After a very restless night’s sleep, I decided that I needed to kill the tour and then make good use of my time on this side of the Atlantic Ocean. I knew that my decision would not go down well in some quarters so I had to vanish for a while at least. In order to disappear, I needed to find somewhere nice and quiet for a few days or even a week so that I could try to get some of the story ideas I had rattling around in my mind typed into my laptop.

After a very productive morning walk down to the French Quarter, I sent an email to my US Publisher with a copy to my Agent, informing them of my decision to cancel the rest of the tour. I cited their reneging on the agreement we had in place regarding the schedule. I sent another email to Sara explaining what had happened and that I was coming home but only after I’d gone off the radar for a while so to speak.

With that done, I simply packed my case, switched my phone off, checked out of the Hotel and disappeared from view as far as my agents were concerned.

I’d found that place thanks to a man I started speaking to while having a late breakfast that morning at the Oceania Café on Bourbon St. I used my laptop there and then to book a B&B near Kountze, Texas.

The accommodation was fairly basic but comfortable in a single-storey log cabin on the grounds of a much larger property. It promised me some peace and quiet with the added bonus of the ‘Big Thicket National Preserve’ being just up the road, it looked like the perfect place for me to disappear. As it wasn’t that far away in US Terms so I took the plunge.

---

It was almost dark by the time I reached the B&B, but the hosts made me most welcome. Their welcome package included a huge meal which wasn’t expected at all. I wasn't all that hungry as I’d eaten earlier at a Truckstop on I-10 before I turned off and headed north towards the preserve. I did my best but had to say no when it came to the dessert but they were just showing me a dose of good old Texan hospitality.

To me, and after all the fucking around with other people that I’d encountered on this trip, their down-to-earth approach to life was very refreshing and a nice change.

The total quiet of the area was perfect for me. The following morning, I reviewed the email hailstorm, that had been going on between my Agent, my UK Publisher and my US counterpart. The US end of the triangle eventually all but admitted that they'd screwed up by messing with the previously agreed schedule and agreed to cancel the remainder of the tour. I refrained from commenting on the exchanges. I thought it best to stay quiet until I was back home.

I felt both a sense of relief and sadness. The US Publishers were either grossly incompetent or just that they didn't like my work very much. I didn’t know which one it was but it didn’t matter to me and would not matter until I returned to the UK.

Now that I was free of the tour, I sent off an email telling only my Agent, that I had ‘gone to ground’ for up to a week and that then I’d do a bit of sightseeing before flying back to the UK from Boston. I deliberately gave no clue as to where I was going to be holed up. The only person I gave my exact whereabouts to, was my wife, Sara.

I detected a brief moment of panic on the phone when I told her that the remainder of the tour had been cancelled.

Sara seemed happier when I told her that I would be staying at a B&B in Eastern Texas. I'd booked it for up to a week to do some writing.

"Take all the time you want, darling," she told me.

“Don’t you want me to come home?”

“Darling, I do want you to come home but in your own time. It would be a shame to have gone all that way and not ticked off a few more of those places you always wanted to visit, now, isn’t it?” Came her reply.

It made perfect sense. We had talked about coming here on holiday for years but it had never materialised.

“When I leave here, I’m going to drive to Boston. That will take me about a week plus a few days in DC and New York. That will tick off DC and a few other places from my bucket list, then I’ll come home.”

“Isn’t that a lot of driving? Wouldn’t it be simpler just to fly?”

“Darling, as I said before I left, there are some places I want to visit for research. There are key sections of 'Time for the Bell', that are set over here. Washington is just one of them. Roanoke in Virginia is another.”

“’ Time for the Bell’?”

"Yes, Darling, that is the name of my next book. I have written about ten thousand words since I came here. There are still lots of ideas still buzzing around in my head but the general plot is perfectly clear to me. Once I've got all that down, I'll head North as I told you in last night’s email. It all came to me when I was driving on the Interstate through the Florida panhandle.”

After the call, I went and had breakfast with my hosts. There was more than enough food on the table to feed five let alone one person.

After leaving the B&B, I visited the local supermarket and bought a few essentials such as a dozen bottles of water and some things for lunch. Then, I went to the preserve and found a nice spot to work.
The only people I spoke to that day were a couple of Rangers. They stopped by for a chat and to make sure that I was ok. It was only the pending shutdown of my Laptop due to an almost totally discharged battery that forced me into leaving and returning to the B&B.

I repeated the same pattern for the next five days. During that time, I became pretty friendly with one of the Rangers. On my last day in the area, I gave him a signed copy of my book from my aborted book tour. At first, he was reluctant to accept it. Instead, I made it a donation to the reserve. He went away happy especially, as I told him that the reserve would appear at the start of the book that I was writing. I had to emphasise that it was all good and that nothing bad, would happen while any of the characters were at the reserve.

---

[Nineteen Days Later]

While I was waiting for my luggage to arrive, I called my wife.

"Hi, Sara. I just landed. I guess that you are on your way to work so I'll see you tonight," I said into my phone as I waited for my baggage to arrive after my relatively short overnight flight from Boston.

