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You would never expect to find a beach in Oklahoma, would you? Well, Sunset Beach was a pleasant surprise. Of course, it was really situated on a clear blue lake called Lake Pelias, and the sand was all trucked in, but on a hot summer afternoon, it was just the place to be.

All the land around the lake was owned by a Brad Nelson. He had trucked in the sand and installed a gravel parking lot. Two dollars apiece got you in past the gate. Then, you could use the bathhouse, rent a locker, ride the merry-go-round, pig out on the overpriced hotdogs and snow cones, or just lie around on the beach and work on your tan. No beer, though. After all, this was a family place and it was Oklahoma.

Brad Nelson would stroll around the beach, chatting with his patrons, even delivering drinks and food if someone requested it. He was a wiry little guy with a full beard, brown with a touch or two of gray. He usually just wore swim trunks and thongs on the beach, so he sported a full, even tan.

Brad was probably Neleus, one of Neptune’s sons, I realized. I was really getting pretty good at my Greek and Roman mythology. Of course, living in Ovid tended to do that to you. After a few months in Ovid, you tended to wonder when you met someone (a real someone–not a shade) if they were part of the pantheon of Olympic gods. Then again, he might have been just a pleasant guy named Brad Nelson, transformed by the Judge into the upbeat guy who ran Sunset Beach. I tended to believe he was Neleus, though. After all, if he was, Lake Pelias was named for his twin brother.

“Hi, Cindy!” he called out to me. He didn’t look me in the eye, though. Although I had been a woman for several months now, this was my first experience wearing a bikini–in public at least. It seemed that being an attractive woman meant that the less you wore, the more you got stared at–particularly the more impressive parts of your anatomy. I was glad I had been transformed in the fall. That had given me a chance to get used to my new sex before displaying the merchandise so obviously. I kind of liked being stared at, though. When you’re a mother of two, it’s nice to know you can still get a guy’s attention.

“Hi, Brad,” I called back, looking up from the romance novel I had been reading. That was one of the occupational hazards of being a woman. I would never have dreamed of reading one of those romances when I was a man, but as a woman, they seemed just about the right thing to read.

“Where’s Jerry?”

“Over there,” I said, pointing to the handsome man laughing and splashing with the two young blonde children–one a boy and the other a girl–that were our twins. We had all once been fraternity brothers at Notre Dame. Then, we went through Ovid and our lives–and identities–were completely changed. Only I remembered our previous lives, though, and I didn’t really care about that any more. We were just the happy young family we appeared to be, and that was fine with me.

Brad turned to the lovely young woman next to me. “And how are you, Susan?”

“Never better,” the attractive brunette lying next to me engrossed in her own romance novel replied with a friendly smile. A passerby, seeing her lying there in her white bikini would never have imagined that she had once been one of the top criminal lawyers in the country–and a man at that. She was still a lawyer, but no trace of the man remained. Susan Jager was all woman, and happily married to a man who had once been her wife. Ovid could be so confusing sometimes.

“I saw Steve over playing volleyball with some of his students,” Brad said.

“That’s Steve for you,” Susan grinned. “He can be so macho sometimes.” If Brad was in on the true nature of Ovid, he would understand the humor in Susan’s statement, since her husband Steve had only been a man for less than two years. Brad gave a noncommittal smile. If he was associated with the gods, he didn’t want to discuss it. Some of them did, but most were indistinguishable from the regular citizens of Ovid–and they seemed to prefer it that way.

One of the most distinguishable was suddenly standing before us as Brad sauntered away. She appeared to be about sixteen, with long blonde hair and a pink bikini about the same shade as mine that emphasized rather than hid her ample figure. One look in her dancing eyes made you realize she was no ordinary sixteen year old. She was instead a goddess, her eyes wise beyond her years. She appeared in many different forms in the time I had known her, but somehow, I could always recognize her.

“Why the youthful appearance, Diana?” I asked her, smiling.

She gave me a little girl smile in return. “Because it’s the best age to be when you’re at the beach.” She plopped down beside us, her breasts sawing so suddenly that a poor teenage boy carrying two cokes nearly tripped and spilled them all over himself. “Old ladies like you are always content to sit around reading romances instead of living them.”

“Now wait a minute!” Susan and I chorused as we threw down our books.

Diana giggled. “So now are you two going to tell me about your love lives?”

Susan smiled sweetly. “Mine may not match yours for variety, but for quality, Steve can’t be topped.”

Diana laughed, “I think you’ve just zinged me. Good one, too!”

It was hard to be catty around Diana. She always appreciated a good cut, even when she was the target. Of all the gods and goddesses who inhabited Ovid, Diana seemed to be the true free spirit. Sometimes, I think she liked us poor humans more than she liked her fellow Olympians.

“So you’re going after the high school boys today?” I asked her.

“I might,” she said coyly.

“But first, you’d like to hear a story,” I surmised.

“Got any good ones?” she asked excitedly, turning to smile at a young lad who actually had to shift his swim trunks so his erection wouldn’t show.

“How about Sly?” Susan suggested.

“Yes, I want to see Sly’s story,” Diana said excitedly as she sat beside us. I didn’t blame her. Sly was one of our more interesting new residents. Since the Judge had given me the power to document the stories of our new residents, it would be almost like climbing inside Sly’s mind–and an interesting mind it was, too.

“Okay,” I agreed. “Are you both ready?”

They nodded avidly.

I began to slip into my trance as I mumbled, “Then here we go...”

“So are you going to sleep all day?”

The melodious baritone cut through the fog of my sleep like an icebreaker through thin ice. It was noisy and it hurt. I silently vowed to myself to use a little more moderation the next time I partied. I couldn’t carry on now like I could when I was twenty. Or thirty. Or forty. I groaned, rolling over, my arm flopping out until it landed on a soft mound of flesh next to me.

“Ow, Phil!” a whiny voice cried out next to me. “You bruised my right boob, you dick!”

“Don’t call me a dick or you’ll be looking for work,” I managed to growl. Actresses. You always have to remind them who the boss is, I thought. I didn’t have to even open my eyes to know that the whiny voice next to me belonged to Janice Lamuse, my number one porno–excuse me–exotic star. She had all the acting talent of a walk-on in a high school play, but she could shake those silicon-enhanced hooters all over the screen and make it look like she just couldn’t get enough of that big schlong all those porno–excuse me–exotic actors seemed to have.

“Come on, it’s ten o’clock,” the baritone voice urged. “We’ve got a plane to catch.”

“Plane?” I muttered, rubbing the back of my neck in a vain attempt to keep the back of my head from splitting open. Damned Italian wine. It always sneaked up on me. Sure, it tasted mellow the night before, but this morning, after a couple of bottles of it the night before, mixed with a pack of cigarettes and a line of coke, I felt like shit. No, I take that back. Shit had to feel a whole lot better than I felt.

“Yeah, the plane,” the baritone repeated, over the whimpers of my lovely bedmate. “The one taking us to the location–remember?”

“Fucking movie business,” I grumbled, pushing myself up off soft flesh.

“Ow! now you got the left one!”

“Tough shit,” I muttered, opening my eyes in the bright California sunlight for the first time that day. The baritone was standing in front of me, a grin on his too-handsome face. God, what I wouldn’t give to look like him, I thought. Six-two, muscles that seemed to ripple even when he wore a suit, blonde hair that was bleached almost white from years of surfing, and a tan that would make George Hamilton green with envy–what a package! To get girls in bed with me, I had to promise them a part in my next movie. To get girls in bed with him, all my baritone had to do was smile and look into their eyes. They would be pulling their own clothes off while they followed him to the nearest bed.

“Come on, Sunshine, I need to take a piss and you’re standing in the way,” I growled at him.

Apollo Sun–what a name, huh?–just smiled that little smile of his. “I told you to go easy last night.”

That was Apollo Sun for you–the master of going easy. I was sure it wasn’t his real name. Hell, who in Southern California used their own name if they were in the entertainment business? The lovely Janice Lamuse, for example, was born with a different name, I was sure. Cute name for a porn... exotic actress, I thought. So who knew what Apollo’s real name was? Under that name, he had been a professional surfer and won more than his share of championships. Nobody seemed to know where he was from or what his real name was, and I suppose nobody cared. Besides, it was probably something like Apollonius. He was probably named for his old Greek grandfather or something, although he didn’t look Greek. I called him Sunshine just to jerk his chain, but he didn’t seem to mind.

As he stood aside, allowing me the closest route to the bathroom, I had to admit he was a lucky find. I had been shooting a little Beach Bunny film not too far away from my Malibu digs, and he had been one of the extras. Unlike most of the male bimbos that strutted up and down the beach, surfboards in hand, Apollo seemed to have some smarts. He had asked me about the movie business, and I had given him the answers.

It was funny, I thought as I relieved myself, I took an instant liking to him. That was unusual for me. I think it was because he treated me as if I was an artist and not just another sleaze-ball T&A director. Also, he didn’t seem to be interested in showing off his pecs in front of the camera like his surfer brethren. Instead, he wanted to know about the business of movies.

So I told him. I told him that behind all the perceived glamour of the movies, there was a business that was more like running a circus than running a company. There were egos to be soothed, locations to be scoped, palms to be greased, and deals to be done. Most good ideas go down the shitter, and bad ideas get made into movies. Usually, the reality of the movie business is enough to send most guys like Apollo back into the waves playing Surfer Dude. In other words, it’s hard work, and most male bimbos don’t want anything to do with hard work.

Apollo was different, though. He was actually able to grasp the business end of movies quicker than anybody else I ever saw. I wondered if he was the reincarnation of Jack Warner. Whatever he was, he was a godsend to me. With Apollo on my team, I could stay busy writing and directing and let him take care of the nitty-gritty details. He got a co-producer credit on film, along with me.

Me? I’m Phil Malone. Never heard of me? Well, I’m not surprised. Hollywood is the home of the great and the forgotten. Guys like George Lucas, a classmate at USC, are the great. Me? I’m the forgotten. Mostly, movie buffs remembered me for one film. It was made back in ’75 when I was just twenty-seven. The film was called A Night in Olympus. No, it wasn’t one of those Clash of the Titans things. It was about a kid whose dad deserted him and his mom died when he was sixteen. He thinks his dad was somebody important and seeks him out, finally confronting him one night at his palatial home. Want to know the ending? Rent the movie–or I guess you can’t now.

Anyhow, it looked like my career was going up, up, up. But it wasn’t. I only thought it was.

The next movie I was offered was the one that was supposed to put me up there in lights. It was a little story, written by some minor Italian actor named Stallone. I forget his first name. It was about a boxer who takes on the champ–a real David and Goliath story. The only problem was this Stallone guy wanted to play David. I told the studio “no.” He was too short and mumbled his lines. Either I picked the cast or I didn’t direct. They caved in. After all, after A Night in Olympus, I was the wunderkid. I picked a young rising star for the part. His name was Matt Cardone, and even though he had never made a movie before, I touted him as the next Brando.

In a word, the movie tanked. Oh, the Italian kid–Stallone–got an Oscar for his screenplay. He went on to be one of the top screenwriters in Hollywood. Me? I got the reputation of being a perfectionist who couldn’t bring in the big box-office bucks, even when they dumped an Oscar winning script in my lap.

As I’ve said, making movies is a business. It may not be like making cars or computers, but it’s still a business with a bottom line. When the powers that be decided I couldn’t pad the bottom line, my phone stopped ringing.

Oh, I got some little films, but they had limited distribution. Finally, I had to lower my price to even get those films. Eventually, even the little art film companies stopped calling.

To say I had gotten both frustrated and jaded would be an understatement. The frustration led to a few bad habits involving booze and drugs. The jaded part led to a whole new career which, if not satisfying, was at least profitable.

We live in an era of video recorders and hundreds of channels on satellite and cable. Everybody is looking for programming, and it doesn’t have to be good. It just needs to be cheap and fill time. See where the jaded part comes in? So I found a whole new career making cheap films. I’d make a little adventure epic á  la Roger Corman. You know the type–a lot of action and plenty of T&A to make the viewers forget that none of the players can act their way out of a paper bag. Then you sell them to direct-to-video outfits and cable networks. Then, you take some of the action scenes and splice them to make them into mild porn films. That way, all you have to shoot are the really steamy parts. Of course, I never use my real name as director of the porn films. I do have some pride left, I thought to myself. Not much, but some.

“Are you going to stay in there all day?” Apollo called out.

I squeezed my eyes. There I was, leaning against the wall with one hand, my dick in the other dribbling the last few drops into the toilet bowl. I had practically ruminated my way back to Dreamland. I needed some sleep. I needed a shower. I needed a smoke and a line of coke. I needed...

It took an hour, but I managed to get myself together. I looked more like those guys who spit on your windshield and try to clean it for a buck than I did a Hollywood director. My skin looked pasty under the fading Malibu tan. My gray hair was getting thinner, and my gut showed I hadn’t gotten much exercise in years. I wore a shirt that although still flamboyant had not been stylish in five years and some tan Dockers deck shoes with no socks completed my ensemble. For accessories, I chose a pair of cheap sunglasses. Anything to block out the day.

As I re-emerged, looking–I thought–reasonably human, I lit a cigarette and was rewarded with my ever-increasing smoker’s cough.

“You need to put that out,” Apollo told me. “The cab is here.”

“Cab? What’s this about a fucking cab?” I muttered, taking another drag of smoke into my lungs. “Since when don’t you have a car?” Apollo never seemed to drive the same car twice. “My chariot” he would always call whatever car he was driving. Leased them, he said whenever I would ask him why he seemed to have an unlimited supply of cars. I didn’t argue, though. Wherever the money came from, our pictures always made plenty of money. That’s what I really liked about him. We were ‘co-producers,’ but the truth was that Apollo handled the business end. All I did was direct. I liked it better that way.

“My car isn’t available now,” he said simply. I knew better than to ask more. All I would get was another of his cryptic answers. Sometimes, I didn’t know what to think of Apollo. It was as if the kid dropped down here from another planet. Maybe all that surfing affected his mind.

As usual, he had taken care of everything. My bags were packed and being loaded in the trunk of the cab. I knew Apollo would have packed everything I needed. He always did. Damn, but the kid was a find! Janice was already snuggling her ample butt into the faded back seat. Why the hell had I agreed to let her star in my next picture anyway? Oh well, I thought, she’d provide a lot more entertainment than the girls out in...

“Where the hell did you say we’re going?” I asked Apollo. “Kansas?”

“Oklahoma,” he corrected.

“Oh, yeah,” I agreed, throwing my cigarette into the potted plant just outside my front door. I got a breath of sea air. It cleared my head a little bit. The house wasn’t much, but the view of the Malibu coast from my deck was worth it. Now, I’d be spending the next three weeks in Oklafuckinghoma making another flick for late night cable. What the hell?–it was a living.

Apollo from the front seat gave the driver our destination as I sagged back into the back seat next to Janice trying to make my head stop pounding. I nestled my head down into her soft breasts and sighed as she stroked the top of my head. I managed to actually fall asleep, hoping that the ride to the airport would take about three days.

“Time to get out!” Apollo called cheerfully only what seemed to be seconds later.

“Let me sleep,” I grumbled, trying to burrow further into Janice’s breasts.

“Come on,” he urged. “We’re at the airport.”

I opened my eyes and looked around. “What airport? Where the hell is the terminal?”

“It’s a private field,” he explained.

Yeah, real private, I thought. There was nothing there but a dirt strip that looked far too short for any airplane I had ever seen. Come to think of it, the plane wasn’t any airplane I had ever seen. I didn’t know much about private planes, but the aircraft poised for takeoff on the strip didn’t look quite right. First, its lines were a little too clean and too streamlined. Next, it was hard to tell where the fuselage ended and the wings and tail began since there were no seams. The windows were tinted so heavily that I couldn’t understand how the pilot could even see out. There appeared to be no windows at all in the passenger cabin. To top it off, the plane was gold in color rather than the expected silver or white, and there were no markings on it anywhere.

“What the hell kind of a plane is this?” I asked him.

He just grinned. “A very fast and reliable one. Now, if you’ll hurry along, we’ll be on our way.”

Reluctantly, I stumbled out of the cab with a little help from Janice. She steadied me up the stairs to the plane. Funny, I thought, I hadn’t seen those stairs before, and I hadn’t heard them extend from the plane. I had a bad feeling about that plane. Of course, I didn’t like to fly in the first place–especially on private planes.

Inside, the plane would have done Air Force One proud. I swear it actually looked bigger on the inside than it was on the outside. It was bright as daylight, in spite of the lack of cabin windows, and the seats were so plush and luxurious that they made regular first class airline seats look like campstools. Gratefully, I sank down into one and sighed.

“Bloody Mary, sir?”

“Huh?” I opened my eyes and saw a young woman dressed as a flight attendant. Where the hell had she come from? I hadn’t seen her when I got on board. She was incredible. She was tall, dark hair, laughing eyes, and a figure that made Janice look like some cartoonist’s version of a woman. I mean, she was absolutely perfect in her proportions. She reminded me a little of an actress Apollo had found for our last picture. We used her to play a Xena-type warrior princess, although this girl wasn’t as statuesque. I wondered if the two were related.

“Bloody Mary, sir?” she repeated with a twinkle in her eye.

“Uh... sure, honey,” I managed. “What’s your name anyhow?”

“Oh, just call me Di,” she replied, placing a drink on the little tray next to my chair. “Just call me if you need anything else.”

“I can think of a few things I might need,” I said with a leer. She didn’t seem offended. She just gave me a little smile and walked to the rear of the plane. I swivelled my seat around. “Oh, Di...”

She wasn’t there. I wondered if she had just served the drinks and left. No, there was a compartment in the tail of the plane. It was probably a restroom, I reasoned. She must have gone in there. Funny I hadn’t heard the door open or close.

“Strap in,” Apollo reminded me from the seat in front of me. He was helping Janice get her seat belt on in the seat across the aisle from him, and he appeared to be enjoying every second of it.

We were airborne in moments. It was one of the smoothest takeoffs I could ever remember. Since there were no windows, it was hard to tell that we had even left the ground. No windows was fine with me, though. I’ve always hated looking out when I fly. I don’t like to be reminded of how far down the ground is.

“Is the rest of the cast and crew going to meet us in this... what was the name of the town again?” I asked.

Apollo swivelled around to face me. “Ovid,” he replied with a smile. “And yes, they’re going to meet us day after tomorrow.”

“Mostly locals?” I asked. It wasn’t an idle question. One of the reasons so many movies are made in the hinterlands is that it is easier to avoid paying union scale. Oh, the actors are Guild members: Screen Actors Guild, but you don’t have to have a union electrician, for example, every time you want to move a light. Low budget movies like mine had to cut corners to make a profit. One of the best ways was to keep the unions out of the mix.

“Pretty much,” he said. “You want to go over the shooting script?”

“Sure,” I agreed, accepting a copy from him. I knew the story well. After all, I had written it. It was the typical low budget stuff. The story revolved around a gang of toughs who had taken over a truck stop in a small Midwestern town. The hero–I had signed a former NFL linebacker for the part–was going to team up with a saucy heroine–Janice. She was to be a waitress in the truck stop who falls for the hero and helps him beat the bad guys. There would be lots of explosions, a fair amount of blood, a great rape scene where the waitress’s best friend gets gang banged, and of course, a long steamy love scene between Janice and the hero. I had decided to make it a really steamy scene. It would be one of the scenes I showed potential distributors. The film wasn’t a challenge. I had made at least half a dozen just like it. In fact, I had written this one over a weekend when I was about half-stoned.

I put a cigarette in my mouth, but Apollo grabbed it before I could light it.

“Hey, what’s the idea?” I yelled.

“You can’t smoke on board,” Apollo explained. “It bothers some of the equipment on the plane.”

“Bullshit.”

“No, it’s true,” he insisted. “I think you noticed this plane is a little different.”

“Yeah. So?”

“So to get the speed we need to get there in ninety minutes, we need to keep the cabin pressurized differently,” he told me. “It has a higher oxygen content. Your cigarette might cause a nasty explosion.”

I shuddered. I didn’t understand a word he was telling me, except that somehow, we were flying a lot faster than a commercial airliner and if I lit a match, we were going to be flying toast. “You gotta be shittin’ me. Where the hell did you get this plane anyway?” I asked.

He shrugged. “I know the owner. Don’t worry, though. It’s safe. Shall we go over the script?”

I settled back into my seat. Damn! I could really use a smoke, I thought. Or something. I wondered if Apollo had packed any nose candy in my bag. He’d better have. I hated to think of being stuck in some little burg in the middle of nowhere without something to powder my nose with. Maybe I could get at the bag now.

“Don’t even think about it,” Apollo said suddenly.

I looked over at Janice. She was asleep, so he had to be addressing me. “What?”

“The coke,” Apollo explained. “There’s some in your luggage, but you can’t reach it now. The luggage is in a locked compartment that can only be accessed from outside.”

“What makes you think I was thinking about the coke?” I asked him, truly curious. Sometimes, Apollo could be downright spooky.

“You were licking your lips,” he told me. “You do it whenever you think you need coke. And by the way, you’ve been licking your lips a lot lately.”

“Hey, Sunshine, I thought we were going to go over the script,” I said, trying to change the subject.

“Fine,” he agreed, relaxing in his seat as he looked down at the script.

That’s what I liked about Apollo, I thought as we looked over the script. He might not approve of what I did, but he never got too judgmental. When I mentioned that to him once, he had simply shrugged and told me that being judgmental was for others. It was funny, too, because he never touched drugs or smokes. Booze, sure–every now and then he’d take a glass of wine, but I never saw him drunk.

As we paged through the script of Road Kill Babes–that was the tentative title of the flick–I had to pat myself on the back. It was better than most of the stuff I had written lately. Writing was actually my first love, but even in college, I seemed to show more promise as a director, so I had moved in that direction. My instructors said it was my artistic skills. I was pretty good at drawing, too, making more than one of them suggest I do art direction in films.

But I digress. The story was actually pretty tight. There was just enough sex to get the soft porn guys interested. We’d make two versions of the film. One would be for general cable and satellite distribution. That would be the version with lots of noise and violence. Then we’d throw a few more sex scenes in the longer version, call it the ‘Director’s Cut,’ and peddle it to video stores. What a business.

“Are you sure this Ovid will be right for the film?” I asked him. I wasn’t worried about what the locals thought of our little project. It would probably be like films I had made in some little towns on the fringes of LA. They would be flattered that their little hamlet was going to be in the movies. Everybody from the Mayor’s wife to the town slut would be lined up just to be extras in the film. From our reception, you would think I was James Cameron in to do the follow-up to Titanic. We’d be well out of town before they realized our cheesy little movie wouldn’t be shown on cable until long after these farm folks were in bed.

