[sometime in autumn 2022]

Ellie Charlton was one of those people who couldn’t help being in the public eye. Being left a large fortune at the age of sixteen and becoming a very beautiful woman didn’t help preserve her anonymity.

Now that she is in her mid-20s, a camera or smartphone is almost always thrust in her face wherever she goes in public, as well as in a few private places. That applied to even going shopping. She could not be seen talking to a man of any age without speculation that she and the man were involved with each other. That is the stuff/tittle-tattle that the gossip rags have relied on for years, but with the advent of the smartphone and their cameras and social media, that gossip went to new levels of speculation and depravity.

Winning not one but two seven-figure lawsuits for defamation from before COVID didn’t stop those out to make a living from her very existence. It seemed that with the world waking up again after the pandemic, gossip about a public figure was the sort of news that many people wanted to consume by the 40ft container load.

Publication of pure speculation and even conspiracy theories about a celebrity means more sales, clicks and ad impressions, and to hell with the effect that sort of intrusion might have on the person at the centre of it all. Legal remedies to those articles can take years and millions of pounds to mount. Those risks were just part of doing business, plus, many of the so-called ‘Influencers’ on social media don’t have the funds to defend themselves. They just close one channel and open it up again with a similar name. The owners of the social media platforms are mostly in the USA and claim the ‘1st amendment’ when challenged, despite silencing anyone who dared be critical of them.

For Ellie, the breaking point came on the 10th anniversary of the sudden death of her parents. She was away at School in Lausanne, Switzerland, at the time of their death. Her parents had flown in from the UK to visit her to celebrate her 16th birthday.

On the return flight, their private jet developed engine trouble soon after take-off. The plane was unable to climb out of the valley and crashed into the mountainside, killing the four people on board. Those occupants were her parents, the pilot and the co-pilot.

It was that event that propelled her into public view. After that, she was regarded as being ‘fair game’ for anyone wanting to get on in the world of Celebrity Journalism and social media. Until the death of her parents, she’d been pretty well anonymous to the world and being away from the UK for her schooling, kept it that way.

Once details of her fortune became public knowledge, she was right there in the public eye. More than five hundred people turned up for her parents’ funeral. Every camera was focused on her and her alone. That baptism of fire scared her at first, but soon, it became boring.

With the 10th anniversary looming, Ellie decided to go to the crash site and pay homage to her parents. Being a considerate sort of person, she arranged for the families of the pilots to accompany her on the trip. Not wanting to tempt fate, she decided to travel to Switzerland using a luxury coach. The one she chose would offer the sort of privacy that the trip demanded.

Word of the trip had somehow found its way to the media, and the coach was tracked in real-time from her home, through the Channel Tunnel, through France and into Switzerland. When the coach stopped for fuel near Zurich, a convoy of seventeen vehicles stopped at the same time. Some were even live-streaming the journey on most of the social media platforms. All of them were hoping to get a photo of her doing something that she’d come to regret.

The thing that they would not or, more likely, would not understand was that Ellie was not one of those celebrities who liked to party. She was just the opposite, but the media wanted to portray her as being a party animal. Sure, she was seen at several celebrity events a year, but it was all show and as a favour to the host. She would leave after a few minutes by a rear exit. All sorts of posts were made on social media about her just being missed at the hottest parties when, in fact, she was almost always miles away.

Ellie had decided that this trip was the time that the so-called ‘followers’ would get a dose of their own medicine. Unbeknownst to the media, she and the relatives of the pilots had made the trip very privately a week before the anniversary. The news about a coach and all that was the perfect red herring.

The live stream of the coach arriving close to the crash site was proving very popular, with more than fifty thousand watching every second. Ellie was watching it from the home of her family lawyer, Mark Jacobs.

“Not long now,” said Ellie, grinning.

“They will go ballistic when they find that the whole thing has been a complete lie.”

“Good. They need to be taken down a peg or so.”

“Are you prepared for the backlash?”

“You know I am. You bought into the plan, didn’t you?”

Mark sighed.
“I did.”

