"Face it, Dave," Shae said as they drove up the New Jersey Turnpike past Newark Airport a few hours later, heading for I-80. "Your mother is doing her best to try to talk you into going back there."

"No question about it," he agreed. "It's not a simple decision; there are plenty of pluses and minuses on both sides. And I have plenty of reasons to be uncomfortable either way I do it. About the best I can come up with is either one of them has to be better than moving back into Battery Park."

"There is that," she conceded. "I wish there were something I could do to give you a different angle on it."

"To tell you the truth, Shae, I'm coming to the conclusion that maybe the best idea is to not think about it for a while. Just put it to the side, let it simmer, and try to get my mind off it. Talk about something else."

"Fine with me," she said. "What would you like to talk about?"

"Hell, I don't know," he said. "Baseball. Basketball. Bradford '88s. Books. Something."

"OK, baseball. I'm not much of a baseball fan, but I had a soft spot for the Tigers when we were in school. They could kick ass then, but they can't find it with either hand now. How about you? Still do or die for the big old D?"

"No, I'm afraid I'm a turncoat, the worst kind." He smiled. "I'm a Yankees fan as much as I follow it, which isn't much. I will confess to being a little softheaded about the Cubs over the Mets over in the national league."

"Well, we share that much," she agreed. "I have a soft spot for the Cubbies as well. But I lost track of what's going on in both leagues weeks ago. How about basketball?"

"There I do have a soft spot for the Pistons," he said. "If they weren't kicking butt, I wouldn't care much."

"I'm really not supposed to have an opinion, since I cover the NBA a little along with the WNBA, and that's not much anymore. I have a soft spot for the Pistons as well, unless they're up against the Nets. I know several of the guys there, and went out with Larry McDowell for a while."

"He's the guy you were thinking about marrying, right?"

"Yeah, a little," she sighed. "We were sort of engaged for a while, but we never got around to a ring. I mean, I knew he slept around out on the road; a lot of guys in the NBA do it. There were several things he had going for him, but the sleeping around mixed with his big jock ego kept me from going much further. He was the one who turned me on to the apartment; he'd lived there when he first came to the Nets, but it passed through some other hands before it happened to be available at the same time I was looking. We were never there much, though, mostly at his place. It's even more tall-oriented than mine."

"He can afford it," Dave nodded. "What was it, eighteen million for a four-year contract?"

"Five, with options. The damn fool should be investing it rather than throwing it around. I think that pissed me off even more than the sleeping around. Hell, I'm an adult; I like a little fun now and then. I'll admit I took a few opportunities for one-night hook-ups out on the road. I dialed it way back when I got seriously involved with Charley's House, and I have to be just as squeaky clean with Avalon. So, it means no more of the cheap little thrills I used to have, either."

"You mean like Mistress Grimm?"

"No, hell no, there was never any thrill in that. Just sometimes it seemed like a good idea for one reason or another. Let's just say I used to like to show off a little."

"Nothing new about that; you were always something of a show-off," he grinned. "I mean, as tall as you are, with heels, in high school."

"Well, yeah," she said sheepishly. "There was an element of showoff in it. But you know about the business about hitting my head. The heels brought door frames down to my eye level so I saw them in time. Well, usually, anyway. But every now and then, I used to get my jollies by showing off a little more than that."

"I don't quite follow you."

"Oh, hell, you're going to make me tell you, aren't you?" she sighed. "No further than us, all right? Eve doesn't know about some of it."

"I guess," he smiled. "You make this sound pretty wild."

"Well, yeah," she sighed. "I mean, considering. It was just a little innocent fooling around, cheap thrills, but still. You remember where Curtis Road goes over the Interstate a couple miles north of town?"

"Yeah, of course, I've been over it a few times."

"Because there's no interchange, it's usually not a very busy road. Back when I was, oh hell, it must have been fourteen, it was hotter than hell and Mandy Paxton invited me out to go swimming in their pool. The folks weren't around, so I rode out there on my bike, just in a bikini, with shorts on. Well, I got out there on the overpass and stopped to watch the traffic going by below. I don't know why I thought about it, but all of a sudden I got to thinking it would really be thrilling to be there waving at the truckers, but topless."

