The Consultants 2b

Part 2b: Chapter 10

Leslie dropped Charles off at the hôtel. His head still in a whirl, he struggled out of the car, rubber sticking against leather upholstery and hardly heard Leslie as she wound down the window of her British racing green soft-top Jaguar XK8.

“Good night,” she shouted then, before disappearing into the night, “see you in the morning!”

Oblivious to the fact that he was still wearing the rubber dress in which he had set out that morning he made his way to the lift lobby, failing, for once, to acknowledge the salute of the ever-present doorman.

Back in his room he used the keys he had borrowed from Leslie to take off his shoes and tenderly rub his sore and aching feet in an attempt to restore the circulation. He undressed, had a bath and fell into bed, out of full rubber for the first time in nearly two days, except for a few minutes in the bath room before his fatal decision that morning to put Amber’s things on again.

However, try as he might, he couldn’t get to sleep. There were just too many things going round in his head. His day out in Town, was it only yesterday? The dinner at the Ritz. But, most especially, the predicament he had got himself into and the subsequent interview and contract from Barry Schofield. What had he done? Could he carry it off? Not only had he got to live and do the job as a woman he was committed, as Leslie had been, he now thought, almost too eager to point out, to an exceedingly kinky style of dress into the bargain.

Then there was Leslie. It was a stroke of luck bumping into her like that and kind of her to offer the flat at such a low rental. Did he really want to live on top of what amounted to a knocking shop, even if a very exclusive and high class one? And what was worrying her? There was definitely something that he couldn’t quit put a finger on. Come to think of it, Amber had mentioned it too, all very odd.

He tossed around for hours. Every little sound seemed to be conspiring to keep him awake, the air conditioning, the rapid ticking of his old mechanical travel clock. Though it had survived from University days; it nearly did not survive that night as in desperation he threw a pillow in its general direction, then got up and smothered it. But he could not win. Every quarter of an hour a clock chimed in the distance, “Big Ben?” he wondered. Finally, the birds started their dawn chorus. He exhumed the clock, peering with screwed up eyes at the glowing green spots on its face. Not quite half-past five.

“Oh, blow it,” he said under his breath, “get up, you’ve got to get packed any way.”

In fact packing up all the things he had brought with him, plus the new acquisitions, took quite a long time. When he had finished there were several plastic bags and other parcels in addition to his set of suitcases. For checking out he decided to wear one of his men’s suits. Even then putting it on seemed a little strange and Charles wondered when next he might wear it.

Eventually all was packed. He sat on the top of the last case squashing down the lid and snapping to the catches. Suddenly he felt hungry. It was twenty-four hours since he had last eaten anything substantial.

“It must be because I’m not wearing the corset that my stomach is grumbling,” he thought. “Well, I not going to exhume one now having got everything packed,” and make his way down to the breakfast room.

After a leisurely breakfast Charles checked out, got his pile of luggage down and asked the doorman to summon a cab. He couldn’t help wondering if the man recognised him as having been the latex lady of the two days before.

“Not appropriate to ask,” he decided, but again gave a big tip, just to be on the safe side. The taxi arrived and his stuff loaded in, Charles doing much of the work himself

Charles couldn’t help smiling to himself about the change of rôle. As Charlotte, the doorman had asked where he (she?) had wanted to go, had advised the taxi-driver, and would no doubt have carried and stowed the luggage. Now, as Charles, he had to do it all himself. He announced his intended destination. Did he detect a slight recognition of what, rather than where, it was? London taxi drivers’ knowledge is legendary, as is their discretion.

The driver threaded through a maze of side streets, as if to show off his knowledge of the Capital, though in reality to avoid the worst of the ever present traffic. Eventually they arrived at the square where Leslie’s house was situated. On a whim Charles tapped on the glass partition between him and the driver.

“Can you pull into the mews, please; I think I’ll unload there, rather than on to the pavement.” The driver did as asked and a few minutes later Charles was left, surrounded with a pile of belongings that gave the impression that it had just been Christmas.

Charles looked at his watch; it was only ten o’clock. He walked round to the front door and tried the bell. No answer.