Together, they watched as the paparazzi were allowed to inspect the coach. It was empty. The only people on board were the two drivers. One of them read a prepared statement. A video of Ellie reading the same words was being uploaded at the same time.

“To all those watching, I hope that you enjoyed my little game. The relatives of the pilots who were killed in the crash 10 years ago today visited the site a week ago. We all paid our respects to those who sadly died that day. Today was purely for the leeches in the media, both professional and amateur, who can’t leave me alone. You have no idea what it is like having a multitude of cameras thrust into your life, day in and day out. If I go shopping, it is right there on social media, including what I buy and speculation about what I might be cooking. Please, if you have any decency, stop this harassment of me right now. But... you won’t. I’d be a fool to think that even for one minute, I could get even a day’s peace. Therefore, I am done being in the public eye. The fact that I cannot grieve for the loss of my parents in private shows how low the bar has gotten. I cannot live like this any longer. It seems that almost everything I do is considered ‘fair game’ and is broadcast to the world. As soon as I step out of my home, I am followed, and cameras record everything I do 24/7. Drones have been caught trying to film into my bedroom, and the law is unable or unwilling to do anything about it. Therefore… I’m done with it all. No more. You win. I hereby declare that I am retreating to a location that is unknown to you all, and no one will ever put a camera in my face again. Go to hell, the lot of you, and I hope all those who followed the coach to Switzerland die a long and slow death with hundreds of cameras on you 24/7. Then and only then will you even begin to understand what my life has been like these past 10 years.”

The statement ended, and the video cut to black.

Back at the home of Mark Jacobs, Ellie began to rid herself of all the trappings of wealth. What emerged was someone who had every chance of being invisible to the world at large. Someone who was the exact opposite of a media star, a homeless person.

The torn clothes, unwashed hair and dirty skin were, at that moment, a costume, but soon it would be a reality. Ellie said her goodbyes to Mark and walked out of his life into the late January rain.

Mark saw Ellie from a distance every few weeks, but he kept his distance and refrained from making contact. That was all part of their agreement.

Within a week, Ellie was reported missing by someone claiming to be a cousin. That was a lie, but the Police had to investigate the case. The pretend cousin was soon unmasked as working for a celebrity gossip site and was pilloried in the traditional media. They were found to have been behind the drone flights over her home and were convicted of stalking and given a 5-year sentence, thanks to the hundreds of hours of video that had been found at their home. Each one was perfectly labelled and catalogued. That didn’t stop the innuendo and speculation about Ellie.

Mark was being honest when he said in a statement that he and Ellie had watched the scene in Switzerland and that within an hour of it, she had left his home, refusing to tell him where she was going. Their last discussion had been videotaped at his insistence. That was given to the Police to show that she had ‘dropped out’ of her own volition. The investigation was, as they say, ‘ongoing’, but they were not putting any resources into the case.

Ellie began her new life on the streets in Leicester. With the large Asian population, a white woman panhandling near the city bus station was largely ignored. Because it was winter, being well wrapped up was not unusual, and Ellie was no exception. Her normally dark brown hair had been cut short and bleached on her last day as ‘Ellie’. Now, she went by the name of Vienna. While it was patently false, most of the others that she encountered on the streets used false names, so ‘Vienna’ was not that unusual.

It was hard at first. Simply getting enough food was a problem until she discovered the art of what the Americans call ‘dumpster diving’. Food discarded from Restaurants was there for the taking if she was there at the right time. Competition for the best was fierce, so Ellie/Vienna looked out for the places down the list. Her favourite was a kebab house, especially on a Friday and Saturday night. There would almost always be one or two tasty dishes left over, and the owners were more than happy for someone to eat them. That was less for them to have to pay to be carted away.

One Bangladeshi take-away would sometimes give her a few hours of work washing the pots and pans after they’d closed. That work included a meal and somewhere dry to sleep until the day staff opened up the next morning. Vienna was always careful not to abuse those places.

It was almost Easter before she attracted the attention of the local Police. That was the signal for her to leave Leicester and head to new pastures. That was Coventry, where she stayed until mid-May.

