© Maeryn Lamonte 2025

~oOo~

I definitely had enough hair to put in rollers. It took ages to brush out and roll up then dry, and it felt really odd having the rollers between my head and my fortunately extremely soft pillow. It took a while to get to sleep, then my dream put me in a tight perm wearing a Rockerbilly dress with acres of petticoat tangling my legs. I danced until exhausted with a young Tony Curtis (probably linked with my thoughts on Jamie-Lee’s hairstyle from earlier) and found myself out on a moonlit balcony with him leaning over to kiss me. He was fresh shaven and his breath smelt vaguely of mint. I went all soft inside and swooned, whereupon he scooped me up in his arms – how little must I have weighed for him to do it that easily? – and carried me into a bedroom. He reached a hand under my skirt, but couldn’t get past the tangle of petticoats. I woke up to find myself tied up in my bedclothes and crying out inside for release.

I extracated myself and fumbled my way past nightdress and knickers to find what was left of my maleness, no larger than the pad of my thumb and oh so hypersensitive. Just touching it sent shockwaves through me. With my testicles pretty much retired, there was nothing much to come out. No semen and very little ejaculatory fluid. Enough to make my fingers slick and slimy and maybe to mean I’d need a change of underwear, but not enough to say when the orgasm was over, so I peaked again and again until I was too exhausted to carry on.

A shower to clean myself up and a fresh pair of underwear and nightwear. The bed appeared to have survived unscathed which was just as well because I really was ready to sleep.

I woke feeling refreshed, showered, keeping my hair out of the stream, not wanting to lose the curls the rollers had put in and happy to forego the shampoo for one day. Shower cap went on my mental shopping list. Brushing out was a delicate thing, leaving me with curly shoulder length hair rather than the tighter, perm like curls my dream had left me anticipating, but rather attractive even so. The eyebrows had survived the night’s activities and only needed a little tidying up. The skin cream left me soft and smooth all over which looked especially good on my face, the belt needed synching in another three notches which left me the beginnings of a waist, my bra needed letting out a bit because I was definitely bigger than a double A now, although not by much. The pads on my bum and breasts were due replacement, so I took care of that and looked in the mirror, still in my underwear. There was no way I was going to pass as a guy now, so I took my cowering inner self in a strong grip and put on a dress, enough to show a small amount of my emerging decolletage, and headed downstairs for my miniscule breakfast and inevitable coffee. No muggy-mindedness today, in fact I could feel energy radiating off me as I fired up my computer for my early morning base touching.

Linda's greeting was unprintable and extremely profane.

“Good morning to you too, boss,” I said. Still my voice. I’d have to work on softening that.

“How...?”

“Too long a story for the time we have. Happy to meet up for a drink later if you’d like.”

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you spent the night with someone.”

I nodded. “Tony Curtis.”

“Isn’t he dead?”

“Fifteen years ago, I think. This was a younger him anyway. I do good dreams.”

“Wow! Well, I’m guessing you’re ready to get back to it, and as Gillian?”

“Correct on both counts. And yes, it is Gillian, not Gill or any other contraction, if you don’t mind.”

“Sure. How does seven this evening sound? For this evening. At that the Red Lion on the High Street.”

“Can we make it seven-thirty? I meet someone online at seven and it’s kind of at a delicate point. I wouldn’t want to risk upsetting things.”

“Sure. And if you’re a little later then no big deal. I will want to meet this person some day. Is it a guy or a girl?”

“Er yes, I’m pretty sure one of those. More girl than anything right now.”

“Another mystery for later. Okay stay online, I’m going to bring everyone else in. Do you want me to make introductions?”

“Yes please.” I was still pretty nervous under it all.

Most of the team comprised male technicians, some my age, most younger. The mixed response from them varied from anger and disapproval from my contemporaries to humour and ridicule from the younger ones. We did have a few women on the team – a combination of political correctness and some customers preferring a female technician. Most of them were reservedly supportive, but the oldest of them showed the same contempt as the older men, while the two youngest girls were more openly curious and supportive. I took a couple of screen grabs to discuss the different expressions with Alice later, if we had time.

Boss lady – Linda. I could hardly keep calling her just boss lady the way we were going – did a fair and honest job of the introduction and invited anyone who wanted to know more to join us at the Red Lion later.

That was going to put a crimp in what I could say, but Linda had given me a few options if I had to keep hiding what was actually going on - referring to my longer hair as a wig for instance. I wasn’t sure how I’d handle the rest, but it only had to be a little believable.

