You Bet!

Part 7

By Kim Johns

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The following morning as I was attempting to put some semblance of order to my untidy bedroom I heard the front doorbell ring. My mother opened it, and a mumble of muffled voices drifted up to me. Footsteps then came up the stairs, there was a tap on my bedroom door, and I saw Harry cautiously stick his head round.

To say I was surprised to see him would be a complete underestimation of my true feelings. After the previous evening’s revelations our normally convivial drinking session had died a death, become a total social disaster. Harry had become withdrawn and non-communicative, a fact that surprised Barry, who could only put it down to his disappointment at losing the bet, whereas of course both Jean and I knew that he was coming to terms with suffering the realisation that his evening love affair and all it had encompassed was nothing more than a mere sham.

Jean, in her own inimitable way had tried her best to boost the heavy atmosphere, as indeed had Barry, but nothing could revive the deep depression that had descended upon our normally vivacious group and we parted on an extremely low note, making no arrangements to meet up again as was usual on our weekends.

I silently nodded Harry in the direction of my bed, and he closed the door and sat down, looking contemplatively at the floor, avoiding my eyes. His face was set like stone, rigid, unreadable.

I maintained my silence. It was his move, I had decided. After a more than pregnant pause he spoke, still looking in any direction but mine.

“What kind of a perverted bastard are you?” The words came out quietly, but I felt I could detect an implied menace in his tone of voice. My heart was beating fast with a frightened anticipation as to the outcome of this meeting.

“What do you mean?” I tried to keep my voice from trembling, although it was, more from anger than fear.

“You know what I mean. Are you a faggot or something? Do you fancy blokes?” This time he did look at me, right in the eyes, and I was surprised by the intense expression of hatred in his face.

I laughed uncomfortably, finding the situation anything but humorous. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

He scowled. “You bloody know what I mean, you shit. You gave me a blow job that night! And you enjoyed it!”

I became annoyed. “Enjoyed! I was almost sick over your shoes, you Wally!”

“Yeah? But you gave it a go, didn’t you, like the cheap tart you are! You must have fancied a mouthful! Throwing yourself at me like that!”

“Listen, Harry, it was your idea, yours and Barry’s, for me to be a girl for a night. It wasn’t my fault you didn’t recognise me, and it wasn’t my fault you fancied me; and let’s face it you did fancy me! Talk about me throwing myself at you! As if! You were coming on to me like there was no tomorrow, just like you always do when you’re trying to get into a girl’s pants!”

He appeared to be taken aback for a moment, shocked by my vehement retaliation. Then: - “Yeah, well I reckon you must spend a lot of time as a girly. You were too good at it. Do you spend all your evenings wearing a dress?” That was really close to the mark, given my recent experiences. “Sure you’re not really a woman?”

“Cheap shot, pal,” I threw back, surprised by my own escalating anger. “You know better than that. So Jean did a good job on me. Not only are you upset you lost the bet, but you’re peeved to think you couldn’t tell that the girl you fancied was really a bloke. Bad loser!”

He stood up suddenly, clenching his fists. “It’s not just that! Why couldn’t I tell it was you that night, I’ve known you long enough?” He flushed. “I did think you were a real girl! I fell in love with you that night!”

“Not with me you didn’t!” I snapped, also getting to my feet and pointing a finger at him. “Let’s get it straight, shall we? You fell for a girl called Kim! She doesn’t exist, Harry.”

Angrily he gave me a shove, causing me sit down again heavily on the bed. “Don’t give me that! She existed enough to snog me!” he stormed. “She existed enough to drag my prick out in the garden! She existed enough to swallow me when I came in her mouth!”

I swear his eyes were red, and his face, within inches of my own, was contorted with an uncontrollable passion as he railed at me.

I jumped up again, grabbed the front of his shirt and slammed him hard against the bedroom wall. I swear the room shook. “Bloody right!” I shouted. “She had a few drinks, and when you came on to her, like you always do when you fancy your chances with a girl, she lost control and gave you as good as she got! Harry, believe it or not she fancied you something rotten that night, too, and got carried away!”

He pulled away from me, staring at me as if I were a demented demon. “What’s this ‘she’ business?” he demanded. “It was you, you scumbag, with your fancy dancing and sexy dress. It was you, not ‘she’! And what do you mean, ‘she fancied you’? Are you saying you fancied me, you bent bastard? ”

He was spitting with fury as he assailed me with his angry outburst, and I was conscious of the fine droplets spattering my face.

