A visit to the video store and a quiet place to park.

Day Two, 1 A.M.

I dithered while Paul shopped in the adult video store. Clearly, he expected me to go along with his plans--whatever they were. Did I want to have sex with him? Did I have a choice?

Could I run? I didn't even have any money with me and I had no idea exactly where we were, it looked like an industrial area with a few shops and some rundown apartments.

I cried for a bit then pulled down the lighted mirror and freshened my makeup. Well? What else could I do.

Paul returned with a bag, slid back under the wheel and presented me with a small box from the bag.

"What is it?" I asked.

"Open it."

I did. It contained a charm bracelet, a silver chain with dangling hearts, stars, ballet shoes, teddy bears, kittens, high heels, lipsticks, miniature bows, amethyst-colored stones and fake pearls. "For me?" I squeaked.

"Yup," he said, apparently pleased with my reaction. He grinned. "It was the girliest piece of jewelry I think I've ever seen."

"I love it," I said, slipping it on and moving all my beaded bracelets to the other wrist. "I could kiss you."

He turned in the seat and leaned toward me. So I kissed him, feeling daring and scared, but really, the present was thoughtful and sweet. I gave him a peck on the lips then another on the cheek.

"You're welcome," he said softly. He sat back and started the car. "I told you I'd treat you like a girl if you looked like one."

I couldn't catch my breath. "Could you--would you--can I be a girl for the rest of the weekend?"

"Honey, you can be a girl for the rest of your life. If you want to bad enough."

We drove for a while. I wondered what else he had in the sack, it looked too large to contain a few videos. I didn't ask.

I thought we were heading back to campus but he turned onto a tree-shaded avenue and we headed up into the hills. Pretty soon, we stopped and parked at an overlook. Below us the city sparkled like jewels and around us the leaves rustled and muttered. He got out and came around to help me out then he picked me up by the waist and set me down on the hood of the car.

"Oof," he grunted. "I wasn't kidding about you needing to lose weight."

I whimpered a little.

He clambered up to sit beside me and put his arm around me. This felt so different from when he had been bullying me after finding my stuff. It didn's seem like the same paul I'd been living with for weeks.

He pulled me close and kissed me on the forehead. "What am I supposed to call you?" he asked.

"Uh, Donna?"

He shook his head. "No, Don/Donna. That's lame. Besides, someone might connect my girlfriend Donna with my roommate Don. You need a girlier name. A very girly name."

"Donna means lady." I pointed out.

He snorted and rubbed his knee. I assumed the one he'd injured that had ended his athletic career. "Your name is Misty," he said.

"Misty?" I squeaked.

He nodded. "Then when you're away from the school, you can be Misty Dawn, so it's still your name."

"D-A-W-N?"

"Of course."

"Sounds like a stripper."

He laughed. "Which brings us to the subject of how you're going to pay for what you want to do."

I didn't say anything. "I thought we came here to neck," I said softly, accidentally out loud.

He turned to me, pulling me half into his lap. One hand went behind my head and the other went to my ass. He kissed me hard on the lips, forcing his tongue into my mouth while his hand groped until it found the crack of my ass. Strong fingers probed at my asshole, right through my skirt, hose, girdle and panties all the while he kissed and nibbled my lips, my tongue, my face.

I struggled at first but then I put my hands behind his head and tried to kiss back. I hadn't had much experience so I just tried to respond to what he was doing. I felt very aware of how much bigger and stronger Paul was and it excited me.

"We'd better stop or we'll never watch those videos I rented," he said between kisses.

I giggled and we just snuggled for a bit. It seemed so strange, yesterday I hated this guy and earlier today he had me really frightened for my life. "I like being your girl much better than being your roommate," I said.

He laughed. "Yeah, well." He stoked my hair and hummed something tuneless; I couldn't see his face. "Tell me the truth, did you enjoy me watching you naked this afternoon?"

"Uh? To tell the truth, I was too scared of you to notice." I thought about the question. "Are you serious about--uh--m-me stripping as a possible way to make money?"

He nodded. "I know of a dozen or so girls who are doing it to pay for their education."

"Yeah," I said. "But they're all prettier than me--and born girls besides."

"You're pretty," he said. "And there are guys who would pay extra to see a girl with something extra take off her clothes."

"Gay guys?"

"Hell, no. Gay guys want men, not ersatz women. Your audience is kinky straight men."

"That doesn't make sense."

"No, it doesn't. But take it from this slightly kinky straight guy, the fact that you look like a girl but you have something else in your panties is exciting."

