Encounter V2 free porn video

Encounter. By Tanya H. A Do you remember that long, warm, dry summer nine years ago? All those stories about tarmac melting and railway lines buckling; those wildfires up on the moors near Leeds? Even now I still dream of the heatwave's last day, when the weather broke and thunder rushed flash floods through valleys and streets all over the country. The dream comes with HD clarity and even though I know the ending I can't stop it remorselessly playing back. There I am, back in my van bawling along to the radio playing Elvis ain't Dead by Scouting for Girls; I'm high on life, chucking the van into the bends on some hedge lined B-road in the wilds of Worcestershire. I have a joy of parcels in the back and the satnav tells me only a mile and a half to go before the next delivery. Did he ever get that package? I hurtle around another offside bend in 3rd gear - nice and smooth - and there she is, half sitting on the overgrown footpath by a break in the hedge. A young girl, dark skinned and black haired; mouth open in pain and clutching at one ankle. She wears a school uniform - black pullover, skirt, tights and shoes; a purple striped tie stark against her white shirt. Masses of thick black hair partially hide her face, but can't conceal the hurt. Of course there's nobody else in sight; no cars behind me hustling for an overtake, no dog walkers and no sign that some speeding driver has over-cooked the bend, rolled their car into the field and thrown her out. Just me, my van and the injured girl. I never did discover how she'd ended up there. Looking back I should have driven on. What kind of man would that have made me? Perhaps I should have gone past before pulling over and calling for help. There are too many bastards in the world for that; bastards who would love to find a pretty girl, vulnerable on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. So I stand on the brakes, put on my hazard lights, back up and stick my van on the verge, all the time wishing for another car to appear - somebody to take the responsibility from me; maybe even an ambulance, a LIVES responder. Even a bloody copper would have been better than nothing. "Hey up, love. Okay? Can you hear me? I've got a first aid kit in the van. My name's Colin, what's yours?" She just cries! Boy, does that noise screech down my nerves, right down to the bit inside my head that's hardwired to help kids; you know that place? She cries and sobs and snot runs from her nose and tears from her eyes. Only mumbles and snatches of letters escape all that upset. "It's going to be okay, love. I'll get you an ambulance. Where's your Mum and Dad? Are they close, are they hurt too?" "Hurts," she says, gulping down a sob. I'm close enough now to see the swelling disfiguring her right ankle. She's torn her tights over the injury, blood wells from a slash in her dark skin. Dusty soil coats her sensible shoes, grass seeds have snagged in her skirt; like she'd been in a hedge bottom. Now I've got a problem haven't I? That rain we've all been wishing for is closing; hammerhead piles of thunderous cumulo-nimbus are muscling up and the downpour makes a grey curtain only a mile or so away. We're going to get piss-wet through in a few minutes, but all those priests, football coaches, care workers and other paedos warn me that a big bloke like me carrying off some girl, no more than 12 or 13, is going to look really suspicious. I need to be careful, to protect myself; people's lives have been ruined. But I can't leave her there, rain's coming. So I have to help her up, put my arm around her to take her weight - careful not to let my fingers touch her. All the time I'm helping her to the air-conditioned paradise of my van not a single bloody car goes past - if I had stopped in that field opening for a piss there would have been endless, gawping bus trips trundling past. "Thank you," she sniffs. "Thank you." She smells of sweat and spices. I get her into the van's passenger seat, just as the first fat drops of summer rain thump the windscreen. I clamber into the driver's side and unlock my phone ready to phone the cops. "Thank you," she says and some thickening resonance in her voice draws my attention. What beautiful eyes she has; big and brown and deep and wonderful and drawing me in and in and in until ... That's when I always wake up. Sometimes I'm screaming. B Last time I'd seen him he'd worn a beard, thick and glossy, vigorous and lively. I'd believed it had suited him. I hadn't seen this clean shaven look on him for some time - how long? Grey showed at his temples, though his hair hadn't started receding the way his dad's had and he'd grown it long and thick enough to make a reasonable ponytail gathered from the nape of his neck. It gave him the look of a trendy teacher, or social worker. Was it really nine years? I did the maths - yep, nine years (almost to the month) since my van, and much much more, had been stolen from me. Nine years is a long time; people change, memories dull. You might raise your eyebrows and question my certainty, but the adrenaline firing my belly, the hairs spiking my skin, my fingers clenching into fists say I'm right - it's him. I'd know him anywhere. Around me, the evening's check-ins and folk gathering for the restaurant fill the hotel lobby with movement and noise. In the angry rush of recognition all that closes out until only he and I are left. Even my anxiety about the forthcoming dinner date, which had been making it exceptionally difficult to sit still, is drowned by this ghost. Before I can think I'm on my feet - instinct? Fight or flight? I watch him walk casually to the reception desk, set down his small suitcase and look expectantly towards the receptionist. She's on the phone and acknowledges him with a small wave and practiced smile. He nods, cool, confident - at ease. I like his suit, understated and well fitting. He clearly looks after himself, without the pot belly so common amongst the males around me; very trim for a middle-aged bloke. He will be forty- nine on October the 14th - each year I write him a birthday card then post it into a bin. I must confront him. I will walk over there and look him in the eye, face up to him and hit him hard with what I know. The words rise into my throat, I take a step and then another. He sees me! Those brown eyes, with more wrinkles at their corners than I remember, touch mine for a moment. I dare myself to hold them. Nothing. He looks away, not even a quiver of recognition, and taps his fingers on the counter with gentle impatience. Why should he recognise me? I am nobody to him. Another step, I need to hear his voice, I want to see the pores in his skin, that chicken pox scar at his temple. One step, then another, thoughtlessly leaving my handbag and portfolio on the sofa I'd been perched on. Like a cat with a sparrow I focus on him until my spike heel clicks conspicuously on the tiles near the reception desk. He looks again, the way men do when they hear that tap. I almost freeze, like being caught in the act of doing something expressly forbidden. Heat fills my cheeks and for the first time in many years I become stupidly self-conscious of what I've become. But I make myself walk to the desk, to stand near him - close enough to reach over and brush that fluff speck from his jacket's sleeve. "Hello," he says, sociably, with a deep and mellow voice - different to how I remembered it. A salt droplet trickles between my shoulder blades, though the hotel lobby is pleasantly cool. "Hi," I mumble, snatching at a slip of paper bearing the hotel wifi code before hurrying back to my handbag with the sick premonition I'm about to fall off my heels, tear my skirt or somebody will point and laugh and jeer, "Man!" My hands tremble when I pick out my phone and hide behind the screen, pretending to check the messages. Happily there are soothing words from Chloe - MISS YOU. Enough to tease a little smile. "Tabitha! You look like you've seen a ghost." I almost flinch out of my shoes, but it's only Tony - thin, stooped, creased, old. My boss. "You okay?" Concern narrows his eyes as he sits stiffly beside me. I try another smile, it feels false. "Miles away, sorry. Thought I saw somebody I knew. From ages ago." The words come in a rush, falling