Transformation Story: Coming To Flah

Irish slang used in the story:

Bod – penis

Diddies - breasts

Fanny or Gee - pussy

Flah – a sexy woman or to have sex

Jip - jism

Coming to Flah

Sarah Lockwood’s parents had divorced when she was thirteen.  Hitting forty, her father, Jonathan, seemed to have tired of the whole family ‘project’ and had left her and her mother.  There appeared to be no-one else involved and he had even moved to Norway which to Sarah seemed the dullest place possible.  Sometimes she wished he had run off to ride around America on a Harley Davidson with a girlfriend half his age.  Since the split, he had been formal and proper with gifts and even the appropriate financial support; she had even stayed at his apartment for one tedious holiday.  The experience, however, had left Sarah very cautious about men and the way their brains worked.  It had, though, naturally left her close to her mother, Anabelle.  For some years it had been like the two of them against the world.  As she progressed well in her studies, and knew she would soon be going away from home for university, Sarah had worried how her mother would cope with an entirely ‘empty nest’.  Sarah had no desire for her to be sad, let alone lonely.  Thus, she had begun to make hints about finding a replacement for Jonathan.  She had signed Anabelle up for various websites and encouraged her to go speed-dating.  It was something coming to fruition by the time Sarah had gone away to study.  Whilst her mother was rather cagey about the men she communicated with and who she dated, Sarah was pleased that she had expanded Anabelle’s interest beyond the four walls.

Sarah had remembered her mother talking about a man whose online name was something like ‘IrishRover’.  Anabelle seemed to light up when it was him she had been emailing and then speaking to.  Sarah had no prejudice against any man except one as uncommitted as her father.  Perhaps a Irishman with a sweet smile and a mischievous way, something she realised as a stereotype, but one she could not shake, was what her mother needed.  After all she was still young and fit enough to enjoy life.  These days some women started families past their fortieth birthdays.  Though immersed in her work and with only occasional visits home, Sarah soon became aware that things had gone further and there was regular mention of Dwyer Glansie.  Sarah was not really clear what he did, but Anabelle had said something about construction and that he was often moving around and on the road.  While a builder might not be the first choice of someone living in a Buckinghamshire suburb, Sarah was grateful that he was in work and appeared to support himself without need to be drawing on her mother’s money.  As she had grown older herself, she had become more cautious about how middle-aged women could be exploited, an attitude fuelled by horror stories from university friends.

When Anabelle had Skyped excitedly about how Dwyer had asked her to marry him and she had accepted, Sarah had been uncertain how to take it.  She responded positively, genuinely pleased that her mother appeared so happy.  However, inside her various alarms sounded.  Not having seen her mother for some weeks, she was rather concerned at the visible changes: her long permed and dyed hair, the use of much more make-up than had ever been the case before, even the tight fitting top which accentuated her cleavage.  Then Sarah realised she was beginning to reverse-parent: treating her mother as if she was her own daughter.  She struggled to remind herself that Anabelle was a grown woman and had got through much of her life largely successfully, all without Sarah’s input.  Sarah reined in her feelings once again a short while later when her mother revealed she was selling up the house and emigrating to Ireland to live with Dwyer.  Sarah recognised that to protest at this step was to be selfish, to put her expectations of some inheritance over what was right for her mother; of course it would be natural for her to live with her new husband.

Looking through the photos Anabelle emailed from her time over in Ireland, Sarah had wondered how many new relatives she would be gaining through this marriage.  Further concerns came when she realised that they were not simply Irish, but Irish travellers, with a very different view on the world to her own.  However, their caravans looked very clean and tidy and all the women and girls were smartly turned out in the latest fashions and hairdos even if they had far more fake tan and make-up than anyone Sarah knew.  When her mother referred to her prospective Irish step-sisters and Dwyer as her step-father, Sarah had felt an unease first of an immediate reaction then of a different kind as she worried that she was falling into a prejudiced response that, as a broad-minded student, she felt was inappropriate for her to hold.  Sarah sought positives, thinking how attractive the step-sisters appeared and that almost everyone was grinning, apparently very happy in the photos.  In time the wedding invitation arrived along with plane tickets and a booking for a charming hotel in rural Ireland.  Now Sarah felt she could not refuse to go.  When Alannah, the eldest of her step-sisters-to-be, the same age as Sarah but already married, sent such a nice email talking about looking forward to Sarah’s visit, she felt compelled to respond with a degree of warmth.  She did baulk, however, at Alannah’s closing wish that Sarah might find the opportunity, while visiting, to pick up an Irish traveller husband of her own and settle in the country.

