Sapphire's Place - Waldo's

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Warning: This is an adult story dealing with adult themes. Don't read any further if you're not an adult or don't have an open mind.

Waldo (mellin6695@aol.com)

Ladyship

by Waldo

Chapter 1 - All aboard
Chapter 2 - Learning to be partners - the Fast Eddie method
Chapter 3 - My word
Chapter 4 - The good life
Chapter 5 - Redefine the partnership
Chapter 6 - In control again
Chapter 7 - See you around, kid

Chapter 1 - All aboard

The burley guard at the bar's front door looked very impressive with his huge muscular arms, a holstered pistol on each hip and a heavy club held determinedly in his hand. It was clear from looking at the capable-looking bouncer with the shaved head that any trouble caused in this dockside English bar would robustly be resolved by whatever strong-arm means it took to quickly restore the peace.

The very dapper J. Edward Grayson, III walking down the dirty English cobblestone street looked quite out of place among the common dockworkers because of the way that he was dressed. Most men on the docks were dressed in heavy wool trousers that had multiple repair patches, thick dark shirts that had grease stains from wearing the same clothes daily for several days in a row, and they wore dark knitted caps pulled down over their heads to provide a little warmth on those cold nights when the North Wind could freeze a man's soul while he worked on the docks. Most men wore the same clothes - day in, day out, until even the repair patches wouldn't hold the meager threads together. But the very prosperous, proper-looking young man headed toward the bar was wearing a new derby tilted jauntily on his slicked down hair parted in the middle, razor-thin hairline mustache, a white dress shirt decorated with a red silk bowtie, a checkered suit jacket that matched his dark trousers, and a pair of very shiny patent leather shoes that were more suited for a stroll for Sunday morning church visits than for a walk on the rough dock.

While his standard of clothing apparel looked very much out of place, those that recognized him knew that he was one of regulars that worked the bars at nigh. While he looked quite respectful, his actual personality blended in quite well among the hard working, hard drinking, hard fighting, and hard living dockworkers. His parents might have given him a name suited for a lawyer, but his friends gave him a nickname that better suited his chosen lifestyle.

Fast Eddie as he was known by the low-life customers that hung around the dockside bars, glanced at the guard once and tilted his derby slightly to acknowledge the bouncer's presence. But being friendly didn't work with the muscular door guard. The burly bouncer blocked the narrow doorway with his outstretched club, and then spit a black spitball full of tobacco juice just a few inches in front of Fast Eddie's neatly shinned shoes. Wiping a small amount of dirty-looking tobacco drool from his unshaven face, the bouncer calmly explained the rules. "You know damn good and well that Bernie banned you forever after that last time that you were caught cheating at cards. Our good customers get mighty fucking mad if we allow slimy-ass card cheats like you in here to fleece them. This here is a bar that's got a good fucking reputation and we're going to keep it too."

Smiling a big smile as if he could charm the stone-faced guard into letting him enter the bar anyway, the young Englishman flipped off his derby, expertly twirled it around his arm, and then in one obviously practiced deft move, caused it to spin upon his finger like a top. Grabbing the derby with a flourish and bowing like a actor accepting the applause of an audience for his trick, Fast Eddie stepped a few inches closer to the guard, before speaking in a conspiring tone as if he was good friends with the unrelenting shaved-head, muscular guard who was blocking the door with his big body and heavy club. "Look Joe, I've got some good news for Bernie. I'm leaving England forever - really I am. I've got a job on the ship as an entertainer and I'm going to America to seek my fortune. I'm here to tell Bernie the good news and to settle an old debt."

The guard's sour expression didn't change as he calmly held his position. "You've lied to me before, Fast Eddie. I don't like people who lie to me."

"Joe, I'm a changed man. Never again will you see me enter this bar. And if you don't let me in, I won't be able to settle my debt with Bernie and it'll be all your fault."

A big grin formed on the bouncer's dirty face as he slowly dropped the blocking club from in front of the door as he made his decision to disobey the rules. The large guard flashed a big grin that revealed that several of his teeth were missing as a result of his job as he made a prediction and moved out of the way. "I hope that you're lying again because if I ever see you after today, I'm goina womp on you just because you fucking deserve it."

Flipping his derby through the air and easily catching it on his head as acknowledgment of his success in getting past the guard, Fast Eddie tilted the derby jauntily back on his head and freely walked through the open doorway, adjusting his bow tie as he entered the dark bar.

As bars of the early 1900's go, this dockside bar had only one redeeming factor - the owner made sure that it was only his employees that tried to cheat the customers. Independent hustlers such as Fast Eddie were quickly thrown out and barred unless they worked out a suitable sharing financial arrangement with Bernie. And while Fast Eddie had previously worked out something with the bar owner, Bernie had just as quickly caught the dapper con man cheating both the customers and the bar. Bernie hadn't mad about the customers being cheated - he was just mad about Eddie welching on their deal. Thus the banishment.

Walking through the crowded smoky bar, the dapper dressed young man waved at a couple of friends and stopped beside one of the card tables to talk with someone that he knew quiet well. An inside bouncer came from behind the bar and stood beside the card table with his arms folded across his huge chest as if to say 'keep moving'. Recognizing that his time in the bar was extremely limited and that his every movement was being constantly monitored, Fast Eddie headed straight toward the office at the back of the bar. The bouncer followed him and stood behind him as the debonair young man impishly knocked on the door.

A second after he knocked on the door, he heard the response from the other side of the door. "Come on in, Eddie. I've been expecting you."

Walking into the office was like walking into a chimney because of the heavy cigar smoke from Bernie's constant cigars. The bar's heavy-set owner waved at a seat across from him as he welcomed his former card shark and quickly got down to establishing his bottom line for resuming their former business association. "So you've decided to come crawling back to me? Well, it's going to cost you ten percent more for six months if you want to work my bar again. Next time that you cheat on me, I'm going to let Joe break at least one of your legs. You don't need your legs to deal cards for me and having to work with a cast on your leg might make you a little more honest."

Spinning the chair around backwards and sitting down in it so that his arms were resting on the chair's back, the young gambler shook his head to answer the expensive proposition. "No way. I just came by to tell you bye because I'm leaving tomorrow morning. I've got a job on the big boy and I'm going to America."

Taking his cigar out of his mouth and using it as a pointer, the older bar owner gave the dapper young man some friendly advice although he knew that the young man would quickly forget it. "Good, because you don't really belong down here and you need to go seek your fortune elsewhere. Let an old man give you some advice. Play honest for once in your life if you know what's good for you. If they catch you cheating on that thing, you'll be lucky if you just wind up in the brig. I wouldn't be surprised to hear someday that they threw you overboard because you pushed your luck just a little too far - AGAIN. What sort of job did you get?"

"Entertainer. I've got a stage magician act where I do slight of hand card tricks and then finish by hypnotizing someone from the audience to get up and do something to make an ass of themselves."

The old man shook his head and laughed while silently examining the youngster's face to see if the kid was trying to pull another scam on him. "Well, I never thought that I would see you doing honest work."

Tilting his derby back on his head and lowering his voice as if he was getting ready to reveal a secret, the young man's tone changed from being a friendly tone to a quiet confidential tone as he tried to sound truthful; knowing full well that the old man would probably kill him if he caught him lying again. "Well, you're partially right. That's why I'm here. The Entertainer job only pays for part of my boat ticket - second-class ticket at that. I'm looking at supplementing my income by using my special skills to find a couple of rich targets and ripping them off just before we get to America. I'm looking for a good second-story man to be my partner and to ship out with me tomorrow on the morning tide when the ship sails. I had Merv Bowden lined up to go with me but he got busted last night breaking into a house and wound up with ninety days behind bars. I need someone that can fit through some very small openings and doesn't mind taking a dangerous risk or two."

Tucking the ever-present smelly cigar back into his mouth and leaning back in his worn-out old chair while he wrapped his thumbs around his red suspenders and stared at the young man, the bar owner thought for a moment before replying. "There are plenty of good men around that fit the bill but because you're on a one-way trip to America, you're going to need someone who doesn't mind leaving his homeland forever. And that narrows the market considerably. I only know a couple of people that fit that bill. Have you ever worked with Bert the Shark?"

Fast Eddie shook his head 'no' as he frowned then answered "He's getting too old to shinny in and out of locked windows. And he can't go two minutes without breaking into a coughing fit from that old case of TB. In his prime, he would've been a good choice, but now he's washed up and ain't worth the risk. Who else?"

"How about Brad Davis's son - what's his name?"

"I thought of him already and went looking for him. Found out that he's serving a two to three year sentence for trying to break into one of the manors."

The old man puffed on his cigar for several long puffs then he pulled it out and held the half-smoked/half-chewed cigar as a pointer. "I know someone. Name's Leo……Leo…….Leo something or other. He's young - looks sixteen but he's a couple of years older as well as being small, quick and smart. He's got a great future ahead of him. Only needs someone to show him the ropes and to do the planning."

"I need someone experienced. I plan to find out where the rich people are keeping their jewels and while I keep them busy, I need someone that can break and enter into their rooms without getting caught. I can't take a chance on any kid."

Rising to his feet as he made a decision, the old man opened the door, summoned a bouncer and said something quietly to the bouncer before sitting back down in his worn-out old chair. Propping his feet up on the scared desk littered with paper, the old man offered the last advice to his old friend. "You're pulling out tomorrow morning so you don't have much of a choice. I sent for Leo. When he gets here, take him aside and talk to him. I think that you'll like him because he's got plenty of moxie and he's smart. Until you get to know him, he seems like he's shy, but you're not looking for someone with the personality of a salesman. You want someone that's unafraid, willing to try anything, knows when to keep his mouth shut and that's Leo. Give him a little training on picking locks, watching out for booby traps and you'll have an hell of a second-story man."

******

In the privacy of Bernie's private office, Fast Eddie's gut feeling as he interviewed the kid, told him that the old man was probably right. Leonard Cameron or 'Leo' as he preferred to be called, was smart, small and very shy but he was also so inexperienced at being a thief that Fast Eddie knew that the kid didn't stand much of a chance of succeeding at the illegal tasks that the dapper con man expected to have to do. The only illegal things that the kid had really ever done, was to do some minor pilfering. He was slightly over eighteen, an orphan who had lived on the docks for the last seven years, and he was very small for his age, which was his only redeeming factor for the job that Fast Eddie wanted him to do. Leo was only five feet four inches tall and weighed one hundred and ten pounds. With his small body size, he could easily wiggle through narrow openings such as open porthole windows or hide in small boxes to gain entry. But he didn't have any experiences with picking locks or safe cracking, which were the most desirable skills that Fast Eddie was really looking for in a partner.

Sitting with the baby-faced youngster and talking to him in low tones about what he was planning on doing on board the ocean liner and expected from his accomplice, Fast Eddie discovered that the kid appeared to be willing to try anything. When the youngster was told that he might have to scamper down the side of the big ocean liner on a rope and slip through a narrow porthole, the kid didn't blink at the potential danger or required physical skill. When warned that an angry target with a pistol might confront him, the kid shrugged his shoulders as if it was a common occurrence for him. When asked if he could bypass junk jewelry and pick out the real gems from the cheap paste, the kid replied that he would take it all and they could sort it out later.

The experienced con man told the younger kid to hold his hands out. Staring at the young man's long slender fingers, the slightly older man knew that the delicate hands were ideal for feeling the tumblers click in a safe or pick pocketing a man's wallet, however those were skills that would take the kid a little more time to learn than was obviously available for them.

He had the kid stand up to take off his bulky coat and sweater so that Fast Eddie could examine the youth's upper body. The kid's slender shoulders, narrow chest and tiny hips showed that he could probably squeeze through some very narrow openings - a porthole, a vent, a heating duct or other similar tight opening.

Examining the kid's dirty face closely, Fast Eddie observed that the young man's face was the soft, delicate type of face with wide eyes that would give him a youthful look for several years. The kid's long hair was pulled back into a shoulder-length ponytail, which further emphasized his youth. There wasn't a trace of manhood on his face except for four or five dark hairs and a little fuzz over his lip that was so faint that it couldn't even really be called fuzz. It was the type of face that could look innocent and young for several years - the type of face that might be able to bluff his way out of difficult spots by claiming naiveté.

Finally because the con man was recognizing that he was out of time to find anyone else to be his partner-in-crime and knowing that the kid was willing to pack up and ship out with him, Fast Eddie held out his hand to shake the kid's hand, reluctantly accepting the youngster as his new partner.

