Lady Ann's Holiday: The Final Chapter - Part One

Swapping Back

1

Burt Harper had a terrible feeling in the pit of his stomach when he woke up next morning in Mavis’s bed at the Dog & Pony.

It wasn’t because he was thinking about anything in particular that was troubling him but more like… more like he’d had a night crammed with nightmares that he couldn’t now remember. He lay for a while, trying to piece the images he still had together but he couldn’t. All he had was a vague sense of alarm; an amorphous anxiety tickling away at him – a sense of terrible loss.

He sat up. Mavis was already awake, sitting at her shabby dressing table in the nude, brushing her hair.

“Eh up Burt,” she said, seeing him in the glass. “Are ye right?”

“I suppose,” said Burt, scratching his arm. “I didn’t sleep well.”

It felt akin to when he’d come out of the two day period when he’d forgotten his original identity entirely, though not as intense. The panic he had felt then like an earthquake was now only rumbling beneath his skin, but it was still there.

He had enjoyed his day of labour yesterday, running round doing jobs for his former self and her arrogant fiancé. When he’d been at the pub last night he’d wanted more of the same today. But was that right? Should he be feeling that way?

The more he thought about it, the more he felt sure his nightmares had been about that: a constricting trap that tightened its grip the more he tried to pull away; rash decisions leading to a lifetime of regret.

Since this uncanny journey had begun he had found a huge part of him loving his descent into servile manhood while the other part resisted. As time had gone on, the resistance had ebbed, primarily in acceptance of the limit to his ability to choose when to change back. He had made himself believe that this life was what he wanted, but what if he could change back now? What if this was his only chance and he was squandering it? He couldn’t be sure how much his thinking had been altered. Did he keep enjoying this life because it was genuinely better? Or was it simply that his brain had been changed so much that he had been tricked into thinking that way?

To put it another way, if he did change back into Lady Ann then would he think he had made a mistake, or would his altered thinking suddenly make him realise how foolish he had been to want a servant’s life?

He looked back at Mavis. “Ey lass… Do you ever wish your life was different?”

“Well course I chuffin do,” she said, almost sneering at him. “Do ye think I’d want to be a barmaid in Griply if I ad the choice?”

Burt shrugged.

“Well course not,” she said. “If I ad money I’d be out’ve ere in the blink of an eye, I could guarantee ye that. I’d get me a right posh manor and live the high life.”

“You ain’t appy ere?”

“Lord no. I ‘ate it. I ‘ate everythin about this place.”

Burt frowned. “What about me?”

Mavis laughed. “No offence luv, but if I ad the wherewithal to get out’ve this shit’ole then I’d find me a right proper gen’leman. I wouldn’t be seen dead with the likes of you.”

“Eh?”

“You can wipe that hangdog expression off ye face an’ all. Ye needn’t worry. I know you’re the best I’m likely to get round ere.”

“Oh,” replied Burt, feeling rather put out. “I got me job as groom back up at ’all ye know.”

“Aye. But I still wouldn’t say no if an ‘andsome prince were offerin.” She threw her head back, laughing, but Burt just sat, pouting slightly.

He still had that sense of constricting horror but now it felt rather worse.