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Labor Day weekends are always a big deal in small towns. It’s the weekend everyone tries to get in all the summer fun that they’d put off for three months before the days got too short and the fall winds promised the onset of winter. Our family was no different.

Jerry was out of town. He had gone to Norman with a couple of his friends to see an Oklahoma football game. I’ve always liked football, but I wasn’t asked to go. After all, what do girls know about football? Wouldn’t Jerry have been surprised if he knew that I had played high school ball and had even been a walk-on our Freshman year at Notre Dame? Of course, I was a guy then, but Jerry didn’t know that.

Some days it was hard for me to believe that I had ever been a guy. Being Cindy Patton had just become so normal. When I looked at Jerry, it was almost impossible to remember the days when we were fraternity brothers and I had known him as Randy. And Steve and Carl had been Mike and Michelle so long that some days, it was hard for me to remember what their names had been when we were all in college together. There were times when I almost forgot that I hadn’t actually given birth to them. And speaking of birth, there was little Ashley. I actually had given birth to her, and as terrifying as it had seemed when it was happening, I counted giving birth as the single most meaningful thing I had ever done with my life–new or old.

Still, in spite of the joys I derived from my new life as a woman, I missed little things, like sitting down to watch a football game. Even when Jerry was home and watching a game, it seemed there was always something going on that kept me from looking at the game. After all, I was a mother with three young children, and a woman’s–or more specifically–a mother’s work is never done.

All three of my children were in the den watching TV. Well, Mike and Michelle were watching. Ashley was just crawling around, happy to be with her siblings. They were watching Clash of the Titans. I had always considered it a waste of good special effects, but the kids loved it. I suppose it was aimed at their age group. I wondered what they would have thought if they were told that Zeus or Jupiter wasn’t a bearded figure in a toga as the film showed, but rather was a well-groomed, middle-aged judge and...

No, come to think of it, maybe the movie wasn’t that far off. The Judge did have a beard, although it was neatly trimmed and very dapper. And although he didn’t wear a toga, in his judicial robes, I could almost imagine him throwing thunderbolts from the ancient seat of power at Mt. Olympus. And I should know about those things. After all, he was my boss.

As for me, I was just puttering around the house, enjoying a leisurely Saturday morning of a three-day weekend. The rest of the weekend was going to be busy. Our church was having a picnic out at Sunset Beach, and Jerry’s crew over at Duggan’s IGA had a similar event planned for Labor Day at Sooner Park. Actually, even Saturday afternoon was going to be busy. I had to take the kids and do some last minute shopping for school. They would be starting classes again right after Labor Day. As I said, a mother’s work is never done, so I wouldn’t be sitting around enjoying any football games this weekend.

So that really just left me the morning to relax. It would be a morning without the skirts, heels and hose I had actually become accustomed to in my short years as a woman. I could lounge around in a pair of shorts and a tank top, sandals, my hair barely combed, and no makeup while I enjoyed a cup of freshly brewed coffee. So of course, just as I settled down at the kitchen table to drink my coffee and read the paper, the doorbell rang.

My displeasure with being interrupted evaporated when I opened the door and saw Susan Jager standing there. Unlike me, she was dressed in a business skirt and blouse. Every hair was in place and her makeup was so good I would swear she had been doing it all her life. I suppose lawyers had an image to project–even on the weekends. I wouldn’t have been surprised to find that the male lawyer Susan had once been always made sure his casual attire was suitable for a round of golf at an exclusive club.

Susan carried no golf clubs though. Instead, little Joshua, her infant son, squirmed with purpose on her arm looking for his mother’s breast. I had to grin. Susan had weaned him off breast milk already, but the little guy did not want to be denied. He had the same strong will that had made his mother a successful lawyer in two different lifetimes.

“Come on in,” I greeted her. “Coffee’s fresh.”

“I could use a cup,” she groaned. “I actually had to see a client this morning–with Josh here in tow.”

I nodded sympathetically as I poured her a cup. Usually her husband Steven, would have watched little Josh if Susan had a Saturday meeting, but he was at the game with Jerry. Since becoming a man, Steven had become a huge football fan. Of course, in the reality that was Ovid, he had supposedly played high school football.

“I’m finally understanding what the term ‘football widow’ means,” Susan commented once Joshua had been placed on the den floor to crawl around with his best friend, Ashley. She leaned back in her kitchen chair, only at the last minute remembering to cross her legs in a ladylike fashion. I smiled to myself. We all had little relapses like that–especially when we were stressed.

“Yeah,” I agreed. “It’s tough for me to even watch a game with Jerry. He doesn’t think I know anything about the game.”

“Of course not,” Susan replied. Then, deepening her voice in a mocking imitation of Steven, she said, “Besides, you have to have played the game to really understand it.”

We laughed. Of course, that was a running joke with Steven and Susan since both of them were well aware that Steven had actually been a cheerleader–a female cheerleader–in high school and not the running back he was supposed to have been.

“Men!” I commented dramatically, drawing another laugh from each of us.

Then Susan looked at me seriously. “Would you be male again if you had the chance?” she asked quietly.

It was a question I had asked myself many times. When I had first come to Ovid and had been transformed into a woman, I would have done anything short of selling my soul to be returned to my male form. To find myself suddenly a woman with a family and all had been terrifying. The first time I had had sex with Jerry... well, let’s just say I was more frightened than I had ever remembered being in my life.

But things change. I suppose in a way, many women are frightened the first time they have sex with a man. After all, men are bigger and stronger, and the idea of having a hardened part of them splitting the folds between their legs must terrify any number of women. Jerry had proven to be a gentle lover, though, taking care of my new needs in a way that had made my transition easier and more pleasant than I could imagine.

“No,” I said honestly. “This is my life now. I can’t imagine being without Jerry and the kids. How about you?”

Susan sighed, “I guess I have to agree with you. There were a few times when I was pregnant that I would have gladly traded back, but seeing Josh that first time made it all worthwhile.”

“That’s good,” a voice called from the open patio door. “I’d hate to think that my best friends in Ovid weren’t happy.”

