METHOD OR MADNESS
By Joannebarbarella

I rang the doorbell and waited at the top of the short entry staircase. I was a little nervous about the forthcoming interview, although there was no real reason why I should be. I had interviewed the man before and he had been perfectly charming. That meeting had been in his hotel room during one of those publicity stints that actors are obliged to do to promote their latest offering. I only wondered what I had done to merit an invitation to his Sloane Square home.

He was billed as Britain’s answer to Tom Cruise, an extremely handsome man a little taller than the American star, although not by much. He was known for the wide range of roles in which he had been cast and was a favourite of the critics as well as the public. He could be villain or hero with equal ease and was not averse to the occasional supporting role as a “character” either. He was a master of disguise when the part called for it and was well respected by his peers for remaining within the bounds of his roles and not trying to outdo or overshadow his principals.

In short (I giggled a bit at my unintentional pun) he was the perfect actor and I felt very privileged to be given this private audience. I guess I had been waiting about a minute when the door was opened by an extremely attractive woman wearing what I could only describe as one of those fantasy French Maid uniforms…. you know, the ones that start with high heels, continue up legs clad in fishnet stockings to a very short petticoated skirt and top, complete with a little lace cap atop a beautifully made-up face.

“What the fuck?” I thought to myself. “Why would Martin Reeves, of all people, hire a girl like this?”

“Hello,” she said. “You must be Ms. Devereaux.”

“Yes, I am,” I replied, somewhat stunned.

“Please come in. I am Mr. Martin’s maid and he sends his sincere apologies for not being here to meet you. He was called away on urgent personal business only fifteen or twenty minutes ago. He should be back in an hour and asks if you will wait. He instructed me to provide you with refreshments until he returns.”

I stepped inside, somewhat miffed at his absence, but these things happen and I wasn’t going to miss my chance at the interview.

She closed the door behind me and offered to take my coat. I allowed her to do so and she hung it nicely on a hanger before turning to me again.

“Please come into the drawing room Ms. Devereaux and take a seat. My name is Maria. Can I get you coffee and some cake or biscuits?”

I was still somewhat overwhelmed by the unexpected presence of this gorgeous creature.

“Yes, thank you, Maria, but just some biscuits with the coffee, please.”

I sat on a divan with a coffee table in front of it and she left the room to get my elevenses.

She was stunning, but it seemed so out of character for Martin Reeves to employ somebody like her. I could understand a maid, yes, but a girl who was almost a caricature of a maid, someone you see in West End stage farces? Everything about her was perfect. Her voice was educated and feminine, her make-up would not be out of place on a runway model. Her demeanour was exactly what you would expect of a maid. She made me feel downright dowdy….and yet there was something not quite right about her. I determined to give her the third degree when she returned.

Just as I steeled myself to do that she came back with a tray carrying my coffee and biscuits, which she proceeded to set on the table in front of me with studied grace and elegance.

“Thank you, Maria. How long have you been working for Martin? It must be exciting, working for someone as famous as him.”

“I’ve only been here two weeks, Ma’am. I’m on probation to see if I’m good enough.”

“Can I ask, why the saucy French Maid get-up?”

“I believe it has something to do with an upcoming production and he wishes to be ready for it.”

Suddenly, it all fell into place. One thing I had noticed was that she had no ear-rings, nor any sign of piercings.

“ Martin, you had me fooled, but you’re not quite perfect. What the hell is going on?”

“Damn! It only took you half an hour to clock me,” he said in the same beautifully modulated voice, not dropping out of his role for an instant. “Tell me what gave me away.”

“It was no ear-rings and no piercings. That was the clincher, but now that I’m really looking there are other little tells as well. You’re very good, but many women would be able to pick you as an impostor after a while. You probably didn’t help yourself with me by doing the charade with the French Maid schtick.”

“Bugger,” he said, still being the maid. He sighed.

“OK, I admit I need help, but I’ll have to swear you to secrecy before I ask for your help, or I’ll have to kill you.”

We both laughed at the corny old joke, but I noted that his laugh was more feminine than mine. He didn’t need help with his voice.

“Why me?”