Holding the kid's hand tightly as they sealed their bargain to work together, Fast Eddie looked hard at his young partner's slightly disheveled appearance as he gave the inexperienced new kid some advice. "I'll take you on as my partner, but it's a seventy/thirty split. I get seventy percent of whatever we find because I'm the boss and will pick only the best targets. You're inexperienced in breaking and entering so you'll have to sometimes do things in the open, which means that you'll need to look like someone's innocent grandson instead of a common street urchin. Get rid of the current dockman clothes that you're wearing and steal some younger looking clothes. Then meet me at the dock in the morning as soon as the sun starts coming up. We'll board as early as they will allow us on the ship so that we start looking at the passengers."

Towering over the smaller young man made Fast Eddie feel like a giant. Although Eddie wasn't a big man, the kid's body was so small that it made Eddie feel bigger and stronger. The kid's tilted back dirty face looked up at his new boss as the kid slowly gave the con man one firm handshake to confirm the deal. "I won't let you down."

Slapping the kid on the upper arm like a big brother to a little brother, Eddie grimly responded. "Yeah, I'll remember that promise. And if you do let me down, you'll be famous in less than a week because all the newspapers will carry the story about how you were thrown off of the Titanic midway to America."

Chapter 2 - Learning to be partners - the Fast Eddie method

It was a triple attraction - the fastest cruise ship, the biggest ship ever and the maiden voyage of the Titanic. While cruise ships normally attracted a rich crowd anyway, this voyage attracted an exceptionally rich crowd who wanted to ride the maiden voyage. From his overhead position on one of the upper decks where he could watch the first class passengers board the ship, Fast Eddie knew that the pickings would be very good just because of the recognizable number of rich people boarding the Titanic. John Jacob Astor, Sir Cosmo Duff-Gordon, Countess of Rothes and other countless rich upper echelons of society boarded the ship as Fast Eddie studied them and noted their cabin placements on the ship based upon what the ship's pursor was loudly calling out to the cabin boys who were escorting the rich passengers to their cabins. Having a natural memory for faces, the con man was able to immediately memorize the names and faces of everyone that boarded through the first class gangplank. Some of the passengers, he easily discarded as potential targets such as Isidor Strass, the founder of the large American department store Macy's, because of the obvious private bodyguards accompanying them, or the Astors because they were too prominently a target. If there were anyone boarding the ship that was probably expecting to be robbed because of their great riches, it would be the fabulously rich Astors.

So as the rich and famous tourists proudly came up the gangplank all decked out in their rich clothes, he built a list of potential targets, based upon his expectations as to the amount of cash and expected jewelry as well as their potential to 'be an easy target'. Knowing better than to try to break in to their room himself, he had to pick easy targets for his inexperienced second story partner.

Yeah, inexperienced was a very good word for the kid's current skill level. Since agreeing to take the kid on as a partner the previous evening, Fast Eddie had reconsidered that decision several times. While the kid was smart, he was also dumb. Perhaps naiveté was a better description of the kid's thinking ability.

Just before boarding the ship, Eddie had picked out an easy mark for pick pocketing to give the kid a chance to get some experience and also to give them some spending money on board the ship. After telling the kid to momentary distract the mark by bumping into the mark from the front while Eddie's quick fingers lifted the mark's billfold from his coat pocket, the kid fucked it up. Yeah, Leo bumped into the mark on time, but Eddie had explicitly said "the man's billfold is in the right pocket - distract him by bumping him on the left side so that he will turn his head to the left while my hand is coming from the right side." So the kid timed his bump to occur exactly two seconds after Eddie's start signal - only Leo bumped the guy on the right side. The mark turned his head to the right to glare angrily at the kid and almost caught Eddie's hand headed into the stranger's pocket.

Trying the same trick twice wouldn't work on any mark, so Eddie picked another easy mark. This time, Leo bumped the mark on the correct side while Eddie's fast hand slipped the man's wallet out of his pocket. But Leo's 'never-should-have-happened' inexperienced curious glance at Eddie's hand almost alerted the mark that something wrong was happening. Luckily Eddie kept going with the billfold lift and the mark didn't realize that he had just lost his wallet when the "dumb kid" had bumped into him. After they got around the corner, Eddie gave his young protégée another lesson to never do that again, emphasized with a sharp slap to the side of the kid's head.

But you can't cram two or three years of experience into a couple of hours of minor thievery. Being somewhat experienced with the finer points of most illegal activities, Eddie knew that he could use the kid only on simple targets where expertise wouldn't be needed. Nothing complex.

With that quick lesson out of the way and a few extra dollars tucked into his own personal billfold, Eddie had boarded the ship early, found the small cabin in third class that he was sharing with Leo as part of his Entertainer arrangement with the ship owners, then had rushed back up to the bridge and claimed a good vantage spot on the bridge where he could hear the names of the rich people as they boarded the large luxury liner. The bridge rapidly filled up with throes of expensively dressed people who were waving to friends on the dockside or strolling with friends who had been permitted to board for a few minute's quick look at the uniquely large and very new ocean liner.

And that's how Fast Eddie decided to pick Margaret Parton as one of his top potential targets. When the young woman wearing the latest Paris fashions, casually strolled with her mother by his spot on the bridge, he couldn't help but overhear their discussion.

"But mother, I know that Lloyd will be here before we sail. He loves me and I love him more than I could ever love anyone else. I'm going to America to start a new life with Lloyd and to get out from being under da-da's thumbs the rest of my life. That's why I sold everything that my grandmother left me, except for her jewelry."

"Shhhh. Don't talk about money or jewelry in public. And I tell you that your father worked out a financial arrangement with Lloyd for him to remain here and to never bother you again. Your gigolo boyfriend isn't really interested in you beyond your money or your father couldn't have bought his services so cheap. Trust me, he won't show up. And that's why you should disembark with me now and go back home. There's no reason now why you should run off to America. It's so uncivilized over there."

The young woman paused in her stroll and stared at the line of people coming up the gangplank, her eyes eagerly searching for the man's handsome face that she was expecting to rush to accompany her on this voyage to a new life in America. Fast Eddie thought to himself that if the man didn't show up, that she would probably be distraught just enough so that she wouldn't notice a small break-in. Her clothes appeared expensive and the off-hand remark about jewelry told him that she might be a good target. Now if only the kid didn't fuck Eddie's plans to rip off this mark also.

Looking at her face head-on so that he could confirm her identity later, he was stunned by her facial features. That one quick glance at her face shocked him.

When she had boarded the ship a few minutes earlier with her mother, Eddie had observed her arrival and memorized her name but he had only seen her profile from a slight distance and hadn't really looked at her close-up. But standing almost close enough to her to reach out and touch her arm, he saw an uncanny resemblance to someone else that he knew quite well. Looking straight at her pretty face, Eddie's fantastic memory for faces recalled the other youthful face that looked exactly like her cherubic face – Leo's boyish face.

Except for the gender differences, the kid was her exact twin. They both had the same delicate round face, chubby cheeks, wide eyes, full lips, generous nose, dark hair and small pixyish body. Granted her clean face, tweezed eyebrows, curled ringlets, red lips, rouged face, ear rings, necklace, plunging neckline, fashionable dress, and high heels made her small feminine body look a lot better than the kid's small dirty male body.

Stunned by their uncanny facial resemblance, Fast Eddie immediately decided that he would have to figure out some way to use that facial similarity to his advantage. Perhaps the kid could pretend to be her younger brother so that he could collect the young woman's jewelry from the purser's safe in the confusion of landing in America. Perhaps they could convince the young woman that Leo was a lost relative and then talk her out of a sizeable loan. The woman immediately moved to the top of his mental list, becoming one of his top targets.

******

The very dapper J. Edward Grayson, III was one of the six entertainers that the ship's recreational director had hired for the small lounges to entertain the first class passengers. If they had seen his act beforehand, they might not have hired him, but that was life.

He was very good at palming cards and doing card tricks but how many times can you do the same trick in front of a group whose attention span was limited? So after a little minor applause from the small audience who quickly tired of his card tricks and stupid jokes, Edward the Great, as he was billed, pulled a young man from the audience and spent six minutes hypnotizing the young volunteer. Then Edward the Great had the spellbound man pretend to be a chicken, a dog and other animals that the audience called out to Eddie as potential funny situations. As he was putting the man through his hypnotized paces to be a cat, someone in the audience called out "whore" so Edward the Great commanded the mesmerized young man to become a 'whore'.

Immediately the young hypnotized man pranced and prissed across the stage like a seductive woman wearing a long evening gown, then tried to seduce a couple of men in the audience's front rows. Fast Eddie stared in amazement at how easily the hypnotized male audience member portrayed his role as a whore and woman. Not only did the man's personality change to be softer, seductive and more feminine, but also so did the expressions on his face and his voice change to match his characterization. Recognizing this was a good thing to add to his act, Eddie decided to experiment some more with this potential entertainment in future shows. After all, the audience was acting much more favorable to the man who thought that he was a whore than when the same man thought that he was a chicken. As the audience laughed at the hypnotized man's body language and actions in flirting with the other customers, Eddie observed Leo slip through a side door into the small bar and recognized that something had gone wrong because of the kid's excited facial expression.

The first class bar's bouncer immediately recognized that the kid obviously didn't belong in the first class area because of his cheap clothes and quickly moved to escort Leo out of the bar. But Eddie knew that something must have gone wrong on one of the small burglar jobs that he gave the kid to do or the kid wouldn't have showed up in such an obviously excited state. With the kid thrown out of the lounge, there wasn't anything Eddie could do but continue for another couple minutes entertaining the crowd who were still laughing at the "Whore" as the hypnotized man loudly flirted with a baldheaded man in the first row.

After he finished his act, Eddie headed back toward the small compartment that he shared with Leo, instead of hanging around the first class area and smoozing with the rich people, as he tried to find some more targets.

The kid was impatiently waiting in the hallway and when he saw Eddie leave the lounge, the kid closely followed him out onto the deck where they could talk quietly. Leaning over the rail and looking at the dark ocean below, the kid's slightly nervous voice whispered the ill-omened words that Eddie never expected to hear. "She's dead."

Spinning quickly and grabbing the kid's coat, the older con man jerked the young man's face close to his own face, as he roughly demanded quick and truthful answers. "What happened? Did you do it?"

"Nah, I took that list of five targets that you gave me and started with the single woman's cabin. I knocked on her door as if I was delivering a message, just like you showed me. Then when there wasn't any response, I slipped the wire into the lock and jiggled it, until the door opened. Then I popped into her suite and turned up the lantern so I could see in the dark room. When I turned around to start searching the room, that's when I saw her lying next to the bed on the floor. At first, I thought that I was caught and was about to run, and then I saw the blood. She slit her wrists then her own throat before she died. As soon as I saw that she was dead, I got out of there."

Letting go of the young man's coat, Fast Eddie's mind whirled as he tried to think of ways to use this unexpected death to his advantage. Then he whispered his quickly developed plan as he silently decided that he was going to have to take the lead on this plan. "If she's dead, then we can use this opportunity to steal everything, instead of just a few pieces of her jewelry. If we don't rob her blind, someone else will. Let's go to her suite."

******

She was dead. On the desk in her large cabin was a little note on her personal pink stationary that she had written to her mother, explaining that when the love of her short life didn't show up on the Titanic because her father bought the young man off, she lost all reason to live any more. The note continued that she blamed her death on her father's overbearing desire to control every facet of her life.

Putting the hand-written tear-stained note back down on the desk, Eddie glanced through some of the other personal papers on the desk and his eyes bugged slightly when he observed that one of the items was a receipt from the ship's purser for nearly three hundred thousand dollars cash that the young woman had previously turned over to the ship's security for safekeeping. And that another receipt was for personal jewelry that was being kept in a lock box in the ship's safe that was valued at four hundred thousand dollars.

He found it difficult to read beyond those two receipts. Here he was hoping that he could rip off a couple of trinkets worth five to ten thousand dollars on the complete journey and suddenly there was almost three quarters of a million dollars that was ripe for stealing. All he had to do was to find some way to convince the purser to turn the young woman's stored riches over to him.

Staring at the dead woman's gaping open mouth and blood-covered dress, Fast Eddie knew the only possible answer to his question, the kid's uncanny resemblance to the dead woman, had to be used.