I released him, suddenly tired, weary with the spasms of hatred that were draining me. I collapsed onto the bed and put my buzzing head in my hands. My brain ached in confusion as I tried to make sense of the mixed emotions that had overwhelmed me that fateful night.

“Harry, I’m sorry. I can’t explain that night,” I told him quietly, not only in a bid to rationalize but also to try to defuse an inflammable situation.

I considered carefully. “Jean dressed me up in girl’s clothes and made my face up, as we had agreed she would; she did a great job — too good a job - and nobody sussed me out; not even my two best mates who’ve known me most of my life! Believe me, I was waiting for her to tell me I’d never get away with it, but she didn’t, and you now know why.

“The trouble was, Harry, wearing those things made me feel sexy! Being accepted as a girl by the two of you made me feel girly! I don’t pretend to understand it! When you started coming on to me I’d had a couple of drinks. I was flattered. When I’d been dancing with Jean, I knew most of the blokes in the club were watching us — watching me - and it pleased me. I was a girl. I guess I reacted like a girl. That night, Kim had became real, came into being.”

His lip curled in disgust, his eyes were cold. “What are you trying to say?”

“Harry, in a way it wasn’t me there that night at all. Oh, it started off being me, but gradually Kim, the girl part of me, took over, and I became less in control of the situation. I don’t expect you to understand, because I don’t, really, but believe me, Kim had the hots for you that night!”

“But you and Kim are the same!” I could tell by the expression on his face that although he was trying to understand me, he was failing miserably. His exasperation over the whole affair was clearly evident. Perhaps it was me, unable to express how I truly felt that night. I don’t know.

“I knew you wouldn’t understand. It’s difficult. I don’t know that I can explain properly.” I paused.

“Listen, it’s me, John, here now, and I’m the bloke who’s known you for donkey’s years. You’re my best mate. We discuss everything. We talk about our girl-friends when we have them; we talk about life as we see it, our hopes and dreams for the future. Yes?” I desperately wanted him to understand. He was indeed my best friend. If I lost him over a stupid bet it would be like having my arm cut off, like losing a twin brother.

He nodded slowly, sitting next to me on the bed. I felt a faint ray of hope. At least he seemed to be trying to get his head round it.

“Harry, I would no more try to snog you now than fly in the air! We’re both guys, yeah?”

He edged away from me slightly, casting a wary look in my direction, but nodded again.

“But that Friday night something happened. Jean became Professor Higgins in My Fair Lady - she created a girl, conjured her up out of … my feminine side, I suppose, but create her she did. It’s not Jean’s fault, she was trying to help, but she did too good a job! If she had left a little flaw, something about me that would have told you and Barry who Kim was straight away, for goodness sake something that would have shown anybody straight away that I was a bloke in a dress, then nothing like this would have happened. But Jean did the best she could, and Kim turned up out of the blue.”

“And I fell for her like a ton of bricks!” He was still angry, but I felt he was trying to fathom out my complicated ramblings. His anger was tempered with an honest curiosity, an attempt to solve the convoluted problem.

“Well, Kim was a pretty girl,” I continued to try to explain. “I know that, I’m not blind or stupid, and of course we all know you’re a mug for a pretty face, don’t we?”

Harry looked up sharply to see if I was making fun of him; I wasn’t, and he realised it.

“And,” I carried on, “There was already a basic liking there, wasn’t there? We’ve always got on, that’s why we’re friends, and our compatibility was what Kim was constructed on. You liked her initially because you like me. It was just that she took over me, and I became her!”

“But to do what you did …” He gesticulated wildly.

“Harry, you’ll never understand. I’m not sure I do, fully. As Kim, I fell in love with you!”

“What?”

“I don’t pretend to know what girls really feel when they fancy someone, but believe me I think I got pretty close that night. Kim already liked you — she was John, basically, after all — but as she grew stronger, and pushed John — me — into the background, she fell for you hook, line and sinker!”

“Really?” Harry appeared to be a little warmer, to be thawing somewhat, perhaps mollified to an extent by my arguments.

“Truly,” I assured him. “And she took your ring in good faith, too. But of course, when I came back she vanished into the background.”

“I still can’t believe what you did, though. My best mate giving me a blow job.” He ran a hand through his already dishevelled hair, looking at me and shaking his head.

I smiled ruefully. “When I got home I went straight to the bathroom and threw up! That was me back again!”