Vienna had settled into life without a camera being thrust into her face quite well. Every so often, one of the tabloids or the online media would run an article, ‘Where’s Ellie?’. One of the worst was even offering a reward of £5000, leading to the ‘capture’ of Ellie on video.

Vienna was starting to enjoy life without a camera, filming her every move. Her mental health had improved beyond her wildest expectations.

Vienna had received a good talking to by a local Police Inspector about an alleged harassment incident. It was all a lie, but she took the hint, and she headed for Herefordshire and the Asparagus picking. A few weeks of work there gave her enough cash to bleach her hair again after cutting it almost into a crew cut. That worked until the end of the apple and pear harvest, when that sort of casual, cash-in-hand work would dry up.

That was when she ran into another homeless person who went by the name of Diana just outside the city of Gloucester.

As soon as Vienna saw Diana, something in her stirred. She’d never felt like that before and was at a loss to know what it was.

It was then that she froze solid. The ‘what if she recognises me’ question came back with a vengeance.

By then, it was too late.
“Here, you look hungry,” said Diana.

She offered Vienna almost half of what remained of her chocolate bar.

“Thanks. I’m Vienna, by the way.”

“Diana. They call me Diana.”

“I’ve not seen you around here before,” said Diana.

“Nah. I’ve been working on the Apple and Pear harvest over in Herefordshire. That’s all done now, and I was run out of Hereford a few days ago.”

Diana laughed.
“The plod are very anti-homeless up there. I had to leave in a bit of a hurry in the spring. It was a shame as the locals are a bit more generous than here.”

Vienna chuckled.
“Thanks for the tip. Perhaps I’ll move on to Cheltenham?”

“Good luck there. There are a few very aggressive people like us there. They call themselves the Highwaymen.”

“Highwaymen?”

“They’ll rob you of anything you get. They’ve even been known to take the clothes off the back of a homeless person who tried to hide their ‘earnings’ from them.”

“Ouch.”

Vienna decided that it was time to leave.
“Thanks for the chocolate, Diana. I think I’ll hit the road before it gets dark.”

Diana looked sad.
“Just when I was starting to enjoy talking to you. Most others like us are as grumpy as hell.”

Vienna smiled.
“That, I can agree with.”

“Thanks again.”
With that, Vienna walked away, but something of her was left behind. The feelings that she had for a total stranger had to be buried deep. It was a matter of personal survival, after all.

Being on the streets takes its toll on most people’s mental health. For Vienna, it was the opposite. Not having to worry about who was going to stick a camera into her face, comment on what she bought, where she went and whom she spoke to was very tiring mentally. Just not having that pressure had made a big difference to her mental state.

Vienna spent that night under a motorway bridge south of Gloucester. No matter what she tried, she could not get Diana out of her mind. All that she could think of was ‘love at first sight’. She’d never had any real relationships with men because of the media intrusion into every facet of her life. Diana was a woman, and that was unnerving. It was all unsettling and scary.

A lift from a builder’s pick-up going to Evesham for supplies sent her travels in a different direction late the next morning. She found a place to crash on the western side of the town and settled into life on the streets. There were a few others like her visible in the town, and she had managed to get enough money from the fruit picking to get her clothes washed at a laundrette. Her backpack contained two changes of clothes, spare socks and knickers, tampons and not much else.

Just putting on a clean set of clothes made her feel a lot more human. While they were clean, her body wasn’t. Very few places would let her shower, so she relied on a deodorant stick to keep the worst of her odour at bay.

That Body Odour kept most of the inquisitive morons in the town at bay.

An hour and a half before the one laundrette in town closed on a Sunday evening, Vienna went inside. The place was empty and perfect for her purposes. She hid behind a washer, where she removed her dirty clothes and put on some clean ones. With that done, she could relax.

The place was warm and dry, so the temptation to drop off to sleep was hard to resist, but she did. She knew of other homeless people who had all their ‘stuff’ stolen while taking a catnap in the wrong place.