“The town is perfect,” Apollo told me, “except for the truck stop.”

“What do you mean ‘except for the truck stop’?” I asked. “Janice’s character works in a truck stop. That’s in the script.”

“Yeah, except we don’t use any trucks in the film–just bikes. Don’t worry–I found a bar that will be perfect for it, and it’ll cost us a lot less than a truck stop to rent,” he explained.

“How so?”

“Well, since a bar doesn’t pump gas, we won’t have to pay the owner for sales lost at the pump. And since we’ll get a lot of the filming done during the day, we won’t cut into sales much. I know the owner, so I got us a good deal.”

My eyes narrowed. I smelled a kickback. Not that it mattered, I supposed. So what if Apollo made a little on the side? If the location was right for the film, it didn’t matter. “Is there a big parking lot? We’ve got to have a big parking lot for the scene where Rex gets attacked by the bikers.”

Apollo smiled. He knew he had me. “The parking lot is huge, and it’s right on the highway. Trust me, Phil. This is a great location.”

“So when does the rest of the crew arrive?” I asked him. Or had I already asked him that? Jeez, I couldn’t remember jack shit. I had to start going easy on the wine. Or maybe the coke.

“Cast and crew will be in day after tomorrow,” he replied. “That gives us a day or so to scout out locations. Then we’ll have a week to shoot.”

It sounded good to me. In and out in a little over a week. I could take anything for that long–even a little Oklahoma town. I hoped there was enough coke in my bag, though. I hated to admit it, but Apollo was right. I had been powdering my nose a little too much of late. Yeah, I knew it wasn’t good for me, but somehow, I felt more in control when I took it. It allowed me to focus on the important shit and ignore the rest. At least that’s what I told myself.

By the time we had finished going through the script, I could hear the engines changing pitch and felt the plane dropping slightly. Apollo saw the alarm in my eyes. “Don’t worry, Phil, the landing will be just as smooth as the takeoff.”

It was, too. In fact, Janice slept through the whole thing. I guessed I wore her out the night before. She needed her sleep. Well, she’d get her reward. She was a fairly decent actress as exotic actresses went, although that wasn’t saying much. And she was great in the sack. A film like Road Kill Babes was about as far into respectability as her career would ever go. Maybe some young stud with a lot of money and an inexplicable desire to marry a ‘movie star’ would notice her and take her off my hands. That’s what happened to most girls like Janice. Either that or prostitution. I supposed there wasn’t a lot of difference sometimes.

The plane came to a complete stop and the hatch opened, seemingly automatically.

“Great flight,” I told Apollo. “May I should thank the pilot for a smooth ride.”

“I’ll thank him for you,” Apollo said smoothly. “He’ll be a little busy for a while.”

We stepped off the plane and into the bright Midwestern sunlight. The air was hot and sticky, and unlike California, there was no gentle sea breeze to stir it around. I could feel perspiration coating my body. What a lousy place to make a movie, I thought to myself. Welcome to Hickville, USA.

There was no terminal at the airport. It appeared to be strictly a private field, with a couple of hangars housing what seemed to be modest private planes. Our bird was by far the most impressive airplane on the tarmac.

A young man in jeans and a red T-shirt that had ‘Oklahoma Sooners’ emblazoned on it in white was removing our luggage from the belly of the plane and placing it in the trunk of a white Ford Taurus. Great, I thought. The best Apollo could do was a lousy Ford. I missed my Beemer. Then I took a closer look at the man. There seemed to be something wrong about him. It was almost as if he was transparent. It couldn’t be, I realized. It had to be a trick of the heat compounded by the illegal substances still not flushed out of my bloodstream.

At least the car was air conditioned, I noted as I slumped into the back seat, Janice sliding in next to me. She looked as if she had been dropped on an alien world. Janice was even more of a city kid than I was. Raised in LA, she had never been in the wide open spaces before. She obviously didn’t know what to think about it. Well, I thought with a chuckle, there were a lot of things Janice didn’t know what to think about.

Apollo slid behind the wheel. “We’re lucky–the weather can be pretty nasty this time of year.”

“And this isn’t nasty?” I growled, thinking that it was only June and yet it was uncomfortably hot and sticky. I would have bet that by the Fourth of July, they could cook hot dogs just by placing them in the sun on the sidewalk.

“I’m talking about storms,” he explained, slipping the car in gear. “We were lucky we didn’t have any storms flying in today.”

“Storms?”

“Sure,” he said easily. “You know, this part of the Midwest gets some huge thunderstorms this time of year. A lot of them produce tornadoes.”

“Yeah, I know,” I agreed uncomfortably. I had seen Twister, and come to think of it, that had been filmed in Oklahoma. “Look, you don’t think we’ll have anything like a tornado here, do you?”

“No,” he laughed. “Scared?”

“Of course not,” I lied. “I’m just worrying about anything that might upset our shooting schedule. You’re sure there’s no chance of storms?”

“Not in Ovid,” he replied confidently. “We’re protected.”

Protected? I wondered what he meant by that. I supposed it had something to do with topography. I seemed to remember hearing someplace that some areas tended to have less chance of the violent winds than others. I hoped he was right. I didn’t like storms any more than I liked flying. I think it was because both were pretty much out of my control. That’s why I had chosen directing over other paths like writing, even though I was probably best at writing. When I was directing, I was in control. I hated the idea of being out of control.

We drove into Ovid, and to say that I wasn’t impressed would be like saying water wasn’t dry. As a city kid growing up on the coast, I had only seen places like Ovid from the First Class section of an airliner at thirty-five thousand feet. From there, they appeared as neat little grids of squared blocks with one or two main streets and a lot of nondescript houses surrounded by trees. Up close, it looked about the same. As we approached, I could see only a couple of buildings poking above the taller trees, and they appeared to be no more than three stories tall. We were met at first by a collection of metal business buildings with stucco fronts and signs that proclaimed them to be such things as Ovid Well Digging Services and Ovid Farm Implements. There were a couple of car lots and some little fast food joints, the most prominent of which was Rusty’s Burger Barn. Hell, I thought, that place is probably the closest thing they have to a five star restaurant.

“Are you sure you grew up here?” I asked Apollo as he pulled up in front of a modest motel that declared itself to be the Ovid Inn.

“Well, I wasn’t here very long,” he admitted. “My parents moved around a lot.”

“That explains it,” I muttered. There was nothing about Apollo–even his name–that smacked of a small farm town upbringing. When I had first met him, I had assumed he was, like me, a Californian through and through. It was hard for me to imagine him sauntering down the streets of Ovid on a sultry afternoon. Of course, if he did, I’m sure all the little farm girls would have been wetting their panties just to get a smile from him. Hell, the California girls did.

Reluctantly, I stepped back out into the Ovid heat. It wasn’t quite as bad in town as it had been at the airport. More trees, I supposed, to keep it cool. Or maybe I was just getting used to it. I hoped not. The only thing I wanted out of Ovid was out of Ovid. We’d try to shoot the picture in seven days and get out.

The lobby of the Ovid Inn was as nondescript as the rest of the place. It consisted of a bulletin board with the names of local restaurants and attractions, a couple of cheap chairs that looked to be about one step above metal folding chairs, and a reception desk, clean except for a pen, a bell, and a name plate that read ‘Z Proctor, Proprietor.’ There was no one at the desk, but from a room behind, I could hear the sound of a television blaring over the soft hum of a window air conditioner. I found myself wishing the air conditioner were in the reception area, as it was hot and stuffy.

Apollo rang the bell while Janice and I wilted into the two chairs. In a short time, a tall, wiry man about forty with graying hair, thin on top, and a bushy little mustache meandered out of the back room. All at once, his face broke into a smile. “Well, Apollo, haven’t seen you in a coon’s age. Where have you been?”

“California,” Apollo answered with a disarming grin. “Been doing a little surfing and making a few movies, Zach.”

Well, now I knew what the ‘Z’ stood for. And was it my imagination, or had Apollo picked up a little Oklahoma twang?

The proprietor looked us over. “So how many rooms will you all need?”

“Just one,” Apollo replied. “My two friends here will be staying together. I’ll be staying out with my dad.”

I hadn’t realized Apollo’s father still lived in Ovid. I supposed his dad would be somewhere on my payroll, too. That was the way things went when you produced movies. There was more nepotism in the movie business than anywhere else I could think of.

“I got a great room for you folks,” Zach said. “The beds are something special.”

“None of that, Zach,” Apollo cautioned. “Just give them normal rooms.”

I looked questioningly at Apollo. “Trust me on this one,” he said.

“Well, all right,” the proprietor agreed, pulling out two keys. “Room one seventeen. It’s on this level two doors down from the Coke machine.”

Apollo took the keys with another smile. “Thanks, Zach.”

Apollo pulled the car up in front of the room, right next to a police car with ‘City of Ovid’ emblazoned in black on the front doors. City my ass, I thought. There was a cop standing next to the car, lean and alert. He wore mirrored sunglasses that hid his eyes, and his blue uniform shirt was creased with military precision. He looked almost like a Marine standing on the parade ground as he watched us walk up to the car. Apollo nodded a friendly greeting to the cop as he unlocked the trunk, and the cop nodded back without a word.

“Friend of yours?” I asked him under my breath as I pulled my bag out of the trunk.

“An old friend,” Apollo confirmed quietly.

“Then what...”

I never got to finish asking the question. I was going to ask what the cop was doing just standing there watching us unload. But as I started to ask, disaster struck. One of the compartments in my suitcase was unzipped, and a small, clear plastic bag containing about half a pound of snow-white powder dropped to the asphalt with a discernable plop.

Shit, I thought to myself as I watched the cop’s eyes move purposefully from my face to the object on the ground. I had to make it look as if nothing was wrong. Maybe he hadn’t realized what the bag contained. After all, this was a small town. I knew even small towns had a drug problem, but maybe he wouldn’t recognize it as a bag of cocaine. I had no choice but to bluff my way through it.

“What’s in the bag, sir?” the cop said calmly. His voice was as strong and authoritative as any LA cop’s.

“Oh, that?” I said, I hoped equally calmly. “That’s just special body powder. You know, to cool the skin? I have it specially blended for me.” No city cop would have bought that, but I was hoping he knew who we were and would believe movie people were just strange enough to have body powder blended especially for them.

He put out his hand. “May I see it?”

“It’s just body powder,” I told him, unwilling to relinquish the bag. My heart was pounding. Two decades of cocaine use without a single incident, and I was about to be busted by a tank town cop.

“May I see it?” he repeated with just a bit more menace in his tone. Reluctantly, I handed him the bag. He hefted it in his hand, finally opening the zip-lock top and dipping his finger into the substance. He lifted the finger to his tongue, placing a small amount there.

He looked up at me. “Interesting body powder. You should tell whoever makes it for you that cocaine is an illegal substance. He should find a substitute.”

“Look, officer,” I said, reaching slowly for the wallet in my rear pocket, taking it out carefully so he could see it wasn’t a threat. “I’m sure we can work something out.”

“Look, Phil,” Apollo whispered, “that’s not a good idea with Officer Mercer.”

“Are you trying to bribe me?” this Officer Mercer asked.

“Oh, no,” I said quickly. “I just thought you would need some identification.” I handed him the wallet. “You see, we’re here to make a movie and...”

“I’m going to have to ask you to come with me,” he said, opening the back door of the police car and motioning me into the caged backseat. “You, too, Miss,” he said with a nod to Janice.

“Why me?” she squealed. “It was his suitcase. There’s nothing in my suitcase. I mean, there’s no drugs.” She looked worried, but I doubted if any of the little sex toys she always carried in her bag were illegal in Ovid. Still, there was no telling. This was the Bible Belt. Maybe just being from California was illegal here.

“Please, both of you, get in.” It was more than a request. Somehow, it was an order which had to be obeyed. We both slid into the rear seat together. I think we were both more frightened than we had ever been before.

“Apollo,” I yelled, “get us a lawyer and meet us.”

“I will,” he promised. As we drove away, I wondered suddenly why the cop hadn’t hauled Apollo in, too. Then I remembered that Apollo was from Ovid. Maybe this dad of his was a prominent figure. Cops never liked to pick up relatives of prominent people in any town large or small. Maybe his dad could help us. Suddenly, I wasn’t quite as worried. With any luck at all, we’d be free in a couple of hours and back to making a movie. I had a lot of locations to scout before the rest of the crew and cast arrived.

We drove further into town along what appeared to be the main highway business street, populated with gas stations, fast food restaurants, and even a small strip shopping center. There was even a place called Randy Andy’s, which appeared to be a small strip club. Although it was only mid afternoon, there were already a few cars and pickup trucks parked in front of the place. I suspected this was the place Apollo had chosen for our film’s heroine to be working in. My director’s mind went into high gear, sizing up the property. Yes, it should work. It was just sleazy enough that it should work.

Then I started noticing something really weird about Ovid. I saw several people walking down the broad sidewalks of Ovid on that sultry afternoon. Some looked as normal as could be. Others, though, had that same almost transparent appearance as the guy who had helped us with our luggage at the airport.

I nudged Janice as we stopped at a stop light. “Look at those kids,” I told her, motioning to three young girls in shorts and T-shirts who were waiting to cross the street. “Notice anything odd about them?”

She peered at them for a moment. “Aren’t they a little young for you?” she asked. “I mean, Jeez, Phil. They don’t even have boobs yet.”

“Not that,” I growled in frustration. “Look at them. I mean, really look at them.”

She did, her brow furrowing. Thinking had never appeared to be Janice’s strong suit. “So? They’re kids–little girls. What else am I supposed to see?”

Our car pulled away, and I slumped down into the seat. Maybe my doctor was right. He said I wasn’t taking care of myself. Too much booze and drugs. Maybe I was starting to hallucinate.

Finally, we came upon a gray granite building with Doric columns in front. The words ‘City Hall’ were carved into the granite above the columns. It looked like every other small town city hall I had ever seen in the movies. There was what I presumed to be a state flag flying next to the American flag. That and a few flowers growing in a bed next to the well-manicured lawn next to the parking lot gave the place a little color. Other than that, the whole place was drab gray.

“Come with me,” Officer Mercer said, opening the back door for us. We followed him into the building. Although it was mid afternoon and we were obviously in a police station, there appeared to be no other officers present. I expected to be taken into an office where I would be advised of my rights and given the opportunity to see a lawyer. No such luck, though. I was suddenly aware that he was taking us into a small block of neat, gray cells.

“Now wait a minute!” I barked, coming to a halt. Janice, who had been clutching me fearfully practically fell down when she collided with me. “You can’t just throw us into a cell. We have our rights.”

I gritted my teeth as Officer Mercer gave me the faintest of smiles. “You’re in Ovid now,” he said, as if that somehow explained everything.

“I don’t care where we are,” I argued. “This is still the United States. You can’t just thrown us in jail. We have laws in this country.”

His smile was wider now.

Suddenly, I felt my legs begin to move. I hadn’t tried to move them. In fact, I had been determined to stop where I was. Let him try to move me. Then I would have a case for police brutality. But for some reason, I had begun walking toward the cell. I tried to stop, but it was if I was only an observer in my own body. I tried to yell in protest, but my voice seemed to be useless as well.

I could still turn my head. I saw Janice, a terrified look on her face, slowly walking into the cell next to mine. There were fearful tears streaming down her cheeks, and I could tell she had no more control over her body than I did. Then, I lost control of my head as well. I was forced to look straight ahead at the uncomfortable cot bolted to the wall along the far side of the cell. I walked to the cot and sat down, completely unable to stop myself.

“You should be comfortable here,” Officer Mercer said to us. “Your trial will be at ten in the morning. Rest well until then.”

With a sudden grunt, I realized my voice had been restored. “You can’t do this!” I yelled at the retreating footsteps. “Wait until my lawyer gets finished with you!”

Of course, my lawyer was fifteen hundred miles away–maybe more. I had to hope that Apollo would be able to get me a local lawyer. That would probably be better anyway, I realized. A local lawyer could schmooze the Judge and maybe get us off. I mean, who was to say I knew about the drugs? I would just claim someone put them there without my knowledge. I would agree to pay a hefty fine. Then I had to get back to work. We were going to make Ovid famous, after all. Their little town would be in the movies. How much of a fine would they need? Five thousand? Ten thousand? Fifty thousand? It didn’t matter. I’d pay it. I would just take it out of the film budget somewhere. All I had to do was wait until Apollo showed up with a lawyer.

“Phil, I’m scared,” Janice whimpered from the next cell. “What did he do to us?”

Yeah, I thought, remembering suddenly how I had been marched into the cell. How did he do that to us? Hypnosis? I supposed it was possible. What else could it have been? I had been determined not to march into the cell–yet I had. Sure, it had to be hypnosis, I told myself. If it wasn’t hypnosis, it would have to be magic, and everybody knew there was no such thing–right?

I sighed. At least the cell was clean. I bounced up and down on the cot. It was actually fairly comfortable. Well, it wasn’t the first time I had been in jail for drugs. There was that time five years earlier in Mexico when I ended up in jail. Take my word for it–the worst US jail has got to be better than the best Mexican jail. As I thought about it, it had only taken a thousand US currency to get out of that jam. That is, a thousand plus the cops kept all my coke.

“Phil?”

It was Apollo’s voice. “Back here, Sunshine,” I called happily.

Suddenly, there he was in front of my cell, a wide grin on his face.

“What the hell are you grinning at?” I snapped.

“It’s just good to see you,” he explained, wrapping his hands around the bars. “Your lawyer will be here in the morning before trial.”

“Now wait a minute,” I said. “That would mean we have to stay in jail overnight. What happened to bail?”

“No bail in Ovid,” he told me. “The Judge won’t allow it. He doesn’t believe in it. He always says swift justice is the best alternative to bail.”

“Swift my ass,” I growled. “If I gotta stay here overnight, it isn’t swift enough. Who is this Judge anyway?”

Apollo thought for a moment. “Well, let’s just say he runs things around here. I’d better warn you, he doesn’t like drugs. By the way, you’ve never dealt drugs, have you?”

I puffed up to my full six one height to face Apollo. “Who do you think I am? Of course I’ve never dealt drugs. I’ve been generous to my friends, but I’ve never charged anyone a penny.”

“That’s good,” he said with a nod. “In that case, you’ll probably be okay. If you had ever dealt drugs, things would go badly for you.”

“Things are going badly now,” I observed. “I don’t see how they could go much worse.”

“Oh, they could,” he said with a grin as he pushed away from the cell door. “Take my word for it, things could be a lot worse.”

“Hey, wait!” I yelled, but he had moved out of my line of sight.

“Who are you talking to?” Janice asked meekly from the next cell.

“Apollo,” I told her. “Didn’t you see him?”

“No.”

How had she missed him? He had to walk right past her cell. I was starting to get worried. There was something that went well beyond strange going on in Ovid, and we seemed to be right at the center of it. I was starting to think only the Judge, whoever he was, would have the answers.

At least they fed us well. Dinner was delivered to our cells. It consisted of a small steak, some French fries, and a slice of homemade cake. The steak was incredible, but there was no file in the cake.

Of most interest to me, though, was the girl who delivered the meal through the slot in the bars was one of those transparent people. I stared impolitely at her as she handed me the tray. She noticed, looking up at me in puzzlement.

“Is something wrong, Mister?”

Her voice sounded normal. For that matter, she looked normal. She was just an average looking girl, slim, reasonably well built, with brown hair and a few freckles. She wore a plaid short-sleeved shirt and jeans, and if it weren’t for her slight transparency, I wouldn’t have been able to describe her five minutes after she left the jail.

“I... ah... was just wondering,” I began uncertainly. “Has anybody ever told you that they could... well, see through you? I don’t mean really see through you, but...”

She looked down nervously, checking to see if her shirt was properly buttoned.

“I don’t mean like that,” I said, trying to clarify my question.

She looked at me in confusion. It was obvious that she didn’t have the slightest notion what I was talking about. She looked solid enough. I mean, she was able to lift my dinner tray without a problem. And it wasn’t as if she was ghost-like. It was just that if I concentrated very hard, I could almost see what was directly behind her.

“Look, I’m sorry,” I finally said. “I just meant that...”

She looked up at me with a grin. “Oh, you just wanted to make me think the twins were peeking out.”

“The twins?”

“Sure,” she said with a grin as she bounced slightly to make her breasts bounce up and down. “I heard all about you. You’re that friend of Apollo’s who makes movies. You thinking about putting somebody like me in your movie?”

Another time and another place, the conversation would have probably led to an interesting evening. We each would have gotten what we wanted. I would have gotten laid, and she would have ended up with a walk-on so she could brag to all of her friends that she knew a famous director who put her in one of his films. Hey, I wasn’t the only sleazy director to play my part in that story. It had been going on since Edison opened his first studio back in New Jersey. It probably even went back a lot further than that. Gee, Mr. Shakespeare, what would I have to do to get a part in your play? Of course, come to think of it, boys played the parts of girls then. Well, maybe old Willie liked boys. Who knew?

Well, there were steel bars between me and the would-be starlet, so all I could do was say, “Show up on the set and I’ll see what I can do.”

That made her happy, and she bounced away happy. I wondered what she would look like on screen. Would she look normal or transparent? With a shudder, I wondered if she would even show up at all.

“Are you okay, Janice?” I asked as I hungrily wolfed down my dinner.

“I’m not talking to you,” she replied quietly.

“Why not?” I managed to say over another bite of steak.

“You got me into this mess with your drugs,” she replied.

“It seems to me you always use some of them,” I pointed out.

“Yes, but they were in your luggage,” she responded, as if this somehow proved her point. Female logic, I thought. It had to be an oxymoron.

I actually got a good night’s sleep that night. There was something peaceful about the jail. It was quiet–none of the expected late-night drunks being rolled in to sleep it off. In fact, I didn’t hear a thing except for Janice moving around in her cell. Also, the cot was more comfortable than I thought. So, it wasn’t the Waldorf, but when Officer Mercer woke me up the next morning, I actually felt rested and ready to go. Besides, I thought to myself, my last drink had been on the plane and my last line of coke almost a day and a half ago. Come to think of it, I hadn’t had a smoke since California. Maybe all that had something to do with how I felt.

Janice and I were led to a small conference room near the cellblock. Waiting for us was an attractive woman with papers spread out before her. She wore a powder blue suit and white silk blouse. Although sitting, I estimated her to be about five six or seven with a nice figure and cute face, surrounded by long, well-styled brown hair. As she looked up at us with a smile, I could tell she was wearing contacts. As a director, I could always tell that. Contacts force you to stare just a little bit more. One other thing about her–she wasn’t transparent.

