Alek walked alongside his wife as they passed various vendors offering hot dogs, cotton candy, and all the other delights of summer found at the county fair. While everyone around him was having fun, he was in a particularly foul mood. Not only had Christina left Boris with him, soon after, the girl and her boyfriend had disappeared. Keeping a sharp eye on his daughter and her ginger haired boyfriend who were walking several paces ahead of them, he vowed not to lose another one of his girls.

by Admiral Krunch

---

 
Chapter 47
 

        Alek walked alongside his wife as they passed various vendors offering hot dogs, cotton candy, and all the other delights of summer found at the county fair. While everyone around him was having fun, he was in a particularly foul mood. Not only had Christina left Boris with him, soon after, the girl and her boyfriend had disappeared. Keeping a sharp eye on his daughter and her ginger haired boyfriend who were walking several paces ahead of them, he vowed not to lose another one of his girls.

         "I did not close the store so Tina could spend the day with him," Alek growled.

        "Tina is a young girl, Alek," his wife consoled. "It is only natural for her to want to spend her time with Richard."

        The man sneered again. He was well aware that the man his niece was infatuated with had a name and he did not relish having it repeated to him.

        "He is not right for her," he insisted.

        "They are in love."

        "Tina is too young to be serious about anyone."

        Misha laughed much to her husbands consternation. "Tina is twenty-one years old! How old must she be before you will allow her to make her own decisions?"

        "Tina may make any decision she so wishes ... so long as they are the right ones."

        "Ah, and who knows what decision is better for Tina than she?"

        Alek did not answer his wife, though he knew the answer was clearly himself. It was not as though he did not trust his niece, he was simply worried that she was too young, and too blinded by love, to know what the right option was. He knew that it was his job to keep Christina safe and it pained him to no end that she seemed to think that she no longer required his protection.

        "Where are you two going?" he called to his daughter and her date.

        "We're just going to the Ferris wheel, Daddy," Nina called to her father as she and James started towards the ride.

        Before he could speak, his wife told him, "Let them go, Alek"

        Against his better judgment, he watched his youngest daughter weave into the crowd with the red haired boy. "I do not trust that criminal, either," he growled.

        "James?" Misha could not keep herself from laughing. "That boy is harmless!"

        "That is what they would all have me think. None of them are harmless."

 

        Christina looked around the crowd to see if her uncle was within viewing distance. Seeing no evidence of the man, she grabbed Richard's hand and cooed, "Come play mini golf with me." She deftly led him towards the trees that bordered the field. Rather than heading to the area where the town's mini golf course had been erected, she took him further away from the crowds, zigzagging uphill through the pines. Once they were far enough away that she found it difficult to see people, she left go of his hand and started sprinting ahead of him.

        Richard, who had a complete grasp of the game Christina was playing, chased after her. The girl disappeared into a thick pocket of trees, and he followed. Stopping in a small clearing, he looked ahead and saw no sign of his date. He heard the sound of a throat clearing, and turned around to find Christina leaning against a tree with an expectant look on her face. She gazed at the man directly in the eyes then quickly glanced to her side, momentarily exposing her neck from underneath her long blond locks. After a pause she again made eye contact.

        "There you are," he huffed.

        "Hooray," she whispered. "You found me."

        He approached the girl, asking, "What do I win?"

        Christina's only answer was a playful shrug.

        Reaching the girl, Richard leaned down as to kiss her. His lips hovered an inch away from hers, and he could feel Christina's breath as her mouth opened in anticipation.

        Instead of kissing her, he pulled back, saying, "You're not very good at hide and seek."

        "No," she purred as she waited for Richard to kiss her.

        The man moved in again, but stopped short of making contact. "I'm not sure your uncle would approve of this," he joked.

        She could tell that Richard enjoyed teasing her, and the suspense made her want to be kissed all the more. "I don't see him anywhere," she insisted.

        For the third time, Richard leaned in to kiss the girl. Again his mouth paused a mere inch from Christina's. "I thought you wanted to play miniature golf."

        Christina moaned in agitation, insisting, "THIS is how we play mini golf." Grabbing him by the collar, Christina pulled Richard to her and the couple started making out.

        Ever since Christina had admitted to herself that she was in love with Richard, she found it harder to rebuff the man's advances. In fact, she felt such a tidal pull towards him the she was just as often the one initiating play. From her flirty hair style, to the traces of perfume she used to accent her body, and her slightly too short for the season yellow sundress, all of it was designed to elicit a response from her boyfriend.

