Brian's tortured past just seems follow him wherever he goes. From abandonment,to foster care, the juvenile system and now to his military service. He was a physical and emotional wreck looking for a place to happen. The few friends he thinks he has are not above tricking him for their own reasons. Danny is the one beacon of hope for him and their time tested partnership will prove to be all Brian needs to put his life back together.

The Just and the Judges
Brian was home now. Once a street wise kid that roamed the streets of Baltimore, he was now a Veteran of the Gulf War. While his body was here, his mind was often back in the war. Even sleep, a prized possession these days, offered little in the way of relief.

In his mind, shot after shot came at the Hummer faster than he could count them. Bob and weave, bob and weave, his team leader shouted as he strained to hold the Hummer on the road, much less take evasive action. The light armor for now protected them as the men shooing at them were too far away. Thing was they would know that, too, and he wondered why his men had spooked.

His foot pinned the fuel pedal to the floor and he felt for sure there would be a permanent impression left from it. He was doing what he was told, a soldier taking orders but he knew something just wasn’t right. Each time he got center in the road another round of fire would hit the Hummer. Then the one thing they all hoped would never happen did.

An IED exploded just under the left rear of the Hummer. It flipped end over end, then rolled down a high bank of sand stopping back on its wheels with the men unconscious. His second in command had called for air support, but they had no way to know when they would arrive or if they got the call at all.

The horror of the dream caused sweat to bead up on his forehead and his hands cramped from holding the steering wheel that wasn’t really there. Just as the rescue crew arrived he awoke sitting bolt upright in the bed. He was soaked in sweat and those pains that should have been gone a year ago now felt as real as the day it happened.

It had been over a month now since his last episode like this. He would recover, but it took time. He wanted it now or even sooner as his life had been in a downward spiral for several months. He was on the verge of losing his new job with the Baltimore PD. Working the night shift wasn’t helping as it was harder to sleep during the day.

His voice coach and speech therapist were helping him adjust after several operations to his face and neck. He was actually pretty in a way, but the damage to his nerves left him with a high somewhat soft voice that in no way belonged to the man he was. At least for now he sounded like a male teenager as opposed to a small girl like before. He had to work at it to sound the way he did and that was okay, he could deal with that.

Even with his heart pounding and his adrenalin pumping like a man half his age his manhood was as limp as a wet noodle. This was the part he couldn’t deal with. He still had several operations to go and he wiped the sweat away taking another round of antibiotics and sleeping pills before he laid back down.
A full year had passed and they were still finding bits and pieces of shrapnel in his body. Would the nightmare never end, he thought, as he fluffed the pillow under his head and tried again to sleep if he could.

Between the doctors and the therapist and all the other stuff he was doing to put his life back together he missed work nearly as much as he was there. When the economy tanked, he could see his chance to recover going out the window in a hurry. He was one of many on the low end of the totem pole and when the axe fell he felt sure he would be one of the first to get cut.

Thankfully, his boss was a veteran of another war and he pulled Brian aside before the axe actually fell. There was a position in the vice squad that he could hold open for him if he wanted it. Working the Vice Squad in Baltimore was like one step above being a rent-a-cop. It was still a steady paycheck and that was more than some thirty odd men were getting in a week or less. He didn’t say yes right away, but his options were limited and two days before he would have been let go he took the offer.

His boss had offered him a hand up as the new position on the Vice Squad would assure him of a job. Had the offer been a hand out he would not have considered it as they usually came with strings attached and he wanted no part of that. He was conservative to his core and figured every man had a chance to make that big score. He had served his country and now it was time for his big score. All he needed was the chance to make it happen and it would come.

Save himself and Danny Coco and Liz were the newest members of the Vice Squad. Not their real names, of course, but Dave and Stu were taking their turn in the barrel, as it was called. They were undercover walking the streets after hours as hookers. Every non commissioned officer got their turn in the barrel and in time Brian would get his. Brian took one look at Liz and Coco knew any man that approached them had to be well past drunk to start with.

Brian Moody was nobody’s fool. It was the oldest game in the book and yet it still worked and it worked every time they used it. His month in the barrel would come and he thought he would at least put some effort into actually looking like a female, if indeed he had to do it. He was already planning which operation he would get done when that month came around and he smiled inside at the thought of it.

It was Friday night and Brian was sitting in the cruiser with Danny Little. Danny was big burly man with short curly hair, the type a chick looking for a protector might like. He was a transfer from the detective squad that his boss had also saved from the axe. Liz and Coco made a call for backup as they had two men on the corner across from the Key Harbor Marina. Danny answered and then rolled on the call as they were just six blocks away. It took all of two minutes with traffic around the Marina being what it was and they didn’t really need them as such, they just wanted someone to give the men a ride to the jail.

Per protocol once the men were booked, Danny and Brian went back to check on Liz and Coco. They had made two more arrests on the same block and were still there when they parked in the middle of the block.

The glass front of the Marina Café faced the street on one side and the harbor on the other. From where Brian was sitting he spotted four of the hottest looking ladies he had seen in some time. They were well overdressed to be at the café as he figured any one of them was wearing his salary for the last year at least. That estimate didn’t include the diamonds and rubies he could see with his field glasses.

Danny knew these women on sight as he had dealt with them before. He assured Brian that he couldn’t afford them and the few that could didn’t really want them once they knew the truth. Brian just gave him that quizzical look, so he decided to explain.

“Were you around before all the major stores moved the big shopping malls?” He asked, as he watched the girls on the street.

“I’m thirty-two years old, so, yes, I do recall,” he said with his tongue in cheek.

“Then you can remember when the street side stores had big glass windows that they would dress up mannequins like the latest fashion and create scenery so it looked real when you passed by?” He questioned as he looked at the girls sitting in the window seats of the café.

“Yes, and some were very elaborate,” Brian replied.

“Meet the next generation of the same sales tech,” Danny said with a smile. “The café pays those people to be there every night. The only thing that changes is the clothes and the amount of money the café makes each night,” he added.

That was only half true and even Danny didn’t know that at the time he told it to Brain. Their shift was all but over and Brian didn’t look forward to going home and then to bed. The dream he had relived last night was enough to make any man dread sleeping if he had to live that nightmare over again. The sleeping pills helped, but only in the sense that it didn’t make him wake up. He still dreamed, it just wasn’t always that bad.

He last looked at the clock at six in the morning and he had just laid down. He took the pills and hoped for the best as he would soon be asleep. Thankfully, he did sleep well that night and if he dreamed at all, he didn’t remember it. Like always, when he took the pills, he was slow getting started the next morning.

Joann, his counselor, called just as he started his third cup of coffee. It was a short call just to remind him of their appointment that day. He assured her he would be there before lunch and offered to buy hers as well. She declined of course, but he was still trying to make amends from their first meeting. That was all he planned for today save to get some more sleep.

Joann could spout the psyco-babble with the best of them and on their first meeting she let Brian know just how well trained and professional she really was. He got her to pause mid sentence telling her he needed to take Shorty for a walk. She wasn’t familiar with the saying, but caught on when he asked which way the men’s room was.

He didn’t return to the meeting or return her calls for several days. His feeling about what had happened in the gulf and all the things that had followed since were not the issue to him. He wanted the dreams to stop, he wanted to be part what was happening here. What had happened over there was done and over. His life was here and now.

His chat with Joann that day lasted the full hour as they talked about the last round of plastic surgery he had gotten done and his voice training.

“I’ll give the doctor credit. The scars on my face and neck are well gone. I would have liked it better had I still looked, at least to some degree, more masculine,” he stated.