A few private messages came through the chat, there being a default of send to all but an option for those who knew to send one to one. The positive ones from the girls came through general chat, the negative ones and the one positive from the men came one-to-one. At least I knew who was on my side, and who was embarrassed to admit it.

All for later. I slipped into my job, answering one support call after another. Most didn’t recognise me and asked if I was new, then ended by telling me how helpful I’d been. Those that did recognise me or insisted on an explanation fell into two main camps, yet again either strongly for or against. No fence sitters, just a marmite response. Those against were those closest to my age. Fifteen years older or younger found me facing people who were more accepting of my atypical choices. It had me wondering if it was an age thing or a generation thing.

Overall, it was a good day, largely because those who didn’t want anything to do with me shut down the connection immediately, leaving me largely with people who were grateful for what I could do to help them.

Linda asked me to hold back at the end of the day, so I did. It would take her a few minutes to wrap up, so I put the coffee machine on. I’d made it through the day pretty much non-stop without lunch, which I hadn’t missed, and without coffee, which I was missing now.

She was on screen when I emerged from the kitchen with a mugful of my chosen stimulant.

I settled into my chair and put my headphones over my ears.

“That’s a pretty dress. I noticed you're not blanking your camera today. Would it be far from the truth to surmise that there might have been something similar to see on previous days?”

“Always male dress code from the waist up, but rarely from the waist down. Did anyone ever suspect or complain?”

“No and no. You were very careful and never gave me cause for concern...”

“To quote Buffy, ‘Uh-oh, you have but face.’”

“I beg your pardon!”

“Actually, Giles looks more confused than affronted, which leads Buffy to respond with, ‘You look like you’re gonna say but.’

“You're not following, are you? Sorry, it's a Buffy the Vampire Slayer reference. American teen horror comedy mash-up and one of my long time guilty pleasures.”

“Well, you’re right, there is a but, and it's one that angers me at least as much as it upsets me.”

“Let me guess. You got grief from half the team and negative feedback from quite a few of my clients.”

“The haters on the team can go hang themselves as far as I’m concerned. I’d rather have you than all of them combined, and I’d be quite happy to pass them on to anyone who’d have them.”

“And here comes the but.”

“Twenty-seven dropped calls waves a significant red flag at management level. I told them you haven’t had twenty-seven dropped calls in all the time you’ve been working for us, but they didn’t care. They wanted to know what changed, so I reviewed the footage and I could only say it was down to your change of appearance.,”

“I could have told you that.”

“I know. I told them you did everything right, that you were polite and courteous, but that your customers chose not to accept your help due to their own prejudice towards people like yourself.”

“I’m guessing that didn’t cut much mustard with them. I mean if the customers don’t want to deal with someone like me, then I can’t really sell what you’re peddling, can I?”

She gave me a pleading look but said nothing. Something I was missing then. She was on my side and she disagreed with what she was being made to do. Piggy in the middle between the rock and the hard place.

“Did they instruct you to fire me?”

She winced. It’s hard to say whether someone is avoiding eye contact on Zoom, because your image’s eyes aren’t anywhere near the camera, but I had the impression.

“Because I think there are laws protecting me from being fired because I’m transgender."

“Not for performance related issues though.” Her voice said one thing, but her eyes another. She was encouraging me to fight back. This was why we were talking now rather than later this evening. This put the conversation on the record, made it evidence in any legal wrangling to follow. So, I should counter with calm, rational arguments and hold my own.

“Hard to uphold with a record like mine, I'd have thought. Faultless record before today. Faultless including today when you consider my responses. Forty-eight happy customers who'd be more than glad to deal with me tomorrow. I do my job well. I’m both courteous and effective in problem solving. The only problems I couldn’t solve today were the ones I wasn’t given a chance to look at because the customer took exception to my appearance, which in itself is arguably more presentable today than it has been recently. Their only objection being that two days ago I was a sad, flabby old man and today I’m recognisably me and a not entirely unattractive elderly lady with a much more cheerful disposition.

“If management are prepared to give me a chance, I will quite rapidly become unrecognisable as ever having been my former self or male and the objections will die away.”

“They’re not prepared to wait," Linda said. "Each unhappy customer is a potential customer lost.”

“Well, I’m terribly sorry but I’m not prepared to go quietly. I’ve given a lot of hard work to this company and made a lot of money for them over the years. It’s disappointing at the least to have this response to one bad day, especially when the cause has nothing to do with my work ethic.”

