! To be one of the most beautiful women in the world! And my ultimate prize... an Oscar! No other way I would ever get one. I had to do it! And I had to admit to myself that I really, really liked being Lina.

“All right. Do you want any dessert?”

“Yes, you.”

Have you ever seen a beautiful woman leer? It’s awesome.

“OK, Lina, let’s clear away and go to bed, but you have to tell me in the morning.”

Between us, we took the dirty dishes, cutlery and glasses to the kitchen and gave them a squirt of liquid as we rinsed them in the sink and left them for the cook in the morning. She gave the grill a quick scrub to keep the roaches away. The California climate breeds them so big that they can’t use them in monster movies because nobody believes it. Even Hollywood has its limits.

We went upstairs and stripped naked, then took each other’s make-up off and rubbed our night creams in, sensuously massaging our fingers into the other’s face, before going to bed.

She fondled my breasts. “I can’t wait until you can feel me doing that,” she sighed softly.

“Nor can I.”

She had her answer. She went to sleep, with this cat-that-got-the-cream expression on her face. I don’t know what I looked like. I know I didn’t go to sleep.

I wondered if I really said that and if I really meant it. I said before that hunger, ambition and greed are a fearsome combination and here everything was complicated by love and a need to please her. I didn’t intend to cheat her but I thought I could try it for a few months and back off if it wasn’t working. But overriding everything was the thought of a shot at that little golden statue. I saw myself again, in a gorgeous sparkly white evening gown, almost like a wedding-dress, clutching the statuette as I smilingly strode along the red carpet, the queen of the world.

With that image in my mind I finally fell asleep.

The next morning we made love again, and then she unglued my boobs and made me dress as Mike before we went down for breakfast.

“Remember what you said last night?” she asked.

“I remember.”

“Do you still mean it?”

I swallowed. “Yes.” It came out as a croak.

“I’ll draw up a contract, you know. You’ll be committed. Five years and you’ll be a woman for the rest of your life.”

“I know,” I said hoarsely, and looked her in the eyes. “I will do it. I’m going to win that Oscar. And I love you.”

She embraced me. “Good girl. Let’s eat.”

There were two Filipinas in the kitchen and the remains from last night were already gone.

“Morning, Ms. Ange,” they chorused when we appeared.

“Morning Emy, Liliana,” she greeted them back. “Mr. Mike and I would like a couple of eggs over easy, a heap of bacon, not too crispy, white toast and jelly, grapefruit juice and a pot of strong coffee with cream on the side. Use the Blue Mountain beans, OK?”

“Five minutes, Ms. Ange. Juice coming right up.”

The relationship between them was friendly but the maids knew they had to keep her happy too. That was obvious.
As soon as we sat, two frosty glasses of juice appeared. Ange also got a small dish of pills, which she proceeded to down with the grapefruit.

“You’re not supposed to do this, but I don’t care. Vitamin E, B Plus, Omega 3 and Evening Primrose. The juice gives me the Vitamin C. Remember. You’ll be taking them soon.”

The bacon, eggs, and toast arrived. She examined them and seemingly found them to her taste, shovelling bacon onto my plate. One of the maids poured my coffee. The smell of the Blue Mountain made me inhale almost involuntarily to capture the essence of it.

I didn’t want to talk about our plans so I told her how she would now be treated like royalty at the Ritz-Carlton, which made her choke as she chuckled.

“Won’t make a lot of difference, actually. You’ll soon find out we’re Hollywood royalty. They make 100% sure they look after us, but I can drop a couple of hints about Queenie to put the icing on the cake. You’re pretty cheeky for a kid, sometimes.” Grinning at me.

I didn’t much like her calling me a kid. I was her lover for Christ’s sake.

“Are you nearly finished? I want to talk a bit more before you go. I’ve got a full day ahead.” She rolled her eyes. “Just like I told you; no rest for the wicked.”

We chewed our last pieces of toast and swigged the dregs of the coffee, then went out onto the patio deck in the warm morning sun.

“We’ve got lots of details to sort out, love, but we can get started. OK? I took a nice rental in Belair so that you have somewhere to stay and I can meet you without worrying whether anyone knows. Those assholes of paparazzi follow me all over, but they can’t get past the gates, so they’re stymied. They may know I go in but they don’t know what happens after that, and I have lots of friends there.”

“I’ll get Carl to take you back to the hotel. Pack up, get rid of your rental and I’ll come and pick you up myself at about four. I’ll use my Prius, and I’ll do the headscarf and dark glasses bit. That’ll give them something to talk about,” she sniggered. “Check out and then you disappear. Well, you only partly disappear. We’ll have to get you a green card and register you so you don’t have any trouble with the IRS, as well as sort out your contract with my lawyer. Aagh! Details! We have so much to do.”

I had to laugh. She was getting really steamed up. She was right of course. The details really did seem to pile up and I guess she was run ragged between dealing with them and her regular schedule.

I stayed as Mike for the next week, got rid of my rental car, checked out of the hotel, with half the staff gawking at her as she came and got me “incognito” in her bright red Prius. A couple of paparazzi followed us to Belair and got stopped at the gates. She merrily flipped them the bird as we whizzed through.

She had described the house as “modest”. Doh! A tiny five bedroom, four-bathroom, two-story mansion discreetly nestled behind nine-foot high white walls, hiding a fifty-foot pool and monster patio. A little white Honda town-car sat all lonely in a garage for four limos.

“What am I going to do with all this?” I asked her. “Do you want me to learn how to be you? Or do you want me to be the maid for this place? Do I get one of those sexy French outfits?”

“Hush, Dopey! I told you money’s not a problem and you have to learn to live Hollywood style. This is part of your education. I’ve arranged a cleaning service for now. Hmmm. I do like the idea of you as a French maid though. I’ll get you a uniform and I’ll be your domme. Oooh, kinky!”

She gave me the Cooks tour. The main bedroom was quite similar to her own, with an enormous bed. An adjacent one had been turned into a dressing room with a two-person bench in front of a giant make-up table with the mirror ringed with lights like the runway at an airport. Where the windows stopped the walls were invisible behind wrap-around closets and chests of drawers.

Smiling, she opened them. More clothes than Zoe’s kingdom, it seemed, with two sets of everything. Even the underwear was duplicated.

“See. One for you and one for me, identical twins. Ange comes in and Lina goes out, or vice versa. You work while I play. Kidding,” with a silvery tinkle she patted my cheek and pirouetted in front of a three-leaf full-length mirror.

“Do you think I look like Audrey Hepburn as Holly? No, I need a hat and a cigarette-holder,” posing, still in her headscarf and oversize dark glasses.

I was stunned by the lengths she’d gone to. “You must have been pretty sure of me. What if I’d said no?”

“Then I would have wasted some money, no biggie.”

She faced me through the mirror and gave me a long appraising stare.

“Yes, I took a chance, but I saw you in Vancouver; how you threw yourself into being me, and I had you in bed and you told me your life story. I made a bet with myself that you wouldn’t be able to resist, and I was right, wasn’t I?”

She walked over and threw her arms around me and kissed me full on the lips, passionately. I could not help responding and we clinched for maybe a minute, panting slightly when we broke apart.

“It’s for both of us. I get you, but you’ll be me. The very thought of making love to myself makes me all wet. I get freedom to do my own thing as well. You get to show the world that you’re a great actor by fooling them into believing you’re me; you get an Oscar; you get me, and you get rich. That’s what they call a win-win situation.”

“One small detail. I lose this me. I become a woman.”

“There are some things one has to do for one’s art,” she jeered gently. “Will that be so bad? You will be beautiful, with beautiful clothes, and beautiful people around you. And I guarantee you’ll just lurve the sex. I promise you.”

She unzipped my fly and undid my belt, letting my trousers drop to my ankles.

“I think we need a bath,” she purred as she took off her glasses and headscarf and then everything else.

I hopped around trying to get my shoes and socks off in order to lose my pants until at last, both naked, she towed me into the bathroom. Nothing here is small. She turned on the Jacuzzi and as it filled I thought how lucky it was I could swim. She tucked first my hair and then hers into shower caps, poured in a double handful of crystals and launched us into the water, punching the jets to “high”.

