A Murder Misstery Epilogue

My Burberrys check sheath dress was sleeveless with a straight skirt and a belted waist. I zipped it up in the back like I'd been doing this all my life, stepped into my Gucci stilettos and rummaged through my jewel box for just the right bling. A Hermes scarf, a spritz of L'Air Du Temps, and I was ready for the kill.


Another homecoming at Le Relais, where the maitre'd and two of the waiters hugged me before I was led to the booth that Jacques and I used to haunt. There he was, as debonair and distinguished as I remembered him...a touch more gray in his hair perhaps, and a few fine wrinkles framing his deep brown eyes, but at that moment to me he was the handsomest man in the world. Before I could speak, he said what I was thinking: "My God, how I missed you!" I slid in next to him before he could stand up, and gazed contentedly into his eyes while he took my hands. "Madeline, I'm...I'm...."

"Shut up and kiss me," I said, and he did, right there in the restaurant, to the applause of half the wait staff and some of the customers. It was a long, lingering kiss and I felt his hand playing with the hem of my dress under the booth, sliding up my delicious silken thigh, and coming to rest on the soft flesh at the top of my stocking.

When we finally came up for air, I wiped a smudge of lipstick off his face with a linen napkin and sat back in the plush booth, the happiest woman in the world. "I missed you too," I said, and we just sat there and stared at each other until the sommelier broke the spell. Jacques ordered our usual champagne while I repaired the damage to my makeup. "I take it you're pleased with your creation?" The last time I'd seen him, we'd been on a manic dash from the hospital to the airport, and my mental state and adaptation to my sex change were very much in doubt.

"My dear Madeline, you have exceeded my every expectation. Against my better judgment, I allowed myself to become intimately involved with a patient, and the results have been spectacular. Clinically speaking, of course."