“After all,” he reminded himself, “Leslie had said that she would not be back till eleven-thirty at the earliest.” He returned to his pile of possessions up-ended a case and glumly sat on it, thinking, for the umpteenth time what a daft thing he had done while hoping that no one came to the mews before Leslie’s return.

He was deep in reverie when a familiar voice shouted.

“Who’s that person over there?”

“I don’t know,” sounded another, “I was expecting Charlotte, you know, the girl who always dresses in kinky rubber, not that strange man.” It was Leslie, preceded by Amber whom she had picked up from her flat and briefed on the way over.

Amber was wearing very tight, hipster leggings in an outrageous shade of shocking pink pearlised PVC. She had teamed them with a matching short form-fitting jacket that left her midriff bare. Besides a half-cup push-up bra in what could have been shiny black rubber, the tight-waisted jacket was all she wore above the waist. It revealed and exaggerated her cleavage and, combined with the bright colours, created the impression that she was an escapee from a local art school. The total effect was staggeringly loud, but very sexy. Her hair, too, seemed different from what Charles remembered from two days ago; shorter and much more of a strawberry blond.

“Maybe I was in too much of a daze to remember clearly, but it’s a bit odd,” Charles thought.

“Do you like the outfit?” she asked. “I put it on specially for you,” turning round, the sun glinting off her tightly rounded bottom.

“I wish she hadn’t,” thought Charles. He could cope with the restrained elegance of Leslie’s not much less revealing Montana suit, the same one she had sported when they first met. However, Amber’s blatant sexuality generated spontaneous feelings that he realised he must now quickly learn to suppress and involuntarily glanced down to check that no obvious bulges had formed.

The chaffing over, Leslie and Amber helped Charles carry his things up the two flights of stairs to the flat. All the time Amber apologising, saying how terribly sorry (well maybe!) she was that she forgot to leave the shoe keys.

“After all,” she excused herself, “you did land a smashing contract!”

Charles did most of the carrying while the girls did the sorting out. An hour later it was all done, the cases opened and the rubber dresses, the shoes and accessories and the new leather skirt hung up or put in cupboards.

Charles arrived slightly out of breath with the last bag to find all his men’s things had been separated out and unceremoniously dumped on the floor. Leslie stood by the pile, hands on hips, obviously ready to take command.

“Right, Charles,” she said, “perhaps I should have insisted that you changed out of that silly suit before we started the removals, I really don’t know what the neighbours would think if they were to see a strange man in the house. It’s time to get rid of Charles Graham once and for all and become Charlotte. Come on get your things off. I’m afraid that, for the moment, it will have to be Amber’s overworked dress again, but we’ll go shopping after lunch.”

Charles hesitated for a moment. The two girls pounced and, almost before he could protest, he was stripped, corseted and dressed and sitting in front of the mirrors having his face made up by Amber.

That afternoon Leslie and Amber took Charles shopping. At Leslie’s insistence, they had packed all his men’s clothes in two suitcases and, as a first step, had taken them to the local charity shop.

“To put temptation out of your way,” Leslie had said.

Charles bade a sad mental, ‘farewell,’ to some favourite silk ties as she explained that it was necessary to get some more clothes for the week ahead. Something a little less way out than his present dress was necessary, if only to preserve the sanity of those with whom Charlotte, as they called him at every possible moment, would be working. They also called in at the neighbouring opticians to order some suitably framed spectacles. They would be ready on Monday.

“I can manage for a day,” Charles had assured the girls. Leslie volunteered to collect them for him but not until getting him to make an appointment for the following weekend with the contact lens specialist.

“Contacts are so much more attractive and you can have them in various colours,” she persuaded him.

For the shopping trip Leslie left the car in the garage.

“Too difficult to park where we want to go,” was her plausible excuse. Instead they used the underground. Charlotte, formally Charles, had never been quite so close up to people in his female persona. The bus ride two days before had been one thing, but now he was pressed up tight with the Saturday crowds. Leslie seemingly revelled in picking the most packed carriages pushing Charles forward and squeezing in behind along with Amber. The first stop was Camden High Street.

“The quality’s not brilliant and you can get some better things made to measure later, but there are so many shops selling leather we are bound to find some things that will do for a bit,” Leslie shouted over her shoulder as she hacked through the seething mass of shoppers.