“Diana!” Susan and I called together, turning to face our goddess friend. Oh, as usual, Diana had an entirely new appearance, but the mischievous twinkle in her bright blue eyes was a familiar sight to us. This time, the goddess had chosen a statuesque Scandinavian appearance. Over six feet tall with pale blonde hair plaited into a long French braid, she moved with the grace of an athlete. She looked as if she belonged in the Norse pantheon instead of the Greco-Roman one.

“Got a cup for me?” she asked, smoothly sliding into an unoccupied chair at the kitchen table.

I wasn’t surprised to see her. It had been a busy time in Ovid, and Diana saved her visits for the stories that those times generated. “I suppose you want to hear about our recent brush with the FBI,” I said when we were all settled. After all, that story was the most interesting one by far in Ovid over the last few weeks.

“Of course,” she replied with a smile as she took a sip of her coffee. “Unless you know a better story...”

“Oh, I think that one will do. Do you want the story now?”

“No time like the present,” she laughed as I started into my familiar trance...

I had mixed emotions when I received the call to be in my Agent-in-Charge’s office in an hour. On the plus side, it got me off stakeout duty. I was only an hour into a four-hour shift, watching a rundown warehouse down by the river to see who showed up. After three days of watching and waiting in a sweltering unused warehouse office across the street, I was beginning to think the pushers who owned the crates of uncut cocaine inside the warehouse we were watching were on to us. There was a chance they’d just leave the stuff there and let us swelter for weeks watching for someone who would never come. I can say one thing for drug dealers–they know when to cut their losses.

On the minus side, no agent likes to be called into his boss’s office. And the fact that I was being pulled off an assignment to see him did not bode well. I had never been the most popular agent in the Bureau with the powers that be. I presumed that whatever I was being called in for wasn’t good.

“Jeez, who did you piss off?” Grady Lacroix, my partner for the stakeout shift asked.

The question should have been ‘who else did I piss off?’ Obviously, an agent with my pedigree wouldn’t have been stuck on a stakeout in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in the summertime if he hadn’t pissed off a lot of people in his career.

“It’s probably a sign that my promotion to Assistant Director has come through,” I drawled as I picked up my suit coat and my uneaten lunch.

“In your dreams, pal,” Grady chuckled. He was a Cajun who was purely happy to be in Baton Rouge, but he knew an agent like me with a string of degrees from fine Eastern colleges could only be in Louisiana as punishment. I’d never make it beyond Special Agent in the Bureau–not in this lifetime, at least.

I supposed that was one positive thing, I thought as I drove the short distance from the river warehouse area to the Bureau’s modest offices. There was no way they could send me anyplace worse. In the four years I had been in Baton Rouge, I had had enough crawfish and Dixie Beer to last several lifetimes. Baton Rouge translates as ‘red stick,’ and it was obvious the Bureau had jammed that red stick right up my ass when they sent me to Louisiana.

And it wasn’t that my record had been all that bad. At one time, I had been on the fast track in the Bureau, so I had skills and resources that had helped get my last two bosses promoted. I had kept my nose clean and done my job, and the Bureau had rewarded me by not flushing me any further into oblivion. I knew though that one more misstep and I was toast.

So what was so important that I had been pulled off stakeout? Bruce O’Connor, the Agent-in-Charge for just the past three months, actually seemed to like me. He was a youngish Southern boy from Houston, and he seemed to think I might be able to help him get back there in a position of authority. So I really didn’t think I was being called in for an ass chewing. So what was going on?

“Mr. O’Connor is in the conference room,” the receptionist told me. I looked at her to see if she knew what this was all about, but she shrugged it off. Apparently, she didn’t know either. Not that she would have told me if she did.

Bruce had two other men seated with him. One of them I knew–he was Norman Allison, one of the Bureau’s top experts in industrial espionage. He was pushing sixty now and the years hadn’t been good to him. He was paunchier and grayer than I remembered, but the scowl on his face when he saw me meant he hadn’t forgotten our earlier association. The other man was unfamiliar, though. He was tall–I could see that even from his seated position. He was in good shape despite his silver-gray hair. His well-pressed dark suit fit him well–almost like a military uniform–and made me feel just a little underdressed as I became aware of my heat-wilted suit. His stern stare made it apparent he was sizing me up.

“Baxter, sorry to pull you off stakeout,” Bruce said with a small smile which indicated he knew how much I–like all FBI agents–hated stakeout duty. He motioned to Norman Allison. “Baxter Blaine, this is...”

“I know Mr. Allison,” I said as coolly as I could manage. I didn’t offer my hand and neither did he.

“And this is Admiral Nepper of Naval Intelligence,” Bruce continued unruffled.

Unlike Allison, Admiral Nepper rose to his feet and shook my hand. His grip was firm without being too firm. He looked me straight in the eye. I liked that in another man. I returned the favor. “Admiral.”

Bruce handed me a folder and motioned me to a chair. I noted all the others already had similar folders. “We’ve asked you here today because you may have some special insights in a case these gentlemen are working on.”

Bruce was a little uncomfortable. What was there about the case that had him concerned? I opened the file before me, spotting a photograph directly on top. When I saw the man’s face in the photo, my blood ran cold.

“Andre Papivassilou,” Admiral Nepper stated. “Also known as ‘The Greek’.”

He hadn’t needed to speak. I would have recognized Andre’s picture anywhere. Granted, he was older now, the nearly-black hair now about half gray and showing signs of thinning. His face was a little wider, and there was a sagging beneath his dark eyes. The photo was a little grainy, and I could see it had been taken by a surveillance camera.

“When was this taken?” I asked, trying to keep my voice steady and my hand from shaking.

“Two days ago,” the Admiral replied. “He had just arrived in Tulsa. That shot is from one of my men who was on stakeout at the airport.”

Stakeout at the airport? Then they had been waiting for The Greek.

Allison shifted uncomfortably. It was obvious to me that he didn’t want to be there. The fact that Naval Intelligence had snapped the picture told me why. Whatever The Greek was up to, Allison was the logical man to be on his tail. But he must have lost him and Naval Intelligence had picked up the scent. It had to be an embarrassment for Allison. That fact alone had made my day.