“Hi, I’m Susan Jager,” she said pleasantly with just a trace of the ever-present Oklahoma twang, rising to offer us a well-manicured hand. I noticed as I took it that I had been right about both her height and her figure. “I’m your attorney–with your approval of course.”

Janice took her hand with reserve, sizing Susan up like one wildcat studying another. Of course, Susan was everything that Janice wasn’t. Susan was a trained professional, obviously intelligent and sophisticated. Janice was... well, Janice was Janice. I found myself wondering if Susan was as great in bed as Janice. Janice might have had her there. Then again, maybe not.

“I’m sure you’ll be fine,” I replied enthusiastically. It was no act. What Judge in the world could help but be impressed with someone like Susan? She was the answer to my prayers. She was a local attorney, she was attractive, and I had a gut feeling she knew her stuff. A woman like her was wasted in a burg like Ovid.

“Then let’s get down to business,” she said a little primly, taking her seat once more. “Mr. Malone, these are very serious charges.”

I leaned back in one of the chairs. “Oh come now, Susan–may I call you Susan?”

She nodded.

“A lot of people use drugs,” I went on. “It isn’t as if this were heroin or something. It’s just plain old coke. Why, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that half of Congress uses this stuff. It’s a recreational drug and I don’t have to steal to pay for it. Surely that can’t be that serious here.”

“Have you ever sold drugs?” she asked quietly.

“Sold? Of course not. I make movies for a living; I don’t deal in drugs.”

“Be careful now,” she cautioned. “The Judge will know if you’re lying. If you’ve ever dealt in drugs, I need to know right now.”

I leaned forward. “Ms. Jager–Susan–I have never in my life sold drugs.” Of course I had provided them to my cast upon occasion, but I had never sold them. Come to think of it, Apollo had asked the same question. Apparently this Judge was a real hard ass when it came to drug dealers.

“All right, then we have a fighting chance,” she concluded.

Janice frowned. “A chance for what?” she asked nervously.

“A chance to make sure you are still human at the end of the day,” Susan said. As I started to speak, she raised her hand to stop me. “Don’t ask now. We have to be in court in just a few minutes. For your own wellbeing, though, I caution you, this court is not like any court you have ever seen before. The law in Ovid works a little differently. Be respectful–very, very respectful–and tell only the truth. I’ll do what I can for you, but if you annoy the Judge, my hands will be tied and you could be in grave danger. Do you both understand?”

I don’t think either of us had any inkling of what she was saying, except for the part about being in grave danger. And what the hell was she talking about when she said that bit about being human at the end of the day?

Then I remembered a movie I had made a few years back. It was called ‘Magicmaster.’ It was the story of a wizard who could change men into beasts. I marketed it directly to Cinemax. They eat that sort of crap up. The X-rated version was called ‘Lustmaster’s Magic’. Is that what Ovid was all about? Come on, Phil, I told myself, that kind of crap only happens in the movies. I wouldn’t have imagined such a thing a day before, but I had seen and even touched transparent people. There was something very odd about Ovid. I resolved to follow Susan’s advice.

The courtroom looked like the courtroom I had used in ‘Justice Takes a Holiday.’ It was really pretty well done for a small town. Either there was big money in Ovid or the Judge had a lot of clout. The room was empty of spectators, though, except for a cute blonde who sat demurely in the last row of the visitor’s gallery. Nice legs, I thought as I walked past her. I gave her a smile which was pleasantly returned.

“Who’s she?” I asked Susan as we settled into comfortable chairs at the defense table.

Susan laughed, “Oh, that’s Cindy–Cindy Patton. I don’t think you want anything to do with her. She’s married with two kids.”

“Married, huh?” Janice jabbed my shoulder angrily. Now, to be honest, I wasn’t really interested in this Cindy. Since I had met Janice, I had become a one-girl guy–at least most of the time.

“She’s also the Judge’s assistant,” Susan told me.

“All rise!”

I looked up, surprised to see Officer Mercer acting as bailiff. He’s playing a dual part, I thought. Maybe Ovid didn’t have a very big budget after all.

The Judge was fairly impressive. If I had been casting for a Judge, I would have been happy to pick this one. He was middle aged–forty-five or fifty–with mostly brown hair accented by an occasional touch of gray. He wore gold-framed glasses which gave him a distinguished, almost scholarly appearance. His black robe was neatly pressed, and the shirt cuffs showing out of its sleeves were crisp and brilliantly white.

“Be seated,” he ordered as he sat. His voice was deep and commanding. I was duly impressed.

From the bench, the Judge shuffled purposely though a small sheaf of papers. “Officer Mercer, what is the first case to come before the court today?”

“We have a drug possession case, your honor,” he intoned formally.

“Ah, yes,” the Judge agreed. “We have the People versus Phillip Malone on a charge of drug possession and a Ms. Miriam Finklestein as accessory to drug possession.”

I looked at Janice who was wincing. That was her real name? Miriam Finklestein?

“Your Honor!” Susan broke in.

“Yes, Ms. Jager?”

“Your Honor, I am not aware of an accessory charge that can relate to drug possession,” she explained.

To my surprise, the Judge actually smiled. I could tell he actually liked Susan. I wondered if she was giving him a little on the side.

“Perhaps you’re right,” he said finally. “Officer Mercer, I’m surprised at you. You’ve brought this young lady up on a non-existent charge.”

Officer Mercer showed no change of expression as the Judge went on, “Ms. Finklestein–or if you prefer, Ms. Lamuse–will you please approach the bench.”

Nervously, but with visible relief that apparently no charges would be brought against her, Janice walked meekly to face the Judge, Susan at her side.

“Ms. Lamuse,” the Judge began, “what is your IQ?”

“Uh... my IQ, Your Honor?”

The Judge nodded. “Yes, my dear–your Intelligence Quotient.”

“Uh... one hundred and eighty, Your Honor.”

I nearly fell out of my chair. Janice was a genius? My Janice? The girl who could orgasm on command in front of a camera? The girl that had never uttered an intelligent thought in my presence was a mental marvel? It couldn’t be!

“Yet you have chosen as a career being a pornographic actress,” the Judge mused. “Could you explain why?”

“Well,” Janice began, “I guess I just thought this was what was expected of me. I mean, I was a blonde with big ti... breasts and all. And I could memorize lines and deliver them well, so...”

“And you had a father who didn’t think much of women,” the Judge continued for her. “In fact, he even told you that women were only good for one thing, didn’t he?”

“Yes,” Janice murmured.

“And he showed you what that one thing was on a number of occasions before you were even out of high school, didn’t he?”

“Yes,” Janice agreed, her head hanging low.

This was a Janice I had never seen before. I had no idea that she was so smart, or that her father had taken advantage of her. What a prick! If he were standing in front of me, I thought, I’d kick him in the balls for what he had done to his daughter. Hey, I wasn’t perfect, but guys like her father made me want to puke.

The Judge apparently was having similar thoughts. “It is too bad that your father is no longer living,” he told her. “I would enjoy dispensing justice to such a man. But that isn’t possible. Now, we must deal with what he has done. Now, Ms. Lamuse, consider carefully your answer to my next questions. Cocaine was found in the suitcase of Mr. Malone. Did you have any reason to suspect that it was there?”

There was a heavy silence before Janice finally replied meekly, “Yes, Your Honor.”

“And do you use cocaine, Ms. Lamuse?”

Susan looked ready to say something, but she bit her tongue and remained silent.

“Yes, Your Honor,” Janice replied.

“Then by all rights, since you shared a room with Mr. Malone, you were in possession of the drugs as well.”

“I guess so, Your Honor,” Janice said with a small sigh.

I had to give it to him, he knew his stuff. I could see Susan looking a bit crestfallen. She had almost gotten her client off, but the Judge had found another avenue to make the charge stick. Susan had been right. This Judge was a dangerous character.

“Don’t worry, Ms. Lamuse,” the Judge said gently. “Justice in Ovid is not without compassion where compassion is deserved.” Then, he did something unexpected. He began to chant. It sounded like Latin, but it could have been anything, I suppose. Languages were never my strong suit. Whatever it was, it seemed to have a noticeable effect on Janice. Her body began to shimmer until it had become somewhat indistinct. Then, it began to grow smaller and darker. Where a buxom blonde had stood moments before, a brunette, somewhat flat-chested of no more than fifteen or so now was in her place, and she seemed to be slowly growing still smaller.

“So, what do you want to be when you grow up, Stephanie?” the Judge asked, looking down at the new girl.

“A nurse!” the girl who had been Janice said in a childish voice, sounding no more than five or so. She swayed back and forth, as little girls do.

“A nurse, eh?” the Judge said. “But you’re very smart, Stephanie. Have you ever thought about being a doctor?”

Janice was smaller still, no more than ten now as a thoughtful look crossed her face. “No...”

The Judge smiled. The little girl that Janice had become was smaller still–perhaps six or seven, wearing a pink T-shirt, white shorts, and sandals. She was not an unattractive little girl, but it was obvious that she would never grow up to be the bombshell Janice had been. “Well, you should,” he said. “You know, you’re a very smart little girl, Stephanie.”

Janice–no, Stephanie–giggled.

“There you are!” a voice called from the back of the courtroom. I turned to see a rather plain woman, somewhat transparent and dressed in an outfit not unlike Stephanie’s, rushing toward the bench. “Oh, Judge, I’m so sorry. Was Stephanie bothering you?”

“Not at all,” the Judge said smoothly. “Stephanie and I were just talking about what she wants to do when she grows up.”

“The Judge said I should be a doctor!” the little girl told her happily.

The woman squatted down to face the little girl. “Well, you’re certainly smart enough,” she agreed. “You’ll need to study very, very hard, though.”

“Oh, I will, Mommy!” the little girl agreed, smiling. Then, back to the Judge, “I’m going to be in second grade next fall.”

The Judge smiled. “Come by any time, Stephanie.”

“Thank you!” she said cheerfully, taking the woman’s hand and skipping merrily out of the room.

I was dumfounded. I had just seen something that looked as if it came out of one of Hollywood’s top special effects houses, and yet I knew this was no special effect. The woman I had known and slept with for a long time had just been changed into a little girl who apparently had no memory of her previous life. Now I knew what Susan had been warning me about. The Judge had powers I had never dreamed possible. I was most certainly in grave danger. I sensed Janice had been dealt with lightly by the Judge’s standards. Yet she had been changed beyond all recognition. Now it was going to be my turn.

“Mr. Malone!” the Judge intoned as the courtroom returned to normal–if anything could be said to be ‘normal’ about it.

“Yes, Your Honor,” I managed to say, a quaver in my voice. I rose unsteadily to my feet. I could never remember being so frightened in my entire life.

The Judge motioned me forward with his hand. When I had managed reluctantly to stand in the place where my former lover had been transformed, he began, “Mr. Malone, you have been charged with bringing an illegal substance–drugs–into Ovid. Do you have any idea how serious that offense is?”

I didn’t, but I was starting to get the idea.

“Let me tell you then,” the Judge said, without waiting for an answer from me. “If you had been dealing drugs, you would forfeit your humanity, but I realize you are only a user. I also know that you see no harm in using them, or in using people like Janice Lamuse. You are a sleaze merchant, Mr. Malone.”

I had to defend myself. “I’m just giving the public what they want, Your Honor,” I explained.

His raised an eyebrow. “Oh? Is that important to you, Mr. Malone?”

“I’ve made it my life’s work,” I said, trying to sound proud of my accomplishments.

“As far as I’m concerned, Mr. Malone, your ‘life’s work’ consists of one very good film–‘A Night in Olympus’–and a subsequent parade of garbage,” the Judge growled. “But who am I to argue with the public’s taste? Isn’t that right, Mr. Malone?”

“The public pays the bills,” I replied with a shrug.

“Yes, it does,” the Judge said ominously. “I think I have just the thing for you, Mr. Malone. Allow me to introduce you to Marty Bachman.”

I turned, following his eyes. “Pleased to meet you,” a voice said with a thick, raspy Oklahoma drawl. I looked behind me and saw a man in black trousers and a blue and white striped shirt. He was tall and thin, and his hawk-like nose and receding hairline made me think of Ichabod Crane.

“You will be ‘paroled’ shall we say to Mr. Bachman.” Then the Judge began that strange chanting again. I cringed, expecting changes to envelop my body, but when the chanting had stopped, nothing had changed. I could only feel a small tingle. “Good day to you, Mr. Malone.”

The Judge rose from the bench and returned to his chambers. I looked questioningly at my attorney. She actually looked relieved.

“That’s it?” I asked. I was so nervous my voice seemed to actually go up a register. “It’s over?”

Susan shook her head. “No, it’s just beginning, Mr. Malone. But don’t worry. Things often turn out for the best. I’m still your attorney, no matter what happens. Remember that.”

“Come on,” Marty Bachman said, grabbing my arm and pulling me along. I nearly tripped and lost my shoe.

“What’s happening?” I asked as he led me to a red Mustang convertible in the parking lot. “Why didn’t he change me, too?”

He stopped and looked at me for a moment. Then he burst into laughter.

“What’s so funny?”

“Look at yourself in the mirror,” he told me.

I looked in the side mirror of the Mustang. I gasped as I realized that my features were changing as I watched. My face had become smoother and less angular, and long, dark–almost black–hair was growing before my eyes. I held a hand to my face, alarmed to find that my hand was now slender, fingernails tipped with a frosted pink glaze.

“What the hell is happening to me?” I screamed. But I knew. I had seen what the Judge could do. If he could change Janice into a little girl, then he could change me into... into...

“Just get in the car, Sylvia,” he said. “I’ll explain everything.”

I turned to him. Moments ago, we had been the same height. I was several inches shorter now. “What... what did you call me?”

“Sylvia. Sylvia Conners. That’s your name now, so you’d better get used to it.”

Numbly, I crouched down into the car. Marty slid into the driver’s seat and started the car. I was too busy looking down at myself to see where we were going. My body was almost a blur, flesh moving and rearranging itself under my white dress shirt and gray slacks that I had been wearing since the day before. As I watched, they, too, began to shift. My shirt was becoming a black knit top with short sleeves and a low neckline that accentuated the two small mountains that were growing like weeds out of my chest. I could feel a sudden pressure as my waist dented inward, the leftover flesh pooling itself on my hips and ass. There was a tickling sensation as the legs of my slacks fused together, turned from gray to dark red, and began sliding up my legs.

“Don’t worry,” he said cheerfully as we drove down peaceful tree-lined streets. “It will be all done in a couple of minutes. Do you still remember who you were?”

“Yes,” I managed to say in a voice that was shockingly high in pitch. “I’m Phil Malone.” I had to remember that. No matter what happened to me, I was Phil Malone. They couldn’t take away my identity like they did with Janice. Phil Malone. I’m Phil Malone. Phil Malone.

“No, babe, you were Phil Malone,” he chuckled. “You’re Sylvia Conners now. Or ‘Sly’ to your friends.”

Damn. That was the name of the Italian guy who wrote Rocky. Sly–Sylvester Stallone. Even in this, I would be constantly reminded of the failure that had started my downward slide.

“You know, you’re lucky,” Marty went on. “Most people just have to figure out for themselves what’s going on. You’ve got old Marty to help you, though. I’ll tell you everything you need to know to be Sylvia.”

The changes were nearly complete, I realized. Long, almost black hair hung over my newly narrowed shoulders. I could taste something sweet on my lips and realized I was wearing lipstick–and probably a whole lot more, I thought. My breasts were now full sized–or at least I hoped they were, for they stuck out what seemed like a mile from my chest. My dark red skirt came up to mid thigh, leaving my long legs exposed to show dark nylons which went all the way down to a pair of red heels that had to be at least three inchers.

“Not bad,” Marty said, looking at me as the changes ended with the appearance of imitation gold bracelets at my wrists and the tug of fairly large hoop earrings at my ears. “You’re not exactly what I had in mind, but I guess you’ll do.”

“Do for what?” I gasped. I couldn’t help it. I touched my breasts and crotch, feeling for the first time the sensitive tips of my nipples and experiencing the feeling of loss as I realized there was nothing male left of my crotch.

“You work for me now,” he replied.

Doing what? I wondered. Was I a whore? Was he my pimp? There was no way in the world that I was going to go down on some guy. I’d die first!

“I’ve got a little place out on the highway,” he went on with a distinctive leer. “It’s called Randy Andy’s. You’ll be one of my girls now.”

“Is it... a strip joint?” I managed to ask.

That brought on a wave of laughter. “No. I wish it were, but there’s no way the Judge would allow that in his precious Ovid. No, it’s just a bar. Your job will be waitressing. It’s mostly drinks, but we serve lunch and dinner. You’ll pick it up pretty quickly. The job pays minimum wage, but you keep all your tips. That means the more you swing that cute little ass of yours, the more you’ll make. No whoring, though. The Judge doesn’t allow any of that, either.”

“Whoring!” I practically yelled. “What do you think I am anyway?”

“You’re a nineteen-year-old girl with a fake ID that says you’re twenty one. That lets you work for me,” he said with a grin. “Like it or not, you’ve got all the plumbing of a nineteen-year-old girl, and that plumbing will be in prime condition. Somebody like you will be tempted to sell that plumbing for good money.”

“Why would I want to do that?” I asked indignantly.

“Because the old you has been selling sex for money for a long time, babe,” he told me. “I know. I’ve got most of your movies on tape. Or I did have them. They’re probably all gone by now.”

That almost disturbed me more than my transformation. “What do you mean they’re gone?”

“When you changed, the world changed, too,” he explained. “Phil Malone never existed. If you were able to leave Ovid now, you’d find that no one outside had ever heard of Phil Malone. We remember here in Ovid, but even that’s not enough to save your movies. Of course, I’ll bet the Judge still has a copy of ‘A Night in Olympus.’ He loves that stupid movie.”

I felt faint. This just wasn’t possible, I thought. I remembered my entire life as Phil Malone. I remembered growing up, making movies, making love, and doing a thousand other things. Could they really all be gone now–just shadow memories of a reality only I and beings like Marty could recall? And what of who I had become? I looked down at myself. There was a cheap black purse propped against the seat.

“Go ahead–open it,” he urged.

I did. There were the usual female possessions–a tube of lipstick, a compact, several tissues, and an imitation leather wallet, well worn and quite thin. Inside the wallet were a few ones and a five, totalling not more than fifteen dollars, and a driver’s license made out to a Sylvia Jean Conners. It indicated that I was a twenty-one year old female, but as Marty had told me, the age was phony. I was really only nineteen. I suppose I should have been happy on one hand. I had regained over thirty years of life. No more middle-aged aches and pains for me. No, I was nineteen and in the full flower of youth. Of course, I had a slit between my legs now. I would have rather been a middle-aged man than a female of any age.

“Don’t cry, babe–it’ll ruin the makeup.”

“I’m not crying!” I insisted. I wasn’t either. My eyes were just squeezing out a few tears of frustration. This wasn’t right. I had done nothing to deserve this. I was an American citizen. I had my rights. “Take me back to see the Judge. I’ll demand my old body back.”

“Oh, that’s rich!” Marty chortled as we pulled up in front of a wood-framed tavern situated in the middle of a large parking lot. “You’d better hope you never see the Judge again. If you do, you might be a bitch with four legs instead of two. If you think life is unpleasant now, imagine being a cocker spaniel for a while.”

I didn’t want to think about it. I looked around. There was a large neon sign just off the highway that said ‘Randy Andy’s.’

“Randy Andy’s?”

He smiled. “Clever, don’t you think? I came up with that myself.”

I was going to be waitress at a place called Randy Andy’s? Something told me I would need a baseball bat to fend off the clientele.

“C’mon, babe, I’ll show you around,” Marty said, leaping out of the car.

Leaping out of the car was out of the question for me. My skirt was tight enough to cut off circulation, and balancing on one heel to stand up was downright impossible. Then, I remembered how I had seen most women get out of a car. I swivelled around on my plumper ass and put both heeled feet on the ground at the same time. As I rose to my feet as a complete woman for the first time, I nearly fell over, not used to the moving weights on my chest. Fortunately (if it could be called fortunate), my widened hips seemed to give a little counter balance to my body. It still wasn’t easy to stand, but I managed. Marty got a good laugh out of my efforts. I saw nothing funny, though.

“I’m not sure I can walk in heels,” I said nervously.

He grinned. “Get used to ’em, babe. All my waitresses wear them. It’s required. It gives you that sexy wiggle when you walk. It makes all the guys want to stick around just to watch.”

“I’ve got to be a waitress in heels?” I shouted. “Look, I can’t do this.”

“Yes, you can,” he insisted. “You don’t really have a choice. This is who you are. You don’t have any marketable skills. As far as most of these farmers are concerned, you’re just one more girl from the wrong side of the tracks. None of ’em would give you the time of day. You’re lucky to be working for me. Without me, you’d be on welfare, and believe me, doll, a welfare check won’t take you very far.”

Was he right? Was I trapped in this role? In this town? I’d better just play along, I realized, until I figured things out.

I was relieved to find the bar was actually fairly clean. Of course, I realized suddenly it was probably women like me who kept it that way. There were two rooms. The first consisted of a long bar with cheap stools padded in dark blue or black plastic. The few tables were along the opposite wall, leaving a wide aisle in between. The second room was actually a little larger. It consisted of more tables, some booths along the far wall, and a large pool table lit by a fancy pool table light advertising Coors Beer.

“Your shift starts at eleven,” Marty told me, “and ends at midnight. You get a break from one to four.”

Thanks a lot, I thought. That meant I had an eight-hour day with three hours in between. What kind of a life was that? What was I supposed to do during the three-hour break?

“You get Sundays off,” he went on as if this was a fantastic company benefit. “We’re closed Sundays.”

He showed me around the place, acquainting me with my new duties. I couldn’t help but think of all the pictures I had made that took place in a little bar like this one. Hell, the picture I had come to Ovid to make was supposed to be filmed in a bar–probably this one, or one very much like it. I always had sleazy girls waiting on tables in those pictures. They usually had big tits and low IQs and liked to show off both. They almost always got laid by the end of the first reel.

Holy shit! I thought. Is that what was going to happen to me? Was that what I had become? As Marty explained the operation of the bar, I stared into the mirror behind the bar at my new visage. Well, I certainly had the big tits. They were out front for everybody to see. As for my IQ, I didn’t seem to have lost any points there. I still thought like Phil Malone. Now as for the rest of my body, sure, I was attractive. I had a nice figure and pretty long, dark hair. But the rest of the package? Well, my face was okay, but not great. I had a fairly good tan, but there were a fair number of silky black hairs on the back of my arms, and my face was a little too angular and my nose a little too straight to be considered beautiful. I was fine in the leg department, but my hips were a little wide. In other words, I was small town attractive, but hardly the kind of girl I would have picked to play a sleazy waitress in a bar.

