"Hello-o-o-o... Hello?" called out Katherine, groping her way down the darkened stairs to the basement.

   "Katherine!" said Rikk, bounding up to her, thoroughly relieved that someone was there to take the focus off his dialect lapse. "Are we glad to see you!"

   "Yyyyeah," said Kath, trying to reconcile just how weird Rikk’s words, gait, and smile looked and sounded on the quiet, shuffling Rumy-body. Even by her liberal standards, it was a little... disturbing.

   He is always such a coward in domestic matters, Rumy thought before she could stop herself...

   ...then stopped herself. What am I saying? This is Rikk! He was the one who lifted me up in each of my darkest moments, after the alien, after the vampire! He is...

   She swung her arms, finally getting the measure of his body. Objectively, she knew that Rikk was not out of shape. He had always been slender, and his adventurous life with the Club was building agility and muscle. But to Rumy, who could do a somersault kick and split a board with the heel of her hand… to Rumy the body felt… shameful.

   And hers wasn’t flattering him either. He looked so small and lost in it, just the way she had when she’d first come to America… she didn’t like to look at him…

   And then some of his conviction returned. "But why not, Katherine? Shanna could use the money!"

   "If we told Shanna," Katherine said, though she couldn’t meet Rikk’s eyes when she said it, "she would want to tell the newspapers, and the newspapers would tell Alisin, and we can’t tell Alisin."

   "I swore to myself I would be honest with Ali."

   "Rikk, put yourself in Alisin’s shoes..."

   "I’ve already got a ‘new pair of shoes,’ thank you!" Rikk took off one of Rumy’s saddle shoes and massaged his/her own feet. "Man, I’ll never understand why they make these so uncomfortable!"

   Katherine’s 200-some pounds suddenly felt very heavy on her own business heels. She ignored it. "Then I’ll put myself in her shoes. So tell me just the way you’d tell her."

   "All right," said Rikk, holding his/her head high. "Alisin, I’m not Rumy. I’m Rikk. I know this sounds crazy, but it’s no crazier than a lot of the things we’ve been through. See, there was this emotionally challenged scientist..."

   "Stop," said Katherine holding up her hand. "I’m here, in Alisin’s shoes, thinking like Alisin thinks. You think these shoes care about the backstory? You really think I’m going to take it in stride that my ‘husband’ is wearing the face (and, not to put too fine a point on it, other parts) of a girl who once beat me half to death? In these shoes? I don’t think so."

   "Yeah," said Tim, "she might freak. She might get jealous, ’cuz Rume just got deeper inta yer skin than she’s ever gonna get. Or she might like ya in Rumy’s body a little too much. Any way ya look at it, you got problems."

   Rikk bowed, then nodded.

   He is a good man, Rumy thought, glossing over the fact that he wasn’t exactly "male" at the moment... and the way he’d jumped from boy to man in her thoughts again.

   "Gimme eight hours here. This guy Fitz was just twisted enough that I got a crack at figurin’ out how he thinks."

   Strangely, the prospect of being stuck in Rikk’s body for hours more didn’t mean much to Rumy. She was lost in another train of thought, altogether.

   Did this happen to other girls, this disillusionment? Was it really this easy?

   I’m free, Rumy thought, the joy welling up through the amazement. I’m free.