Chapter 3

Anna woke Adam as they came closer. He had been dreaming again, his last year hadn't contained that many dreams but the last two days had been as opening the floodgates.

Dream after dream reliving the time on the streets with him sometimes directly involved, but mostly standing as some ghostly spectator watching himself getting beaten. And more often than not dressed in woman's clothing?

The sexual abuse had left its marks, his ability for trust was vitiated, and even when in the arms of Anna, or perhaps just because he was in the arms of Anna, he dreamed, horrible scary dreams where he saw himself getting mutilated or even killed.

Before Anna, dreams had been a luxury, and even when he had them, difficult to remember afterwards. Being on the run did that to you. It narrowed your perceptions, forcing you only to see what was nearest to your immediate survival, with everything else losing its importance.

And he was worried. He was pretty sure that he wasn't gay. There had been no guy he ever known that had excited him like Anna did. But this dressing up, and the way the girls made him feel. He liked the intimacy it created with them.

So, okay, not gay then, but the clothes?

That one was stranger, and he had no real answers either. Maybe he just liked the way they made him, and the girls, feel? It all seemed to boil down to if one still could be a real man if one liked woman clothing's? But what the hell was that?

A real man, was that the swine in the shop then? Or those assholes that couldn't be bothered if he starved to death. He was quite sure that bullying and abusing didn't constitute it. And it didn't really seem to have anything to do with his sexual preferences either.

He decided that he would have to discuss this with Anna and Katrine, well, Anna at least.

As they went in they at last let loose their shop'a'holic shopping spree. Katrine left them to go to the camera shop, she wanted to buy a camcorder. The one they had was old and clumsy, she wanted a new one, maybe with a Blu-ray, if there now was one like that. With one of those you could store up to 50 gigabytes per disc, no bigger than a DVD.

They agreed to meet at the coffee shop after they had finished. Katrine giving Anna a visa card in her name that she had gotten just for this kind of situation, warning her to use common sense when buying.

"We don't really need to buy the mall Anna."

"Why? I've always wanted my own mall." Quipped Anna brightly.

She smiled at her mother who now was studying her visa, darkly mumbling.

"Perhaps I should change the name to Amanda, should I, Anna?"

"Relax mom. Go and have fun. We'll be cool."

Katrine gave her daughter a brief suspicious look before nodding reluctantly.

"I'll trust you to be just that Anna. And you Amanda, you better make sure that she doesn't do anything stupid now."

As they left her in the camera store them she was so preoccupied with her own thoughts that she never noticed herself walking right into the young lady standing beside the doors.

"Oh I'm sorry. I'm so clumsy." She excused herself as she tried to help her up.

Doing so she had this strange feeling that there was something not right.

Suddenly she realized what it was. One of the young ladies breast seemed slightly askew, like if it was going of on a journey all of its own? Quickly guiding her away from the inquiring eyes noticing their disturbance she stopped behind some shelves, coolly appraising the young lady.

"I'm so frightfully sorry dear, I'm Katrine, and you?"

"Sarah."

"Sarah, what a lovely name." She leaned a little closer to whisper.

"Sarah, your boobs, are they trying to run away?"

The man, she was now quite sure it had to be a man, looked down at his bosom, clearly frightened that she would make a new ruckus about it. She smiled at him reassuringly, enjoying their closeness.

He had to be around thirty, she thought, and quite nice looking too, definitely no pro at crossdressing though. 'Now, what would the odds be of meeting another crossdresser like this' she wondered as she watched his futile attempts to fix it.

"Don't worry, look at me, I'll shield you from the others. Fix your boobs now Sarah. What did you use, socks?"

Almost laughing as he franticly tried to fix it, getting that glazed look just like a rabbit finding itself under the full glare of a lorry, stuck on the highway. Witnessing his tears of frustration as he only succeeded in making it worse, she at last gently put her hand over his.

"Calm down Sarah, here, let me do it for you."

And once again she did what to her felt as the most natural thing in the world, commandeering others. As she finished she saw the manager approach them, frowning and looking as if he had a bad taste in his mouth.

"Ladies, we don't need your kind here, please leave our premises."

"Kind?" Omigosh, she realized. 'He thinks we were necking.'

"You know."

Katrine shook her head, no, she didn't know.

"Lesbians, dykes, whatever you are. Please leave peacefully, or do I need to call on the guards?"

Katrine gave him her sweetest smile as she lifted her gold visa for him to see.

"And you're sure you don't want us?" She asked as she waved under his nose. It almost looked as if his nose was twitching, sniffing the money, his eyes longingly following her visa card.

"No, I mean yes. Please leave."

Katrine nodded pleasantly at she gave him her visit card from her legal firm, identifying her as a lawyer.