Faye went to her room that evening with her mind in a complete mess. To find out that a woman whom she might like to date had been front-page news for years was a huge shock for her. In her mind, she would find a nice woman, settle down and live quietly out of the public eye.

The last thing she wanted was to be thrust into the world of hate that is social media. Then, there was the news that her old family had put a price on the head of Damien. While she was not Damien any longer, there was still the ever-present threat of a connection being made if she was recognised on social media.

She used a laptop that Paula had given her to search for pictures and stories about Becca. There were hundreds of them, but none for the past few years. Paula had hinted that she’d just dropped out of sight after a fairly frantic Milan Fashion Week. She’d just said, ‘I quit,’ and that was it.

There were a couple of more recent mentions of her. Still, they all seemed to be reports from a local newspaper about the launch of a couple of local history books at her bookshop and the results of the ‘biggest onion’ competition at the local show, where Becca had come second.

Neither of these ‘stories’ had been picked up by the mainstream media. It did seem as if she was out of the limelight and that her new life was just not newsworthy. Just before Faye was about to shut it down for the night, she noticed a story from a few months before she quit the modelling business.

There was a photo of Becca and an unknown woman, as the caption said, ‘getting it on’ at a party to celebrate the end of Paris Fashion Week. Faye tried to dig a bit deeper into the story, but her inexperience with search engines prevented her from getting much more information. The only thing she came up with was that the photo was staged for the media and that Becca’s dating and sex life was as invisible then as her life was now.

“Well?” asked Stephanie the next morning.

“Well, what?” said Faye, feigning ignorance.

“You know what I mean.”

Faye smiled.
“Paula was right. Becca does seem to have dropped off the face of the earth since quitting the fashion business. The two most recent posts about her were to do with a book launch and coming second in the ‘biggest onion’ competition at the village show.”

Stephanie grinned.
“Well?”

“Are you asking about the risks of social media?”

“What do you think?”

“I thought about it a lot last night, and I’m going to have to face the real world eventually, so why not start with a small village in East Sussex? It seems to me to be a safer place than London as regards my ugly mug appearing on social media.”

“You don’t have an ugly mug. Don’t ever say that again. With a little work, you will be a little hottie!”

Faye shook her head.
“Being a hottie is not what I want!”

Stephanie laughed.
“I’ll hold you to that…!”

‘Nervous?” asked Paula as she prepared to drop Faye off for her first meeting with Becca.

“Is the Pope a Catholic?”

“Good. Now put your best foot forward and enjoy yourself.”

Faye and Becca had spoken at length on Zoom during the preceding week. They’d managed to get on well enough for Becca to ask Faye to come and visit for the weekend. A very reluctant Faye had agreed to go, but the second and third thoughts had nearly scuppered the trip. Then there was the inevitable…

“I don’t have anything to wear. You saw the sort of clothes that she was wearing!”

Paula had tried to calm Faye’s nerves.
“She’s interested in what makes you tick and not how you look. How you look is easy to fix. What makes you, you, your personality is harder to change.”

Faye was not convinced but had gone along with the plan until it came time to pack.
“Do not even think of taking the kitchen sink…” quipped Stephanie.

“Ok, ok. I need to take less, but what should I leave behind?”

“Almost everything,” said Stephanie.

“Everything?”

“Yes, everything. Has it not occurred to you that Becca might have a huge wardrobe of clothes? You read her bio… All that work she did out of fashion weeks for the ready-to-wear market. Other models who have done that would get the pick of the things that they modelled.”

“But… she is not my size?”

“Until you see her face to face, you can’t tell. Go with the flow. If she is even a little bit interested in you, then she’ll make sure that you have something appropriate to wear. If you get embarrassed, then it rubs off on her.”

Faye wasn’t fully convinced but went along with it.

Now, it was too late to back out. Paula’s car was now parked outside Becca’s home. Even that was quite daunting to Faye. For someone who had only ever lived in rented houses in suburbia, the ‘chocolate box’ white-walled, half-timbered, thatched cottage, complete with roses around the front door, was out of another world. It was just another reminder that Becca had lived and worked in a different world from hers.

“Go on before the car takes root,” said Paula.

“Sorry,” said Faye.
I was just admiring the house.

“Just remember to duck when you go through the doors. People were a lot shorter when this place was built.”

Faye didn’t answer. Instead, she took a deep breath and opened the car door.

Paula reached over and held Faye’s hand.
“You will be fine.”

