About twenty minutes before Jessica's frantic phone call had reached Joyce, Lou and Ed entered the lobby of the hotel housing the Whip and Cuff Club. They had used the time on the bus to utilize the things taken from Vaingirls. Badly needed temporary repairs had made them fairly presentable, although not up to their usual standard of immaculate feminine grooming. As they exited the elevator on the 16th floor, they immediately encountered Jack. He was seated in a chair next to the emergency stairway entrance. He was wearing earphones, and had his shotgun across his lap. Lou and Ed had known Jack for years, and knew that when the double barrel was out, serious shit was going down.

"Hey, Santa," Lou smiled at him. "Why the hardware?"

"Dr. Adkins and a couple of friends are one flight down, talking to Stella," Jack answered. "It seems Dr. Adkins thinks Stella's had enough of the abuse she's been taking these last couple of years, and is going to remove the tickling control. I'm offering her a job here at the club as a domme, but who knows how she'll take things. The doctor's got a lady Marine with her, but she's also got a BIG little girl with her - if you catch my meaning - sweet girl, seemed like she was really about six and scared but trying to be brave, too. I wouldn't want anything to happen to her, so I decided I'd be backup, just in case."

'Joan, here!?' Something was tickling in the back of Lou's mind; she could see by Ed's expression that she was thinking, too. "This lady Marine, big girl, blonde?" she quizzed Jack.

He nodded. "Big and blonde, but very attractive. Do you two know her?"

Lou and Ed looked at each other and nodded. Ed spoke this time. "Oh, yes, we know her. This big little girl, did they name her?"

Jack smiled. "Dainie was her name. She showed me her doll, called her Sukie." His smile widened, and it was sincere. "I do love children, and she was definitely a little girl, for all of his 5'10"!"

'His!??' A lot of things were starting to click into place for Lou and Ed. Ed turned and started pulling Lou toward their apartment. She shot a few parting words toward Jack. "Hey, good luck! Better hope you don't have to tangle with Stella. Mean bitch! We gotta get cleaned up; had a bit of a fire in our other apartment." Jack waved in acknowledgment.

At the door, Lou blocked Ed from view as Ed retrieved their spare key from its hiding place. She opened the door and they entered. This apartment was clearly for temporary use, sparsely furnished compared to their burned out home. To the two, though, it was heaven compared to what they had left. Lou started voicing what both were thinking. "Ed, something rotten's going down here. Joan's here, and Robbie, and Joan doesn't know Robbie's sleeping with the enemy."

"Or does she, Lou?" chimed in Ed. "It's not like Joan to show mercy. Is she going soft on us? Or maybe Rose has something on her. I think we'd better place Joan in the enemy camp, too - at least till we have more information ... and what about this 5'10" little girl that Jack slipped up on and referred to in the masculine?"

"'Dainie', Ed. Think. Who's the central character in all this?"

"Rose. ROSE! OHMYGAWD! It's Adain. What the hell kind of game is that bitch playing?! I need a drink, Lou, then I think we need to pull out the hardware, get downstairs, and see what's really going on!" Putting action to her words, Ed went over to a small cabinet that was doubling as an end table for the hide-a-bed couch that was their only bed there. She pulled out a bottle of whiskey and two glasses and poured them each a double. The glasses were NOT crystal, and the whiskey was NOT Jack Daniels - if the two had been wearing hats, they would NOT have been white.

While Ed poured, Lou pulled up the a corner of the rug to reveal a small cavity. She pulled two handguns from it; they were NOT Glockenspiel 7mm's, but were lethal all the same. She handed one to Lou in exchange for a glass. Both women threw back their shots, checked over their guns, and nodded to each other.

Leaving the apartment quietly, they came up behind Jack, who was apparently listening intently to what was coming in through his earphones. Lou raised her eyebrows at Ed, who nodded, and then whopped Jack right in the left temple with the butt of her gun; he slumped down unconscious, and Lou grabbed the shotgun before it hit the ground. She checked it, finding shells in both chambers. Ed checked Jack's vest, and found six more shells. She then tried to listen on the head-phones, but found she had damaged them when she had hit him with her gun; all she got was static. 'No use crying over spilt milk.'

Lou and Ed knew that all the employee rooms at the Whip and Cuff could be viewed through one-way mirrors from viewing rooms accessible only from the stairway. The mirror was also designed to function as a door if necessary. They descended the stairs to the 16th floor and faced two doorways, one giving access to the regular corridor of the old hotel, the one used by the employees' clients, and one giving access to the corridor that led to the viewing rooms. They took that one; they knew exactly where they were going, as they had viewed Stella's activities many times.

