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Chapter 1 He awoke. His eyes recoiled as they met the harsh morning light streaming through the window. Looking to his right, James expected to see her, but he did not. In some respects, he was glad, for her absence meant that stillness of the morning would be preserved, and he would be granted a little more time to enjoy it. This morning, however, that was not meant to be. Like a hurricane, she blew into the room. "Good morning, sleepy head!" Skye cried, flinging open the bedroom door and finding her partner awake. A bird outside the window flew off at the sudden break from silence. It took James a moment to recover from the shock caused by the woman's explosive entry. His heart pounded in his chest. "Good morning." Skye rounded on James, then, her index finger extended toward him. "You," she began, crawling on top of the bed and onto him. "Are you tryingto sleep through your birthday?" When the woman started hugging James through the blankets, he couldn't help but smile. He felt his agitation at being jolted out of his rest drain away, and the usual feelings of love return. "I wasn't exactly trying." Skye rolled her eyes and tugged at the collar of James' shirt. "I've been waiting for you to get up for hours," she pouted. James reached up and tucked a lock of the woman's long, auburn hair behind her ear. "I'm sorry, my love." A wry grin broke out on Skye's face at James' words, and she raised a quizzical eyebrow in his direction. "My love?" she repeated. "Breakin' out the clich?s early this morning, huh?" James shook his head and shot her a smile. "I love you and I'm sorry." Skye laughed. Leaning downward, she planted a small kiss on James' lips, and in a rare moment of earnestness said: "Don't be." Her energy levels still critical, Skye sat up again in one, swift movement. In this position, James could see that Skye was wearing one of his blue business shirts. She had knotted the shirt at the waist, revealing her flat stomach. She looked gorgeous, as was always the case. Skye noticed James' approving look and smiled. "Are you looking forward to tonight?" she asked, her eyes wide with excitement. "Yeah," James said, attempting to match her level of enthusiasm as he intoned the word. He turned over onto his side. Skye laid down next to James so that their faces were close and their eyes met. "Happy twenty-fourth birthday," she said softly. James smiled. She ruffled his hair. ~o0o~ As the day ended, the evening began, and so too didthe party. From the top of a massive cruise liner docked in Circular Quay, James and Skye watched the sun begin its descent into the ocean, behind the enormous metal coat-hanger that was the Sydney Harbor Bridge. Even the sound of fifty other passengers and their crying children splashing around in the pool behind the couple wasn't enough to take away from the sunset's beauty. James wrapped his arms around Skye's waist, savoring the quiet moment between them before the first guests arrived. As the sky succumbed entirely to darkness, and the city around the ship began to come alive, James noticed two people making their way toward them. When James pointed out the pair to Skye, she threw her arms in the air and rushed over to them, screaming greetings at the top of her lungs. James checked his watch and shook his head. The invitations clearly indicated that the party was meant to start at 7pm. It was now 7:40 and only now were people starting to show up. James tried not to worry about it too much; according to Skye, this was perfectly normal. When Skye was done showering the newcomers with hugs and kisses, she pointed at James and led both of them over to him. "Happy birthday, James!" the female half the pair cried, her enthusiasm rivaling Skye's. "Yeah, happy birthday, man," the male half said coolly. James thanked both of them, and they left to get a drink from the nearby bar. When Skye returned to his side, James only had one thing to say. "Who were those people?" One hour and fifteen more guests later, the group went inside and made their way to the onboard restaurant for dinner. James smiled and nodded at random points during Skye's conversation with several of her University friends seated across the table. Her voice was easily able to overcome both the noise and the distance. James and Skye had been together for almost a year now, though they had known each other as very casual acquaintances for much longer. Back when James was living with his parents, Skye, quite literally, used to be the girl next-door. Despite this proximity, however, they did not see each other much. It was only after James' parents had died, and Skye had crossed the paddock separating their two houses to see if James was okay, did they start to become close. Skye had supported James endlessly during the times that followed, and he would never forget what she had done for him. James watched Skye as she interacted with her friends beside him at the table. Gesticulating wildly and grinning like an idiot, she was obviously happy. Thus, he was happy. Several minutes later, James felt a tap on his shoulder. Pivoting in his chair, he saw two people: a tall woman with a head of flaming orange hair, and a man with a pointy, mischievous-looking face. James recognized these faces well. He leaped out of his chair upon seeing them. James extended his hand toward the man and nodded. "Ryun." The skin around Ryun's beady eyes crinkled as he shook his friend's hand. "James." James turned his attention toward the woman. With her, he did not move in for a physical greeting. Instead, he locked his eyes onto her dazzling red mane and squinted. Then, he retrieved the dark, aviator sunglasses that hung from his collar, and placed them over his eyes. Only then did he reach out to shake her hand. "Hello, Laiken." Ryun burst out laughing, James' joke at the expense of Laiken's ginger hair requiring no further explanation. Unfazed, Laiken smiled at James obsequiously, and reached up to the top of his head. Then, she ruffled his meticulously styled hair, knowing that there was little in the world he hated more. James stood there, mouth agape, looking as though he had arrived at the party in an open convertible. Laiken placed her hands on her hips and took in the sight, looking very pleased with her work. A moment passed, and then all three of them laughed. After greeting Skye, Laiken and Ryun took their seats on the other side of James, and James was free to enjoy the company of some familiar faces for the rest of the dinner. To James' astonishment, Laiken emptied five bottles of Corona over the course of the next hour. The woman motioned toward the half-empty beer bottles in front of James and her boyfriend. "Pansies, the both of you," she said, before cracking the cap off yet another bottle. The woman's Irish heritage was definitely evident tonight. James leaned over and addressed the man next to her. "Ryun, I guess your girlfriend's just more man than us," he said, raising his own bottle in the air before taking a swig. Stone-faced, Laiken wiped a drop of condensation from her bottle, and flicked it in James' face. She grinned and shoved James with her shoulder, enjoying the mutual teasing, as she always did. James was about to retort when his attention was captured by Skye, who was now standing next to him and moving both her arms in a downward motion in an attempt to quiet the noisy table. When that attempt was unsuccessful, she yelled. "Can I have everyone's attention please?" The table went quiet, and all eyes fell upon her. "As you know, we're here today to celebrate the birthday of my partner, James." All eyes then fell upon James. He felt like a deer in headlights at all the attention. He looked awkwardly around the table at the sea of unfamiliar faces. He smiled at them, before catching a glimpse of Laiken's face. Gone was the look of mock derision. Now, the woman's face seemed to be saying 'I'm so sorry', for she knew all too well about James' desire to remain out of the spotlight. As an introvert herself, she sincerely sympathized. Skye continued. "I just wanted to say something before we get to what we've all been waiting for." She motioned toward the gigantic chocolate cake in the middle of the table, and the crowd began to murmur in anticipation. "I just wanted to say that James and I have been together for a little over two years now. We have supported each other through thick and thin, and I hope that he has enjoyed our time together as much as I have." Skye leaned down and matched James' eye-line. "Happy birthday,my love." She finished off her sentence with a knowing wink. James smiled - a genuine smile. Saving James the trouble of thinking up something profound to say in reply, Laiken shouted. "Let's have some cake!" The dinner soon concluded, and the party moved to the casino. James, Laiken, and Ryun manned the poker machines bordering the room, while Skye and her friends stayed down on the casino's floor. After James had finished admiring the spectacular view of the Sydney Harbor Bridge through the enormous glass windows around the casino, he searched the room for his girlfriend. He saw her playing poker with Michelle and Nick, her closest friends. James felt like joining them, though not for want of a better time. The sight of Skye hanging off the tall, muscled guy who was her best friend urged him to go run interference, but he swallowed the desire down and returned his eyes to the machine. Unfortunately, he was unable to keep his eyes there very long. Too antsy about the situation on the casino floor to remain seated anymore, he stood. "Does anyone want a drink?" he asked his companions. "Beer me!" Laiken responded, her handing shooting in the air. James shook his head, smiled, and walked to the bar. There, he gave the bartender his order and dropped onto a stool to wait. Despite all his efforts to the contrary, all he could think about was Skye and Nick. While he knew it was wrong, he just didn't like her hanging out with the guy. James knew, deep down, that Skye would never cheat on him, but the pang of anxiety that hit him whenever he saw them together never ceased to come. As James sat at the bar, the sounds and sights of the casino faded away, until his thoughts were all that remained. That lasted only a few moments, before a voice from his left brought him back to reality. "Is this seat taken?" James looked up toward the voice. It belonged to a stunning woman in a black, strapless dress. "No," James said, motioning for her to sit down. "I won't be here too long, anyway." "Oh," she said, suddenly averting her gaze and looking toward the bar. James returned his eyes to the floor and continued to wait for the drinks. "Bad night?" the woman asked, deciding to ignore James' hint. James returned his eyes to her. The woman, he saw, was obviously checking him out. Her gaze lingered upon the large bicep half-exposed in the sleeve of his black shirt. When her eyes met his, she smiled. James sighed. "You could say that." "I'm not having too good of a night, myself," she said, crossing her legs and smoothing her dress over her knees. "Oh," James said absently, wondering what the hell was taking the bartender so long. Reaching up, the woman began playing with a lock of her dark, curly hair. Turned fully toward James, she leaned on the bar, no doubt preparing to tell him all about her night. Just as the woman opened her mouth to speak, something stopped her. "Hi, baby!" a familiar voice came from somewhere behind James. He turned around to see Skye. A thin smile was plastered over her face. "Hey, gorgeous," James greeted her. "What are you doing?" Skye asked, shooting a small glance toward the woman on James' left. A few seconds of icy silence followed, broken only by the return of the bartender, who handed James his drinks. "Sorry about the wait." James shot the guy an annoyed look and scooped up the drinks. Without even sparing a glance toward the stranger seated alongside him, he rose and led Skye away from the bar. When they had passed out of the woman's earshot, Skye stopped and rotated to face James. She crossed her arms, then, and raised an eyebrow at him. James shrank from her slightly. "What?" Skye pushed her chin in the direction of the bar. "Who was that? James' brow furrowed. "You'd have to ask her." "James..." Skye said softly, placing a hand on James' arm. She looked genuinely concerned. James stifled an eye-roll. He knew Skye could be jealous, but surely she couldn't have been upset with this. "Skye," James began seriously, "the woman sat down and tried to talk to me." Skye didn't cotton onto what James what getting at. Instead, her face hardened, and her mouth twisted into a sneer. "What did she say to you?" She crossed her arms and wrapped one of her ankles around the other. "Skye," James said, wanting to defuse the situation quickly before it turned into something bigger. "She barely said anything. I was just getting some drinks." After giving his explanation, James leaned down and kissed her on the cheek. Seemingly pacified, Skye leaned into James' chest. James wrapped his arms around the woman in response. "I'm sorry," Skye said. "It's okay," James replied. Following the events at the bar, Skye neglected to return to Michelle and Nick. Instead, she accompanied James back to Laiken and Ryun. Arriving back, Laiken eagerly swiped her drink from James' hand. Then, she motioned over her shoulder. James looked in the direction his friend had indicated. There, in the distance, he spotted Ryun. He was standing behind an air-hockey table, and waving madly at them. Laiken sighed. "I think you know what you have to do." James smiled. Nodding, he left Skye and Laiken alone and started walking in Ryun's direction. "I couldn't help noticing..." Laiken said to Skye, indicating the bar. "Yeah," Skye said flatly, looking toward the ground. "She was just talking to him." It was evident from her tone that she was not convinced. It was at this point that it struck Laiken just how little Skye seemed to understand James. The woman in question - a stranger - went up and tried to make small-talk with him. James didn't like strangers or small- talk at all; in combination, those two things were devastating. The only worse move the woman could have made was walking up to him and throwing a glass of vodka in his face. Laiken knew this, but Skye did not, even though Laiken had known James a lot less intimately, for a lot less time. At the air-hockey table, Ryun and James hit the puck around until one of them was declared victor. Ryun won three games in a row, prompting James to hang up his mallet. Both Ryun and James leaned against the table after the game had concluded and looked toward their girls. "You're a lucky man, my friend," Ryun said, eyeing Skye from head to toe. James could see what he meant. Even in just a simple leather jacket and blue jeans, the woman looked amazing. "You haven't done too bad yourself, either," James responded, nodding toward Laiken. Her hair was easily the most eye-catching thing in the entire room. Under the yellow lights shining down from the ceiling, the woman looked like a beacon in the night. It took James a moment to notice a third figure interacting with Skye and Laiken. Even from this distance, he knew who it was. Ryun and James moved back toward them to greet the newcomer. James greeted his short, short-haired house-mate with all the gusto she deserved. "Kiera!" Opening his arms wide, he hugged the small woman when she came in range. "Merry Christmas, mate!" Kiera said as she pulled away. "This is for you." She handed James a small gift, wrapped in red paper, upon which was a repeating image of Santa's face. James took the present. "And a Happy New year to you," he responded dryly. "I couldn't find any birthday wrapping," Kiera apologized with a giggle. "That's okay," James replied, deriving more enjoyment out of her error than if she'd done it properly. After a short while, the group left the machines to get more drinks from the bar. Kiera chatted happily to Skye on the way. As she did, James noticed that there was always a hint of additional enthusiasm when Kiera talked to Skye compared when she talked to him. It wasn't hard to imagine why; Kiera was a lesbian after all and kept it no secret that she found James' girlfriend attractive. She'd jokingly said so on more than one occasion. James had noticed that Skye never discouraged Kiera from verbalizing such thoughts. He got the distinct impression that Skye did so to make herself seem more attractive to him. As much as he hated to admit it, it kind of worked. Kiera, leading the conversation as she usually did, chatted to Skye almost exclusively until they reached the bar, at which point she opened up the conversation to the group. "So are you guys looking forward to Fiji?" she asked with a huge smile, running her fingers through her few inches of dark hair. James forced a smile and took another sip of his drink. "I am," Laiken said. "But my skin isn't." James had once seen Laiken's exceptionally pale skin burn after just five minutes on the beach one time. She wasn't joking. Kiera sighed. "I'd give anything to go with you guys." Skye shook her head. "Your boss is a complete asshole. I still can't believe he rejected your leave request. You haven't had a holiday in ages." "Oh well," Kiera said. "I realize it'll be hard, but I hope you guys have fun without me." The laugh that issued from James' mouth in response to her words was deliberately pronounced. Kiera turned to him, frowned, and gave him a surprisingly strong punch to the shoulder. James clutched his assailed shoulder. "Hey!" "Listen," Kiera went on, speaking solely to James this time. "I just popped in to give you your present. I'll have to be off." Kiera hugged James, bid farewell to Laiken and Ryun, and, as James predicted, also hugged Skye before she left the casino. Ryun checked his watch. "I'm afraid we're also going to have to call it a night." "So soon, guys?" James said, not wanting to be alone for the rest of the evening. He was enjoying their company. "I need to get an early night," Laiken answered remorsefully. "I have to study for Monday." "Fair enough," James responded quietly, taking a final swig of his lemonade and putting it down on the bar. Laiken and James moved in for a hug, and James shook Ryun's hand. "Thanks for coming, Laiken," James said without a hint of jest or sarcasm. "No worries," the woman responded warmly. James smiled, returning that warmth. You're ugly," she added, before taking Ryun's hand and walking away. As she did, she continued speaking to James over her shoulder. "I just thought you'd like to know." James shook his head. When the pair departed, James followed Skye down to the casino floor - and down to Michelle and Nick. They remained there until the stroke of midnight, at which point they made their way down to the cabin they had rented until the ship departed the following morning and they had to leave. James fell onto the bed in that cabin and starfished while he waited for Skye to shower. He was utterly exhausted. After being forced to make conversation with complete strangers until midnight, despite wanting to crawl into bed by 10:30, he wasn't surprised. James couldn't really blame Skye for what happened this evening, he thought, as he shifted on the bed to take off his shoes and socks. Yes, she had invited all of her friends to his party, and this did make him uncomfortable, but he knew she didn't do it out of malice. Skye could never seem to wrap her head around James' preference for quality over quantity. He would have much preferred just having a quiet evening at his house with a few good friends to celebrate his birthday, but Skye assumed that James would have felt lonely if there were only a couple of people at his twenty-fourth birthday. In reality, the crowd of people he didn't know was what ended up making him feel lonely. Still, Skye had only done what she'd thought was best for him, and regardless of the results, he appreciated her for that. James rolled onto his side and waited. Skye emerged from the bathroom a short time later. She walked over to the other side of the bed and reached downward, fishing for something underneath. When she resurfaced, she was holding a large, rectangular box covered in blue wrapping paper. Sitting on the bed beside James, she presented the box to him. As James marveled at the enormity of the gift before him, Skye kissed him on the cheek. "Happy birthday." James began slowly peeling off the paper, being careful not to ruin any of it. Skye was far too excited to wait for James to meticulously remove the wrapping, but she decided to hold her tongue and let him have his moment. Soon, the contents of the gift were revealed. James stood up in surprise. Skye's gift was a remote-controlled helicopter, something that James had wanted for a very long time. James stood up and stared down at the present, mouth-agape. "Oh my God!" Skye smiled. "'Oh my God' good?" Slowly, James nodded his head. "I remembered you trying to find the price on it when we were in Castle Hill a few months back," Skye explained. "You walked out, declaring 'if they don't have the price on it then they mustn't want me to buy it'. Unlike you, I don't give up so easily." James simply stared at the packaging. He did not expect Skye to get him such a good gift. He was truly touched by her gesture. "I don't know what to say," James said as he put the box down. "Something about me being the best girlfriend in the entire world would be nice..." James, still wide-eyed, nodded vigorously in agreement. When he noticed that Skye was biting her lip suggestively and taking off her jacket, the nodding stopped. In a few moments, the woman had removed her shirt entirely and was quickly moving to deal with her bra. James' face fell. The sight of a newly naked Skye wasn't what he objected to. Rather, it was the act which seeing it followed. Skye crawled over to the side of the bed and pulled James down to her. When she threw one of her legs over him and pinned him to the bed, the kissing then started. Following standard procedure, James began running his tongue back and forth over Skye's nipples. The woman moaned with pleasure as if it had never happened to her before. Only a few moments later, James' pants were off, and things appeared to start heating up. As James moved to put on a condom, he looked over Skye's body. His eyes traveled up from her smooth, skinny legs, past her narrow hips, up over her ample bosom and finally over her gorgeous face. Skye was a beautiful woman. James theorized that he could do nothing but stare at her body for hours and not come anywhere even close to boredom. Despite this, however, James never really wanted todoanything with her body. He could admire it as a thing of beauty, but never really wanted to go near it. James never really knew why, but he figured that it could have something to do with his visceral, negative reaction to seeing what was between Skye's legs. James felt this reaction the moment Skye took off her panties and opened her legs. James closed his eyes for a moment, ensured that his protection was firmly in place, and moved toward Skye. James and Skye finished half an hour later, and Skye fell happily back onto her pillow. James was satisfied with his performance. He was glad he could make her happy. He was always glad to, but tonight was especially sweet. Skye fell asleep a short time later, leaving James to greedily unbox and assemble his helicopter in the next room. Chapter 2 "Did you enjoy your birthday party?" Skye asked, walking beside James as they ascended the steep incline that was the path to Patterson's Lookout. James looked at the woman to his left. He was barely able to make out her face in the pale light of the waxing moon above them. "Very much so," he answered. Skye smiled. A few minutes later, the couple reached the summit, and the entirety of the Hawkesbury Valley spread out before them for their viewing pleasure. Like stars in a clear night sky, the lights of the valley below and beyond shone brightly in just about every color of the spectrum. This lookout was just a short walk from James' home at the bottom of the hill, and he and Skye had spent much time here over the course of their relationship. Walking up here was one of James' favorite ways to spend an evening. Skye came closer to James as a gust of wind sent a chill through her jacket on the cold autumn night. James wrapped his arms around her to produce a barrier between her and the wind. The couple watched the lights of the valley for some time. James closed his eyes, enjoying Skye's warmth and the silence. It was a rare occasion when he could spend just a simple, quiet evening with his girlfriend, without music blaring and drunk strangers everywhere, and James wanted to savor it. "What would you do if an alien spaceship just flew over our heads?" Skye asked suddenly, taking a verbal axe to the peaceful atmosphere. "Run?" James ventured, successfully holding back any trace of annoyance from his voice. Skye laughed. "Who would you actually call in that situation?" "I don't know," James responded. He knew he should have probably put more of an effort into his response - normally, James would have loved having silly a conversation such as this - but, right now, all he wanted to do was enjoy the quiet. Skye's inability to feel out his moods had always been a source of frustration for James; normally he did a better job of dealing with it. Skye removed herself from James' arms and looked into his eyes, searching them. "What's wrong?" "Nothing," James lied. "I'm just cold. Do you want to start heading back?" Skye hesitated for a moment but eventually nodded. Taking Skye's hand, James led her away from the lookout and back down the path to the house. As he did, James enjoyed the scent of freshly cut grass, and Skye yelled at a car that neglected to dim its headlights as it passed, upsetting half a dozen dogs in the vicinity. The couple soon reached the turnoff to Willow Glen road. After a brief walk up another, smaller hill, they arrived at a house situated at the bottom of a sloped driveway bordered by trees and backgrounded by a large mountain of which only the silhouette was visible in the moonlight. James' house. Even at this distance, the couple could hear music coming from inside. On cue, the smile on Skye's face widened. "Sounds like Kiera's having a party." "Looks that way," James said, barely managing to conceal his agitation. It appeared that tonight was really not going to be a quiet one. After climbing onto the porch, James knocked on the door. Skye laughed. Pushing open the door, they made their way inside. The din inside wasn't deafening, but it was getting there. James and Skye looked for Kiera as they made their way down the hallway leading to the living room, a place now brimming with people. Kiera was leaning on the side of the pool table, cue in hand, as an overtly homosexual male next to her lined up his shot. When Kiera saw them, she put the cue down and ran over. When she arrived, she hugged Skye and shook James' hand. "We're just having a bit of a party," Kiera explained over the music. "Really?" James shouted sarcastically. Both women smiled. "We've got drinks in the fridge and food on the barbecue outside," Kiera said, pointing to the kitchen and then the window behind the plasma television. Through that window, a well-lit patio and the grill on it could be seen. "Excellent," Skye said, and Kiera left to take her shot. Skye put her hands together and looked up at James with her best impression of doe-eyes. "Can you get me some food?" "Sure," James responded, eager for an excuse to head outside. Skye was already mingling before James made it out the door. There were only a few people loitering around in the backyard; as it was too cold to use the pool, all the action was inside. James followed his nose to the barbecue, placed a sausage and some cheese on a bun, and began saucing it. He made his way back into the house a short time later. It took him a while to locate Skye in the crowd of people, but he soon recognized her dark hair on the couch. Skye took the bun James had made her. "Thanks," she said, before turning back to her conversation with two girls that James had never seen before. Over the noise, James could just make out that they were talking about horses, so he made a beeline for the bathroom. James returned to the overpopulated lounge room a few minutes later. Skye was still talking to her new friends, leaving James wondering what he was going to do for the night. He could go to bed, but he figured that might be considered rude, and, in a strange turn of events, he didn't feel much like sleeping. He decided to go back outside. James ran his fingers through his dark hair as he looked out over the grass, past the tree-line, and up to the mountains. As he did this, a glint of light caught his eye. He squinted, and in the pale light, James was just able to make out a figure in the distance. It was a girl. She was wearing a white dress that was gently billowing in the cool breeze. On a whim, James decided to abandon his isolationist policy for the evening and join her. It wasn't that he felt like holing up in a room, he just didn't feel like talking to seven people at once whom he could barely hear over the sound system. This was a far better option. As he approached, he noticed that the woman was standing with her legs locked together. It wasn't hard to guess why; it was like the Arctic out there. He wondered what the woman was doing, standing down there in the cold, all alone. Wordlessly, James leaned his arms on the fence beside her. The woman looked at him as he stared out toward the mountains. He glanced at her and smiled. The first thing he noticed about the woman was that she had the cutest little nose ever, and that an attractive set of thick, black glasses sat upon its bridge. The second thing was that her hair was a very unusual color - a deep, dark green. James and the woman smiled at each other and then turned their attentions back toward the mountains. After a time, the woman spoke. "It's beautiful, isn't it?" Her soft voice spilled smoothly from between her lips, and its pitch rose and fell with each syllable. "It is." The woman smiled again. James breathed in the fresh air and, in doing so, also took in a heavenly, rich lavender scent of which the woman was no doubt the source. "I love the country," she went on. "So do I," James said. "I'll never get sick of this view, especially in the mornings." The woman angled her eyes toward James'. "Do you live here?" she asked in that deep, lilting voice of hers. "Yeah. I'm Kiera's room-mate." "Oh!" she said with a placid form of excitement. "You're so lucky." "To be living with Kiera, you mean?" "No, to be living here." A few moments passed, after which the woman tilted her head slightly, thinking. Then, her eyes widened. "I mean, you're lucky to be living with Kiera, too. Very lucky. To be living with Kiera. And here." James witnessed the woman's flustered attempt to recover from indirectly insulting the party's host with amusement. He thought it was cute as hell. The woman's sharp, friendly smile caught his attention. "How do you know Kiera?" James asked. "She's my friend. She goes to the same club as I do." James didn't peg the woman for a party person. "Oh." James heard disappointment in his voice, though he was not quite sure why. "You have a lovely house," the woman said, glancing at him again but not allowing her gaze to linger too long. "Thank you," James said sincerely. "I've spent a good chunk of the last few months making it look like this, and I'm proud of it." The woman shot him a coy smile. "Only to have Kiera come in and trash it, huh?" "I don't really mind," James laughed. "I'm James, by the way." He extended his hand to her. Gingerly, the woman took the hand offered to her. "Hi, James. I'm Kirsty." Both James and the woman looked at each other properly for the first time. Their eyes met for a moment, and at that moment, both felt something inside them; like the feeling of the sun on your face after a long, cold winter. They shook hands. Kirsty was the first to avert her eyes, though she still held her smile. She leaned against the fence, facing James. "So what are you doing out here all by yourself this evening?" "Bit too much noise in there," James said. He refused to meet her eyes as he spoke. "You?" Kirsty returned her arms to the fence. "I couldn't really tolerate the noise either. I've got a little too much on my mind at the moment. I was struggling a bit in there." James panicked slightly, debating whether he should ask what was wrong or whether doing so would be too presumptuous. He expertly resolved this internal conflict by stealing a look at the cleavage sitting inside the scoop of her white dress. "What's wrong?" James heard himself ask the woman. Kirsty looked at James as if she were surprised that he was interested. "I don't wanna bore you with it," she said languidly. James couldn't help think of Skye, who would have proceeded full-bore to extoll all of her troubles at the slightest cue. He smiled. "Try me." Kirsty sighed. "I'm worried about my exams this semester." "What do you do?" James asked, suddenly jumping at the chance to complain about Uni to someone - anyone - who would listen. "Nursing at the University of Sydney," Kirsty answered. "I'm very,veryunprepared for my upcoming exam. I'll pass, but it makes me wonder about what I'm doing there and whether or not I should continue to be." James was confused. Kirsty noticed. "I'll probably pass this test, but just barely," she elaborated, as James listened intently to each and every word formed by her soft, little voice. "But is that really good enough? I'll get half the questions wrong, which means that, in a hospital, I'll only know half of what I should on this subject, and I'll probably never know which half because they'll never give me my test paper back. It doesn't exactly inspire confidence in my nursing abilities." James sympathized. This was a long-standing fact of exams with which he had long taken umbrage. "I used to take history at Uni," James began. "Where?" "UWS," James reluctantly replied. The woman reached out and touched his arm. "I'm so sorry." A moment later, she laughed and excused her comment as a joke in case James didn't catch-on. James did. His mouth stretched to its limits in both directions from the resulting grin. "I have the same problem as you," James explained. "It seems to me that, if all the history students in a given year achieve a mark of fifty- percent in their classes (that is, they get it all half right), and those students then go on to teach history, and their students get it half right, you're essentially halving our knowledge of the past with each generation of students." Kirsty lifted her chin in the air, considering James' words. "Huh. I never thought of it that way." "What I did, personally, to prevent this from happening was to go and fill in the gaps in my knowledge myself. It was more work, but at least I wouldn't be teaching rubbish, if you know what I mean." "I do!" Kirsty said. "So," she began, tilting her head slightly in thought, "you're saying that I shouldn't really be worried because I'll always have a chance to learn it later?" James nodded. "It's only effective if you actuallydogo and learn it later, but, if you do, I wouldn't be worried." Kirsty actually felt much better after hearing James' ideas. It wasn't so much his solution that she liked, but rather, the fact that he listened to her. Really listened. "Thank you," she said. "That's actually helped me more than you might realize." She gave him a warm smile, and James felt that same feeling from earlier once again. "So you study history, huh?" Kirsty said, not pegging James for someone who would be interested in such things. She stole a glance at him as he began to answer. The soft, white light streaming from the brilliant orb above played across his chiseled features. He was undeniably attractive, in a masculine kind of way. "Yes. I 'study' history," James answered, making air quotes around the word 'study'. Kirsty smiled. She was getting the distinct impression that James was an unusual person but in an endearing kind of way. "Why do you say it like that?" "I've taken three units which dealt with World War II - in total, that's about one and a half years worth of study on the subject - and I still can't tell you when the whole thing started. After all that time and all that work, I haven't really learned much about the war at all." Kirsty grinned. "Well, maybe, if you're lucky, when you're at school, you can find a nice senior who can tutor you." James laughed. Kirsty liked the fact that she was responsible for him doing so. She instinctively drew her arms in close to herself and made herself appear small when she felt her stomach flutter. She felt herself becoming quite taken with the handsome, young man before her, and wanted nothing more than to keep talking with him. "I'm cold," Kirsty said, reaching down and rubbing her legs in a futile attempt to warm them. Curved forward, the woman was unwittingly giving James an excellent view of her cleavage. He swiftly averted her eyes as she rose. "Would you like to go in?" Casting her eyes toward the house and the chaos inside it, Kirsty sighed. "Yeah." The music grew louder as James and Kirsty crossed the yard back up to the house. The volume reached fever-pitch once they reached the door. James and the woman exchanged a sympathetic glance at each other as they pushed open the door and went inside. Skye noticed James' entry with the stunning, fair-skinned woman immediately. Without even a moment's hesitation, she moved to intercept. "Hi, baby," Skye said, entering James' arms. "Hey," James said tenderly as she tightened her grip around him. "I was looking for you," Skye said in a high-pitched voice, placing her head against his chest. "What were you up to all this time?" "I was having a nice conversation with my new friend here." James indicated the green-haired woman to his right, and then introduced her to Skye. After blatantly inspecting Kirsty from head to toe, Skye's eyes narrowed. "Oh." Skye's barely concealed hostility was not lost on Kirsty. James could see the woman instantly clam up. Kirsty wasn't aware that James was attached, not that it would have mattered. A few tense moments later, James noticed Kirsty's gaze fix intently on something behind him. He looked back to see what was holding her attention. It was a game of Pok?mon Heart Gold, being played on his massive television, in all its pixelated glory. Following her boyfriend and the woman's line of sight, Skye looked too. "Such a nerd," Skye admonished. "He played that for a month straight if I remember correctly," she said to Kirsty. She framed her words with condemnation. "I remember doing that back in the day." Kirsty's words were tinged with nostalgia. "You like Pok?mon?" James asked with surprise. He didn't know any women who liked the game. Well, not any who looked like Kirsty. "Yes," Kirsty said. "Very much. I used to play when I was little. I never stopped." James laughed. He'd done the same. "Yeah, well, I just think there's more to life than sitting in front of a computer," Skye said, just a hint of venom in her voice. "It's on Game Boy, actually," Kirsty corrected her. Skye looked furious. James couldn't help but smile. Even though Kirsty had managed to gain the upper-hand in what had turned into a bit of a verbal skirmish, she was starting to feel more than a little uncomfortable around Skye. She felt as though she were under attack. She crossed her legs and fidgeted nervously with her earring in response to her feeling of vulnerability. James felt like saying something to Skye, but he thought better of it lest it start something. Instead, he shot Kirsty an understanding smile, as Kiera came and told them that she was leaving to take people home. "Looks like I'm heading off," Kirsty said to James, attempting to ignore the fact that Skye was still eyeing her suspiciously. "It was nice meeting you, Kirsty," James said. "I hope to see you again sometime." He could feel Skye's head lift from his chest and stare upward. Kirsty adjusted the glasses slipping down the bridge of her nose. "I hope so, too." Ignoring yet another dark look from Skye, Kirsty turned on her heels toward the door. Her skirt flared as she did so. James watched the enchanting stranger glide up the hallway on her white stiletto heels and disappear through the front door. He then heard the characteristic sound of Kiera's car struggling to life, and the noise of its engine receding into the distance. ~o0o~ Forty minutes after Kiera had left, James' house was mercifully quiet. As James got ready for bed, Skye stood in front of her vanity mirror in the bathroom. She examined her face for any changes. She looked no different today than she did yesterday, but, somehow, she felt less attractive. Was James losing interest in her? This was the second time she had caught him in the presence of a beautiful woman without her in only a day, and she was quickly becoming concerned. Skye leaned into the mirror and applied a heavy layer of cherry red lipstick to her mouth. She then stripped stark naked, and strutted confidently out into the bedroom. I won't be losing my boyfriend to any random skank. ~o0o~ James stared up at the ceiling. He had done so for so long that, by now, he could close his eyes and recall, with astonishing accuracy, every minute detail of its textured surface. As a result, he figured it was time to cut his losses and get up. James could just hear the crickets above the soft sound of the drizzle blanketing the town of Kurrajong, as it slept, nestled amongst the trees and mountains, above the Sydney Basin. From the hook by the door, James removed an umbrella, unfurled it, and began to walk up the driveway. Several hours earlier, Skye had, out of the blue, laid beside him, utterly exposed, and said 'I'm yours.' And yet, James felt nothing. He pondered this as he passed through the gate. James, for reasons utterly unbeknownst to even him, had long identified as a 'romantic-asexual'; that is, someone who enjoys a loving relationship with another person but wanted nothing to do with the sex part. James didn't find this weird (he found people whowantedto have sex the weird ones) but the sight of Skye's naked, available body, coupled with his utter lack of interest for it, was starting to make him wonder what was really going through his head. For some reason, he couldn't even be bothered putting on a show tonight. He just kind of sat there, his disinterest apparent from a mile away, while Skye did her work, entirely oblivious to it. James accidentally brushed past a wet a pine tree just before he reached the end of the road. He opened his mouth to swear at it, before the fact that it was an inanimate object registered in his mind. He contemplated taking a right and walking back up to the lookout, but he didn't want to. Turning left, he decided to head toward the village instead. The rain increased in intensity along with his stride. As he walked, his mind took the liberty of casting itself back to Kiera's party, as well the woman he'd met during it. To James' surprise, he couldn't recall a single, other time in his life that he had felt the way he did talking to Kirsty all those hours ago. There was just something about her that seemed to agree with him. He wanted nothing more than to keep talking to her before she left. He was disappointed that he could not. James was more than a little annoyed at Skye for behaving the way she did in front of the woman. Skye was allowed to have all the male friends she wanted. She could talk to them and hang out with them for as long as she wanted, unescorted, whenever she wanted. She could even kiss them on the cheek goodbyewithout so much as a squeak of complaint. But, when James wanted someone to talk to when he felt a little lonely at a party, Skye couldn't stand it. That being said, James couldn't help but privately acknowledge that there might have been just a little something to her suspicion this time. Though he'd resolved to put the entire subject out of his mind an hour ago, James found himself unable to resist indulging in the memory of the brief time he had with Kirsty. He could hear her pleasing voice and see every expression on her striking face as clearly as he could as it happened; it was as if his brain has been set to 'record' upon meeting her. James wasn't sure at first what it was about her that made her the memory of her stay with him, but, as the hours had dragged on, he began to figure it out. It was her femininity. James couldn't remember the last time he saw Skye in a dress. Sure, she'd don the occasional skirt for Uni or work, but, as soon as she got home, it was back to the jeans and sweatpants. James didn't really have a problem with this. He was sure that Skye could name a thousand things that she didn't like about him. It wasn't an insult, more an observation. It wasn't just the dress that had made that woman feminine. He vividly recalled the elegant, flowing strides that carried her to the front door; the aurora of quiet modesty that the way she held herself conveyed; and the gentle curves of her hourglass figure as it molded the shape of her little dress. He liked it all. The woman also wasn't stick skinny. Kirsty wasn't fat by any stretch of the imagination, but she certainly wasn't about to die of starvation anytime soon. James liked that, too. James swatted a mosquito with a loud smack against his neck, and continued down the hill toward the pinpricks of light in the mist. The more he thought about it, the more he saw that Skye lacked some of these qualities. Skye, for some reason, always seemed to be in denial of the fact that she was a girl. She was competitive; she was loud; and she was a tomboy; but he had loved her for years regardless. While he wasn't the happiest he had ever been with her, and while their relationship was undoubtedly not what it once was, the last thing he wanted was to see her go. She deserved more than that, she was worth more than that, and things couldn't stay perfect forever. The ridiculous scream of several masked lapwings echoed in the distance, momentarily drawing James from his thoughts. James cast his mind back to the time that he and Skye had visited a psychic one of Skye's friends had recommended a few months ago. 