Off the Books - Part 2

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The revelation from my Doctor that I no longer had any ‘dangly bits’ as he called them was not altogether a shock but the realisation that I would have to ‘pee’ sitting down for the rest of my life was the real downer.

“There is an alternative to life as a eunuch you know?” he offered.

“Gee, thanks doc,” I replied slightly sarcastically.

“We could make… a vagina.”

“What to do you mean make a vagina?”

“We didn’t cut the remains of your penis off. All we did was repair the damage and re-route your waterworks. Your Penis was pretty badly damaged from a function point of view but the fleshy bits are not that bad. There is plenty of bits that still have a decent blood flow that can be used to make a very passable vagina. From my POV as a surgeon, it would be that different from a run of the mill sex change operation.”

I sank back onto the bed and started to weep.
“I’d end up looking like some poor tranny then, but for real?”

He smiled back at me.
“Your employers are willing to pay whatever it takes to make sure that does not happen. You aren’t some 6ft plus rugby prop forward with cauliflower ears and a nose that has been broken at least ten times, so with some work you will become a pretty decent looking woman.”

“Pull the other one Doc. In case you have not noticed it, I’m half bald already.”

He smiled back at me.

“Yes, that does present a bit of a problem but wigs and hair transplants have come a long way in recent years. You only have to look at the before and after photos of certain footballers and musicians to see how effective they can be these days.”

I thought for a while.
“How long before I have to make a decision?”

“We can leave it for up to a week. That will let some of the damage the razor wire caused to your thighs start to heal. Much longer and some of the bits of what is left of your scrotum might raise the white flag so to speak and I’ll need them for the operation.”

“Thanks Doc. I’ll give it a lot of thought.”

With that he left. A nurse popped her hear round the door a few minutes later.

“Are you up to having a visitor?”

“I suppose so.”

I wasn’t really but I’d have to face people sooner or later. I just hoped that it wasn’t my parents. They’d never really accepted that I was doing work that I couldn’t tell them about. They would have been happier with me in some boring nine to five job, gotten married and had a mortgage and children.


Jemma poked her head around the door a few minutes later and said,
“Are you decent?”

“I don’t have any bits left to be indecent,” I replied motioning her to come into my room.

“So, I heard. Bit of a bummer that.”

I took hold of her hand.

“Yes. No more sex for us. You are going to have to get a new partner as well.”

“Who says so? I don’t and as half of our team, don’t I get a vote?”

“Well, I won’t be climbing any ladders for a good while yet so unless you are quitting then you will need a new partner.”

She shook her head.

“Who says that I’m going anywhere?”

I sighed.

“We were a pretty good team, weren’t we? We are both going to have to find something else to do with our lives from now on.”

“Really? Who says so?”

“Don’t be silly Jemma, it stands to reason. You will find a new partner and I’ll… well try to get on with the rest of my life as a eunuch.”

She leaned over and kissed me.

“Don’t you know that I love you? I’ve loved you for a long, long time.”

“We had sex. That was all.”

She looked very angry.

“No, it fucking well wasn’t and you know it. It was at first but then it became a lot more than that.”

It was then that I knew I was well and truly Fsck’d.

“Even if I became a woman?”

“What do you mean, become a woman?”

“The Doc didn’t tell you everything then? My dick is so badly damaged that the only really viable alternatives are to cut it off entirely or… give me a vagina.”

A smile broke out on Jemma’s face. Then she started laughing.

“I can see you find the prospect of me becoming a woman very funny then?”

“No, it’s not that, she replied between giggles.

“What is it then?”

“I’m just trying to imagine you in a skirt and heels, that’s all?”

“Yeah, I’m just a tranny joke then? Besides, how often do you wear heels anyway? When you do, all you ever do is complain about ‘women stereotypes’ for weeks after…”

She stopped laughing and looked me in the eye.

“Did you ever… you know dress up in your sister’s clothes as a child?”

“I never had a sister. I am one of three brothers. You know that or had you forgotten?”

“Your Mother’s then?”

I shook my head.

“No. I’m not a closet tranny if that is what you meant. Why would you think that? Don’t you know me at all after all these years?”

“There has been the odd occasion that I doubted you.”

“Name one?”