Harry also half-smiled. “You…er…didn’t tell anyone about it, did you?” he asked, a little self-consciously.

I shook my head, vague visions of Kim and Jean girl-talking that one through, but I knew the secret was safe with Jean. She would never let on that she knew. “No,” I white-lied. “Did you mention it to Barry?”

“No, thank God. Can you imagine what he’d have said yesterday if I had told him?”

I eyed him cautiously. “So…what now?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“Come on, mate,” I said, trying desperately to re-cement our relationship. “It’s a done deal. Water under the bridge. Only you and I will ever know what really happened.”

Harry smiled again, apparently relieved. I stuck my hand out. “Still friends?”

He slowly, a little hesitantly, reached out and took my hand in his. “Yeah, still friends, I guess. We’ve always said it would take more than a girl to split us up. I guess we’re more than a match for Kim. Just don’t try to kiss me, OK?”

“You got it!”

“Still,” he said sadly, “I suppose I’ll have to start looking around for another girl now. I really thought I’d found the one with Kim!”

“Tell me about it,” I said, and recounted my experience with Laura. “You talk about falling in love,” I concluded, “I fell heavy and deep for that girl! Only I could lose my heart to a lesbian!”

Harry laughed and put his arm around my shoulder, considered the action for a moment and then removed it. “Yeah, are we a couple of losers, or what?”

“You said it.”

There was a pause, something in the air then that weighed heavily between us.

“Still …” Harry murmured again.

“Still what?”

Harry avoided my eye, not speaking. There was something oddly familiar in his demeanour.

“Come on,” I urged, “Spit it out. What?”

“I just thought,” he said slowly. “It would’ve been nice if I could have said goodbye to Kim in person. You know, properly.”

I stared at him in disbelief. He had that same look on his face that my mother had had when she wanted me to be Kim again. I couldn’t quite believe it. What was it about the damned girl that people couldn’t seem to want to let her go?

“You have,” I said quickly. “She told you you’d meet again, and you did. You met me! Remember?”

He looked up from contemplating the floor. “That’s not quite what I meant,” he muttered. “Whatever you say, you and Kim are different. I know you, you’re my mate! I wanted to say goodbye to the girl I fell in love with!”

I stared at him again incredulously. What was wrong with him? After everything I’d tried to explain to him.

“A girl who doesn’t exist!” I told him angrily, although I knew that statement wasn’t strictly true. Kim had certainly existed that Friday night as I — and he - knew only too well. For most of that evening I had been the one who didn’t exist. Kim had been there, as large as life, as she had been on Wednesday evening, and indeed on the Thursday, when she was chatting at ease with my delighted mother.

Harry swallowed, and I swear his eyes had the beginnings of tears in them. “Don’t believe it,” he told me. “She exists for me.”

There were familiar feelings uneasily building up inside me as I looked at him, strange sensations tingling through me that I had no explanation for. My mind toyed with an idea that part of me immediately refused, but I couldn’t let it go. I didn’t want to turn my thoughts into realities, but there was a small, persuasive voice in my head that was insistent, a driving force that urged me into action. I had already, with my mother’s blessing, given in to a temptation I had been trying to drive underground, and I was now being assailed by desires that, until now, I would have worriedly dismissed as totally wrong.

Should I give in to them? Perhaps this was the way to kill the demon. One last time, a small voice whispered, and then it’s gone — she’s gone - for good. How weak we are when tempted by irresistible desire.

I made my decision.

“Wait here,” I said.

I went into my mother’s bedroom and for a moment just stared at the familiar box that sat on top of her wardrobe. Impulsively, with trembling hands, I lifted it down and opened it. As I looked again at the garments within, the miniature John and Kim on my shoulders were having another war of words with each other.
 

*          *          *
 
It was the work of seconds to discard John’s clothes and don Kim’s all-too-familiar trappings, this time the sexy underwear and dress she had worn that fateful Friday night, clothing that Harry would recognise and associate with the Kim he remembered. Slipping my stockinged feet into her shoes I stared into the mirror and applied some minimal make-up, finally securing and brushing the wig in a way I was becoming more than used to.

In moments, without any real conscious effort on my part, Kim had returned, smiling a little wryly (that was the John part of me) and a little mischievously (which was all her) at me from the mirror. I could literally feel her pushing John, who was protesting weakly, into the background. I resisted as best I could. I couldn’t afford to lose him completely. She twirled in front of the glass, feeling good about herself…

I returned slowly and quietly to my bedroom, and stood in the doorway. “Hello, Harry,” I said.

