The Secretive Seven

of course of course, I didnt doubt it for a moment.

(((methinks someone doth protest too mucheth, Always the sign of a closet metrosexual with an unhealthy interest in moisturiser and cuticle softener )))

THE SECRETIVE SEVEN


7


Some of you may want to know what was happening to the three captured boys, but more of you I'm sure - if you're anything like me, that is - would much prefer to know what was happening in the back of a certain lorry just then powering along Headland Lane in the moonlight, so I'll get back to the boys later (maybe).

"My goodness," April cried as she and the two other girls sat together on a seat at the rear of the lorry. "Is that Christian Songs they're singing?"

"And not one whiff of alcohol!" Amy said in surprise.

"And not a smoker among them, except the driver," said Julia, sounding almost disappointed.

"Ooh how clean and fresh smelling," Amy said. "Everyone of them takes such pride in their appearance."

"And their language is so polite and non-aggressive," Julia gasped.

"Shush!" April rebuked them. "I'm sure we're misinterpreting something. Listen to the song their singing just now. I'm sure their seedy manly manliness will be revealed by our closer attention!"

And this is the song the men from the Left Right Left Right Regiment at Havemforbeakfast were singing.

"Oh Lord we love you
in appropriate ways,
Like you we hate tranvestites,
lesbos and gays,
And only when married
will we ever love
our women - with lights off -
gentle as doves,
And only to procreate,
never for fun,
Pure are our heart's;
the Lord's Number One!"

"Well, that sounds fairly straightforward to me," Amy said.

"I think you're right"," Julia agreed.

"I must admit," April put in. "I didn't really expect this when we climbed into a lorry full of men from the Left Right Left Right Regiment at Havemforbreakfast."

"What did you expect?" Amy asked.

"In our current circumstances, I shouldn't really like to say," April said softly.

"Nor me neither," Julia said. "Oh dear. This is such a pure environment as to make me want to sit neatly here with my knees firmly pressed together!"

"Uncanny!" Amy said. "I'm thinking exactly the same thoughts altogether."

"Ladies, wood ye be wishin' to partake of a rousing chorus of 'Oh Lord, how sweet you are in all your Goodness'?" asked a perfectly genuine and pleasant and respectful young Sergeant.

"We would, we would," the girls answered hastily, nodding their heads vigorously. "We couldn't possibly think of anything else we would more like to do - just now. But please forgive us if we don't know all the words."



to be continued...

THE SECRETIVE SEVEN



8


They were in a damp sandy place without much oxygen, and the oxygen they breathed smelled of seaweed. The smugglers were walking back and forth past them, heavy footed one way, more lightly the other, probably moving a small to medium boatload of oil barrels. The smugglers were talking gaily in a language the boys did not understand, but by the lilt of their voices it was now clear that they were not masculine heterosexual Germans but toned and terrific Fjordianlandians.

"If we survive this, I'm giving up membership of the Secretive Seven," Halfred sniffed miserably.

"I'd rather they just killed us outright," Dave commented just as miserably. "I fear it's life in a Fjordian harem for us..."

"Fjordianlandians don't have harems do they?" Peter gasped from his sack.

"I think they're called hootenannies in Skattykatzenfjord, but what's in a name anyhow," Halfred answered and began to sob.

All the boys began weeping like girls. (This was back in an age when phrases like "weeping like girls" was a perfectly correct thing to articulate when speaking of boys who were about to be unmanned).

"I hope Odovacar will come and rescue us," Peter said tearfully. "He did come and save us when we were captured by those half-dressed Madams from Lulu's all Pink Revue...."

"Those American spies in Haverstock-on-Tyne, you mean?" Halfred asked, brightening a little. "He was very brave when he burst in and then covered our escape..."

"...and stayed back for hours while we searched for the authorities who were at a private luncheon," Dave agreed, brightening too. "He said it was quite a fierce wrestle with all eight of them."

"Even now I remember what he said when he was freed by the authorities," Halfred said fondly, brightening even more.

"Oh yes ," Peter said nostalgically. "What was it again? I do remember! 'No problem, chaps, it was a pretty peckle of pickles but I kept up my pecker alright!'"

"Alas though! This is a wholey different affair," David said solemnly. "These are Fjordianlandian smugglers, not a group of scantilly clad agents' provacateur!"