“Well, for starters, you always seemed to know what would look good on me. Remember the Monaco Operation? You made me wear that white dress when I really didn’t want to. I had to admit I looked pretty good and it made our target take notice of me from the very moment I walked into the room. You knew what would work when I really hadn’t a clue.”

“I know what looks good on you because we have been partners for longer than most marriages last. I would not have a clue about what looks good on me.”

“Then let me try to help. I’ll be back tomorrow with some clothes and my makeup kit.”

“It is going to take a hell of a lot more than a bit of makeup to make me even remotely passable.”

Jemma laughed.

“Who does all of our prosthetics then?”

I didn’t reply because Jemma was an expert in making us look like someone else as well as blowing people up and then killing them in at least 57 different ways.

“This isn’t for a few hours, this is for the rest of my life,” I replied after a few seconds.

“Don’t worry, I’ll make it all right.”

“You sound like my mother when she wasn’t drunk.”

Jemma didn’t respond. She knew that discussing my parents was strictly off limits.

My mother was an alcoholic and had been ever since my baby brother got killed by a hit and run driver when I was ten years old. Dad was, well dad. He’d been a Major in the Household Cavalry but had since retired and was running a small printing business. Sadly, that in itself became a major complaint of my mothers’. She’d been accustomed to a certain life-style while her husband was in the army. Now she was severely limited in her spending power which made her drink even more. I’d not seen them for more than four years but as far as I knew that they were both still alive and living in Harpenden. I decided after that last visit that I wanted nothing more to do with them.

Jemma stayed around for a while but she could sense that my mind wasn’t really on her and what she was saying.

She was right. I had a lot of other things on my mind.


The following morning, I was able to get out of bed and have a decent wash and shave. That cheered me up for all of five seconds as I peered at my face in the mirror wondering how on earth that ugly mug looking back at me could be made into a passable female persona.
I shook my head as I dried my face. There was no way I could ever live as a woman, not with that large and slightly bent nose that I possessed… Thanks a bunch Dad!

Jemma arrived in the middle of the morning, carrying her boxes of war-paint and applicators. She was full of cheer at the thought of turning me into a woman. I guessed it was payback time for all the times I’d chided her about taking forever to get ready.

Two and a half hours later, she pronounced herself satisfied. I’d been preened, moisturised, plucked and generally tortured into shape. During the process several nurses appeared and after having a good laugh at my expense, left with smiles on their faces. I wasn’t sure if it was because they were laughing at me or pleased at the work that Jemma was doing.

As she ‘did her stuff’, she updated me on the warehouse we’d broken into that night.

“The local Plod found eighty women and sixty-two children all locked up in cages. So far, we know that they have been transported here from Thailand, Malaysia, Russia, Turkmenistan and Afghanistan. Some are refusing to speak to anyone because they are so traumatised. They also found more than half a tonne of high-grade as in 100% proof Cocaine and Heroin and also more than five hundred thousand, in forged Dollar and Euro notes plus close to a million in genuine bills. We did good, or that is what the higher ups including ‘Sam’ are saying. Oh, and there is a media blackout on the whole thing apart from the drug find. Sam thinks that will keep them happy.”

Jemma smiled.

“Apparently, the gossip is that both ‘5’ and ‘6’ are livid that we cracked the case wide open.”

I managed a smile back.

“Do we know who controlled the place?”

“Yes. Our suspicions were correct. There was a paper trail that led right to him. It was Daniel Esteban. Apparently, the word is out that he has personally come or is on his way to the UK to supervise, as the narks put it, the return of his assets and the elimination of those responsible for their loss.”

“I guess that puts us in the firing line then?”

“Only if someone lets on that it was us.”

“That’s going to be a tad difficult seeing that an ambulance and the fire service were involved in it all?”

“Yes. That’s why turning you into a woman is the perfect disguise.”

“What about you? Are they going to suggest that you become a man?”

Jemma laughed.

“Apparently someone in the organisation has it all planned out. Your transition I mean.”

She tried to make fun of it all but failed miserably.

At the end of her work Jemma pronounced me ready to face the world. She showed me her handy-work in a mirror.

“Well?”

I had to admit that it was having a job finding my true features in the face that starred back at me from the mirror. The wig that she’d fitted to my half bald head made all the difference. It was even better once she’d styled it a bit. She really had missed her true vocation. I could imagine her working her magic on TV Shows like Dr Who or Game of Thrones… Instead she was part of a team that risked their lives on a regular basis.

