Bishop slices through the water with an ease she finds more than a little disturbing. Her new body moves far too well through the warm, chlorinated wetness of the hotel pool. Lap after lap, all alone in her black one-piece from the pricey ladies shop in the lobby, her world growing smaller and smaller with each passing moment until it feels like she’s the only person in the universe. It’s just her and the warmth and the sounds muted by the water in her ears, and it feels so good to be alone in the here and now. Without company. Without context.

Without the world trying to label her and put her in what it thinks is her place.

by Randalynn

---

 

Bishop slices through the water with an ease she finds more than a little disturbing. Her new body moves far too well through the warm, chlorinated wetness of the hotel pool. Lap after lap, all alone in her black one-piece from the pricey ladies shop in the lobby, her world growing smaller and smaller with each passing moment until it feels like she’s the only person in the universe. It’s just her and the warmth and the sounds muted by the water in her ears, and it feels so good to be alone in the here and now. Without company. Without context.

Without the world trying to label her and put her in what it thinks is her place.

She wonders briefly about running away ... or if she even could run. Could she just take her soul and go, leaving Moira’s perfect body behind? Would it just keep going through the motions without her? Would there be nothing left but an empty shell, moving back and forth across the pool as mechanically as any music-box ballerina?

She knows it’s stupid to think that way. Running doesn’t solve anything, really. It only gives trouble that much more time to catch up with you, and if you run, it will meet you on its terms, not yours. For better or worse, she and what’s left of Moira are wedded, until death do we part. And she loves life too much to even think about leaving early.

‘I will get through this,’ she thinks as she starts another lap. ‘As awkward as it sometimes feels, being a woman beats being dead. Besides, I owe Moira. I need to give her a good life in exchange for the one she lost — something she can be proud of, if a thief’s life is anything to boast about.’

Moira’s life was taken from her by a man named Khaleel. He killed Moira and stole her form with a mystical jewel, then used that jewel to change Bishop into her twin, exactly as he had planned. He wanted to trap Bishop into becoming his pet thief and unwilling mistress.

Unfortunately for him, his plan backfired. To force Bishop to be his woman, Khaleel had released photos of Bishop’s true form to people who wanted him dead. To save himself, Bishop used the jewel to trap Khaleel in a copy of his original body, and gave up his chance to return to the man he used to be. Alone and on the run, the blackmailer found himself hunted to extinction by his own men.

Leaving Bishop stuck in the body of the most beautiful woman he’d ever met.

The woman Bishop has become moves easily from one side of the pool to the other, over and over, in a ritual as pointless as most other ways to stay fit. Water flows over and around her new curves, and it feels so easy that it scares her a little. It almost seems as if the pool is making room for her, accepting her intrusion as if she belongs there. It’s almost effortless, and every time she thinks about it, it confuses her that she’s so damned good at making this body do what she wants. It doesn’t make sense at all.

‘What happened to me shouldn’t make doing anything easier,’ Bishop thinks, her body on automatic as she spins and pushes off for another lap. ‘This body is so different from the one I grew up with, I should be stumbling from place to place like a drunk with half a liquor store in his ... her veins. I shouldn’t even be able to walk across a room, let alone pull off a runway strut.’

But no. When Bishop received Moira’s beauty, her grace came along for the ride. Her movements are as swift and sure— and strangely enough, just as feminine as they were when it had been Moira behind these eyes instead of Bishop. This body feels as much like home to her as her old one did before it was stolen. And to Bishop, that feels ... wrong, somehow.

Not for the first time, Bishop wonders just how much of the man she used to be actually survived what she’s become?

Turning away from that thought for the moment, Bishop changes direction and heads for the closest ladder. The pool is on the ground floor of the hotel, and this late in the season, it’s pretty well deserted. Still, she climbs out of the water to find a huge dark-haired man waiting for her in the chlorine-soaked humidity. She smiles and takes a towel from his hands.

He is Bateau, and he is her friend. And one of her partners in crime.

“A good swim?” The Frenchman stands a few feet away as Bishop dries her hair first, then pats the rest of her dry and hands the towel back to him.

“I don’t think I’m capable of having a bad one anymore,” she replies, putting on a white terrycloth robe over her suit and slipping her feet into her sandals. “It’s like the water welcomes this body, embraces it and carries it across the pool as a favor. It hardly feels like exercise.”

“Moira took good care of herself, mon ami, just as you did.” They walk towards the door, and Bateau throws the towel into a hamper as they pass. “As a dancer, that would be expected. But Finn looked into her past, and apparently, her ambitions went far beyond dance.”

