While this is a family oriented story, my dears, it is not Disney! If you are under the age of eighteen, or over eighteen and either still living at home with your mother or offended by stories with a transgender theme, or both, please move gracefully on to the Donald Duck site. But wait, dear Donald does have a tendency to go about without his pants on; don’t go to his site! I know! Turn off your computer, and go outside and play; it’s ever so much healthier!

Oh, all right, you’ve twisted my delicate little arm. You may post this on your free site if you like, but if you charge even a penny, dear, please don’t.

This story is set in the Vaingirls universe.

 

Fathers’ Day                  by: Jezzi                   TrnRt1@aol.com     ©2000

 

Mike Mitchell stood on the patio deck, and stared out at his back lawn with ambivilent feelings. On this June Sunday morning, the house and lawn were ready for the Fathers’ Day cookout. Mike sighed. Nice house, split level ranch - and paid for, too. Nice Libertyville neighborhood, too. The quarter-acre lawn and flower garden looked fantastic, if he did say so himself, allowing himself a half smile.

It quickly vanished. It was a good thing, he thought, that he and Karen, early on, when they’d first moved in twenty years ago, had divided up the house labor, he taking the outside, she the inside. Yesterday had been a bad day, the culmination of a increasingly bad month, and the few times he and Karen had actually met as they prepared for today he had been moody and standoffish, actually snapping at her once or twice.

As usual, he had felt terrible about it, and, at the end of the day, had apologized. Karen had asked him what was wrong, but like so many times before, he could not bring himself to tell her the real reason for his behavior. He had mumbled something about a bad night’s sleep, but that wasn’t it; it was Marcie. Marcie, with whom he had a very definite love/hate relationship. Marcie, who made him feel so good, so relaxed when he saw her and touched her nylon and lace covered body. The same Marcie he had despised so greatly that he had many times sworn never to deal with her again, and many times packed up her clothes and put them out for Good Will - only to go out at night and retrieve them and put them back in the attic. Marcie, who was him.

Mike was a closet crossdresser, and when he was dressed, when the wig was secured and the lipstick was in place, he became Marcie. He and Marcie had co-existed seemingly forever. At least, Mike couldn’t remember when she hadn’t been at least a small part of him. He was the classic case, starting out young, dressing secretly in his mom’s and his sister Stella’s clothes. There had been a definite down turn during high school, when Mike had discovered sports. Wrestling, basketball, and baseball replaced dressing up, Barbie and tea parties with Stell. He suspected that Stell had known about his dressing, but nothing was ever said, and Stell had left for college when he was a freshman.

Marcie had come back big time his freshman year at college, when his girlfriend at the time, Patty, suggested he go to her friend’s Halloween party as a girl. All the old feelings came flooding back, and he had to exert real control to make himself seem reluctant. But, of course, he let himself be talked into it, and once talked into it, he had decided to go for the gold; if Patty wanted a girl, she’d get one in spades- the best girl he could be!

Patty had said she would help him, but he had said that he wanted to do it himself and surprise her. Mike decided to go all out, as Cinderella at the ball. Halloween day, he drove into Chicago to Vaingirls, the best transformation salon in the Chicago area, and had Joyce give him the works. At first, Patty didn’t know the beautiful and utterly believable fairy tale princess at her door. As realization hit her, her jaw had almost dropped to the floor.

Later, no one at the party recognized Mike, and the princess had a great time, even dancing and flirting with the guys. (Stell had taught him to dance the girls’ parts, and it all came back - "Remember, bro, Ginger did it backwards AND in high heels!") He never noticed that Patty was watching him with an increasingly disgusted look on her face throughout the evening. At the end of the evening, Mike won first prize. While the judges knew, he had had to remove his wig to finally convince the crowd that he wasn’t just another girl in a princess costume.

He had then looked around for Patty, but she was nowhere to be seen. Sharon, the hostess, had approached him and told him that Patty had left earlier with Rick Simms, quarterback of the football team and 6’5" of solid muscle; Rick had come as Tarzan. Sharon gave him a note that Patty had asked her to deliver to him. The note was short:

Dear Sissy pervert,

To think I ever mistook you for a real man! I thought you’d look funny, maybe a skirt with your combat boots, basketballs for boobs, and a yellow yarn wig. But you are way too good, and having way too much girl fun. You must have done this before - many times. I want nothing more to do with you. Stay away from me, or I’ll have Rick, a REAL man, beat the crap out of you. I’m going home to take a long, long shower to wash the ickyness of you off. YOU ARE SICK!!!!