        Not that it took much to ignite Richard's spark. Ready though he was, the older man was just as capable of playing games with her, much to Christina's frustration. Her affair with Richard had been one long, unending seduction. She'd long since surrendered, but each tease and brushing caress of his fingers across her skin drove her deeper into passion. While she could only give in up to a point, she yielded fully what she could.

        She felt Richard's body pressing her against the pine tree, and their tongues danced in each other's mouths. Reaching up, she ran her fingers through the man's hair, something she knew would only make his fuze burn faster. As she tussled with his scalp, she felt his left hand travel down her back and cup her butt. Breaking off the kiss, Christina turned her head to the side and Richard placed kisses down her neck as he squeezed the girl's bottom.

        Christina felt like the world only contained two people, and Richard made her believe that she was the center of it. That feeling deteriorated as she was certain that someone had pierced the veil of their solitude. She couldn't explain it, but she was certain they were being watched. Opening her eyes, she looked from side to side. She saw something large and brown in the corner of her vision. Pushing Richard away, she took a better look and saw that a certain German Shepherd was sitting not six feet away, watching the entire scene.

        "What is it, Princess?" Richard asked. Christina pointed at the dog, and Richard took notice of him.

        "He must've got loose," she observed.

        "So he did," said Richard as he resumed kissing the girl.

        Christina tried to enjoy their game, but found she couldn't.

        Breaking off once again, she complained, "He's watching us."

        "So?" Richard ignored the dog and pulled Christina close to him. They only kissed for a short while before Christina again stopped.

        "I can't do ... this ... with him watching."

        Groaning, Richard relented.

        "You're a very bad puppy!" admonished Christina as she picked up Boris's leash. She started back towards the fair, continuing, "Sometimes people need something called privacy. Someday I'm going to teach you what that means."

        Taking Christina by the waist, Richard asked, "Is it still privacy if I'm there?"

        "That's the best kind of privacy," Christina assured him. She fixed the skirt of her dress as the two of them walked back towards the crowd. She realized that it was a good thing that the dog had interrupted when he did. Christina found that her will to halt Richard's petting had all but disappeared, and in spite of her urges, she knew that she couldn't follow them to their logical conclusion. While there was some rational part of her brain that knew she couldn't carry on this way indefinitely, it was shouted down by the louder part of her mind that wanted to be swept away in the moment.

        "Boris!" they heard Andrei bark as they got closer to the fair. Christina could see Andrei and Steph scanning the woods at the edge of the crowd.

        Christina waved to them, and Steph waved back as she spotted Christina and her date emerge from the woods.

        "There he is," Andrei sighed. "I should've known. Boris seems to be where ever you are lately," he said to his cousin.

        "I have exactly the same problem," Richard said as he held Christina possessively close to him.

        "Your uncle is not amused," Steph informed the couple. "He's got Nina and James covering the other side of the fair grounds. We're supposed to meet back at the nail driving contest."

        "What's a nail driving contest?" Christina asked.

        "Exactly what it sounds like, Stretch," explained Steph. "A bunch of guys hammering nails to see who can hammer the best."

        "I don't believe that's an actual thing," Christina said in disbelief.

        "Oh City Mouse," Steph joked, "the things you'll see in the country ..."

        Christina sent a text message to Nina to meet them, and before long saw her aunt and uncle who were near a stage, upon which were a row of men standing before a tree that had been laid horizontally at waist level. The side of the tree had been shaved flat, and in front of each man was three long nails sticking straight up out of the wood.

        "There he is," Misha said referring to the lost dog as she touched her husband's arm.

        Christina shimmied out of Richard's grasp as she and the others made their way back to Alek and Misha. She wasn't sure if she was clear of her boyfriend's arm before Alek turned around, but she suspected he knew what they'd been up to while they were out of his sight.

        Alek held his tongue as Christina handed the Boris's leash back to her uncle.

        Though she had already began to assert her adulthood to her uncle, Christina still felt as though she were breaking some unspoken rule by being with Richard, and her face burned with a hint of shame in Alek's presence. A reassuring look from Misha, who seemed to understand everything, made her feel a bit better.

        By the time Nina and James rejoined the group, the crowd was engaged in the contest taking place on the stage. Much to Christina's surprise the men on stage were not swinging hammers with wild abandon. As near as she could tell the object of the game was to hammer nails into the wood in a single, sure stroke, or at least as few as possible. A year ago Christina would have thought it was the most ridiculous thing she'd ever seen, but Christina was not the same girl she had been a year ago, and being with family, friends, and an enthusiastic crowd made her cheer as loud as anyone else as the men hammered away.