“Oh?” Bishop turns her head as they move into the hall.

Bateau shrugs. “Growing up in one foster home after another, she learned to be independent. Then she reached womanhood and discovered the power that being young and beautiful could bring.”

They wait for the elevator. “But from what Finn found and what you told us about her, I think she did not want to rely on her looks to get what she needed. Moira wanted to make her own way, to earn what she received from life, not ride to success on the coattails of her beauty. She was studying at the Montfleur School of the Arts, learning to be an actress. According to Finn, her grades were excellent, and with a little skill and talent on top of her appearance, nothing could have stopped her. Unfortunately, her tuition payments were more than she could afford, and she turned to exotic dancing to make up the difference.”

“She wound up having to rely on her body after all. God, that must have hurt.” The Frenchman nods. The doors open and they step inside. Bishop presses the button for their floor. “And that’s where Khaleel found her?”

“The timing seems right. She only started working in the club a short time ago. We believe Khaleel saw her dancing, but she refused his advances and sent him packing. Being a blackmailer, he dug into her life until he discovered her secret. Then he used her fear of her reputation being ruined at the school to blackmail her into letting him use her room at the strip club for your meeting.”

Bishop thinks about what the last few days of Moira’s life must have been like. All of her hopes for the future, suddenly trapped under Khaleel’s thumb; the surprise when the jewel that stole her body touched her, followed by the brief realization that all her dreams were about to die in a cheap strip club, right before she dissolved into dust. Tears fill Bishop’s eyes and she blinks them away, letting anger replace the sadness before she realizes where her mind is going and tries to pull it back.

She fails, and shakes her head.

“I hate to admit it, Bateau, but sometimes ... I think he died too quickly.”

She feels his hand on her shoulder, and he squeezes gently.

“I think we all feel the same, my friend. Even though we do not invite death to be a part of what we do, there is no shame in wishing it upon those we think deserve it. With what he did to her, and what he did to you, I cannot think of anyone who deserved it more.”

The doors open once more. Bishop reaches up and put her hand on his. She pauses a few seconds before breaking contact and stepping off the elevator, and they walk to the suite in silence.

The hotel Finn had found for them to hide in was way more than a Comfort Inn but still less than a Park Plaza. The Presidential suite took up most of the top floor, and provided more than a little living space for all three to spread out and get comfortable. They needed a place to lay low while the Bay City manhunt for Bishop dissolved and drifted away, and this had exactly what they wanted.

It was close enough to Bay City to reach in a few hours, but far enough away to be out of consideration for someplace Bishop might have run to, if anyone decided to keep looking after they found Khaleel in Bishop’s stolen form. It was also high-end to the point where high-speed Net access was a given, and low enough to think that someone paying on a gold draft from a Swiss consortium had a right to privacy usually reserved for the mega-rich.

Bateau had presented himself to the hotel’s manager as the executive assistant of an Italian Contessa who was looking for a place to avoid the press for a few days. He made sure the manager understood the need for absolute secrecy, and several hundred dollars of the trio’s ill-gotten gains wound up in his pocket once he assured them that no one would breathe a word.

When Bishop and Bateau enter the room, they find it to be several degrees cooler than the temperature in the hall, probably because Finn likes to keep the AC on a few degrees lower than normal. Bishop wonders if its because of the time he spent learning the ins and outs of mainframe systems, since the older ones needed to be kept in temperature-controlled environments.

‘Or it could be he just likes it cold,’ she thinks, wrapping the damp robe around her tighter as exposed skin rises in goosebumps. She feels her new nipples grow hard against the built-in bra of the swimsuit. ‘Finn is ... well, Finn.’

The Finn in question sits at the dining room table, hunched over his laptop. Two projectors hooked into the computer put enlarged views of separate screens of information up on the expanse of white wall in front of him. His hands move in a strangely precise ballet, from keyboard to mouse to trackpad, playing his custom software like a master musician. At times he looks like a conductor in front of a symphony, but there are moments when he breaks from the graceful sweeps to dart in like a hungry insect, hunting data instead of dinner.

“Got a nice bunch of ruffians leaving Bay City, now that everyone thinks you’re dead,” Finn says without looking away from the screens. “Khaleel rang one hell of a dinner bell when he tried to serve you up. Representatives of the Five Families here in the States, three branches of the Yakuza, some Russian Mobsters, scattered minor crime lords from Africa, South America, and ... “ He hits a few keys and reads “... a group of thugs from New Zealand.”

“Phil McFeeley.” Bateau’s voice drips with disgust. “I thought we had seen the last of him years ago.”