They entered the viewing room, and immediately glanced through the two-way mirror. Stella was truly the bird in a gilded cage. Her room was an over-the-top caricature of erotic feminine decor. Pink satin covered almost everything, and almost everything was rimmed with extravagant black lace. Where there wasn't satin, there was gilded trim around mirrors of every shape and size and locale, so that there was virtually nowhere in the room that a person could not see him or herself from a number of different angles.

Joan had done very little to feminize Stella, other than to add implants to create huge G-cup breasts. She looked just like a 6'5" linebacker for the Bears, forced to dress in frilly little girl drag after having lost a bet in a late-night poker game - which was the look Joan had intended. She was, in fact, not allowed to make herself look "real", although Jack's soft-hearted attitude could be seen in the fact that she looked much nicer and more feminine than she had when she arrived.

Of the other people in the room, the most notable by far to the two watching women was the 5'10" little girl almost crouching, trying to hide behind Joan. She looked scared to death, and, while dressed almost exactly like Stella, she looked absolutely real. "If that's Adain Ben Hariesh," Lou whispered to Ed, "someone has done a real number on him. If that's an act, I'll eat my hat! It had to have been ..."

"... Rose!" Ed finished for her. "And I bet those Vaingirls bitches helped! Well, at least we won't have to worry about ..." she sneered, "... her."

Joan was speaking, but their attention was drawn next to Robbie. She was standing between Joan and Stella, poised to intervene, if necessary. "That is one dangerous bitch!" remarked Ed. "If we go in, take her out first!" She pointed to Jack's shotgun. "Give her both barrels."

By the time they focused on Joan, she was finishing up her pitch to Stella. "... what you think of me. This is your chance to determine your own future. Jack says you can stay here as Stella as a domme, with top pay. I'll be honest with you, Stan, there are limits to even my skill. I can't give you your manhood back, but I'll help you all I can to be an attractive woman. Damn it, Stella - Stan, you hurt me; you hurt me bad! But that was a long time ago." She held out what looked like a TV remote. Stella flinched, but her eyes widened as Joan dropped it on the floor and crushed it with her boot heel.

They watched Joan move toward Stella with her arms outstretched. Stella tensed, and Joan stopped. Her voice calmed. "I know I told you when I brought you here that you could rot in this hell till you died. I guess I started to change when I found that Jack was actually a nice guy and was treating you better than I thought you deserved. I wanted to get on his case about it, make him be tougher, but I didn't. Lately, a lot of things have happened to make me realize that that rape so many years ago made me into a person no better than you guys who raped me.

"I thought I was being sensible, that being the biggest bitch on the block was the way to go and that humiliating MEN was only what THEY deserved - no matter what the individual man was like. Do you know I'm actually helping one of the men - well, she's not a man anymore, but it's by her own choice - one of the men I sold into shemale slavery to get revenge on the two women who betrayed him? I'm going to try to talk Rose - that's her name, now - out ..."

Joan never had a chance to finish. Half-listening to what Joan had been saying, the name "Rose" snapped the two watchers to full attention, and the import of Joan's words was not lost on Lou.

"That BITCH!" Lou screamed. "She's gone over to THEIR side!" And before Ed could stop her, she had kicked in the mirror door, burst into the room, and was swinging Jack's shotgun around to bear on Joan. Not having much choice, Ed followed, drawing her gun.

Caught off guard, Robbie was a split-second slow in starting to move and draw her gun. Stella, knowing the room, wasn't, though, and knocking Robbie out of the way, she threw herself in-between Lou and Joan, taking the blast meant for her. Joan dodged sideways to place herself between Lou and the now emerging Ed and Dainie. Robbie dropped, rolled, and fired her Glockenspiel 7mm at Lou, catching her right between the eyes; Lou was dead before she hit the floor. She started to swing the gun around, only to find herself looking down the barrel of Ed's gun. "Drop it, bitch!" snarled Ed.

"'Drop it, bitch???' My, how original," sneered Robbie, but she dropped the gun. Ed took a step and clipped her on the temple, and she dropped unconscious. With a "STOP!" she swung her gun toward Joan, who was trying to reach for the shotgun while still protecting Dainie. "Traitor!" she hissed. "Still, you are a doctor. Check her out!" She pointed to Lou.

