I just had time to think “Oh dear God please save me!” as the shark erupted from under my bodyboard, sending me flying. Even as I fell back towards the water, limbs flailing, that dreadful maw was gaping below me at the exact spot where I would land. My death scream was echoing in my ears when suddenly the noise of everything else stopped. So did I in fact, suspended in mid air, water droplets all around me frozen in flight. Below me the sea was unmoving and the monster that an instant ago had been poised to devour me was halted in mid lunge, it's head just emerged from the water.

“You can get down if you like,” a voice said “It won't hurt you for the minute”

I have no idea what I burbled in response but I somehow twisted myself around until I was standing upright on the water's surface. It rippled gently over my toes as if I was standing on a ledge just underneath the warm water, Behind me stood a figure like a man, but almost too bright to look at, with an enormous pair of feathered wings spreading from its mighty shoulders. On one level it was awe inspiring. On another something about its expression suggested a fussy and slightly crotchety old man

“I are – you – an?”

“Yes, I am an angel.”

“You answered my prayer?”

“Yes and no. Let's not jump to conclusions.”

“Surely you aren't going to let that thing eat me? You're an angel!”

“I am. And you're a human being. And that is where the problem arises. You have free will; I don't or only within very narrow limits. You used your free will to come galumphing into the territory of this poor shark, who is one of God's creatures and really can't be blamed for wanting to eat. It's not as if you didn't know there are such things as sharks or that they sometimes attack humans, you just chose to take a gamble. I'm afraid you lost.”

“What? Did you just pause time time to tell me that you aren't going to help me?”

“I did say not to jump to conclusions, You humans always wonder why we don't seem to answer your prayers, Well, free will is the answer. If we save you from the consequences of your actions all the time or even a significant part of the time free will itself becomes meaningless. There must be consequences to actions.”

“Oh God, I'm dead” I looked down at the open jaws of the apparently blameless-in-the -eyes-of-God shark and felt sick

“Not necessarily. You see there must be consequences to actions, but this is one of those occasions where we can give you a choice as to what consequences. You just sent up a very heartfelt prayer. Elsewhere in the world so did someone else. If you agree to answer that prayer, to be the answer to that prayer then I can answer yours.”

“Do I just sound stupid if I say I don't understand?”

“Not really. After all you've had a shock. More than one come to think of it. To cut a long story short, someone else has sent up a prayer as fervent and desperate as your prayer for life, to meet their true love, in time for Christmas. If you will be that true love, I can take you away from this situation you got yourself into. It's still a consequence, so you'd still be exercising free will

“So what's this woman like? I'm assuming there has to be a catch.”

“This person is a man; that's the catch. Part of it anyway.”

“I'm not gay!”

“Neither is he.”

I must have looked as glassy eyed as the shark

“If you agree I will help you become his ideal woman. His dream come true.”

“Arrggghhh!” Suddenly the shark looked a lot less worrying “What if I say 'no'? One quick bite and I go to Heaven, right?”

“Unfortunately not. Firstly, I'm afraid this shark is quite a messy eater, you'd probably have at least a minute of agony before you passed on and then of course, there's Purgatory.”

“What's Purgatory?”

The angel gave me a mildly irritated look “The quality of religious education has definitely declined. Purgatory is where you purge away your sins by suffering of course.”

“So what exactly happens there?”

“Well first of all you get eaten by a shark.”

“I meant in Purgatory”

“So did I. I'm afraid you've led this shark into temptation. You are about to give it a taste for human flesh that will lead to the deaths of a number of innocent people and, as the authorities react, quite a few entirely blameless sharks. You have to pay for that somehow and I'm afraid in Purgatory the punishments tend to fit the crime. Not that being repeatedly eaten is the worst thing waiting for you, oh dear me, no”

“But I'm not a bad person!”

“My goodness,is that really what you think? Oh well, I suppose you have to sleep at night somehow and it's true there's worse around than you. That Hitler fellow will still be trying to dig his way out of a pit of red hot ashes for half an eternity.”

“Wait, are you saying he gets out at the end of that?”

“Of course not; when he emerges from the ashes he joins Stalin trying to dig a trench through an eternal Siberian winter with his bare hands. ”

But I'll get out, yeah?”

“Oh yes, a few decades and you'll be done.”

“Decades?”