I have to admit it felt very erotic as the crystals dissolved into a gentle soapy fragrance and those jets sought out all the hidden places on my body, but not half as erotic as when she began to massage my cock. I returned the favour with her pussy and breasts, which seemed to float on the water, until I could take no more and cried uncle.

"Stop! Or I’ll come.”

“Wimp!” She giggled, but she stopped, got out and grabbed a couple of horse-blankets masquerading as bath towels, one of which she threw to me. I got out and we dried each other. It seemed to take a long time and then we made a landing on the aircraft carrier in the bedroom and she showed me once again that it’s experience, not size (at least, not mine), that counts.

We lay there in a warm glow later, and then she straddled me and began to lay out our programme.

“Tomorrow we get a whole slew of photos of you, all angles. Do you know how to use Photoshop?”

I shook my head.

“It’s OK, I’ll show you. It’s easy when you know how. Do you want to know why?”

“Why?” I asked obligingly, teasing her.

“Well, first we need them for your green card application and to put on your contract. We have to make you look a bit more masculine for that. We can Photoshop your hair shorter, thin your lips and thicken up your eyebrows; make you like you were when you hit Canada. Do you have anyone you have to keep in touch with?”

“Only my mum.” My few friends wouldn’t miss me or expect me to write.

“Well, your mom will expect you to send her pictures, won’t she? To prove how well you’re doing?”

“Yeah. Good idea. I told her I’d write and I’ve sent her a couple of letters already, but no pictures. I couldn’t really once I was working and in character. She and dad wouldn’t have understood. I told them I had a bit-part in a movie.”

“We’ll take enough that you can send different shots every month if you want. We can scan them into your laptop.”

I laughed. “My mum and dad wouldn’t know a computer if it bit them. I write and send snail-mail, but that’s OK. I can use this address, can’t I?”

“How quaint! I never thought of that, but yeah, you can use this address. In fact, we’ll use it for your contract and IRS file.”

“IRS?”

“Our tax dragons.” She shuddered. “You’ll have to pay tax. You really, really don’t want to upset the IRS. They’re the people who put Al Capone away when nobody else could touch him. Don’t worry. I’ll get my lawyer to file your returns and make sure everything is copacetic.

“He’s the first person we go to see after we’ve got your mug shots and we’ll get all the legal stuff under way.”

I chewed my lip as I thought that through.

“Won’t he be suspicious about what’s going on?”

“For what I pay him he won’t even think about it. Actually, that’s not fair. He’s been my mom’s lawyer for ever; ever since she divorced my father, and he’s absolutely trustworthy. He knows things about me...well, just let’s say he could have taken advantage and he never tried. You normally don’t say this about lawyers but he’s a really nice guy.”

She leaned down and kissed me. I responded by stroking her nipples and she slapped my hand away.

“Stay focussed here. The serious stuff starts after that. The day after tomorrow we go to a clinic I know and we fix your face, get you a physical and some injections and pills to begin your transition.”

“Where will we go to do that?” envisaging some secret laboratory in the desert, run by evil, mad scientists.

“Here, of course. L.A.....Hollywood. We have the finest cosmetic surgeons in the world. You don’t think all those marvellous studs and gorgeous females are 100% natural, do you?”

“Doh! But of course! Silly me. But sex changes too?”

“Them too. You only need enough money to buy the best and keep them quiet. You wait till you get your boobs and tush. They will do a magnificent job on you and afterwards nobody will believe you weren’t born with them. Look at mine.”

She hefted them proudly.

I must have gaped. “You mean they’re not real?”

“About 80% real. I just got ‘em enhanced a little, from C to D. A girl has to flaunt herself in this business. See, you never would have guessed. The same man is going to do all your work. He’s a genius....and very discreet.”

“You certainly have everything figured out, Ange. What then?”

“Then Mike disappears and Lina reappears. Except you will be Lina Plus. You’ll need about three weeks for the scars and bruising to fade. You can use that time for practicing. I’ve got tapes and movies and books lined up for you to study. There’s recording gear here so you can play back as you rehearse. All my favourite music, books and even recipes are downstairs so you can get to know my tastes, and I’ll come to see you every day so we can interact. No more male clothes. We want you to be completely comfortable as a girl. The whole object is to make you forget Mike.”

I almost got cold feet there and then. I felt as though I had swallowed a huge chunk of ice and I couldn’t help shivering, and then that golden statuette floated across my vision. My fear must have shown, plus she probably felt the shudder, because she pulled me up into her arms.

“It’s all right, honey,” she murmured, stroking my hair. “It’ll be all right.”

I clutched her to me and buried my face in her neck.

“Just don’t stop loving me, please. Please.”

“Shhh, Shhh. I won’t. C’mon, let’s get dressed now. I’ve done enough to you for one day.”

So we dressed and returned to her mansion in the hills, where Liliana and Emy served us a nice dinner of grilled salmon and salad by the pool and I absorbed what she had told me and came to terms with it. Funnily enough I slept like a log. She showed me a video of us in the morning. We snored in unison, which we both reckoned was hilarious.

“Do you record everything?” I asked.

“Not everything, but lots. It’ll really help when I show you what I do with my girlfriends, because you’ll have to do it one day. I record most business meetings, in case someone tries to put a different spin on what happened. That’ll be useful for you too, because you will know how I interact with various people.”

“What about with me? Have you recorded that?”

“Not us making love, I promise you. Us talking and just being together, yes. You can see it all if you want. It was kinda insurance in case I was wrong and you said no. I’ll destroy it if you say so.”

“Let me see it first, and then I’ll tell you.” I chewed it over. She was one scary woman sometimes.

“Let’s go and have breakfast. The photographer’s coming at nine.”

It had not occurred to me that he would be coming here. I was still not used to this Hollywood extravagance. We went down and had the same breakfast as last time. She was a creature of habit with that, apparently. Afterwards we showered and dressed. The photographer turned up on the dot at nine. So much for “He.” She was striking, a tall, willowy girl, six feet, late thirties, brunette, with reddish hints, and slightly the handsome side of pretty, dressed in a dove-grey slack suit, with a white blouse. She greeted Ange with a serious kiss and held out her hand to me.

“My, Ange, he’s cute,” she said, giving me a wide grin. “OK, are we gonna do this on the patio? The light’s pretty good.”

“You’re the pro, Kris. I trust your judgement.”

“Here then. Let me set my gear up.”

She dragged in a couple of silver-lined reflector umbrellas on tripods and two heavy-duty lamps which she plugged in. Suddenly, it was dazzlingly bright, until she adjusted them to point into the reflectors and there was no place for shadows.

“Make-up?” she asked Ange.

“I think just some powder so he doesn’t shine and thicken up the brows a little.”

Kris worked on me for a couple of minutes and turned back to Ange.

“OK?”

“Yes, that’ll do.”

“How many shots do you want? Will sixty be enough? Digital or film?”

“Take sixty digital. I want a couple of straight mug shots for official papers, and maybe twenty usable portrait style, different angles, head and shoulders only. Film, do a roll of 36 and we’ll take the chance that eight or ten are OK.”

Kris looked offended. “He’s a nice-looking boy. I reckon half will come out good. The digital we can check out on my laptop while I’m still here.”

“Right, you.” I was obviously her piece of meat. “Look where I tell you. Sit there first and then I’ll move you around later.”

I just followed directions for the next half an hour, facing the camera; look up; don’t look up; face that way; face this way; smile; don’t smile; grin; eyes wide; mouth open; mouth closed. Wait while I adjust the reflectors. She herself crouched, knelt, bent, stood straight, stood back, and came close. It was pretty obvious she knew what she was doing. Then she changed cameras and repeated the whole exercise with film.

Finally she said, “Done. Let’s see what we got,” and she unpacked a laptop from a carry bag and plugged in the digital camera. We went inside the house, away from the fierce lights on the patio. In seconds we were looking at me from all angles, paging through the shots. Even the full-frontals looked OK, not like the horrible ones you usually see in passports and on driving-licences that make you seem like some sub-human dork, startled by Freddie from Elm Street.