****

While she had seen them on television, nothing had prepared Sarah for the nature or the scale of her mother’s wedding.  She had had to fight hard in refusing to be one of the bridesmaids once she had seen the vast turquoise dresses and the elaborate hairstyles they were expected to sport.  Two days before, she had gone for what turned out to be a very raucous meal at a pub to be introduced to all of her new family who called her mother ‘Analetta’ and seemed to alter her own name to ‘Sara’, though the strength of their accents made it hard for her to be sure.

Sarah had tried to get into the spirit of the thing, dressed in her best party clothes, but she was over-shadowed beside what her range of step-sisters turned out in, each looking ready to perform a pole dance.  Once they had got on the floor, Sarah had shouted her farewells to her mother and retreated to the hotel.  She thought she had seen a look from the proprietress when she had checked in; presumably the name of who had paid triggered such a response.  Sarah had gone out of her way to say she was studying at university.  This time on her return she even lied about being a researcher for a television company about making a documentary about traveller weddings.  This seemed to please the man now at reception and he started going on about how much money a television crew could bring to this place and plying her with business cards.

At the ceremony itself, Sarah had been more than happy to sit at the back of the church mixed in with people of all kinds who seemed to be friends of the Glansie family.  She found herself next to two women who ran a beauty salon which had apparently had a hand in readying all the women in the main part of the event.  Sarah wondered how she might have turned out if she had yielded from the pressure from Alannah and Danielle and gone for their processing.  Now the wedding was over and the meal eaten.  The party had relocated to a village hall that appeared to have come from a 1970s situation comedy.  All the ladies had disappeared only to come back with their turquoise creations replaced by much sexier, though admittedly more practical outfits.  Even her mother was now in a form fitting shiny black dress with lace on the shoulders and sleeves.  Her hair had been released to cascade down her back and her make-up augmented.  Sarah had sat in her plain floral dress and her ankle boots, feeling as if she had fallen to Earth and had failed to properly match with the appearance of the Earthlings.  She was also feeling utterly detached from her mother.  She guessed, however, this was simply the reverse-parenting raising its head again.  She imagined what she felt now was no different to how her mother would have felt if she was the new bride or indeed what Sarah herself might feel when she saw a daughter of hers marry; not that she had much intention of having children for a long time.  Sarah told herself to be mature about this stuff.  She went to get a pint of Guinness and with the barman’s bemused look, found herself lying that it was for her step-father.

As she supped her stout, Sarah watched her mother dancing with her new husband, again with mixed emotions.  Anabelle/Analetta certainly seemed happy and accepted into this traveller community.  However, Sarah wondered whether after this evening she would see much of her mother assuming she could even locate her as they moved from place to place.

“Your Ma looks like a real gypsy, doesn’t she?”

It was Dwyer’s mother who Sarah remembered was called Brianna.  Sarah had not noticed her approach and hope that signalled that the beer was finally kicking in.

“I suppose so.”  Certainly her outrageous outfit was more in keeping with what a gypsy woman would wear than a housewife from Buckinghamshire.

“No, look closely, see.  See she looks a traveller; she looks like she’s always been a traveller woman.  She’s always been a gypsy.”  Brianna said softly but Sarah found she could hear her clearly despite the music and the chatter.

Sarah was going to counter what Brianna said, but felt it would be rude to challenge the old woman.

“Her name’s Analetta.”

Sarah guessed she had to concede what her mother seemed now happy for people to call her.  In fact she struggled to remember what she had been known as before.

“Yes, Analetta.”

Brianna smiled.  “Yes, Analetta’s always been her name, because she’s always been a traveller.”

Sarah guessed that Brianna meant at heart her mother had wanted this kind of life never fixed in one place, with a strong man who told her what to do.

“Yes, you could say that.”

“You agree, she’s always been a traveller?”

“Yes, I agree, she’s always been a traveller.”  Sarah gave in the battle, it did not seem worth it to rile this woman who was harmless.