        After the last nail was pressed into the tree, a heavy man whose suspenders strained to keep his pants aloft took a card and placed it next to each driven nail to see if the head so much as peeked above the surface of the tree. With no disqualifications, the judges counted the strokes and pronounced a muscular man from Franklin's Notch the winner. Christina didn't know what could possibly be the prize for winning such a contest, but she applauded as loud as anyone else when the man held his hammer up for the crowd.

        The man in the suspenders, which were more deserving of a prize than anything else, due to their heroic efforts to keep their owner clothed, addressed the crowd through loud speakers to let them know that the next event, an antique tractor parade, would start in about half an hour.

        Christina made a point of spending the rest of the day near her aunt and uncle, though the other couples went their own ways. She was sure that Richard was not thrilled with this turn of events, as Christina was not going to engage in any heavy petting in her uncle's presence. In spite of how she knew her uncle felt, she never let go of her boyfriend's hand. As much as she wanted to please Alek, she didn't want to break even that minimal amount of physical contact with Richard. It was a balancing act to manage the two most important men in her life.

        Before twilight had fallen, everyone had regrouped in the middle of the field where many of the vendors were starting to close up shop. The entire fair had not yet closed for the day, and various booths were still serving food. Nina noticed that that there was one section of the field that was illuminated by lights strung between rows of wooden poles.

        "Come on!" she insisted as she tugged James along. The others followed Nina and her boyfriend to an area which was bounded by the lights and rectangular bales of hay. A group of men were tuning various stringed instruments as a small crowd congregated around them.

        Alek was more than ready for the day to be over and had to be cajoled into staying a while longer by his wife.

        Christina, who had never seen a bluegrass band, nor had even known it was a distinct type of music, stared at a man seated with a mountain dulcimer in his lap. She couldn't decide if it was the most skinny guitar, or the longest violin she'd ever seen. The fiddle and base players started, and soon the dulcimer player's fingers were dancing as he picked the melody of "Whiskey Before Breakfast."

        Nina pulled James into the field where other couples had started dancing. The freckled boy always had a look on his face as though he were at the crest of a roller coaster and his stomach had given out beneath him. This was always followed by the look of exhilaration one felt on the way down. For James, Nina was constantly pushing against his boundaries, but he was always better for being dragged out of his formerly narrow comfort zones.

        "What do you say?" Andrei asked Steph. While he was no great fan of dancing, he rarely let an opportunity to please Steph pass him by. Steph nodded and they weaved into the crowd of people.

        Not to be left out, Christina looked up at Richard, glowing. "Dance with me!" she insisted.

        Richard lifted her hand and led her into an energetic dance resembling some sort of jig.

        Alek, seeing the look of euphoria on his niece's face exhaled forcefully through his nose like a moose before charging.

        "Sit with me," Misha consoled as she led her husband and Boris to the row of hay bales. The two sat down together and her husband stewed as he watched his children dance in time with the music. Misha held her husband's enormous hand in a doomed attempt to comfort the man. "Alek. It is a beautiful night. We are together. Your children are happy," she added as she motioned to the three couples. "What more could you ask for?"

        Stubbornly, the man huffed again.

        Undeterred, she observed, "You see? Your Tina is smiling." It was true. Christina had a look of contented elation as she frolicked with her partner under the lights as the last rays of daylight were extinguished. "Is it not a happy parent who witnesses such joy in their child?"

        "He is not right for her," Alek reiterated weakly.

        "That is not what troubles you." Misha said incisively. "Alek, Tina is a grown woman, and she will not be with us forever. There will come a time when you must let her go."

        Alek was again about to insist that the older man who was dancing with his niece was a cunning fiend who had confused and clouded her mind. However, he knew better than to argue with his wife. He knew she had the knack to see clearly what he didn't want to admit to himself. Instead of protesting he let out a gruff sigh.

        "Andrei will move out soon," Misha continued.

         "He is a man now," Alek dismissed, "and more than capable of making his own way."

        "Nina will go to school."

        Alex brushed aside with his palm as though what she'd said was of little consequence.

        "You know that your daughter is too bright not to go away to college. And Tina must find her own happiness, Alek. Soon it will be just you and I, and this is how it should be."

        "Tina has had a hard life," Alek sulked. "And I've only just begun to know her. She needs me to provide-"

        "No," Misha gently interrupted. "Tina is no longer a little girl. She was not a little girl when she came to us."

        Alek watched Christina as she leaned against her boyfriend. The current song was a slow waltz and he could see that the girl was lost in bliss leaning against her partner. He wanted to be happy for her, but he was not ready to let her go.

        "When we hold on too tightly to what has passed, we crush what is now." Misha pronounced as she balled her hand into a fist. "You must love Tina as she is, or you may not have her to love at all."