“Thanks,” I replied

Jemma smiled back at me.

“I sense a but coming.”

“There is. This is hardly practical for every day. There is no way I could do this on my own each and every day.”

Jemma grinned back at me.

“That is where some surgery would help, to fix that nose, give you a better jaw line and lip line, an eye tuck and that sort of stuff,” she said lightly.

“Some Surgery? What if is a lot then?”

“How about a full-face transplant? You could be an identikit Daniel Esteban…”

I groaned. I was not really looking forward to even the operation that I inevitably faced to my nether region. Then there was the daunting prospect of at least half a dozen more operation on my face and chest to turn me into a what I could only see as a poor excuse for a woman.

Jemma was in my eyes just about perfect in every department.

“It is easy for you to say all that but you don’t need anything done, now do you?”

She grinned back.
“Give it time Darling, give it time,” she replied in a very camp voice.

Just then, a head poked itself around the door to my room. It was Danny, our immediate boss cum handler, call him what you will, he was our only regular link to the organisation. We kept away from our HQ unless it was absolutely necessary that we go there. You never know who is keeping tabs on the comings and goings of an otherwise unassuming office block in central London.

Danny would come and meet us face to face when needed. In these days of encrypted communications much of what we did, could be done from pretty well anywhere in the world.

I’d wondered why it had taken him so long to appear and then he does so with me looking like some hooker from Kings Cross.

“Hey guys, what’s up?” he said cheerfully as he came into the room.

Danny was always the optimist. ‘Look on the bright side of life’ could have been written for him.

“Hi Boss,” I said slightly wearily.

He grinned back.

“You are looking well. All ready for your new assignment then?”

“Fuck off Danny. I still don’t know what I am going to do.”

“Well, it looks from here that it has been decided.”

“No, it has not and I would respect a little time to make up my own mind on the matter.”

“If it helps you make up your mind, our friend, Mr Esteban has put out a hit on you worth £250,000 each and that is just to find you and deliver you to him. Word is that he wants to make an example of you.”

“Gee thanks boss, just the news I could do without. I really don’t fancy my execution being streamed live on the internet in time for the ten o’clock news…”

The smile disappeared from Danny’s face. He knew what had happened to the last person who had been made an example of by Esteban.

That unlucky person was a CIA Agent who had infiltrated his organisation and was only discovered after a leak of data from one of the ‘satellite’ companies that the CIA uses to do a lot of its dirty work on the ground. It was not a pretty end for the man.

“Whatever you decide is ok with the department. Whichever way you go, we’d like to use that to trap Senor Esteban once and for all. He has been a thorn in our side for far too long.”

He saw the concern on my face.

“Don’t worry, we have a location already arranged that will make any attempt to capture you a rather forlorn hope.”

“I guess that must be the phantom moon base then? There can’t be many places on this planet that he can’t infiltrate with the resources at his disposal.”

Danny grinned back.

“From what I know, this place has really good security.”

“That’s not the point. We are a target and even looking like this it is not going to help all that much, now is it?” I replied with more than a tinge of sadness to my voice.

“That’s why we need to deal with him once and for all, so hurry up and get yourself out of here then we can lure him into our trap.”

“What about this place? How can we vouch for the staff here? One phone call is all it would take and I’m dead meat.”

“That is why there are armed guards outside your door.”

Something didn’t quite fit right with what Danny was saying and what Jemma had said earlier.

“If you don’t mind Danny, I’d like to rest now.”

He gave me a dirty look but nonetheless, he left me alone with Jemma.


After a minute or so, I looked at Jemma and she took my hint. She walked over to the door and checked outside.

“He’s gone and so have the guards.”

“That settles it, I need to get out of here and pronto.”

“I think so too.”

“Let’s get this goo off my face?”

Jemma laughed.

“I think that will be a very good disguise when I wheel you out of here”.

“But….” Then I thought about it and reluctantly agreed with her.

“I need to make a phone call first though.”

Jemma looked at me with a puzzled look on her face.

“I’m calling the ‘repair man’. We should head for that very private hospital we know and he can do the dirty deed there.”