“If that’s a case, then you must have traveller blood flowing through you.  I guess that if you’re mother has always been a traveller, then so have you.”

Sarah felt hot all over her body, she flushed and tried to concentrate.  She was aware that something was changing, something that Brianna was doing to her.  How could that be possible?  She found quickly that whatever the old woman said appeared to be the utter truth, things that she could not contest.

“You’ve always been a traveller.  Your name is not Sarah, it’s Sorcha.”

Sarah tried to speak to challenge Brianna’s claim, but she found she could not.  What was stopping her tongue?  Was it that or was it in fact that Brianna was telling the truth?

“Sorcha, you’ve always been a traveller, haven’t you?”

Dimly Sarah found herself nodding.  Her body thrummed as she responded to the name of Sorcha and then felt as if some tension had been released, something wrong had been corrected.

“Sorcha, you’ve always been a traveller, an Irish traveller, haven’t you?  Just tell me, just tell me once.”

“Yes, I’ve always been a traveller.”

With that, Sarah felt a jolt as if she had been suddenly thrust into a new world.  However, as she looked around her nothing appeared to be different.  Inside her things were altering.  Memories were fleeing from her mind.  Her college studies, the house she had lived in, the memories of her father quickly went.  She saw herself instead living in caravans, leaving school at thirteen; working hard to clean and cook rather than living a student life.  Then she saw herself as a young woman with long dark hair and full breasts, wearing the tightest sexiest clothes, her skin coated in fake tan and her make up as heavy tonight.  Sarah struggled to cling on to the memories, but increasingly they seemed wrong.  If her mother was a traveller, a gypsy, then of course she would be one too, there was no way she could deny it.

Sorcha blinked, feeling rather light-headed.  She glanced across the room at her mother, Analetta with her step-father.  She then caught sight of herself reflected in the windows of the hall.  Her long black hair cascaded down the side of her face.  Her eyes were ringed with liner, her eyelids a pink shade, her lips another paler version.  Her skin glowed dark brown with the fake tan that covered it.  She looked down at herself in her party clothes.  Her long painted nails emerged from the fingerless leather gloves.  She wore a tight bra top of black latex detailed by broad scarlet stripes; her short skirt matched, with the red panels down the side of her thighs.  Her shoes were patent red, the shade matching that above.  They had a long heel and a thick platform that Sorcha knew she loved.

Sorcha heard voices calling from the dance floor and saw her step-sisters, dressed similarly, doing that sensual snaking dance that was so popular at traveller gatherings like this.  Sorcha stood up and strode across them.  In moments she was running her hands over her slippery tight clothes, thrusting out her breasts and twerking her bum in the way she loved.  Around her, her sisters, a range of ages performed likewise.  As she turned and twisted, feeling aroused by the dance she cast her eye over her shoulder to catch sight of the young men lined up by the bar.  She saw Niall standing there.  She slowed her moves waiting for him to look her way.  As his gaze fell upon her, looking as if he had just seen her for the first time, Sorcha began to dance more actively.  She lowered her eyes as if admiring the top of her own breasts, sliding her hands slowly over the shine of her bra top and then leaving one lingering on the taut latex of her miniskirt.  She scissored her legs as if impatient.  She could not remember when she had first become attracted to Niall but she knew there was something about him that she liked.  She now looked up, hoping she had sent a clear message to him and that he felt likewise.  She was sure how she was dressed and made-up tonight would be making him hard as it was.

As Sorcha danced something nagged at the back of her mind.  Strangely she felt that despite enjoying herself, she had to get out of this room, in fact to get out of these clothes.  Something about them felt peculiar, not quite right.  She wondered if she had been over doing it.

“You’s alright?”  Sorcha’s eldest step-sister, Alannah asked.

Alannah wore black PU shorts detailed with studs and slender chains hanging across the front.  Her over-the-knee boots were similar, though with buckles down the leg.  She wore a sequined bandeau which accentuated her full breasts.  Sorcha realised she could easily wear such an outfit, in fact would enjoy doing so.  Her step-sister’s hair was like her own and their make-up complemented.  For a moment, however, Sorcha wondered if that was somehow deliberate, to make it seem that how she appeared herself, fitted in perfectly here.

