Chapter 14

Saturday 1st to Sunday 2nd December, 2035

(Mandy)

I woke up, saw the clock and immediately panicked. I was late for school! After the few terror filled seconds it took my brain to spin up and remind me that today was Saturday, I calmed down a bit.

"Hey sleepy head, I didn't wake you up did I?" said Gwen, wandering in from the small kitchen. "Do you want a cup of Coffee?"

"Yes please," I said rubbing the sleep from my eyes.

Gwen disappeared into the kitchen and reappeared a few minutes later with a mug of coffee. I pulled myself upright and took the cup, then sipped some. Gradually feeling more awake, I glanced at the clock again. I would have to get moving because D would be here soon. I drank the rest of my coffee and then hit the shower. After that I thought about using my new drying trick, but I wasn't sure that the laminate flooring in the bathroom would take the heat too well. I didn't think our landlord would be too impressed with big foot-shaped burn marks on the bathroom floor. That would almost certainly lose us our security deposit, so I just used a towel instead. I resolved to think about practicing heating myself everywhere but my feet, since heat went up that should be ok so long as there was nothing to conduct it back down. I went and grabbed some clothes from Gwen's room, where we shared the closet space.

As I was getting dressed I heard the doorbell ring, then a short while later D's voice say, "Hello Gwen I'm here to pick up Tish."

"Come on in Dorothy, she is just getting ready," Gwen replied.

I hurried to finish dressing and scrambled out into the living room to see D. She was sitting on the sofa talking with Gwen.

"Morning D," I said.

"Hey Tish. So, you going to give me the grand tour?" she asked.

"Can do," I said. "But just by coming through the front door you've seen most of it."

I took her by the hand and led her around.

"This is the living room, it's also where I sleep. Through here is the kitchen, this is the bathroom, and this is Gwen's room," I said completing a somewhat whistle stop tour.

"It's a nice place ... cosy," said D diplomatically.

We went back into the living room, Gwen was reading a magazine, "Would you like some coffee Dorothy or are you headed straight out?"

"No thanks Gwen, we need to get off to meet Jane," D replied.

Turning to me Gwen said, "Are you going to be back for lunch?"

I glanced over at D who shook her head, "No," I replied.

"Well I'll see you later then Mandy, have a good time and here," she said pressing some notes into my hand. "Some pocket money."

"You don't... ," I started.

"Shush, you've earned it. Now off you go you don't want to be late," Gwen said.

I gave her a smile then grabbed my coat and walked out the door with D.

We wandered out into the cool December morning, and headed for into town.

"So what's the plan for today?" I asked.

"We'll first meet up with Jane, then do a bit of shopping, a spot of lunch, then more shopping, and maybe a movie," said D. "Sound good?"

"I'm not really into shopping, but I'm willing to give it a go," I said.

To be honest we could have done almost anything and so as long as it was with my friends, I would have been fine with it.

"Cool," said D. "I'm sure you'll enjoy yourself."

We chatted about this and that, eventually things got round to the coming school week. Naturally my enemies came up as a subject, but it was quickly dropped to avoid spoiling our day out. This led me to thinking about the mysterious club that I was trying out for, but no one would tell me about, which was going to be on Monday after school.

I decided to try a different tack with D in my attempts to extract information about the club. I would attempt to get her to talk about things surrounding the club to try to learn more about it.

"So this club on Monday?" I asked thoughtfully.

"Yes," D answered carefully.

"Will I need my PE kit?" I probed.

"Yes." she replied warily.

"How about trainers?"

"Yes."

"Swimming costume?"

"No."

"So running clothes or aerobics."

"Hah, I see what you're up to you little minx, trying to work out what the club is about by a process of elimination. Well Tish Holmes I suspect even your deductive powers would be of no use in this case, but just on the off chance I won't answer any more questions on the subject. Nice try though."

"Bah!" I said and stuck my tongue out at her. She just grinned back.