He sat down in the chair and though about the concept that was whirling through his mind for about two minutes. Although the kid was nervous and pacing the floor while staring at the dead woman as if he expected her to jump up alive and challenge them, Eddie was very calm. As soon as the more experienced con man mentally resolved a couple of minor details in his quickly developed plan, he began explaining the plan through a sales pitch to the kid. "Did you ever hear the old joke about the man who asked a woman for some pussy and she slapped him. Then before she could walk off in a mad huff, he explained that he was an eccentric millionaire and would she fuck him for five dollars. She slapped at him again, but he dodged the slap as he increased the price to one hundred dollars. That super sum so stunned her that she didn't slap at him again but stood there thinking about what she could do with a hundred dollars. Then she smiled and said 'ok, let's do it'. The man fucked her and then held out a single dollar. She angrily asked where the rest of the money was. He told her that he lied about being a millionaire and didn't 'have the money to pay a whore any more money than the current going rate for pussy'. She cussed him and told him that she wasn't a whore. Throwing the money down, the man said 'yes you are and all that we're doing now is negotiating the price.' Well Leo, have you ever considered how far you would go for money?"

The young man's face looked blank as he thought about the question then Leo nervously answered the only answer possible after the way that Eddie asked the extremely leading question. "I guess that I would do anything if the price is right."

"The price is thirty percent of seven hundred thousand dollars - your cut comes to about two hundred and ten thousand dollars. Now is that amount good enough to turn you into a whore?"

Leo's blank and confused face showed that he didn't know how to respond. For someone that had never had more than twenty dollars at one time in his life, the sum of two hundred and ten thousand dollars was impossibly hard to imagine. Just imagining what he could do with a meager hundred dollars was difficult to comprehend because of his youthful inexperience with large sums of money.

After five seconds of standing still with his jaw open as he tried to comprehend the vast sum that Fast Eddie was proposing sharing with him, Leo answered the question by asking his own question. "Who do I have to kill?"

Pointing at the dead woman on the bed, Fast Eddie described the plan as he dreamed it up. "Nobody on this ship really knows her. Except that some of the crew - the purser, the Captain, the cabin boys, etc., know her name and recognize her face when they see her. So no one really knows what her personality is like or anything about her history except that she's very rich. So all we have to do is to temporary hide her body and then transform you into her double. You'll live here in her cabin as if you were really her and I'll stay here with you to help you pull off your impersonation of her. Then all you have to do when it is time to disembark the ship is to fool the purser into turning the money and jewels in the safe over to you. He will only do it if he thinks that you are really the one and only Margaret Parton. Then when the ship docks, we march off the ship with our pockets filled with her valuables, both of us richer than our best dreams."

A snarl lifted up one corner of Leo's mouth as he thought about what his mentor was suggesting that Leo had to do to claim his share of the riches. Then the young man shook his head negatively as if he couldn't believe what he was hearing and what he was being asked to do. Pointing at the dead woman lying on the floor between them, he exclaimed "No fucking way that I can be a woman. Look, ask me to do something else - kill someone, rob someone at gunpoint and I'll do it. But to act like I'm a woman - there's no way that I can do it."

Rising to his feet and moving quickly so that he was standing only a few inches from Leo's face, Eddie pleaded with Leo because a vast fortune was at stake and the greedy con man desperately needed the young man's full cooperation. "A little over one week. That's all you have to do it and then we're off the ship. No one will know about your temporary impersonation but you and I, and I'm sure as hell not going to tell anyone. It's three quarters of a million dollars for us to split. Think about it and don't let this once in a lifetime opportunity pass you by simply because you think that you'll feel a little awkward."

The young man's face grimaced then his head quickly shook a negative answer again. Stunned by the continued refusal at what would be very easy money, Eddie's voice raised several octaves as if his balls were being squeezed. "THREE QUARTERS OF A MILLION DOLLARS! You're walking away from a king's ransom."

Grabbing his head as if the thought of Leo's scared refusal was ripping his mind apart, Eddie's voice dropped to a plaintive whimper as he continued his pleading with the young man. "Look, for that much money, I would murder my own mother. I would do it myself, but I can't even fool a blind man with my very dissimilar looks. You're the only one of us who even has a chance of pulling it off because of your uncanny resemblance to her. You can't say no to me. You owe this to me for giving you a chance to be my partner."

The stubborn set of Leo's jaw and his crossed arms showed that he wasn't going to be too receptive to any arguments and that he was still refusing to do it. Eddie's pleading voice sounded more like a cry than a question. "Whhhyyyyy?

Tilting his head defensively, Leo tried to explain why he was making his decision and why he was being so stubborn. "When I first became an orphan and had to learn how to survive living in the streets by myself, some men tried to take advantage of me just because I was small and delicate looking. I fought them as they took turns raping me but I lost because they were so much bigger than me. Then later while I was still crying from the physical and mental shame that I was feeling, they told me that I was going to be their 'new little girlfriend'. They told me that they would show me how to sell my body to the rich men who liked little boy's bodies and that they would take very good care of me if I did what they wanted me to do to them. I told them that I wasn't anybody's girlfriend and ran away from them as fast as I could run. They chased me for a long way but I ran good and escaped them. Ever since then, I've had my limits as to how far I would go on some things. I'll lie, steal, kill, beat people up, but I refuse to be a 'whore'. Even if I was starving, I wouldn't do what you're asking."

Holding up his hands and pleading, Eddie responded with every jumbled thought that he could conceive to try to convince the stubborn young man to change his mind. "Look, that was water under the bridge. Another time, another place. You have to learn to adapt and to roll with the punches. I'm not asking you to let the Captain fuck you, just that you pretend to be a woman. Wear a dress and some makeup just long enough to fool the Purser into opening the safe. If anyone has to go down on the Captain and blow him, I'll do it myself if you'll just look like her long enough to collect the money and help me get it off the ship."

Leo shut his eyes and let his face go blank as if he was thinking hard about the proposition. Then jerking his eyes open, he began to plead with Eddie to suggest any other plan that didn't involve him looking like a girl for even one minute. "I can't do it. The thought of wearing a dress and pretending that I'm a woman is so alien to me. All my life, I've hated the gentle way that I look, wishing that my face was tougher looking and that I had a rugged large body. Just thinking about it makes me nervous."

Stepping forward and grabbing the kid's face between his palms as if he was going to try to will him to change his mind, Eddie suddenly thought of a possible answer to their dilemma but he had to get the kid's total cooperation if there was going to be any chance of success. Whispering as if he was talking to a woman that he was getting ready to seduce, Eddie begin setting the kid up again so that there would only be one possible response to the ultimate question that Eddie was going to ask again. "Look, Leo…..you and I are partners. We started this trip, knowing that we would have to take some risks and possibly do some things that neither of us had ever done before. We were both looking at using the rich passengers of this ship to get our start at a new life in America. And then we came across this young lady. I feel sorry for her and wish that I could've helped her. But it's too late for her and her death gives us the major chance that we need. All you have to do is to think about it and recognize that now is the time that we have to act. And I know where you're coming from. The dock life can be hard on a kid. But there are ways to get around the way that you feel. I can help you but you have to give me the chance. You have to let me help you. Now do you want to be extremely poor for the rest of your fucking life so that you have to work hard for the rest of your life or do you want to be a very rich man in America?"

Holding the kid's face tightly between his palms so that they were staring into each other's close eyes, Leo only had one possible answer that he could blurt as Eddie waited for him to say the words. "Rich….but I don't….."

Placing a finger against the kid's lips to shush him before he could vocalize a negative answer, Fast Eddie finished the answer for the kid. "Yeah, you don't want to pass up this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get rich quickly. I know and understand how you feel. My sentiments are the same also. And you're lucky that it's me that's your partner because I've got the skills that you need to help you pull this off without any pain. I can hypnotize you and make you feel comfortable with temporary looking like her. I can give you the confidence that you need to pull off an impersonation of her. I can hide the hurt and confusion in your mind. I can give you the confidence to fool others into thinking that you're her. We'll spend all of the time here in the cabin so no one but me will see you until it's time to go to the purser. After you waltz into the ship's safe and get our new fortune, it'll be over with and you'll feel better. All you have to do is just give me a chance to show you that I can help you hide the hurt that you're feeling now. I know that I can make you forget the fears that you have. All you have to do is just trust me. Remember back in Bernie's office, you told me that you wouldn't let me down on anything that I requested you to do. Well, it's time for you to show me that you're a man of your word. I'm going to ask you again to prove that you're really my partner and that you'll honor your commitment to me to do whatever it takes, no matter the risk."

When the kid didn't immediately answer, Eddie knew that he had won and that the kid would very reluctantly finally agree to do it. All Eddie had to do was to keep the kid feeling slightly warm and fuzzy about his forced answer and to get Leo hypnotized quickly. Once Leo was hypnotized, then Eddie could take his time and really help Leo feel more at ease with the decision.

Leo took a deep breath and answered the request by timidly asking a question. If the kid had been more experienced, he would have realized that Fast Eddie would lie to his own mother to steal a single dollar and sure as hell would lie to the kid over three quarters of a million dollars. "You promise that you won't make me do anything but look like her just long enough to collect our money?"

Stepping back and holding out his hand to force the kid to shake hands to commit to his impersonation plan, a very relieved con man answered as close to the truth as he could answer under the circumstances. "You have the word of J. Edward Grayson."

Chapter 3 - My word

Because of his nervousness, the kid had some difficulty in relaxing and kept fidgeting as Eddie used all of his skills to try to put the kid into the first level of a hypnotic trance. Leo clearly wasn't a good hypnotic subject but Eddie didn't have much choice as to who his subject was and had to work with what was available. After almost an hour of soft talking and strong suggestions, the kid's eyes eventually shut and stayed shut for several seconds as Leo finally succumbed to Eddie's repeated suggestions to relax. Patiently examining the kid's soft breathing and slightly fluttering eyelids and recognizing the first signs of a beginning hypnotic trance, Eddie felt so thrilled at finally getting somewhere that he almost jumped for joy.

Now that Leo was drifting into the first level of hypnotic sleep, Eddie began guiding him into much deeper levels, strengthening his control over the young man's subconscious mind. Finally he got Leo into as deep into a hypnotic trance as Eddie thought that he could take the young man. Then Eddie began prepping his subject for the arduous task ahead of both of them.

"Leo, you will remain asleep but will listen to my words. You know that my words are true and that I'm here to help you - that I'm your friend and partner. You know that you can trust me. I'm here to help you get over your deepest fears and to help you become more of a man - to help you become a very rich man. But to do that, we must first pretend that you're something that you're not. All we're going to do is pretend. You're going to pretend that you're someone else for a couple of days. We're going to put a con on everyone on the ship. We're going to make them think that you're the rich Margaret Parton just because you look a little bit like her. We're going to make the ship's officers think that you're the rich woman that left all the money and jewelry in their safe. Then after we have the money, we'll walk off the ship and live happily ever after as extremely rich men in America. You would like to be a rich man, wouldn't you Leo?"

"Yes." Leo's lips barely moved as he faintly answered the question.

"Good. Now just relax and think about being rich. Think about your promise to me about how you wouldn't let me down. You remember promising me that, don't you? Just shake your head slightly - good. You know that I'm going to help you. You know that I'm helping you get over your fears. You know that I'm helping you to do something that you really want to do - to become rich. So you will help me by letting me suggest how you should act and think for the next several days as we pretend that you're Margaret. As I tell you how you should act, feel, think, and look, you will listen to my suggestions. You will want to remember and obey my suggestions. You will follow my recommendations because you want to be rich. You know that my suggestions won't hurt you and are only intended to help you pretend that you're her. When I tell you to wake up, you'll feel very comfortable with your decision to temporary let yourself be transformed into Margaret Parton's twin. You'll feel very comfortable with letting me change the way that you physically look because it's only going to be a temporary change. It is a temporary change that we must do so that you look just like the dead woman. A change that only you and I'll be the only ones that ever knows about it. You'll allow me to help you change your appearance so that you look like her - so that you are able to fool the ship's officers into thinking that you are her. To help you pretend to be her so that you can fool them and get them to turn her money over to us."