        "And you are at peace with this?" he asked his wife.

        Misha chuckled with a hint of sadness. "No," she admitted. "I do not want my children to leave either. But I must learn to enjoy watching them grow into the people that they will become."

        Alek held his wife's hand. How many times had he asked her to follow him into an unknown future? It had been his idea to move to America. Alek was the one who had insisted they risk their savings to open the grocery store. Even as Alek had nearly led them into financial ruin last Christmas, he'd asked Misha to follow him. Now it seemed it was his turn to follow his wife's lead.

 

        In the weeks that followed the county fair, Andrei spent all his time preparing the warehouse on the edge of town to become the new home of Levchenko and Chase. Though the lease was not yet signed, Andrei insisted that he start the rehabilitation of the building early. Christina had never seen her cousin more determined. From the warehouse loft which Andrei had already refurbished and equipped with a desk, Christina watched her cousin unpack the tools which had once filled the family's barn.

        Christina had an office, and her own place for her trusty old computer. It was an odd feeling; for a change it seemed that even though life was changing faster than she could keep up with, things seemed to be getting better instead of worse. The plan was to wait until Alek could help on the weekend, but Andrei was wasting no time. Christina offered to help, but she was banished to her loft to do the office work instead of helping Andrei with the remodeling. Of course she was the business side of their new venture, and she had a lot of work to do to adapt her primitive inventory system to their expanded space.

        Steph waved to Christina as she entered through the front door carrying bags of Chinese food.

        From the loft, Christina could survey the entire operation, and even though it was just her and Andrei, she really did feel as though she was in charge of something important.

        Steph beckoned Andrei to join her, and he promised he would as soon as he'd put everything in its proper place. As she climbed the stairs to the loft, she appreciated how her boyfriend had reinforced the structure. It was amazing how much Andrei had accomplished in such a short time, but Steph had never seen him more excited about anything before.

        "Hey," Christina called to her friend as she saved her work on her computer.

        "Now this I could get used to," Steph mused as she took a chair and sat looking over the loft's railing. "I get it that Andrei works all the time, but at least now I have box seats."

        Christina placed her chair next to Steph, and took a small carton of chicken fried rice from the bags.

        "I could watch him lift things all day," Steph said as she jabbed Christina with her elbow. "I don't mind being lifted myself."

        "You know, Andrei's practically my brother," Christina laughed. "At some point this is too much information."

        Steph leaned back in her chair and propped her feet up on the railing as she continued watching. "You'd think he'd be tired after doing this all day ... but not too tired to take me for a spin when he gets home. He gets off work ... I get off work ... then we get off-"

        Christina balked, "Come on!"

        "You know what your problem is Stretch?"

        "Tell me," Christina asked, certain that her friend's answer would be at least amusing.

        "You're too tightly wound up when it comes to all things naked."

        "I am not," Christina retorted. "I have a very healthy attitude regarding-"

        "Knocking boots," Steph interjected.

        "... sexual relations." Christina concluded, with propriety.

        "Sexual relations," Steph repeated comically. "Blondie, there are seventeen year old virgins sequestered in nunneries that are less tightly wound when it comes to doing it than you are. Frankly, I dunno how you can stand not getting your cork popped for so long."

        "It's not easy," Christina admitted in spite of herself. Realizing that she'd actually said that aloud instead of thinking it, she tensed up.

        "Finally!" Steph exclaimed. "Beneath your cold android exterior beats the heart of a real living girl!"

        "Look!" Christina objected, "It's not that I ... I mean ... it's just a little bit more complicated than you'd think."

        "What's complicated?" Steph asked between fetching clumps of rice from her carton of Chinese food with chopsticks. "Girl meets boy, girl invites boy over to her place, boy bends girl over the kitchen table and-"

        "Oh my God!" Christina pleaded. "I get it that you're into Andrei but you've GOT to stop giving me details!"

        "Not a chance, Blondie," Steph laughed. "And don't knock it until you've tried it. You could stand to get bent over a kitchen table or two yourself. It would loosen that knot you've always got yourself tied into."

        Christina blushed at the scenario Steph was proposing. "I'm not ..." she started. "The thing is I don't have the right-" There was no good way to say it. "I'm just put together different, okay?"

        Steph asked, "What do you mean?"

        Christina said as she exhaled. "Don't spread this around, okay?" She took Steph's nod as a promise that what was about to be said was in confidence. "Remember my last boyfriend? The one who cheated on me?"

        "Aaron," replied Steph.

        "Well ... " Christina started. While she wasn't prepared to tell Steph the entire truth, she felt secure enough in their friendship to come clean about her last lover. "... It was sort of Amy- not Aaron."