She was right. In the first shop he had felt very embarrassed when he asked the assistant if he could try something on - and it didn’t fit any way. By the time he got to shop number three he was quite happily sauntering out of the cubical to show off to his friends, and anyone else who happened to be watching.

Charles’s initial selections were greeted by cries of, “Too long and too loose,” from Amber who then did most of the searching, flopping garment after garment over the top of the cubical door.

“Stop touting for the French,” joked Charles after the third time.

Amber stopped and looked puzzled.

“Toulouse and Toulon are two French cities,” explained Leslie.

“Hum!” retorted Amber and, with a little flounce, rushed off to hunt the racks for something more to her taste.

“I can see what you meant about the need to pin Amber down sometimes for her own good, and everyone else’s,” Charles remarked in an aside to Leslie.

“Like to try it?” she tempted.

Amber was soon back to her usual self, calling across the shop “How about this one for you, Lesso?” and “Try this on Charlotte,” as she lifted one outrageous fashion after the other off the racks.

An hour and a large application of Leslie’s steadying influence later, Charles had two leather suits, one red and double-breasted, the other, black with a zipper and an imitation fur trimmed collar.

“At least with that one I won’t be for ever wondering which way to fasten it!” Charles thought. Both jackets were belted, “To show off your corseted waist,” was Amber’s rationale and were teamed with very short, very tight, skirts. The black one was barely forty centimetres from waist to hem and, though a hipster style, Charles thought it really was verging on the indecent.

Expressing his qualms he was told sharply that firstly, if he thought like that he should never have embarked on this new life and secondly he would just have to learn not to bend over when wearing it. Charles had to admit that they looked and felt good, so much so that he abandoned the rubber dress in favour of the red suit. Amber wanted him to wear the black one, but he felt that there was a high probability of being groped if he wore it in the crowds and anyway, he told her, it was a striking contrast against his black rubber stockings and stilettos.

On the way back to the Tube station Amber disappeared off to the side into the open market. The sun had come out and, combined with the tension that he felt, Charles was getting hot inside his rubber and leather.

“Now where’s the girl gone to?” he asked angrily.

“She’ll be back in a mo, I think she spotted a stall with earrings,” said Leslie with a smile. Sure enough, Amber re-appeared a few minutes later.

“Here, Charlotte,” she announced, as she bounded up to the others, “I’ve brought you a prezzy for being a good girl in the leather shop.” She handed Charles two pairs of the most extravagant clip-ons he had seen.

“I’m sorry that they aren’t very big,” she went on mischievously, “but until you grow up and get your ears pierced it’s the best I can do.” With that she took the larger pair out of his hand and clipped them to his ears, then marched off down the street to leave Leslie and Charles to follow. He shook his head in amazement at her vivacity, stopping abruptly in surprised at the jangle of the earrings.

Shoes were always going to be a problem. Charles’s feet were simply too big to have much success at high street shops so the trio’s next port of call was a specialist shoe shop that always has in stock basic ranges of boots and shoes in large sizes, and will make more special one to order.

“Better get two pairs of court shoes and some ankle boots,” advised Leslie, “and nothing less than a twelve-centimetre heel mind you. I won’t allow it and, anyway, with your height anything less would be out of proportion.”

“I don’t think I’ll make it in these,” mumbled Charles. He had tried on a number of pairs, none with less than the regulation height, and was attempting to heave himself up out of a chair for a walking test having had his feet fixed into a pair of strappy court shoes with heels at least sixteen centimetres tall.

“No, no they are just right, wrap them up, but, you just must have a pair of these,” call Amber gleefully running back from the main shop with a pair of red patent leather ankle strapped ballet boots with heels well over twenty centimetres tall.

“Whatever you say,” said the long-suffering Charles. Amber smiled and, with a nod to the proprietor, slipped them, along with a pair of knee-length black ballet-boots, into the bag of accumulating goodies while Charles’s attention was focused on balancing on his current pair of skyscrapers.

Their final port of call was more mundane, a visit to M&S to stock up with undies, pantie-girdles, bras, tights, bodies and the thousand-and-one things that his future life demanded.

