Chapter 1:

A woman wants to build a tower. Out of lead and dominoes. Someone wants to love somebody else...

Who do I love, thinks the girl. Another girl? Just like the author. Been done. Sighing, she picks up a brick, an axe. "Gotta start somewhere." Swing, crunch. A Beautiful boy comes along. "I think I know where I've wound up," She mutters to herself. Come on up here, pretty boy.

He has silky, silky hair of dark, rich brown. She takes it in her fingers. Smelled nice. Great, smooth skin on his face. It seemed he had an iron patch rivited onto his mouth. Invisible for full, lovely lips. She tries to envision touching this boy, this beautiful, perfect boy...

Impossible. She felt like a pedophile, a dirty, dirty old man; a stately old queer from somewhere in England; the very best kind of pervert.

"No." She whispered, a little sadly. "I do want to be a girl. No men." The boy didn't say anything, just melted away like a leaf. Deep things, she thought, her hands buried deep in herself, lying in a cold night on her half-made mountain home. Maybe I won't build a tower, she mused, maybe I'll make pretties. I'll make pewter pieces of Dragons, fairies, Gods... Her dreams were decadent displays of hand-carved craven images, Jehova's pewter face and a golden calf- Bel Marduk with Ivory-tipped horns- the Jewish Lord astride him.

"And why not?" She tossed in thoughts of ruby Thor, Old opal Odin, Osiris in Onyx, Alabaster Anubis, Aquamarine Horus, a legion of deamons in various metals; porcelain Persephone set in an iron city... little pandaemonium as it were. Chibi-hell. Buy one for the kidssss...

The wind was very cold, and she had little in the way of blankets or the like. The Tower, it seemed, would have to come first. "Something always..." She buzzed and rolled over. Mental in-box, things-to-think-about-in-the-morning.