[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]
Part of them getting to know each other was talking about how they looked and what style of clothes they liked.
It turned out that Diana was just half a size larger than Vienna, so she was able to wear at least some of the latter’s clothes. They both agreed that it would be fun to dress up in the evenings.
Before that, though, the house needed a thorough cleansing from top to bottom. The previous renters had left a lot of nasty reminders in the cupboards including a load of dirty nappies.
Mark had supplied them with some cleaning materials, but it didn’t take long before a proper shopping list was created. Vienna added a selection of herbs and spices to the shopping list, and during one phone call with him, she dictated it to him.
At the end, Vienna said,
“We need to go online.”
Mark didn’t say anything for a few seconds. Then he replied,
“Ok, I’ll bring something with me. Just be careful, ok?”
Vienna looked at Diana before saying,
“That is a given. Neither of us wants our location revealed to the world.”
Mark told Diana to be ready to go to the dentist when he visited in a couple of days. Her reaction was partially good, but with a bit of reluctance.
Later, Vienna asked,
“Nervous about going to the dentist?”
“Yeah. It has been more than three years since my last visit.”
“Get it over and done with, and you will be fine.”
“What if it takes more than one visit?”
“Then Mark will handle it.”
“You trust him, don’t you?”
“I do. I had to after… after my parents died, it was hard, but he lost a sister as well so we bonded. He was well looked after in their will. He never has to work again, if you get my meaning.”
“What if he runs off with your inheritance?”
Vienna chuckled and shook her head.
“Dad had a will that put everything into a trust that is managed by a board of people he trusted in London. Any movement of funds over a certain limit or frequency that is not in the plan has to be authorised by them. That’s a lot of why I never ‘flashed the cash’ before. I was brought up to value money. Many of the outfits that I wore to events were obtained from charity shops and altered by a dressmaker who looked after my mother and her mother before her.”
“But you were seen… I saw the photos of you getting out of fancy cars at those events.”
Vienna smiled.
“It was all for show. Let them think that I was flashing the cash. Sure, I’d pay my way and even buy a bottle or two of expensive bubbly, but I would never get drunk or put myself into a position where my drink could be spiked. God knows how many times the gutter press tried it. It got so bad that I’d often go to an event and only stay for a short while. When it was not an insult to leave, I’d do so and not have any of the food or drink on offer. The risk of my food or drink being spiked was just too high. Several people who took drinks that had been offered to me ended up in the hospital. One woman was raped and later left for dead along the side of the river. That was when I started talking to Mark about dropping out. I didn’t want a death on my hands.”
Vienna laughed.
“That was noticed by the media. They ran headlines for weeks about how I was starving myself and that I looked very anorexic. At twenty-five, I was the same weight as when I was sixteen, 58kg. Mark insisted that I had to eat a meal and be well hydrated before leaving for those events. Those flashy cars were mostly rented. Dad had a BMW 7-series. It was delivered just before he died. I used it a lot until a couple of years ago with a former London Cabbie driving. It is… or was in the garage at home along with Mum’s Aston Martin DB7.”
“Oh… I think I see,” remarked Diana.
“It was mostly an act. Yes, Dad was wealthy, but was asset-rich and cash-poor. Over 90% of his wealth was tied up. Most of it still is. The old me has money, but honestly, after a year of living on very little, I don’t miss it. Even my infrequent trips to the supermarket were almost instantly reported on social media. There would be endless comments about how much weight I’d put on or lost because of my diet. That is very mentally tiring.”
“And all that combined to make you want to say, ‘stop the world, I wanna get off’?”
“It did. Believe me, Mark tried his hardest to get me to do something different, but my shrink saw what it was doing to my mental health. Like a junkie, I needed to go into rehab or, in my case, drop out of society and become invisible. Eventually, he agreed with me and came up with safeguards and an escape route. One of those safeguards was always having a place like this rented. It, as you have seen, provided me… us with a place to crash and take stock.”
“Now… Diana, do you fancy cooking tonight?”
“How are you feeling?” asked Vienna after Diana had returned from her trip to the dentist.
“Like I’ve been through a boxing match. She gave me three fillings and descaled and polished my teeth. I was in the chair for almost an hour.”
“But does it feel better? Are you still in pain?”
“No pain, but my jaw aches.”
“Then soup for you tonight,” said Vienna, half joking.
“That would be good. I don’t feel like chewing much at the moment.”
Diana was still very quiet the next day, so Vienna asked,
“You seem subdued again today. Did something happen yesterday?”
“Mark… He wanted to know what my intentions towards you were.”
Vienna laughed.
“That’s just him being protective.”
“That’s what I thought at first, but he wanted to know if I was prepared for all your baggage to get in the way of a relationship.”
“My baggage? Don’t worry, Diana, I think I have a plan to consign it to landfill.”
Those words got Diana very interested.
“I’m all ears.”
“While you were undergoing the torture of the dentists, I was working on the kitchen floor. It gave me time to think about what’s next.”
The expression on Diana’s face looked a bit worried.
“By next, I mean for both of us. If you are interested in becoming the person you have dreamed about for years, then it applies to you as well.”
“Are you talking about me transitioning?”
Vienna smiled and nodded.
“That and more.”
“What do you mean?”