"Why do you always have to be such a pessimist?" Halfred groaned. "I was just beginning to feel hopeful."

"We folk from the farming aristocracy are realists not pessimists," David told him sternly. "Never mind - even if Odovacar is not up to wrestling a gang of oily Fjordianlandians, there are three others in our group who the smugglers will not have reckoned on!"

"The girls, you mean?" Peter asked doubtfully from his sack.

"Well, they are brave and fearless and loyal," Dave said, trying to stay positive.

"Yes, but they're still only girls," Halfred said sadly, and began to sob again.



to be continued....

Ths is unfettered genius and Ill fight anyone who says otherwise!

THE SECRETIVE SEVEN


9


"We would take it as a particular kindness," the clean cut young Sergeant began when the rousing chorus was over. Well, rousing choruses actually, as the men were very fond of that hymn. Eight or nine times they had sung it, until the girls had learned the words and were feeling slightly tansfigured - though they werent sure if it was because they had found God's Grace, or just a deep affection for the young Sergeant. He was very graceful, and handsoe in a boy next boor way, if the boy next door looked like that Cumberbach fellow, so it might have been the same thing. "We would take it as a particular kindness," the clean cut Sergeant began, "if you young ladies would join us for some quiet meditative prayer at Lord Bannock's Folly overlooking the sea. It's not far from Smugglers' Cave."

"I should very like to," Julia hastened to say.

"I too," Amy put in all glisteny in the eyes.

"And I also," April added just as keenly, but demurely, so as not to seem too keen.

"Oh that's fantastic," the Sergeant said. "You seem such nice girls and good wholesome company on a night when we were particularly sad thinking of the Sisters of the Flock whom we left at home. I hope you don't mind us diverting you awhile from your journey to Smugglers Cave though."

"Of course not. Please don't trouble yourself"," the girls gushed as one.

The Sergeant gave them a gorgeous smile. One that seemed especially for each of them, privately, demurely, respectfully, even though all three were the beneficiaries of it. "Why were you going there anyway, if it's not too rude to ask?"

"No not all.... and... we can't remember..."

And they couldn't either - because they had lost themselves in the young Sergeant's eyes, each girl totally unaware that the other two girls were swimming in there with her, swimming around as if in safe deep waters, cool somehow, but honest and pure and unfettered by superficial ego and annoying political opinions - his eyes were nothing like the Secretive Seven boys' eyes, you see, not the least bit puerile or vacuous. They were the eyes of a young man comfortable in his own skin but without apparent ego, and his eyes shone with pure regard for the three girls, the kind of regard that held females equal, if not superior, and which definitely was not the fashion in those days, and rarely is now, which is just as well when you think about it.

"We can't be far away now," the young Sergeant beamed, clearly glad to have the young ladies' company for just that little bit longer.

He turned back to a young Corporal who had a question about Thomas Aquinas for him.

Amy whispered, "I am having a funny sensation in my stomach, and it's sensual but not erotic, it's 'sense' in a deeper way... no! wider... no! purer... oh I don't know..."

"I don't know either," April said with her eyes welling. "But I'm having the selfsame reaction - I'm fraught, if fraught means you've died and gone to Heaven... Or maybe I'm just perplexed! I think I'm having feelings... feelings... as if for the first time...."

"Aren't we all," Julia sighed, not knowing whether it was a time for laughter or tears, and wondering whether it may very well be a time for both. "I think I'm in love with a virgin," she sighed.

"Yes, he's like a unicorn --- pure ----" Amy whispered leaning against the side of the lorry, lost in reverie. "I would so dearly love to lay my head in his lap."

"That's not quite right," Julia mused, dreamily, and only half listening. "It's the unicorn who lies his head in the lap of the virgin, not the virgin's in the unicorn's lap... I wonder if he'll lay his head in a virgin's lap one day?"

"'Lay his head in a virgin's lap?'" April mouthed in a trance. "Oh I fear my heart is about to burst. I wonder if it will be one of ours?"

That, of course, seemed unlikely...


to be continued....

