Abigail, Florence and Valerie congratulated me to my new position and gender role. I signed the contract in everybody’s presence with Monique Madelaine LeHote. Then all of the girls were introduced to me one by one, but I excused myself from the start for not being able to remember all of them correctly the first time. One, though, would burn itself deeply into my memory, that of Josephine, the beauty that had so captured my heart. The girls from the technical team left one by one until it was only her who was left.

“I really hope you four do know what you are doing.” She said to Abigail, Valerie, Florence and me “I may be convinced by his work, but if he can really work as a woman with the rest of us, … I don’t know.”

“What do you think, Josephine, what could be the problem?” I asked.

“Well,” she hesitated for a moment then burst out with it “you could, like men so like to do, harass one or the other of us sexually.”

“What would you do,” I asked “if a lesbian boss was coming on to you?”

“Oh, that I’d know how to handle.”

“In that case, Josephine, if Monique tried to harass you, which I seriously doubt, just treat her like you would a lesbian” Florence interjected “and alert us others.”

That took away the last of her momentum and she left us alone.

“Welcome to the team, Monique.” Said Abigail kissing both my cheeks “I have no doubt whatsoever about our decision. You’re an ace. In those scenes from Frankfurt there was hardly anything other than the actors on the stage, but that atmosphere! I have rarely seen lighting like that!”

“Due to the unique situation we had to do without too many props, backdrops or decoration. I have one other scene, if you’re interested.”

“Oh sure!” declared Valerie “I can hardly wait to discuss the lighting with you!”

“I hope,” I replied with a smile “that you will not leave me hanging in fresh air as Willy Praml did that time. I have never seen a script of that last act.”

“You’re joking, surely?” asked Florence.

“No, Florence, honestly! The fourth act I saw for the first time during the dress rehearsal and lit it from an empty stomach, so to speak.”

“I am well prepared to believe that, Monique.” Valerie said “When you speak about lights and technical stuff you exude such a natural authority as if you were born with it. Girls, I think we struck a gold mine.”

On that I switched off the light again and played the scene, in which some people were led off to a concentration camp by the Gestapo. I had asked the company that had erected the tent to make the flap behind the stage so that we could open it up like a curtain. Outside I had had two scaffold towers erected, that were equipped with a manned follow spot each, that caught the group in their beams while walking into the dark park, the light slowly fading. At that scene the audience had almost held their breath, and even with just the video my audience of three was close to tears.

“Monique, that was incredible! Were all of that your ideas?”

“Yes, Valerie.” I replied and switched the lights back on.

“OK, girls,” Abigail finished our meeting “Florence, you can pay Monique a substantial advance, so that she can buy herself some clothes. We’ll take that off your monthly salary in reasonable instalments, OK, Monique?”

“Thank you, Abigail, that is very generous of you.” I thanked them.

“Nonsense, darling, it was very generous of you to offer yourself as Monique, even if you desperately needed the job. But a talent like yours is hard to find and one has to be thankful for that. And we are, aren’t we girls?” Valerie replied.

She, too, kissed both my cheeks and then Abigail and her left me and Florence behind. I sighed deeply.

“So, Monique Madelaine, now you are for at least three years a woman.” said Florence “Happy birthday!”

“Thanks, Florence, for everything! It was so nice of you to take my hand when I was about to lose it. I have no idea if I had made it without you.”

“Never mind, luckily I was there for you. Where would you like to go now? And where will you be living?”

“In Muswell Hill, with my best friend Sandra.”

“Did she style you?”

“Yes, and she, too, proposed hormones to me, like you. How did you get that idea?”

“Later, Monique, later. My house is in Hampstead and there, too is my favourite restaurant. You can take a cab from there over the heath to Highgate and Muswell Hill.”

“Great!”

We switched everything off, got our coats and bags and locked the rehearsal room. Then we asked the door man at the back door to call us a cab and soon after we were on our way to Hampstead. Florence paid the cab in front of the restaurant and we went in. The place had one window towards the street next to the door and appeared rather small, but once you stepped down from the first and admittedly rather small level to the main room it was quite spacious. Florence was evidently well known here and we were led to a table marked as reserved without any questions. It was a hamburger place and we quickly ordered two salads with chicken breast and a good white Gallo. The wine arrived almost immediately and well chilled and we chinked our glasses for the first time as members of the same team. When Florence had put down her glass after our first toast she took my hands across the table and asked:

“Monique, you poor thing, have you fallen that hard in love with Josephine?”

“Oh Florence,” I replied with tears in my eyes “it was such a shock! First, that I knew instantly: her or none! And then the realisation hit me, that I would never be able to make love to her unless I was fully a woman myself! That was almost too much! It was so good to feel your support when you took my hand. Did you realise everything instantly?”

“No, darling, only that you were thoroughly shaken. But I think you got through it admirably. Josephine has an unusual sometimes intimidating personality.”

