"Yes.Because from this moment on you will live as a woman. Live as one of usuntil the ways we think and feel and behave become a part of you andmindl...ssly instinctive. Until you love feeling feminine the same ways weall do, and you can't imagine yourself any other way. That much beginsnow. In fact it began last week, when you decided to act on your owndesires and then informed me of them. Of course later on, if you findyou can't fulfill certain physical desires, can't gratify them. ”Ma and Rita got their heads together to see what they would need to make the ranch here more comfortable. Rita and I decided to spend the night here. I sent one of the hands over to the Owen ranch to have Rod Granger ride over. “Make sure he brings his blanket and utensils. He can stay in the bunkhouse with you when you get back tonight.”I wanted Rod to go to Cheyenne with Ma. Rod, in effect, was going to school, Ma, being the teacher. That’s the way she taught Sam and me by telling us about. There were still a few wandering round the place, the ones the Swarm hadn’t eaten yet. Mostly they were trying to make their way north to the front line. We helped them on their way with a trip through our transporter up to Novaya Zemlya. The Swarm didn’t like the cold, so the north was still reasonably safe. Safer than the forests further south for sure.Finding civilians wasn’t as common as finding trees. Cut them down, saw them into logs and send them through the tree-transporter. There’s not. I was told Lopper was at the local gin-mill just off post.I decided to visit the place.Thanks to the photo Roan had in the file, I knew what Lopper looked like. I found him ‘holding court’ in the area that had a pool table as it’s center attraction. Lopper was the apparent ‘shark’ and I watched him win several games in a row, mocking everyone he beat. I noticed the table was a ‘bangers’ table. The cloth was slow and the rails were worn, meaning that finesse was only marginally.