Author's Note: This is a light-hearted, cross-dressing mystery story, written in my normal style, which I hope you enjoy. It does contain references to adult themes, and some of its characters have little sympathy with the Catholic Church. Please don't read if you feel this will upset you.

CHAPTER 3

"Come upstairs with me," GG said. "There's something I want to show you. Something I haven't shown to anyone in a long time."

He laughed at the expression on Sam's face. "Not that, you stupid idiot. I can't think of you as anything other than my daughter, so you'd be quite safe with me, even if I wasn't long past it. Take my arm and help me upstairs."

At the top of the grand staircase, they turned to the left and walked just a few yards along the open landing before they came to a door. There was a sign on the door: "No admission under any circumstances without prior approval from Sir George Harper."

GG took a key from his pocket and held it poised for a moment. "This is your bedroom," he said. "I came in here last week with Charley to remove the dress you're wearing tonight. Apart from that, I've hardly been in here in forty-eight years."

"Are you sure you want to go in there now?" Sam asked.

"I couldn't do it without you, Samantha. Come on. Take the key of your room and let's go inside."

Sam took the key he proffered, inserted it in the lock and turned it. He turned the door handle and pushed it open. It was pitch black inside.

"You'll find the light switch on the left," GG said, pushing Sam into the room ahead of him.

Sam found the switch and flicked the lights on, and then turned to view the room.

An interior designer would probably have gasped in horror at the eclectic mix of colours, but apart from the sheer size, it would probably hold no surprises for parents of most teenagers. There were Beatles, Stones and Kinks pictures on the walls, with a four-poster bed with faded pink drapes, in the centre – Sam guessed that at some time it had probably been modelled on Barbie Doll's bedroom. The dressing table was covered with all kinds of bottles of makeup, and near the window was a table bearing a record player, a record still in place on the turntable.

"The dress you're wearing was left sprawled over the bed just there." GG pointed towards the foot of the bed. "My housekeeper comes in here occasionally to get rid of the cobwebs and the dust, but she's under strict instructions to replace anything she moves.

"Not so much Miss Haversham," he continued almost apologetically to Sam. "More that I wanted Samantha to feel perfectly at home as soon as she returned. Only she never did – until now."

"And I do feel at home," Sam said. "That's what you're saying, isn't it? You want me to spend the night here? You want me to be your Samantha for the next day."

"You obviously have your own arrangements for the Easter holidays, and I mustn't intrude on that but yes, if you would be my Samantha for the next twenty-four hours, that would be wonderful."

Sam smiled. "OK, Daddy," he said.

***

GG left him, saying he was going to watch TV for a while, and suggesting he come downstairs when he was ready for bed and they could have a hot chocolate drink together.

But first, Sam had to undress, clean the makeup off his face and find some pyjamas to wear.

He reached behind and found the zip to his dress, and then carefully pulled it down. Pulling it down was far easier than the battle they'd had to do it up. Sam had been convinced they were going to ruin the dress, but Charley was determined he was going to fit into it, whatever. Once the zip was released, the dress fell away from the upper part of his body, releasing his bra-less breasts to bob and jiggle about in a most erotic way.

He'd had little time to examine them in the last twenty-four hours. He thought Charley had found them as disconcerting as he had, for as soon as she had pulled the Bustlet over his head and down his body, and wiped away the remnants of the red gel used to reduce perspiration, than she was making him put on a bra and the shapeless track suit top he'd worn for most of the intervening period.

The same went when he'd got into the Hiplet, which he'd done in the privacy of the bathroom, although Charley had come in at the end and yanked the gusset of the garment firmly between his legs, causing his testicles to be crushed with eye-watering pain. But as soon as she'd wiped away the excess gel, she'd made him put on some panties and the tracksuit bottoms, and he'd worn the tracksuit almost continuously – which included sleeping overnight in it – until it was time to try on the dress, shortly before GG had arrived.

Charley had drilled him mercilessly in all kinds of aspects of being a woman for the best part of twenty-four hours. It had started with him wearing high-heels – at least, they felt high, although Charley pointed out they were barely an inch. However, the heels were pointed so he was tottering about on them as though they had been four-inches high.

She had made him walk, with just the right amount of sway in his hips so that he looked female without appearing a tart. He'd learnt to sit down and stand up gracefully and then they had gone onto dance lessons. Sam had never done any ballroom dancing in his life, so he had to be shown how to perform some basic steps for his presentation dance with GG.

When he had got to the point where every muscle in his feet and legs were on fire and he sat down and flatly refused to get up again, Charley had switched to voice coaching.

Sam had fallen asleep some time after his one hundredth rain in Spain, and had not awoken until Charley was shaking him awake, to tell him the hairdresser would be arriving shortly.

So now he was at last on his own, he had time to watch with fascination the way his breasts bobbled about on his chest. Not just watch – there was some clever system involving touch-sensitive material on the skin of the Bustlet, combined with tiny electrodes against his own skin, which meant he could feel his breasts moving around. It was highly sensual, and had his own genitals not been strapped firmly beneath the Hiplet, he'd have been playing with himself.