With her washing done, she left the laundrette just before the manager closed it up for the night. She went in search of something to eat, but with it being a Sunday, many takeaways were closed or would close early. On that day, she was out of luck. All that remained open was a convenience store.

Some store operators actively dissuaded the homeless from even entering their stores because of the fear of shoplifting. That was something that Vienna had never done. She went into one shop and didn’t linger. A bottle of water and a packet of chocolate digestives were purchased, even if one of the two members of staff followed her around the shop while she searched for the items.

The cost of the digestives in the shop was, in her mind, just silly. They were more than double what she’d paid in a supermarket a week and a bit earlier. Nevertheless, she had enough money for them and left holding the items close to her chest.

She’d only gone about 50m from the store when a voice said,
“Vienna!”

She stopped dead in her tracks and turned to see Diana stepping out of a shop doorway. In the gloom, Vienna could see Diana’s belongings on the floor, along with her sleeping bag.

“Diana? How? How long have you been in town?”

“I arrived today and was preparing to bed down here.”

Something inside Vienna stirred again. This time, she could not let it go, at least for the moment.

“I have a dry barn on the edge of town. Want to share?”

Diana didn’t need to ask a second time. Within half an hour, they were in the relative warmth of the barn, sharing the digestives and water.

Diana had an LED headtorch, which was illuminating the scene. They’d eaten about half of them when out of the blue, Diana said,

“You are Ellie Charlton, aren’t you?”

Vienna’s shoulders dropped, and she nodded her head.

“Why? Why are you living like this?”

“Have you ever had people on your tail 24/7… other than the cops, that is?”

“No.”

“Eventually, it got too much to handle. Every day, there would be someone recording what I did and who I talked to, just in case I might have a relationship with that person. That would be a scoop. One guy I dated not long after I came into all the money had his life taken apart. It destroyed him. Our relationship didn’t last, and six months later, people were goading him about being unable to make it with a little rich girl. He tried to end his life and had a mental breakdown. He’s still undergoing treatment even nine years later. That’s how it has been.”

“I still don’t get why you dropped out of life like that?”

“We don’t attract much attention from anyone in the media. It has been great not having my whole life recorded in minute detail.”

Vienna looked at Diana.
“Are you going to turn me in and claim that reward?”

Diana laughed.
“Me? No way, Jose. Sure, I’d have a few seconds of fame before my secrets were laid bare for everyone to see and comment on.”

“Were those secrets the reason that you are on the ‘road’?”

“Yeah. It got too bad at home, so I left. That was nearly two years ago.”

“This is where I’d raise a glass to our secrets, but all I have is half a bottle of water.”

“Vintage 2022? A good year, I hear,” joked Diana.

Later, Vienna said,
“I’m glad that it was you who discovered me.”

“Why? I’m no different from others on the road.”

“That’s where you are wrong.”

She didn’t elaborate for several minutes. Then Vienna said,
“Do you fancy a proper bed for a while?”

“What do you mean?”

“I want to get to know you better. That is probably going to mean that I have to end this life on the road. How about it? Want to come with me at least for a bit?”

“You know nothing about me…” protested Diana.

“I know one thing, and that is… You aren’t a genetic woman. Your Adam’s apple gives the game away.”

Diana didn’t say anything for several minutes. It was Vienna who broke the ice.

“Think about it, and we can talk in the morning. If the answer is yes, I’ll call my lawyer, and he’ll fix up a place where we can go.”

“Can’t you go home?”

“And risk being seen looking like this? Forget it. After nearly a year on the road, I need a period of rehab. We get into a way of life on the road. That is different to normal life. Even then, I might not ever return home. According to my lawyer, the house gets regular drone overflights despite the laws against it. He has taken down at least six with nets, but they still come. People are still interested enough in me to openly discuss plans to stalk me on Telegram or Signal, should I come out of hiding. My lawyer told me that a few months ago. That makes it almost impossible for me to even think about returning to normal life. I just wish that people would leave me alone, but they won’t.”

“What will you do then? Won’t the same people be on your tail all the time?”