I wasn’t surprised when her phone went straight to Voicemail. Wednesdays were always an early start for her due to the weekly staff meeting that started at 08:30.

I arrived home almost two hours later feeling tired but relieved to be back. The US trip had basically been a disaster. Once I’d cancelled the tour was when I finally managed to get some work done. I put that down to having no pressure on me to do anything. The human mind is a wonderful thing.

After a small lunch and putting some washing on, I went upstairs intending to get a bit of sleep before Sara returned home from work. I didn't expect to see a platinum/silver-coloured wig sitting on a stand on Sara's dressing table. I could not recall Sara ever being remotely interested in even hair extensions, let alone a wig.

I fell asleep, trying to think how she'd look when wearing it.

---

I was still dozing when I heard the front door slam shut. Sara was home from work.

I quickly got out of bed, straightened the duvet, ran a comb through my hair and went downstairs. I could hear Sara in the kitchen.

"Hello, love!"

She turned to face me, and I stopped mid-step.

“Sara?”

She was wearing makeup. That was something she'd hardly ever done in our seven years of marriage. All sorts of thoughts went through my mind including, the question, 'was she seeing someone else?'

Her passionate kiss soon banished those thoughts from my mind. This was a new and very different Sara.

“Do you like the new me?” she said when we broke apart and she had posed for me.

I had to admit silently, that the old dullard that she'd become was not the woman I'd fallen in love with and married. The new Sara was more like the ravishingly beautiful, black-haired student I’d fallen head over heels in love with on our first day at university. Her eyes were seductively made up. From the way that she was dressed, it looked like she had a new wardrobe.

“Wow!” I stuttered.

“It is still a work in progress. I wanted to do a bit more before you came home.”

“I love how you look, so please don’t let me stop you.”

She gave me another kiss. Then she surprised me again.

She reached up and pulled her black hair off. It was a wig. Underneath, she was perfectly bald.

“I had a little… no make that a huge disaster when I went to get my hair colour changed so I had it all cut off and bought a couple of wigs. I wear this one to work.”

“I…I… I saw the other one upstairs.”

"Despite the hairdresser doing a test, we found that my hair would not take the platinum colour. It went all funny, so I got Julia to cut it all off. That was three days after you left. Then I decided to keep it shaven until you came home at least."

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

"It was so embarrassing at first. I didn't know what to say to you or anyone. Now I'm comfortable having no hair at all."

I didn’t say anything for a bit.

“Don’t you like it?”

“It’s not that. It is just a bit of a shock and will take some getting used to.”

---

Over dinner, a still bald Sara explained what changes she'd made in my absence. I had to say that I approved of them but, I dreaded being told, 'your turn now!'.

As we relaxed that evening, I gently rubbed my hand over her bald head. It was perfectly smooth. I couldn't feel any stubble at all.

“How do you get it like that?”

"A close shave every couple of days, and then this morning, I put some hair remover on it knowing that you were coming home."

“It is as smooth as a Baby’s Bum,” I commented.

“Then I’ll keep it like this.”

Then she dropped a bombshell.

"It is all your fault, you know."

“Mine? How?”

"Before you got the offer to go to the US, you said that you were not making much headway with your book, yet, I knew that you were hitting the keys a lot. When you went downstairs to take a call from your agent, I took the opportunity to take a peek at what you were writing."

My heart sank. I knew what was coming.

“I got a big surprise. But after reading a few pages, I was hooked on that female character ‘Singer’. She… is just so different from any character that you have ever written before.”

"I'm so sorry, darling."

"What on earth is there to be sorry about? When you went up to London for that meeting with your Agent a few days before you left, I borrowed your backup drive and copied all the files relating to this character I could find. I read the lot and loved it. Then I started thinking that it was me that you were portraying. In my head, I became Singer. The more I thought about it, the more I was convinced that you had written the story for me. I hatched this crazy mad plan to become her for when you returned. Then your trip went pear-shaped, and here you are weeks earlier than planned.”

My feelings of doom rapidly multiplied as Sara put on the platinum wig. She was just as I'd imagined the fantasy to be. All that was missing was the dress and the boots.

Sara gave me a passionate kiss before going to her Wardrobe. Hanging right there was the silver dress that I had imagined Singer wearing in my story.

The new Sara just stripped naked there and then. The old version of her would have been far more circumspect, and hesitant about doing that. She slipped into the dress as if it had been made just for her.

“I sketched the design that you had described and then took it to the mother of one of the women at work. She gladly accepted the task of making it in two weeks. She said that it made a change from letting out wedding dresses."

It was perfect. The image that I’d had of Singer’s dress was right there in front of me.

Then she took out a pair of silver-coloured high-heeled boots. These were very long just as I’d described in my story. I wondered how she’d managed to find them. I’d searched high and low on the internet for them and had never managed to find ones with a buckle on the thigh.

“Be a darling and slip these on for me.”

In my daze, I did as she asked.

“Don’t forget to buckle them up and clip the chain.”