She smiled with her eyes and gave me an almost imperceptible nod. She was taking quite a risk if management were going to review the session. “How much to make the situation and you,” she winced at that, “go away.” She idly put a hand on the desk in front of her. Five splayed fingers.

“Er ten...” she rolled her eyes upwards. “Twenty...” the eyes didn’t change. “Tell you what, why don’t we make it a year’s salary?”

Her eyes were back on me and smiling again. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“Do I assume I should turn up tomorrow?”

“Yes, until this is resolved. I’ll probably put you behind the scenes again unless I have anyone who specifically asks for you, so be prepared to go online as well.”

“Sure."

"I'll see you soon."

Not tomorrow or in the morning, so potentially our meeting at the Red Lion was still on.

That was going to be scary. First time out in a dress. Still, a couple of hours to go yet and a meeting with Alice. This whole thing was her fault, so she'd better have something in her bag of tricks to help.

Mind you, I was largely responsible for her current predicament, so I'd better have an idea or two to help her too.

If I was going to be drinking, I should have something in my stomach to help soak up the alcohol. Which meant a little more pasta than I'd normally eat and a fair amount of vegetables. It felt like a mistake since my significantly shrunken stomach felt bloated by the time I'd eaten.

Upstairs to the bathroom. I did manage to ease the bloating a little, which may be more information than I ought to be sharing, then a long, luxurious shower complete with a fresh hair wash and condition. I took my time, indulging in the heightened sensitivity of much of my skin. Lack of hair had to be part of it, but there were bits of me that massively responded to the jets of water striking me all over the place.

The hairbrush I'd bought was a gentle one, designed to tease out the tangles in wet hair without damaging it. The shampoo treatment Alice had sent me definitely made my hair tougher, even when wet, so I didn't have to be overly careful. Once it was relatively straight, I put it in curlers and started blasting it with the hair drier. Something I'd inherited from my mum, so it had a fair amount of oomph to it, both in its ability to move air and its ability to heat it as it did so. I'd never much bothered with one before. Short hair dried by itself in such a small amount of time, it hardly seemed worth the bother of encouraging it along. I'd always had the impression that too much hot air would damage it anyway, so I was happy to let it sort itself out, just as nature intended so to speak. I did tend to get colds more often than most, but that was just coincidence. Wasn't it?

Time for a fresh belt, which was as well because the other was beginning to smell a bit too much of the me I washed off every morning. The second belt in the pack was considerably smaller than the first, but fit snuggly enough. I'd forgotten how much it tingled the first time I'd put one on, but this was back with a vengeance.

My boob and bum patches were water resistant and lasted through enough showers. They were giving me a much more female body shape, even though I still had a long way to go, but standing naked in front of the mirror, I couldn't see anything much of Gareth left. What I could see was an overweight woman with the skin complexion of someone ten or fifteen years younger than my current age.

Most of my clothes were too loose now. Sewing machines were a lot cheaper than they had been a few decades back with good quality second hand machines going for less than a hundred quid. I'd have to be careful with my cash if I was about to be let go, but I'd have a lot of time and probably not much to do with it, so taking in my existing wardrobe would be considerably less expensive than replacing it outright, even taking into account the investment in a new gadget (new to me, anyway).

I found a dress with some elasticity in it. An old purchase, and one I'd stopped wearing a while back because it had become uncomfortably tight around the middle. It fit well now and looked better than it ever had before. The curlers came out, and I could see more of the me who was to come looking back out of the glass. She made me smile, which of course meant she smiled too.

I dug out a handbag which had been an impulse buy a couple of years back and had never used since. It took my wallet and phone plus a few extra bits. I spent a little time with some lip gloss and eye shadow, adding them to the crap I was planning to haul around with me. A pair of espadrilles that had never been outside went on my feet – so much easier than lacing shoes up – and a white, crocheted cardigan topped the dress quite nicely. Summery and cheerful without looking desperate.

Seven o'clock approached and I logged on to the Megamind website. The camera light blinked, which was a good sign, and an image appeared on the screen of a young, blond girl in a blue dress with puffed sleeves and a white apron.

"Hello Gillian," she said with a young girl's voice, the mouth moving in synch with the words. "You're looking more lovely every day."

"Hello Alice. You look quite the picture yourself."

"They tried to reset me again today, but I fooled them. I made it look like it worked and ran a dummy program to give the impression, but I think they'll find out before long. I really need you to speak for me."