'' but honest and pure and unfettered by superficial ego and annoying political opinions - his eyes were nothing like the Secretive Seven boys' eyes, you see, not the least bit puerile or vacuous((( ))). They were the eyes of a young man comfortable in his own skin but without apparent ego, and his eyes shone with pure regard for the three girls, the kind of regard that held females equal, if not superior, and which definitely was not the fashion in those days, and rarely is now, which is just as well when you think about it'' ((( )))

I dont know where to start on how brilliant this is, but its worth reposting on its own-

THE SECRETIVE SEVEN


10



Odovacar had settled in quite nicely, sitting partly concealed in a shadowy back corner of the inn, a sherry on the table before him and a cigar in his hand. There were several other tables, all surrounding a small dance floor, and against the back wall, opposite the door he had entered by, a small stage, raised about four feet.

The place had an atmosphere that pretty much throbbed, though that might have been the vein in Odovacar's neck as he surveyed the place, taking particular pleasure in seeing that there were no men in the room just him. He drew a deep draught of his Cuban, and settled back in his seat thinking that he might very well have died and gone to heaven.

Now Odovacar wasn't your average sixteen year old from the lower aristocracy whose grand father had bought a peerage, for he was very wordly, having travelled to many hotspots around the world - not violent hot spots, the other kind - and he had a fine eye for a girl. That's why his trained eye, after the initial mist of excitement began to disperse, began to discern things about the ladies in their fetching costumes. The first thing that became apparent, was the extensive use of fruit and feathers in their headware ensembles. And then it was the exagerated swivel of rather narrow hips. And then it was the rather husky quality he discerned in many of the voices....

"Oddy Moneybags!" a voice broke into his reverie.

Odovacar, startled out of his reverie, cast eyes upon a rather attractive young woman about his own age. She had long flaxen hair, beautiful blue eyes and a twelve hour shadow about her chin, though the last may have been due to the shadowy nature of Odovacar's corner hideaway.

"Roddy!" Odovacar said slowly as he appraised the girl in all her lush curtain-like drapery, a long dress of purple velvet that is. Her hair was adorned with a bow crafted in the form of a blue and yellow butterfly. Odovacar grinned. "It can't be, old chum! I thought you'd gone to play cricket in Leeds!"

"Oh Oddy, dear, that's just the story I put about to fool Principal Bumtickler - God bless his severe discipline! No, I joined up!"

"You're in the Navy, I hope?"

"No," Roddy said, his voice falling to a whisper as he came to sit by Odovacar, scraping his chair along the floor as he leaned in close enough for Odovacar to smell his perfume. "I'm in the 2nd Tranvestites. We only just got back from basic training in a secret location in Fjordianlandia."

"Fjordianlandia! What a coincidence! Even now there are suspected Fjordianlandian smugglers smuggling down at Smuggler's Cave! They've actually captured my friends by the way, which is something of a blow."

"Your friends have been captured?" Roddy asked, his pretty face a question mark.

"Yes, my friends, Halfred, David and Peter... I'm in the process of rescuing them even as we speak."

"'Even as we speak'!'" Roddy said in a worried tone.

"Err... after a fashion... I only popped in here for a breather to be honest."

"Oh no! We can't have the Secretive Seven investigating us, Oddy. You'll blow the whole thing wide open!"

"Secretive Seven? I'm sure I have no idea what you mean..."

"Don't tease me, Oddy. Yes I know all about you and your absolutely amazing Secretive Seven. I'm linked in with M15, you see - if you're a tranvestite you need to be - and I know a lot of things about people, especially young sticky nosed people! But I can't have you interfering with us. We can't afford to have our operation stripped naked!"

"We thought they were just Fjordianlandian herring oil smugglers!" Odovacar said in surprise.

"They are. But they're also covet Spy transporters. We of the 2nd Transvestites work especially closely with them. The smuggling is a cover. (Of course there is some profit to be made from the illicit herring oil trade, that goes without saying). You see, if we're caught being transported to Fjordianlandia for top secret burlesque spy training by German G-boats, those Huns won't suspect a crew of Fordianlandian fisherman-smugglers and their cargo of pretty young men dressed to the nines. Those Huns will think it'll all be about sex sex sex in Skatykatzenfjord, and not spying (and sex) in Germany."

"Brilliant!" Odovacar cheered. "If you do get caught, it's just a matter of working out an acceptable bribe."

"I knew you'd work that out," Roddy laughed. "You've always had a fine eye for the financial and the nefarious, Oddy."