For the next ten minutes, Eddie kept building confidence in Leo's reluctant decision to participate and giving the young man many reasons as to why it was a good decision. Then he began working on the details as to how Leo should feel, think, and act when awakened. Knowing that he had to overcome Leo's natural fears, Eddie began tearing down the fears by creating reasons for Leo to enjoy the impersonation. Telling Leo how he would enjoy the softness of the dresses, how he would enjoy the playacting of being her, how he would enjoy fooling everyone into thinking that he was a woman. Eddie repeatedly told Leo how he would enjoy transforming himself into a woman and pretending to be the rich Margaret Parton because it would make him a rich man when he arrived in America. Eddie had the hypnotized young man visualize what it would be like to be rich and how much better his life would be as a reward for his successful impersonation. And to get Leo to recognize that all Leo has to do to get this wonderful future life was to look and act as if he was the dead woman while they were on the ship.

After giving the kid two solid hours of hypnotic suggestions, Eddie knew that it was time to see how the suggestions were working. He knew that most people that he hypnotized were quite willing to get up in front of a group and make an ass of themselves, but that there were some things that they typically wouldn't be willing to do while hypnotized. And Leo had several things that he wouldn't do, so the hypnotic suggestions given to Leo were intended more to get him to change his mind than to make a quick fool of himself. Leo had to want to act and pretend to be a woman or the impersonation won't work.

Just before he awakened Leo, Eddie added another series of post- hypnotic suggestions to Leo's pliable mind "Leo, you and I both want this temporary impersonation of our dead woman to work. So whenever I tell you to put on her ring, you will slip it onto your finger without any question or hesitation. As the small ring slides into place on your finger, the male personality of Leonard Cameron will disappear and the female personality of Margaret Parton will take control of your body. When the ring is on your finger, you will become her only you will remain my partner. When I tell you to remove the ring, her personality will fade from your body and you will become Leonard again. Wake up, Leo and feel refreshed from your relaxing sleep."

The young man's eyes fluttered then slowly opened with a dazed look on his face. As he slowly eased into a sitting position, he stared at his body as he carefully examined it if he was expecting some major physical change to his appearance. Looking over at the patiently waiting Eddie with a slightly confused look on his young cherubic face, he asked one of the questions that he needed to have answered. "I don't feel any different and don't remember falling asleep. Were you able to hypnotize me?"

Postponing answering Leo's question, Eddie picked up the dead woman's stiff hand and then began tugging on her ring, trying to get the ring off of her already slightly swollen fingers. After putting a lot of force onto yanking on it because he obviously wasn't hurting the dead woman, he slipped the ring off her finger. Easing the dead woman's hand back down on the floor as if dropping her hand could hurt her, Eddie casually handed the small golden ring to Leo while trying to still the tremor in his voice as he made the suggestion. "Why don't you put her ring on?"

Leo cautiously accepted the dead woman's ring from Eddie and held it for several long seconds, just looking at it before he finally carefully slipped the delicate gold band onto his own finger. Leo's finger was shaking slightly because the kid was obviously nervous because he didn't know what was going to happen to him. As soon as the ring was on Leo's slender finger, Eddie noticed that Leo's hand quit trembling. Still lightly holding the ring with his other hand, Leo softly rubbed the ring and adjusted it on his finger. Patiently Eddie watched his younger partner adjust and examine the ring, then because the con man was unable to stand the suspense any longer, Eddie cautiously asked the boy to say something, to say anything to help gauge the effectiveness of the complex hypnotic spell. "How do you feel?"

The kid slowly glanced up from examining the pretty ring on his fingers but his gleaming eyes reveled the question's answer before his lips could speak the verbal answer. The eyes had greatly changed. Instead of being hard and confused, there was confidence and a little glimmer of mischievousness in the dark eyes. Then Leo's beaming face tried to hide the velvety smile, which was forming in the corner of the lips as he answered the question, speaking in a very soft feminine sounding voice as his new personality controlled his attitude and actions. "I feel good. I'm going to enjoy being rich."

The lively glimmer in the boy's eyes, the charming smile on his lips, the soft confident feminine sounding voice - all were signs that the hypnotic suggestions were working as planned. But the tone of the kid's voice and confidence behind the spoken words were the best signs that they might have a chance at pulling this caper off. Eddie stared at the kid's more wide-open facial expression and began talking to the kid to determine Leo's willingness to cooperate with the planned impersonation. "Yeah, I'm looking forward to stepping onto American soil with my pockets full of money. But it's not going to be easy and you're going to have to work hard to fool everyone into thinking that you're her. What are you going to do, if the purser flirts with you? After all, he's going to think that you're an attractive single rich woman?"

Without any hesitation, Leo answered in his new soft voice, his lively face showing that there was only one answer to that question and that he was telling the truth. "I'll flirt back until after we've got the money out of his safe, then I'll tell him to go get fucked."

While Leo's words were very positive sounding, even more demonstrative of the major changes in his attitude and personality was the way that his face changed as he answered. Instead of his face remaining stoic and impassionate as usual, his facial states showed mixed expressions of friendliness, a slight teasing flirt and most importantly - a high level of personal confidence.

Walking slowly around the kid as Eddie looked at the way that the kid's new posture, facial expressions and attitude was making him look softer and more feminine, Eddie wanted to hear the kid acknowledge again that he was prepared to do whatever was necessary to pull this masquerade off. Staring at the young man's face, Eddie asked the three-quarters-of-a-million-dollar question. "Your face looks enough like her face to pass and your body is about the same size so that you can certainly wear her clothes. After we slightly change your physical appearance and dress you in her clothes so that you look exactly like she looked, do you really think that you can fool the Purser into believing that you're really her?"

Eddie listened to the kid's vocal response but it was the kid's gestures, expressive facial expressions, tone of voice and lively eyes that he was really interested in observing. Instead of the kid responding in his normal deadpan stony face and gruff voice, the young man's eyes, lips, and posture showed his new softer personality as Leo laughingly responded to the challenge. "I think that I could fool everyone but her boyfriend if he was look under my skirts. For that much money, I'd be willing to see if I could fool him by temporary diverting his attention elsewhere. As for the Purser, I'll have him so convinced that I'm that sweet little helpless rich girl that he'll personally carry my luggage to my hotel just for the opportunity to be able to flirt with me."

Fighting back a strong impulse to hug the kid because of the excellent way that Leo was responding so far to the hypnotic suggestions, Eddie knew that they had to get quickly get started on the impersonation. Knowing that he had Leo's full cooperation now and that he needed to reinforce that cooperation quickly, he began suggesting the next steps of their plan. "It's going to be daylight in another six or seven hours and we've got to get rid of the body before then. We can throw her overboard but before we do that, we need to make your face look as much like her face as possible."

Stepping over to the dead woman's body laying on the floor, Leo casually stared at the deceased woman's face without any fear as he confidently traced her facial features with the tips of his fingers while he compared her face to his face. After twenty seconds of serious examination, he confidently gave his report, still speaking in his new soft velvety voice tones. "Her nose, cheeks, and lips are slightly different than mine but the difference is so subtle that even I barely see it. We've got the same general facial shape, wide eyes and almost the same hair color, which is why we look somewhat alike. Her hair is about four or five inches longer than my hair but that's so minor that it's not even worth worrying about. So with a little makeup and slight reduction of my thick eyebrows, I can make my face look exactly like her face so that I could fool anyone. Maybe even enough to fool someone that really knows her quite well like her Mother. Why don't you go through her things and see if there's anything else that we can find out about her while I learn how to 'make myself pretty' with her makeup kit?"

Slightly stunned by the kid's new more positive take-charge attitude, Fast Eddie hesitated for a second as he wondered if the kid was getting slightly too over-confident for his own good. But the con man wasn't nicknamed Fast Eddie for nothing. Recognizing that you have to take full advantage of any situation as long as the solution resulted in lining his pockets with money, the con man decided to let the hypnotized kid proceed with staging his own transformation until he either failed or his reckless acts endangered the project.

So Eddie began opening the cabin's drawers, going through her packed clothes, and searching for anything among her personal effects that might help them make the impersonation more realistic. Leo casually sat down at the vanity table and studied his mirrored face for a couple of seconds as he made some decisions about what changes he had to do to transform his boyish face into a more realistic duplicate of the dead woman's face. Then moving confidently as if he's successfully done this type of physical transformation several times before, he picked up the tweezers from her makeup kit and began removing the facial hair that defined his face as slightly masculine looking. He started with the few straggly black whisker hairs on his upper lip, chin and cheeks that had so proudly marked his passage from childhood to young adult when they started popping out on his boyish face a few years earlier. With each stinging jerk of the tweezers, he removed one dark hair from his face making his soft young face look slightly less masculine. It wasn't much of a facial growth that he had to remove from his lower face, but he knew that as soon as all of the scraggly facial hairs were finally painfully tweezed off of his otherwise smooth face, that it would be a lot more difficult for anyone else to determine whether he was a young boy or young girl.

Once the few strands of straggly dark hair were finally removed so that there was only a little thin fuzz over the upper lip, he stopped his tweezing. Although her face didn't have any noticeable fuzz, he knew that a lot of women had fine hair above their lips and that his thin fuzz would be acceptable. He sure as hell didn't want to spend the next ten or twelve hours painfully removing each small hair follicle to try to make his upper lip look as smooth as her lips. Leo began patiently working on shaping his eyebrows to look like her heavily tweezed eyebrows. Twice he stopped what he was doing and walked around the room, rubbing his face as if the rubbing could stop some of the minor pain discomfort from the hair removal. Once he propped up the dead woman into a sitting position so that she was leaning against the couch while he closely examined her eyebrows, measuring the length, thickness and curve of her chosen eyebrow shape. Going back to the mirror, he looked at his already butchered thick eyebrows and softly whispered in a low tone that only he could hear. "Sure hope this shit grows back fast. I don't want my face to look like this for any longer than it takes to get that money out of the safe."

Fast Eddie finished his examination of her personal items, deciding that there was nothing more to be learned of any value from his through examination of her personal effects. Turning around to see how Leo was doing, the con man did a double take startled look when he stared at his young partner's very different reflection in the vanity mirror. One thick eyebrow was already tweezed and shaped into a delicate womanly arch so that side of Leo's face looked totally feminine while the other eyebrow hadn't really been touched yet. The kid was turning his head so that his facial profile was reflected in the mirror while he compared the before/after difference. One reflected image showed the kid's normal juvenile face with his thick eyebrow, and then as his face rotated slowly, his face became a hermodite looking face with one male-looking thick eyebrow and one female-looking thin, curved eyebrow. As he continued turning his head slowly so that the other side of his face was the only visible side reflected in the mirror, the fashionably thin, feminine eyebrow made Leo's boyish face look like a young girl's face - almost exactly like the dead woman's face.

Leo noticed that an obviously transfixed Eddie was quietly staring at the boy's new facial appearance that was reflected in the mirror. Turning his face quickly so that only the feminized side of his face was visible in the mirror, Leo winked flirtingly at Eddie as he teased the con man using his new soft feminine seductive voice tone. "Hi sweetie. Would you turn your jewels over to me?"

******

Leo became a little nervous when Eddie kept curiously staring at the youth's image as the hypnotized young man worked relentlessly on feminizing the other side of his face. Finally the younger man made a suggestion to get his partner to leave him alone. "Look, I know what needs to be done and I'm doing it. But you are standing over me like a mother hen and that is making me a little nervous. Why don't you go get lost for an hour or two while I finish off this other eyebrow and clean up a little. I think I know what I need to do and I'll do it. Just leave me alone."

Eddie hesitated to leave when there was still so much to do but complied with the request because the kid appeared to know exactly what needed to be done and was doing it - thanks to the effects of the hypnotic suggestions. Leaving the youngster alone in the suite, Eddie went upstairs where he paced the ship's deck for two hours, nervously smoking one cigarette after another as he killed the requested time.

When exactly two hours passed, Eddie returned to the dead woman's first class suite. Pausing outside the door, he debated for a second whether to barge in or to knock politely. Then rationalizing that the more that he treated the kid like a proper lady, it would probably help Leo act more like the young rich, female socialite that he had to pretend to be.

Knocking on the door, he was quickly rewarded with the command to 'Enter' the unlocked cabin. Shutting the cabin's door behind him, he was slightly puzzled to see that the expensive suite's main room was empty. Even the dead woman's body was gone. From behind the closed door of the bathroom, came the pleasing soft sound of a woman's soprano voice as she made a suggestion. "Why don't you pour us a glass of wine. I'll be just one more minute."

Opening a bottle of wine at the suite's small bar occupied Eddie for about thirty seconds. Just as he was getting ready to pour two glasses of wine, he heard the whishing sound of the bedroom door opening behind him, closely followed by the easily recognizable soft rustle sound of silken petticoats. Turning sharply to face the bathroom door, Eddie's dazed face quickly showed the amazement that he was experiencing from what he was seeing.