over each other; as though I had to explain myself to him. "Are you ready? The taxi's outside." Another nod. I need a moment, but a moment can't be had. This evening's a big deal for both of us; a new client, bigger profile. Tony smiles, encouraging. Is my lipstick smeared? Too late, I'll check when I get there. As we head for the revolving doors the stranger-not-a-stranger leans over the reception desk, deep in conversation with the receptionist. Of all the hotels in all the world, I have to stay in the same one as Him. The man I used to be. C At a fashionable, very modern curry house on the edge of the city, about a ten minute ride from the hotel, Tony and I met the client; Mr Singh. He's lean and neat, wearing a very smart suit and good shoes. His heavy Indian accent is eased by speaking very slowly and clearly; as he avoids speaking to my chest I start liking him. Waiting for poppadoms and pickles, I tweak nervously at my hem, wish I had worn trousers and try not to be too hand-wringing anxious as he examines my portfolio. Tony helped me put it together; as much as this award will be a big boost to his company, he's shown an fatherly interest in my development, ever since he awarded me an internship. If we get this contract he will make me a partner, having all but said so - despite Alec, his other partner having reservations about my apparent age. "This is fine work, Miss Kowalksi," says the client, carefully and properly pronouncing the 'w' as 'v', so I like him a little more for taking the trouble - most people don't. He's already commented about the apparent disconnect between my appearance and name, but didn't push it into a question. My dark looks come from my body's Benghali genes, though a frowned upon encounter at the end of World War Two means I am one-eighth Irish. Many people wonder about my name - Tabitha Diti Kowalski - though I never give an answer, choosing instead to smile enigmatically and look away. The actual reason is that I was allowed to choose my new name, within certain, non-negotiable parameters. Tabitha remembers the cat I loved when living with my Grandparents, during one of Dad's early and lengthy hospital admissions - we called her Tabby Tabitha, though she was jet black with amber eyes, and she would cuddle up to me when nobody else did. Kowalski honours Stefan Kowalski who'd parachuted into Arnhem with my Grandpa and the rest of the Polish Parachute Brigade. Grandpa came home, but Stefan hadn't after diving to take a bullet meant for Grandpa. Diti is a Benghali name which means, glowing; you'll know why later. "Imaginative, passionate," says Mr Singh confidently. "Remarkable from one so young." Only me and a very secretive part of the Ministry of Defence know exactly how old I really am - forty-nine; the same age as the man I used to be: the man in the hotel lobby - Colin Jameson. He won't go by that name now, utterly forbidden in the same way I wouldn't have been allowed to call myself Pradeepta Chatterji. "I think we should work together on this project," says Mr Singh, smiling his white and even teeth at us. He shakes my hand, then Tony's "We should have a drink, don't you think?" says Tony, later on, as we walk away from the taxi. "To celebrate," he adds, when I don't reply. "You did brilliantly, came across really well." I thank him, find another little smile. but despite the good news, I'm still edgy; nervous and uncomfortable - like I'm wearing Pradeepta's life not living my own. I haven't felt like this for, let's see, about six years. Not since meeting Chloe at least. Now the hotel, this ordinary Premier Inn, looks as imposing as a prison, or a hospital. Or a partially mothballed air base in deepest Wales - Crievie Point, the place where so many of my worst memories centre. He's in the hotel - Colin Jameson As Is - what used to be mine. I feel diminished beyond my stature; a ghost. The meal sits heavy and low in my belly, I want to kick off my heels, feel hot water running over my skin and the spread of a bed under my back. I need to hear Chloe's voice - not have a drink with Tony. But he looks so keen for that celebration, like a benevolent old vulture with his angular face bobbing eagerly at the end of a long neck. He has been good to me, taken a chance with the petite Asian girl from nowhere. So I smile again. "We should." Tony claps his big hands with delight, suddenly childlike. "But only one. I must ring Chloe." I have to hear her voice again, to ground me and bring me back to this life. "Ah, the missus." He always calls her that - a term of acceptance, mirroring the way he refers to his own wife. I had already messaged her about the meeting's positive outcome. WE'RE GOING TO GET THE CONTRACT I'M SO PROUD OF YOU I MISS YOU LOVE YOU, ESPRESSO LOVE YOU TOO, LO Chloe likes to call me her Espresso; in her mind I am short, dark and mysterious. Will he be in the bar? The old me? They had warned against using terms like, "the old me." Whoever that man might be, he is not the old me. Likewise I am not the old Pradeepta Chatterji. The thought of seeing him once more terrifies, fascinates and repulses. But the idea I might never see him again drives a hot, fizzy panic through me. Not concentrating, I catch my shoulder on the sliding door, stumble and drop my handbag. "Tabitha! Are you alright? What's wrong?" "Nothing, nothing at all. I missed the door." For a moment I forget myself, forget my shortish skirt and almost bend from the waist to recover my bag; almost baring the full length of my legs to the taxi driver and the scrawny guy smoking nearby. But I come back to what I am and bend like a princess from the knees while keeping them properly together. Wish I'd hidden in trousers. Wish Chloe had come with me. "Tabitha?" His voice softer and warmer, face furrowed by concern. "Just missed the door," I say, with weariness, sadness maybe, hanging on every syllable. As though every one of the years I have lived, that this body has not, rush me all at once. The human brain is an amazing thing. Experts in all facets of its function, all sworn into the Official Secrets Act, have tried to decipher, rationalise and theorise what has been done to me and the other victims. Biology states the brain I reside in is the one Pradeepta grew up with, it has double X chromosomes throughout and is awash with oestrogen or progesterone depending on the moon. Personality-wise I am all Colin and one of the incongruous things I have brought into this life from my old one is a taste for real ale. The Premier Inn bar doesn't have much of a choice, but Boddingtons will do. Chloe, a wine and spirits girl, says the only time she enjoys the taste of beer is when kissing a foam moustache from my top lip. As she isn't here, I sup my pint with a little more decorum - in a ladylike fashion if you will, unless you are one those dinosaurs who hates to see a woman with a pint in her hand. The first swallow feels perfect, cool and smooth and chocolate. I am probably going to struggle to finish the whole thing, on top of my still heavy dupiaza, but would never order a half-pint on principle. Tony, who has a thing for trendy lagers, takes a sip of his Corona. "You look very preoccupied, lass," he says after a minute or so of contemplation. "I thought you'd be buzzing." Words fail. I mumble something about being tired, then assure him of my excitement and readiness for the challenge. It seems the right sort of answer, for he leans back and relaxes. Then I thank him again for the opportunities that followed my internship with his company, for the faith he's shown in me. Colin Jameson had been a parcels delivery man. Now I'm an up and coming architect. Towards the end of my internship I'd been tasked with designing a ticket office and waiting room for a railway station outside Middlesbrough - the space and budget had been tight. Somehow my design won a railway industry competition. The publicity surrounding my award (when Chloe had made me wear a glittery dress and false eyelashes) meant I would now be designing a clubhouse for a prosperous Cheshire golf club. So it wasn't all bad, was it? Colin Jameson hadn't been interested in his schooling, but an older and wiser me had made the most of the opportunities offered in my new life. Had I never taken my architecture course in Winchester