“Think about what would happen if I were to put on some of Ellie Charlton’s finery and a dark brown wig and walk into Oxford City Centre?”
“You’d be trending on social media like it was going out of fashion.”
“Correct. Now think about what would happen if you glammed up and went to your old stomping ground?”
“And met my family?”
“Exactly?”
“They’d not be very happy with me.”
“Good. Now imagine what would happen if you didn’t look like you or I didn’t look like me?”
“Err… No one would bat an eyelid.”
“So?” said Vienna.
“Are you suggesting that you are willing to change your face so much that no one would know that it was you?”
“If this past year has taught me one thing, it is that looking different allows you to live among other people invisibly. My ugly mug is far too well-known. It has to change.”
“Could you not just go in disguise?”
“Like I have been this past year? Or are you suggesting that I live wearing something akin to Islamic dress that includes a veil? Something like a niqab?”
“That is one option.”
“And severely limiting in what I could and could not do. Perhaps while my face is healing, but not for the long term.”
“It sounds like you have decided that this is what you are going to do?”
“I have. I had plenty of time to think about this in the past year. It is not all about me, though. You want to transition and be able to pass as a woman. Correct?”
“You know that it is.”
“Then you will need some attention to your face.”
“I suppose so,” replied Diana.
“But it all costs money. For that, I’d need a job and plenty of time.”
“I’m guessing that while you call yourself Diana, you don’t have any formal identification in that name? That would preclude you from taking a permanent job in society?”
“You got that right. Doesn’t the same apply to Vienna?”
Vienna laughed.
“Before I started on this venture, I changed my name via deed poll to Vienna Makepeace. Makepeace was the name of a six-time great-great-grandmother who was hanged for murder in York in the early nineteenth century. Mark has a driving licence in my Vienna name. He’s been slowly moving my funds, or almost all of my funds, from Ellie Charlton to Vienna Makepeace accounts. That money is just the interest on the capital and totals over two hundred grand. So far, that process has not been made public. It is our intent to keep a little in the Ellie Charlton world, but it will be virtually dormant. My life from here on out is as Vienna. As I said before, Ellie Charlton is dead to the world.”
“So, you were only going to be on the road for a short amount of time?”
Vienna shook her head.
“I have to admit that I wasn’t looking forward to another winter, but there was no time limit to my time on the road. That was… until I met you.”
“No pressure on me then?”
“Meeting you did something to me that caused me to change my plans. That thing is that I’m attracted to you. I’ve never felt like that before, and no, it does not matter what you want to do with your gender. It is the person inside that got me all messed up.”
Diana remained silent for several minutes.
“Are you sure you want to do this? You are a beautiful woman, Vienna. I could never in a million years get even close to your natural beauty, and now, you want to mess it all up?”
“It is not a case of wanting to but more like having to. Deep down, I want to be a normal person who can live a boring life out of the public eye.”
“Even after being on the road for almost a year, you seem determined to change how you look to the world?”
“If anything, I’m more determined. For the first time in ten years, I have been just like 99.99999% of the population, just another person in a crowd. Very few people have even a clue just how good that was mentally after what went before it…”
Diana didn’t say anything.
“The day I took my driving test, there were people on almost every street corner live-streaming it to the world. The trolls went mad with joy when I failed. Someone in the DVLA or the driving test people must have blabbed. I passed it the second time. I got a cancellation with two days’ notice, and the event was almost ignored. That’s how my life has been since my parents died.”
“But why you? Did something trigger the media into going after you like that?”
“Inheriting a hundred million was only part of it. Mum was something of a porn star before she met my father on a flight from New York to London. She gave it up that day. Her reputation didn’t die, and all sorts of stories were made up about them. Gold digger was the most popular one. The thing was, she fell in love with him before she knew about his money. Money wasn’t a thing with her once she was with him. She wasn’t a shopaholic or a ‘lady who lunched’. Her parents used to run a farm until foot and mouth hit them. Mum was perfectly happy driving a tractor or her Aston Martin. That was about her only luxury.”
“I still don’t understand why they went after you?”
“I was, as they say, ‘spotted’ by a Hollywood Agent when I was fourteen. He was in the adult film industry. He got both barrels from Mum because he’d molested her not long after her first film came out. The bastard put it out that I was a bitch, a diva and was always jacked up when on set. The truth was that I’d only ever done one test in front of the camera, and I froze solid, but he’d already sold the rights to a soft porn film using my Mum’s name as a seller. He was sued for almost everything he had and went bankrupt. He turned to making up stories about all my family from his one-bed condo in LA. That’s how the worst of the gutter press got their teeth into me. After I went on the road, he started this rumour that I was pregnant and was lying low in a rehab clinic to get rid of my £200-a-day crack habit. It is no use suing him as he has nothing left to lose.”
“You poor thing. It all starts to make sense now.”
They were both woken up early the next morning by Mark. The look on his face told them that he was the bearer of bad news.
“What’s the problem?”
“This. This is the problem,” he said, showing a social media post to Vienna.
“Diana or, in reality, Patrick O’Connor. That’s you, isn’t it?”
Diana looked at the image on the screen.
