An interview with Flip Hivewrapper. As told to Adrian Windowbook, troubadour and roving historian. My meeting with with Ms Flip Andrew Hivewrapper - courtesan and arch-spy to the Exian House of Glare - took place in one of the House of Glare's many Unnamable Little Rooms. Ms Hivewrapper wore a raw silk dressing gown, bright pink, and lay on the floor at my feet in a nest of tasselled pillows. Although there were chairs in the room, I was encouraged to stand. "Or disport yourself in whatever way makes you most comfortable," she said, smiling. Although she behaved like the epitome of a gracious hostess I couldn't help but feel that she enjoyed my discomfort. I began by asking her about significant events in her career: Ms Hivewrapper: Although I didn't look at it this way at first, being castrated really was an extraordinary stroke of luck. It took my mind off off my dick - removed it from the dick completely my dear - and focussed it on - you know, the other thing - which I had always been much more at home with. Being a hermaphrodite does have its advantages. Or rather, it did. People consider me woman now, and I find that so annoying. Windowbook: But isn't that an advantage in your line of work? Ms Hivewrapper: In spying, do you mean? Yes, but I mean it's annoying on a personal level, do you see what I'm saying? I like people to focus on the both sides of me, not only on the feminine. I have a lot of masculine energy that is just crying out for expression. Windowbook: Could that be the secret of your celebrated - Ms Hivewrapper: Oh, the sexual energy. I suppose it could be, though it's rather sexist of you to say so, dear. Windowbook: No, I mean the repression. That your energy comes from the repression, not the masculinity. Ms Hivewrapper: I forgive you and agree with you. On the other hand, life would be a lot duller if we didn't have repression. Would you like me to fist you? Windowbook: No. What about your job? Do you enjoy being a spy? Ms Hivewrapper: Oh yes, I get to meet the most interesting people. Absolute darlings some of them, though some can be quite horrid when they find out that they have not, in the strictest sense of the word, been doing it with a girl. Marcus Rosebush of the House of Rosebush, for example, was an utter cad about the whole thing. He said - oh no dear, let's talk about something else. Windowbook: Back to your dick then. Ms Hivewrapper: As my boyfriend used to say, Yes, well, he was eternally relieved wasn't he poor lad, when he found out that I had a spare in my back pocket, so to speak. I lost him though and it affected me terribly. Windowbook: To another man? Ms Hivewrapper: No, I was forced to garrotte him with a shoelace. As I say, it affected me terribly. It had turned out that he was working for the Minister of Earth who was performing an absolute crackdown on the House of Glare. I mean, a really nasty vindictive vendetta. Horatio Glare had eloped with his daughter some months earlier and he was absolutely fuming, wasn't he, the silly old thing? The governor of the time would do nothing about it, so Glare had to take matters into its own hands. Hence persons like myself, although there really is no-one else quite like me. Windowbook: Yes, you don't see many castrated hermaphrodite courtesan spies. Ms Hivewrapper: I know, isn't it wild? I love being unique. I believe I'm one of the few truly unique people in the world. The rest - men and women - are copies. Windowbook: So, do you infiltrate people solely to murder then, or do you sometimes have more subtle aims? Ms Hivewrapper: It depends on the assignment. Sometimes I murder, sometimes I steal; occasionally I just sit and listen. People will let loose all kinds of interesting information simply for the sake of hearing themselves speak. There are some very lonely individuals in this city, that's all I can say. Windowbook: Do most of them work for the Ministry of Earth? Ms Hivewrapper: Actually, no, that's not the case. Most of them work for the Minister for Silence, and i suppose it's only to be expected, isn't it, that if you don't talk to anyone you get lonely? I know I would. I am a monsterously gregarious person. Windowbook: So the House of Glare is also spying on the Minister for Silence. Ms Hivewrapper. I can't tell you anything about that. Let's just say that the House of Glare is spying on everybody. Windowbook: Before you go any further, you do remember that I'm writing this interview down and that I intend to distribute it around the city? I might also make it into a song. Ms Hivewrapper: In that case we are NOT spying on everybody. There! Now I've made everyone equally confused. I do love sowing disorder. Now no-one knows where I'm coming from and I am free to move about like a little dust mite of smartness amongst their big discombobulated particles. Windowbook: Do you have any plans for the future? Ms Hivewrapper: Oh yes. As a matter of fact - you'll laugh at this, dear - a friend of mine proposed marriage to me last week and I've decided to retire sometime next year and live with her in a little cottage - in the Falling Hills perhaps. I've heard that nature out there is quite excitingly untamable, and I do so wish to see a little bit of untamed nature before I die. Here in Ex we have the ivy, of course, and the moss, but it's not the same thing, do you see what I mean dear? I want to live on an expanse. Windowbook: Yes I think I do. Ms Hivewrapper: Now you've made me all dreamy. Anyway, I'm sorry to throw you out, but you must go now I'm afraid. My friend and I are going to meet with a man who wants to sell us his uncle's cottage. Windowbook: Is that the cottage you want to retire to? Ms Hivewrapper: Yes. I do hope it's a nice one. I may be going to the untamed wilds, but I don't intend to live there in a shack. She ushered me out of her room in the livliest way imaginable, and that was the end of my interview. A few months later, the body of Ms Hivewrapper was found in one of the many cul de sacs of the hedge maze that surrounds the city. Madge Lettuce the Second, her 'friend,' was placed under house arrest, but vanished before she could be brought to trial. Ms Hivewrapper's last known words, "I think that tree is spying on me," were recorded by Reginald Glare in his diary. He took them for a joke.