The Golden Gloom - RICH - Part Seven

Warning

 

18

Jane

I was glad I’d chosen to check the market. There were some interesting items that seemed worth looking into, investments that might pay off if handled carefully.

I flipped open the laptop on the desk and rapidly typed in the password then brought up Internet Explorer and expanded my list of favourites, quickly navigating to the pages I wanted to get the most up-to-date figures. I reached for a pad and took out the fountain pen from my inside jacket pocket then jotted down a few figures then I reached for the phone and started to dial the number of my broker, taking another puff on my cigar.

“Jane! Jane!”

I stopped dialling and tilted my head.

“Jane! Where are you?”

What was Barbara going on about now? I could swear that woman was always making a drama of things. I replaced the phone and went out onto the landing, wondering who this Jane was that had got her so agitated. “I’m up here!”

She hurried up the stairs to meet me looking alarmed and shaken, reaching for me. “Jane! We have to change back! It’s affecting our minds!”

“What? Calm down a minute.” I took hold of her hands.

“We have to concentrate on changing back right away.”

“Change back what?” I asked. “Who’s Jane?”

She snapped her head round to look at me, startled and maybe even horrified. Too much time spent by herself rattling about in this big house; that’s what it was. She pulled her hand free. “You’re Jane. Don’t you remember?”

I chuckled. “What? I’m… Jane?”

“Oh God. Oh Christ.” She put her hands to her cheeks.

“Calm down Barbara. Come on. What’s the matter?” I went to put my arm round her. She pushed it away irritably.

“I’m not Barbara! I’m Ricky! And you’re Jane! Don’t you remember?”

I frowned, smirking a little at how silly this all was. I really had no idea where she’d got this ridiculous idea fr—

“Wait a minute…”

“Jane?”

I stared at her. “Ricky?”

“Oh thank God. You remember?”

I nodded. “Fuck me. What the hell was that? I thought… I thought I was really Charles.”

“The same thing happened to me. I was going to cook dinner before I realised. This is out of control.”

“The magic’s far more powerful than I realised. It’s incredible.”

“It’s dangerous. We have to turn back now before it’s too late!”

I nodded again. “Yeah. You’re right. We should—”

“What?”

I folded my arms. “We can’t change back yet.”

“What? Why the hell not?”

“Because that police officer’s going to be back here any minute. We can’t risk him catching us.”

“Fuck that. I’m not staying a woman for the rest of my life. We can get out over the back fence.”

“That’s a bad idea.”

“Why?”

“Because he was scouting round. He could be anywhere, and he already suspects it’s us.” I sat down on the top of the stairs and after a moment’s hesitation, Barbara – Ricky did too, linking her fingers round her smooth shins. She looked at me expectantly and I realised she was waiting me to take the lead. “We have to stay this way until the policeman’s gone and the removal firm have finished,” I said. “We’ll just have to concentrate on not losing sight of who we are.”

“No,” she replied. “You can stay this way if you want to but I’m turning back now. I’m not staying this way a minute longer.” She closed her eyes tightly in concentration.

I put my big firm hand on her bare knee and said “No. Barbara. Listen to me.”

She opened her eyes. “I’m not Barbara.”

“You are for now. Listen. We’re both going to stay this way for now; is that clear?”

She looked at me defensively for a second then lowered her eyes and murmured, “But I don’t want to.”

“Barbara. I know you don’t want to but that is what is going to happen. Okay?”

She nodded and I got a little thrill from taking masterful control like that and seeing her do as I said. It was a lovely feeling.

“Believe it or not, these mental changes are a good thing.”

“How are they? I was reading Good Housekeeping and planning decorations for the lounge a minute ago!”

“When I thought I was really Charles I typed in his password to his laptop. I ‘remembered’ it.”

“So what?”

“So I may be able to do the same thing with the safe combination, with his electronic banking. Think about it. We can be rich and young! We can have it all!”

She rested her face in her hands, elbows on her knees. “I don’t know Charles. I’m scared it’ll all get out of hand.”

I put my arm round her, liking the way she called me that, still feeling very confident and in control. Once again she melted into my embrace, clearly craving the reassurance. “Don’t worry your pretty head,” I said. “It’s going to be fine. Just keep reminding yourself who you are. You won’t lose track of it as long as you do that.”

“Do you really think so?”

I knew nothing of the kind but I said, “I know so.”

She smiled and wiped her eye, smiling a little. “Okay. For now.”

“Good.” I stroked the back of her glossy hair. “Come on then. Why don’t you pop outside and take a swim in that lovely pool and let me deal with the business side of things?”