Joan turned her head quickly to Dainie, who was terror stricken silent. "Stay here, honey; don't move," she soothed. "It'll be all right." She quickly moved to Lou. It didn't take a rocket scientist, but Joan felt for a pulse anyway. "She's dead."

"You're a dead woman!" Ed pointed the gun at Robbie and started to pull the trigger. Then a thought struck her. "Woman! Ha!" And then, looking at the unconscious Robbie, said, "Maybe I'll just leave you dead with your pretty panties down around your knees so the cops can see right away what a freak you are!" She paused in thought for a moment. "Later. I want you awake for this, bitch." She swung the gun back toward Joan, who had moved to Stella.

Joan knew without a doubt that Stella had taken her bullet, and that she ought to be the one dying now. She could tell that Stella's wound was fatal, but she was still conscious. Joan asked, "Why?"

Stella looked up at Joan. "We even now, Doc?" Joan, with tears running down her cheek, nodded. "Doc, I've had lots of time to think ..." she coughed a little, "I got what ... I ... deserved. Nothing wouldda worked ... a domme mighta been nice, but this place? ... No. ... Jack's been a good boss, considering, ... but too many memories. ... And too late to be a man again! ... No hard feelins, Doc ..." She started to say something else, but all Joan could make out was "... good girl!" before her eyes rolled back in her head and she died.

Joan sat there, and the silent tears rolled down her face leaving black mascara streaks. 'Good girl,' she thought. 'I said that to Rose, and look how she turned out. Look what she did to Adain, and she said it to Dainie. Maybe this is a Marley's Ghost thing. I must be being given a second chance! Look what I did to he ... him and sh ... he took a shotgun blast for me! FOR ME!'

In cold-blooded fury, Joan tensed, preparing to launch herself at Ed. Ed noticed, smiled viciously, and started to squeeze the trigger. Ed died, smiling with a bullet hole right in the middle of her forehead. When Joan looked down in surprise, Ed was sprawled on the ground on her back with her right arm outstretched. Her hand was covering the left hand of her partner, Lou; partners in death, as in life. Where had the bullet come from?

But then she thought of Dainie. The child must be terrified! She whirled around to find a man standing where Dainie had been. Oh, he was a man wearing makeup with his hair in twin ponytails. He was a man wearing a little girl's pink party dress and rather large Mary Jane shoes on his feet. He was a man clutching a doll in his left hand. But he was VERY definitely a man, and he was holding a VERY lethal derringer in his right hand, pointed toward the floor. "Hello, Joan," said Adain Ben Hariesh.

When Lou burst through the mirror door, Virtual Dainie, being a little girl with a great deal of common sense, had rushed to the virtual rec room, flung open the virtual door, and in a very unladylike manner shouted - virtually - "Uncle Adain, get your butt out here and take over!" - which he did.

As Adain surveyed the scene, he realized that Dainie was being discounted by the only bad girl left alive. Still clutching Sukie in his left hand and using her as cover, he used his right to reach inside the collar of his dress, down under his lacy cami, down to his left breast form and into the un-adhesived pocket left there, the pocket where his Glockenspiel 5mm two-shot derringer rested. Taking another look, he noted that Dainie was still being ignored by Ed, who was concentrating on Stella's death scene. He drew the derringer, and it cleared his dress collar just as Joan tensed to attack. He smoothly aimed and fired in one swift motion.

"Better check ..." Adain smiled, "... Aunt Robbie." He pointed, and Joan, her mind in turmoil, let the doctor part of her take over. She knelt by Robbie and checked her breathing, which was even. She pulled her eyelids back and noted that her pupils were not dilated.

"She seems okay," she said to Adain. "Help me get her on the bed." She and Adain lifted Robbie onto the bed; both thought Robbie looked quite at home resting on the pink black lace trimmed satin.

Adain placed Sukie on Robbie's stomach and pulled her arm up over the doll. "For when she wakes up," he told Joan. Then he sat down on the bed and just looked up at her, waiting.

Things had been clicking into place for Joan. She looked at Adain shaking her head. There was a look of mixed admiration and defeat on her face. "My Gawd, Ben Hariesh; you should be receiving your tenth Oscar, up there saying 'You like me; you really really like me!' I'm a psychiatrist, and I was absolutely convinced you were Little Dainie! You looked and acted absolutely adorable; now you look like a big guy in bad drag. It must be true that attitude is everything! Are you as good looking as a full grown Dainie? I don't count the maid."