As it was, he had the problem of easing the tight-fitting dress down over his wide hips, and every time he twisted left or right, to try to see the best way of achieving that, his tits came bouncing around to obstruct his view. Eventually, he had to ease the dress more by feel than by actually looking at it, and hoping it didn't split as he pulled it over the widest part of his hips.

At last, the dress was off and he could now pull down the Playtex girdle which had been squeezing in his stomach for several hours. But even after he'd undone the zip, it was still as tight as the dress. However, he didn't worry so much about tearing it, so he could use brute force to pull it over his hips.

He did consider briefly pulling off the Bustlet and Hiplet, to allow his skin to breathe, but then remembered he was going down later to have hot chocolate with GG, so decided he'd do it when he finally came to bed.

Being an old house, which hadn't been updated since the 1960s, there was no en-suite bathroom, so Sam had to put on the pink dressing gown hanging on the back of the door before going across the corridor to one of the house bathrooms to remove his makeup.

Ten minutes later, he was back in the bedroom and he realised he had to make a choice of nightwear. His natural instinct was to find the plainest pair of pyjamas he could and wear those, but a brief inspection of the chests of drawers revealed that Samantha did not do plain. Besides, he reasoned, he was doing his best for GG to do as Samantha would do.

With that in mind, he made a decision. He walked over to the bed, pulled back the pillow to reveal a baby doll nightdress set in a shade of pink which matched the dressing gown. Clearly, this was what Samantha had worn the night before she had disappeared. This was how GG would have seen her, either that evening or the next morning. He gulped a little and then slipped on the top, which was of a semi-sheer material, and the tiny matching panties. However, with the dressing gown on top, he felt almost respectable, and he left the room to go downstairs.

***

"Hello darling," GG said, looking up from the TV and smiling at Sam, as he entered the room. "You're wearing the dressing gown Samantha wore the very last time I saw her. That's so nice of you. Thank you."

"Is that all right?" Sam asked. "I wasn't certain." He hesitated a little and said, "If ever I do anything wrong – misunderstand what you want – then don't be upset. I can understand what you must be going through, even now."

"Samantha. It's so lovely seeing you in that dressing gown and knowing that tomorrow, I'll see you again, wearing some of your lovely clothes. Don't worry about me. People have been telling me I need closure, when all I really wanted was to have a bit more time with my daughter."

Sam smiled and nodded towards the TV. "What are you watching on TV?"

"It's the old James Bond movie. Do you fancy that hot chocolate now?"

"That sounds a great idea," Sam said. "Would you like me to make it?"

GG grinned. "That's what Samantha always did. From about the age of ten, she always made hot chocolate for the pair of us."

"Then you stay watching James Bond and I'll go and make it."

***

"Here's your chocolate," he said.

GG looked around. "Thanks darling." He took the mug from her and then noticed the other mug she was holding. "Be careful with that mug. The handle is cracked and…"

Whether it was Sam's sudden jerk as he noticed the cracked handle, or whether it was going to happen anyway, the mug suddenly separated from the handle and hot chocolate cascaded down Sam's dressing gown.

"Ouch!" he said, quickly pulling off the dressing gown before the hot liquid scalded his legs. He bundled the dressing gown up into a ball to avoid it dripping everywhere and took it back into the kitchen. At home, he'd have immediately popped it into the automatic washing machine, but here there was only an old twin tub. He put the dressing gown into a bowl in the sink and ran hot water over it, rinsing it out until the water was clear.

"Sorry about that," he said to GG, as he returned to the lounge with a freshly made mug of chocolate – this time in a more robust mug. "I think I've managed to get it all out. I'm sure it will come up as good as new when it's properly washed."

"Don't worry," GG said. "It was nothing special, and Samantha was always having accidents like that. And she also had no inhibitions when it came to prancing about the house half naked." He nodded towards Sam's pyjamas, and he suddenly realised he was only wearing the baby dolls.

"Oh, my God. I'm so sorry."

GG laughed. "I realise all your feminine bits are make-believe anyway, but everything looks remarkably realistic."

Sam looked down, and started to giggle. "It does, doesn't it?" His giggle turned into laughter and soon GG was laughing too.

When they eventually stopped, GG said, "I haven't laughed like that in forty-eight years. Thanks, Samantha, for everything. Now since none of what I can see is real, do you want to come and sit down here, next to me, like my other Samantha used to."

So Sam sat down next to GG, who put his arm around Sam and said again, "Thank you, for making an old man happy."

Sam didn't feel like a boy normally would at being in that situation. Somehow, it felt all right, and he snuggled down next to GG. "I'm so glad," he said. He felt very comfortable like that.

***

"Samantha. Samantha, darling. Wake up, it's time to go to bed."

Sam jerked awake. How long had he been asleep? "I'm sorry, I must have dropped off," he muttered.

"For the last hour, you've been snoring just like Samantha used to," GG said with a smile. "Now, let's put you to bed." He stood up and held out his hand for Sam to take. When Sam stood up, he pulled him towards the staircase, and then up the stairs and into Samantha's bedroom, where he swept back the bed sheets. "Into bed, young lady," he said. "And sleep well, darling."

"Goodnight, Daddy," Sam said. Then he fell straight to sleep.