Part VIII

If you're under 18 or dislike Transgender stories, don't read this.

I would like to thank Anyport for his permission to write this sequel to his story, The Transformation, and use the characters he created. I would like to thank Tigger for allowing me to include a guest appearance by his character, "Aunt" Jane Thompson. I would especially like to thank Steve Zink for editing such a very long story for me. Thanks also to my sorority sister Gwennie for the pic of Joan and Rose as dommes here in Part VIII.

(This story is set in the Vaingirls universe.)
©2003 Turn Right Productions

Rose turned back to Dainie, and spoke to her like a proud parent. "Dainie, honey, I am so proud of you! I'm so sorry I had to speak harshly to you earlier, but you do know that you deserved that, don't you?" Dainie nodded yes. "And don't you feel so much better, now?" Dainie shyly smiled, and nodded yes again. "Now, I want you to go down and wait for me in the car. Sukie misses you, and you can play with her till I come down. When we get home, you can change out of that horrid outfit - yes, I know you hate it, but it was necessary - and I'll do your hair for you in the twin ponytails you like so much."

Dainie was smiling, and almost jumping up and down with excitement. "You mean it? You really mean it, mumm ... I mean, Mistress Rose." She stilled, and looked fearfully at Rose.

"That's all right, dear. I'm going to tell Mistress Joan - you may call her Dr. Joan, by the way - all about us, anyway. Now, run along." Rose made shooing motions with her hands, and Dainie turned to leave. "Oh, wait. Tell Miss Robbie she can go on home. To come in tomorrow, as usual." She turned to Joan. "Is that all right, Joan?"

Joan nodded. She was beyond trying to figure any of this out as it went along, and was simply filing things away to be sorted later. If Rose really meant to do her harm, she could have done it at any time during the last twenty minutes, when Mr. Smith and Mr. Wesson were lying on top of the file cabinet, quite out of her reach. Rose made the shooing motions again, and Dainie left. 'My gawd, she's skipping!' Joan thought, as she watched.

"Sukie?"

Rose laughed. "Her doll. Look, Joan, why don't we relax. You pour us a couple of Jacks. I sure need one, maybe two, and I bet you do, too. If we were going to try to kill each other, it would be over by now. Let's sit, and I'll tell you all about the last couple of years of my life." She seated herself.

Joan nodded, and headed for the bottle of Jack. She was acutely aware of the fact that Rose had deliberately left the question of who would be left standing if they had tried to kill each other unanswered.

Joan poured for them both. She was just seating herself facing Rose when the phone rang; she stopped herself, rose, and moved to the desk to answer it. It was Robbie from the limo, seeking confirmation of Dainie's message. Rose watched Joan as she replied in the affirmative, hung up, and returned to the couch. 'So far, so good!' she thought, and began the story The Group had prepared:

"Joan, you heard Dainie almost call me 'mummy'. I don't really treat her as my maid, and dress her like that. I did that for the effect it would have on you and to demonstrate the control I have over her, should I choose to exercise it. Most of the time I have Dainie, my six-year old daughter. I did not tell her before this morning that we were going to do this, and you can see how terribly hard this was for her. You're a doctor, a psychologist as well as a surgeon, do you believe she was faking?"

Joan thought about it for a moment. "No, Rose. All the signs were there; she HATED what she was doing and how she was dressed." It didn't occur to Joan that she was not even thinking that the scared and timid creature she had seen was really male and really Adain Ben Hariesh. Rose reminded her.

"Adain's still in there, you know, and I can call him out if he's needed, but I don't like to do it, and Dainie doesn't like it. Let me tell you why.

"As I got used to being with Adain and Salielah, I found that, unlike I had expected, they were truly nice people. I found out that you and Lou and Ed had tricked them into believing that I was a voluntary shemale consort, and that the scene in the limo was to fulfill a fantasy of mine. In fact, I grew to love them; I still do, but I have to love Adain mostly as Dainie now."

"I noticed over time that Adain was not a happy man. Or a healthy one. Salielah showed me his last physical results, and they were scary; he was a walking heart attack magnet on top of a bunch of other potential physical disasters. He survived and prospered by sheer force of will. Inside his head, he was a mess, too. When he wasn't consciously controlling his personality, he became moody and withdrawn. His lovemaking was erratic; when he was up, it was skyrockets and Handel's Hallelujah Chorus intermixed with great tenderness; when he was down, he just couldn't get it up." She chuckled at the unintended pun. "He was never cruel, though, and terribly apologetic when things didn't go right. Outside the bedroom, it was the same. He would come in at night calm and confident, and within minutes, he was whining and complaining about little things like a baby. Salielah and I discussed it; she was at her wits' end, and I couldn't help her much. You see the pattern, don't you?"