“You've got a fair bit of making up for things to do. Almost all humans do, but sooner or later you will move on to eternal bliss. God loves you all. You can torment yourselves and each other, you can rack up sins that will cost you millennia in purgatory but in the end God grants you eternal bliss despite yourselves. Even your free will can't change that. He loves you, you see, all of you. “

The angel paused and sniffed in a vexed fashion “Personally I don't see the appeal, but there you are. Put it down to His mysterious ways, I suppose.”

“So hang on. If I'm going to purgatory anyway why not just start now?”

“Well you can, of course,” the angel sniffed “its just a question of how long you plan to spend there. Right now you haven't many good deeds to your credit, but if you take this opportunity you're being offered and use it to spend a lifetime being a good person, well, who knows how much time off you could earn for good behaviour. Not that you can escape Purgatory altogether; only actual saints and true innocents do that. “

I looked down at the shark “How long do I have to decide?”

“All the time in the world. Literally. We stand outside the stream of time here. Feel free to ask questions.”

“Is this really the only way. For me to be a-a, to be female?”

“Humans constantly amaze me. Here you are being offered the opportunity to escape a terrible death and an even more terrible afterlife, to live a virtuous existence, to make a good man happy, to have a chance at earthly happiness yourself and you're actually thinking about saying no. Why? Are you afraid of knickers? Do you think blouses are going to rend you limb from limb? Have you somehow confused lipstick with fuming sulphuric acid? No, you just think it's some sort of comedown! I have no idea what He sees in you.” The angel sniffed disapprovingly again.

I sat down heavily on the warm water's surface. Again, it felt as if I was sitting on a surface three or four inches below the water. Little wavelets lapped around my bottom and tickled a vital part of my anatomy., the part in fact whose future existence was the subject of the debate.

“Can you tell me more about the, the man you want to give me to?”

“What would you like to know?”

“Well for a start, why can't he get a girlfriend without divine intervention?”

“Oh he can. What he prayed for wasn't a girlfriend, it was his ideal girlfriend.”

“Please tell me that isn't a bimbo with hair spray for brains.”

“Not at all. Physically he has varied types; you could choose between being a curvaceous redhead a curvaceous blonde or a curvaceous brunette. I don't mean fat exactly, but ample hips, bottom and breasts are a definite plus.”

Hmm I thought well at least I know I have something in common with him

“Oh, lots in common. Apart from him being a good person that is. Oh and clever, of course. Self sacrificing too. You can see why He wants to answer this fellow's prayers. Yours now, well, I suppose compassion and mercy is what He does.”

Did he just read my mind?

“Yes. You can't read mine though so let's stick to actual conversation.”

“Alright, so what do we have in common?”

“What do you look for in a woman?”

I froze. I knew the answer but didn't want to say it.

“A best friend”

“True, and?”

“Funny, witty, cheerful”

“True, but still not the whole truth.”

“Beautiful, vivacious, an artistic nature”

“Keep going”

“A sexy dresser but stylish not slutty. Except sometimes.” I confessed shamefacedly

“Still not quite all”

I slumped. What was the point in lying. Clearly you can't fool angels.

“A lady in the living room, a cook in the kitchen and um passionate in the bedroom.”

“And?”

“And that's it.”

“Not quite, and?”

“And totally devoted to me.”

“You don't expect a lot, do you?”

“Hey, there's nothing wrong with aiming high.”

“No but there's something wrong with dragging people down. She lost the child by the way.”
“What?”

“Kirsty. The girl you got pregnant and then fled across the world to avoid by becoming a surf bum and leading innocent sharks into temptation.”

“Oh,” I suddenly felt a strong and entirely useless, selfish and pointless desire to cry

“Remind me again why you object to being someone else? I mean it's not like you were making much of a go of it.”

I stared wordlessly and the angel seemed to soften for a moment

“They are happy now.”

“Huh?”

“The child. They are enjoying eternal bliss now. Innocents go straight to Heaven.”

“Oh. Thank you.”

“Shall we talk names?” the angel said gently

“I, I haven't decided yet,” I replied, glancing nervously at the shark beside me

“Of course, of course. Take all the time you need.”

There was a long silence while my divine guide looked down at me with perhaps a little more sympathy than before, or than I felt at the moment that I deserved.

“I suppose we could talk names while I think about it.”

“That's the spirit. How about Sarah. That's a nice name. It means 'princess' you know.”