Eventually, even the shopaholic Amber’s enthusiasm for spending Charles’ money abated and they made their way back to the house. Somehow Charles had got to carry most of the many parcels they had accumulated. Mild protests to the effect that, “if they were all girls together shouldn’t they share them out more evenly, rather load him up like a male dromedary,” having fallen on suddenly deaf ears.

Charles looked at the results of the expedition as he sat in the flat sipping the cup of coffee for which he had been pining for hours, but not daring to have while out in case he needed to go for a pee.

“After all that,” he said to no one in particular, “I don’t seem to have very much here. I think that I ought to go up North to get what things I have there as well. I need some of my books and I could bring the car too.”

“I could drive you up this evening if you like,” volunteered Leslie.

“Can I come too,” the ever-eager Amber chipped in before Charles could reply.

“That would be very nice,” said Charles, “you’re sure you don’t mind, it’s quite a long way.”

“Could we stay over night at your place?” Leslie asked.

“I don’t see why not,” replied Charles thoughtfully. “There are two rooms each with a double bed. You could have one each and I’ll use the sofa in the lounge.”

“Oh no you won’t,” said Amber, adding perhaps a little too eagerly and with a wink to glance to her friend, “Leslie and I can share a bed, can’t we!”

After a quick snack they set off while there was still a little light, Leslie driving. Her style was, what Charles would have described as, ‘authoritative’ and very soon she had threaded the Jaguar through the dense Knightsbridge traffic and was heading north through the suburbs to pick up the M1 motorway.

Charles had noticed a large black Mercedes had been following them, seemingly since they left the mews, keeping instep with Leslie’s changes of speed.

“Well,” he thought, ‘there’s no law against travelling north,” and in any case he had other things to worry about. The most pressing was trying to get his plugged and trussed undercarriage comfortable in the low passenger seat while his knees were held up in the air by high heels, his short skirt exposing altogether more thigh than he felt proper. He now thought he understood why some men like to get girls into sports cars! Amber was curled up on the dog-shelf of a back seat, chatting away about this and that to anyone who cared to listen.

By now they were in the outskirts on fairly deserted roads and were travelling at about fifty. Suddenly, the Mercedes accelerated as if to pass them then, when alongside, swerved in towards the pavement forcing the Jaguar off the road. In a split second everything happened. Leslie, sensing something veering towards her, yanked the wheel to the left causing the car to mount the kerb with an almighty bang. Amber, thrown sideways on the back seat, screamed as Charles saw a lamppost rushing towards him. Leslie saw it too and, wrenching the wheel in the other direction, missed it by little more than the thickness of a layer of paint to land with an all-mighty bump, back in the carriageway. Obviously shaken, Leslie pulled to a halt, resting her head against the wheel while they all took stock of what had happened. Of the Mercedes there was nothing to be seen.

“What the B,” shouted Charles, too agitated to control his voice and, for the moment forgetting all about lady-like language.

“Did anyone set the number?”

“It was a short one,” Amber responded. “I was watching it out of the back window, it was COO something E.”

“Fred Cooke,” Leslie murmured to herself.

“You think you know who it was?” said Charles angrily. “Let’s call the police,” and reached for the car phone.

Leslie put out a hand to stop him.

“I don’t think that would be a good idea,” she said quietly.

“Why not?” demanded Charles.

“I’ll explain another time when I feel a bit less shaken.”

“I’m not surprised you feel shaken. Are you alright to drive?” Charles asked, hand still on the ‘phone.

“Yes, but keep the police out of this,” she lifted his hand off the instrument and put it on his lap. “Just let me drive quietly for a bit and I’ll be fine.”

Charles reluctantly agreed.

“Okay,” he said, “but we had better check the car first.”

There was no obvious damage that they could see with a torch.

“Better not drive too fast and you ought to get the garage to have a look as soon as you get back,” Charles advised.

They got back in. A very pensive Leslie started the car, slipped it into gear, and drove into the night. No one spoke for a long time. It was a very subdued trio that eventually entered Charles’s house just as the church clock down in the village struck mid-night.

