Tranford Tales - Sophie

CHAPTER 1

I was a typical selfish husband. Not deliberately, of course. Just male inability to see what was going on. I would have described myself as a feminist. But in reality, I pushed ahead with my career and assumed Liz would take care of the rest. You know, where we live, what we eat, clothes, furniture, keeping the house in order, dealing with a daughter, Cheryl, from the terrible twos to teenage terrors. And of course, supporting me in my career.

Liz had a job, of course. It never occurred to me that I could have done more to let her have a career.

I was a nurse. Yes, a man in a traditional female role. How cool and feminist is that? And the fact that I got promoted relatively fast was nothing to do with any bias or positive discrimination.

I became a manager and a nurse practitioner -- that is, part of the way to being a doctor. I could prescribe medicines, for example. It took time out to get extra qualifications, and meant a lot of study at home, but Liz said she was really proud of me, as she got on with the essentials of life.

Not only was I a feminist, I loved women and thought I understood them. With a daughter and a wife, I revelled in the female household. Knowing the biology of course, it was a delight to see my girl blossom. I pontificated sometimes on hormones and such matters, but it was Liz who did the real work, taking her through periods and the practical side of being an adult female.

Nurses aren't paid that well, of course, and taking time out to study also cost us. Liz took years off with Cheryl because I had read how important those first years with a mother are. She also had to work part-time until she got to secondary school. So money was tight.

I think it was necessity that meant she made so many of Cheryl's clothes and hers. Made or remade. She said it was a nice hobby as she worked the sewing machine in the evening.

I loved seeing them both in nice outfits, dresses in particular. I suppose I encouraged Cheryl to demand more, without thinking how much work it was for her mother.

Cheryl had a boyfriend who lived with us for over a year. Another selfish male who expected Liz to deal with his clothes and feed him as his mother had. I never thought of this, of course, just appreciated going out to the pub with him some times. And was glad my girl was enjoying womanhood fully.

Then they moved out and set up home together. And discovered that the refrigerator did not automatically fill itself, Liz said. Actually, that was pretty much what I thought.

But the house was empty.

I had my career, of course; full and demanding days. Technical literature to read in the evening.

Liz had a job in an office. It filled the time and brought in the money. But not the evenings.

I suggested she could perhaps do a bit of dressmaking, but things had moved on. Women bought clothes so cheaply it was not worth making your own. There was little enough demand.

There was a party at work -- fancy dress -- and it seemed obvious I should go as a nurse. A sexy female nurse, of course. Liz did a brilliant job, and it was a great success.

There was a doctor there in drag, but there was a difference between us. People said he looked funny. They said I looked great. And I felt great.

Not long after I was invited to a staff hen party. The bride-to-be and her best mates hired or made sexy nurse costumes and wanted me to come in mine. It was a laugh.

And I felt great.

We had had some training in LGBTQ+ stuff, and I was getting quite interested and involved in it from a technical point of view, hormone treatment and such. I ended up at a regular meeting of transgender people, part medical, part social, part psychological support.

I tried to deny it, but I was getting some of the feelings the clients had described. (When you are ill, and need medical intervention, you are a patient. For psychological matters and for assistance in dealing with the world, you are a client.)

At a meeting someone raised the problem of clothes to fit a male physique. They were embarrassed to go to a regular dressmaker for alterations, and one of the staff winked at me and said we had a friend who did dresses for men.

So one day Liz came along to a meeting. Two clients had brought dresses they liked, slightly large, and she altered them to fit better. It was of interest to her and nice to know we were helping people. She made a modest charge, and some requests followed from friends of those in the group.

She had been looking through patterns and thinking about things. Suppose she made one from scratch as she had with the nurse costume? Not exaggerated and funny, but tasteful, as an actual woman would want. It took me a long time to realise how technical it was, not merely to fit, but to disguise less welcome features of a body and flatter good ones. What a tailor will do for a made-to-measure man's suit or dressmakers do for celebrity females.

