“Vodka for everyone,” announced Vespertina.

  An MP opened a briefcase on the table, and pried free three shatterproof glasses. The other unlocked a bottle shaped carrier before pouring the still chilled vodka, lime pre-added.

  Vespertina waited until the shemales left the room before shouting, “Cheers.”

  “Let me divulge the reason for my visit, Anais.”

  “Shall I stay?” asked Rolliet.

  “Of course, I am not plotting an apocalypse just yet, and the idea was yours, General.”

  “Anything and everything I can do for the war effort,” said Rolliet.

  “The Council approved your plan against my better judgement,” said Vespertina.

  She chaired a council of six wise women, and was usually the most influential and manipulative.

  The three of them sat around the round table, hawkish, as Vespertina spoke.

  “How do we remove male violence from society, and yet have soldiers able to kill in our defence?”

  There was an uncomfortable silence, and the others could hear every breath of Vespertina as she became exhausted by their ignorance. She carried on.

  “Our studies have proven beyond doubt that male aggression and sexual psychology are linked. Indeed, the biological process of entering another body is an act of force, assertion upon another. As their brains were once programmed to respond primarily to testosterone this leaves us with a problem, one we must solve quickly to defeat the Undiagnosed.”

  Anais was flattered to be in such high company, but wondering why she was there. Her consternation was apparent, and her commanding officer, Rolliet, tried to dispel her disquiet.

  “Vespertina asked me to find a candidate worthy, and I came up with you, Anais.”

  Vespertina coughed loudly, clearing the vodka from her throat.

  “Actually I chose Colonel Rea, but Vespertina wanted you,” said Rolliet.

  “Worthy for what?” asked Anais.

  “Delivering the solution,” said Vespertina. “You have seen our problems first hand on the front, and studied psychiatry in Rome.”

  “And what tools are at my disposal?” asked Anais.

  “You will fly with me back to London, where you will find a suitable male to test; one who will experience a new drug that will heighten aggression but not arousal. Make him harder without being hard, if you see what I mean.”

  “A guinea pig,” said Anais.

  “Let’s just say pig,” said Vespertina.

  “And where will I find such a man?” asked Anais.

  “Contact Professor Caveat at Dame University, he has started the balls rolling.”

  “And what if it proves impossible to make the specimen beastly without the beast surfacing from below?”

  “Then you must be very careful, Anais,” said Vespertina. “But if you have no choice, do feel free to shoot the poor devil.”

  Rolliet looked at the latest message on her cell phone.

  “With your permission, Surgeon General, the other colonels wish to report.”

  “Of course, but tell my shemales to search them first. I can’t be too careful. And no more briefcases please, I would hate for a bomb to go off; it would play havoc with my costume.”

  One by one the colonels lined up to kiss Vespertina on the cheek before taking a seat. They were dressed identically to Anais, with one exception; their nylons that flashed between boot and hem. Some wore woollen ribbed nylons, others lace floral, with one daring to flaunt seamed stockings, and another fishnet. But all were black, like the mood amongst the Corps elite.

  “This isn’t our best day, nor our finest hour,” began Vespertina, “but we are a long way off from losing the war. Your thoughts, please.”

  “The Undiagnosed are fighting like animals; it is only our superior weaponry that holds them back at the moment,” said Colonel Rea.

  Vespertina looked at Rolliet.

  “Our machine gunners can now fire twice as many rounds in the same time, and armour piercing shells are standard.”

  “The tanks?” asked Vespertina.

  “Superior in every detail.”

  “Surgeon General, if I might suggest, we need more air cover,” said one of the colonels, and the others nodded.

  Vespertina was making notes. Exhibitionists made better pilots, the anorexic good submariners. If you had obsessive compulsive disorder the role of gunner was ideal; the equipment never jammed. Voyeurs were excellent spies unless they were frotteuristic, in which case they were soon captured.

  The troops were marched into battle with bipolar blockers behind; guns were pointed at the backs of their own men, should they try and escape the battle. The grandiose were used to infect each brigade with a sense of purpose, but something was lacking; the magic bullet that Anais might find.

  They were in the twilight, and it was time for Anais to accompany Vespertina back to London. She didn’t have time to collect her ration of Lusterone from the barracks. The stars were out and she looked up; the world kept turning no matter what happened. Empires came and went, and civilisations adapted. She was a grain of sand trapped in a storm.

  Chapter Three

  I was nervous returning to work, my mouth was dry. It was always the same: an anxiety that crept along the flesh and into my bones. I stepped off the works bus and headed for the gates. We followed each other blindly, checked with handheld scanners. Medication was part of the war effort, and part of our lives. I was in the queue behind a blonde bimbo named Steve 873, my work colleague and best mate.

  I wasn’t happy. I felt awkward, and constantly tried to redefine myself in a world from which I felt nothing but increasing detachment. I needed something other than the war to believe in; I needed to believe in myself. And damn these steel suspender clips Gillian, my new supervisor, insisted I wear under my skirt. They were digging in like hell. The things a guy had to do to get ahead.