“Yes. That’s me, but…”
She took a deep breath and said,
“My real name is indeed Patrick O’Connor. I am from County Armagh, and yes, I left home after selling the family silver on a day trip to Dublin. My family want me arrested for theft. I used the money from the sale to get almost as far away from them as I could. I took the ferry to Holyhead and then a train to York and began living as Diana. Like you, I got temporary work picking ‘Sprouts’ for Christmas. Luckily, my few run-ins with the police never resulted in my fingerprints being taken. According to my family, I stole around five grand. That is bollocks. Most of the family silver was just silver plate. The pawn shop gave me two hundred and thirty euros for it all.”
“Diana, you recognised Ellie right away? How was that?”
Diana sighed.
“The day before, I’d been reading an old gossip rag article on her. It was the one that showed a load of different disguises. Ellie’s beauty shone through their attempts. When I saw her, I knew right away who it was.”
“Why didn’t you turn her in and collect all that lovely money?” asked Mark.
This time, Vienna interrupted.
“Mark, Diana had plenty of opportunity to duck out and find a phone and let the cat out of the bag. She didn’t. Then she could have used the phone that you supplied us. She didn’t. I, for one, don’t want her to go anywhere unless I’m with her. I have feelings for Diana, or whatever her name is. I’ve never felt like that towards anyone before. Naturally, it may come to nothing, but I think that I’d like to try.”
She swallowed hard.
“We do have a problem, and that is the people who want to make lots of money from my supposed mental issues. I know that seeing me fail miserably in full view of the public would sell a lot of adverts, even though I have done nothing to warrant even a second glance. I think my reluctance to even begin to play their stupid game is a big part of the problem they have with me. I could not see that before. Now… Mark, how should we move forward and hit them hard while preserving our relative anonymity? Whatever we decide, I want to move forward with changing my appearance. I would not put it beyond some of the internet scumbag influencers to start printing ‘Wanted, Dead or Alive, Ellie Taylor’. I want to rub their noses in the dirt, but I don’t know how to do it.”
Then Vienna stood up.
“All this talk is depressing me. I’m going to take a shower and get dressed up. I fancy looking decent again, and that includes make-up and everything.”
She didn’t wait for an answer, let alone approval from the other two, and left them to it.
When she’d gone, Mark asked,
“Why haven’t you legged it? The main road is only half a mile away, and there are buses into Banbury from there.”
“I know. I saw them yesterday. I haven’t legged it, as you put it, for three reasons. One, I fancy the hell out of Vienna. Two, she needs female companionship. I guess that you have been the only one around for her since the death of her parents. There is a lot of women’s stuff that she might have talked to her mother about, but can’t because you are a man.”
“But, so, are you? A man that is?”
“Physically, yes, I am. My brain has been telling me since I started school that I should have been born female. Even aged five or six, I wanted to wear a skirt to school. Vienna treated me as a woman even after she clocked me. You have no idea how good that feels.”
“You said that there was another reason?” asked Mark.
Diana smiled.
“Vienna talked at length to me about getting her appearance changed to keep the leeches at bay. She also talked about me getting some work done to make my appearance more feminine. That is very important to me. She will need female company while she recovers.”
Diana took a deep breath.
“If, and this is a big if, we could come out the other end as a couple, then I would be happy… And Mark, to keep your protective lawyer vibes at rest, I’d be willing to sign any document you like stating that I don’t want her money. It is her that I want, not her fortune.”
“Diana, you are a sharp cookie.”
“I had to grow up fast, being thrown out on my bum the night I told my family that I was trans. Yes, I went back and stole the family silver… I figured that they at least owed me that. I’m here for as long as Vienna wants me to be here.”
The regular bouts of swearing coming from upstairs were getting too much for Mark. He moved to go and see what Vienna was doing.
Diana stopped him.
“She’s trying to get back into wearing makeup. After wearing it almost every day, it becomes second nature. Take that away for a year, and putting eyeliner on the bottom half of your eye becomes hard. Mascara is possibly even worse.”
Mark thought for a few seconds.
“You didn’t ask me to buy any make-up for you, did you?”
Diana shook her head.
“No. I’ll get some, but it can wait. I know from seeing the Vienna window shop in Evesham that she does miss it. I’d offer to help, but I know that at the moment, she is too proud to ask for it.”
Mark smiled.
“Yes, she is like that, proud.”
“Mark, I meant what I said earlier about her money. I don’t want it. If she hadn’t been left a small fortune, do you think that she’d be such a draw for the media? I don’t think so.”
“That, Diana, is very true. Her parents never flaunted their wealth, and Vienna is the same, but with her obvious beauty and brains, envy goes a long way to explain at least some of their behaviour.”
Then he asked,
“What about you? What do you want from her?”
“Friendship, at least. If there is more, then great, but I am only too aware that my being with Vienna could be very toxic for some parts of the media, online or conventional. While many enjoy shows like Rue Paul’s Drag Show, having someone mainstream like me would be… Well, while we are in the closet or on the sidelines, we can be ignored, but as the partner of Vienna? That would bring the crazies out by the truckload.”
He smiled.
“Life is a risk, but you do seem to have a good deal of common sense. Thank you for being honest with me. Now, Diana, I think that it might be time for you to help her with her makeup before she starts throwing stuff at the wall.”