“Are you listening to me?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah,” I lied.

Marty studied me for a moment. “Well, pay attention, because we open at ten. That’s just five minutes from now. And don’t expect to be paid for your first hour. Usually, I’ll expect you here at eleven. This is just your orientation period.”

I winced at the word ‘period,’ realizing that would take on new meaning for me now.

“Morning, boss.” I turned to see a short, stocky Hispanic man in a white T-shirt and white pants. He had long black hair neatly tied into a ponytail and a thin black mustache. He was also transparent. “Morning, Sly.”

“Morning, Pepe,” Marty said easily. I numbly echoed his greeting.

“Best short order cook in Oklahoma,” Marty said to me in a low voice as Pepe disappeared into the kitchen behind the bar.

“What’s with the transparent people around here?” I managed to ask him when Pepe was gone.

“We call them shades,” he explained. “They’re real–as real as you and I–but they’re... different. You see, all the residents of Ovid fall into four categories. Some are transformed into their current roles and remember who they were–like you. Some are like your friend. They get transformed but don’t remember ever being anyone else. The transparent people are the ones we need to run the town, but the Judge hasn’t transformed anyone into them yet. There was a Sylvia Conners before you arrived, but she was a shade.”

“Where is she now?” I asked. I would have been happy to return this identity to her and move on.

Marty shrugged. “That’s not my department. I don’t know. I probably couldn’t tell you if I did know.”

“You mentioned a fourth category,” I pressed. “Are you in that category?”

He grinned. “I sure am, babe. Don’t ask any more, though. There are some answers you have to come up with on your own. Those are the rules.”

I leaned against the bar, happy to take a little weight off my heels. “Damn, this is confusing. I need a smoke.”

“No joy there, babe. No smoking is allowed in Ovid. If it helps, I know what you mean. There’s times when I could use a smoke, too.”

“Smoking’s bad for you,” a woman’s voice called out. I turned and saw an attractive blonde slinging her purse on the bar. She was about my new height, but her figure was a little better proportioned than mine, with better breasts and hips. Not bigger, mind you–just better proportioned. Her hair was long and hung loose over her shoulders, and her face was the kind men stared at for hours. She was dressed in an outfit much like my own, but in different colors–a white blouse, royal blue skirt, white heels and tan hose. She was one of the shades, but nobody’s perfect. If I were still male, I would have been in love with her. Hell, I was female and I was still practically in love with her. “Hi, Marty. Hi, Sly.”

“Hi,” I managed, not knowing her name.

“Hi, Shelly,” Marty said, filling in the blank for me.

“Honey, you still want to go shopping on our break?” she asked me. “I mean, you don’t have to get home to Johnny or anything, do you?”

Oh great. There was somebody named Johnny waiting for me at home. I supposed he was some beer-swilling clod who would want to lay me the minute I walked in the... whatever I lived in.

“No, I can go,” I said, faking it. “Johnny’s not expecting me until tonight.”

She grinned. “He’s a great guy, isn’t he?”

“Oh, sure. A great guy.”

Marty coughed to get our attention. “I’m gonna set up the bar. You guys had better get busy, too.”

“Come on,” Shelly said with a smile. “I’ll get the silverware ready and you fill the water pitchers.”

Following Shelly’s lead, we got everything set up. I had worked in a restaurant when I was in college, and things hadn’t changed much through the years. I was able to act as if I knew what I was doing. After a while, I fell into the routine, just as if I were playing a part in one of my own movies. The lunch crowd wasn’t very big, and it was pretty tame. Not too many people ordered any alcohol, settling on tea or soda pop. I guess they all had jobs to go back to. A few ordered a beer, but most of the drinkers sat at the bar, hunching over a liquid lunch. I had done that a few times myself, but I was unsettled to note how dreary just sitting at the bar seemed.

Marty kept prompting me, giving me the names of the customers. Most were friendly enough, and nobody pulled any funny stuff. I suppose living in a small town meant that a guy’s misbehavior in a bar might get reported back to a wife or girlfriend pretty quickly. Still, I was nervous during the entire lunch hour. I kept expecting someone to put the moves on me. A couple of them thought about it, but I shut them down pretty fast. I tried to distance myself from the customers as much as I could.

Tips were sparse. When we saw the last of the lunch crowd leave, with only a couple of boozers remaining at the bar, I counted up the tips. Four bucks. Big deal.

“Not much, huh?” Shelly asked. I showed her the take. “Well, a lot of the lunch crowd are cheapskates, but that’s pretty bad. I only got about fifteen.”

“Fifteen?” I gasped. Funny, but the day before, fifteen bucks wouldn’t have gotten my shoes shined. Now, though, I needed money. I wasn’t sure how much minimum wage was, but I suspected it wasn’t much. “How come you got so much more than me?”

“Well, for starters, I’m blonde,” she said with a grin. When she saw the pained look on my face, the grin faded. “Hey, look honey, I’m just joking. You were kind of off the mark today.”

If only she knew. “What do you mean?” I asked glumly.

“Well,” she explained, “you weren’t your usual friendly self today. I think the customers noticed. I mean, it wouldn’t have hurt you to smile a little.”

I certainly hadn’t found anything to smile about. I had been out there on a hardwood floor tottering around on three-inch heels taking lunch orders from guys with a pound of grease under their fingernails who sat around making cute comments while they took in my cleavage. Then, I got to heft heavy trays loaded with greasy food and clean up whatever they left for quarters and dimes.

“And wiggle that pretty ass of yours a little more,” she went on. “The guys like that. A good wiggle can increase your tips by a bunch. You never had any trouble doing it before. Tell me honey, you didn’t get your period early this month, did you?”

Jesus! I hadn’t even thought about that. Period? I had to get out of this body. If the waitressing didn’t kill me, the period would. What did this Judge have against me anyway? If he wanted to make me fit into Ovid, why didn’t he just make me into one of those guys with all the grease under the fingernails? Anything was better than this.

“N... no,” I managed. “It’s not time for my period.” At least I hoped it wasn’t.

She gave me a sympathetic look. “Oh, I’m sorry, honey. I know you’ve been under a lot of stress lately. Are they going to have your car ready today?”

“Car?”

“Yeah. You told me yesterday that there was something wrong with it and that you barely got it in to the shop. Weren’t they going to give you an estimate today?”

“Oh, yeah,” I managed. At least I had a car. I’d go get it and go over to see the Judge. Maybe there was something I could say or do to get a male body. “Do you think we could go by there first? I mean, maybe it’s okay now.”

“Sure,” she replied. “Let’s go.”

This was the fourth time I had ridden down the streets of Ovid. The first time, I had a massive hangover. The second, I was in a police cruiser and the hangover wasn’t any better. The third time had been with Marty, and I had been too busy handling my transformation to look around. This time, though, I could look around.

Ovid was the poster child for Small Town America. It was neat and clean and looked to be prosperous. The pace was slower, though. As we drove down the main street–creatively called ‘Main Street’–I could see shoppers slowly window-shopping in the Oklahoma heat, stopping to greet and talk to friends, and generally taking their time. The majority of them were shades, but nobody seemed to notice or mind. For that matter, I was starting to think of Shelly as a friend, and she was a shade. I guessed they were just another manifestation of the magic of Ovid, just like I was.

Forester Ford occupied half a block at the far end of Main Street. There was nothing unusual about it. Like many smaller car dealers, it consisted of a large building that housed a showroom in front and a long series of service bays in the rear. The rest of the lot was parking for cars, both new and used, with the newest and shiniest upfront. There seemed to be as many pickups on the lot as cars, which surprised me. Of course, the only car dealership I had visited for years was BMW, and they didn’t make a pickup–at least not for American consumption.

Shelly pulled into a parking spot next to the service office. I swung out of her little Capri gracefully enough, as if I had been doing it all my life. I was starting to find out that if I didn’t think too much about it, moving as a woman became more natural. I grabbed my purse and walked into the service area.

As a man, mechanics had always treated me as if I knew about cars. The truth is I didn’t know a fuel injector from a shock absorber, but that didn’t matter. Men always assumed other men knew about cars until they proved otherwise. Now, though, I was a woman. I could have shown the mechanics my Doctorate in Auto Mechanics personally signed by Mr. Goodwrench and they would have still scratched their heads wondering how I managed to get a car in gear to bring it in to them.

“What can I do for you, ma’am?” a shade carrying a clipboard asked. He was a beefy guy dressed in a pair of dark slacks and a white shirt with a nametag that declared him to be Joe Mellon, Service Manager.

“Uh, I brought my car in for an estimate,” I managed meekly, completely intimidated by his patronizing look and tone. “I’m... Sylvia Conners.”

“Oh yeah,” he grunted. “You work over at Randy Andy’s, don’t you?” The way he said it, he might as well have accused me of working on my back.

“Yes,” I said, feeling my face flush. I hoped he didn’t notice. I was sure that he wouldn’t, though, because his eyes had yet to rise above the level of my breasts.

“Well, you’ve got a pretty sick car,” he said, leading me over to an aging Ford Tempo, its dark blue paint fading badly. “Take a look,” he went on, raising the hood.

I looked down into the engine compartment, not really having any idea what I was supposed to be seeing.

“Things are pretty gummed up in there,” he told me. “For a start, you need a new fuel pump. Then that whole fuel line looks pretty bad. Your fuel injectors are clogged, too. There’s some other things, as well. I’m surprised you even got it in here.”

“How much?” I sighed. In the car, I had looked in my purse. There were no credit cards and the checkbook showed a balance in a neat feminine hand of two hundred and twelve dollars. Something told me there was no money market account in my name that I could transfer to checking, or any other financial resources for that matter. The Judge had made me as poor as the proverbial church mouse. It was a new feeling for me, and I didn’t like it.

“Five fifty for everything,” he said easily.

There was a sinking feeling in the bottom of my newly shrunken stomach. “Can I pay over time?”

He shifted his weight. “Well, to tell you the truth,” he began in a low, conspiratorial tone, “the boss doesn’t like to do that. I could probably arrange it for you if you could do a little something for me.”

“What?” I asked nervously. I wanted that car.

“Well, I figure you and me could go back to that storeroom over there.” He nodded toward a room in the back of the service bay. “You do a little swallow the sausage for me and I think I can get you credit.”

“You want me to do what?” I practically screamed. I would have hit him if I thought it would have done any good.

“Hey, quiet,” he ordered, looking around to make sure no one had heard. If anyone had heard me over the noise in the service area, they didn’t acknowledge it. Then, back to me, “So what’s the big deal? I’ve seen you swinging that ass of yours over at Randy Andy’s. I’m sure you’ve put out for a lot of guys. All I’m asking for is a little blowjob. You do me and your car will be ready tonight.”

“Fuck you!” I growled, turning on my heel and storming away.

“Yeah, we could do that instead,” he called after me.

As I stormed out, I nearly collided with a young salesman, or at least I assumed that’s what he was. He was wearing a tie anyway. “Have a nice day,” he said lamely.

“Yeah, right,” I responded through gritted teeth, not bothering to look back at him.

“So what’s the damage?” Shelly asked as I jumped back into the car and slammed the door.

“More than I’ve got,” I muttered, feeling the sting of tears in my eyes.

“Look, honey,” Shelly said, facing me. “If you need a loan, I’ve got a couple of hundred. Will that help?”

So that’s where I had come to. I was a lowly-paid waitress with big tits and a nice ass who couldn’t even pay to have her car fixed without a loan from another lowly-paid waitress with big tits and a nice ass. I felt more tears flow. “I can’t take your money, Shelly.”

“Hey, it’s just a loan,” she assured me. “You can pay me back, and I don’t need it now.”

It was nice of her, but it still wouldn’t be enough to bail out my car. “I’ll think about it.”

“Okay, then let’s go shopping.”

I put a hand on her arm. “Look Shelly,” I began, “I’ve got something I need to take care of. Could you drop me off over at City Hall?”

She looked at me as if I had just asked her for a ride to the dark side of the moon. I didn’t want to explain anything to her, but I needed to see the Judge. There had to be another punishment he could inflict upon me. This one was too harsh. I couldn’t stand it any longer. I’d rather kill myself than suffer the continual embarrassment and harassment to which I had been subjected.

“What do you need to go there for?” she asked slowly.

“It’s a personal matter,” was all I would tell her. “Please, Shelly?”

She sighed, “Okay. Here we go.”

We made arrangements for her to pick me up again in time to get back to work. With any luck, though, there wouldn’t be a Sylvia for her to pick up by then. It all depended upon how good I was at making a deal. I had been a deal maker all my life. Every picture I ever made had been the result of one of those deals. Of course, I had never tried to make a deal with someone like the Judge before, but there had to be something I could offer him.

As Shelly drove away, I took a deep breath and entered City Hall. I was greeted by a pleasant shade receptionist who directed me to the Judge’s office. I had no trouble finding it, and wasn’t really surprised to see the pretty blonde from the courtroom–Cindy something-or-other, Susan had told me–seated at the desk in his outer office.

She looked up at me in surprise. “Ms. Conners... did you want to make an appointment?”

I had played this scene with a number of studio executives. “Don’t call us; we’ll call you,” as the old joke went, only they never called. Neither would the Judge. I had to see him now. I couldn’t stand to be in this body for another hour. I had to cut a new deal with him.

“I really need to see him now,” I told her, glancing furtively at his closed door, wondering if I could make it through there before she stopped me.

She shook her head. “I’m sorry–that just isn’t possible. The Judge won’t see you without an appointment.”

She was doing her job well. It was up to me to do mine well, too. Before she realized what was happening, I had bolted for the door.

“No! You mustn’t.”

It was too late. I had opened the door. The Judge looked up from the papers on his desk, a frown on his face.

“Your Honor, I must talk with you,” I pleaded. “It’s very important.”

“I tried to stop her,” the blonde explained.

The Judge dismissed her excuse with a wave of his hand. “It’s all right, Cindy. Ms. Conners has made her point. You can go.”

Reluctantly, she nodded and left, closing the door behind her. The Judge motioned me to a comfortable leather chair in front of his large oak desk. I seated myself with as much dignity as my short skirt permitted, embarrassed that I had to cross my legs at the thigh in a most ladylike fashion to avoid giving him a beaver shot.

“Now, Ms. Conners, what is so important that you couldn’t wait and make an appointment with me?” His tone was cool. I had a tough audience, I knew. I had to get my point across quickly or he’d throw me out. But as I said, I had charmed many a studio executive into backing my films. Surely I could talk the Judge into seeing I had no business being a girl.

“Your Honor,” I began as respectfully as I could, “I understand your need to punish me for drug possession, but surely there must be something else I can do to serve my sentence. By the way, how long is my sentence as a girl?”

“The rest of your life,” he said without emotion.

“Yes... well, maybe there’s something else I can do. I mean, I could maybe make a documentary for the city–free, of course. I’d be glad to do it. I can promise you that if you make me a man again, I’ll produce the kind of documentary that will really help your town grow.”

I was starting to really get into my pitch, but he suddenly silenced me with a wave of his hand. “You don’t seem to understand, Ms. Conners. We have a very strict policy on growth here in Ovid. Your Hollywood skills are of little use to us. To the contrary, I think your new identity serves us very well.”

“But I don’t want to be a girl!” I blurted out. I cursed myself. I was never so emotional in a presentation. It had to be this female body taking partial control of me.

“What you want is of no importance,” he said calmly. “You should actually feel very fortunate, Ms. Conners.”

“Fortunate?”

He nodded. “Yes, I have no use for people who abuse their bodies by taking drugs. There is a tree in a nearby park who was once a drug dealer. There are also some stray animals who once dealt in drugs. Had I any proof that you ever sold drugs, I would have given you a similar fate.”

I shuddered. It was bad enough being a girl. Being a stray dog or something sounded a hell of a lot worse.

“In fact,” he went on, “I was very gentle with you. When Marty asked me to make a new waitress for him, he was very specific in what he requested. I modified his request somewhat. Perhaps it’s time you realized how fortunate you are.”

He waived his hand at me, muttering a few words I couldn’t understand. Suddenly, I felt a tingling in my breasts again. With alarm, I noticed they were swelling outward. I could feel my hair growing again. As I pulled a strand of it in front of my eyes, I could see it had turned to a shade of blonde so pale it could only have come from a bottle.

“What are you doing to me?” I asked in a perky little voice that had gone up another half an octave, giving me an almost childish tone.

“See for yourself,” he replied as the air in front of me suddenly shimmered and became reflective like a mirror.

I stood up in shock. My hair was now curly and very, very blonde, hanging nearly to my ass. My face had become almost childlike, but there was nothing childish about my makeup, which had suddenly become almost clownish, particularly where the very pink lipstick accentuated my thicker pouting lips. My figure had become something out of a cartoon, with exaggerated breasts and hips and an even slimmer waist. My clothes had changed as well, becoming even tighter and whorish. My feet were now in platform heels, so high I could only guess at their height. I could see at my ankle, there was even a tattoo. It appeared to be of a bird–probably an eagle–taking flight.

“Perhaps you would prefer this version of yourself,” the Judge teased. “I thought it a little extreme for Ovid, but perhaps this would convince you that I mean business.”

“But there aren’t any women like this is nature!” I protested, nearly cringing at the sound of my high, almost childish voice.

“Oh, but there are,” the Judge told me with a leer. “It’s just that most of them have been enhanced with surgery. You’ll be pleased to know that your new breasts are natural–no silicone there. It’s a shame for them to go to waste, though. Perhaps I should give in to Marty’s request and allow strip show at...”

“No!” I screamed, tears streaming down my face, leaving black trails of moistened mascara on my cheeks. I looked away from the image, unable to stand what I had become. “Please, Your Honor. Don’t leave me like this. I’ll do anything–anything you ask, but don’t leave me this way.”

He gave me a solemn stare while tapping the ends of his fingers together. It seemed as if hours were going by with the only sound being my whimpering. I couldn’t remain like this. I knew what would happen to me if I did. Already, I could feel odd new sensations coursing through my body. My crotch was damp and my giant nipples seemed about to explode. I would be out of control in this body. I would be a stereotypical whore. I would be one of the bimbos I had written into my movies, a masturbatory fantasy that would have every male in Ovid ready to jump me.

“Very well,” the Judge said at last. “I’ll make you a deal, but not the one you asked for. Here is what I require. Think of this as one of your tamer movies. You will act the part you have been given. You will be a good little waitress at Marty’s bar. You will be feminine and servile while you are there. In return, I will make you into the Sylvia Conners I originally designed for you.”

“But for how long?” I managed to ask.

“Why, for the rest of your life,” he told me.

My heart sank. What choice did I have, though? The Judge had the very powers I had ascribed to the godlike character in ‘A Night in Olympus.’ Perhaps he really was from Olympus. Of course. Ovid had written of the gods. Perhaps they had really existed–still existed. But whether the Judge was a god or not, he had divine power over me. I looked down at my exaggerated form with the massive breasts and the large hips that would swivel with inhuman seductiveness every time I moved.

“Do we have a deal?” he asked calmly.

I closed my eyes. “Yes, we have a deal.” I felt my body shifting once again. When it was done, I opened my eyes to see once more the attractive but no longer voluptuous version of Sylvia Conners. I would never have dreamed before I had walked into the Judge’s office how happy I would be to see this version again.

“You are as you were with one exception,” the Judge told me. An exception? What had he done to me. Looking down, I saw it. I still had the tattoo of the eagle he had given me. “It will serve as a reminder to you,” he explained. “Should you decide to renege on our deal, you will be transformed into a creature not unlike the one I have shown you tonight. Whenever you feel the urge to break our deal, just look at the tattoo and remember what will happen to you. Am I clear?”

“Very clear,” I replied, actually pleased to have a normal feminine voice once more.

“Then our business is concluded,” he said gruffly. “Good day to you, Ms. Conners.” With that, he returned to the pile of papers on his desk. I had been summarily dismissed. I rose without a word and left the office.

The blonde–Cindy–looked relieved when she saw me. “Are you all right?” she asked.

“I think so,” I replied. But was I all right? Physically, I felt fine–better than I had as a fifty-year-old man. About the only physical problem I had (other than the fact that I was involuntarily female) was that my breasts felt bloated. I wondered if the Judge had left them a little larger. Also, I was a man in spirit who had just been told that I would remain a woman for the rest of my life. Maybe I could have tolerated being a different woman, but Sylvia Conners wasn’t who I was. I was used to power lunches and being in charge. I was used to a home on the beach, fast cars, and even faster women. I was used to the glamour of Hollywood.

Wait a minute, I thought as I waited at the curb for Shelly, what glamour? Was it glamorous to be always running fast just to keep up with the rest of the world? Was it glamorous to go to bed with women who wouldn’t have given me a second look if I hadn’t had a part to offer them? Was it glamorous to be stoned out of my mind three or four times a week? Was it glamorous to be fifty, looking at waking up every day with a new ache or pain that might not ever go away?

I could do this, I told myself. I could be Sylvia Conners. Oh, it wasn’t my first choice, but I was now young again. I was fairly good looking, especially in a small town. I might not have an education as Sylvia, but I still had my native wits. I’d use my assets to improve my new persona. First, I’d dump this Johnny guy who sat around back at my place while I worked. Then I’d keep my eyes and ears open for opportunities. I wouldn’t let the Judge grind me down. The bastard might be incredibly powerful, but he hadn’t heard the last of Phil Malone yet.

It was a different Sylvia who went back to work at Randy Andy’s that afternoon. I knew the Judge would somehow be aware of what I did, so I resolved to treat my new identity like a role in a movie. I would be the teasing waitress in a sleazy bar that my part called for. I would wiggle my ass seductively and smile at guys who would want me but never be able to have me. I would be as seductive as I could be without getting myself raped.

“Now you’re getting the hang of it!” Marty said with encouragement from behind the bar. I gave him one of the same little smiles I had been giving the customers, and he reacted just like they did, with a happy little smile of his own.

And my god, how the money rolled in. It was only Wednesday night, but you would have thought it was Friday night from the crowd. Most of the tables were filled, and there was a line waiting to use the pool table.

“At least it’ll die off early tonight,” Shelly said. “Most of these guys are working to build that new addition out at Vulman Industries. They all have to get up early.”

“You wouldn’t guess it from the way they’re drinking,” I replied. We were both waiting at the bar for Marty to fill our trays with drinks.

“Oh, that’s construction workers for you,” Shelly laughed. “I used to be married to one right out of high school. He could party half the night and still be at work at sunrise.”

I knew Shelly was a little older than me, but I hadn’t known she had been married. Of course, as a shade, it was hard to tell if she had really been married or just thought she had been. “So why did you breakup?”