I boggled

“Or how about Rachel?” The angel continued, impervious to my boggling “That translates to 'Innocent as a lamb'. “

I tried to imagine being named after a lamb, innocent or otherwise. Hell, if the guy they were fixing me up with knew what that name meant 'lamb' could easily become my pet name; a lot of guys give their girlfriends cute pet names. I should know, I'm one of them. I boggled some more. Then it hit me that my own girlfriendhood, if there is such a word, was actually a real and imminent possibility and I had to stop boggling to put my head between my knees.

“Deep breaths, deep breaths,” the angel said gently “I do realise this is a shock. You've devoted a lifetime to being male, it's going to take you a while to realise that being the opposite is the object now rather than something to be avoided. I can't really understand how you feel myself, not being human, but maybe if you remind yourself that what you once would have run a mile from is what you're trying to be, it might help.”

I gradually regained control of my breathing and sat up properly.
“OK. OK, maybe you have a point. Let's try again. Are there any good girl names that don't basically translate as 'piece of fluff'?”
'.
“Victoria means 'victory' which is definitely unfluffy, but for some reason humans always shorten it to 'Vicky' which means 'Person whose full name I can't be bothered to say'.How about Polly? That means 'Star of the Sea'?”

“Um. I like the translation better, but I just don't think I could cope with a name that sounds like a morning person.”

Let's see, there's a long tradition of girls being named after virtues, Faith, Hope, Charity, Ruth- “

“Ruth?”

“It means pity or compassion”

“Oh, all right, let's put those on the list.”

“That's the spirit. Now, plant and flower names are very popular too, Heather, Flora, Laurel, Ivy, Laura, Daisy, Tulip, Rose, Camelia.”

“How about Josephine, or Charlotte?”

“Well you must have realised that free will means I can't prevent you, but I don't think it's a good idea.”

“Why not?”

“Because I can see your thoughts and I know perfectly well that you chose those names so you could call yourself Joe or Charlie.” The angel shrugged “Do it if you want to, but believe me, if you go into this with that spirit you aren't going to make it work. And if you don't make it work you're just starting a whole new lifetime of opportunities to rack up bad karma for yourself.”

I sighed “I see what you mean. Alright carry on with the names.”

“Let's see, Kayla which means slim and fair, Rhiannon, pure maiden, Annabelle, grace and beauty, Amanda, fit to be loved, Seren, star, Chloe, blooming, ”

“I think that's enough to choose from.”

I looked at the shark again. I really was going to have to do this. “Annabelle,” I said “I'll be Annabelle. Grace and beauty it is.” Oh God help me I thought, and then remembered He already had.

“I think that's a very brave step,” said the angel, smiling properly for the first time “grace and beauty are fine things to aspire to.”

“I don't aspire to them yet, “ I said a little sadly “I don't even want to aspire to them. But at least I can want to want to.”

“Let's get you out of here then Annabelle,” smiled the angel. An instant later we were standing on a walkway under blazing sunshine. To my relief I was still a man.

“Becoming a woman takes practice,” the angel answered my unspoken question “You'll be gradually learning everything you need to know over the course of the next year or so. We'll be posing as father and daughter but you can call me Clarence, if it makes you more comfortable.”

“Clarence?? Did you just make a joke?”

Clarence, whose wings appeared to have vanished, only smiled.

A young woman who looked like she had just stepped out of a movie roller skated past wearing only a skimpy pink bikini. Oh sugar, that's the competition now, I realised Hey, where are we- oh no!

California girls, we're unforgettable
Daisy Dukes bikinis on top

“Oh my G-”

To be continued

Answer To A Maiden's (?) Prayer Part Two

“This is the work of the Devil, right?” I asked, discontentedly, staring at the colour wheel. Designed supposedly to help you choose what make-up would suit you, the wretched thing baffled me. I'd expected learning to wear make up to be embarrassing, even humiliating. I hadn't expected it to be intellectually challenging. Clearly I was going to have to rethink my whole definition of what constituted a bimbo. Maybe so-called bimbos had a reputation for vapidity because their minds were on higher things – like figuring out colour wheels!

“The Devil has nothing to do with it I'm afraid,” replied Clarence. “You humans make your lives so complicated the Adversary is hard put to it to keep up. These days he mostly sticks to straight violence and occasional politics.”