Adain smiled. "Rose says I'm a - what was her word? Oh, yes, a 'total babe'. And I don't mind being Adainya, although I certainly don't intend to be her all the time. Even being Little Dainie was fun." Joan was amazed, as in the blink of an eye, Dainie was sitting on the bed. "Aunt Robbie and I really did have fun at FAO Schwarz today, Doctor Joan, but I think she got tired because she's taking a nap. Sukie said she'd keep her company. See." She pointed at the doll under Robbie's arm.

Then Adain was there again, and he turned serious. "Rose doesn't hate you Joan; you were - and I believe it is 'were'? - a bitch." Joan nodded. "But you didn't betray her and, to a certain extent, her 'What would Joan do?' story that she told you is true. She always hoped that you could be saved, redeemed, whatever you want to call it, but she couldn't be sure, which is why the dominatrix masquerade. She had to get you to trust her. Joan, Rose, as she told you, wants SRS, and you ARE the best in the business. She couldn't go under your knife without trusting you, and that meant you trusting her, no matter whether you were good or evil Joan. I had to be absolutely convincing, and I was trained by the best, Jane Thompson; maybe you've heard of her?"

"You were trained by Jane Thompson?!" exclaimed Joan. "No wonder you are so damn good! The woman is a legend! Our paths went in different directions, but I've certainly heard of her." Suddenly she got a suspicious look in her eye. "How do you stand on Rose having SRS, Adain? You originally wanted her because you liked 'special' men."

"A fair question, Joan," said Adain, calmly. "I support Rose one hundred percent, and I'll tell you the same thing I told her when she thought she would lose me if she had the operation. My mother never told me a lie, and she told me one day when I had gotten into some especially heinous mischief, that she wouldn't always be around, but that a good woman would come along and 'straighten me out.'" He smiled. "I'm heterosexual now, Joan; who wouldda thunk it!"

"A miracle!" Joan smiled. "Well, what about me, Adain? Is there another miracle for me? Am I reformed?" She answered herself. "A man whom I turned into an incredibly ugly shemale and forced "her" to serve in a bondage brothel just not only forgave me but gave his life for me. If that isn't telling me that someone's giving me a second chance and I damn well better take it, I don't know what is! Yes, I'm reformed. I'll shut down the shemale auction business, do the best I can to save the ones I've previously sold, and I'll help you or the authorities get the others in the biz. If ..." she held up her hand as Adain started to say something, "... if you let me try to convince them to quit voluntarily first; I owe them that much. Okay?"

Another voice answered in a bad Bogart accent. "Joanie, I believe this is the start of a beautiful friendship!" Rose strode through the broken mirror door, and swept Joan into a hug. Releasing her, she turned toward Adain, gave him a quick hug, and pulled back to get a close look at him. "Lover, you look like shit! Better be Little Dainie till we get back to Vaingirls."

Instant change. "Yes, Mommy, but we have to wait till Aunt Robbie wakes up; she's got Sukie."

Joyce and Steve had followed Rose in with guns drawn. Seeing that they weren't needed, they put them away. Steve immediately went to Robbie and bent over her. "Is she ..."

"She's fine, Steve," answered Joan. "At worst, a mild concussion. She should regain consciousness any minute."

"Thank God!" sighed Steve. He looked more closely. "And thank you for letting Sukie sleep with her, Dainie."

On, "You're welcome, Uncle Steve," from Dainie, Robbie suddenly sat bolt upright. "Sukie? Dainie! Are you all right, Dainie? Joan? Are those two bitches ..."

Steve put his arms around her. "Both dead, Love. And everyone's okay, and it looks like Joan has come over to the Light Side. And, oh, God I love you!" And he kissed Robbie hard and she reciprocated, while everyone watched.

Rose cleared her throat. "You two wanna get a room? If I can wait ..."

"Wait for what, mommy?"

"You'll find out, dear!"

Everyone laughed, and Robbie and Steve reluctantly separated. G.A., who had come in the main door along with Barbara and Salielah, cleared his throat while Salielah hugged Dainie. "Before everyone throws a party, I see we have a bit of a mess to clear up." He tilted his head toward the bodies of Ed, Lou, and Stella on the floor.