“We called you in because you know The Greek better than anyone else,” Bruce explained. The Admiral remained impassive, but Allison shot Bruce a nasty look. Bruce knew when to shut up. Besides, he had stated the obvious. I did indeed know The Greek better than anyone else. I gave him a faint nod of acknowledgement on that point.

“As you know,” the Admiral continued, “Mr. Papivassilou has been engaged in a series of industrial espionage activities since his termination from the CIA. He’s very good at his game, though, and this is the first confirmed sighting of him in nearly five years.”

I could have pointed out that a better man–me–could have tracked The Greek down. Andre must have chuckled the day he found out Allison had the primary responsibility for catching him. That meant he would be able to do whatever he wished since Allison couldn’t catch a tenth grader cheating on a history test, let alone a master spy like The Greek.

“So why is he in Tulsa?” I asked. “I would expect him to be in the Silicon Valley or near a defense contractor.”

“So would we,” the Admiral agreed. “Look in the folder at the sheet on Vulman Industries. It’s a defense contractor headquartered in Tulsa. Vulman has made some important advances that have military applications. We think The Greek has been hired to get them.”

“For who?”

“That doesn’t really matter, does it?” the Admiral asked laconically. It was enough of a put-down to teach me to keep my mouth shut for a while.

I scanned the page he had referenced. Vulman was primarily a provider of parts for the auto industry, but the classified information on the firm indicated that they had developed some sort of fuel pump that had extended the range of our military aircraft. To the casual observer, it was mundane stuff, but to a foreign power, it was big. Imagine being able to park an aircraft carrier off the coast of a large land mass and fly to a target heretofore well beyond the normal range of an attack aircraft. Or imagine being a ruler of a Middle Eastern country and finding that your one export–oil–could now be made thirty percent more efficient, decreasing the need for your crude. One of the most important technological developments in a decade was coming out of a small company in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

I looked up at the Admiral. He now favored me with a smile. “So you understand the importance of this device.”

I nodded. “It’s incredible.”

“We believe this is what Mr. Papivassilou is after,” the Admiral concluded. “And he already has a two day start on us.”

“What do you want me to do?” I asked. I could feel blood rushing through my system as it hadn’t in years. I was being given another shot at The Greek.

“We want you to find him and stop him...” the Admiral explained, adding, “...by any means.”

I couldn’t believe what I had just heard. The Admiral had just asked me to do what I had waited a decade to do.

I was going to get a chance to kill Andre Papivassilou. As the meeting continued, I got still more good news. I wouldn’t be reporting to Allison. I’d be reporting directly to Admiral Nepper. I didn’t mind being seconded to another agency. As far as I was concerned, the Bureau had done nothing but screw up every effort to catch Andre for years. Naval Intelligence couldn’t do any worse.

At last, the meeting ended. Allison just grunted at me and left the office with Bruce. I understood he was now out of the picture, sent back home to Washington with his tail between his legs. I had no doubt that Admiral Nepper was the cause of it. The officer must have had powerful friends on the Hill or in the current administration. Someone with substantial power had gotten the Director of the FBI to relinquish control of this case to Naval Intelligence. It didn’t happen every day.

That left the Admiral and me alone in the conference room. “Where do we begin?” I asked.

The Admiral produced a map from his pocket. “You begin here,” he replied.

I looked at the circle that had been drawn on the map. It indicated a patch of what was probably farmland an hour or two out of Tulsa. I frowned. “But there’s nothing there. I thought this Vulman Industries was in Tulsa.”

The Admiral smiled. “You’d find the Tulsa address is nothing but a mail drop.”

“Does Allison know that?” The answer wasn’t important to the case. I just wanted to know how far out of the loop that idiot Allison was.

“No.”

“So there’s a defense plant out there–in the middle of nowhere?” I asked.

“There is a hill, overlooking a valley,” the Admiral continued, ignoring my question. “You’ll see what I mean. It’s just a few miles past this junction.” He pointed at the intersection of two secondary roads. “There’s a turnoff there. Your target will be there at ten o’clock tomorrow morning to make contact with a local agent. Don’t bother to ask how I know. Just accept that I have my sources. You’ll be there to stop him.”

“Stop him?”

The Admiral smiled. “By any means possible. Don’t bother waiting for the local agent. He isn’t important. Just get your man.”

As much as I wanted to kill Andre, I was becoming a little uncomfortable with the answers the Admiral was giving me. He never once said, ‘kill him,’ but the implication was there. And he had to know my background. He had to know what killing The Greek would mean to me. I would be there alone–unusual in itself for such a mission. There would be no one around to stop me from killing him. All I would have to say was that he pulled a gun and I shot him in self-defense.

“Admiral, what is it that you aren’t telling me?” I asked at last.

“Son,” the Admiral began, although I thought I was a little old to be his son, “the mission you’re being sent on is more important than you could ever know. I can’t explain things to you now, but believe me when I tell you that you will come to understand it before long. I know we just met, but I’m going to have to ask you to trust me on this.”

I knew I would get no more from him. Of all the intelligence community, Naval Intelligence is, in my opinion, the most professional. Members of some agencies might dole out a little additional information just to show you how knowledgeable they were. Not the NI boys. And Admiral Nepper was a perfect example.

We talked for a little longer, mostly about logistic issues. He already had a chartered plane for me to take me to Tulsa where I would pick up a rental car and proceed directly to the rendezvous point. I couldn’t imagine for the world why Andre would be meeting someone in such an isolated spot, but the Admiral was so certain that he would be there that nothing more needed to be said about it.

I was actually excited for the first time in years as I hustled out of the office. I was going to be given the opportunity I had been certain was beyond my grasp–I would finally be able to end Andre’s life. I had no intention of taking the bastard alive. I had waited too long and sacrificed too much to let Andre live. I was so wrapped up in the thought that I nearly bumped into Grady on the way out.

“Grady, what are you doing here...?” I began, wondering why he was off the stakeout. My voice trailed off when I saw why. There was blood on the front of his suit. “Oh Jeez, Grady, you’re hurt!”

He shook his head wearily. “Not me, my friend. It’s Jack Kelso’s blood.”

“Jack?”