“Being on the road for the best part of a year has allowed me to think about the future. I have a bit of a plan for that in mind. Early days yet, but if I hadn’t met you, it would never have gotten to where it is at the moment.”

“Me?”

“Yes. Come in with me, and I’ll tell you. I’m a pretty decent cook. A bit out of practice, but I think that I’d like to snuggle down in a nice, clean bed again.”

Nothing more was said that night.

Vienna woke up to find the barn empty. For a moment, she wondered if Diana had legged it in the night, but her backpack was by the door. After a moment of panic, Diana appeared in the doorway.

“Has anyone ever told you that you snore like a train?”

“Yeah, sorry. I should have warned you.”

“There was some rain in the night. That doorway would have been a bit damp by now.”

“I was glad to help.”

“About what you said last night?”

“We both said a lot, didn’t we?”

“And not a drop of booze in sight!”

Vienna laughed.
“True… very true.”

“If your offer of a clean bed still stands, then I’m in. I have a dodgy tooth that needs a filling. It would be nice if your lawyer could arrange for me to get it fixed.”

Vienna smiled.
“Good. Let’s get packed up and head into town. I need to find a phone box and make a call.”

“Don’t you have a mobile phone?”

Vienna shook her head.
“The last one I had was bugged by a creep from the gutter press. I have no idea how it happened, but somehow, they knew about what I was doing the moment I arranged it. I’m done with them for good now. The one before that was cloned, and all my texts were posted on the internet before I read them myself. I arranged for a very bent contact in the USA to send me a link to some borderline child porn while I was on a flight to South Africa. The furore over that went wild, and the person posting everything was nabbed for distributing child porn. My lawyer had worked with the police to trap them. What made it bad was that it was a mother of two girls. She was so obsessed with me that she even dressed them like me. It was so sad.”

“I remember that. It is a sad reflection on our society, isn’t it?” remarked Diana as they packed their things.

“A true reflection, though.”

As they walked into town, Diana said,
“Did you ever think of giving all that money away? Surely that would keep the leeches away?”

“The money is only part of the problem. The other is that Ellie was a very attractive single woman. That alone is worth the attention of the media. All she needed to do to get column inches was speak to a man in a shop. It didn’t matter that it was perfectly innocent. Those leeches don’t care.”

Diana stopped walking.
“You are talking about Ellie in the past tense? What gives?”

“Ellie Charlton is dead, an ex-person. Who emerges from her ashes is another issue and not for today.”

Diana didn’t look convinced.
“What these past months have taught me is that someone who has existed in the public view without doing anything to warrant more than a passing story can drop out and live a life free from the media. I have not seen any TV or social media in all that time, and to be perfectly honest, my mental health has improved by several orders of magnitude.”

“Ok, but why me? You could have decided to end your exile without me, couldn’t you?”

“True, very true. Give me a few days, and I’ll tell you. I’m still trying to get it all straight in my head, but in that time, you can wash everything, have some good meals and sleep in a bed. If, after that time, you want to leave, you can, and I’ll make sure that you can go anywhere in the country that you want. I don’t leave my friends high and dry.”

“Friends? Do you consider me a friend? You hardly know me?”

Vienna smiled.
“Ok, let’s say that the jury is out on that one for the next few days. Are you in?”

“I’m in. If I can get my tooth fixed, then I will owe you big time.”

“Good. Now let’s try to find a payphone.”

After a reverse charge call to her Lawyer, all they could do was wait. They’d arranged to meet him at the nearby railway station. There was at least somewhere to shelter from the now heavy drizzle that was falling.

Almost three hours later, a rental company transit van pulled up at the station. Vienna wasn’t surprised, but Diana was.

“Remember, we are travelling incognito. There are vans like this moving around the country all day, every day and like us, homeless, no one gives them a second glance unless the driver does something silly.”

Diana could not argue with that.

The van was being driven by Vienna’s lawyer, Mark Jacobs.

“Ladies, please put your packs in the back. The weather is only going to get worse.”

“Mark, this is Diana.”

“Pleased to meet you, Diana. I’m Mark, Vienna’s lawyer.”