“Just needs some air.”  Sorcha replied, for some reason surprised at her broad Irish accent.

Alannah nodded and Sorcha looked around her, seeking the door.  As she walked from the room she saw Brianna talking to a young man and stepping on she saw it was Niall.  Sorcha wondered with a grin what the old woman was cooking up.  If it involved Niall, she told herself, she was not averse.  As she stepped into the cool evening air feeling it on the extensive areas of her skin that were uncovered, Sorcha wondered what she liked about Niall.  In the end she felt that there was nothing that she could identify specifically, it was just as if suddenly she had found that she fancied him.  From inside the hall, the sound of the music was muted.  Sorcha felt an urge to go back in and continue dancing, but the unsettled feeling she had had in there kept stopping her.  She wondered why she should feel this way.  She looked her best and she was here enjoying herself at a happy day for her mother.

Sorcha looked at the back of her hands covered in the tight leather.  In part she loved these gloves, they made her feel really sexy and they were of a style she liked.  However, for some reason it was as if they brand new, not just that day, but within the last few moments and more than that, even though she knew she liked them, she found it difficult to imagine herself ever trying them on let alone buying them.

Sorcha’s attention was snatched back by the sound of the door opening behind her.  Before she could look round, she was lifted off her feet and in moments, she understood that she had been ‘grabbed’.  Somehow she knew it was Niall who had finally found the courage to do what young traveller men did, to carry her off physically for a snog behind some building so as to declare his interest in her.  Sorcha realised as she was carried hurriedly into the darkness that this was what she had been anticipating all night.  In fact her body’s excitement told her that she welcomed it.  Any thoughts of it being inappropriate or not the kind of approach she expected from a man were quickly swept from her.  It was as if she had forgotten lessons she had been taught and for a moment she wondered if she would things differently if she had not left school so early.

Niall lowered her to the ground quite gently.  Sorcha’s back was pressed against the wall but her latex clothes protected her.  Her heart was thumping and the tight rubber creaked and squealed as she breathed in and out quickly.  She scissored her legs feeling an anticipation, a heat growing between them.  Traveller women remained virgins until their weddings, but with the sexy dancing that they did, it was not surprising that both they and the men that attracted them went as far as they could without penetration.  Niall was standing looking at Sorcha in the weak illumination from streetlights.  Again, though she knew they had known each other for many years, she felt as if he was looking at her as someone new.  Maybe his thick skull had only now woken up to her charms.  With that thought, Sorcha felt a real urge to show him what she could offer.  She wrapped her arms around him and pulled him in tight, pressing her lips against his and then forcing into his mouth with her tongue.  He tasted of beer and the meal from earlier, but what she relished above all was that he smelt and tasted of man.  A man washed and scrubbed up to be his best, but still a man, a traveller man and one she knew she was liking.

Niall pulled her in close, one hand cupping her bum, the other grasping her breasts.  She loved the feel of the pressure on them and her arousal increased that.  Sorcha reached down to rub against the front of Niall’s trousers and he jerked back, grunting as she had run her hand over his erection.  Sorcha guessed at their age he would be like a firework liable to explode.  Though she knew it would be wrong, she was keen to feel him inside her.  She wondered if she could strike a deal.

“If you’ll eat me out, I’ll suck you.  Deal?”  Sorcha whispered in his ear.

Niall mumbled something but got down on his knees which Sorcha took as signalling his willingness.  She hitched up her short skirt and shuddered pleasurably as she felt the warmth of his head between her thighs.  She knew she was so wet and hot and her clit was awake.  Having Niall pressing his tongue against her gee, she wondered why it just felt so good and when had she started shaving down there?  Maybe she had had this planned all along.  Whatever the path had been to get here, she was simply enjoying it.  Then she jerked; her hips thrusting her fanny into his face.  The names: gee, fanny, in some ways seemed so right but also unfamiliar to her mind.  Why was she worrying?  Niall’s tongue was there and there and there and now it blasted her body with a thrill, she shrieked and stopped her mouth with her hand, thrumming, throbbing, shaking against him.  He was quickly up and holding her as her knees weakened.