He nodded. “Yeah. Jack took the rest of your shift. About an hour ago, a couple of hard cases showed up at the warehouse. We called for backup and tried to stop them. They tried to get away. We got both of them. One’s dead and the other was taken to a hospital. But they got Jack, too.”

I hesitated. I didn’t want to ask, but I had to. “Is he...?”

“He’ll make it,” Grady assured me. “He took one in the side–large caliber–but it didn’t hit anything vital.”

We all grow up with the expression “he dodged a bullet.” I literally had. If I had continued on the stakeout, it could have been me with a bullet in me. In all my years at the Bureau, no one had ever taken a shot at me before. It was a chilling feeling to know how close I had come that day. It made me feel more vulnerable than I had felt in years. But I had to shake that off. I had a mission of my own to complete, and misgivings and second thoughts were not going to help me accomplish it.

The trip to Tulsa early the next morning was uneventful. It was a calm summer morning when I caught the Bureau’s chartered plane. Getting from Baton Rouge to Tulsa wasn’t all that easy on commercial flights, so I was happy to have the special treatment. Once in Tulsa, I picked up a smallish Dodge sedan from the rental agency and made my way out of the urban area and into the Oklahoma countryside.

There wasn’t much traffic, so I had a chance to think back on how long I had known Andre. When I had first met him back at Georgetown University, I had never dreamed then that I would be on my way to kill him in a few years...

Andre was a little older than me, and he had the apartment right across the hall from mine. I had noticed him in the building back in Georgetown. We would nod and speak to each other, but I didn’t even know his name.

We formally met one day when I had locked myself out of my apartment. I was rattling the knob in frustration, wondering where I had left my key when Andre came along.

“Locked out?” he had asked in that laconic tone he often used.

I stifled the impulse to make some smart comment. Of course I was locked out. Why else would I be shaking my door in frustration? Instead though, I replied, “Yeah. Say, can I use your phone to call the super?”

The super managed three buildings in the area and could usually be reached only on his cell phone. Andre considered my request for a moment before offering, “Here, let me try.”

He slipped in front of me, producing a strip of metal about the size of a credit card. To my amazement, he shoved the card into the latch plate and jiggled it a time or two. The door opened as smartly as if he had used a key.

“How did you do that?”

He shrugged. “It’s not that hard. This is an old building and an old lock.”

“Then anyone could break in here,” I gasped.

“Not really,” he replied. “The front door has a pretty good lock on it, so to break in, you’d have to have access to the building. But you should hit the super up for a good dead bolt. That’s what I have.”

“In any case, I really appreciate your help,” I told him as my frustration ebbed. “Can I offer you something as a reward? A beer maybe?”

He smiled. “A beer would be welcome.”

So over a beer, I learned about Andre Papivassilou. He was the youngest son of a wealthy Greek family–or at least Greek by ancestry. He was a native-born American, although thanks to his parents, he also spoke fluent Greek (and six other languages I learned later). His family had made their money in the shipping industry, and his father was well known throughout Europe.

He had turned down a chance to go into the family business. His three older brothers really didn’t need his help. So with his father’s contacts, he had managed to get a job with a government agency after graduating with a degree in engineering from Penn State.

“So what are you doing at Georgetown?” I asked him. “This isn’t much of a school for engineers.”

“No,” he laughed. “But it’s an excellent place to get a Masters in International Affairs. My agency sent me here for a little polishing.”

I hadn’t asked him any more about that. He quizzed me on my studies. I told him that my twin sister and I had each graduated from the University of Virginia and had both decided on Georgetown for law school.

“Plan on setting up a partnership?” Andre had asked.

“Hardly,” I replied with a grin. “Barbara and I both want to be lawyers, but we’ve got different careers planned. She wants to go into private practice and I plan on working here in Washington.”

He smiled. “You plan to be a faceless bureaucrat?”

“I plan to be an FBI agent,” I replied proudly.

For as long as I could remember, I had wanted to join the FBI. Oh, it wasn’t for the glamour. I knew better than that. It was just that I had been brought up in a family where money wasn’t that important. It never is when your family has more of it than they could ever spend–and mine did. And like many wealthy Eastern families, a career in public service seemed right. Granted, the FBI was a little unusual. Most wealthy scions ended up over at State or on some Undersecretary’s staff, but I wanted the Bureau.

Andre and I talked about that for a while, and he finally told me that the agency he worked for was the CIA. It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Best friends that we soon became, I was more than a little pleased when Barbara became interested in Andre. She had always viewed guys her own age with disdain, preferring older, more sophisticated men. Andre was ten years older than us, so he was just about the right age for Barbara. It was a slow and deliberate courtship, and by the time Andre got his Masters, they were married. It left Barbara a year short of graduation from law school, but that was all right with her. She wanted to be with Andre far more than she wanted to be an attorney. Law school was quickly forgotten.

Life was good for all of us for the next few years. I graduated from law school and went to work for the Bureau while Andre and Barbara were assigned to the US Embassy in Bonn. We talked frequently and wrote even more. Barbara was deliriously happy with Andre and looking forward to the day when he was out of the field and they could start a family.

Then it happened.

I will never forget the day my supervisor called me into the office to give me the news. Barbara was dead. It had happened in Berlin. Those were the closing days of the Cold War. The Democratic Republic of Germany was fighting for its very existence as communism crumbled throughout Europe. It would be another year before the Berlin Wall fell, and the Soviet-sponsored German state was lashing out like a wounded animal. It caught my sister with a dying swipe.

Andre had been given an assignment in the East Germany. A high-ranking member of the Stazi, East Germany’s intelligence agency, wanted to defect. He had his ticket in hand–information on a new lens developed in the East. The lens would improve the focus of lasers, an important aspect of both the communications and the defense industry. Andre and Barbara had entered East Germany as tourists–an innocent married couple on a holiday.

The supposed defection was a trap. East German officials had set the whole thing up to capture an American agent who could be used as a bargaining chip in the shakeup they knew was sure to come when East Germany collapsed. But something went terribly wrong.

I supposed I would never know the entire truth, but I did know that Andre apparently decided it was better to escape alone than to be imprisoned with Barbara in the dying communist state. According to the official reports, he was only able to save himself. Barbara was killed in the escape attempt.