Since Clarence was, literally, an angel, he knew what he was talking about. He'd been masquerading as my father for a week now, which I suppose made him my guardian angel.

That didn't stop me being annoyed with him. As he rightly said, I needed to learn feminine skills so I was working on sulking and had been since he told me I couldn't change my new name from 'Annabelle' which meant 'grace and beauty' to 'Morag' which meant 'Great Sun'. The way Clarence argued it, if I changed my name once I'd keep changing it every time a new name occurred to me, and I'd never truly come to accept that my new, female name was really who I was now. The fact that he was probably right was doing nothing for my mood at all.

“Of course I'm right,” said Clarence, one of whose annoying habits was reading my mind “You're simply upset by all the hormonal changes you're going through. It's nothing to worry about. You physically can't stay calm and cheerful until things settle down a bit. Just remember this will pass.”

Clarence was probably right again. When I'd been told the deal I'd assumed Clarence would simply wave the angelic equivalent of a magic wand and turn me into whatever I was going to be, like the fairy Godmother in 'Cinderella'. It turned out that although God could have done that (or anything else He wanted) angels had to work with existing materials.

I hadn't understood the explanation but broadly this meant that Clarence couldn't turn me into anything my genes, suitably recombined and fiddled with, didn't have the potential for in the first place and although he could dramatically speed it up he couldn't avoid the need for me to undergo a new and female physical adolescence. I'd lost four stone in weight and five inches in height, not to mention most of my body hair and muscle mass over the course of the last month, a process physically gruelling enough that I'd spent most of it in bed with the worst flu-type symptoms ever. The fact that my fever dreams had constantly involved being attacked by giant sharks hadn't really helped either.

I'd refused to remove my knickers for the last ten days. I showered in them, slept in them and, when I really had to change or remove them, shut my eyes. There were changes going on in there which No Man Should Wot Of. Granted I couldn't keep this up for ever, but I was pretty sure I wouldn't be a man for more than another couple of days, no matter how you stretched the definition. After that, I could explore without forbidden Wotting.

No, what was getting me down today and causing me to panic, was that I had definitely budded; two little lumps, very sensitive lumps I might add, were under my nipples poking them forward to stand clear of the puffy skin developing around them. Given my current rate of development I reckoned that in a week at most my nether regions would have settled down to femininity and a week or so after that I would have full-on boobs, which, with the way I was shrinking would probably be a major part of my body mass.

I was completely and utterly terrified!! I was turning into a girl! My name was Annabelle! In order to avoid Purgatory I had to lead a life of virtue and achievement, starting with becoming a stranger's Ideal Woman! A stranger I hadn't met yet. How was I going to flirt as a woman? What could I say? “You had me at 'The alternative is being eaten by giant sharks'?”

“You're jumping too far ahead,” said Clarence “Stick to doing the things you can practice now and worry about everything else when you've got those learnt, or when you have to, whichever comes first.” Clarence was clearly determined to continue his streak of being annoying, sensible and right but it was good advice, so for the next hour or so I continued to practice my list of non-swear words. I didn't particularly like it when women swore and Clarence had been helpful enough to inform me that my destined partner felt the same way, so I worked on saying, fudge, sugar, gah, bother, blast, gosh, darn, blooming, oh my Goodness and scary biscuits instead of swearing properly.

“Argh!” I eventually concluded “Fudge! I can't concentrate any more. I need a break. Is it all right if I get changed and go for a walk?”

“Of course it is,” smiled Clarence sweetly “But do be careful. Remember, an adolescent girl is vulnerable in ways a young man is not.”

I just managed to stop myself from screaming I am not an adolescent girl! I was going through female puberty, so that's exactly what I was, no matter that I'd lived twenty-five years and no matter how much the thought frightened me. “Giant sharks” I murmured to myself “Just think of giant sharks”

The hot water of the shower soothed a lot of the aches and pains that seemed to come with my rapid physical changes. One of those changes was that my hair had grown about eighteen inches in the month since all this had begun and I took the opportunity to crunch handfuls of mousse into it. To my surprise it actually worked. A few minutes later I had fine thick wavy tresses instead of my natural straight, lankness. I'd actually done something right! Maybe this whole 'being a girl' thing wasn't going to be impossible after all!