“Well, I asked you here because I saw how feminine you were when you interviewed me before and you’re relatively new to the business, so I thought if I could persuade you, you would appreciate a leg up. I’ll pay you for your trouble, of course.”

“You’d better tell me what it’s all about, and, yes, I’ll keep your secrets until you tell me I’m free to release them. Provided it’s an exclusive, naturally.”

“Yes, exclusive guaranteed. No-one else gets a look-in, but it may take several months of your time. You’ll have to make me indistinguishable from a real woman. I have this project, which is already underway, and after your reaction this morning I’m obviously not up to it yet.”

It’s a TV series. We already shot most of the first season when Covid shut us down, so we’re on hold and expect to start filming again next year. That’s just as well because I just failed the test I set myself with you.”

“Well, what do *I* have to do with it?”

“The plotline is that I am a thief who has stolen fifty million pounds from the Russian mob, but they’re onto me and I have to find a way to stay alive to spend it. I come up with a scheme to disguise myself as a woman and through a series of mishaps I wind up in the household of the capo-di-capo of the Russians, who has a thing for French Maids dressed the way I am dressed now. While there’s a comedic edge to the whole thing there’s the underlying threat to my life, so I have to convince them that I am who I seem to be until I can find a way to escape.”

"So where do I come into all this?"

"You know that I always want to be perfect in the parts that I play, and you just proved that I'm not yet perfect. I need help."

“So you want me to be your “coach” into femininity and a female personality? OK, but isn’t it all a bit hackneyed? It’s been done before with things like “Some Like It Hot”.

“Yes, but it’s never been done by me and I do want to prove that I’m the best actor on the planet. I don’t just want to be laughed at like Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis. I want the audience to believe that I really am a woman and that I’m pulling off the impersonation of the century, any century.”

There was an actor’s giant ego showing through, but I could understand it as I’d been around a few thespians.

“Very well, you’re on, but you have to agree to do everything I tell you or it won’t work.”

“Agreed. Shake on it.” So we shook hands, although I felt an air-kiss would have been more appropriate. “So, Maria. We start now. As soon as possible you will get your ears pierced and we will choose suitable pendants for you to wear. And now I’ve had a little time to think about it we must do something about your bum and your bust. They’re pretty good but you are not displaying them quite correctly. It’s a matter of movement. I hope you realise that I’m going to have to move in with you and you are going to have to be my French Maid and a woman for the immediate future.”

I got a feeling of power at the fact that I was going to educate the country’s foremost actor into being an undetectable female. He was no longer a he. She was a she for the foreseeable future and until she had fulfilled the requirements of her contracted role.

I moved in with Maria the very next day and from that moment we worked on making her into the very best female that she could be. Being the actor that she was she threw herself into the part with gusto. Until later I didn’t realise exactly how much effort she put into her impersonation. I assumed that my comments about her bum and her breasts were fulfilled with prosthetics as her movements became much more feminine with my encouragement.

She got her ears pierced the day I moved in and I selected some lovely chandeliers to grace her lobes, which she seemed to appreciate. I did not allow her to wear a wig after some months growing her own hair out. We had to abandon the maid’s uniform for some normal street clothing when I took her out to shop and fraternize with ordinary people. This I deemed essential as it was not only me that she had to convince. In her TV role she was supposed to convince the Russian mafia that she was the woman that she purported to be. That meant that she had to be able to convince the man and woman in the street. Living as a woman was a full-time job. Going shopping at the supermarket, walking down the street and choosing appropriate clothes was all part of it.

Going to clubs, bars and restaurants became a regular feature. Sleeping in nighties and performing night and morning routines were all part of her education until she didn't have to even think about them.

I was lucky in that I had nearly a year and a half to do my job. I have to say that I loved the challenge and that by the time that filming was to recommence I didn’t think anybody would be able to pick Maria as anything other than a woman. Whether she was in her French Maid persona or as an elegant lady mixing with the cream of society she was totally convincing. I was proud of myself, but this time she fooled me too.

I had concentrated on her movement, her gestures and her demeanour, not thinking that she needed assistance with her voice, make-up or those aspects of femininity that we learn from babyhood. What I neglected was those physical attributes of womanhood. I had not realized that the developments to her body and in particular to her breasts and hips were not artificial. I found that she had been on a regime of hormones that had given her both a very real set of hips, a nice round bum and a more than acceptable bust, which she had managed to conceal from me, the artful cow.