“Where are we going?” asked Vienna when they were on the move.

“I rented a house on the outskirts of Banbury for three months. That was six weeks ago, so we are halfway through the lease. It is fully furnished, and I have a load of food in the back along with a load of your clothes,” said Mark as he gave the two each a yellow reflective jacket to put on. They matched the one he was wearing. Many delivery drivers wore similar jackets.

He added,
“It was all done through a local agency in my name. Yes, there is a risk, but so far, I don’t see much in the way of spyware on my email accounts. Your old ones are riddled with tracking bots. Some of the new ones can defeat a VPN and even some pretty strong encryption.”

“But those accounts have been dormant for months?” said Vienna.

“I’ve had a couple of reformed hackers log into them every week or so from a different place in the country. At first, it was amusing to see the internet light up with your supposed location. Over time, that has died down, but the bots are still there and even more active. We had one account stolen last week, and a whole bunch of very abusive posts on Twitter were made from it. Elon and his team of numpties at Twitter banned you for a month. I refuse to call it ‘X’ by the way. It has gone very right-wing since he bought it.”

“Are you talking about Elon Musk?” asked Diana.

“Yeah, why?”

“He’s part of the reason that I’m on the road. A lot of people were posting a lot of lies about me, and it got rather nasty, so I exited stage left and went on the road.”

As Mark negotiated a roundabout, he said calmly,
“It sounds like you need a lawyer.”

She sighed.
“It is not as simple as that. I have no money.”

Mark chuckled.
“Ellie’s estate pays for my time. It allows me to do pro-bono work for people who can’t afford any legal representation… such as yourself. That was all part of the terms of her parents’ will.”

“Let me think about it, but I need to see a dentist sooner than later,” said Diana.

“I’ll put my thinking cap on and see what can be arranged. It will be tomorrow at the earliest, though, more likely a few days or even the start of next week.”

“That’s fine. I’ve managed to live with it for a few weeks, but I can feel the cavity thing getting bigger.”

The property Mark had rented was fairly private. It was close to but not on a ‘B’ road that led into the market town. It was perfect for their needs.

It was chucking it down with rain as they began to unload the van. That would help keep prying eyes away.

With the van unloaded, Mark gathered the two women in the kitchen.

“Here is a clean and unused phone. It is on PAYG and has been well topped up. As I said, it is clean. A technician client of mine who owes me for getting him off a sexual assault charge bought it from a pawn shop, and after loading it with a clean and 100% Google free operating system, he put a load of anti-malware and anti-spyware apps on it. I’d just be careful what sort of sites you visit, and please keep well away from social media. My burner phone number is in the phonebook. Call me if you need anything. I can be here in a couple of hours.”
“Thanks, Mark.”

“There is enough fresh food there to last at least five days. If you are planning on staying longer, give me a call, and I’ll do a shop for you on my way here. There should be no need to venture out apart from Diana’s trip to the dentist. I’ll try to set that up tomorrow. It won’t be around here, though, but wherever it is, I’ll take you there and bring you back.”

“Thank you, Mark,” said a very quiet Diana.

He left them to get things straight and to fight over who was going to use the washer first.

Vienna let her guest have first dibs at the washing machine. After all, she’d only done her washing a day or so earlier. While Diana was figuring out how to operate the washer/dryer, Vienna was looking at the contents of the fridge. Two nice pieces of Rib-eye steak said ‘eat me’ loud and clear. The downside was that the fridge lacked the bits and pieces that would allow her to make a peppercorn sauce. They’d have to do with mustard. Then, a thought crossed her mind.

“Diana, you aren’t a veggie or a vegan, are you?”

“No way. I’m not a rabbit,” came her reply.

Vienna breathed a sigh of relief and proceeded to get everything ready for their meal. Steak, baked potatoes with baked beans and onions. Then she went off to have a shower.

Her mind was very much away with the fairies when she walked in on Diana in the shower.

“Sorry,” said Vienna before Diana noticed.

“Don’t go,” said Diana.