Both sides chalked it up to one more botched operation. No one got what they wanted. The East Germans lost a bargaining chip and our side lost the new lens–if it even existed at all. But I lost more than anyone else. I lost the only family I had left. Andre had traded her life for his own, and I swore to myself in my supervisor’s office that day that I would make certain he paid for his cowardice.

And now the day of reckoning had come at last. A decade later, Andre would be brought to justice for the death of my sister. My life might be ruined by my actions that day, but so what? It wasn’t that much of a life anyway. I had tried to make a case for punishing Andre for what had happened that day so long ago, but my pleas fell on deaf ears. It was just one of those things, everyone tried to tell me.

So I made a pest of myself, calling in every favor I could in the Washington establishment. My family had a reputation–or so I thought. But my parents were dead and I had no close friends in power. It wasn’t long before I was considered a pariah–a loose cannon who was an embarrassment to one and all. I found my career in shambles as I was quietly shuffled to smaller and smaller Bureau offices far away from the centers of power.

As for Andre, he went free. With the collapse of communism, he left the CIA and became an independent agent, his talents furnished to the highest bidder. Industrial espionage had become his forte, and in a few years, he was at the top of his game. No one had even had a lead on him for several years. Until now.

I tried to imagine as I drove what it would be like to kill him. The picture Admiral Nepper had shown me showed a man who was older with a little more gray in his thinning hair and a few more wrinkles on his tanned face. But his clothing was expensive. He was prosperous–a top independent agent. It would be a pleasure to take all of that away from him. I hoped he begged for his life. It would make my revenge all the sweeter.

When I came to the spot the Admiral’s map had indicated, I wondered if I was in the right place. The location was on a low hill, looking down into a valley. I had no idea what the number of the road I had taken was. The map had been hand-drawn and indicated no numbers. I checked my regular Oklahoma map and thought I had a rough idea of where I was, but there shouldn’t have been the sizeable town I could see sprawled out along the floor of the valley.

I got out of the car and pulled out a pair of binoculars to look down at the town. It looked like a pleasant place, much like some of the small towns that dotted the Virginia hills near where I grew up. It was hard to make out details, as the numerous trees were in full summer foliage, hiding many of the town’s details. Only church steeples and a few buildings in what appeared to be the business district rose above the level of the trees.

This had to be the town where Vulman Industries had its manufacturing facility, I realized. But it was too big to not appear on the map. Don’t get me wrong. The town was only ten or perhaps fifteen thousand in population, but even a town of that size should have been prominently displayed on my map.

In other parts of the world, there are secret towns, I remembered. Chen-he, the headquarters of the South Korean Navy was missing from many early maps. In Russia and China, there were dozens of towns that had no presence on the maps. But this was the United States. Secret towns just didn’t exist–or at least they hadn’t since Los Alamos during World War II.

But there was no war going on now. Surely the government had no secret project brewing that would justify keeping a town of this size secret. It had to be just a flaw in the map.

My thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a car engine approaching the turnout where I had parked. The town was no longer important. Instead, I had to get ready for Andre. I rushed back and climbed into the car. It wouldn’t do for him to recognize me.

It was exactly ten in the morning when the rented Buick pulled off and parked behind my car. That was Andre all right. He knew that he would have the advantage over his contact by being behind him. If things went wrong, he had left himself enough room to swing past my car and get away.

To lure him from the car, I had to appear ready to meet with him face-to-face. I also had to keep an eye out for the man he was supposed to meet, although the Admiral had assured me that it wouldn’t be a problem. Apparently, he had gotten word to Andre that the meeting would be an hour earlier than originally scheduled. I wasn’t sure how he had managed that, but I had confidence in his assurances.

So I stepped out of the car without turning to face Andre. I heard his own car open and heard the soft crunch of gravel under his feet. I was leaning down into the car seat, as if rummaging through some papers. Never once did I look up at him, depending instead upon my hearing to determine his approach. Smoothly, I turned to him, my gun in hand.

I had half expected to find Andre with a gun in his hand as well. My luck held though, for his weapon could still be clearly seen as a small bulge inside his jacket pocket. He tipped his sunglasses forward and calmly muttered, “Baxter, is it really you?”

It had been years since I had last heard that voice–since the funeral of my sister, in fact. The voice was still the mellowed, cultured baritone that I remembered. And he acted as if it was no surprise to see me there instead of his contact. “It’s me,” I replied.

“And what is the gun for?” Andre asked innocently. “Surely you don’t need a gun with me, old friend.”

I chaffed at his amused tone. “I need the gun because we aren’t friends anymore. I intend to kill you, Andre.” If I had really expected him to cringe in fear and beg for his life, I would have been disappointed. He smiled a thin smile, shaking his head slowly. “Baxter, you are not a murderer.”

No, I wasn’t–at least not in my heart. But the thought of Andre living while my sister was in her grave was too much to bear. And this was a sanctioned kill. I had nothing to be concerned about, did I? But I found it necessary to explain the obvious. “You caused Barbara’s death.”

Andre’s eyes dropped and he issued a soft sigh. “Do you think I would not have gladly traded places? If I could have died so that she had lived, I would have done so.”

“You had that opportunity,” I reminded him. “You could have protected her–let her get away. Instead, you ran and she was shot.”

“You have it in the wrong order, Baxter,” he corrected me. “She was shot and I ran. She was dead before she hit the ground.”

“That isn’t how the report reads,” I reminded him.

“Not exactly,” he admitted. “But that is what happened. The report was written by others who wanted to protect their own incompetence in planning the mission.”

“But even if that were so, you had no business taking Barbara on that mission. She had no training.”

“On that we are in agreement,” Andre told me. “She volunteered, you know–insisted actually. You know how Barbara could be. There was a social function in East Berlin. We both had to attend, but I was to break off for the mission. Barbara said it would look more natural if we remained together. It would look as if we were just an innocent couple. She was right, of course, but I tried to talk her out of it. She won in the end. She always did. Your sister could not be dissuaded once her mind was made up.”

“The report says you went in as tourists.”