'True love smolders, not burns' she had said to them, and, from his experience with Skye, James couldn't really find a way to disagree. Of course, the woman then went on to tell him that his dead uncle, Leonard, was alright and watching over him. James didn't have an Uncle Leonard. Skye might have had a slight cause for concern about Kirsty, James would admit. But she really didn't. James was attracted to the girl, yes. But he was still more than devoted to hisgirl. She should have known that by now. He was surprised that she didn't. ~o0o~ At the same time, down the mountain, over the Basin, in amongst the skyscrapers of Sydney, and inside an apartment, another soul stirred. Resigned to sleeplessness, Kirsty stood, feet together, in the kitchen, making a milkshake as she played an ancient copy of Pok?mon Yellow on her equally aged Game Boy Color. She brushed the crumbs from a cookie she had allowed herself earlier from her dark gray t-shirt. As Kirsty mixed her drink, Kiera emerged from the small hallway leading to the bedrooms, eyes half-closed. It took her a moment to notice Kirsty's presence. "Hey!" she said when she finally noticed her standing there. "Just getting some milk. Hope you don't mind." Kirsty sampled her concoction with the end of a straw. It was delicious. "Not at all." Kiera had decided to sleep at Kirsty's that night rather than drive all the way back up to Kurrajong only to come back for work in the morning. "Kiera," Kirsty began, after taking a hearty swig of her drink. Kiera removed a juice box from the fridge and kicked it closed with the heel of her foot. Then, she turned to face Kirsty. "What's up?" Kirsty witnessed Kiera's struggle to free her straw from its plastic prison. Kirsty took the straw and used her long nails to pierce it open for her. "What's James' deal?" she asked, handing the straw back to her. "Thanks, Kirs," Kiera said. "What do you mean?" Kirsty winced as she spoke. She already regretted her decision to start the conversation. "Well, what do you know about him?" "Ah, I've known him for a while now," Kiera said. "Been mates since we met in class for some ridiculous group project at Uni and both found out that we were looking to get our own place. He was very different then. Much shyer and withdrawn, if you can believe it. Parents died not too long before. Left him pretty shaken up." "Oh," Kirsty responded flatly, leaning her hip against the counter and absentmindedly stirring her drink. This was not exactly the kind of information she wanted to hear. "He's pretty well-off from the inheritance," Kiera added. "I don't really pay any rent to live at the house. I think he just likes the company." "Really?" Kirsty said, a smile forming on her face.Very strange person,she thought. "Oh and, according to Chad and Ben, he's gorgeous, though I don't really see it." Kirsty's smile widened even further. "I wonder why?" "Yeah." Satisfied that she had answered Kirsty's question, Kiera turned to leave, but Kirsty stopped her. "Kiera..." she continued. "What about Skye? What's her deal?" Kirsty could see Kiera's face light up at the utterance of the woman's name. "She's been with James since I met him." Kirsty mumbled her next words. "Is it serious?" "What?" Kiera asked, genuinely not catching Kirsty's question. Kirsty thought for a moment before responding. "Never mind," she said. Kirsty bid Kiera goodnight, then. She turned off the light, and, a few minutes later, decided to give sleep another shot. Chapter 3 Skye sandwiched her face between her palms. "Watch out!" she cried, just before James raised the nose of the tiny helicopter, averting a horrific, miniature collision with the TV antenna. As Skye clutched her heart, James smiled. "I'm gonna see what the range is like." Manipulating the control expertly, James guided the helicopter across the lawn, over the pine trees, and toward the mountains. As the helicopter grew smaller and smaller, James noticed that the mountains were particularly clear this morning, almost free of the blue haze which usually obscured them. They always looked like that after a good drenching such the one they'd gotten last night. Their features vivid and clear, the Blue Mountains were quite a sight. Despite having only gotten a couple of hours sleep since returning from his walk last night, James felt alert. Closing his eyes, he took in the moist, warm air of the morning, breathing as much as he could in. Then, he opened his eyes, and almost dropped the controller as he mashed its buttons to avoid a collision with a distant windmill. "I think you'd better bring her back now," Skye said, sliding her arms around James' elbow and pulling him to her. The helicopter was now little more than a speck in the distance, and so James agreed. He turned the toy around. Skye checked her watch. Nick would be arriving shortly to pick her up. While James wasn't particularly happy about her spending the day hanging out with the guy, he was glad to have been spared having to spend half the day taking her home. Today, he wanted to get some writing done. With Skye gone and Kiera not around to disturb the solitude, all the pieces were in place for James to have a productive day. James landed the helicopter, just as the rhythmic sound of a thunderous bassline grew louder and louder in the driveway. Eventually, the source of the noise settled at the base of that driveway, and then quieted. Nick had arrived. A few minutes later, James found himself leaning against the guy's ute, talking to his girlfriend as she strapped herself into the passenger seat. For a moment there, James could have sworn that Nick was staring at Skye's breasts, but then he realized that he was just reading the writing on her shirt. It was at that moment that James came up with an excellent theory explaining how those kinds of shirts came to be invented. "Take good care of her, mate," James said to Nick, acknowledging in his mind how bizarre those words were in that situation. "Will do, bro," Nick replied in the unpleasant, nasally voice typical of some of the lesser residents of Western Sydney. The guy then started his car, and James was almost knocked back by the sudden boom from the speakers. James then watched his girlfriend and her male friend - who did not think of her at all in that way - drive away. James allowed himself just one, quick pang of anxiety as he watched the two of them pull out of the drive. Then, he walked inside, started his laptop, and contemplated whether or not he should have a shower while he waited for it to boot. He decided against the shower, and instead used the time to make himself a sandwich. As he did, his mind drifted back to Skye and Nick. He could objectively say that he was better looking than the guy, so he wasn't worried about that, but Nick seemed more suited to Skye's personality. He was sociable, outgoing, and liked to scream a lot with his shirt off. He was a normal twenty-four-year-old guy, as opposed to James, who, by all accounts, wasn't. Pushing these thoughts to the back of his mind, James took a bite of his sandwich, opened his word processor, and began to write. It wasn't until much later in the afternoon that a disturbance came in the form of Kiera, who arrived home from work. As soon as Kiera stomped into the kitchen and saw James hunched over his laptop, she spoke. "Have you been through those new fucking traffic lights in Riverstone recently? I was waiting in line for thirty minutes this arvo, inching my way toward them." "I like them," James replied, not looking up from the screen. "They give me an opportunity to do my taxes." "It's ridiculous," Kiera continued, putting her stuff down. "Why did they even need lights there? It was perfectly okay as it was." "I think the council saw that people could easily come and go," James theorized, "and decided to damn well do something about it." Kiera chuckled, just before she raised a milk carton to her lips, and began to chug the contents. After placing it back into the refrigerator, the woman promptly stripped to her underwear, sat down in the chair opposite James with her legs open, and leaned back, exhausted. It was a common sight on a hot day. James glanced at his room-mate and cleared his throat. "That was a great party last night." "That seems to be the consensus," Kiera said, eyes still firmly shut. James glanced at her again, then spoke into his computer screen. "Your friend Kirsty seems nice." "Yeah. I got the impression that she really liked you, too." Kiera's voice, James noticed, contained a trace of amusement. "What makes you say that?" James enquired. Kiera placed her hands behind her head and exhaled. "You know she's a guy, right?" James sensed a joke. "Yes, Kiera. And I am the King of France. Please vacate my throne." "Believe what you will," Kiera said. Beats passed, after which James stood. "You're kidding right?" "No," Kiera replied. "Get out." Kiera looked at James. James looked at Kiera. "She's a guy," Kiera explained slowly. "She has a penis. She's a man. What do want me to tell you?" James studied Kiera's face. He expected her to burst out laughing at any second, tell him that he's a moron, and then leave, but she did not. James started pacing about the thin strip of kitchen. He leaned on the windowsill after a few moments and looked out toward the driveway and the garden in its center. His mouth was agape. He shook his head. "She had breasts..." Kiera smiled. "It's amazing what a roll of tape and ten minutes can do." "What about her voice?" James went on, incredulous. The corner of Kiera's upper lip curled upward. "Some of my other trans friends sound even better than she does." James pushed off the sill. "And her face?" "Makeup." "Her walk?" "Practice." "Her dress?" "Target." "Her hips?" Kiera thought for a moment on that one. "You'd have to ask her." James moved back toward his chair and slumped into it, defeated. "If she's a guy, then why are we using female pronouns?" "It's just easier," Kiera said as if all of this was perfectly normal; like they were discussing the blueness of the sky. James pondered her answer for a time. "Alright. So, what? She's a man who wants to be a woman?" "I'm not sure actually," Kiera said, cocking her head to the side. "She isn't transgendered as far as I know, but she spends way, way more time as a woman than as a man. I can't even remember the last time I saw her as a man, come to think of it. She's at the club most Saturdays if you feel like taking a drive. You could ask her about all this yourself." "No, I'm good," James mumbled, closing the lid of his computer and staring at the wall behind it. The conflicts raging inside his mind were overwhelming, and more than a little surprising. He contemplated going for another walk. He eventually did, but, before he left, he asked Kiera one last question. "Does Skye know about this?" Kiera put her feet up on James' now empty chair and assumed something that resembled a sleeping position. "Sure does." ~o0o~ So Kirsty was a man, James thought. James was much more well-versed in matters of sexual strangeness (and general strangeness) than your average young, adult male. But, he couldn't help feel a little put off by Kirsty now. He thought back to the sight of her flowing, emerald hair. He realized it was most likely a wig now. Fake. Artificial. James wasn't disgusted by Kirsty by any stretch of the imagination. Rather, he was more disappointed. He was attracted to her - he could admit that much to himself - but this new information changed that, and he was, in all honesty, sorry that that was the case. Skye's face flashed through James' mind, but his thoughts continued. James was attracted to a man. James wasveryattracted to a man. He contemplated this fact for a moment. He'd heard of men doing similar and promptly throwing up, after thoroughly questioning their sexuality. James was too tired for such theatrics. He knew he wasn't gay (he'd been through this a couple of times before) and while, yes, he was attracted to Kirsty, she was in no way a man from his perspective at the time. James wasn't lying when he said that hoped he would see Kirsty again, and, in spite of Kiera's revelation, this was still true. But things were different now. If he did meet Kirsty again, James told himself, he would make an effort to become friends. He had enjoyed hanging out with her the previous night, more than he had enjoyed hanging out with anyone in a long time. Kirsty was fun, nice to talk to, and liked Pok?mon. She had much potential. ~o0o~ The week went by like a whirlwind as James and Skye prepared to jet off to the tropics. There was much planning and packing to be done, and to her credit, Skye had done most of it, brimming with excitement the entire time. James had high hopes for this trip. He hoped that it would inject some much-needed freshness into his relationship. Sitting on a secluded beach, sipping margaritas and watching the sunset with Skye in his arms was surely bound to make sparks fly. "Which ones?" Skye asked James, holding up two bikinis for comparison. James weighed up his options, eventually settling on the blue set, which Skye promptly threw into her suitcase on top of the bed. Skye then closed the suitcase and instructed James to place it on top of the pile of other ones she planned to take with her. James, in contrast, had managed to fit all he needed for his two-week stay into one large trunk; it was like the TARDIS in suitcase form. "God, I'm looking forward to snorkeling," Skye said, eyeing the pamphlets she'd picked up, unnecessarily, from Flight Centre that afternoon. "They provide the equipment, and you go in a group out onto the reef in a little boat." This was just one of many activities Skye had planned which would force James to talk to strangers, but his excitement made it feel more than worth it. Skye approached James and wrapped her arms around his waist. "I'm gonna miss this place," she sighed. "I wouldn't worry, babe," James said, surprised at her sentiment. "We'll be back in no time." "I'm gonna miss all my friends." James was taken aback by Skye's words. He never thought she would be one to get homesick. "I'm gonna miss Michelle," she rhapsodized musically. "And I'll miss Nick, too." James' heart skipped a beat. "I bet you will," James mumbled under his breath. He pulled away from her with a smile. "What's that supposed to mean?" Skye asked. When James got a look at the expression on Skye's face, he was almost blown backward. "What did you mean, James?" Skye demanded, advancing somewhat menacingly toward him. "What are you trying to imply?" "It was a joke," James stated honestly. "What kind of joke is that?" Skye continued. Her voice was more than a few decibels louder than James liked. James' heart was racing. He had meant nothing by his remark, but it was only now that he realized just how tough it would be to convince Skye of that. "One that I never should have made," James responded, his words laced with regret. "I'm sorry, Skye." James' apology did nothing to diffuse the situation. Skye's temper reached even greater heights. She began yelling. "I catch you talking to some slut on the birthdaythat I planned for youandyouhave the gall to make accusations againstme?" Skye roared. "Then I catch you talking to some fucking bimbo the next day all the way down the back just a day later! Well, the joke's on you, buddy. That bitch had a dick. Yeah, that's right. That bitch was a man, and there you were, drooling all over her." James sat on the bed. He started shaking with anger. Her hypocrisy was no longer excusable. He spoke quietly but with force. "You hang out with this guy, at his house, alone, all the time. I say nothing. A woman briefly wanders into my line of sight. You flip out.What the hell is wrong with this picture?" "He's my friend!" Skye exploded. "What do you want me to do then? Have no friends? Will that please you?" "No," James responded, still in a state of barely controlled composure. "What would please me is if you didn't make my female friends feel like they'll be assassinated at any moment when they and I are trying to have a conversation." "What the friggin' hell are you talking about?" Skye bellowed. James stood up and began explaining things with his hands. "When I was talking to Kirsty on Sunday, you spotted it and moved toward her like a hawk that had spotted its prey. You treated her like dirt. The message to her was clear: shove off or I'll rip your eyes out." "Why are you saying 'her'?" Skye shouted. James' eyes narrowed. "That is completely irrelevant." "The situation is totally different!" Skye yelled, now flailing in anger. "And how would that be?" Sarcasm dripped from James' voice. Skye's eyes darted from side to side as if she were searching for an answer. "Because she's not your friend!" she eventually blurted out. "But she might have been," James said with finality, crossing his arms and moving to the other side of the room. The bed now separated the couple down the middle of that room. "And you would have wanted to have been friends with that...thing?" Skye questioned poisonously. "Maybe," James replied. "I guess I'll never know, will I?" Skye noticed that James' cool demeanor was rapidly fading. He usually relented to her immediately when she was angry. Skye was used to getting an apology, praise, and a box of chocolates after an outburst of fury such as this. Now, however, she could see that none of those things were forthcoming. James was not giving up; if anything, he was getting angrier. In response, Skye decided to take a different tack. She sat on the bed, hugged her legs, and began to cry. James contemplated saying he was sorry and trying to make it up to her, but he didn't. He didn't want to. She was being selfish, and she was being cruel to somebody who had done nothing to deserve it. She had managed to cross more than a few lines tonight. James opened the bedroom door and left without a word. Chapter 4 "Turn onto... Westlink M7," the dash-mounted GPS in James' Jeep stated robotically before he made the turn onto the highway. It wasn't long before he was making his way off the exit ramp onto the streets of the Sydney CBD and spotted the car-park. James slammed his door shut in that car-park and made a break for the stairwell, in a futile attempt to evade the thousands of tiny rain drops pelting down upon him. As he emerged from the complex, he spotted a blue neon sign displaying a name of shameless unoriginality: 'Venue'. James moved toward the sign at a leopard's pace and sated the two bouncers stationed at the entrance to the gay bar underneath it with a wave of his ID. Flashing lights of every color splashed onto James' face as he walked inside. He pushed his way through the mash of thrashing, half-naked bodies as the music blared, and found a clearing shortly thereafter. He leaned on a railing overlooking the dance floor and searched the area with his eyes in the vain hope of spotting Kiera. He gave up after a few minutes; the possibilities were too many. He decided to grab a drink from the bar and try again in a few minutes. "Just a glass of orange juice, please," James said to the effeminate bartender, thrusting a five dollar note at him. "Slow down there, James," a familiar voice sounded from behind him. He felt a gentle hand on his shoulder and an unexpected flutter in his stomach. He turned around, and his eyes became momentarily overwhelmed by a flash of green light. When his vision adjusted, he recognized the person behind him. It was Kirsty. James couldn't help but smile at seeing the pretty, beaming face beneath her bright, emerald hair. "Hi!" she said with a perky, little bounce. "What are you doing here??" She bubbled with excitement. James returned a listless greeting. "What's wrong?" she asked over the noise, closing the space between them so that she could hear him better. James didn't reply. He felt compelled to tell her, but was not sure if he should. "Come on," she said, taking his wrist with one hand and pushing up her glasses with the other. She leaned in closer to him so that her voice could be heard. "It's a bit loud up here. I'll take you somewhere we can talk." After James had received his drink, Kirsty escorted him down into an outside area with a pool. Rain poured into it, and James and Kirsty watched the dancing surface of the water for a time underneath a nearby shelter. The music of the club was distant here, easily overcome by the gentle sound of rain striking the metal above. "So," Kirsty said, sitting beside James and crossing her legs inside the simple, cream-colored dress that hugged her body, "what's wrong?" James thought for a moment. He wasn't really sure that he should be relaying the details of his personal life to someone whom he didn't really know, but there was something about the woman's warm smile and the subtle tilt of her head that made him want to tell her everything, up to and including his bank details. James spoke slowly. "I had a fight with Skye." Kirsty wasn't sure if she should be prying, but James' downturned expression made an appeal to her nurturing instincts that was too powerful to resist. "I'm sorry," she said to the floor. "Was it bad?" "It's definitely not the worst fight we've ever had," James explained. "But it's the first one I've ever walked out of." "Why is that?" Kirsty enquired tentatively, attempting to tread the fine line between prying and lending a helpful ear. "I just don't think it's right that Skye can have all the male friends she wants but I can't even so much as look in another woman's direction without getting into severe trouble." Kirsty's stomach dropped. Was this about her? "A woman comes up to me in a bar and tries to make conversation," James began. "I personally thought I couldn't have come off as any less interested, but, apparently, I must have done the equivalent of getting down on one knee. Incredible, given the fact that I barely said anything to the woman at all." So it wasn't about her. Kirsty was relieved, but she couldn't help feel a very tiny, almost imperceptible tinge of disappointment. She continued listening to him as he spoke. He was very eloquent. She shook her head lightly after realizing she had gotten a little lost in the way he articulated his every word. It was very sophisticated; very attractive. When James had stopped talking, Kirsty wondered what advice she should be giving here, and if she should give any at all. Additionally, she was debating whether or not she should be defending Skye if she did decide to offer some counsel. Skye wasn't nice, but James was, and he must see something in her. He seemed happy, too, when she came into his arms at the party, if not a little uncomfortable, but that could have simply been this apparent shyness of his that Kiera alluded to later that night. "James, I can't really blame Skye. She doesn't want to see her man with another girl. If I was her," Kirsty started as James looked at her with a smile. "I wouldn't like seeing you with someone else, talking at a bar." Kirsty spoke slowly, choosing her words carefully. James put his head in his hands and stared at his reflection in a small puddle of water near his feet. "That being said," Kirsty continued, "I'd believe you if you said that it was innocent. You didn't approach her. You didn't even talk to her. I'm not sure what more Skye expected, other than having you, say, backhand the woman as soon as she made a sound in your general direction." It took James a few minutes to speak, but Kirsty waited patiently and without complaint. "That's more or less what I said to her," James finally said. "But it didn't end up making a difference. There was much screaming." Kirsty couldn't help but smile as she watched James stare dejectedly at the ground. She was impressed by Skye's mettle. If Kirsty were Skye, she knew that it was doubtful she could manage to put up such resistance in the face of this guy's gorgeous, innocent-looking face and those broad shoulders. Maybe that's what time does to a relationship, she theorized, not really having any experience herself to say for certain. "I don't know what I'm going to do," James said quietly. "Hey," Kirsty cooed maternally, bravely reaching for his chest and pushing him up so she could see his eyes. "It'll be alright. Just give her some time to cool off and think about it. Trust me when I say that it won't take her long to realize that she was being unreasonable." She gave James a warm smile as he took in her words. "I know. I just kinda want the feeling in my stomach at the moment to go away." Kirsty gave James another sympathetic smile as he turned his head back down. She wanted to say more, but her sense of empathy gave her the strong impression that James would benefit more from the quiet. It was up to him to speak. James soon did something shortly thereafter that took both Kirsty, and himself, somewhat aback. "Thank you, Kirsty," he said, and he hugged her with one arm around her shoulders. A wave of serenity came over Kirsty during the seconds she found herself within James' embrace. Kirsty smiled sadly when James pulled away. She couldn't help but feel as though she had been given a taste of something great, knowing that she would never be able to have it again. "Anytime," Kirsty said, sneaking a glance into his eyes. James looked around as if realizing something. "I suppose I'd better be off," he said with his eyes closed. Kirsty made a sound which conveyed her dismay. "Why so soon?" she protested. "You just got here!" "I don't wanna just show up out of nowhere and ruin your night with my troubles." James paused and looked quizzical. "Well, ruin your night any more than I have, anyway." "Don't be ridiculous!" Kirsty exclaimed. "You're not ruining my night at all. I'm glad you came." Her voice softened toward the end of her sentence. Kirsty ran her eyes over James' angular features. His face was exquisite, but not overly masculine. The way James held himself, though, more than made up for it. While Kirsty was making her observations, James was making some of his own. There was nothing about Kirsty that betrayed her true gender; even the roundness of her face screamed 'woman.' He returned to his original assumption that Kiera was a liar. He wanted to ask Kirsty about it, ask her what the truth really was, but he wasn't sure how to go about doing so. 'So Kiera tells me you're a dude' probably wasn't the best segue, and, in the absence of a way to phrase the question that wouldn't get him kicked in the head if his roommate was having him on, he decided to drop the matter entirely. It wasn't until fifteen minutes later, after James and Kirsty returned to the indoor area of the club, that a more tactful method of bringing up the subject popped into his head. "So what's a girl like you doing in a bar like this?" James asked Kirsty as she handed him a packet of potato chips she had purchased specially for him. Kirsty's face visibly fell. She knew that the topic would eventually be raised, but, until this moment, she had held onto the irrational hope that she could avoid it. "It doesn't matter," James quickly said after noticing her distress at being asked the question. "No," she said. She looked up directly into James' eyes, and shuffled her feet awkwardly. "Can we sit down first?" Kirsty led James to a small booth in the restaurant area of the club. Kirsty put her purse and drink on the table as James made himself comfortable on the red, cushioned seats. Kirsty swallowed, preparing her answer. James noticed that she was sweating. "I already know," James said carefully, her reaction rendering a response from her moot. He could see her trying to find the best way of saying what she needed to say. He could also see that she was failing, and the pained look on her face which resulted told him that it was making her upset. Kirsty looked as though someone had just told her that her recent lottery win was a mistake. "How??" she cried in a high-pitched voice, loud enough to give James a start but not quite loud enough to disturb any of the other patrons around them. "Kiera told me," James responded, a move which he instantly regretted as he witnessed Kirsty's eyes narrow. "I'm guessing she shouldn't have done that?" James asked urgently, worried that he'd gotten his friend into trouble. He backed ever so slightly away. Kirsty's angry expression turned to melancholy at his words. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you," she said, fidgeting with the straps of her purse. "Hey," James said, placing his hand upon hers on the table. Kirsty looked at that hand, almost as if she couldn't believe it was there. She savored its warmth, before raising her eyes to meet his. Before James continued, Kirsty noticed that there wasn't hatred or confusion in his eyes like she had expected. Instead, she found friendliness and understanding there; she even noticed the hint of a cheeky smile forming on his face. "It's alright. I understand," he said with great kindness. The quizzical look returned to his face. "Well, I don't understand. But apparently I don't understand humanity in general, so..." Kirsty smiled in spite of the tears welling in her eyes. Her heart was calming, and her anxiety was fading in light of James' compassionate display. "I would have told you," Kirsty said shakily, taking a quick sip of her drink. Her eyes followed James' withdrawing hand as he took it back from hers. "Does it matter?" James asked, moving to take a swig of a drink he soon realized he did not have. Kirsty cocked her head. She wasn't used to this not being a big deal. "What do you mean?" she asked timidly. "How does the fact that you aren't a woman affect our friendship?" James continued, putting his arms on the table and leaning in toward her to maintain the privacy of their conversation. Kirsty put on a closed-mouthed smile. "I guess it doesn't," she answered, deciding to swallow what she really wanted to say. "So, you really don't mind?" Kirsty asked James hopefully, holding his gaze. "Not at all," James replied, leaning back and assuming a rather amusing philosophical posture. "I think that if you can look like that, then by all means do so! You're doing the world a service." Kirsty laughed a thin, feminine laugh and swallowed the last few drops of liquid remaining in her cup. Her anxiety was gone. James could see that this was the case; her entire posture had returned to its regular, loose appearance. "I just have one question," James said, returning his arms to the table. "Oh, my God!" Kirsty said suddenly, putting her hands up to her mouth. She looked at the space in front of James. "I forgot to get you a drink!" "And I only just now forgave you for that," James responded, exhaling and leaning back. Kirsty smiled, told James to hold his question, and strode over to the bar. Once again, James observed the same graceful, feminine walk he had noticed the previous Sunday at his house. He noticed that Kirsty moved like she was constantly trying to walk a straight line, with one of her feet always crossing over the other upon each step. It didn't look like she even thought about it; the movement looked completely unconscious. He couldn't help but take note of the way that her short dress bounced when her heels contacted the ground, threatening to reveal, for a just a millisecond, what was underneath. He shook his head and thought about something else. When Kirsty returned, she stood in front of him with her feet together and delivered his drink by extending it to him in both of her delicate hands. She sat down and tossed her hair out of her face in one, sexy movement. James was unable to contain his grin. "So, what were you saying?" Kirsty asked. James wasn't sure if he wanted to ask his original question anymore. He was in uncharted emotional territory at the moment, and his uncanny knack for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time gave him pause. He decided to revise a bit. Before he could ask his new question, however, Kirsty interrupted yet again, this time with a small, high-pitched sneeze. James thought it was the cutest thing he had ever seen. "Sorry," she said, reaching into her purse for a tissue. "My nose has been irritated all evening." James' mouth formed a wry smile. "What did you say to it?" Kirsty pursed her lips in good humor. "What's your question?" James put his cup to his mouth, and, before drinking, asked: "Is that your real hair color?" Kirsty laughed, but she had secretly hoped that James' question was a bit more substantial. "No," she answered. "It's a synthetic wig that I've had for years. I have other wigs that probably would look better, but my favorite color is green, so I'm partial to it." "It looks awesome," James said warmly. Kirsty averted her eyes from James' gaze shyly in response to his compliment. She fluttered her eyes, and, without meeting his, said: "Is that all you wanted to ask?" "No," James said. Kirsty raised her brows in a friendly bid for him to continue. "Forgive me, Kirsty, if this is rude," James began, shifting uncomfortably in his seat. "But, why?" "Why?" Kirsty repeated, confused. "Why do you appear this way? Are you transgendered, or...?" Kirsty placed both of her arms close together on the table. "I'm not sure yet." She contemplated whether or not to tell him more. She wanted to be truthful, but she didn't want him to think she was a freak either. Eventually, truth won the struggle in her mind. "Sometimes I feel like being a man, other times I feel like being a woman." Kirsty held her head down, apprehensive about looking directly at him. While she was hopeful, a small part of her feared that James might be a little too normal to understand. To her surprise, James simply smiled. "So why does everyone call you Kirsty?" he asked. "I'm not really a guy very often anymore, especially around here," Kirsty admitted. "I guess everyone figures it's simpler to call me by my girl-name." "Your girl-name?" "Yes." "As opposed to?" "My guy-name." "Which is?" James' wry smile returned, but Kirsty looked uncomfortable. "You don't have to say," James laughed. "It's Kurt," Kirsty said apprehensively. James couldn't believe it. "I can't imagine you being called Kurt," James blurted, attempting to keep his voice as jovial-sounding as possible. "But at least it isn't Richard," he remarked with a very wide grin. "That could get weird." Kirsty smiled momentarily and looked guiltily back toward the table. James took in the sight of her shiny, green hair and the smell of her rich perfume as she did. "So, um, are you gay or straight or...?" James probed. James' enquiries were making Kirsty feel a little distressed, but the friendly and respectful tone in which he addressed her did much to put her at ease. "I guess it depends," she said, taking a brief glance at her companion. "Sometimes I'm gay; sometimes I'm straight. I suppose it depends on whether I'm wearing pants or a dress at the time." James watched Kirsty as she drew imaginary patterns on the table with her long, slender index finger. He wondered why she appeared so nervous. Surely she'd had this conversation many times before. "Why do you feel like being a woman sometimes and not others?" James enquired, unable to come up with any explanation himself. Kirsty thought for quite some time before answering. "Sometimes I don't mind talking like a man and dressing as a man. Other times, though, I have this overwhelming feeling that it's wrong. I guess it's kind of like when it's very humid; when you're so sweaty and sticky that you don't feel comfortable being in your own skin. That's how being a man feels to me sometimes. Other times, the feeling is even worse, to the point that I feel so claustrophobic in my male body that I just feel this need to get out. It's not a fun thing. It actually kind of sucks." "But it's not all the time, though?" James asked with a hopeful tone that he did not intend. "No," Kirsty said as she fidgeted with her hands. "So you're not transgendered?" James persisted. "I guess not," Kirsty replied. "Oh." James reacted to her answer in an unusual way. He felt somewhat dismayed. Kirsty noticed; she could see it upon his face. James stared at Kirsty during the brief moment of silence which followed. She looked so small and fragile sitting with her elbows together on the table and her face in her hands. James thought that if he saw her as a man, he would swear that she was in drag. She gave him a somber smile. "How did your exam go?" James asked. "Horribly. Just as I'd anticipated," Kirsty replied simply. The two of them giggled. "But are you okay?" James asked softly, in his sonorous voice. Kirsty nodded in reply. James found himself becoming quite taken with Kirsty's demure personality. She would have been very attractive if she were a woman. "What about you?" Kirsty enquired tenderly. "Are you okay now?" James nodded his head. Truth be told, during his conversation with Kirsty, he'd nearly forgotten about Skye altogether. "I guess I'd really better get going this time." James looked sadly toward the exit of the club. "Come on," Kirsty said. "I'll walk you out." James and Kirsty stood, a few minutes later, in front of the Venue sign, bathed in the brilliant, blue light as James planned his escape route through the downpour. When he was done, James wasn't sure whether or not he should hug Kirsty or shake her hand. Kirsty soon solved this conundrum by opening her arms wide and moving closer to him. She held him there, just a bit longer than she should have, and then let go. "Goodbye, Kirsty," James said with just a hint of somberness. "Goodbye, James," Kirsty said wistfully. "Good luck with Skye." James smiled, and with that, Kirsty watched her new friend as he ran off across the road and into the distance. Chapter 5 Thousands of kilometers away and only a few days later, a great splash occurred in the crystal clear water contained by the walls of a large pool outside of a paradisal resort on Fiji's Coral Coast. Laiken howled with laughter as James grouchily wiped his hair from his face after taking the brunt of the water which was displaced by Laiken's dive-bomb. "Oh, stop being such a grump," Laiken exclaimed at James' surly expression. "A grump?" he repeated. "Yes, a grump. Stop grumping at everyone." James smiled. "What's wrong?" Laiken asked, softening her voice and coming toward him. "You mean aside from you using the word 'grump' as a verb?" James deflected. Laiken ignored him. "You've been out of sorts since before we boarded the plane. Don't think I haven't noticed." James checked his left and right in a suspicious manner and advanced closer to Laiken. He then neared his mouth toward her ear. Laiken readied herself to receive privileged information. James opened his mouth to speak. He then forced his hand from below the water and up toward the surface, launching a torrent of water in the direction of the deathly-pale redhead's face. Laiken stood there, snap-frozen from surprise, and gave James daggers as the water dripped from her face. "But just keep this between us, alright," James whispered as he moved away through the water. Laiken didn't press the matter. She could see that something was up between James and Skye, though James was the only one who seemed to let it affect him in any noticeable way. It was sunset by the time Skye returned from talking to the trendy- looking American couple with whom she had made fast friends on the plane ride over. James walked over to her with an air of determination, took her by the arm and led her gently down to the beach, away from the other tourists who had crowded the pool in an attempt to watch the sunset in luxury. James and Skye felt the change from grass to sand on their feet as they made their way out onto an empty beach in the twilight. James sat down and bid Skye to join him. Skye's auburn hair took on an ethereal, red glow in the light from the sun beginning its descent behind the tall mountains on the other side of the bay. "It's beautiful," Skye said, rather than let the fact stand on its own. "It is," James responded. "I'm sorry about the other day," she said suddenly. James smiled and continued to stare out into the ocean. "It's okay." