“And you’re sure alcohol won’t interfere with your meds?” I asked over the phone a few days later.

“Certain. Not until I’m actually pregnant. Then I have to stop drinking altogether of course. My consultant says a little alcohol might even help me conceive if it makes me more relaxed,” Jackie replied without hesitation.

Jackie’s insemination-fest with Johnny was due to take place the coming weekend. By careful manipulation of our conversations over the past few days, I had managed to remind my friend that apart from owing me a treat for dealing with the repairs to her wall, if the weekend was successful and she really did get pregnant she would have to stop drinking alcohol straight away and stay off it until the baby was born.

The result was that the two of us were going for a ‘last boozy girly night out’ on the Thursday night before Johnny came home and the ‘great impregnation’ began.

Dinner at Mario’s restaurant was to be Jackie’s ‘thank you’ treat for my work with the builders, after which we would go on for some dancing in a nearby club. The tomboy in me loathed dancing almost as much as she loathed getting dressed up in girly clothes but some things just had to be done if my plan to get my beloved Johnny back was to succeed.

And I really wanted it to succeed.

“Then it’s a date,” I agreed with a grimace which of course Jackie couldn’t see. “One last night out before you get knocked up and the booze gets knocked on the head.”

“Should be great. One last binge!”

“Thursday night then. I’ll pick you up in a cab at eight. Right Sister?” I asked.

“Right Sister,” she replied enthusiastically. “It’s a date!”

I pressed the button to end the call. It had been the perfect response from Jackie; enthusiastic, open minded and above all, unsuspicious. I pictured her looking out of her window at the newly-mended wall; I pictured the two strong, gorgeous black builders as they had worked and as they had watched the posh blonde lady in the short dress who had flirted outrageously with them.

I began to dial a number which had been given to me very recently and which I had not dialled before.

***

“Wow, Robbie! You look... amazing!”

I beamed with pleasure at my friend’s reaction when she opened the door to me at half past seven on Thursday night. For a tomboy like me it hadn’t been easy to get ‘all dolled up’ as my father put it and I was still unsure how successful I had been.

My short dark hair had been trimmed and styled, I had shaved everywhere I thought Jackie might have shaved and was wearing a close fitting brand new dark blue dress that came half way down my bare thighs. Add to that my highest heels and carefully if amateurishly applied make-up and I felt as dressed-up as a girl should be for a night out.

I also felt as unlike myself as I had ever felt but this was probably a good thing; I was going to behave as unlike myself as I ever had or ever would.

Jackie of course took my breath away. Her long blonde hair fell in waves over her shoulders and across the scarlet material of her own even shorter dress which showed off her long, similarly bare legs to great effect. Her make-up was clearly much more expensive than mine and had been more expertly applied but at least I didn’t feel entirely outclassed.

Indeed, put us together and we were stunning; a female force to be reckoned with; almost the same height, almost the same dress size, almost the same build. Jackie’s boobs were larger than mine – whose weren’t – but as with my evening ‘walks’, I doubted anyone would notice when the time came.

We greeted each other with the usual air-kiss to avoid marring our make-up but the pleasure was genuine – at least on Jackie’s part. My tummy was full of butterflies for many reasons, not least being the strangeness of my girly clothes bought specifically for that evening.

“You clean up well,” my friend complimented me with a broad smile. “You should dress up more often. The guys will love it.”

I took the compliment as well as someone could who hated being dressed-up and followed Jackie into the kitchen.

“I hope you’re not planning to take that back pack with you,” she chided jokingly, indicating the small rucksack I had brought in.

“Don’t worry; even I’m not that stupid,” I grinned back.

I placed my pack on the kitchen counter, opened it and pulled out the small evening handbag that exactly matched my shoes – or so the girl in the store had assured me. Jackie seemed pleased.

“There’s hope for you yet,” she said indulgently. “What else is in there.”

“Well there’s the flat shoes I’m going to wear when these heels make my feet bleed,” I lied. “And of course there’s this.”

I pulled out a four-pack of chilled, pre-made mojito cocktails.

“I thought we should start as we mean to go on,” I grinned.

“What about the taxi?”

“I told him to drive around the block for half an hour. Get us a couple of glasses and some ice.”

By the time we were both sliding into the back seat of the cab, we each had two mojitos inside us and were feeling more than a little happy. Jackie was feeling happier than me, partly because as a tomboy barmaid I could handle my booze as well as most of the men I served, but mostly because when she wasn’t looking I had added an extra miniature bottle of tequila into her glass, half into each cocktail.