Vienna felt very awkward as she stood there in the bathroom while Diana had her shower.
“Don’t just stand there, join me before I use all the hot water.”

Reluctantly, Vienna stripped off and opened the door to the shower. She’d never showered with another person, at least one other person. Communal showers after sports were common at her school, but this was different.

A soapy arm came out of the steam and pulled her into the shower. It was too late to back out now.

Diana soaped Vienna all over before guiding her hand to her manhood.
“You know what to do, don’t you?”

Vienna froze solid. She desperately wanted to flee, but her body remained rooted to the spot. Diana soon saw the problem.

“You poor thing. Are you a virgin?”

Vienna managed a nod of her head and washed the soap from her eyes. Then she started to cry.

Diana saw this and washed them both down before leading Vienna out of the shower.

“I’m so sorry,” said Diana.
“I thought that you might like to have sex in the shower.”

Vienna was still too shocked to respond, so Diana quickly dried them both off and led Vienna to her bedroom. All the time, Vienna had a gentle hold on Diana’s penis.

Gently, Diana removed Vienna’s hand and found a towel for her to cry into. Then she left Vienna to herself.

Back in her room, she began to pack her pack. After letting her emotions run wild for all the wrong reasons, there was no way she could stay with Vienna.

The house was silent, apart from the noise of the dryer, when Diana went into the kitchen. The phone was sitting on the table. Seeing it gave her an idea.

Dialling the one number in the phonebook, she hoped that her huge mistake would not affect Vienna in the long term.

“Hello, Mark, this is Diana,”

“She’s upstairs. I’m sorry that I got a bit forward with her. Being alone with a beautiful woman… Sorry, it got to me. I have to leave, but she can’t be alone at the moment.”

She listened to Mark speaking. Inside, she was shaking her head, but at the end, she said,
“Ok, I’ll wait here for you to return.”

She hung up and, for the first time, looked at the food that Vienna had set out ready to cook. Her stomach rumbled in sympathy with her taste buds. Doing anything with it would have to wait. All she could think about was ‘getting the hell out of Dodge City’ or at least that house, but she had promised Mark that she’d hang around until he returned.

Diana went into the utility room. The timer on the dryer said 00:10. Ten lousy minutes until her clothes were dry. Then she could pack and be ready to leg it.

She sat in the kitchen with her head in her hands. Once again, she’d blown it big time. Vienna had said that she would be taken care of in a good way, and she had abused that hospitality. Why had she been so silly?

Try as hard as she could, she could not get beyond ‘I fancy the hell out of Vienna’.

Diana was all packed and ready to go, but there was no sign of Mark, whatever his name was…

Suddenly, a voice from behind her said,
“Sorry about that.”

A startled Diana turned around to see Vienna. Her eyes were bloodshot from the crying.

“No, Vienna, it was all my fault. I asked you to come into the shower and everything.”

Vienna shook her head.
“And I accepted. Deep down, I knew what might happen, but then, faced with it all, I could not go through with it. That’s me all over, a fucking coward.”

“It was a moment that went wrong,” said Vienna.
“That is the story of my life.”

“But… you have all that money?”

“Yeah, and what did the Beatles sing? Oh yeah, ‘Money can’t buy me love’.”

“It seems that both of us are a bit screwed up when it comes to having a relationship with another person.”

Vienna managed half a smile.
“How about we put today down to fate? In case you don’t know, I fancy the hell out of you, and I have done since I first met you.”

“Fuck…” said Diana as she sat down at the table.
“I feel the same way about you… That’s why… Oh shit. We are a couple of numpties, aren’t we.”

“I think we are. At least we can admit it.”

“I called your lawyer. I was in a bit of a panic, I’m afraid,” said Diana.

“And he’s on his way back here, I suppose?”

Diana managed a smile.
“You know him very well.”

“He was my guardian when my parents died, so yes, I do.”

“What do we tell him?”

“How about ‘crisis over’ and us two idiots are well aware of how silly they were?”

“He’ll see right through that… He is a lawyer, after all. He spent twenty years prosecuting the bad guys. They lied all the time. I learned that very soon after he became my guardian.”

