The Perfect House

Chapter 2: a bribe

"Yessss," Harold drawled, still away with his thoughts, "So maybe it could work."

"Come on, out with it, man," Bobba demanded.

"Well, say I ring up Mrs Castell and tell her that I'm negotiating a change in the personnel for the house; that I expected that there would now be a couple - a male and female pair - and two single males."

"A couple! How's that?" Bobba interjected.

"If she reckons that's a goer," continued Harold ignoring the interjection, "then maybe, just maybe we could be in."

"But what couple?"

"I was thinking of Preston and Florian. We dress Flor up as a girl . . ."

"No, no, no, fuck that." Florian objected immediately to Harold's proposal.

"I'll be in it," Preston was grinning.

"Yeah, sure, you're not the one who has to dress up."

"Come on, Flor, if it gives us a shot at getting that place . . ."

"No, that's it, no."

"With a bit of luck, it probably wouldn't be necessary for you to do the dress-up on more than a couple of occasions," Harold continued with his thoughts, "and I was thinking, fellows, that if we pulled it off, then we should reward Flor with the first choice of bedroom."

"Sure thing."

"Agreed."

Florian took a breath. He liked the house overall and, in particular, he loved the en-suite bedroom that was situated at the back. It was a beautiful, big sunny room with views out over the lovely rear gardens of the houses in the next street and to the hills further on.

The boys had been intending to draw lots for the bedrooms and Florian had been hoping he might get lucky, and here they were offering it to him.

Florian was shaking his head and frowning at his friend. "Damn you, Harold, you're trying to bribe me?"

"Of course," Harold acknowledged honestly.

Florian looked around at the others. The question 'Why me?' leapt into his mind, but that would have been a stupid question. He was the obvious choice, none of the others had much chance of passing as female, on the other hand, he did.

"I don't know," he said shaking his head again.

Harold resumed, "As I said, you probably wouldn't have to do it more than a couple of times, say when we go in and show ourselves to Mrs Castell and then again when we sign the lease."

A snort from Florian, "What? Pres and I would have to be all lovey-dovey, would we?"

"No, of course not. Maybe you could hold hands as we go in and on the way out just to complete the picture."

The three of them were looking at him with appealing faces.

"It's a terrific house, Flor, just what we want."

"I don't know," Florian gave a resigned sigh, feeling his opposition weaken. "I mean, we don't know anything about how to make me look like a girl . . . how would we go about it?"

"I'll ask my sister, Irene, to help us," Harold replied. "You and her are about the same size, and she's a good stick; I reckon she'll pitch in."

Some quiet, then Harold asked gently, "Shall I give Mrs Castell a ring?"

Florian gave a tiny nod of his head, but then added, "Now I'm not saying that I'm willing to do it, in fact, I don't like the idea at all, but I suppose we might as well find out if it would be acceptable."