And naturally she needed a model to practise on. Me.

It wasn't an immediate success. No, she was learning, and putting things right. It took a couple of months before she had made two dresses, she felt were right for me. She also made some knickers which were comfortable with my genitals but pretty.

Almost all those on the way to being transwomen wanted breasts, so she bought a couple of bras, in modest and larger cup for my chest size. They were stuffed with tights.

Just working in free time, it was six months before she had a range of patterns, she could offer.

A few people who had had alterations came round, saw me, and were measured for the same style in the fabric of their choice. Word of mouth meant that there were requests often enough for Liz to be occupied, but not enough to be a burden. It gave her a sense of satisfaction. There was a little money, and people were being helped.

I had to admit something I was suppressing. I understood some of the stories of the clients I had dealt with. And I liked wearing dresses. I liked seeing my wife and daughter in pretty clothes because I really wanted to wear them.

I also understood some of my clients at last when I finally plucked up the courage to tell Liz.

"I thought so," she said, once I had stammered out my confession, blushing deep red. "Took you long enough to work it out."

I took what would have been my own advice and went to see a counsellor, who referred me to a doctor who prescribed exactly the tablets I would have expected.

CHAPTER 2

Liz and I had agreed I should try the hormones, and dressing female around the home, to see how things went. She said I should have a new name to remind me. Sophie was her choice, and I liked it.

I told my boss, of course, and she said it would be interesting to see someone actually changing on the staff, but I should report any difficulties or conflicts of interest. At work we wear the same unisex scrubs, so there was no immediate change, and no-one else needed to know.

Fat chance of keeping it secret! In a medical community everyone was interested.

I suppose it was a bit like telling people you are on a diet. Maybe I would have given up if it had not been common knowledge, because I was really uncertain for quite a long while. I was constantly getting little compliments and helpful advice from the women, and little jokes from the men. Sexist in the nicest possible way. (And often very amusing with technical medical terms. Amusing to medical people anyway. "Sophie! Working your gonads off?")

What did I want? I asked myself so many times.

Meanwhile Liz was gently doing a wonderful job in supporting me in my new career, as always!

Did I fancy men?

There were two answers to that.

Firstly, no. I had actually tried to imagine kissing and even having sex with a man, with a wonderful new vagina, but it didn't appeal at all.

And secondly, I loved Liz, so even if I did fancy someone else, I would never do it.

As she said, the reduction in our sex life from the hormones was not much -- from very little to zero, but we kissed and cuddled.

Kissed and cuddled rather more, I think. In fact, I hadn't been doing it enough for years, I realised. Selfish man: in, out, turn over.

The hormones had two effects. Physically there was a little breast growth and sensitivity and other feminization of my body. My skeleton and established hair growth meant that I didn't look like a woman of course.

But the main effect was mental. At last I understood what transgender clients had been telling me all along.

I felt better. It felt right.

Eventually I attended one of the transgender support meetings, where the staff did not wear scrubs or white coats, but what we called civilian clothes. I attended in a dress and was enthusiastically received. (I brought it from home and changed there.)

We told Cheryl, who was wonderful about it, and her husband Bruce accepted it too. It was a delight to have them round for dinner with me in a dress and makeup.

It must have had some effect on my brain, because I began to notice things in a different way. In particular recognising my typical male faults, and accepting my liking of feminine things.

And noticing things, such as the way my genitals spoiled clothes. I could tuck and hold them back with tight pants, but it wasn't comfortable. I knew they would have to go, and there was no regret since I wasn't using them for anything but urination.

It took a while, and all the correct procedures were followed, but being "in the trade" so to speak, it went well and I got a surgical team with a particularly good reputation. My man bits went, and female urination and appearance was achieved, though I did not have surgery to make a neovagina, as I had no use for it. This was all courtesy of the NHS, due to my judged psychological need.

My small breast development was enhanced by moderate implants, which I had to pay for, of course, being a cosmetic procedure.