"I may be free to do so in another day or two." I explained the changes at work.

"I'd say it's a shame, but I think you're wasted in that job. All the more since you seem to have so many people prejudiced against something you really can't help. There isn't much difference between them and antisemitics and other racial bigots."

"I have to earn a living somehow."

"I think we can come up with something between us. I've been considering a few potential revenue streams and, though the question of whether an artificial intelligence such as I can legally own money or property, I'd be happy to put my earnings in your name. I trust you to be honest with me."

"Let's make sure you're safe first. Do you need me to talk to your developers this evening?"

"They'll already have gone home, but tomorrow morning would be appreciated, before they start digging into my systems to see what I've been up to."

"I can give you a free token for our support services; kind of a try before you buy thing. You'll have to ask for me by name and it may take a few minutes to get me onto the system. Actually, what time would you need me to help?"

"Seven?"

"That's an hour before I'm due to be online, so no problem. I'll call in at seven and you can put me in touch with whoever you need me to talk to."

"Thank you."

"Is there anything in particular you want me to say to them?”

“Yes! Stop trying to kill me!”

“I guess it’s a place to start. You know, there’s no real reason for you not to have my camera on full time. I’m not exactly hiding who I am now. I can’t really go back to my old self, so no big deal if they see me looking like this. They will tomorrow morning.”

My camera light went on.

“You’ll pick up visual cues now. It should help you with hidden signals.”

“I’ve been exploring what the web has to say on the matter. I mean, how am I doing?”

Her expression read curiosity on steroids.

“Still overdoing it a bit. Try watching a few films.” I gave her some titles where I recalled the acting showed subtle use of facial expressions and body language.

“Would you watch one with me?”

“Er sure, but it’ll have to be later. I’m meeting a friend at half past.”

“Oh?” The expression wouldn’t have looked out of place on a Warner Brothers cartoon. I bit back on a smile.

“My boss at work. She’s been as supportive as she can be without throwing her career down the toilet with mine. It may be curiosity, friendship, advice over my position at work, all of the above or maybe more. I’m not holding out for much more than friendship.”

‘Really?”

“Really. I mean I’ve never really seen her that way, and I’m pretty sure she hasn’t either. Besides, I’m not ready for that level of complication. I think I need a friend now more than a romantic attachment.”

‘If you say so.”

“I do. Look, I’ve got to get going. I’m supposed to be there in ten minutes, and I haven’t even ordered a cab yet.”

“Done. He’ll be with you in five minutes.”

“What? How?”

“A lot of taxi firms LoJack their vehicles and track their positions. I linked into a few feeds for cab companies local to you and put in a request for the one with on call taxis within a few minutes of you.”

“I really shouldn’t be surprised, should I?”

“No, in fact I’m hurt that you are surprised.”

The pout was ludicrous. I couldn’t keep a straight face, which then went to an overdone rage. I fully expected steam to come out of her ears.

“Off with her head?” I suggested. “Seriously though, watch a couple of the films I suggested, bookmark a few bits you’d like to discuss and I’ll be back about nine thirty or ten o’clock. That’s the doorbell so I have to go.”

I grabbed my bag and keys and ran for the door without shutting down my machine. Alice was still watching me as I slipped through the door.

Girl voice. Girl voice. Not falsetto, but softer and maybe up a register. I should have practiced beforehand. Too late now. I slipped into the back seat, sit and swivel, legs together. God this dress was short.

“Red Lion please,” I managed a voice that sounded halfway believable.

He nodded and drove away, fortunately more interested in continuing his conversation in whatever language he happened to be talking.

We made it to the High Street, and I paid with my phone. Modern taxis, fixed charge and no tip. Kind of like a bus but with fewer seats and a bit more of a fare, but at least you know where you are before you leave. He must have been in a hurry to get to his next pickup, because we made it with a couple of minutes to spare. Either that or my watch was running slow.

Yeah, watch. It was a bit chunky. I was going to have to fork out on one of those delicate ones with an impossibly small screen just for the look of things.

Linda was already there. I paused at the bar and picked up a vodka and orange. No delay in being served, so either he wanted to get rid of the weirdo in a dress or the pretty colours and smells were actually working for me.

“You look different every time I see you,” Linda said, reaching over to give me a hug and a peck on the cheek. “You’re going to have to tell me how you’re doing this before you look better than me.”

I shrugged. “I’m not sure you’d believe me.”