She really knew how to judge that lighting. Actors appreciate that, not being all shiny or washed-out or a silhouette without features. Every one was clear and sharp. Some were better than others, naturally, as they picked up my best features, but I was pleased as punch with them all. Usually I was my own worst critic when it came to pictures of me. I guess you get what you pay for.

“Satisfactory, as usual,” commented Ange.

“Satisfactory? Satisfactory? They’re bloody good and you know it, you stuck-up bitch. You be careful or you’ll go on my shit list.”

Ange doubled over, “Gotcha, Kris,” she spluttered. “You’re such an easy mark.”

“Cow.” Kris grinned and grabbed her. “I’ll screw you rotten next time we have a session. You’ll walk bandy-legged for a week, so you will.”

She turned to me. “I could give you a taste of honey, too, sweetheart. You’re a nice subject.” She patted me on the cheek.

“I know when I’m not appreciated. I’m going. Besides, I’ve got another appointment. I’ll send the film in a couple of days. Six by fours all right for a start? I’ll scan them through too. Here’s the memory stick for the digitals,” and she handed Ange the tiny item.

She had been busily packing up while she was talking and putting her stuff back in her car. She embraced Ange once more, climbed into her ancient Range Rover and left.

“Let’s go and have another look and print what we need for the lawyer.”

She headed to her desktop and plugged in the memory stick and soon we were scrolling through again.

“I don’t think they need much tweaking. They’re very good. She’s one of the best in the city, and she’s a friend so she won’t go shooting her mouth off. The powder and the touch of make-up on your eyebrows make you much more male. I’ll show you how Photoshop works. We just need to adjust for your hair.”

She selected four of the “mug shots”, moved them around on the screen, fiddled a bit, and did something which took my hair back to a medium male length, sitting just over my ears, grunted her satisfaction, and emailed them to the lawyer.

“There. They’ll be ready when we get there. That’ll save a bit of time.”

Fifteen minutes later we were in the Merc, Carl driving so we didn’t have to worry about parking. The traffic was quite heavy at that time of morning, although rush hour was over and it was just before eleven when we pulled up in front of the U.S. Bank Tower in the heart of downtown L.A.

The very location shouted “Money” and we elevatored (can you use that as a verb?) to the fiftieth floor and a sumptuous office, typically lawyerly with wood panelling, book-filled shelves and soft carpets. Letz, Ripp & Newcomb said the gold leaf on the door. Ange was recognised instantly and a svelte receptionist ushered us to a corner office with a fabulous view of the city (pity the sun wasn’t shining) where a handsome guy of about fifty, trim-built, silver-grey hair, the very model of a modern Hollywood lawyer, greeted her with a genuine hug, shook my hand and asked us to sit. I plopped down in an armchair and my bum kept going until it stopped just shy of the floor. Ange, more used to the furniture, perched delicately on the edge of hers. I wondered how I was ever going to get out of mine without an assist. Still, I was a sometime stunt person. Never give in.

“Good morning, Ange. How’s your mother? Haven’t seen her for a while.”

“She’s fine, Newk. As crazy as ever, but fine.”

Mr. Silver Fox turned to me.

“Mr. Stewart, I’m John Newcomb. Ange has asked me to draw up a contract for you and to commence procedures to regularise your presence in the USA, that is, get you a green card. That shouldn’t be difficult as I understand you’re British. Do you have your passport with you?”

I produced the maroon document from my pocket and handed it to him. He took it and quickly flipped through it.

“We’ll have to hang onto it for a few days. We’ll give you a receipt of course. Is that OK?”

What could I do but smile and nod.

“The photos came through, Ange. They’ll do fine. Now, If you like, I’ll hand Mr. Stewart over to my associate and we’ll get on with that other business.”

“Let’s do that, Newk.” She smiled at me. “Mike, will you excuse us while we deal with some messy family stuff?”

An invisible signal brought a petite girl in her mid-thirties into the room, an Asian with cropped hair and a mannish black business suit over a white shirt.

“Ms. Ho, will you look after Mr. Stewart, please?” and I could see I was gone from his mind.

I levered myself out of the clutches of that chair and the girl extended her hand to me.

“Ida Ho, Mr. Stewart, let’s go to my office,” and she opened the door and ushered me out.

We walked along the corridor and she opened her door, only two along from Newk’s. She didn’t rate a corner, but still had a great view. She showed me to a chair at her desk, a fairly standard comfortably padded one which didn’t try to devour me, and she went to the business side of the desk and seated herself. She smiled and reached for a thin sheaf of paper in a tray, pushing it across the desk to my side.

“Mr. Stewart, here’s your draft contract which we got ready on Ms. LaBelle’s instructions. Maybe you’d like to read it and tell me if it’s OK, or if you would like anything changed. While you’re doing that I’ll start getting your green card papers and your IRS forms prepared.”

I took it from her and started to read:

Employment Contract
(I’m only putting in the essentials)

Employer: Angelina LaBelle

Employee: Michael Stewart

Position: Personal Trainer/ Special Effects Advisor

Contract Period: 5 (Five) Years (Renewable on satisfactory completion of service)

Commencement Date: 5 November 2008

Salary: US $1,000,000 per annum equivalent, paid as follows. Initial payment upon signing contract US$ 200,000. Monthly payments thereafter US$80,000 x 60 months

Annual Leave: 2 (Two) Weeks (to be taken by mutual agreement to suit Employer’s schedule)

Medical: All medical expenses to be borne by Employer

Employee’s Duties: To provide personal services as required by Employer at any hour or on any day. Such duties may include substitution for Employer in Industry-Related situations.......Employer shall supply costumes and clothing as required............Employee shall wear such attire as directed without demur...........Employer shall provide and direct cosmetic procedures as required.........This may include physical enhancements........ Employee shall not refuse such treatments without due cause........Refusal shall be grounds for dismissal......

Termination: The Contract may not be terminated during the first 3 (three) years except by the incapacitation or death of the Employee, or refusal to abide by the duties outlined above, or if the Employee shall commit a felony resulting in a prison sentence. In the event of termination, one year’s remuneration shall be forfeit.......and the Employee shall reimburse the Employer for the cost of all cosmetic and/or physical enhancements received up until the date of termination.

During the final 2 (two) years The Contract may be terminated by either party giving to the other six months notice without penalty.

************

There was lots more, like suitable accommodation provided free of charge and transport supplied, but I knew what I was getting into and a million dollars a year and a shot at an Oscar was too hard for me to refuse. The worst that could happen was that I had to do a runner after a few months and leave the money behind, and I could transfer some and how would they find me or it. $200,000 up front could solve a lot of problems. I didn’t intend to cheat on her, but you never knew. Shit happens.

“I’m happy with all that,” I told Ida when I had finished reading.

“Good,” she said. “I’ve just about finished the INS and IRS paperwork, so you can look that over too, and sign them all if you’re happy.”

They were standard Government forms of the kind you find anywhere, wanting all sorts of irrelevant information like your grandmother’s maiden name, but I had no problem with them, and signed all three documents (in triplicate) for her. She witnessed them and told me to wait while she went and got Ms. LaBelle to sign. I somehow got the impression she didn’t like Ange much.

She came back a couple of minutes later with Newk and Ange in tow. Ange sailed in and kissed me, pulling me out of the chair as she did so.

“I’m glad you approved, darling, and I’ve told Newk to arrange the first payment today. Here’s your copy of the Contract. The timing was good, too. We had just finished our other business. Thanks, Newk. Thanks, Ida. We can go now, and get out of your hair.”

“Always a pleasure to see you, Ange. Give my best to your mother and tell her not to marry an axe murderer, or she’ll do me out of repeat business.” Newk chuckled at his little joke.

We exited the offices with Ida and Newk escorting us, and Ange rang Carl on the cell while we waited for the lift (sorry, de-elevator) and when we got to street level, there he was waiting for us.

She dropped me off at her house and sped off to her next appointment, leaving me to the tender mercies of the two maids. I stopped them from feeding me by going for a swim and doing katas for half an hour before showering. I wandered round in a bathrobe and found the gym, so I went and got some shorts and a singlet and used the exercise bike and the walking-machine for an hour. This could be the last time as a man, I thought. Enjoy.

Eventually I went for another shower and was relaxing with a biography of her and a shandy ( half beer, half lemonade..which I had to show Emy how to make) on the patio when she returned. She grabbed me and hugged me.