        Steph put down her lunch and stared at Christina for a moment. "Ooh, I see ..." she said, her voice raising a bit. "So our Miss Christina Chase is a refugee from the Isle of Lesbos?"

        "I hope that doesn't freak you out," added Christina sheepishly.

        Shaking her head, Steph consoled, "No, it's all good. I've got nothing against the ladies doing it for themselves." She could see that Christina still felt embarrassed about her confession and pressed, "Look, don't sweat it. Gals are wired different than men are."

        "What do you mean?" Christina asked.

        Steph sliced a line through the air with her hand. "See, men," she explained, "come in two flavors. You got the fellas who like the ladies, and the ones who like the boys. There's not a whole lot in-between. Women don't work the same. Some ladies like the gals, some like the boys, and there's this great big sliding scale in the middle."

        "There's a really big sliding scale between Amy and Richard," Christina admitted.

        "Double-O Lawyer was the first man that ever shook your bacon?" asked Steph.

        Christina shot an almost imperceptible glance at her cousin, who was still moving large tables and heavy equipment, answering, "Yes."

        "So I get it," Steph relented. "You don't know your way around the boy bits yet. It's a big change."

        "I wouldn't say I'm ignorant, exactly," complained Christina. "I'm just saying, the way I'm built, there's no way I can actually ..." Christina motioned with her hands in lieu of naming any particular sex act.

        "I think you're making too big a deal outta this."

        Christina defended, "It's a bigger deal than you can understand."

        "Look," Steph said somewhat seriously, "if you take a step back, it makes perfect sense why Richard makes you go fuzzy."

        "And why's that?"

        "I don't want you to take this the wrong way," Steph started. "But you kinda got daddy issues."

        "Daddy issues!" Christina responded indignantly.

        "Daddy issues," Steph repeated.

        "Oh-" Christina shot back, "So you're implying I'm just attracted to older 'father figure' types?"

        "See? I was wrong," Steph joked, "You took it exactly the right way."

        "That's so not true," insisted Christina.

        "Okay, so spill- what is it about the big R that gets your boat a-floatin'?"

        It was the first time Christina really considered that question. She spent so much of her time trying to deny her feelings that she never stopped to examine them. "Well," she started, "... I mean ... it's so different. When I was with Amy, she was ..." Christina traced a set of curves in the air with her hands. " She was really, you know, pretty I guess. I was kinda surprised she was into me - I didn't think I was in her league."

        "Well you're a knockout," Steph assured. "She must have been off the charts."

        "I wasn't quite ... I dressed kinda different then. I had a different look," Christina evaded. "Anyway, I was really attracted to her and she was there for me even though I was going through kind of a rough time. It's different with Richard. You know, it's completely different than being with a girl. His shoulders are so ... wide," she said as she held her hands apart. "When he holds me, it's like I could curl up against him and the rest of the world goes away. I makes me feel so ..."

        "Protected?" Steph asked.

        "Yeah," Christina admitted. "Richard always seems so in control of everything. I mean, sometimes it drives me crazy because he's just too confident sometimes. I would never in my life admit this to him, but I guess I sort of like it when he takes control. It's just, he knows so much more than I do and it's not like he makes me feel stupid or anything. I don't have to worry about ... like anything ... because I know he already knows how to handle ... like everything."

        "So what you like," Steph continued, trying to demonstrate her point as gingerly as possible, "is someone who cherishes you. An experienced older gentleman with a strong hand to guide you."

        "Yeah," Christina said dreamily as she thought of her boyfriend. In that moment, it hit her and she gasped, "Oh God, you're right! I have daddy issues!"

        "Missy", Steph laughed, "You are a walking talking daddy issue. You're ten pounds of issues in a five pound bag."

        Christina buried her face in her hands. "Ugh! What do I do about it?" she pleaded.

        Shrugging, Steph replied, "I dunno. I'm no shrink. I say you don't do anything about it."

        "What?" Christina asked incredulously. Christina thought that if Steph was going to go out of her way to point out her character flaws, she could at least offer some solutions.

        "Look, I'm not saying you got a problem. The way I figure it, most people spend half their lives trying to figure out what buttons they got, and the other half trying to make sure they don't get pushed. If you ask me, I say push your buttons," Steph emphasized the word "push" by pointing her chopsticks. "It's all good so long as no one gets hurt." Pointing at Andrei, she continued, "I like a guy who can bench press me. What I want is to ride the mechanical bull."

        Christina grimaced at the image that filled her mind of Steph and her older cousin as she processed the phrase "mechanical bull." While Christina tried to banish that thought from her mind, Steph went to the thermostat that Andrei had installed on the wall of the loft and fiddled with the buttons.