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, rectangular cardboard box with a little string bow on the top. "So am I." Skye tore the packaging from her gift to reveal a brooch made from many pearls strung together on a silver band. Skye leaped in the air a millisecond after she saw it, examined it quickly, and pushed James' shoulders down to the sand, where she gave him a kiss with a level of genuine passion that James had not experienced from her in some time. "Thank you so much, baby!" she said, jerking into the air again. Once she had stopped carrying on, Skye sat down and took her place beside James once again. "We missed the sunset," James observed. "Oh. Sorry, baby," Skye said in a childlike voice. "I'm sorry. But can you blame me?" She held up the brooch in front of James' face. "I guess not," James said as he placed his hands on her hips. James had purchased the jewelry only a few hours after they arrived on the island. He wanted to apologize. Kirsty was right; Skye was feeling insecure. She didn't want to see him with another woman and got defensive. Yes, she had been mean to Kirsty, and she had accused James of doing things that he didn't do, but he had managed to convince himself that Skye's actions originated solely from one simple fact: she loved him. He kissed her, and she made a purring noise. She was beautiful. Her face was more incredible than any sunset, he told himself, and he wasn't lying. For the first time, James had enjoyed being in a place a long way from home. James was the kind of guy, by his own admission, who didn't particularly like going down to the shop, let alone out of the country, but, after his exchange with this beautiful woman, in front of the sunset, on an idyllic beach which bordered a crystal clear ocean, he felt different. James laid down in the sand and pulled Skye down with him. He felt the cool breeze and the warmth of Skye's bare skin below her bikini top against his body, as well as the lapping water against his feet from the rising tide. For the first time in what he realized had been many months, James found himself agreeing with the slogan of a certain popular consumer electronics manufacturer. Life's good. ~o0o~ Kirsty looked at herself in her rear-view mirror as she patted down a few stray strands of her hair, only narrowly avoiding a collision with an oncoming vehicle a few seconds later due to her negligence of the road in front of her. The other driver beeped his horn in quick succession, and Kirsty couldn't blame him. She mumbled an apology to the windscreen. She held her stomach, suppressing the butterflies inside. Her lime-colored Beetle gleamed momentarily in the sunlight as it pulled into the driveway on top of the hill on Willow Glen road. She shut off the engine, checked her makeup and hair once again, slung her purse over her shoulder, and emerged from the vehicle. Kiera wanted me to drop these things off for her, Kirsty recited in her head as she approached the door holding several pink envelopes. She had questions to ask him. Questions that she would never ask him but ones that she would try and get answers to nonetheless. Why did you seem so disappointed that I wasn't transgendered? was just one of many such questions that she had pondered since the moment he left the club that night. All that Kirsty hoped was that she wasn't there. Kirsty thought back over her brief, single meeting with Skye, to assure herself that Skye was, indeed, the one who instigated the animosity between them and that she herself wasn't being catty for no reason. She flattened out the creases in her pink singlet, took a deep breath, and knocked. The door opened, revealing Kiera standing in the doorway. "Hi, Kiera. Is James here?" Kirsty blurted, completing derailing from her script. "Hey, Kirsty!" Kiera exclaimed, both excited and surprised to see her friend all the way from Sydney. She stood there smiling. She had seemingly forgotten Kirsty's question. Kirsty tipped her head forward to bid she answer that question. "Ah!" Kiera said, realizing her mistake. "James isn't here at the moment. I'd say you're welcome to wait for him, but I'm afraid you'll be waiting a while." "Why is that?" Kirsty asked in a thin, jittery voice. Her anxiety was increasing. She didn't expect to see Kiera, and she would have preferred that Kiera did not know she was here. But, she assured herself that there was nothing unscrupulous about her visit. She was just there to see a friend. "James is in Fiji," Kiera responded. "He's in Fiji??" Kirsty repeated in disbelief. "Yep. Left Monday. Won't be back for a week and a half now." Kiera noticed Kirsty's dejected expression. "Why do you want to see him?" she asked innocently. Kirsty raced through a reply. "I just thought I'd visit. See how he is. He was a little down on Friday and came to the club looking for someone to talk to." "He would have been looking for a while," Kiera remarked, referring to the fact that she was not actually at the club on the night in question. Kirsty smiled briefly. "Would you like to come inside?" Kiera asked. After Kirsty responded in the positive and handed her the envelopes she had brought, the two of them continued their conversation out of the heat of the day inside the cool, air-conditioned living room where Kiera's party had taken place many days ago. Kiera's cordiality and generosity in fetching her a cup of water made Kirsty almost want to forget her annoyance with her friend. Almost. "Kiera," Kirsty began with a cheerful tone and expression, so as not to make it seem like she was attacking her. "Why did you out me to James?" Kiera's expression changed to confusion. "What do you mean?" "When James came to the club, he told me that you told him that I was a man," Kirsty continued. "Yes," Kiera said, drawing out the word. "This was bad?" Kirsty didn't answer Kiera. She didn't have an answer for Kiera; not one that she wanted to give anyhow. Seconds passed. "It's not a secret!" Kiera said defensively, standing up. Despite her tiny stature, Kiera looked imposing. Kirsty actually felt somewhat intimidated. "I'm sorry, Kiera," Kirsty said in a small voice. She put her face in her hands. "I know. I just kinda want to be able to choose when I tell my friends about it. It's not your fault. I know I lost that ability a long time ago. I'm just a little sad about it." "Did James mind?" Kiera asked as she sat back down. "No," Kirsty said, some resonance in her voice returning. "He didn't mind at all. He was great about it." She spoke with an air of nostalgia about her. "I wouldn't have told him if I thought he'd care," Kiera said. "James is good about things like that." Kirsty was hurt by Kiera's actions, but her words proved that she did not deserve any retribution. There was no ill intent behind what she did. Kirsty crossed her legs and took a graceful sip of her water with her pinky extended. "So have you heard anything from James since he left?" Kirsty asked in a measured casual tone. "Yeah," Kiera said. She tipped her head toward the phone in the kitchen. "Just got a call from him and Skye a few hours ago. It sounds like they're having fun." "That's nice," Kirsty remarked, though she didn't sound particularly happy. Kiera eyed Kirsty suspiciously all of a sudden. It took Kirsty a few seconds to realize. "What?" Kirsty asked when she finally did. "You like him, don't you?" Kiera made her accusation with her eyes narrowed. Kirsty felt like a deer in headlights until she noticed Kiera attempting to stifle a smile. Kirsty grinned anxiously. She took off her glasses and cleaned them on her black skirt. "No," she responded, rubbing the material over both sides of the lenses. "Not in that way. He's got a girlfriend. But I do like him. He's my friend." Kirsty enjoyed hearing herself say that. James was her friend. This normal-looking, attractive gentleman considered her his friend. He had said so himself. Kirsty pushed her chin in the air arrogantly as she bragged to herself at this thought. "He seemed to really like you," Kiera said, scratching the back of her neck in an extremely masculine manner. Kirsty could practically feel her cheeks turning red. "Really?" "James is really picky about people, I've noticed," Kiera said, shaking her head. "He's only got a couple of friends because of it, not that I think he minds. Trust me, from everything I've seen, if he didn't like you, he wouldn't be using any of his time to talk to you." Kirsty bragged internally once again. She sort of felt like she was in some kind of exclusive group to which only a select, chosen few belonged. She enjoyed this fact until she realized that Skye was also a member of this hypothetical gang. While Kirsty and Kiera continued their conversation in the living room, they were suddenly startled by a knock on the door. Upon hearing it, Kiera changed from her naturally boisterous demeanor and became visibly more reserved. She looked bashful. Reluctantly, she rose and walked out into the hall and to the door, Kirsty's eyes following her as she walked. Kirsty heard low voices at the doorway. Then the sound of a door closing. Then footsteps coming closer. Eventually, Kiera returned, but with someone by her side. "Stacey?" Kirsty said with a humungous grin. She knew instantly what was going on. "Hi, Kirsty," the tall, blonde newcomer said as she strutted into the room. Both she and Kiera looked very embarrassed. "How are you?" "I'm good," Kirsty said slowly. "What are you doing up here, all the way from Newcastle?" she asked, already inferring the answer. "It was nice to see you again, Kirsty," Kiera said slowly. Kiera's eyes told Kirsty that it was time for her to leave. "Yes. I was just leaving," Kirsty said, searching for her bag. "Have fun you two," Kirsty said as she wiggled past the couple and toward the hall. "I'll tell James you came," Kiera said. Kirsty turned around as she reached the doorway at this remark, only to see Stacey and Kiera quickly pull their hands apart from each others. "Bye, guys," she said. Chapter 6 Skye sighed yet again as she and James turned onto the Bells Line of Road in Richmond. They had gotten off the plane almost four hours ago at Sydney Airport, and had done nothing but battle traffic since. Just when they thought it was clear sailing ahead, they were greeted an all too familiar sight: a car's red brake-lights lighting up. Seconds later, they were stuck again, stopped dead in the middle of the road. "I think I've got a touch of dyspepsia," Skye said, massaging her abs through her white top. "Again?" James asked with frustration. "I thought I told you just to switch to Coke?" Skye rolled her eyes underneath her sunglasses. "Seriously. It's getting pretty bad. I can't take much more of this stopping and starting." They inched forward. James took one hand from the steering wheel and placed it over Skye's hand. She took it and used it to rub her stomach. "Will you be alright?" James asked softly. "I think so," Skye replied. She leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes. "You know this traffic goes all the way up to the lights in North Richmond, don't you?" Several minutes went by in silence, during which time the traffic did not move. James was quickly becoming agitated. "I'm gonna make a prediction," he said, putting the car into park and taking his foot off the brake. "Okay..." "I predict that one day - one of these days, not too far in the future - this traffic will move." The epic-sounding, English accent in which James enunciated this comment made Skye laugh her regular, deep, booming laugh. When she quieted, the cars in front of them allowed them to move a whole eight feet. "Can we spend some time together tonight?" James asked Skye with some amount of trepidation; he never knew how she would respond to one-on-one romance. Skye liked being romantic when other people were around to entertain her as well, but there were times when she was receptive to a more intimate evening. In Fiji, they had many times such as this. They had spent more than a few evenings alone together, just sitting on the beach looking at the sunset or the stars, sipping glasses of margaritas while listening to the soundscape. James wouldn't have traded those times for an eternity in Heaven. He wanted it very much to continue. He just had to try and avoid one thing... As if on cue, James felt Skye's middle finger slowly travel up and down the shaft of his penis through his jeans. He sighed internally. The motion felt good, but that was not what he wanted, especially tonight. What he wanted was some assurance that their relationship was in good shape outside of the holiday environment. He wanted romance, love. Sex did not equal love in his mind, and, in this way, James felt that he had been loved very little for quite some time. He knew that Skye loved him in Fiji. Now he wanted to see if that was true here. "Yes we can," Skye answered seductively, eyeing James over the top of her sunglasses. Under the dim lights on the patio outside later that evening, Skye leaned back into James' arms as they both sat on a single seat. James hugged Skye's stomach, varying the pressure every so often to show her that he was being attentive. Skye kicked her feet against James' leg. She yawned. She fidgeted. She had not sat still for a moment since they had sat down. She was obviously bored. Her utter and complete disinterest was even making James feel bored. Romance usually required the participation of two. He let go. "What's wrong, baby?" Skye asked, turning on his thigh to face him. James opened his mouth. He was about to speak. He was moved to speak. But he did not. Before James could say anything, Skye's phone rang. Skye looked at the caller-ID. James glanced down to see who it was, but the phone was angled so that the screen was just out of his view. He wondered whether or not this was on purpose. "I have to take this," Skye said. She immediately rose and answered the call when she was out of earshot. James sat there for a few minutes, listening to Skye's laughter as it rumbled down the hall. He knew who the call was from. He tried not to worry - he himself couldn't stand having a conversation with another person when there were other people around him listening to his every word - but, for James, this had been a consistent thing; for Skye, it was a distinctly recent phenomenon. Eventually, James became so absorbed in his thoughts on this matter that, to him, the world seemed to disappear. The house, the lawn, the mountains - they all ceased to be, leaving him alone, his only company a horrible feeling in the pit of his stomach. It was for this reason that, when Kiera snuck up behind him and gripped his shoulders roughly with her small hands, that James jumped as though someone had just turned on the electricity to his chair. Kiera laughed manically as James leaned his forehead into his palm. "You can't just say 'hello' like a person, can you?" "Nope." Kiera held a bottle of VB up in front of James' face. "You want a beer?" Normally, James would have refused. Tonight wasn't normal. "Yep," he responded, and took the bottle. "So, how was your day, dear?" Kiera asked, positioning herself on a nearby chair with her legs spread wide. She chugged a non-trivial portion of her beverage. James stared at her incredulously. "This is how you greet a person after two weeks of absence?" "I'm eccentric, okay," Kiera said, causing some of the amber liquid to spill out of her mouth. "It's good to see you, man!" She suddenly cast off her detached demeanor, and rose from her chair. Then, she hugged James from behind with all her might, allowing her excitement at seeing her friend to rush out. "How did it all go??" James related the entire experience to Kiera, who sat there, wide-eyed, as he spoke each sentence. Kiera had always wanted to travel. Her job paid her well, so she could always afford it, but her job also never allowed her the time. James wondered what the point of having money was if there was no time to actually use it. "I'm glad it all went well!" Kiera said. She looked around. "Where's Skye?" James motioned in a vague direction behind him and looked sleepily toward the ground. "Kirsty came over while I was away, you know," Kiera said with a cheeky grin. She witnessed James' face light up before she had even finished the sentence. "What did she want?" James demanded the information like it contained a decree concerning his life or death. It did not go unnoticed. "What is going on between the two of you?" Kiera asked dryly. "We are madly in love and plan to run away together." James voiced his statement in a posh, English accent, indicating that his words should have been taken in jest. Kiera turned back to her drink. "Uh-huh." "I'm assuming there's some reason she drove all the way from Sydney," James pressed. "She wanted me to give you this." Kiera threw one of Kirsty's pink envelopes toward him. It landed on James' lap. "Good throw," James said as he separated the flap from the rest of the envelope to access its contents. He read the letter. It was written in a red, elaborate cursive on thick, high-quality paper. It was an invitation to Kirsty's birthday party, addressed to both himself and Skye. James turned it over. "Where is this?" he asked, indicating the address written there. "It's at her apartment," Kiera replied. She was about to elaborate when Skye strode in. Screaming and hugging followed. Skye and Kiera were very happy to see each other. James re-read the invitation several times as Skye relayed every mundane detail of her shopping experiences in Fiji. There was much to tell. James figured he had plenty of time. James examined Kirsty's writing. It was beautiful. The curves of the letters ebbed and flowed, like ripples on the surface of water. He placed her writing beside a sample of his own in his mind's eye for comparison and immediately felt a deep shame. He contemplated the writing for quite some time as the two women continued to chat. The color and style of the letter were definitely female. He added this to the list of things this supposed 'man' unconsciously did that was undeniably feminine. ~o0o~ $45 to park in Portugal, James thought. He looked out across Darling Harbor as if he were a drover surveying a harsh stretch of desert he needed to cross. His feet hurt from walking all day, and the last thing he wanted to do was walk even more across the concrete expanse surrounding the section of the Pacific Ocean in front of him, especially on such a hot day. He sighed and pressed on. James wasn't in a particularly good mood. Even the sight of the fish, stingrays, and sharks gliding gracefully in the water above him back at the aquarium did little to improve his demeanor. He had driven all the way down to the city, navigating the confusing and clogged roads, in search of one, particular comic that was this morning listed as available from Kings Comics in Pitt Street. He had called the store the moment he stumbled upon the item on their website and requested they hold it for him. The perky girl on the phone assured him that this would be done, and so, naturally, the book was long gone by the time James got there. All the driving, all the walking - it was all for nothing. After narrowly avoiding an encounter with a group of unimaginably enthusiastic Japanese tourists looking for someone to take their picture, James made it to the Entertainment Centre carpark on the other side of the harbor. There, he started the Jeep, and headed home at top speed, unwilling to stop for anything except traffic lights, of which there were many. He passed over the Harbor Bridge and gazed up in awe at its frame as he traveled beneath it. It was colossal. It wasn't the biggest bridge ever constructed, but it was certainly big enough. He wondered what it would have been like to have been one of the people working on the bridge, standing on one of the two halves of the coat-hanger above the water, slowly adding pieces to make the two mammoth sections on either side of the bay meet in the middle. It boggled the mind as to how such a creation was even possible, but then, so did any number of other constructions in the city, such as the skyscrapers, which were so tall they were visible from James' home a hundred kilometers away, and managed, against all odds, to stay standing. The Bridge eventually gave way to the highway which would take him back home. He glanced for a second to his left at McMahon's Point, a gorgeous little park which looked over both the Harbor and the Bridge. The tiny glance brought back many happy memories. It was there that James and Skye had spent the last two New Years Eves, sitting by the water for hours in a limo with Laiken and Ryun, waiting for the big event to begin. He vividly recalled listening to the countdown to the second which would begin the New Year, and watching the tremendous explosion of fireworks which ensued, each burst of light even more impressive than the next. It had become something of a yearly tradition for James and Skye, and it was a tradition that he wanted very much to keep alive. The concrete walls which lined the Gore Hill Freeway were little more than blurs at the speed James was traveling as made his way home toward the mountains. A few minutes later, however, he slowed. The cars in front of him had come to a standstill. "I'd get home quicker if I got out and jogged," James muttered, closing the space behind himself and the next car. James theorized that it must have been an accident or breakdown that was causing the bottleneck. A few minutes later, he figured out which, as the flashing red and blue lights of ambulances and police cars parked on the road ahead of him inched into view. The area was bedlam. Paramedics and police officers swarmed the road; smoke filled the air; and the sound of idiots honking their car horns at the traffic conductors barely masked the noise of the sirens. Something bad had happened here. James sighed and leaned back; there was little he could do but wait. He had advanced a whopping twenty feet in the next half-hour. It was nowhere near enough to clear the accident and head for home. It was, however, more than sufficient to get a decent view of what was going on. From what James could make out, a small bus had crashed into the concrete barrier on the side of the road. The entire front of the bus was crumpled, along with a chunk of the left side. Smoke was emanating from the engine of the vehicle, and passengers were being brought out on gurneys. Some of them were seriously injured. The passengers were old. This was one of those Peppercorn buses - the ones that provide transport to the elderly or children with disabilities. From what James could see, given the extent of their injuries, it was unlikely that many of them would be able to forget this day for a very long time. James leaned back again after taking in the scene but did not look away. There was something oddly mesmerizing about it all. With the window rolled up and the AC switched on, the sounds of the outside world were gone, leaving nothing but a silent image which seemed to be happening in slow motion. In that image, something caught his eye - a woman sitting in the back of one of the ambulance vans, sipping a bottle of mineral water and being questioned by a police officer holding a notebook. She couldn't have been more than forty feet away, but James had to squint through the smoke to make out her face. The first thing he noticed about her was that she was beautiful. The second thing he noticed, to his amazement, was that she was Kirsty. While he knew it was not the best of ideas, James decided to pull over and see what was going on in case she was in some kind of trouble. He maneuvered the Jeep into a small space next to a police car and opened the door, allowing the sounds outside to rush in. He then made his way over to her. Kirsty's mouth fell open when he appeared from behind the officer. "James?" The police officer spun around. "Sir, you're going to have to clear the area." The tone of his voice did not invite argument. James nodded to Kirsty, who gave him a sympathetic nod in return, and he began to move away. "Actually, wait there," the police officer hollered to James before he could get too far. Over the chaos, James could just hear the guy say to Kirsty: "will he give you a ride home?" James, rooted in the spot in which the officer instructed him to wait, did not hear Kirsty's response. He did, however, see her rise from the back of the van and approach. "Hey," she said. She touched his arm when she came near, and James felt an unexpected flutter in his stomach. "Hey," James parroted in reply, his mind distracted by that feeling. "What's going on?" "I'll tell you all about it in a bit," she responded. "For now, I have to get out of here, and my car is in no condition to let me do that. Do you think you could give me a ride?" "Sure," James replied, a little too quickly for his liking. Kirsty smiled and told him to wait there while she floated away to inform the officer. In the minutes Kirsty was away, James thought about the entire situation in an attempt to drive the memory of the feeling he'd gotten just a few moments previous from his mind. Kirsty didn't seem troubled, he observed. She'd even shaken the cops' hand. Her car, which was presumably the one she was currently fishing around inside of for her purse, looked pretty messed up at the front, but it was nothing a good panel-beater couldn't fix. She must have been part of the accident in some way. From what he could see, it seemed as though that, when the bus crashed into the barrier, she must have braked hard and lost control, causing her own car to suffer the same fate. She seemed okay, though, something for which he heartily thanked whatever power may or may not have been up there watching over her. It wasn't until they were both sitting in a small takeaway shop in Blue's Point that James got a complete picture of what had transpired. On the way there, Kirsty had informed him that she was driving along the freeway while running an errand for her boss when she saw the bus in front of her start swerving all over the road and then smash into the concrete wall on the side. Confirming James' theory, she told him she had panicked and lost control of her car. When they arrived at the shop and waited in line to order, Kirsty explained that she had gotten out of her car to see if the driver and his passengers were alright. "He was unconscious, not breathing, had no pulse, and was rapidly turning blue. It was evident that the driver had had a heart attack before the crash," Kirsty explained as they waited for their food at a table in the takeaway. "I would've called an ambulance, but I realized that they wouldn't be there in time to do anything. That being the case, I checked his airway for obstructions and started CPR which got his breathing going again until the paramedics arrived." James paid attention to her story as much as he could. He was a bit dazed by the whole thing. He wasn't entirely sure how she was taking it all so calmly. She'd just been in a car accident and saved a man's life, yet she was talking about it as though she were describing her latest trip to the supermarket. "So he's going to be okay?" James asked while he took his seafood sticks from the waitress and passed Kirsty her chips. "I think so," Kirsty replied. "He's lucky you were there," James said, biting into his first piece of battered cow-tripe. Kirsty smiled shyly. "Before I started Uni I wouldn't have had a clue what to do." "I don't know how you did it at all. I'm not sure how well I would have handled a situation like that." "Well, you just have to keep calm," Kirsty replied, sampling a couple of her chips. "If you let yourself get too emotional, you can't do the job." "Assuming you could do the job, that is," James said. "I certainly couldn't do what you did. As much as I hate to admit it, honestly, there's a pretty good chance that I would have stayed in the car after calling for help." "It's kind of my instinct," Kirsty said shyly. "I like to think that I'm a healer. I like to help people." "So that's why you subject yourself to those horrible exams?" James asked, a hint of mischief in his voice. Kirsty laughed, then nodded. James found himself a little taken with Kirsty's words. She sounded so intelligent; so confident and sure, but she wasn't pretentious about it at all. He liked people like that; people with intelligence but also a measure of modesty to complement it. You could have an interesting conversation with people like that, and not have it turn into a debate. "What the hell were you doing down here anyway?" Kirsty asked playfully, only now realizing just how absurd it was to see James, of all people, down here, at just the right time and place. She didn't expect to see or even hear from him until her party, or perhaps even longer, but here he was, right in front of her, looking just as beautiful as he always did in the afternoon sun streaming through the glass window. James grumbled the story of his ill-fated quest to find that comic book he so desired. "What comic was it?" Kirsty asked, grinning at his theatrical way of complaining about things, with his arms waving to-and-fro as he expounded each injustice. "An out-of-print issue of Batman that I need to complete my collection," James answered. "Do you like comics?" he asked, anticipating a negative answer. "Yeah," Kirsty said. She averted James' gaze. "But I'm more of a Marvel girl, myself." James pretended to get up to leave. "Sit down," Kirsty said, rolling her eyes and smiling. The two discussed the subject for a time until Kirsty's phone rang and the topic was lost during the lengthy explanation to her boss of what had happened on the freeway. Kirsty excused herself and left to go to the bathroom when the conversation was over. When she returned, James noticed the band of a pair of sexy, red panties, sitting just above Kirsty's long, black skirt. James wondered why she'd be wearing something so elaborate just to go to work. Skye only wore that kind of stuff when she wanted to do something; she'd never wear it around casually. Why was she wearing something like that now? he wondered. Was it a crossdresser thing? Or was she wearing it for someone's benefit? The thought that Kirsty might be meeting someone tonight made James' heart skip a beat - another in the increasingly long list of unexpected feelings that Kirsty was eliciting in him every time he was around her. He wasn't sure whether he should feel happy - or seriously uncomfortable. James noticed Kirsty's eyes follow his line of sight to the exposed band. She quickly covered it. It was then that he realized he'd let his own eyes linger far too long on something he should never have been looking at all. He shot his eyes to his drink and took a sip as Kirsty sat down. He would pretend it never happened. "Don't get too excited," Kirsty remarked wryly. "They were the only clean pair of knickers I could find this morning." James stiffened like he'd just come out of a staring contest with a basilisk. Kirsty noticed his mortified expression and was about to say something when the waitress came and asked them if they'd like anything else. Kirsty shooed her away. "I'm sorry," Kirsty said, reaching for James' hand but stopping herself at the last moment. James regained his composure quickly. "Who were the sexy undies for?" He hoped his question would divert some of the embarrassment away from himself. "Excuse me?" Kirsty asked humorously, feigning affront. James' knew he should shut up, but his mouth kept moving. "Well, you must have bought them for someone. Spill." "If you must know," Kirsty said, "they were for my boyfriend." She was still smiling, but not quite as much. "Oh," James said. The urge to leave hit him like a tidal wave. It hadn't occurred to him that Kirsty might have been in a relationship. "My ex-boyfriend," Kirsty clarified, noting his reaction. "Oh," James laughed uncomfortably. "So you're not..." "No," Kirsty said, finishing James' sentence. "I'm not in a relationship." James waited a few seconds before he continued to speak, in case further conversation made his heart explode. "Why not?" "What do you mean?" Kirsty asked. She raised one of her perfectly sculpted eyebrows in confusion. "Why aren't you in a relationship?" James elaborated. "Should I be in one?" Kirsty avoided, trying to leave angst out of at least one of their encounters. "Sorry," James said, taking her aversion for discomfort. He was about to change the subject when Kirsty decided to give him a real reply. "Relationships don't usually work out well for me," she said, her voice tinged with just a hint of melancholy. "Why is that?" James asked, figuring he shouldn't but doing it anyway. "Nobody likes me," Kirsty answered ironically, perking up a bit. "Gay men don't like me because I'm not a guy, and straight guys don't like me because I'm not a girl." James inclined his head toward the ceiling, contemplating her answer. "But you have dated before?" he enquired cautiously. "Yes," Kirsty said nostalgically. "I have dated before." "So what happened?" James asked. Kirsty cracked a quick smile. "Greg only liked me half of the time, if you know what I mean." James nodded. A faint voice in his head summed up James' thoughts nicely: this Greg sounds like a fucking idiot. Even so, he wasn't entirely sure he didn't sympathize with the guy. It was all very strange. Kirsty didn't fit the bill of a typical crossdresser or drag queen, at least from what he knew of them. He thought that those kinds of people only spent the odd evening as a woman, and even then it was usually just for fun. Kirsty, however, as far as he knew, spent half her time as a woman, probably more. She even went to work as a woman, apparently, given the fact that she was just talking to her boss in her female voice without even a hint of apprehension. He wasn't entirely sure what to make of the woman, or whatever she was. In the same way, he also wasn't sure what to make of his increasingly apparent attraction to her. "There's also the added complication of me actually liking a person," Kirsty said, pulling James out of his thoughts and back to reality. "What do you mean?" "I have a chance with gay guys," Kirsty explained, "but I'm not really attracted to them. I don't want a gay guy." "So then what do you want?" James asked. Kirsty merely eyed him and smiled as she took a sip of her drink. "Was Kiera lying when she said that you were in Fiji?" she asked before James could say anything. He shook his head. "No. I was there for two weeks with Skye and a couple of close friends." Kirsty waited for him to elaborate. He didn't. "And..." she said, drawing out the word as a way of prompting him to continue. "And it was nice," James responded, feeling strangely reluctant to talk too much about the subject. "We had a great time," he continued lamely. "That's great!" Kirsty said, trying to seem enthusiastic. She was unsure of how she was to take James' aloofness on the topic. "I came around while you were away to check on you after we talked. You can imagine how surprised I was when Kiera told me where you were." James looked immediately toward her from his sole remaining seafood stick. "Really? You came over to