She shuddered and became afraid. ‘Tell me everything, Gwen. If this is going to work out, I need to know everything.’ ‘Before I met you I was fl...rting with my next door neighbor, and I didn’t even know his name or anything. I did stupid things, Steve. I was lonely, and he was so handsome and unattainable. I put on a couple of…shows for him. Sexy shows he could see from his bedroom window. ‘I thought maybe we’d meet and he’d be wonderful and sweep me off of my feet. But then I met you, and I. "If you ever wonder what the center of a plutonium bomb looks like right before it goes boom, that's probably it."Just like that ... Three shorts-clad pre-teen girls exited in close order amid "Let's go show you Bot-bot" and "Cindy's got cookies" and "I want you to show me the lab."I turned to Tim. "Dad, that's how you lose a daughter."Now, about that 'flying' thing. We – me and Tim – are really working at it. Mister Wally, the owner/operator of the airfield where everybody keeps their planes,. Neither of us studied for our midterms. I cut all classes and quit practicing racquetball. November third, Jade showed up at the studio for a marathon photo session that lasted two days. Monday morning, the shippers arrived and crated all our remaining artwork to take to Georgia.In a way, it was like having finished the mural. I was a little depressed and not sure what to do with myself. I showed up for class on Tuesday and took the ribbing from my professors. “Nice that Tony could make it. And I did.I was beautiful.More beautiful than I'd ever imagined, more beautiful thana boy has the right to be. A delicate, rose tint suffusedmy face, neck and shoulders. My lips looked darker thanblack cherries. My eyes were wide, glittering emeraldsflecked with diamond highlights. My trim, girlish figureseemed to have altered in the Alcove's muted atmosphere.Arms a little rounder, waist a little thinner, hips alittle wider. Even my features - effeminate though theyalready were - seemed to have.