I would never have met Chloe and life would be greyer. We met on the outfield of a college cricket pitch in Winchester. A cruelly delivered, high-speed bouncer to my left breast had left me rocking, sobbing and trying to hold back the tears. A cricket match hung in the balance and I was, as usual, our last wicket. Cricket is another bleed over from my old life, though less incongruous as Bangladesh, where Pradeepta's parents were born, is crazed for the sport. As Colin Jameson - 6'3" tall, broad across the shoulder and fast in the legs - I was a pace bowler with enough speed and accuracy to regularly streak a ball past the facing batsman and straight through his wicket. When I batted those big arms meant I could regularly sizzle balls over the boundary. Perhaps if I'd had more structure in my childhood and less time being passed from one relative to another when Dad was ill, I might have been a proper cricketer and never been driving that van. As tiny Tabitha I'm no batsman, and I haven't got the muscles for fast bowling, but I have a sharp eye, nimble fingers and supple wrists so I bowl crippling spin now. Once, arriving for an away game with the North Yorkshire village team I play for now, I heard one of our opponents veteran batsman turn to his mate and groan, 'oh bloody hell it's her again'. When you're a small person, bowling some lad out with a cunning, spinning delivery is actually more satisfying than smashing his wickets into next week. But as much as I am a certain wicket taker, I don't score many runs when it's my turn to bat, so I always bat last and on that wonderful day when Chloe first spoke to me I was helping cling onto a game - with only a few balls remaining we were just a couple of runs short. Which was why that bastard bowler had just bounced a fast ball right into my boob. "Let me have a look, I'm a paramedic," I heard her say through the thumping pain. I'd seen her there, on the outfield with some mates - enjoying the sunshine but not interested in the game. Plump, fair, taller than me - like everyone else - with a dazzling smile and bubbling laugh, Chloe's eyes had come my way more than once in the afternoon. Some lad had giggled. "Don't listen to her, she hasn't finished her training yet and only wants to see your tits." "Dec, you are such a dick," she'd said, kneeling before me. She'd worn a floral top that left much of her enticing cleavage on view, her hands were warm when she took mine. "Take some deep breaths," she'd suggested. Her voice sang with a gorgeous Welsh accent, so serene she could have announced the apocalypse and you wouldn't have wouldn't have worried. She had me on, 'let me have a look'. Somehow I ended up taking her for a drink, to say thank you - the rest, as they say, is history. Despite my bruised and aching breast, I scored the winning run in the match too - a most memorable day. "I should go and phone her," I say to Tony, who nods understandingly. After another refreshing swallow from my pint, I head outside, thinking to find some fresh air and privacy under the stars. Just as I dial Chloe I notice a tall figure walking away from a dark, sleek Volvo parked on its own a few metres away. For all the night's cool, a hot flush rushes my face when I recognise Him. Raising one hand, waving it towards the car I see a key glint before the car beeps and flashes its hazard lights as he locks it. He faces me with a pleasant smile and takes a thin, hand-rolled cigarette from his lips. Immediate surprise and distaste - I have never smoked, I find the smell, the ash and whole act repulsive. "Hello again," he says and jets his smoke away from me. His size, presence and years makes a child of me. Even balanced on tall heels I have to look up to him and once again I hate being so short. "Oh, hi." Sounding lame, loose, useless. "Good day?" He raises his eyebrows; had I ever done that when making small talk? "Not bad, thanks. You?" "Good. Busy, but satisfying. Perhaps the best of days, workwise at least." Then Chloe's voice bursts like a flock of skylarks from my phone and I step away from his smell and voice and face and my past. He politely turns his back as I answer her and for all the turmoil of the moment I can't help a silly, girlish grin filling my face. I fall contentedly into her chatter chatter chatter, wrap myself in her wild enthusiasm for the golf pavilion I'm going to design (even though golf is definitely not even anywhere close to being considered to be shortlisted to be on her radar). I love her breathless description of her shift on the ambulance: hospitals queues, patients and casualties, the banter between her and Jayne - her usual crewmate. While she talks the shadows that Colin Jameson unwittingly brought with him and the long, damp chill of that old airfield at Creivie Point are driven back by her unrestrained sparkle. And I won't let her go, keeping the conversation tripping along, as though we are on the sofa together, across the kitchen table together or sharing a pillow. How is the cat, is the tap still dripping, did the neighbour cut their lawn, what did she listen to on the way to work, what did she have for lunch? "I miss you. I love you, I love you, I love you." She laughs. I can imagine her with her head thrown back, mouth spread wide, shoulders shaking, breasts bouncing as she chuckles. "When did you get so needy, Tabs?" "When I'm two hundred miles from you, Lo." "Have you unpacked yet?" she asks. "No time, the traffic. I didn't even have chance for a shower." "Go then, go and unpack, have a shower, go to bed and think of me." "I always think of you." While I am so immersed in our nonsense, Colin Jameson As has vanished inside. Tony comes out, smiles to see me still on the phone (to the missus) and mimes bedtime. I wave good night. Perhaps my old body is having a drink in the bar, should I go and look? I need Chloe's sunshine more. When the goodbyes are done, when she has told me how much she loves me, with such intensity my breath catches and my nipples grow hard, I finally start to notice the autumn cool and go in. Some well meaning staff member has cleared my pint and the bar is empty, except for a middle-aged couple, hand in hand, shoulder to shoulder, quietly reading together and sharing a bottle of red wine. No sign of Him, leaving me anguished and relieved at the same time. What would I say to him? Hi, that's my body you're driving. How do you like it? Look at the compact model I ended up in! Whatever I said, as soon I mention the name, Creivie Point, he will know who I am to him. That name is a deeply stabbed, subconscious trigger for us all, but I don't know if I dare trigger it in him. D When I get to my room the clock shows 11pm and the hours since my alarm sounded this morning drag at every step. As much I like my heels, getting my feet flat brings a sigh of relief as I wiggle my toes against the carpet. I hang my skirt and jacket ready for morning, crumple tights, panties and blouse into the dirty washing bag and rub my breasts' under curves where the bra dug in. Enjoying the cool air over my naked skin I quickly unpack, finding Chloe has been through my bag since last night; the white cotton knickers I'd packed have been replaced with something much briefer, lacier and redder. Chloe fervently believes that nobody can be uncheered while wearing pretty panties. They have been wrapped around our favourite vibrator which has a shimmering red ribbon made into a bow around it. No wonder she'd been so curious as to whether I'd unpacked. As ever, her simple thoughtfulness brings a smile, and with that smile still gracing my lips I brush them with the vibrator's tip, as though I can still taste her there. Better than any therapy, Chloe showed me the sheer, glorious joy of being a woman. Before I shower I examine my reflection in the big, wide mirror over the en-suite's sink. You may have already picked up some mental imagery about my height and biological heritage. In flat shoes I stand at 5'1, wear size 8 clothes and can shop VAT free in the children's section if something there catches my eye - or more often, Chloe's eye. "I'm not a doll," I have said a couple times when she presents her latest find, whether from Tescos, a charity shop or some highbrow boutique. Chloe sees my petite frame as a challenge and her