She shrugged. “I caught him partying with somebody else. I threw him out, bag and baggage. I didn’t even keep a picture of him as a reminder. You know, you’re lucky you have Johnny.”

“Yeah, real lucky,” I agreed, but I didn’t feel lucky. I had been thinking about Johnny all evening. What was he like? I didn’t relish the idea of going home to a boyfriend. Johnny meant that I couldn’t be myself, even at home. He would probably want me to spread my legs for him the minute I walked in the door. I didn’t think I could do that, but it was probably expected of me–by both Johnny and the Judge.

At least most of the customers were pretty well behaved. Not that they really needed my attention. The Borland twins–Jean and Tina–were apparently fixtures at Randy Andy’s, and they kept the boys happy. Although they weren’t particularly attractive, they seemed to be spending a lot of their time leading guys on. Occasionally, one of them would lead one of the patrons out into the parking lot, presumably into the cab of his pickup truck for a little action. Better them than me, I thought grimly.

Although most of the customers were in groups, I had one customer who sat alone. He had come in early and had staked out a corner booth. From there, he seemed to be observing the crowd. He would order a beer every now and then, just for appearances, I thought, for he didn’t seem to be particularly anxious to drink it.

“Anything else you need?” I asked him in a friendly tone.

He looked up at me. He was a handsome man, I realized. That wasn’t something I would have probably noticed before my transformation. Even sitting, he appeared tall (of course I was now much shorter, so all things are relative) with dark brown hair and an evenly tanned complexion. He gave me a wan smile and said, “No, I’m fine. But I suspect there is something you need.”

I stepped back a step. Was this a come-on? God (or the gods) knew I had had enough of them during the evening. Most were innocent enough, but it seemed every horny male–in other words, all the males–in the place wanted to take me home as a personal play toy.

He smiled a little broader. “Don’t worry. I didn’t mean that. In fact, since you used to be a man, I doubt seriously if you would want that anyway. At least now. Of course, if you remain as you are now, it won’t be long until you’ll actually look forward to it.”

I cringed internally at that thought. “Look, Mister, who are you and what do you want?”

“Who I am isn’t important. My name wouldn’t mean anything to you anyway. As for what I want, I want information, and I’m willing to pay for it in a way you can use.”

I looked around to see if anyone was listening to our conversation. Not only weren’t the customers listening to us, but they seemed to be unaware we were even there. Also, their conversations seemed muted, as if I were listening to them with cotton in my ears.

“It’s magic, of course,” he told me. “I can’t use it long, though, or I’ll be discovered. All I want you to do for me is find someone connected with Vulman Industries–it can be one of these construction workers or an actual Vulman employee–who would be willing to help me with a little industrial espionage. You just need to introduce me–I’ll do the rest.”

“And what do I get for this?” I asked suspiciously.

“Your manhood back,” he said simply.

I gasped. “You can do that?”

He nodded. “That and much more. I can see to it that you are returned to your rightful identity and made immune to the Judge’s magic.”

“You’d have to be very powerful to do that,” I pointed out sceptically. “You’d have to be as powerful as the Judge, and I think he may be Jup...” I suddenly choked, unable to say “Jupiter.” When I stopped trying to say it, the choking stopped.

“Can’t say Jupiter?” he asked with a little smile. “See? I can say it. Jupiter. That, of course is who the Judge is; you are correct. Consider that a little demonstration of my power. Now, do we have a deal?”

It was tempting. I had only been female for a few hours, but that was long enough for me to realize I didn’t like it. But I was afraid of crossing the Judge. No matter how powerful this man–if he was a man–turned out to be, I would be resisting powers I was only now beginning to understand. The results could be unpleasant at best and fatal at worst. Or maybe there was even something worse than fatal.

“I’d like to think about it,” I said finally.

He was silent for a moment. “Very well, but don’t take too long. Ovid has a bad habit of growing on its new residents. I can return tomorrow at this same time for an answer.”

I nodded in agreement. Suddenly, the noise level in the room returned to normal.

“Hey, Sly!” a big farm boy called out. “How about another round?”

“Sure,” I called with a smile I didn’t feel. I turned back to my mysterious would-be conspirator, but the booth was empty. Not even his empty beer bottle remained.

I was still turning his offer over in my mind as Shelly drove me home.

Home turned out to be a trailer park, and my trailer appeared to be one of the more modest ones–older with a few dents and fading paint that looked bad at night and probably even worse in the daylight. So that was the way it was going to be, I thought. I was trailer trash. I found myself regretting I had ever made that film ‘Tanya, Queen of the Trailer Park.’ Somehow, it seemed as if a number of my raunchier films were coming back to bite me in my newly plump ass.

“Give Johnny a kiss for me,” Shelly said with a smile. “He’s such a sweetheart.”

You want him? You can have him, I thought. I was going to walk through that door to be greeted by some beer-swilling cretin who would want me to spread my tired legs for him. If I killed him, I wondered if I could get Susan to get me off by pleading justifiable homicide. No, with my luck, the Judge would bring him back from the dead.

Tentatively, I opened the trailer door with my key. I wasn’t sure how I knew it was the right key. It seemed as if when you just relaxed and did something, it was the right thing. I wondered if it would work for putting on makeup before work.

There was a light on in the small, modest living room of the trailer, and the flicker of a small television could be seen, reflected against the far wall. To my surprise, though, there was no guy parked in front of it in a T-shirt. Instead, a middle-aged black woman was there. She wore a long, shapeless dress, but it would have been fair to say that she was a few pounds over her ideal weight. Her hair was black with noticeable streaks of gray, pulled back in a bun. Her skin was nice, though, dark and without blemishes. In all, she was not an unattractive woman, but hardly the sort a lot of men would have been terribly interested in. I guess there were worse people to be changed into than Sylvia Conners.

She looked up at me with cheery brown eyes. “Well, well, I see the Judge has gone and made a real person out of you.”

“Yes, I’m new,” I admitted, “but how did you know? How did you know I still had my memory? And who are you?”

“Well,” she chuckled, “I knew you were real because you ain’t no shade anymore. That’s an easy one. As for knowing you had your memory, you don’t act quite like Sly. She was a little more trampy than you. And you don’t act like you know what’s goin’ on just yet. As for who I am, I’m Callie, and I’m your neighbor.”

“But, what are you doing here?”

“Lord, you are just full of questions,” she commented with a wide grin of perfect white teeth. “I been watching Johnny. What did you’all think?”

“Johnny?” It was starting to dawn on me. I would have come up with the right answer even without the sudden little cry from the next room. “Johnny’s a baby?”

“Of course he’s a baby,” Callie replied. “What did you think? ... Oh, I see,” she laughed. “You thought you had yourself a big ole boyfriend, didn’t you? Well, that’s a good one on you.”

She got up and went into the room, returning shortly with a baby, dressed in thin sleeper pajamas. He couldn’t have been much more than a year old. I felt sudden relief as I watched the little guy, gently rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.

“This here’s Johnny,” Callie told me, “and he’s all yours.”

He was, too. As Callie placed him in my arms, I could see the family resemblance. He had dark hair and fair skin, and an angular little face not unlike my own. He giggled when he looked up into my face. I involuntarily smiled, as if there was something within me that wanted to bond with this little miniature person.

“How old is he?” I asked softly as the little guy reached up with a tiny hand to brush my face.

“He just had his first birthday a couple of weeks ago,” she told me, almost as proudly as if she were the parent. “He’s startin’ to walk, too. Walks pretty good for a porch baby.”

“And the father?” I asked with a nervous tightness in my stomach.

Callie sighed. “I expect you know by now how Ovid works.”

“Sort of,” I agreed, sitting in a cheap dinette chair. Little Johnny was getting heavy.

“Then you know that you got a past. Yours ain’t too good. Your momma was kinda trampy. She moved here about three... maybe four years ago with no sign of your daddy. Then she picked up with some fella from Tulsa last year. They took off for Dallas and ain’t been seen or heard from since.”

In other words, they probably didn’t even exist except in people’s memories. That made things simpler for the Judge. He could makeup somebody like me and not worry about giving me much of a family.

“Anyhow,” she went on, “you was kinda trampy yourself. You picked up with a boy who was just passin’ through. He knocked you up and then left town.”

Another loose end taken care of. In a way, I was relieved. That meant there was nobody waiting in the next room to spread my legs. I wasn’t ready for that and didn’t know if I would ever be.

“So here I am, a trampy waitress in a two-bit bar and a rug rat to support,” I summed up.

She chuckled, “That’s just about the size of it, honey. Don’t you pout about it, though. It could be a lot worse. I heard tell you brought drugs into Ovid.”

“I wasn’t going to sell them,” I pointed out. “They were just–you know–recreational drugs.”

“The Judge doesn’t like drugs,” she told me. “There’s a drug dealer who came through Ovid about a year ago. Now, he’s a big oak tree in one the parks. If you were a drug dealer and not just a drug user, you might be out there makin’ acorns with him.”

I shuddered at the thought. It seemed everybody knew that story. I had no doubt that the Judge could have done that to me if he had wished. My thoughts were interrupted by a tiny hand pulling at my blouse and an insistent squeal.

“What’s wrong with him?” I asked. I had never been around babies. I was the youngest child in my family, and I never sired a child, so holding this squirming creature was a new experience for me.

“He’s hungry,” she laughed.

“Hungry? Well, okay, what does he eat?”

With a smile, she pointed at one of my prominent breasts.

I shook my head. “Oh, no, I’m not going to... I mean, I don’t know how...”

“Here,” she said pleasantly. “Let me show you. First, get that top off.”

I handed her the baby and removed my top, experiencing as I did the swollen sensation in my breasts. Callie helped me pull a breast out of its cup with a minimum of discomfiture. Then, she handed Johnny back to me. Almost at once, he instinctively moved his little mouth up to my waiting nipple. I cringed, expecting a pinching pain, but to my surprise, the sensation was not painful. Instead, I felt a feeling I had never experienced before. It was as if I was one with the baby, letting him suck the milk out of my breast with a contented sigh. I could actually feel the swollen sensation beginning to abate as he worked on the nipple. Suddenly, I sighed, too. The feeling was almost sexual.

“Well,” Callie said, rising to go, “I can see you got the hang of it. I’ll be goin’ now. You’all sleep tight tonight.”

“Wait!” I begged. “Don’t go. I don’t know what to do with him.”

“Oh, you’ll get it all figured out,” she told me. “Just let yourself go. The answers will be there, all natural-like. Now I need my beauty sleep, so I’ll see you in the morning. You goin’ to work at eleven?”

“I guess so,” I replied.

“Then I’ll see you about ten thirty. We can have ourselves a cup of coffee and talk.”

With that, she was gone, leaving me with a suckling baby. Had it only been–what–a little over twelve hours ago that I had been turned into a woman? It didn’t seem possible, and yet here I was, sitting in a chair in women’s clothing, my bra pushed up as a baby nursed hungrily at my engorged breast. By all rights, I should have run screaming from the trailer and thrown myself off the nearest cliff, but I couldn’t bring myself to seriously contemplate it. I felt oddly satisfied, as if I was... needed. Yes, that was it. In my entire life, I had never been needed, and yet here I was, a nursing mother, needed by this little lump of flesh who was falling asleep attached to my nipple. Without thinking much about it, I shifted him to the other breast. After a small grumble, he settled in on it, relieving the swollen feeling with his tiny mouth.

I had never contemplated having children–at least not seriously. Early in my career, the idea of a family never occurred to me. I was too busy trying to become a popular director. Then, as my career degenerated into the sleazy side of the force, I had begun to think of women as merely objects. I realized as I sat there in a maternal position condition that all women were not bimbos, but the ones I had long associated with were. None of them qualified to be the mother of my child.

Of course, I was little more than a bimbo myself now. Here I was, the proverbial unwed mother, scrambling to make a modest living by swinging ass in some cheap bar, walking the tightrope between being sexy enough to get sufficient tips to live and demure enough to keep from ending up in some patron’s back seat.

Speaking of patrons, what about the man who had offered me a way out of this mess? What if he could really do what he said? If he could, he was probably my only ticket out of this town. I was certain the Judge would never change me back. So that was it. I either took the man’s offer and hoped for the best, or I remained Sylvia Conners, resident trailer tramp for the rest of my life.

I looked down. The little guy was asleep. I smiled in spite of myself. This might all be a sham, but it actually felt good to have a part of myself go on, even if it was from Sylvia’s genes and not Phil’s genes. Since the little tyke was real, that meant he would grow up as a real person. I supposed he had been someone else before, changed by the Judge, but like Janice, he seemed to have no knowledge of who he had been. He was just little Johnny Conners–a baby. My baby.

I carefully put him down in his crib, covering him with a light summer blanket, protection against the trailer’s humming ancient air conditioner. I wondered if he was warm enough. Or maybe I should change his diaper. No, he seemed happy. I left him to sleep.

Alone in my own humble bedroom, I stripped out of my clothes, really seeing myself for the first time. Oh, I had seen bits and pieces before. I had, of course, seen my breasts while nursing, and I had had the dubious opportunity to examine myself between my legs while going to the can, but this was the first time I had had to just stand before the mirror and examine the whole package. I wasn’t bad, in a small town sort of way. The figure was reasonably good for a woman who had given birth. I mean, the hips were a little wide and the breasts a little large, but there was no excess fat that I could detect. Apparently Sylvia worked to get back in shape after I–she–gave birth. Of course, shagging drinks at Randy Andy’s was good exercise, I realized feeling an ache in my calf muscles.

The hair and face were okay, too, but I was wearing too much makeup. Well, maybe I wasn’t, given my role in this new life. I didn’t look too tarty–just a little tarty. It figured. I was wearing enough makeup to get tips, but not enough to get pawed.

My legs were probably my best feature. They were the sort of legs that in my movies would have required a close-up, panning slowly out to show them walking away in four-inch heels while the ass swayed to the music. Now, I would have to keep them shaved, I realized.

I remembered how in the movies I had made, girls would often stand in front of a mirror, feeling their nipples and massaging their clits as they undulated to the cheap jazz soundtrack. Well, there was no jazz playing, and I didn’t particularly want to experience an orgasm looking into the mirror any more than as a man, I would have wanted to watch myself jack off. But I was curious. Having Johnny at my breasts had shown me that the nipples were, indeed, sensitive. What would it feel like, I wondered, to have a man licking those nipples? Would it feel good? Of course it would, I realized, stroking one of them lightly.

As a man, I had never taken very long to get it up. One look at a hot babe and I had a tent pole between my legs. So as a woman, I didn’t really think I was doing anything that provocative, for there was nothing getting hard between my legs. The wetness that had begun and the feeling in my clitoris were too subtle for me to recognize until it was nearly too late. I looked down at myself, realizing suddenly what I had done. I didn’t want to masturbate. I was just curious. I released my nipples and turned from the mirror.

My body was demanding something, I thought, ashamed that I could feel the sexual needs of a woman so quickly. Perhaps it was part of the magic of Ovid. Would I crave the sexual attentions of men as I had once craved those of numerous women? God, I hoped not. Experimentally, though, I tried to imagine what it would be like, to have a big, strong man slide his dick between my legs and into my...

No! There it was again–that feeling between my legs. I began to cry for no reason at all. My tears were tears of frustration. I was frustrated at being poor, being a woman, being horny. I fell on the bed, sobbing softly to myself. I had to relieve the frustration somehow. No matter what, when I woke up the next day, I would still be poor. I would still be a woman. Damn it, there was no way I was going to be so horny, though. Before my rational male mind could stop me, I thrust my hand back between my legs.

Oh God! It happened quicker than I could have imagined. Who could have known? Who could have known? The wave of pleasure was intense. It began between my legs and at my breasts and spread through my entire being. I gave a sudden gasp and squeezed my eyes tightly shut. Could there be a better feeling in the entire universe? My sobs had turned to whimpers as I basked in the afterglow of my orgasm. Unlike my male self, I felt no urge to fall asleep. Instead, it was as if all of my senses were heightened. No wonder women resented it when their male lovers fell asleep right after sex. Male orgasm was like an explosion, uncontrolled and overwhelming, but gone in an instant. Female orgasm, though, was like the tide, ebbing and flowing with power, but with grace as well. I did fall asleep eventually as the tide flowed in and out once more...

Every now and then, I had read a script where a man gets changed into a woman. He wakes up the next day and stumbles off to the bathroom, unaware that he has changed. Believe me, it doesn’t work that way, or at least it didn’t for me. When my eyes opened in the morning brightness, I was instantly aware of who and what I was. Of course, it helped that there was the insistent crying of a baby demanding to be fed that brought me back to my new reality. Just the sound of his cries made my nipples become sensitive.

I threw on a worn robe and stumbled into Johnny’s room. He was there waiting for me, standing unsteadily at the rail of his crib. He brightened considerably upon seeing me. “Ma-ma!” he called, or something that sounded like that. Babies I discovered have a language of their own. It’s just we adults aren’t always smart enough to understand it.

“I guess so, kid,” I mumbled tiredly as I pulled him up. He was a heavy little bugger, or maybe I was just weaker. And he smelled like the bottom of a cesspool.

“Christ!” I muttered, peeling the disposable diaper off his little rear. At least it wasn’t too hard to change him, I thought confidently. Of course, just as I was ready to attach a new one to his little bottom, a warm spray erupted from his tiny penis. I was quick enough to cover him before it streamed upward into my face, but my hand was suddenly wet. Great–a valuable lesson had been learned. Never leave a male baby exposed or you might have the nursery version of a golden shower. I wouldn’t make that mistake again.

Nursing was easier the second time, and in a perverse fashion, I again found it enjoyable. It wasn’t enough, though. Apparently, a one year old still likes to nurse, but requires other food as well. I was wondering what to feed him when there was a knock at the door.

It was Callie, bright and cheerful. “How you getting along, honey?”

“Okay, I guess,” I said. “Look, do you have any idea what he eats now?”

She grinned. “Now that you’ve had a good night’s sleep, let Callie show you the ropes.”

She did, too. She showed me where everything was, told me what Johnny liked and didn’t like, and even went over a few other things I would need to know to be a successful woman. Thank God for Callie, I thought. I would probably have accidentally killed the baby if I had had to figure out everything for myself. That was a dark thought, I realized. I was actually starting to feel attached to Johnny. He was acute little thing. If I had to be his mother, I wanted to be a good one. He couldn’t help who he was any more than I could help who I had become.

Then I made us a pot of coffee. As I poured it, I said, “Callie, you’re a godsend. How long have you been here in Ovid?”

“Oh, not long, honey,” she said nodding gratefully at the coffee.

“Who were you before? I mean, before Ovid.”

She shook her head and chuckled. “Just another woman. Most of us don’t talk much about what came before Ovid. It doesn’t mean much.”

“Oh,” I said, sipping my own coffee. At least I wouldn’t have to tell her my story. I wondered what she would think if she knew I had been a man.

“I didn’t see your car this morning,” Callie said over her coffee. It was just Folgers instead of the special Italian roast I was used to, but it felt good to be sitting there with Callie drinking it. Then, when she mentioned the car, my face clouded, as I felt my plight once again.

“It’s still in the shop,” I told her. “I don’t have the money to get it out yet.”

She put a black hand on the back of my arm. “You poor thing. Old Henry on the other side of me–he’s retired and gets groceries and things for me. Why don’t we make up a list of what you and the baby will need and give it to him? Then you won’t have to worry about shopping.”

I agreed that that was a great idea. But there was still one errand that I had to do by myself. While I nursed, I had been thinking about the offer the stranger had made to me. It was tempting. Yesterday, I would have made a deal with the devil to get my old life back. Now, though, I wasn’t so sure. Oh, of course if the Judge had offered me the opportunity, I would have taken it in a heartbeat. But the stranger wasn’t the Judge. In fact, he was probably an enemy of the Judge. I had seen what the Judge could do when he was angry. If I chose the wrong side, I could be endangering my very existence. And what about Johnny? If something happened to me, what would happen to him?

It was funny, I thought. I had really never cared that much about anybody or anything except my career. Now, a little rug rat I had not even known had in a few hours become the center of my thoughts. It was magic, I knew. The Judge had given me a healthy dose of maternal instinct along with my new sex. That was obvious, but it made it no less real.

“Callie,” I asked carefully, “do you think Old Henry could give me a ride this morning?”

Old Henry proved to be a slender, jovial man about as black as Callie. He was bald with just a fringe of white hair over his ears. Callie had said he was retired, but in reality, he was a shade. I suspected the only work he had ever performed was being Old Henry. Still, he was pleasant to chat with, and he told me that he would give my groceries to Callie. He offered to pick me up, but I told him to go on. In truth, I didn’t want him to know what I was up to.

I had looked up the address of Susan Jager’s office. She had a Main Street address. How original, I thought sarcastically. The main street of Ovid was ‘Main Street.’ I was probably going to find that funny for a long time. Still it had made it easy for me. I had simply told Old Henry to drop me off on Main Street. I told him I was going to the bank.

“Farmers’ and Merchants’?” he asked.

“Sure,” I replied. I had noticed in my checkbook that it was my bank. I had no idea how far her office would be from the bank, but it couldn’t be too far, I thought. Ovid didn’t look like that big of a town.

Sometimes, you get lucky, I thought with a smile as I stood in front of the Farmers’ and Merchants’ Bank. There it was, an inconspicuous door right next to the bank proclaiming that the law offices of Susan Jager were on the second floor. I carefully climbed up the stairs, afraid that I would stumble and fall since I was wearing the heels and a tight skirt that I would be wearing at work. At least my practice at work the day before seemed to have done me some good. I had no trouble negotiating the old wooden stairs in my heels.

A fortyish woman sat at a computer in the reception area. She was an attractive shade for her age, with fairly short brown hair just beginning to go gray. “Can I help you?” she asked pleasantly, but I realized that in spite of her manner, she didn’t approve of me. There I was, all dolled up for work with my makeup just a little overdone, my white blouse cut a little low, my black skirt just a little short and my heels just a little high. It would have really blown her mind if her desk hadn’t blocked her view of my tattoo.

“Yes, I’d like to see Ms. Jager,” I replied, trying to sound as professional as I had in the outer office of many a Hollywood producer.

“Do you have an appointment?”

“No, but I think she’ll want to see me,” I said confidently. It was an old line in Hollywood, but I hoped that the secretarial screen wasn’t quite as sophisticated in Ovid.

She studied me for a moment, then called out, “Susan, there’s a young lady out here to see you.” The word ‘lady’ had sounded a little forced. I shifted a little uneasily on my heels.

Susan Jager appeared suddenly at the door to her office. She looked at me for a moment, a bit puzzled. We were about the same height now, I noted. Then, a little smile of recognition crossed her face. “Come on in, Sly,” she said, eyes twinkling. “Dori, would you get us some coffee?”