“And I must once again tell you that the report was written by others,” Andre reminded me. “We left the Hungarian Embassy that night in our own car. It wasn’t difficult to make our rendezvous. It was only a short distance from the embassy. I sensed trouble at once, but Barbara had no instincts for the game. She moved suddenly, panicking the opposition. Shots were fired. Baxter, she was caught with at least three shots to the chest. Any one of them would have been fatal within minutes. You must believe me.”

I didn’t know what to believe. I only knew what I wanted to believe. I had spent over ten years hating Andre for causing the death of my sister, and I wasn’t going to stop hating him on his say so. Andre was a good actor–the best spies often are. He could have been acting when he denied responsibility for Barbara’s death, I thought. Besides, even if it didn’t happen the way I had believed, he still wasn’t blameless. He could have found another way to make the rendezvous–a way that didn’t involve my sister.

But there was a sadness in his eyes that I couldn’t dismiss. The Andre I had once known was full of life. This man was a tired, middle-aged man who looked despite his words as if he didn’t much care if I pulled the trigger or not. Perhaps I had been a little harsh in my judgment. Barbara and Andre had always been happy together, and I knew he had loved her deeply.

I couldn’t wait forever, though. I had to either shoot him or not. If I didn’t shoot him, the last decade was without meaning. I would have wasted much of my life for nothing. All the poor career moves, all the broken relationships with the women I had dated, all the intense hatred I had allowed to command my life, would be wasted.

I takes so little strength to pull a trigger, but so much willpower that it can feel as if the shooter is trying to move a boulder. I felt my trigger finger twitching, and in a strangely drawn-out moment knew that I was about to pull the trigger. In seconds Andre would be lying on the ground in a pool of his own blood. Why couldn’t I shake the feeling that by killing him, I was doing him a favor?

“Stop right there!”

Both Andre and I turned to see a policeman standing only a few yards from us, his own gun trained on me. He was locked in a serious stance, and even the mirrored sunglasses he wore couldn’t block the intensity in his face. Slim and perfectly attired, from his trooper’s hat down past his crisp blue-gray shirt, dark blue trousers and gleaming shoes, he looked like the model of a perfect police officer.

“Federal Officer!” I called out with as much authority as I could muster. “Stand down.”

“No, you stand down,” he said calmly, an authority in his voice that practically demanded obedience.

I could get off a shot, I knew. I could kill Andre on the spot. But I would pay for it with my own life. There was no way I could stop the police officer from firing at me, even if I had wanted to. I could have turned my gun on the policeman, I supposed, but I had no desire to kill an innocent officer. And in spite of the futility about my life I was beginning to feel, I had no desire to die. I gave Andre a look of regret and reluctantly put down my weapon.

“Good decision,” the officer approved. “Now lay the gun on the ground.”

I did so.

“Stand away. You, too, sir,” he ordered with a nod to Andre. Then he added, “And remove your own weapon, too. Put it on the ground.”

In a practiced move, Andre removed his gun with two fingers, placing it on the ground and backing away.

We both stood back from our guns as the officer deftly picked them up. “Into my car.” He nodded at a police cruiser that just couldn’t have been there a few minutes before. I had not heard the car approach. How had it gotten there?

“Both of you into the back.”

I looked over at Andre, then back at the officer. “Aren’t you going to check him for other weapons?”

“I’m now unarmed,” Andre said with a tired sigh.

“He’s now unarmed,” the officer echoed.

“But you can’t know that!” I argued angrily. “What about standard police procedure?”

“He is no longer armed.”

It was spoken in the same calm manner, but it was a pronouncement that was somehow irrefutable. I wasn’t sure how or why, but the officer knew without question that Andre was not armed. Meekly, I slid into the back seat next to Andre.

“What about our cars?” I asked when the officer had gotten in behind the wheel.

“They’ll be taken care of,” was the reply.

“Just relax,” Andre murmured to me. As a reply, I shot him a nasty glare. Andre should have been dead; I should have killed him. Why had I hesitated? The punishment I had hoped and dreamed for him for more than ten long years had been within my grasp. All I had to do was squeeze the trigger.

Why hadn’t I? I wondered as we rode silently into the town I had seen in the valley. Was it because a small part of me wanted to believe him–to believe that he hadn’t been as responsible for my sister’s death as I had imagined? Or was it the memory of our long friendship, started back at Georgetown and nurtured through the years of my youth? Or was it something else...?

Perhaps it was something else, I admitted to myself. In my years with the Bureau, I had never fired my gun in anger. That wasn’t unusual for an agent. Many agents went through their entire careers without using their guns except for practice. I had thought I could kill Andre without a second thought. I still think I would have done so if the police officer hadn’t stopped me. But I wasn’t cut out to be a killer. Even Andre had remarked that I was not a murderer. I had needed to pull the trigger for closure, but I hadn’t really wanted to.

Now the chance was over, I realized as I saw the large, freshly painted billboard that welcomed us to Ovid, Oklahoma. Ovid? I had never heard of a town by that name. Granted, I wasn’t terribly familiar with Oklahoma, but I had driven through much of the eastern part of the state before. I knew the names of dozens of Oklahoma towns, but not Ovid.

It looked to be a town of some size. It looked much like other farm towns I had seen in that part of the country. Numerous small businesses crowded shoulder to shoulder along the four-lane boulevard that the highway became. Tall, stately oak trees lined the sidewalks and neatly trimmed houses could be seen up the side streets.

The only thing that appeared a little odd was that everything looked a little too neat and clean. Lawns were uniformly trim, buildings were freshly painted, and the roads even lacked potholes and cracks. It was like a small town as envisioned by Norman Rockwell or John Falter from one of their old Saturday Evening Post covers.

Andre noticed it, too. I could tell because he was turning his head with interest at each new sight. He kept it to himself, though, and it was just as well. I had no interest in talking with him. I might not be able to kill him as I had planned, but I wasn’t ready for rapprochement.

It was just as we turned off the highway following a white and green sign labelled ‘Business District’ that I noticed my first ghost. At least that’s what I thought when I saw her. There were three young girls, early teens in age, walking down the street together. They were laughing and giggling, their towels and small bags evidence that they were on their way for a swim. Each of them had the same fresh-scrubbed youthful look, and each had a ponytail of varying blonde hair. But one of them was different–very different. Her hair was no less blonde and her smile no less alluring, but I could see through her!