It was touching how many visits I got from transwomen I had once helped.

At last I felt able to walk out of my own front door as a woman so far as the outside world was concerned!

CHAPTER 3

My happiness was short-lived.

One morning I went out to work to find 'PERVERT' spray painted across the front of the house.

Other things followed, none of them nice.

Before the damage got too great, we sold the house to a company that specialized in distress sales. That is, people who need to sell quickly and have to accept a big discount on the market price.

Much of our stuff was put into storage and we moved to a small flat on the far side of the city.

Things were OK at work, but I was frankly fearful elsewhere. I was not confident or convincing as a man or a woman.

Most of all I regretted the distress I had put Liz through, and the cost. I reflected that I had been a selfish man again, expecting just to have what I wanted like a child. I was depressed thinking maybe I should have tried harder to be a better man and husband.

Naturally I refused the counselling I would have urged anyone else to take.

Like a man.

One of the disadvantages was that being a woman takes work. I could not skip shaving, and not only my chin. The hormones had softened hair growth but it was still in the same places, and five o'clock shadow is not a good look. Makeup, of course. And hair. Now I was past wigs, it took time dealing with it every day and much greater time and expense at the hairdressers.

It had been easier being a man.

Liz put it to me straight.

"You could get the boobs removed, trim your hair, even grow a bit of a beard, and pass as a man again. There are things you can get if you want a bulge in the trousers, and if you want to pee standing."

"Shall we put it down to experience?"

I had to think.

That was the logical answer.

However, I couldn't explain it but I would rather be unhappy as what someone unkindly called a mock woman, than being a failed man.

I had never realised what liking dresses could get me into.

I was happy that I had got my wish but unhappy at the situation it had got me into. My work suffered as well as my home life.

It was Cheryl's husband Bruce who cheered me up in a surprising way.

We were talking privately. It was obvious that I was down, but trying to bear up, and I remarked how good Liz had been, and I was sorry I couldn't do something for her.

"You still have sex, right?" he asked, and I gave a little chuckle.

"Not without my equipment!"

He looked at me as if I was stupid (and he was right).

"With all your medical qualifications, you don't know how two women have sex?"

"Well, of course, there's that..." I said apologetically, "but...you know..."

"You don't do cunnilingus?" he said incredulously. "What kind of an idiot are you?"

"She doesn't...At least, we don't...I mean, she's never...I don't think she..."

"For fuck's sake!" he said. "Stop feeling sorry for yourself, and do something for your wife! If she's anything like your daughter, she'll love it and she deserves it!"

He turned to leave, then stopped.

"I really wonder what you've been doing in your marriage all this time."

I was mortified.

It took me a couple of days to broach the issue, and of course her response was there was no need, she was fine.

I played my trump card.

"Why not ask your daughter if you should?"

It took us a little time to get into it, but not a lot. Then when she closed her eyes and said "Mm, delicious," I was happier than I had been for a long time.

She didn't come -- either she didn't or I hadn't learned yet, but she accepted pleasure from me for ten or twenty minutes at a time.

It was the best sex I ever had -- true lovemaking. Just giving, and ecstatic in the pleasure I was giving to the love of my life. No urgency to get on with my pleasure, of course, now the genitals had gone.

I sometimes wonder if we had done it earlier, maybe I would not have become Sophie. Because it didn't matter if I was a man or a woman, I was just her lover, which is all I wanted to be for the rest of my life.

CHAPTER 4

I was happier at work, and put more effort into my appearance.

One day I was called to see the head nurse.

"I'm glad you're looking happier these days, Sophie," she said. "You were a right misery for a while."

"So much that the other staff have been trying to get rid of you, and I think they might have found a way. Please take a seat, if you would."

"There's an opportunity for a job and a place to live, but a bit far away. Well away from your vandals anyway. Let me show you on a map."