When we had settled in with our coffee at Susan’s conference table, Dori closed the door behind her, leaving us in private. Susan looked at me with narrowed eyes. “If you’ve come to get me to talk the Judge into changing you back, you can forget it,” she said.

I shook my head, feeling my long hair caress my neck. “No, I know that won’t do any good. I’ve already tried.” I stretched my leg out where she could see it. Through the nylons, my tattoo was clearly visible. “I got this as a reminder not to try again.”

“Nice tattoo,” she commented. “I’d say he let you off easily.”

“I suppose,” I sighed. “But to be honest, I’d do about anything to get my old body back. I can’t say I’m crazy about being a woman.”

Susan gave me a little smile. “You’ll get used to it. We all do.”

I looked at her, stunned. I had never imagined for a moment that this woman before me had ever been anything but a woman. She looked and acted so feminine. Professional, but feminine, I should say. I noticed the wedding ring on her finger. “So he made you into a married woman,” I ventured.

She shook her head with another smile. “No, I did that to myself–the married part, that is.”

My eyes were wide. “You mean you actually married a guy after you changed?”

“Sure. Why not? It’s a little hard to maintain an interest in women around here when you are one. You’ll find out all about that. Your mind will say ‘no’ for a while, but your body will say ‘yes.’ Eventually, your body will win.”

I wasn’t sure I liked the sound of that. Men didn’t look that interesting to me. I mean, I could appreciate that some of them were nice looking, but the idea of becoming romantically attracted to one was a little more than I had thought about.

“In any case,” Susan said, getting down to business, “I don’t imagine you came in this morning just to discuss this. And if you don’t want me to try to get you changed back, what can I do for you?”

“Well,” I began, shifting uneasily in my chair. I seemed to have nothing in my wardrobe except thong panties, and they were riding up a little uncomfortably, “I need to know something. Are you still my lawyer?”

“If you want me to be.”

“I do, so this conversation is confidential?”

She nodded carefully.

“Well, there was this man in the bar yesterday...” I went on to tell her what had happened. She listened carefully, stopping me occasionally to ask a question. When I had finished, I asked, “What do you think I should do? Can he do what he says? Can he change me back?”

“Perhaps,” Susan said cautiously.

“Then should I do what he asks?” I pressed. “I mean, he didn’t ask me to do anything illegal. All he wanted me to do was report back any conversations I overheard. What could be the harm?”

Susan sighed, gathering her thoughts. Then, she began, “Sly, have you figured out who the Judge is? Don’t try to tell me. You won’t be able to speak his name to me. Do you know, though?”

I nodded.

“Then you might remember from your mythology that... beings like the Judge had powerful enemies.”

It was true. As I remembered, they had overthrown the Titans, a pantheon of gods far older than themselves. Most legends even allowed that Jupiter and the other major gods were offspring of the Titans. I nodded again.

“I’m not privy to all the information,” Susan told me. “In fact, I think only the ones like the Judge really know all the facts. Apparently some of their enemies weren’t destroyed. Instead, they’re still out there someplace. In any case, they have made some... probes in Ovid in the past few months. Most of these probes are minor when taken individually. For some reason, though, they keep happening. Maybe in the aggregate, they are important. It’s obviously no business of mere mortals.”

“So what you’re saying is that I should keep my pretty little nose out of this,” I surmised. “But what if this is my only chance to get my old life back? If I don’t do this, Susan, I’ll be stuck as a bar waitress for the rest of my life. You don’t know what that’s like. You at least got to be a lawyer. You get to wear subtle makeup and business suits and reasonable heels while I have to go around looking like a tart. You’re a respected member of the community while I’m trailer trash.” There were tears forming in my eyes, and my voice was quavering. I felt so frustrated and helpless as I balled my hands into fists, only to be reminded painfully of who I was as my long nails sunk into the flesh of my palms.

Susan rose and came over to me, putting her arm around me in a womanly manner. “Listen, Sly, it’s always hardest at first. I know the offer looks tempting right now. That’s why this guy–whoever he is–offered it to you the first day. Things will get better for you, I’m sure.”

I wasn’t sure. I lived in a trailer, I had a baby, I didn’t have enough money to get my car out of the shop, I worked in a bar, and I had big tits. I had done enough movies about girls like I had become to know that my future was questionable at best. “Susan, what can I do? I never did anything to deserve this. What if I’m turning down my one chance to get my life back to normal?”

“Look, Sly,” she said squeezing my shoulders in a sisterly hug,” I’m going to give you some lawyerly advice. Go to the authorities about this. Do it right now so there’s no question as to which side you’re on. I’ll even drive you over.”

“To see who?”

She shrugged. “The Judge, of course.”

I didn’t look forward to meeting with the Judge again. My last meeting with him had almost left me a stereotypical bimbo. When I expressed hesitation though, Susan argued forcefully in favor of it. In the end, I took my lawyer’s advice. Years in the movie business had taught me many valuable lessons. One of the most valuable was that it was often disastrous to go against the advice of your attorney. In a matter of minutes, we were in the Judge’s office.

It was obvious that Susan and the Judge’s secretary, Cindy, were very good friends. I supposed it was natural given that Susan probably spent a substantial amount of time talking to the Judge. In any event, we were shown in immediately. The Judge rose and gently shook Susan’s hand, favoring me only with a reserved nod.

“I assume you have advised your client that it is not a good idea to attempt to appeal my sentence,” the Judge said to Susan, ignoring me even though I was seated next to her.

“We’ve come about another matter, Your Honor,” she said smoothly. I was relieved to have her doing the talking. The less I had to say to the Judge, the better I liked it.

When Susan finished her story, explaining to the Judge what had happened to me and the offer the stranger had proffered, he looked at me with a stern eye. “You have agreed to come here and cooperate with us unconditionally?” he asked suspiciously.

“I have,” I managed to say in a meek voice.

“You realize that you will be Sylvia Conners for the rest of your life, no matter what the outcome of this incident?” he asked.

I had had a pretty good idea that no matter what I did, the Judge was determined to leave me in this form. It could have been worse, I rationalized. I had only been a girl for a day, but in that time, I had been immersed in the role until it was almost starting to feel natural. If I were to help the stranger and cross the Judge, my fate might be far worse, I realized. “I understand, Your Honor.”

The Judge visibly relaxed. “Very well. Since we all understand that, here is what I expect you to do. I want you to accept his offer.”

“What?” Susan and I interjected at the same time.

“Yes,” he confirmed with no change of expression. “You will agree to his terms, whatever they are, and carefully report back to him as he requires. Is that clear?”

Susan and I could only nod our heads.

“Good!” he exclaimed with a wide smile. “Then I believe our business is ended. Good day to you both.”

Susan drove me to Randy Andy’s so we could talk in the car. “I don’t understand,” I told her. “Why doesn’t he just arrest the guy and change him? He can be me. I’d gladly let him wiggle his ass for tips for the rest of his life.”

“Don’t be bitter,” Susan admonished. “Our meeting with the Judge went well.”

“How can you tell?”

“I’ve been dealing with him for some time now,” she told me. “By coming to him, he has given you the benefit of the doubt. That might pay off some day.”

Soon, I hoped, as we pulled up in front of the bar. I had to admit, my job was getting easier. Working lunch the day before had been traumatic since I had just been transformed. Now, though, I was getting used to the job. Not that I liked it, mind you, but it wasn’t quite so alien. I was quickly learning who the regulars were. Needless to say, they got the best service since a tip a day keeps the bill collectors away. I was also learning how to move so I gracefully avoided the little pats on the butt and peeks down my blouse. For the most part, lunch at Randy Andy’s wasn’t any worse than lunch at a Hooter’s. And the mostly male clientele was pretty well behaved.

Then, half way through the lunch hour, I spotted a familiar face. Apollo was sitting by himself in one of the back booths. He smiled when he saw me approach. “Hi, Sly. How’s the meatloaf sandwich today?”

“Which end would you like me to stuff it in?” I growled. I had been making an honest effort to be nice to the customers, but I knew Apollo was directly responsible for my situation.

“Did I do something wrong?” he asked innocently. Damn, he had a handsome face in a boyish sort of way. Even as a man, I had noticed it, but as a woman, I couldn’t help but wonder...

No! Apollo was not my friend. “You set me up, you son of a bitch,” I told him. “Didn’t I read someplace that there was once a God of Truth named Apollo?”

“Speaking,” he said with a grin.

“You lied to me!” I insisted. “There was never a movie crew coming here. And you could have warned me what would happen if I brought drugs into Ovid. You knew all of this was going to happen.”

“Not exactly,” he clarified, “but I knew what would happen if you didn’t come to Ovid.”

He slid a copy of Variety in front of me. It almost felt like home to see the trade paper of the entertainment industry in front of me. Then, I looked at the date. It was date two months from the present date.

“What kind of a joke is this?” I asked.

He shook his head. “No joke. Just check the page I have marked.”

I opened the paper. It was the obituaries page. The name Phillip T. Malone was half way down the column. I dropped the paper to the floor. “This isn’t funny,” I muttered.

“It isn’t meant to be,” was his rejoinder. “I assure you, it’s real. Or at least, it would have been if Phillip Malone still existed. It says you died of a drug overdose. That’s a rough way to go, Sly. Ovid was your only chance.”

“You could have told me,” I said softly, feeling tears form in my eyes. I think I was crying for the loss of an old friend–me.

“You wouldn’t have believed me. I really did have a movie set up for here, but when you ceased to exist, time changed. The crew is working on other things. They’ve never heard of Phil Malone since he never existed. As far as what the Judge did to you, I’ll admit your possession of drugs probably had something to do with his choice for your new identity, but if I had told you not to bring them, would you have listened?”

I wanted to answer him, but all that came out was a choked sob. He gently took my arm. “Sly, when you were Phil, believe me, I was your best friend. Sometimes, I think I may have been your only friend. Look, give this life a fair shot. There’s an old quote–I believe from the Koran–that says God does not close one door without opening another.”

“Or the gods,” I managed.

“Or the gods,” he agreed.

More customers were coming in, so I wasn’t able to talk to him anymore. I turned to take care of another table. Then, remembering that I hadn’t taken his order, I turned back, but he was gone, as if he had never even been there. Damn, I wished these gods would stop doing that.

Shelly took me home again for the afternoon break. I had to admit to myself that I was really anxious to get back to Johnny. Just being with the little guy seemed to give some purpose to this whole mess. When he was at my breast, it was as if the whole world made some sort of perverse sense. I was really getting to enjoy him.

I took him outside to get some fresh air. In a grassy area near the trailers, he toddled under the trees, happy as a little clam–until a squirrel suddenly rushed by, frightening him. He let out a screech so loud it brought Callie back out of her trailer where she had gone when I returned home.

“Don’t worry, Callie,” I said picking him up. “He just saw a squirrel. He’ll be okay.”

The squirrel sat perched on the limb of an old oak tree, chittering a warning at us as he braced to run in case of danger. I found myself idly wondering if the little fellow was another of the Judge’s victims. If he was, I suppose there really were worse fates than becoming a cocktail waitress. Johnny shrank in my arms, whimpering.

“Easy little guy,” I cooed to him. “It’s just a squirrel. That’s just Sammy the Squirrel. Can you say ‘hi’ to Sammy?”

His little blue eyes got wider. I had given the squirrel a name. Something with a name didn’t seem quite as frightening. “H-hi,” he managed, or something close to ‘hi.’ He was still a baby in most ways, just learning to be a toddler.

“Maybe you could tell him a story about Sammy,” Callie urged.

“Good idea,” I agreed, feeling Johnny’s fear ebb away. “Sammy is a smart little squirrel, but sometimes he doesn’t always get along with the other squirrels...” Before I knew it, I was spinning a tale of Sammy the Smart Little Squirrel. He was on a quest, it seemed, to find his long-lost father. Within minutes, Johnny was smiling again. I took him back inside for his nap.

When I got him to sleep, which required a little nursing, I settled in on my dilapidated couch while Callie watched me from over her knitting. I was exhausted and still had all evening to work.

“That was a nice little story you told him,” Callie commented.

“Yeah. It’s a little like a story I wrote once.” It was, too. It was sort of the children’s version of ‘A Night in Olympus.’ I felt like a plagiarist, but what the heck. After all, I had actually written the story, even if it was in a different existence. Besides, nobody remembered the story anyway. It disappeared with all traces when Phil Malone ceased to exist.

“It has a nice ring to it,” she continued. “You should write it down.”

“Write it down?” I laughed. “It was just a little tale to help Johnny understand what animals are all about.”

“Ain’t that what all children’s stories are?” she asked. “Ain’t they just a way to explain the real world to the little ones?”

I smiled. “I’m not even sure Johnny is old enough to understand the story I was telling him.”

“They understand a lot more than you think,” she told me. “Take it from me. You ought to write that down.”

“I’ll think about it,” I told her. I really didn’t plan to do it, though. Trying to make ends meet and raise Johnny were both full-time jobs, it seemed. I didn’t have time to be a writer.

Maybe that’s what I should have been all along, I thought to myself. Writing was my first love. It was from writing that I got into directing. Directing just seemed to be where it was at. I had a lot more power as a director. Maybe I would have been happier as just a writer. Maybe if I had just written ‘A Night in Olympus’ and let a better director run the movie, it might have been more of a commercial success. All it had really gotten me was a chance to fail at making a boxing movie that nobody even remembered. I hoped that movie disappeared with the rest of Phil Malone.

I didn’t have much time to think about it, though. Shelly picked me up and we headed back to work together as I reluctantly left Johnny behind with Callie. Thank god for Callie. At least Johnny was in good hands. I had never before realized the awesome responsibility of being a parent–particularly a mother. When I left Johnny behind, it was almost as if I was leaving a part of myself in that trailer.

Business on Thursday evening was good. I didn’t have much time to think about my situation or to worry about my mysterious contact. I have to admit, I actually started having a little fun. I had pretty much gotten over my embarrassment about being a girl, and I was starting to feel normal with my long hair brushing my neck and my swaying breasts. I still was a little unsteady on my high heels, and the tightness of my short skirt didn’t improve my balance. At least when I had to sit, it was easy to cross my legs demurely since there was no male equipment to get squeezed in the process. I would have given a lot to have had my male organs back, but I had to admit some things were easier without dick and the gang getting in the way.

I had started to think of my time as Sylvia as a role like the ones in some of my movies. I began to try different things–friendly smiles thrown over my shoulder, an extra wiggle in my walk, a silly giggle. The guys ate it up, and when they ate it up, the tips rolled in.

I was reminded of my double-agent role when a group of people from Vulman Industries came in. There were about ten of them, laughing and talking. They put a couple of tables together and began to order. Two of them really caught my eye. The first was a great looking guy (now where had that description come from?) who appeared to be the leader of the group. He even made sure I gave him the tab. The other was a woman seated next to him–very close to him, in fact. She was very dark–probably Indian or Hispanic, I thought–dressed in a business suit. She had an engagement ring the size of a small state on her hand, and the way she cuddled up to the good looking guy–I think she called him Darren–it was pretty obvious who had given her the rock.

I was sure I had struck pay dirt. These weren’t just lowly workers at Vulman–whatever Vulman was. Instead, they appeared to be executives and engineers. Well, the Judge had told me to agree to be a spy. Here I was–Sly the spy. So I listened to what they had to say. Most of it was technical jargon, so I understood about a quarter of it. Apparently, this Vulman Industries was a defense contractor. They made some sort of device that allowed jets to fly longer and faster. I hoped my contact didn’t expect me to memorize much of the information since I didn’t have the slightest idea what was important and what wasn’t. Apparently the Judge wasn’t worried about what I told the contact. Otherwise, he would have told me to hold back information.

Ironically, by taking good care of the Vulman people just so I could hear what they were saying, I got a very nice tip for being so attentive. This Darren guy had given me twenty-five bucks.

“What did you do? Give him a blow job?” Marty asked crudely when he saw the cash.

“Right, Marty,” I said condescendingly. Considering the fact that Marty was apparently a god, he was in the lower quartile of the gods. He was as much a competent god as Homer Simpson was a competent nuclear power technician. I wondered which god he was.

Wait a minute, I thought. Bachman. Bacchus. Sure, it fit. Wasn’t Bacchus the fat little wino that fell off the donkey in Fantasia? Well, he might not be fat, but he was certainly around booze. I suppose it figured. Some god. I suddenly realized that I probably needed to bone up on my mythology if I was going to be a resident of Ovid. How many other gods were there? Let’s see... the Judge was Jupiter, Apollo was, well, Apollo. Then there was Marty, or Bacchus. What about that cop–Officer Mercer? Mercer–Mercury? Wasn’t he the dude with the wings on his feet? Well, I guessed it made some sense. A successful cop needed to be everywhere at once. Who better than the fleetest of the gods?

“Well, take care of that new guy who just came in,” Marty ordered with a nod to a newly occupied table. My heart stopped. It was my contact. Well, time to play James Bond, I thought. Or rather Jane Bond.

He looked up at me with his dark eyes. The wan smile was there again. “Well, have you given any thought to my proposal?”

I nodded. “We have a deal.”

His eyes squeezed shut, almost cat-like. “You’ve made a good decision. You won’t regret it.”

I already regretted it, even if I was playing double agent. The Judge was powerful–there was no denying that. But there was a power behind those dark eyes as well–a power beyond mortal understanding. This man–if he was a man–could probably do as much to me as the Judge had done. I was in the middle of some divine war. I felt like the island peoples of the Pacific must have felt in the Second World War when the technically advanced Japanese and Allies wreaked havoc in their lives. I was being asked to chose sides in a conflict I could never hope to understand.

“So what do I do now?” I asked.

“Have you seen anyone from Vulman Industries?” he asked.

“There were some in here earlier, but they’ve left,” I replied. “I didn’t understand much of what they were talking about.”

“Let’s see,” he said softly, placing a hand on my bare arm. There was a sudden disorientation. Then, I could see and hear what had happened earlier in the evening. The entire conversation I had heard with the Vulman people was replayed. They were discussing a flight control system far more advanced than anything that existed. They were not terribly detailed in their comments, but I could tell that they were discussing something secret. Even when they barely whispered, it was as if I could hear every word they said.

Then, suddenly, time returned to normal. I looked around, embarrassed. I had been in a trance for–what?–thirty minutes or so, I was certain.

“Don’t worry,” he told me, apparently reading my concern. “You were only in the trance for a few seconds. Time has a way of moving slowly when you report to me. No one suspects a thing.”

Then, he reached inside his shirt pocket, pulling out a set of car keys held together by twisted wire. “Consider this a bonus,” he explained. “Your car is now paid for. It’s outside in the parking lot.”

I took the keys and stared at them, as if they were made of solid gold. I had wheels! I might still be Sly the barmaid, but I could at least get around Ovid without asking for someone’s help. I wondered what would happen if I just got into the car and headed out of town. I probably wouldn’t be able to do it, I realized. I was probably stuck in this town forever. Besides, what would I do with Johnny? So I guessed I was stuck. At least I had a car.

Then another thought struck me. Why hadn’t the Judge done this for me? I had agreed to help him. Had I really picked the right side? The stranger offered the carrot while the Judge offered only the stick. No, I realized as I turned back to him. My decision had been made. It was bad enough being a double agent. Being a triple agent would be bad–maybe even fatal. “Did you want something...?” I started to ask, but there was no one there. He had disappeared without a trace. I wished he would stop doing that!

I was exhausted when we closed up, but it had been another goodnight for tips. Plus, I had my car. It wasn’t exactly my black BMW 740I, but I was feeling well-pleased as I scooted into the old Ford Tempo. I had no trouble finding the trailer park. After all, the population of Ovid couldn’t have been more than about fifteen thousand, so it wasn’t easy to get lost.

Callie was waiting for me. She had Johnny in her arms. He was furiously sucking on a bottle, little tears in his tiny eyes.

“Honey, I’m glad to see you!” she sighed. “He just don’t want to go to bed ’til he sees his mama.”

“Oh, come here,” I laughed with arms outstretched. It was actually nice to have somebody waiting up at home for me. Even as tired as I was, it seemed to make the whole day worthwhile.

Callie went home, leaving me with Johnny. He was sharp enough to decide he had had enough of the bottle and demand the real thing. I sat down and pulled out a breast with practiced ease, and he happily sucked on it until sleep claimed him.

It was odd how quickly things which had seemed unbelievably strange only a day before were suddenly becoming normal. Breastfeeding, peeing while sitting down, makeup, and wearing heels were all almost normal. It was a life I wouldn’t have chosen for myself, but it was becoming a life I felt I could tolerate. Of course, I would have preferred another job. Being a waitress in a bar wasn’t my idea of a high class career.

Maybe I could get another job, I thought after I had put Johnny to bed and gotten into a short nightie to go to bed myself. No, I realized. That wasn’t likely. I had seen the way other women in Ovid looked at me. As far as they were concerned, I might as well be a cheap whore. I was the trashy broad with the big boobs who wiggled her ass for tips down at Randy Andy’s. I kept their husbands and boyfriends out late, drinking beer and leering at my long legs. I was their little sexual fantasy who lived in a trailer and had kids out of wedlock. Why, they wouldn’t have been surprised to find my picture in the latest issue of Hustler their men kept hidden in the basement under the sheets of sandpaper. No woman in Ovid would hire me, I was sure. And god help the man who hired me when his wife or girlfriend found out.

I also doubted if there was a job in Ovid I was qualified for which would pay more. Marty paid Shelly and me a pittance, but when you added the tips on top of our wages, we didn’t do too badly. In a strange way, the Judge had been consistent when he had assigned me a role, I thought. As Phil Malone, I had peddled sex and vice. Oh, my films weren’t really what you would call hardcore, but they weren’t the sort of things you’d show to the kiddies. Now, as Sylvia Conners, I was doing the same thing. I was peddling soft porn every time I wiggled my ass, and to some, booze is as much of a vice as porn. Ironic, wasn’t it?

I fell asleep with that thought. It may have had something to do with my dreams.

I woke up the next morning with a start. I had been dreaming. I was making a film in the dream. It was one of those soft porn films I did so well. Only this time, I wasn’t in the director’s chair. Instead, it was me on that bed, looking down at the guy with the unnaturally long dick, moving my long-nailed hands breathlessly over his body. Then things were about to go hardcore, as I sat up ready to ride him, my hands reaching down for his...

I gasped. I was awake. There was no man with a long... long... No, there was no man in my bed. I felt strange, though. There was a wetness between my legs. Wonderful, I thought. Girls have wet dreams, too–only they’re really wet.

