In the morning, Christopher found himself in his car driving out towards Toorak. He wanted to see Jaselle. He had to see her. When he had taken her home, he’d been forward thinking enough to write down the address.

He found the street and the house, and pulled up outside. He got out of the car, carrying a bunch of red roses in hand, and went up to the front door and rang the door chime.

A middle-aged woman, who looked at Christopher expectantly, duly answered it. "Yes?"

"Hello” he greeted her cheerfully. “Is Jaselle at home?".

"Who?" She asked, looking at him blankly.

"Jaselle," Christopher said, repeating himself. "Your niece. I'm Christopher Kelly," he explained to her, as if that fact should solve any confusion.

"I'm sorry young man, but I have no idea who you are talking about," the woman said directly, sounding faintly annoyed.

"Jaselle La Fleur - your niece."

The woman smiled at him; actually, it was more like a grimace. "I have no niece, and certainly not with that name...”

"But she's staying here with you. I brought her home here… " he told her, looking, and growing more confused by the moment.

The woman shook her head. "I'm afraid that you're mistaken, young man," she said. "Now, good day." She closed the door in his face.

Perplexed by this unexpected eventuality, Christopher walked back to the car and got in. He sat and thought about it. He asked himself if it was possible that he had written down the wrong address. But when he looked up at the house itself, he knew perfectly well that it was the one that he had brought Jaselle to.

He reflected on the fact that when he went out with Jaselle, she always insisted on meeting him; and aside from that one time, she had always gone home by taxi. It seemed to be a deliberate ploy to keep him from discovering where she lived.

Jaselle had been lying to him. But why? And did it really make the much difference to how he felt about her?

She was all that mattered in his life. But just the same, he wanted to understand why she had deceived him, and to do that, she would have to find out what it was she was hiding from him. Jaselle was a clever young woman, so he would need to work on the problem carefully and discretely.

He did not bring it up to Jaselle or quiz her in any way about his discovery, when they met for lunch the following day. He nurtured it secretly, suspiciously, and with a skewed resentment. Questions, curiosity and paranoia became his constant companions and plagued him relentlessly for the next month.

During that period, Jackson maintained his double lifestyle. But now that his relationship with Claire had intensified, it had complicated things still further.

Jackson managed the situation as best he could, methodical in his ways at keeping the troth hidden from Claire and Christopher, not suspecting that Christopher was but a breath away from stumbling onto Jaselle's secret.

Christopher was at home. It was early afternoon. He had the telephone in his bedroom sitting on his bed, beside him. He was smoking a cigarette. He stubbed it out in an ashtray, and then stared back at the telephone.

Next to the telephone was the piece of paper Jaselle had written her name and number on. He studied it intently, thinking of the hand that had written those words and numbers, and wishing it was caressing him. He took another cigarette out from the pack, and then picked up the packet of matches, which Jaselle had given to him, producing them from her purse to replace the cigarette lighter he'd had, which had run out of gas.

He dropped the box of matches down on the bed, near Jaselle's number. He drew back on the cigarette, reached for her telephone number and then the telephone itself. He began to dial. He'd got as far as the fourth digit when he made a startling discovery.

The packet of matches he'd used was from Jaselle's -a nightclub in Prahran; its address and logo were stamped on the front of the packet. In small print were two contact numbers. One of these telephone numbers was classified as 'business hours', while the other was 'after hours'. The after hours contact number was the same number that Jaselle had given him.

He frowned, trying to reason why that was. And also curious about the 'coincidence' of her sharing the name as the nightclub. He decided that he had to know what was going on.

He rang the business hours' number from the packet of matches.

"Hello? Is this Jaselle's?" he asked to the person on the end of the line. "Oh, good. Er, look, who do I 'phone after hours, for information about bookings? Some of my friends and me wanted to have something special and thought we could talk to one of your people..." He said. "Ah yes, and the name? Raquel? And what number is that?" he asked.

As it was read out to him, he wrote it down beneath the number Jaselle had given him. Each digit corresponded exactly.

"Is there a postal address for Raquel…?" Christopher inquired. "I see, she lives above the nightclub? Thanks a lot," he said before hanging up.

He sat back on his bed, regarding the piece of paper with the duplicate telephone numbers. He knew in his tortured gut that something was wrong. Jaselle was deceiving him – why? What was she keeping from him? He wanted the part of Jaselle that she didn't want him to know; he wanted all of her.

A while later, and he made the journey to the Prahran nightclub. It was after 11pm, so the club was open to patrons.

When Christopher got there, he spied a tall, dark haired drag queen on stage performing before a large audience of predominantly gay men.

He could scarcely believe where he had found himself - in a gay club, watching a drag show! What was going on?

He did not stop to listen to the drag queen's performance. Instead, he crept out back and made his way upstairs to the apartments.

Upstairs he found an old woman, Pearly, from whom he asked directions to Raquel's apartment. Pearly guided him to the door before she disappeared upstairs to the next floor.

Christopher knocked on the door, but there was no reply. He tried the doorknob and found the apartment unlocked. Hesitantly, he ventured inside. As far as the decor was concerned, he found the interior visually assaulting. But he dismissed it and began his search, although he wasn't exactly certain of what it was he was hoping to discover.