“I’m so excited. We start tomorrow. I’ve got you lined up for a nose job, a bit of work around the eyes, permanent lip-filling, a tracheal shave and a couple of other bits and bobs. I’ve seen the projections and you should look just like me afterwards.”

“Well, I’ve gotta earn my money, haven’t I?”

She was chivvying me along at seven in the morning, after a night demonstrating that she really was excited. I groaned a little, because she could be very energetic. Anyway, we were in the Prius by 7.45, me without breakfast, because I was going to be under anaesthetics, and speeding away from the city towards her favourite clinic. We passed through the gate at 8.15 and I was in a doctor’s office getting an extremely thorough check-up fifteen minutes later.

I was undressed and on a gurney about an hour later. One slight prick in the arm and a demand to count to ten and that was it. Just before I passed out I remembered it was my nineteenth birthday.

I woke up and Ange was by my side holding my hand.

“How do you feel?”

I considered. My eyes hurt. My nose hurt. My lips hurt. My throat hurt. My chest was sore, my stomach was sore....and something wasn’t right in my groin and my bum.

Croaking, I relayed these feelings to Ange. She immediately gave me a glass of water with a straw and told me to sip.

“Ah, that’s better,” still hoarse, but no longer grinding gravel. “What did they do to me? It feels like more than you told me to expect.”

She looked a little embarrassed, but then grinned.

“Wait and I’ll tell you. You’re going to love it, but first I want you to see what you look like.”

She pulled me up in the bed to a sitting position, and fronted me with a mirror, like the one a barber shows you when he asks you if your hair’s all right at the back.

“Jesus Christ! Did they take a baseball bat to me?”

My face was black and blue, and purple and yellow and green, all over. Bandages lurked at the corners of my eyes and over my nose. My lips were swollen and puffy like a cartoon camel. I was a classic picture of a domestic violence victim.

“It’s all right. Everybody looks like that after cosmetic surgery. In three weeks you’ll be beautiful.

“You’d better be right, Ange, or you’ve wasted your money. What about down here?” I waved a hand down at my body.
I could see some suspicious-looking mounds under the loose hospital gown.

“Look, I’ll tell you everything. After your physical the surgeon suggested that we take the opportunity to perform a couple of extra procedures, since we were keeping you in overnight and some of the procedures needed full anaesthetic anyway. You’re fit and young and there were some things he felt would help in your transition, so you had the eye clip to make them slightly larger, and your nose has been reshaped. You’ve got Gore-Tex implants in your lips and a tracheal shave.

“I told you about all those. What he suggested was that we give you a head start on your breast development, so he put in saline implants, about ”A” cup size, so that as the hormones work we increase your bust in increments. You’ll be part natural and part enhanced. It will make it easier for you to adjust at each stage of your development.

“Then he recommended a few other simple procedures; liposuction to reduce your waist and a double orchiectomy to increase the effectiveness of your hormone treatments. Without all that testosterone to fight your feminisation will go much more quickly. Oh, and buttock implants to improve your shape. Isn’t that good?”

My blood ran cold. No balls! The other things I could have reversed, but.....No Balls! So much for my emergency scenario of skipping if I didn’t like where things were heading. I had been out-manoeuvred. That wasn’t in the script. Somehow I managed to smile. Ange kept on enthusing.

“You’ve already had your first series of hormone injections and I have your pills for the next month right here. You have to come back and see the doctor in a few days and again in a week to get all the stitches taken out and to check that everything is going all right. After that, once a month should be enough.”

“Lovely,” I said in my best Lina voice, although still hoarse from the tracheal shave. I had better get used to it. Mike was now irrelevant and superfluous, if not a fading shadow. “Can I get up now?”

“Yes, darling, of course you can. We can take you home anytime.”

Wanting to see what was under my hospital gown I got up from the bed. Everything was still sore, but I could move without much difficulty. When I was up I got her to help me take off the gown. She had seen me naked so there was no need for any false modesty.

When I had stripped I looked at my body in a full-length mirror on the wall. I was wearing a support-bra and my bust line was visible but not obtrusive, rather nice actually and only slightly bruised. My waist didn’t seem much different, a little smaller, a couple of inches perhaps, but then I hadn’t been at all fat before. I could see that my waistline segued nicely into the curve of my bum. Oh, yes, very feminine. Amazing how different it looked. I took a deep breath when I examined my groin. My cock looked just fine, no different. There was a dressing behind it, but he must have cut only enough to get them out, maybe four inches. In fact the dressings on all the incisions were pretty small. The guy knew his business.

“Did he say if it would still work?” I asked Ange, indicating my member.

“Yes, it’ll keep on keeping on until the hormones win out. We’ll still be able to use it for at least a year, maybe longer with Viagra.” She grinned evilly and gave it a little flip with two fingers.

She produced a bag of clothes for my home-going, very simple. A satin cerise blouse, high-necked and long-sleeved, a pair of white cotton panties, a calf-length, lined black linen skirt, flared from the hips, a pair of black ballet-flats, enormous sun-glasses and a big floppy black sun-hat. I put on the basics and she brushed my hair out so that it concealed some of the damage. When I put on the hat and glasses I had the uneasy feeling that I looked like Michael Jackson.

We left after making two appointments for me, one in two days and one in a week’s time, and she drove us back to Belair, parking next to my little white Honda in the garage. We went inside and she told me not to bathe or shower until the next day, as some of the dressings were not waterproof.

She fussed around me for a while and left, assuring me she would come back in the evening. When she had gone I cried, hoping that would not damage the gauze round my eyes. I was a girl again, dressed as one, but more than that, irreversibly on the way to full womanhood....or as near as I could ever become. Too much..... too fast! Hush, Lina, think Oscar. That little golden man of dreams must replace the man that was or sort of is....still....just. Oh, yes, I cried, for lots of reasons.

Eventually the tears dried up and I dabbed ever so carefully at my eyes. I went and poured myself a stiff gin-and-tonic and got rid of it in five minutes, then poured another, taking this one much slower. At a loose end, I turned on the huge plasma TVs, which showed Ange, walking, pirouetting, sitting, bending, smiling, and so I began to practice again to be her, as I had in Vancouver, promising myself I would become Angelina LaBelle, in soul and heart and spirit, as well as body.

The show must go on.......break a leg, Lina.

I went back to the clinic two days later with her holding my hand and they checked me up and pronounced me good. The next week I drove myself and had all the stitches and most of the dressings removed. I was now merely yellow and a muddy sort of green, most of the swelling gone and I could see Ange peeping through. Only my nose stayed out of sight.

They wanted me back in two weeks to deal with that. Well, I did as bid and when the dressing came off, watched Ange watching me from the mirror. Eerie! I got my next set of shots at the same time. I had decided resistance was futile. I did look better than any Borg though.

After another three weeks of practice I was really getting into her skin. Not only movement and mannerisms, but voice and facial expression. I was practicing writing like her and her signature,which I needed for autographs and purchases by credit card, listening to her music and reading her books, even her childhood books; the Oz series, Anne Of Green Gables, Black Beauty, Little Women, Princess Ozma, soaking up her essence. I went through all her scrapbooks and sat with her and questioned her about the events in pictures and the people with her. I needed to know every intimate detail of her life because it was going to be my life.

Her history became mine too. She had been a catwalk model before going into movies and I got her to show me the little tricks of the trade and soon I could strut like the best of the supermodels.

Sure, I dressed like her 24/7 but I worked at being her sixteen hours a day, and maybe even in my sleep. My four months in Vancouver helped tremendously. I had a headstart in movement, mannerisms, body language and in make-up.

Ange came over nearly every afternoon or evening and we would sit next to each other at the make-up bench and she patiently taught me all her magic tricks until I could duplicate her every move with brushes and pencils, on lips and cheeks and eyes. In six weeks it was almost second nature. We wore the same outfits and identical jewellery, styled our hair the same and looked like identical twin sisters. I had to wear bust enhancers and push-up bras, of course, but other than that anyone would have been hard-put to tell Ange from Lina.....except for one thing.