fashion sense knows no bounds. Like I said, she has given so much I don't think I could refuse her anything - apart from those teetering platforms. They didn't work at all - even though they made me wonderfully taller. "Many women would be pleased to have such an attentive personal dresser," she might say, with a pretended sniff of umbridge. Before I met my attentive, gorgeous personnel dresser I would spend each day in an androgynous mix of shapeless slacks, baggy tops and flat, lace up shoes. Skirts were something I came to late - we'd moved from Winchester to a little terrace on the edge of York. I still have my first skirt, though the elastic in the waistband has perished and I can't wear it anymore. It's a billowing white peasant skirt with a lacy hem that touches me midway between knee and calf; Chloe found it in a Cats Protection shop, it carries a Miss Selfridge label and is sized for age 13/14 The third time I put it on Chloe immediately, practically dragged me from the house. Don't get me wrong, I was well used to wearing female things by then; panties because they fit my shape properly, bras as a necessity, trousers and tops for the same reasons as panties. Skirts were something different - skirts said woman. The first time I wore one came from a brilliantly executed ambush. She waited until I had just come from the shower and was partially dressed ready for a wander into the city - I remember it being a warm, peaceful evening just crying out for a walk along the river. Standing there in bra and knickers, blinded as I pulled on a t-shirt, she casually announced that she had found something for me in the Cats Protection shop and I should try it on. There and then. "We talked about this," I said when I saw what she'd laid across my hands. (Chloe - Why don't you ever wear a skirt? Me - I never found one I wanted to wear. Chloe - Never ever? Me - Never ever ever. I'd silenced her with a kiss.) "It will look great on you. And besides, when you were in the shower I went psycho and cut all of your trousers in half." "Then I'll go to work in my underpants." "I slashed holes in all those, right where your ladygarden will show." "Then I'll wear yours." "You'll need both hands, or braces, to keep mine around your skinny, boy hips." I took the skirt from her hands, she knew I would, and we both laughed. "It will look silly." "Just try it." "See. It looks silly!" "It looks great on you, give me a twirl." The second time was a day or two later, when curiosity overcame me one evening while Chloe worked a late shift. After pulling on the skirt I stood there before our mirror and thought, guiltily, that, yes, it didn't look bad. And it did suit me, and I didn't look odd wearing it - I just looked like... a girl. The third time I actually wore it outside, in public where people could see me and the whole "getting dragged out of the house" was just an act; well, mostly an act. Chloe and I went for a walk; along the river, through the town, around the park and up to the city walls where we promenaded hand in hand along the battlements. Up there the breeze whipped the skirt around my legs until I forgot to feel silly and even, dare I admit it, quite liked the way it felt. Even when I stopped, it kept moving and flowing around me. It was the thin end of the skirting wedge. "It's really smart and professional," Chloe said, a few weeks later, when she showed me the charcoal grey pencil skirt she'd found. It had a neat little split up the back. "Just the thing for work." "You get to work in trousers every day and trousers are just the thing for work" "Mix it up, Tabs. You have such great legs." Nowadays I tend to wear shortish skirts or dresses quite a lot; they feel very ordinary - most of the time. Having learnt the art of balancing and eventually walking in high heels (Chloe's idea) I've discovered that adding 3 or 4 inches of heel to a bold hemline makes my legs look longer, I look a little taller and well meaning checkout staff don't ask for my ID so much when I buy beer. Easily the best thing about wearing a skirt is the moment when Chloe edges her fingers under the hem, when I might part my thighs slightly for her. I miss her so much. My skin is a more caramel brown than a real Benghali woman, something to do with that Irish blood I mentioned earlier. My eyes, as you would expect, are dark and look larger in my face with everything else being so petite. Though my waist is relatively well defined my slight hips and small breasts mean I could probably pass for a girl if I needed to. Chloe's love has taught me to enjoy my breasts, but I did discover, towards the end of my stay at Crievie Point, that most of Pradeepta's female blood relatives were very buxom; I count myself lucky to have avoided that. After nine years growing into this body I don't usually look into a mirror and see a stranger, but tonight I don't feel at home. Under my left breast is the four centimetre scar where I started a self mastectomy at Creivie Point. I have more slash marks on my thighs, though they are truly faded now and a stab scar on my tummy, a few inches below my navel, from a rough hysterectomy attempt. The damage wasn't well targeted, and I was quickly restrained, so I retain the potential for conceiving and carrying a baby. After that they put me on suicide watch; though I was still able to persuade another victim to hack off all the hateful hair Pradeepta had been growing since she'd been born. I remember those times with distaste, I should have managed better, but hindsight is a wonderful thing and I was the first misgendered victim. They hadn't been set up to deal with that particular problem, though it shouldn't have been so difficult to foresee. I wasn't the last, but they offered better support for the misgendered who followed. I can't be bothered to wash my hair this late so I twist it into a knot and deftly secure it with a barrette. Chloe cajoled me to grow mine again and nowadays I hardly notice its touch around my shoulders; having learnt different ways of putting it up I find the simple actions cathartic, when I have time. Turning the shower as hot as I can bear, I wallow for ages and ages; usually I enjoy the sluicing water massage over my smooth skin, but because of Colin As Is more unwelcome memories crowd. Our favourite vibrator goes under the pillow, but when I turn off the lights and pull the covers up, as I stare into the darkness and listen to the cars outside, trying to centre on the good and happy and beautiful, what comes to mind is Creivie Point. If you google the name you'll find it to be an airfield, built in 1941 to house anti-submarine aircraft. Its flying days are long gone, but the Army retains an enclave there and a US Navy communications station lingers on the most remote side of the perimeter. The view from my room, in a refurbished wing of the original officers' mess, overlooked a sweep of windblown airfield turned meadow and the weed spotted concrete of runways, taxiways and dispersals that hadn't supported an aeroplane's weight since the 1970s. Beyond were cliffs and the Atlantic - always grey in my memories, always chopped. I don't recall ever seeing a blue sky there, but memory is a selective thing. Five others lived in the wing with me, three men and two women, with a lead medic and medical assistant on hand 24 hours a day. All the staff were Army, Navy or Air Force, but all wore civvies and used given names rather than ranks. They must have been well picked, I never had a complaint against them personally, and they did their best in uncharted circumstances. We had a games room, a lounge with access to all the films and tv shows you could imagine. Thanks to military chefs with a healthy budget we dined well and lived in spacious, well furnished rooms. We had books and magazines and access to study materials, whatever we wanted. We could go to the huge, barely used gym on the base - to a strict rota so we never came across victims from other wings - where military PTIs ran numerous fitness classes or just supervised you using the equipment. If you fancied trying out your walking boots on the rocky coastal paths they would find a chaperone for you. Even so, we were locked into what was a well equipped prison; or asylum. They kept us closely observed and regularly assessed - to see if swapping personalities between bodies would drive us insane. Perhaps I came close, but I was the first misgendered victim they found. They'd given me a Navy psychiatrist, a specialist in post traumatic stress, but it was Maddie who usually put me back in my box when the whining about being a teenage girl got too much for her. Once I'd established full control of Pradeepta's body and could look after myself, I refused to wash myself. Only fourteen when she'd been taken, touching her girl's body made me feel perverted - disgusting. More tears, more screaming. Maddie, the lead medic on my wing, solved some of it by getting me a sponge on a stick, so I could avoid hand to skin contact. I'd never met anybody like her - she went on to lose a leg in Afghanistan and I broke the policies to visit her in hospital so our roles could reverse and she could weep on my shoulder. "Fuck's sake, Col!" She'd said plonking me in front of a mirror after I'd thrown a shelf worth of books across the room. She always called me, Col. Never Colin. A sturdy Lancashire lass, with spiked hair and tattooed fists she'd done two tours of Iraq and acquired a blunt bedside manner. "It's a fucking vagina, not a fucking tumour. Get over it." "But I'm supposed to be a man," I'd screamed, in my adolescent voice, and flounced into a sofa where I sulked, arms folded. Going through teenage turmoil was no better the second time - as much as your adult personality tries to rationalise things all the flooding hormones still propel you through the awful mood swings. "Two legs, two arms, full set of fingers - two eyes, all your brain - whatever of it you had at any rate - and a good set of teeth. Lots of lads -" She'd stopped herself, but I knew what she'd been about to say. She'd saved people, she'd told me snippets of it, out there in Iraq and the implication was clear. I should be grateful. "What's your fucking problem?" "Bollocks!" I'd yelled, but a little quieter. Then I heaved myself from the sofa and started picking up the books. A real teenager wouldn't have done that. "Besides," she said, softly, touching my shoulder and picking up a couple of paperbacks herself. "You have great little tits. You should get to know them, an investment in time you won't regret. Lots of lads I know... If they had tits like yours, fuck me, they'd draw the curtains and never leave the house. Know what I mean?" I did. Colin Jameson had been a tit-man, but as far as the world was aware, Colin Jameson was dead. Until he showed up at this Premier Inn. E That night I endured the van dream again, for the first time in years, and I woke with the sheet tangled around me, sitting bolt upright with a scream caught in my throat. I could have cried, repressed sobs made my shoulders tremble, my eyes prickled with old tears and the half-forgotten scab of emotion, that should have been well healed, pulsed with new vigour. The clock said 5am. I pee, wash my hands, sip cool water. My pyjamas feel so horribly damp I strip them away and stare at the ceiling with hands clasping our vibrator - l don't want to cum, but it comforts me with remembered hugs and Chloe's love. Colin Jameson might be in the room next door; he might be laid there awake right now staring at the ceiling and thinking about the moment when his body was taken and swapped with mine. Who had he been before? Had he stayed a man, been a woman; young or old, black or white, rich or poor? What had his first moments in my body been like? My first waking moment in Pradeepta's body had been on the edge of the road staring at the sky. A diesel engine, revving too much, grew quieter as it raced away. My van? Had I been a victim of some elaborate car- jacking? At least the rain had passed, though I could feel its wet soaking my back. Overhead were shades of grey, from dark, rain-filled slate to lighter dove. Grey grass, heavy with raindrops, waved at the edge of my vision and the leaves of the Hawthorn hedge close by were a myriad of monochrome. I tried to move a hand, to brush some water from my face, but my right arm lay numb and refused to move. When I tried the left hand all it managed was a palsied flutter against my hip. My vision blurred, then doubled before I passed out again. Voices woke me. They seemed to be a long way away, and muffled - as though my ears were full of cotton wool. "Can you hear me?" said a woman. I wondered sleepily who she might be talking to. I struggled to focus on the scudding clouds. "How long's she been here?" asked a man. Something touched my cheek, started moving along it with tiny feet. I needed to brush it away, but my hand just trembled again. Fireworks exploded across my vision, I tasted iron and somebody made a grim groaning noise. I trembled, then my muscles started firing randomly, my heels drummed the ground and pain seared up from an ankle. As my head thudded and my hands cramped into claws a hot wash spread between my thighs. "Don't touch her," the woman shouted sharply. "She's only fitting, I want to move that rock away from her head." "Don't touch her!" Louder, insistent. Who were they talking about? The Indian girl I'd found? Must be. "Op Acoustic," the woman snapped. "Op Acoustic! Don't fucking touch her." "What are you on about?" "Didn't you see the briefing? Tell the Control Room it's Op Acoustic and don't touch her, for fuck's sake, or you'll get it too." Tremors took me again, making me an earthquake. My teeth rattled together, though I wasn't cold. None of the voice sounds, colours, sensations made any sense so I blacked out for a bit longer. When I could see again, a rubbery, black gargoyle peered at me with big, black insect eyes and a circular snout with a drip of water balanced at its bottom. "She's awake," the gargoyle said, with a voice of soggy cardboard. "Can you hear me?" My mouth tasted foul, my tongue had dried to its roof. Trying to find some saliva I might have mumbled something. Above a sheet of rippling white plastic obscured the sky. My whole body ached like I had been running for hours and hours and an angry, throbbing pain bounded in my right ankle. "What's your name, duck?" the gargoyle asked, Not a gargoyle - a rubber gas mask, with tinted eyepieces. Scary! What had been done to me? Some kind of terrorist attack? Oh please no! Some of that chemical stuff was horribly bad. "Colin," I said, my tongue too swollen to sound the word properly. "Colleen? Good girl, listen we're going to get you shifted in a minute. We'll have to roll you onto a stretcher, don't think you'll be able to walk just yet. "Not Colleen, Colin," I insisted. Good girl? He needed clearer goggles in his gas mask. Something touched my ankle and I yelped from the sheet of pain shrieking up my leg. I must have twisted it when I was getting out of the van - or being got out of it. "Colin?" the drip finally dropped from his gas mask mouthpiece. Another formed. "What's going on?" I muttered. "Need a drink." I tried sitting, but straps across my chest held me down. "Hang slack here a minute, mate," said gargoyle. He passed from my field of vision - they'd restrained my head as well. Like one of those people being packaged up for the ambulance after a nasty crash, when they're worried about spinal spinal damage. What about the girl? A green suit appeared over me, with 'Doctor' written over the chest.. Inside a great cuboid helmet with a clear front I saw a middle aged bloke with a beard and wild eyebrows, he wore a hoop through one of his nostrils. "Hiya. How're you feeling?" he said, in a harsh Irish accent. "Shit. What's going on?" "What's your name?" "Colin, Colin Jameson." "Well fuck me, that's a first. Did you have a car, Colin? "What do you mean?" I coughed, my throat was so dry. "Can we get a little water here?" the Doctor yelled. Another gargoyle appeared. This one wore a camouflaged suit, like a soldier. It offered a straw to my lips and I sucked greedily, but wasn't very good at it. Cool water ran down my chin and pooled in the hollow of my throat. What little I got across my tongue felt amazing. "Describe your car, please." "Van. Has it gone? Where's the girl? She'd hurt herself, her ankle." "Don't worry about her. Tell me about your van, matey. It's been nicked, and we need to find it as quickly as we can." So I described it, my parcels van - though