My friend slowly raised his head, and blinked. “Kim?”

I entered the room and sat next to him on the bed. Taking his hand in mine I said “John told me you wanted to say goodbye.”

He was speechless for a moment, mixed emotions flitting across his confused visage. I thought he was suddenly going to laugh in my face, that he had only mentioned saying his goodbyes to Kim personally to see if I would accept the challenge and dress up again, a ruse so that he could sneer at me, get his own back at me. But:-

“Yes,” he said, in a low voice.

Impulsively I leaned towards him and brushed the long hair away from his eyes. “I told you I had to go.”

He turned towards me, leaning close, and suddenly kissed me on the lips. An electric shock ran through me. I tingled all over, vaguely wondering why I hadn’t recoiled from him in disgust. Instead I instinctively moved closer to him and kissed him back, my hands resting lightly on his shoulders, revelling in the feel of his mouth on mine, the teasing touch of his tongue.

“Kim,” he whispered, enfolding me in his arms, kissing my lips, my cheeks, my brow, holding me close to him with an ardent passion.

I laughed awkwardly and gently pushed at his chest. There was still enough John in me to rebel against his misunderstanding. I had only wanted to give him the opportunity to say his goodbyes briefly to Kim.

Hadn’t I?

“Harry,” I protested weakly; I didn’t really want him to stop, but knew he ought to before things got out of hand once more. Unfortunately Kim wanted him, and she was beginning to take over again.

We swayed on the edge of the bed, then fell on top of it, and I was conscious again of his hands caressing my bosom, gently stroking me. He moved over on top of me, kissing me again and again.

A strange excitement welled up in me as I revelled in his attention.

An anticipatory fear spread through me as I tried mentally to distance myself from the proceedings.

I tried to get away from him.

I was again the lusty young female of Friday night, only too self-aware of my power over him and all men and desiring him passionately.

I was poor downtrodden John trying to halt this emotional situation from getting out of hand.

I was Kim, wanting all his concentration to be on me.

I was John, who wanted him to stop.

I was Kim, who wanted him to continue…
 

*          *          *
 
His hands were pulling at the hem of my dress, lifting it upwards; his hands were slipping up and over the smooth, silky mesh of my stockings under my dress, brushing against my naked thighs; his hands were seeking my panties and the feminine prize he imagined lay within.

I gently managed to pull his probing fingers away and placed the palm of my hand over his swollen crotch, rubbing gently. He moaned, eyes closed, and rolled over onto his back, breathing out a slow, contented sigh. Quietly, with minimal fuss I eased down his zip fly and took out his swollen member, stroking it between my forefinger and thumb.

“Kim,” he breathed, the word yet another soft sigh, and he half-turned towards me again. His hands sought and found my legs once more, smoothing his palms up my stockings until he found the exposed flesh of my upper thigh. He cupped my buttocks, hands caressing the silky material of my panties, before returning to his quest for Kim’s secret treasure.

I removed those roving hands once more, pushed him back down onto the bed and continued to masturbate him.

“Kim,” he murmured, “I love you.”

I leaned forward, allowing the long hair of the wig to hang down and tickle his cheeks. “I love you too,” I whispered in his ear. God help me, I meant it. His masculine magic had worked itself on me — Kim — yet again.

“Make love to me,” he urged dreamily, eyes still closed, in a world of his own.

I continued manipulating him. “I am,” I told him softly.

He shifted his body on the bed. “I mean properly,” he said, and suddenly plunged his hand between my legs, fast, urgently.

I slapped him away, almost falling to the floor, but managed to stand awkwardly as he swung round to a sitting position. He looked up at me, his eyes wide and staring, seeing nothing but his own wild imaginings.

“What’s the matter with you?” he said hoarsely. “You a fucking prick-teaser or what?”

He grabbed at me wildly and I stumbled backwards, worried now. He looked crazed, confused.

“Harry, what are you doing? It’s me, John!” Kim, the bitch, had retreated, leaving me to face the frenzied result of her sex-mad teasing.

He stood up fast and then grabbed me, both hands thrusting forward and gripping me tightly round the throat. His pupils were red pinpoints of light. He didn’t know me.

“Bitch,” he hissed venomously, “Think you can play around, do you?” One hand released me momentarily and he slapped me viciously around the face. My head spun as he continued to increase the pressure on my neck.