She proved to me that my male remainder still worked. She really delighted in having us dressed identically and then slowly and lasciviously undressing while we kissed and cuddled, finally falling into bed and going at it like crazed rabbits. It turned me on pretty much too, and even though it was me sticking it into her I began to feel like we were two women making love or that I was the girl and she was the man.

More and more I became submerged in her, became her.....became me. It was less and less of a conscious act as I absorbed the very essence of being Ange, of being one of the most beautiful and sexy women in the world and I embraced my role, revelled in it, exulted as I admired myself in gorgeous outfits and watched myself twirl like a princess, with those Ange features smiling back at me, and I still had great legs, better than hers, I thought.

We gave it another two months before I undertook a public impersonation. She had an appointment to go to a children's ward at a cancer hospital and visit the kids. We thought that they would be a fairly uncritical audience, so I filled in for her. God, those poor children, many under a virtual death sentence, and so utterly cheerful and brave, skin and bone and bald from chemotherapy, all pathetically happy to see me. I was devastated and weeping by the end of the visit and thought I had blown it, but everybody seemed to think I was entirely normal. We both had hearts after all, apparently. Or maybe the hormones were catching up with me.

Talking of hormones, I definitely began to feel them after two months. My nipples and aureoles grew and became so sensitive that Ange could make me climax just by sucking and licking my nipples, and not just any ordinary male climax but a full out-of-control shuddering-all-over electrodes-to-the-skin orgasm. It was a blast and Ange would laugh herself sick at the effect she had on me, while I lay drained and panting but totally fulfilled. Becoming a girl certainly had its compensations.

From then on I could almost feel my mind and body change. I could burst into tears over a coffee commercial or go into ecstasy over the way a skirt caressed my legs. I inspected myself every morning to see if my bust was growing bigger, impatient to get my next, larger, implants, softer skin, more luxuriant hair, the sheer joy of being beautiful was overwhelming.

Girlhood....womanhood.....femininity....burst upon me. Mike disappeared and Lina blossomed. My every action and reaction was that of a newly minted, slightly dizzy, female. I know it's ever so hackneyed and banal, but I began to love to go shopping for clothes and shoes and jewellery, to try on a dozen dresses in a single boutique, twenty pairs of Manolo Blahniks or Jimmy Choos before choosing two or three pairs, admire the swing and sway of a pair of long dangly earrings brushing against my neck or the way the diamonds on a necklace nestled between my breasts, sparkling. Catching sight of my beautifully shaped and lacquered nails never failed to make me feel oh so pretty. Ange encouraged me to select our clothes and said my choices made her feel fresh and new because of the obvious pleasure I got out of it.

I took over more and more of her duties and responsibilities. I went to dinners and opened shopping centres, made appearances that she had agreed to, even did interviews for her. We prepared for these with extensive sessions of video. She filmed most of her engagements, both public and private, and she would fill me in on her relationships and dealings with the people she was meeting at any specific function. She had an excellent eye for detail and I tried hard to keep up with her. She had me go to meetings with her agent and swapped places at her home, where I interacted with the servants. She even arranged for me to meet her parents, which quite terrified me, but her mother accepted me for who I appeared to be (she was a bit spaced-out on some kind of tranquiliser) and the visit passed off without a hitch. Her father was so far up himself that he scarcely noticed me and I understood why she really couldn't stand him.

She kept me away from Troy, for which I was grateful. Although she showed me videos of the two of them together I was terrified that a husband would know his own wife, and I still wasn’t correctly equipped down below. In any case I didn’t want to find out. She had said they would probably split up and half of me hoped they would, but then I would see him on TV or in one of his movies. He told these stories of how he had dressed in a chicken suit for a gig when he was a struggling young actor and always got a laugh. I didn't fancy him sexually, but there was no doubt that he was a hunk and he came across with this insouciant sense of humour and deprecated himself with such innocent charm that I could see how he won her heart. I liked him very much.....theoretically, of course.

He was also no slouch as an actor. Mostly, of course, he got cast as the hero in action movies, but occasionally he got a more nuanced role and seemed to manage to surprise everybody, including himself, by the depths he brought to the character he played. He had been nominated for an Oscar a couple of times, but missed out on the actual award.

After a year, when I had my second implants and was a C-cup (which I really, really loved, by the way), she decided I was ready to take over part-time in one of her movies, directed by the famous Didley Squatt. This one was a story about a genteel young woman in love with a man from the wrong side of the tracks set in Edwardian times, so the costumes were very modest and there were no nude scenes (or scantily-dressed ones for that matter) nor stunts. The working title was “Lady And The Tramp.” It turned out to be a dog of a movie as far as the box office was concerned. There's no accounting for the taste of the public.

Ange worked it so that I played about half her scenes, while she took time off with her lesbian lovers. I didn’t begrudge her, because by this time I knew how hard she worked, and besides it was great to act again.....in a movie that is, rather than real life. I really enjoyed it and when we saw the finished product we both reckoned I was rather good. So did the critics. Pity it was a bomb.

So gradually I took over half her life, and two years into our contract there was no longer any acting about it. We were the identical twins Ange and Lina. she could start a sentence and I would finish it. The fateful day came for me to lose an appendage and gain the ultimate working parts of a woman. In a way it was my Christmas present, a little after my twenty-first birthday, and while we were at it I got my enhancement to a full D-cup. I went into the clinic eager to become complete, as the beautiful and talented woman I now embraced as myself.

It hurts. It really, really hurts. My twin sister was with me when I woke up and groaned. Even the drugs don’t take all the pain away. That first week she stayed with me nearly all my waking time and tortured me with this giant rubber sausage that she repeatedly shoved into my raw slit. It was agony, no matter how well lubricated it was and enough to put me off cocks for life. I hated her then. Even five million dollars and an Oscar were not worth this.

But day-by-day the pain lessened and I was allowed to go home after two weeks. She could not be with me all the time so I had to dilate myself, actually starting to enjoy the feeling, until in a few short weeks I was glad to be fully female and started thinking that maybe penises weren't so bad after all. Ange had introduced me to vibrators and dildos once I had healed sufficiently and soon had me squealing in ecstasy as she showed me all the different ways to use them.

I remember the two of us standing together in front of the mirror, naked, one day about four weeks after the operation and there was no way you could tell us apart unless you knew that I took a bigger shoe-size than her (an 8 rather than a 7). I thought that actually I didn't need her any more, because I was me, Angelina, but I pushed the thought away. After all, I loved her and she was paying me a million dollars a year. Actually I didn't need that now, because I just used my credit card and signed for everything.

But something inside me had changed. I WAS her but HER was ME. I was one of the most beautiful and famous women in the world now. There was no trace of Mike any more; had not been for quite a while. How to explain this? The act of being her had become the fact of being her. I was Ange now. No....that wasn't right....I was Angelina and I didn't need a mirror to prove it.

It was back to work after six weeks and another movie, with the new James Bond as the co-star, directed by Skinny Spinach. Again no stunts or sexy undress required, although some of the dresses were pretty revealing. I did the whole performance and I was good. All the critics said so. Ange, meanwhile, kept on educating me thoroughly in my new sex. I was soon spending time with her lady-friends and loved all the things I was learning. I was nervous at first at being in these intimate situations with women who knew my alter-ego so well, but Ange gave me extensive lessons and commentaries on the whims of each girl and they accepted me as her in bed. I slept with some of the most beautiful and famous women in Hollywood. Men would have envied me, and, best of all, it made me feel so deliciously evil.

Vibrators and dildos and what it was like to have my pussy licked became a new part of my life (I already knew the other end of the equation). She was such a sexual athlete that she was off cavorting with her men and women. I had learned by then that being jealous was a waste of time. Then one day she sat me down and showed me a disc of her and Troy making love. They were both enjoying themselves. It was easy to see that Troy was by the grin on his face ; a bit harder with Ange as her expression was distorted by the dick in her mouth.

“I thought you were going to divorce him,” I spoke hopefully as I watched her suck his cock.

“I keep on thinking about it, but he’s actually a very nice man and I haven’t caught him out with anyone yet. Look,” she nudged me, “he’s really good in bed too.”

I watched as she let him roll on top of her and guide his pretty substantial member into herself, moving in rhythm with his strokes, obviously enjoying it, until with a rippling shudder, they both came.