Mark, or one of his staff, monitored social media and the Gossip Rag pages every day. The girls had been off the road for just over a week when an article appeared on one of the Gossip Rag sites hinting that Ellie had been seen begging in Oxford.
While this was 100% fake news, it was close enough for a moment of panic. Mark travelled into the city and saw first-hand the social media ‘hopefuls’ annoy the hell out of anyone who looked homeless. That went on until they got too close to one person, who pulled a knife on the ‘hopeful’ who had stuck their phone right in their face and kicked them hard. The homeless man, who had a long bushy beard, snapped. The hopeful ran away only to return a few minutes later with the Police.
After a discussion with the homeless man, the Officer went into a nearby shop. He returned a few minutes later and arrested the ‘hopeful’ for assault. He ignored the knife. Many homeless people carried one for self-defence. Most police forces tolerated that unless they were the aggressor. Prime begging spots could often end in violence. In this case, the knife or, more accurately, a sharpened piece of metal with a load of tape for a handle was used defensively.
After this episode, the ‘hopefuls’ were told to get lost, and peace returned to the city of spires.
The episode confirmed to him that Ellie was still a hot target. With Oxford being so close, a legal associate of Mark’s rented another property for the women. This one was in the Lincolnshire Wolds, miles from where either of them had been seen while on the road. They moved location late one night to avoid discovery as the Gossip Rag that had broken the Oxford ‘fake news’ story upped their bounty on Ellie’s head, or rather information leading to the discovery of her whereabouts, to £10,000.
Mark filed a lawsuit against the Gossip Rag, citing their bounty as being a danger to her life wherever she was. He knew that they’d moved, but this time, he had no idea where they were. This was to make sure that he could not be accused of lying should he be interviewed by the mainstream media or worse by the lawyers for the Gossip Rag. It was all organised by an associate who owed him big time for sorting a business-ending legal problem. Now they were even.
Some of the more responsible parts of the media toned down their coverage. The gutter press ignored the lawsuit and sent out their unpaid army to follow Mark wherever he went.
Mark was onto their little game and spent a week touring the Highlands of Scotland with a gradually dwindling posse of followers behind him. The final straw was his arriving at Mallaig just in time to catch a ferry that had space for just one vehicle. He went to ground near Portree until the last of them was seen heading over the Skye bridge back to the mainland.
The media frenzy about Ellie lasted almost two weeks before another celeb was caught cheating on his heavily pregnant wife with a former prostitute. While that drove speculation about Ellie’s whereabouts and supposed pregnancy, drug and alcohol problems off the social media front pages, they’d never truly go away. A longer-term solution was needed.
It soon became apparent that neither of them could get the changes they wanted in their appearance in the UK; both of them needed a passport. Just doing that was a risk. Someone at the Passport Agency might leak Ellie’s new name to the media, but it had to be done. The applications were sent off independently. Thanks to the time of year, their documents came back in just over a week. So far, social media and the celebrity gossip rags have been quiet. A case of no news is good news.
“Mark,” said Vienna a week after that during a video call.
“I think that it is time to get moving.”
Mark nodded. He knew that this time would come sooner or later.
“I wondered how long it would be before you got itchy feet. I have things set up for you. A few phone calls, and stage 1 can begin. It is time to think long and hard about this. This is the point of no return.”
Vienna looked at Diana and nodded.
“We know, and we will talk things over.”
“Good,” said Mark.
“Take your time, and please try to consider your future both together and apart. Just look at all the options available to you both.”
He turned to Vienna.
“If you think that staying out of the limelight for longer is going to work, a journalist that I know from our days at university asked the editor of two of the most prominent gossip rags about you. Like some of the Royal family, any news about them and Ellie will always sell copies. Even after death, they won’t let go, as is evidenced by the regular stories about people like Michael Jackson, Elvis and Marilyn Monroe. Then, with everyone and their dogs carrying a camera, stories can go viral in minutes.”
His words had the desired effect on both Diana and Vienna.
The following day, both of them were a bit subdued. It wasn’t until after they’d eaten dinner that Diana said,
“Do you want children?”
Her question took Vienna a bit by surprise. After some thought, she said,
“Do you mean by you?”
Diana nodded.
“It is a big responsibility for both of us, but more so for you, having to carry the baby.”
Vienna nodded.
“I… I never really thought about that bit of the future. Everything I’ve done for years has been aimed at getting the paparazzi out of my life for good.”
“The media would explode if they found out that you were pregnant.”
Vienna smiled.
“Only if this ugly mug remained the same.”
“Darling, ugly is not a word that should be used to describe that beautiful face,” said Diana.
“That’s why I spent a year with a dirty face.”
“So, we get your face fixed. That doesn’t answer the question about having a child.”
“I know that it affects you in a big way.”
Diana shook her head.
“I always dreamed about having a family, but using my sperm that I donated before… before I had the operation wasn’t part of the equation until now.”
They slept on it overnight.
Diana said the following morning,
“If I can donate some sperm, then I’ll do it, but my transformation is secondary to yours. Let’s face it, darling, the social media hopefuls are after your face in the hope of having their few seconds of fame.”
Vienna gave Diana a big kiss.
“Then we shall get ourselves fixed visually. I’ll get Mark to close one of my accounts. It has more than enough funds to cover everything for both of us.”
