There was however, a lighthouse. It was officially the Light keeper’s cottage that was for rent, which you could imagine was nothing spectacular bu...t the lighthouse was another story. Majestic as it stood, withstanding the hard winds of the Atlantic for over two hundred years, a tough old broad, like me, I thought. I pulled out my laptop and typed in the web address, yes, apparently even lighthouses have their own websites now. I would be lying if I said it wasn’t the pictures that suckered me. " There is laughter in youreyes: this is one of your favourite games. You call it Risk and theobject is to see if we can conduct a conversation without the nature of mytrue self being identified. More often than not we "win", but theterrifying excitement is wearing. I am sometimes up for the challenge,and take pleasure in stringing men along for a good part of an evening,before gently disengaging. On good evenings, we collapse afterwards ingiggles recounting the conversation in the warm. Sarah Jones." I know that too," Victoria smiled. "You can call me Vic." How come you know me?" asked Sarah."You're a lovely young woman. I find your look quite striking, thus I filed you away." Vic leaned to her side and extracted a portfolio from her large bag. Opening it revealed several photographs of women and men, all beautiful, and a thick notebook. She found a photograph of Sarah wearing a sheer peignoir looking just fucked."Why?' asked Sarah."Roland Barthes wrote an extraordinary essay. " I shrug."A girl." Conditioning: despite integration of women into most jobs inthe Army, that word for my new gender still means weak to most of us.Girl and gay - proper descriptions for people who aren't tough enough.I make dismissive gestures, like everything's good. "I need to get myberet, boots - my day sack," I turn, hurry away feeling the hurt,disappointment and regret from him.Stop. Ball fists. Face him. There's nobody else in view, thank god."Toots?" He's followed me, just a metre or.