Note: This story was dynamically reformatted for online reading convenience.
 
 Dee STP 16 by peregrinf

   Wheelin' 'n' Dealin' was and still is the place to go if you're a
serious cycler.  That's obvious the moment you set foot on the sales floor,
the front half of the Denzel brother's space.  On the walls are bike
posters and more bike posters; posters of road racers and track racers
frozen against backgrounds so blurred you feel the wind, posters of BMX
bikes and riders soaring off jumps looking so real you want to pick the
dirt and mud off your face, barf-inducing posters of X-Game riders hanging
upside down in midair above towering ramps, posters of mountain bikers
plunging down cliffs, posters of suburban families touring country roads --
helmeted all, of course.

   Below the posters is an ever-changing cast of Very Serious Bikes, some
new, some used, neatly parked, the front wheels all cocked at the exact
same angle.  There are sleek racers, muscle-bound BMXers, sturdy
recreational bikes, recumbent bikes that the rider steers with levers
instead of handlebars.  There are touring bikes with tires tough enough to
handle broken glass, an occasional bicycle built for two, even adult-sized
tricycles for the geriatric set.  If it's not on the sales floor they
either have what you want in the back room or they can get for you, given
the time.

   The only thing you won't find is chintzy children's bikes gussied up
with tasseled handgrips and plastic fenders, bikes that wouldn't last a
season.  Those are left to the superstores.  Even if it's a rebuilt used
Schwinn, at Wheelin' 'n' Dealin' you get a bike that, treated right, could
last another lifetime.

   Darryl Denzel runs the sales end of the operation.  He knows that any
good showroom needs a focus to draw the customer in, and he provides it. 
In the center of the floor, with enough empty space to ride two abreast
around it, is a podium just big enough to hold a bike facing the front door
as if poised to leap into action.  This stage is a place of honor, a
throne, bathed in overhead track lights.  It is usually occupied by some
exotic machine with more gears than I have fingers to count with, a bike
with a composite frame so light a breeze could carry it away, with a high
seat and handlebars that dip low and curve under to tuck the rider into as
compact and aerodynamic a shape as possible, a racing bike with a price
that has four digits to the left of the decimal point.  Or it might be a
mountain bike strong enough to carry King Kong up and down Everest, with
twenty-four speeds, yet light enough for me to pick up one handed.

   But that day, the Monday I stepped through the door the breath caught in
my throat, because on that podium there was a simple old Raleigh
three-speed in all it's boxy, dowdy, upright, terribly British conceit. 
Its dark finish made the shining bits, like the handlebars, stand out even
more, glittering in the spotlights.

   All the bikes around the walls face that centerpiece as if paying homage
to nobility.

   "Bessie?" I whispered.

   She was gracefully aging royalty holding court, surrounded by admiring
subjects.

   "Bessie?" I half-whispered again, afraid I was seeing things, afraid I'd
break the spell.  Shrugging out of my backpack and setting it down quietly
by the door I tip-toed closer, cold sweat prickling my nakedness.  "Is that
you?"

   It couldn't be her!  When Maria and I had brought Bessie in last
Thursday she'd been a basket case, and we'd been told it'd be at least a
week, maybe two before they'd even have the parts, and who knew how long it
would take to get her put back together.  Maybe it was some other bike, an
attempt to substitute it for Bessie.  I'd heard of parents trying to do
that when a beloved pet died, and it just isn't the same.

   "Shit!" Horace snorted rudely, breaking the spell.  "Can't be.  We
killed her."

   I almost turned around and rearranged his nose for a second time.  Not
because he'd just flat admitted what he'd done, but because he'd said the
"S" word in the presence of what might actually be a miracle.  I grabbed a
handful of his shirt and dragged him with me, my fist digging into his
throat, choking off his protests.  Reaching the base of the podium I shoved
him to his knees, humbling him, leaving him to try to work out the dent in
his Adam's apple that my grip had put there.

   Because it really was Bessie!  I recognized the ding on the head tube,
just below the handlebars, where she'd deflected a rock that otherwise
might have caught me right in the crotch.  She wore that scar proudly.  It
was my Bessie, right down to the basket on the front!  She called to me now
just the way she'd called to me at that police auction, called to my heart
and my legs, my lungs.