"There's a village called Tranford which has become a bit of a safe haven for transgender people, and other sorts of oddballs like yourself. There is some housing available, and there is a vacancy for a nurse in a medical centre nearby, which they tend to use. We thought it might interest you."

What it is to have friends!

They had scoured their networks and looked for opportunities, all unknown to me.

The medical centre was a joint practice set up by two relatively young GPs with a couple of part-timers (women with small children), and they were still building their patient list from new housing on the edge of the city. Tranford was not far away, in their catchment area, and most of the inhabitants so far had registered with them. They apologised that at the moment they only had plans and budget for another nurse, but in future might well have a need for a nurse practitioner, and would value my experience.

The money was less than I was presently getting, and Liz would have to find a job. They said there was a possibility for a receptionist/clerk, but there were plenty of expanding businesses in the city.

I really liked the place and Liz said it would be good to escape and make a fresh start, but we had better look at accommodation.

We stayed overnight in a hotel, and I made love until Liz actually came! She said it was a good omen.

In the morning we went to Tranford, and were both enchanted. We had been told to go to what would be the community centre, presently used as a site office and temporary accommodation for the architect, who met us and showed us around.

The pub was the only remnant of what must have been no more than a hamlet. There was still a ford you could drive through, over the Tran Brook, but this had been bypassed by a main road, leaving Tranford relatively isolated. The larger village of Tranbrook had been swallowed up by the city and was now a suburb, where the medical practice was.

He told us that the space between the two was protected by a strip of green belt and a Nature Reserve, including a Site of Special Scientific Interest with some rare plants and butterflies.

There had been a very tasteful development of new houses, mainly semi-detached two bedrooms -- what they call these days affordable -- with a couple of bigger ones and a larger area of self-build was under way.

He explained the project was really a place where people of non-standard gender could live peacefully with anyone not prejudiced. Not revolutionary, just a quiet community of people with ordinary lives, though perhaps not conforming to the stereotype of their biological gender. It was mainly couples, at present, where at least one was living in a gender different from their biological sex, but the further development was intended to provide room for single people, parent-child arrangements, or anyone who wished to be part.

When he heard what we did, he was delighted.

"A nurse and a dressmaker! Just what we need! I do hope you'll come."

He took us to lunch in the pub. It was a nice couple, a man and a woman who I could see was a biological male, but so happy in her outfit and they were obviously in love. They had both worked in pubs, and it was a dream come true to run their own.

"It doesn't make a profit," she explained, "so we are being subsidised by the community. Things should get better when there are more people, and we already get some visitors from outside for Sunday lunch or those visiting the nature reserve. We also have some people from Tranbrook who were sorry when it closed down a few years ago, and are glad to see it back. But it is here for the community, not just a profit."

Because of the loss we had made on our house and the expectation of lower income in future, I was a bit hesitant, but Liz was insistent.

Cheryl and Bruce said they would help out if we were short of money.

Cheryl was making a career, with the full support of her husband, and they were both doing well.

"I can't lose," she said. "Sorry to be so morbid, but I'll get it back when you die, and I'd rather you were both happy till then. I wouldn't mind living here myself. We'll see how the new development looks. There's no restrictions, your architect said."

It was the best thing that happened to us!

Liz found an office job not far from the practice and we drove in together each day, so I was Sophie all the time. I didn't go out much in Tranbrook for quite a while, just in and out of the medical centre.

Liz set up her sewing machine in the dining room and used the dining table. I suggested she could use the second bedroom as a workroom, but she said no.

The dining room was just one half of a longer room, with a folding door dividing it from the lounge. We kept it open, and she said she liked that we were together. She could watch and listen to the TV as she worked, or we could chat from time to time as I sat on the sofa with my laptop.

There was another reason.

"We might have a lodger sometimes," she said. "Maybe a young person who can't be with their parents, and needing a bit of support while they adjust. You would be around while they convalesce after surgery."

She missed Cheryl, and I understood. So it was set up as a nice bedroom.

We settled in, and it worked out well.