“I’ll have you know some women like pretty men and I would be counted as one. If you still had the body mass like you did before, I could see you looking more correct with a masculine face,” she smiled.

“This is true and I eat five and sometimes six times a day and I am still losing weight,” he sighed.

“You lost over half your stomach in the first operation. Give it time I am sure your weight will level off,” she said, trying to keep the conversation pleasant.

That was the meat of the conversation and then he went home and back to bed. His shift started at ten that night and he wanted to be alert, so sleep was a good thing right then. Joann was pretty, but nor prissy like some girls. He had even decided she could hold her own in a fight if it ever happened. Her long blond hair and sparkling blue eyes often got him lost if he thought of her as girlfriend material. She had a very oval face and wore just enough makeup to bring out her cheeks and eyes.

He had a near perfect smiley face across his butt and that was the next planned operation. There was still some lead in his system, too, but so far nobody had been able to find it. The scare was about a half inch wide and hip to hip, not something a girlfriend would want to see for sure. It was the last thing they spoke about that day and the operation was scheduled for next week with the V.A.

Monday, before the operation on Friday, he told his boss he would be down a while. He was having an operation, he just left out the reason for it. Captain Mace knew this was just one of many for him. The chief had already clued him in. Danny was told, too, as he would work solo till Brian was back on duty.

That Friday Dr. Grace and Dr. Wallace gave him the same song and dance as before. This wasn’t magic and there could still be some of the scar visible and so on. The happy gas was working quick as Brian thought he had hit the big time since he was taken to the operating theater as opposed to operating room. He had no clue some twenty other doctors would be watching the whole thing.

He spent a lot of time face down while it healed up good enough for him to actually sit down. He was now the proud owner of a very firm heart shaped bottom which would only add to his less than manly looks. Proud would be a less than accurate description of what he thought of it when he was able to return to duty.

Six weeks had past and while Danny assured him all was well, their friendship seemed rather cold now. Brian found out later that Danny had taken his turn in the barrel alone and the other men seemed to think Brian was dodging his turn by any means. He could have done that and he actually thought about it, but so far that was not the case.

The eight hour shifts were about to change as the city was looking to save some money. They were going to a twenty- four on and forty-eight off system and in a way, Brian was looking forward to it. It would make keeping his appointments much easier. The changeover happened that next weekend and it was time for his trip to the clinic to renew his prescriptions again.

Monday morning he actually got here on time and was taken right in. Blood was taken and he got the basic look over before his prescriptions were renewed. There was still evidence of lead in his system, although, it was very small. His male hormones were still far below what they should be and while the nurse noticed that he had softened up some since his last visit, she didn’t point that out. He had a packed day and his next stop was his voice coach.

Charles was a much older man and apt to retire most any day now. He finally conceded that Brian had gotten his voice about as low as it was going to go with all the nerve damage and his tightened vocal cords being what they were. Brian was more than pleased with the help he had gotten from Charles and wished him well on his retirement.

Joann was his next stop and this was one of his long chats, as he liked to call it. Monday was her slow day and she booked him for two hours.

Today she worked hard trying to get him to talk about the changes his body had started to show. His male hormone level would never get back to normal on its own and he hated the way the synthetic ones made him feel. Unless he wore tight fitting clothes, nobody would really notice the shape of his butt. His face was another story and by now everyone was telling him how pretty he was. She dared not mention that she could see the outline of his budding breasts.

Brian had been born in the late seventies and it wasn’t uncommon for men to have long hair back then. Since he wasn’t in the service anymore, he had started growing his hair long almost from the first day of his discharge. That was just over a year ago now and it was very long for a man these days. Another thing you didn’t dare try to talk to him about was his hair. He knew it made him look even more like a chick, but he remembered all too well how much the women had liked it back when. Back in high school he got laid twice as much as his short haired friends.

She did manage to talk him into going to the salon she used as they knew how to cut long hair and make it look good. So far as she knew, he hadn’t had anything that even looked like a hair cut since he had come home.

She was slightly devious about it and told them he was coming. He was a pretty man that needed a pretty hair cut and while he asked only for a trim, the girl talked him into a full on cut and style. He left there with his hair out of the normal ponytail that ended about in the middle of his back. The sides were now tapered to fit his pretty face but still long enough to stay in his ponytail.

This wasn’t the only time she had tricked him like this. He had a habit of biting his nails and their one and only meeting, not at the office, had seen him get a manicure and some clear coat on his nails that would taste awful. Needless to say, this was commercial grade stuff and that broke him of that habit right quick like. She well knew the Psycho-babble wasn’t going to work on Brian so she had resorted to other tactics.

Much later on that day at home, he realized they had doubled the dose of his antibiotics. He was off tomorrow or at least till midnight and he pretty well just spent that day resting.

The cold shoulder from Danny was still working well and despite his best efforts Danny wasn’t much in the mood to talk. Brian understood it even if he didn’t like it and decided just to watch and listen for a while. He never had learned anything running his own mouth. This way maybe he could get the lay of the land, as it were.

After working twenty-four hours straight, he had no trouble sleeping that first night. On the nights that he took the sleeping pills, he was trying to only take one as opposed to three like he had been. His nightmare hadn’t came around in a while now and he hoped it was gone for good. Now he needed to be free of the drugs as well.

Week after week he would notice the street drug dealers that nobody seemed to want to bust. Often they knew Brian and Danny could see them and it did nothing to stop them from their business. Finally, Danny had heard enough of his moaning about how nobody was busting the pushers.

“The Fed’s had their own drug task force here in town. Word from the chief is that the dealers are hands off so long as they don’t get out of hand. Having them here means more boots on the street that the Chief doesn’t have to pay for and they don’t like it when we get on their turf,” Danny said and then dropped the subject.

“Turf or not, when my feet hit the street, I will bust them, like it or not,” Brian said.

“As long as you do the paperwork,” Danny replied.

Brian smiled a little inside as he was the only man in his unit back then that could do anything with a computer. He had got caught doing some low level hacking and part of his plea deal was his enlistment with the service. Paperwork was a walk in the park for him, he could type more words per minute than most women he knew.

He had been thinking about his time in the barrel when it came and on one of his days off he went to the Marina Café. He purposely started a conversation with the girls that he now knew were window dressing. He soon found out that they were husbands and wives. All dressed like women, but only two really were.

It was freak accident as they told the story. They had been at a costume party one night and stopped by the café late on their way home. As they were sitting in the window, the café began to suddenly get a lot of customers and the manager soon caught on as to why. The husbands had been laid off when the economy tanked and this was easy money, the way they saw it. The food and drinks were on the house and they were there for ten hours a day.

Although Brian knew that two of them were men, you wouldn’t have guessed it just to look at them. Coco and Liz could take some lessons from them, he thought as he headed home not feeling so good as he had been.

He had been getting a shooting pain from somewhere behind his bladder and it made his balls feel as if they would explode when they hit. He had skipped his last two appointments at the clinic and Joann had read him the riot act for it. He was still taking the antibiotics and only occasionally would he take a sleeping pill.

He had another appointment with the clinic for tomorrow and feeling the way he was he had decided to keep it. He slept well that night, but awoke to what he thought was a different world. His breasts were swollen far larger than ever before and the pain between his legs was so intense it was all he could do to stand up straight. He wondered now if some of his internal stitches had broken somehow.

That piece of lead nobody had been able to find had finally surfaced and it was lodged in one of the tubes to his balls. There was no explanation for how it got there, that was hardly the issue now. It had been the catalyst for the cancer that now ravaged his manhood. According to Dr. Wallace, it wasn’t even an option. He was going to emergency surgery and when it was done he would be a girl.