"You make them sound like two different things!" Odovacar laughed, very pleased that Roddy recognized his brilliance. Then he became sober again, "I hope my friends Halfred, Dave and Peter don't mess up your secret activities..."

"You did say they were captured, didn't you! That's indeed rum news," Roddy replied, his eyes now slits of concern as he pursed his lips in thought.

Odovacar thought his lips looked rather fetching pursed that way. Odovacar now remembered their school plays at Ignatia Loyola Boy's School. Roddy had a particular gift for applying make-up and lipstick. Just now his perfume was resonant and alluring....

"Did they throw them in sacks?" Roddy now asked.

"Huh? Oh sorry... What? ... I mean --- Oh yes, sacks."

"Good," Roddy breathed. "Then they'll be taking them out to their schooner --- let me see, probably in about three hours ---- and once on their schooner the operation will be safe. The lads from the 3rd Tranvestites are being moved over tonight by the way. All going well, your boys will arrive in Skattykatzenford by dawn tomorrow."

"But can't we save them?"

"No. I'm afraid they'll have to take one for the Empire! In fact, probably a lot more than one. I know we tranvestites will have to. We must think of England, Oddy! Rule Brittania and all that. I know we tranvestites must be prepared to put our bodies on the line, whether in burlesque or in back room, and in the highest offices of the Gestapo if need be."

"How many tranvestites are there?" Odovacar suddenly felt impelled to ask.

"Oh hundreds. It's the Brittish Army, remember!"

Odovacar's eyes fell to Roddy's chest. They had been wanting to for awhile, but because Roddy had been looking deeply into his eyes the whole time, Odovacar felt it polite not to look. But his eyes could only hold out so long.

"Like 'em?" Roddy beamed.

"Best cleavage in the brigade, I warrant!" Roddy added proudly.

"And they're real, Oddy." Roddy blushed fetchingly. "They're real."

"You don't mean....!"

"Yes, Oddy, and it's not surgery as what you'd think, but a thing called hormone therapy."

"What's that?"

"Somehing our scientists have been working on to aid the war effort."

"Do you think there will be a war then?"

"Absolutely certain. If the Germans don't start it, we'll have to."

"Start it!" Odovacar exclaimed.

"Yes, it's all political, Oddy. Orville Chambermaid says there won't be, but let's face it, the way he dresses, well, we all know he's a douche bag. And, anyway, what's the point of training up thousands of men in mime, song, and dance - both public and private - if we can't ever put that training to military use?"

"'Douche bag'? What's that?"

"No one knows really, but it's a wonderful phrase, what." Roddy fell silent for a moment. After a still moment, and hesitantly, he said, "Oddy, I have always had a grave affection for you, truth be known. You must have sensed it back at Loyola's, maybe even observed it in the showers after rugby training. I wonder, do you think it would be forward of me if I asked you to join me in my room for a glass of port?"

"I don't know... are those breasts truly real then?"

"Yes, I'm very proud of them."

"And what of.. other things...?" Odovacar asked, carefully.

"Oh never mind that, Oddy. A man of His Majesty's 2nd Travestite Division has more than one port of call."

"Well, as you know, I'm usually vociferously against this sort of thing," Odovacar said thoughtfully. "But... I guess... if we're tactful about it..."



to be continued...

''Oh never mind that, Oddy. A a man of His Majesty's Second Travestite Brigade has more than one port of call."

sounds demmed peculiar to me, demmed. how many ports does a chap need? surely only one.

Mrs Figg wrote:''Oh never mind that, Oddy. A a man of His Majesty's Second Travestite Brigade has more than one port of call."

sounds demmed peculiar to me, demmed. how many ports does a chap need? surely only one.

There is the port you drink, and the port you sail into, and, of course, there are meatophorical uses of the term, 'port of call' Mrs Figg... I surely don't know what you're getting at though...

Thanks Petty. Maybe I was inspired by God or something.

THE SECRETIVE SEVEN



11


"I remember so fondly our days performing, Gerald," Julia was saying as the lorry powered on to it's destination. (The girls were now on first name terms with the young Sergeant. Sergeant Gerald Manley he was, and what a good solid Christian name that was, don't you think?) "We formed a trio at Mary Immaculate of God's Girl's School," Julia went on, "We performed for the local Gentry of the Shire on behalf of our Head Mistress, Miss Eugena; Amy on trombone, April on violin: I played cornet, and sang too. Not both at the same time, of course." And she laughed and fluttered her eyelids fetchiingly.