Sorcha let herself be lowered to the ground and beneath her bare knees found Niall’s jacket.  She imagined the dirt on it would seem a small price to him for what he was going to receive.  She also knew that next time she would pick her longest boots for this.  His bod was out and she closed her lips around the head, widening them and slipping it inside.  For some reason Sorcha felt there was something so good in servicing him this way, on her knees, slurping at his hard flesh.  As she had suspected, it did not take long before he was firing his jip into her.  The flavour was strong and the consistency sticky, but she swallowed down, somehow liking all that she was doing.

Niall lifted her up and grinned as if suddenly bolloxed with the drink, but Sorcha knew it was something else which had had that effect and recognised that it pleased her.

“Come on, let’s get a drink.”  Niall proposed but led Sorcha by the hand away from the hall.

Sorcha came on, tugging her latex skirt back down, loving how it clung and stretched.  The fact that they were off to a pub to be together rather than going back to the wedding reception pleased her.  She felt she had been right about Niall and that there was a good future with him; a sexy one at that.

****

Sarah awoke, not clear how she had got to bed.  There was a fresh, rather plastic smell but she guessed that was something to be expected in a hotel.  From outside she could hear the noise of children running around close by her window.  Was she on the ground floor?  As she sat up, her curiosity was answered.  It was apparent that she had not made it back to the hotel, but instead was in one of the travellers’ caravans.  From the décor it was clear it was inhabited by young women and distantly Sarah recalled something about there being a spare bed in the caravan Alannah had shared with her sisters, now she was married and living with Ciaran.  Sarah felt hungry and wondered if there was food in here.  However, she guessed that first she needed to get dressed.  She looked around the bed but could see nothing bar a pair of high-heeled shoes that she guessed had been left by one of the others.  She found it difficult to think of them as her step-sisters.  She went to the wardrobe and realised that she should not be surprised to find it was full of the kind of clothes the traveller women wore.  The bras were lacy black and the panties were thongs.  Not the kind of thing she would have chosen and she felt self-conscious about even borrowing another woman’s underwear.  However, she was conscious that unless she was dressed there was no way she could get out of here and back to her hotel room where her own clothes were.

As Sarah slipped into the thong she realised just how dark her skin tone was.  She could see that she had been coated with the fake tan that seemed essential to all traveller women and girls.  Had someone sprayed this on her last night?  She was annoyed that they had, but guessed there was some kind of remover she could buy.  She would leave it for now, because, as yesterday she was very conscious of not doing anything that offended her hosts, especially now that she seemed to be the heart of their camp.  As she clipped the bra closed, she was concerned that it was too large for her.  However, she was not keen to have nipples prominent in what she wore especially as so many of the tops looked like they would be tight fitting.  One of them, with a matching skirt was made of black and red latex and Sarah had trouble envisaging ever wearing anything like that.

The bra proved to fit her perfectly.  Eventually she settled for a black and white cheetah print top with long sleeves.  It clung to her tightly.  She put on the biker-style leather jacket on top to conceal herself a little more.  All the skirts in the wardrobe were short and all the leggings were shiny.  She ended up in a black wet-look pair that again fitted very well even if they were a style she would have never worn back home.  She dreaded what her friends would think.  Many of the boots were over-the-knee; one pair had to be thigh-length and all the shoes were high-heeled.  She settled on a pair of kitten-heeled black patent knee-length boots detailed with silver studs and a buckle at the ankle.

Sarah imagined that she probably did not look too different to many of the young women around the site.  She guessed that might be too much of a bad thing.  She needed to find her mother or at least Alannah.  Perhaps even Brianna could help her find where her clothes let alone her purse, had got to.  There was a small shiny black handbag sitting on the table at the other end of the room.  She looked through it feeling a little self-conscious; it held the usual things a young woman would have, though with far more make-up than she would have considered carrying.  She found a new Irish passport in the name of Sorcha Glansie.  She knew Glansie was her mother’s new surname; her husband’s name, so she guessed this belonged to one of his daughters, perhaps a niece.  She was seventeen, two years younger than Sarah, but with the same birthday.  Sarah tried to remember if they had been introduced.  However, looking at her photo showing a woman with big black hair and a fake tan, she imagined that they could have been but she would never have distinguished her from the scores of other young women cavorting on the dance floor.