check on me?" "Yeah," Kirsty responded. She nervously crossed her legs under the table. James pressed his back against his seat, and a corner of his upper lip curled upward. "You came all the way to Kurrajong, from Sydney, to check on me?" Kirsty felt a warm, fuzzy feeling inside her as his brown eyes peered into her own. "Well," she began softly. "I needed to return something to Kiera too." She thought she'd better give herself an alibi lest James think she was being presumptuous in assuming he'd want to continue talking to her about such things. After all, they hadn't known each other that long, and they weren't particularly close, hypothetical-and- likely-imagined connections notwithstanding. "Are you okay now? With everything, I mean?" "I think I'll be alright," James replied. "Thank you for listening to me that night. I'm actually somewhat glad that Kiera wasn't around, no offense to her intended." He cracked a smile. "I didn't really need a slap on the back and the hollow assurance that everything would be alright. I needed someone to talk to, and you were there. For that, you have my thanks, Kirsty." Kirsty gave him a huge smile, one which was quickly broken when she caught sight of her watch. "Damn. I have to get back to work," she said, sounding as happy as someone giving a eulogy. She didn't want James to go, and she had an inkling that James didn't want James to go either. She knew, however, that work needed to be her priority. "Are you coming to my party?" she asked with a certain amount of reticence, not wishing to reveal just how eager she was for her new friend to make an appearance. James scratched his cheek. "I'm not sure actually. I'd love to. Really, I would. But I just need to check with Skye to see if I'm on the hook for anything first." "Oh," Kirsty said, sounding a little more dejected than she would have liked. She could sense an excuse when she heard one. "Hopefully you can make it," she continued. She was about to change the subject when James responded. "I hope so too'," he said, and he said it softly, earnestly. Kirsty looked into James' eyes. Perhaps he wasn't lying. "Need a ride?" James asked as they waited on the sidewalk. "No," Kirsty said. Even though she would have much preferred be chaperoned by a hot guy back to the shop than share a bus with a bunch of smelly people yelling at the ceiling, she wanted to end their time on a good note, and not give herself ample chance to say something stupid during a lift back. James stood rooted in the concrete for a time before he managed to pull himself away from the woman with whom he'd spent such a surprisingly enjoyable afternoon. "Goodbye, James," Kirsty said, just before a blue and yellow bus pulled up alongside them. "Thank you for everything." "Goodbye, Kirsty. I'll see you soon," James replied before making a very depressing trip home. Chapter 7 "Don't start until I get there!" Kirsty said as she pushed her way past the balloons hanging inside the doorway between her living room and kitchenette. She sat down on the carpet on the living room side, joining several of her friends who were all huddled around a board game. Her brown eyes surveyed her apartment as she waited for her turn. It had been a great turn out for her; the space around her was packed with familiar people. Some were chatting, some were drinking, others were laughing at funny videos on Kirsty's laptop, and still more were watching TV. The apartment brimmed with activity. Kirsty felt honored that so many people had taken time out of their busy lives to celebrate her birthday, but she did not feel good. She glanced at the door. It was a motion she had made innumerable times over the course of the evening. "Come on, Kirsty," a tall woman wearing an obvious, blonde wig said in a deep voice as she motioned to the board. Kirsty threw a half-hearted dice roll and moved her piece. The party had officially begun at 7pm; it was now 8pm, and James had still not arrived. She told herself that he was simply caught in traffic; that he was probably sitting at a set of lights right now, pounding on the top of his steering wheel and screaming at them to change, but, despite her logic, she couldn't shake the sinking feeling in her stomach which told her that he'd decided to do any one of the thousand things that would be more entertaining than attending some stupid crossdresser's birthday. She looked at her watch. She felt like sitting in a corner somewhere and crying after her last thought. But, just then, a knock came at the door. Kirsty leaped up, almost taking the game board with her, and rushed to the door. She collected herself just before she opened it. At the door, she was greeted by James, in a white t-shirt and black jeans. She stole a brief moment to imagine what was just underneath the thin layers of fabric before she spoke. "You're finally here!" she exclaimed in a high-pitched voice, bouncing excitedly in front of him. Without thinking, she threw her arms around his neck. Remembering herself, she almost pulled away, but the feeling of his arms wrapping around her waist stopped her. "Hey, Kirsty," James said to the air behind her as his head rested on her shoulder. "This is for you," he said after the hug had concluded. A very pleasant thought flashed through Kirsty's mind. He bought me a present. She took it from him in her delicate hands and examined the packaging. It was large and soft inside. "Can I open it now?" she asked with a grin. "It's totally up to you," he said, patting her lightly on the back. James looked around the room with a serious expression. "What's wrong?" Kirsty asked. "I'm not sure how I'm going to go with all these people here," James told her. "I don't mix particularly well with strangers." Kirsty placed her hand on his arm and looked up at him. He was taller than her even in heels. "Just stick with me and you'll be fine." James felt a feeling of immense gratitude at Kirsty's words. He was so used to being abandoned at these things that he couldn't believe it for a moment. "I don't want to be a burden on you all evening..." Kirsty smiled at the thought of James sticking with her, and her alone, in the crowd of people who were, she would have thought, much more interesting than she. "Come on," she said, leading him inside. "We're playing Cluedo." "Hey," James said, stopping her before they reached the circle of players. "I have something to tell you before I go in; something I think is fairly important." "What is it?" Kirsty asked, looking directly into James' big, brown eyes. James noticed that her own set of brown eyes were so shiny behind her glasses that he could see his own, miniature reflection in them. "I, umm," James started nervously. "Kirsty. I..." He took a deep breath and exhaled. "Kirsty, I am a man." Kirsty gave James a gentle shove, and they both giggled. "That's not what I wanted to say," James said, regaining his serious expression. "I just wanted to tell you that there's a pretty good chance that Skye will be coming later." Kirsty knew that this was a distinct possibility, but she was still disappointed. She didn't want to feel like the devil for talking to her friend tonight. "That's okay," Kirsty said, pretending not to mind. "When do you think she'll be here?" "I'm not sure," James replied. Kirsty thought for a moment. "Does Skye know about me?" "According to Kiera, yes." Kirsty and James sat down, and all eyes turned toward the new arrival. "James, this is Veronica, Daphne, and Ben," Kirsty said, introducing her friends around the circle. James greeted them all with handshakes as they picked up the game. As he sipped a glass of lemonade which Kirsty had poured and brought to him, he found himself enjoying the atmosphere. Even though the small apartment was fairly crowded, both the music and the company were good. Veronica and Daphne were obviously men. James was sure that they could pass easily if they wanted, but they had chosen outfits and wigs that screamed their identity as drag queens. This was in stark contrast to Kirsty, whose muted, modest style was geared far more toward blending in. By their own choice, Daphne and Veronica were caricatures of women, whereas Kirsty was a perfect facsimile. James thought, as he always did, that Kirsty looked beautiful, in a woolen, sleeveless, red dress which was cut just low enough to show a hint of cleavage. He watched the way she moved her hands about the board when her turn came. They rocked the dice and traversed the board loosely, in a way that was utterly feminine; to James, it appeared as though femininity literally flowed through her hands, and it was somewhat memorizing to watch. Kirsty shot him a small smile when she caught him doing so. Kirsty's eyes lingered after James' left following that moment, as the game neared its conclusion. She tilted her head unconsciously, becoming a little entranced by the way James sat with his hand out behind him and his knee bent. Just the way he sat told Kirsty that he was more of a man than any other in the room, though that wasn't saying much given all of the drag queens and gay guys. It wasn't until Kiera showed up after the game had ended that James faced a genuine threat to his most-macho-person-in-the- room crown. In a strange twist of events, James felt in his element as he chatted happily with Kiera and Stacey, the latter whom he had met only once before. Any pretense of friendship between the pair that Kiera hoped to maintain was shattered when Stacey planted a firm, unmistakably passionate kiss upon Kiera's lips. "Who's the cute guy?" one of Kirsty's female friends asked her as she watched James from across the room by the front window, giving her a small nudge in the side. With pride in her voice, but also the tiniest trace of disappointment, Kirsty replied. "He's my friend." James felt somewhat alone when Kiera and Stacey left to mingle with some of the other guests, but he was quickly spotted by Kirsty who came over to him, placed her present down on the kitchen counter in front of him, and began to quietly open it. There was something about the child-like enthusiasm in her eyes that made James melt as she made the first incision in the wrapping with a small pair of scissors. "A Pikachu!" Kirsty squealed in her sweet, little high-pitched voice when she removed the final piece of paper around her gift, revealing the yellow plush toy of the popular, mouse-like Pok?mon character. "Do you like it?" James asked, bending down slightly to reach her eye level. "Like it?" she cried. "I love it!" She went silent and stared at the toy. This was the first time someone she liked had given her a present. "There's only one problem," she said softly. "What's that?" James asked, looking confused. "I don't have even the slightest idea what I'm gonna feed it." James laughed. He was surprised at how at home he felt at the party. He felt as though Kirsty had his back during the event, and it made him much more comfortable to know that he wasn't going to be left alone to sip his drink awkwardly in the corner if he got a little bit lost. "You're very shy, aren't you?" Kirsty noted suddenly. James felt shy upon hearing about his shyness. "It's okay." Kirsty said playfully, holding her arms close to her body and her hands together. "It's just something I've noticed." James merely maintained a friendly expression and remained silent. He didn't really want to go into in-depth explanations about his personality in the chaos of the party. "What do you do, James?" Kirsty asked, her voice still soft and lilting even as she raised it over the music. "If you don't mind me asking, of course. I don't think I have ever asked." "I'm an environmental scientist," James replied. "Really?" she said in response. She was very impressed. "Yeah. I'm not really practicing at the moment, though. I jumped into too many projects last year after I graduated from five years of University and I burned out pretty quickly." "So what are you doing now?" Kirsty enquired, not just out of interest, but also to keep him speaking so she could continue to hear his voice. "I'm taking the year off like I should have done. I'm using my time off productively by watching television, eating, and then going to bed." Kirsty giggled. "I thought you said you studied history?" "I wanted to be a history teacher, and I was studying to be one, but then I realized something that made me reconsider." "What was that?" "I hate children." Kirsty laughed. "I'm just kidding," James explained. "I love nature, I don't want it to go away, and it fast is. I want to do something about that. I switched my area of study about three hours after coming to that realization." Kirsty leaned her hip against the counter and played with the end of her green ponytail. She felt weak in the chest. She had never felt attraction to another person as strong as she did now toward the man in front of her. A few moments later, Kirsty and James heard a faint series of knocks on the front door. Kirsty laid both her hands flat on James' chest and told him to wait where he was. Following Kirsty's earlier instructions, James helped himself to a slice of pizza as she left to get the door, and tapped his feet to the music. A few moments later, James felt his hair being ruffled. He turned around and was greeted by a cheeky smile on Skye's face. In a response that even shocked James, he immediately felt as though the blissful atmosphere which had built up over the course of the evening had evaporated. "I love your dress," Skye said to Kirsty. "Thank you!" Kirsty said, taking the unexpected compliment to heart. "It's one of my favorites." "That's nice," Skye responded in what, to James' ear, sounded like very deliberate condescension. James could see that it sounded that way to Kirsty, too, and, though she said nothing, she appeared hurt. Skye left the window of the kitchenette, came through the doorway, and embraced James affectionately. "I missed you," she said without looking up. "How was Rhiannon's party?" James asked, looking down toward Skye during the embrace. "It was awesome. Michelle didn't end up coming, but I still managed to party pretty hard." James looked up, and when he did, he realized that Kirsty was gone. He couldn't see her anywhere in the room. "Would you like a drink?" James asked Skye as he scanned the area for Kirsty's green hair. "Actually, do you think we can go home?" Skye countered in a slow, throaty voice. "You want to go home now?" James asked incredulously. "Yeah. I've done so much dancing, and I'm tired now. I just want to go to bed, and it's such a long drive home." "But I'm having a good time here!" James protested. Skye snorted as she eyed Daphne and Veronica. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?" James said, moving in front of her. Skye suddenly lost her amiable expression. She spoke slowly, in a way that mimicked James' composed method of argument. "Are you going to take me home? Or am I going to have to call Nick to come and do it?" Upon hearing those words, James' system flooded with adrenaline, and the anxious feeling with which Skye was becoming increasingly synonymous returned to his stomach. "Fine," James relented, speaking through his teeth. "Just let me say goodbye to Kirsty." "No worries," Skye said perkily, as if nothing had ever happened. "I'll talk to Kiera while I wait." James moved through the crowd and toward Veronica. "Have you seen Kirsty, Veronica?" James asked, looking up at the face which towered over him. She had not. He began to panic. If she was upset about what Skye had said, then the fact that her birthday was ruined was on him. He went into the hall and, on the front of the first bedroom door, he saw a wooden sign with a teddy-bear on it bearing Kirsty's name. He knocked on the door. There was no answer. Just as James turned to leave, the door opened. Kirsty stood in the doorway, her face downturned and obscured. "Hey," James said with a caring tone. "Where did you go?" Kirsty glanced upward for a second, and it was in that second that he noticed a line of mascara that had run halfway down her cheek. She had been crying. "Kirsty, what's wrong?" James asked, his voice thick with concern. "It's nothing," she replied. "Is it what Skye said?" "No," Kirsty lied. She looked up to James and into his eyes again. "Are you sure?" he asked, preventing himself from putting his arms around her wide hips or touching her moist face. "Yes, James," she said, sniffling. "I'm just a little worried about everything with Uni, that's all." Kirsty used this excuse in place of what was really bothering her. It was what Skye had said. Kirsty was proud of her dress. It was one of the first pieces of female clothing she had ever bought. She had altered and mended it countless times over the years, all by herself, and it meant a lot to her. But with just two words, Skye had made her feel like it was nothing. Such a thing wouldn't be important to Skye, a woman who had everything. Skye didn't need to use a tone that conveyed her superiority, Kirsty thought. She had a perfect face, perfect hair, and a perfect body. She could have any man she wanted - and keep him too. She had no idea how lucky she was to have someone like James; someone so beautiful; so intelligent; and so fun to be around. She could tell that Skye didn't appreciate it. She could tell that she had never known what it was like to experience loneliness; to not have a man there to comfort her after a bad day no matter how desperately she needed it. She wasn't fundamentally broken. Kirsty looked up to James as these thoughts raced through her mind. She suddenly felt as though she had given him the wrong advice when he confided his problems to her all those weeks ago. James should consider himself lucky that he likes only having a few close friends, because, based on the way Skye treated her when they first met and now on her own birthday, it's a miracle that he manages to have any friends at all. There's jealousy, and there's being a bitch, Kirsty thought, and Skye had certainly crossed over into the latter category. James deserved better, and, given the way he looked at Skye when she first arrived, it wasn't a stretch for her to say that he seemed to want better. Kirsty thought about the slutty-looking top in which Skye had just sauntered into her apartment. The top made her breasts look as though they were about to fall out at any moment. Kirsty felt a storm brewing inside her as her anger intensified. James liked her, Kirsty thought, as her mind returned to the look of disappointment that she recalled clearly being on his face when she said that she wasn't transgendered back at the club. He obviously enjoyed being in her presence, and he understood what she was and didn't mind. Sure, it was one hell of a stretch to assume that he wouldn't mind it, but there was a chance. Kirsty had heard of many of her transgendered friends that she talked with online attempting to get involved with straight guys. Most of the stories did not end well, but there were more than a few which did. There was hope. Kirsty wasn't perfect, but she felt that she could come closer to being it than Skye, for James at least. She would be someone who would nurture his friendships, and not admonish him for doing the things he loves. She would be someone who would support him rather than force him to drive all the way across the Sydney Basin looking for someone else to do so. She would trust him when he asked her to. And, more importantly, she would be someone who would never play on his worst fears simply to get what she wanted, as she had overheard Skye do just a few minutes earlier. At that moment, Kirsty made up her mind to not just sit back and hope that he noticed her anymore. She was going to do something. "James," Kirsty said confidently, wiping the tears from her eyes. James was taken aback by her sudden change in attitude. She continued. "When are you next free?" Chapter 8 "Hurry up! Reel it in! Be careful!" Ryun shouted hysterically at Laiken, who was leaning perilously off the side of a small, white yacht. "Really, Ryun?" Laiken said irritably after the line broke. "Thank you for telling me to reel it in. That was much better than my idea of just letting it sit there." "Hey," James said calmly as he entered the space between the couple with his arms out. He turned to Laiken. "Ssssh," he said in a calming voice. "It's alright, Laiken. Everything will be alright. There's no need to be stressed like this. This is not the way." James' soothing tone, reminiscent of a Buddhist monk leading a session of meditation, infuriated Laiken beyond belief, successfully achieving its desired effect. Ryun laughed, and Laiken chucked her fishing rod at him, as James climbed the stairs to the top deck where Skye sat in a red bikini next to Michelle, her blonde best friend. Michelle worked as a freelance model in her (abundant) spare time, which explained why James could see her ribcage without the use of an X-Ray machine. As James waited for them to finish their conversation, he glanced off the side and down at the lower deck. He smiled, seeing Laiken and Ryun hugging there. For as much as they pretended to hate each other, they did love each other. Although James knew that Laiken's sarcastic sense of humor did get on Ryun's nerves every so often, James always thought that fake hate was better than real hate. "Can I move her?" Michelle asked James, batting her eyelids salaciously to increase her chances. Skye gave him an encouraging head nod. "Go ahead," James said. James wasn't worried too much about Michelle's operation of his boat. He wasn't particularly attached to the vessel. He had purchased it on a whim a while ago when the thought crossed his mind, but even though he knew he could afford it, it was one of those ridiculous extravagances that he found hard to justify. "Watch the ferry cables, babe," Josh, Michelle's boyfriend said, ascending the stairs and joining James and the two women. "Good advice," James said with measured nonchalance as they moved a bit too close to the punt, which was currently in the process of ferrying cars from one side of the Hawkesbury River to the other. James wondered why they didn't just put in a bridge; he imagined doing so would save the operators a ton of time, hassle, and money. But even though this was the case, he was glad they didn't. As primitive as it was, it was nice. James contemplated voicing this observation to the other passengers but stopped himself when he realized that it was unlikely they would appreciate it. "I remember once," Josh began unexpectedly in his thick Australian accent, as Skye and Michelle shouted at a passing skier who had whistled at them. "My Dad and I were coming home from camping in Upper MacDonald over the punt." James' ears pricked up at Josh's mention of the area in which he had ostensibly gone camping; it was one of James' favorite places in the world with its shallow rivers that one could navigate through on foot. Josh continued his story. "The ferry-master came out to open the gates, just as this massive fish jumped onto the ramp and started flipping around. Hit him square in the leg. Caught him completely off guard. You should have heard him scream! Never laughed so hard in my life." James couldn't help but smile at Josh's story. He hadn't liked Josh much, assuming him to be another one-dimensional, clich? cool guy that was typical of Michelle's group. The few hours he had spent with the guy today, however, seemed to tell him otherwise. Josh wasn't Socrates by any stretch of the imagination, but he was more than okay in James' books, and meeting him made the trip worth it, in addition to seeing Laiken and Ryun again. Spending the entire day with Skye and her friends on the small craft was not initially how James wished to spend his time. He was still annoyed with Skye over what had happened at Kirsty's party several nights ago. Skye had apologized, but, despite this, he didn't feel like hanging out with her. He was on that boat today only because of Laiken and Ryun. I was tired, Skye had said in the kitchen at James', the morning after Kirsty's party. I couldn't help that I was tired. It was an explanation James would have gladly accepted if it actually explained why she was so mean to his friend. A few minutes and a couple of near-misses later, Josh took control of the ship with James' blessing. Skye turned back and shot him a smile as Laiken and Ryun emerged from below. James couldn't bring himself to give her one in return. James closed his eyes and felt the wind in his hair as Josh guided the ship expertly over the ferry cables and downstream toward a beautiful open plain in the distance. As he did, he thought back to the early part of his relationship with the auburn-haired beauty sitting in the seat opposite him. The Skye which existed in his memory was much different to the one that existed here now. He couldn't imagine that which had transpired at Kirsty's party ever occurring back then. Now, he had almost come to expect it. He wondered, as he often did, if he was to blame. James could admit that he wasn't the most fun or uplifting person to be around. He didn't enjoy socializing; had to be dragged to social functions; and his interests were lame (so he had been told). Was it really her fault if she was losing interest in him? Of course, he had always tried to keep her interested. Their trip to Fiji was certainly not an isolated event. He had taken her to lots of exotic places. In addition to this, he had always been there for her; always listened to her; always helped her when she needed it; and always tried to accommodate her wishes and desires to the best of his ability, even when it came at his own expense. A lack of any real sex drive was really his only major failing, but was sex really everything? He didn't think he did too badly by her, but there was still a large part of him that made him wonder whether their relationship was failing because of him. James opened his eyes as they neared the plains. He watched the green grass come closer as the ship cut through the surface of the water and progressed forward. He heard Skye's booming laugh and wondered what was so funny. The only other theory James had to explain why Skye had suddenly changed could be summarized in one word: Nick. From what he knew, Nick had been a close friend of Michelle's ever since Skye had met her at a horse show a few years ago. Skye had never had much to do with the guy until a few months ago when they started talking a lot for some reason. James couldn't remember whether or not Skye changed after she met Nick, but he did remember that it did occur around that time. James decided to break away from the group once they had reached the shore. He had become absorbed in his thoughts during the ride over and was not quite ready to come back to reality. Regardless of the reason that Skye's personality had taken a turn for the worse, he was not about to abandon her. He didn't believe in telling someone he loved them and then leaving only a year later. Skye's actions toward Kirsty, however, didn't make it easy. Skye and James did end up leaving Kirsty's early the other night. They drove back in silence. James had been worried that he'd ruined his friend's birthday party, but Kirsty had quickly dispelled that idea by asking him the day after if he'd like to hang out. They agreed to do so on the next Friday night. James had informed Skye of this just a few hours ago. She didn't seem to mind. She wasn't jealous of Kirsty at all now. In his mind, he could practically see her laughing at the thought of being worried about her boyfriend being seduced by a guy in a dress. ~o0o~ Kirsty turned off the TV and threw the remote on the table. There was nothing good on on a Sunday morning, and no amount of flicking through channels was going to change that, as the last fifteen minutes of her life had proven. She squirmed in her chair. She felt something underneath her. "More bloody crumbs," she muttered. Even though Kirsty had thoroughly cleaned her apartment after her party, she was still finding things she had missed. The sound of her vacuum cleaner almost masked the knocking at the door. She figured it was her neighbor coming to complain about the noise as she always did, for, as we all know, God granted only her the right to make it. With some trepidation, she answered the door. It was not her neighbor, unless the woman had managed to drop fifty kilos and fifty years along with them. No, the person standing at the door was Kiera, and she did not look very happy. "Can I come in?" she asked sharply, leaning against the rail of the building's main stairwell with her arms crossed. "I guess," Kirsty said, wary of her friend's hostile countenance. "Maybe you should leave that face outside, though." "What are you doing with James?" Kiera demanded abruptly, tapping her foot against the ground. "What are you talking about?" Kirsty responded, feeling blood rush to her cheeks. "Skye told me that she and James had a fight. She also told me that you had a lot to do with it. Then she told me that you invited him to hang out at your apartment on Friday night." Kirsty couldn't believe it. "She told you I caused their fight? Are you freaking kidding me?? James was annoyed at Skye because she treated me like dirt, after which she threatened to cheat on him if he didn't go home long before he wanted!" "She threatened to cheat on him?" Kiera's voice was laced with sarcasm. Kirsty thought for a moment; it wasn't as clear cut as that, now that she thought about it. "Well, she threatened to call some Nick guy if he didn't take her home." "How else was she going to get home??" Kiera yelled in response. "It wasn't put to James as an alternative, Kiera. It was an ultimatum, which you'd know if you'd bothered to get the full story before coming in here and accusing me of 'doing something with James'!" Kiera wasted no time mounting her verbal defense. "I see the way you look at James. I had to see it for hours the other night. I saw it when you first asked me about him right over there in that kitchen. I even saw it the first night you and he met. And I've seen it ever since. You like him." Despite her efforts to the contrary, tears were welling up in Kirsty's eyes. If Kiera told James about this, it could mean trouble. She had to deny Kiera's accusations, but that didn't stop her mouth from spouting confessions. "So what if I do?" Kirsty yelled, her voice almost becoming a squeal. "Because James," Kiera began quietly, pausing for dramatic effect, "has a girlfriend!" Kirsty sat down. She was no longer on the verge of tears. She wept openly. "Why is this any business of yours?" "Because Skye and James are my friends, and I don't want to see either of them get hurt," Kiera said crossly. Kirsty hung her head. "I don't want to hurt anyone," she said with defeat, continuing to bawl. Kiera's demeanor softened in light of Kirsty's submissive display. Kiera sat down next to her. "I didn't do anything, and even if I did, I didn't mean to," Kirsty said with her face in her hands. "I like James, and yes, I admit that I do find him attractive, but I know full well that he would never be interested in someone like me. I know that he could never be interested in someone like me. All I'm 'doing' with James, Kiera, is trying to be his friend. He doesn't have a lot of friends; I don't have many close friends; we enjoy each other's company; I don't see a problem." "Are you sure you're happy with that?" Kiera asked quietly after a few moments. She sounded much friendlier now, her accusatorial tone gone. Kirsty took a moment to think. She felt weak and short of breath from crying. It took her a minute to answer, and during that minute, she arrived at a conclusion that even she herself now truly believed. "Yes." Chapter 9 Kirsty rolled her pink lipstick over the remaining unpainted spot on her bottom lip. She looked at her watch. It was almost 7pm - the time that she and James had agreed to see each other the night after her party. She checked herself out in the mirror and sighed. She had spent almost an hour making herself look the best she possibly could, but there was a decent chance that it was all for nothing. If Kiera had said something to James about their fight and what was said, he might have changed his mind. He wouldn't be coming. Kirsty walked out to the kitchen, passing a candle on a corner table which she had lighted earlier. It was a small candle of purple color. Kirsty had seen it when she was buying this week's supply of herbal tea on her way home from work. It was advertised as being a 'love aid.' Apparently, by lighting it, it would bring her 'luck in love'. Kirsty didn't believe the advertiser's claims. She wasn't even sure why she had purchased it. She had already made up her mind that tonight was not going to be a romantic evening. The memories of her encounter with Kiera just a few days ago flashed through her mind. He could never be interested in someone like me. Kiera never said otherwise. Shaking off the thought, Kirsty placed a mitten on her right hand and leaned down with her legs together toward the oven. She checked on the contents just as the doorbell pleasantly signaled the arrival of a visitor. He came! Kirsty practically danced to the door and cast it open. James looked at her quizzically and without the smile she expected. "Sorry," he said as he began to move away from the door. "I must have gotten the wrong apartment." By this time, Kirsty had a pretty good idea of how James operated. "Get back here," she ordered. James turned back toward her with an enormous grin. Kirsty led James inside and closed the door behind him. She noticed him tip his head backward and sniff the air. "What is that... heavenly aroma?" James asked, wafting the scent toward him with his hands. "I'm making muffins," she said cutely, strutting confidently toward the oven and replacing her mitten. Kirsty now stood by the stove, in a flowery, white casual dress that made her look like she was auditioning for a 1950s vacuum commercial. The sight was almost too much for James to bear; she was ridiculously sexy. Soon, Kirsty emerged from the kitchenette holding a tray of scrumptious looking muffins. "Do you like muffins?" she asked James with a coy sideward glance at him. James placed two fingers to his wrist to check his pulse before answering. "I'm alive, so: yes." Kirsty laughed, and, in a high-pitched, infant-like voice, she asked: "Do you wanna try one?" James nodded. Kirsty took one of the muffins between her thumb and forefinger and handed it to him. He took a cautious bite and then proceeded to down the rest after getting a taste. Smiling with satisfaction, she poured him a glass of milk to wash it down. James looked around. "You have a beautiful place here," he remarked approvingly. He liked how the soft, yellow lights interacted with the green carpet and the beige walls. "Yeah," Kirsty responded. "It was a dump when I moved in. It took a long time to clean up. The landlord took one look at it when I'd finished and thought I'd done such a good job that he put my rent up." James smiled with amusement, just before Kirsty offered to give him a tour of the place. There wasn't much to see after the living room. It all looked very luxurious, but Kirsty admitted that she felt a bit cramped, and the view of the dark city street outside wasn't particularly exciting. The final room in the house that Kirsty wanted to show James was her bedroom, but she made sure she did so in a way that wasn't in any way suggestive. The color pink exploded in James' vision as he entered the room. The fluffy, pink carpet sat underneath a bed covered with a blanket of a much darker pink, on top of which sat two pillows of a similar color. Even the walls were pink. "What do you think?" Kirsty asked, walking inside and proudly indicating the room with her hands while doing a little twirl. "It's very... pink," James remarked as he surveyed the room. It was a nice room; the monotony of colors actually worked well and didn't look garish. It was also incredibly neat. James couldn't help draw comparisons between Kirsty's room and Skye's back in the Hawkesbury. Skye's room was so consistently messy that James often joked that one day he wouldn't be able to find the bed. Kirsty's room was much different. Kirsty fluttered her eyes and, in the same dim light which illuminated the living area, she showed James her collections of books, perfumes (a large collection of which she had amassed from her part-time job at a perfume store), and, to James' amusement, her dolls. Kirsty looked up at James and hugged one of her dolls beside her grinning face. James shook his head. "It was you who told me you were a guy, wasn't it?" After Kirsty had shown James every possible thing she could in her bedroom, she led him back out into the living room. He couldn't help but stare as her butt swayed gently from side to side during her walk from there to the kitchenette. "So," James began... "Ssssh," Kirsty said softly as she peered out from behind her fridge door and up toward the ceiling. It took James a few seconds to hear it. Rain. James took another muffin and glass of milk, and the two of them sat down on the floor in front of the television. Neither of them made a move to switch it on. They leaned against the couch and faced each other as they both ate their munchies. James felt nervous during the silence which followed, but Kirsty didn't seem to mind. She smiled at him after taking a bite of her muffin. She seemed to just be enjoying his company, the stillness, and the sound of the rain. It was beautiful. After a few minutes, James thought that he'd better make some conversation. He wanted to make conversation. He wanted to know more about the adorable woman sitting opposite himself. "How long have you been living here?" he asked her. "About a year now," Kirsty replied. "I used to live in Glebe before I moved here. Even in its previous, filthy form, this house was still a step up from my old apartment back there." "So where did you originally come from?" Kirsty noticed that James wasn't asking his questions to simply generate conversation. He seemed very interested to hear her answers. She was surprised; she was unaccustomed to people taking an interest in her life. "I'm from Germany, actually," Kirsty replied. "Really?" James exclaimed. He loved Germany, with its rolling hills and green pastures and interesting architecture. He had never been there himself, but he'd seen pictures. How accurate his idyllic image of the country was, he did not know. "Why the hell did you come to Australia?" Kirsty cast her glance downward, and James got the distinct impression that he'd said something wrong. James was essentially asking Kirsty to tell her life story. Not wanting to bore him with it, she searched for a way of condensing it. "Let's just say that things weren't very good back there; for me, anyhow." Soon, however, it became clear that James didn't just want to hear the CliffsNotes version. "What do you mean?" he asked, shifting so that he faced her completely: a position more conducive to a long talk. Kirsty smiled briefly and then began. "Well," she said in a somewhat somber tone that was noticeably deeper than her usual voice, but still quite feminine. As she spoke, James wondered how she managed to speak in a woman's voice at all. He'd assumed she'd just raised the pitch of her regular voice, but even her lower cadences sounded female. "In Germany, I lived in a country town. We weren't close to the cities. People in the town had never really been exposed to anything other than the typical white, straight German. They didn't see other races or people of different orientations very often. They never really had to think about them, so they certainly didn't understand them. Gay people were like aliens over there." James didn't like where this was going. She stared at the floor and continued with an ironic smile. "You can imagine, then, how people reacted when somebody recognized me, Kurt Nadel, in a dress, browsing around the local bookshop for something new to read." "Oh," James said flatly. "What happened?" He leaned forward, signifying to his friend that she had his full attention. "Well, thankfully no-one brought out the pitchforks or anything. The girl, Johanna I think her name was, only told her parents, so the news didn't spread much. Her parents only told two people - my mother and father. They didn't react well." "What did they do?" James asked. He thought he saw the faintest trace of a tear run down Kirsty's cheek, but upon closer inspection, he found that he'd just imagined it coming out of her sad