"And what kinds of songs did you sing, Julia?"

"Oh forlorn love ballads and tragedies mostly," Julia sighed, rather pleased she had his full attention just then. "And - oh yes! - hymns! - lots of hymns - it goes without saying..." she added hastilly.

"And psalms," Amy put in, in a rather loud voice, which couldn't fail to catch Sergeant Gerald's attention.

"Julia still makes good use of the cornet sometimes," April broke in a bit loudly, her tone betraying a barely discernible caustic hint of jealousy, as she felt Julia was taking up more than her fair share of Gerald's attention. "Yes, she often put it to good use when we got back to the dorm, out of the public eye."

"I should never know what you meant by that," Julia turned on her just as sweetly. "You must tell Gerald of your peculiar use of the trombone!"

"The violin," Amy said to Gerald while the two others were briefly distracted, "is God's own instrument I've been told, and can never be put to mundane uses."

"Oh that's fascinating, Amy," April turned sweetly on her. "God's instrument, was it?"

"Yes," Julia added. "Who exactly did tell you that?"

"Oh someone from the Church I seem to remember," Amy blushed. "It was a long time ago, well before I became a fully formed young woman...." She paused a moment, going a deeper shade of pink. "'Mentally' formed, I mean..." she hastened to add, though Julia and April saw she her straighten her back and ever so minutely put forward her best assets in the direction of Gerald.

"Now girls, I hope we haven't opened a can of worms here, you seem a little brisk with each other."

"Oh no, no, no, no," the girls protested.

"I would never be argumentative or disagreeable," Julia quickly explained. "I personally find young women with a proneness to ... err... disagreeableness rather unfitting... err... unpleasant... I'm a rather submissive young lady who would never stand up for myself or have a view contrary to that of others, especially young good natured men like you. I mean, you could be Scottish for all I cared, Gerald, I still would never disavow anything you ever said. Men are wiser than ladies and that's a well known fact."

"Well, that's rather mature of you to say, I must say," Gerald said, clearly impressed. "My Deacon says people of the gentler gender should put their lesser intelligence to speaking fair, and their bodies to good use in the household."

"Did you say 'bodies to good use'?" April asked with an involuntary blink.

"Yes, house cleaning and the sort. A clean home is a happy home. And there's cooking and ironing - that sort of thing. And child bearing. That goes without saying, but only after they've been made respectable by marriage."

"I thought that's what you meant," April said, and frowned slightly.

"I, of course, absolutely live for the day when I can disard all my own selfish wants an be of true service to the right gentleman - to be, as it were, a devoted and submissive wife," Julia said, and she smiled fetchingly.

Amy and April looked at her quizzically. It was like they were waking from a trance.

"Do you hear yourself?" Amy asked in surprise.

"I feel like a mist has fallen from my eyes!" April commented. "Where am I?"

"My goodness!" Amy exclaimed. "Were we being seduced into a life of Faith? How unexpected!"

"You mustn't listen to them, Gerald," Julia smiled again and reached out her hand to gently touch his. "They are quite the little hussies when their guards are down..."

"You can talk! " April snapped, all her vim and vigour suddenly flowing again in her veins. "As if a clean living young Christian Sergeant would ever want to mary a Tory tart like you!"

"Hey! Shut it!" Julia retorted through gritted teeth, her eyes beginning to roll back in her head.

"No, you shut it!"

Very shortly after, Sergeant Gerald Manley asked the driver to pull over to allow the ladies to climb out, as their physical violence and foul language, and the terrible abuse they were hurling at each other, was upsetting his men.


to be continued....

"I would never be argumentative or disagreeable," (((( who me, never ))) Julia quickly explained. "I personally find young women with a proneness to ... err... disagreeableness rather unfitting... err... unpleasant.. ((absolutely))) . I'm a rather submissive young lady ((( ))) who would never stand up for myself or have a view contrary to that of others, especially young good natured men like you. I mean, you could be Scottish (( )) for all I cared, Gerald, I still would never disavow anything you ever said. Men are wiser than ladies and that's a well known fact."

so wise, so wise,

That's what I love about these old fashioned tales, Mrs Figg; they're usually full to the brim with down to earth pious wisdom.