He called his lawyer to come down before he would sign off for the operation. He had waived his Doctor/client privileges so Joann could be in the loop and he wanted this kept totally a secret, save the staff that had to know. All the parties involved signed off and then he allowed them to do the operation. Grace would actually do the work as she was the one that had done his face as well.

When he awoke later that night he was all but sure his breasts were even bigger if that was possible. As the laughing gas began to clear, he remembered that he had told Dr. Grace he wanted implants, but he wanted the new ones that could be filled at a later date. Brian wasn’t known for being a kind person and when Dr. Wallace made his morning rounds, he found him asleep. Dr. Wallace knew that proverb well about letting sleeping dogs lie and decided to check again around lunch with Grace in tow.

Dr. Grace and Jenny arrived almost at the same time. Dr. Grace checked her work and then introduced Jenny as her new O.B.G.Y.N. With Jenny to help through the first stages he picked his new name as Brianna. She was up and walking later that same day and as much as Jenny wanted her to stay she was gone just four days later. Trust me, the hospital staff didn’t complain even a little.

To Brian, now Brianna, this changed everything. Now she was the fairer sex, she would also be seen as the weaker sex, that was not cool. She was feeling better every day and her boss knew only that she had been taken to emergency surgery, not why, and for sure not what had been done.

She went to her home state of Virginia and got her legal name changed as well as all her new id. For the moment she would still pass as a man and she intended to for as long as she could to keep her job. She would eventually have to learn what it was to look and act like a woman and she was thinking that Joann might could help her there.

Her swollen breasts had gone down a great deal and she could walk in the normal way now, so she decided she would keep her appointment with Joann for that day. As she walked in the building, she was trying to come up with a way to approach Joann about dressing and acting like a girl.

Joann was looking at the normal updates she got from the doctors about Brian. He had undergone some emergency surgery and his primary care physician was now listed as Jenny Clark. She knew Jenny well and thought it odd that she would take on a man for a client.

Brian had already told Joann how all the men on the squad took a turn in the barrel, so she knew what he was talking about.

“Is it your turn and are you still thinking about putting some effort into looking the part?” She asked with a smile.

“Well, I am sure I was passed over while I was in the hospital, but the men are thinking I am dodging my turn. That’s not true, so I want to make a good show when my turn does come,” he said with his head down.

There wasn’t an ounce of estrogen in this man’s blood as far as Joann was concerned. Sure he was pretty and the loss of his male hormones had softened him up, but he didn’t have a clue and she was sure of that. She decided to send him to see Donna. Donna was an old friend that ran the local theater and as women go, she made Joann look as if she was a tomboy, she was girl all the way.

“I’ll check with Donna, she is a dear friend who from time to time will take on a man like you,” she said, thinking he would baulk a split second after she had said it.

“Be sure she knows my crazy work schedule,” Brian replied as he was leaving.

The next week he was back at work with a sock where his manhood once was. Tomorrow he had an appointment with Donna to start learning all the ways of a woman. He had already embarrassed himself to no end buying panties and bras, he could only imagine what she was going to put him through. At least his new hair style would look right on him now out of the ponytail.

Now he noticed every woman on the street and how they moved. He watched them when they spoke, how they sat, and walked in those damn high heels. He knew his turn was coming soon as he had finally figured out the rotation. He figured he had maybe six weeks, give or take a few days, and he was determined to take his turn this time.

Another thing Joann and he almost never talked about was his ongoing electrolysis to remove his body hair. Hair almost never grows back where there is scar tissue and that was probably fifty percent of his body. Body builders were often clean shaven and that look was working its way to the general public. Brian was a clean freak to start with and when Joann pointed out how much cleaner he would look and feel hair free he finally gave in to the idea.

Ronald and Harvey had done a better job as Coco and Liz than any of the other men so far. Their shift was over now and after a few hours of sleep Brianna was up and off to the gym. After a hard work out that left her feeling somewhat invigorated, she prepared for her first visit with Donna.

Donna had requested that he wear panties and stockings or pantyhose along with a bra. She had everything else they would need and that he be prepared for many hours of work if he intended to do this the proper way. She had a beautiful voice on the phone and Brianna thought if she looked half as good in person she would really be intimidated.

She arrived at the theater at noon on the button. After the introduction, Brianna told her the idea was to be able to pass as a female hooker much like those seen on the streets these days. Donna didn’t reject his ideas, rather she told him that being a female was the first part of that, the clothes and the acting was the easy part.

Donna was a tiny little thing weighing all of one hundred pounds if she was soaking wet. Pretty didn’t begin to cover what Brianna saw when she looked at her and she often lost his voice working with her so close to her. It took her all of ten minutes to get her in a skirt and blouse along with a pair of low heels. She sized her up in nothing flat and then they started on makeup.

She did half of his face and then she let him try to copy what she did. He did better than she expected, as she had decided there wasn’t an ounce of estrogen in his blood much as Joann had told her at the start. It was nearly ten at night when they decided to call it good. She encouraged him to go home as he was, as much as she hated to tell him so there was no way anybody would know he was a man.

Brianna knew this was what she had to do now. Pretending to be a man would only last a little while longer as the changes in her body would soon be all to obvious. It was dark outside now and his apartment at Dade St. would be quiet this time of night as well. She had stared down soldiers in the field and never feared what might happen and now he/she was afraid.

The shoes were a pill to walk in and Donna laughed at him as much as he did at himself. Still he left fully dressed as a female for the first time and in the public eye as well. She sent him home with some makeup and some video courses he could watch and teach himself some of the different looks he could create with it.

At home that night after he had undressed he looked himself over hard in the mirror. To his eyes he looked a bit like a well toned female body builder, and he was still getting accustomed to the female pronouns, at least the guys couldn’t accuse him of going soft on them. He still wasn’t sure how he would break the news to them when the time came or even how he was going to make his Brianna persona fit in at work. For the moment time was on his side and with that thought he put on his nightie and went to bed.

The next morning she tried to recreate the look she had when she left the theater. It turned out something less than horrible in her own assessment, but there was house cleaning to do and she tried to do it wearing the heels. She never fell, but she came close a time or two and by lunch she sat down with the first of several videos she had to watch. She took an afternoon nap and was back at work by midnight. This would be her routine for some time to come.

She cursed under her breath each time she and Danny had to pass up some dealer working on a street corner. She calmed herself by thinking she would soon be on the street and they would be fair game then. It might cause some turf trouble with the drug task force boys, but she didn’t care if it did. Letting this upset her seemed to make her female hormones kick in and she often had what she called hot flashes.

Her next meeting with Donna went much better, although, even after she held his hips and walked him across the stage, he was still having trouble with the heels. She could tell he had practiced with the makeup and his mannerisms were much improved all of which she praised him for. It wasn’t till they were ready to call it a night that she saw his hands shaking as if he was nervous.

Joann had told her she had a lot of nerve damage and this wouldn’t be slam dunk from the start. Once again Brianna went home dressed as a female and doing her best to walk in the heels. Donna called Joann the next morning and they talked in depth about his nerve problems and how she thought this was his biggest problem.

“We hooked him up to a machine to read the electrical impulses in his nervous system. They were literally of the scale,” she said to Donna.

“This is what they call post traumatic stress?” She asked, sounding concerned.

“For him that is just the smallest part, he has just now gotten the pitch of his voice to come down a little. His reflexes are still off the scale,” she added, sounding sorry for him.

“Is there nothing the doctors can give him to take for it?” Donna asked.

“Sure they can, but he won’t take it. He is very particular about what he puts in his body,” Joanne stated as if it were common knowledge.