“Why are you showing me this?”

She gripped me by my shoulders. “Because you have to know how to do it. It’s your last test.”

“Ange, I can’t....I just can’t. He’ll know I’m not you and we’ll be exposed.”

“No he won’t, and neither will we, be exposed I mean. He’s nice but he’s not that smart. Don’t worry. I’ll show you lots of these and you’ll know exactly what he likes and how to handle him. Besides, if he told anyone, who would believe him?”

“I really don’t want to,” I wailed. “I don’t like men.”

“You have to. It’s part of our deal. Besides, all you have to do is what women have done since the dawn of time. When having a headache won’t stop him you lie back, spread your legs, close your eyes, grit your teeth and think of England.”

She seemed to think that was awfully funny and laughed like a loon while I just looked at her askance.

For days she showed me videos of the two of them making love. It always started with her sucking his tool and obviously swallowing his sperm when he came. A couple of times that was all that happened and they both went to sleep, but on most occasions he would roll over and give her a licking, either her pussy or her breasts or both, tickling her and laughing. It was quite clear that he enjoyed the play and in no time he would be inside her and she would enjoy herself as much as he did. I swear she winked at me through the camera’s eye on several occasions, the rotten bitch.

Troy actually talked to her after they made love. He didn't take her too seriously either and teased her and made little jokes in a good-natured kind of way. He would lie next to her twiddling a nipple with his other hand playing with her pussy until she grabbed his wrist and pulled his fingers further inside her and spasmed as she came. He was definitely not a wham, bam, thank-you-ma'am type of lover. He could keep my Ange going for ages, grinning as he fondled her. It almost made me jealous.

Finally she said to me one night, “Tonight’s the night, Lina darling. I know he’ll want it because he’s going on location for a month or more tomorrow. So do it tonight and then you won’t have to worry about it for a while. We don’t get together that often. You’ll be able to come up with excuses most of the time, but he’ll get suspicious if he doesn’t have me tonight.”

Sometimes you have to sacrifice for your art, right? So I drove to the house in the Canyons in her car and was greeted by Troy with a big kiss. I knew how to talk to him and we had a steak and salad on the patio by the pool. I tried to keep him engaged in conversation until he started looking puzzled and I realised I was overdoing it. He got up after a while and grabbed me by the hand, towing me upstairs to the main bathroom and bedroom.

There he embraced me, leaving me little choice but to return the favour. When he started to undress me I was forced to strip him too, until we both stood naked next to the shower. Bowing to the inevitable I put on a shower-cap and stepped into the stall, pulling him in behind me, a rictus of a smile on my lips. We soaped each other and rinsed ourselves off. He would be standing up like a horizontal flagpole, wouldn’t he? No chance of getting out of this. We dried ourselves and he picked me up and gently carried me to the bed, just like a brand-new bride, and, in a way, I suppose that's what I was.... he just didn't know it.

My mind was screaming “Go to sleep.” No such luck, of course, and then he was lying on his back, all expectant-like, a silly smile on his face. What could a girl do? I nuzzled down and got to work, remembering all the pointers in Ange’s videos. I licked and sucked exactly as I'd seen her do it. Two minutes later and he came. I swallowed every last drop and licked my lips for his benefit. He grinned at me cheekily. It wasn’t half as bad as I had imagined it might be, a fairly neutral taste, slightly salty, so I licked him clean for good measure and hoped that that would be all he wanted.

I lay down beside him, projecting “Go to sleep, go to sleep, go to sleep,” but evidently I wasn’t a mentalist.

Five minutes later, he was on top of me and sucking my nipples for all he was worth. I couldn’t stop getting turned on and I felt myself responding down below. My legs were already apart and I was lying down, so I gritted my teeth, closed my eyes and thought.

“England....England....England.....England.....England.”

He entered me, and I couldn’t grit my teeth any more because my mouth popped open into an O of surprise at the wonderful intensity of the feeling of him inside me. My eyes too popped open of their own accord and I was looking straight into his eyes, not just looking but losing myself in them. My legs went up and gripped his body, pulling him down into me. My arms were around his neck and we were kissing fiercely, as he pumped away and I responded with counter-thrusts that drove him deeper and deeper into my body, threatening to stab me all the way through, but I no longer cared as I made little whimpering noises with each gorgeous plunge of his weapon.

“Bugger Bognor!”

That was my last semi-cogent thought as I succumbed to the mind-numbing pleasure of making love with that lovely man. I felt every inch of him stretching me inside, threatening to split me in two, the frictionless traction of his member inside me, but my vagina fought back and lovingly squeezed him into, if not submission, at least a kind of armed truce as we thrust against each other, him grunting and me squealing. My whole body became a giant sex organ, nipples like rocks, feeling every brush against them. My skin was being caressed by ten thousand feathers, like tiny electric shocks tickling and tingling. My lips and tongue were jammed against his, grinding, trying to become one.

I know I screamed when I came. You can see fireworks, you know, skyrockets and Catherine wheels, galaxies and stars and all, and that was only the first time that night. I was a hungry female animal now, a tigress, wanting to devour him, wanting him to devour me. Whenever we had climaxed I would begin working on him again to bring him back to a state of arousal, so I could fuck him again. Four times we made love. This was what I was designed for. I could have gone more but he went to sleep....just like a man! And he snored too! Pout!

I woke in the morning with him leaning over me, playing with one of my nipples, cupping a breast in his hand.

I smiled up at him through bruised lips. “Want more?” I asked, grasping his penis, and massaging it slowly.

“You have to be joking. Anyway, who are you? You're not Ange.”

I stiffened in shock. “What are you talking about? I’m your wife. Are you crazy?”

“No you’re not,” he said, very calmly. “You may look like her, talk like her, walk like her, move like her, dress like her, but you’re not her. She doesn’t make love like you. Who are you?”

“You’re mad. Too much sex has fried your brains,” near panic, I tried to dissimulate.

He stroked my hair away from my eyes and kissed me, gazing deep into my eyes and making me catch my breath, heart aflutter. My arms went around his neck of their own volition and I suddenly realised why millions of women swooned over him in his movies. Do you believe in love at first sight? It wasn’t exactly first sight but I knew I wanted more nights like last night. I wanted them now. I wanted them forever.

“Tell me. I’m not going to hurt you or make a scene and I don’t want you to leave. I just want to know what I’m in for.” He seemed very persuasive with his face inches from mine.

I gave in. My cover was obviously blown. I had slipped out of control and out of character. I had to try to rescue the situation, because I thought I had just fallen in love and a life without him in it would be unbearable. He lay there on his back and I didn’t think; I just lowered my lips to his dick and said, “Mmmmmm.”

My nipples were rock-hard and my vagina was wet. His penis was a vertical shaft, so I straddled him quickly and when I was in position I slid down him like a fireman (woman) on my way to a call-out. When I got to the bottom I gave a little wriggle and a gentle squeeze to make sure I didn’t fall off. I was securely impaled. Neither of us were going anywhere unless he got soft and, with me on top, I could guarantee soft was not an option. Deep breath time.

“My name was Mike Stewart.....” I began to tell him the story, making sure to give him an occasional squeeze with my brand-new vaginal muscles to keep him alert. Those first few words stiffened him up no end. It was really nice.

I managed about half the tale before I stopped talking and started whimpering and then screaming, and he was producing these really heavy-duty grunts and then we were writhing against each other until his cock expanded into that super-size that men get when they are about to come and my passage decided that there was no way it was going to let him go and all of my muscles pulled him into me. I felt his release as everything gushed from me in a warm flood and we both collapsed panting in each other’s embrace.

We lay there, spent, caressing and kissing, still entwined and impaled, breathless.

“You were saying....” he said between kisses, three fingers inside me, kneading and rubbing my clitoris and vagina.

“No soul. Men have no soul,” I giggled as I cupped his face in my hands, returning his kisses. A short while later I resumed the story. I tried to revive his ardour, but it wasn’t working, so I just carried on gently stroking him, just in case, as it were.

“I signed an Agreement....” By the time I reached the end of my narrative he was well and truly aroused again, so we did a repeat performance of the fireman’s (or firewoman’s) waltz. I think this time we really were buggered when we finished, but I still wanted more. He slapped my hand away from his limpness when I tried to give it mouth-to-mouth, but he was laughing.