eyes. He placed a gentle hand on her leg. "You don't have to tell me if you don't want to," he said. "I don't want to dredge up all this stuff on you." "It's okay," Kirsty said, looking into James' eyes. "I don't mind." In reality, Kirsty was glad to have somebody to tell her story to. All her friends seemed to be interested in telling her their coming out stories, but they rarely took the time to listen to hers. "I'm just worried that I'm boring you," she continued. "Kirsty," James rebuked earnestly. "You couldn't bore me if you tried." Kirsty paused for a moment, taking in what James had just said and how he had said it. She didn't feel particularly comfortable telling the rest of the story, and she was apprehensive about doing so, but she felt so relaxed around James that it made her want to open up. She got the impression that the information would be safe with him. "My dad was the first to find out," she continued. "Contrary to how these things usually go, he didn't seem to mind so much. He was obviously disappointed, but he didn't really seem to show any hostility toward me. Mom, on the other hand: she really didn't like it. I'm pretty sure that Dad knew she'd react that way because he didn't tell her anything about it. But, she eventually found out." James nodded his head, listening intently. "What did she do?" Kirsty looked around and then pulled up the fringe of her hair to reveal her forehead underneath. Even from a distance and in the dim light, James could see a small, horizontal line of skin that was whiter than the rest of her face. "She gave me a reason to visit the hospital and get ten stitches in my head." "Oh my God," James said gravely as he leaned backward. "Yeah. That's what my sister said when she found out," Kirsty responded. "Why did she do that?" James asked. "Your mother, I mean." Kirsty spoke slowly, as if it caused her physical pain to recall. "My mother was very much a people person. She was heavily involved in things around the area such as school functions and fundraisers. Very popular. She didn't take the idea of her little boy coming along and ruining the image of perfection that she cared so much about maintaining. She didn't want people knowing that a child - a son - that she raised liked wearing women's clothing." James thought for a moment. Even he, someone who was generally unemotional and apathetic toward the misfortunes of others, was horrified by Kirsty's tale. Her mother had actually hit her, for something that, to be quite honest, had no effect on her whatsoever. James didn't know Kirsty's mother - he didn't know what it was like to be in her shoes, so he allowed her a certain amount of leeway in his judgment - but to actually put your child in hospital, over something like wearing a different gender's clothes, was indefensible. It was difficult for James to rationalize her actions. "So what happened then?" he asked, bidding her to continue. "Well, I figured that, since my parents already knew about one of my secrets, they might as well hear the other one. I told them I was gay, not that they weren't already thinking that." "And I'm guessing they didn't go for that either?" James asked, already knowing the answer. "Mom kicked me out, and Dad didn't stop her." James' mouth fell open for a moment, before he realized and closed it. "What did you do?" "I was seventeen. I'd been learning English and working since I was thirteen. I'd hardly spent a cent of my earnings in that time. I always knew I wanted to get out of there. I knew from the moment I realized I liked boys that I wasn't going to find happiness in that place. I left three weeks later, and I haven't talked to anyone from there since." Kirsty got up to clear away the plates. She offered James a drink. She had finished her story, but James still wanted to know more. He leaned into the kitchenette through the window and asked her more. "What did you do when you got here?" Kirsty smiled. "Hang on," she said softly. Kirsty poured James a glass of juice, sat down on the couch, and rubbed the seat of the cushion next to her, inviting James to sit down. "I started living as a woman almost full-time after I arrived," she said as James did. "I stayed in a cheap tourist hotel on my savings for a while. I figured that I'd get a job and stay there until I could afford somewhere. That wasn't really a good plan. If I didn't meet Jeanette, my boss at the place where I still work, and she didn't take me under her wing, I would probably be living on the streets." She took a sip of her drink. James was unsure of what he should say. He was touched by her story. He felt a mix of sadness and admiration. She was a brave person. It took a lot of guts to fly to a strange country at seventeen years of age. To him, such an action was unthinkable. But she had done it, and, from everything James could see, she had really done alright for herself. She had a roof over her head, and a nice one at that; she had a job; she was going to Uni... her life was more together than most of the people he knew who didn't have such a rocky start to life. James told Kirsty all of these thoughts. He had to; she was amazing, and he wanted her to know that. As he did, James realized that he, strangely, felt proud of her. He had no reason to - her accomplishments didn't reflect on him at all - but he did nonetheless. James noticed that telling her story didn't leave Kirsty unaffected. She sniffled. He could tell that she was holding back tears. He felt compelled to put his arms around her. He almost did, but he stopped himself. Kirsty looked up at James with affection. She felt very close to him now. She had bared a part of herself to him that she had not allowed many people to see. It made her feel vulnerable to do so, but he did not make her regret taking the risk. James looked into her eyes, and a wave of serenity washed over her. "What about you, James?" she asked, leaning back and relaxing against the chair with her hands in her lap. "Where did you come from?" James then told her his story. How his parents died, just a year previous, in a head-on collision with a truck whose driver went to sleep at the helm. Kirsty listened respectfully the entire time. She felt so sorry for him. She wanted to comfort him, but, just like he had done earlier, she stopped herself. Silence followed James' story, but this time, it was a silence that Kirsty quickly filled. "Is that why you're so shy?" she asked with a cheeky grin, her voice rising at the end of her sentence. "Now what makes you think I'm shy?" James asked, shifting in his seat. Kirsty noticed that he was just a tiny bit closer to her in this new position, and that their legs touched. "Well, at my party, one of the first things you said was that you didn't like crowds of people, and the first time we met you were hiding in your backyard from another party." "I was not hiding!" James retorted playfully. Kirsty shot him a skeptical eyebrow raise. "Fine," James relented. "No, to answer your question. That's not why I'm shy." "Then why?" Kirsty asked. She noticed that James was now the one who looked nervous, and she was worried she might have offended him. She pushed her glasses back up the bridge of her nose. "I only ask because it's unusual that..." She paused, weighing her words. "You don't really look like the type of person who would be shy." Kirsty eyed James' biceps after making her point. James laughed, flattered, but then his expression suddenly fell serious. "What is it?" she asked. Well, she told me her secret, James thought. I guess it's time I told her mine. James took a deep breath. "Kirsty, I have a thing called Asperger's Syndrome." The sincerity in his voice told her that he wasn't joking. He looked at her, not sure how she would react. The sound of the rain got much louder as it began to pelt down on the roof with increasing fervor. Kirsty already knew what Asperger's Syndrome was. She didn't expect James to have it, but anyone could she supposed. "That explains a lot," she said with an understanding smile. She knew that it meant that James had a tough time around people, and would probably have a tough life, but he seemed to be coping pretty well. Having such a pretty face would have gone a long way toward helping. James nodded his head and smiled at her. Kirsty was the only living soul he had ever told about the diagnosis he'd received when he went to a psychologist five years ago after missing an entire semester of Uni because he was too afraid to introduce himself in the first class. James and Kirsty sat on the couch in her living room; two ostensibly broken people who, for just a few hours, had made each other feel decidedly less so. Kirsty was just about to ask James to tell her more, but he interrupted her. He pointed upward, toward the ceiling. The rain was literally bucketing down on the roof of Kirsty's apartment now, filling the room with its soothing sound. "It's cold," James said, deflecting further attention away from their last topic. "Give me a sec," Kirsty said. She stood up and left the room. She returned just a few seconds later with two, cozy looking red doonas. She pushed one into James' arms, and they both proceeded to cover themselves up to their necks with the large, fleece squares of material. "Better?" Kirsty asked, her head the only thing visible above her blanket. "Much," James said, and the two of them relaxed under their respective covers, enjoying the rain. James looked to his right. He was enjoying this woman's company. He enjoyed it perhaps more than the company of anyone he had ever previously known. She was funny; she was interesting; she was very pretty; and each moment he spent with her made him want to spend another. James felt a torrent of conflicting emotions inside him as they sat there in the noisy silence. "You know what I love about you, James?" Kirsty said softly, shuffling ever so slightly closer to him and stirring those emotions even further. "No," James replied, his interest piqued, as Kirsty had expected. "You never look at me like I'm different," she responded. "And that's not something I often experience." When she had finished her sentence, it came James' turn to be interrupted, for as he was about to reply, a massive thunderclap suddenly shook the entire building. It was only after he recovered from the initial shock of the tremendous boom that he realized that something had changed in the room. Kirsty had moved from her position two feet away from him. Now, she was in his arms. She was clinging to him. He further realized that his arm had automatically sought its most comfortable position - a position which happened be around the beautiful, fair-skinned woman's shoulders. He then noticed that she was shivering. The poor girl must have been so scared, James thought, that she had leaped into his arms, and he wasn't wrong. Kirsty looked up toward James. Their faces were only a few inches apart. James could feel her warm breath on his chin. "I'm sorry," she breathed, and attempted to move away. After a few moments, however, she found that she couldn't. James was holding her there, on his lap, preventing her from leaving. Kirsty stared into his eyes, looking from one to the other. As she did, she noticed James' face moving closer to hers, and she felt her own do the same. She glanced at his mouth just before their lips were set to touch, and then closed her eyes, expecting - wanting - to feel James' lips on hers. But the sensation never came. She opened her eyes. "I can't do this," James said with his own eyes closed, as Kirsty felt her heart threaten to split in two. Kirsty said nothing. She thought nothing. Though she had never allowed herself to acknowledge the thought, she had wanted so much that this moment with James would come. She had never imagined it would, at least not so quickly, and now that it had she wanted it - needed it - to be complete. She had pictured it to be beautiful; to be filled with joy and happiness, but instead, she felt only sadness. She felt the tears welling in her eyes as he rose. "James," she said weakly, extending her hand toward him. It was too late. He was gone, and the candle had been extinguished. Chapter 10 "Table for two," Skye said, when she and James reached the counter of the fancy restaurant in which they regularly dined. Despite there being a long line, the headwaiter ushered them forward as soon as he saw the couple, escorting them to their usual table in a private area out the back. This private area was a beautiful room, with walls of teak and an even better view of the Sydney Basin than the lookout near James' house. The room, otherwise in darkness, was lit by a single candle which formed the table's centerpiece. Skye ordered one of the most expensive meals on the menu, along with one of the oldest wines they had in stock. James could see the expressions of glee on the waitresses faces; they knew that their establishment would be making a killing tonight. James ordered a hamburger and some water. "You should diversify a bit," Skye said airily, leaning toward James from across the small table. "You order the same thing all the time." "Hey, well, I'll have you know that I got tomato sauce this time," James replied with measured laughter. He was still thinking about what had transpired the night before, when he almost kissed another woman in her apartment; when he wanted to kiss another woman in her apartment. Woman... James thought. He had to stop himself from snorting ironically. He smiled and straightened up, making an attempt to push the thoughts of Kirsty to the back of his mind. He didn't want to think about Kirsty tonight. He wanted to give Skye another chance. In the seconds which led up to him almost kissing his friend, the only thing James could think about was his girlfriend's face, and the shame from the betrayal he was about to commit. He felt sorry for Skye, the woman who had been there for him during his time of need, and she who had stuck by him after it. Yes, James didn't feel particularly happy in their relationship, but that was no reason to break somebody's heart. James prided himself on his loyalty to others. He liked being a loyal friend and a loyal boyfriend, and it was against his nature to hurt someone even if it meant a little unhappiness. Things could not always be passionate; things could not always be romantic; things could not always be perfect, and it was unreasonable to expect otherwise. "So how was your day, baby?" James asked, taking Skye's hands in his own. "It was okay," she replied. "I didn't really do much. I thought I'd better stay home and do some research on applying for jobs for next year." "Any luck?" James asked. "Oh, yeah. I found tons of places I could put my r?sum? into. I think I'm gonna have a lot more luck than some of the people graduating with me; I've racked up way more experience than they have." "That's awesome," James replied earnestly. While there was a lot about Skye's lifestyle that James didn't find particularly virtuous, one thing he did give her is that she had always worked, and worked hard. She was always volunteering for something or other to get experience that could help further the career in law she was determined to pursue. It was one of the first things about her personality that attracted him to her. Their food and wine finally arrived, and they spared no time getting into it. "How did your night go?" Skye asked James as she filled her glass. She offered to fill James' too, but he declined. Skye's question filled James with fear, but his face did not betray him. "It was nice," he said. "We had something to eat, played a few games, we almost kissed. He said the last part in his head. "So you had fun?" Skye asked quietly. She was being uncharacteristically considerate tonight, and her demeanor was far less excitable. For a second, he could fool himself into thinking that he was talking to the Skye he knew from many months ago. "Yep," James answered simply, hoping to close this particular conversational thread. "I did." Skye smiled warmly. "I'm glad. I'm glad you've found a friend. I feel guilty sometimes, going out and hanging out with all my friends and leaving you at home, no matter how much you say it doesn't bother you." James was taken aback by her thoughtful comment. Even though it was not unusual for her to have moments like this, right now, he felt he had Skye back, and he was happy. He was sorry for what he'd done to Kirsty. He realized that she was probably very hurt by it, but there was nothing he could do about that. It wasn't his problem. "Do you remember the time we went apple picking?" Skye asked, in an uncharacteristic moment of nostalgia. "When you and Lyndell climbed that ladder, and I told you to be careful, and you both called me an idiot, and then you both fell off?" James' suppressed giggle turned into a fit of laughter at the recollection of the story. He'd had good times with Skye, he reminded himself. He wasn't about to throw all of those happy times away over someone who he'd only known for a couple of weeks. He thought Skye looked beautiful in the candle's chaotic illumination. She was always attractive, but this was the first time in a long time that he would describe her as beautiful. "I love you, Skye," James said suddenly, to her surprise. "I love you too," Skye replied. ~o0o~ Kirsty laid in her bed staring at the ceiling. She'd done that since going to bed the night previous. She hadn't slept a wink in the last three days. After James had left on Friday night, she decided to take a quick drive to try and soothe the mental anguish he had left for her to deal with. She didn't intend on going far, which is why she was shocked when she realized that she'd pulled over for fuel in Coffs Harbor - a town way, way up the coast - and noticed that the sun was coming up. She'd spent the next day coming home. She was so tired on the way that keeping her eyes open verged on impossible, but, at the time, she didn't care. She'd spent the next day and night in bed. Today was Monday. She would need to get up for work soon, but she was skeptical that she'd be able to manage it. She didn't have the energy or the will. All she felt like doing was closing her eyes and hoping that she'd never open them again, for it was the only way she felt she could escape the pain caused by the slow decomposition of her soul. Four hours went by. The phone rang. An aged, female voice sounded from the speaker. "Kirsty? Are you okay?" It was her boss. She sounded more worried than angry. Kirsty had never missed a day since she had started years before, and her sudden, wordless absence gave her cause for concern. Kirsty didn't say anything. She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out but a small, dry sound. She fell asleep with the speaker in her hand, exhausted. It wasn't until several hours later that she woke to the sound of a knock on her door. Kirsty was not expecting to hear from anybody. She sat bolt upright. I don't even care if it's him, Kirsty told herself, but subsequent knocks made her change her mind. If he was at the door and she chose not to go to him, she would never forgive herself for her inaction. With this in mind, she mustered the last of what little strength remained in her slender arms, pushed herself up, and walked to the door. She opened it. It wasn't James. It was Jeanette, her boss. As soon as the greying woman saw Kirsty's haggard face, she knew something was wrong. "What happened?" she cried, opening her arms. Kirsty didn't answer. She merely rushed forward into the arms of the closest thing she'd had to a mother in many years and began sobbing uncontrollably. More hours went by. It was only until well after the sun had set that Kirsty felt able to speak, and it was only then that she told her boss what had happened with James. She did so over a glass of milk that Jeanette had poured and served to her in bed. The older woman looked at Kirsty with a mix of pity and disquiet after she had finished her story. Jeanette noticed that it was like all of the color had drained out of the young woman's face. Her eyes were bloodshot and surrounded by dark circles. She looked older and far more masculine than she usually did without fresh makeup. Jeanette could offer Kirsty no words of advice. She wasn't sure what she was meant to say. On one hand, James was, unquestionably, a prick for leading Kirsty on, for getting her hopes up by leading her into a kiss and then brutally dashing those hopes at the last moment. But, on the other hand, Kirsty should never have allowed herself to fall for a straight man, girlfriend or no girlfriend. To Jeanette's admittedly jaded sense of things - which she had acquired through no less than three divorces during her time - it was both their faults. "All I want to know," Kirsty began as she gasped for air through a new bout of tears. "Is why. Why did he pull away from me? Is it because of Skye? Or was it because I'm trans?" Jeanette gently stroked Kirsty's head. She wanted to say 'men are assholes' or something similar - she found that hatred was the most efficient tonic to heal a broken heart - but she wasn't sure if she should. She didn't want Kirsty to wind up old and bitter like herself. She didn't want her to think that all men were dogs and that she should never try to find love. And she knew that trashing James at this point would only accomplish just that. Jeanette opted to simply avoid Kirsty's question. "Why don't you stay at my place for a while? We'll stay in, watch movies, and eat Australia into a national chocolate-shortage." Kirsty burst out laughing through her tears. Jeanette was glad to get the rise out of her. "That actually sounds nice," Kirsty said. "It'll be just like old times." Chapter 11 James listened to the sound of water lapping against the shore, and the soft, clicking sound of machines working to carry the ferry across the river. He leaned on the railing separating him from the water beyond and watched that ferry glide toward the opposite bank. It had been a warm day, but the night was so cold that he had to throw on a jumper just to tolerate being so close to the water. He wasn't sure why he was here. He had felt lonely this morning after Skye had gone to work, and, as she was having a girl's night with Michelle and her new friend Rhiannon, he knew that the feeling of loneliness would only worsen. Therefore, on a whim, he had decided to take the Jeep up the coast to see Laiken. She was staying with her parents in Newcastle for the Uni holidays, and he'd thought he'd surprise her. It turned out to be him that was surprised, when, after a four-hour drive, Laiken's mother informed him that his friend was in Cessnock visiting her aunt. He ended up here, in the little town of Berowra Waters, on his way home. He had become quite taken with all the lights and reflections stretching across the water toward him while he waited for the ferry, so he decided to park the car and have something to eat by the shore. He did not regret his decision. The smell of burning wood was in the air, the moon was rising over the mountains, and he could hear cheers emanating from the restaurant across the river near the marina. James squinted in the pale moonlight and searched that marina for his boat but could not find it. He sighed. It had been a long day of driving. He felt as though he had accomplished much, but, in reality, all he'd accomplished was burning a tank of fuel. He hadn't gotten any writing done; he hadn't called his tax agent; and he hadn't finished re-watching the first season of Lost in Space. It had been a waste of a day, but he had enjoyed himself. He could see Laiken another time, and he was sure she'd get a kick out of making him drive halfway across New South Wales for nothing. James watched the ferry come nearer and nearer. It carried only one car from the other bank which was typical at this time of night. The operator exited the ferry's cabin when it docked, opened the gate to let the car off, and then returned to his position, ready to repeat the process for the next set of cars wanting to pass through until his shift ended some time later in the night. James wondered if it ever got boring for the guy. He was sure it would, but it was hard for James to imagine how anyone could be bored in such a beautiful place at such a beautiful time. The serenity of the scene was shattered suddenly, when two loud cracks echoed through the valley, and a bright light bathed the area. The cause was two fireworks, one red and the other blue. They rose from behind the restaurant, leaving a trail of sparkles behind them, and exploded in the sky above. James had forgotten that it was the Queen's Birthday, a public holiday in Australia that also coincided with another national event known as 'Cracker Night,' which, as the name suggested, meant lighting crackers (a slang term for fireworks), to the chagrin of storm-shy dogs and wild birds everywhere. While fireworks were banned in Australia, that didn't stop people from obtaining them for evenings such as this, and a small, devious part of James was glad. It was a stunning display. A thought occurred to James as he watched more crackers erupt in increasingly complicated patterns. It was the 10th of June. He'd always had a good memory for the dates on which big events in his past had fallen, and it was for this reason that he realized that it had been exactly one month since the last time he had seen someone to whom he'd felt he had gotten very close; a woman with green hair whom he'd almost kissed in a small apartment in the city. One month... James thought, incredulous. He couldn't believe it had been that long since he'd last seen her face or heard her voice, but the date displayed on the screen of his phone told him otherwise. More fireworks exploded. James snorted at the fact that he'd remembered the date of his last encounter with Kirsty, as if it was some kind of landmark in time by which all other events stood relative. He mused for a moment on the woman whom he'd left behind in his past, and a strange compulsion came over him. He wanted to call her. It was a crazy idea, but, on the spur of the moment, he took his phone out of his pocket and dialed the number. As the phone rang, James started having second thoughts. He was almost about to the hang up the phone when... "Hello." Kirsty's feminine voice came through the speaker. It wasn't friendly and high-pitched like he'd remembered it. It sounded deeper and, actually, rather hostile. "How did you know it was me?" James enquired sarcastically. "I have caller-ID," Kirsty said, her tone still brusque. "I'm sorry about what happened, Kirsty," James said. "I'm sorry for walking out like that." Kirsty sighed. "Don't you think it's a bit late for that?" James considered hanging up the phone; the call was a mistake. "I don't want forgiveness-" "So then what do you want?" Kirsty interrupted. James thought for a moment. He didn't know. The moment turned into a minute. "Goodbye, James," Kirsty said after the protracted silence. "No!" James said quickly. "Wait." He heard silence on the other end of the line, but no hang-up. "I want to know how you're doing," he finally said. "I'm good," Kirsty replied. "Anything interesting happen lately?" "Well, I met someone. That was interesting." James' heart sank. He contemplated throwing his phone into the water before him upon hearing this news. This was definitely the kind of thing he didn't want to hear when he'd so flippantly dialed the number just a few minutes earlier. "Really?" James asked, opting not to lose his month-old, thousand-dollar smartphone to the bottom of a river. "Yes," Kirsty replied. He could have sworn he'd heard her voice become slightly perkier. "What's new with you?" James battled his racing thoughts, attempting to clear some room in his mind to allow for the formation of an answer. "I saw an owl the other day," he replied, his attempt to come up with something amusing stumbling in an epic fashion. "Really?" Kirsty asked, sounding disinterested. "What did it look like?" "Owl-like?" James replied. "I only got a brief look at it. I think it was a Powerful Owl. They're pretty common around here." "That's great, James," Kirsty said. This time, her reply sounded so forced that the phone-in-the-water idea was starting to sound good again. "Listen," James said, taking a deep breath and martialing his energy to sound happy. "I'm having a party next week at my place. It's on the Friday night, and it starts at 7pm, if you're interested. There'll be food there." "Okay," Kirsty said. James expected there to be more to her sentence, but there wasn't. "Okay, well." James took another breath. "I hope I see you, somewhere else if not there." Without pausing, he continued. "I have to go now, Kirsty. It was nice talking to you. I'm sorry if I interrupted your night or woke you or anything. Bye." James heard Kirsty return his farewell in the distance, just before the phone broke the surface of the water. Chapter 12 "Babe!" Skye called to James from the kitchen. "Could you grab me one of those Cruisers while you're out there?" James rolled his eyes as he hurriedly flipped some sausages on the grill, underneath a black sky dotted with stars. "Coming!" He rushed toward the boxes of alcohol that he had purchased for the party, and dashed inside before the sausages burned. He should have started earlier. He was expecting people to start arriving at any minute, and the bulk of cooking was still to be done. He hadn't expected Skye to help, but she had surprised him when she said she'd be making a quiche. "Here you are, sweetheart," James said quickly, placing the drink on the dining room table in front of Skye who was thumbing through a magazine. He couldn't blame her for heaping the bulk of the preparations upon him; it was his party after all. James had shocked Skye when he came home and announced that he wanted to throw a party on Friday night. Because she knew James, it was, to her, like hearing Batman saying he wanted to have dinner with the Joker. Regardless, she jumped at the chance to party, and immediately instructed James on what he had to do. She had been a great help, even if she didn't end up actually doing much, and James was immensely appreciative. As he continued to cook the horde of sausages, he wondered whether all of his work would actually amount to anything. This party was on for one reason and one reason alone: getting back on good terms with Kirsty. If she didn't show up, his efforts would all have been for nothing. He placed the last batch of sausages on a plate with the others and deposited them onto the table under the patio, where they sat alongside the sauce, bread, chips, pizzas, and drinks. He looked over the table and nodded his head with pride. It was going to be a good night. James paced around outside a bit, enjoying the calm before the storm of music and people that was about to come. Would she show up? he wondered as he reached the section of the fence where he and Kirsty had met. He looked up toward a moon half-shrouded by clouds in contemplation. The sounds of voices soon came from inside the house. The first guests had arrived. James left to greet them. "Where is that 'James' creature?" he heard Laiken's voice ask when he neared the house. She poked her head out of the door and spotted James as he came closer. "Ah! There it is!" Laiken and Ryun's arrival seemed to open the metaphorical floodgates for guests, with people soon pouring in, starting with the familiar faces of Kiera and Stacey, but swiftly consisting more of the increasingly unrecognizable faces of Skye's friends. James didn't mind the abundance of strangers tonight. He'd needed to make it look like a party, and parties required guests. Skye was more than eager to fulfill that requirement; she was thrilled about the opportunity to party all night with her mates. Guests were still arriving an hour after the party's official start- time, and it was only this that allowed James to continue believing Kirsty would show up. It was only when he had given up hope half an hour later that he noticed her striking walk out of the corner of his eye from his spot by the pool. James immediately rose to greet her. "Hi, Kirsty!" James said excitedly, nearing her and joining her alongside Kiera and Stacey. He almost didn't recognize her. Her green hair was gone, and in its place was a long, blonde wig. It looked beautiful, but James somehow missed what had become her 'signature color' in his mind. "Hi, James," Kirsty replied sedately, as one would greet a co-worker they'd seen an hour ago. "I'm glad you could make it," James said, far less enthusiastically this time as he realized that her appearance there did not equal forgiveness. Kiera eyed James and Kirsty. She wasn't sure what to make of them now. From her perspective, they had been almost like best friends, and then neither of them saw or spoke a word to each other for a long time. Only a month ago she would have thought it weird if Kirsty wasn't the first guest to arrive, but now she found herself amazed to see her at all. She wondered what might have been the catalyst for this rift between the two friends, but her theories didn't paint either of them as particularly honorable people, so she let the matter drop. "There is no way they would allow that," Laiken said, shaking her head before biting into a sausage sandwich. "And who is this 'they'?" Jeff, one of Skye's friends, asked. "The hospital?" "At the very least I'd think you'd be charged with child abuse at some point," James said with his head in his hand. Skye approached the small group that had formed near the bonfire and sat on James' lap. "What are we talking about?" she asked. "We're trying to figure out whether or not it's illegal to name your child something like 'Moron' or 'Horse-head,'" Laiken replied. She looked genuinely perplexed. During the conversation, Kirsty and James had said nothing to each other. They were sitting on opposing sides of the fire, Kirsty next to Kiera and Stacey, James with Laiken and Ryun. "I think the question Laiken needs to ask," James began with a deadpan expression, "is whether or not there's anything she can do to stop the kids at school from naming her real child that for her." The entire group laughed, including Laiken. Laiken then proceeded to lean over toward James, and get her revenge: "Every time I look upon you," she said to him, pausing for dramatic effect, "I immediately wish I hadn't." The group dispersed after a time as the fire died down, opting instead to spend the night in the pool. Kirsty was one of the few who had decided to remain on dry land, and James figured that this was probably a good opportunity to try talking to her. He approached cautiously. "Hi," he said once he came within speaking distance. He noticed that, without Kiera and Stacey around, she didn't look apathetic anymore: she looked nervous. Her eyes darted around, seemingly trying to find their owner an escape. "Hi," she replied, making no indication that she would ever say anything beyond that. James didn't know what to say. He wasn't good at starting conversations at the best of times, let alone with someone who obviously didn't want to talk to him. "Would you like another sausage sandwich?" he offered, in an attempt to bribe her with food. Kirsty produced a closed-mouthed smile. "I can't have much protein, remember?" "Oh. Right," James said, obviously dismayed at having forgotten something about her that was important. Kirsty noticed this. She sighed. "Thank you for inviting me," she said, her voice softening. James looked up in response to her sudden benevolence. "No problem," he said with a very brief smile. An awkward pause followed. It was during that pause that James realized there was very little point in trying to be Kirsty's friend. It would always be uncomfortable; there would always be an elephant in the room; they would never be the same. "I hope you enjoy the rest of your night, Kirsty," James said as he moved away. He heard no protest. The night had taken a turn for the worse, James thought, as he downed half a glass of vodka and then promptly picked up a half-empty bottle of VB that he only vaguely remembered being his. Kirsty was laughing. He could see her from his chair on the patio as he looked out toward the pool. She was with one of Skye's male friends. The guy's scrawny body wasn't much to look at, but he had a great face, and Kirsty seemed to very much enjoy looking at it. James finished the beer and contemplated the irony of his situation. He had invited Kirsty to a party to try and restart their friendship, but, instead, all he had managed to accomplish was realizing just how absurd a proposition that would be now. He watched Kirsty flick her hair over her shoulder and stare up at Skye's skinny friend. He could hear her giggles amongst the crowd. He couldn't stand looking at her anymore. He went inside. James splashed more vodka into a glass and fell onto the couch in front of the television with a game-controller in his hand. He'd loaded a particularly violent shooting game into the machine. He wanted to see something die. He got his wish. Several minutes and almost thirty seven corpses later, someone wandered in to join him. It took him a few seconds to identify the person. He eventually discovered that it was Jeff, who wasn't quite as drunk as James, but, based on his shambling walk toward an adjacent couch and his minute-long fumble for the controller in front of him, he was getting there. "Dude..." he said, nodding approvingly at the screen as James mowed down a group of virtual vampires. "Dude," James returned satirically, raising his glass and toasting the air. He took a giant swig. "Can I have a go, mate?" Jeff asked, slack-jawed. "Be my guest," James said. "Well, more than you already are." While James was philosophically against the genuine use of the word, Jeff's remarkable ability to slaughter the vampires in the television screen made him allow for one exception: "Dude..." Twenty minutes went by. When the screen flashed the words 'game over', James and Jeff sat in silence as the game reloaded. "Did you hear about that Kirsty chick, mate?" Jeff asked abruptly, his head shaking slowly from side to side. James felt faint for a moment. The world was spinning before his eyes. He had to fight to remain conscious to ask Jeff what he meant. "Did I hear about what her?" "She's a guy, apparently." Jeff laughed feverishly. James stood up. "Who the hell told you that?" "Your girl," Jeff responded. "Skye." Out of the corner of his eye, James noticed a blonde woman walk up through the hallway and toward the front door. A brunette woman soon followed. "I'm sorry, Kirsty," someone who sounded very much like Skye said. "Please stay." "I should probably get going, Skye," a voice that James recognized with certainty as Kirsty's replied. "I'm okay. I had a good night, and I wasn't going to stay for much longer anyway." James rose and stumbled toward the voices. He almost fell over on his way but managed to steady himself on a wall, just in time to see Kirsty exit and hear the door slam. James pushed himself off the wall and staggered toward Skye. "What the hell did you do?" he demanded. "Why did you tell everyone that?" Skye looked genuinely upset. "I didn't mean to," she said. "I just thought that David had the right to know. I didn't want him getting involved with someone who's actually a man before he knew what he was getting into. I didn't want anyone to get hurt." "Great job," James said. He opened the front door and bolted out of it. "Kirsty!" James yelled, before figuring that it would be more useful to use his eyes instead of his mouth to locate her. He couldn't see her car anywhere. She must have already driven away. After a burst of questionable inspiration, James ran up the driveway in an attempt to catch up with her car, wherever it may be, on foot. He reached the top of the hill before he fell, skidding on the gravel on his way down. That gravel was moist from a light rain which had only just started falling. James could taste the blood trickling into his mouth. He turned his head to spit it out when his eyes were drawn to a glint of light to his left. The glint originated from the shiny surfaces of two silver cars. When James squinted his eyes and made an attempt to focus on the two vehicles, he realized that those two cars were actually just one: one that looked an awful lot like Kirsty's. James lurched upward and staggered to the car as the rain picked up. He clutched the top of the car and worked his way down to the driver side window. He knocked on that window. Several moments