   "Come ride me!" she called.  "Together we'll see the world."

   I stepped up on the podium to examine her, touch her, stroke her.

   Hug her.

   It was Bessie!

   Oh sure, the wheels shone like new, because they were new, or at least
rebuilt.  She had new fenders, freshly repainted, as were the chain guard
and the front fork.  But the frame -- her skeleton, her very bones -- was
the same frame.  The sprocket with its crank arms and pedals -- her heart
-- were the same.  So were her arms, the distinctively graceful handlebars
with the rise and spread of wings, complete with the little Sturmey Archer
shifter within reach of my right thumb when I held the white rubber grips,
my fingers touching the gracefully curved chromed handles of the
handbrakes. The brake cables ran through new clean white guides, the front
a graceful sweeping curve down to the caliper there, the one to the rear
caliper clipped close to the frame.

   Beside that the shift cable ran along the top tube as well -- she's a
boy's bike, remember -- over a little white plastic pulley under the seat,
down the seat stay to where a tiny turnbuckle linked to the seemingly
delicate chain that ducked into the center of the rear hub, where the
planetary transmission did its magic.  No big, open derailleur for her! 
Bessie might be a boy's bike but she was a lady with her special bits
tucked demurely away, out of sight.  I still remembered how Carl and I had
deciphered the mysteries of that marvelous mechanism one rainy weekend.

   There was a new seat, of course, with a soft fake fur cover to welcome
my so often naked tushy.  I hoped it was washable, 'cause sometimes I do
leak a bit.

   I had to ride her.  I just had to.  Nudging the kickstand back I bumped
her gently down the two carpeted steps to the glossy showroom floor, swung
my leg over her.  The seat welcomed my bare ass warmly.  A light push and
my feet found the pedals and I slowly began to circle the floor of the
showroom, past the front windows, then down the rank of parked bikes,
watching the smooth spin of the front wheel, no off-kilter wobble there.

   She was the Queen reviewing her troops.  Coasting, I backpedaled just to
hear the comforting clickety-clickety-clicktey of the gears.

   It was only when I reached the back of the showroom to curve past the
counter that separated it from Weed Denzel's repair shop that I discovered
we had an audience.  From the moment I'd entered the shop I'd only had eyes
for Bessie.  They'd probably been standing there the whole time, watching
me make a fool of myself slobbering over some silly old bike.

   Only they knew this was no "silly old bike," because the only reason
they'd be here was if they had fixed her.  Somehow they had fixed her, or I
couldn't be riding her now.  But how?

   They reached out to me and I slapped palms with them as I pedaled slowly
past.  I was so excited almost forgot to turn, and I barely avoided piling
into one of the three-wheelers.  Grinning like an idiot I shot a look back
over my shoulder at them as I began a second lap around the store.

   It was my lunch bunch -- who else?  -- and John, and Mike Collins!  In
the middle was Missy, tears of joy running down her plump cheeks.  Beside
her towered Weed, who could fix any bike in the world in his cluttered back
room, given the parts and enough time.  He must have overseen the work, but
where had they found the parts, and how had they gotten them assembled so
fast?  Someone must have spent the whole weekend working on it, while Missy
and Maria had kept me distracted.

   With a whoop I jangled Bessie's bell, the familiar ching-a-ling.  I
coasted once more around the floor to pull up in front of my friends.  I
carefully got off, set the kickstand, and then threw myself at Missy, both
of us slobbering and crying like fools, and she didn't mind when I kissed
her and kissed her and kissed her right there in public.

   But then, of course, I kissed the rest of them, too, Fran and Inez and
Peggy and Cindy and John and Mike.  I'm an equal opportunity smoocher.

   And Weed!  God bless Weed, so tall I actually had to reach up to him! 
No one knows his real first name, and unless you need a bike fixed you
might never meet him.  He lived in the back room, tending his patients.  It
took a major event to get him out front in the showroom.  Missy must have
physically dragged him out.  He was tall and lanky and bashful, with knobby
legs and arms and hands like giant spiders, his long fingers so deft and
gentle that they could thread the tiniest needle or replace the most
miniscule setscrew, yet strong enough to loosen a stubborn nut without a
wrench.