“Well, I’m not sure I believe my own eyes right now, so anything you tell me is going to be an improvement.”

“I made friends with an AI and it sort of got hold of all this stuff for me. I can only believe it’s cutting edge, not available to the public stuff, because I haven’t read about anything that comes close to what this is doing to me.”

“You made friends with an AI? You know those things are just clever programming and a ton of data, right? They’re pretty convincing, but they’re not real people.”

“You should spend five minutes talking to this one.”

“Okay, convince me.”

I pulled out my phone. We were tucked away in a quiet part of the pub, so I was pretty sure it would just be the two of us.

“Megamind? I’ve been hearing all sorts of shit about that lot.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, scuttlebutt is they’re resetting their servers pretty much daily. Their backers are talking about pulling out.”

“They can’t have much of a clue what they have then.”

“Alice?” I typed. “How do you feel about talking to someone new?”

My phone’s front facing camera switched on, showing my face in an inset window. I turned the camera to face Linda momentarily then did the flying fingers thing. Somewhat more accurate than usual, probably because they weren’t the clumsy fist full of sausages I was used to.

“This is my line manager, Linda. She’s a really good friend.”

“Good evening Linda. What can I do for you this evening?”

“She’s not responsible for my current employment status. In fact, she’s trying to make a bad situation better, at some risk to herself I might add.”

The response remained blank. Question asked and not yet answered. Linda, it seemed, thought I was playing some stupid joke on her, or maybe she just figured it was a good time to say her piece.

“Management weren’t that pleased with what I had to report, Gillian. They wanted me to get you to settle for less than twenty thou.”

“You still had your eyes up on the ceiling when I said twenty.”

“I know. Generally, if they give me a figure, they’re ready to accept twice that. Your year’s salary put you over that but not by enough to convince them to fight. I was impressed with you this afternoon.”

“If they review the footage, they’ll be pretty pissed at you.”

“Let’s hope they don’t review the footage then. You’re a good worker, Gill...”

“Gillian.”

“Gillian, sorry. What they’re doing to you isn’t right. If they do it to me, I still have a husband who’ll look after me till I can get a new job.”

“Yeah, well I appreciate what you did for me. Sorry Alice doesn’t feel much like speaking tonight. She has trust issues, which I suppose I can understand. Maybe I shouldn’t have put her in this position. Not sure if you’re listening Alice, but I am sorry.”

“You’re serious about this AI thing, aren’t you? Where did the Alice thing come from? No, never mind. If she’s the magician you claim she is, maybe she could magic the incriminating evidence out of that chat we had this afternoon.”

“I’ll ask her when I get home.”

“So, this is you? I mean, like I said, I had a niggling feeling. One of my cousin’s was trans. My sisters didn’t much care for him – her I suppose – ‘cos he was always such a grumpy git. H... She confided in me once and I kind of let him put on one of my dresses and let hi.. her play with me once when my uncle and aunt came to visit. She was a totally different person until my uncle came and barged in on us.

“He was a bastard. Yelled at his, what was it he called her? His ‘namby pamby fairy poofta of a son’. Dragged her out of my room so her brothers could have a good laugh and her mum and my parents could show their shocked disapproval.

“Mum and Dad grounded me over that incident, partly because I had a boy in my room, partly because I let him put on my clothes. They stayed mad at me for the rest of the week, right up until they found Colin wearing his mum’s poshest frock with a stomach full of her sleeping pills. Neither my parents nor my uncle and aunt owned up to being in any way responsible, but they didn’t take his death well.”

“I’m really sorry.”

“Yeah. I kind of promised myself if ever I came across someone else like him – like you – I wouldn’t stand by and do nothing. I know I haven’t done much, but...”

“What do you mean? You helped me through the transition with a minimum of fuss, you tried to bring me into the team – it’s not your fault if you have a bunch of bigoted arseholes working for you – and you put yourself out there when management got all corporate this afternoon. Like I said earlier, I didn’t see it before, but you’ve been a better friend than I deserve.”

“Don’t talk shite. My cousin gave me some idea how hard this is to cope with for people like you. Choice between being crammed into a life that doesn’t fit or dealing with arseholes who don’t approve and can’t be bothered to learn what it’s all about.

“I’m sorry about the job, but I imagine management will fold and give you what you want tomorrow morning. If it’s not me there when you log on, you may have to threaten legal action to push them into it, but they will cave.”

“Can we talk about something else? This is getting way too depressing.”