I pushed at him with weak, fluttering hands, but couldn’t budge him. Anger had given him extra strength.

“Harry, it’s me, John,” I croaked again, the constriction around my throat making it difficult to speak. I had difficulty breathing. In his madness, Harry was strangling me! Jesus, I thought wildly, am I going to die?

“You’re all right giving blow jobs in the dark, aren’t you, you whore?” he rasped angrily, “OK doing a hand job! But when it comes to the real thing, Kim Kong…”

His voice was faint, seeming to come from a long way away and I could feel myself blacking out as he slowly throttled me. With a supreme effort I pushed hard at him, hoping the edge of the bed would buckle his knees and force him to sit, giving me a bit of an advantage, but he resisted, his strength that of ten men, or so I imagined, and suddenly pushed back, harder.

I was conscious of a loud crunching sound and at the same time felt an excruciating pain at the back of my head; I dazedly realised I had collided with the bedroom wall. The world swam before me, there were two Harrys in front of me, and I was vaguely aware of myself sinking limply against him, my head lolling on his shoulder, my whole body sapped of strength or energy. My eyes closed and I felt myself drifting into unconsciousness. The pain in my throat eased.

Harry’s breathing was loud and heavy in my ear as I remotely felt myself being lowered, dazed and sick, to the bed. I felt more pain as the back of my head touched a pillow, and the world behind my closed eyelids was rotating rapidly.

I forced my eyes open, focussed and saw nothing but indistinct, blurred images; I blinked, focussed again and again those blurred pictures confronted me. In some dim recess of my mind I felt Harry’s hand sliding up my legs beneath my dress. He slowed as he found my suspender belt clips and chuckled, and then I felt him clutching fiercely at my panty-covered testicles.

The pain sharpened my mind and I clearly heard his confused grunt as he obviously realised that what he was looking for just wasn’t there.

“Bitch,” he mumbled again, and then swore, and I felt a blow to my cheek and another to my jaw, as he lost control.

I must have blacked out properly then, because when I came to I was lying on my front, face downward on the bed. I became vaguely aware that my dress was rucked up around my waist, and realised my panties were being pulled down my legs.

“Harry, what are you doing?” I think I said, although it may just have been in my mind. Whether he heard me or not I don’t know, because once more the world went dark…

I jerked into sudden consciousness as a spasm of pain pierced my body. Again, I think I yelled in agony, but as my Mother certainly never appeared to rescue me this may just have been my imagination. The pain was certainly real, excruciating, and I quickly fled from it into the netherworld once more.

I may have dreamed I was in a deep, dark, watery pit, for I can recall myself ascending through that darkness, slowly but deliberately, swimming upwards through the vast black void. I remember my eyes opening at the same time that I felt a deep and throbbing pain emanating from the centre of my body. I was looking at the clock on my bedside table, except that it was distorted and I was unable to decipher the time. There were two clocks, two tables, and they were spinning in front of my eyes.

Slowly both images merged, and I felt a confusion of pain both physical and mental. There was an ache of major proportions emanating from my backside, and I had a splitting headache that started from the back of my head and spread forward and down over my forehead. My throat was sore and my neck felt raw. My stomach revolted, and I knew I wanted to throw up.

I remembered fighting with Harry, but nothing more. Painfully, wrestling to pacify the sickness churning in my gut, I moved my head and looked in the opposite direction.

Harry lay on his back next to me, his eyes closed, gentle snores coming from his slightly open mouth from which a small dribble of saliva trickled.

“Harry?” I ventured, the very act of speech hurting my bruised and battered vocal chords.

He grunted, but did not move.

Slowly, and with an awful realisation, my memory sneaked up on me with a gradual, unhurried series of snapshots, until I recalled everything, every painful, horrific detail.

I sat up quickly in shock, sending further waves of pain through my head and body, and swung my legs delicately to the floor. In a vague, disembodied way I noticed my stockings were in shreds, and my panties lay discarded on the bedroom rug.

I reached forward and picked up the flimsy sliver of material, and my head swam with the painful effort. I paused, giving myself time to rehabilitate, then, using the bedside table to steady myself, I got shakily to my feet. I noticed the wig sitting in a corner of the room like a small, trapped animal. Stretching painfully, I leaned down and retrieved it.

With a final disgusted glance at Harry’s prone form I turned and made my way painfully to the bathroom, entered and locked the door.