“I need a rest, fer crissake.”

He took the sting out of his actions by rolling over and giving me a big cuddle.

“Well, Mike Stewart, what do you want to do? Do we stay married? Do we get a divorce? I’ve been half expecting Ange to divorce me for a while now. What do you want to do?”

“I think I don’t want to let you go, but you probably don’t want a pseudo-woman in your life. If there’s any doubt in your mind you can think about it while you’re on location.”

He laughed heartily, wrapping me in his arms and gazing into my eyes, making my heart thump at the physical contact.

“I think you’ve been set up, “Mike”. Didn’t she tell you it’s snowing in The Rockies and our shoot’s been postponed?” He was teasing me with the Mike.

“No, she didn’t. The bitch. Does this mean you’ll be here for a while? And stop calling me Mike. He doesn’t exist any more and I think I’ve earned the right to at least be called Lina.”

Hope surged within me that he would be staying, and hope against hope that he would want me with him, especially at night.....although daytime would do quite nicely too.....as long as we were both naked. I squeezed his tool, just so he remembered.

“I’ll stay if you want. It’s probably going to be a week late and I need to get to know you better if we’re going to be repeating last night on a regular basis....Lina. In fact I would rather call you Ange, if that’s OK with you.”

My heart fibrillated when he said that. Finally I had become Ange, and if I had anything to do with it, I would be HIS Ange

“Almost anything you want to do will be all right with me as long as you stay. A week, huh? Oh goody. I’ll have to cancel a few things or get her to fill in for me for a change. Just think! A whole week in bed with Troy Witt.”

He blanched. “You’ll have to be gentle with me,” he said plaintively. “We’ll need to take some time out for eating and sleeping.”

“Consider it done. My first meal break starts now,” as I bent my head down to consume a fat eight-inch sausage.

He dragged my head back up to his face, laughing as he kissed me.

“A-a-a-a-w-w-w. Spoilsport.” I snuggled into him.

We got up about an hour later, showered and donned bathrobes. I called down to the girls to get breakfast ready and we went down to the patio. I tried to get Ange on her cell with no luck, and then my phone beeped that an SMS had come in. I opened it.

“I c u r getting along real well. I hv to do sum stuff n will b away for a bit. Sorry. Keep up gd work. Talk l8r. Luv Ange.”

Of course she had probably watched it all on her camera set-up. I should have guessed. I told Troy and then I started ringing around to see what I could put off or cancel for the next few days. Actually, this was supposed to be “my” time of the month, so the schedule was quite a bit lighter than usual, and, apart from a couple of art evenings and a dinner (all of which would be delighted to have Troy accompany me) I was able to clear my calendar for the next week.

After that it got impossible. “We” were due to start a new movie, and that’s something you can’t get out of. Troy, being an actor, understood, and he would probably be gone by then anyway. At least we had a week. Just like a honeymoon, I thought.

After breakfast we went back to bed. The maids had made it already, so we made a mess of it again. Maids do what they have to do and us Hollywood stars do what we have to do. I hoped Ange watched and got jealous, but, knowing her, she probably thought it was hilarious, a huge joke.

We got up again at noon and went for a swim and a frolic in the pool, skipping lunch. Then we both put in an hour in the gym. Some things have to go on regardless. The evening was one of the appointments I had not been able to skip; an art show for charity, so it was a Versace LBD and Jimmy Choo heels for me. I took extra care in making myself look good. Even if I was one of the most beautiful women on the planet I wasn't going to have him looking at anyone else. Troy was so handsome in his tux, and Carl ferried us to our destination.

Afterwards, instead of going straight home, we had dinner at the recently re-opened “Les Deux Cafe” where I had to really resist their decadent sweets, even though I knew I would probably burn more than a few calories later on.

I so enjoyed being on Troy’s arm all night and having him hold me round my waist. I couldn’t keep my hands off of him either, and I’m sure a lot of people noticed. Let them talk. Here I was...in love.

We talked. He said he wanted to know me better and I was fine with that. Ange had always kept us at arm’s length before my operation and hadn’t told me as much about him as she could have. In fact she had said their marriage probably wouldn’t last, so I didn’t know a lot about him, only the public image from interviews and, of course, his movies. His private persona was no different, in fact, although he told me about his boringly normal childhood and teen years in Ohio. There was nothing false about him. What you saw was what you got.

Would you believe we only made love a couple of times that night as we swapped backgrounds and anecdotes and little details, from early childhood onwards, him filling me in on some of Angie’s wilder moods and moments. She could certainly lose it on occasion, apparently a legacy from her father, another famous actor with a reputation for eccentricity.

At one stage I asked him if he had ever made love with a man before. He grinned.

“Darlin’, this is Hollywood. You should know all kinds of strange things happen here. If you’re asking me about you and me, well, you definitely are not a man, OK? As to what happened before, you don’t need to know!”

He stroked my boobs and made me purr like a pussycat. He is a lovely man. Ange had said he was not that bright, but I think she was wrong and he surely is sensitive.

The week passed and the snow in The Rockies melted, so he had to go. He held me in his arms as he was getting ready to leave.

“You’ll be here when I get back, won’t you?”

I felt like I was Scarlett in a scene with Rhett, or Ilsa farewelling Rick in “Casablanca”

“I’ll be waiting for you,” and I offered my face up for him to kiss me. Schmaltzy but true.

“You’re my real Angelina now, you know. I can pick you from her and you’re the one I want.”

He cupped my face in his hands and kissed me again, like he meant it.

"You know how I can tell, apart from when we're in bed?"

I shook my head, not taking my eyes away from his, wishing we could hold this moment for ever.

"Because when you look at me I can see the love in your eyes. When you hold me you don't want to let go. I think the used-to-be Ange could never quite let herself love me totally and she couldn't quite believe that I loved her back. With you it's like looking into your soul and your soul is trying to climb into mine. I love you."

My heart whizzed around inside me and I cried tears of joy, laying my head on his chest and clutching him to me, while a small part of me wondered how somebody as mercenary and ambitious as me could be behaving like this. Would all this emotion fade when he was out of sight? I sighed. Only time would tell, but I didn't think so. I was wondering what I would do about Ange, seeing as how I was stealing her husband. God, I loved him so much. No matter what, she wasn't getting him back.

With him gone I threw myself back into being the star that I was supposed to be. Without the other Ange I had to do the whole of the new movie by myself. Not that I minded. It was a part that gave me dramatic exposure and a shot at that Oscar. It was directed by a megalomaniac but brilliant man called Cameron Dames and I was playing a spoiled young girl who fell in love with a penniless artist, who died at the climax of the movie, sacrificing himself so that I could live. It was set on a transatlantic liner and had a working title of “Iceberg”. I threw everything I had into my performance.

I tried and tried to find Ange. At least I told myself I did, even though I was finding life to be better with her absent. I no longer had to spend time maintaining our subterfuge so I could relax and be a bit less watchful, and, of course, I had Troy all to myself. That was the best bit. My love for him grew and grew. When he was home he would come to the studios and sit quietly watching me do my thing. I really think it helped enormously, because I used to imagine it was him I was making love to instead of my co-star. Anyway, I looked all over for Ange, but all that happened was that every now and again I would get an email or an SMS on these lines:

“Hi Lina,
Don’t worry. I am doing something very important which I have to do. I think I’ll probably be away for about six months. You’re doing great from what I hear. Sorry you have to do it all. Keep it up and I shall return,
Ange”

I received such messages about once a month with her time of absence gradually diminishing. In my heart of hearts I didn't want her back. Without her I was free to be me, Angelina LaBelle, on my own terms, no more masquerade. I began to put my own stamp on my life, just subtle differences, modulating some of what I had thought were my less desirable traits, hopefully becoming a better person and trying to make sure it was really me that Troy loved. I would fight her tooth and nail if she tried to reclaim him for herself if and when she did return. He was mine now and I wasn't letting him go. That lovely man belonged to me, in bed and out of it.