“How much is more than enough?”
“Two hundred and sixty-five thousand at the last count, a year ago. This is just the interest on the capital. I have an agreement with Mark that the capital, which is tied up in long-term investments and property, would be left alone, and I’d live off the interest. I never spent anywhere near that, and for the past year, I have spent nothing. I think that it is time to dig into that.”
“Is that in your Ellie name? Won’t the leeches know about it?”
Vienna laughed.
“Good point, and no, it isn’t. I had one bank account in my old name for day-to-day expenses. The account with the money is in the name of a company that Mark set up for me. I am… or rather was an employee of that company, which is registered in the Cayman Islands. I was paid monthly, and yes, I paid tax and everything on it. The dividends and profits from the capital investments went into the company. Could it be money laundering? Only if no tax, etc, had been paid on those dividends and profits, which is not true. The money went to the Cayman account clean. It was just a device to keep the bloodhounds off the scent. To be honest, I’m surprised that it has lasted this long before being exposed. The account for day-to-day expenses had lain dormant for a year.”
“How will you pay for the transformation then?”
“I’ll get Mark to legally open a bank account in the company name wherever it is that we go for the work. A simple transfer of money, and there will be funds available in the local currency to pay for the work.”
“It sounds like this was all planned?”
“Mark and I talked about doing this before I went on the road. It was the backup if I was exposed. Now is the time to put the plan into action, but for two people instead of one.”
While they waited for instructions from Mark, the pair got back into the habit of wearing makeup every day. Vienna gave Diana a lot of help with her look. The result was that she looked more than passable.
Eleven days after the last call from Mark, he called again.
Vienna listened to him. As the call progressed, a smile appeared on her face.
“It is on. A car will pick us up tomorrow evening. Mark will text me the registration number and the name of the driver. He will take us to France.”
[to be continued]
Rain was pouring down as Vienna and Diana dashed out of their rented house and into the waiting car. The overcast skies and the approaching dusk hid their activities very well.
“Get in the back,” said the driver, who had identified himself as Bob Harrington.
“There are some disguises to try on for when we are through French Passport control at the Channel Tunnel. They are only for the journey through the tunnel.”
“What time are we booked on the shuttle?” asked Vienna.
“Just after midnight. I’m to take you as far as Rheims. We have plenty of time, and I’m not going to risk speeding. Please sit back and relax. We have a lot of miles to cover before you can breathe easily.”
“What happens in Rheims?” asked Diana as Bob drove away from the house.
“I am to meet another driver at an E-LeClerc supermarket. He’ll take you to your final destination. I have no idea where it is or if he will hand you over to another driver somewhere else. I didn’t need to know, and I don’t want to know.”
“Thanks, Bob,” said Vienna as she began investigating the disguises.
The disguises were two pieces of Islamic dress known as a niqab. It would hide much of the wearer’s face from prying eyes.
“Aren’t these illegal in France?” asked Vienna.
“The Abaya is banned in state schools, but you should take them off as soon as we leave the shuttle train. They are to stop other travellers on the shuttle from recognising you while you are on the train. It is a small chance, but Mark gave the orders.”
“Thanks, Bob,” said Vienna.
Bob and the girls arrived at the shuttle terminal just before 23:00. The rain had stopped earlier, but was now back with a vengeance. The check-in operator saw that there were three people and three passports. That was good enough for them.
The operator said to Bob that there was space on an earlier shuttle if they wanted it.
“Yes, please,” he replied.
With the requisite marker hanging from the rearview mirror, he drove past the terminal building and straight for UK Customs and Immigration.
A cursory glance at their passport and their faces, and they were through.
The French border control was a bit more thorough. The guard checked their faces and the pictures on the passport at least three times before stamping their passport. They had 90 days of ‘freedom’ in the Schengen area.
Bob drove into the holding area for the shuttle and said,
“Ladies, time to get wrapped up!”
They didn’t need to be told. They are already putting on their hijabs.
The crossing was uneventful. Hardly anyone got out of their vehicles other than to stretch their legs. The shuttle gently came to a halt at the Calais terminal 35 minutes after leaving Folkestone. The girls had already removed their disguises and were ready to go. While Vienna had been through the tunnel many times, it was a new experience for Diana.
Bob stopped the car at a rest area about 50km from Calais.
He said,
“We are a bit early, so stretch your legs and use the toilets. We should leave in 20 minutes or so.”
The girls didn’t need to be asked again. Even though the previous day's rain had abated, a chill wind from the Northeast didn’t make it a pleasant experience out of the warmth of the car.
Right on time, at 04:30 local time, Bob pulled into the deserted car park of the E-LeClerc store on the southern side of Rheims. As he entered, another car flashed its lights. Bob drove his car towards the other one and parked next to it.
“Right, ladies, this is where I say goodbye and safe journey to wherever it is that you are going.”
“Thanks, Bob,” said Vienna.
Another figure appeared out of the darkness.
“Bonjour. I’m Henri. Please get in the car. We have a long way to travel tonight.”
Once the car that Henri was driving was back on the A-26 Autoroute, Vienna asked,
“Where are we going, Henri?”