Joan nodded. 'Manic-depressive.'

"One morning, though, he came into the kitchen where I was having a cup of coffee, having just finished fixing breakfast. He looked terrific - like he did the night of The Party, remember? The confident, impeccably dressed, in control male. His behavior was something else. The oatmeal was too lumpy, there wasn't enough pulp in the orange juice, and on and on. I snapped. And I did what I had determined to do earlier, but hadn't really done yet: I asked myself, 'What would Joan do?' You, I realized, wouldn't put up with this kind of crap. I grabbed his shoulder, pulled him around to face me, and cracked him across the face. Hard. He just stared at me open mouthed, in shock. I was acting on autopilot, or as I now think of it, 'Joan-pilot'. I pulled one of the chairs out from the kitchen table and turned it so that it was facing away from the table, and seated myself, never breaking eye contact with him.

"'Drop those pants!' I ordered. He looked at me. 'NOW!' He got the strangest look on his face, and did it. 'Over my knees ... NOW!' And he did it! Slowly, but he did it! 'Wow!' I thought to myself. 'If ... you ... are ... going to behave like a child,' I said forcefully, 'I ... will ... treat you like one!' And I smacked him hard right on his jockey shorts - ten times! And he took it! I remember thinking 'OHMYGAWD, I'm spanking my master!' and I swear, Joan, I could hear your voice in my head saying, 'None of that. Keep going! You're on the right track.' And I was; after ten smacks, I told him to get up, pull his pants up, and face me with his hands behind his back. He did, but he was looking at the floor. 'Adain,' I told him, 'look at me!'

"When he looked at me, I was shocked. There was a look of absolute peace and contentment on his face. All he said was, 'Yes, Rose?'

"I spoke to him as I would a child. I explained that if he wanted things a certain way, he had to tell me. I asked him if he was upset that I had spanked him, and he told me calmly that he had deserved it. Then he told me to do it again if I thought it was necessary, and asked me what he should do next! Well, I told him to pull himself together and go to work. He was smiling as he left, and I raced to tell Salielah what I had discovered.

"We began to treat Adain like he was a child whenever we were in the house with no one else present. He was a very pleasant and obedient child. I think he deliberately misbehaved in minor ways every once in a while just so he could get a spanking. At first this shocked me - understand I was raised white bread suburban - but as I researched on the Net, I found the desire to be treated like a child a very common fetish. We discovered almost accidentally that adult Adain would come out if we asked, so we asked him to come out and then simply asked him, why? What did he get out of it? Well, it turned out that he was much better, much sharper, and just generally felt better on the job because there was no pressure on him at home. I had suspected as much because that's what the research showed.

"Gradually, though, he began to make excuses not to go to work. It didn't matter much at first, because much of his work could be done at home or delegated, and Salielah and I began to have him teach us the business; the more he taught us, the more we would let him stay a child. He was becoming addicted to childhood.

"One day, we found him curled up asleep in a chair called The Maiden's Chair, a family heirloom. We could tell by his posture that he was in child mode. He looked so adorable that we decided to have some fun. While Salielah went and got my makeup case and some clothes of hers that would fit him, I got a brush, and began to brush his hair, which was long for a man, gently waking him up. When he was awake, we began to tease him that since he had chosen to sleep in the Maiden's Chair, he must want to be a maiden.

"I put his hair into twin ponytails, and he didn't object. Well, to make a long story short, he didn't object to any of it. When we were done, we had a little girl, no doubt about it, and there was no going back. From that point, 'she' was Dainie, and 'she' loved it! Little Adain had been a pleasant but quiet and shy boy, but Dainie girl was alive with fun and exuberance. She devoured girlhood like a starving person. Barbie was her best friend. If it wasn't frilly and lacy, she wouldn't wear it, and she demanded we teach her girl games and skills. It got harder and harder to get her to become adult him and go to the office. Finally, Salielah and I brought him out and told him he had to give us joint power of attorney for everything, which he gladly did. We told him that from that point on he would always be Dainie, our little girl, Dainie, and that as Dainie she had to do what we told her just as if she really was six years old. We would only ask for Adain in emergencies. He agreed, and signed the proper papers. As soon as HE had signed the last one, the pen fell from HER hand. That's when she started calling me 'mummy' and Salielah, 'Aunt Sally'. I think that Salielah was a little upset at first that she wasn't 'mummy', but she got over it.