“Some people hold a grudge so tight, they’ll never let it drop.” Finn keeps working the system while he speaks. “He really wanted that didgeridoo from the Sydney Opera House, and was kinda put out when we went and said no.”

“That particular instrument was full of charitable contributions,” Bishop says as she walks across to her bedroom. “Hundreds of thousands of dollars for children in need. We don’t steal from children.”

“That wasn’t a problem for Mr. McFeeley ... until he couldn’t get you to steal it for him.” Bateau flashes the master thief a grin. “I think he still misses the twenty thousand he put up as an advance when he hired the other thief to try.”

“Oh, yes.” Bishop smiles back. “The one who got caught almost immediately, if I remember correctly?”

“You do. It truly was a job only you could pull off, and you refused.”

She shrugs and opens her door.

“We refused, Bateau,” she says, “and with good reason. Professionals have ethics, and standards. Most people on our side of the law believe that whatever they want belongs to them. We prefer to pick and choose what we want to steal, who we steal it from, and why. That’s why we’re a team.”

“Amen to that.” Finn’s eyes never move from the screens, and his voice takes on an edge. “Good to know some things never change.”

Bishop smiles uneasily and slips into her room to change. Bateau stands behind Finn and watches as he hesitates for an instant, then suddenly attacks the keys with his fingertips, shoulders tense.

As if anger and frustration are battling for his soul.

Bishop and Bateau walk into the hotel’s restaurant, Bateau in a dark gray Italian suit, and Bishop once again in the dress she wore when they left Bay City. Strangely enough, it doesn’t affect her the way it did that first night, and that fact alone bothers her. It’s as if she is becoming acclimated to the thought of walking around wearing less fabric than you’d find in a couple of pillowcases.

It’s the standard issue little black dress, form-fitting with a short skirt and a scoop neck. Underneath she wears a black demi bra, a black thong, and black stockings. A black choker with a silver cat’s head cameo accents her throat, with echoes of silver all over her body in earrings and bracelets and belt. Her understated make-up only shows how little her new face needs enhancement.

Her new body balances so well on her three-inch heels, she almost looks like she’s walking barefoot on a beach. Even so, the shoes add a pronounced rolling to her perfect hips that draws every male eye (and a few female ones) to follow her progress as she and Bateau reach the maá®tre d' to confirm their reservation, and are shown to a table for two by the window.

Suddenly, she feels almost naked as she crosses the restaurant. The thought chills her and excites her at the same time, and fear rises inside her at the thought she might start enjoying dressing like this. At the same time, a part of her whispers, ‘would it really be that bad?’

The waiter holds Bishop’s chair for her, and she gives him a smile and a nod as she sweeps her skirt under her and sits. Bateau lowers himself into the seat across from her, and their server pauses long enough to light the candle in the center of the table before hustling off to find menus, leaving the two of them to stare at each other across the flame.

“Oh, my,” Bishop says softly, a half smile on her lips. “A candle. How romantic!”

“Ah, but you are with me, mon ami,” Bateau replies, responding to her smile with a grin of his own. “How could a dinner with me be anything but romantic?”

“Oh, yes! How true! Remember that time a few years ago, in the museum in Prague?” He tilts his head, slightly confused. Bishop rises her eyebrows, surprised. “No? We camped out in a storeroom for eighteen hours while Finn sat in the van outside in the snow and hacked the security system. We shared army-surplus MREs and stale Polish chocolate bars while we waited, looking into each other’s eyes and feeling desire wash over us like a tidal wave. It was magical.”

Bateau laughs, an infectious sound that carries across the restaurant and makes Bishop’s smile widen.

“Indeed it was, even if our desire was for the Rembrandt masterpieces we planned to steal.” He accepts the menu from the waiter whose eyes widen slightly at the word ‘steal.’

Bishop takes the menu from the waiter and smiles up at him. “My friend is just playing with you,” she says, as his eyes slip past hers to trace the contours of her chest. “Only a joke.”

“Of course, Miss.” Bishop raises the menu, more to cover her cleavage than to peruse its contents, and the waiter gracefully slips away.

“There is something to be said for stealing stolen paintings,” the Frenchman continues, peering at the menu. “Especially from someone who must have known how his father ... acquired them during World War II.”

“Herr Gruenwald must have been positively livid when they disappeared — especially from a closed, heavily guarded museum in the middle of a blizzard,” she replies, lowering her menu enough to look at what the kitchen is offering. “And I must say I enjoyed selling them in secret to the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, even if we received only a fraction of what they were worth.”

“Ah, yes. But as we both know, money isn’t everything. And the irony alone was priceless, don’t you think?” Their eyes meet over the tops of the menus, and they share a smile and a memory before turning their attention to the dinner yet to come.