“Switzerland. A place in the hills north of Lausanne. Please settle back. There is some food and drink in the bag between the seats. We’ll stop every couple of hours for a break. Ok?”
“Sounds good, Henri,” said Vienna.
Both girls fell asleep as the kilometres rolled by.
Henri pulled into the clinic just before 11:30 that morning. He delivered two sleepy passengers. His job was done, and the five thousand euros in cash that he’d earned would be very useful. He had recognised Ellie, but the money was more than enough to ensure his silence.
Once all the formalities were completed, both girls were shown to their rooms, and after a nice lunch, the preparations for their medical adventure began.
[84 days later, Berne, Switzerland]
Vienna and Diana held hands as they left the British Consulate in Berne, with their new temporary passports. These were the same types of documents that are issued to people who have had their original documents destroyed or stolen. They would be good for a single trip home.
Both of them had a document from the Embassy with the details of their old passports. This was to be given to the officials at their point of exit and should satisfy the exit requirements from the Schengen areas.
Both looked quite different from the Mk 1 versions. Vienna’s jawline had been quite radically changed, and there were still some visible scars healing, but time was of the essence, and they needed to return to the UK in the next few days.
They had already decided to return by train. Berne to Geneva, Geneva to Paris and Paris to London, where Mark would meet them. After that, they had to trust him.
Their stay in Switzerland had allowed them to become very close. Vienna felt safe around Diana. The Mk 1 version of her had never allowed herself to get even remotely close to another person. With the absence of cameras and the threat of them, they relaxed. They’d even begun to talk about the future.
Diana was slightly shocked to hear Vienna say,
“I want to buy a smallish house away from London and get a job. Become a normal person for once. If that sounds boring, then boring is what I want.”
Then she smiled.
“Naturally, the house has to be big enough for us, and a couple of children…”
Diana had been given the chance to have some sperm collected and then complete her transition, but after a long discussion with Vienna, she had turned that offer down. It was one thing that Vienna had said that had swayed her.
“I want to feel you inside me before… You know what? I want it to be memorable for both of us, not like the mess we got into last time.”
“I would love that. But first, we should make ourselves official.”
“You mean get married?”
“Why not? I told Mark that I’d sign any form he wanted concerning your money. I don’t want it. You are the one that I want!”
Vienna laughed.
“You sound like a Disco song from way back?”
“If we could last as long as that song, then we’d be good, wouldn’t we?”
“We would,” agreed Vienna.
Once they were back in Lincolnshire, they had a meeting with Mark to discuss the future.
“I have some news. Yesterday, I was able to secure a High Court order freezing the reward money. The scumbags who claimed to be administering the account even tried to stiff us for their costs. The judge was having none of that. His words didn’t say these exact words, but he very politely told them to ‘suck it’. They had, as they say in the movies, previous form with him.”
“Is this out there on Social Media?” asked Vienna.
“Let’s just say that I hope that some influencers are going to mention that the bounty has been cancelled. How that will be taken is another issue entirely.”
Mark let that sink in for a few seconds.
“I guess that you want to move on to somewhere a little more permanent?”
“Yeah,” said Dianna.
“We have no idea where, though,” added Vienna.
Mark laughed.
“You two really are an item, aren’t you?”
They looked at each other and answered him with a brief kiss. One of them on each of his cheeks.
He sighed before saying,
“I guess that I need to put Ellie’s place up for sale?”
“After everything of hers is removed and destroyed. Do it in full view of the media.”
“Vienna, did you mean to talk about yourself in the third person?”
Diana laughed.
“She’s done that before.”
“I did it this time because Ellie is dead as far as the world goes. I can send you a letter instructing you to sell the house and destroy everything. That can be given to the media in advance of the event. It will make great TV. Besides, it would be a huge giveaway to talk about Ellie in the first person. From now on, Ellie is an ‘ex-person’.”
Mark smiled.
“You are going to enjoy this, aren’t you?”
“I am, especially if the letter comes from somewhere like Paris or Rome or a small village that no one has ever heard of. Give them the idea that I’m not in the country.”
“Now… that is a good idea,” said Mark.
“But…” he added,
“Why don’t the two of you go to wherever and mail it yourself?”
The grin on Mark’s face told them everything that they needed to know.
“While you are away… wherever that may be, you can have a long and serious think about what you are going to do next. You know, for jobs or careers and the like?”
Vienna was about to speak when Mark put up his hand.
“Yes, Ellie’s money makes it that you don’t have to work again. You can live off the interest alone, but I also know that neither of you wants to sit around doing nothing. Both of you have gotten a taste for working, but that was all short-term. Think about the longer term. Do what is right for the two of you. I’m not going anywhere, but it is your life to live, not mine.”
Vienna gave Mark a big hug. Diana joined in.
Then they got down to the realities of modern life. Things like credit cards and other trappings of normality. Now that they had passports in their new names, the rest of it was possible, but it would take time.
“On the subject of credit cards. You will need a fixed address to apply for them. Ellie and your good selves have no credit record.”
“How come?” asked Diana.
“Ellie never paid for a thing. When she went shopping, it was all done on account that I settled in full. Groceries were paid from her general account via electronic funds transfer. She never carried more than a couple of quid in cash,” said Mark.