“Iceberg” ran horrifically over time and budget. Nothing satisfied our Director until we had done it a dozen times. We were still at it eight months later. The only good thing was that it was so time-consuming that my non-movie schedule withered on the vine. I simply could not go to art-shows and dinners and openings of envelopes, so I ended up with more time with Troy (between his movies) and our relationship just grew stronger and stronger. It didn’t seem to bother him at all that I was a transsexual. In fact he said I was more woman than nearly any of the ones he had as leading ladies. And I did try to be his woman, to more than fill any Angie-sized hole in his life. I know I’ve said it before but he really is a nice man and the more I got of him the more I loved him, not just in bed but in every part of our lives. I couldn't for the life of me understand why I had been thinking of divorcing him. I must have been mad.

The gossip-columnists who had been predicting our break-up were confounded and the thrice-damned paparazzi got pics of us everywhere nuzzling and cuddling and canoodling and obviously in love. Nobody knew what to make of it. Troy was asked several times in interviews about our relationship. He just smiled and, tongue-in-cheek, said I was a different woman these days and we were still very much in love. I refused to comment, only saying I loved my husband and, no, all those silly rumours about divorce were just plain wrong. He's my husband and that's the way he's gonna stay.

As a result, there were more and more times when I forgot about the former Angie. I was the real Angie now and she was the impostor. I knew it when I looked at myself in the mirror in the morning, naked. That gorgeous face and body were mine. When I got myself ready for the day and went out to face the world I was whole.I wasn't "in character" I just was.

I was loving my life. Then one day I came back from the studios and was greeted at the door by Liliana.

“Ms. Ange, you have one friend come to see you. I remember him and ask him to wait. He says OK”

I wondered who the hell it could be, but if Liliana recognised him he must be kosher. I walked into the shadowed lounge from the bright California sunshine, sunglasses still on. My heels clicking on the tiles alerted my guest, who was facing away from me. He rose and turned as I took off my glasses and suddenly all the colour faded from my world. I staggered and gripped the edge of a table to stop myself from falling.

I stared at the young man before me. I had never expected to see that face again. It used to be mine. I knew instantly who it was.

“Ange! What have you done?”

“No! Me Mike, You Ange,” said with a wide grin and a perfect Brighton accent. “What do you think, lover?”

As I started to recover from the initial shock I examined him; short dark hair in a barber-shop style, trimmed over the ears, his eyes subtly different, not quite so large, eyebrows bushier and much less arched, nose a smidgen more prominent and lips dramatically thinner, designer stubble on his jaw-line, but still could have been my brother. His open denim jacket showed a polo-shirt with no sign of breasts, just a flat male chest. He was heavier in the upper body and tapered to a neat waist and Levi-encased hips and legs, terminating in a pair of suede sneakers.

“Well,” he said in a pleasant tenor, “you sure look at me with a woman’s eye, but then why should I be surprised? You’ll remember me when you see me again.”

I gestured wordlessly at his groin, asking the question with my eyebrows, still short of enough breath to speak.

“Not yet. Maybe never. Just a hysterectomy. There are still a lot of my ladies out there who like it the way it is, and maybe a few men will like it. I’ve yet to find out.”

“But why?” I finally gasped out.

“Why don’t we sit down? I came back to tell you, because I reckoned you deserved to know.”

We sat, me perched primly on the edge of my armchair after pulling my skirt underneath me, and him sprawling back relaxed in his.

“Would you like a drink? I certainly need one.” I asked as I rang for Liliana.

“I got one already,” indicating a nearly-full beer on the side-table.

Liliana came in. “Get me a large gin and tonic, please, Liliana. Three measures of gin, thanks.”

A couple of minutes passed in silence while we sized each other up until my drink arrived. I took a very healthy swig.

“OK, “Mike” tell me your story.” With more than a touch of acerbity.

“Can I call you Ange, now? You really are her because I’m never coming back.”

I nodded, pleased in a way that he acknowledged the true me, and definitely pleased that he didn't intend to return.

“When I first saw you in Vancouver I was in a bad way. I was totally sick of the industry and wanted to get out of it. I was sick of the falseness and the sycophancy, the continual pressure and the lack of privacy, but I just didn’t know how to leave it behind. I was close to suicidal, because I thought they would never let me go in peace. They would keep on hounding me, all because I was Angelina LaBelle, the one and only, a target for the gossip columnists and the god-damned papparazzi.

“Then I saw you and a wild idea crossed my mind. You could take my place and I could take yours. No one would look twice at Mike Stewart. I’m sorry lover, but you know it’s true. I could see that with some work I could transform you into me and me into you. At first that’s all it was, a wild idea, but then when you told me of your hopes and dreams and I saw the naked ambition, the dedication and ability in your acting and your greed, I thought this could really work.

“So I started to encourage you. You kept me alive, you know, by giving me a hope for an exit from the movie world and a project to concentrate on. After Canada I worked hard to put together a proposition you couldn’t refuse. That included me. I did love you, after my fashion, but I was never in love with you. I’m sorry. I manipulated you shamelessly, but you followed the script without needing to be coerced, and you were really successful. You are the greatest actor I have ever come across, bar none.

“The only time I was worried was when I had to put you and Troy together. It could so easily all have fallen apart then. But, serendipity, you couldn’t act the part and the part became you. I was beside myself watching you fall in love with him. It was a wonderful outcome and I’m really glad for the two of you. He never hurt me, you know, and you're much better for him than I ever was.

“That gave me my cue to go, and for the last eight months I’ve been on testosterone and I’ve had all the treatments that you can see and I’m Mike Stewart now. I have your passport and your various IDs and you have mine. I tried to give you a fair swap. You have your shot at the Oscar; you have my money and my property and you are a beautiful girl and you even have my husband.

“For my part, I am happy with being Mike and anonymous. I have enough money too. I didn’t.....couldn’t....tell you the truth, but I hope you’ll forgive me and remember that you saved my life. I’ll go now and you won’t see me again.”

“Don’t go. Let me think. Just stay there.”

I sat and thought and finished my drink, the alcohol relaxing my buzzing brain. I realised She had made me far more like Her than She knew. I had wanted it too. Thoughts of betrayal at first filled my mind......but then, I had contemplated betrayal too if I didn’t like what was happening. And was I now unhappy with the outcome? I was now a wealthy, beautiful, famous and critically acclaimed actress and my husband was much beloved and I thought that I was loved just as much by him. And that was really the icing on the cake, the light of my life. Unhappy? No way! I loved it. She had acted in her interests and I had acted in mine. We were equally guilty. The only really hurtful part was that I had loved her and I thought she loved me. Yet it hadn’t stopped me from taking her husband.

I looked at Mike and wondered what to do. My former self; how could I hate him?

“Remember you once said to me that making love to yourself was the ultimate turn-on?”

He nodded.

I got up, put out my hand to him and pulled him out of the chair.

“Let’s go upstairs. I want to test that.”

We made a very gentle kind of love, lesbian love naturally, although I had never had a male lesbian lover before. In a way it laid some ghosts. For me it was not the ultimate turn-on, nor, I think, for him either. It was an act of forgiveness, atonement in a way, for me. I still preferred my beloved Troy and I was no longer in love with Ange. I could not be, because I was Angelina now, and this man was just a memory from the past.

Later, sated, we dressed and I asked him if he’d like to stay for dinner.

“Better not, but thanks, and thanks for everything.” He hugged me hard, we kissed, and he turned to go.

“If you ever need help, call me,” I said.

As he went out the door he smiled. “Good luck with the Oscar.”

Epilogue

“Iceberg” swept the awards and I got “Best Actress”. I walked across the auditorium wearing a smile so wide it almost met at the back of my head, waving that little golden man over my head triumphantly, at that moment the queen of the world.

I was wearing the most beautiful white spangled full-length strapless gown and gorgeous strappy Jimmy Choos, a diamond tiara holding my hair back as the ringlets tumbled to my shoulders, matching earrings brushing my neck and set off by a pendant nestled between my breasts.

I approached my husband, the light of my life, so handsome and hunky in his tux, clapping and then opening his arms to embrace me. I could hardly wait to return that embrace.

He was probably the only other person there who understood what I meant in my acceptance speech when I said I owed it all to Mike Stewart, wherever he might be. I was somehow sure he would be watching.