The Weekly Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3264 by Angharad Copyright© 2020 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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Number 3264 = 272 dozen
I woke to a chorus of 'Happy Birthday' and the realisation that I was thirty-seven years old and that Simon was in the bathroom showering and that we'd made love twice last night and something was sore down below, probably friction burns or something.

I had just about woken up when Simon returned from the shower and kissed me in front of all the younger children. Danni was apparently in her shower getting ready for school and I told the others to go and do likewise as I needed to shower quite a lot myself and change the bedclothes which smelt a little too much of the aroma of our earlier activities.

It was good to have Simon home, even for one day, though he'd managed to push that to two and would be home for Friday as well, though sadly I wouldn't be I had meetings both days via Zoom at my office. He'd protested that I could do that from home, which was true, but not while he was trying to get my attention or tickle me which I knew he'd do.

"My birthday breakfast was over rather quickly as I accepted various presents and cards and placed them on the sideboard and said I would open them when I got home and they could all help me do so. That was enough to stop the little ones grumbling but the middle ones, Trish, Livvie and Hannah grumbled loudly. Danni seemed to understand and smiled her acceptance after handing me something wrapped in blue crepe paper.

Things calmed down when Simon agreed to take the schoolgirls to school in the VW enabling me to sneak off while he was loading them in. I was certainly sore down below but at least I couldn't see any blood and the shower helped ease it along with a dollop of antiseptic cream which I rubbed in very gently. It was certainly very tender and I put a pad in my panties to give some extra protection as well as mop up any cream which would otherwise have soaked into my panties.

On my desk was a card from Diane and packet of the Lotus biscuits which made me smile. The motto on the card was rather corny, Eat drink and be merry - because tomorrow we get fat and wrinkled. To which she had added, Only because we ate, drank and were merry. I glanced in the mirror by the door and wondered if the wrinkles had already started, then started laughing. Diane looked at me strangely. "Oh, it was something I saw in a staff toilet years ago." She looked curious and asked me to continue having got her attention. "It was silly really, it said, 'Go bra-less, it'll pull the wrinkles out of your face.'

"That might work in your case, not sure if anyone would notice in my case," she fired back at me. I glanced down at my bulging chest since I'd breastfed my breasts had grown quite a bit and I wouldn't be able to go far without wearing a bra, it would hurt. When I thought back to the day Stella crashed into the back of my bike, my figure had changed significantly from rather small boobs and skinny behind to rather well upholstered, as Simon might express it. I seemed to be turning into an overstuffed sofa, so maybe I needed to go on a diet and begin riding my bike again. It wasn't causing me to get out of breath to tie my shoelaces rather it meant I had difficulty seeing them when I bent down. I was only a C cup but back when Stella and I first met, I was an A cup using bra fillers to aid the illusion that I was trying to project on the unwary world. Mind you, in those days every bit of me was thinner then and I was probably half a stone or seven pounds lighter.

We had a quick cuppa and the cakes I'd brought in were eaten with the teas. Then it was time to look through the notes I'd made for my meeting and opening up the Zoom meeting and admitting the others.

The meeting went on for nearly two hours, but it was the departmental committee and I did mention I wanted to find some money within the budget for recruitment of new students and outlined the idea of a film that Dawes had been talking about and the costs he'd calculated, to which I'd added another couple of thousand because these things always go over budget.

We were using an Adobe programme for teaching the students via the internet and these were mainly as tutorials with slide presentations using PowerPoint. Students were complaining that they weren't paying for this but for proper lectures and I honestly agreed with them but we couldn't allow the virus to spread if we could help it and going online, albeit temporarily, was the quickest way to offer some sort of education. To many, I suspect getting the full student experience was probably the intention of developing cirrhosis of the liver and alcohol-induced brain damage while sharing sexually transmitted diseases between themselves.

When I thought back to my student experience it was very different and I suspect, I could have coped with studying in a convent, so asocial was my existence as an undergrad. But given my confusion of gender social roles, I'd have had difficulties anyway, even in today's much more enlightened system, though I see they are stopping puberty blockers for under sixteen-year-olds except by permission from a court. I could see both sides of the argument but worried that perhaps the pendulum was beginning to swing back to the right and less tolerance. The present government were conservative with a large and small C despite their leader's enjoyment of being seen as libertarian, allowing people to do their own thing as long as it was the way he wanted them to do it.

When I went to university it was the first time I'd really lived away from home and I had a room of my own but very little money to take advantage of it, so I had about two outfits I could wear to be myself - or to try and show an outward manifestation of how I felt inside. To transsexuals, and I was one, the clothes are just that, an outward manifestation of what we feel inside, the desire is to change the body not necessarily the clothing, though it helps to guide the observer into what we want them to see. Being AIS, androgen insensitive meant I didn't develop a proper male body so I missed out on muscles and broad shoulders, hairy chest and deep voice, though I didn't quite develop a female phenotype until I got oestrogens which gave me a puberty that increased my breast and bum and possibly increased my pelvic width a little as my legs are less straight than the usual male.

It has always struck me as ironic, that while I wanted my femaleness to be recognised I was terrified of showing it and I spent most of the time hiding my body in grungy loose-fitting clothes, which became increasingly women's ones because they fit better. My hips were too wide for men's trousers, and shirts and jackets began to look like I was a child or daughter who'd borrowed their dad's clothes, but they hid things even if I looked like a refugee from an Oxfam shop. Possibly I looked like someone who was suffering from an eating disorder and was trying to hide it, whatever way I looked, it didn't encourage social contact, which was how I liked it, except childhood and adolescence is when we learn how to interact as adults. When we're young, we are allowed to make mistakes to practice our roles until we are able to handle relationships as adults which often involve having children and rearing them.

By watching other girls and women, I was quite good at looking and acting superficially as one and it felt absolutely right for me, but because I didn't much interact with boys or girls, except in a very limited sense, I was clumsy and gauche which even Simon picked up on, and he wasn't the most observant of people. So I didn't know how to deal with unwanted or wanted advances from males or females because I hadn't rehearsed them as an adolescent, so I was fine sashaying across the stage as Lady Macbeth which was all stereotypical stuff and practised movements, but I couldn't tell an unwanted admirer to clear off because I didn't know how. I accept that I've caught up to some extent now helped by Stella and of course being married to Simon, so I only need to refer any unwanted attention to him - it tends to evaporate rather quickly.

Also, I have a whole gaggle of girls who I've attempted to give the opportunity to grow into their roles as women, so they can experiment with relationships as much as they do with fashions and makeup. I so hope they do better than I did, although I am not complaining, I am so lucky to have someone who loves me and that I love equally back and a family who love me too as much as I love them.

"You okay?" asked Diane as I was about to start sniffing from my reverie.

"Yeah, just counting my blessings - you couldn't pass me the calculator could you...?"