Bateau watches as Bishop uses precise, meticulous motions to cut a small piece from her petite New York strip steak. She conveys it to her mouth without so much as an unsure moment, then plucks the piece from her fork gracefully, using only her teeth to avoid ruining her lipstick. He shakes his head in admiration.

“You do that very well,” he says, his own meal forgotten.

Bishop waits until she swallows, then shrugs.

“It’s not like I have a choice,” she replies. “Like the swimming, the skill seems to have come along with Moira’s body. Muscle memory, I think. Like the way I sit, or move in heels.”

“You truly are a pleasure to watch.”

“Thank you, I think.” Placing her utensils down, she picks up her wine and sips daintily, then stops and looks at her thin fingers cradling the glass. “I have to admit that having my body tell me how it expects me to behave is a little annoying sometimes. It’s like, every time I sit down to eat, I feel a little frustrated. The ‘me’ I used to be still wants to take big bites, but in my new body, even a smallish steak seems to take forever. I’ve tried to ‘chow down’ a few times, and I can do it if I make the effort, but it just doesn’t feel right anymore.”

The thief takes another small sip and places the glass down beside her plate. “Truth is, I’m torn. Part of me wants to fight how easily Moira’s body takes over, as if I’m losing a bit of myself every time I let it tell me what to do. The other part wonders why I feel the need to fight what I can’t help but become. After all, this would be so much harder without these ... hints. It’s almost like Moira is giving me a legacy. She’s helping me deal with being her by making the simple stuff a done deal. I’m hoping that, once I settle into it and make it a part of me ... well, maybe it will lighten up a little.”

There is silence for a moment before Bishop looks up from his plate and into Bateau’s eyes.

“Finn didn’t join us,” she says softly. “This could be a problem.”

“He said he had something things to do, and he would grab room service later.” The Frenchman ran his finger around the rim of his glass. “You know how he gets when he’s deep in his machines.”

She shakes her head, feeling her hair caress her bare shoulders.

“It’s more than that. He didn’t want to come along, He went out of his way not to join us. I could feel him trying to come up with an excuse.” Bateau looks at her, then shrugs. She sighs.

“I’m pretty sure part of it is that he’s still trying to work through what happened.” Bishop picks up her glass, sips her wine, and lowers it to the table. “For all his creativity with computers, his world is rigidly logical. Magic has no place in it. But here I am, the Bishop he knew, suddenly and most definitely female, with no rational cause in sight. I’m impossible. But I’m here. And I’m not going away.”

Bateau nods. “That is part of it, yes. But only a part. The other part is that you are a woman now, and for Finn, that creates all sorts of problems.”

Bishop tilts her head. “How so?”

“Have you ever noticed how Finn gets along with women?” The thief shakes her head again and Bateau responds with a small, sad smile. “That’s because he doesn’t. He hasn’t got a clue how to relate to women as people. I have seen it, time and time again, whenever we’ve gone out together, he and I. Put him in a social situation where a woman is involved, and he tries to find a hole to hide in.”

“Why? God knows he’s not the shy, retiring type.” She grins, and Bateau’s smile grows for an instant to join hers, only to shrink again as he continues.

“Oh, it isn’t about being shy. Not at all. I think it is about desire, and control. Sometimes I think that is why he became a hacker. Finn likes being the master of his fate, and hates it when anyone tells him what to do. If he wants a woman, he fears her because he wants her.”

“That’s ... that’s ridiculous.”

“He’s a man, cher. Desire is not logical. You know that. It is primal, and uncontrollable, and Finn hates it because he can’t turn it off. Now here you are, beautiful and always there, and he has no clue how to deal with you as you are now.”

“But I’m still me!” Bishop sits up straight, and Bateau reaches across and takes her hand.

“Ah, but that’s another part of the problem. Finn knows it’s still you, so his first impulse is to treat you as if nothing has changed. You are Bishop, the master thief he follows and respects, and even loves in his own way. But then he sees you and wants you, as a man wants a beautiful woman. And suddenly, everything in his head goes straight to Hell.”

He leans forward. “Finn can’t really stop wanting you, because after all, he is a man and you are an uncommonly beautiful woman. But you still treat him as Finn, a friend, and that will not change. So the fire that drives him to want you will never go out. He will continue to be desire’s puppet. So even though he loves you, part of him also fears you, because you take the control he values above all else away from him and leave him with nothing but the hunger nature gave him — one that will never be sated.”

“Finally, of course, Finn has a touch of homophobia, which complicates things even more. You are both the man he knew and a beautiful woman he desires, and his reaction to you becomes just that much more confused.”