“Well, women are much more loose and relaxed and the way he is now I just don’t see him ever getting this done the way he wants to,” Donna replied as if it were a lost cause.

“I will see him tomorrow and take a stab at getting some muscle relaxers in his system, but don’t hold your breath,” she said as she ended the call with Donna.

Knowing his military service, Donna had taken the drill instructor approach right out of the gate. Now she was thinking that Brian needed a girlfriend type to do things with and just enjoy being alive, as it were. She had an idea, might work and might not, but she wasn’t one to accept defeat so easily. She was damn well going to give it a try.

The next day Matilda pronounced the last of his electrolysis was done. His body was now hair free and that included all of the area around his/her new vagina. Matilda was one of the few that knew he was now a she and she actually praised him for having the courage to do it. She had worked on many men like him and more than a few had chickened out when it came time for the operation.

Donna called and left a message on his machine. For their next meeting he needed to wear a string bikini under his sweat pants and top. She didn’t say more than that and he thought that was odd of her.

Joann pushed the idea of muscle relaxers on him with no abandon. He, of course, refused and she threatened to drop him as a client if he wouldn’t follow her directions. They had been seeing each other for over a year now and the last thing he wanted was to start over with someone new. He would have to relive all the stuff he had already told Joann and he wasn’t ready to do that. In the end, he agreed to take the pills making sure she understood it was under duress.

He took two of the pills before he started work that night and Danny noticed right off how much calmer he was. He didn’t talk too much and he didn’t go on about the drug dealers they couldn’t bust and so on. He even drank a beer with him after work which was something he normally didn’t do.

When he awoke the next morning, his hands were steady as a rock even after his morning coffee. The bikini he had bought for his next visit with Donna seemed a bit small, but then he had thought they looked that way on most women. He slipped on his sweats just before he left for the theater and this was still early in the day.

Donna met him in the parking lot flashing him her ever present smiled as she got in his car.

“I have a treat for you today and it’s on the house, you might say. Do you know where the spa is over on eighth?” She asked.

“I do,” he replied with a smile. “I am pretty sure it is females only and they won’t let me in the door,” he added.

“Well, you just drive us there and let me worry about getting you in the door,” she smiled even bigger.

It was just a two mile drive and Brian was greeted like an old friend. The muscle relaxers were still working or he might have bolted towards the door when they were taken to a hot tub and told to soak a while.

His jaw almost hit the floor when Donna stripped down to her bikini right in front of him. He would still say she weighed a hundred pounds or so, but now the first twenty pounds of that would be boobs. She was stacked for such a small woman, he told himself.

They relaxed in the hot tub for quite some time and talked about his upcoming assignment as a female. She informed him that with no doubt one of the great things about being a woman was that they could pamper themselves all they wanted and nobody cared.

“Yes, I would guess that is true if one can afford such things,” he added.

“That’s why they sell memberships and the occasional guest has to pay a much higher price,” Donna replied while showing him her membership card.

Between the hot tub and the muscle relaxers in his system he was feeling better than he had in a long time. From the hot tub he and Donna were taken to the massage area where they got a full massage with a scented body oil that was also to help them relax.

By the time they were taken to the mail parlor he all but felt like a limp dishrag, so much so that he almost fell asleep during the facial and manicure. The pedicure brought him back to life as his feet were ticklish, to say the least. The last of the clear polish was drying when he realized the girl that had plucked his eyebrows had gotten carried away. They were a thin smooth arch now that only a real female would have.

He wondered for a few moments if Donna had somehow figured out his secret. He had been very careful not to give himself away and decided that all this was just her way of getting him in the right mind set. So far it had worked as he had never felt so much like one of the girls in all his life. In reality he was one of the girls this was just something he had never done. The crowning moment of the visit was the makeup and the girl that did Brian’s went all out. When she was finished, there was no trace at all of the man known as Brian Moody.

Joann sat across the street at what was then a new concept. It was called an internet café and she was taking pictures of Brian’s trip into womanhood. There were more than a few parties that had a vested interest in seeing this happen to him.

The first tour lieutenant that had ordered Brian and his men to run was being charged with cowardice. The JAG office had interviewed Brian just days after he came home and decided what Brian told them in the end was true.

The men that had been shooting at them were way too far away to do any real damage. They were more or less herding them like cattle to the IED that they were all but sure to hit. The fifty cal. mounted on the Hummer would have been more than enough to stop the attack had the lieutenant not decided to run first. In the end, two men were dead and Brian and the lieutenant were both injured.

Joanna was the first cousin to the lieutenant and once the JAG office saw that Brian had gone soft and became a woman his testimony would carry very little if any weight. In fact, she and the lieutenant were banking on that very idea. Not only that, but they hoped Brian would be too embarrassed to show up in court as well.

Donna was being used and Brian while trying to put his life back together was clearing the way for the lieutenant to go free. Let us pause to remember the best laid plans of mice and men.

Back at the theater Brian and Donna worked most of the night on his walk in high heels. He did better that night than any before and Donna praised him for the improvement. She was the image of sweet and innocent and Brian blushed every time she complimented him anyway. Granted, it did great wonders for his ego as such, but he was still a long way from walking like a real woman that was for sure.

Back at Dade Street he used his camera with a timer to take a picture of himself. He thought, in a way, it was the best his face would ever look. He had already decided the spa was not a place he would go to alone even if he mastered all that Donna had started to teach him. No, he would never be a girly girl even if he tried, he might could pull it off as an act for a few hours, but it just wasn’t him.

Then of all things to happen on his very next shift he and Danny were called to the chief’s office.

“Have a seat, men. We have a problem and I want you two to help me fix it,” he stated it as if it were a fact.

“What’s on your mind chief,” Danny replied as if they were old friends.

“I am sick and tired of that so called drug task force working in my town. I want some dirt on them and I want it like yesterday so I can send them packing,” he stated as he looked hard at Brian.

“And what happens when they are gone?” Brian asked.

“We take all their files and start cleaning house,” the chief replied without any thought.

“You two have one week and all the overtime you want to make this happen. All I really want is hard evidence I can take to the mayor when I send them packing,” he stated plain and simple like.

Brian and Danny went straight to the task force locker room and planted bugs in every vest they could find. Then Danny went with Brian to the local store where they bought three new memory cards for his camera, then they waited for the men to arrive and start their shift.

They caught two men that first day taking a payoff from some street dealers. They caught three men the next day doing the same thing in a different part of town so they already had half of the squad by the balls. It took the rest of the week to get the other four and their Chief was caught taking a payoff from a fence to the tune of five grand to look the other way.

After they turned it all over to their chief he gave them a three day pass to rest up. He wanted these men to come to him and then he would hit them with the evidence. They could resign or face the charges and he knew well enough which they would do.

Brian had called Donna and Joann to cancel his appointments while he was on the special assignment for the chief. With three days off he had a lot of catching up to do and three days was a short time to do it.

Donna was all but ready to throw in the towel when she hit on the reason Brian couldn’t balance himself in high heels. Ballast! She shouted out loud to herself when she thought she had figured it out. She called Joann almost giddy after Brian had called her to make a new appointment. She didn’t tell Joann just what she had planned, but she was sure it would work.

After a good night’s sleep the clinic was his first stop and that meant a visit with Jenny now. Her exam was quick and with fresh hormones in hand she was out the door. He took two of the muscle relaxers that morning and his visit with Joann seemed to go well enough, but she seemed less than pleased that he had again dodged his time in the barrel. Never mind that he had drawn Danny in on his little trick as well. He left there unsure as to why she had scolded him since it was not his idea or plan to dodge his turn. The Chief had ordered him and Danny to do it.