"So you did it?" he grinned.

"Not right away," she admitted. "In fact, not that day. But I kept thinking about it; it seemed exciting, like daring myself to do something forbidden. Well, I thought about it and rationalized it some. There's a two-rut woods road that takes off to the left into the woods at the west end of the overpass. It comes out not far from Mandy's house, and I figured I could duck down it and disappear."

"And you did it?"

"Like I said, not right away," she shook her head. "Hell, I must have ridden out there four or five times before I finally got up the guts to do it. So, I got there on my bike, right up against the rail, took my bikini top off and stood there waving at people for a couple minutes. I got honks and waves and people slamming on their brakes, but I knew no one from the freeway could get up to me easily since there's no exit ramp. This was before everybody and his brother had cell phones. The truckers had their CBs, but I figured they wouldn't call the cops, just other truckers."

"Sounds logical," he grinned.

"I thought so," she laughed. "Well, after a while I heard a car coming up the road behind me, so I got on my bike, pedaled like hell, raced down the woods road till I was out of sight, then stopped and put my bikini top back on. I was all excited and out of breath and hyper. It was really cool. I'd flirted with the forbidden and gotten away with it. It was really thrilling; I don't know how to explain it." She stopped for a moment, took a deep breath, and went on. "Actually, a bit of a kink, I guess. Like I said, flirting with the forbidden. It really was a heady experience for fourteen. It was probably half an hour before I got my heart rate back down and rode on down to Mandy's to go swimming."

"Did you do it again?" he laughed.

"Not again that summer," she sighed. "I mean, I thought I'd just barely gotten away with it; I thought I'd almost been caught. It wasn't until later I realized that if anyone would have come up on me from behind they'd have to get pretty close to see I didn't have a bikini top on. But all winter long, I kept thinking about how thrilling it was, how exciting, and I couldn't wait for summer to get there so I could pull it again. And right after school was out, I did. That time, I did it a little differently, just rode topless across the overpass and slowed up and waved at the traffic when I went by. Somehow, it wasn't quite as thrilling. You know how you get into something thrilling and forbidden; you go just a little bit further and a little bit further to see how close to getting burned you can get and still get away with it?"

"You're telling me you didn't stop at a little innocent toplessness?" he grinned. He didn't remember ever hearing the gossip circuit passing along any tales like that, so apparently she had gotten away with it.

"Nooooo . . ." she smiled. "It took a little thinking about. I was already a little concerned about the time it took me to get into the woods to get a bikini top back on, bottoms along with them would be even worse. The first time I did it, I had on a long T-shirt, it must have gone down to my thighs, it was huge, and I didn't have anything on under it. I just peeled it up, held it over my head for a few seconds, and dropped it back down. The part I didn't think about that time was I was a little sweaty after riding the bike out there, it was a hot day again, and it didn't want to drop right down, it sort of hung up a little. That was about the closest I came to getting caught. I don't think I was covered for two seconds before this car came around the corner. And my God, it was Jennlynn's dad, of all people!"

"Yeah, it would not have been very pretty if he'd caught you," he laughed.

"That's the point," she smiled. "To flirt with that kind of danger and get away with it! I don't think my heart stopped pounding for an hour! I don't think I had as big a rush the first time we won the state championships!"

"So, you did it again."

"Not right away," she admitted. "And I never did it very often, not more than two or three times a summer. I did it different ways. One of the ways that worked best was when I had a Spandex one-piece. It was big on me and didn't fit very well, it was made for someone heavier, but it was long enough in the torso that I could wear it. I could slide it off, leave it between my knees down below the railing, and get it back on my shoulders in a couple seconds. Believe me; I practiced it before I went out there, too!"

It was easy to sit back in the seat and visualize the scene, especially since Dave could remember Shae at the ages of fourteen and fifteen, along in there, even in a bikini on occasion. She was bigger than he was -- she always had been, as long as he'd known her -- but she frankly looked pretty good in a bikini back then. She probably still would, he thought . . . "I take it that it went all right?"