   I grabbed him by his ears -- they stick out kinda like Bessie's
handlebars -- and gave him a smooch like he'd probably never had before in
his life, while he flapped his long arms, unsure whether to touch my naked
body or not.  Maybe some of his other customers were as grateful as I was,
but I don't see how they possibly could have been, and if they had kissed
him I bet they weren't naked.

   When I let go of him he was blushing right to the tips of his ears.

   The bell over the front door jingled.

   "Chiquita!  Is this a private party or may I join in?"

   "Maria!  Look, look, look!  It's Bessie!  It's Bessie!  She's okay! 
She's okay!" I was dancing, positively giddy, I admit.

   "You don't go anywhere." She shoved Horace down with a hand on his
shoulder as he started to get up.  "You do not want me to have to chase you
down!  Sit, you...," there was a string of Latino that I made a note to
learn from her as soon as I could.  Good cuss words that wouldn't get me in
trouble at home were hard to come by.

   "Okay, Missy, I owe you one get outta jail free card," Maria, my lover
-- well, one of my lovers -- went on to my bestest forever friend.  "You
did it.  I don' know how, but you did it!"

   Missy blushed prettily.  "Actually it was my mom who found the parts."

   "Your mom did this?  For me?" Missy's mom was not one of my fans.

   "Oh, Dee, don't be silly.  She knows how much Bessie means to you.  I
told her what had happened the moment I heard.  She knew someone at her
hairdresser's who knew some old geezer who has a barn full of old bikes and
bike parts.  She put the wheels in motion, you might say."

   Weed's Adam's apple bobbed nervously.  "These guys o' your'n showed up
Sat'day mornin' with a pickup load a' parts and he'ped me fix 'er."

   It was the longest sentence I'd ever heard him string together.

   I wanna go for a ride!  I wanna go for a ride!

   Oh shut UP!  I told The Stick, just as I realized that she actually had
a good idea.  The whole damn town had to be thinking that my bike -- and
maybe The Program along with it -- was dead.  Somewhere out there someone
was gloating and I wanted to give 'em a poke in the eye.

   "Who wants to go for a ride with me?  Preferably naked."

   My crew didn't need a second invitation.  No one has friends like I do.

   Only Maria balked.  "I can't, I'm on duty.  And you can't take my
prisoner with you.  He's wanted downtown.  Mrs.  Devers told me what he
did. It's a parole violation, so he's busted -- again.  Plus we have some
questions for him."

   Actually I was relieved.  While I'd thought of having Horace stripped
naked and strapped to my bike like some hunter's trophy or bungeed into the
front basket, the wires cutting a waffle pattern in his bare ass, I really
didn't have the heart to do it to him.  He was sitting on the bottom step
of the podium, his head hanging in defeat.  When, oh when was he going to
learn to quit making such dumb choices?  Even Tweedle Dumb and Tweedle
Dumber -- sorry, Cagney and Lacey -- had caught on faster.

   "He's all yours," I told her.

   "I'll see you later, Chiquita.  Save a place at the dinner table for
me."

   Only a few minutes after she led him away the rest of us were saddled
up, and I led them out the door to take a tour of the town, every single
one of us naked, some on borrowed bikes.  It was as good a promotion for
The Program as any banner could have been, and Darryl didn't mind lending
us some of his stock since those bikes had his tag dangling from the
handlebars.  He knows good advertising when he sees it.

   Damn!  Here I was doing it again.  In middle school I'd led the Dirty
Dozen out into the halls in the name of Sex Ed.  Now I was leading a parade
of naked teen bicycle riders through town to prove that The Program lived.
It was late afternoon, rush hour, and we tied up traffic with our tour,
down Main Street, around and back up through the plaza, past the
"birdwatchers" under the ficus tree -- who gave us a standing ovation --
turning the heads of the shoppers with their last minute purchases before
they headed home for supper.