later, the tinted pane of glass lowered. "What do you want, James?" Kirsty's sullen voice came from inside. James inhaled deeply to take in her perfume, seemingly as an alternative to answering. "Get in," Kirsty said after a time, gesturing with her head toward the passenger seat. James heard the click of doors unlocking, and he quickly obeyed. Kirsty sniffled before getting a look at James' face. "What happened to you??" she exclaimed, examining his blood and dirt covered skin in the dim, green light coming from the car's dash. James exhaled dramatically. "A lot's happened to me, Kirsty, in the past little while." "That's not what I meant, idiot," Kirsty retorted, taking his face in her hand and bringing it closer to assess the damage. She wiped the tears from her eyes and said: "Wait there." Kirsty reached into her back seat and retrieved a first aid kit which she then opened. She removed a vial of liquid and gently applied its contents to James' face with a cotton ball. "Ow!" James winced as the liquid touched his cuts. Kirsty smiled sardonically. "It's disinfectant. Your alternative is to get a horrible infection." James said nothing. Kirsty sniffed the air; she could smell the alcohol on him. "I thought you didn't drink," she said, her voice laced with judgment. James, again, did not give a reply. The burning sensation in his face had subsided, leaving him to enjoy Kirsty's warm, pampering hands on his skin. She stopped and returned the first aid kit to the back seat. She then put her face in her hands and began crying. James suddenly remembered why he came outside. "I'm sorry about what Skye said in there." "It's okay," Kirsty responded unconvincingly, her sobs easing. "I didn't mean for things to turn out this way tonight, Kirsty," James said in a moment of lucidity. "I'm sorry." Kirsty looked up at James. She couldn't help be disarmed by his treatment of her. "I'm sorry too," she said. "I shouldn't have treated you like I did earlier." "Why did you treat me like that earlier?" James asked. His question sounded genuinely innocent. Kirsty exploded. "You're seriously asking me why? You want to know why I would be angry with you after what happened?? I know you, James. You're not that stupid." "Thank you," James said, completely missing the point of Kirsty's words. Kirsty contemplated not saying any more, but she couldn't help herself. She had to say something about how he had affected her. She couldn't keep it bottled up inside. "I was angry - I am angry - because, as you might have noticed, James, when you almost kissed me, it wasn't one-sided." The rain increased noticeably in intensity. "I'm sorry, Kirsty," James said, unsure of whether or not that was really the appropriate response in his state of intoxication. "I'm sorry too," Kirsty said breathlessly. "I'm sorry that I was stupid enough to think that you were with me that night for a reason other than making yourself feel better about your relationship problems." "Hey..." James said, in a deep, almost threatening voice. "That was not why that happened, and you know it." "Then why did it happen, James?" Kirsty cried. "Are you gonna try and tell me you had actually had feelings for me?" James thought long and hard about Kirsty's words. Minutes went by. The only sound that could be heard during those minutes was the gentle patter of raindrops on the roof. "I guess that's my answer then," Kirsty said, after James made it clear that he did not intend on giving a response. "I think..." "I did have feelings for you," James suddenly shot back, finally winning the battle against his desire to not say anything that might get him into trouble. "Really?" Kirsty countered skeptically. "But those feelings aren't as strong as the ones you have for her, right?" Kirsty pointed back toward the house. James remained silent. "That's what I thought. Because it doesn't matter how nice you are or how much of a bitch she is, the real woman always beats the trans-girl." James looked at Kirsty, who had resumed sobbing. He wondered when she'd started referring to herself as 'trans.' Unbeknownst to him, so did she. "Didn't you 'meet someone'?" James asked, his mind returning to the words that made his heart leap that night in Berowra. "Oh, yeah. As if that worked out," Kirsty snapped, crying now at an even greater intensity. "What happened?" James asked warily. He wasn't sure he wanted any of the details. "The same thing that always happens," Kirsty said. "The girl with boobs gets the guy." James looked at the cleavage visible out of her gray and white striped dress. It looked so real. "It's not that I didn't like you, Kirsty," he said, wiping tear from his eye that he could not contain. "I just didn't want to hurt Skye." "Well, while you were off not hurting Skye, you hurt me." James hung his head. He could say nothing. She was right. "James," Kirsty said softly after a time. "It's my fault too, you know. You know my situation. I've been depressed about it for quite some time. You were the first 'normal' guy I'd ever met who knew about me and didn't react just like those people did in there. You didn't laugh at me. I wasn't a joke to you. I was a person, just like everyone else, worthy of your time and respect. You made me feel wanted, and then I started wanting when I knew I shouldn't. I couldn't help it, just like you couldn't help hurting me by leaving." James looked at Kirsty. He felt sad in a way that he hadn't for a long time. "I'm so sorry." His words were far less slurred now; the alcohol was wearing off. He placed his hand on her back and rubbed it gently. "You shouldn't be," Kirsty said. "You gave me hope; hope that maybe there's someone out there for me, just as nice as you, who I'll get to ride off into the sunset with." James hung his head again. Her words did nothing to ease the weight on his mind. "So where does that leave us?" he asked. Kirsty thought for a moment. "I don't want to lose you from my life. Why don't we just chalk what happened that night up as two vulnerable people at a vulnerable time who made an unfortunate mistake? Okay?" James looked into Kirsty's eyes. His heart didn't want to agree, but there was a pleading look in those beautiful, big eyes of hers that begged him to. "Okay," James said. Chapter 13 James pushed off the edge of his pool, and the inflatable, plastic ring he laid upon carried him to the deep end in the shade of the canvas above. "Have you ever seen a 'give way' sign on the side of the road, and wanted to follow its instruction by immediately collapsing onto the ground?" "You're an idiot," Kirsty said, smiling and attempting to mount her own plastic ring for the third time. James indulged in the feeling of cool water on his feet as he slowly paddled to the other side of the pool to retrieve his drink. It was a hot day, and there was nothing like spending the day in the pool on one of them. He heard a splash as he took his first sip of lemonade. Kirsty had fallen off her inflatable doughnut yet again. "Don't even say a word," she threatened after surfacing from under the water. She grabbed the ring for a fourth try. James let himself fall from his flotation device and into the shimmering water. He paddled toward Kirsty and steadied her own so that she could get on. "Thank you," she said when she got comfortable and started drifting away. Kirsty had been a regular sight at Willow Glen (the name James had recently settled on for his house) since their conversation on that rainy night in the car all those months ago, and they had spent many a day like this, just lazing in the pool until the sunset. The kiss which they had very nearly shared was nothing more than a distant memory now, but neither of them experienced any regret. They were friends -very close friends - but nothing more. James looked across to Kirsty as he lay above the water, and Kirsty stared back at him. They smiled at each other and promptly fell asleep listening to the chirping birds in the trees behind them. James woke before Kirsty a few hours later. The sun was still high in the sky. He turned his gaze toward her. She was still fast asleep, sprawled out on top of her floating, pink tube. The tip of her golden ponytail touched the rippling water. He thought it was absurd that she always went swimming with a wig on, but he figured it was probably less strange a sight than if she took it off. He couldn't help admire her body in the off-blue light that filtered through the tarp above them. Even wearing only a black bikini, it was impossible to tell that she wasn't a woman. Every detail one would expect to see on a girl was there, even down to her large hips and smooth armpits. She was beautiful. He had a very beautiful friend. The serenity of the scene broke a few minutes later, as Kirsty's watch alarm went off. "What's that?" James asked over a book he had started reading as Kirsty rose her from sleep. "A reminder," Kirsty said. She pointed to her red handbag on the side of the pool closest to James. "Can you pass me that?" she requested. James retrieved it, and she removed a bottle of tablets from it after he handed it to her. James eyed the bottle curiously. "Are you sick?" "Androgen blockers," Kirsty explained as she placed one of the pills on her tongue and swallowed. "Right," James said. He should have known what they were, but he seldom saw her take them. "You really take those every day?" Kirsty nodded her head cutely. "Is that annoying?" James asked with interest. "Yeah," Kirsty said, placing the pills back into her bag and handing it to James. "But it's better than virilizing." "Virilizing?" James asked, unfamiliar with the word. "Turning into a truck driver, James," Kirsty sighed with mock annoyance. James laughed. He took in the sight of her small, delicate frame draped over the tube. He didn't see that happening. "You!" James said dramatically, pointing an accusing-finger at Kiera, whom he'd spotted walking toward them from the house. Kiera's walk broke into a run, and James and Kirsty covered their faces in preparation for what was to come. With a gigantic splash, Kiera entered the pool, throwing James and Kirsty backward from the surge which followed. "Hi, guys!" Kiera said with a cheeky expression, running her fingers through her drenched hair to spike it up. James and Kirsty exchanged bemused glances. "Aren't you glad I'm home?" Kiera said with an infuriatingly wide grin. It wasn't long before Stacey arrived home too. She had moved in with Kiera only a month previous. James didn't mind; he appreciated the company. The house was a lot more lively with her around. A few minutes after Stacey returned, Skye followed. "Hurry up, Skye!" Kiera called to her while she changed into a swimming costume inside. James and Kirsty exchanged another glance, this time one of knowing. Lesbians, they both thought. They shook their heads. Skye sat beside the pool and dangled her feet in the water. She made no move to join them in it. "Are you going to come in?" James asked. Skye gave him a cross look and was met with a dumb expression. "Period, James," Skye said brusquely. Kiera and Stacey nodded their heads sympathetically, knowing well what it was like not to be able to swim because of the monthly curse. Kirsty felt strangely superior as she listened to the girls complain about problems with which she had never had to deal. "I'm going to get a drink," Kirsty said, hauling herself out of the pool. "Would anyone like anything?" "I'd like a large Mother," James said, referring to the popular energy drink which claimed to be a 'mother of an energy hit.' "I thought you already had a large mother," Kiera said. Everyone laughed, including James, but Kirsty thought the comment was a bit out of line. Kirsty brought James his drink, along with everyone else's. She then leaned down beside her friend, holding his drink in her hand. "You drink these far too often for your own good, you know," she said. Her face bore a serious expression. "I know, Mom," James responded. Kirsty handed him the drink reluctantly. "It's true," Skye said. "You won't make it past thirty if you keep going like that." "To dying early!" James announced, looking delighted as he toasted the sentiment with Kiera, who was drinking the same. "We have to go soon," Stacey reminded Kiera, who hastily checked her watch. "You're right!" Kiera exclaimed, quickly climbing out of the pool. "Where are you guys going?" Skye asked. "We're heading to the Entertainment Centre," Kiera responded. "Seeing Tony Martin." "Nice," James said, also being a fan of the Australian comedian. Kiera and Stacey left, leaving Skye, Kirsty and James alone in the pool. As Skye couldn't swim, and as James and Kirsty had spent most of the day in the water already, they decided to head inside and hope that the air- conditioner could prevent them from catching fire in the incredibly hot air of the summer day. Once inside, James headed off to the shower, and Kirsty and Skye dried off. The girls then proceeded to watch an afternoon soap on the TV over some cool drinks. "How did your exam go?" Kirsty asked Skye during an ad, which had been preemptively silenced to save themselves from the obligatory blast of noise which would have exploded from the TV otherwise. "They said it was nothing," Skye said. "It was just a small cyst and nothing to worry about." "That's good news, Skye," Kirsty said. She was genuinely worried when Skye had announced to her and James that she'd felt a lump in her breast the other day. Despite their numerous rocky encounters, Skye and Kirsty got along fairly well now, and there was no longer any animosity between them. Skye had apologized for outing her on the night of James' party, and Kirsty, seeing that she was genuinely guilty over what happened, forgave her. "Yes, it is," Skye said with a sigh of relief. "You're so lucky you don't have to worry about these things." Of course, there was still the occasional comment that made her feel like crap. ~o0o~ "I'll just never understand why you're reading a book about fishing when you have no interest in actually going anywhere with a fishing rod," Skye said. She had just finished on the phone and had begun watching James as the two sat in bed later that night after Kirsty had left. James put the book down and shifted over to Skye's side. He placed his arm around her shoulder and kissed her on the cheek. He felt nothing. Since the feelings of jealously that Nick brought to his relationship with Skye had mysteriously evaporated and were stripped away, James found that there was nothing underneath. James loved Skye, but it was something of which he was consciously aware now, not something he felt. He could tell she felt it too; she hadn't asked for sex for a long, long time. A tear formed in one of James' eyes. This was not how their relationship was supposed to go. When he'd met Skye, he'd done so at a turning point in his life. He'd known Skye just as an acquaintance before that for most of his life, so memories of her were peppered throughout the memories of his entire childhood. When the pair had reconnected after James' parents died, Skye provided him with a comfort and familiarity that he desperately needed at the time. Now that that time had passed, James felt far more comfortable with the present than he ever did, and he needed to rely on that comfort and familiarity much less. It wasn't that he was starting to realize that he didn't need Skye, but, rather, he was beginning to wonder if the reason he was with her was less about her than it was about himself. She looked at him and placed her hand on his chest. The prospect of losing Skye scared James to death, and the prospect of hurting her scared him even more, but he couldn't help but wonder if keeping her in this relationship was truly the most honorable thing to do. What if that's the reason she changed? James wondered as he stroked her hair. Maybe she'd realized all this a long time ago. Maybe her always wanting to go on overseas trips, be with other people when they were together, and be with Nick, stemmed from the fact that she was just as bored as he was, but, also, like him, she just didn't want to admit it? It doesn't matter, James told himself. That's all in the past now. "I love you," James said to Skye as she began to fall asleep in his arms, and he meant every word. He just wished his heart did too. ~o0o~ "Beware the cruisers, Captain!" James advised as he fed navigational information to the ship's computer from his console on the bridge. "They're comin' in hot, sir," a surly-looking female lieutenant stated. Sure enough, when James looked up at the front viewport of the vessel of which he was second-in-command, several huge spaceships, obviously alien in origin based on their unusual, triangular design, were advancing toward them. Hundreds of smaller spaceships swarmed around. The sound of their engines was deafening even from their location half a million kilometers away. "Shield status?" the captain demanded from his chair between James and the lieutenant. "Critical," the woman said, punching in what seemed like an endless stream of commands into her control console. The captain rose and made his way though the tumult on the bridge toward the viewport. James thought he was mad getting so close to the action, but he guessed that such bravery was what made him the captain. "God help us," the man said, looking up with horror at the titanic vessel positioning itself directly over them. That vessel dropped something out of a compartment on its underside. Everyone on the bridge stopped to watch as it fell toward them, and an eerie quiet filled the room. "Sub-light engines?" the captain demanded, twisting his head back toward the lieutenant, a look of uncharacteristic desperation on his face. The lieutenant swallowed and shook her head. Her voice cracked. "Negative, sir." The object then made contact, and, with a sound so loud that it was likely analogous only to the Big Bang, they... James sat up in bed, just in time to hear the tail-end of a massive crack of thunder from the skies... Gone was the interior of the spaceship. In its place was his bedroom, the features of which he could make out only by squinting his eyes into the darkness. He looked at his alarm clock. 4:00am, it read. The sound of the rain on the roof was tremendous. James was surprised at how quickly the weather could change; there wasn't a cloud in the sky when he'd gotten into bed all those hours ago. He reached over and felt the part of the bed to his right. Skye was there. Her presence affirmed the fact that he was no longer under threat from alien vessels. I'm sick of this, James thought. For a week, each night had been filled with one bad dream after another. It had been years since he'd had a good dream, but, for a while there, his mind seemed content to not wander off into dreamland at all. He missed that. For as cool as being on the deck of a spaceship was, being under attack from a hostile alien race when you felt like it was really happening was not. James threw off the blankets and went out to the lounge room, where he hunched over his laptop in the darkness and attempted to write, the rain and thunder crashing down outside all the while. He'd just started writing the fourth chapter of his book, which he'd cleverly entitled 'Chapter 4,' when he felt a vibration and a small rumbling sound coming from the table. It was his phone. James turned it over and looked at the caller-ID. Kirsty's name was on the screen. With a bewildered expression, he answered. "Hello?" he said, rubbing his eyes and the bridge of his nose. Kirsty's voice emanated from the speaker. "Hi, James." She sounded panicked. "Are you alright?" he asked, wondering what could be so bad that it would cause her to call at four in the morning. Then he heard it. It was thundering over there too, enough to penetrate the walls of her building and travel over the phone. "I'm really scared," she said, her voice quaking after the last strike. "I'm so sorry I called, but I am just so scared." "It's okay," James said gently. He actually felt touched that she would call him in her time of need. "I'll talk to you until it passes. How does that sound?" "You have no idea how much I appreciate that, James," Kirsty said breathlessly but with conviction. "I don't care what we talk about. Just let me hear your voice." James felt so sorry for her. He could tell by her tremulous voice alone just how terrified she must have been feeling. He closed the lid of his laptop, laid on the couch, and pulled a blanket over himself. "Do you have any topics of conversation in mind?" "Umm. Why don't you tell me what you're going to do today?" Kirsty said in a small, stilted voice. "What's tomorrow?" James asked. "Friday," Kirsty answered. "Right. Skye's at work all day tomorrow, then I'm pretty sure she's heading down to Maraylya for some party or other. I'd go with her but..." James cocked his head. "I don't want to." Kirsty giggled, just before another boom from the clouds silenced her. "James..." she whispered, her voice ragged with fear. "It's okay," he responded in a reassuring tone. "It's just noise. It won't hurt you." "I wish you were here with me," Kirsty said, her fear overpowering her inhibitions. James didn't know how to respond. In all honesty, he would have liked to have been with her too, perhaps sitting together, by the candlelight, listening to the rain together... He quickly shook those thoughts away. "I wish I was there too," he said, figuring it was the obligatory comeback. Kirsty spoke after a few moments of silence. "Could you promise me you'll stop drinking those things?" James knew what she was talking about immediately. "I never have Maccas, I get plenty of exercise, and I otherwise follow a healthy lifestyle. Those energy drinks are my one indulgence." "But they're going to kill you," Kirsty retorted. "So is everything," James replied. "It's not like I drink them to supplement sleep or anything like other people do. I just like the taste of them." "But that doesn't matter," Kirsty countered. "It doesn't matter why you're drinking them, the fact that you are drinking them means that they're still going to hurt you. Every time I come over lately you've got a can in your hand and I'm starting to think you're addicted." "I'm not addicted," James replied. "I went four hours without them once, but nobody ever gives me credit for that." James could practically hear her roll her eyes. "No, all I hear about are the times when I do drink them." A pause followed. "I'm just worried about you," she said after a few moments. "Why? Just because they've got enough caffeine in them to wake a coma victim?" Kirsty managed a chuckle. "Please promise me you'll try to cut back. You're my friend. I don't want anything to happen to you." "Very well," James relented. "You'd make a good mother, you know," he quipped with a smile, trying to keep her talking and distracted. "Shut up," Kirsty said, assuming it was a joke. "No, I'm serious," James continued. "What makes you think that?" she asked, her voice softening in intrigue. "I can hear it in your voice, if that makes sense." James laughed. "I don't know. It was just a thought." Kirsty hadn't really given thought to ever having children, but James' compliment gave her such a warm feeling that she figured she probably would once this storm was over. "You looked really beautiful today," Kirsty said, cognizant of the fact that doing so meant that she had overstepped her boundaries. James always loved complements, though, so she figured she could get away with it. "So did you," James replied. He wasn't sure if he should say more, so he didn't. "It was good to hear that Skye's been given the all-clear by the doctor," Kirsty said, skilfully cutting off any potentially romantic turns the conversation was about to take. "Yeah, it was," James said earnestly. "I was really worried about her." "We all were," Kirsty said. James suddenly realized that it had been a while since he had heard any thunder coming from Kirsty's end. It sounded like a hurricane where he was, but, aside from rain, things over there were calming down. "I'm so sorry I woke you," Kirsty said. "It's okay," James assured her. "I'm glad you called." "When do I get to see you next?" Kirsty asked softly, her voice rising in pitch at the end of her sentence as it always did when she asked a question. "When are you free?" James asked. "Well, since Skye's going somewhere tomorrow night, would you mind if I came over then?" James scratched the back of his neck. "Do you think we can get together at your place this time? I could do with a change." "Oh..." Kirsty pouted. "I love your house. It's so much nicer than being in a place where I'm constantly surrounded by walls." "But I wanted to have a go on that new pirate game you were telling me about," James shot back, revealing his true reason for wanting to spend the night in the city. "Fine," Kirsty said. "I can't fault you for that. I'll see you at seven?" "I'll be seeing you then, lass," James said in his best impression of a pirate that was so unexpected that Kirsty snorted with laughter. She rolled her eyes once more. "See you then, James. Thank you for talking to me." "Anytime," James replied. Chapter 14 "That guy must have gotten an 'A' in asshole class," a woman in a white blouse and gray pants said as she replaced several vials of perfume in a display case on a wall covered in every type of fragrance imaginable. "Yeah I could see that," Kirsty, wearing the same outfit, said from across the room, taking her eyes away from the hustle and bustle of the city street outside and glancing toward her colleague. "Made me let him smell ten, and then he walks out with nothing," the woman continued. "So what were you saying?" She stomped over and leaned down onto the glass counter next to Kirsty, and both women peered into the laptop on the surface. Kirsty grinned. "So we've basically fooled the scammer into thinking that we believe he needs help moving funds out of Nigeria, and that we've swallowed the idea that there's a few million dollars in it for us if we help." Kirsty gestured to several pieces of email correspondence on the screen. "We've managed to trick him into thinking that we had already paid five thousand dollars to another scammer just a few weeks ago, so he thinks we're ripe for sending more to get our reward." "So what are you going to do?" Kirsty's colleague asked, beaming with amusement. "Well, from what James says, scammers will do a lot when they think there's thousands of dollars in it for them. The first thing we're gonna do is get the guy to pose for photos for 'identification purposes'." The woman laughed. "Do you really think you'll be able to do it?" "People do it all the time. There's stuff about it all over the internet," Kirsty replied, just before her boss came out of the back room. "What are you girls doing?" Jeanette asked as she joined the two women. She looked at the laptop's screen. "Another scam-bait, Kirsty?" She sighed. "You two are gonna get someone killed." "Well, they have no reservations about ruining people's lives. If we can do something about that, and have some fun at the same time, I can't see what the problem is. Besides, we're only doing small things. Some people send them into war zones to look for cash." Jeanette shook her head. "Have you had your lunch-break today, Kirsty?" "No," Kirsty replied. "This is the first break from customers we've had all day." Jeanette shook her head again. "Come on, we'll go get something. I'm sure the shop will survive if you leave for half an hour. Right, Reagan?" The woman nodded, and Jeanette led Kirsty out to a small fish-shop in Circular Quay where they bought lunch. They sat down to eat by the water. "So how are things going between you and James now?" Jeanette asked. "We're friends again," Kirsty replied casually, taking a bite of her burger. "Things are really, really good." Jeanette produced a halfhearted smile. "So his girlfriend never found out what happened?" "Not that I know of," Kirsty answered. "She and I are actually pretty good friends now." Jeanette raised a skeptical eyebrow. "I mean, we're not skipping hand in hand down a country lane together," Kirsty clarified, "but we're certainly not enemies." "And how is his relationship now?" Jeanette pressed. "As far as I know it's okay," Kirsty said, leaning back in her chair. "James doesn't really talk much about it anymore. I think they just hit a rough patch before." Jeanette sipped her lemonade. "I don't want you to waste your time on this guy, Kirsty," she said, in a statement that took Kirsty by surprise. "I'm not wasting my time," Kirsty quietly protested. "We're having fun." "Kirsty..." Jeanette began. She placed a wrinkled hand upon Kirsty's milky-white palm. "I can't even begin to recall how many times you and I have had conversations at night in front of my fireplace where you've told me that you don't want to feel like a ship looking for a port anymore." The blithe expression left Kirsty's face. "And??" she snapped. "And you never will if you keep pining over this guy," Jeanette immediately responded. "Take it from me, love, he'll string you along for months. You'll spend a lot of time together. You'll be his shoulder to cry on about his relationship problems. Eventually, he'll paint a terrible picture of his girlfriend in your mind, and you'll reach a point where you feel that you are a better fit for him than her, and you'll start hoping every minute of every day that he realizes it. But, at the end of each of those days, she will be the one he kisses goodnight; she will be the one who will get to feel his touch and his warmth; and she will be the one who will get to feel like she's the most important thing in his life. And you will be at home, in bed, alone, crying about it, wishing that sleep would come faster to save you. You will do everything for him, and you will get nothing in return." Kirsty looked toward the Harbor Bridge towering over them across the bay. She knew all of this already. "So what should I do?" she asked. "Tell him that I don't want to be his friend anymore and throw away what little happiness I have?" "What I'm saying is," Jeanette countered in a motherly tone, tightening her grip on Kirsty's hand. "Don't stop looking, lovely, because you haven't found anything yet." She looked deeply into Kirsty's sullen, brown eyes. "Okay?" Kirsty said nothing. ~o0o~ "Did you know that, if you reverse the 's' and the 't' in your name, it could be pronounced 'curtsy'?" James said to Kirsty over the phone as he drove toward the city. Kirsty giggled and pulled the roller-door down over the front of the perfume store. She locked it, securing it for the night. "If you'd just wait there I could easily come and pick you up," James continued, breaking to avoid hitting a car that was going 50 in the 80km/h zone he was traveling down. "I'd rather you didn't walk back in the rain." "That's okay," Kirsty said in a very high voice, betraying the fact that she was extremely flattered by his offer. "I usually leave the car at home and walk for a little bit of exercise. I have an umbrella." "Why don't I meet you halfway then?" James persisted. "Okay," Kirsty said coyly. "If you can get here in time. I'll turn on Find My Friends so you can find me." She pushed a few buttons on her phone, allowing James to see where she was on his. In an instant, James' annoyance with the car in front of him escalated into anger. He fantasized about installing cannons on the front of his car for similar cars that he might be stuck behind in the future. "Fine," James replied. "Can I keep talking to you, though? It's boring sitting here in the middle of the road watching this guy map the pebbles in the tar." "Sure," Kirsty said with a huge smile. Her heels clacked as they took her through the busy city streets, and she soon reached the much quieter residential area, indicating that she was not too far from home. "So are you looking forward to visiting the pirate's cove tonight?" Kirsty asked excitedly. "Yeah," James replied. "I've been looking forward to playing that game since it was announced." "You'll love it," Kirsty said playfully. She took a deep breath and remembered Jeanette's words from earlier. She was both excited and apprehensive about James' visit tonight. There was something very important that she needed to discuss with him, and, even though she had made up her mind that it was the right thing to do, it could very well bring about a significant change in their relationship, and not for the better. James asked a question that Kirsty didn't quite hear over a momentary drop-out. She was about to ask James to repeat himself, but she kept quiet. There were three men on the street in front of her, and she was shy about waltzing through them while still having a fairly loud conversation. "Hang on," she said. She approached the men cautiously, slowing her gait. It wasn't until she got closer, past the fog, tinged orange from the streetlights above, that she noticed their eyes. They were tracking her movement. "Kirsty?" James' voice emanated from the phone speaker as he tried to figure out what was causing the delay. Kirsty eventually came close enough to the men to discern what they looked like. The guy closest to her was quite possibly one of the ugliest specimens of humanity upon which she had ever gazed. He was skinny, had a ratlike face, and had about as many teeth as he looked like he could count. This was a typical 'derro,' a slang term for the lower echelon citizens of Sydney and the surrounding areas, who screamed their stupidity and low social rank from their housing-commission homes in ridiculous, nasally voices to all who would listen. Kirsty was unlucky enough to actually hear one of their vocalizations up close, as the lead derro asked: "you got a dollar, bro?" "No," Kirsty replied in a very small voice. "I don't, sorry." She kept walking. It was only a few a moments later that she realized that they all had started walking along with her. "Are you sure, miss?" the man repeated, eventually gaining on her enough to walk astride. "Yes," she said, trying to walk as fast as she could on her high-heels. Then it happened. One of them reached out and grabbed her by the arm, stopping her dead in her tracks, and causing her to drop her phone. Kirsty began to feel faint as one of the derros trailing behind the leader walked around and ripped her bag from her shoulder. Kirsty tried to remain calm as they searched it. It didn't take them long to find her purse. They removed several notes of $5, $20, and $50 denominations from it. "You got no dollar, aye?" the leader said sarcastically, taking a note and waving it in front of her face. He gave the note back to his second and eyed Kirsty up and down. "Boys," the leader said confidently, moving his head to address the men behind him but not taking his eyes off Kirsty. "Look at what we've got 'ere!" He moved closer to Kirsty so that his face was almost touching hers. He ran his finger down her cheek. Kirsty knew what was coming. "Please don't," she said, her voice thin from terror. The derro chuckled. "Don't worry," he said menacingly. "We'll all make sure you enjoy it." His companions cheered his remark and encouraged the proceedings. After checking the street for any witnesses, the three men pulled Kirsty down the street for a time. They then pulled her down to the very back of an alley. They threw her down behind a dumpster, utterly ruining her yellow sundress. She had begun screaming, but the leader muffled her cries with a powerful hand. Kirsty watched on in horror from the ground as the leader undid the fly of his pants and leaned down in front of her. He then slowly raised his hand and placed it around the back of her neck, in a strangely tender way, and then took her by surprise by feeling her crotch. Kirsty shook in fear as he did, but the man obviously couldn't feel anything. The guy then ripped open the top of Kirsty's sundress, exposing her cleavage to him. She whimpered and began to cry. He leered at her, getting a good look at her exposed chest. He nodded lecherously in approval. Luckily, however, he did not yet make a move toward the clasp of her bra. It wasn't until he attempted to drag her to her feet by her hair that he discovered that Kirsty wasn't what she appeared to be. As soon as he yanked at her blonde wig, it came clean off, revealing the short hair underneath. "What the fuck is this?" the guy roared, holding Kirsty's wig in his hand. He turned around to his companions and treated them to a toothless smile. "This must be one of those disgusting gay cunts from Oxford Street!" he continued, making use of the signature expletive of their kind. The men behind the leader couldn't believe their eyes. They had all been attracted to Kirsty, and they had made it quite clear to each other that they wanted their piece of the action, but now it was revealed that they had been attracted to a man. For each of them to preserve their manhood, they 'thought', they would need to display their complete disgust at this unexpected turn of events, and then do something. They moved toward Kirsty, their intent to harm her obvious in the way they moved. "Boys," the leader said in his nasally whine, putting his arms out to stop both of his subordinates. He scratched the Southern Cross tattoo on his shoulder. "This cunt was out to trick us. We don't like being had by anyone, let alone freaky bastards like this, do we boys?" A choir of murmured encouragements broke out amongst the two men behind him. He grabbed Kirsty's real hair and was successful this time in bringing her to her feet by it. The other men had to steady her to prevent her from crumpling back to the ground. Kirsty hadn't fainted, but she had gone into a state of shock. "Let's teach this mother-fucker a lesson," he continued. He back-handed Kirsty, sending her to the ground and smashing her glasses. The leader then pulled a packet of cigarettes out of his pocket with a grimy hand. He opened it, revealing the remaining cigarette inside. He lit the end of the tube and took a puff. Following this, the man did something shocking - he moved the cigarette toward Kirsty's face. "Burn, poofter," he said, as Kirsty watched the smoking, red blur come toward her eyes. She struggled limply, but she could do nothing. Just as the red-hot butt of the cigarette made its final-approach, a loud, powerful voice issued from behind them. "Good evening, lads," James called from the street behind them. He held up his mobile phone and pointed toward it. "I've got the cops on the line here if any of you gentlemen would like to say hello." The leader turned around, and his two lowers let Kirsty fall to the ground. "Yes, that's Loftus Lane. It's an alley just off Loftus Street," James said casually, ostensibly to the police officer on the other end of the line. "Great. Please try to hurry." "Why call the cops, cunt?" the leader asked, sticking his spindly little chest out between his outspread arms as he stalked down the alleyway with his comrades in tow. He stopped halfway. "Why don't you come face us yourself?" "Because, from what I can see," James said arrogantly, "you guys don't look like you can afford to lose any more teeth." The men behind him sniggered, to the leader's dismay. "Fuck you, cunt!" he howled, using profanity in place of any potentially witty comeback. He was starting to get mad. James peered into the distance and at the yellow figure lying on the ground at the end of the alley. So was he. "Why don't you come up here and face me?" James asked, now advancing toward the derro. He checked to see if he could detect any weaponry on the guy. He couldn't see any, but there was no way to be sure. He was apprehensive about continuing his approach until he noticed that the toothless thug was holding Kirsty's wig in his hand, a wig which he then carelessly tossed into a puddle as though it were nothing. If it were anatomically possible, James' eyes would have turned to fire upon seeing this. This guy had profaned his best friend. James came up and stopped in front of Kirsty's attacker, standing defiantly, just a few inches away from his face. The rain was quickly soaking his hair. "Why are you gonna do, cunt?" the man asked, obviously not expecting much trouble from the rich guy in the white formal shirt. The guy went down like a tranquilized rhino as James landed one, powerful hit on his lower jaw. The other two stepped back, whatever they had in place of a brain taking its sweet time to decide upon their next move. "Get out of here," James threatened them quietly. "Or I'll bust your fucking heads." They looked at each other