She got to her feet and smiled a little more, saying, “I think I will.”

“Good girl,” I replied and walked back toward my study to try and ‘remember’ how to open the safe.

Barbara waited a moment longer at the top of the stairs then started down.

Countdown

19

Ricky

The house was so grand it turned out there was a changing room of sorts with a patio door leading straight out onto the poolside. There was a mini wardrobe inside containing a selection of swimming costumes and towels.

I eyed the swimming costumes, thinking about what… Charles had said and determined not to lose myself to this body. I wasn’t a housewife. I wasn’t Barbara. I wasn’t a middle-aged woman. Then I glanced in the floor length mirror to my right, seeing the absolute contradiction in the woman looking back at me. I looked exactly like all those things. I was a woman for now, no question about it. I was even standing in a womanly pose with the back of my hand resting on my waist. I lowered the crooked arm immediately, feeling self-conscious.

I was hoping the cool water would help to clear my mind. Unsure which costume to choose I picked up the top one on the nearest pile and held it up. It was a one piece bathing suit with a blue floral design – very feminine. I frowned, chewing my lip then sighed in exasperation. What did it matter? Nobody was going to see me and if they did they’d just see me as I was: a chubby woman in a swimsuit. So what?

When I came downstairs I’d considered just wearing some men’s swimming trunks, unwilling to put on another female outfit, but that was silly and would expose my femininity all the more if anything.

I carefully removed and folded my skirt and polo-necked sleeveless jumper and stood there for a moment in heels and underwear. It was a strange and slightly erotic sight. I’d never had a thing for older women but I wasn’t too saggy even if I was overweight. My legs and tummy were smooth and soft; nice to touch with my tiny hands.

I took the bra off easily and stepped out of the panties, the shoes still on and I got my first really good look at my body, my breasts and my crotch. I stood in front of the mirror for several minutes, lifting the boobs gently, feeling the weight of them and the tingle of sensation as I tweaked the nipples. I ran my fingers down my stomach and into the cleft at the top of my legs, just tentatively, uncomfortable to go any further, but curious.

This was all so… I would have said ‘fucked up’ but… that kind of phraseology just seemed incongruous with how I looked and felt now. It was all so… peculiar. And strangely liberating.

I put my legs into the swimming costume and lifted it up my body by the arm loops, wriggling my buttocks snuggly into place then putting first one soft round arm and then the other through the straps; adjusting my breasts slightly to get them comfortable. The image in the mirror was a wondrous and purely feminine sight and one I found both hard to believe and almost normal at the same time. My body was so soft and round; no masculinity at all, just purely female.

I didn’t want to ruin my hair so I opened the bottom drawer inside the wardrobe and took out a pale blue scrunchy to match my outfit and tied my hair up at my crown. I kept my glasses on – I was blind as a bat without them.

It was warm and sunny still outside and where I normally might have jumped or dived in with a loud cry, this time I walked to the shallow end and climbed carefully in down the metal ladder attached to the side. It was chilly enough to make me gasp but refreshing and as I started to swim I warmed up immediately.

Usually I larked about round any swimming pool, doing dives and cannonballs, swimming to the bottom to fetch things I’d thrown in; today I didn’t feel like all that palaver. I just swam sedately back and forth, conscious of the width of my hips and determined to lose another pound by the end of the week. I’d been going to Weight Watchers meetings with my friend Flo and it was paying off but not as quickly as I would have liked. One too many cream teas when I was out chatting with the girls most likely! I smiled ruefully to myself.

As I swam along I took stock of the garden, enjoying how nice it was looking but spotting little things that still needed doing. I’d either do them myself or ask Mick, the gardener, to do them. There was nothing really wrong though. It looked splendid. Having said that it would be nice to through a garden party in a week or two and it would have to be perfect for that.

My mind wandered again and I glanced at the outside wall clock, suddenly stopping and treading water.

“Drat,” I said. I was going to miss Countdown if I wasn’t quick!

Countdown was my favourite brain-teasing gameshow and I liked to catch it every weekday afternoon if I could.

I swam to the steps and climbed out, enjoying the rush of water through my costume and dribbling down my legs then I went back into the changing room and grabbed a towel, padding at my arms and chest. I pulled the scrunchy out of my hair letting it flop back down so it didn’t get creased then slipped out of my costume, pegging it on the little washing line we had in there next to Charles’s trunks from the swim he’d taken that morning. Naked now ad not wanting to waste time getting dressed, I just grabbed a bath robe from the little wardrobe and put it on, slipping my feet into some flip-flops. The bath robe just dropped to my mid-thigh but only Charles was in, the maid wasn’t due today and we weren’t expecting the kids back from university for another couple of weeks.