With a slight shake of her head, Faye got out of the car and, after retrieving her bag from the boot, she walked up the garden path. The smell of the last of the Lavender blooms seemed to fill the air.

The front door of the cottage was slightly ajar. Faye knocked on it and called out,

“Hello?”

“Faye, come on in. I’m in the kitchen,” came a voice from inside the cottage.

She went inside, and immediately, the goosebumps formed on her bare arms. It must have been 15 °C cooler inside than outside in the sun. For late summer, the weather was pretty nice, but the house was decidedly cold.

Faye found the kitchen and was surprised at how warm it was.

“Trust the supermarket to deliver my order just when I was about to have an important visitor,” said Becca.
She was busy putting the food delivery away. Faye stopped and looked at her host. In person, Becca was beautiful. Even the wearing of a frilly apron failed to detract from her beauty.

“Can I help?” asked Faye for want of anything better to do.

“The frozen stuff needs to go in the chest freezer in the room next door. Just pile it in as best you can. We had a glut of soft fruit this year, so there isn’t a lot of room at the moment.”

Becca had not stopped working to look at Faye. That told her that Becca was pretty single-minded.

Faye saw two large bags of frozen food sitting on the kitchen table. She took them into the adjoining room and opened a large chest freezer.

There was just enough room to fit it all in. Only when she’d finished did Faye see Becca watching her out of the corner of her eye.

“It just fitted in,” said Faye.

Becca smiled.
“I’ll put the kettle on. We can sit and talk when it has boiled.”

Faye went to return to the kitchen, but Becca decided that it was time to properly welcome her visitor.

Two brief kisses on each cheek almost caused Faye to run for the hills. No one had ever done that before. Becca sensed her unease.

“Sorry for that.”

Faye managed to smile.
“It was just a little unexpected, that’s all.”

Becca grinned.
“Then welcome to my home, and I am sorry for greeting you like that. That’s how we used to do it in Paris.”

“This is all a bit new to me; that’s all.”

“Then let’s reset and start again.”

Faye smiled and decided to change the subject.

“This room is nice and warm, but the hallway was cold.”

Becca grinned.
“That’s what living in a four-hundred-year-old cottage is like. I started the Aga yesterday, and it will gradually warm the whole place. I say gradually… it takes up to a week.”
Becca pointed at a large stove with three hotplates.
“It is wood-fired and will be kept going until next April. That and another fire in the living room are all the heating we have. This place is Grade 1 listed, so I can’t put in central heating, but you get used to it. In summer, it is nice and cool no matter how hot it gets outside.”

“It is certainly a lovely place to live. Paula said that you lived in an old cottage, but nothing like this.”

“Thanks. I’m glad that you like it. I fully intend to live the rest of my life in this village. I first came here on a fashion shoot when I was just turned eighteen. It just happened to coincide with the Harvest Festival, which, by the way, is tomorrow. I saw the whole village come together and celebrate the end of the growing season. Something in me said, ‘This is home.’ I bought this place a couple of years later and have lived here since I retired.”

Faye looked at her host.
“And you are only going to leave in a coffin? At least, that is the impression I get.”

Becca laughed.
“Something like that. But I am going to be moving house soon. I’m not going far, only to the other end of the village.”

A look of concern appeared over Faye’s face.

Becca smiled.
“How about we take a walk? It is a lovely afternoon, and my new house is only a short walk away.”

Faye was a little unsure.
“It will be fine.”

“Ok. Let’s go.”

Becca smiled again.
“Good. I like people who can make a decision.”

The kettle was switched off, and for the moment, the niceties of a cup of tea were forgotten.

Together, they walked through the village. Becca stopped and chatted with several people. Each time, she introduced Faye as a good friend. At first, this worried her, but soon, she began to understand that this was Becca saying ‘hands-off’ to the young men who might be interested in Faye.

At the end of the Village, Becca stopped at what looked like a building site.
“This is my new home. It is a barn conversion. The barn itself dates from the sixteenth century, with a major extension from early in the last century. I got fed up banging my head on the doors when I wore heels, so when planning was granted for this place, I jumped right in and bought it. It might not look much at the moment, but in a couple of months, hopefully, it will be finished.”

“It… it looks a lot bigger than your existing place.”

“Just a bit, but that’s not the most important thing. The place is being rebuilt to the latest standards and will require almost zero heating. Feeding an endless supply of wood into the Aga will be a thing of the past. It will have a small wood burner in the living room, but it is more for effect than raw heat.”