"From that point, Dainie was with us on an almost permanent basis. After several months we sent her, as Adain, for another physical exam. The doctor was amazed. Almost all the physical results were normal for a healthy man in his thirties! He just told us that whatever we were doing, keep it up."

Joan interrupted excitedly. "Yes! I can see it! It must have been horrible for him, a sensitive little girl, in a boy's body, growing up in a traditional Muslim household. And then when she discovered boys, he had no choice but to think himself gay, and suffer all the stress of hiding that. His role models were the women in the household, but she was forced to act like a man, and his father would have demanded that he become a successful man. She had the intellect and ability to pretend and did, not even realizing she was doing it. The stress must have been terrible and cumulative. Rose, you most undoubtedly saved his life!"

Rose smiled inwardly. 'She's buying it all! I LOVE it when a plan comes together!' She continued to Joan. "Yes, I'm sure I did. Salielah and I. True, I have lost my lover, but I've found that I LIKE men, and there was and is no lack of them. As you knew and I found out, they are so easily manipulated, and can be trained to give pleasure in so many different ways ..." she smiled a Joan smile, "... as you know!

"I found that I had gained quite a bit, too." She let passion into her voice, and leaned forward. "Maternal love is so fulfilling, Joan! I can never have children of my own, but I love Dainie just as if I were her mother. And Salielah has become my best friend. When I was Ross, I had guys I called my friends. Then I met Lou and Ed. When I believed them to be my friends, when, toward the end, they were treating me as their girlfriend, it was better. But the bond I've developed with Salielah is incredible; we are like sisters by choice. Men simply do not know how much they are missing by not being women. Because I was a man, I do. I don't hate Lou and Ed for turning me into a woman; I could love them for that. I hate them for the betrayal of girl friendship!"

Now Rose upped her sincerity level. She looked shyly down away from Joan and at the handle of the whip in her hand. "I want that kind of friendship with you, Joan! I believe we are kindred spirits.

If two manipulative bitches like us CAN be friends, I think we should be. I did this little scenario today as a show of skill, inclination, and sincerity. Could I do to other men what I did to Adain without love involved, simply for money? I don't know, but I do know I have a lot to be thankful to you for. What do you say? Can we try?" 'There it is, on the table. Come on, Joan, pick up the ball and run with it!'

Joan thought for a minute. It was soooo tempting. She had liked Rose as a person right from their first meeting, although she had not let it interfere with business. And this new side of her! It was like looking at a younger sister - if it was real. She really wanted it to be real; she was psychiatrist enough to recognize that there was a void in her own life. Bitches like her didn't make friends; you either ruled or you served, and she had made sure she was the ruler! She didn't think she could get along with someone exactly like herself for long; an eventual power struggle was a certainty. But Rose, Rose, while apparently so like her, had a difference. Rose had a heart. Maybe they could work together. She had often thought that her total bitchiness made too many enemies, generated too many chances of getting caught in what, after all, were highly illegal activities. Maybe it was time she got a heart, even if it was an external one; maybe it was time to follow the Yellow Brick Road. Yes, Rose's offer of friendship was soooo very, very tempting. She WANTED a friend, badly wanted one, she realized. But was Rose for real? That was the question. Instead of answering Rose's question, she asked one of her own. "What do you REALLY want, Rose?"

Rose smiled thinly. "I didn't think it would be easy. Okay, Joan, you're right. I have some things I need your help with, and I'm not asking for that help for free. I can pay whatever you choose to charge, but since one of them has to do intimately with me, I'd like your friendship ahead of time, and money can't buy that."

Joan indicated she was listening.

Rose seemed to take a different tack. "You know, it's probably a good thing that I have Dainie now instead of Adain."

Joan raised her eyebrows in question.

"Adain was, for all practical purposes, gay. When Ross was still a possibility, using his parts for gay shemale sex with Adain was acceptable, actually quite pleasurable; Adain was a tender and caring lover, and our pleasure was mutual. I had and have no regrets. As time passed, Ross was a fading memory, but so was Adain. Still, I had become quite happy with my situation and determined to stay in it. Then an accident occurred, and while I was being rushed to the nearest hospital, wherever that may have been, a bridge collapsed under the car and I was plunged into a river. When Ross - Yes, Ross, the shock had put him back in the driver's seat - came to, he was in a hospital in Istanbul. I'll tell you all the details later, but the upshot is that HE wanted HIS life back. I thought he deserved the chance, so I acquiesced. For the last year or so, up till last month, he was attempting to do just that, reclaim his life. He failed."