We walked along in silence for a bit then conversation turned to music and TV. We whiled away the journey discussing this and that. We soon arrived at the arranged meeting point. We waited a bit then D got a call from Jane saying she would be a few minutes late.

After D had hung up and while she still had her phone out she looked at me and said, "That reminds me I don't have your number."

"I gave you the flats number the other day," I replied.

"No, I meant your mobile number."

"I don't have one."

"What!!!" exclaimed D. She looked at me in shock like I had just said I hated chocolate or I was actually an alien here to sell my own brand of brain-washing exercise videos or something else outlandish.

"I've never needed one, plus my parents frowned on them."

"How can you not need a mobile! I don't know where I'd be without one."

"Well it's not like I had anyone to call, I didn't really have any friends till I met you."

"Hmm, I suppose that makes sense," said D doubtfully. "Well, now that you have multiple friends you should think about getting one, so you can call us, and we can call you."

"I'm not sure I can afford it," I said unhappily.

"You might be surprised, go for one of the older cheap low feature ones with pay as you go, so you don't need to pay for a contract, only calls, and even then it's prepay so you can't get into bother."

"Maybe I could ask Gwen about it for Christmas or my birthday next year."

D nodded looking thoughtful. A few minutes later Jane showed up and after hugs all round we were off into town.

Shortly after we set off D pulled Jane off to one side and began whispering in her ear. They were soon looking at me with big grins and having fits of giggles. I didn't even bother to ask, I knew from experience that they wouldn't tell me. They were up to something, it would probably involve them treating me like their own personal life size doll and wearing some horribly embarrassing item of clothing.

The giggling continued till we got into town and we started considering what shops to visit. First up was a fairly upmarket fashion boutique. I followed D and Jane around as they looked at various tops and short skirts.

"Oh that is such a nice colour," said Jane holding up a bright blue top.

"Yeah," said D appreciatively. "I wish I could get stuff like this in my size. You can have stuff custom made but it's horrendously expensive, and it never seems to scale right. The fabric ends up looking like a tent."

They went through several items on the stands, but I didn't see what the fuss was about, the tops were all pretty similar. I couldn't imagine needing more than a couple.

Jane, probably sensing my boredom, turned to me and said, "Come on Tish, try to get into the spirit of it. It's supposed to be fun."

"I don't really get it. What's the attraction of clothes shopping. It always bores me to tears, why would I do it for fun?" I asked.

"You get to try out lots of new outfits to see what looks good on you," said D.

"But I have plenty of clothes," I said.

"You can never have too many clothes," said Jane. "You need to always look your best if you are going to get a boy to notice you."

I frowned at that, then said, "I'm not sure I want anyone noticing me especially a boy, and besides I doubt anyone will care what I wear with the way I look. Better to cover myself up, unless I start wearing a mask again."

Both D and Jane stopped and stared at me for a while. I started fidgeting as it was making me uncomfortable.

Eventually Jane said quietly, "Is that what you really think that people will think, that you are ugly or something?"

"I know what I look like, I'm a freak," I said.

"You've got to stop thinking that way," said D.

"Yeah," said Jane. "There may be some small minded fools who are hostile to you because you're a hybrid, though even they would be hard pushed to call you ugly. You're a gorgeous looking girl, I wish I had half your good looks. With the right clothes you will look absolutely irresistible."

I blushed and looked away.

"We need to get you to learn to take some pride in that fantastic looking bod of yours. You are hot stuff and it's about time you realised it." D said.

"Let's take her around and see if we can teach her to appreciate her looks and the joys of shopping," said Jane.

"Good idea. Let's start with the basics and somewhere cheap as chips, this place is bloody expensive," D said with Jane nodding along. "Besides while she is not quite in the same can't get anything anywhere but the fat shop, tent stores, and parachute manufactures, league as me. She is pretty tall so I doubt they'll have anything in her size here, all stupid tiny sizes for model chicks."