No, that’s not quite right. I couldn’t exactly see through her, but I sensed that I could tell what should have been hidden by her body. It was if the grassy lawn behind her could be seen right through her. I know the explanation isn’t clear, but it was something that had to be experienced before it could be truly understood.

“Look!” I called to Andre. I didn’t really want to speak with him, but I needed confirmation of what I had seen.

Andre turned. “What is it?”

“Look at those three,” I pointed at the girls as the car slid slowly past them. “Tell me what you see.”

He turned to watch them recede from our vision. He shrugged. “I see three young girls. What was I supposed to see?”

“Did one of them look... odd?”

“No.”

It was my turn to shrug. What was I to do? Tell him I had just seen a ghost? I slumped back into the car seat and Andre did the same.

Something just didn’t feel right, I told myself as we pulled up in front of a stately if somewhat modest building which declared itself to be ‘City Hall’ in chiselled granite above the entrance. First of all, this town of Ovid shouldn’t even be there, I reasoned. If it had been, I would have heard of it–or at least it would have been on the map. And then there were the ‘ghosts.’ What the hell were they anyway? I had to call my office and get someone working on this.

I still had my cell phone, so I speed dialled the office. But as I got out of the car, my phone pressed to my ear, I heard nothing in the receiver. I speed dialled again. Still nothing.

“Your phone won’t work here,” the officer–I now saw from his nametag that his name was Mercer–said.

“It’s tied to a satellite,” I explained. “It doesn’t need a cell.”

“But it won’t work here,” he argued. And he was right. That was strange. It should have worked anywhere. It utilized the most up-to-date technology we had. I looked at Officer Mercer questioningly. “You’ll understand soon enough.”

I took him at his word. There seemed to be nothing else I could do. I followed him into the building, just ahead of Andre. We’d get Andre booked and then we could argue about jurisdiction and I could call Baton Rouge.

We were escorted into a courtroom. The room was almost empty except for an attractive blonde sitting alone in the visitor’s gallery and another woman–a brunette–seated at the front of the courtroom. I presumed it was to hold a quick arraignment for Andre, so I followed without question. I was more than a little surprised when I was led to the desk at the front of the courtroom where the attractive brunette in a lemon-colored women’s suit stood to greet us.

“Thank you, Officer Mercer,” she said, and the officer nodded and stepped away. Then she turned to Andre and me. “I’m Susan Jager. I’ll be the attorney for both of you today...”

“Wait a minute,” I said with a smile, holding up my hand. “I think you’re a little confused. I’m not on the docket today. Mr. Papivassilou here is my prisoner and I assume we’re here for his arraignment.”

She smiled back at me. “No, Mr. Blaine, I’m afraid it’s you who are confused. You and Mr. Papivassilou here are both charged with loitering and...”

“Loitering!” I shouted. “What in God’s name are you talking about, woman? I’m an FBI agent and this man is my prisoner. And since when have loitering charges been lodged against individuals under these circumstances?”

Andre was practically laughing. I was sure he had no more idea what was going on than I did, but my discomfort was obviously giving him cause for amusement.

“Mr. Blaine, I suspect you have noticed things aren’t always what they seem in Ovid.”

She said that to me as she looked directly into my eyes. I almost shot off my mouth again, but I stopped as her eyes drilled into mine. As I got control of my anger, I realized what she was talking about. I had been stopped from killing Andre by a police officer who shouldn’t have been able to sneak up on us so quickly and quietly. I had seen people who were nearly transparent. I was being tried for loitering of all things in a town that shouldn’t exist. And come to think of it, I had never heard Officer Mercer call in my name, so how did this pretty young attorney know it?

“Loitering is a serious charge in Ovid,” she went on once she had seen I was willing to listen. And by listening, I knew she wasn’t really telling me how serious a charge loitering was. Instead, she was telling me I was in deep shit whether I knew it or not. I was beginning to understand how Alice must have felt just before meeting the Red Queen.

“Excuse me,” Andre interrupted, shaking his head. “This man was just about to kill me in cold blood and he is going to be brought up on a charge of loitering?”

The Jager woman sighed. “I don’t think you were listening either. You are both being brought up on loitering charges. Now listen to what I have to tell you because the Judge will be out here in a few moments. If either of you are frivolous or disrespectful, he’ll throw the book at you. And you must believe me when I tell you that it can be a very thick and heavy book.”

I chuckled, “You make this judge of yours sound larger than life. What’s the worst he can do–double our fine to a hundred dollars each and court costs? This is some sort of a scam, isn’t it? Maybe you didn’t hear me before, Ms. Jager. I’m a Federal agent, and if this turns out to be some sort of elaborate con, you and your judge and that police officer over there are in a lot of trouble.”

Her eyes were locked on mine. “Suit yourself, Mr. Blaine. But let me tell you that when the door to the Judge’s chambers opens, you may want to change your attitude. I’ll do whatever I can for you, but in the final analysis, you will determine your own fate.”

I snorted and sat down. Andre sat as well. We didn’t get to sit long, though. Before Ms. Jager could come up with another retort, Officer Mercer called out, “All rise! Municipal Court of Ovid, Oklahoma, is now in session, the honorable Judge presiding.”

I stood more from habit than respect. From my attorney’s description, I might have expected a judge right out of the Old Testament. Instead, he looked fairly ordinary as judges go–perhaps a bit more distinguished than the norm for a small-town municipal judge, but that was about all. He was not terribly tall–six feet or maybe a little less. He had a neatly-trimmed beard, mostly dark brown in color but with a trace of gray. His hair was of a similar color. He wore gold-rimmed glasses which gave him a studious look.

Then I noticed his eyes.

His eyes were blue, the color of icy waters. When he stared at me, I felt almost as if I was already being judged. Given what was about to happen, that was probably the case. Perhaps Ms. Jager was right, I thought. It would not be wise to annoy this man.

“Be seated,” he called out as he took his seat at the bench. His voice was deep and authoritative. We all sat quickly. But had he told us to run around the room three times, I think we would have done so without thinking. Such was the power in that voice.