Gazing out through the window, she could see the life of the site around her.  For some reason it looked very familiar, but she guessed it was because it resembled many others she had seen on television.  Since her mother had declared that she was going to marry Dwyer,  and Sarah had realised what he was, she had made some effort to watch all the documentaries on about the traveller lifestyle.  She could see the children she had heard earlier and some women, but none of them she recognised.  She wondered if this was simply because it was now the light of day and they were out of their party clothes.  Seeing herself reflected in the glass, Sarah tidied her hair, pulling it over her shoulder and putting it into a fishtail plait.  It looked darker than usual and thicker too and she wondered what the traveller women might have put into it, presumably at the same time they had gifted her with her fake tan.

Feeling better prepared, Sarah stepped from the caravan.  She looked around her and wondered which of the many caravans and camper vans would hold her mother.

“Hey Sorcha!”  One of the women she had seen from inside called.

Sarah looked at her, realising that at a distance the traveller woman had made a mistake and had imagined that she was this Sorcha.  Sarah guessed it was not surprising given that she had come from that specific caravan, was dressed in what might have been Sorcha’s clothes and had the fake tan that she was no doubt also covered with.

“Hey, there.”  Sarah responded though she found she knew that the woman was Erin.

“Good night, last night.”  The second woman who Sarah now remembered to be Aisling, added.

“Sure,” Sarah responded, her voice sounding peculiar to her ears.  “Sure was.”

Sarah decided to head away from them not wanting to be asked too many questions; she worried what might happen if they found out she was not this Sorcha.  It was not far until she recognised the caravan that belonged to Dwyer.  She heard voices coming from inside it.  She tapped on the door and stepped inside.  Her mother and husband were there as was Brianna and Danielle, Dwyer’s second daughter.  They were eating breakfast.

“Hello, love.”  Sarah’s mother said.

“Hello.”

Sarah guessed she was going to have to get used to the way her mother appeared now, with the long permed tresses of dark hair and the fake tan on her skin; her face heavily made up.  Annabelle, or she guessed she should think of her by her assumed name, Analetta, looked as if she fitted right in.  The sleeveless fuchsia top with lace detailing which clung to her breasts, which Sarah guessed had been augmented by a push-up bra; the broad diamante belt and the short plum tube skirt and the black over-the-knee boots would have suited a woman twenty years younger than her.  However, Analetta seemed unashamed in wearing them, clearly proud of her body and Sarah imagined she should be pleased to see her mother happy and not left a neurotic divorcee.

Danielle offered her some tea and toast and Sarah accepted, realising how hungry she felt.  She sat down opposite her mother.  Sarah felt uneasy at how Brianna looked to be running her eyes over her.  However, when she glanced at her again, Brianna responded with a warm smile, that seemed to signal contentment.  Sarah guessed that coming out dressed like this probably helped reduce any tensions around her being the interloper.

“I am surprised to see you up so early.”  Sarah said to Analetta and Dwyer.

“Why’s that?  It’s late enough.”

“But it was your wedding yesterday.”

Both her mother and step-father laughed.

“Well, it was mine in the respect I paid for it.”  Dwyer chuckled.  “We never had anything that fancy in our day, almost twenty-one years ago.”

Sarah was a bit confused wondering if this was some kind of joke.

“I didn’t see you drinking, did you have that much?”  Brianna asked.  “Could you forget: it was your sister’s wedding, Alannah.  Remember your big sister?”

“Step-sister.”  Sarah murmured.

Dwyer laughed.  “So who was your daddy then?  Analetta, you didn’t tell me that you sneaked off and got our Sorcha by another man.”

“Dwyer, you know I am loyal to you, through and through.  With the size of your bod, do you think I could be satisfied with anyone else?”  Analetta joked.

Sarah somehow knew that ‘bod’ was slang for Dwyer’s penis and rather than cackle at her mother’s comments she felt embarrassed at her parents behaving like teenagers.  Was Dwyer her father?  That seemed to be what Analetta was claiming and that indeed made Alannah her sister.  They must be close in age and if Sarah was born nineteen years ago, then did that mean Alannah had been conceived out of wedlock?  That did not seem to fit with the traveller pattern.  Was it Alannah who was nineteen and she, Sarah who was seventeen?  Somewhere in her mind there were memories of her doing ‘A’ levels and going to university, she would be too young for that.  Then again, how long was it since she had been at school?  Now she struggled to remember going there beyond thirteen.