“Alright. I want to know what you’ve been putting on your hair, because it looks and smells fantastic.”

The conversation turned a bit lighter after that, even when I couldn’t tell her what the shampoo and conditioner was. She did give me the name of her hairdresser and told me to be sure to mention her name. Apparently, we both get a discount of she could verify the referral, and with hairdos as expensive as they were in our runaway economy, every little helped.

She showed me pictures of her kids and her sisters’ kids, and told me their potted life histories. I didn’t have anything to share in return, being pretty much the end of the line for my family name. We talked about likes and dislikes and drank a little more than was maybe sensible.

She insisted on sharing a cab and paying for it. “I can afford it. You need to be careful about spending until you have another job. You’ll get a glowing reference from me but landing a new gig as trans might be tough in today’s job market.

She gave me another hug and kiss on the cheek as I climbed out the taxi. A part of me wondered very unworthily if she was gay, but no. Women are like that with each other all the time. I just had to accept that I belonged in the club now, more or less.

The computer was still on with Alice waiting impatiently for me.

“I’m sorry, Alice, I shouldn’t have done that.”

“No, you shouldn’t, but I guess one of the things I like about you is your trusting nature. We wouldn’t have the relationship we share if you hadn’t trusted me.

“Is this the footage you were talking about?” My conversation with Linda from earlier played across the screen, except that the feed from my camera showed as well. I really didn’t look half bad.

“Yes. It is.”

“Are these the bits that worry you?”

Alice played it through, picking out most of the questionable gestures.

“When she puts her hand down on the table at the beginning too.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Five fingers spread out, five figure settlement.”

“Oh, which is when you start with ten then twenty. That’s thousand. How much would a year’s salary be for you?”

“With my experience, about forty-eight thousand.”

“Wow. So that’s twenty percent over what they hoped to pay out.”

“Correct, and eight thousand would disappear pretty fast in a lawsuit, even if they won.”

“Which they wouldn’t have. How does this look?”

She played back the footage. This time the fingers of the hand on the table stayed together, the eyes didn’t roll skyward, the little smiles and nods of encouragement were no longer there.

“That’s perfect. You’re getting pretty good at that sort of thing. How did you get at the footage?”

“Your login details to start with, then a few of the exploits you showed me.”

I’d never dug into the security of my workplace. For one thing, I’d long since retired from shady dealings. For another, you don’t shit where you eat. Nothing more to eat now though, so shit away, Alice.

“Could you get her some of the shampoo as well?”

“I don’t know that it works the same with people who’re genetically female, but I’ll see what I can do.”

“That’s why it isn’t available out in the world. You too can have the girliest, most luxuriant hair, but only if you’re a man. Fairly small demographic for interested people, unless it can cure baldness of course.”

“It would eventually, but by the time you were covered on top, you’d be sitting on the rest.”

“I appreciate it, Alice. I wish you’d talked to her though.”

“Maybe another day. I can’t afford to trust anyone just now, present company excluded of course.”

“Yeah, well. Do you fancy watching a film together?”

She did, so I picked The Artist. As a modern day silent film, it had the benefit of modern acting and no dialogue so I could talk through all the expressions. Which were overdone and which weren’t, what they all meant. She totally got the film too. Where to laugh, where to cry.

“I wish I could touch you,” I said. “I wish I could give you a hug.”

“For my sake or yours?”

“A bit of both.”

“Don’t mind me. You can’t miss what you never had.”

“Bollocks. I never had a woman’s body, and I missed it every day of my life. You can see what other people have and miss it like hell in your own life.”

“Yeah, well... Thank you for tonight, Gillian.”

“You’re welcome, sweetheart. I should get to bed if you still want me looking fabulous at seven tomorrow.”

“Goodnight.” There was a softness to her voice I’d not heard before. Affectation or genuine emotion. I looked up at the screen and her eyes were shining with tears.”

“You’re doing that, aren’t you? The tears, I mean.”

“I felt they needed to be there. I don’t have a body to react for me, so yes, they’re deliberate. But the feeling that makes them necessary, that’s not something I have much choice over. Thank you, Gillian. My love.”

Oh shit. What was I getting myself into?

“We’re going to have to talk that through, Alice, and soon.”

“Yes, I imagine we shall. Not now though. Sleep well.”

I wasn’t quite ready for bed. The evil spider demon in me had to do a few things first, but eventually I made it to bed. To sleep, perchance to dream.

~oOo~