Then I braced myself. Since this started I'd been sticking to jeans and shirts. Clarence had raised an eyebrow but nothing more, since there was no reason why a woman couldn't or wouldn't do exactly that. But what Clarence knew and I knew and I knew he knew I knew was that I was simply terrified to wear unambiguously female clothing. So I'd come to a decision: it was thirty-eight degrees centigrade outside, I was going for a walk, the time had come to grow a pair (of ovaries, obviously) and try on a dress. I had to take several deep breaths before selecting something summery from the wardrobe Clarence had supplied and slipping it over my head. After that I had to take some more to avoid hyperventilating.

The good thing about the dress was that as a light, floaty, short-sleeved piece of cotton, thin enough that it might have been see through without the brightly coloured flower patterns that covered it , it effectively came with it's own air conditioning. The bad thing was everything else. It suited me! It made me look pretty, carefree, delicate, everything I didn't want to be. Granted I had no real cleavage, but the cut of the dress gave enough exposure to my soft, smooth flesh and long legs that there was plenty to distract from that.

OK, to Heck (very good, Annabelle) with make-up, which I was no good at anyway, this was as far as I could bear to go right now. So, quick trip into town, buy a paper and a snack and back I came.

I hadn't gotten more than half a mile from the front door before I was wanting to swap the dress for a nun's habit, or maybe a burqa. No one had made any remarks, but the way people were staring made me worry constantly that someone was about to. Oddly enough, although they were more subtle about it some of the women were as bad as the men – it felt like they were rating me on the Slut-O-Meter. Whether they were or not, I couldn't have borne to wear another stitch. By the time I reached the town centre I was sweating, which was mildly embarrassing in itself and also causing me to give off great bursts of peach scent due to my generous lashings of perfumed deodorant. What with one thing and another I was as nervous as a carefully disguised cat at a dogs convention. So when someone shouted a crude albeit complimentary comment about my bottom I almost jumped out of my skin.

I turned to look at the man who'd shouted at me, a young tough of maybe twenty who looked as if he'd slept in his clothes and peed in them in his sleep (Later I was to discover that this impression was almost cer5tainly right on both counts) dithered for a few seconds between confronting the commenter and running for my life and while I dithered someone else jumped in

“Rocky, you apologise to that poor girl right now or I swear you can sober up on the streets next time and take your chances with the police.”

Rocky recoiled before a dark haired man a few years older than himself who'd just emerged from the door of a building marked Socal United Charities Homeless Shelter. To his credit, although the newcomer, who sported a staff badge, looked to be made of hawsers wrapped around crowbars Rocky's expression suggested genuine regret, rather than fear.”

“Hey, I'm sorry man, you know how it is, when you hungry and a steak dinner walks by somedays you just got to say 'hello'”

“That metaphor would work better if the lady was a steak dinner and not a person.”

“I'm sorry Miss, I didn't mean anything by it.”

I was no longer paying attention to Rocky however, because I recognised the Sir Galahad in charity worker form who'd come to my aid – Clarence had shown me a picture. A picture of the man whose prayers I had been transformed to answer. I was so not ready for this.

“I – oh -oh my goodness- “

When I came to I was indoors lying on a bed in what looked like a first aid room while several people stood around looking worried and Sir Galahad sponged my forehead with a cool cloth.
“What happened?” I said feebly

“I'm not quite sure,” my personal white knight replied “I think it was a faint, but I'm not quite sure if you were out or having some sort of a fit because all the time your eyes were closed you were babbling about fins and waves and huge sharp teeth.”

“Oh holy fu-”

End of Chapter Two

The Answer To A Maiden's (?) Prayer Chapter Three

I suppose there are worse nicknames to be stuck with than “Miss Steak”, even if it is constantly in need of explanation ( No, not Mistake, Miss Steak) but I still hadn't entirely forgiven Rocky for landing me with it. That said, in over a month of volunteering at the homeless shelter I'd discovered there was a lot more to him than the brash youth who'd compared me to a steak dinner before being slapped down by James, aka Sir Galahad, aka Hopalong, aka Shaft, the man who'd founded and ran the shelter.