   Someone must have alerted the press.  As we cruised past the newspaper
building a photographer was there, snapping pictures.  I took a "look ma,
no hands" pose as I sailed past, my arms spread wide to embrace the air
rushing over me, my stiff nips breaking the wind, stray breezes playing
insolently with my naked pussy.  Then it was back to Wheelin' 'n' Dealin'
to return the borrowed bikes before I rode home.  Darryl, keeper of the
books, even tore up the bill, since the parts had been donated and most of
the work had been done by my friends.

   I was on top of Old Bessie, on top of the world.

   But if I thought of that ride was a victory tour I'd soon learned
otherwise.  Maybe we'd won that battle, but I was soon to find out that the
war was still on.

   Supper that evening turned out to be a series of revelations, not all of
them pleasant.

   Maria was there, and House Rules applied, of course.  That meant we were
nude, that what went on at home stayed at home -- not that I expected much
since it was a Monday night and I had homework -- and no Program talk
during supper.  We'd reached the burping and wiping our lips stage when
Maria dug into her bag and pulled out....

   "A rear view mirror for Bessie?" I asked.

   "You need to watch your back."

   I groaned.  "What now?  Did that little shit sing?"

   "Like a canary," Maria answered.  "But that's not why you need to watch
your back."

   "Do tell." Mom was all ears, and so was Elaine, of course.  Mom two --
or should that be "too?" -- takes her role very seriously, and I love her
dearly for it.

   "Which end you want me to start from, the head or the tail?"

   Maria was asking me?  "Which end is Horace?  No, let me guess...."

   "The tail," she confirmed before I could say it.

   "Figures.  Where else would you find an asshole like him?" I grumbled.

   "He tells me you're the one who broke his nose!  Really?  According to
him it was a cheap shot," Maria reported slyly.

   "It was an accident!  Or self-defense.  It's a little hard to tell
which, but I didn't mean to.  Doesn't anyone ever listen to me?  Listen to
me!"

   I drew a deep breath.  "Short version.  He was trying to rape Missy.  I
came to her rescue, pulled him off her and -- what's that word the Secret
Service uses?  -- interposed myself between them.  So he tried to pull me
off her -- or maybe butt fuck me, it was hard to be sure, his aim was so
bad -- only my head got in the way of his nose."

   "He was trying to rape you with his nose?" Maria asked teasingly.

   "It's complicated," I protested, trying to get her to move on by making
a winding motion with my hand.

   "Whatever it was, I'm sure he deserved it." Maria patted my hand
soothingly.

   "Can we get to the point?" Elaine tended to be more impatient than me,
if that's possible.

   "Okay," Maria went on.  "So, as you suspect, Chiquita, Horace got
himself born again to get out of boot camp."

   "Do you believe him?" I challenged her.

   "No, of course not.  I've seen his kind before." She made a wiggling
motion with her hand.  "Out in the desert they got these little
rattlesnakes, kinda move funny?" D "Sidewinders," we all chimed in.

   "That's him.  He's a sidewinder.  But that's just the start of his
story. It turns out he is indebted to that church everyone's talking about,
The...."

   "...  Restored Temple of ...," I picked up....

   "...the Holy Redeemer Reformed...," Mom joined in.

   "...  Evangelical One True Church." Elaine filled out our quartet on the
last verse.

   "Horace says the good Pastor Paul -- it's always Pastor Paul, until I'm
sick of it -- called in an IOU for bailing the little sidewinder out of
boot camp.  Whether Pastor Paul thinks Horace's conversion is sincere or
not we don't know.  We haven't talked to him yet.  It's a delicate
situation and we don't want to tip our hand.  Anyway, he suggested that a
message be delivered to you to discourage you from pushing The Program. 
How that was to be done he left up to Horace."

   Horace's aim was as bad as ever.  "I bet that's not the only favor he
asked for," I grouched.  "What about the fanny pinchers?  Horace told me
Pastor Paul was deliberately infiltrating the school with his young Nazis
-- calls 'em disciples.  Said it was to get his message into the school."

   "Horace admitted he started the butt teasing as a way to get brownie
points with Pastor Paul -- or is that a good way to put it?"