Rose got up and began to pace. "One day back in May, he looked in the mirror and finally had to admit that it was HERself that SHE saw. He turned everything over to me. Ross is 98% gone mentally. I have his memories, and there's a little of him left. It's sort of like Dainie; in an emergency, I can call up Adain, and in an emergency, I can call up Ross if I need a shot of mental testosterone. But for the most part, mentally, as I say, he's gone. UNFORTUNATELY," Rose blushed, "physically, he's still embarrassingly present, although unworking."

Rose took a deep breath and straightened up so that she was looking down into Joan's eyes. "Joan, I want SRS. I want it as soon as possible, and I want you to do it!" She sighed, and her shoulders slumped a little. She sat back down. "And Adain wouldn't like that; Dainie doesn't care."

"ME!??" Joan had not expected this.

Rose shrugged her shoulders. "You're the best. Everyone says so." She gripped Joan's arms. "I want the orgasms your other patients rave about from 'Dr. Adkin's vagina'. I want SRS, and I want it done right!" There, it was out. When she had told The Group this, they had objected strongly. Only the fact that Robbie would be there as a double agent to protect her had convinced them to go along.

Joan nodded. She would hardly argue with such a glowing assessment of her skills. Just as she had, she believed, no false pride, she had no false modesty. She faced Rose. "You said 'things', 'some things', plural. What ELSE do you want, Rose?"

Rose opened the floodgates, and let her real emotions loose. "What else do I want? WHAT FUCKING ELSE DO I WANT!? I WANT THE HEADS OF THOSE TWO FUCKING BITCHES LOU AND ED ON A PLATTER, THAT'S WHAT THE FUCK I WANT!"

"You're hurting me, Rose," Joan said soothingly to the red faced ugly evil looking Rose who was now gripping her arms. "You told me you have them," she continued in her soothing professional voice, as she peeled Rose's fingers one by one from around her arms. "I assume you were not actually suggesting decapitating them, and yet you want a surgeon's help, my help; what do you have in mind, Rose?"

Rose's breathing was still a little ragged, but Joan could tell she was forcibly bringing herself back under control. When she again began to speak, there was a look of hatred and pure evil on her face. In a deja-vu flashback, Joan realized it was the same look that had been on her much younger face as she had finalized her plans for the vermin who had raped her.

"I want them sold, Joan. I want each of them to spend the rest of their lives as a slave to one of your 'special' clients. Not together, separate. Tucked away in separate harems, deep in some Middle East sand trap ... like I was!" She brought her fist down hard toward the surface of the coffee table, and Joan was able to deflect it to the couch cushions just in the nick of time. Rose wasn't done. "And I don't want someone nice, like Adain. I want the two nastiest creeps you can come up with, except I don't want killers - humiliators, degraders, yes, but not killers. I want those two to stay alive, I even want them living physically in luxury, but I want them birds in a gilded cage!" She slumped back into the couch in exhaustion.

'WOW!' thought Joan. 'And people think I'M a bitch!' "One problem, Rose", she began. "My clients are 'special' clients, as you know. They only like ... oh. OH! OHMYGAWD!" In a burst, Joan saw exactly what Rose was contemplating, what she wanted of her. "Here it is, honey," she mimed taking a badge off her blouse, "the #1 BITCH badge. You are evil, girl!" The last was said with grudging admiration. "Let me see if I've guessed right. You want me to do female to male SRS on them, turn them into shemales."

"Yes. YES!" exclaimed Rose, with growing excitement. "And breast reduction. I want a boy's chest with girl's nipples. Don't do anything else. I want them total girlie sissy BOYS! AND I want them sold at auction, not a private sale, I want them to go through being publicly sold!"

She slumped back, apparently emotionally drained, but inwardly she was thinking, 'Will she go for this?' Part of her hoped that she would. It would make her so easy to hate, and the guilt of punishing her would be so much less. Another part of her, though, hoped she would turn the plan down, that she would show a heretofore unseen potential for rehabilitation.