I minced through into the lounge and put on the TV, getting comfortable at one end of the sofa with my bare legs tucked under me, the flip flops discarded. There was a bureau at that end of the sofa and I reached into the drawer to pull out my pad and pencil so that I could do the word games and maths puzzles as they came up.

As the music came on I smiled. I was having a wonderfully relaxed day. It was nice to have Charles home from work and even nicer that he was upstairs in his study keeping out from under my feet. I giggled and settled down to enjoy the programme.

20

Jane

The safe was behind a false panel at the back of the husband’s wardrobe. It didn’t take me long to find. I cleared the hangers to the sides and took a good look at it; at the dial on the front.

I had absolutely no idea what the combination was but I knew it was within reach because I’d known the laptop password. All I had to do was let myself drift closer to really being Charles and then it would come back to me. But I wasn’t stupid. Regardless of the reassurances I’d given Barbara, it had shaken me that I’d lost my identity for a while there. I was really enjoying being a man, especially the greater level of confidence I felt now, but apart from a little element of temptation I had no plans to stay this way at all.

It was a shame though. We were about to get our hands on a lot of money but it would have been so much easier if we could own it all legally instead of living the rest of our lives on the run. But was it worth losing twenty five years of my life for? Losing my identity? Forgetting who I was? Being a man for the rest of my life?

No. Probably not.

Still… I’d enjoyed puffing on that cigar and drinking that brandy and pretending for a little while.

I got the chair from the dressing table in the bedroom and sat on it looking at the safe. Nothing was coming to me right away and I wondered the best way of going about this – to recall details from Charles’s life without forgetting who I was. There were some photos on the bedroom wall. I walked back through and looked at them, letting my mind drift, trying to ‘remember’ who they were.

There was Barbara and Charles… me… on holiday somewhere hot. There was another one of us on a boat, somewhere in… No. I couldn’t quite get it, but I could almost feel it. The next picture was of a laughing pair of teenagers, a boy and a girl. I smiled at their expressions, remembering the twins’ birthday party. I chuckled aloud. Bella had laced the Coca Cola with some vodka from my liquor cabinet and James had—

There. That was it. I was remembering things. Though realising that stopped it happening, made the memories fade back into mist. I had to get the balance just right, keep focused on my true identity as Jane but still open myself for these masculine nuggets of the past.

I closed my eyes, moving to the next picture: a little girl in a school uniform; a posed shot; Bella; and its pair, my son James at the same age… ten was it? They grew up so fast, that was the problem. Who could keep track, especially with me spending so much time at the office. Sometimes I wondered if it wasn’t time to semi-retire but I enjoyed the hack and slash of office politics and the challenges of running a company. If I retired early I’d end up sitting in the garden all day long reading the newspaper. I’d miss the respect I got at work, the power to influence things on a large scale.

There!

I snapped my eyes shut, holding on to that feeling of being Charles, of having two children living away from home, of being the executive officer of a big company.

And then I had the safe combination. I had it right there in the front of my mind.

Grinning, I hurried through to the walk-in-wardrobe and dialled the series of numbers, sighing in relief as it clicked open.

This was perfect. Ricky and I were going to be so rich! And the electronic banking codes were going to be just as easy to find. This really was a piece of cake. I was so glad I’d found out about the Golden Gloom.

It was funny. There had been numerous warnings to persuade readers to stay away – that it couldn’t be controlled in any way – but that was bullshit. It just needed someone with a strong will to keep it on track and change us both back when the time came and we were safe. With the safe open and the online banking about to be cracked it probably wasn’t worth waiting for the removal firm. We’d miss out on a portion of the possible swag but it was the safer option to get out of there soon.

Inside the safe was some jewellery in expensive boxes; silly women’s accessories didn’t interest me but I put them to the side to take when we left. There were documents in there that were more enticing and I took them out, flicking through them. Not all of this was going to be useful without staying in these bodies but some of it would be.

I carried the papers through to my study, skimming the first page of a contract I’d found. I plopped them on my desk and poured myself another brandy, casually wondering when Barbara would have dinner ready. I glanced at the cigar case then grinned to myself and lit another, unable to resist the delicious flavour, then I settled back into my chair and started studying the contract. It was crucial that the wording was right and I’d already spotted a couple of mistakes. I started marking it up, tutting to myself and vowing to have my solicitor’s guts of garters when I saw him in the office in the morning.

It just wasn’t good enough!

And it had to be perfect.