I swallowed, frightened by the thought for some reason. He began kissing me again and pressing his fingers into the crack of my ass, reaching foarther down to where my concealed maleness trembled when he touched it.

My fear spiced my arousal; I dropped my trembling hands into his lap and found the swelling of his desire pressing against the denim. I fumbled for his zipper, I wanted to hold his sex in my hands.

He pushed my hands away, slid me off the hood onto my feet on the ground. "Get in the car," he ordered.

I bit my lip, afraid that I'd somehow made him angry. I got back into the car but he sat on the hood for awhile longer and I realized that he was smoking another marijuana cigarette. I pulled down the vanity again to check my makeup. It was a disaster area so I fiddled with that, fixing it again.

I didn't like the idea of him driving while stoned, plus he'd had at least half a bottle of wine earlier--but what could I do about it. I assumed we must be in the hills above the campus but I had no idea where in any real sense of knowing how to get home.

Paul came back to the driver's side door just as I put the vanity back up. "Don't do that too much, I don't drive this thing often enough to keep the battery fully charged," he said. "Girls," he snorted as he slid behind the wheel.

I giggled, pleased that he was in a good enough mood to tease me. I felt suddenly as if we'd had this exact conversation many times before and would have it again. As if we had been boyfriend/girlfriend for years. Back home, I'd had crushes on boys very like Paul, talk about unrequited love--big, tough, hard-edged Hispanic and Anglo boys and one big black kid I thought had the soul of a poet under his surly exterior.

Paul started the car and soon we were on the way again, winding through the darkened hills past multi-million dollar homes and the ragged, blackened stumps of an old fire.

Some of the boys I had lusted after back in high school were even ones who had given me a hard time for being a fruit--staring in gym class nearly got me beat half to death more than once. I broke my left wrist while running away from one beating; apparently I hit it on something during my panic. Didn't notice it for hours; it hurt, I just didn't know why. Then when I took my left hand in my right and felt the bone move in my arm, I almost fainted.

Paul must have heard me whimper.

He reached across to touch my cheek, to see if I was crying? "Hey," he said. "I wasn't mad at you, it just wasn't the right time or place."

"I know," I said. I felt happy just then, knowing that Paul cared about what I thought of him.

He put his attention back to driving but continued talking. "I did some thinking. You can't be a stripper without a wardrobe and that's going to cost money. How much you got?"

"Uh? Enough for books and a bit extra. Most of that from my part time job."

"You ain't going to get rich pulling coffee drinks for jerks, babe."

"I'm not--I can--I guess I'll have to wait."

He shook his head. "No. You won't ever be nineteen again. If you can get started on this now, you'll have a lot less trouble looking and being female."

The dashboard clock showed the time as after midnight. A turn onto a wider road and I suddenly knew where we were; about six miles closer to downtown than the campus. Botox City they called it, for all the plastic surgeons in the high rise office buildings. I knew that a good boob job would cost about $3000 or more, just one of the expensive procedures I would need done.

"I don't see how," I said.

"How bad do you want it?" he asked.

We got back to the campus parking lot before I thought of a good answer to that one.

Friday night, even at one in the morning, the dorms were not completely silent. The place had a supposed curfew, but on our floor, the fifth, someone had a party going on in the eight-person suite on the end of the building. I didn't feel nearly as nervous coming back as I had going out.

"Don't tell the school what you're doing, at least, not until the end of the semester. They probably wouldn't let you stay in a dorm room with me," Paul said once we were inside.

I nodded. Funny, earlier I had been thinking of how to get rid of Paul.

"I kind of blew some money, Misty. Got to get used to calling you 'Misty'." Before I could say yea or nay to the new name, he poured out the goodies he'd bought at Passions.

Besides the videos there were other things. One I recognized as a waist cincher like the one I'd left at home. Two other pieces of clothing looked like thong panties.

Paul pointed at those. "Gaffs. They make hiding your package easier." One of them actually had an instruction card with drawings. I felt myself blushing.

He pointed to several vaguely penis-like objects in various sizes shrink-wrapped to a card. "Graduated butt plugs. We'll get you started on the smallest tonight."

"What?"

"Sex lube," he said, holding up a tube.

"Is a butt plug what it sounds like?" I asked. They ranged in size from slightly bigger than my little finger to nearly two-inches wide.

He nodded. "I want you to wear one all the time until you can put the big one in and out without tearing something. Now on the videos, which do you want to watch first? Buggery 101, Going Down on Guys for Fun and Profit or She-Male for Rent?"