   "Works for me," I assured her.

   "Anyway, other kids from the church joined in for their own salvation,
others just for fun.  It would be very hard to get Pastor Paul on a charge
of conspiracy to interfere with The Program.  Freedom of speech and freedom
of religion and all that, and conspiracy is always hard to prove.

   "Besides, from everything we've been able to learn, Pastor Paul seems to
be sincere in what he preaches.  He thinks The Program is the work of the
devil.  Personally I think the devil is leading the Good Pastor around by
the nose."

   "How so?" Elaine asked.

   "The trouble with good men like Pastor Paul is that they're easily
misled, shall we say?  They're idealists.  They're innocents in a wicked
world.  He thinks that everyone that listens to him believes him, will
follow his way, when some of them are actually using him for their own
purposes.

   "Judging by his new digs he's gotten very rich very fast.  Makes me
suspicious."

   "His new church?" Mom asked.

   "Si!"

   "We were surprised when he picked up the old Baptist church," Mom
admitted.  "There was something a little strange about that deal."

   "Such as?" I asked.  I was really getting used to being included in
these discussion like I was one of the adults, but then since it was my ass
on the line I guess it was to be expected.  I did my best to behave myself
but sometimes I needed things explained to me.

   "Well, the price, for one thing.  It was ridiculously low -- at least on
the public record," Mom explained.  "Sometimes these deals aren't fully
above-board.  Cash moves in mysterious ways.  And then there's the speed
with which it was renovated.  GDK construction was in there before the ink
was dry on the closing papers and had it all decked out, with stage
lighting, a fancy sound system, multi-media screen, TV cameras, the works."


   "Horace told me they even have low-power TV and radio stations."

   "No one is sure who really owns GDK, and the building codes office and,
as you say, cash moves in mysterious ways.  One of the inspectors has a
fancy new swimming pool installed by them that has caused some head
scratching.  Our suspicion is that the good pastor is beholden to some less
than savory elements in our town," Maria admitted.  "That he's dancing to
their tune, under the impression he's made them True Believers in his
message.  He'll do what they ask to keep the money flowing in.

   "Which is why, Chiquita I give you this," she brandished the mirror.  "I
want you to watch your back.  You seem to have pissed off certain people
with your work for The Program."

   "What makes you think that?" Mom looked worried.

   "You still been getting those phone calls, haven't you?" Maria asked.

   "You know we have, if you're still logging our calls," I pointed out.

   "But even with the blocking the telephone company's put on some are
still getting through," Mom pointed out.

   "One calling number gets blocked and they call from another, using those
cheap disposable cell phones," Maria said.  "Use it once or twice and dump
it for a new one with a new number.  Can't block 'em, can't trace 'em."

   "But what's that got to do with anything?"

   "It's not the type of tactic used by your average 'Conservative
Christian,'" Maria pointed out, making quotation marks in the air, "trying
to make a point, and it also means there's money involved.  Those phones
cost money.  We're trying to trace where Pastor Paul is getting his
donations from.  He may have sold his birthright for a mess of pottage."

   I wasn't sure exactly what that meant, but it sounded biblical.

   Maria tried to ease the tension, but then spoiled it when she pointed
out that people who pissed these critters off had an unfortunate tendency
to get into accidents.  Serious accidents.  I refrained from pointing out I
didn't need any help on that score, though it had been some time since my
last emergency room visit.

   Mom -- both my moms -- looked worried.  "They wouldn't go after Dee. 
She's just a child!"

   On one hand I was touched by their concern.  On the other I kinda didn't
like being called a child.

   What had happened to my childhood, anyway?  Fourteen years old and I'm
worrying about gangsters putting a contract out on me?  Ridiculous!

   "Look what happened to that girl in Pakistan," Maria said.  "She was
fourteen, too."

   "That's different," Mom said.

   "Is it?" Elaine asked glumly.

   I felt the need to bow out of this discussion.  I didn't like it that
Maria was scaring Mom, to say nothing of me.

   "Excuse me.  I've got homework," I announced, making my escape.