  “Hey Valery, you’ve done something different with your hair.”

  I turned and smiled, Dorian 3309 was obsessed with hair. He’d made the cover of a magazine once, and never let the rest of the office forget it. Fortunately, he was part time. Wigs were his forte, the hair looked almost human.

  “No, it’s just the same as last week,” I replied meekly.

  “You don’t say.”

  Actually I did say. Dorian frowned. He’d once pushed a note into my desk drawer asking for a date. I wasn’t gay, and he came across as creepy, obsessed. The way he watched me, undressed me, made my skin crawl. He once asked for a lock of my hair, and was my main suspect for the brush missing from my desk.

  “Must be the shampoo then, or the conditioner; you’ve changed your routine.”

  I just smiled limply, as we headed to our desks.

  There was a poster at the side, hanging down like my head. ‘Crossdress for Success’, it read, and there was a picture of a tranny. He wore a black power suit with shoulder pads, and a smile wrapped in thick red lipstick.

  A paperclip hit the back of my head and I turned around. Sitting, smirking, behind me were Cassie and Trudi, two crossdressers still waiting for success. Cassie put her hand to her mouth as she spoke and Trudi giggled. They had me in their sights, the office gossips.

  Claire Morgan, our manager, entered the room in her tight skirt. She wore flats but had the legs for it; though I wasn’t supposed to notice.

  “Valery, so glad to see you back,” she said. I was surprised to see her; she rarely came out of her office.

  She undid the top button of her blouse, carefully watching my eyes for the slightest reaction that might give me away. No need, the new meds had kicked in. My sex drive was in reverse, like so many others. But I still wondered what it would be like to hold her in my arms and smell her hair.

  “Valery, are you listening?” she asked.

  I wasn’t.

  “Sorry, I was looking at your hair.”

  Her eyes narrowed.

  “Meaning?” she asked.

  Had I been caught out? Were my hormones racing out of control again?

  “The colour, it’s simply divine. I must go for it next time at the salon.”

  “Hmm,” she appeared neither convinced nor impressed.

  “I’ll give you the number,” shouted Dorian from his desk. “I go all the time.”

  Light streamed into the office through the large glass windows. The grass had just been cut, and the smell of freshly mowed lawns permeated the air.

  “Oh, how pretty,” I said looking out of my window, “a swallow.”

  “Where?” asked Cassie, running to my side.

  “Settle down,” said Claire, “There’s work to be done. Important news from the War Office, they want a new design in camouflage.”

  “Oh my,” I heard Trudi say.

  “Catch me, I’m going to faint,” said Cassie.

  “Is that possible?” I asked. “You are talking about one coat, a single brushstroke?”

  “Indeed, invigorating isn’t it? The most exciting war project I, sorry, the team has been involved in.”

  Claire was overstating our importance to the war effort a little. We at 15 Payton Gardens designed nail polish, including the packaging. We received free samples every Friday.

  “Well, get to work. I’ll be back at mid-day,” said Claire.

  Now just how did you combine two colours that when painted on the nail separated in two, green and brown? But not clearly divided, mottled, with one blending into the other. I went to the coffee machine and met Steve, he was clearly excited.

  “This is going to revolutionise nail polish,” he gasped.

  He was almost drooling with excitement.

  “I know, amazing isn’t it?”

  He didn’t detect my sarcasm.

  “Any ideas?” he asked.

  The tone in his voice was high.

  “Maybe,” I replied before placing the end of my pencil in my mouth. His pupils were dilating as he watched me twirl the rubber coated end between my lips.

  “Teaser,” he said.

  I was the office chemist, if anyone could devise a formula it was me. But there was one thing out of my reach. My soul yearned to be in love; I wanted her, needed to be her slave, but I wasn’t sure who she was.

  We all watched the clock and each other. Gillian had been looking at me for the last hour, and every time I glanced back she turned away, instantly laughing at some spurious comment from Steve. Should I play with my hair, file my nails? Finally, she walked over, looking me up and down. She leant forwards over my desk. Her mouth hovered over my ear. I could feel her warm breath as she whispered, “I love a man in stockings,” and her leg brushed against mine. The suspenders dug into my flesh like stirrups.

  “You’re on my radar, Valery,” she said.

  I could see a fire in her eyes.

  “Pretty boys like you are gagging for it,” she continued.

  I’d never seen a woman like this, her eyes wild, biting her bottom lip.

  “The others will hear,” I stammered, and fluttered my eyelashes coyly.

  It worked, but she jabbed her fingernail into the back of my hand before leaving. Her heels stabbed into the floorboards.

  The five o’clock whistle sounded, and we all rushed for our coats.

  “Valery 01 to the office,” announced the voice over the speaker.

  I hesitated, desperate to leave, but Claire would make mincemeat of me the following day.

  “What have you done now, Valery?” asked Steve.

  “Who’s a lucky so and so,” said Cassie as he fastened the buckle on his full length mauve raincoat.

  The others had gone as I approached their lair, my head down, feet dragging.

  Claire sat at her desk with Gillian perched on the end like a hunting bird. She was holding a sharp pencil.