Mike had been devastated. He really thought he was in love with Patty. When he finally met, fell in love with, and married Karen, there was no way he was going to tell her about Marcie. And for a long time, Marcie had gone away. Karen was the best wife and lover any man could possibly want, and later the best mother to their three sons, Mitch, Keith, and Kevin. Mike never desired another woman - except, starting about five years ago, Marcie again.

Mike had been at a conference in Omaha, and had run into, of all people, Patty. After a few moments of awkward silence, Patty had broken down crying and had appologized to Mike for being so cruel all those years ago. After leaving college, Patty had gotten involved in a talent agency where she had the opportunity to meet many gay, lesbian, and transgendered individuals. As time went on, she realized that basically they were just people like everyone else. She told Mike that she had unresolved feelings of guilt about how she had treated him that Halloween. As they parted, not necessarily friends, but not enemies anymore, either, she had reached in her purse and, after some searching, pulled out a photo of Mike as Cinderella, giving it to him as a keepsake. She had left him with the remark that she guessed the fact that he was better looking than she had been had a lot to do with her reaction that night.

After he got back home, he found himself more and more frequently taking out THE picture. He would feel the old desire to dress coming back, and then a rush of self-disgust and shame, and he would quickly stuff the picture back into its hiding place under a copy of Gibbon’s "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire". Nobody in his family was going to look there, he thought with a brief smile.

Finally, Mike could stand it no more; he called Vaingirls and made an appointment. It had been wonderful! Joyce had shown the other three Vaingirls Marcie’s Halloween picture from all those years ago, and they had all wanted to help. Joyce and Jessica had dressed him from the skin out, and the feel of the cool nylon of panties and bra, hose and camisole had caused tingles throughout his body, although, surprisingly, more of a relaxing than sexual nature, more like Mike was becoming who he should be. He was given a ladies-who-lunch outfit suitable to his age, and Joyce did his makeup to reflect that (another wonderfully sensuous experience; Joyce used her fingertips to apply the makeup!). Bethany did his nails, toe and finger, to match his lipstick, and Elizabeth styled his new mid-length blonde wig in a wavy bob style that complimented his face. Marcie was back, and she felt GREAT!

He was still feeling the afterglow of his enfemme lunch with the Vaingirls as Mike, now drab again, started the trip back out to the burbs. However, by the time he’d reached the Edens spur, the disgust and self-loathing was setting in. How could he do this behind Karen’s back? What if she ever found out? By the time he pulled into his driveway, Mike had vowed NEVER to do this again, and he hid his new wig and clothing behind the lawn tractor - something, he thought with that brief smile of his, his sons would never dream of disturbing.

And so the pattern had gone for the last five years. Frustration and moodiness building up as his resolve never to dress slowly crumbled, a secretive trip to Vaingirls, and a few weeks of good feeling ‘til things started over again. On this Father’s Day, it had been three months since his last trip to Vaingirls - and Marcie was in one bitching mood, clamoring to come out! But not today, Mike resolved, not on FATHER’s day! Sighing, he resolved to be pleasant today, and started to get the grill out of the garage.

Just as he was dusting it off, he saw his sister Stella’s late model red Range Rover pull in the driveway. Stella got out and waved to Mike as she headed to the back of the car and opened the back lid. Mike thought Stella, in her blue dress and heels, was a little overdressed for a cookout, but his sister, with her cover girl features and nice figure - Mike marveled that at 50, there were no apparent sags yet - looked really great dressed up. She began to get packages out of the back, but when Mike stated over to help her, he was interrupted by his oldest son, Mitch, just coming out the back door.

"Hey, Dad," called Mitch, "you go on. I can give Aunt Stell a hand." And he did so, handling the big packages with ease. Mitch was 23, with the build of a pro football player, and he had had offers. When he had graduated from college two years ago, though, he had surprised everyone and taken a job teaching English at a middle school in Phoenix. He had flown in yesterday, and was staying in the guest room. Karen had decorated it a little on the feminine side, and Mike had thought that Mitch might balk a bit about staying in it. But, no, he had only joked about "getting in touch with his feminine side". If Mike had been listening to Marcie, he might have wondered more about his son’s comment, but he was already ashamed at his behavior toward Karen that day, and wasn’t listening to Marcie at all.

