This is for Doctor Callian. By request. I owe her one. I hope this makes up for my digressions and indiscretions. I am sorry!

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The first time I saw Gillian Foster it was impossible to form a first opinion. She was someone who on the outside was amazing beautiful, holding a confidence about her that was immediately attractive. She was clearly beautiful but sweet with it, almost innocent, as if she wasn't entirely aware of how people saw her. And by people, I mean men. And by men, I mean blokes like me. I'm carefully arrogant. I know how I look. I'm aware of the results of my behaviours. I know the effect I have on people. I've cultured it carefully to be that way. I used my normal tricks on Gillian Foster. And that was how I discovered there were so many more layers to her than I originally thought, or suspected, or dared.

I felt like I caught up with Gillian at a time in her life when she was consuming, storing, processing, sponging it up. She absorbed information around her. She had completed her doctorate and she had finished her clinical hours and we came across each other by pure chance. Some people will say that nothing happens by chance. Everything is calculated. Until I met Gillian I didn't believe in that kind of bollocks. My life had always been about what I had made it. The more time I spent with Gillian, the more I started to believe, I want to believe, that we were meant to find each other in this life.

On a second glance, first looks can be deceiving. Gillian Foster quickly proved she wasn't just a pretty face. In fact, her mind might just be more striking than her features. On the outside, she is adorable; the cutesy fluffy caterpillar, silkenly tracing across the branches of lives, in the background, unnoticed, going about her business. What people don't realise is that innocent caterpillar is eating away at everything in its path. It burns a line of destruction.

Gillian Foster ate her way under my skin. She did it without me realising. She did it a few little mouthfuls at a time. At first, she was my shrink. She shrunk my head back down to size. Then she helped me work a case. Then she helped me work a few more. She was a sympathetic ear when I needed it, a drinking buddy when I didn't need any more encouragement and was the voice of reason when I didn't want to know. And then she befriended my daughter. Funny how she managed to charm everyone but my wife.

What I want to know now is, did she do that on purpose? Did she make herself irreplaceable to me on purpose? Did she take my life force merely to feed herself? To grow herself. To create her little chrysalis and emerge even more stunning and mesmerising and hypnotising than before? In some ways I feel used. Most of the time I feel lost. I think I understand her, but standing here now, asking her if we're ok, I have no idea who she is. She lied to me once. For six years. A million tiny white lies that I never knew or saw. She makes me question everything I knew about my life and my science and my own manipulations. She learned how to use me against myself.

The way she stares at me now. Giving absolutely nothing away. The little flicker of her lips, the ghost of nothing I recognise. She blinks lazily and it's then that I know she has power over me. She is the emerged butterfly, the new life, brazenly drying her wings in the air, right in front of me, daring me to touch, to taste.

Gillian is the monarch, not the viceroy. The monarch rules supreme. The viceroy rules only on behalf. The viceroy wishes it was the monarch. Viceroys wish they could grow up to be monarchs. Viceroys settle. Gillian Foster has been a monarch since day one. She was born that way. It was always a matter of time. She had to absorb, sponge up her knowledge, process while in her chrysalis and then emerge at her full potential. Gillian Foster has always been regal. That's what I admire in her. I always have. She has such a beautiful confidence. Unwavering. Until she met me.

I stand here and I ask her if we're ok because I've pushed that line again, that boundary that is not just hers, but one that belongs to good manners and morality. I push it more and more these days because I'm suddenly afraid of her. She lied to me. I didn't see. It threw me. I know that. She probably knows that. I refuse to admit that. And she won't call me on it. Why does she do that? Royal indignance? Or is she so afraid of me that she's scared of pushing the line back into place? Does she think she can push me too far?

Viceroy's were, once upon a time, thought to be mimics. Turns out they are poisonous in their own right. So that's something to be wary of. But Monarchs are still the original. Naomi is a viceroy. She wants to play in the big leagues with the real monarchs but she can't. Gillian is in a league of her own. I'm pretty sure she knows that too. Which is why she indulges me with the viceroys', the Naomi's, the Wallowski's.

I can't finish a thought when we stand here like this. I ask her if we're ok because I can't read her and I admit that to her and she stands there and she... she doesn't stare, she doesn't even watch. She looks resigned, if I had to pick one emotion. But it's more like a cross between resignation and defeat and pure interest, like she is amused. Perhaps she is testing me? Daring me? I do love a challenge. And she knows that. She knows all my tricks. She knows me better than I know myself. Which means she knows my play book and as I stand and wait for an answer she never gives me I suddenly can't stop comparing her to a god damn butterfly. It's ridiculous! I'm a grown man. We don't think about things like butterflies and puppy dog tails, raindrops on roses, whiskers on kittens. It feels stupid and it wouldn't take much to imagine the laugh I'd get if I told her about it. But she is so damn beautiful, like a freshly emerged butterfly, suddenly grown. It's like she's transformed. Suddenly the analogy isn't about how she looks, but who she is. She's hardened and she's emerged as someone new. Reborn.

In Chinese culture, two butterflies flying together is a symbol of love. I hate that she flies solo. I hate that she is so much more regal than I am. I hate that I'm not enough for her. I'm proud of her. She's grown up. She's learned to play me, to shake me, to unsettle me. And I hate her for that. Because I'm still the caterpillar, munching my way dumbly through life, convinced that this is all I'll be. She'll tell me I don't have to remain at the caterpillar stage for the rest of my life. That I too can become an angel. But I don't know how. She's beyond me now. She has wings to fly away. And she should. She should absolutely learn to fly away. She should get away from me. She's beautiful and I'm dull. She has a new life and I am the old.

She must have known what I was up to tonight. With Naomi. The cat and mouse bit. And the other bit. She definitely knew all about that. And I could see the frustration in her entire frame as she points out that I could have told her. My response rolls off my tongue automatically, because my habits are harder to break. I'm not born of royalty. I am not a monarch. I am barely even a viceroy. I'm the one to be wary of. I'm the one who you can't be sure of. The one that could poison you if you are not careful. I am the one trying to mimic the monarch. I'm the one sitting in envy, wishing I could play in the big leagues. The only difference between Gillian and I is that she is in the big leagues and I just look in on her from time to time. I admire her beautiful wings from time to time. She flexes them and creates a hurricane on the other side of my heart.

'Take your wings and fly away.'

She stares at me and I stare back and I'm waiting for an answer. Either way.

'Please fly away.'