By the time filming resumed she was all woman, except, I assumed, for the male bits which would resume their rightful importance when she became a he again.

She was a fantastic hit in her role as the female fugitive hiding in the mafia household. She had the way a woman wields her boobs to mesmerize a man down to a tee. When they weren’t ogling her tits they were fixated on her bum and the wiggle she could impart as she walked away from them.

As the maid she was dazzling and impeccable in serving the dons of the mafia. Her costumes were cut so low that only her nipples were covered. I couldn’t believe how I had missed that cleavage that she waved in their faces, the legs that emerged from those five-inch heels, with the fishnet stockings heading to her tiny hemlines and the enticing petticoated skirts and the rounded cheeks that emerged from beneath when she bent over.

I don’t know if it had been part of the original script but by the end of season two she was starting to appear as a paramour to the main male lead (the gangster) and there were several steamy sex scenes between the two of them.

Season three seemed inevitable and Maria (Martin) as I could hardly think of him now was firmly embedded in her role and the critics and the public were wetting themselves at how good she was in the part.

I was still living in his/her house and we eventually had a showdown about my education of him/her. I had initially been very proud of my part in his transformation into her, but had been having severe second thoughts, thinking I had overstepped the bounds of my remit.

So one night I decided that I had to have things out with him/her and we sat down in his drawing room. I demanded that Maria provided me with coffee and she laughed at me. She was not dressed as Maria but as the sophisticated and elegant woman that the series now had her appearing.

“Dear Estelle, you went above and beyond what I asked of you and, yes, there have been unintended consequences. As you can see, if you care to really look, there is no more Martin Reeves. I am now Maria and will remain as Maria for the rest of my life. Think of all the extra parts that I will be able to play!

I could say it is all your fault but that is not true. There was something in me that was just dying to become Maria, and now I am she. I guess I used you to accelerate the process, and you were my unwitting accomplice.”

She leaned forwards and her cleavage under the plunging neckline was obvious and was obviously all her own. I looked at her and could discern no residual maleness in the woman who was sitting opposite me.

“What about your career?” I asked.

“I don’t give a shit anymore. I have more than enough money to last me several lifetimes and I’m so happy with whom I’ve become, thanks to you.”

“But I didn’t do it,” I protested.

“You were my catalyst. Without your help this would have just been another part, but you turned it into reality. I want you to stay with me and bring me more good luck.”

“I don’t know how I can do that. I’m not sure that I did that in the first place.”

“Well, let’s look in my wardrobe and see how much male clothing is in there. Let’s look at my dressing table and see how much is occupied by female cosmetics. Let’s look at the drawers in my dresser and see how much male underwear there is in them. The answer is none!”

“ But I didn’t do that.”

“Yes, you did. You made me empty them of all my male garments and fill them with female finery to encourage me into girlhood.”

“I forgot that,” I said.

“And what about this dress that I’m wearing.”

She was wearing a beautiful mauve skintight dress with a nearly scandalous lowcut top displaying her bountiful bosom and a hemline well above her knees. Her four-inch heels and her stockings accentuated her shapely legs. I couldn’t ignore her beautifully made-up face and her hair which had been styled by experts into a totally feminine style framing her face. She was wearing lovely ear-rings in a chandelier style that hung close to her neck and when she raised her hands she showed fingernails sculpted into half-inch talons delineated in a mauve matching her dress.

She was every inch a woman. Did I create her, or was she in there waiting to be released?

“Now I’m going to offer you something that I hope you will accept in the spirit that it’s given. You’ve helped me immensely and I’m happy to keep on paying you the same amount we agreed upon all those months ago. Firstly you can publish everything about me and my transition….your exclusive, but I want you to become MY French Maid and keep me on the straight and narrow. I need somebody who understands me and will prevent any remnants of masculinity from returning”

I thought about it for a few seconds and then I agreed.

“Provided my name is Estelle.”

"Why Estelle?"

"Well, a Proper French Maid must have a proper French name, n'est ce pas?"