Sarah realised her mind had wandered.  Could she have got so drunk the night before that she had forgotten that she had been at her sister’s wedding, even that she was not Dwyer’s daughter?  Had she knocked her head?  It all felt so strange.  As she reflected on it, it seemed daft to envisage a different life.  Why would her parents be lying to her?  Dwyer had made some light jokes, but nothing of the scale she was thinking of.

“Here, you haven’t seen the photos have you?  Niall took these and uploaded them.”  Analetta said turning a tablet round to Sarah.

‘Niall’ – the name jarred Sarah a little, but she was not certain why.  She concentrated on the pictures now in front of her.  They indeed showed Alannah in the wedding dress and there was Sarah close behind in the same kind of outfit in the turquoise shade, and her sisters and nieces around her.  Why did she remember refusing to wear the dress and why did she think of these women as Dwyer’s relatives and not her own?  She scrolled through the images.  The ones in the hall did seem familiar until she came of the one that looked like her; not the way she thought of herself, but how she appeared now: fake tanned and with long black hair.  She had her arm around Alannah now in her sequined bandeau, the tight PU shorts and long boots, hardly looking the blushing bride.  Sarah stood between her and Danielle, her younger sister.  Did she mean Alannah’s younger sister or her own?  Was there a difference?  Taking in the scene, Sarah found it difficult to accept that it was her in the middle especially dressed in that black and red latex outfit and those high shoes.  Yet, were they not what she had found around her when she woke up?  Could she have dressed like that?

Sarah wondered what to do.  It seemed impossible that everyone here believed this story if it was wrong.  Was it her who had made a mistake?  Had she dreamt of being this British university student when all along she had been Sorcha the traveller?

“You’re not looking too good, my love.”  Analetta said.

“I think she just needs a bit of a rest; burning the candle at both ends last night.”  Brianna observed.  “Come I’ll get you back to the girls’ caravan, you probably just need a bit of a rest.”

Sarah was not certain how to respond and simply yielded to Brianna taking charge.  Soon she was walking back to the caravan where she had awoken, very conscious of the tight clothes she wore and the click of her heels on the ground.  Soon they were in the caravan but rather than direct her to the bed Brianna sat her on a banquette at the table and made some tea.  She came with the drinks to sit at the table.

“What is happening?  You’re part of this aren’t you?  I spoke to you last night and then … then I think something changed.”  It was vague in her memories and hard to make out what had happened from the story laid out by the photos she had just seen.

“You are a tough one.”  Brianna said giving a tight smile.  “Usually I change the parent’s reality and that of the children follows, just like that.  I thought, one daughter, easy to shift, even when you wouldn’t get involved, wear the dress, get the tan.”

“Change the reality?”  Sarah asked thinking she had misheard.

“This is Ireland, we’re travellers; gypsies, if you like.  You not heard of gypsy magic?”

Sarah guessed she had, but like all such fantastical things she had dismissed them as having no place in her rational, university study world.

“Why?  Why me?”

“Your mother, she’s a good woman; good for my son and for his daughters.  For her I want her to fit in, to be happy.  If she is happy then my son is happy; my granddaughters are happy.  That is it, very simply.”

“So you used magic to make her not simply marry a traveller, but become a traveller woman?”

“Of course.  Do you think her hair would be that long or her with that size of her diddies?  It didn’t take much with her.”

“Then why not just her, why me as well?”

“That’s easy.  Even with you away in England, if you’re calling up or coming over, tutting about what she’s doing, what she’s wearing, how she’s living, then all the time I’ve got something snagging at this reality, at best unsettling her, making her less happy; at worst causing an all-out reversion and that’s a failure for me.”

“So you simply put me into this life?”

“For sure.  A beautiful traveller girl; gained a couple of years back and with a nice boy lined up for you.  What more would you want?”

Sarah made a scoffing sound.  However, her head was spinning with what Brianna was saying.  Part of her was refusing to accept it was real, part of her afraid that it was.

“So what about my old life, my place at university, my room, my things?”

“That’s all gone, erased.  Someone else is in your place.  You don’t need any of that Sorcha.”