*****

Charles was up first next morning, dressed made breakfast on trays and, in three journeys on wobbly heels, carried it back upstairs. He rapped on girls’ door.

“Room service,” he called.

Hearing a sleepy, “Come in,” he pushed the door open with a toe and entered. Whatever may have been the plans before they left London, the experience en route must have put a damper on things. Leslie was in the double bed, still asleep while Amber, lying wrapped up in a duvet in a corner of the room, propped her head up on an elbow. Charles was somewhat shocked to see that she was bald. He had vaguely noticed that she seemed to change he hairstyle and colour a lot, but had put it down to her profession. Now, he realised, she wore wigs. He put a tray down beside her, trying not to stare at her smooth scalp and wondering if it was sexy or not.

“I thought that you were going to share the bed,” he said.

Amber wriggled upright, snuggling the duvet round herself.

“We were, but somehow it didn’t seem quite right after nearly being killed.”

Charles brought in the other trays and they chattered quietly while they ate, Charles sitting on the floor beside Amber. Leslie was still sleeping when they were finished.

“I think we should let her lie,” said Charles, “leave her tray. I’ll see you down stairs in a bit I have some ‘phoning to do.”

The first thing was to make arrangements with his housekeeper and the man who occasionally did the garden to keep the house ticking over while he would be away. Next he called the garage to ask if someone could come and check the Jaguar, declining the request to “bring it over,” and inventing what he hoped was a sufficiently believable story about lady drivers to explain why it should have been driven up the kerb and over the grass at sixty. Then he turned to sorting out things to take with him, at least for the year but, somehow it seemed, probably for a lot longer.

He had decided or was it more accurate to say, it had been decided for him, that as far as clothing went it was to be only his fetish and TV things. The one concession to his old self was a pair of rubber yachting boots to serve as sufficiently androgynous wellies. Even so, he was surprised just how many of these there were as he started to pack them into suitcases that began to pile up in the hallway. Then there were pictures and ornament, books, a television set, the hi-fi and CDs plus his big computer, modem etc, etc. By late afternoon there was little room left in either cars, Charles’s ‘few things’ having proved to be very much more numerous than anticipated.

“I think it would have been better if you had hired a van,” grumbled Amber when they had stopped for a bite of lunch.

“Or better still, a forty-ton artic.,” proffered Leslie, munching a cheese sandwich.

Amber stopped Charles in the hallway as he lugged out what he devoutly hoped was the last box of ‘essentials’.

“Do you mind if I use the ‘phone,” she asked.

“No problem,” he replied, adding, “If it’s private why don’t you use the study upstairs? I’ve got everything out of there that I’m taking for now,” and returned his attention to the problem of navigating the box out of the house.

“I’m sure that this is not a job for twelve-centimetre heels,” he muttered in pretend sub voce as he passed Leslie coming the other way.

“Normally not,” she said. She was wearing a pair of trainers. “But as I told you at breakfast, it’s excellent balancing practice for you!”

“Thank you, very much!” was the politest thing that Charles could think of in response.

They drove in convoy back to London. Charles was concerned about Leslie driving on her own, but she insisted that she was alright and that with both cars full of stuff there was actually more room in Charles’s BMW 740 for a passenger then there was in the Jaguar. He needn’t have worried. The return trip passed uneventfully except for one minor hiccup for Charles. Having stopped half way to have an indifferent meal at a service station, he found himself needing to go to the loo and, out of habit, was just about to go in to the ‘Gents’ when Leslie grabbed him and marched him off in the opposite direction.

They got back about mid-night and garaged the cars. Amber decided that she would stay the night with Leslie, “to keep her company and make up for missing out last night.”

Agreeing that the luggage could wait, Charles bade them “Goodnight,” and climbed the back stairs to the flat. There was something propped up by the door. It was a large bouquet of flowers. The accompanying card read,

To Charlotte,

            Congratulations on landing the contract

            and looking forward to you joining us,

The GALs  

“How sweet of them,” thought Charles as he put the flowers in water to have a good drink over-night. “I bet that’s what Amber was ‘phoning about, but I do wonder about the implications of ‘joining’ them - what ever that phrase means!”

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23.10.12