The next day was planned to be spent with Donna. She had told him she wanted to try something different to help him master the high heels and at this point he was quick to agree with anything she asked if it helped. He had already bought some really nice high heels and it was looking as if he would never wear them right now. The highest heels he had bought were five inches and he couldn’t balance in two inch heels as of yet.

The next morning after coffee and taking all his medication he headed for the theater at about nine. It was as if Donna was walking on sunshine when she greeted him at the door, then went cold and stiff when she asked him to take off his top. He paused for a moment then decided his breasts weren’t nearly swollen enough to give away his secret.

From one of the storage closets Donna got a very realistic pair of breast forms.

“I have decided that the reason you can’t balance in the heels is that you lack the ballast most women have naturally,” she said as she checked them for size and fit to his chest.

In a matter of minutes she had them glued in place and gave him a bra suited to keep them there. Then he slipped his feet into the heels resigning himself to the idea that he would waddle once again across the stage as opposed to walking. After his first slow and easy steps, he moved across the floor like he had worn heels all his life. Donna was jumping up and down and clapping like she had won the lotto and smiling ear to ear the whole time.

Three, four, even five inch heels were like child’s play to him now. Donna was right, for him at least he needed the weight on his chest to balance out his body. After savoring her victory for most of the day, she took them off and he was right back to the way it was before. No more than two steps then the waddling started.

When he got back to Dade Street, Danny was parked out front and he didn’t look happy at all. Their absence last week hadn’t gone unnoticed by the other men. This also caused them to miss their turn walking the street and the other men had gone to the captain now. Danny had no clue about Brianna so Brian just invited him in for a drink. After pouring the scotch he asked Danny if he was ready to shake things up a little downtown. Danny told him he was long past ready, he just had no idea how to go about doing it.

Brian told Danny he had just finished a workout at the gym and needed to clean up a little and could he wait till he did. He told him sure, he was off today and his girl was working till ten that night so he was in no hurry.

Brian took his gym bag with the breasts he had borrowed in it and went to his room. He took a quick shower and then did an even quicker job on his makeup. He was actually pretty good at it now, as he had been practicing every night. Pantyhose and the bra fitted with the forms in place made his foundation. Then he put on the catholic school girl uniform he had found in the apartment and never thrown out. Black pumps with a four inch heel and then he let his hair down and brushed it. Danny was about to get the shock of his life as the skirt just did cover the cheeks of his butt.

A last quick look in the mirror and then he walked into the kitchen where Danny was seated like he owned it.

“I think this should shake things up, don’t you?” He said as he rested on hand on his hip.

“Holy shit,” he said as he jumped to his feet and headed towards the door backpedaling.

“It’s me, Danny. You are not in my apartment with an underaged school girl,” Brian said to an astonished Danny.

“You would wear that to work in? I can see your cheeks that skirt is so short,” Danny said as he gained some composure.

“Couldn’t you say the same of every real hooker walking the streets?” Brian asked.

“Yes, sure, but no way am I going to dress up with you like that and walk down the street,” Danny asserted.

“I wouldn’t want you to, but I do want you and you alone to be my backup,” Brian stated.

“Dressed like that it will take the whole damn police force to play taxi for all the men that come on to you,” he stated as he blushed.

“And we will gladly let them, but you never leave me. If you leave I am leaving with you, end of story,” Brian said as if it was a done deal.

Before they could seal the deal the captain called them and wanted them to come in an hour early for a meeting. They both said they would be there and Brian called the Chief to make sure he would be there as well. He told Danny to go ahead, that he would drive his own car to work tonight.

Brianna made a near panicked phone call to Jenny. She wanted to know if she could add the saline to her implants that evening before the end of her shift. Jenny told her she would be pleased to do it if she came in right away.

She didn’t tell Jenny her whole plan, but she knew he had asked because of work, not because he had accepted the fact that he was a female now. She was a bit confused that she wanted them so big, but she explained about the balance thing and she got what she wanted. Along with a healthy dose of pain killers once it was done.

She went home and got a short nap before she got dressed again and headed to the station. She knew the Captain and the Chief both had girls that were in school and catholic schools in that area was a dime a dozen. It was a guess, but neither knew the others daughter it would work. With his backpack holding his weapon and id he walked in the building and asked his own captain for the chief’s office. He assumed it was his daughter and said he was on the way there and she could wait till he arrived.

Danny arrived next and greeted the captain then sat down on the other side of the room. When the captain asked about Brian, he told him he was driving his own car in tonight and he was sure to be there any time now. The room was quiet for a few minutes and Danny knew full well Brian was already there.

The chief walked in talking on his phone with a voice that sounded like he was chewing on glass. He wasn’t happy, to say the least.

“I have never met your daughter,” the chief said as he stuck out his hand to Brian.

With an astonished look on his face the captain replied, “I thought she was your daughter. She came in and asked for your office,” he stated, looking Brian right in the eyes.

“Brian Moody,” he said, shaking each man’s hand in turn.

Danny was doing all he could not to bust up laughing as the two men were still trying to get their jaws off the floor.

Brian wasted no time taking advantage of their shock. “I understand there had been a complaint filed against me for not taking my turn on the street. So I am taking my turn tonight and every night I work from here on out till the men are satisfied that I have done my part,” he stated as the two men just stood there in total shock.

“Dressed like that,” her captain sputtered.

“Hell, yes," the chief replied for her. "She will clean house in no time,” he stated, a little proud just then that he had made a place for him.

“I want Danny in his street clothes at all times with me or the deal is off. And you can call me Brianna now, I think it’s fitting for a school girl look,” he stated as he turned on his heels.

That turn gave them a peek at her newly shaped butt and both men agreed to whatever she wanted on the spot. The captain was smiling now, but the chief had that deer in the headlights look glued to his face. How would he explain to the mayor and town counsel when the city jail started to overflow into the county jail. They couldn’t complain that he wasn’t getting the job done.

It was all the captain could do to conduct a proper meeting before his men hit the streets that night. Nobody believed that the cute little girl they saw was Brian, but when she got in the car with Danny they all knew something was up.

In three hours sixty would be Johns were taken to the jail. Every unmarked car the city owned was in service before the night really got started. Twenty-two street corner dealers got that same free ride and few had enough drugs on them to actually stay a while. Now, the real hookers were up in arms that some underage chick was working their turf. Twenty-five of them got a free ride and at that point the captain called Brianna in.

Eight men worked double shifts just to process all the paper work. Three lawyers from the public defender’s office and two judges went almost forty-eight hours with no sleep and none of them were happy to say the least.

At nine that morning, when the chief came back to work, he was all smiles. The news was out and the men from the drug task force were lined up at his door. Every man had a written complaint in his hand and they all left without a badge and gun as Danny and Brianna sat and watched. The chief was cleaning house and less than an hour later the mayor and two city councilmen wanted to see him.

The Chief took the mayor and the men from the counsel to the main meeting room. With Danny and Brianna at his side he listened as they all complained about how the fed’s had been forced to leave town and how the city would be overrun with thugs and drug dealers now. Having heard all he wanted to the chief stood and brought the room silent.

“Gentlemen, last night from midnight till six this morning two of my best officers did what the drug task force had not done in almost a year. This morning I have had no less than fifteen calls from our downtown merchants thanking me for cleaning up the streets of all the hooker and drug dealers that were keeping their customers away. And it only took two men to do what a whole task force couldn’t do. That said men, the first one of you that starts talking to me about my budget and political expedience will have my resignation before you can leave the building,” he said not taking a breath from start to finish.