   I'd finished the tedious stuff and was settled down to bedtime with
Charles Dickens (A Tale of Two Cities, perhaps not the best choice for
peace of mind) when there was a tap on my door and Mom came in.

   There's something very comforting when the mattress tilts me toward her
when she sits on the bed next to me.  She ruffled my hair, combing her
fingers through it.  "Are you okay, sweetie?"

   I set Madame Defarge and her knitting aside to savor my Mom's touch, and
share my thoughts with her.  "Maybe I should quit."

   She wasn't surprised, but didn't look happy at that announcement.  "What
makes you say that?  You've never been a quitter."

   For some reason I wasn't scared, maybe because it seemed preposterous
anyone would put out a hit on me.

   "It's upsetting you," I explained.  "I've caused you enough worries
already."

   "But if you quit, then they'll win.  You've said it yourself.  'Winners
never quit, and quitters never win.'"

   It does kinda sting when my own favorite quote -- I don't know where I
got it -- comes back at me.  "But....  Don't you want me to quit?  Aren't
you worried?"

   "Whatever gave you that idea." She was surprised.

   "Maybe it's the gray hairs?  The wrinkles?" I teased, reaching for her.

   She slapped my hand.  "I do NOT have gray hairs.  And those are laugh
lines!"

   "Yes'm," I agreed with a chuckle.

   The silence between us was comfortable, especially when she tipped to
cuddle me to her and I felt her warmth through the sheet that was all that
was between us.  I missed it when she sat up again.

   "I will support whatever decision you make, but I'd -- I really feel
we've got to see this thing through, together," she told me.  "Elaine and I
and Maria will do everything we can to keep you safe."

   "It's that important to you?  The Program, I mean?"

   "It's that important." She was quiet for a few seconds.  "Let me tell
you a story, about a girl about your age who grew up in a family and a
church and a school where the only Sex Ed they taught was abstinence, that
gay-ness -- if it was ever mentioned -- was a disease, a perversion, and
even to be suspected of being gay was a social death sentence.

   "As a result she didn't know the first thing about sex, didn't
understand anything about the feelings she was having.  It was all based on
fear.  Her feelings for other girls scared her, so she tried to hide them
even from herself.  Trying to prove to herself, and everyone else, that she
wasn't what she was --gay -- she got boyfriend.  Of course contraception
wasn't available and things with him got a little out of hand, more than
once.  One of the things she didn't know was that it would have been a lot
safer if she'd taken him in hand, if you know what I mean."

   Of course I saw what she meant, and I would have giggled if she hadn't
been so serious

   "As a result she got pregnant.  Her parents had been happy when she'd at
last started dating a boy, a good boy from their church, in fact, but
suddenly they weren't so happy.  They didn't throw her out, but were not --
they didn't help a lot.  Life at home wasn't good, but at least she still
had a home.  They still didn't know she was gay.  SHE still couldn't admit
to herself she was gay.

   "Abortion was not an option, and adoption -- well, it just didn't seem
the right thing, and they agreed to help raise the baby.  She had good
grades.  A few months out of school 'sick' and she went back to try to
finish her education with no one the wiser, leaving the baby with grandma
during the day.  The boyfriend?  Once he'd gotten what he wanted he
wouldn't even look at her, denied anything had happened between them. 
Other boys knew what she'd done and only wanted to get in her pants.  But
dating was out of the question anyway, she had to be home for her baby.

   "So this girl, about your age, had a baby.  A beautiful baby boy, who
stole both her heart and her childhood."

   I started to get a sorta creepy feeling that maybe I knew that girl.

   "Thanks to both to her nature -- gay -- and her ignorance she wasn't
able to attend her own high school graduation or do all the other thing
high school girls did in those days, and still do today.  Dances?  The
devil's playground.  No sleepovers or parties.  Instead she had a baby to
raise, and she received her diploma in the mail, rather than shame the
school.

   "She managed, somehow, with her parent's grudging help, to raise the
baby to toddler, and even graduated from high school, got a job and went to
college.  But it had to be a college her parents approved of.  A college
run by their church, to keep her pure, return her to the True Path.

   "Yeah, right, some path.  Evolution?  The devil you say!  Ignorant,
narrow minded....