"Oh, yeah, nothing like the close call with Jennlynn's dad. In fact, it was a little disappointing. Somewhere along in there, I don't know when, it hit me that it would be more fun if I did it a little different way each time. Different places, too; there's a billboard a ways south of the overpass; that's what the woods road was there for. It's got a little platform on it, you know? There it was even easier to disappear, just run down to the end of the platform, jump off a couple feet and into the woods. I used it three or four times, and a couple other places, too. One time I did it at the overpass, but in the middle of December, with snow all over everywhere! That was after I had the old Monza I drove for years. At a total, probably not more than a dozen times or so; if I sat down and thought about it, I could probably come up with a number."

"I have to ask," he smiled. "Did you tell Eve about this?"

"Oh, God, one of them was the wildest of all!" she laughed. "Yes, I told Eve, early on, at least after her transition started. I was keeping so many of her secrets I thought it was only fair she have a couple of mine to even things up. Besides, this was in the period when we were finding out about the femdom and other nasty stuff we learned from Carl and his friends. Anyway, she was my accomplice several times, mostly driving the Monza while I flashed the highway. So, anyway, we're down to a couple days before graduation, and we knew she was going to be leaving right after the ceremony, and so she said she thought she ought to do it at least once. As it turned out, we did a double. Now, what you have to remember is this is a year before her surgery. She had long hair, a nice shape, nice boobs, and this shrunken little penis and balls. I don't know if any truckers picked that up but I sure did!"

"Now that!" he laughed. "That had to be one hell of a scene."

"Yeah," she said. "It was back in the days when we were so paranoid about people finding out about her that it wasn't funny. The four of us, Eve, her folks, and me, kept it among the four of us for years, all the rest of the time we were in Bradford and quite a while afterward. Well, some folks in Chicago knew, like at Dress to Desire, but that was a different animal. Outside of the four of us only people in the scene knew, and not many of them. There's still a lot of paranoia around trans people, Dave, and with damn good reason. The gays talk about homophobia; they have nothing on transphobia. Hell, a lot of gays have it, too. Dave, there are people killed pretty often just because they're trans. Granted, a fair chunk of it comes from pre-ops or non-ops messing around with guys they shouldn't be with in the first place, but it's really no excuse."

He could feel the conversation heading off into the morose, and it was the last place he wanted to go at the moment. "I don't have any stories like that," he said, trying to steer it back on course. "About the closest I can come is back in my early years at Columbia sometimes three or four of us headed out to some strip clubs, back before they cleaned up Times Square. One time we went to this drag club; the strippers were shemales, you know what I mean?"

"Non-ops can look very much like girls except for the equipment between their legs, right? I've met a few, Eve knows more, of course. Sometimes, they're pretty neat people, actually trans girls who found a way to make some money and save it for the rest of their transition, or to just make money, period. More often shemales are likely to come at it as a twist on being gay. It often doesn't work out quite as well, mostly because the bottom line is gay guys are interested in guys, after all. There are several flavors, including what you about have to call lesbians."

"You don't hang around New York for as long as I have without meeting some weird people," he replied. "But in that range, you can top me with weirder ones."

"Not from New York, so much," she said. "Except for a little carry-over from Eve, I'm not involved with the trans scene anymore. But in the five years from being seniors in high school through seniors in college, we were involved in the edge of the Chicago scene in one way or another. It never was heavy and got milder our last couple years of college when Eve didn't have to have much electrolysis anymore. Eve was actually around the Chicago scene a little longer, she did some graduate school studies on some of those people, again working through Carl. I was down in South Carolina by that time, though."

"So did you keep up with your flashing while you were in college?"

"Yeah, but it was a lot different. I mean, I never did a highway like that again I think it was thumbing my nose at Bradford a little. After my first year, my folks were down at Adairsville Georgia; Dad was managing the General plant there. It could get to be a long haul to drive down and see them, so sometimes I'd do things to perk things up. Like, I'd drive down the road with a short top and bare down below. If you were in a car down low you'd never see, but the truckers, especially the ones who doubled up, would get a pretty good peek. Or, if it was hot, I'd wear a button-up blouse with only one button fastened, no bra, and the window open so the blouse waved around a lot in the breeze."