“I take it you by ‘repair man’, you mean the doctor that patched me up after the Tashkent debacle?”

I nodded. Jemma had taken a bullet in her thigh just missing an artery.

“Good choice.”


An hour later Jemma who was by now wearing a Nurses uniform, pushed me out of the Hospital in a wheelchair. Getting into her little Mazda sports car was not the easiest thing I have ever done but eventually, we left the Hospital behind us.

It took us a little over three hours to get to our destination, a very private clinic deep in the Devon countryside. Neither of us said much during the journey but when Jemma stopped for fuel just outside Honiton, I asked her,

“What about you? Don’t you want to make a run for it, leave me behind and start afresh somewhere new?”

She laughed and smiled at me.

“Just what are either of us experienced at apart from a lot of Breaking and Entering, all manner of espionage and other nefarious and unmentionable skills? Nah, I’m here as long as you want me. We make a pretty good team, don’t we?”

I briefly squeezed her hand.

“Do you remember when we first met?”

She laughed.

“Oh yes. That dreary office in Chancery Lane. There were ten of us if I recall correctly?”

“We were so naive back then, weren’t we? All about to graduate from University and sort of desperate for a job, any sort of job.”

“Yeah, that first weekend in Northumberland soon sorted out a few though.”

Jemma went red in the face as the memory came flooding back.

“I hardly covered myself in glory now did I? I had to let you almost carry me the last 10 miles.”

“Yeah, I couldn’t let the woman I fancied something rotten get thrown off the course, now could I?” I replied with a grin on my face.

“And we’ve been together ever since. Strange that eh?”

Jemma put the car into gear and we were off once again, her face still red but smiling.


The clinic was well known to us. Apart from the injury to Jemma, I’d had similar cause to visit the establishment on a couple of other occasions.
Once I was settled in, Jemma said,

“I’m going to head back to London.”

My heart sank.

“I have a few people to see especially about where those guards went. When that’s done, I’ll park my car at my home just like I normally do. Don’t worry, I’ll take the very long, pretty and invisible route and enter London from the North. I know the form. ‘Don’t trust anyone’”.

“And then?” I asked hopefully.

She smiled.

“As ‘Arnie’ said, ‘I’ll be back’. But it will take a few days. I have to be a million percent sure that I am not followed. That’s why we came off the M4 at Chippenham and spent the next three hours getting here. I’ll do that again but taking an even more roundabout route.”

She saw my concern.

“Don’t worry darling, I’ll be careful. ‘JG’ is fully loaded.”

I managed a small smile in return. ‘JG’ referred to her Sig-Sauer that she’d named ‘Jemmas-Gunn’.

“I’ve left your Glock in the bottom drawer. It is inside your washbag. There is a spare clip as well.”

“Thanks.”

After a moments silence between us, Jemma sat down on the edge of my bed and proceeded to kiss me long and hard. She’d never kissed me with as much passion before.

As the door closed behind her, I could not help wondering if the kiss was a sign of things to come or a goodbye kiss and one that I’d remember her for.


With her gone, I had no choice but to get back to thinking about myself and what I should do next.

The staff at the clinic were very helpful in providing a ‘shrink’ for me to talk to the following day. Once I’d gotten over the surprise that one could be provided so soon, I realised that someone in the department was pulling strings behind our backs.

Naturally, no names were used in the sessions and from her accent, I suspected that she’d been drafted in from Northern Ireland just for this task.

The three sessions I had with the ‘shrink’ over the next week proved to be not only very informative but allowed me to come to the inevitable decision that Jemma had been alluding to right from the moment she’d found out about my injury that I’d be better off becoming a woman. I didn’t let on to the shrink about the price on my head but the shrink guessed that there was more that I wasn’t telling her. She responded,
“I know that there is a whole lot more that you could tell me but for all manner of reasons you can’t. All I want you to do is think carefully about everything we have discussed in these sessions and what it means for the long term.”

After the final session, I was left alone for the rest of the day but I knew that come the following morning, I’d have to tell the doctors what I wanted to happen. I fell asleep each night wishing that Jemma was here just to be with me and let me smell her scent.

There was still no sign of Jemma after nearly a week when the chief surgeon, a Dr Aspinall came breezily into my room.

“Well, I can see that you are pleased to see me,” he said stating the obvious.