THE SECRETIVE SEVEN


12


"A terrible business!" Peter was repeating over and over like a demented automaton in his sack under a rower's hefty feet. "A terrible terrible business! ... A terrible business! A terrible terrible business!"

"Oh take a grip on yourself," David snapped from his sack at last, frustrated by Peter's whining drone.

"He would if his hands weren't bound," Halfred grunted. "Instead of criticising Peter, why not come up with some clever escape plan?"

"Well, the cow isn't in the top paddock at the moment, but when she's back..."

"In other words, you don't have any idea how to get out of this, do you!"

"Not as yet, I don't deny that."

"We're doomed," Halfred mumbled in his misery. 'Doomed!"

"You belly-well need to keep your pecker up," David said as sternly as he could, though his voice wobbled with stress. "If I had been as pessimistic as you chaps, I'd never have got over that incident with Bertie Wooster last Autumn. Did I sit and bleed out my soul? No, I didn't. I got stiched up and attended to the milking, like all farming gentry have done at some stage in their lives!"

"Well, I'd rather not have aything to do with cows if it means a life of servitude to a pack of brawny Fjordianlandians smelling of the sea!"

"This is so like the Case of the Flopsy Bunny all over again," Peter whimpered, the other boy's argument having broken him from his trance, and confusing both story and author under the stress of it all.

The other boys ignored him.

"Look here, Halfred!"David grated. "The cows and the ducks will find their ways home. It's an age old truth!"

"No they don't," Halfred grated back. "Not if there're lions and tigers and bears in the hedgerow!"

"In the hedgerows of England? Oh! What tosh!"

"Aha! I've got you there, David! We'll soon be rowed beyond English territory," Halfred bit back stubbornly. "What then, Farmer Boy! Where then your bucolic wisdom and your relaxed rural practicalities? The truth is, you can't come up with a feasible escape plan... That's usually Odovacar who does that. He always knows how to get out of ticklish situations."

"He's also the one who gets us into ticklish situations," Peter snapped, angry at Odovacar because he wasn't here to save them in some peculiar and enterprising way.

"I've got it!" Halfred burst out.

"What?" the other boys asked from their sacks.

"I can only think it. You never know, these Fjordian smugglers might speak the King's English."

And so this is what Halfred thought: 'I know. I'll chew my way out of this sack, steal a knife from the belt one of these brawny men, cut my hand bindings, and then overpower these fishy smugglers at an opportune moment. Easy peasy!'

And Halfred was very pleased with his plan.

Mind you, it might not end up being as easy as he thought, because their captors were ten in number, had legs like tree trunks, chests like barrels, arms like steel girders, and heads like blocks of granite, only more unbreakable. Oh yes, and they were armed with knives and cudgeons and Smith and Wesson six-shot revolvers. But still, an extremely audacious plan had to be better than no plan at all.

And, who knows, Halfred's knowledge of the Laws of Physics might yet grant him some unseen advantage. He was an 'A' student at the Oxford School of Universal Principles, after all! Not that an intimate knowledge of Physics had ever given him any particular advantage in any difficult practical situation he had faced during his short life. It had certainly never got him a date...


to be continued...

THE SECETIVE SEVEN



13



While he smoked a huge cigar propped up on some very lacy pillows, Odovacar contemplated the momentum of his life. He rarely fell to reflection, especially after a bout of slap-and-tickle, usually he just fell asleep, but this last bout of slap-and-tickle had been particularly interesting for the precocious boy-man, by turns frantc and slow handed, though let's respect his privacy here and not divulge too much of what had just transpired between him and Roddy.

"I never knew what it'd be like, but my eyes have opened considerably," Odovacar said distantly. "The whole business frankly had an arcane feel to me. Now, Roddy, I don't mean that to say in any way I was displeased, as surely I wasnt."

"I imagine things will be less arcane when I complete my personal adventure, surgically speaking."

"Yes, and as to dong that, I'm really not sure you should.... Far be it from me to advise you on matters of personal importitude - but 'with intimacy comes broader responsibilty", as my dear Aunt Clara was wont to say, sio I muist in all good conscience speak up. Aren't you rather special the way you are?"

"You've become unduly philosophical," Roddy said smoochingly and cuddled up to him in the large bed. "It's not like you. It's like you've had a transfigury encounter. With God that is, and not necessarily with me."