"You're not the only one," he grinned. "I've seen it a couple times."

"I have, too," she laughed. "One time, I passed this girl driving solo in a car, and she got a real good look at me. A few minutes later, she passed me back, and she'd undone her blouse, too. We had a nice smiley wave back and forth. But yeah, the first year at Ball State Eve was still pre-op and we wanted to keep a low profile, so it was pretty mild in comparison to our sophomore year."

"I think I recall you saying both you and Eve were sleeping around some," he smiled.

"We were," she nodded. "Eve had the brand-new equipment, of course, and I suppose she was trying to prove to herself that she was a woman. She didn't have anything to hide after the operation, I mean, in comparison to before. I'd guess she hooked up with half a dozen different guys our sophomore year, just for one night of fooling around, and she was never caught as being a trannie. I thought it was pretty damn ballsy myself, but every now and then she'd do something that struck me as being a little risky. Anyway, she wanted to do more than just use the equipment, she wanted to show off the fact she didn't have the boy equipment anymore. She did it the intelligent way, though; she got a job as a nude model for art classes. Me, I just concentrated on trying to drive one guy nuts."

"I sense another story," he grinned. "Did you like this guy?"

"No way, he was the kind of guy who pissed me off to just look at him," she grinned. "You'll probably hear about it sooner or later if you keep hanging around Bradford '88s. I can't believe I actually told this story at the reunion! Well, I'd had two or three and Eve was coming so clean, I guess my mouth ran away with me when she needled me a little. Anyway, this guy was real religious and real obnoxious about it, I mean, you'd say 'Hello' and he'd reply, 'Do you know Jesus?' He was a Disciple of the Savior, like Jennlynn's dad, but even more full of shit."

"It's hard to believe but I suppose it's possible. So you were flashing this guy?"

"Yeah, just to get a rise out of him. It started out pretty clean. I was in the dorm's laundry room, and I don't remember why but I had my blouse unbuttoned, but my bra on. He couldn't make up his mind whether to stare his eyes out or get on his knees and pray for my soul. So, I decided to up the ante. The next time I caught him in the laundry room, it might have been a week or two later, I was loading the washer, and at the last minute I decided to throw the blouse I was wearing in the load. Still with a bra on, mind you, and it covered more than a bikini top, but this guy acted like he'd never seen a tit in his life. I guess maybe he hadn't."

"Maybe not," he grinned. "I've run across people like that."

"Right," she smiled. "Well I kept upping the ante until I walked out of the laundry room in high heels and thong panties, nothing more. Now, this was in the days before thongs were all over the place, I'd ordered them from Frederick's just to tease this guy. Well, that finally popped his cork. He was on his knees when I walked out. A little later, he comes into the cafeteria all prepared to give Eve and me a sermon, but we were all ready for him. Every time he'd open his mouth, we'd have a comeback that stumped him. Finally, he just started proselytizing anyway, and I told him, hey, I know your kind, so insecure in your faith you can't examine the beliefs of others. I'll tell you what, I'll go to one of your services if you'll come to one of mine. Well, he was still sputtering, he hadn't actually agreed, but hadn't actually said no when I said it was on the night of the full moon and he had to be skyclad."

"Wiccan, right?"

"I'm not Wiccan, but I've hung out with enough of them to be able to sound a little like one. Anyway, I had to explain that skyclad meant standing outside naked before Goddess, and he freaked. I mean, he just ran out of the room screaming like the devil was on his ass with a glowing pitchfork. I didn't see him much the rest of the semester, but finals week I walked into the laundry room, and here he was, so I gave him the full Monty. He wanted to run but I was between him and the door. Well, after I got stripped all the way down, I said, "Hey, tomorrow night's the full moon, you're coming with me, right?'"

"Ohhh, boy," Dave grinned. "That must have set him off pretty good."

"Damn right, he was on his knees screaming prayers when I walked out. I never saw him again. I mean never, he even blew off finals."

"What would you have done if he'd taken you up on it?"

"Hell if I know," she snorted. "I mean, I figured there wasn't a chance in hell he'd take me up on it, because I was right. He was so insecure in his own faith that he couldn't bring himself to examine the beliefs of others."

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