   "And still she tried to deny her sexual orientation.  She'd been raised
in a box, a narrow-minded box.  She again tried to prove to herself she
wasn't what she was with yet another sweet talking boy.  And, to make a
long story short, the same thing happened again.  Like I said, this was in
another place, in a religious environment about a century out of date.  Two
centuries.  This time she found herself with a wonderful baby girl."

   I braved the question.  "You were that girl?  I mean, not the baby but
the mom?"

   After a long hesitation, she nodded.  "I'm that girl.  You were that
baby.  Are that baby, all grown up.  Your father was the son of one of the
church elders, and he swore, with his hand on a bible, that I had seduced
him.  As a result I was banished, not just by the church but by my own
family.

   "I was a single mother with a toddler and a baby in my arms, and if it
weren't for some kind strangers and shelters I don't think we would have
survived.  At least I had enough smarts and luck to somehow manage, but
because of my ignorance I missed out on so much.  You'd think after the
first time I'd have had more sense, but once again I thought I could prove
I wasn't gay and that we were in love, only there was no 'we' because the
whole thing was built on lies, mine to myself and his to me, and the
church's to -- to everyone."

   She suddenly looked worried -- terrified!  "Please, don't think from
this story that I don't treasure you and Carl.  I wouldn't trade you for
anything in the world.  You are a joy to me, and a constant source of
amazement, my finest achievement.  But I also know I was incredibly lucky,
because I did have some strangers -- strangers who became true friends --
who did me favors, who helped me along or I never would have made it.  We
never would have made it.

   "I do not want to see another girl -- gay or straight -- ever go through
what I did.  There is a -- a wickedness in this world and it is ignorance,
and you, and Carl and Beth and The Program and Sex Ed have done more to
battle it than anyone else I know."

   I had another thought, something we'd never really talked about, which I
hadn't thought about until it happened.  I thought maybe it had happened
when she met Elaine -- Dr.  Smathers, her gynecologist.  "When did you
decide you were gay?"

   She gave a wry laugh.  "Decide?  I didn't decide anything.  As I said,
I've been attracted to girls, women, for as long as I can remember.  I just
couldn't admit it to myself.  In those days you simply didn't dare to be
gay, not if you wanted to survive the social and religious cauldron I was
in.  As they say, denial is not just a river in Egypt.  Elaine managed to
break through to me, to show me that what I am is what I am and it is not a
perversion or an illness and that she loves me for what I am, who I am. 
And if there is such a thing, I thank God for her.

   "I dated that boy in high school so no one would suspect I was gay, and
in an effort to prove to myself that I wasn't gay, and Carl was the result.
And then I went and did the same thing again, for the same reasons, and as
a result I have been gifted with the two most wonderful children on earth.
I was incredibly lucky.  Most people aren't.

   "If I didn't know better I think I'd believe God had a hand in it and
that Carl and you are His way of battling the ignorance."

   "That is so totally over the top!" I erupted, mortified at being saddled
with such lofty expectations.

   She laughed gently and tousled my hair.  "I know it is.  But I do think
what you're doing, what you've already done, is that important and I don't
know of anyone else who could do it.  I'd hate to see you give up.

   "Am I afraid for you?  Of course I am, but that's nothing new.  When
haven't I been?  Every time you step on a diving board I hold my breath. 
But I'm not about to let that stop you.  At least you're not alone on this
diving board.  You have Elaine and me with you, and Maria.  If it comes to
it you know we'll give our own lives to protect you, and so will most of
your friends, because they love you, too.  I know Missy would, which is one
reason her mother feels about you the way she does.  She worries about her
little girl, and the danger you may get her in, just as much as I worry
about you."

   "My friends," I mused, remembering all the things they'd done for me.

   And I also thought of how Mrs.  Devers was depending on me, and Ms. 
Andrews.  And SACNISP.  And the kids yet to be in The Program, ones that
didn't even know me.

   If I quit I'd be letting them all down.

   Ah me.

   No way could I do that.  If I should go down I would go down swinging. I
just hoped if that happened I wouldn't take anyone else down with me.