A cursory examination with a flannel and towel showed blood and what I could only assume was semen leaking from my anus. Tears of pain, shame and anger trickled down my cheeks as I realised fully what had happened to me.

Tenderly I cleaned myself up as best I could, finally bundling the stained and bloody towels together and pushing them into a corner with my foot. I hugged the toilet for a full five minutes as my eyes discharged the misery of my sorry experience and my stomach expelled its contents in jerking, aching movements, until only fragments of stringy bile dangled from my retching lips.
 

*          *          *
 
Once things had settled a little I returned shakily to my mother’s room and changed out of Kim’s ruined clothes, becoming John again. But this was a different John, an abused and assaulted John, a John who would need to sit down at some time in the near future and review his whole philosophy on life.

Stuffing poor Kim’s attire haphazardly back into the box, I returned to my bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed where Harry still slept the sleep of the exhausted. I noticed his limp penis still peeking from his unzipped trousers, and wildly looked around the room for a knife, a pair of scissors, anything sharp. In a sudden fit of madness I found myself hating men, all men, and included myself in that hatred. All I saw as a potential weapon was a razor, and that was a safety razor. Had he known my thoughts Harry would have been thankful for small mercies.

My anger bubbled to the surface and I shook my erstwhile friend savagely.

He woke with a start, sitting up fast and straight and looking around him with staring eyes. “Kim?” he said, before finally focussing on me.

I sneered at him. “Kim’s gone, you bastard,” I told him in a hard voice.

He looked puzzled. “What do you mean?” he said, rubbing his eyes.

“You raped her, you shit,” I told him angrily.

“Raped?”

I stood up and looked at him with loathing. “I found her crying her eyes out in the bathroom. She was holding her panties in her hand, her stockings were ripped to pieces and her dress was ruined.”

Sanity returned to his face for a moment. “But you’re Kim,” he said. He looked puzzled.

“So you want to have it that you raped me? A bloke? And one of your best friends?”

“Raped? No, no, no.” He sat on the edge of the bed leaning his elbows on his knees and shaking his head, his long hair falling across his face as he appeared to struggle with a great emotion. “What’s going on?” he muttered to himself, looking around the room in stupefied wonder. “Kim,” he repeated.

“Kim’s out of your life,” I told him scathingly. “She loved you, Harry, but because you couldn’t wait! You destroyed her. She’ll have no more to do with you.”

“Wait a minute,” he said dazedly, trying to come to terms with what I was saying, “You are Kim. Kim is you. If you’re still here, so is she!”

“Let’s put it this way,” I told him, my voice cold, “I’ll have no compunction in telling anyone who asks that you raped Jean’s friend Kim. If you want to contradict me and put them right by saying you raped me, go ahead. I would be proud of neither story.”

“You wouldn’t do that,” he said, but there was doubt in his voice and eyes, and not a little fear. There was little doubt in my mind that he now realised, remembered, what had happened, and whether it was with intent or just the result of inflamed emotion there were no excuses for his actions.

My rage peaked. With one hand I grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him to his feet. With the other I punched him as hard as I could to the face. He lurched backwards, falling on the bed, holding his jaw.

“Shit, that hurt,” he mumbled indistinctly, as I shook my hand to ease the pain of the blow.

“Put that away,” I told him, nodding at his exposed penis. “You’re lucky I couldn’t find a sharp blade after talking to Kim about this.”

He eyed me strangely. “Talked to Kim? What is all this? Are you barmy or what?”

“You betrayed the trust of the girl who loved you,” I told him. “That’s something you’ll have to live with for the rest of your life.”

“What are you?” he muttered, “A fucking queer or something?”

I looked at him silently for a time, and he lowered his eyes.

“How can you, of all people, ask that question, after your actions here today?” I asked quietly.

He stood up, shamefaced, rearranging his shirt. “I’d better go.”

I stood away from the door.

He walked past me silently, watching me warily and then turned, as if to speak. One look at my face decided him. I heard his footsteps on the stairs. I heard the front door close. I shut my bedroom door behind him. That action, I realised in the light of later events, was a symbolic one. One door closes; another opens. I had a lot to learn.
 

*          *          *
 
I fell on my bed and cried silently into my pillow, cursing myself and what had become of my life, cursing the fates that had rolled their deceitful dice and caused havoc to my very existence, until I must have finally drifted off into a fitful, troubled sleep.
 

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