The Mayor looked as if he had seen a ghost and the other two men walked out of the room without speaking at all. The Mayor lasted long enough to ask how many arrests had been made and he was told over one hundred and then he left as quick as he could.

The chief ordered breakfast for Danny and Brianna although it was more like lunch for them. They were in and out of court most of the day and only a few made bail or were outright released. The lot was moved to the county jail and just after dark Brianna and Danny hit the streets again. By now all the other men wanted Brianna off the streets as she caused far more paperwork than any of them had ever had to deal with.

She was like a dog with a bone now after seeing how the chief had stood up for her and Danny. By midnight the jail was full again and the men that processed them saw no end in sight. Brianna and Danny got an extra day off as appearing in court would keep them busy for several days to come. They cancelled night court so the judges and lawyers could go home and get some rest and that was what Danny and Brianna did as well.

Brianna caused such a stir everywhere she went that Danny followed her right to her apartment door and then went home himself.

Court kept them so busy that they didn’t get the chance to pull another shift on the street till Friday. The men in the vice squad offered Brianna everything they could think of to keep her at home, but that didn’t happen.

A black leather skirt topped with a black silk blouse that her breasts all but spilled out of was what she wore that night. The skirt just did cover the cheeks of her butt and it was so tight you could see the lines they made just the same. She decided to chance the five inch heels and was surprised that she walked as well as she did in them.

The collective sigh from the men when she walked in the squad room would have rivaled hurricane Sandy at her best. Cell phones appeared from thin air as men called their wives right then to tell them they would be late getting home and maybe real late. Home-wrecker was just one of the many nicknames Brianna had been saddled with already.

It was Friday, payday, so that night was worse than the Monday before. One officer jokingly offered his partner a twenty if he would trip her up and put her on crutches for a few days. His buddy sighed and said, no way, she would still look sexy even on crutches and every man in town would be offering her help. He would quit before he did that much paperwork.

The jail was full by five that morning so for force she and Danny were asked to come in. They just cancelled night court long before anyone would have to go without sleep. It would take four days in all for all the arrested people to make their way through the system. Revenue to the city by the end of the month was up by twenty-five percent and every officer on the force now knew about Brianna.

Every man in the vice squad now rued the day they had complained that Brian was dodging his turn. None of them had ever seen anyone make so many arrests in one night and, indeed, she had set a record. There was trouble brewing and it wouldn’t be pretty for Brianna. If every man on the force knew her by name, imagine what the news reporters were hearing about her.

The next weekend there were reporters camped out at the police station. The chief gave them a statement that did little to satisfy them as he confirmed it was a two man team that had been working the streets and making all the arrests. The stories about a beauty queen working with them were never confirmed and the chief wasn’t going to do that either.

It became common now for any shift that Brianna worked to be a triple digit arrest night. The repeat offenders were piling up fast and all too soon the judges were getting plea deals the likes of which they had never known. Most of the third time offenders offered to pay a larger fine and leave the state to never return rather than do prison time. The county jails were packed and then some so the judges started to accept at least some of these deals.

By the end of the month, the only sex a man could pay for was a thousand dollar a night escort and not many were willing to do that. There were no street corner drug dealers inside the city limits and the downtown merchants were happier than ever before. The press was far from letting the official story stand, but right now most of their snitches were doing time. Danny had taken to running interference any time the press got close to Brianna and actually spent the night at her place as a body guard on several occasions.

The mayor and the city council stepped in and suppressed any story that might reveal who Brianna really was. In short order any reporter that asked about her got a cold shoulder the likes of which would make the Antarctic seem warm. That ended much of the fuss over her, but her work spoke for her loud and clear. To mention her name in any ill manner was something akin to asking for a ticket on the next bus out of town.

Everybody was happy now, but nobody knew what Brianna was going through. Danny was like her shadow now and when she passed out on the street one night from exhaustion and lack of food, for him, the gig was over.

He scooped her limp body off the sidewalk, placed her in the car and made a flat out run to the naval hospital. He plowed through every red light and stop sign till he arrived at the emergency room door where he carried her in like a baby in his arms. He spotted an open operating room at the end of the hall and never broke stride and he screamed for help.

Two doctors and three nurses arrived just as he did and he gently placed her on the bed making sure she was comfortable before he stepped away. Her heart was beating but her body temperature was low and she was starting to turn blue.

One of the doctors turned to ask Danny what had happened and by now Danny was standing at the closed double doors blocking any entry or exit. Like I said before, he was a big man and with the nickel plated 44 in his hand he suddenly had everyone’s attention.

“She just collapsed, neither of us has slept in the last forty eight hours and she hasn’t had any food in the last twelve. Most important is that she is a police officer and my partner. I don’t care who dies here tonight, but it had better not be her. The first one of you that hurts her will be occupying the bed next to her,” he said as he cocked the pistol and put his back flush with the doors.

Danny’s words broke no argument and the tears that streamed down his face told them all they needed to know about how he felt about this woman.

Hot packs were place around her body and an IV was started just a moment later. An oxygen mask was placed over her nose and mouth and the pads for the heart monitor were placed on her chest. All attempts to draw some blood for testing seemed to fail. Her blood was so thick it just wouldn’t come out. One of the doctors paused just long enough to tell Danny she was dehydrated and the cold weather had made that problem even worse. As soon as they had some fluids in her and body got warm again, she would be fine.

“Do it,” Danny replied, but he and the 44 never moved.

A second IV was added to her other arm and by now the chief and half of the vice squad was trying to talk Danny out of the room. Danny told the chief she had asked for him to be her partner right from the start. Where Danny went she went and that was the end of the story. Hell would freeze over before he left her now. No one had ever seen Danny cry and by now the front of his shirt was nearly soaked, it was plain to see he wasn’t about to walk away.

It took most of three hours to get her body temperature back to normal and the pile of blankets that covered her left no indication of the woman underneath them. Her heart rate was climbing and another hour later her eyes fluttered open. The first thing she asked for was Danny and only then did he thumb the hammer down on the 44 and move to her side.

The doctors and nurses cleared the room in less than a second and even the chief knew better than to go in right that minute. Danny had lost one partner and it hit him hard, he wasn’t about to let that happen again and the chief knew it. One of the doctors had realized who she was and called Jenny. She arrived some thirty minutes later and with Joann in tow.

The chief pulled the two women aside and explained all that he knew about what had happened that night. He wasn’t sure how they would deal with Danny, but they had might as well get accustomed to him being close by, as he would not leave his partner no matter what happened.

His blood shot eyes and soaked shirt told Brianna all she needed to know. Danny had not abandoned her like others had in the past. They talked as she got her wits about her and it became clear to Danny that she was going to be alright. Joanna went to Dade Street and got her sweats to wear home as the hospital saw no need to keep her. Danny fed her while she was still in the bed and that did wonders to get her strength back.

He left her only when Jenny insisted that she be allowed to check her over before she went home. Joann tried her best to tell Danny about who and what Brianna really was, but with the lack of sleep he was fighting much of it went in one ear and out the other. She finally just gave him Brian’s military files and the copies of all the after care, reports from all the operations he had undergone.

When Jenny was satisfied that Brianna was okay, a friendly nurse offered to help her get the sweats on so she could stay warm for the ride home. Not realizing there was no personal relationship between her and Danny, she gave her a glowing report of how Danny had sequestered the O.R. and threatened everyone within an inch of their life if she was harmed. Not that she had to tell Brianna, but he had cried the whole time she was out and refused to leave her side. Men like that were priceless in her book.

She rolled Brianna in a wheelchair out in the hall where Danny and Joanna were sitting. Danny scooped her up ignoring all else and took her to the cruiser and then home where he carried in and put her back in bed. Secure and warm in her bed he took a chair and placed it beside her and that was where he slept till they both awoke some twelve hours later.