Joan WAS caught up in the evil, and thought the plan brilliant, but there was a small, nagging doubt. Did she really want to be THAT evil? She shook her head. 'Don't go all soft on me now, girl!' she thought to herself. She hoped Rose hadn't noticed her moment of indecision. She put aside any qualms she may have had about doing what Rose wanted to Lou and Ed. If she did indeed establish a true friendship with Rose, maybe they together could convince Joyce to bring Vaingirls on board as replacement feminizers. She also had no doubts about her ability to do the surgery - nice big cocks to impress the buyers, but maybe a bit TOO big to be comfortable for "the boys" - sort of like, on the other side of the coin, those really really big breasts she'd given poor 'Titerecta'. She giggled, and wondered how Rose would interpret that.

She thought of Lou and Ed, totally beautiful women from the neck up, femmy sissy boys from the neck down except for those new dangling bits, totally male, huge, uncomfortable, but oh so enticing to her 'special' clients. She thought of their humiliation as they stood naked like that before her clients. She almost wet herself! "Rose, what a deliciously wonderful idea! I certainly am glad you want to be my friend instead of my enemy. I'm sure I can come up with an 'appropriate' look for our two soon to be no longer ladies. Mutilation and public humiliation! They will be so sorry they ever laid eyes on you, my dear. But I'm not entirely heartless, I will make sure their new 'enhancements' are extremely sensitive; their bodies will take pleasure in what they will have to do - not so sure about their minds, though!" She giggled again.

Rose felt her heart sink. The hoped for rehabilitation of Joan seemed doomed to failure. Joan had done evil things, true, but her skills as a surgeon had done so much good for those transsexuals who had been able to take advantage of them. It seemed such a shame and waste to lose those skills if she were to be imprisoned. Rose had hoped to gradually convince Joan to abandon her shemale slavery activities and concentrate on really helping people through her surgery. She had even thought of a way to do it. But the indications here were that Joan was indeed a truly evil person. Sure, she herself had suggested Lou and Ed's punishment, but while it was a pleasant fantasy, she never meant it to actually be done. 'Well, maybe I want it a little.' She had to be honest with herself.

She could tell from looking at Joan, though, that she was near orgasm just thinking about what she could do to these two people who had never wronged her, had, in fact, been her business partners. EVIL! She had one ace left to play, and it could backfire on her badly. She shuddered, but it had to be done. There were a few more items of business to clear up first. "Joan, I know this is a lot, and there's more. I have two friends who also want SRS, the sooner the better, Elizabeth, Vaingirl's hair expert, and Jessica, the store manager. Then there is a third person, a surprise that I have as a token of my good faith. I know you're planning on selling Robbie, and I have a buyer for you; one rich enough to pay you just about anything you ask."

This was a new development in a day of new developments. Joan was convinced now that there was nothing spontaneous about today, that Rose had planned this down to the last detail. The question of her sincerity still remained, but Joan was inclined to believe someone who could come up with such an ingeniously evil plan as Rose had for Lou and Ed. Plus, on top of the excitement, there was the money. Three, perhaps four normal SRS surgeries, the special SRS surgeries for Lou and Ed, and now the thought of what she could charge for Robbie to someone who was willing to pay 'almost anything'. Letting no surprise show in her voice, she asked, "And who might this person be, Rose?"

Rose smiled, and instead of answering, she went to the door and opened it fully. "Time for your entrance, I think ... Sis." And Salielah walked into the Room.

Joan mentally threw up her hands. 'Why am I not surprised?' She smiled. "Hello, Salielah, a pleasure to see you again - especially if you're bringing cash."

Salielah laughed. She was wearing a normal brown business suit, but there was a sense of power about her every bit as strong as that of Rose. "I love you, too, Joan." She moved to Joan, and the two women air kiss kissed. "Nice to see you again, and I DID bring money. I've seen Robbie, and I want her ... with a few changes."

'Bingo!' Joan knew that Salielah was a lesbian. She would want the SRS for Robbie. "I think I understand, Salielah, and no problem with the SRS for her, but I had sort of thought, with Rose wanting SRS and all ..."

"I'm interested in men, Joan," interrupted Rose. "Adain saw to that. ('A little truth never hurts,' she thought.) I'm looking forward to trying their equipment through the front door, so to speak." She grinned. "I may just recruit that boyfriend of Robbie's, what was his name? Steve? Yes, that's it, Steve. I may just 'encourage' Steve to take my new virginity. Robbie won't have any use for him after we finish her ... training." Rose made sure that Joan caught the wicked look exchanged between her and Salielah.

Joan jerked her mind away from the cashbox for a moment. 'Must be civilized,' she thought, as she reached for the bottle of Jack. "Care for a drink?"