Hoping not to embarrass myself further, I knelt and did as she asked. The two large buckles held the boots up on her thighs. I then clipped a chain that hung down from one of the bands to a loop on the other boot. That was not in my fantasy, but for a moment, I approved of it.

Sara towered above me. The three-inch platforms and what looked like a nine-inch heel made her much taller than me.

“How do I look? Do I look anything like the heroine you wrote about?”

“You… You look fantastic. All you need is a coloured bodysuit underneath to represent armour plating and you would be there.”

Sara gave me a huge kiss.

“I never thought that you could write that type of story. When I read all of them, I found I could not stop. That day you flew to Miami, I read them all… twice. I loved them. That’s when I finally decided to become Singer.”

Sara’s smile disappeared off her face.

"I didn't quite get that thing you had over her mouth, though. It seemed to be a muzzle, but it didn't stop her from talking."

“It held a filter… for the air.”

“But it was attached to her?”

"Yes, she had multiple piercings in her lips and cheeks.

“But how did she eat?”

"Ah, darling, Singer's race only ever ate liquid food. My fantasy was set two centuries in the future and on a different planet. They all lived underground and in a very different society than we can even consider here. When they come up to the surface, they wear the masks."

“Well, then I’ll have to start getting the piercings then?”

I didn’t know if she was serious or just joking.

“Are you serious? What about your job?”

"Oh, that… I thought I might take a leave of absence. I think we deserve to have some fun together for once.”

I was stunned. Who had taken the old Sara away and put this one in her place?

“What’s the matter? Cat got your tongue?”

“I was wondering who had abducted my old Sara and put this impostor in her place?”

“Don’t you like the new me?”

“Yes… But…”

“But what?”

I sat down on the bed. I was trembling as I decided that it was time for a confession.

I took hold of both her hands and looked her in the eyes.

"Sara… I… Well… My fantasy doodlings were not aimed at you."

“Who was your pin-up?” came her slightly angry question.

“Me… It was for me.”

There was silence in the room for a few seconds.

Then Sara started to laugh.

“You can’t be serious?”

"I am, and yes, it was," I replied trying not to cry.

I failed. The tears were of both joy and fear.

“Oh fuck. I got that wrong, didn’t I?”

I looked her in the eye again.

“Sara… I’ve never been able to tell anyone about my fantasies. I was too embarrassed. Then you go and do this.”

She managed to wrap her arms around me. She was wearing a new perfume. I felt slightly intoxicated by the aroma.

“Then we’ll have to do it together then.”

“You don’t mind?”

"Mind? I've known that you have always had a female side. That's why I love you so much. I had more than enough of all those macho men coming on to me before we became serious. I think we can have some fun together and… fall in love again."

I had this sudden vision of both of us with those filters over our mouths trying to kiss.

“Did we ever fall out of love?”

"Not really, but I began to think that we just became comfortable with each other. Don't you worry my darling most couples do that. I'm just saying that we have become more like friends than lovers. I saw you get a bit excited when you saw me like this. Isn't it time that we had a bit of fun together before it is too late?"

I was still thinking about what to say when Sara said,
“That’s what I was thinking of getting dressed like this. Then we could… well you know have some fun, fun. Now? I think it will be even better to do this together.”

“This? Together?”

“Well, didn’t you just say that it was your fantasy? Then we can do it together.”

I had another sudden vision of the future. In doing so, I must have shuddered.

“What’s wrong?”

“I just had this vision of your mother turning up unannounced and… keeling over from a heart attack if she saw both of us looking like this?”

It seemed that nothing I could say or do would divert Sara from her cunning plan. The problem was that a good part of me wanted to go along with it. The rest of me was telling me to run a mile.

The first part won over.

“Ok,” I said quietly.

It looked like our life together was going to get a lot more exciting in the very near future.

[Nine Months Later]

“Well Darling,” I said as I served breakfast to my wife Sara.
“How does it feel to be a successful author?”

“I am still rather gobsmacked by the whole thing.”

Her first book, “Singer Escapes” had just reached the top ten bestseller list.
It had been quite a year. My book had been my most successful work yet but was probably going to be dwarfed by the sales of her book. When I first suggested to Sara that she have a go at letting her imagination run riot and write about Singer I had no idea how it would turn out.

Sara had as she promised taken a sabbatical from her job and became Singer. Thanks to a 3-D printer, she was soon able to create a mask that emulated the one I’d sketched out in my short stories.
Once she’d started living as Singer, she had all these ideas for stories involving her heroine. We had many debates about Singer’s backstory. I had my own ideas but Sara took it all in a different direction that amazed me with her creativity.

Sara didn’t tell me that she’d entered her first Singer story in a short story competition. It was only when an agent called me on the day the results were announced asking if I was writing as Sara. She’d won the competition. From then on, there was no holding her back.

Her agent was even talking about selling the film rights for her book.

[The End]

[Authors note]
I did write a lot more but I’m afraid my imagination got the better of me and it got pretty weird. I will leave what that is to your own thoughts.