“She is the most beautiful woman I have ever seen, but she seems not to be aware of it, or do you think she is afraid of that?”

Florence sat there for a moment thinking. Then she replied:

“That must be it, Monique. There is no other explanation for her behaviour. I have no clue if you’d have any chances with her, I have no knowledge of her ever having had a love affair, be it with a man or woman. On the other hand I could imagine, that if you manage to get her into a nice dress and feel at home in it, she might be yours forever.”

“I hardly dare to even dream of that. But enough of Josephine. Now it is you who interests me. I feel that you perceived me quite differently from what I thought of myself from the start. Is your intuition so precise, that you already saw me as Monique?”

Just that moment we were interrupted by the server, who brought our salads, and only now we realised, that Florence was still holding my hands. We laughed both of us and let go. For a moment we were concentrated on tasting our food. Then she answered my question.

“How do I explain this? It is a bit of a longer story. When I was a girl I had a little friend and he always wanted to play with me and my dolls or play hopscotch with us girls … Finally us girls had one day decided to put him in a dress and -believe it or not - call her Maggie! Today she is a good friend, married and she and her husband have adopted two children.”

She paused to have some of her wine.

“I have experienced her complete development from the start and got to know some others like her. When you offered yourself as Monique the discrepancy I felt in you made things fall into place.”

“To be honest, Florence, that split in me I wasn’t even aware of, and now, after the encounter with Josephine, it is already gone. I want to become a woman as quickly as that is humanly possible. What puzzles me is how coincidental it all seems: Your mistake with the name, the fact, that my best friend Sandra, in whose flat I stopped to start with and with whom I will be sharing from now on, is now with another woman, who is a wardrobe mistress (that made Florence giggle), the encounter with you and then Josephine, that is all so highly improbable … the salad is excellent, by the way.”

“Honey, nothing ever is accidental. It was time for you to stop wasting your life in the wrong form. My, you already are such a cute girl, I can hardly wait to see you fully transformed. You might turn out even more beautiful than Josephine.”

“Thanks, Florence, for the lovely compliment, but I can hardly believe that.”

“Believe me, Monique, HRT sometimes works wonders. I have seen a couple of those with my own eyes. And you are sweet … and pretty.”

She looked deeply into my eyes and continued:

“I wish you all possible luck of this world and congratulate us to your cooperation on our project. Your technical abilities are independent of your gender I hope?”

She giggled. For a while we continued our meal silently. Then I just had to say:

“I am so, so grateful for the lovely friendship you’re offering me, Florence. I have no idea what I did to earn it. It is so new to me to have someone touch me in so lovingly and friendly a manner, it is so nice and free of … I don’t know how to express myself.”

“Sex?” she asked with a mischievous grin “For me you are a lovely friend and in respect of that other matter, I have a wonderful husband and a very sweet daughter.”

“Aren’t they sometimes sad when you work in a production and are rarely home?”

“Yes, they are, but I make an effort not to let that happen too often. As manager I work more during business hours, when banks and suppliers work, too.”

“Well, I think I project too much of my own experiences there. As chief techie I have often been busy until way past midnight.”

Florence looked at me thoughtfully and then asked:

“How is it, that you need this job so urgently, Monique? Or is that question too personal?”

And so I began to unburden myself of the whole story. I told her of my partnership, about the dispute I had with my partners, the legal procedures that I won and how I heard the next day from my legal counsel, that the counsel of my partners had offered half of the accorded compensation, if I paid my own legal cost. Otherwise they’d demand revision and even if it was highly probable, that I might succeed again, it would take three to four years and I should be glad to get some money now. My attorney advised me to take the deal, due to my increasingly difficult financial situation, and after I had paid all the legal bills I now was broke.

Florence could clearly see how much it still hurt me, because she said:

“How could anyone ever do that to you? I am so sorry for you, Monique.”

“The counsel of my partners is is a swine without a conscience.” I said.

But before I could start to cry a new thought crossed my mind and I had to smile.

“I think one day I will have to go to his office and tell him that to his face in front of his secretaries! Coming from a pretty lady that should put a serious dent in his confidence.”

“Wonderful idea, Monique. I think I’d rather enjoy watching that. But I also think that once you have started to work on our production and have become engrossed in your new life you will quickly forget about all that, and who knows, perhaps your future is to remain here anyway?”

“My goodness, that would be so nice if I could start a new life here with Josephine.” I sighed.

“Honey, I wish that for you with all my heart. Come, let us have a desert, the mousse au chocolat here is too good to miss.”

So we enjoyed a coffee and our desert and agreed to met at the office on Monday morning to settle the arrangements of my advance. Then we went home, me to my new one and Sandra and Florence to her family, where she could now walk. Before I got into my taxi Florence hugged me and we kissed like the French girls do. I gave the driver the address and waved again to Florence, as he set off. Ten minutes later I was in front 10 Fortis Green Road, my new home, now a woman for at least three years if not the rest of my life.