        "I get my buttons pushed and it doesn't keep me up nights. Scratch that - it keeps me up every night, and that's the way I like it," Steph exclaimed as she returned to her seat and took a drink from a bottle of water. "Life's too short to not get your buttons pushed. I say, hoist up your freak flag and set sail."

        "Believe me, my buttons are getting pushed all over of the place," Christina confessed. "When I first met Amy, I was all like ...," she tensed her hands into claws. "I just wanted to grab her. But when Richard is close to me, it's like my legs don't work right, and I get this tingle," she explained as she made a ball with her fist in front of her tummy. "And it's like it grows all over my body until I can't even think straight. I've never felt anything like that before. When we're making out, when he's grabbing me, I feel like ... I dunno ... It's sort of like there's this animal energy coming from him. It's all directed at me and I'm like this dam trying to hold it back. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like it I just let it go."

        "Well, if you ask me," Steph reasoned, "It sounds like you want him to roll your hay."

        "I most certainly do not want-" Christina started to protest, but stopped as she blushed a crimson red. "I don't have any hay to roll," she sighed.

        "I know you got your virginity on the layaway plan until you get hitched," Steph said sympathetically, "but there's a lot of leeway between heavy petting and full-on naked Olympics."

        "What are you talking about?" Christina asked as she shook her head.

        "I dunno," Steph shrugged as she took a drink of her water. "I mean you could always give it a lick."

        Christina turned a deeper shade of red, a new color which science would have to name "ultracrimson". Christina shrieked, "I can't have-" Noticing that her voice had caught her cousin's attention on the work floor below, she whispered, "I can't have sex!"

        "Does that really count as sex?" Steph asked.

        "Uh, yeah-" Christina insisted. "It's called oral 'sex'." She made air quotation marks with her fingers as she stressed the word "sex".

        "Fine," Steph conceded, "But there's no law that says you can't give the guy a good tug. I'm sure Richard would appreciate it."

        "Oh my God," Christina shuddered. She couldn't believe she was having this conversation. "That's sex too!"

        "It's just the ol'-" Steph didn't say a word, she merely made a stroking motion with her hand over her water bottle. "It doesn't even have 'sex' in the name."

        Christina was absolutely mortified, especially when Steph stopped manipulating her water bottle and went back to drinking from it. "There's no way ..." Christina insisted, "I can NOT touch Richard's doodle!"

        Steph choked on her water at the sound of the last word. "His WHAT?" she demanded.

        "I ... " Christina explained, "I don't like saying the word pe-"

        "Oh right," Steph laughed. "You're not uptight about sex! You don't have any daddy issues. Tell you what, you try sitting in your man's lap and ask him if it's okay to play with his 'doodle', and I guarantee you he'll get you straightened out right there."

        Christina was beyond embarrassed. She couldn't even carry on the conversation.

        "And Stretch, in the varsity girls' locker room, we call it a 'cock'."

        Exhaling, Christina tried to make it clear through her pleading eyebrows that she wanted Steph to stop.

        "'Dick'," Steph continued with a wicked grin. "'Schlong'," she added.

        "Okay! I get it," Christina relented as she smiled.

        "Don't sweat it so much Blondie," Steph consoled. "Anyone ever tell you that you take life too seriously sometimes?"

        As Christina began to relax, she saw that Andrei, who was still not done moving heavy items across the floor beneath them, was beginning to get overheated and took off his shirt. She saw that Steph was studying Andrei as he peeled the shirt off of his sweaty torso.

        "Hey!" he called to the girls. "Did anyone touch the thermostat?"

        "No," Steph lied as she called back to her boyfriend. "You musta hooked something up wrong." Turning to Christina, she whispered, "See, this is how we get our buttons pushed."

        Christina broke out in laughter causing Andrei to wonder if the joke was on him. "Well, I've got to go," Christina insisted as she stood. "I have to buy a new dress for the fireworks tomorrow."

        "Since when do you need a new dress for the Fourth of July?" Steph asked, "We basically just sit in a field."

        "Well ..." Christina squirmed, "I just want to look nice ..."

        "Sure Blondie," Steph laughed, "You just want something Richard hasn't seen you in yet."

        "Look at the time!" Christina chirped as she evaded her friend's accusation. She took her purse off her desk and went down the wooden staircase to the floor below. "Take a lunch break," she told her cousin as she passed him on the way out. "You should help Steph with the thermostat."

        Andrei nodded as he took his shirt and used it as a towel to wipe the sweat from his face.