  “Any luck with the formula?” asked Claire.

  “Almost,” I replied. ‘Just give me another day or two.”

  “Aren’t you the bright one,” said Gillian, but the tone in her voice said the opposite.

  “Look, why am I here?” I asked, trying to raise a feeble, compliant smile. I failed.

  “Gillian has noted an air of insubordination of late,” said Claire, matter of factly.

  I looked at the floor. I knew the real reason I was here as Gillian opened her briefcase and reached for the strapon. Even with the roles reversed everything was still about sex, except sex itself. Sex was about power, and I duly, obediently, bent over Claire’s desk as they fastened their weapons like gunslingers. I was a puppet; this is what women did to us, legally.

  They took turns and it seemed to last forever. The only concession to my comfort was the gel. I separated myself from the humiliation.

  “Not a word,” said Claire before holding a finger to her lips.

  I was sore, physically and mentally.

  “I bet he enjoyed it,” said Gillian, laughing as I pulled up my dishevelled clothes. “And caged too, isn’t he just adorable?”

  She was younger than Claire, with short jet black hair, and a snarl etched on her thick lips. She twisted a silver ring with a large black opal on her middle finger.

  “I always mean what I say,” she said, “and have what I want.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll drop you home,” said Claire.

  We all knew there was no point complaining, and I looked out of the window to avoid their gaze.

  I lay in the bath for hours when I got home, but I still couldn’t feel clean.

  I fell asleep in new bed linen, wondering what I had done wrong to draw their hurtful attention. And, more importantly, what I could change in the future to stop it happening again.

  Chapter Four

  I felt like I was trapped in a cage and I was, a steel one on prescription. I showered carefully; no time for a bath, I was running late. Besides the running water was more hygienic and flowed over and through the spikes like a waterfall. Something felt different, unreal. I was longing for her to save my soul, but I still didn’t know who she was, only that one day she would come for me.

  I could hear their boots running up the stairs and their banging fists on the doors. But we were the quietest block on the street thanks to our interview panel. I’d gotten in because the tranny voted in ahead of me had a stroke before he could move the sofa out of the lift. He was rehabilitating in prison.

  “Open up,” they screamed.

  I recognised their pitch, shemales.

  I opened the door wearing my dressing gown, a towel wrapped around my long hair. The first shemale in scowled, the second threw me a wink.

  “You can tidy up later, love,” said the female officer standing on the stairs, smirking at my confusion. They were enjoying themselves at our expense.

  She had bags under her eyes, weighed down with responsibility, and wore thick green trousers and jacket, with a brown leather holster. The handle on the pistol was worn like her boots. I wanted to speak to her, wish her well and admire her, but I was just a male, a number; that changed when they found the stickers under my bed. My mattress was turned on its side, the apple print duvet strewn over the ground like an orchard hit by a tornado.

  The shemale handed them to the officer. She smiled before her stare cut me in two.

  “Sit on the sofa,” she shouted to me, then ran up the stairs.

  The flats were teeming with shemales, with a handful of officers in charge. Tranny crime scene operatives waxed lyrical to one another, whilst the crossdressers studiously took notes. We, the men, cowered and obeyed. I guess it was a pretty good snapshot of our Femocracy.

  I could hear two crossdressers talking near my door. Some sucker had set up an illegal still, and a trail of bootleg vodka had led them to Rinse Gardens. As an endless thud of boots marched down the stairs I guessed they’d found their man.

  Riesling 88 was standing with his back to the wall as the hastily assembled shemales fired. He lay on the ground with torn tights in a pool of his own blood.

  I couldn’t have helped Riesling, and I couldn’t have helped the others before him. Unfortunately, now it was my turn, and there was no one to help me either.

  “Stand up darling,” said the officer.

  Her peaked latex cream cap was shiny and pointed downwards but I could still see her stare, cold like her heart.

  “I’ll be late for work,” I said.

  She laughed so much I didn’t think she was ever going to stop.

  “That is the least of your worries, Valery 01,” she finally said.

  Our names, and number, were on the front of the doors. I didn’t know if it was the same for them, our rulers; they lived apart, in secret. Except they had no number and fewer restrictions. Women and transgenders could drink just about anything, the rest of us were restricted to red wine, two bottles a month at home.

  She looked at the stickers shaking her head, “I’m taking you in for questioning.”

  “Can I get changed?”

  “Sure, my shemales will help you, and no funny business.”

  My would-be friend threw me another wink.

  “And nothing too revealing,” she shouted as they followed me into the bedroom.

  My eyes avoided the floorboards, looked everywhere but downwards. If they uncovered my porn stash, I’d be pushed against the same wall as Riesling 88.

  They started looking around, snooping. I quickly tidied up the duvet and found my distraction. I jumped back, terrified.

  “Kill it,” I pleaded, looking at the monstrous spider scuttling across the floor.

  A shemale removed her heel, and I saw a glimpse of stocking, red toe and seam on opaque black, nice pair. I’d seen some just like it at the mall with floral holdups.