dumbly. They then walked toward the entrance to the alley. One of them, as he walked past James, extended his arms in the same manner that their leader did earlier, and said: "the faggot's yours, cunt, but next time, we'll fuck you up." James didn't say anything, counting his blessings that he didn't have to lose a tooth just because a couple of apes decided to give him trouble, but he couldn't help wonder how the guy managed to still act like he was the toughest guy on Earth even though he had just chickened out of a fight. It was miraculous to what degree some of these creatures lacked self-awareness. He looked down at the leader, lying bleeding on the ground. And loyalty. James ran to Kirsty's side and fell onto one knee beside her. "Kirsty, are you alright?" he asked urgently. She did not answer. He placed his hand on the side of her face. "Kirsty, please tell me you're okay." "James," she muttered. Her eyes opened slightly. He could tell that she was having trouble focusing. "Help me," she whimpered. "It's okay now, Kirsty," James said quickly. "Everything's okay now." James looked up. He heard the sirens coming. He examined Kirsty, drenched and filthy from the grimy water on the alley's floor. He felt like getting up and giving the bastard lying unconscious a few meters away another couple of punches for good measure, but he stopped himself. There were more important things to do now. James scooped Kirsty up from the concrete and carried her toward the end of the alley, retrieving her wig on the way. Chapter 15 It was 12am. The sound of the rain drenching the roof of Kirsty's apartment was deafening. James felt for a light-switch after opening the door to the apartment, using the key Kirsty had weakly identified as the one that would do the job. He then led the girl through the living room and to her bedroom. He took her in his arms and placed her gently onto the bed. She dozed off almost instantly. It had been a long night for the both of them. After the police had arrived, they were both taken down to the local station to give their statements. The process took many hours, but they were given sandwiches and warm drinks to help them through. They had even let Kirsty take a shower, going as far as to provide her with a set of clean clothes and facilities to rinse her wig, though it didn't quite hold its shape anymore around her head. As it turned out, the 'leader' of the group was on probation for a litany of crimes, drug possession being the standout offense. There was little question about who was responsible for the attack and the necessity of James' actions toward the assailant, and so, just thirty minutes ago, they were cleared to leave. Kirsty hadn't said much of anything the entire time they were down there; even the police couldn't get much more than a few broken sentences out of her. James wasn't sure how much she was aware of what was going on around her, but he did know that she knew he was there. She had clung to him almost the entire time and had refused to let him go. It was only when an extremely soft-speaking female officer vowed to stay with her that she had allowed James to leave her sight and give his testimony. James felt an anger like he had never before experienced during the questioning, but a part of him - a part of which he felt ashamed - also felt pride. He was able to protect his friend from someone who would seek to do her harm. James brushed a few strands of blonde hair out of Kirsty's eyes before moving toward the door to take a much-needed trip to the bathroom. "James," Kirsty uttered in a meek but panicked voice as he left. She reached out for him without opening her eyes. Tears were welling up in them again. "Stay." "Kirsty..." James said. "I'm just going to go out for a minute, sweetie. I'll be back in just a minute." "No..." James was about to protest, but Kirsty's arm fell back onto the bed. She had fallen asleep again. James quickly seized his opportunity to visit the lavatory, returning to Kirsty in well under a minute. He sat on the side of the bed and stroked her hair. He felt so sorry for her. All the things she'd been through -everything she needed to deal with in her life - she didn't need this. Her nose twitched as he ran his fingers over the soft skin of her face. James wondered what he was going to do. He couldn't leave her. He had messaged Skye and told her that he wouldn't be coming home tonight, so he didn't need to worry about that. He figured he'd just try and rummage up a few blankets from the closet and stick it out on the couch. Once he had located a blanket, he reached for the light-switch. Before he flicked it, however, a thought stopped him. He couldn't leave Kirsty alone to wake up in a dark room all by herself. His eyes staked out a spot beside her bed. He sighed, took off his shoes, switched off the light, and went to sleep on the hard floor next to her. James woke just half an hour later to the sound of a woman screaming. Kirsty was shouting his name. She had not yet realized that he was on the floor. She almost jumped in the air in fright when James sat up next to her. "I thought you'd left me," she said hoarsely, reaching out toward him. James took her hand, rose from the floor, and sat on the bed beside her. She was shivering quite violently. He put his arm around her to give her some comfort. At his gesture of affection, Kirsty moved completely into his arms. "Thank you," she said, gripping him around his waist as tight as she could. James tightened his grip around her in reply, with one arm around her shoulders and the other around her lower-back. The pressure of his arms felt reassuring, providing the comfort Kirsty so desperately needed. "Anytime," James replied. It must have been twenty minutes that Kirsty sat in James' arms, saying nothing but understanding everything, as they listened to the rain pelt down on the roof above. Kirsty pulled away gently from James' arms. "I'm sorry I ruined your night," she said. "You're kidding, right?" James responded, wiping the tears from her supple cheek with his thumb. She put her hands in her lap. "James..." She sniffled. "If you weren't there..." "Hey," James interrupted. "I was there. Let's just be thankful for that." She looked into his eyes. His beautiful, warm smile filled her with butterflies and vanquished almost all of her worries and fears. She felt James' fingers travel delicately over her skin, tickling her nose each time they passed over it. Kirsty felt his index finger and thumb come to rest on her small chin, and it was at this moment that she did something that would change her life forever. Kirsty moved her face up toward James', and kissed the man who had been her best friend and now savior. Kirsty knew that what she was doing was wrong, but she didn't care, so overwhelmed was she with all the feelings that she had suppressed since that night in the car all those months ago. Only when she had made the decision not to withdraw did she realize something wonderful: James was kissing her back. She felt him caress and suckle her upper lip between his again and again until... He pulled away. She braced herself for what was to come. She had done something that she knew could very well make him leave again, just as he had done the first time, at a time when she needed him the most. His eyes were closed, and a tortured expression was on his face. "Please don't leave, James," Kirsty pleaded wearily, squeezing his thumb in her hand. "Please don't," she continued. "Please don't go. I need you to stay here." Moments passed in silence. James opened his big, teary brown eyes. He stared into hers into her equally moist, brown orbs. He took a deep breath. "I love you," James said, and they spoke not a word more to each other until the morning. ~o0o~ The dim, orange light which streamed through Kirsty's window from the streets below gave way to a brilliant yellow light from the sky. It filled the room and told James to wake. He felt dazed when he did. The events of the previous night, slowly coming back to him, had taken a toll. His hand felt sore, and though it appeared that it been morning for many hours, he did not feel rested at all. He yawned, then cast his glance downward, to the beautiful blonde woman that was resting in his arms. He indulged in the sensation of her chest expanding and contracting as she breathed, gently, in and out, as he lightly stoked her hair. From his vantage point, he could not see her face, but he could feel it upon his chest. Her hand was right beside it, resting weightlessly on his heart. She didn't stir. James didn't blame her. What he went through didn't come anywhere close to the traumas that she had endured. She deserved the rest. James was overcome by the urge to lean down and kiss her head, but he figured he shouldn't. Then he recalled how ridiculous such a thought was now, after the perfect, transcendent kiss that he and Kirsty had shared many hours ago. He pecked her forehead with his lips, but she continued to sleep. Kirsty woke to something she had never felt before. It was a marvelous feeling - two sets of fingers, lightly gliding up and down her spine. She pretended to still be asleep for a few minutes, lest it cause James to stop. It's strange to feel the touch of another when one has gone without doing so for a very long time, and Kirsty wanted nothing more than for this alien sensation to never end. It only occurred to her a few seconds later, as James continued to run his fingers down her back, that she was right on top of him. She didn't remember falling asleep in that position; they must have somehow found their way into each other's arms at some point during the night. Kirsty figured that she'd better own up to being awake, and so she lifted her head slowly from James' chest. James' smiling face greeted her. "Good morning," he said gently, continuing to massage her back. At that moment, Kirsty felt like she was living some kind of dream. This magnificent man, who could obviously have his pick of any woman that he might have wanted, was allowing her to lie in his arms and was treating her as though she actually belonged there. She placed her arms around his waist and squeezed. She felt both the happiest and saddest she had ever been, as the memories of the night before started becoming clearer in her mind. "Good morning," she replied in a sleepy, high-pitched voice, before she burst into tears. "God, I don't look that bad in the morning do I?" James joked, continuing to stroke her hair. Kirsty looked around her room and out the window. Just the sight of it all filled her with anxiety. "James, I need to get out of here," she said. "Okay," James responded. "Where would you like to go?" She thought for a second. Where else could she go? Then she remembered. "Can we go to Willow Glen?" she asked guiltily, acknowledging just how long of a drive that would be for James, who had done more for her than she could have ever repaid already. "Sure," James answered casually, as if she were asking him to pass the salt at the dinner table. "What do you need to take?" Kirsty listed the things she required for her stay in Willow Glen such as clothing, makeup, and her spare set of glasses. She was apprehensive about letting James out of bed to collect her things, but she found comfort in the fact that he never left the room. James placed all of her things into a plastic bag and sat on the side of the bed along with her. She wriggled up closer to him and placed her arms around his waist. "Are you ready to go?" James asked her. Kirsty nodded and made a small noise which conveyed the positive. Hand-in-hand, they walked to the underground car-park, and, in the car, headed west toward the mountains. It took them a little over an hour to reach Willow Glen. Kirsty had fallen asleep within the first ten minutes of the ride, and it took all of James' willpower to not do the same. Kirsty fell sleepily into James' arms when she dismounted the vehicle after James had opened the door for her. "Bed?" James asked. "Bed," Kirsty replied. James unlocked the front door, and they made their way down the hall and to the bedroom. Kirsty stopped at the door. She had seen James enter this room many times with Skye, and she knew that Skye often took her naps here. While there was not even a chance that she was inside at this time of day, she felt very shy about going in there. "Come on," James said tenderly, placing his arm behind her back and guiding her inside. She held one of his large fingers to help assuage her concerns as he closed the door. "Would you like anything?" James asked before they retired (again). "No, thank you," Kirsty replied, putting a fingernail in her mouth as she looked worriedly at the bed. James noticed Kirsty's expression. He bent down to her eye level. "What's wrong?" Kirsty drew in her shoulders and elbows. She was obviously feeling very shy. "This is your bed," she said with a brief smile. "This is a lampshade," James said, pointing to one nearby. Kirsty ignored his remark and looked up at him. "Can we talk for a minute first?" she asked in a very small voice. "Of course," James said. They both sat on the end of the bed. Kirsty tried to maintain some pretense of distance by leaving a space between herself and him, but she couldn't bear it for long. She moved right up against him and placed both of her hands in her lap. James waited for her to begin; it took her a moment to gather her thoughts. Eventually, she spoke. "James, what happened between us last night?" James looked puzzled. "Do you not remember?" he responded, stroking the side of her neck with the back of his hand. "It's not that," Kirsty said. "That's not what I mean." "Then what?" James asked, giving her a friendly nod to continue. Kirsty sighed. "I kissed you. And then you kissed me back. But what I want to know is: was what happened just two friends who made yet another mistake? Or was it something else? Maybe something more?" She looked at James with a pair of hopeful eyes. James met her gaze. The time for artifice was over. "Kirsty, I love you. I've loved you for a very long time. I can't even begin to count all of the times when I've wanted to let myself admit that over the past few months, but I never could. What happened last night wasn't a mistake, my darling," he said, caressing the side of her face. "Me taking this long to do it was." He brought her face closer to his own, and they kissed once again. Kirsty felt a ticklish feeling in her lower-back as James' lips played with hers, and a wave of calm washed over her, telling her that everything was going to be okay. The kiss ended, and Kirsty, brimming with happiness, asked: "So what are we?" "Well," James began. "I would hope that you'd be my girlfriend, meaning that we'd be... "Boyfriend and girlfriend," Kirsty said, finishing his sentence. She grinned. "That would make you my boyfriend." James nodded his head, and Kirsty made herself look small again while biting her lower lip. Then several thoughts came to her which suddenly wiped the joy from her face. "I have a few questions for you," she said, her breathing shallow from feeling so overwhelmed. "You want to know what will happen with Skye..." James said knowingly. Kirsty looked down and nodded. James leaned back on the bed and gave the issue a moment of thought. "I'm meant to be seeing her tonight. I'll tell her then." He turned to Kirsty. "How does that sound?" Kirsty merely nodded again, not wishing to elaborate lest she say something horribly mean without realizing. "I have one more question," she said. James noticed that she was shivering. "What is it?" he asked, wrapping his arm around her. Kirsty said nothing. "Tell me," James whispered down to her. "I'm not a girl, James," Kirsty said, meeting his eyes again. "How can I be your girlfriend if I'm not a girl?" James smiled. "Kirsty, I look at you; I listen to you; and every time I do, I see and hear a girl. A beautiful girl. A girl who could make the most beautiful spring day hang its head in shame." Kirsty smiled, but James looked quizzically to his right. "Assuming, of course, that spring days have heads..." He stammered in his noncommittal attempt to make his last comment make sense. Kirsty closed her eyes and attempted to stifle a laugh. "Jesus Christ," James said, acknowledging how much he screwed up his attempt at romance. "What I'm trying to say," he continued seriously, "is that I love you, whatever you are or have been. For a whole slew of reasons, I've wanted you to tell me that you were a woman; that you were just a normal girl that I was attracted to. Now, I just don't care. I just want you." "But I have no breasts," Kirsty said dejectedly. "As well as..." She looked downward. "Other things." James took her hands in his own, and kissed her on the cheek. "None of these things matter, Kirsty. You are not merely a collection of parts to me. I care about you. I want you." Kirsty took in James' words. Time had made her lose hope that somebody would ever say such a thing to her. But, she was still concerned. "There are still things that I have to do as a man, James," Kirsty said, her face scrunched up as if the words hurt to speak. James' heart sank. He wasn't sure how he felt about Kirsty's revelation. "Like what?" he asked, ensuring that a measure of kindness was present in his voice. "I have to attend Uni as a male, a couple of times a week. The Uni doesn't let me attend as a girl as I'm enrolled as a man." James massaged Kirsty's shoulder and thought. "Are you often a man, aside from when you're at Uni?" he asked, avoiding her gaze. "Umm. It's rare that I appear as a man anymore," Kirsty replied in a small voice. "And, to be honest, I haven't even thought of being anything other than a woman for a very long time." James knew he should probably find out more. He knew he should find out what the chances were that he might find a man in bed next to him one morning; a man who didn't want to be a woman anymore. Despite his better judgment, however, he shoved those thoughts aside. He honestly didn't care. Whether that was a good thing or not was immaterial to him at that moment; he just wanted her. Kirsty, however, could see that James was becoming more than a little uncomfortable with the topic of conversation. She knew what he was thinking. He had nothing to worry about, and she wanted him to know that. "I love being a woman, James," she said. "More than anything in the world. I'll never, in a million years, want to be a man any more than I have to be. I'm not sure if I'm truly transgendered or not. I don't know that yet. But what I do know is that I can't tolerate being a guy for anything more than a few hours, and that's been the case since the moment I put on a dress for the first time." James expression immediately eased. She had not allayed his fears entirely, and there were things about what she had said that he did not understand, but he felt much better. Kirsty raised her eyes to James'. "I want to go bed," she said softly over the rim of her glasses. She slipped the straps of the white singlet that the female police officer had given her last night off her shoulders. James and Kirsty laid in bed for many hours following their conversation. Kirsty reclaimed her spot in James' arms, and the pressure of those arms around her made her feel safe and protected from anything that might ever seek to harm her again. "I love you," Kirsty whispered in James' ear as she wrapped her arms around his neck. "My heart is yours. Please don't break it." James smiled. "I'll try my best to be careful." Chapter 16 "Are you okay?" Kirsty asked as she and James sat inside the Jeep on a road outside a house barely visible in the moonlight. "No," James said, looking at the house with apprehension. "But it doesn't matter." He sighed. "What are you going to say?" Kirsty asked him, peering along with James into the darkness and toward Skye's home. "That I'm the scum of the Earth?" James replied. "I don't know." Kirsty gazed at him with empathy. She didn't know what to tell him. There was no easy way out of this. "Would you like me to come with you?" "No," James said. "As much as I'd love to have someone along, I think I should do this one alone." With that, he left Kirsty and walked toward the house. She locked the doors behind him. ~o0o~ "Hey, babe!" Skye said, opening the sliding glass door and motioning James inside. "Just give me a minute. I'll be right back." Skye left James alone in her lounge room for a time while she continued to get ready in the bathroom. This afforded James plenty of time to think about what he had to do. He was sweating, and his heart was racing. He'd never pictured himself doing to anyone what he was about to do to Skye; a woman whom he had once loved. James had reasoned himself into believing that he was one of the lowest creatures to ever have the gall to inhabit the Earth by the time Skye had returned, looking gorgeous in a red, strapless dress that she had put on in preparation for their trip to the restaurant. Skye kissed him on the cheek. "Are you ready?" "Can we take a little walk first?" James proposed. "Sure," Skye said. "I can show you the saddle I just bought!" Skye led James out down past the forest of gum trees which lined the side of her house and toward the stables. He glanced back toward the Jeep as they walked. When Skye had finished talking about her horses, James led her out to a spot near the fence which connected her paddock to the back of his old house. They sat on a log in front of the gate which James and his dad had erected many years ago to allow them to move their horses easily from one paddock to the other. Past the fence, over the dry grass, and through the sparse array of gum trees, James could see a tiny speck of light emanating from the window of the house he had called home during his entire childhood. For a moment, he considered the light a sign; a sign that his parents were trying to tell him something about what he was about to do. He wasn't sure if their message was good or bad. James took Skye's hands. His mind desperately worked to find the right words to say, but its efforts were for naught, for there is no correct way to say what he was about to. "Skye, we've been going out together a long time," James began. "You've helped me through so much, and we've had many good times together, and that is something that I will always appreciate." "Okay..." Skye said, sounding confused. "It sounds like you're about to break up with me." She laughed. "Skye, I love you. I will never stop loving you," James continued. He looked toward the house and took a deep breath. "But, in the last few months, I've found that the nature of that love has changed." "What are you talking about??" Skye exploded, immediately seeing the direction this was all taking. "I've met someone else." Skye's face contorted with rage. Though she was aware that James could joke about these things, and you'd never know it until he cracked a smile, she knew in her heart that his admission was sincere. "Who is it?" Skye asked in the most hostile tone he had ever heard color words from her mouth. James didn't want to say. He didn't want to get Kirsty into trouble, but, on the other hand, he felt that Skye had a right to know. He decided to do one thing right by Skye before doing the ultimate wrong thing. "It's Kirsty," he said. Skye didn't say anything, but he saw that she had begun to shake; not from sadness, but from anger. She rose and started pacing, flattening the grass beneath her stomping feet. "You're leaving me for the fag?" she snarled, her eyes wide with a mix of shock and disbelief. James said nothing, despite wanting to after how she had just referred to Kirsty. Skye continued. "So that's why you were never into sex." "Hey, wait; hold on a minute!" James protested, before stopping himself and questioning whether that was such a good idea. It wouldn't be the end of the world if she thought he was gay. Tears formed in Skye's eyes, and she kicked the fence so hard that the wire ripped out of one of the wooden posts. James shuffled back slightly; he had never seen her this angry during the entire time he had known her. "Why did you date me all this fucking time if you were gay?" she shouted. She leaned down toward James and shouted directly into his ear. "DO I LOOK LIKE A FUCKING GUY TO YOU?" "I'm not gay, Skye," James admitted. He was in two minds about letting her believe a lie, but he had made a decision to honor her enough to tell her the truth. Skye stopped dead. She turned to James and looked into his eyes. "Then why?" she asked, almost pleadingly. "Because we were never meant to be," James responded. Skye's mouth dropped open. Even James was surprised by the reality of his remark. He and Skye were two fundamentally different people. Both of them knew this, but both of them had hoped, deep down, that the other would see the error of their ways and change. Neither of them ever did. And now here they were. "Because we were never meant to be," James repeated. Silence followed. No words are ever appropriate for the moments before two people, who had once been close enough to touch each other's souls, become to each other just another face in the crowd. James took one last look at the place which held so many wonderful memories from times long gone. "Goodbye, Skye," he said, and he walked away. ~o0o~ James didn't say much about what happened with Skye as he and Kirsty drove back home that evening, and, as Kirsty did not want to pressure him into telling her what had happened, the trip was spent mostly in silence. Kirsty put her hand on James' leg as he drove. He smiled at her but immediately returned his gaze to the road. Kirsty wasn't sure if it was because he was simply following safe driving practices, or if it was something else. Maybe Skye had said something to him that made him regret his decision? Or maybe he'd realized something that made him regret it on his own? "What's wrong?" she asked him. He was still staring intently at the road. It took James a while to answer. "Last night I felt like a hero," James began, his face devoid of expression. "And now I feel like the villain." Kirsty placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder. "Well, you're still my hero," she said. James reached down and squeezed her hand. "It just sucks," he continued. "I've never wanted to hurt anyone in my life, but..." He recalled the image of Skye's face the last time he ever saw it. "I wish there could have been another way. I wish that my happiness didn't have to come at the expense of hers." Kirsty gave him a warm smile, and she stared out of the window. She'd let him think for a while. A silly, little part of her felt anxious about the fact that James was so sad about dumping his ex-girlfriend, but another, more rational part was glad that she could expect a similar level of respect and compassion as his partner; she would never be simply thrown away. Rather than turn into Willow Glen road to go home, Kirsty and James decided to go for a little drive. It was always fun to see the Christmas lights, and they both could have used a cheer-up. They took the scenic roads deeper into the mountains, eventually reaching Bowen Mountain, a quaint little suburb situated on the very top of the Blue Mountains, which afforded more stunning views than even Kurrajong below. Kirsty was taken aback by its beauty, from both the scenery visible in the moonlight, and the light from hundreds of Christmas decorations dancing upon her face as they glided past the windows. It was at this moment that she resolved never to see the city again. She never wanted to go back there. The city had always been a cold and lonely place. This place made her feel comfortable. Being here, with James, gave her hope. Kirsty enjoyed seeing James' face light up as they made their way through the streets of the little suburb and past the decorations adorning the strange trees that were planted decades ago on the mountain. She could tell that he worshiped this place, and she was happy that he'd cheered up a little being here. "Do you want to go home?" James said after a time. Kirsty's eyes widened with fear, and a jolt of terror made her heart beat faster. "Go home?" "To Willow Glen," James clarified. It took Kirsty a moment to process what James had just said. "Sure," she replied after a time, a confused smile on her face. "I'd love to." "What would you like to do?" James asked his new girlfriend when they had returned to the house, positioning himself in front of her and intertwining his fingers with hers once they had reached the lounge room. "What would you like to do?" Kirsty returned sheepishly. "It's up to you, really," James replied. "As long as whatever it is lets me spend time with you, I'm happy." He freed his fingers from hers and closed his arms around her. He then began kissing her neck. "That feels so nice," Kirsty said instead of what she was going to say, distracted by the heavenly sensation of James' lips exploring her skin. James switched sides and started on the other. Kirsty reflexively lifted one of her feet behind her as he worked his way down to her shoulders. It took Kirsty a few minutes to realize what was happening. She knew she was now James' girlfriend, but the thought of such a man wanting her - really wanting her - was something of which she was still unconsciously skeptical. That skepticism lasted until the moment James put his hand up her shirt and began massaging her cleavage. "James..." Kirsty said, feeling the need to do some explaining first. James silenced her before she could speak, placing a finger vertically over her mouth. He gave her a knowing nod. "It's okay," he said reassuringly. "It's okay." Kirsty sighed happily as James tightened his grip around her a short time later. She felt the warmth of his body against her skin, and the tingling sensation she had experienced just this morning returned as James resumed running his fingers along her spine, adding a little variety at times by tracing the band of her panties. James was still somewhat in awe over what had happened. Remember how you didn't like sex, James? he asked himself. You can't say that anymore. For the first time in his life, James understood what all the fuss was about; he understood what people meant when they said that sex was one of the greatest experiences a person can have. No longer did he consider the act merely an animalistic exchange of bodily fluids. He knew now what it truly was: the ultimate physical culmination of emotion. But why the sudden change in attitude? James wondered. He looked down to the woman lying on his chest below him. He loved her, more deeply and more intensely than he had ever loved anyone before. He could name all the reasons under the sun to explain why this was the case, but none of them mattered. She was perfect to him. That's all there was to it. He knew it from the moment he saw her for the first time, perhaps not in his mind, but certainly in his heart. And that was why. It could have been two minutes or two hours; neither of them knew how long they had laid in each other's arms up until this point. Time doesn't fly when you're in Heaven, it ceases to matter at all. Kirsty lifted her head and brushed James' hair back with her fingers. His beaming face stared back at her as she did. He was gorgeous, she thought. Never - not even if she had a thousand years to look - did she dream she would find someone like him, who also liked her back. She was in his bed, she thought as she continued to tease his skin with her dainty touch. It was strange that, even after all they had just done together, it was this tiny little detail that made her happy the most. Kirsty felt as if she were soaring through the skies as James almost completely enveloped her in his arms, making her feel small and safe. She felt free; free of worry, free of burden. Nothing in her life had ever been this perfect. Even the times she had held up as the most wonderful in her life felt like nightmares now in comparison to this moment. Feeling as she did now, as much as she hated them, if she were given the chance to confront the people who tried hurt her last night, it was more probable that she would hug them for bringing she and James together than anything else. She folded her arms in front of her on James' bare, smooth, muscled chest and rested her chin on them. "My protector..." Kirsty rhapsodized as she stared lovingly at James' face. "My love," James responded. Kirsty beamed at him. She felt so peaceful she could have gone to sleep right there. She tilted her head and closed her eyes, and they laid there for a little longer, simply enjoying each other's company. A little while later, Kirsty rose to allow James to shower before bed. She sat up, giving James a fantastic view of her petite, flawless back, partially obscured at the top by her tangled, blonde hair. He noticed that one of the hooks on her bra had somehow come loose. Taking it in his hands, he pulled the straps over one another and fastened the hook in place. "Thank you," Kirsty giggled, looking shyly over her shoulder and toward James, who stood there, completely naked, utterly unfazed by her unwavering gaze. He bent down, and gathered his clothes from the ground. He then leaned down onto the bed, and kissed his girl on the cheek. "I won't be long," he said softly, and walked away. He shut the door to the bathroom behind him, and he was gone. Kirsty fell back onto the bed. She contemplated phoning Jeanette to tell her the good news about her and James. She then contemplated phoning every person she had ever known to let them know as well, but decided against that one. When the screen of her phone lit up, Kirsty was informed that she already had several missed calls from Jeanette. She must have been worried about her since she hadn't shown up to work for two days now. Kirsty scrolled through the list of her unanswered pieces of correspondence. Aside from Jeanette's calls, there was one thing in the list that caught her attention. It was a text message, sent from a number which she did not recognize. She opened it to see what it said. 'If he did this to me, he'll do it to you,' it read. The sender did not sign the message with their name, but it wasn't hard to guess who it was from, as well as its intended effect. Kirsty ruminated over Skye's words for a time. They were clearly meant to hurt her; an attempt to ruin what was now hers. By the time James had returned, wet from his shower, she had typed a reply but had not yet sent it. "What's wrong, sweetie?" James asked, noting the absence of her smile. "Nothing," Kirsty said, shaking her head and forcing a smile. Kirsty did not send the message. Instead, she took one last look at the words she had typed on the screen before she deleted them forever: 'I won.' Chapter 17 ONE YEAR LATER "There are five sites in total on the Coxs River, as well as a sixth reference site at Marrangaroo Creek where platypuses are known to have been quite abundant for some years. Sampling at each site will involve gathering water chemistry, riparian habitat, and macroinvertebrate data, on top of fauna surveys for the three target species. This data will be statistically analyzed and compared across all sites, and hopefully some patterns will emerge to shed some light on how the semi-aquatic fauna are faring and what their limiting factors may be." James leaned his report against the steering wheel of the Jeep and made a few notes. He considered the paper for a moment. Getting a little ahead of himself, he wondered what he was going to write in his recommendations. 'A nuclear detonation in the mining-ravaged area of Lithgow and centuries of regeneration is advised' was probably a bit on the nose, but in no way inaccurate. He'd pretty much given up any hope of saving the once picturesque location over the mountains from further ecological devastation. It was possible, but the mines had too much power. He glanced up toward the Country Women's Association hall. It had been almost six months since Kirsty had told him, to his great amusement, that she had decided to join. She had been encouraged to do so by several of the many, many friends she had made in the area since moving into Willow Glen, and, in the short time she had been a member, she had already been granted a position on the committee. At its core, the association was essentially a support group, aimed at improving the life of women living in remote, country areas, but many of the members, including Kirsty, freely admitted that they had just joined to show off their cooking skills. This, however, was not to say that the group was merely a group of useless, clucking hens. It had branches all over the state, and it had its hands in just about every issue imaginable. Even James himself, someone who was very obviously not a country woman, had managed to benefit from the association's efforts when the members of both the Blue Mountains and Kurrajong branches mobilized to participate in a bush regeneration program that James had recommended to the council down at Navua Reserve. The program was a raging success, bringing the percentage of native vegetation in the weed-ridden park on the Grose River up from a pathetic thirty to a much more acceptable eighty, something for which both visitors to the park and the animals living within it would be very thankful. James cast aside his report and looked at his watch. Even though she had her own car, Kirsty much preferred having James drive her places, and he was generally happy to oblige. On such a hot day as this, however, waiting out the hour-long meeting was far from pleasant, but his desire to make her happy outweighed any heat-related discomfort. Just a short way down the road, the rustic-looking sign outside the Sassafras - the restaurant where he and Skye celebrated the first year of being together - caught James' eye. He hadn't heard from Skye since that night last year, but it was only recently that he found himself able to think of her and remark that he had not thought of her for a while. Even now, a feeling of anxiety accompanied her memory, but the feeling was much weaker. A few minutes later, Kirsty emerged amongst a group of other women. Her long legs, blonde hair, white tank top and brown skirt were in no way out of place amongst her companions. The group happily chatted away as they made their way down to the car-park. None of them had any idea what was under Kirsty's makeup. Neither did James, for that matter, he supposed, for he had never seen it either. To everyone in the little town on the plateau halfway up the Blue Mountains, Kirsty was merely the cute girl who lived with her partner on Willow Glen road, and she seemed very comfortable with the moniker. James recognized more than a few of the faces surrounding Kirsty when they arrived at the car. "Sorry you had to wait so long, baby," Kirsty said to James as she leaned sultrily against the Jeep. "I just need to say goodbye to the girls." James heard the caroling of several female voices from beside the Jeep. Their owners, all in their early-to-late twenties, were not at all what came to mind when one thought of members of something called the Country Women's Association. James had initially assumed it was a collection of aging women with names like Maud and Bertha, but the reality was much different. "See you at the party, James!" one of the voices, belonging to Erin, Kirsty's closest friend, called to James as she waved and walked to her car. The car rocked as Kirsty plopped down into the passenger seat. "Sorry to leave you in the heat, babe," she said, wrapping her wrists around James' neck and kissing him profusely on the neck until he starting giggling. "So can we go to the shop?" Kirsty asked in a baby-like voice, tilting her head. James sighed. "Please, James," she continued slowly, in that same high-pitched voice. She batted her eyes. James couldn't say no. "Fine," he relented, and he smiled and pecked her on the mouth. Kirsty and James alighted from the car, and James hit the button for the central locking. "Did you ask Pete if he'd mind helping us with the Christmas lights?" James asked as they made their way out onto the footpath. "Yep. He said he'd be more than happy to give us a hand," Kirsty replied happily as James took her hand as he always did when they walked beside each other. "Excellent," James replied, thankful for another helping hand in realizing their vision for their Christmas display. James and Kirsty soon reached the small supermarket. The change in temperature was immediately noticeable when they crossed the threshold and entered the air-conditioned complex. Kirsty motioned toward a trolley. James took it, and they made their way through the aisles, gathering what they needed. The basket soon became full. They'd need another if Kirsty kept piling things in at this rate. "How many people did you invite to this thing tomorrow?" James asked, his eyes wide at the growing collection of goods in front of him. He was referring to the Christmas party that Kirsty had organized for what seemed like the population of Kurrajong. "You think this is bad," Kirsty said with a wry smile. "You should see the boot of Erin's car." James laughed. He was in good spirits. He loved Christmas time, and he was very much looking forward to their party in celebration of it tomorrow, for Kirsty wasn't the only one who had made friends since she had moved in. Kirsty did not simply encourage James into potential friendships as had been done in the past, but she supported him and guided him through them. 