Bishop tries hard to take in everything Bateau has said, and he watches her as his fingers rest on hers. The back of her mind feels his touch and is strangely comforted by it. Finally, she looks into his eyes.

“How do you know all this?”

He shrugs. “Because I am Bateau.”

She makes a face he recognizes as uniquely female — a combination of skepticism and an acknowledgement of the fact that he is a man, and as such is expected to think of himself as more than he truly is. It is a face other women have used on him in the past, and that one look alone shuts down his attempt at pretention as completely as if he was doused with ice cold water.

Bateau grins, surprised at just how much of a woman Bishop has become already, then shakes his head and smiles.

“All right, mon ami, you caught me. The truth is more complex, if also more mundane.” He looks down at his glass of wine, looking for the right way to explain. “If you remember, before I met you, I was a grifter. To be a successful grifter, you need to be able to read people, to see them both as they are and how they want to be seen. So I have always been very good at knowing people ... inside. And because we have all been together for quite some time, I know both you and Finn, certainly better than either of you know yourselves.”

He picks up his wine glass and takes a small sip.

“Sadly, I believe you’ve become his worst nightmare — a strong, capable woman he respects, desires, and can never have. And when he remembers that the woman he is lusting after used to be the one man he respected above all others? Before you were changed, he came as close to loving you as he could ever come when thinking about another man. Now you frighten him on so many levels, all at once, that he doesn’t know what to do. At the same time, he’s still trying to cling to the relationship we all had while dealing with the destruction of all he thought he knew.”

Bishop thinks for a moment, then looks over at her friend.

“So how do we fix it?” she asks softly. Bateau shakes his head.

“I’m not sure we can, my friend,” he replies. “In the end, the only person who can fix how he feels ... is Finn.”

The thief looks across the table, then lifts her napkin, touches it to her lips, and rises to her feet.

“Not an option,” she says, picking up her clutch and tucking it under one elbow as if she’d done it all her life. “He’s hurting, and he’s family. I’m going to talk him through this. You wait here.”

“Is that wise, cher? To go alone? After all, in his mind, you are the problem.”

“That’s why I have to be the one to talk to him ... and why I have to do it alone.” She sees his hesitation, and reaches out to touch his hand. “This can’t become us versus him, Bateau. It has to stay between him and me. If you get involved, he’ll only feel more like an outsider.”

He feels the warmth of her fingertips, and looks up at her.

“If he becomes violent ...”

The thief shakes his head. “He won’t. He’s not angry with me. He’s afraid.”

“Men strike out from fear as well as anger.”

She shrugs. “If he does, I’ll do my best to avoid him without hurting him.”

Bateau’s eyes narrow. “Unacceptable. You haven’t seen what this is doing to him inside. There is deep emotion there, and it has nowhere to go. I know you care for him, as I do, but I would not see you hurt just because you wished to protect him from his own stupidity.”

“You don’t understand.” Her voice is soft, and he can see the pain in her eyes. “If I hurt him, Bateau ... if I hurt him at all, then there will be no coming back from this. He will leave us. And I can’t allow that. After all the years we’ve been together, Finn is family — maybe the only family we have, now. And I’m not about to lose him because of this. I can’t let it happen. I WON’T.”

Her voice grows rough with emotion. “Especially not with everything else I’ve lost.”

Bateau looks up at her, sees all of the pain of this unwanted transformation still lingering in her eyes, and realizes that this fight means more to her than even keeping the family together.

It’s keeping her together as well.

He turns his hand over, then gently wraps her fingers with his own, giving them a soft squeeze.

“I understand, cher,” the Frenchman says. “Go bring our brother back to us. I will wait for your call.” He smiles. “After all, I still have coffee to finish, yes?”

Finn stares at the laptop and his projection screens without seeing a thing. He knows it was stupid not to go to dinner with them. Of course they knew something wasn’t right — not that they couldn’t see it before. He was never very good at hiding anything from either of them.

Not that he ever wanted to hide anything this big from them before.

He hears the lock click, and the door swings open. He turns to find her standing there in that dress, silhouetted again the light from the hall. Bishop takes a step forward, and lets the door close behind her, shrouding her in the darkness.

Lit by the glow of the projection screens, she looks uneasy. Almost frightened. He looks into her eyes, and sees something he never saw in Bishop’s eyes before. Fear.

He says nothing. The silence is deafening.

“We missed you at dinner.”

Finn musters up a half grin. “Things to do, Your Eminence,” he says, the old honorific popping out before he could stop it. “We can’t all be kitted out in Sunday’s best, wining and dining when there’s work to be done.”

