My work is really very important, or so I'm told. I animate little dancing icon thingies for the Imperial Media System. For the Inter-vision and Tele-view networks specifically. Not a fantastic job, but it keeps tea in the kettle and a decent approximation of food on the table, so I won't complain. I also do a bit of engineering work on the side, but that's strictly under the table type stuff.

That morning I animated a dancing Solan Sundog for the entertainment news and enough weather icons to cover the entire Known Galaxy for a week. On my lunch break, I popped down to the City Engineering Department to deliver the prints for a new child development center. The department head, Harper, (who will do none of the work and get all of the credit for said child development center), exclaimed over my skill. He praised the design schematics to the sky (as always) and lamented his inability to give me a job (as always). Then he handed over a thousand credits in 50chips along with the transfer slip for the remaining ninety-nine hundred thousand (also, as always, which more than makes up for his despicable personality). Now I had some cash to take on my date, and to get lunch, a nice change. I grabbed some pocket bread from the stand outside my building and went back up to my office with a light step and a heavy purse. I animated the latest collection by Hale Hoopskirt for the fashion weekly then skipped home.

I stuck my head in the door, the place was deserted. Good, Kit was still at school. I went back to my room and dug around on the floor in search of something to wear. Finding nothing in the bedroom my search took me out to the hall then the living space. I scoured the house in rage, all to no avail. When Kitty came home from school, I pounced.

"I have just spent the last half hour digging through your debris in search of something of mine to wear." I growled.

"Have you?" Came the snide reply. "I think I saw some of your clothes in the kitchen," then, with a haughty look, swept into her room.

I did eventually find some of my good Butch Top clothes to wear. I attempted to comb my hair into some kind of order, failed miserably and ended up just putting some Caljan's Wet Shine Hair Jam in it. I whooshed it around until it looked okay, sort of, then had to wait outside the bathroom for an age while Kit dyed the ends of her hair purple. Finally, I was on the transport by hour ten wondering if she'd like a box of bon-bons. Sweetsies Confectioners was packed, of course, and all the super-sexy flower creams were gone so I had to settle for a box of butter gem toffees. At hour eleven I was at the station-deck for the Sunset Line, absolutely twitching with impatience. When I finally got out to Sunsets it was nearly half past and I burst into the bar nearly hysterical that I'd missed her.

"Hey, De'ansi!"

"Yes?" The black-eyed bartender answered

"Have you seen-"

She just pointed to the booth were we had been sitting last night. I turned around, and there she was. Her hair was down in a waist length mane, and she was dressed in a lavender sarong that matched her eyes. My mouth went dry.

She stood up and crossed the room smiling that shy radiant smile. A little hover-cooler followed her across the room. "Hi."

"Uh…hi."

"I…I was afraid you weren't gonna show." She looked up at me for a moment, then lowered her eyes. "I thought we might have a pick-nick," she motioned to her cooler. "You know, since we're so close to the beach…."

I felt a little disoriented, like Abasin and Synthol all over again. "S-sure."

Sunsets sits out on the end of the Sunset Line which follows a loop around Peal Cape which juts out into White Moon Bay. Sunsets faces the water and has a little path running from its back patio down to the waterline. The whole of Pearl Cape is covered with a transparent dome of plexi-steel. The foundation of which goes into the sea itself about a mile off shore. The water inside the dome was clam that night. The violet crash of the waves stilled by the reef at the base of the dome. Morphia led me down the path to a flat patch of sand above the tide-line. She took off her sarong and spread it out on the sand. She was wearing a strapless white bikini. My heart sped up a little and every inch of my body felt electrified. She stood up beside me. "Do you want to go for a swim?"

"Um…I haven't got a suit." It was a lame answer, but I did have the presence of mind to put my arm around her waist and pull her against me.

"Well," she breathed, her face was flushed pink. "We'll have to find something else to do. Right?" She pushed herself harder against me and pressed her lips to mine.

Then we were down on the beach. Locked together in the wet sand. I felt her heat between my fingers and the white crescent of her nails dug into my back. It was everything those damn poets write about, like the ignition of a star, or the collision of two galaxies. Only it was us, just us. The rest of the universe was gone, and there was nothing but her and me, wrapped up in the sand. Her voice rose over the distant crash of waves, breathless and almost incoherent as her body strained against mine…

She sat up; panting. She shook out the damp mane of her hair and flopped back down beside me. "Oh my Goddess." She whispered. Sand clung to her skin and sweat beaded on her face. "Oh Red, I think I love you."

I had been propping myself up off the sand to save the scratches on my back. But I nearly fell over when she said that. It had been precisely what I had been thinking. I looked down at her, but she wasn't looking at me.

"Red, we need to get off the beach."

But I was feeling to wonderfully warm and fuzzy to notice the fear in her voice or the way that she pulled on my arm. I looked back up the beach, and a full contingent of Imperial Guards was coming down the path from Sunsets.

I haven't been able to clearly remember what happened next. I think I stood up, and a shoot was fired. A pain exploded in my side and somebody grabbed me to stop me from falling. I saw the lead Guard, a large beefy woman, haul a naked Morphia up off the sand.

"Good work," she said. "We'll take it from here."

After that, everything goes black.