Standing in the doorway was a very dazzling Margaret Parton. Only this version of her was radiantly alive and her vibrant smile showed that "Margaret" was immensely enjoying the shocked look on Eddie's face.

Eddie knew that it was Leo dressed in her clothes and made up to look like the dead woman. But the beautiful young woman standing confidently in the doorway sure didn't look anything like the grubby young man who had been Eddie's partner for the last day.

The new Margaret Parton was wearing an expensive, full length, designer-original dress. The full pleats of the dress's ankle-length navy-blue velvet skirt combined with the padded soft ruffles of the white blouse to camouflaged Leo's small body so that from the neck down, the only assumption possible was that it was a young girl's shapely body underneath the expensive clothes. The high starched collar with the cameo pendant effectively hid the young man's minor Adam's apple while adding just the right touch of expensive good taste to her clothing style. The front of the blouse had the right curvature underneath the soft silk to suggest firm feminine breasts were hidden beneath the delicate ruffles. The blouse's puffed sleeves added additional femininity to the disguise while making the body look softer as the arm muscles were hidden.

Knowing from Fast Eddie's obvious gawking that he was looking at her lower body, Leo delicately lifted the edge of the skirt about three or four inches so that Eddie could see that Leo was also wearing her white hosiery and shoes under the skirt. While Eddie couldn't see much of the legs because of the quick look, Leo had also shaved the legs because that was how the real woman's legs had looked.

While the body from the neck down looked absolutely perfectly feminine, it was the rest of the body from the neck up, which cinched the illusion that the person was really a woman. The sparkling clean face, the delicately arched shaped-eyebrows, the soft glistening red lips perfectly coated with cherry-red lipstick, the blushing-red rouged high cheekbones, and the dark eyes were expertly framed by a light mixture of mascara and shadow which highlighted the eyes. It was clearly a woman's face. The dangling golden earrings from each ear further enhanced the womanly image, as did the large mound of piled dark-brown hair on top of her head, with large curled ringlets hanging down on one side of her face.

Raising a delicate ring-covered finger to twirl one of the ringlets of hair, the 'new Margaret Parton' confided to Fast Eddie how she had achieved some of her new appearance. "Most of my real hair is hidden under this wig that I found in her stuff. What do you think?"

"You would've fooled me. You look great," confessed Eddie as he told the absolute truth for about the first time in his life.

'Margaret' stepped forward moving slightly clumsily as the new female impersonator adjusted to the high heel shoes enormously different sense of balance. After a couple of awkward steps across the room, the new Margaret adjusted to the shaky balance of the shoes and looked somewhat more at ease by the time that the new young woman safely crossed the room to stand in front of Eddie. Twirling around once like a model on display so that Eddie could see how nicely the woman's clothes fit the transformed young man's padded body, her gleaming eyes and giggling laugh showed that she was immensely enjoying the impersonation so far. Holding out a delicate hand that was covered with expensive rings and golden bracelets so that her hand looked extremely feminine, Margaret accepted the wine glass as the new woman casually remarked about some of her discoveries. "If the jewelry in her suitcase is the cheap stuff, I can't imagine what the good stuff stored in the safe must look like."

Eddie held up his wine glass and whispered a congratulatory toast as he silently noted to himself that Leo made a better-looking woman than a man. "To our bright future. I'm beginning to think that our taking passage on the Titanic was the best thing to ever happen to us."

Chapter 4 - The good life

The change in Leo's new feminine personality was quite dramatic. Where he had been a sullen, never-smiling boy who also didn't believe in frequently washing his face or hands, the new feminized Leo was exactly the opposite. The most obvious change, except for the obvious difference in physical appearance, was the vibrant alive expressions on her happy face and within her actions. It was as if the youth had been held prisoner within a shell all of his life and was finally turned free to twirl around the room and sashay gaily around the room. Not only was there an energetic spontaneity to her new personality but she also appeared to enjoy the obvious confusion that she was causing her more experienced partner who was obviously having difficulty adjusting to his partner's new vivacious personality and fascinating appearance.

"While you were gone, I took the liberty of undressing her and wrapping her naked body in a blanket. I wanted to see if she had any birthmarks or distinguishing features underneath her clothes that I should know about. How do you like my new tits? They aren't anything but some heavy golden jewelry wrapped in some socks stuffed into one of her bras. I had to do something to make the tits look appropriately heavy and also to slightly fill out the bra with appropriate bulk and weight so it looked more natural. Thank goodness that her breasts were small or I would still be stuffing rings into those socks."

"We need to throw her body over the railing while it's still dark. Then we need to practice your visit to the Purser's office to get our jewels and money."

Holding her wine glass a few inches from a red lips, she gleefully looked over the lipstick stained edge of the glass as she showed that there was going to be several changes to their relationship. "What do you mean 'we'? It sounds like a job for a man and you appear to be the only man in this room. While you're out cleaning up the mess, I'm going to be undressing and getting ready to turn in. I think that I'm going to enjoy staying in this luxurious cabin and having people treat me as if I were someone important."

Glancing around at the spacious accommodations of the large cabin, Eddie thought about how cramped it was back in their very small cabin. "Yeah, it will be nice to spread out a little. I can sleep on the couch while you take the bed. That way we can work some more on your technique."

"No darling, you didn't hear me. This is obviously my cabin and your cabin is definitely several decks below this nice cabin and underneath the ship's waterline. Margaret Parton wouldn't let a third-rate ship's entertainer spend the night in her cabin. After all, she's got a busted romance to think about and will probably be grieving over that failed relationship for a day or two before she begins to look for someone new. Please pick up the package that you need to dump overboard that I've so neatly already wrapped up in a blanket for you and be on your way. I've got to turn in if I'm going to get my beauty sleep. I see from looking at my ship's calendar where I'm scheduled to participate in a shuffleboard tournament in the morning and I know nothing about playing that delightful game. Oh well, I'm a quick learner and I should be a championship shuffleboard player by dinnertime tomorrow evening. I might even find some way to work into my schedule tomorrow where I visit your small lounge when you are doing your act. Maybe we could have some common friends formally introduce us so we could see each other in an appropriate social setting. Naturally, if we saw each other, it would have to be my very proper social setting. I'm not used to slumming and would feel so out of place in the type of disreputable places that you and your friends frequent."

Amazed at her scathing put-down, there was only one comment that Fast Eddie could make. "Fuck you."

Giggling as if her partner had just said something brilliant, the new Margaret quickly made a retort in line with her new vivacious personality. "Sorry but you're not my type. Perhaps after you've become much richer, I would consider letting you call upon me and maybe even hold my hand if the chaperon would permit that level of togetherness. And if you were to make me the right offer, I might let you spend the night in my bed. After all, we've both proven that anything can be bought for the right price. For a mere thirty percent of our take, I've allowed you to turn me into a very rich bitch who will do anything for money."

*****

Although the Parton cabin had a small private deck overlooking the ocean, there were other decks below it so that it would be impossible to throw something as heavy as a body from her deck. So Eddie lifted the woman's blanket-wrapped dead body over his shoulder and quickly worked his way down the hallway to an open deck where he could easily heave the body overboard. He stayed out on the deck long enough to smoke a cigarette to see if anyone noticed the body that had drifted beside the ship for a minute or so before the ship moved on. There were still a lot of people who were wandering around the deck enjoying the night air. Satisfied that he wasn't observed discarding the body or that anyone saw the floating body, he rapidly returned to the cabin only to discover that the door was locked so that he couldn't get in.

Knocking gently on the door so as to not awaken the occupants of the adjacent cabins, he heard a melodious voice pleasantly respond to his knock with an obvious threat. "I told you that you weren't sleeping with me and that is my final answer. Go back to your cabin or I'll call the Ship's Stewart to throw you into the brig."

Knowing that he was being rejected from the scene of his own success, the con man had to abandon his plan to sleep on the couch within the luxurious cabin with his transformed partner sleeping in the bedroom. Going to the nearest stairwell, he began the laborious descent into the bowels of the huge ship where the management had assigned him a bunk bed in a very small cabin. He had been lucky because they had assigned him and Leo to a very small private cabin, which was only about ten inches wider than his very narrow bunk. It was so small that he had to step out into the hallway to put on his shoes.

Crawling into the small bunk, he quickly undressed and laid his clothes on the upper bunk that had been assigned to Leo. Laying on the bunk in the dark room hearing the heavy hum and clank of the nearby powerful engines that were moving the Titanic across the Atlantic Ocean, gave Eddie time to think about the rapid sequence of events so far.

Smiling in the dark to himself because he had pulled off the heist of the century so far, he thought about the dramatic change in Leo's personality and how he liked the kid's new vivacious personality. Previously the kid had been nothing more than a "leaden blockhead" that Eddie was dragging around and trying to convert into an accomplished accomplice. Where Eddie had been thinking about getting rid of the kid as soon as the ocean liner docked, he was now thinking about new ways that he could use his partner's new talents.

Thinking about the drastic change in attitude, Eddie came to the conclusion that it was the series of "be like and act like Margaret Parton" commands that he had given Leo that was making the change. The kid knew that the young woman had been a rich spoiled brat who was used to getting her own way and had built her new strong personality upon that concept. That's why the new Margaret was slightly challenging Eddie for the dominancy within their thieves' agreement. That's why Margaret was being so forward and slightly bitchy as if she were a natural woman. That's why Margaret was able to adapt to her new surroundings so easily.

As he drifted off to sleep, the happy image of the new Margaret Parton looking as pretty as she had looked when she walked out of the bathroom, floated through his thoughts.

******

With Eddie finally gone so that she could have some peace, the new Margaret relaxed on the couch as she casually smoked one of the expensive cigarettes that she had found in her new purse and thought about the strange turn of events so far. It felt so natural to be wearing women's clothes and to be thinking of herself in the feminine sense, that she wondered why she had initially felt so much reluctance at accepting the role. Then she remembered that Eddie had tried to hypnotize her and that it hadn't worked. Yeah, she had dozed off but it was only for a few seconds. Even she knew that she couldn't be mesmerized into being someone else.

It felt very natural to be sitting on the couch in the expensive cabin and to be wearing the dead woman's clothes. Where it should have felt slightly awkward to be wearing petticoats, a bra and the other garments, it felt very comfortable. Although Leo wasn't a virgin, his experience with women was very limited to the whores, waitresses and wives of his friends. She didn't know a single woman that had the type of expensive clothing, especially the fine delicate underwear that now belonged to her. Most of the women back in England had only had a couple of cheap wool or cotton dresses and there were several trunks of fine clothes within the cabin.

Rising to her feet, she returned to the small vanity table where she studied her new face in the mirror. Although she didn't know anything about properly applying makeup, she had quickly decided in what order to put what upon her face and it had worked. The most difficult part had been making the eyes look natural and she had to start over a couple of times before she finally got it right. It had helped to be able to go over to the dead body a time or two and study the makeup on the dead woman's face.

Although she knew that it was getting late and that she should rest, she didn't feel like turning in. Rather, she felt like staying up all-night and partying. Only she had sent her only friend back to the small cabin below decks and now she had no one with whom she could talk and have some fun.

Feeling a little impetuous and not feeling like turning in to go to bed yet, she decided to go for a short walk around the ship on the main deck. Although she had put a lot of work into making her appearance look very passable, she wanted her first contact with other people to be under relatively dark conditions so that any flaws in her appearance wouldn't be so obvious. So walking around the deck and having other people look at her would ease some of the minor doubts that she was feeling.

Picking up her purse, she made sure that it contained her identification, her room keys, some money, and her cigarettes. Wrapping a light shawl across her shoulders because she knew that they were going through shipping areas where it was still so cold that the ship's pilot had to watch out for floating icebergs, she wanted to make sure that she had something to ward off the nighttime chill. She took one more look at her appearance in the mirror to make sure that everything looked totally perfect. After making sure that the room was locked in case Fast Eddie came back or some other thief tried to break in, she casually walked out onto the main deck.

The dim lights of the ship spottily illuminated the deck so that there were areas of bright light and areas of no lights, which were perfect for the lovers who wanted the romantic darkness more than they wanted the light. Her two-inch heels clicked loudly on the metal decking as she casually strolled among the other people who were also out for a nighttime walk or were just leaning against the rails as they stared out over the water and talked.