The taxi could have dropped us off directly outside Mario’s but I asked him to stop at the end of the road. This meant the two of us had to walk fifty yards or so along a busy street past several bars. The drinkers inside couldn’t fail to notice the two smartly dressed girls tottering along the pavement, one looking a little unstable.

Mario greeted us like long lost friends when we arrived at the restaurant, his wandering eyes almost popping out of his head at the sight of me in a dress, followed by a deep Italian appreciation of Jackie’s exceptionally well displayed figure.

We were shown to an intimate table for two against a side wall and enjoyed one of the most memorable dinners of my life. True to her promise, for Jackie money was no object so for the next hour and a half we enjoyed calamares, parma ham, calves’ liver and sea bass followed by a shared tiramisu and coffee.

Mario always prided himself on the quality of his wine so when he recommended a particular red from the region where he grew up there was no question of us choosing another. On the several occasions when my friend went to the Ladies’ Room, I was able to add a small amount of the most tasteless vodka I could find to the wine in her glass from a miniature I had concealed in my evening bag.

We chatted about everything two normal good friends should chat about – or as close as a non-girly tomboy like me could come to being a normal girl. As you would expect, foremost in Jackie’s mind was the coming weekend and her planned impregnation.

Her voice was already rather slurry and her movements clumsier and I smiled within as our host brought two large, complimentary Limoncello liqueurs to the table with our coffees.

“Won’t you get bored?” I asked when my companion had told me for the third time that they would probably not see the light of day during the coming weekend.

“Not with what I’ve got planned,” she replied then leaning close and dropping her increasingly slurred voice, Jackie told me about the lingerie she had bought in Bristol, the toys she had acquired online and the sex positions she had worked out ‘just in case he needs encouragement’ and to maximise the chance of conception.

I tried so hard to conceal the terrible pain I felt, hearing how the man I loved was going to make a baby in the belly of this fixated, determined woman instead of in mine. I bit my lip and ground my heels into the floor to distract myself but I’m sure, if she had been sober, Jackie would have noticed something was wrong.

Fortunately she was a long way from sober and was getting further away all the time, a situation which was made worse by my tipping half my glass of liqueur into hers when she bent over to retrieve her handbag.

Mario shot me a sympathetic look as a rather unstable Jackie took an inordinate amount of time paying the bill, fumbling with her credit card before we meandered our way between the other diners and out onto the street.

The cool air hit us as soon as the restaurant door closed. To my relief it sobered me up a little and seemed to do something similar to my friend because when I suggested we went on to a waterfront bar I knew to ‘make the most of her last night on the booze’, Jackie eagerly agreed. A few minutes later the two of us were perched on stools against the bar of one of the most notorious pick-up joints on the coast.

Jackie of course didn’t know this and was too tipsy to notice the predatory way the men in the room were eyeing us. I ordered a couple of cocktails on their ‘two-for-one’ Thursday night deal, slipping unnoticed an extra shot of vodka into my friend’s glass and the conversation resumed.

Jackie was definitely a planner; even before conception she had already decided which room in the cottage was to be the nursery, what colours it would be painted in and what furniture she would choose. Again I felt the pangs in my heart as I heard how, if she had her way, my beloved Johnny would be living the next eighteen years of his life.

My determination to prevent this grew stronger but I felt tears beginning to form in my eyes and excused myself for my own visit to the Ladies Room to check for any damage to my make-up.

On my return to the bar, I found my companion was no longer alone; two middle-aged men were standing either side of Jackie, glasses in hand and smiling. They had clearly just bought drinks for both of us because two long cocktails were standing on the bar. Jackie was clearly enjoying the attention; the men were probably in their early forties, suited and booted and, to be fair, quite attractive in a slightly oily, slightly predatory way.

It couldn’t have suited my plans better.

Much too tipsy to see through their flattery, Jackie was chatting animatedly to both men whose hands had already started to stray onto her arms and shoulders. Her voice was very slurred now and her eyes a little glazed but we let the two men keep us entertained for half an hour, their hands straying more boldly over Jackie’s legs and bottom as well as mine.

I hated this but it was a necessary part of my plan. Besides, have my bottom fondled was trivial compared with the things I intended to do later that night.

Half an hour and a second round of drinks later, it became obvious even to our over-friendly companions that Jackie needed to go to bed – her own bed – almost immediately. To their credit, our two suitors seemed to recognise this and didn’t object too much when I announced my intention to take her home.

One of them volunteered jokingly to help me put her to bed and for a moment I wondered whether this would be a welcome addition to my plan or a complication. Deciding on the latter, I made a few excuses and apologies and with the support of the two men led my highly unstable friend out of the bar and onto the pavement.