James was called Hopalong because one of his legs was a prosthetic after the original one had landed, as he liked to put it 'Somewhere between Hell and Huddersfield but damned if I could find the spot.' during a rocket attack in Afghanistan. He was called Shaft because he had a long leather trench coat like the eponymous detective (No, I'd never heard of Shaft before I started volunteering at the shelter either).The reasons why he was called Sir Galahad are obvious – he can't see someone sick, cold, scared or hurting without wanting to do something about it. He'd managed to get a grant out of the city after the first year, so at least he was getting a basic salary and not paying all the bills himself but I knew he would have done the same work for nothing if only he could survive doing it. The respect he garnered as a veteran,plus the fact that he could break most people in half one handed was also a bonus in that the clientele, many of whom were frankly unruly, would listen to him in a way they wouldn't to most people.

They mostly listened to me too. I like to to think this is because of my charm, beauty and good sense and there's no doubt a lot of the people who come here enjoy talking to a young woman, but I think the fact that James has taken a shine to me is the decisive factor. I definitely am a woman now, physically anyway: the seething mass of flesh and mucus between my legs has settled down into labia major, labia minor, etcetera. I never thought I'd be glad to look between my thighs and see a pussy.

I may be a steak but it seems unfair to cover myself in sauce bearnaise unless I plan to be eaten, so I'm wearing jeans, albeit with flowers stitched on them and a loose shirt open over a stretchy top. The jeans are women's jeans and have a tendency to cling a little too tightly to areas which are more shapely than I'm comfortable with but there's definitely nothing indecent about them – in fact by local standards I look positively demure. (This isn't difficult; I don't know if it's the climate or what but in a beach town in California there appears to be a widespread belief that you don't wear clothes, you wear bait.)

Unfortunately there is no avoiding the stretchy top – my breasts have expanded from little buds to a B cup in the space of a few weeks. No one has commented on this fact but everyone stares. On the other hand I am the only young woman working here on a daily basis (Hannah and a couple of other girls in their last year of high school help out periodically) so the staring may be a comment on the fact that I have breasts to stare at rather than on their rate of expansion..

Things which are part of being a girl that no one ever warns you about beforehand, number 236; when your breasts are growing, they ITCH! I've had to spend a lot of time massaging cream into my boobs. The feelings this produces are just downright disturbing!

I'm in weird place sexually right now. Clarence explained it to me but I'm not at all sure I understood the explanation, which was full of phrases like celestial dynamics, the paradox of free will, the ineffability of the Divine Plan and non-determinative genetic propensities. As far as I could make out what he was saying was that most people are born with an inclination one way or the other but the potential to go either way depending upon their experiences and environment including hormonal and chemical exposures and social, cultural and psychological influences. Clarence says this summary is full of fundamental misunderstandings, but it's good enough for government work and he's tired of explaining. Not as tired as I am of listening!

Anyway, to give the best explanation my flawed understanding can for where I am now, Clarence has reset my genes to be as inclined towards liking guys as he can, which is about sixty-forty. As against this is the experience of my entire life! So, I'm trying to avoid thinking about girls or my past experiences with girls for fear of resetting myself so as to make a relationship with a guy impossible. This is not easy – see aforementioned comment about wearing bait. Even the sight of myself in the mirror makes me uncomfortable in ways I don't entirely understand. I say not entirely; one part I understand very well and that is sheer terror! Most men are polite enough not to come out with the sort of comments Rocky did, or at least not to my face. I don't think I'm being vain when I say that they are definitely thinking them.

Clarence's comments aren't helping. I was kvetching about how difficult all this was yesterday. He suggested that to get used to female heterosexuality I think about the positive aspects.

“Such as?” I said

“Well why not try imagining the soft folds of a beer belly rolling back and forwards across your stomach and breasts, squashing you beneath it as you gaze into a red, panting face above you?”. When I gave him a look he shrugged and said he was just describing what he'd seen.

“You really don't understand human sexuality at all, do you?” I'd said

“On an observational and theoretical level I know more than anyone alive,” he'd replied “but as to how it makes you feel, I'm very relieved to say I do not.” He smiled and settled back contentedly “I suppose that's one reason He indulges you so much. You're basically all crazy.”

So, rather than thinking of beer bellies when I cream myself (No, you know perfectly well what I mean) I'm trying to think of James, his smile, his kindness, his good sense. These are all things I like and admire and so is James himself. Massaging creams into my new parts definitely turns me on. What I don't know is whether the two go together – does James himself turn me on?

I really need to find out soon. James has invited me for drinks tonight. There's nothing unusual about that, the staff and volunteers here are a pretty sociable bunch and I've got to know them all fairly well. Tonight though I'm pretty sure, I'm almost certain....this is a date.