The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 2737 by Angharad Copyright© 2015 Angharad

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This is a work of fiction any mention of real people, places or institutions is purely coincidental and does not imply that they are as suggested in the story.
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“Are you really that worried about her finding out?” asked Simon as he lay alongside me gently stroking my breast.

“She probably has by now.”

“So what’s the big worry?”

“It’s about the constant intrusiveness of people. Because I’m transgender...”

“Was—transgender—you’re female now.”

“Okay because I was transgender—oh that is soooo lovely—where was I? Oh yeah, because I was, people seem to think they can ask any sort of prurient question they like without any comebacks. Such as, have you had surgery, can you have sex, is it nice, have you had implants—what right have they go to ask such things—it’s all very personal information.”

“They’re just curious.”

“But they don’t ask non-tg people do they?”

“I’ve never been asked, so I suppose not.”

“You’re more likely to be asked about me, aren’t you—can she shag you, is it deep enough or wide enough—oh god, you have been asked.”

“It was a long time ago and I declined to answer.”

“I mean, if you asked the average woman, she’d likely thump you.”

“I understand, babes, I’ve heard that rather pretty one from Manchester talking about it...”

“Paris Lees?”

“Probably, it’s like the old toilet chestnut.”

“Oh that one, only one person asked about that at the university and they were shot down straight away.”

“Why do women get so upset about the lavs, anyway—they’re all cubicles?”

“I think it’s to do with safe space in the vestibule around the toilets, with the mirrors and washbasins, plus some ladies toilets have a sitting room as well.”

“Can’t say I’ve ever encountered one of those in the men’s bogs.”

“I can understand that more than the fuss about the throne room.”

“I can’t, sounds like a waste of space.”

“Like a ladies waiting rooms at railway stations.”

“So on a miserable cold day, if the general waiting area is full, I can’t go and sit in the ladies one because I’m a man?”

“Yeah, sorry—except they are disappearing from most stations. Take up too much space I suppose. Mind you, dunno how helpful they’d be for isolated platforms and women do get attacked at railway stations—or train stations, as the children tend to say.”

“They do, don’t they—more Americanisms, I presume?”

I shrugged, most people today are sloppy, the way they eat, talk, drive and spell are all slovenly. Sometimes I wonder if it’s as simple a situation as: there are six billion brains on this planet and seven billion people.

“I think I want to roll over and go to sleep now, darling,” and before he could say anything I did just that. He muttered something and cwtched in behind me. The next thing I knew was waking up to find Simon had gone to work and the alarm had switched the radio on which I was trying to integrate into my dreams. I did wake up and rousing the girls went to shower.

If I’d been dreading yesterday’s visit to my office, today felt even worse and I was almost sick thinking about it. I cursed myself for being so silly. I was in the position of power and therefore mostly in control of what should happen, except somehow it never quite feels that way to me.

After dropping the girls off, I drove into the university and parked my car. The Jaguar felt so reassuring compared to how flimsy my office at times felt—it wasn’t, but I felt more vulnerable there than I did at the car; perhaps the car had the advantage of a quick getaway if required.

I tried to casually stroll into my office although underneath my heart was racing and I felt quite sick. I stepped into my office nodding to Diane as I did so, then after taking off my suit jacket, slumped into my chair. She knocked and entered, depositing a mug of tea on my desk, and the post she’d sorted before disappearing in a cloud of perfume.

We’d both spoken briefly so I didn’t feel any negative vibes coming from her, at the same time it wasn’t as cordial as yesterday. I sat reading the same letter for several minutes, sipping my tea and thinking about what had happened.

Because I’d effectively told her to mind her own business yesterday, she may be just doing exactly that and could had taken umbrage at the same time. On the other hand, she could be busy or a thousand other things. I finished my tea and read through the dozen items of mail I had. I also had two journals to glance through and as neither had anything in them of remote interest to me, I initialled the top and put them both in my out tray for the next one on the list.

It was probably an hour later when I emerged from my office and handed the items I wanted Diane to do for me. I explained what was required and because she’s done it before, understood immediately. I made sure that she had an address for each and went back in to deal with my emails—I had fifty of those. “More tea?” she called as i was re-entering my room and I nodded. She came and retrieved my cup—it has a dormouse picture on it, which Simon got done for me about a year ago. It’s bone china so nice to drink from. Can you believe I also have a dormouse paperweight and paper knife, though my key ring has a Jaguar on it.

She brought in my tea, “Thank you, Diane—how are you settling in?”

“Without Delia babysitting me, you mean?”

I winced, “She’s not going to be here for much longer is she, so I hope you’re finding everything you need and I’m not too much of a tyrant?”

“The old place was worse, too much work; here it’s okay and I’m finding my way round. I’d like to rearrange a few things if I might when Delia does finish, as I think they’d work more smoothly.”

“If it requires furniture to be moved around we have to get the porters involved, a few years ago we’d just shove and hump it round ourselves—until someone in psychology wrecked their back lifting a filing cabinet and sued the uni.”

“It will involve moving a couple of filing cabinets, if that’s okay.”

“Fine with me providing you show me where everything is afterwards, just in case I need to find anything.”

“I’ll do a GPS for you, professor.” She smirked then laughed, “I’ll do you a map of what’s kept where.”

“Fine, can we keep all the survey stuff together?”

“Of course, I’m going to do it all down that side of the room, then other files will be down that wall—oh we’ll need two more filing cabinets and as two of them have personal stuff in them—staff records and so on, I think they should be kept in your room as it’s more secure than this one.”

“I thought they were in here,” I showed her and she looked quite perplexed.

We went out to her room and there were two drawers of staff records. When we examined them, it looked as if Pippa and then Delia had kept a brief staff record for things like sick leave or holidays, so as not to need to disturb me if I had a meeting in my room. I don’t do it as often as Tom did—meetings, that is—in my room, I prefer to use a neutral room, so we keep one of the tutorial rooms available for that if no tutorials are scheduled.

At lunchtime we walked across to the refectory and had a snack and a chat. She didn’t say anything about Bristol other than the previous university she’d been at, the UWE. I assumed therefore that either she’d finished her investigations of my identity or given up. I didn’t for one moment believe the latter, so I expect by now she has confirmed I was the girl who used to wear boy’s clothes and go about with the strange Welsh girl, Siân. Oh well, nothing I could do about it.