This time her inebriation was far beyond the help of any amount of fresh air so, leaning her against the shorter of our two would-be-seducers, I hailed a taxi. The driver was not impressed with my friend’s condition and reminded me that there would be a cleaning charge if she was sick inside the vehicle.

I thanked the two men profusely, easing their disappointment by passing them a small piece of paper with a mobile phone number scribbled on it in eye pencil. It was of course the number of the newly-acquired mobile registered in the name and address of the blonde woman who lived in Fiddler’s Cottage.

As the taxi rolled through the streets towards her home, my friend flopped heavily against my shoulder.

***

Jackie was totally compliant as I walked her up the narrow stairs and into the cottage’s guest bedroom though I had to support her several times as she stumbled on her way. Once in the room, it was obvious that she was on the verge of passing out so I quickly stripped her dress and tights from her before lying her down on the bed in only her bra and panties. Once on her back, these last two items of clothing were easily disposed of leaving her fully naked and unconscious.

I looked at her svelte, naked body on the crisp white sheet then swore under my breath; between Jackie’s thighs was, to my naive surprise, a fully shaven vulva. Clearly she wasn’t quite as sweet and innocent as I had believed – or maybe Johnny’s tastes had acquired a little more edge since he had gone to the city – but she had most certainly prepared herself for sex.

I cursed; this discovery meant I had to do the same, and had little time to do so.

Quickly stripping off my own dress and panties I ran through to the master bedroom’s en-suite bathroom. Within a minute I had located my friend’s razor and shaving foam. A moment later I had lathered up my own dark triangle then, my heart pounding in my chest, I carefully, gingerly began to shave away my pubic hair.

To my frustration, it was far, far more fiddly than I had expected, and took much, much longer. Though sparse, my pubic hair was wiry, seemed to grow in every direction at once and covered more of my body than I had realised. Whenever I thought I had finished I found another rough patch which required attention but eventually I had made my vulva as smooth as Jackie’s and smoother than it had been since puberty had struck years ago.

I have to confess that, had I been under less pressure, I might have found the process of revealing my secret places quite arousing but there was no time for enjoyment; this was strictly a necessary if unexpected part of my plan.

Rinsing the razor and replacing everything carefully, I returned to the guest room, gathered up Jackie’s clothes then, with one eye on my unconscious friend, stripped off what remained of my own clothes and pulled on those my friend has been wearing. The dress was a snug fit – I made a mental note to start running and lose a little weight – but within a couple of minutes I was ready.

After a minute or two fiddling with my blonde wig in front of the bathroom mirror and a moment’s adjustment of my make-up I was ready. I turned left and right, checking myself carefully.

Perfect! No-one who didn’t know us well would be able to tell the difference.

One last task, I took the three video cameras from my backpack and carefully placed them in the lounge so that all the main places – sofa, rug, chairs – were very well covered by their concealed lenses.

I looked around the rooms; it was ready. The cameras were all but impossible to see even if you weren’t as distracted as my guests would certainly be. I slipped on Jackie’s high heels, pulled her wrap around my shoulders and placed the three camera remotes on a small table in the hallway.

Then, tucking my friend’s handbag under my arm, I stepped out into the night leaving her upstairs, fast asleep on the bed behind a firmly closed door.

Robyn had become Jackie once again.

***

Outside, my luck was in; at the corner of the road I saw one of the village’s few taxis and hailed it. Sliding in as daintily inside as Jackie would have done did not come naturally to me but I think I was convincing enough. Similarly, talking in something close to her ‘posh’ London accent was hard for a local girl like me but by faking a slightly drunken slur I made a fair approximation to my friend’s style of speech.

The taxi took me a few miles down the road to a nearby village. It wasn’t far away but it was too boring a place for me to have visited very often so I was confident that no-one there would see me as anything other than the sophisticated blonde from London that I appeared to be.

As the taxi pulled into the car park I took a deep breath. The white van I had hoped to see was indeed parked in the corner. At least one of the workmen had accepted my invitation. The plan was still working! Nervously I approached the brightly lit door and pushed it open.

With ‘last orders’ approaching, the pub was quite busy but not too crowded. I smiled; plenty of witnesses but not so many people that my entrance would go unnoticed. I looked around for my ‘dates’ and within a few seconds had found them both sitting in a booth against the far wall. As soon as they saw me they both stood up politely and greeted me with a kiss on the cheek.

My eyes widened; they both looked every bit as gorgeous as they had in their overalls; more so in fact as they had clearly chosen their clothes to show off their well-toned bodies as favourably as possible. Gary went to...