“Yeah. With people recording my every move, you don’t know how many times I just wanted to go for a quiet cup of tea, but that was impossible. Even with minders, any respite was temporary. The first time I went to a burger van and bought a mug of tea without half a dozen people shoving cameras in my face was very liberating.”
“That sets out our three most immediate goals, then,” said Diana.
“Formally bury Ellie, find somewhere to live and get 100% legal, and that means having and using credit cards.”
“I agree. We’ll start with those cards that charge stupidly high interest rates and are aimed at people like us who have no credit.”
Diana laughed for a second or so. Then she grew serious.
“Just like normal people.”
She looked at Vienna and said,
“Which we want to be.”
Mark smiled and said,
“Which I have to remind you includes paying Income Tax. I’ve been doing Ellie’s taxes since the accident. I will make representations to the HMRC about settling up her account and opening one for Vienna. Diana is different in that she has never paid tax or national insurance. Being on the streets is going to have some explaining, but it is possible, and it won’t happen in a few days.”
“Just do your thing, Mark, to the best of your ability. Can you book us some train tickets to… Perugia?” said Vienna.
“But for when our new passports arrive,” added Diana.
“Perugia? Where the hell is that?” she asked, changing the subject.
“Italy. Sort of between Florence and Rome. We can travel on from there using cash if Mark can give us a load of Euros.”
“One-way or return tickets?” asked a smiling Mark.
He was in his element. Seeing the two women interacting so well was way beyond his expectations for this stage in their lives.
Vienna thought.
“Perhaps two returns to Milan. We need to investigate the trains to Florence and beyond when we get there. Somewhere on our travels, we’ll post the letter.”
“How are we going to find a new place to live?” asked Diana.
“First off, how much money will we have to play with? What is my old home worth?”
“Because of the land, about five million. There may be a bit of Capital Gains tax, but as it was your primary residence, the tax liability will be minimal.”
“Then we have a budget of five hundred thousand,” said Vienna firmly.
“I’m not going to broadcast to the world that we are anything other than two lesbians with a tatty 10-year-old Fiesta. Normality is the name of the game.”
Vienna looked at Diana, who smiled. Being a normal woman was just what she had wanted to happen ever since she had left home.
As the saying goes, ‘Rome wasn’t built in a day’. It took Mark almost six weeks to get ready for the girls to take the trip to Florence. He’d had the cleaners and decorators into Ellie’s house. A fresh coat of paint was noticed by the social media addicts. The next day, six drones were hovering over the property, live-streaming the comings and goings at the property to the world. The previously quiet ‘Where is Ellie’ team suddenly came back to life.
Vienna and Diana looked on from the house in Lincolnshire with interest.
“Those numpties need to get a life…” said Vienna.
“Ellie is not coming back.”
When the house had been sold, apart from the paperwork, Mark produced the letter instructing him to destroy all of Ellie’s things in public. Several YouTube personalities were invited to the property to witness the event.
The burning of everything was streamed on the major social media platforms. The message that ‘Ellie is not coming back’ was loud and clear. It remained to be seen if the hounds would get called off. At least with the sale of the house, there would no longer be a focal point for the ‘Ellie watchers’ to work from.
[one week later]
“We made it,” said Vienna as they settled down into their seats for the journey to Paris.
They’d taken a Taxi to Newark Station that morning, carrying only a shoulder bag and a rucksack. A train had taken them south to King’s Cross, where it was only a short walk to St Pancras, where their Eurostar train waited for them.
“It is going to be a long day, but I don’t think that there is anyone I’d rather spend it with than you,” said Diana.
The previous night, they’d made love for the first time since their aborted ‘sex in the shower’ disaster. They’d both taken it slow, and it had felt good for them both at the end. It had also sealed their love for each other.
The advent of Vienna’s period later that day had spared any rush into getting tested, but it was a sign that in the future, they had to be careful and take precautions until it was the right time to want to have children.
Their trip to Paris went well, but typical French bureaucracy meant that they only just made their connection at the Gare de Lyon. That train took them to Marseille, where they took a local train to Cannes. Ellie had been there once before, but had been hounded by the media. They got in the way so badly that the host of the event that she was attending had to ask her to leave. Ellie gladly did that and was followed by more than 80% of the journalists assigned to attend it, much to the annoyance of the organisers. She had gone back to her hotel, out the back door, jumped into a Taxi and left the town. This was her first time back since those crazy days.
After checking into their hotel, they walked along the seafront holding hands. After a meal in a small backstreet restaurant, they went to bed pleased with their day.
The next day, they travelled to Florence via Turin and Milan. After a walk around the city carrying their backpacks, a visit to the Uffizi Gallery, they pronounced themselves done with the place. Vienna booked a Hotel in Sienna, which was just another short train ride away.
They stayed there for two nights while they investigated bus routes going southeast. Perugia was reached late on their fifth day.
Diana visited the post office and posted the letter to Mark. The text made it clear that she wasn’t going to return to the UK any time soon and that the simple life on a hill farm was preferable to being followed everywhere she went.
After Perugia, they headed north to Venice and then to Vienna. Only then did they even begin to think about going home.