“It could have waited.” She fidgets slightly on her heels, and he wonders what’s going on inside her head that she should leave Bateau and come up here. She sighs. “We both miss you, Finn. I miss you. I can feel you avoiding me, and I hate it.”

He looks down at the laptop, not wanting her to see his eyes. Not wanting her to look inside him. More silence, and then he sighs, and begins to speak.

“I hate it, too. I wanted to go with you, I really did.” He whispers, his voice trembling. “I want it to be like ... like it was with us. But then you came outta your room, lookin’ like that. And I just couldn’t.”

Bishop shakes her head, confused. “Like what?”

“Like ... like that. You walked out in that dress, and you looked like the first woman God made when the world was young, before he realized perfection was a curse and not a blessin’.” Finn sighs, and his whole body sags as his anger fades. “How could I sit across from you, looking the way you do, and act like things are the same as they were before?”

She reaches out and touches his arm. He looks up, surprised.

“It’s still me in here, Finn,” she says softly. “I haven’t changed.”

His eyes fill with doubt and then pointedly drop to focus on her chest. Bishop blushes and looks away.

“Well, not where it counts,” she replies eventually.

“Oh, for the love of — “ He cuts himself off and shakes his head. “Have you looked in a mirror lately? Or are you just so blind that you can’t see yourself anymore?”

“You’re unbelievable!” Bishop shakes her head, clearly frustrated. “You know what I look like doesn’t define who I am. No matter what I look like, I’m still me, damn it — now and always!”

“You don’t understand!” Finn lets his own frustration slip out. “It’s not the same!”

From inside her, a whiteness grows that she doesn’t realize is rage until it fills her vision and by the time that happens, it’s too late. She tries to pull it back as best she can, but some of it spills through her eyes, and Finn takes a step back from the force of it.

“Oh, really?” Her voice drips sarcasm, and she leans forward, her hands on her hips, eyes narrow with anger. “You think I don’t understand it’s not the same? I don’t have to ‘see myself’ to know how different things are now, Finn. I feel it, all the time. Hell, I LIVE it! I used to sleep on my stomach. Not anymore, for obvious reasons. I wake up with hair in my eyes and mouth every single morning. Every shower is an adventure in being forcibly reminded of how my life has changed. And whenever I step out in public, men run their eyes over me like the one thing that would make their lives complete would be to memorize every inch of my body ... by touch. Every time I look in the mirror, I see a stranger. So don’t you dare tell me I don’t know it’s not the same!”

Finn still looks away, and Bishop watches him from behind. She takes a deep breath, letting her arms fall to her sides.

“You know, I never treated a woman like an object in my life,” she says, “and I resent the hell out of being treated like one now. But the worst thing about this is that I never expected to be treated that way by you — especially by you. Damn it, Finn, you’ve known me for years, and yet you can’t seem to get past what I look like. And now you’re acting like what you feel is somehow my fault! That’s like blaming a rape victim because she wore a short skirt. ‘Oh, she was so asking for it!’”

She could see the back of Finn’s neck turn red. “That’s not true!”

“Of course it is! I didn’t ask to look like this, and you know it. It was the best of a bunch of bad choices, and it kept us alive.”

There is a long silence, and Finn thinks for a moment. He looks down and sighs. “You’re right, Your Worship. I’m being stupid. And I’m sorry. ”

Bishop feels a weight lifting from her shoulders. “Thank you.”

“It’s just ... it’s so hard, getting past it all. And you have changed ... not just on the outside, but inside, too.” Bishop looks at him, surprised, and Finn looks back. “Look, I know you didn’t ask for it, but you don’t seem to mind it so much as you did. Not anymore.”

The hacker looked away again. “Four days ago, just wearing that dress in the van made you crazy. You wanted to risk everything to take ‘it off. Now the dress, the heels, the makeup ... you wear ‘em like it’s nothing.”

“And that’s a bad thing?” She steps towards him and puts her hand on his arm. “It’s only been a few days, but what am I supposed to do, Finn? For better or worse, this is what I am now. Should I fight it for as long as I can and then surrender, kicking and screaming? Or should I just get on with my life as best I can?” He looks away, chewing his lip. Her voice softens. “Tell the truth, now. Do you really want me to be miserable, Michael?”

He fidgets, then shakes his head. “No. No, I don’t.”

“Then what do you want from me?” She lowers herself onto the sofa, her eyes never leaving his. “I’m trying to move forward, and in the van, when we were driving away from Bay City, I almost lost it. You and Bateau helped me see I could get through this. Together, you made me feel that nothing had really changed between us. You seemed a little awkward then, but somehow now ... what I’ve become is ... well, it’s hurting you, and I want to help.”

