IN NOCKTON VALE - Man: Wanted - Final Chapter - Part Six

I ran out of the front of the hotel and into the street and looked the way Sangeeta had gone.

The road was empty.

I looked each of the other ways. No one at all was in sight.

Cursing my idiocy, I ran down the street, thanking God I was wearing flats. At the next junction I looked both ways but couldn’t see Sangeeta anywhere. I knew she lived somewhere in Breton but I didn’t know where and the district was a maze of streets almost as slender as the Narrows themselves.

To the right there was another corner after only thirty yards. I ran to that and peered round but there was only a pair of old men walking toward me.

With no other alternative I went back to the previous junction and hurried down, but I was quickly becoming hopeless. I was never going to be able to find her. But I had to. I had to talk to her and set things straight. Every minute she was away from me would make her hate me even more.

I ran to the next turning and looked up there but she was nowhere to be seen.

“Screw this,” I muttered and threw my head back. “SANGEETA!” I called. “SANGEETA! WHERE ARE YOU?”

I circled in the middle of the crossroads, calling up to the sky. “SANGEETA! SANGEETA! SANGEETA!”

A couple walked past, looking at me strangely, but I didn’t care. All that mattered now was undoing this colossal screw-up.

“SANGEETA!”

“I can hear you.”

I span round to face her voice and saw her leaning in a doorway only a few yards away, stairs behind her leading to the flat above. Her arms were folded and her face was closed.

“Oh. Thank God,” I gasped. “I was afraid...”

“That you’d lost me?” she asked. “Well here’s a news flash. You did.”

I hung my head. “I’m so sorry Sangeeta. I messed up. I messed up everything, right from the start of this.”

“Yeah. You did.”

“I just... didn’t know how to tell you what was happening to me and I liked you too much. I kept pulling away and that was why: because I hated lying to you and leading you on somewhere that I knew I couldn’t keep going to. I knew I couldn’t stay a man for the rest of my life.”

She continued to glare at me but the glare softened some and then she nodded. “I guess I understand. If it had happened to me...”

“You can’t... You probably can’t conceive of what it was like putting this ring on and having everything about me change; even my personality.” I pulled it from my bag and held it up. “It was like I was a totally different person. And it was addictive to become this strong willed man who could get things done, rather than the slightly pathetic woman I’d been the rest of my life; always meaning to do better but never quite getting round to it. It was the best thing that had ever happened to me. But it was also the worst. Because each time I put on the ring, reality was shifting more and more; erasing who I used to be and making me not want to go back.”

“You don't have to explain it.”

“I do. Sangeeta, I do; because it was only ever meant to be a weird, wild ride; a chance to experience life how the other half does. But... then I met you. And it was another fluke. It wasn’t meant to happen. I just happened to be there to completely and utterly make a mess of rescuing you.”

Sangeeta chuckled.

“And despite my very best intentions, I just got drawn to you until I couldn't stop. Until I realised I wanted to be with you... always.”

“Even if it meant you being trapped as a man?”

“Even if.”

Sangeeta tightened the fold of her arms. “But then your husband came back.”

“Yes. And for a little bit of time, that desperate need I'd had for him overcame anything else and I would have gone anywhere and done anything for him. And he would have taken my money and used me and thrown me away. And I still would have wanted him.”

I stepped closer to her.

“But then you came. And suddenly everything that Billy had meant to me meant nothing anymore. That spell he had over me was broken forever.”

She released her arms to her sides but didn’t speak. It seemed that she couldn’t.

“Suddenly I knew that all that feeling I'd had for him all that time; it hadn’t been love. It never had been. It had been infatuation; fascination; obsession. Nothing more. And I knew that because I knew what love was finally. Because I was feeling it for the first time.”

Sangeeta stepped down onto the pavement.

“I love you Sangeeta,” I said. “I love you like I’ve never known before. And I know I’ve screwed things up, and I know it’s all wrong and messed up and crazy. I know it’s all kind of unbelievable. But I want you and I want to be with you, for always.”

Sangeeta didn’t move. “Who?”

I frowned in query.

“Who is saying that to me?” she asked. “You, Alison... or Geoff?”

Without a second’s thought, I put the ring on my finger and it slid on more easily and comfortably than it ever had before. And as my form swelled and grew, as my chest broadened and my height expanded, it felt like I was coming home.

“Both of us,” I said. “We’re both the same person; just two different aspects of who I am.” I took her hands in mine. “But I’ve made my choice now. I know who I want to be with and I know which life I want to lead.” I stroked my finger down through her hair then caressed her shoulder. “This is me now, forever, if you’ll have me, and I’ll dedicate my life to making you the happiest woman on Earth.”

Sangeeta looked deeply into my eyes and smiled warmly, then she whispered, “Kiss me you idiot.”

And I did. And I wrapped her up in my arms and pressed her against me and the kiss went on and on; that perfect union again of man and woman.

It had never been so clear to me, what choice had to be made; and there was no regret in my mind as I lifted her into my arms and carried her up the stairs to her flat.

No doubt and no regret.

She was my woman at last; at long last; and I was most certainly her man.