"Whatcha got there, Stell?" Mike called. "Bill finally get fed up and kick you out so you’re moving in with us?" Both laughed. Stella’s husband, Bill, worshipped the ground Stell walked on. Bill and Mike both worked for the same company, AT&T Cable TV, as troubleshooters, and were good friends.

"No such luck for you, bro!" laughed Stella. "He’ll be along later, just wanted to check some stuff at work. This is just some stuff that Karen wanted. The boys can give me a hand. You go do your macho male thing with the grill."

At that time, his two younger sons came out to give Mitch a hand. Keith, 20, a junior at Northwestern, and Kevin, 18, a high school senior, both looked like their mother, relatively short at 5’8" and 5’9" respectively, with slight builds and delicate features. Together, they weighed just a little more than Mitch, and he towered over them at 6’2". People never thought Mitch was related to the other two.

With a, "Morning, Dad!" and a wave, they pitched in to help Stella. Shaking his head, Mike turned back to the grill, wondering what Karen could possibly have asked Stell to bring that required so many large boxes. He didn’t see the the other woman, who had been hiding in the back of the Range Rover, slip out and dart into the house.

A few moments later, Karen came out the back door and shouted to Mike that Bill was on the phone. As he came over, she handed him the pink cordless phone. Marcie liked the pink phone, but, of course, Mike had had to pretend to be indignant over the color. "What’s up, you damn workaholic?" asked Mike.

As Bill talked, a scowl appeared on Mike’s face, duly noted by Karen.

"Trouble at work?" she inquired, after he had pressed the off button.

"One of the lines is down," Mike replied, frowning, "and the guy, Stan, who would normally be available to help Bill, is out sick today, so I have to go in. I’m really sorry, hon. It’s way on the South Side, so it’ll take at least three, four hours. No time to set up for the barbecue, unless the boys can do it."

"The boys?" laughed Karen. "They don’t know from squat about your precious grill, here, and barbecuing. Barbecuing was always ‘Dad’s thing’. Don’t worry; I’ll make arrangements for us to go out to lunch when you get back. Take the cell phone with you, hon. Don’t worry about us."

Mike gave her a quick kiss on the cheek, shouted goodbye into the house, got into his old reliable Nissan pickup, and headed for the South Side. Just as he slid past the I-55 exit from the Dan Ryan, an hour and a half later, his cell phone rang. "Mike? Hey, buddy," Mike heard his brother-in-law’s voice, "good news. Stan showed up after all, and we got everything taken care of. You can turn that rust heap of yours around and head back to home and hearth!"

While ticked that he’d be spending another hour and a half on the road, Mike was pleased that it wasn’t going to be longer, and he’d be back home by one pm. The traffic was a little heavier going north on the Edens, and it was closer to two when he pulled in to his driveway. Bill’s yellow Miata convertible was sitting next to Stella’s Range Rover. As he got out, he noted that someone had put the grill away. When he entered the back door, he wrinkled his nose; something didn’t smell right, yet it wasn’t a bad smell. Mike couldn’t identify it...but Marcie could. It was the smell he usually smelled at Vaingirls, a mixture of makeup, nail polish, hairspray, etc., a VERY feminine smell. Mike was apprehensive; what the hell was going on? Marcie was delighted; play time!

Continuing on autopilot, his dual personalities sending him mixed messages, Mike turned the corner into his family room. And he stopped dead in his tracks. Six women, dressed and made up for an elegant evening out faced him, two standing to his left, two seated on the sofa, one seated in the easy chair, and one other standing to his right, angled slightly away from him. He immediately focused on the two on his left, Karen and Stell looked gorgeous; impeccably made up, Stell with her honey blonde hair falling in waves to below her shoulders and Karen with her vibrant red hair in a French twist. Stell was wearing a red silk Jacquard mid-calf sheath dress that showed off her tall slim figure very nicely. Karen in a classic knee length LBD, sleeveless, with a neckline that showed off her more than adequate bosom to full advantage while still remaining tasteful. Pearls at neck, ear, and wrist, along with 3" heeled patent leather pumps completed her outfit.