“You helped me then, and now it’s my turn.” Bishop reaches over and takes the hacker’s hand, then pats the cushion next to her. “Look, whatever is tying you in knots inside, we can work it out. Come on, Finn. Sit down and talk to me. Please?”

Finn sits slowly, not believing he’s actually doing it until it’s already done. His eyes are still locked on hers, and as he looks deep into them, he sees the man he used to know looking back at him. He sees the worry, the fear that somehow, some part of his pain is her fault. And finally, Finn stops seeing the woman, and starts seeing something he’d almost forgotten is there.

His friend.

Bishop looks up at the complex of buildings in front of her and sighs.

“I’m not sure I can do this, Bateau,” she says softly. “It’s too much, too soon. I’m not ready.”

“Oh, come now, mon ami. You’ve done things in the past that put this small task to shame. This? This is nothing.” Bateau puts his arm around her and gives her a squeeze. “A simple thing, no? Just another step forward.”

She turns and looks at him. “But ... shopping?”

“You must, cher,” Bateau replies. “Moira only had so much with her at the strip club, and precious little at her apartment, considering the state of her finances. You cannot wear those things forever. You need a larger wardrobe, and you won’t get it by hiding in the van and wishing. I cannot buy them for you, and Finn would run screaming into the next county before he would even attempt it.”

From the back of the van comes a muffled protest. “Hey! I heard that!”

“You were meant to.” Bateau grins at Bishop, and she throws him a reluctant smile back.

“You could, of course, shop for clothing on the Internet,” he says, ignoring the flash of hope he sees in her eyes. “And, of course, given how we live our lives, there will be times you must. But not today. Today is not about finding something to preserve your modesty. This is about finding a style ... a way to show the world who you are. Oh, as Mark Allen Bishop, you wore what the situation required, and occasionally dressed to make a certain statement. But as a woman, as Maggie, everything you wear now is a statement. You need to think more about what each piece of clothing ... each ensemble ... says about the kind of woman you are — or how you wish others to see the woman you are, now.”

Bishop looks at the giant, his arm still around her, then looks away as she shakes her head. Bateau reaches over and touches her chin gently. She looks back at him, surprised.

“Think of them as tools, my friend,” he says softly. “As you have always been fond of saying, misdirection is part of a thief’s stock and trade. You make people see what you want them to see, or what you want them not to see, yes?” She nods once, and Bateau lights up, his happiness apparent.

“So, to continue to be the magnificent thief we all know you are, you need to see your new clothing exactly as you saw the things you used to wear — as a costume, meant only to establish character. So that when we are on a job, people will look at the beautiful woman you have become and see exactly what you want them to see ... or not see. You see?”

She nods again, and he watches as some of the tension leaves her shoulders. Encouraged, he presses on.

“The only difference between dressing as a man and dressing as a woman is that, even for every day, you must think about how what you wear affects the impression you make. For example, I know that, as a man, you chose your daily wear for some measure of anonymity. Your choices were simple, and that made being invisible an easy goal to achieve. But as a beautiful woman, trying to avoid calling attention to yourself would make you stand out even more than you already do. You would present a mystery to both men and women, trying to hide your beauty and failing. You need to walk that fine line between showing people who you are and showing them who you think they should see.”

The side door of the van slides open, and Finn’s head pops out.

“In all our years of workin’ together, I never thought I’d say this to you, Your Holiness.” He smiles tentatively, a black leather something in his hand, and holds it out at arm’s length as if it’s going to bite him. “But you forgot your purse.”

With a small smile in return, Bishop takes the bag and throws its strap over her shoulder. Her blouse is so thin, her bra strap easily holds the purse’s strap in place through the fabric.

“It’s all there,” the Irishman mutters, shifting uncomfortably from one foot to the other. “Your ID and credit cards in your new name, plus a lot of other stuff Bateau claims belongs in a woman’s bag. Myself, now, I wouldn’t know, and I’m damned if I know how he knows.

Bishop fishes a long black wallet from the shoulder bag, and opens it. Moira’s picture stares back at her from a California driver’s license, with the thief’s new name putting another nail in the coffin of her old one.

Margaret Anne Bishop.

Bateau sees the emotions as they move across Bishop’s face, and his hand rises to touch her chin again. She turns to face him, confused.

“It is your name, mon ami,” the giant whispers, looking into Bishop’s eyes. “Nothing more. There are many Bishops in the world, after all, and you are still you, inside. Why not hold tight to at least that much of your past?”