Diana looked at Vienna and raised her right eyebrow.
“What else aren’t you telling me?”

Vienna smiled back at Diana.
“Mark is my uncle. He’s my mother’s brother.”

Diana grinned.
“That explains a lot about your relationship with him and how he’s working for you and with you.”

“You are very observant, my friend. Very few people have twigged that he’s more than my legal representative.”

“Me and my big nose… It has gotten me into trouble more than once, but it saved me a couple of times since I went on the road.”

“Our instincts are powerful tools. Tools that have saved us all many times without us even realising it.”

“There speaks the philosopher.”

“Guilty. I was studying it before… before it got all too much for me.”

“It is not too late to continue your studies, isn’t it?”

“Perhaps, but that is not a decision for now. I think that I just heard a van pulling up?”

Vienna showed Mark into the kitchen. He could see right away that things were back on an even keel.

“What has happened since you called me, Diana?”

“We have been talking and thrashed things out,” said Diana.

“We acted like we were two children. It won’t happen again. It was all a spur-of-the-moment thing and won’t happen again.”

“Or… it won’t happen again like it did today?” asked Mark.

“What do you mean?”

“Ladies… I might be a poor male of the species, but I am not blind. There is… is an edge to how you interact with each other. I might be guessing, but I think there might be an attraction between the two of you?”

Vienna and Diana looked at each other. Both of them smiled.

“Good,” said Mark.
“Like fools, you rushed in, and it didn’t work. Play it slow and calm, and who knows, it might work out.”

Vienna went up to Mark and hugged him.

“Thank you, Uncle Mark.”

“No, my dear. Take it steady, and if you do become an item, then we will face the implications of that at that time. Now… I want you two to relax and get the road out of your system before deciding what to do next. Sleep, eat and relax. I’ll be back in a couple of days to take Dianna to the dentist. Then we can talk.”

“Thanks, Mark,” said Vienna.

“Just stay safe and relax, and… don’t be silly again. From what I have seen, you both have a brain, so use it. Please, try to use this time to get to know each other properly.”

“Mark,” said Diana.
“What about my visit to a dentist?”

“I have one who, for the right amount of cash, will give your teeth a thorough going over, including a descale and polish as well as the filling. He can’t do it for two days. One question, though. Where was your home?”

Diana smiled.
“I thought that my accent would give me away, but my family home is… or was in County Wexford, Ireland, but I was born in Armagh. Why?”

“I take it that you don’t want to return there, do you?”

“Ah. No, I don’t. With the Catholics in the south and the closed minds of the Protestants in the north, trans people are not that welcome on either side of the border.”

“Then it is a good job that the dentist I found is not from there, and nor is he Irish.”

He looked at the two women.
“Are we good? No more being silly teenagers, ok?”

“We are good,” said Diana.

“Thanks, Mark, for being there,” said Vienna.

He left them alone. For several minutes, there was silence in the kitchen. Eventually, the lure of the food won the day.

“That was excellent,” said Diana as she cleared her plate.

“It wasn’t much, but it filled a hole in our stomachs.”

“Well, it succeeded. I’ll do the washing up as thanks.”

“I’ll dry, then we can watch some TV if that is ok with you?” suggested Vienna.

“As long as it is not any of those turgid soap operas. My mum would watch them religiously. I found them so depressing.”

“I think that we have a deal.”

A little later, they settled down on the couch together. Just being warm, dry and safe was going to take some getting used to. Surviving on the streets requires a set of skills and behaviours that most people don’t know about, let alone understand. Some homeless can’t handle even something as simple as being in a hostel for more than a few nights because those behaviours become ingrained into their very psyche.

Vienna and Diana were survivors. Sure, Vienna had a friend who was just a phone call away, but she’d made it clear that being out of the public eye was her way of surviving mentally when the alternative was to have people investigate almost every detail of her private life.

Being somewhere safe was nice, but it was going to start opening another Pandora’s box of problems for both of them.

The question of ‘What’s Next’ would soon hit both of them.

[to be continued]