There was no immediate recognition of the three seated ladies, except to note that they appeared younger than Stell or Karen. Or the lady on the left, who was - she turned toward him with a smile on her face - OHMYGAWD! It was Joyce; Joyce, looking gorgeous in a navy pinstripe suit, her midnight black hair in a French twist identical to Karen’s.

It was, of course, Marcie who was noting all these details - except for the "OHMYGAWD!", which was from Mike, and was being repeated over and over and over again. What the hell was Joyce doing here? Did Joyce and Karen know each other? How much did they know about him? About Marcie? He was about to turn and run from the room when the two young ladies rose gracefully to their feet. OHOHOHMYMYMYGAWDGAWDGAWD! It couldn’t be, could it? They were dressed, made up and coiffed exactly like Karen, except both were blondes.

His worst suspicions were confirmed when the one on his right said, "Hello, Daddy; normally I’m your son Keith, but today, I’m your daughter, Krystal, and this," she indicated with a sweep of her arm... (Had he just thought "she", Mike wondered. Of course, she, replied Marcie.)...is one of your other daughter’s-for-a-day, my twin sister, Kirstin." Both girls executed perfect curtsies.

By this time, Mike’s jaw was practically hitting the floor. All three older women had big smiles on their faces. But Mike found that he hadn’t seen anything yet. Rising slowly but ever so gracefully from the easy chair, rising to her full, majestic, 4" heeled, big haired, 6’7" height, was a Reubenesque white RuPaul with what had to be DD cup breasts, a corsetted waist and very womanly hips, encased in a floor length purple sequined evening gown with a slit up to mid-thigh. A black boa was draped over her right elbow and left shoulder. Rhinestones in enormous quantities glittered at her wrists, around her throat and from her ears.

Just "big hair" didn’t do justice to the wild mane of fiery red curls that cascaded from six inches above her forehead out to the edges of her wide shoulders and down to the small of her back, and to rest lightly on her magnificent breasts in front. Her face was made up to make any man with even a tiny amount of submissiveness in him want to grovel at her feet. This magnificent creature walked, no, undulated over to a frozen-in-his-tracks Mike, and ran the end of the boa lightly down his cheek. "How do ya like your oldest daughter-for-a-day, Daddy?" She managed to imbue the word "daddy" with a sexiness that was anything but parental. "We decided that I should be the - ahem - flamboyant one!"

"M-m-m-mitch?" Mike stuttered.

Dropping the Mae West accent, and trying her hardest to keep from laughing, the buxom temptress said, "No, Daddy, I’m Michelle today." Taking his arm, Michelle led a numb and unresisting Mike over to the easy chair, and seated him. "Sit down, Daddy, and everything will be explained." She backed up and over to stand next to her two twin sisters.

"Mike," for the first time, a smiling Karen spoke, "you certainly aren’t being very nice or polite. It’s bad enough that you haven’t greeted me or your sister or your friend, Joyce, but it certainly is bad manners not to compliment your daughters here after they went to so much trouble to look nice for you. Although..." and here she looked fondly at her oldest daughter, "...’nice’ does not do justice to you, Michelle." Turning back to Mike, she took pity on him. "It’s all right, honey; we know about Marcie."

Mike was no dummy, and, though still somewhat in shock, he rose from his chair to the occasion. He turned to the two younger girls. "Krystal and Kirstin, you look lovely!" He turned his head to look at Karen. "Just as lovely as your mother."

"Why, thank you, dear," said a blushing Karen.

"Thank you, Daddy," said the twins in unison, standing demurely with downcast, but twinkling eyes.

"And you, Stell!" continued Mike, turning to his sister. "You’re four years older than me, but you look ten years younger. You’re gorgeous, sis. And YOU!" he exclaimed, turning to his oldest daughter. "My Lord, what would the guys on your old varsity squad think! By all rights, you ought to look like the drag queen from hell, but..." He did a quick aside to Joyce: "You did this. It could only have been you." He got a slight nod. "...you look gorgeous, like you’re about to step up and get your Oscar!"

"And for this, I deserve it!" laughed Michelle. "When I was Mitch, I thought just what you thought, and wasn’t going to have any part of this." She swept her hands down her sides in a curving gesture. "Then Joyce, here, said that if I did it, and when she was done I thought I looked like the DQFH, she’d pay me five hundred dollars and put me back to normal before you got home. Otherwise, I had to be your darling eldest daughter-for-a-day AND pay her; there goes the new VCR I wanted!" But she smiled at Joyce. "Lady, you ARE a miracle worker!"

