. ?”Aedan responded, tone irate. “Vander was injured. The First stabbed him before we went into the Fade. With no healer, and after being in the F...de for so long...”“He was dying,” Justice cut in. “He fought to defend the villagers trapped in the Fade, fought for justice. He would not have survived the blood loss. When I found myself in the real world, not the Fade, I ... helped. Together we could survive wounds that otherwise would have been mortal. There would have been no justice in letting. You could hear the door open...the buzzer as the clerk let the person through the inner door...the sound of the turnstile as the person passed through...then the click, click, click...of a woman's heels!Of course, I already knew what to expect but the sound caught the attention of the horde and almost everyone looked up, went to doorways, opened booth doors and tried to get a glimpse of whoever was wearing those shoes. I already knew what they were thinking : worst-case, it's a cross-dresser.. I've said itbefore, screamed it, whimpered it, but still I'm a man - over 6 foottall, muscular and hairy, and wishing the way I have wished since I wasold enough to know the difference. I want to be a woman.I may as well wish for the moon.Sometimes the difference between what I am and what I wish to be fadesto a background noise I can almost ignore. Today is not one of thosedays. Today, everywhere I look I'm stabbed by images of womanhood thatprovoke this desperate jealousy. It's a late summer. Did you think I expected you to wait kneeling at the door until I returned? I’m a bit surprise you picked Forbes; the other pets would have gotten something off the bookshelf. Then again, you were a bank executive before you came here.”“Yes Master, the books were tempting but I spent five years before I came here helping people manage their portfolios. I didn’t really care about the people so much as the numbers,” she admitted. “I guess seeing the magazine made me remember how much I enjoyed.