He intruded into Jackson's bedroom. He looked around it and deduced from its appearance that it was the room of a youth. He opened one of the closets and inside there were jeans and some shirts and a pair of sneakers. And then hidden behind a shaving coat was a shimmering black dress, a red skirt, several blouses and a wig on a stand...

His gut turned to granite. He felt sick and cold. These were her clothes - Jaselle's! what were they doing in some other guy’s cupboard? Was she involved with someone else?

He found another wig, plus a wide selection of high heeled shoes, make-up bags, clutch purses and shoulder bags - all Jaselle's. He'd seen her wearing all of them at sometime or another; he'd burned those precious images into his memory, and knew without a shred of doubt that they were hers. But what he didn’t understand was the presence of the wigs…

Christopher's eyes blurred as his mind sunk into a shocked stupor as he tried to make some sense of what he was seeing. He didn't hear the apartment door open, but he did hear the youthful chatter that accompanied Claire and Jackson's arrival.

Christopher, almost as if drunk, stumbled out into the living room. Immediately his eyes were drawn to herLooked like Jaselle, but no, it couldn’t be her, no…

Christopher’s eyes took in Jackson’s face: he had Jaselle's beautiful grey eyes and her sweet, sensuous lips! And the oh-so angelic, enigmatic face! A face he'd kissed and held, and a body he'd dreamt of having beneath him, filling with is love and passion.

Jackson stared at Christopher, clearly just as appalled, but managed to hide it quickly behind a mask of innocent shock and surprise. Christopher gazed at him with pained, watery eyes that were wide and questioning, as understanding took hold.

Meanwhile, Claire stood beside Jackson, frowning at the stranger, sensing that something was dreadfully wrong.

The frozen moment in time was torn apart as Raquel opened the door and entered the apartment. Immediately, Christopher broke from his paralysis and pushed passed Raquel and bolted, groaning, out into the hallway.

Jackson closed his eyes as if silent prayer. Christopher knew! Somehow he had found Jaselle's secret.

"Who was that?" Claire asked.

Raquel and Jackson exchanged heavy glances. Raquel looked extremely displeased.

"Don't know," Jackson said quickly, as he crossed to his bedroom door. He looked in and saw that his closet door was wide open. He went and closed it. "Probably a thief. I must've left the door open when we went out," Jackson said. "It's lucky we got back before he had a chance to take anything."

Claire didn't look convinced, and looked to Raquel to gauge his reaction. But Raquel was avoiding meeting the young girl's eyes.

"Yes, it was lucky, wasn't it?" Raquel muttered, and there was some bite behind his otherwise innocent sounding words.

"Yeah, but the way he looked at Jackson…" Claire commented.

"That was weird," Jackson said. "He's probably a druggie," he concluded. "Let's just forget it," he suggested to her.

Claire still looked doubtful, and probably would have pursued the matter, had not Raquel intervened with the suggestion that they have some coffee. This distracted her as Raquel and Jackson worked at changing the subject completely, until it was all but forgotten.

Jaselle was a man - no, a boy, probably no more than sixteen or seventeen years of age. And Christopher had loved him! He’d kissed him, and desired him more than his own next breath.

He shook his head dejectedly, braking into renewed sobbing. He scampered back to his bedroom, taking with him a large glass of water. He locked his bedroom door. He arranged his booty on his bedside table, and proceeded to swallow the pills in disastrous quantities and much gusto.

When he'd consumed them all, Christopher Kelly, with tears in his brown eyes, stripped himself naked and laid down on his bed, waiting to meet Death.

A young man got out of the rear passenger's door. He was tall, Nordic looking and in his mid-twenties. His eyes were like frigid wounds; pools of white-blue. His mouth was full, but rather cruel with it, and his face was so anatomically correct that it seemed hard and unnaturally angular. His hair was snow white, and gleamed healthily. It was cut short, in a military style. He wore one medium sized, gold sleeper earring in his left ear, and a finely tailored, Italian made suit, coloured black, with a brightly coloured Italian silk tie.

He held open the car door for a second man. The man who got out next was older, shorter, and much less attractive. He wore a tight fitting suit, with a shirt and tie. His vanity was such that he had insisted on squeezing his porky body into a suit that was a size too small for his bloated body.

The man sported a moustache and closely cropped beard, flecked with grey whiskers. His hair was thin, and pale. His hands were meaty but small, with thick, damp fingers. His eyes were black and barren. It was Bubba.

He stood beside the young man, looking at the hotel, his expression smug.

“Back at last," he whispered, more to himself than his young companion. "And Melbourne thought she'd seen the back end of me for good," he chuckled to himself. He turned his attention to the young man. 'Tomorrow you begin your task for me. You find Jackson Crane," he commanded. "Find him and give him to me," Bubba’s eyes narrowed with pure and twisted longing, "and then I will show my pretty child what pain is," Bubba vowed

The younger man's face remained static. Silently, he followed Bubba up to the lobby of the plush hotel as the porters followed and carried in their baggage.