the company would be able to track it. When I was done the Doctor nodded. "Good stuff. Now, we need to make you a bit more comfortable. Just a sharp scratch." Something pricked my arm. I felt a cool rush under the skin, then my vision started closing down. I tried to ask about the girl, but faded into sleep before I'd got more than a couple of sounds out. They kept me in that induced coma for three weeks while they worked out a strategy for explaining how I'd become a teenage girl. F Here's one for the psychologists and gender-identity specialists (I have met one or two): At my last assessment, we get them every eighteen months now, I learnt that of the seven misgendered victims only one went for gender reassignment. Of the others, three are in heterosexual relationships, two are homosexual (hello) and one is living gender fluid in some kind of commune in Wiltshire where they can make love with whoever they want. G Later in the morning, when breakfast calls, I go through the familiar routine of pulling on panties, the red ones Chloe sent, easing my breasts into a bra, smoothing black tights over my legs, fastening my blouse and stepping into a pencil skirt. I feel clumsy, like I'm dizzy, drugged, drunk. I brush my hair with short, brutal strokes then leave it down. Picking up a lipstick I stare at it a moment, then drop it back into my toilet bag. Today is not a day for lipstick. Today, as I slip on my heels, I feel dirty, guilty, wrong; like I'm some kind of closet transvestite who's sneaking into a woman's wardrobe. After packing my things ready to check out, I creep into the hotel restaurant feeling like I'm freakish, unworthy, disgusting. If a scowling waiter had directed me to some grim corner, with bare bench seats, stained tables and chipped crockery I should have gone, with eyes down, as though that were all I was due. Instead he smiled, took me to a window seat where I could look over the landscaped grounds and a pond where a pair of ducks cruised in the autumn sunshine. I shouldn't have to feel like this, I don't deserve to feel like this! I've done my time; I have biology, society and cultural expectation on my side; I've had the belly cramps, the swollen, tender breasts; I've had wolf-whistles sent my way, had men blatantly objectifying me, had the most indecent proposals put to me; I have earned the right to be comfortable being a woman. Though for many months I was certain I should have gender reassignment so my little body could be surgically and chemically reformed as male. A few thousand pounds of therapy and a lot of honest, hard self reflection helped me on the way to becoming Tabitha Diti Kowalski, but essentially Pradeepta Chatterji kept me female. Pradeepta means "glowing" by the way. When I found her on the side of that road she'd been missing from Wolverhampton for eighteen hours. Both her parents are Birmingham based surgeons and Pradeepta was their only daughter. As far as I know they never found the body she ended up in; the people at Crievie Point were careful about compartmentalising information like that, but Maddie liked passing on relevant information to me. I like to think she's still alive out there, having made something of her new body without the support I got from Crievie Point, but it must have been hard for her. Nobody will ever know what Pradeepta would have become, had her body not been requisitioned. For obvious reasons I have never met her family and never spoken to anybody she knew about her or what kind of person she was. She might have wanted to be a doctor, a scientist, astronaut or General. She might have wanted nothing more than bouncing, beautiful babies of her own, but physically I am all that's left of her. I am not a shrine or a memorial, but one day on the cliff tops at Crievie Point I realised things could have been worse - thank you for your patient insights, Maddie - and I owed the good custody of this body to Pradeepta's memory. Who knows, she may turn up one day and ask for it back - I sometimes have nightmares about a tap on the shoulder from that particular stranger. After Crievie Point and all that therapy I came to be comfortable as a woman. Perhaps the slow, painful transition to that peace on the Crievie Point cliffs came because nothing physical of male-me came across; only my thoughts, memories and personality. Biology-wise I am 100% female, though nobody can decide if my lesbianism comes from Colin's attraction to women or Pradeepta's. I have tried sex with a man, a little drunkenly while at college, and while I did enjoy the physical act (biology again) having a guy penetrate me doesn't satisfy emotionally. I admit, I find some men attractive, but I wouldn't want to live with one. Why would I want a man when I have Chloe? She graduated from paramedic training before I finished my architecture degree and took up a job in Winchester. We'd moved in together by that point, I'd met her parents in Llanelli and they'd taken to me sufficiently that we'd shared a bed there. Best of all, when I got the offer of the internship with Tony in York she'd offered to transfer to the Yorkshire Ambulance Service before I'd finished asking what she thought about moving. Without Chloe's loyalty, or unquestioning, unconditional love, I wouldn't be the woman I am today. She lifted me several levels from being at peace in my new sex - she very patiently showed, cajoled and encouraged me to enjoy it. H Back in the Colin life, I used to like a good hotel breakfast. Kelly and I liked an occasional weekend away in a nice hotel and I was a proper fan of a heaped plate of bacon, sausage, egg, beans, mushroom, black pudding and toast. All washed down with lots of builder's tea. Now my stomach is much smaller I don't have fry-ups so much, but today I feel so out of myself I go to the hotplate and pile the calories onto my plate like I've become a waistband busting trucker. I am just about to take my pile to the table when I realise Colin As Is has just stepped up to the nearby coffee machine. He's still looking good in that understated suit and glowing with middle-aged man health. When he glances up and sees me stilled by ghosts with my greedily filled plate he gives me that same warm smile from last night. "Hello again. We should stop meeting like this. People will talk." I have fantasised about this moment, on and off, for the last nine years. Not so much of late, but the opening runs something like this. Me - I was at Crievie Point as well. Him - Stunned into silence. Me - Glad to see you're looking after the chassis. Better than I did. Look what you could have won! What I actually said was, "Oh. Hi." He's so close I could touch him and the fantasy urges me to reach across and touch my fingertips to the back of his hand. I'd instantly be lifted back in there, where I'd belonged. For a heartbeat the compulsion electrifies me - my hand twitches ready for the movement, but I fight it down. The notion is complete bollocks. I know that, because they tried it - back there. Perhaps he senses some of the turmoil seething in me, for he arranges his face into a soft, concerned, enquiring expression. He's about to ask if I'm okay. Heat fills my cheeks, I spin around, almost drop my breakfast, and hurry away to my table feeling like he's watching every single one of my hurried, skirt constrained, heel clicking steps. It's so unfair. This time yesterday I might have been nervous and excited about the potential riding on the meeting with Mr Singh, but I lay comfortable in myself. Now I feel like I'm tumbling back to the dark place. Sitting heavily, my belly rebels against the thought of the meal before me. Tears prickle so I screw my eyes shut and take a deep breath, then another. Maybe I'll have to ring that helpline number - it's memorised, but unused in my phone. I walked out of Creivie Point with my head up and my eyes fixed on the new start, the new education and better life the government had promised. And that smiling bloody waiter sits Colin As Is right opposite where I can't fail to look at him, watch him and where he can watch me not eating my cooling breakfast. I almost walk out, needing space between my turmoil and its cause, but modesty and morbid curiosity keeps me in my place, eyes down, cutting a fried egg into ever smaller pieces. He slips