As I got ready to face the day, I kept thinking about that dream. Apparently, I was going to be your run-of-the-mill heterosexual girl. I had already begun to look at guys as being sexy, although I wasn’t sure I was ready to play hide the salami with one. Girls, on the other hand, I seemed to be no longer interested in–at least from a sexual standpoint. Oh, I still looked at them, but more from a perspective of how they dressed or did their hair or makeup.

So it was one Sylvia Conners, single mom and waitress extraordinaire who puttered around the trailer that morning. I handed Johnny off to Callie and headed off to work with an actual smile on my face. Every day seemed to be more... normal.

Until that night.

Friday night was party night in Ovid, just like it is in every other town in the country. Most people had their forty hours in. Now, it was two days of kicking back, doing the yard work, watching a baseball game, or just sitting around on the back patio listening to tunes. First, though, was the ritual of TGIF.

Randy Andy’s was really hopping. Even Marty had to take a few drink orders as the tables filled up, pulling Pepe out of the kitchen to pull beers and wash the glasses behind the counter. Nobody was ordering anything from the kitchen anyway. Taco chips and salsa and a bowl of beer nuts and the Friday crowd was happy. More Vulman folks wandered in. I tried to pick up on their conversations, but I was too busy to concentrate on them. So when my mysterious friend came in that night near closing, I had little to give him.

“You need to stay closer to them,” he told me as another table of rowdy drunks staggered out to their cars.

“Look,” I told him, “you try it. Everybody was thirsty tonight. I couldn’t just park by their table and listen in.” I wasn’t very pleasant when I talked to him. I was tired. My feet ached and my arms were sore from carrying trays loaded with pitchers of cheap beer. I found myself actually glad there was no smoking in Ovid. If I had had to breathe a fog of cigarette smoke while running around, I would probably be wheezing all evening.

“It is in your best interests to cooperate with me,” he said between clenched teeth. “You have no idea the eventual fate the Judge has in store for you if I don’t change you back.”

“What fate?” I asked, suddenly interested–and concerned.

“With every passing day,” he began, “you will become more and more the person you have been transformed into. Sylvia Conners was little more than an ignorant tramp. Her whelp is only the first of many she will bear–all without the presence of a father. Is that what you want?”

“But I won’t...”

“You won’t have a choice. Even now, your body is being filled with new desires, new needs.”

He was right. I could actually feel them. It was like the dream that morning, only stronger. With every passing moment, my sexual orientation was changing. Curious glances at men were becoming longer stares. More than once I had idly speculated at what one of my male customers had under the hood, especially when I noticed something rising in their pants as they looked at my breasts.

“Come with me and I’ll show you,” he said, his voice hypnotic.

“I can’t,” I protested. “We haven’t closed yet.” Besides, I didn’t want to be shown anything–especially by this... creature.

“You won’t be missed,” he replied, brushing the back of my hand, producing an electric thrill through my body.

“But...”

“No buts,” he ordered softly. “Come.”

So that was how I lost my virginity. I suppose I wasn’t technically a virgin any way you sliced it. As a man, I had lost it at fifteen. Sylvia was obviously not a virgin, unless Johnny was the Second Coming. No, I wasn’t a virgin, but it was the first time I had sex as a woman. And I didn’t like it one bit.

Oh, I know, the sensations were enthralling, but there I was, practically in heat, in the small back seat of my own car, grunting and panting as the stranger entered me. He was rough and insistent, and only my hypnotically weakened will and small female body stood in his path. It was not ‘making love.’ Instead, it was ‘having sex.’

As he finished with me, I lay there, still mostly clothed although dishevelled, in a pool of my own sweat. I know, ladies don’t sweat–they perspire, but I was no lady. It was sweat, partially from our activity and partially from the heat of the car. Yes, there had been a moment of physical pleasure. It was like nothing I could ever have imagined as a man. But in my mind, I was cheapened. He had hypnotized me into this and might as well have raped me. I was sore and sticky. My god, what if he had actually gotten me pregnant?

“See what you have to look forward to?” he taunted me. I couldn’t think of anything to say, so I just glared at him. “This will be your life, Sylvia,” he went on. “With some men, you will find a moment of love, but with most, it will be animal passion. You will be penetrated in every possible way.”

I shuddered as I thought of that. Involuntarily, I looked down at his penis. As a man, I had enjoyed a good blowjob every now and then. Would I now be expected to give them? Of course I would. I pressed my lips tightly together, feeling them slide over the thin layer of lipstick. He rewarded me with an evil smile as he watched my lips. “You will come to enjoy them,” he told me, reading my thoughts by noting the motion of my eyes. “Shall we try one now?”

“Sly!”

It was Shelly. She was out in the parking lot.

“Over here!” I practically screamed.

She rushed over to the car. “Are you all right?” she asked. “What are you doing in the back seat?”

It should have been obvious, I thought, but I suddenly realized I was alone. For once, I was thankful for that little disappearing act these beings all seemed to have.

“Marty said you had to go home. You weren’t feeling well. It’s not your time of the month, is it?”

“N... no,” I managed. “I was just looking for a comb. I thought maybe it fell back here.” So Marty knew I had left. Was he covering for the stranger, or had he been influenced hypnotically?

She studied me. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

I gave her a smile I didn’t feel. “I’m fine.”

“Okay,” she said, not really believing me. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Right.”

As she walked away, I half-expected the stranger to reappear in my back seat next to me and start up where he left off. With a sigh of relief, I realized that wasn’t going to happen. I straightened my clothes out the best I could and drove home.

If Callie noticed there was something wrong, she had the good sense to keep it to herself. I wished her a good night and packed her off. Johnny was asleep, so I was alone. That was when I finally let the tears flow.

I just wasn’t cut out to be a girl, I thought to myself. It was as if I was living out the lives of the women I had put on film. There was this waitress in ‘Backroad Babe’ who made it with a stranger in the back seat of her car–just like me. Of course, she had enjoyed it a lot more than I had. I felt... used. I had never imagined what a woman might feel like after such an experience. I suppose in the truest sense, I hadn’t been raped. I had been a willing participant in one sense. If my will had been stronger, maybe I could have fought off the trance. I never ever wanted to do that again, though, I thought as I climbed into bed. Never.

Saturday was bright and sunny. In spite of it, I felt like shit. What had ever possessed me to have sex with that... that... whatever he was. But of course that’s exactly what it was–possession. I had been magically forced into the act.

“What’s wrong?” Callie asked, seeing me outside my trailer just staring into space.

“Nothing,” I lied.

From her expression, I could see she didn’t believe me. “So how’s that story of yours going?”

“Story?” I said, coming out of my malaise for a moment.

She shook her head and sighed. “Girl, you just gotta get yourself together. I’m talkin’ about that cute little story about the squirrel you were telling your little lamb. I told you, you should write it down.”

“I haven’t had time,” I told her. It was true. When did I have time to write out a children’s story? I was too busy just working eating and sleeping... and getting poked in the back seat of a Tempo.

“Write... it... down...” she said slowly. “Then next time you’re too tired to make up a story for Johnny, you’ll have one all ready.”

“I’ll try,” I promised.

Saturday wasn’t much of a lunch day at Randy Andy’s, so it turned out Marty didn’t usually have us come in until four to get ready for the evening crowd. In fact, the kitchen was closed Saturday. Marty had a weekend bartender–some kid from the local college–who handled all of the chores until things got busy. By city ordinance all the bars were closed Sunday, so after that night, I would have a little time to recover. My feet and legs needed it. That was a small town for you, I thought. Raise hell on Saturday but no beer sold on Sunday.

In a way, though, I was sorry that I didn’t have to work. I needed to stay busy to take my mind off my sexual encounter. When Johnny was up and fed, I took him out for a little while. He was still too young to get much out of the playground, but he seemed to enjoy the fresh air and sunshine. Then, I took him to a supermarket I had found. It wasn’t exactly a Ralph’s like in California. It was called Duggan’s IGA. At least I was able to pick up enough food to get me through the next few days. Thank god my long years as a bachelor had made me into a halfway decent cook.

I noticed many of the patrons at Duggan’s were staring at me. The men were obviously interested in my body. I caught more than one staring at my breasts when he didn’t think I was noticing. I could almost handle those stares, though. At least they were looks of appreciation. It was the women’s stares that bothered me. They were looking at me as if I had a big red ‘A’ sewn onto my blouse. I was dressed in a fairly loose blouse and only moderately tight jeans, but they gave me a look that made me feel like I wasn’t wearing anything at all. Okay, I thought, so I’m trailer trash–a tramp. I’m an unwed mother who works in a bar and who spends her late nights in the backseat of a car doing the dirty deed.

Please, god, I silently prayed, if you’re really out there get me out of this mess. It was a cinch the gods of Ovid weren’t going to help me.

When I got home, there was a brand-new gold sports car of a type I hadn’t seen before, convertible top down in front of my trailer. I didn’t have to guess who was in it.

“Hi, Apollo,” I said, looking down into the car.

Apollo grinned. “How you doing, Sly?”

“I see you have your chariot back,” I commented, admiring the car and pretending not to notice as Johnny drooled down on it from my arms. Serves him right, I thought.

“You’re pissed,” he observed, “and I have good news.”

“What?”

“Well,” he drawled, “tonight is the last night you’ll have to play spy. When our friend comes in, just keep him occupied for a few minutes. Then, we’ll nab him.”

The thought of that slimy sun of a bitch being caught actually brought tears to my eyes. Apollo looked at me with concern. “What’s wrong, Sly?”

Oh hell, I thought. I had to tell somebody. My sexual encounter was eating me alive. “Come on in,” I told him. “I’ll feed Johnny and put him down for his nap. Then I’ll tell you.”

It took me quite a while to tell the story of my little tumble in the back seat. I would pause from embarrassment, then cry from frustration. When I was done, Apollo was sitting on the couch next to me. He tried to put a comforting arm around me, but I pushed it away, bringing on still more tears. I would have to redo my makeup before I went back to work.

“I never want to have sex again!” I cried. “I hate this! I hate being a woman!”

“I don’t blame you,” he said quietly.

“You don’t?” My tears actually stopped for a moment.

He shook his head. “No, I wouldn’t want it. Some of the other gods have tried it, but not me.”

“You... you can all shift sex?” I asked.

“Not exactly,” he explained. “But the Judge can. If any of us asked him, I’m sure he’d do it for us. I just don’t want to be a woman. I hear the sex is so good, I’m not sure I’d have the willpower to change back.”

“If that’s all that’s holding you back,” I said bitterly, “then don’t worry about it. Take it from me–it’s not that great.” I nearly began crying again.

“Oh, Sly, you were practically raped,” he reminded me. “That was just sex. It wasn’t making love.”

“I couldn’t ‘make love’ to a man,” I protested.

“How do you know?”

“I just couldn’t,” I replied, this time allowing him to put his arm around me. Before I knew it, he turned my head toward his and our lips met. It was a gentle, chaste kiss, but I felt a tingle down my spine. When he released me, I uttered, “What was that for?”

“That was just to show you that love can be gentle,” he murmured.

“What are you talking about?” I whispered, suddenly unsure of myself. “I don’t want you using any magic on me.”

“I’m not,” he said gently. “It wouldn’t be right. But tell me, what did you think?”

“About what?”

“The kiss, of course.”

I felt that tingle again just thinking about the kiss. “I... I...”

Before I could say anything else, he kissed me again. Only this time, the kiss was long and charged with passion. What had been a gentle tingle before was now a shudder through my whole body. What was I doing? I was kissing a... a... man. To make matters worse, I was actually enjoying it.

He said he wasn’t using magic on me, and he was the God of Truth, but what is truth? Or to be more to the point, what is magic? Maybe love in all of its forms is magic and maybe it isn’t. Whatever it was, I suddenly realized that I loved Apollo. Oh, I don’t mean in the permanent sort of way. But as Phil, I had loved him as a friend. Now, I could express my love for him in a different way.

Wordlessly, we walked to my small bedroom. We didn’t have to say anything to each other as we removed each other’s clothing. There was no torrid passion between us–instead, we were succumbing to a gentle but insistent need. He was hard and ready while I was wet and giving in to a pressure to yield. When he finally entered me, it was nothing like the soiled feeling I had experienced the night before. This felt somehow... right.

Because it was a slow and gentle experience for us both, the experience seemed to go on forever, my body locked in a pattern where each sensation in answer to a need produced still another need until...

“Oh my god!” I breathed, not sure if I was uttering a general explicative or speaking directly to the actual god between my legs. The sensation was like nothing I had ever imagined. Friday night in the car had been rough, and the little pleasure I had experienced from the act was outweighed by the psychological pain of knowing it was just an animal act. In Apollo’s arms though, I felt a sense of rebirth. If the Judge had appeared in my bedroom that moment and offered to change me back into a man, I would have emphatically said ‘no.’ I never wanted to lose the feeling I now had.

As a man, I usually fell asleep after making love. Now, though, as a woman, I was wide-awake, revelling in the ebbing orgasm, delighting in every tingle it gave me. Apollo was awake as well, gently moving his hands over my body, actually heightening the experience.

“That was incredible,” I whispered softly.

He smiled.

My reverie was broken by the sudden wail of a baby. “I’ve got to take care of Johnny,” I told him, reluctant to leave the bed.

Before I left, he took my hand. “Be well,” he said.

I rushed in to find Johnny standing up in his crib, wet and hungry. “Poor little guy,” I cooed, snatching him up to show him to Apollo. But when I got into my bedroom, there was no sign of him. Only the ebbing sensations in my own body were evidence that he had ever been there.

Oh well, I thought as I changed Johnny. Wasn’t that the way I had treated women? Wham! Bam! Thank you, ma’am! No, it wasn’t really like that. The Phil side of me probably wasn’t sensitive enough to understand what Apollo had done for me, but the Sylvia side knew. Apollo had wanted to show me that there could be fulfilment for me as a woman. I was beginning to accept that, I realized, and accept it more each time Johnny’s hungry mouth reached up for my breast.

And there he was, I thought with a smiled as he greedily latched on to my nipple. I felt a sense of warmth once more. It wasn’t like my orgasm, but in its own way, it was equally satisfying.

I still had some time before work, so I got Johnny dressed and we made an excursion to the Ovid Public Library. To be honest, I hadn’t been in a library since I was in college, so I didn’t really know what to expect.

The library itself was located about a block from City Hall. It was in an old gray stone building, complete with two small stone lions in front. I know it was my imagination, but the eyes on both of the lions seemed to follow me as I approached the library steps.

My first impression inside was that the library was small, but as I perused the Mythology and Folklore section, I was pleased to find it well stocked. ‘And why shouldn’t it be?’ I thought. Books on Greek and Roman mythology were like a Who’s Who of Ovid.

I found one that seemed to have a pretty good description of the gods. Out of curiosity, I looked up Jupiter. I just scanned the lengthy section on him, but the old boy had quite a varied history. He was accused of more affairs than Bill Clinton, and seemed to be the illegitimate father of about half of the gods. Now, though, he was a straight-laced judge in a small Oklahoma town. Talk about a career change!

Officer Mercer was there, too, as Mercury, the swift messenger of the gods. The book didn’t have a lot about Marty, though. Apparently, Bacchus wasn’t much of a big fish. Of course, I had a basic knowledge of mythology, gained when I had written ‘A Night in Olympus,’ but that had been very basic since the magic of the gods was only hinted at in the film. I was learning all sorts of details about the gods I had never known before. I was just turning to the section on Apollo when Johnny let out a demanding grunt. I looked up to see that other library patrons were giving me cold looks that said I should keep my kid quiet in the library.

I looked over to see what he had caught his interest. It was the children’s section, highlighted by a cut-out of a happy cat in a red and white hat holding a Dr Suess book.

“Oh, all right,” I told him. “Let’s see if they have a book for you, too.”

The section brought back memories. There were books that I remembered reading but hadn’t seen since I was a small child. As I looked through them, I kept comparing them to the story of Sammy the Smart Squirrel that I had been telling Johnny. The thought that kept running through my mind was that the story of Sammy was every bit as good as many of these books. I hadn’t been a bad artist in college. I thought if I wanted to, I could even illustrate a book. Well, maybe someday I would get around to it. I picked up three books for little Johnny.

I wasn’t surprised to find out that Sylvia Conners did not have a library card. I quickly filled out an application for one while the librarian stared at me as if I were a vegetarian trying to order a steak. Apparently, barmaids weren’t expected to read in Ovid. Well, screw them. I’d read War and Peace in the original Russian if I thought it would get their goats.

I got back to my trailer and dropped Johnny off with Callie. The time had come for me to go to work. I had mixed feelings about what was supposed to happen that evening. On one hand, I was proving my loyalty to the Judge. That should be worth something, I thought. Okay, so he wouldn’t change me back, but maybe he could use a little of his magic to give me a little respect. I could continue to be Sylvia, but maybe Sylvia could be a teacher or a secretary or a bank teller. There was no reason why he had to leave me as a waitress in a bar.

On the other hand, though, I might have picked the wrong side if I had any hope of getting my old life back. Maybe my contact did have the power to change me back. I might be giving up my only opportunity to ever return to my old life again.

I think it was at that moment that I realized that although I didn’t want to be a waitress in a bar for the rest of my life, I wasn’t too sure I wanted my old life back. In the first place, it might kill me. Even if I could avoid the drug overdose that Apollo said was to kill me, what did I have to look forward to? I was middle-aged, alone, a virtual failure in my profession, reduced to cranking out cheap, sleazy films to satisfy a prurient, undiscriminating audience. And the worst thing about having my old life back would be that I would lose Johnny.

‘Ah, Johnny,’ I thought as I drove to work. I loved to see him smile, and when I heard him cry, it nearly broke my heart. I could never remember being so close to anyone else in my entire life. I wanted to see him grow and learn. I wanted to be there his first day in school. I wanted to teach him how to be the man I had failed to be. I wanted... I wanted to be his... mother.

“You’re late!” Marty growled. Actually, I wasn’t, but Marty always set his clocks a few minutes early so he could hustle everyone out at closing time.

“Sorry, Marty,” I replied contritely. There was no sense in arguing with him. I hit the deck running. The place was already starting to fill up, and many of the patrons looked like they were planning to spend the entire evening.

There was a baseball game on TV in each of the rooms and one over the bar itself. The Kansas City Royals were playing a series with the Texas Rangers. Since Ovid was about halfway between the two, there were plenty of fans of each team. T-shirts and ball caps were well in evidence, and the beer was flowing freely. Bets were being placed on practically every pitch and the winnings were often taken in more beer.

By the time the game ended, the bar was really rocking. Shelly and I were running our legs off, and even with Marty helping while his weekend bartender drew more pitchers of beer, we could barely keep up. The tips were great, though. The winners on the baseball bets were generous with their tips, and even the losers tipped well, just to see the smiles on Shelly’s and my face.

I recognized some of the Vulman crowd. There were at least two tables with Vulman employees and another two with construction workers from Vulman. I didn’t get to listen to any of them, though. I was too busy waiting other tables. Besides, I thought, after tonight, it didn’t matter. My mysterious contact would be in the custody of the Judge.

He came in once again as the crowd began to thin. There was no concern on his face. He hadn’t a clue that he was about to be apprehended. Instead, he leered at me as he slipped into an empty booth. He motioned for me to come to his table as a king would summon a servant. I did his bidding, though. I didn’t want anything to look suspicious.

“Any more information for me tonight, my dear?” he asked

“It’s been pretty busy,” I told him truthfully.

“Yes,” he drawled, rather disappointed. “Well, perhaps next week will be better. By the way, my employers are well pleased with what you have given them so far. In another week, we will have everything we need. I can change you back then. You’ll be back in Hollywood before you know it.”

“As Phil Malone?” I asked. A few days before, I would have been thrilled with the news. Of course, that was before I realized who Phil Malone–who I–had been.

He smiled a condescending smile. “Of course, my dear. Of course, for the remainder of the week, I would be happy to help you to explore your feminine side.”

“I’m afraid you won’t get the chance, Lycus.” It was the voice of Officer Mercer. I hadn’t seen him come in, but suddenly, he was standing by the bar. Strangely, none of the other bar patrons seemed to have heard him. They continued to laugh and drink and play pool as if nothing was going on.

“Merc...” the man he had called Lycus started to say before nearly strangling on the word.

“No names, please,” Officer Mercer said with a faint smile.

Lycus’s eyes narrowed as he looked at me. “This is your doing, isn’t it? What did they offer you? I know the Judge. He would never agree to change you back. Only I would have done that. So have you decided that you like being a little trollop with a little brat at your breast? Then so be it!”

He began to motion his hands at me, but Officer Mercer stepped in front of me to protect me. Then, at the last second, Lycus’s gesture was directed not at me but at himself. It was as if he was suddenly changed from a three-dimensional image to a two-dimensional one. Then that image crumpled itself up into a ball, continually folding in on itself until it had disappeared with a loud pop.

Officer Mercer turned to Marty who was standing stunned by the bar. “I thought I told you to suppress all inter-dimensional pathways in the bar!” he growled.

“I did!” Marty protested. “There wasn’t any way in or out of this place except the doors. I checked myself.”

Officer Mercer closed his eyes and moved his head from side to side for a moment. Then he sighed, “All right, Marty. You’re right. He must have found some way around your spell.”

Marty relaxed visibly. I was beginning to suspect that some of the gods didn’t trust Marty any more than I did.

“Can I start time again?” Marty asked, gesturing at the frozen figures around the room.

Officer Mercer gave a wave of his arm. “Yes, yes. Go ahead. We can’t accomplish anything else tonight. The Judge will be most disappointed.”

“Wait a minute,” I said to Officer Mercer as he turned to leave. “What just happened here? Who was that guy and what is this all about?”

“You don’t have any need to know, Ms. Conners,” he told me.

“Now wait just a minute,” I insisted. “I risked my neck for you and your Judge. He could have done anything to me. As it was, he practically raped me. What if he comes back? I’m not exactly on his Christmas card list, you know.”

“We will protect you from him and his allies,” Officer Mercer assured me as the normal noise and activity in the bar resumed. “You have nothing to fear.”

“Hey, Sly!” a voice called out from one of the tables. “We’re getting dry over here. How about another pitcher?”

“In a minute,” I called over my shoulder. Time had apparently started up again. Then, I turned back to talk to Officer Mercer, but he was gone. I looked at Marty. He had returned to taking care of the customers. Everyone in the place looked as if nothing had happened. I suppose for most of them, nothing really had happened.

“Marty,” I called, “what’s going on?”

He shook his head. “Later, Sly, after we close. Now get back to work!”

I spent the rest of the evening looking nervously over my shoulder. I half expected this Lycus to come charging back into the place, throwing spells around like a pitcher at a baseball game. He said he could change me back. Well, that was out the window now, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t change me into something else. I had already seen what the Judge could do to me when he was angry. The look Lycus had given me before he disappeared was worse than the Judge’s anger. If the Judge was willing to turn me into a bimbo in heat, what would Lycus do? It wasn’t a pleasant thought.