Mark released the letter to the media a week after it was posted. There was a frenzy of conspiracy theories about what had happened to Ellie. Some even went as far as hinting that she had been abducted and was being held to ransom. He let them stew. By now, the couple were in Berlin and about to head home via Amsterdam. It had been a very different trip when compared to their lives on the road. Even though it was not summer, the main tourist spots seemed to be busy.
The media turned their attention to Mark once Perugia had turned up a blank. They accused him of sending the letter himself or, even worse, holding Ellie prisoner.
Mark went to the Police and showed them a video of the old Ellie clearly stating that she was going travelling in Europe and that the media could take a jump off a very tall building as far as she was concerned.
He texted a message to her phone. This was all in the plan. Vienna called him back while sitting in the main waiting area of Berlin Hbf station. Announcements in German could be heard when she called Mark while sitting in the Police station. The police soon realised that Ellie was alive, and she told them that she was travelling and not to try to track her phone.
After the call, she left the phone minus its SIM card in a waste basket at the station. Vienna and Diana boarded an ICE train to Koln, with a connection to Brussels and a very welcoming hotel.
They returned to the UK via Eurostar the next day and headed back to the rented house in Lincolnshire.
Thanks to all the media attention, it wasn’t safe for Mark to visit, so they got on with life. Vienna bought a car on a trip to Nottingham. It wasn’t a Fiesta but a ten-year-old Toyota Prius that came with all the kit for carrying a baby. That enabled them to start looking for a new home in earnest.
Many so-called ‘experts’ denied the origins of the letter. Its authorship was widely questioned, which didn’t die down much when Mark sent copies of the letter to several handwriting experts who confirmed that it was genuine.
With permission of the Met Police, he also played the recording of his call to ‘Ellie’ when she was in Berlin. The Internet took it apart every which way they could, but failed to come up with any evidence that it was a fake.
Mark countered by suing all the social media platforms and the main conspiracy theorists who weren’t in the USA for threatening Ellie’s life with their persistent ‘Where is she’ posts. The message started to get through that she didn’t want to be found anytime soon and that her right to privacy was essential to life, her life.
A truce of some sort was declared when the threats against Ellie’s life were made public by a Sunday Newspaper in the UK. They asked, ‘What did she do that was so wrong that people want to kill her?’ Nothing was the answer.
From their base in Lincolnshire, the two travelled around the country looking for suitable areas. Nothing too touristy or densely populated, but within easy reach of a major city. Diana should have been attending a clinic to monitor her health after being prescribed hormones to aid her transition, but after a long talk over a walk through the Peak District, they’d decided to try to start a family the natural way before Diana completed her transition.
Four months into their search, and quite by accident, they ended up in the small Northumberland town of Rothbury. There, they found a nice and fairly conventional 3-bed detached house that had been built in the early 1960s. The rooms were a decent size and already had solar panels on the roof.
Vienna commissioned a full survey and instructed the surveyor to examine the suitability of having a ‘Ground Source Heat Pump’ installed that would replace the fairly ancient Gas Heater.
The report came back positive, so the place was purchased for cash. Once their offer had been accepted, they moved north to Berwick-upon-Tweed and rented a house as a base until the sale was completed. It was there that Vienna discovered that she was pregnant.
Six weeks later, Vienna and Diana were married in Berwick. The recently redecorated and updated house was theirs upon return from a brief honeymoon in Paris. Mark had joined them for a day in Paris. He was overjoyed when Vienna told him about the pregnancy.
Diana returned to being a part-time student once it had been proved that her parents had lied to the Police about the items stolen when Diana fled from the home. The pawn shop had photographic evidence proving that it was mostly silver plate and not solid silver. Because of that, all charges were dropped. The threat of charges for ‘Insurance Fraud’ against her parents made sure of that. They even had to pay back the money they’d received from the Insurance Company for their fake claim.
Diana was studying Horticulture at a local college. One of the local estates needed a qualified gardener, so more out of hope than anything, and with a lot of encouragement from Vienna, she applied. To her amazement, she got the job provided that she spent at least a day at college. She, much to Vienna’s amusement, went on a crash course in driving and managed to pass both her theory and practical test at the first attempt.
Vienna’s pregnancy went without any major problems. Her morning sickness was minimal. They went to the prenatal classes together. That allowed them to start to get to know the other expectant mothers in the area. All very boring and normal, but perfect for both of them. Normality was the rule of the day, and every day.
Diana was at Vienna’s side for the birth of their son, Philip. He was named after Ellie’s father.
Vienna proved to be a natural mother and never complained about the sore breasts from feeding his voracious appetite.
She became just another mother with a fairly ancient car and a pushchair bought from a charity shop. That made her very proud and even prouder of Diana, who turned out to have green fingers. Being able to do those basic things was what both of them had been searching for, but from very different starting points.
They started a small vegetable plot in their garden. Many other houses had well-established plots, and two neighbours even had allotments on a nearby bit of land. They made mistakes galore, but it was fun and allowed them to become even more integrated into the local community. Being able to pick some fresh veggies in summer was, in their minds, a luxury.
The Northumbrian coast outside the tourist season became a place for them to go and relax. Walking together along the sandy beaches was a million miles away from a wet doorway in Evesham, but neither of them would have it any other way.
Their version of dropping out might not fit all the rules, but for them, their bog-standard and even slightly boring suburban life was perfect.
The End