“I’m not Sorcha.”

“Who says?” Brianna held up the passport for Sorcha Glansie.

“It’s easy to fake something like that.”

“Not in this case, that’s your reality.  Sorcha Glansie, aged seventeen, Irish traveller, end of story.”

“It can’t be, I am not her.”

“Aren’t you?  Who do you look like?  Here with your tan, with your clothes just like your sisters, long hair, sexy body and speaking like an Irishwoman, not some girly from England called Sarah.  You are Sorcha.  Look and see.  Look and see what is true.  This is the truth.”

Brianna held up a mirror and Sarah looked at her reflection with the long dark hair, the tanned skin and the make-up; dressed in the tight top, flaunting her full breasts.  Seeing that woman she would think her an Irish traveller.  As she made that concession, she felt as if something was slipping from her.  She put her head down to the table, fighting to hold on to whatever it was; something so important in her mind.  She felt exasperated, twisting as if she could chase after it and catch it.  Tired she let go and breathed deeply.

“Sorcha, Sorcha, you all right?”

Sorcha looked up at her grandmother.  “Feeling a bit, you know …”

“It was late last night, why don’t you take a kip?”

“Sure.”  Sorcha stood up from the banquette and Brianna helped her on to her bed.

Sorcha lay there as her grandmother removed her boots.  She slid her legs in their shiny leggings over the counterpane, wondering why she felt so horny, but sleep demanded her attention.

****

Sorcha woke up to the sound of knocking.  She sat up on the bed and checked her appearance in the mirror.

“I’ll be there.”  She called in her broad Irish accent.

Then she saw that Brianna was sitting at the table reading a magazine.  She dimly recalled feeling ill and being brought back by her grandmother.

“It’s Niall, I’ll tell him.”  Brianna said as she stood and went out the door, closing it behind her.

Now Sorcha jumped up.  Quickly she replaced her top with a sleeveless black one with vertical narrow PU stripes.  She pulled out a pair of over-the-knee boots and zipped them up.  She drew a brush through her hair and then worked on the pale pink on her lips and the eyeliner.  Pausing to look in the mirror one more time, she felt please and went to the door.  Brianna was there and it was she who invited him in, guiding Niall and Sorcha to the table while she took her magazine to chair further up the caravan.  Sorcha recognised that she was going to be chaperoned.

“I heard you’s feeling poorly, Sorcha.”

She shook her head.  “Better for seeing you though.”

The response pleased the young man.

“I’ve got something for you.”

Niall pulled a small jewellery case from his pocket and flicked it open to show a gold necklace with the name ‘Sorcha’ in a cursive script.

“Do you like it?”

Sorcha smiled and planted a quick kiss on his lips, keen to feel more of what they had had last night.

“I do, Niall.  I like it, I like you and I like what we did last night.”  Sorcha found herself bubbling out.

Perhaps it was early days, but Sorcha suddenly could see herself with Niall as her man and knew it was something she wanted in so many ways.

“That’s good.  Let’s put it on.”

Sorcha bent her head and lifted up her mass of dark hair.  In moments the necklace was around her neck and closed.  She felt it with her fingers, pleased that she wore it.

“So, are you busy tonight?  Would you like a drink?”

Sorcha found herself shooting a glance at Brianna but she simply smiled.

“Sure.  Take me somewhere nice.”

“I’ll do that.”

****

As Sorcha stepped through the door of the church she paused for a moment to let her bridesmaids tend to the huge circular skirt of her wedding dress.  She glanced over at her father walking beside her looking severe, but clearly proud and Sorcha guessed, holding back tears not wanting to reveal how affected he was by the event.  The church was full with people from babies to the elderly, very many of them travellers, turned out in over-the-top styles, especially the women.  Behind her in fluffed out cerise dresses were her sisters making an entourage.  Now she was ready and as the music struck up and Sorcha began the walk towards the altar where her fiancée Niall stood, casting almost shy glances back up the aisle.  Sorcha knew her life was sealed, living here in the heart of a traveller community; already pregnant with the traveller child of the man, who in the next few minutes would become her husband.  Sorcha knew she was one sexy woman and she had ached to have Niall’s cock inside her.  She was sure she would get ample opportunity tonight, at least after she had had a good dance.