Then his whole demeanour changed as he shooed the nurse that invariably accompanied him out of the room.

He sat down on the bed in much the same place that Jemma had done before… before she’d gone.

“What have you decided?” he asked quietly.

I didn’t respond right away but he was patient with me.

“After due consideration I think that I should have the sex change operation. At the very least, I’ll get my waterworks sorted out properly and thinking back to how I looked when I arrived here, I may have an outside chance of passing as a woman if something can be done about my hair.”

I thought that I detected a slight chuckle in Dr Aspinall.

“I’m glad that you have thought about this more than just your bits down below.”

“Yes,” I replied nodding.

“The sessions I had with the shrink were very helpful in laying out all the options in front of me. I spent a lot of the night thinking things through.”
The Doctor smiled.

“Then I’d better schedule the first of your operations for Friday then?”

“First?” I asked.

“As you say, we need to get your bits down below sorted. Then in a few weeks, we can start on the face and Adams apple and your breasts. You are going to be with us for quite a while longer. Once the first operation is done and you have recovered enough to get around on your feet again, we will move you to somewhere a little more comfortable.”

I remembered the Bungalows that were dotted around the grounds.

“That would be nice,” I replied still thinking about what was to come.

“You have a visitor by the way.”

“Who?”

“A Ms Jennings. Does that name mean anything to you?”

It did and my body language clearly told him that.

“I’ll send her in.”

With that he left and a few minutes later, Doris or was it, Daphne Jennings came into my room. I couldn’t remember but any meeting with her did not bode well for the future.
She was regarded as the ‘merchant of doom’ by almost everyone in the department.

[to be continued]

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Comments

Well crafted

Well crafted as always, it shows your skills as a mystery writer. Now anxiously awaiting another chapter. Thanks for sharing with us.
Hugs Fran Cesca

- Formerly Turnabout Girl

A hard decision indeed.

Follow through is going to be rough, to say the least.

A good thriller

I sure hope Jemma's okay.

That last paragraph......

D. Eden's picture

Does not bode well - especially in light of the fact that Jemma has not yet returned!

D. Eden

Dum Vivimus, Vivamus

Finally Some Teeth in this Story

BarbieLee's picture

Sam, as excellent writer you are, that first chapter was so bland, if I had started there it would have also been where I quit. I picked up this story at chapter 4 which pulled me in because you had hit your stride as the gifted word smith that you are. Chapter two and three are on track and lead into four very smoothly.

When readers pick up a book we have less than ten seconds to get them interested. The cover and visual graphics are the first of course. Title and a one line teaser on the front is the second. Now either reviews or a teaser on the back cover. They open and scan if we still have their attention. Your first chapter would lose most of them as they put the book back on the shelf. If you turn this story into a book, rework that first chapter where it has some bite. Unless your name is Stephen King the name on the book isn't going to get them to purchase the book. Like so many of us, you have to do it the old fashion way with the skill you have as a writer.
hugs hon
always,
Barb

Oklahoma born and raised cowgirl

Someone's a bit ticked

Jamie Lee's picture

£250,000 isn't peanuts for someone to spend, so Daniel is really ticked off about losing the ill gotten gain. The items he lost show he cares only about himself, other lives mean nothing to him. Maybe if he was put into a cage, as those people were, then taken out to sea and dropped into the deepest part of the ocean, he'd understand how useless his life is to others. Of course by the time he sank to the deepest depths, he'd be nothing but paste on metal. That would be a fitting end for such garbage, especially if he was still alive when it happened.

With the bounty out and about, change his appearance is the smart choice--as long as no records were kept of the change or anyone talked.

Could the reason Jemma hasn't returned because she too is changing in some manner?

Others have feelings too.

Okay...

Daphne Xu's picture

... one wanted young lady has been gone longer than she was supposed to be. And another, unwanted, young lady has made a surprise appearance. The "Merchant of Doom".

“`That is why there are armed guards outside your door.'

"Something didn’t quite fit right with what Danny was saying and what Jemma had said earlier." Unfortunately, I can't figure out what it was that clashed. However, the guards did disappear. That meant that he had to escape already.

Oh, and a paper trail leading right to Daniel Esteban? Sounds too good to be true.

-- Daphne Xu

-- Try saying freefloating three times rapidly.