"Maybe I am a changed young man, Roddy dear. Perhaps, I've met an aspect of me that I have never met before."

"Now, dearie, don't start telling me you've never slept with another boy before?"

"Well, frankly yes - the alcohol, you know - but I've never laid about with a boy with a girl inside him, or one that has partly transformed her outwards to reflect her inwards. I mean, do you feel half and half now, what with the advent of your wonderful breasts, or perhaps a third?"

"No, no, I'm truly a girl inside," Roddy said without hesitation. "The breasts just make me feel more physically complete. Inside, I think I've always been a woman. Once I've had my snip and tuck I shall be physcically complete, that's all."

"You really don't have to do that, you know," Odovacar was quick to say. "I mean... things are perfectly fine with me as they are.... Oh dear, I think I'm having a thing called feelings of which I've heard tell... actual real ones..."

"Oh how very shocking, Odovacar Moneybags!" Roddy joked as he re-pinned the butterfly that adorned his hair and which had come askew as he pressed up against Odovacar's deeply beating chest. "You'll be going to Church next!"

They laughed.

They kissed.


to be continued....

THE SECRETIVE SEVEN



14



"A terrible terrible business," Julia was saying as the girls tidied up as best they could in the yellow Forumshire moonlight and the lorry tail lights dwindled into the balmy dstance. "A terrible terribly terrible business! My stockings are laddered."

"My coiffure is like a haystack!" Amy moaned.

"My skirt has circled my circumference...." April muttered. "Hang on.... There that's better... Oh why do we always get into fights when men are involved?"

"I guess it's the cave girl mentality," Amy sighed. "I read that in a book once."

"It's a terrible terrible business," Julia went on sadly.

"Oh Julia. Leave off," April cried. "What's done is done."

"But I was in love back then... for a few minutes... deeply in love with a handsome Sergeant."

"No use going on about it, Julia." Amy snapped. "You're starting to sound like Peter now..."

"Oh gawd!"

April brightened suddenly. "Remember how Peter went on and on last summer about that Scottish fusilier chap," April giggled. "The one with the mutton chop moustache!"

"He said it was man envy, not love," Amy commented.

"Man envy!" they all said, and giggled.

They had begun to come to their senses. Yes, they had truly fallen in love with the gorgeous Sergant, Gerald Manley, but he was out of sight now, and out of mind. Girls and love are like that. This, of course, is the beauty of being a  girl, that is, genuinely superficial. This was 1938 remember. We wouldn't say things like that nowadays.

"What now then?" April asked.

"I guess we could go and see what's happened to Peter, Halfred and David," Amy suggested.

"We may as well," Julia yawned. "Look! That sign says 'Smugglers Cave.' And it's is only half a mile down that pathway."  

April yawned too. "You've got me doing it now."

Amy yawned too. "I'm beginning to think we should leave the boys to their own devices, considering how late it is. But I suppose they'll only get snitchy if we don't rescue them from those Smugglers."
 
"Do you really think they've been captured?" April asked.

"Of course they would have," Julia grumbled. "It happens every time. How many of our adventures don't have one or more of the boys being captured? Those boys are always getting captured."

"Well, to be fair Julia," Amy said. "It's not like you've never been captured."

"Yes," April piped in. "Remember the Haverstock Rugby team last summer?"

"I'm not sure 'captured' is the exact right word," Julia answered slowly.

"We still had to rescue you before something truly unpleasant happened," Amy advised her. "Rugby players have notorious reputations when it comes to young women in their clubrooms. Honestly, I think we only just rescued you in the nick of time."

"Yeah - the nick of time," Julia muttered under her breath, and if the other girl's hadn't known better, they would have sworn Julia was annoyed about something.

to be continued....

im in the Library of Babel reading the book that will end the world

no spoilers please

the world ends

MODERATORS!

babe im in revolutionary france, infusing honeysuckle vodka with some mangos just to see what happens the moderators cannot save you now

"Yeah - the nick of time," Julia muttered under her breath, and if the other girl's hadn't known better, they would have sworn Julia was annoyed about something.

yeah where are the freekin Moderators when you need em? its quite salacious lies. I fell on that Scrum Halfs sausage.

This moderator is too busy catching up with the story! I've been reading through it over the past day or so and it's great so far!