Finally, we closed. Only Marty and I were left in the bar. I really didn’t trust Marty. I had half-expected him to put a move on me ever since I had started working there. He hadn’t, though, and there was no evidence that he had ever put a move on Shelly either. He seemed content to work us to death. He was an equal opportunity slave driver.

Marty poured himself a beer. “Want one?” he asked.

“No thanks,” I replied. Funny, but I really had had no desire to drink since my transformation. Something in the back of my mind had told me that as long as I was breastfeeding, alcohol was a bad idea. Considering my bad habits as Phil Malone, I should have craved the stuff, but I didn’t. In fact, this body seemed to lack any interest in drugs or cigarettes as well. I might be female now, but I had never been healthier.

“Rough night,” he commented, taking a sip of his beer as he leaned back against the bar.

I sat on one of the bar stools and tried to figure out how to lean forward to talk to him without giving him a great view of my breasts. No way to avoid it, I decided, relaxing a little. “So what was this all about, Marty?”

He shook his head. “I can’t tell you.”

“Can’t or won’t?”

“Look, Sly, some of this is a mystery to me, too. I take it you know who I am?”

I nodded. “I guess I can’t say it, though.”

“You can right now,” he explained. “Some of us can grant dispensation.”

“Then you’re Bacchus.”

“I think I prefer the Greek–Dionysus. The Greeks really appreciated us more than the Romans,” he explained. “So you know that Ovid is run by the Olympians?”

I nodded.

“Have you ever heard of the Titans?”

“I heard of them,” I replied, “and I got a book out of the library today and read up a little more on them. As I understand it, they were the original gods and Jupiter and his gods overthrew them.”

“That’s something of an oversimplification, but it gets the main idea across,” he commented. “I wasn’t around then. Some of the senior gods talk about it like your older people talk about the Second World War. In any case, it was one hell of a war.”

“But I thought the old gods were killed,” I pointed out.

He shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not. We aren’t really sure. Something of them remains. It may be the Titans themselves, or it may be their children. We know some of their children survived, and one even worked for me for a time.” He gave a tired smile. “That’s why some of the Olympians think I may have had something to do with them. Believe me, I’m not that stupid.”

No, he wasn’t, I thought. But Marty was sly. He deserved that name instead of me. For him, it was an apt description. I suspected that if there was a conflict, Marty would do his best to be on the winning side, regardless of any ideals he may have had.

“And there is another possibility,” Marty went on. “It is just possible that there is another line of gods.”

“Another line?” I repeated.

He nodded. “Yes. All of the gods you humans know came from one major line of the Titans. But there were other Titans with many offspring. Some survived the uprising but weren’t part of the conflict. You may have heard of some of them. Atlas and Prometheus come to mind.”

“So now I’ve crossed them, whoever they are,” I said slowly, as much to myself as to Marty.

“Yes, you have.”

It’s funny. I was probably in danger of their revenge, but I wasn’t all that worried about myself. Instead, I was worried about what they might do to Johnny. Marty must have read the concern in my face, for he assured me, “Sly, you haven’t got anything to worry about. Have you ever played chess?”

“I little,” I replied. With a smile, I added, “I was always more a poker kind of guy.”

“Well, in chess, you’re a pawn. You can be valuable when the game is being played on your side of the board, but much of the time, you aren’t worth the effort to take. Whoever or whatever we’re up against won’t bother with you,” Marty explained. “At least not unless the game moves in your direction again, but I don’t think it will.”

That was both a relief and an insult, I realized. I’m sure Marty meant it in the best way, but it was also a little disturbing to think I was out of the game. At least I had enjoyed a little excitement for a couple of days. Now, my world would be reduced to serving boozehounds most of the day. At least my time with Johnny was becoming enjoyable. I thought I could actually enjoy raising the little guy. Of course, it would have been fun to raise him as his father, playing ball with him and doing guy things. But it wasn’t so bad to be his mother, either. As Bill Cosby once observed, as a father, you play ball with your son, and then when he reaches the big time, the first thing he says when the camera zooms in on him is “Hi, Mom!” Maybe that wouldn’t be so bad after all.

“You look beat,” Callie observed when I got home.

“I am,” I admitted. I wanted to tell her what had happened, but I knew I couldn’t. The gods didn’t want mere mortals discussing their business. I plopped down on the couch next to her, rubbing my aching feet.

Callie shook her head. “That Marty Bachman–I hear he’s a real slave driver. Makes you gals wear those high heels and all. You oughta tell him you ain’t gonna do it anymore.”

“And he’d fire us in a heartbeat,” I countered.

“I doubt that. Not too many folks around these parts would put up with working for him.”

“Maybe,” I conceded, “but I’m stuck here now. I realize that. I’m going to be Sylvia Conners for the rest of my life, and I need a pay check. If that means I have to destroy my feet while I serve beer at Randy Andy’s, then I guess I don’t have much of a choice.”

She chuckled, rising to her feet and gathering her things. “Don’t be so hard on yourself, Sly. You could do lots of things. Just ’cause that Marty Bachman tells you you can’t doesn’t mean a thing. Why, I’ll bet you could be anything you wanted.”

“Like what?”

She thought for a moment. “Well, if you polished up that story about the squirrel you started writing, I’ll bet you could be a writer.”

“And if I were a blonde, I could be Meg Ryan,” I said sarcastically.

“Just don’t sell yourself short,” she chuckled starting to leave. Then she stopped. “Oh, I almost forgot. While you were at work, a fine looking guy dropped off a note for you.”

She handed me a sealed letter. It was addressed simply to ‘Sly’ but I could tell from just those three letters that it was Apollo’s handwriting.

“Thanks,” I told her. After she was gone, I opened the letter, curious about why Apollo would be writing me. I read:

Dear Sly,

It’s time for me to move on. I’ve seen all the relatives and talked about old times, but a town like Ovid could never hold me down. I didn’t want to leave, though, without letting you know. I’m not much good at person-to-person goodbyes, so this letter will have to do.

When we first met, I saw great potential in you. No, not the potential you think. You were in no position to achieve your potential when we were in California. Believe it or not, your potential can only be achieved here in Ovid.

How? You say. Well, you’ll have to figure that out for yourself.

We’ll meet again someday, I’m sure. Until then, be well, Sly.

Love,

Apollo

Well wasn’t that a kick in the pants? I thought–if I still wore pants. He made love to me and left town. Why not? I was just a small-town girl from the wrong side of the tracks, and he was a... god. No, I realized. There was more to it than that. He had taken the time to teach me that ‘making love’ and ‘having sex’ weren’t really the same thing. In fact, if I thought about it, I ‘made love’ maybe for the first time in my entire life–male and female–when I was with him. Besides, he was the God of Truth. If he said we’d meet again, we would. I would always have a special place in my heart for him, no matter where my path led me.

There was no more time to think about him, though. The other man in my life was crying. He needed his mother. Woman’s work is never done. How true, I thought, as I went to his room.

I would have slept in on Sunday, but when you’re the mother of a would-be toddler, there’s no such luck. The little guy was up at the break of dawn, and I was there with him. After a nice breakfast of oatmeal and pureed fruit, he settled down for a nice long drink of warm mother’s milk. As I watched the little urchin sucking away, I felt another wave of contentment almost equal to his. He was a little darling. Well, I hadn’t been a family man, but it looked as if I was destined to be a family woman.

When he had finished, I got one of the library books I had picked up the day before. He seemed to like having me read to him, and he was delighted with the pictures. I couldn’t help but think, though, that the story I had been telling him about Sammy Squirrel was every bit as good. And although I wasn’t the greatest artist in the world, I had enough talent to illustrate a children’s book. Maybe Callie was right. What the heck. It couldn’t hurt.

While Johnny played, I searched my trailer for something to write on. I had no computer, so I hoped there would be at least an old typewriter available. No such luck. Maybe Callie had one.

She did, and I could see by the look on her face that she was pleased I had decided to write. “Do you want me to watch Johnny while you write?” she asked me.

“No,” I replied with a smile. “He’s really the one I’m writing for.”

I worked like a demon all day. Fortunately, I had the basis of a plot already laid out. This was to be the children’s version of ‘A Night in Olympus,’ only instead of a god, Sammy the Smart Little Squirrel and his friend, Sally the Sweet Little Squirrel were searching for Sammy’s father, King of the Squirrels. I chuckled to myself as I wrote, realizing how ironic it was that a story like ‘A Night in Olympus’ which had made the critics rave could be so easily changed into a children’s story.

By dinnertime, it was done. Well, the writing was done. I had only roughed out three good illustrations–one of Acorn City where the squirrels all lived, one of Sammy and Sally walking hand in hand through the forest, and one of the King of the Squirrels, resting on his throne. I thought they were pretty good.

“These aren’t just good,” Callie said as she looked at them. “These are great! And the story–honey, I ain’t never seen a children’s book this good before. You’ve got to send this in.”

“Send it in?” I echoed.

“To a publisher, child! This book is that good. It might even win a prize. You ever hear of the Newberry Prize?”

I shook my head.

“It’s a prize for children’s literature. I got a big envelope over at my place. We’ll send this off and see what the publishers think.”

“But shouldn’t we make a copy first?” I asked, actually getting a little excited about it myself.

“I’ll take care of it,” she grinned.

There was a sudden knock at the door. When I looked out, I saw the serious face of Officer Mercer, his eyes still covered by his reflective sunglasses even though the sun was going down. “Ms. Conners...” he began.

“Yes, Officer?” I replied, stepping outside and trying to look dignified as I stood there in a rumpled T-shirt and denim cut-offs, looking for all the world like a high school coed.

“I’ve just come from the Judge.”

The Judge? Had I done something wrong? Was I going to be blamed for the escape of Lycus?

“He asked me to convey to you his thanks for your help these last few days.” With that, he nodded and turned to go.

“Wait a minute!” I called. He turned. “Is that all?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said dryly. “That’s all.”

I didn’t know what to say. I mean, I hadn’t expected a reward or anything. But somehow, the abrupt thanks and sudden dismissal seemed a little cold. Before I could think of anything to say, Callie called out to him, “Oh, Officer Mercer?”

Officer Mercer turned. “Yes, ma’am?”

“I wonder if you could take this for me and mail it?” She was holding my manuscript in her hand. “Of course, we’ll need a copy of it. Then just put the original in this envelope. It’s already made out.”

Officer Mercer looked reluctant. I gave Callie a ‘what are you doing?’ look. “Trust me, sweetheart,” she said softly.

Almost reluctantly, he accepted the manuscript. “When does this need to be delivered?”

“As soon as you can,” Callie replied with a satisfied smile.

With no change of expression, Officer Mercer replied, “I’ll take care of it.”

As he drove away, I looked at Callie. “How did you do that? He’s a cop–not a messenger.”

“Oh, isn’t he a messenger?” she asked coyly. Yes, she was right. We couldn’t speak of it–we both realized that. But Officer Mercer was Mercury, the fleetest of the gods. Jupiter had often used him as a messenger. And now here he was, acting as my messenger.

“But how did you...” my voice trailed off. I was going to ask her how she could get Officer Mercer to act in his role of messenger, but the answer was obvious. I looked into her soft brown eyes, not sure what to say. She just smiled at me and said, “Don’t concern yourself with it, child. It’ll be all clear to you in the morning. Right now, you’ve had a long day. You’d better see to that little boy of yours and get some rest. You’ve got a big day tomorrow.”

I wanted to question Callie. There was something suspiciously powerful about the way she had ordered Officer Mercer to take the manuscript. Was she one of them? I didn’t get the chance to ask her, though. Instead, I just turned and went back inside. I don’t really remember going inside. In fact, I don’t really remember the rest of the evening. The next thing I remembered was being awakened by the sound of Johnny crying in his crib. It was morning, I realized. How long had I slept? It was as if I had spent the rest of Sunday evening in a trance.

Monday morning. I had to face another week of endless weeks, on my feet in heels serving beer and wiggling for good tips. Thank god–or the gods–I had Johnny to come home to each evening. I got dressed after I took care of Johnny. It was finally beginning to feel normal to dress in bras and panties and slide the pantyhose up my legs. Sitting with my legs demurely crossed while in a short skirt was practically second nature to me now. It was almost natural to check the low-cut white knit blouse I wore to make sure the bra wasn’t showing. I even got my makeup done early instead of waiting until it was almost time to go to work.

So here I was, Sylvia Conners, waitress and mother–and of course, woman. I would survive. No, we would survive–Johnny and me. To hell with the Judge, Marty, Officer Mercer and all their cohorts. Only Callie–if she was one of them–had been decent to me.

As I sat there, thinking as I drank my coffee and bracing myself to go to work, there was a knock at my door. Callie? No, it was still early. She wasn’t due for another half hour. I opened the door. A shade postman was waiting patiently for me, looking very official in his summer uniform. “I have a registered letter for you, Ms. Conners,” he said formally, his eyes happily looking down the front of my blouse. “Just sign here,” he said, handing me a pen and a form.

Who could be sending me a registered letter? I wondered. Back in my days of making movies, they were as common as junk mail. Who did Sylvia Conners know who would be sending her a registered letter? As the postman left, I quickly tore it open, nearly breaking a nail in the process. To my amazement, it was from one of the large publishing houses in New York. With trembling hands, I read:

Dear Ms. Conners:

This letter is to convey to you the agreed-upon advance for all US rights to your manuscript, Sammy the Smart Little Squirrel. While your agent, Ms. Musgrave, has indicated that this manuscript is the first of a proposed series of children’s books, this advance is for this manuscript only. We, of course, are most interested in optioning the rights of all future books in this series.

I read on. The letter talked about publishing dates and a proposed book tour. I was too stunned for the details to soak in. I felt much as I had the day of my transformation. My life was being turned upside down again–albeit for the better this time.

But how? The manuscript had just been mailed out the night before. Obviously, the publisher had had it for weeks–time enough to negotiate with my agent, a Ms. Musgrave, whoever she was. Wait. Callie had told Officer Mercer to deliver the manuscript as soon as possible. How soon was soon when you were the messenger of the gods? Maybe delivering it several weeks before I wrote it was child’s play for Mercury. Callie would have the answers. I jumped up and ran out the door, heading for Callie’s trailer.

Somehow, I wasn’t too surprised when I found a vacant lot where Callie’s trailer had been. There was no evidence that it had ever been there.

“Something wrong, Sly?”

I turned and saw a woman, not much older than I, dressed in a blue and white Texas Cowboys T-shirt and denim shorts. She was blonde, not at all unattractive, and held a little girl not much older than Johnny in her arms. Both she and the little girl were shades. I knew who she was. Her name was Rita Michaels, and she lived with her husband and daughter a couple of trailers away. Callie had pointed her out to me, but we had never met. Or at least, in my memories we had never met.

“No... no... Rita, nothing at all,” I managed with a smile.

She shrugged. “Well, I know I’m a few minutes early, but I thought I’d pick up Johnny now. I wanted to give Trina here her bath.”

So there was no Callie now, I realized quickly. Instead, Rita was my babysitter while I worked. Well, she appeared to be a good mother. The little girl hugged her dearly and was smiling. She wasn’t Callie, but then again, who was?

For that matter, I wondered after she had left with Johnny, exactly who was Callie? The mythology book offered a clue or two. Besides, I was getting used to the way the gods operated. Callie had to be Calliope, one of the muses. She was listed as the muse of lyric poetry, but the book also said that some sources didn’t assign particular areas of expertise to a muse. I suppose there was no muse of things like TV sitcoms or children’s books. Who knows? Maybe she was my muse when I wrote all those sleazy movie plots. No, probably not. I don’t think so, I said to myself. There probably wasn’t a muse for sleazy movie plots. Maybe Marty handled those.

My thoughts were interrupted by the ringing of my phone. “Hello?”

“Please hold, Ms. Conners. Ms. Musgrave will be right with you,” a secretarial voice said pleasantly.

Musgrave? Oh, of course, I remembered. She was apparently my agent. I only had to listen to elevator music for a few seconds before a somehow familiar voice said, “Sly? Sorry about that. I was just talking with your publisher.”

“Callie?” I ventured. Musgrave–muse. Of course.

“The same,” she laughed. “Of course I’m now white, blonde, and a couple of years younger, but it’s still Callie.”

“You’re my agent?”

“Who better, honey? What did you think of the check?”

“What check?”

“In the envelope, silly.”

“I never got past the letter,” I said breathlessly, shaking the envelope to be rewarded with a slip of blue paper. I looked at it. It was a check made out in my name for twenty thousand dollars. There was a time in my life when twenty thousand had been chickenfeed, but now it was an unimaginable fortune. I touched the check reverently, as if I was afraid it was not real.

“Of course, that’s just an advance,” she told me. “I admit, I forged your name on the contracts, but I didn’t think you’d mind. After all, it took your new publisher about six weeks to put it together right, so I can assure you it’s a very good deal.”

I was sure it was. I had a gut feeling muses made very good literary agents.

“I can’t wait for the book tour to start,” she gushed. “You’ll have to bring Johnny along, too. I’ll watch him for you, and you won’t even have to pay childcare. It’ll be part of my percentage.”

I had to giggle. “Oh, Callie, I miss you already.”

“Just keep writing those wonderful books and you’ll see me lots,” she laughed. “Oops, got to go now. I’ve got a movie deal cooking on line two.”

We said our goodbyes. Then, I rushed to get my purse. I wanted to get that check in my account before it disappeared as magically as my worries about my new life had.

The trip to the bank made me a few minutes late to work. The teller had been a little hesitant. It wasn’t too often that a waitress from Randy Andy’s swivelled into the Farmers’ and Merchants’ Bank of Ovid to make a twenty thousand dollar deposit. Fortunately, Susan Jager was in the lobby, too, doing her banking, so the teller relaxed with Susan’s help and made the deposit with no fuss.

“A book deal!” Susan said with a smile. “I didn’t realize you were so talented.”

“Neither did I,” I laughed as I hurried off to work.

Marty was looking at his watch as I rushed in. “You’re half an hour late,” he growled. “I’m going to have to dock your pay.”

“Marty, I’m only fifteen minutes late,” I corrected him.

“Well,” he allowed, “that may be true, but Shelly just got here, too.”

“I had a doctor’s appointment,” Shelly called out from behind the bar. “I couldn’t help it.”

“What’s wrong, Shelly?” I asked. It hadn’t occurred to me that a shade could need a doctor.

“Oh, it’s just my feet again,” she sighed. “It’s these stupid heels.”

Yes, it was stupid to expect us to work all day in heels. Much more of it and I’d be in the doctor’s office, too. Wait a minute, I thought. I had twenty thousand in the bank, and there was a lot more where that came from. But what was it they always tell writers when they sign their first book deal. Oh, yeah. Don’t give up the day job. I still needed this job, but I had a little leverage now with twenty big ones in the bank.

“Listen, Marty,” I said sternly, “I think this heels bit is just a little silly. I mean, this is a bar–not a strip joint.”

“But the customers expect it,” Marty protested.

I looked over at the only four customers who had come in to drink an early lunch. “Marty, those guys would still be in here if Shelly and I didn’t shave our legs for six months. Come on, be a sport. We’ll wear the short skirts and low-cut tops. Just let us wear flats.”

“Well, I don’t know,” he said slowly. He sensed a little rebellion. He wasn’t sure why, but he realized I might just tell him to take the job and shove it. Shelly was remaining quiet, though. The poor kid needed the job. I knew how she felt. I had felt the same way until this morning.

“Well, that’s okay,” I said lightly. “I really didn’t want to work this many hours anyway. I’ll just quit.”

“You’ll what?” Marty practically yelled. “You can’t! You need this job.”

“Not anymore,” I smiled, waving my deposit slip. “I wrote a book. It’s going to be published.”

“Oh, Sly!” Shelly gushed, practically crushing my breasts with a hug. “That’s great!” Then sadly, she added, “But I’ll miss you around here.”

The funny thing was I didn’t want to quit. Oh sure, I wanted to spend more time with Johnny, and I sure didn’t want to spend so many hours in heels, but I liked Shelly and the rest of Marty’s crew. I was also going to miss some of the customers. Some of the guys were pretty decent, and if you gave them a big cheery smile, they tipped pretty well. Oh what the heck, I was even starting to like Marty–in a way.

“Uh, Sly,” Marty began, “let’s not be hasty. Maybe we can work something out.”

In the few minutes that followed, I began to understand just how hard it was for Marty to get employees. With Vulman expanding, there were plenty of jobs that either paid better or didn’t require a girl to be a sexy tease to make a buck. In the end, we worked something out. Shelly and I convinced him that one waitress wearing flats could move a lot quicker than two swaying in heels. As a result, he could get by with one waitress at lunch when it wasn’t very busy. The same was true of Monday and Tuesday evenings, which were slow. Marty finally agreed. His desire to both save money and not lose a waitress overcame his desire (and make no mistake about it–it was his desire) to see us in heels.

Shelly still needed the money, so she took the bulk of the hours. I would come in Friday for lunch and work evenings Wednesday through Saturday. Of course, I didn’t tell him about the book tour. Maybe by then, the Judge would create another waitress for Marty. I was certain he would be lobbying for one if business continued to pick up.

“So are you going to work today?” Marty wanted to know.

“It would just be an extra expense for you,” I reminded him. “Do you really need me?”

He thought about it for a moment. “I suppose not.”

“Great!” I called with a departing grin. “In that case, I think I’ll go see a guy named Johnny!”

“Well,” I said, coming out of my trance, “for once one of the Judge’s victims didn’t find the man of her dreams.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Susan commented. “Johnny is a quite a little charmer.”

“Who was Johnny?” I asked Diana.

She shrugged. “Beats me. The ones who don’t remember don’t interest me that much.”

I looked over at Jerry, who was walking back over to me, kids in tow. “Well, there’s one who doesn’t remember who is of great interest to me,” I told her.

“Tell me, Diana,” Susan asked quickly before Jerry and the kids could get in earshot, “who are these challengers? Are they the old Titans?”

“We’re not completely sure,” Diana replied. “What Marty told Sly was pretty much the story. Of course, what he didn’t know was that we wanted Lycus to get away.”

“What?” Susan and I chorused.

“Sure, but that’s another story,” Diana laughed. “Right now, I need a little fun.” Over her shoulder, she called, “I hear there’s a cute young college professor playing volleyball with the coeds. I think I’ll join them.”

Recognition crossed Susan’s face as she gasped, “Hey, wait a minute, Diana. That’s my husband you’re talking about!”

Diana laughed as she ran down the beach, a laughing Susan close behind.

The End