Salielah nodded. "My drink of choice, Joan." She watched as Joan poured the amber liquid. She was having fun. She knew Joan was a dangerous opponent and not to be underestimated, but, damn! It felt just like she was in one of those film noir detective films with Bogey and Bacall that their father used to have flown in for them. Picking up the glass, she knocked back the shot in one swift motion, and held out the glass for a refill. "How much?"

Joan did some quick calculations while she poured. She certainly wouldn't have to split with Lou and Ed this time, and Salielah was eager. Rose had brought $4,500,000, so she could easily charge that, and Salielah would pay it. On the other hand, she had come to the conclusion that it would be both good business and good for her to have these two as girlfriends. She certainly didn't want them as enemies; each by herself could be as nasty as she had been.

'Could be? Had been?' She thought about her tenses. Maybe it was time for a change; maybe she NEEDED these two as girlfriends. She made her decision. "Look, Salielah - you, too, Rose - I've never had any close friends; I'd like to be yours, both of yours, if you'll have me. It seems we have a lot in common. Salielah, I like Robbie; I'll let you have her for the cost of the SRS surgery, if you'll guarantee that she has the same good treatment you gave Rose. I'd also like to see you woo her a little; I'd like her to go voluntarily, if at all possible."

That statement, coming from Joan, the use of such an old fashioned and romantic term as "woo", was so unexpected that it momentarily knocked both Rose and Salielah out of character - not much, perhaps just a gentler look around the eyes or a slight lessening of the dominatrix power stance both had adopted, but it was enough for Joan to pick up on. And Joan Adkins, Bitch Royale, experienced an epiphany: 1) 'Maybe these two aren't the bitches they claim to be.' 2) 'I hope they are not!' And 3) 'I don't want to be a bitch anymore!' She realized she was tired of not having any friends, only competitors and underlings. She certainly did not want to end up like Lou and Ed someday when she finally met up with a bigger bitch than herself.

The kernel of good that was part of Joan Adkins, buried deep after her gang rape experience in high school, burst forth from its prison deep in her subconscious, and she felt a glow envelop her. 'Ohmygawd,' she thought, 'I'm gonna be like Jake and Elwood: On a mission from God!'

A mission to right some wrongs and to change long established habits and a long established image. And the first step would be to discover whether her burst of intuition was correct, that these two really weren't the bitches they appeared to be. An idea on how to find out came to mind, and she acted on it. She turned to Rose. "Rose, I'll be honest. I may want to make some changes in my life, and I'm not sure you two will welcome or oppose them. Here's what I propose. Let Dainie spend a few days with her 'Aunt Joan'. Then we'll decide what to do. Take it or leave it."

Rose was knocked for a loop. This was one of the options planned for, and it had been one of the reasons for "Aunt" Jane's training of Dainie. It had been viewed, though, as a worst case scenario; they had thought that Joan might use it as a test of how submissive Dainie actually was, whether her submissiveness was real or a trick on Rose's part. Dainie would have to go along with whatever humiliating scenarios Joan would think up, because it was essential that Joan trust Rose and look upon her as a kindred spirit, a bitch like herself.

But there had been hints that maybe Joan would change. For Rose, the Joan roller coaster was going up again. She wanted that outcome so badly - a Joan who would use her skills only for good, who would shed her dark side. And the task for helping that change along would rest almost entirely on the shoulders of a man who was playing a woman who was playing a little girl! Under the plan to simply take Joan out, Adain would simply have had to endure whatever Joan chose to do to Dainie, within reason. Now it looked as if he might have to use all his experience as a diplomat and businessman to complete Joan's conversion. Rose believed he could do it, but she wasn't happy about it. The Lord had helped Daniel in the Lions' Den. Would Allah help a Muslim man who had violated just about everything his religion said a man should or should not do? Would Allah help Adain - Little Dainie - in the Bitch's Den?

When the potential need to put Adain in the power of Evil Joan had arisen, Rose had initially refused to even consider it; it was too dangerous. Having fallen in love with Adain, nobly put him aside so Ross could pursue being Ross, having got him back again while so very afraid he would leave her, and finally finding out that he loved her enough to stay and change for her, she was not about to lose him now! Two things had changed her mind: First, Adain himself insisted on the masquerade; he was thoroughly and completely PISSED at The Three Bitches, both for what they had been planning for Rose ("What if it hadn't been Salielah and I who bought you, Love?") and for how they had tricked him and Salielah. Also, he was in no doubt about the evil in Joan; he hated all three equally. Second, double agent Robbie, with "his" Marine Corps training, would be there to protect him.

Rose made her decision. "What time should I bring her 'round?"