Several people nodded to her as if they either knew her or recognized her so she acknowledged their glances with a silent greeting and continued her slow walk. Pausing about mid-ship, she leaned against the railing as she silently congratulated herself on her impeccable performance so far. After all, how many other people could successfully walk a few hundred feet on a semi-dark deck and not be revealed as an imposter?

It was while she was leaning against the deck that a nearby door opened suddenly and a young woman wearing an evening gown stormed out on the deck closely followed by a tall handsome man wearing a tuxedo. "Look Diana, it didn't mean anything. It was just a harmless little flirtation between us. She said hello. I said hello back."

"Yeah and then you asked her what her cabin number was. I heard you and saw the smile on both of your faces as she told you where she was staying. I'm going back to my cabin and making sure that the doors are locked. You can go be with your whore for the rest of the night for all I care."

The young woman stormed off, going down the deck as fast as she could walk in high heels and a tight skirt that restricted the length of her stride. As the angry young woman disappeared into the darkness, the young man looked forlornly around the deck and saw Margaret for the first time that had obviously been silently watching their little love spat.

Walking over to stand at the rail beside her, the young man casually leaned against the railing as he began talking to Margaret as if they knew each other. "Sorry that you had to see that little tiff. Diana keeps imagining that I'm going around propositioning every woman that I see and doesn't let me have any friends. I say, I left my cigarettes in the bar. Could I borrow one from you? I desperately need a smoke at the moment. Thank you. By the way, my name is Mark Greblin. My uncle is one of the owners of this magnificent vessel that we are sailing on tonight. Do I know you? You look very familiar to me? I never forget a pretty woman's face. Perhaps we met at a party at the Astor's last summer?"

"My name is Margaret. Margaret Parton. Glad to meet you, Mark."

"Yes. Yes. I knew that I knew you from somewhere. I never forget a face, especially one as pretty as your face. You were engaged to some guy named Lloyd and we were all at a smashing party about a month ago. I think it was at someone's estate. Give me a moment and I'll think of where I met you."

She tensed at the knowledge that this very forward man actually knew the real Margaret but she quickly decided that this would be a good opportunity to practice her feminine skills. While he was accepting her as being someone that he faintly recognized so far, the good news was that he was also totally accepting her as a completely natural woman. For a moment Margaret also considered flirting with him slightly so that she could practice her feminine wiles as well as to see what it was like to have a handsome young man being sexually interested in her. But then she realized that sometimes those escapades went a little too far and she wasn't ready for that yet. So she decided to talk to him as long as she could keep him from playfully squeezing her breasts and accidentally discovering that her firm little tits were nothing but jewels rolled up tightly within some old cotton socks.

"Devonshire Estate. That's where I saw you. You were standing by the punch table while your friend chatted with the Earl about some business proposition. I remember thinking that if I had a nice looking wench like you, I sure wouldn't be talking business. That's why I remember you. Is your friend on the ship with you?"

"No, we broke up."

"Really. Too bad for him and great for me. As you probably recall, I'm also between girlfriends as of about five minutes ago. Would you like to step into the bar and join me in a drink? They make a terrific drink. It's one of those new American drinks so it's a little sweet but it's got a terrific kick to it."

"No, I think that I'll turn down your invitation tonight. You wouldn't realize all that I've been through today."

"Too bad. I'm quite a decent chap once you give me the opportunity to show off my stuff."

He continued to flirt with her and to insist that she accompany him back into the bar that was open all night. She declined each of his offers or suggestions automatically although she was more interested in seeing how far that the headstrong young man would be willing to go to get into her panties. Each of his attempts made her feel good because he was totally accepting her as being the genuine article.

When his cigarette was totally smoked, he made one last pitch to gain her companionship and when she turned him down again, he politely kissed the back of her hand and suggested that they have lunch together the following day so that they could become better acquainted.

As soon as he left her to go back into the bar, she felt her knees trembling. Turning around to look out over the ocean, she used the opportunity to regain her breath and to think about how wonderful it had felt to have someone so aggressively chasing her. After about five minutes of staring out at the water, she decided that it was time to go back to her room and to go to bed. Eddie wouldn't like her being out like this without any plans so she didn't intend to tell him about this little adventure.

As she eased off the ship's railing and started walking slowly back toward the doorway leading to her cabin, the door to the bar opened again. A strong blast of light came out, as did a lot of noise and gaiety. For a moment, she was bathed in the light and noise as she stared in the bar seeing all the people having fun.

Just as a moth is attracted to light, so was the new Margaret attracted to the joviality within the bar. Without even thinking about what she was doing, she changed direction and walked into the bar. It took a second for her eyes to adjust to the bright light so she stood barely inside the doorway. She immediately saw Mark sitting at a table with a pretty woman as they chatted as if they were old friends. Apparently Mark made friends quite easily.

A nearby half-drunken middle-aged American with heavily receded hairline walked over to her holding a bottle in his hand and an empty glass. "Hi ya, baby. Come join the party. We're having a fucking good time. Oops, I mean to say jolly good time. Oh well, my name's Harry Brubaker. I own a chain of shoe stores. Can I buy you a drink?"

As she waved the drunken American away who was obviously trying to pick up any woman, she saw that Mark had just observed that she had entered the bar. Winking at him, she slowly spun and walked out the bar wondering if he would try to follow her. After going about two steps down the deck, she knew that he wouldn't follow her. He didn't impress her as being a fool and would quickly realize that it was better to have one girl sitting by him than to chase after another girl who was walking away from him.

So she headed back to her room knowing that she had experienced enough events for one night and that she needed her beauty rest.

******

Fast Eddie awakened during the middle of the night to discover that he had one of the hardest boners that he had ever had. It was so rock hard that it felt like it was going to burst. As he tried to determine why he had such an immense erection, he also realized that he was going to have to do something about it. This was the type that didn't easily go away by itself.

So he began gently stroking himself as he silently thanked his lucky stars that Leo wasn't in the same room at the moment. As he continued stroking, he found himself thinking about how great Leo had looked. Within a few seconds, he was using the mental image of the wonderful new Margaret Parton as his fantasy woman as he enthusiastically stroked his rock-hard manhood.

Chapter 5 - Redefine the partnership

When Fast Eddie finally awakened, he was surprised that it was almost ten a.m. Sitting up quickly, he also quickly discovered that there was still a big wet mess within his underwear. Seeing that stinky mess, he remembered how during the middle of the night he had been stroking away and hadn't realized that he was making so much noise that he awakened the people in the next cabin who had beat on the cabin walls to get him to muffle himself.

Slipping out of bed, he quickly changed into his only other pair of underwear and dressed. Grabbing his small bag of toiletries, he rushed down the hallway only to discover that he was going to have to stand in line to use the limited bathroom facilities. For a moment, he considered grabbing his stuff and going upstairs to use Margaret's private bathroom but then he realized that she would probably still be sound asleep and wouldn't let him in.

So he stayed in line and waited his turn to take a cold shower and to shave in the crowed bathroom.

As soon as his morning toilet chores were completed and he was dressed, he rushed upstairs. The guards stopped him at the entrance to the first class area but let him through after he showed them the papers where he was an employee in the lounges. It was easy to get into the lower class sleeping quarters but hard to get out up on the areas that were reserved for the first class customers.

Going directly to her cabin, he patiently knocked on the door and waited for her to respond. After several knocks and she hadn't answered him, he went looking for her.

He found her playing shuffleboard with some of the other passengers in a tournament.

This morning, she was dressed in a clinging one-piece dress that looked as if the material had been sewed around her to create the dress. The dress had a layered bodice that was covered with several strings of pearls. On top of her head was a matching fashionable hat that was neatly pinned to her hair. While the tight- fitting dress didn't look obscenely as if it were painted onto her body, it was the sort of dress that was typically reserved for cocktail parties and not shuffleboard tournaments. She looked slightly out of place among the other women who were more appropriately dressed in knickers, sweaters, and other appropriate feminine garments. Several men who were giving her explicit instructions on how to play the game also surrounded her. It was very apparent that she had already made a lot of friends this morning.

When she saw him standing among the group of on-lookers, she gave one of those friendly limp-wristed wavy-wavy motions as a greeting then spun around to cheer for someone who had just made a good play on the shuffleboard.

He watched the new Margaret play for several minutes and was amazed at how relaxed and comfortable she appeared to be as she intermingled with her new friends. Her body movements appeared totally natural and had the right amount of femininity so that she didn't appear to be "butch" or too swishy. Although she had apparently just met all of her new friends this morning, she was laughing and talking with them as if they were longtime friends who were traveling together. It was as if she had been living this type of swinging socialite lifestyle all her life instead of working as a child laborer upon the grimy shipyard docks unloading ships as they arrived. It was as if during the night, she had developed the confidence to mingle with the people as if she was really the person that she was pretending to be.

While he was watching her, he saw the Ship's Captain walk by and stop to stand by her for a moment as if they were acquainted. The Captain talked very friendly to her for a few moments before taking the shuffleboard pole from her and showing her how he would hold the pole. After laughing as if they were old friends, the Captain walked away.

When Eddie got the opportunity to ease over so that he was standing beside her, she gave him a sassy wink as if they were both sharing a good joke while he greeted her. "Morning Margaret. How did you sleep last night?"

"Like a princess. It's the most comfortable bed that I've ever slept in."

"Good. Why was the Captain talking to you?"

"He was going to breakfast at the same time that I went this morning. He came up to me and said that the Ship's Stewart had pointed me out to him. Seems that the Captain used to go to school with my da-da and was asked to look after me while I was on board. So I had breakfast at the Captain's table. He's quite a charming man. After I finished breakfast, I came out here to discover that some of these people think that they know either my parents or me from parties that we've attended or through mutual friends. It's quite a small world."

"Well when finish with you friends, I think that we have some things that we need to discuss. Shall we eat lunch together?"

She didn't answer as her eyes followed an opponent's play, then she quickly answered the question. "Don't have time today. I'm supposed to meet Mark for lunch. How about we meet for a few minutes in the bar about three?"

"Mark? Who the hell is Mark?"

Pointing toward some people leaning against the railing on one of the upper decks, she signaled to a handsome young man who was obviously watching her and responded to her obvious attention by waving back to her.

"That's Mark. He wants to buy me some expensive gifts when we get to America. I think that he really likes me although he's a natural flirt. I'm just playing with him because that is something that she would have done."

As she stepped away from Eddie because it was her turn to play shuffleboard, he walked away from the area in a daze. Things were moving too fast for even Fast Eddie.

******

Sitting at a quiet table in a bar, Eddie tried to figure out what was happening. Sure, his plan was working so that they were both going to be filthy rich when they docked in America. Sure, he had managed to use his hypnotic skill to transform a dull inexperienced boy into a beautiful confident woman who was the key to his riches. Sure, he had the situation well under control.

But holding his drink tightly, he knew that he didn't have anything under control any longer. He had lost control last night when she insisted that he leave the room while she dressed and then further lost control when she banished him later from the cabin that was also rightfully seventy percent his cabin now. In fact, he decided that he had lost so much control over the situation that he was afraid that there was going to be a wedding before the ship docked in America and that she was going to expect his seventy percent of the loot to be her wedding present.

Sipping his drink, he carefully thought about what he could have done wrong. After awhile, he decided that it was because he had insisted that she think and act the way that the real Margaret Parton would have acted if she had lived. While it was necessary for Leo to feel the confidence and to have the woman's strong personality, Margaret's confidence was a little too strong in Eddie's unbiased opinion. Especially now that some English jock named Mark was getting involved just because Margaret looked like a good squeeze.

Thinking about the potential romantic involvement of the other man made Eddie mad and slightly jealous. After all, he created her from a dumb no-account kid and made her into the beautiful woman that she is now. It was he who developed the plan to replace the dead Margaret with his own version of Margaret and to hypnotize the reluctant boy into thinking that he was a real girl.

Well, two could play this game. If he could hypnotize the new Margaret into having such a strong personality and to be interested in playing the field, then he could also hypnotize the new Margaret into redirecting those admiring looks from the young jock to looking at Eddie the same way that she looked at the handsome young stud chasing her.

Ordering another drink, Eddie knew that it was time to have another hypnotic session with his good friend "Miss Margaret" and soon to be better friend "Lover Margaret".

******

It hadn't been easy getting her alone. She had a full schedule of things that she was planning to do the rest of the afternoon and half of the items on her schedule involved being with the jock. So as they sat at the table in the bar talking, he tried to get her to go back to the cabin with him to give him the time that he needed to futz a little more with Margaret's psyche and personality. When she firmly declined and suggested that they do whatever he wanted to do the following day, he knew that he was losing control and that she wasn't too far from cutting him out totally.