        "And don't do anything weird on my desk, okay?" she taunted. Andrei scrunched his face in confusion and Christina pointed two fingers at her eyes then to her cousin to let him know she was on to him.

        Maybe Steph was right, Christina thought as she left the building and started back into town. Perhaps not about all the sex stuff, but the part about taking life too seriously. Christina definitely took things too seriously, though she reasoned in her defense that things did genuinely seem to be out of control most of the time.

        Christina waved to Abigail as she went into Ariel Rose. The woman was in the back of the store with Doctor Stone, helping the man with a jacket. As she watched her inspect the patches at the elbows and the seams, Christina assumed that Abby had made alterations for the man. Doctor Stone, Christina thought, looked a bit thinner than the last time she saw him, which was remarkable, considering how trim the man had always been.

        "Anything I can help you find, Sugar?" Abby called.

        "No thanks!" Christina replied, as she went to a rack of dresses. "I'll be okay for now." A short green dress that only had one shoulder immediately caught the girl's eye. Taking it to a full length mirror, she held it up in front of her and pictured herself in it. She threw her head to the side and held her hair back as she imagined her exposed shoulder in the dress and shot coquettish glances at herself in the mirror. Christina was already sold on the dress, but she went back to the rack to search for others just in case there was one she liked better. While she was open to the hand of fate, Christina rarely settled on the first thing she found, and she wanted to take at least three options with her to the dressing room.

        While nothing else really "popped" in the dress rack, Christina picked out two more dresses, a spaghetti strapped black dress and a turquoise sundress with a scooped neck. On the way through the men's section, she saw a pair of men's boxer pajamas that caught her eye. Putting down the dresses she lifted the boxer bottoms and inspected them. They were cotton with subtle green and blue horizontal stripes and she considered purchasing them as a gift for her boyfriend. As she felt the fabric, she imagined how Richard would look in them. Staring at the crotch, she imagined what that part of the boxers would look like with Richard filling them out.

        Was she too uptight about the s-word? Looking at the boxers in her hands, she imagined what it would be like to pull the waistband back and just reach in and have a feel- what would be the harm in that? As she imagined playing with her boyfriend's member, she felt that familiar tingling she'd described earlier and started breathing more heavily. Letting go, she allowed her daydream to progress. How would it feel, she wondered? What did he look like there? And how would he react?. Closing her eyes, she imagined the man's hands on her hips, slowly pulling down the waistband of her panties.

        Christina's breathing became erratic. Just how did she expect that scenario would end? She had become so acclimated to living as a girl full time that she no longer subconsciously regarded herself as male. Following her fantasy to its logical conclusion set off a wave of cognitive dissonance. She dropped the boxers as her chest contracted painfully. Christina felt all the air exit her lungs and it was as though should couldn't breath. Holding on to a display case to prop herself up, she made her way towards the door. She wasn't sure what was happening, but she was scared beyond reason, and she felt that if she didn't go outside she would surely die. Before she could make it out of them men's section, the girl felt dizzy. She raised a hand to her head as the room spun and she dropped to her knees.

        "Sugar, are you alright?" Abby called as she and Doctor Stone took notice of Christina's condition.

        Dr. Stone shooed Abby away and grabbed a cane that had been resting against the wall. Using the cane for support, he hurried to Christina, and though it caused some pain in his knees, he knelt down beside her.

        "Young lady," he said as he turned her wrist over and felt her pulse, "tell me exactly what you feel, and don't sugarcoat it."

        Looking up into the old man's weathered face, she tried to speak but was only making high pitched squeaking noises as she gasped for air.

        Feeling Christina's rapid heartbeat, he placed his hand beneath her throat and asked, "Chest pains?"

        Still unable to speak, Christina grimaced and nodded affirmative.

        Doctor Stone kept his hand on the girl's pulse and pressed, "Do you feel any pain in your left arm?"

        Christina wasn't sure. She gave all her attention over to her arm and then there was a sudden twinge. Was it there before or did it happen only after she thought about it? What if it had been there before and she hadn't noticed? Her thoughts were coming too furiously for her to make sense of them.

        "Doctor Stone," Abby gasped as she looked down at Christina, "Is she having a heart attack?"

        The words "heart attack" sent a bolt of dread through Christina's body. Now she was certain she was about to die. She would die on the floor of Ariel Rose, and the whole town would eventually find out her secret.

        "Stow it, Abby," Doctor Stone said forcefully but without any condemnation. He pointed to the door and said, "You flip that sign to closed, then fetch me a glass of ice cold water."

        Abby wasted no time doing as the doctor commanded.