Mike smiled at his oldest "son". "I could have told you never to bet with Joyce, so...uh, Michelle."

He turned finally to Joyce. "Okay, this has to be about me. My secret must be out of the bag, and Karen hasn’t handed me divorce papers, so what’s the deal?"

Joyce smiled. "What, no, ‘Hello, Joyce, you look gorgeous’?" Then she turned serious. "You’d better ask Karen, hon."

Mike turned and looked at his wife. All the old self-loathing and guilt, the legacy from Patty, washed over him, washed away his recent confidence, and he bowed his head in shame. "What do you want, Karen? A divorce? I am so sorry. I’ll leave; I can be packed in an hour. I know you feel like you had to humiliate me like this. I deserve it. But, oh, God, I love you so much!" He started to turn toward the door, and tears were running down his cheeks, when he was suddenly surrounded, gathered into a major hug by ten arms. (Joyce felt this, which she had anticipated, should be just family, but she had tears in her eyes, too.)

"Michael Marcie Mitchell! Don’t you do this to us!" said Karen, with a quiver in her voice and on the verge of tears herself. "Do you know how much work it took to get us all, especially your three children, looking like this? You know you do! You know it will all be ruined if we all start to cry! Do you WANT a room full of Marilyn Manson lookalikes?!"

That thought caused a distraught Mike to pause, and Karen continued.

"I love you, you big idiot! Your children and your sister love you! For the past five years, I’ve watched my previously consistently easy-going husband travel faster and faster on an emotional roller coaster, and it was driving the boys and I crazy. We wanted to help you, but we didn’t know what was wrong. We started getting answers about three months ago, during one of your pleasant spells. I found a receipt when I was checking the pockets of your leather jacket before taking it to the cleaners, a receipt from a place called Vaingirls, a receipt with ‘paid, Joyce’ written on it. God help me, I thought you were having an affair! I called Stell. I thought she might have some insight. While I was talking to her, the receipt was in plain sight on the kitchen counter beside me. Mitch was home at the time, remember, and he came into the kitchen." She glanced at Michelle and smiled. "Looking for food as usual."

Michelle proved her claimed acting ability. Backing out of the hug and straightening to her full height, she gazed haughtily down her nose at the other women and said with a sniff, "We big girls, unlike you undersized little things, need our proper sustenance!"

That turned the corner. Everyone, even Mike, broke up laughing, and the twins, again in perfect unison, looking UP their noses at Michelle, pronounced, "Bitch!"

At that point, everyone sat down and Michelle continued. "Not realizing she was on the phone, I asked Mom what she was doing with a receipt from a transformation salon. I know Vaingirls; I used to work in the deli down the block while I was in school, remember? I saw the women going in and out of there all the time. I realized after awhile, that there were a lot more women coming out than went in, and a lot fewer men coming out than went in, so I started to look closer. Joyce is good, but the average woman is not six feet tall, and there were a lot of six foot women coming out. So one day, I went in and just flat out asked, ‘Do you make guys look like girls?’ The gorgeous blonde at the desk - I think her name was Jessica - said, ‘Of course we do, honey. You interested? You’d make one big beautiful lady!’ Shaking my head, I just backed out the door." She paused, then continued. "Look at me now; was she right, Daddy?"

"She certainly was!" said Mike, almost beyond emotion now, just going with the flow. "Has she seen you, seen Michelle?"

"Oh, yes," enthused Michelle, "she picked out my outfit."

"All our outfits, Daddy, and Bethany did our nails," added Krystal.

"And Elizabeth did our hair for us," continued Kirsten. "She and Jessica and Bethany had to go back and run the shop for a small private birthday party," she added.

Karen took up the tale again. "Stella heard Mitch say, ‘transformation salon’..."

"...And I blurted out, ‘My God, he’s doing it again!" interjected Stella. "Naturally, your wife asked me what ‘it’ was, and...I’m sorry, Mikey...the whole story of our tea parties and dressing up and playing Barbies came out. You knew, of course, that I knew you were dressing up in my and Mom’s things. You didn’t? Well, brother dear, you should have, you left enough clues for any idiot to figure out. I had to cover for you to keep Mom from finding out. But I thought you had stopped by the time I left for college."