Knowing that he only had one ace in the hole left, he played his trump card. "Margaret, take off your ring and give it to me."

She hesitated and shook her head as if she was trying to shake off a strong compulsion. He made the request again and reached for her hand. This time, she didn't resist. Although there was a hurt and confused look in her eyes, she let him remove the ring from her finger.

Almost immediately a change passed through the woman's body as she shivered as if a cold wind was blowing down her spine. The hurt look in her eyes was replaced by a timid glare and she seemed to shrink as if she were pulling into a shell. For a few seconds, there was total silence at the table then from her pretty lips came the hoarse masculine voice of Leo. "Eddie, what happened? Why am I dressed like this? What's going on?"

Putting the ring into his pocket, Eddie moved to the back of her chair and held it so that she could get out as he made a suggestion to her that he knew that she would accept this time. "Why don't we go back to the cabin so that we can talk for a few minutes?"

When she stood up, she teetered and would have fallen except for Eddie's arm around her waist. She was clearly having a balance problem with the high heel shoes that she had worn so confidently prior to removing the ring. Putting his arm around her waist to support her as if she were slightly tipsy, he led her from the bar back to the cabin.

They were both silent going to the cabin. Where she had been very vivacious and friendly a few minutes earlier, she was now withdrawn and sullen. Although her face looked the same, her jaw muscles were tense, her lips weren't smiling and her terrified eyes were flighty as she looked everywhere to see who was looking at her. If anyone had smiled at her, she would probably have run away.

As soon as they were in the cabin, she kicked off the high heel shoes and began pulling on the dress as if she was going to get out of it as quickly as she could. Eddie grabbed her and held her tightly while he commanded her to relax. "I told you that you still needed my help. Sit down on the couch and listen to me."

In just the few steps that she took across the room, Eddie noticed that her comfortable stance was completely gone and that she now walked like a farm boy following a plow instead of like a confident woman who knew that she had a nice looking ass. As soon as she sat down on the couch, he began trying to relax her while he began the hypnotic process again.

Because he knew that she now was totally Leo again and that she would reject the name Margaret or would get upset again if the feminine gender were used to describe her, Eddie began referring to her as he or Leo again.

"Leo, we're almost there. We just have a little more that we have to do. Lean back and relax while I help you learn how to control those strong emotions that you are having difficulty controlling. Your eyes are getting heavy...."

In a little over ten minutes Leo was under and responding to Eddie's commands. For almost half an hour, Eddie fine-tuned the instructions and gave Leo guidance as to how Margaret should act when next permitted to surface. When the session was over, Eddie gently awakened Leo. As the youth shook his head to clear away the cobwebs of sleep, Eddie pulled the ring out of his pocket and held out to the young boy. "Here, it's time that you put this ring back on. We've got some things that we've got to do."

The boy hesitantly accepted the ring and slowly placed it on his finger. As it slid over the first knuckle, there was a minor change to Leo's posture as he sat up straighter. By the time that the ring crossed over the last knuckle, the confident smile was back on his face and the gleam in his eyes was twinkling again. Eddie knew that the cheerful person sitting across from him was Margaret once more.

"Well, girl, how do you feel? What do you want to do for dinner tonight? I suppose that you've got big plans to go to dinner with that jock or some of your other friends."

The woman's soft melodic voice had also returned as she stared hard at Fast Eddie's face as if she were seeing him for the first time. "I feel great. Mark did ask me out for dinner tonight and dancing afterwards but I think that I'll cancel those plans. What are you doing tonight?"

"Oh, I've go be ready to go to work tonight and to put on two shows. Otherwise, they'll lock me out of my cabin and throw me overboard at the first iceberg that we come to. I sure as hell wouldn't want to have to swim to America."

Waving her arm at the cabin, she made him a generous offer that she thought that she was making freely but it really was because it was one of Eddie's hypnotic suggestions to Leo. "Let them throw you out of that dingy cabin. You can stay up here with me. After all, seventy percent of this cabin belongs to you too."

"Thank you."

She was staring at him with a curious smile on her lips as if she was thinking happy thoughts and was getting ready to share those thoughts with her good friend and mentor. Rising to her feet and moving smoothly across the floor as if she were a tiger getting ready to pounce upon its prey, she came straight toward Eddie. The farm boy gait was gone from her walk and movements as she seductively came across the room never breaking eye contact with Eddie. Dropping down onto her knees so that she was kneeling between his spread legs, she rested her slender hands on his groin as she continued to stare into his eyes as if she wanted something. The gentle touch of her soft hand and the warmth from her palm pressing against his groin was enough to cause his manhood to react to her nearness. As his cock began hardening and she felt it moving within his trousers, she responded to Eddie's 'thank you' by gently blowing her hot breath through his trousers to add more fire to his already hot groin. As her fingers began unfastening his belt so that she could get to what she knew was within the trousers, she murmured her own "thank you for helping me to be a woman."

Leaning his head back on the couch as she busied herself with pulling his trousers down so that she could get to his now rock- hard cock, he knew that he had finally hit upon the right combination of suggestions to make her into the perfect woman.

He had earlier deduced that Leo and this version of Margaret Parton probably had strong sexual desires and that being transformed into a woman had forced those desires to the surface where they were fervently controlling the new woman's actions almost as much as Eddie's hypnotic suggestions were controlling her basic personality. So when he had hypnotized Leo this time, he channeled those strong sex desires toward him so that he, not some jock passing through, would be the one that turned her on and pleased her. So it was the same Margaret Parton personality but now Fast Eddie had directed her strong romantic compulsions to be concentrated on him.

He wasn't known as Fast Eddie because of his running speed.

And to get the ball rolling, he had given Leo a post-hypnotic suggestion that Margaret would give Fast Eddie a blowjob within the first hour of putting the ring back on her finger. Sure, he was using her for his own purposes but if that was what it took to get the job done, then so be it.

The delicate scent of her delightful perfume overwhelmed him as he felt her warm hand struggling within his under shorts for his favorite playtoy. As her soft palm wrapped around it and began tugging on it to pull it out into the open, he looked at the pretty woman's face that was so eagerly staring at his groin. That contented face sure as hell wasn't Leo's face anymore.

When her salvia-coated lips touched the tip of his rock-hard erection, he almost remembered another reason that he was called Fast Eddie. Some of his former girlfriends had their own private reasons for calling him by that nickname. Fighting back the strong urge to immediately explode into her mouth, he watched as she expertly teased his cock with her tongue and lips. When he noticed that there were bright red lipstick stains all over his pride and joy, he felt a shiver roar through his body as he thought that the kid might have been born a boy and lived most of his life as a male. But tonight the kid sure as hell was a full-fledged woman as far as J. Edward Grayson the III was concerned.

******

It's amazing how close two people can become after a nice blowjob. They were lying sprawled on the big couch and Eddie's trousers were completely off and thrown over some nearby furniture. Margaret was lying curled up next to Eddie's larger body and using his arm as a pillow as they shared a cigarette and talked the way that only two close lovers can talk.

"I don't know what was interesting me about that stupid Mark. He's just a big jerk. Why should I have anything to do with him, when I've got you to take care of me."

"That's my feelings too, Margaret. After all, this is a short trip across the ocean and we've got a lot to do to make sure that we milk this opportunity for all that its worth."

She rose slightly so that she was braced on one elbow and looked at his face with a curious look on her face. When she spoke, her pacing was slow and deliberate as if she was walking on dangerous grounds and was treading lightly. "I'm glad that you said that. I've been thinking about that. You know, the real Margaret Parton has a lot of money that we might still be able to somehow get our fingers on. It would mean that I would have to keep this identity a little longer and would have to improve my impersonation so that I could possibly even fool her parents."

Using the arm that had been her pillow, he pulled her body closer to him so that the still-glistening lipstick-coated lips that had been enthusiastically sucking his cock just a few minutes earlier were almost touching his lips. He tried to make it sound as if his answer wasn't expected nor rehearsed. "That's up to you. I agree with you that we make a good team and that we should work very closely to continue exploiting this potential gold mine that we've discovered. With your fantastic body and my brain, we could be rich beyond our wildest dreams in just a few months. Would you like to continue being Margaret after we leave the ship?"

Her answer was a silent answer. Her hand closest to his groin tightly clasped his exposed cock and began expertly stroking it again as her lips pressed tightly against his lips and her mouth parted slightly so that he could slide his probing tongue into her vulnerable mouth. By her act of total submission to him as being her master, she was signaling her willingness to continue her female impersonation as long as Fast Eddie desired her to play the role of Margaret, his cock-sucking woman.

Chapter 6 - In control again

Instead of going to the small lounge to do his evening act, Eddie went straight to the Purser's office. In his pocket, he had enough money to get out of his obligation to work as an entertainer for his ticket. Money that Margaret had given him that she had found in one of the trunks. When the Purser accepted the money and cancelled the rest of the obligation, Eddie went back downstairs to his small cabin one more time to get the two small suitcases stored underneath the bunk. One suitcase belonged to him and the other contained the meager belonging that Leo had carried on board.

He carried both suitcases back up to the large cabin that he was now openly sharing with Margaret. After all, she was over twenty- one and could have whomever she pleased to share her cabin with her. As he carried the small suitcase that contained the boy's only changes of clothes, Fast Eddie knew that the suitcase was also part of the master plan that he had developed before he hypnotized Margaret the last time.

So far, everything was on schedule and Margaret was behaving as Eddie had conditioned her to behave. She had dropped the jock and concentrated her romantic interests instead upon Eddie. She had given Eddie a blowjob and become his willing lover. She had invited him to share her cabin and her bedroom. She was happy with spending her time with Eddie instead of roaming about the ship with the other tourists. She had offered to continue the impersonation after they landed and to try to get more money from the real Margaret's parents.

Going up the stairs toward his new cabin, Eddie hummed a happy song as he thought that she would cross another huddle tonight when they would both sleep naked together in the same bed and that Margaret would do everything that she could do to prove her absolute femininity to her new man. So far it had been a very lopsided love affair because Eddie hadn't made love to Margaret without her clothes on yet. That would be a major milestone for them and one that would clearly establish more control over her.

And later in the week when they got closer to America, they would cross another huddle. Margaret would willingly throw the little suitcase containing Leo's clothes overboard. That would signal that she was ready to give up her Leo identity forever and to always be Margaret Parton. And then Margaret, with the assistance of her new husband, would claim her full inheritance from her rich parents. Naturally Eddie would make sure that Margaret got her rightful thirty percent while he took his Lion's share for developing such a wonderful plan.

Yes, Fast Eddie was soon going to be multimillionaire. His days of hustling cards on the docks were over and he could concentrate upon playing a few friendly hands of cards with his new friends, the Astors or the Rockafellows.

So it was no wonder that he was humming as he went upstairs.

******

With the lights turned off and her lying naked to him in the bed, she seemed just like a real woman. Her tantalizing delicate perfume created a sensory delight that recalled many previous lovers. Her warm hand and hungry mouth had proved that she could handle everything that he could deliver.

There were just two things wrong.

First was the absence of real breasts on her chest. Although Eddie had made love to women before that were somewhat flat-chested, he still liked having a little womanly flesh for his hands and tongue to tease. So although he tried to pretend that the naked ravenous creature in bed with him was nothing more than a very flat- chested woman, the foreplay with the male body wasn't as interesting for him.

Second was that every time that his hands or body would touch the small cock between Margaret's legs, his own cock would instantly droop. Three times, he would be rock-hard and accidentally touch Margaret's thing. Three times, they started over after lying curled next to each other talking and getting Eddie back in the mood.

So it turned out to be an interesting night for the two new lovers. Eddie found out that there were some things that he couldn't do, not even when several millions of potential dollars were involved. Margaret discovered that Eddie only liked her when she was fully dressed and hiding her true sex. Eddie found out that Margaret's feelings could easily be hurt and that she would cry like a real woman also. Margaret discovered that Eddie only liked her when she was fully dressed and hiding her true sex. Eddie found out that he hadn't thoroughly thought out his plan as to how they were going to become lovers. Margaret discovered that Eddie only liked her when she was fully dressed and hiding her true sex. Eddie found that although she was crazy in love with him now, that she could still toss him out of her bedroom so that he had to sleep on the couch. Margaret discovered that Eddie only liked her when she was fully dressed and hiding her true sex.