off his jacket, showing his smart, short sleeved shirt and there, revealed on his left bicep, is the crap tattoo I'd had done when I was seventeen, after taking a cricket ball to the head instead of catching it. The resulting lump, and its rapid onset, had drawn comparisons to Tom Cat's frequent injuries in the Tom and Jerry cartoons so we'd all had the same cat inked into our arms. Thanks to Colin As Is's shirt I only see the lower half of the cat's body, but I know its pained expression and the lump between its pointed ears. I can't believe he hasn't had it removed or covered by some other design. Then our eyes meet. That smile again. "I have the strangest feeling that I know you." How could he! Was there a ghost in the machine? Some fingerprint of me lingering long after I'd been thrown into Pradeepta's body? Could it sense me through my woman disguise? "I don't think so," I murmur. My mouth goes so dry I sip at some orange juice, but it tastes flat. Under the table my legs jitter so much my heels clatter on the tiles. "I have a good memory for faces, though I do meet a lot of people in my work." An easy distraction and food for my dread curiosity. "What do you do?" "A few years ago I was lucky enough to get the opportunity to do something I'd always thought about. I'm a counsellor, specialise in neuro-linguistic programming. Love it." Perfect. Another fucking counsellor. Though I had used the same opportunities and government funding to take my love of Lego and drawing and translate them into a degree in Architecture. Who was driving my body? I can't bear the thought of finding out. A fat wedding band wraps his left ring finger. I bet he has a perfect house, perfect wife, perfect fucking Volvo and amazing kids who will run up yelling 'daddy daddy daddy' whenever he gets home from rearranging and smoothing over the shit in other people's lives. When I was in there I'd been a van driver. I'd watched football, played cricket, drunk real ale. This version is a counsellor who loves a bit of neuro-linguistic programming. Anger flashes because I can't help but think he's making better use of the chassis than I did. Kelly and I had divorced two years before that last delivery, but she'd always seen marriage as a ride not a destination. There hadn't been any kids involved, thank god. I couldn't have handled her seeing me like this. They told her I'd been killed, in a car crash. Officially that's what happened to all of us. "Are you okay?" "I'm fine." I spit the words sharper than I'd intended, stupider than I wanted to sound. I'm gathering myself up to walk out of the restaurant when Tony ambles in. He sees me, convinces the waiter that we are together and weaves a course through the tables with a friendly wave. He sits between me and New Colin. "Hungry?" says Tony. I shrug. "I was. Not now." "Nervous? Don't be. It's in the bag." Tony has toast and muffins. I ask the waiter to take mine away, with an apology for the waste. I take an apple and a banana on the way out, refusing to look at New Colin and promising to meet Tony in the car park. We're going to drive to the golf club, to see the site, so I can get a feel for the location, the history, the ambience to help me with the clubhouse design. And forget Modern Colin. I In between her casualties and waits to hand them over at the hospital Chloe makes time to message me; 'THINKING OF SEEING YOU LATER IS ALREADY MAKING ME WET.' Despite everything, her gorgeous sentiment touches me the way she knew it would. Standing stock still near the window, eyes closed, I can feel her breath between my thighs, the tip of her tongue parts my lips with silky pressure. Or another sensation, no - sensations, washing one over the other in slow succession when I am soft and heavy and purring in deep, serene pleasure; my legs are as wide as they can be and Chloe murmurs loving encouragement while slowly, so very carefully she fills me. I'm so wonderfully stretched and filled that the slight, pulsing movements of her hand and fingers draw amazed gasps and tight, surprised whimpers. Nothing has ever felt like this - not the fingers, vibrators, wine bottles, nothing. "There," she says. "You can look now." She smiles with pride, achievement, satisfaction as I follow the line of her arm to the point where my swollen, heavily lubed labia wrap tight around her wrist and sigh with wonder. Nobody had ever made me feel so beautifully before. The first time we made love I cried with the sheer emotional release. The first time we kissed I laughed, then we laughed together and the people around us stared. "What was that for?" she'd whispered, and nuzzled my ear while she said it. "Nothing I've done for ages has felt so right as that kiss." So she kissed me again. She'll be home when I get back, assuming they don't get kept on late again. Chloe loves being a paramedic, but I wish she worked more regular hours. I wish she was here, but with a guilty stain over my warm Chloe memories, I wish I had never stopped to help the thing that looked exactly like Pradeepta Chatterji with a badly sprained ankle. When they woke me up that ankle was still bound in a tight support bandage, though I couldn't feel it at first. I'd been laid out, flat on my back, so I could woozily stare at a bland, white ceiling and a humming fluorescent light with dead flies trapped in its diffuser. "Colin, hello. Can you hear me?" I could only move my head and turned to the voice, a woman. Focussing was hard, my mouth felt furred. "Where am I? What happened?" I mumbled, my voice grated. "My name's Claire. I'm a Doctor, in the Navy. I've been looking after you. How do you feel?" "Why can't I move?" "You've been in an incident, you've been attacked." Attacked! I didn't remember anything like that. Was it the girl? But she was crying, hurting. No no no - she reached out and her eyes were deep pools that drew me down and down, held me still as she stretched a slim brown hand to touch my wrist, when I was just about to phone for the police. "The girl!" I croaked. Her touch had been ice. "What do you remember, Colin?" Claire asked. I shook my head. The bright, discordant burst of memory escaped my vocabulary. "Cold," was the best I could do. "You've been changed," she said, softly. "But it's okay. You're fit, healthy, young." "Changed?" "It's happened before, to other people. We'll help you get manage, I promise. You'll be well looked after." I heard velcro tear, at my left arm. Claire squeezed my left hand, moved it away from the bed. Why had they tied me to the bed? "You can have a look now, okay?" She pressed a mirror into my hand. I felt so empty I could hardly lift it, but as it trembled into my eyeline I saw it supported by a thin, brown arm and clasped in thin, brown fingers with pale, short nails. Not my hand. Not my arm. Changed! The mirror shook, the effort to keep it still defeated me so Claire helped and for the first time of the rest of my life I saw the face of Pradeepta Chatterji, of Colin Jameson, of Tabitha Kowalski. I screamed. If Claire hadn't been so quick I'd have dropped the mirror and maybe broken it and then what kind of bad luck might I have endured? I might never have met Chloe. Bouncing tits when I walked repulsed me. Sitting down to piss made me rage. The pity I saw in my fellow victim's eyes made claws of my fingers and made me grind my perfect white teeth. Nobody could answer the "how', but I was hungry for the "why'. Why me? Because I was the conscientious, decent guy who pulled over stopped to help a crying girl. I was there to be taken, to replace the damaged body it had already stolen from Pradeepta. Because we hunted it. "Remember those fires, on the moors near Leeds?" Claire had asked me a week or later - the drugs they put me on kept me mostly numb while the wounds healed over my breast, belly and thighs. I wasn't screaming so much, but I often found myself crying - puberty! Why are we so hard on teenagers? We were alone in her office, rain sluiced over the window. I kept my knees tight to my chest and watched the water streaming over the glass. "Colin?" "Yes, I remember." "We said they'd been started by hikers, do you remember?" The media had been full righteous indignation about the irresponsibility while the police had been criticised for not finding them. "It was a