Stell had known! Well, he had suspected she did. Mike just waited.

What next?

"I called Joyce at Vaingirls, dear. At first, she claimed beautician/client privilege..." a chuckle from the group at that, "...but when I told her what we had already figured out, and what was happening to our family, she agreed to meet with Stell and me. She told us about Patty. What a cruel thing for her to do, dear!" Karen stopped for a moment, and went over to sit in her husband’s lap. She put her arms around his neck, and looked directly into his eyes, emphasizing every one of her next words. "BUT I’M GLAD SHE DID IT!"

Seeing Mike’s horrified look of "Why?" she continued more softly, "Because, you big silly, now I have you, instead of her! And I’m not going to give you up! I just have one thing to say about this little hobby of yours..."

"What?" gulped Mike. Here it comes, he thought. *Here comes the ultimatum: Stop or I lose her. Oh my God...* and he thought it like a prayer ...what am I gonna do?

"...If you are going to dress like a woman, you had better be a damn good looking one, and a convincing one, because I refuse to go out with a drag queen caricature of a woman!" And then, with a smile and a twinkle in her voice, "Unless the occasion calls for it, of course."

Mike couldn’t believe his ears. She didn’t mind? A thousand questions crossed his mind, but one had to be asked first. "But what about the boys?" he asked. Indicating the three daughters-for-a-day, "How...? Are they...?"

"Are they crossdressers, dear?" Karen smiled. "No. Although they might be after today. All of them, the BOYS, that is, are quite taken with the four Vaingirls."

"The three younger ones only, I’m sorry to say," interjected Joyce, smiling.

"They seemed to thoroughly enjoy their makeovers," continued Karen, "and none of them have been able to pass a mirror without looking in it ever since." The three girls, even Michelle, blushed, but didn’t deny it. "This was their idea, by the way. They love you, and they thought this might be a fun way to show you that you weren’t alone. When Mitch approached me with the idea, I couldn’t believe that three red-blooded American boys would be willing to do it. You know the short and to-the-point answer they gave me when I asked them that?"

Mike shook his head.

"’He’s our Dad.’ That’s how much they love you, Mike. And I love you enough that I don’t care how you dress or whether you call yourself Mike or Marcie. I LOVE YOU!" And she threw her arms around him and gave him the most passionate kiss he’d had in quite a long time.

A minute or two later, when they came up for air, Mike looked at all of them. "I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve all of you, but I’m too happy to question it right now. What now? Do I go change into my tux and escort my wife, my sister, my three lovely daughters, and..." looking now directly at Joyce, "...my very, very dear friend, to an elegant night on the town?"

All of a sudden, he was facing six shark-like smiles. "Oh, no, dear. In fact, Mike isn’t going anywhere at all. We already have a man in a tux to escort us." At that moment, Bill, looking resplendent in his tux, and every inch the proud male, stepped into the room.

"Nope," he said, "my good buddy and brother-in-law, Mike, had to go elsewhere tonight, but I think I’m going to enjoy escorting his long lost cousin, Marcie, out on the town. Go get him girls! I think I’ll just go out on the patio and have a beer. Don’t want to hear the screams when you start dealing with those bushy eyebrows!" And, whistling the tune to the Kink’s "Lola", he left the room.

The sharks closed in on an only token resisting Mi...Marcie! "Happy Father’s Day!" they all said, in perfect unison.

Very early the next morning, a tired but happy Joyce sent the other three Vaingirls off to bed. Everyone, including the finally free and gorgeous Marcie, had had a wonderful time. Karen and Marcie had made plans to go shopping for a new wardrobe for Marcie today, and Michelle had even made a date for Mitch with Jessica. Note: Joyce thought. *Find out if Jessica informed Michelle that she, too, was a girl with "a little something extra"*

She poured herself a cup from the ever full coffee maker, and sat at her desk. She opened a rather old looking file book to a page for October 31, 1977. She looked at the brief entry she had made there about a boy who really wanted to impress his Halloween date in a most unusual way. Something at the time had caused her to leave the entry unfinished. Now she finished it.

She pulled out her current file book, and under yesterday’s date, June 18, 2000, Father’s Day, she began three new entries. Something told her she’d better leave them unfinished.

 

END

 

(Thanks to Steve Zink, who edited this.)

 

© 2000
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