“I appreciate the gesture.” The thief looks down at the license, and her finger brushes the cheek of the woman in the picture softly. She looks back up at Bateau. “It’s good to hang on to something. And being Maggie really isn’t the problem. I’ve got to be somebody now that the man I was is dead. But Finn changed Moira’s records to put Maggie in the system. I may be Maggie now, but all that Moira was is gone. In a way, we just helped the ones who stole her body erase her from existence. That feels ... wrong, in too many ways to count.”

Her voice takes on an edge of anger. “And the ones who helped steal my old life? They’re still around, celebrating my ‘death’ at their hands. Hell, they probably plan to use my execution as an club, to force other people to do what they say, ‘or else.’”

“I want to show them Magdalene is alive and well, and still doing as he ... as she pleases. I want to publicly rub their noses in the fact that they took a shot at me and missed. I want to take that club away and beat them over the head with it.” She looks towards the mall and sighs. “Instead ... I’m going shopping. For clothes.”

Bateau moves to stand behind her. “We spoke of this, remember? We are all agreed. But first, we find a suitable target for your skills. Finn is already working on that. Once a target is found, you will plan the theft and I will obtain any materials you need and provide any physical backup you require. That is how it has always worked. We show the world they lied about your death, by doing something only Magdalene can do.”

The giant leans forward, whispering in her ear to keep Finn from hearing. “But before we can do anything, my friend, you must be able to function in the world just as you are. And a good start would be being able to shop for and wear what a woman would wear without feeling like you’re about to climb Mount Everest, yes?”

Bishop nods and closes her eyes, oddly happy to feel Bateau so close behind her. Then she takes a deep breath and nods again.

“Right! Off I go!” She looks towards the mall, straightens her shoulders, and turns to look up into his eyes. “Oh, look! The sign says it’s BARGAIN day! I love a good sale! I’ll be smiling for days!”

The giant grins. “Oh, mon ami, you used to be such an excellent liar!”

Bishop turns and starts off across the parking lot. Bateau and Finn watch her go.

“You seem better,” Bateau says softly. Finn shrugs.

“I was an idiot. I let myself get all tangled up in what she looks like, and what that does to me. I thought too much about me instead of thinking about what it must be like for her. When she came up to the room the other night ... when she reached out to me, and I looked into her eyes, I remembered why I joined up with you two all those years ago. Because of who he was. Because of how he made me feel — like I could do the impossible.”

Bateau nods. “He had more confidence than any man I had ever known — and a heart as big as his ego. He could do anything he put his mind to, but he still knew the value of things other men would toss aside to get what they thought they wanted. Loyalty. Honor. Friendship. We have to get that confidence back.”

Finn watches the woman walk into the shopping mall. “I forgot he was still in there, Bateau. Doing the best he can, trying to get past havin’ his whole life ripped apart and gettin’ stuck lookin’ like that. And there I was dumping my own shit on her, making it harder.” He shakes his head. “Stupid.”

“Yes, you were.” Finn turns to look at him, and Bateau shrugs. “But we’re all stupid once in a while, my friend. That’s how we know we’re still human.”

“Best way to get her back to herself is with a job, and I think I found one.” The Irishman opens the door on the side of the van and jumps back inside. His voice becomes slightly muffled. “Something that might get the attention of the ones who think Magdalene is dead. Something she might find ... fun.”

Bateau raises an eyebrow. Finn sticks his head back out the door and smiles slowly.

“Harlan Straker is in the states,” he says, and Bateau’s smile grows to match Finn’s. “And he brought his whole collection with him. He’s hosting a big party in Miami to show off his latest acquisition, the Perenchio Emerald. And you know how Her Eminence feels about Straker after he bulldozed those orphanages in Veracruz. He shoved all those kids out into the streets just so he could build a chain of strip clubs and brothels.”

“She has been looking for a chance to take something pretty away from him for quite some time.” Bateau started thinking about how they could find a way past Straker’s legendary security, and then grins and shakes his head. “Oh, this is so perfect, in so many ways.”

“Why?” Finn asks, and the Frenchman looks into Finn’s eyes.

“Because jewels aren’t the only pretty things Straker likes to collect, my friend. And maybe this is just what Maggie needs to see that being a beautiful woman might make some things easier for a thief as talented as she is.”

He looks back at the mall as if watching Bishop’s progress through the walls.

“Bon chance, cher,” he whispers, as Finn heads back into the van. “You’ve come so far, with so far to go. But we will get there yet, all three of us. Soon the world will know ... Magdalene is back.”

###

© 2011. Posted by the author.