        "Look at me, Christina" Doctor Stone commanded. "Look at me clean in the eyes." He waited until he held the terrified girl's gaze before continuing. "I've been practicing medicine for over twice as long as you've been alive, so you can trust me." He emphasized the word "trust", as he knew it was the most important part of the treatment he was about to deliver. "And believe me when I tell you, you are not dying."

        Christina's head drifted to the side, and Doctor stone insisted again, "Look at me, girl." When he had her eyes locked again, he continued. "This is what we call a 'panic attack'. Now I know you're scared out of your wits, and you think this is the end- It ain't. I'm going to stay with you and we're going to breathe together," he insisted as he started breathing slow and deliberately. "You're going to be alright because I won't leave your side until this passes, and I promise that there is nothing wrong with you. I just need you to breathe with me. Can you do that Pumpkin?"

        Christina nodded as she attempted to slow her breathing down to match Doctor Stone's. She still felt like she would die at any moment, but had absolute faith that she could trust the old man that was holding her wrist expertly in his hand. Regardless of how she felt, she believed Doctor Stone when he promised her she would survive this.

        Abby returned with the glass of water and held it out to Doctor Stone.

        Doctor Stone gently let go of Christina's wrist and placed her hand down by her side. He continued modeling breathing for the girl as he took the glass of water. Instead of offering it to Christina, he dipped his fingers into the glass and splashed the cold water against her face. "See?" He said as he kept the pace of his breathing. "It's starting to calm down a bit, isn't it?"

        Christina nodded as she could feel air returning to her lungs. "Yes," she said breathlessly.

        After patting her face with the water a few more times, Doctor Stone put the glass down and retook Christina's pulse. "We're starting to calm down, because this is just a panic attack," he reiterated. "And I promise you it will pass. Just knowing what this is will make it pass faster." Now that Christina's breathing was almost in step with his own, he progressed. "Now watch me. We're going to take a deep breath and hold it for five seconds." He took a deep breath and waited for his charge to do the same. Holding up his hand, he calmly counted to five using his fingers then exhaled. "And now we're going to breathe normally again," he said and Christina complied.

        After performing the five-second deep breath maneuver twice more, Doctor Stone could see that the worst of the episode had passed. "There," he soothed. "I told you it would be alright." Handing the remaining water to Christina, he ordered her to sit still and take small sips.

        Doctor Stone called Abby over and with her assistance, he rose to his feet. The old man grimaced as he put his hand to his side. Adrenaline, he thought. So long as there was someone who needed his help, his body seemed to still be twenty-five years old, but with the situation under control, he felt eighty-nine again. Using his cane, he led Abby away from his patient.

        "Abby," he started seriously, "What just happened is not news, do you understand me?"

        "Of course," she agreed.

        "Now I mean it, Abigail," he insisted," That little girl just had one of the worst panic attacks I've ever seen, and just the fear of having another one could set her off again. I don't need her mind fixed on being a juicy piece of gossip."

        "I promise, Doctor" she agreed sincerely.

        Doctor Stone gave the woman a pat on the arm before returning to the girl he'd left on the floor. "How are you feeling, darlin'?" he asked kindly.

        "I think I'm okay," Christina said, out of breath. Shaking her head she admitted, "I'm so embarrassed."

        Doctor Stone helped her to her feet and said, "Don't pay that no nevermind. This is just between us, understand?"

        "Thank you, Doctor Stone," Christina said in a spent voice.

        "Has this ever happened before?" he asked.

        Thinking back to the episode she experienced when she thought she was out of adhesive strips for her mastectomy forms, she nodded. "Yes, but not as bad as this."

        "I think your shopping is done for the day," he observed. "Christina, if this happens again, I want you to remember what we did and remember that, awful as it feels, it will always pass."

        Christina nodded.

        "And," he continued, "If you need to call me, you call. I don't care if it's at two in the morning, you call me. You understand?"

        "Yes, Doctor Stone," she promised.

        "Is there somewhere I can take you that you'll feel more relaxed?"

        Christina knew that her uncle was working at the grocery store and her mind instantly went to him. Just the thought of the man made her feel better about the whole experience. She nodded as she said, "The grocery store."

        Doctor Stone held out his elbow, saying, "Then let's go right now."

        "Thank you, but you don't have to take me. I think-"

        "Young lady," he interrupted with a warm smile. "I am your doctor, and I promised you that I would not leave you until you were one hundred percent alright. It is my sworn duty to deliver you."

        Christina wrapped her arm around the older man's and allowed him to escort her out the door and back to the one person she knew would make everything feel better.

 

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Edited into coherence by Holly H. Hart.

Thanks to Sephrena Miller for taking an early read.