Faye was rather lost. All the homes that she’d lived in, and there were a good number, had been cold and drafty. Her old father had said more than once, ‘a bit of cold makes you harder to fool’. That was a lie. The places were cheap, and that was good in his eyes. Any form of central heating only made you soft.

“What’s the matter?” asked Becca.

“Oh… I was just thinking about some of the places that I’ve lived in over the years. Many were cold and damp. One place was even condemned by the local council, but did we move out? No, we didn’t. Cheap was the order of the day. You must be spending a fortune on this place.”

Becca then did something that surprised Faye. She took Faye’s hand in hers.
“Then come and live here and help me turn it into a home?”

“Eh? I’ve only been here a short while.”

Becca grinned.
“So? I already like you and your openness.”

“But… but what about me being a fake woman?”

“Details, my dear Faye and nothing that can’t be fixed in time and once you are here, there will be plenty of time for us to fix up this house together.”

Faye didn’t know what to say or do. Paula had warned Faye that Becca was a person who made decisions quickly. She’d just done that, and they’d been together for less than an hour.

“Let me show you around what has been finished?”

Together, Becca gave Faye the grand tour. To say that Faye was impressed would be an understatement, but all the time, she was wondering what the catch was.

When they went into what was to be the rear garden, Faye said,
“Becca, I can’t help thinking that we are trying to run before we can walk. I know very little about your desires for the future other than this place, and you know little about what I want from life.”

Becca took hold of Faye’s hand again.
“From what Paula told me, you decided to leave home pretty quickly. Am I right?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“When you walked into Paula’s office for the first time, how did you feel?”

“Nervous as hell, but I did it.”

“A sort of journey into the unknown?”

“Into the abyss, more like,” replied Faye, trying to make a joke.

“That’s how I felt the first time I was on the catwalk in Paris. One of the older models, who, by the way, lives just a few miles away, took me to one side and said, ‘Darling, think of every step you take on the catwalk as one step nearer to being able to say goodbye to all this smoke and mirrors.’ She retired the next season.”

Faye didn’t know what to say.

“Then… perhaps you can think of moving here as the next step on your journey out of the Abyss. Yes, it is a huge step, but it would allow you to have a place of safety and one where you can begin to think about the long term. If that is with me, then all the better,” said Becca.

Faye still didn’t know what to say.

“When Steph told me that you had never heard of me and my career as a model, I knew right away that we had to meet. The way you just pitched in and put the frozen food away without question told me right there and then that I wanted you in my life. If something happens and we become a couple, then good. If not, then I would hope that we could remain friends. Either way, you need a base from which to face the big, bad world. Why not make it here?”

“This is all a bit of a shock. If we don’t make it, what happens with the money that you have to pay Paula? The work that she undertakes does not come cheap. I learned that much very early on, but she would not talk about it.”

Becca laughed.
“Steph said right from the outset that you had your head screwed on. Paula, Steph and I are all square. Why? We are all square because I put up half the money to make their business what it is today after I saw first-hand how a transwoman model was jerked around by normal dating agencies. People like you… And two of my dressers were trans, but just not open about it. One came out to me after taking a really bad beating from a date after he’d found out her real status. I worked some magic and found her a man who wasn’t worried about the sex of their partner. He wanted some nice arm candy to be with him. He funded their transition, and three years later, they were married. Much the same with the second dresser. That’s when I got the idea for an agency, only to find that Steph was already doing that, but on a small scale and part-time. My investment allowed them to go full-time. This all happened over five years ago. Paula has been on the lookout for a partner for me ever since. Then you walked into her office and later chose me as a possible partner.”

Faye didn’t say anything. The tears rolling down her cheek said everything to her. Becca saw this and wrapped her arms around Faye. Faye responded.

When the tears had stopped, Faye said,
“Sorry for being a bit of a crybaby. All this kindness has got to me. I’m not used to it. He… He used to say that it was a sign of weakness, despite what the good book tells us about the life of Jesus. I received a beating for trying to argue that the feeding of the five thousand was an act of kindness. He said… It does not matter now. Thank you for just being there.”

Becca gave Faye another hug.
“Shall we head back to the cottage? I don’t know about you, but I am starting to feel a bit hungry.”

Faye took Becca’s hand and managed a smile. For the first time in as long as she could remember, she had three people in her life who were not trying to bring her down or beat her with a belt or cane.

[to be continued]