'I've got your emotional-back' she had once quipped, and that about summed up the reason that James was enjoying something that was, to his surprise, very much akin to popularity around the area. "How's the milk situation back home?" Kirsty asked him. "The rivalry between the skim and the full-cream continues," James answered. Kirsty rolled her eyes in good humor. "We've got plenty of milk," James answered, properly this time. "What about eggs?" Kirsty asked, holding her list in front of eyes ready to tick off a maybe-entry. "I think we have enough to get us by," James answered, continuing to push the trolley down the aisle. Kirsty loved shopping days. It made her feel as though she and James were just like any other couple; like she was a normal woman making a trip to get the groceries for the week with her man. Even she was surprised by how much pleasure she derived out of things such as this. Even cooking and cleaning, tasks reviled by most women, were something she thoroughly enjoyed, not because they, in and of themselves, were particularly thrilling, but because of what doing them symbolized. Like it or not, housework is generally considered the stereotypically female thing to do, and because of this, to Kirsty, vacuuming the carpets of Willow Glen, for example, was not an insult to her femininity, but rather, a celebration of it. James, for his part, considered this a good thing, as, without Kiera to help out around the place anymore, the responsibility of keeping the house going didn't rest squarely on his shoulders. He and Kirsty worked to maintain the premises as a team. "Think we have everything we need?" Kirsty asked James while reading over her list one last time as they neared the checkout. "Definitely," James responded, attempting to prevent the contents of the trolley from spilling out onto the floor. "When the bomb drops, we'll be set." It took them almost ten minutes for the cashier to scan all of the items and allow them to pay. The woman on the opposite side of the counter placed all of the items in a massive cardboard box. James chivalrously offered to carry it to the car, an offer which Kirsty gladly accepted. James struggled back up the pathway to the car and placed the box inside after Kirsty raised the boot for him. "Weaker sex, huh?" Kirsty remarked as James closed the boot. "From what I can see, us girls can move heavy things without even breaking a sweat. All we need to do is ask a man to do it." James drew her closer by her hips and thought for a moment. "I can't really disagree," he said, looking toward the box. James began to move his face very, very close to Kirsty's own. "Mr. Rutherford, I do declare, we have got to stop meeting like this," she said into his mouth, in a ridiculous Southern accent. James attempted to think of a witty response but he could not. Instead, in one, sweeping motion, he swept Kirsty off her feet and held her in his arms. She squealed from the unexpectedness of the maneuver, drawing the attention of a couple of passers-by. He carried Kirsty to the door, and she opened it from her position cradled in James' strong, muscular arms. He placed her gently in the seat and did up her seat belt. "Thank you," she said, feeling utterly loved and protected in light of James' caring display. It was a familiar feeling by now, but one that never failed to fill her with joy. Kirsty unlocked the driver's side door for James. He climbed into the cabin, sought relief from the air-conditioner, and made his way past the village toward their home. ~o0o~ The subtle slope that made up Willow Glen's front yard was alive. Members of the CWA, along with their plus-ones, made up the hustle and bustle atop the lawn and around the driveway. The scent of cooking sausages was thick in the air, emanating from inside a small grove of trees at the bottom of the hill which James and Kirsty had designated as the food and drinks area. Kirsty was inside showing the last, few remaining women who had not seen it already the results of her month-long redecoration of Willow Glen, while James found himself in a conversation with a couple of the folks from the local bird-watching group who were telling him about their experience with a Wedge-Tailed Eagle that had gotten trapped in their chicken coop looking for a meal. Laiken and Ryun arrived soon after, the gunshot-like backfire of their ancient, 'antique' Datsun announcing their presence to everyone within a fifty mile radius. They dispersed into the crowd to mingle after Laiken shot James a few barbs about his face. They, like everybody else at the party, had no clue as to Kirsty's true identity. For a while there, James was afraid that Skye might have decided to tell them, but she did not. He couldn't really imagine her saying 'my boyfriend left me for a shemale,' so he figured he was pretty safe. "I wonder if I should..." Kirsty thought aloud, holding a sausage in front of her face. It was her third. "Just have it," James said as he handed a couple of sandwiches to an elderly couple over the sizzling barbecue that Erin was operating. "But I'll get fat," Kirsty pouted. "I'm halfway there already." She poked the inch of fat on her stomach. "Yeah. You're well on your way to obesity, Kirs," James drawled sarcastically. Kirsty looked at him. "But I want to look good for you," she said with a smile. "Ah," James uttered dismissively. "I like a girl with a bit of meat on her." He tickled her stomach with his free hand. "So did Hannibal Lecter," a burly, middle-aged man in a blue t-shirt remarked as he came to the front of the queue which had formed in front of the grove. He had overheard their conversation. James, Kirsty, and Erin laughed. "It was nice to see you again, Jim," James said after a brief chat with the gentleman next to the barbecue while Kirsty continued distributing the food and drinks. He was an ex-colleague from the local fire station with whom James had lost contact after going inactive in the Rural Fire Service during his final semester of Uni when things got too hectic. He hadn't seen him for a long time. Seeing familiar faces from his past was quickly becoming something of a theme when Kirsty's boss, Jeanette, appeared at the table with a plate in her hand. James had only met Jeanette a couple of times before, once when she had driven up to Willow Glen to make sure that Kirsty was okay after being attacked, and another time when the three of them went to the police station again in Sydney to identify her attacker. James had called her to provide a bit of moral support for Kirsty, who was seriously considering just ignoring the matter altogether and letting the guy go free out of fear. James didn't see Jeanette again until much later, not until after he and Ryun connected the Christmas lights up to power for a quick daylight test. "Hello, again," Jeanette said. She motioned for James to sit next to her after the woman she was chatting to left. "How have you been, James?" Jeanette asked kindly as he sat down. She and James exchanged some light pleasantries. "I'm glad to see that things are going so well between yourself and Kirsty," she said, motioning with her wineglass toward Kirsty who was talking to a group of women on the other side of the yard. "So am I," James said, watching Kirsty glide to a couple and greet them warmly. Both James and Jeanette thought that she looked like a regular suburban housewife in her little blue and white dress. "You've stolen my best worker, you know," Jeanette said with a smile, referring to the fact that Kirsty had quit her job at the perfume shop after the commute between Kurrajong and Sydney proved too intensive. "She wasn't happy about it, let me tell you," James said apologetically. "It's okay," Jeanette laughed. "After she got her internship I didn't expect to see her around anymore." "I still can't believe she got that position," James said, leaning back in his chair. "Do you know how competitive that spot was?" "I do," Jeanette said. "I was so proud of her when she told me she'd gotten it." They both took a moment to sip their drinks. "Look after her, James," Jeanette said with more than a little touch of sadness. "Ever since I first met her, I've kind of thought of her as a daughter. After four, childless marriages and two decades of time passed my used-by date, I couldn't help it." James looked at the old woman, listening intently to her words. "I want to see her get on. I want to see her happy. She's happy with you. I can tell that just by the look of disappointment on her face after she checks her phone and doesn't find a text message from you waiting for her on the screen." Jeanette looked into James' youthful eyes. "Please don't let her down," she said. James gazed into the distance toward his other half. He watched her look around, as if feeling his stare, and then he watched her eyes meet his. She smiled and gave him a cute little wave, as if, even in the throngs of people around them, he was still the most important person in the yard. "I won't," James replied. And he meant it. As the day drew to a close, James surveyed the area looking for his partner, whom he hadn't seen for a while. By this time, many of the guests had gone, and only a few scattered groups of people remained. James eventually spotted her chatting with a couple up on the hill near their car. "You're a natural with him!" James heard a woman exclaim to Kirsty as she bounced the woman's baby gently in her arms. "Yes you are," James said as he approached the couple, noting the way Kirsty expertly held the child without an ounce of clumsiness. Kirsty smiled warmly at James as he came near, her eyes lingering upon his. "Look," she said, swiveling the baby so James could see. "He's adorable," James said. He watched the baby place its tiny hand on one of the nipples jutting out of Kirsty's faux breasts. "When are you and the missus having one?" the woman's husband asked with a laugh. Kirsty gave James a sad smile. Kirsty and James were all that remained at Willow Glen after the sun went down. The large water tank, set into the side of the hill near the top of the driveway, became their seat as they looked toward the mountains behind the house. "Almost every person, group, and couple I invited came," Kirsty said, leaning back on her hands and looking at the line of lights traveling up Bells Line of Road over the mountains. "'But what if no-one shows up, James?'" James imitated Kirsty's words from before the party, in a ridiculous approximation of her voice. It wasn't at all convincing. James wondered how she managed to put on such a convincing, feminine voice at all; let alone for so long. "I guess I was a bit skeptical is all," Kirsty mused quietly. "What? That people like you?" "No," Kirsty said, before catching sight of James' dubious expression. "Well, yeah. I guess," she admitted. James put his arm around Kirsty's shoulders and drew her closer to him. Even though their bodies were pressed together, Kirsty was still not satisfied with their level of closeness. To solve this problem, she laid her back down on James' lap so that he would hold her. "Do you think people like me around here?" Kirsty asked, staring upward at James' face. James played with Kirsty's hair and teased her earrings between his index finger and thumb. "Kirsty, Kurrajong was like a ghost-town today. We had practically everyone in the area here for your party. And, if that wasn't proof enough that you're well-liked, you should let me tell you about something of the complimentary things I heard about you while you were doing the rounds." Kirsty's ears pricked up. "What things?" James began listing off some of the compliments on his fingers. "Kelly told me that you've done nothing but good since you joined the CWA. Another woman whose name I forget sang praises about you at me for about ten minutes at the barbecue while you were in the bathroom - she was saying stuff about how much she appreciated you showing her around the Commonwealth's website so she could do her banking online. Other people just thanked both you and me for putting on the party." James continued in this vain for quite some time. Kirsty had never felt happier than she did while hearing James' words. People liked her. People liked her a lot. She was popular! It was a strange, almost alien feeling. "One woman asked me how long I'd been with my husband," Kirsty said with a huge grin. James laughed. "Did you correct her?" "No," Kirsty replied, giggling. Kirsty and James stared out over the mountains, past the pieces of rubbish that were littered sporadically around the yard. "I'm going to have one hell of a cleanup job tomorrow," Kirsty said. "We're going to have one hell of a cleanup job," James corrected. "You don't have to help me," Kirsty said as she reached up and ran her hand down James' cheek and neck. "Not that that ever stopped you. You're the reason for all of this, you know?" James stroked her hair tenderly. "I am?" "Yeah. You gave me the courage to do all of this, James. If it weren't for you, I'd still be just a lonely girl back in my little apartment down in Sydney. You - a beautiful, normal guy..." James raised his eyebrows. "A beautiful, normal looking guy," Kirsty corrected, "accepted me. You told me I was okay; that I was worth something, and while I didn't feel entirely worthless before, it's another thing to hear it - to feel it - from someone like you. You made me feel as though I could do anything, and look where I am now." "And where are you now?" James questioned, not because he needed clarification but because he was enjoying the flattery. "I have a nice home now; I have security; I have friends who like me; and, most important of all, I have a wonderful boyfriend who loves me." "That you do," James said. Chapter 18 "Did you hear that wind last night, babe?" James asked Kirsty the next morning as he laid a tray supporting pancakes, syrup, and two glasses of water on the bed. "Yes I did, James, and it was disgusting," Kirsty shot back with a grin. "Not that wind, you..." "I did," Kirsty replied, taking a sip of her glass with two hands. James stared at Kirsty as she did this, entranced by the mannerism. "What?" Kirsty blurted when James refused to avert his gaze. "There are some things that you do that..." His voice trailed off, and he shook his head. Kirsty lightly scratched the nape of James' neck with her long, manicured fingernails. "Are you going to help me clean up?" she asked with a sanguine expression. James rolled his eyes. The day after Christmas proved to be far less enjoyable than Christmas itself. It wasn't just the cleaning. James and Kirsty, despite their best efforts to the contrary, had eaten far more than they should have. In James' words, it was like they had unwittingly staged an eating contest with a rhino. "It's quiet without Kiera here, isn't it?" James noted as they both stuffed the rubbish strewn about the yard into bags with incredible efficiency. "Kind of," Kirsty said. "I actually prefer some quiet." James nodded. He enjoyed the peacefulness of the house too, but he did miss the woman. Kiera moved out shortly after Kirsty had moved in. Rather than sitting James, her housemate of a year, down to tell him that she was leaving, she had simply left. It had been a long time since that had happened, and even Kirsty had not heard from her. James and Kirsty both figured that Kiera must have had a long chat with Skye at some point before she left, and that would explain it. The silence of Willow Glen was, however, at several points broken. Luke, a friend James had made standing in the rain outside the CWA hall while waiting for Kirsty one night, dropped by to see if James wanted to grab a couple of beers at the pub later that night (an offer that he kindly declined), and Evangeline, the ironically named and overzealous Chair of the fundraising committee over at the local church, came looking for the purse she had left at the party, leaving a few pieces of the obligatory literature behind for James and Kirsty to peruse in case they decided one afternoon to save themselves. Kirsty's head was even bigger than before after the two visitors left, as both of them took the chance to reiterate how much they enjoyed Kirsty's party the day before. Later that night, after all of the cleaning had been done and everything had been put away, James sat in bed reading while Kirsty showered in the next room. James glanced at the wall separating him and his lover, and he felt himself getting excited at the numerous theories his mind was creating about what she was doing on the other side. On the other side, Kirsty stepped out of the shower and dried herself, running the towel over the few, remaining moist spots on the pink flesh of her shoulders and stomach to finish. Kirsty strutted to the door determinedly and verified that the door was, indeed, locked. She looked in the mirror. A man stared back at her. He was like a stranger to her now; a person whom she barely recognized, and whom she was very unhappy to see. She winced and quickly applied a layer of foundation to her face to hide him. Kirsty forced a smile as she came through the door back into the bedroom. She felt a real smile replace the fake one when she saw James' face. James admired her butt and curves, accentuated by a tight pair of black boy-shorts and a white camisole, as she neared to sit beside him. Kirsty laid half on the bed and half on James after placing her blonde hair into a ponytail. She nestled into his side and buried her face into his neck. "James..." Kirsty said languidly, in the high-pitched, breathy voice she used when she was tired. James put down his book and moved so that he could see her face. "Yes, baby?" Kirsty averted James' eyes. "Can we talk about something?" she asked. "Something important?" "Of course," James said, getting comfortable underneath the sheets and pulling them up over Kirsty so she could do so too. Kirsty spent a moment in contemplation before speaking. She was worried about raising the topic to James. It was something that went ignored and unsaid for the most part, and talking about it was an acknowledgment that it was something that still did exist. But it hurt her, and she needed to do something, and she needed James' support. "Do you remember, a long time ago, how I told you that not being a woman for some time made me feel something akin to claustrophobia? How I told you that it made me feel uncomfortable and made me feel like I needed to be a woman from time to time?" She spoke her words hesitantly. "Yes," James said, unsure of where this was going. Her eyes were heavy, and he was sure that whatever was on her mind wasn't good. "Well, since I met you, and especially since I moved in here, I feel like that all the time now, and its a feeling that's only getting worse." "What do you mean?" James asked, placing his arm around the crease of her hips under the covers. "I go to Uni. I'm dressed as a guy. People treat me as a guy. Then I come back home, and I'm a girl again, and people here treat me like a girl. Like I'm just a normal girl doing normal things." She no longer avoided his gaze. "I much prefer the latter." "So what are you saying?" James asked, confused. "I don't want to be a man anymore, James," Kirsty said. "But you're not a man, Kirsty," James responded. "You're a girl." "Am I?" Kirsty countered rhetorically. "Feel this." She placed James' hand on her chest, sliding it underneath the cup of her bra. James could feel nothing. And that was the point. "So?" James shrugged. He didn't really see what the problem was; there were worse things in the world than being flat-chested. It hadn't mattered for an entire year; what was the problem now? "I don't feel like a woman, James," Kirsty explained. "I do sometimes - most of the time actually - but there's always something that comes along to remind me that it's just an act. That I am just an act." James looked at her with concern. "You feel like you're an act?" "I didn't want to tell you any of this until now, James, but sometimes, when I see myself underneath all the makeup, that's how I feel. I feel like Kirsty is just a thin layer of paint concealing a horrible reality underneath." "Then why tell me now?" James asked dejectedly. He felt wounded. He didn't know she had been feeling this way. For some strange reason, now he felt as though he hadn't done a good enough job of being her boyfriend. "Because I'm yours," she said, placing a gentle hand on his arm. "And so I need to run this by you. I need your approval." "Run what by me?" James asked. What was she planning? "I have a life here, James," Kirsty began softly. "I have you. I worship you, whether you know that or not. I don't want to feel constantly deficient in your eyes. I don't want to feel like other girls have things that could make them better than me in your eyes. And I don't want to feel - I don't want us to feel - like we're liars in front of all of our friends anymore; not even sometimes. I want..." She took a deep breath. "I want to be a woman." James sat up slowly. He sighed in contemplation. "You know, back when we first met, you told me that you weren't transgender, and I was disappointed." Kirsty felt uncomfortable immediately upon hearing this. He continued. "Now, all this time later, you tell me that you're transgender, and I'm disappointed." "Why are you disappointed?" Kirsty asked, sitting bolt upright next to him, worried that she'd said something gravely wrong. "I thought this would be what you'd want?" "The prefix 'trans' means change," James said. "I don't want you to change. I love you. I love our life together. I wouldn't trade it for anything in the entire world. Plenty of girls stuff their bras, and I doubt you'll find many of them who look the same without their makeup. Your appearance is only a part of who you are, Kirsty. You're not an impostor. You are who you are." "And do you think everyone here would react to me the same way if they knew who I really was?" "They know who you really are," James corrected sternly. "You know what I mean, James. Please answer my question," Kirsty pleaded, desperately needing for him to see what she was saying. James sat quietly for a moment. "No, I don't," he said finally, "if you want an honest answer. I don't think people would treat you the same. But nobody has to ever know. Your secret never has to leave the safety of these walls." "But that's just it, James," Kirsty retorted. "The fact that I have a secret at all is the problem." Silence followed again. James turned and examined Kirsty's face. She looked as though she had made up her mind, and experience had taught him that, once she had done that, there was little that could be done to stop her. "So what do you want to do?" he asked carefully. Kirsty reached over to the wooden bedside table next to her and retrieved her iPad. She switched it on, and the device opened to the screen at which she was last looking. It was a web page with information about breast implants. She showed the page to James who proceed to read it. She looked at him and smiled slightly. "What I want to do is something - just something - to make my body match the way I feel - the way you make me feel every day. I want to do something that makes me feel only joy when somebody refers to me as 'Miss, 'she' or 'her.' I want that ever-present 'but' lingering in the back of my mind whenever I smile to go away and never come back." James thought for a very long time before he responded to Kirsty's revelation. "If that's what you want to do, my beautiful baby girl, I'll be right behind you the entire time." "But are you happy with that?" Kirsty asked hopefully. "I'm happy as long as you're happy, Kirsty," James said seriously. "If this will make you happy, sweetheart, then you will have it." Kirsty placed her smiling lips upon James', where they stayed until neither of them could hold their breaths any longer. James figured he should say something profound. However unexpected it was, he knew that this night would change both their lives forever. "Bring on the boobs," he said. Chapter 19 "You look ridiculous," James said, after bursting out laughing at the sight of Kirsty in her blue robe and the absurd, angular hat that made up her 'academic dress.' "Thanks a lot, James," Kirsty said bitterly, disappearing back into the dressing room. "Very nice." "I'm sorry, sweetie," James said, leaning against the wall to keep himself from falling over with laughter. "But there's ridiculous, and there's that." "I am never speaking to you again after this," Kirsty said abruptly from inside. "Oh don't be that way, baby," James said playfully. "This type of clothing has its origins in the Middle Ages, James," Kirsty explained. "So does the practice of drilling a hole in someone's head to let the demons out," James retorted. "It doesn't mean we should still be doing that." "I hate you," Kirsty replied. It was a very big day for Kirsty and James. The party, now weeks behind them, was but a distant memory as James waited for Kirsty outside a dressing room inside the University of Sydney, where she was being fitted for a set of 'graduation clothes'. She was going into the university shop as a woman, figuring that the clothes would be loose anyway, so James didn't have to see her as a man. She didn't want him to see her like that, she insisted, even though James had said, repeatedly, that he really didn't mind. "April Eccleston," the MC announced a few hours later from his place atop a raised platform inside a grand hall. A young, brown-haired woman walked out with a huge smile and received her certificate of graduation from the Dean of the University. She was wearing the same absurd outfit he had seen Kirsty wear before, as were the many, many other students who walked across that stage. "Peter Edwards," the announcer continued. James sat there for at least an hour, watching each former student receive their reward. It was mind-numbing, but he didn't want to let Kirsty down. She so wanted him to see her graduate. It was all she had been talking about for a week. As he watched the endless parade of students waltzing across the hall, James wondered why these universities always stagger their graduations. Kirsty had officially finished her course way back in October; it was now well after New Years and the ceremony was only now being held. It hadn't stopped her getting her internship, but there were a few days there where the idea that it might had worried the hell out of her, and James was pretty annoyed at how it all happened. Eventually, Kirsty's turn came up. "Kurt Nadel," the announcer's voice echoed. It took James a few seconds for Kirsty's name to register in his mind, both because it was very different than to what he was used to, and because he'd almost drifted off to sleep. James cheered and whistled at his girlfriend (at the moment, his boyfriend, he supposed) as she walked clumsily off the stage, unused to walking like a man. James felt like standing up, but he had expertly determined that it wasn't the right time or place to do that (actually, Kirsty had warned him before they went in). He zoomed right up on her in the viewfinder of his camera as she shook the Dean's hand. She grinned at the audience as she did, in the general direction of the camera, and James snapped a picture of her receiving her hard-earned certificate. Kirsty met James in a pre-defined rendezvous point outside in the hall. Even though she had walked the hall a thousand times, it was unfamiliar to her amongst the mass of graduates laughing and shaking hands with their families and friends. It took her a while to find James. She spotted him after about fifteen minutes of searching and reached him after another five minutes of pushing. He was leaning sexily against the wall. She approached tentatively. She had never let James see her in her current form; sans makeup, a skirt, or anything else that made her a woman on the outside. James looked up from his phone and spotted her. He smiled and beckoned her over to him. He didn't seem angry or disgusted; it was like she didn't look any different to him at all. "Hi, James," she said somewhat formally in her guy-voice so as not to confuse any people wandering by. "Hey, baby!" James exclaimed, before he wrapped his arms around his vertically-challenged girlfriend without a care as to whom was watching. Kirsty, overwhelmed with affection, happily hugged James back and leaned with her back against him to show him her certificate. "You're officially a trained nurse!" James sounded impressed, and more than a little proud. "How do you feel?" James asked after they indulged in the moment a little. Kirsty breathed deeply. "I think I'm ready." "You'll be okay, baby," James comforted, holding her wrist tenderly inside his large hands. "I know I will be," she responded, looking into his eyes. "I have you, don't I?" She bumped herself playfully into him. "That's not what I meant," James said. "I know," Kirsty said in her regular voice this time, not at all comfortable sounding like a guy around her boy. "I just wish I had a little more time with you before I have to go in." "I would have thought you'd want to get it over and done with," James said, turning her face toward his with two of his fingers. She said nothing. "Did you want to get something to eat before the surgery?" he asked. "I hate you," Kirsty said, noticing that it was becoming something of a habit. He knew very well she couldn't eat. Despite his... personality, she held his hand at the mention of it. The reality of what she was about to experience was finally sinking in. "You always say that, you know, but you don't act like you do," James responded, attempting (and failing) to comfort her. She smiled, and he kissed her passionately on the mouth, witnesses be damned. "Talk to me," Kirsty pleaded as James put the car into park in a space just outside a building bearing the sign 'Enhance Clinic Australia.' James squeezed her hand. It was unfortunate that she had to schedule her surgery on the same day as her graduation, but she didn't want to wait very long. She had been thinking about it for a long time and had made up her mind. She was ready. "I'm scared," she said to James. No amount of mental preparation can stymie the fear of an operating table, as Kirsty was now realizing. "You won't feel a thing, Kirsty," James assured. "You should know that better than anyone." "Thank you for coming to my graduation, James," Kirsty said in a very thin voice. He reached over and kissed her. Kirsty almost winced as his lips made contact. She hadn't time to become Kirsty before they had to jump in the car. Changing into a set of jeans and a black shirt was all she could manage given the time-constraints. She looked every bit a man, but, still, James showed her the same affection as he did on any other day. "What's wrong?" James asked, feeling her uncharacteristically pull away. "I feel like I don't... like I don't have the right to touch you like this," Kirsty admitted shyly. James' expression immediately changed into one of compassion. "Do you think that this matters, after all we've been through?" he asked, with what Kirsty interpreted as a touch of hostility; as though he was rebelling against the very thought. Kirsty didn't reply. She didn't quite know how to reply. "Don't you dare get FFS," James joked to break the tension, referring to the comment that Kirsty had made during their research about perhaps getting Facial Feminization Surgery on top of the implants. Again, Kirsty didn't reply. She merely stared at the person who obviously loved her enough to transcend even what she was now. She thought about what he had just said. James had insisted during their talks that the knife of even the most skilled surgeon in the world would never touch her face. It was perfect the way it was, he'd said, and he would never allow such a 'profane act.' Kirsty smiled. Everyone that had ever gotten close to her had tried their hardest to change her. Now, there was one person who was trying his hardest to keep her the way she was. It was quite refreshing. It was remarkable too, for James was the only one out of all of them who she would have listened to. In fact, James could have told her to jump off a bridge if he wanted and, shamefully, she probably would have done it for him, but he never did, and she was grateful. Kirsty looked in the rear-vision mirror, and then back to James. She sank into the seat a little. "So I'm still your girl?" she asked bashfully. "No matter what," James replied. Epilogue "I feel like jumping!" James cried, his voice cracking as he stood precariously on the very edge of the bridge. "I am going to jump off this fucking bridge." "No, James!" Kirsty cried. "Don't do it!" It was too late. He jumped, falling several feet onto the soft, yellow sand of the riverbed. Kirsty looked at the green mountain walls forming the valley just outside the little grotto in which they were sitting. She was smiling. "If anyone was around, they'd think we were mentally-ill," she said. "But they'd only be half-right, aye?" James responded mischievously. "Oh, really?" Kirsty objected. She leaned down from her position sitting on the edge of the little, wooden bridge in the never-never to which James had taken her. "Am I the one who's been screaming about ending it all off a three-foot high bridge?" James skulked away, trudging through the fine sand and the small stream which, by all indications, had once been a river. Kirsty looked down at him warmly, then down toward her crotch. For the first time in her life, she couldn't see it this way. Now, it was obscured by two, large mounds of flesh hanging from her chest. The surgery had been a complete success, with no complications, and the results, now bulging out of the top of her red bikini top, spoke for themselves. "Heavy?" James asked when he noticed Kirsty supporting them after he had helped her down onto the sand from the bridge. "Kind of," Kirsty answered. "They're just still a little tender is all." It had been two weeks since her surgery, but it was only now that she had the freedom to do as she pleased. She had been bed-bound for a long time, and, as nice as it was to be able to relax and let James take care of her, she wanted to go out somewhere. They hopped in the car and went for a drive. They ended up here in Upper MacDonald, a single road which cut through the tree-covered mountains of Yengo National Park alongside the MacDonald River. It was beautiful. That's what Kirsty said as they walked, barefoot, out of the little forest in which they had parked the car and into the valley, upon the glistening sand of the riverbed. "Is that snake a Python or is it one of the poisonous ones?" Kirsty asked expressionlessly, pointing down toward James' feet. James stood frozen in place, his eyes wide with fear. Kirsty's face became a grin. "That's for all the times you do things like that to me," she announced, and she bowed humorously. James' eyes followed her as she strutted confidently by him, her breasts bouncing all the while. He felt like grabbing her and kissing her like it was his last chance to do so before a meteorite hit the Earth, but he restrained himself. She really did look good with those breasts. She'd settled on a 36c cup size - more than a decent handful but not enough to require any future back operations. Her red bikini, those hips, those legs, that blonde hair, that face, and those breasts all made one exquisite little package. She was irresistible. "We should be thankful there aren't any busy highways around here," James said, sitting in the spot next to Kirsty that she had indicated was the place she'd like him to sit down. "Why is that?" Kirsty asked quizzically, opening a basket of assorted treats that she had baked for the drive. "Because you'd cause a car accident in that bikini," James replied with a smile. "And I don't know about you, but I don't want that on my conscience." Kirsty giggled at James' remark. She was glad he made it. She could tell that his heart wasn't in her decision to get the surgery, and she couldn't blame him, for there were risks, but, in her heart, she knew it was the right thing to do, and she was glad he could see that. "Can I ask you something?" James said as a soft breeze howled through the trees, and the cicadas screamed their endless scream in the distance. "Right after you taste this," Kirsty said, handing him a chocolate chip cookie from the batch that she had tried to make from scratch. James didn't give his opinion in words. Instead, when his face lit up upon taking his first bite, it became clear to Kirsty exactly how he felt. "What were you going to ask?" Kirsty questioned quietly. "How do they feel?" James asked, pointing toward the two large lumps on her chest. "Wonderful," Kirsty replied. "Tender," she clarified. "But wonderful." They sat there for a time, listening to the birds and the trickle of the tiny stream in which they were cooling their feet. "Looks like we're not the only ones who know about this little spot," James said suddenly, examining the trunk of a nearby tree. Kirsty looked past James and at the tree. 'Logan and Sage were here,' was inscribed in the wood, above a little love heart. 'Dani and Kevin were here too!' declared another in different writing underneath, seemingly in response to the other one. Kirsty and James chuckled at the exchange immortalized on the trunk of this beautiful tree. Kirsty removed the sharpest knife she could find out of her basket. "I wanna add one for us." Kirsty gave the knife to James, and they came up with something fitting of their own to add to the legacy of lovers on the tree. 'Kirsty and James were also here,' they wrote under the first two. 'May we all get our happy endings.' "Nice," James said with a touch of sentimentality. Both he and Kirsty had never met any of the people who had left their mark on the tree, nor would they, but they felt some kind of connection to them, as if they had all gone through something profound that linked them together in time. Kirsty gathered some sand up in her hand and smiled to herself. "I remember, when I was little, I used to go down the creek near my parent's house with a couple of freezer bags. I used to fill them with sand, tie them at the top, and wear them inside of my sister's bra." She let the sand slide through her fingers. "I'll never have to do that again." Kirsty laid her back down onto James, and her sweaty, bare flesh met his. James placed his arm around her and copped a feel. Kirsty jumped and giggled uncontrollably at his touch. Her nipples were extremely sensitive, but in a good way. She felt aroused elsewhere too, but the feeling in her nipples felt more... right, somehow. "Do you think your life would have been better if you'd just been born a girl?" James asked out of nowhere. Kirsty dwelled on his question for a time. "I think that I would have had a much easier time," she eventually said. "But better? I honestly don't think so." "Why?" James asked, surprised. "Because..." She turned over to face the man who had let her sleep in his bed; the man who had encouraged her to keep going with Uni even when she felt like she couldn't make it; and the man who had saved her life just a year ago. "Because all of the crap I went through, James, led me to you." James brought her face close to his chest, and they both basked for a time in an overwhelming feeling of peace. "You're mean, you know," Kirsty pouted, touching James' chest with her fist and raising one of her feet in the air behind her. "Why is that?" James asked, completely aware that she wasn't serious. "I haven't been kissed all day," she answered. "Let's fix that, shall we?" James said, grinning. And, yep, - you guessed it - they kissed again.