"I'll take care of them." Jack's voice came from the ruined mirror door. "This is Chicago, and I have friends. Those two ne'er-do- wells will simply disappear without a trace. Done it before. Don't ask. Poor Stella will have died of a heart attack."

Joan and Jack stood on opposite sides of Stella's body. Jack sighed. "I loved her, you know," he said.

"Jack, I swear I'll make her look beautiful and give her the best funeral I can manage," said Joan, with a catch in her voice.

"She's already beautiful ..." said Jack - and that simple sentence spoke volumes, "... and all of this, my dear, should keep you from doing hard time. I suggest that you mend your ways!" And then to everyone: "I also suggest that you all get the hell out of here and let me work."

Joyce had been quietly talking on her cell phone. She clicked it off. "Elizabeth and Bethany are okay; I'm sending them back to prepare food and drink at Vaingirls!"

As everybody began to exit, Rose looked down at the bodies of the two women that Ross had once believed his best friends. She looked at their hands, resting in each other as if they were holding hands. She kicked the hands apart, muttered, "closure", turned and walked out of the apartment, not looking back.

Out in the corridor, Dainie looked up at Barbara Dahal. "Aunt Barbara," she said, her eyes full of mischief and winking at Robbie, "will you play Barbies with me when we get home?" And then, to the laughter of all, she took off skipping down the corridor, leaving a sputtering Ms. Dahal behind.

Joyce put down her pen, and leaned back in her chair. She picked up her Vaingirls coffee mug and took a sip of the 100% Colombian. Black and strong! No sissy coffee for her.

'Yuck!' She set the cup back down; the coffee had grown cold while she was writing her "catch up" letter to Jane Thompson. It was hard to believe that six months had gone by since the "disappearance" of Edwina and Louise. She picked up the letter to reread it before folding it for the envelope.

Dear Jane,
I really got a kick out of your last letter. Sounds like the trip to Marisha Chalet really did the trick for your latest "project". I've often thought it would be fun to see your Caro and Sandy and my Bethany and Elizabeth working side by side.

Maybe the three of you - and Darla and Marie, of course - could come to Chicago the next time Rose and Adain are in town. They are currently at home, but will be at their Istanbul residence next month and here two months later. Running a world-wide financial and industrial empire sure does take a lot of travel!

Salielah won't be with them this time, though. From what Rose says, she's big as a house already with the twins, and she's only about three months. One of the few good things Lou and Ed did was to freeze some of Ross's sperm. And of course, Adain can supply his own. It's a good thing Salielah isn't his biological sister! Still, I think they'll do it by artificial insemination. That's several years down the road, though.

I'm sure Little Dainie would love to meet her Aunt Jane; after all, you've only seen Dainie as an adult. Didn't Rose and Adainya look gorgeous in their beautiful gowns!? Each picked the other's; isn't that sweet.

What a beautiful double wedding! It was too bad that Steve got stubborn and wore a plain old tuxedo - although he IS very handsome. Robbie told me not to worry, though, that she'd have Stephanie in a wedding gown for their first anniversary celebration; I don't think she's mentioned that to Steve yet. I'd like to be a fly on the wall in those two's house! He'll do it, though. He loves Robbie to pieces, and he likes being Stephanie; he just has trouble admitting it at times.

I guess the next wedding will be Elizabeth and Stewart, if she can ever get him to set the date. I keep telling her to bring him in. A few days in pigtails and a party dress would make him much more agreeable. :-)

Joan and Jack gave Stella a lovely funeral. She's buried in Graceland, one of our most beautiful cemeteries, by a lagoon. Jack visits her every Sunday. He's talking about selling the Whip and Cuff, though, and retiring to Florida. Bondage for senior citizens; I can just see it now.

Speaking of Joan, she has been as good as her word. Barbara Dahal - you met her, the detective - has connections with INTERPOL, and says that 75% of the world's shemale slave trade has simply ceased to exist.

Joan won't go to jail, G.A. assures me, and she continues to be the best gender reassignment surgeon that old Chicago town or any other old town has ever seen. And all her satisfied transsexual SRS clients, including Rose, Robbie, Elizabeth, and Jessica, swear that she knows how to create a vagina better than any other vagina creator in any other old city, "And God bless her," every one of them says! I know, I'm a little Dickens. :-)

Lou and Ed's bodies haven't been found, and I doubt if they ever will be; this is, after all, Chicago.

And us? Vaingirls is still turning men into beautiful women. For their own good, of course. Just like you.

You go, girl!
Joyce