******

The next day didn't go as smoothly as Eddie had planned it should go. They were obviously having a lover's argument over Eddie's inability to accept her non-feminine body from the neck downward and thus they were fighting like a couple who had been married a long time. As soon as breakfast was over, they both went their separate ways to keep from restarting their arguments again.

She was dressed in a pink chiffon full-length dress with a corset tightly clinching in her waist and creating a little natural looking cleavage for display within the low-cut bodice. She also was wearing a flowery hat with wide brims and carrying an umbrella to protect her delicate complexion from the warm sun. As she marched off to be by herself, Eddie began berating himself for causing the fight.

When Eddie finally went looking for her after a couple of hours so that he could try to reestablish the warm rapport that they should be enjoying together, he discovered that she was being wooed by the damn jock again. Margaret was standing at the prowl of the ship deck overlooking the ocean and that bastard Mark had his strong arms around her waist as they stared out at the ocean as if they were lovers traveling on an imaginary journey. Feeling enraged because Eddie knew that should have been him standing there with his arms lovingly around her slender waist; Eddie stormed off like a mad man. He left without challenging the young couple that was quietly watching the waves break at the front of the huge ship so that they didn't know that he had seen them.

The rest of the day didn't go any better for Eddie. When she finally came back to the cabin to change clothes so that she could properly dressed go out to lunch with Mark, they had another argument. Eddie seriously considering giving her a command to take off the ring so that he could hypnotize Leo again but he knew that it wasn't Margaret's fault that they were fighting. She was living up to the unbelievable demands and unique lifestyle that he had forced upon her. It was he that was having problems fulfilling his part of their partnership.

Just as he needed love and sex, so did she need the same things. While she could have been somewhat satisfied with their limited arrangement, she still hadn't been able to really have the type of mind-blowing orgasm that they both needed to cement their partnership.

So he knew that it wouldn't do any good to hypnotize Leo again. Until Eddie was able to deal with the rest of the package that his new partner had between her otherwise pretty legs, they wouldn't be able to function quite as smoothly as Eddie had planned.

About mid-afternoon, he decided that it was time for a major change in plans. He went looking for her and found her again with Mark who wasn't too pleased with Eddie's interruption of their bridge game. But as Eddie convinced her to come with him, she told Mark to leave them alone for a few minutes. As he led her away, he told her that it was time for her to go to work and she knew what he meant.

Eddie had decided to remove the valuables from the Purser's Office now instead of waiting until the ship docked. Then he planned to tell Margaret to take off the ring so that she would be turned back into Leo once again. As soon as the kid was thinking, dressing and looking like the real Leo again, they would abandon the luxury cabin and live in their small cabin until the ship docked. Then after going ashore, they would split up the valuables and each of them would go their separate way, giving up on obtaining the rest of the dead woman's possible fortune.

Margaret returned to the cabin to get the receipts and practice her signature forgery for a few more minutes first. As she sat at the table copying the dead woman's signature until she was able to do it smoothly and exactly like the original signature, Eddie paced the floor nervously. Finally she looked up and announced that she was as ready as she would ever be prepared. "Let's go for it."

******

The Purser didn't question her unusual request to turn everything over while they were still so far at sea and complied with the signed document to turn over all the valuables that he was keeping for Margaret Parton. After going back to the cabin, they easily split the three hundred thousand dollars using the seventy/thirty percent split previously worked out. There was also an estimated four hundred thousand dollars in loose diamonds. Instead of taking the time to count them out by size and estimated value, Eddie roughly divided the pile so that one pile was slightly larger than the other pile. It was closer to a sixty/forty split but Eddie didn't care to spend any more time on that otherwise delightful task. He just wanted to get it over with and to move on to the next task.

With the valuables distributed, Eddie reluctantly said the words that he knew would end their partnerships. And that would also end Leo's life forever as Margaret. "Take off the ring and give it to me, Margaret."

As before, there was an obvious change in her facial expression, eyes, stance, and personality as the ring came gradually off of her finger. As before, Margaret's personality faded away and Leo's confused slightly grumpy personality reemerged. As soon as Eddie shoved the ring into his pocket to keep her from putting it back on, he gruffly gave the confused kid some advice. "Your suitcase is in the bottom of the closet with your real clothes. Suggest that you take a bath to help get rid of her perfume smell before you change back into your old clothes. You can stay up here in her cabin until we dock if you want to or you can come back downstairs with me. The upper bunk downstairs is still open. Suggest that wear a hat or something pulled down over your forehead until your eyebrows grow back out a little more. Well, Kid, it's been nice knowing you. See you around."

******

About two hours later, it was Leo who cautiously stepped out on the deck. Although there were several people socializing on the deck who had known Margaret during the few days that Leo was living that life, it was obvious from the way that they looked through him, that they didn't know him or want to know him. Because the boy was dressed in the dingy cheap clothes that Leo had worn to board the Titanic, they didn't recognize the slender boy as being the vivacious female socialite with whom they had played bridge/shuffleboard in the last couple of days. Nor did Leo recognize himself either as he shuffled around and dodged the important people who were too busy to notice someone who obviously belonged below decks because of his cheap clothing. If only they had known that Leo was carrying around about a quarter million dollars in jewelry and cash on him. They might have changed their minds and invited him to sit down for a few minutes with them.

Stumbling along the deck, he noticed that he even walked differently and that his walk was timid. He was also having difficulty looking people in the eyes because he felt so inferior again. Going to a railing so that he could look down on the main deck and silently observe people, he saw Mark who was walking with a woman and holding her hand as they walked.

Turning around fast so that Mark wouldn't see his face and possibly recognized the scared boy as looking very familiar for some damn reason, Leo saw that Eddie was up on one of the upper decks and was watching him just as he had been watching Mark. Spinning around and running because he felt very confused, Leo ran back inside knowing that he was going to stay in the cabin for the rest of the trip.

Once he shut the cabin door, he realized that he couldn't stay in the cabin either. The cabin was full of her clothes and things and reminded Leo of her so much that he couldn't stand it.

Rushing downstairs, he returned to the small room that he had initially been assigned with Eddie. Looking up at a calendar, he saw that it was already April 15, 1912, which meant that he only had a few more days to go, and he would soon be in America. Perhaps then, he could forget the horrible way that he felt and how he had permitted Eddie to let him do those things to his mind. And how he had done the unforgettable thing to Eddie's cock several times.

******

Fast Eddie was losing at cards. Normally that didn't happen but one of the other players joked about how Eddie seemed to be distracted over something.

It was while they were playing cards in the bar that the Titanic hit the iceberg. It wasn't a big shock but it was enough to get Eddie's attention. Seeing as how his luck at the card table had been very bad for the last several hours, Eddie decided to go for a walk to see what that jarring noise was and to get some fresh air.

While walking outside on the deck, Eddie saw several nervous crewmembers running toward the front of the ship. Following them to see what was going on, Eddie heard one of them loudly tell the other about how they had hit a big iceberg in the damn fog and now they had water leaking into the boat.

Upon hearing the excited crewmembers discussing the situation with each other, Eddie realized that maybe his luck was going to get even worse than it had been. On a hunch, Eddie went running down the stairs to the area where the crewmember said that water was coming in. All the way down the steps, Eddie kept hoping that the water damage would be just some minor leakage. But when he got down to one of the lower levels that was off limits to the passengers, Eddie saw that there was already too much water gushing through that level. It had to be one hell of a good size hole in the ship to already have that much water damage.

Rushing back up a level to the area where his cabin was, Eddie ran into his small cabin to get his stuff so that he could move it up to the cabin. He was very surprised to see Leo sitting on the cramped bed with tearstained cheeks. Grabbing his small suitcase, he quickly told Leo to grab his stuff and to follow him. When Leo hesitated because the kid didn't know about the damage, Eddie grabbed his young friend's shirt and tugged so hard that he almost pulled Leo off the bed. This time Leo obeyed him and followed him back up to the upper decks as Eddie gave a quick explanation.

Up on the upper decks, the ship's crewmembers were running around looking at the lifeboats. Eddie went over to one of the crewmen and started asking questions. The guy ignored Eddie until Eddie pulled a hundred dollars out of his pocket and gave the guy. Then the guy quickly explained the situation as it had just been explained to him by one of the ship's officers.

Going back to where Leo was standing and looking like a lost soul, Eddie grabbed his friend's arm and half dragged/led Leo back to the cabin. As soon as they behind the closed door, Eddie gave Leo the bad news. "It looks bad, kid. The ship hit an iceberg and knocked a big hole in the side. Lower levels are filling quickly with water. So much water that the ship's officers already don't think that the ship is going to make it to the nearest land. They've sent out an SOS requesting nearby ships in the shipping lane to come rescue us. Meanwhile, they're getting the lifeboats ready because they expect that the Captain is soon going to order everyone to abandon ship."

"Holy shit. No wonder everyone is running around looking scared."

"Kid, I haven't told you the worst of it. They don't have enough lifeboats for everyone. When they do give the order, it's going to be women and kids first. Not big kids like you but little crumb snatcher sized kids. Leo, put her clothes back on. That way when they do give the order, we can pretend that we're married or something and maybe both of us could get on. After all, the Captain is a friend of your father's and is supposed to look after you. Maybe we can get him to look after me too."

"I can't do it, Eddie. I can't put those clothes on again."

Pulling the ring out of his pocket, Eddie held it toward Leo as he commanded "Leo, put your ring on. You have to put the ring back on."

"No, I can't do it. I won't do it."

There wasn't any time to argue. Before Leo knew what was happening, Eddie rushed him and pinned the smaller lad's body down on the floor. There was a brief struggle but the smaller boy wasn't any match for the larger man's superior strength and the ring slid upon Leo's finger with some strenuous shoving by Eddie. As soon as the ring was over the knuckle, Leo stopped struggling and his arms wrapped around Eddie's body as Margaret's voice gasped a tearful notice that she was back in control of the body again. "Eddie, tell me that you're lying about the boat. I can't bear to be separated from you."

"Nor I from you."

With that comment, Eddie kissed the woman who was tightly holding onto him. It might have been Leo's body and Leo's clothes but it sure as hell was a woman who was holding onto her man that Eddie was kissing.

Knowing that they didn't have much time to waste, Eddie began unbuttoning Leo's clothes. She stopped him with a single finger pressed against his lips as she asked the question that was bothering her. "I know what you're planning on doing. You want me to dress as a woman again so you can make sure that I'm safe. You do love me, don't you? Please say that you love me."

"I love you, kid. Now get out of those trousers. We don't have much time."

"No. I'm not going to undress myself. If you want me undressed, then you'll have to undress me. And if you don't make love to me while we are both naked, then I won't let you force me to dress either. I can be just as stubborn as you are."

Chapter 7 - See you around, kid

Forty minutes later, a fully dressed Margaret Parton was doing the finishing touches on putting on her makeup. She was happily humming as she prettied herself at her makeup table. Eddie was busy sewing their money and jewels into a coat that he was going to make sure that Margaret wore if they had to abandon the ship.

Glancing over at her, Eddie was pleased to see that she was almost finished primping and was dressed. She was also very happy. And so was Eddie. This time, he hadn't showed any reluctance to make love to Margaret and she knew that he had willingly done it. Their lovemaking had created a full and loving partnership again.

Walking out on the deck for a moment to see what was going on, Eddie came back and told her that they might be separated getting into the boats. "They are loading the lifeboats. Put this coat on and I'll get you on board one of the lifeboats while I go find the Captain and work something out for both of us. Later I'll see if I can sneak into another one."

She turned in her chair but didn't get up. She just had a sad smile on her face as she told him that she didn't intend to ever be separated from him again. "I'm not going. I've decided to stay with you. If you don't make it, then I don't want to live either. We're going to see this together."

Dropping on his knees and holding her hands tightly, Eddie began talking fast. "Look, I know that you don't want to go and I don't want you to go either. In the short time that I've known the real you, I've learned to love you and would like to see us get back together once we get out of this mess. However, we're in a bad mess right now and I know that I can get you off the boat safely. I've put all of our money and jewels into your coat lining so we'll have that money when we get to America. Now there's something I need to tell you. You know that I've hypnotized you to help you adapt to this new life. Well, I also was planning on taking your share of the money and trying to rip off the parents for some more. I knew that I couldn't do that if you had any qualms about being her. So I gave you a hypnotic suggestion. When I say a special phrase, it