Danny ordered them a huge breakfast as he knew it was her favorite meal. She got up just long enough to shower and then Danny all but ordered her back to bed. He fed her breakfast as he looked over the files that Joann had given him. Brianna had no clue it was her file as she figured it had something to do with work. As he read through the files, he had to fight back the tears more than once or twice.

At twelve years old Brian had been found abandoned at a New Jersey airport suffering from phenomena and hypothermia. He died once in the O.R. and was brought back only to later end up in the foster care system. His teen years were troubled, to say the least, and he was in and out of the juvenile system some seven different times. His last arrest had seen the plea deal that landed him in the service and he was there for most of ten years before the incident with the IED.

He had endured some fifteen odd different surgical operations and the last one had cost him his manhood. Having read the list of broken bones and operations he had been through Danny wondered how she was even able to walk around. Half of his or her stomach was gone, three feet of her colon had been taken, it was no wonder now that she had passed out the way she did.

Knowing all that he now knew, including that fact that Brianna was really a female, he vowed then and there it would never happen again, not on his watch.

Brianna could see the growing concern on his face as she wrestled with the idea that he now knew the truth. He had held her in his arms so in some ways he had to know and she waited for him to let that macho man attitude loose on her.

The chief stopped by to check on her as did several of the other men and none of them were surprised to find Danny at her side. They had the rest of the week off, but if all was well, he wanted back at work come Friday. Brianna assured him she was fine and ready to go right then if he wanted. Danny agreed with her, but the chief had already filed the request for their time off with pay.

Danny’s girlfriend called and broke up with him as she realized that Danny wasn’t going to leave Brianna’s side till he was sure she was okay. That gave Brianna and Danny a lot of time to talk and over the next five days Brianna just let it all come out.

Danny never judged her or accused her of being a lesser man for what had happened to her. If anything, he felt for her all that much more as the story she told fit the files he had read almost word for word. He assured her he would never abandon her as he knew this had been a big issue in her life at one time. He never out right confessed his feelings for her, but she remembered what the nurse had told her that night at the hospital.

To him she was the image of everything beautiful and that was all he really said that indicated his feelings for her at all. On Friday night, when they started their shift, he had the car stocked with food and water enough to feed her almost every on the hour. To Danny she was all but fragile and he would do his best to take care of her, like it or not on her part. He had all but forced her to wear a long coat over her half naked body that night and she fought him all the way.

That night she busted two men from the Jersey mob with over a million dollars in payoff money on their person. Danny took the money and it never made it to the evidence locker when he found out the two men were actually robbing their boss. They were booked that night on solicitation charges and made bail three days later. Just as Danny had suspected they were found dead in the east river a couple of days later.

Brianna was back working as hard and fast as she could go and Danny knew she couldn’t stand the pace for long. She would collapse again and he did his best to slow her down. The men at the station would have for sure enjoyed the break as they were a week behind on the paperwork she generated already. Brianna had already become the departments best kept secret and she was headed for a burn out just any day now.

The chief had to all but peel Danny off the ceiling when he started talking about loaning her out to some of the other city departments. No, and hell, no, was Danny’s reply and Brianna would do it without Danny with her. Danny was one breath away from doing something he had never considered in his entire career. When he took Brianna home that night, he asked her how she felt about an early retirement. She laughed and told him she was all for it as soon as her rich uncle died and left her all his money.

Danny knew that was sarcasm as she had no family to speak of so that was never going to happen. Still it was enough to make him follow through and the next day he contacted a less than reputable banker he knew.

The million dollars he had taken that night some time back was put in an offshore account in Brianna’s new very real name. Nobody at the station knew that her cover as a female was real, save him, so no red flags popped up when he did it. Every chance he got he slowed her down and nobody understood why as she was cleaning house right and left and this was a good thing.

It was hard for Danny to leave her for very long at a time as he feared she would break down at any time. She slept fifteen hours at a time and ate like there was no tomorrow. She might have weighed one hundred and twenty pounds now and it seemed at the moment she wasn’t going to lose any more weight. Her breasts and hips had gotten even bigger as her waist had gotten smaller. Some had likened her image now to that of a hard body college co-ed and that was fairly accurate.

At times Danny almost felt like pimp. Putting her on the street was like offering candy to a baby and few men could resist her either. Six weeks had passed since she had collapsed the last time. Danny could see it all but ready to happen again and he called both of them in sick before their next shift. Brianna slept eighteen hours and never twitched a muscle.

When she awoke she and Danny had a long talk. He couldn’t stand by and watch her work so hard that she literally collapsed from it. This was love talking now and tears she saw told her so without him having to say so out loud.

Of all the people she had thought might give a damn about her, Danny was the last person she would have believed would really love her. Even after what had happened at the hospital, she had just seen it as him being there for his partner. Something she would have done had the shoe been on the other foot. This was far more than just being her partner.

She agreed to slow down and start keeping her doctor's appointments again like she should have been. This was agreeable to Danny and for the time being he was pleased that she had seen the light, as it were.

“No more double shifts and skipped meals either,” he added as she smiled for the first time in a long time.

Work took on a slower pace now that all the men involved were glad and then some to see. Shop merchants in the area where she worked sent her gifts on a regular basis and her money seemed to be no good when she shopped in their stores. She often went home with her car so packed she couldn’t use the rear view mirror at all. Gifts were legal and she accepted them with as much aplomb as she could. Her apartment was getting smaller by the day and she really wished she had the money for a bigger place.

Danny was there the day when she got the letter from the JAG office. She read it and then passed it on to Danny. As Danny read the letter she read his face and when he was done she didn’t wait for the question she knew was coming.

“Of course I am going to testify,” she said, sounding almost proud.

“The rules of the constitution don’t apply here. Do you have any idea what they will do to you on the stand once they realize you are a woman now?” Danny said as the shock registered on her face.

He looked at her dumbfounded not realizing what he had done. For the first time in almost a year he had admitted that she was a woman and, actually, called her that. She knew that he knew, but till that moment he had never said it out loud. Her heart swelled a little as she felt sure now that he did indeed love her. They had a week before the trial was to start and they arranged for the time off come then.

One thing Donna had drilled into her from the start was that a real lady knew how to make an appearance. According to Donna, a real lady could bring a room to its feet and stop all other conversation without saying a word. She had practiced many long hard hours on how to do just that and on the day of court she would make an appearance if nothing else.

The night before Danny took her to the spa and she got the works just because she could. Her nails were done to perfection as was her hair and she got all the latest tips on how to do her makeup. Danny stood beside her as she picked a long black gown to wear that day and fit her like a glove to the waist. From there it hung loose and was split up one side, almost to her hip. Each step she took revealed her legs to some degree and she could see that even Danny was impressed. The halter style neck like just did hold her ample breasts and she no plans to hide her assets come court day.

On the day, she and Danny sat outside the court room as the defense argued that Brian was not fit to give testimony in this trial. He had given in to his own urges to become the fairer sex and his or her emotions would taint any testimony given. The prosecutor argued that was not the case and the lieutenant’s actions had been the very reason for most of his suffering, not to mention becoming a member of the fairer sex. The judge ruled she could testify and that was his final decision.

The MP opened the door for her to come in when she was called.

Every man, including the judge, popped to his feet. The U.S. flag that stood in the corner of the room seemed to come to attention and neatly stacked papers suddenly hit the floor. She had indeed made an appearance and Danny sat in the back just beaming with pride. Just as she handed the judge a picture of the only mark that would prove he was Brian Moody the defense objected.

