“It’s been a long time, months by now. He must be worried about you.”I realized that I hadn’t even told him about Mom.“I’ll go down and su...prise him,” I said. “I have his address in LA.”I flew down that afternoon. The grief of Mom’s passing was still there, but the thought of picking up my life with Duane again was a step toward coming to terms with it. On the way from the airport to his place, I began to feel increasingly excited.I knew that real estate in California is crazy expensive, so I. Any burst longer than three seconds would be wasting the batteries.All the while I’m looking at this little device measuring about 5” long, less than 3/4 inch in circumference; pretty cute really and (loaded with two itsy, bitsy triple-A batteries) thinking to myself, ‘no possible way!’ What happened next is almost beyond description, but I’ll do my best...I’m sitting there alone, Gracie looking on with her head cocked to one side as if to say, ‘don’t do it dipshit, ‘ while I’m reasoning that a. You have to remember that your father was a subaltern at the time. It wasn't proper to eat with his men and nearly everyone in the officer's mess outranked him. So, most nights, it was just the two of us."Corvus looked over his shoulder at the door of the kitchen where his slaves worked. "You cooked?"Malcolm gave a half-smirk. "I cooked in a war camp. The first few years, there was no electricity or gas. Your father had a wood-burning Oracle stove brought over so that I at least didn't have to. Jackson reasoned that, if he was going to live the rest of his life as a woman, then he wanted control over how she looked. When the time came for the procedure to begin, Jackson wrote a brief note for Braxley and left it on the door to the medical bay. It was a simple note, instructing Braxley to not touch any of the equipment inside until he came out. With the note secured to the door, Jackson had stripped and stepped into the treatment chamber. As Jackson regained consciousness, the.