"Let's hit one of the big cheap warehouse places," Jane said.

They each grabbed me by an arm and dragged me out of the store.

On the forced march to the next shop Jane tentatively asked, "Don't you like boys?" Quickly adding, "It's cool if not."

I thought about it for a long while then answered, "I don't know. My brain says I shouldn't, but I really don't know if I do or not, or how I feel about girls for that matter."

"You'll figure it out," said D with a smile.

"Yeah no rush, you've had a lot to deal with and a sex change is bound to be confusing. Either way we'll still be your friends," said Jane with a smile.

The two of them dragged me into a big store that sold relatively cheap no fuss clothing.

"Right," said Jane. "Here we have some pretty cheap and cheerful stuff. A selection of tops, skirts, dresses, and trousers in various styles and colours. We need to get you to start thinking about what looks good on you and taking some pride in your looks."

"Yep, also you need to remember your sizes right," D said to which I nodded. "Well let's start with tops, do you like the look of any of these?"

I looked along the huge number of tops on display and was a bit overwhelmed. I took a look at some of them but bar colour they did seem to all look the same as far as I could tell.

"They look OK I suppose," I said.

"Any grab you?" asked Jane.

"Well, I suppose the blue ones are nice enough," I answered.

"Which ones of the blue ones?" D asked.

"Well any of them, they all look the same to me," I replied.

"Well, they are all in different styles and cuts," said Jane. "Here I'll demonstrate, this is your size right?"

She picked a blue top off the rack in my size, then half a dozen in the same colour but slightly different shapes. She then grabbed my arm and marched me off to the changing room then shoved me into a booth and handed me the tops telling me to try on the first one. I took off my jumper and t-shirt, slipped on the top and stepped out for D and Jane to take a look.

"Now how does that feel?" asked Jane.

"OK, little tight," I answered.

"It's supposed to be fairly tight, what do you think of how it looks?" Jane asked.

I looked carefully in the mirror, the tight t-shirt hugged my curves much more than anything else I had worn before. It exaggerated my figure and was pretty sexy looking.

I spent some time trying to work out how to describe it, but D pre-empted me by saying, "It looks really good."

"Try the next one," said Jane.

I got the next top on which was looser but had a lower cut front showing more of my chest.

"See this one is looser, but shows off your assets a bit more," said Jane with a smile.

"Looks good on you," said D.

"Next!" instructed Jane before I could voice my opinion.

This kept going for the rest of the tops, Jane and D occasionally fetching new ones or new sizes when they didn't fit. I felt like I had tried on most of the stock, but I had seen how a range of things felt and looked in relation to each other. We went back to the racks returning the tops I had tried on.

"So what did you think," said Jane.

"Hmm interesting. When I was a boy, tops came in a few flavours shirts, t-shirts, few jumper types and that was it. You differentiated on pattern, or colour, not really shape, either something fitted or didn't," I said.

"Well that's because you were a different shape back then, now you are a lot more curvy I suspect," said Jane.

"What did you like out of that lot," said D.

"I didn't really like the really tight stuff it wasn't very comfy, but the more fitted stuff did look pretty good. I'm not sure about the low cut tops, I'm not sure I want to be wandering about with my cleavage on display," I replied blushing a bit at the thought.

"Give it time girl we'll have you out brandishing those things in no time," Giggled Jane.

"Hmm," I said giving her a disbelieving look.

She giggled even harder at that, "I'm only teasing. Some of the tight tops looked really good on you, they might take a bit of getting used to but they will turn heads."

"Well, we have some idea about tops, how about the rest," said D.

They then proceeded to have me try out most of the rest of the store, showing me the differenced between all the different shapes and styles of things. It was hard to imagine there were so many ways to make a pair of trousers, or a top, or a skirt. I suspected it was some sort of ruse to extract money out of people by getting them to buy more stuff than they needed. Though I had to admit some of the differing styles did look better on me than others.