“Your Honor, there is no way this woman can be Brian Moody, the prosecutor is attempting to fool the court,” he stated with some vigor.

The picture was of Brian getting a ship's anchor tattooed on his right shoulder. Brianna turned and pulled her hair aside so the judge could see it and he politely asked her to take the stand.

“Objection overruled, the witness has satisfied the court of her identity,” he said, then slammed the gavel to his desk to bring the room back to order.

She carefully sat in the open front box the judge had offered and, when she crossed her legs, the dress fell open revealing two of the best shaped legs these men had ever seen.

The prosecutor, rather than stumble through his questions one at a time, just asked her to recount the day of the incident. In almost word for word detail, she told the story just as she had the first time and it had already been read in the court earlier. Her voice sounded as if it belonged to an angel and everyone there hung off every word she spoke. The defense was so leveled by her that he never asked her any question for fear he would damage his own case. She controlled the room for the full hour she was on the stand and the judge rendered his verdict in less than ten minutes.

The lieutenant was found guilty on all counts and Brian, even though he had made no request for it, would get full compensation. When she stood to leave the room, every man there stood as well and the silence could have been cut with a knife. She and Danny walked arm in arm back to her car and he drove them home smiling all the way. She never asked what the mentioned compensation would be.

Now, it was back to work and life as normal for Brianna. When Danny told the men they worked with how she had totally controlled the court room that day, she suddenly found a new respect from her peers. Doors were opened for her, someone was always close enough to hold her chair when she sat, men that once joked about how she dressed suddenly found out it wasn’t an issue. The chief even added another man to her security detail, as if Danny would allow something to happen to her.

None of this changed Brianna in any way. She thought it was cool now to have the respect of so many people since that was something she had never had in her life. Still she was just an officer for the city doing a job that needed to be done and that was all she would ever say on the subject, even to Danny.

They had eight weeks of vacation time saved up and Danny really wanted them to take it together. He kept hinting that there was more he wanted to tell her, but try as she may he wouldn’t just spit it out. She was doing her twenty questions routine on Danny as they headed back to Dade Street from her doctor's visit, but he wasn’t budging on whatever it was he was hiding.

She and Danny were starting a three day weekend off and she hadn’t checked her mail for several days now. She grabbed it all as they headed in to the apartment, as at least now she had the time to look it over. Danny was about to leave for his own place when he saw her eyes light up like diamonds. In the bottom of the pile of mail she had found that compensation the Judge had mentioned.

It was a check made out to Brianna Moody for the sum of seven-hundred and fifty-thousand dollars. Her eyes teared up when she realized it was Danny that had filed for the compensation for her. The letter attached from the JAG office made it clear he was the one that had done it. She wondered if he knew beforehand or had some idea that the check was there.

She endorsed the check, placed it in her purse and headed off to the shower, as Danny said he was going home. While her head was turned, he took the check and went straight to the same banker as before. Now, even after the fees, Brianna was still worth over a million and half dollars and she didn’t even know it yet.

He made a stop on his way home and bought two one way tickets to the Bahamas. If he had to propose to get her there he would, but that would be his last resort. He wasn’t about to admit he had committed a felony while he was on American soil.

The next morning he awoke her while he was packing for her. This time he didn’t ask, she was taking some much deserved time off and he showed her the tickets he had already bought. Her resistance finally gave way and she helped him finish the packing so they could go.

The flight was long, but almost as soon as they landed he kissed her square on the mouth.

“I have been waiting two years to do that,” he said and smiled at a shocked Brianna.

“What took you so long?” She asked as if she had expected it at any time.

“I wasn’t sure if it was okay for a flat foot like me to kiss a millionaire such as you,” he replied as they walked to the rental car booth.

“Just almost a millionaire,” she said as she smiled like he had seen her do.

They had gotten a good nap on the plane and they spent the day looking around the islands for a villa that was to her liking. On the third island they toured, she found one she really liked and it was for sale rather cheap. It needed some minor repairs, but was nothing she couldn’t do for herself. Eighty-thousand dollars would buy it and before she realized it Danny had talked her into it.

At the bank on the main island she got the shock of her life. She opened her purse to find the check was gone. She almost broke down in tears on the spot. Before that happened Danny handed over the papers that proved she had an account with the bank already. The bank manager had to turn his monitor so she could see for herself when he told her the account balance and the interest for the last quarter had not been added just yet.

It finally clicked in her head what Danny had done. He had opened the account and it was his money and hers together she was about to spend. She looked over the screen, but her name was the only one on the account, but she didn’t dare say anything to the banker at the time. The bank held the title on the villa and she paid cash for it on the spot. She would have to have a long talk with Danny when they were alone.

With keys in hand they returned to the villa. It was furnished, as the bank had been renting it out to the tourists for some time now, so there was little, if anything, they needed right away. There was even food and liquor stored in the right places and they unpacked and started to settle in.

Brianna knew how to get Danny to confess and she didn’t give it a second thought when she put on the bikini Donna had requested she buy some time back. She peeked out the bedroom door and saw Danny sitting on the terrace with a long neck beer in his short pants enjoying the tropical breeze.

After that night at the hospital and even after the nurse had told her how Danny had fawned over her, she wasn’t sure that anyone could love her knowing she was once a man. To her it was the elephant in the room and she made a vow to herself that if Danny ever confessed that she was a woman, she would likewise confess to him about her feelings.

Granted, he had taken care of her hand and foot and made sure she knew that he would never abandon her the way others had, that was not the confession she was looking for at the time. Now, he had admitted it and even stolen a kiss that she welcomed any time he wanted to repeat it. Was it too far out of the pale to think her protector for the last two plus years really loved her? And, if not, where did all the money and the idea of this trip come from?

The fear of rejection weighed on her as if it had already happened. If it did happen it would tear her world apart and she knew it. Danny had been the one thing in her life she could depend on and the fear of losing him was worse to her than the nightmare that plagued her life on Dade Street.

In a moment of inspiration she took off the bikini. She got the tropical scented oil she had been given at the spa and rubber her whole body till it glistened like a new penny. No one had seen her nude in years, if this wasn’t barring her soul, she had no clue what that really meant.

When she walked out on the terrace, sunlight danced across her lightly tanned body. Danny saw the fear in her eyes and stood to pull her close to him. For the longest moment she could recall he hugged her like she was a prize possession that he would never let go.

With his hands on her hips he lifted her to the railing, sitting her on his towel that he had hung there to dry. No words were spoken and none were needed as they exchanged a kiss that caused goose bumps to leap across her skin. Danny's face and hands broke out in a sweat as he stroked her hair and took in a vision that was his and his alone.

In words that only Danny could come up with, he told her he loved her. All his other life goals and dreams could wait as there was nothing he wanted now more than to spend his life with her.

Brianna read the proposal between the lines and simply said, “yes.”

With her butt on his forearm, he carried her into the bedroom where they stayed till well after sundown. As a man, Brian had had sex before. As Brianna, Danny was the first man to go there and they made passionate love till well into the next day before they fell asleep exhausted in each other arms.

The wedding was a simple tropical ceremony attended by only the needed witnesses. A few investments were made to secure the money would not run out and they soon settled in to their new home. Brianna took to going native, as was the island custom, like a fish to water. Seeing her nude body on the beach did nothing but keep Danny’s love for her all the more alive.

The last account of the couple was that Danny had been lost at sea on a fishing trip with some friends. Brianna, now in her sixties, still sits on the beach nude each night just before sunset as they always did, hoping the only man she ever loved will see her and find his way home. And yes, she is as beautiful as ever.

Finished.