crash," Claire said. "Not many people know that, but you have a right to be told. It was a spaceship. An alien spaceship." You don't want to believe shit like that do you? An alien spaceship crashes in West Yorkshire and sets fire to the moors. Bollocks! But, what else have you got that can shift the memories, experiences, likes, hates, humours, tastes of one thing into the biological space previously occupied by another. Such a thing is presently beyond us. When you get that kind of thing happening to you, you believe. I sat there in a girl's body I hated and listened. What else did I have? "There was a survivor from the spacecraft," Claire said. I might have wept, silently. She would have hugged me. "The survivor must have been found by a Mr Steven Killingholme, a seventy five year old retired teacher from Saltaire, out walking his dog. We think the dog might have sniffed out the alien. Steven was reported missing by his daughter and found a day later in Derby train station by a police officer. At some point during the encounter whatever was in Steven's body jumped into the police officer?s. There was a certain amount of confusion, as you can imagine, and the alien escaped in a police car. It happened a couple more times." When I was able to rationalise what had happened to me, I put my experience into the context of that young copper from Derby - one minute you?re a twenty-six year old man with hobbies that included hand- gliding, rock climbing and kayaking and the next you?re occupying a seventy five year old teachers decayed body. Or Stephen Killingholme himself who was presumably shunted into the alien's wounded form and whatever grim fate that entailed. Becoming a girl was pretty, bloody lucky compared to those experiences. "The government set up an operation to deal with it, to try and manage the whole thing," said Claire. "Op Acoustic?" I muttered. "Whatever it is, it can jump from one person to another - essentially swapping places with them. It took your body and gave you Pradeepta's, with the badly sprained ankle. You are the twenty third known victim of this creature and the first we know of that has been..." "Ended up a woman?" "Yes. Though, there are more now." Forty eight people are known to have been moved from one body to another. There won't be any more and that is probably the saddest part of it all. We don't know the how or the why or anything about the whole process because when a team of scared, chemical warfare suited armed police officers finally confronted the creature and the body it wore in the waiting room at Truro bus station they shot it dead. It died in a twenty one year old nursery worker's body, Tegan Watson of Brighton, almost ten months after I had been taken to Crievie Point. As sad as the alien's death makes me, I can't find it in my heart to blame those cops. The chemical warfare suits were pointless, anybody who knew anything about Op Acoustic knew that. They were just to buy time, but any skin to skin contact could see the alien jump and those coppers knew it. Perhaps they should have got medals for going forward to try and detain the thing, but as it was they became part of the massive state orchestrated cover up that Op Acoustic became. Nor can I find it inside me to hate the creature, whatever it was and whatever its motivations for being on Earth and ultimately taking my body. I never told anybody about the moment it touched me, other than how cold I found its touch. There are no suitable words to describe the moment, but I saw a vivid vision as it moved me between bodies and I believe I saw the creature's home. There were swathes of scintillating rainbows and forests of colours I couldn't pick from the most comprehensive swatch. I glimpsed rivers and gardens and structures that arched and swept from the ground and through those shimmering woods. People too; just shapes, colours, sensations - its people, maybe its family, lover, friends. And the loss; the heartbreaking loss as it took me... Despite everything, I believe it regretted what it did to me and the others. I wish they hadn't killed it, but perhaps it was for the best. What would its fate have been at the hands of MI6 or the CIA, the FBI or NASA, Porton Down and Quantico, or any other of those narrow, information hungry, government institutions? J Before I leave the hotel room, ready to get out and leave this Premier Inn behind me, I look into the mirror, square my shoulders and stare critically. Everything I need is ahead of me. As I wheeled Maddie and her stumped leg around her hospital's gardens she?d said, ?Don't look back,? She meant both of us - we?re still in touch. ?Never, ever look back.? Even when the past blunders into my life, twists my head around and makes me stare into it? Take a deep breath, Tabitha Diti Kowalski. Eyes front, look to the future. Taking out a red-brown lipstick from my handbag, I twist the base to extend it and examine the colour carefully - there isn?t much left. This one I picked for myself in the York branch of The Body Shop; I had gone in to buy bath salts for Chloe. It?s the first item of make up I ever bought and I chose this shade because the sales woman there was wearing it. She and I shared skin colour and as the lipstick looked good on her I fancied it would suit me. I went over and asked her where I could find some. I apply it deftly, smooth my lips together. It looks good and gleams subtly - I quite enjoy the slick coating on my lips, it makes them very kissable. I have mascara too and sweep some carefully onto my lashes. Tony can wait another few minutes - after all, it?s a woman's prerogative to be fashionably late. These ears, my ears, have always been pierced, though I don't often wear earrings. I know there are a pair of gold studs in my handbag though, a present I have always carried from a friend at college to wish me luck when I graduated. This is the first time I have worn them. Chloe will be pleased, she'd love to buy long, dangly earrings for me. Look forward, Tabitha. Another deep breath. "Sorry I'm late, Tony." He's making a poor pretence at indifference, pacing up and down by the main entrance where he can watch the stairs, reception desk and car park. But he does smile. "This is a big day for you, Tabitha. I?m really proud of you." "Thank you - for everything." I lift onto my tip toes and kiss his cheek - the simple act delights him. Tony doesn't drive, but he likes being driven and he likes my Land Rover Defender, though not as much as Chloe and nowhere near as much as me. When I had been only Colin I had always wanted a Land Rover of my own, but never had the cash. My maroon, short-wheelbase Defender is called Chester and I feel like a doll driving him. He cost an awful lot of money to buy and is stupidly expensive to run; but so much fun to drive. Even without my wages from Tony I am financially comfortable; Op Acoustic sees to that, as it saw to my A Levels and university tuition. All of that alien's victims are classed as military veterans, though I never served. I have a service number and record that states I was an unregarded clerk in a very ordinary part of a comfortable, safe garrison. I have access to the full range of veterans support as long as I submit to a periodic physical and mental review and remain stiflingly discreet. As far as Chloe is concerned I came from the care system. She?s amazing enough not to ask why there are no pictures of me as a little girl, no photographs of my family or childhood. That deceit is the only one I allow from me to her - she?s too important for lies. "One last quick job," I say to Tony, when the bags are packed. After a quick look around the car park, I hurry over to the blue Volvo I saw Modern Colin walk away from last night, lift one of the windscreen wipers and leave a note underneath. Maybe I shouldn't, maybe I am being too indiscreet, but I can't just walk away from him. I chose unbranded notepaper, kept my handwriting bland and made the message cryptic, but I hope Modern Colin will understand and maybe smile when he reads - "Sorry about the crap tattoo." Don't look back. I walk away, climb into Chester and swap stilettos for my driving flats. I have a golf clubhouse to design, a partnership to join and a wonderful woman to keep me happy. I am going to ask her to marry me.