“Officer Mercer, what is our first case this morning?” In reply, Officer Mercer laid a folder in front of the Judge. And yes, I meant the capital letters. The Judge was entitled to them as I was soon to find out. I found myself wondering when Officer Mercer had found the time to make up a folder on us. He hadn’t been out of my sight from the moment I had first seen him.

“Since the charge is the same for both of you,” the Judge said, “we might as well try both of you together.”

“Your Honor!” Andre jumped up to my surprise as well as to the surprise of our attorney. “I must protest! I am being tried on a minor charge while this man...” He pointed at me. “...attempted to kill me.”

I wasn’t about to let him get away with that. I was suddenly on my feet as well. “Your Honor! This man is wanted by the Federal Government for espionage. I ask that I be allowed to contact my superiors at once and have him taken into Federal custody.”

To my surprise and dismay, the Judge seemed more amused by our ranting than deliberate. “Such odd behavior,” he commented, “for two men who used to be such good friends.”

Now how had he known that?

“And what would you have accomplished had you killed him, Mr. Blaine?”

“I...” I suddenly realized I had no answer for the question. The thought of killing Andre had long since taken on a life of its own. I had imagined killing him in a variety of ways in a number of settings, but I really had given little thought to what I would accomplish by the act. Would it have brought Barbara back? Of course not. Would it have enhanced my career? Probably not, even if I had shot Andre clearly in the line of duty. Yet he deserved to die, I reminded myself. He was a coward who had cost my sister her life.

“Killing seldom accomplishes what the killer had hoped,” the Judge said rather softly. “As a law enforcement officer, you should have known that, Mr. Blaine. There is a price to be paid now–and you will pay it.”

I found for some reason that any verbal response I might have had died on my lips. But I remained standing, almost as if I had forgotten how to sit.

He turned to Andre. “And you, Mr. Papivassilou, don’t think that we are unaware of your purpose in coming here. You have hired yourself out to the highest bidder, no matter what the consequences of your actions. Well, today your actions have created consequences which will fall upon you.”

“Your Honor, perhaps we should...” our attorney began, but I would never know what she was about to suggest. The Judge silenced her with a subtle motion of his hand. “Ms. Jager, I have wasted your time by asking you to defend these two men today. Their conduct is indefensible.”

I nearly spoke up, but something told me to keep my mouth shut. The Judge had an angry scowl on his face, and it might be better to accept judgment and move on, I thought. Of course, if I had known what justice in Ovid meant, I might not have been as passive.

“I find you both guilty,” the Judge intoned. “And it is my duty to exact upon the two of you the harshest penalty I can.” Part of my mind was asking what was so harsh that it lay within the prerogative of a city magistrate? After all, the charge was only loitering, as trumped-up a charge as that might be. What was the worst he could do? A stiff fine? A couple of days in jail? But as much as the rational part of my mind tried to assure me that his was a minor incident, some feral part of my brain was insisting that Andre and I were about to experience something beyond our understanding.

The Judge began to speak, but the words were not familiar to me. It sounded a little like Latin, but the accent reminded me more of modern Italian. This was not the Latin I remembered from listening to priests or hearing in a classroom. This was Latin, I realized suddenly, as it must have once been spoken in the Forum of Rome when the Roman Empire ruled much of the civilized world. It was melodious and vibrant.

I didn’t have much time to think about the words he was uttering, though. I was too busy watching Andre. He appeared to be changing, almost as if the outlines of his body were blurring. The middle-aged sag that his facial muscles had experienced was suddenly gone, and his face became lean and handsome and younger. He appeared to have grown several inches, so he was now taller than I. His thinning, graying hair was suddenly fuller and dark blonde in color, trimmed in a conservative cut. His clothes changed as well, becoming crisper although still casual, and I could see the muscles rippling and expanding on his arms.

There was something on his white polo shirt that I couldn’t quite make out. Then I was able to see the embroidered shape of a gold eagle on the pocket. Underneath, I could see the words ‘Ovid High School Track Team.’ The expression on Andre’s face changed suddenly from one of panic and confusion to one of strength and confidence.

It wasn’t until the changes appeared to be complete that I began to realize my own body was changing as well and had been as Andre changed. I suddenly realized that Andre hadn’t gotten much taller. Instead, I had become shorter. And my body felt... different. It felt smaller, weaker, more... more...

...feminine.

I probably would have known right away that I was now female even if I hadn’t found myself in heels, nylons and a dress, but my suddenly feminine attire was like the exclamation mark at the end of a sentence. I could feel my heels slightly elevated and the extra pressure that put on my toes. I could feel the air moving over my legs and the strange sensation of sheer nylon against smooth legs. The skirt of my dress was so light it almost felt as if I was wearing nothing at all below my waist, and I felt suddenly exposed and vulnerable.

“So I’ll suspend the fine this time, Mrs. Cameron,” I heard the Judge speaking in an almost friendly Oklahoma drawl. “Try to drive a little more carefully next time.”

I jumped at the sound of his gavel, feeling the spring of hair around my ears and on the back of my neck. Then I felt an arm slip around my waist. I was too stunned to do anything about it. A male voice whispered in my ear, “You see, Julie, there was nothing to worry about.”

The Judge had left the bench. I honestly didn’t see him leave, but in any event, he was gone. So for that matter was Officer Mercer. I looked around, panicked. The blonde in the visitor’s gallery was just walking out of the courtroom, and my attorney was stuffing papers in her briefcase as she watched me out of the corner of her eye. I couldn’t help but think there was a little smile on her lips.

I slowly got away from the man’s arm and faced him. It was Andre–or perhaps I should say it was the man I had watched Andre turn into. There was no panic on his face as there had to have been on mine. He looked calm and collected, and his eyes were looking at me in a way that could only be described as intimate. I felt my new face flushing. Whatever had just happened was not what he thought had happened. To him, everything was obviously very normal.

Then a thought struck me. The attorney knew. Susan Jager was obviously part of what was going on. I had to talk to her–alone–before she left me with this man who had been Andre.

“Uh...” I began, hearing for the first time the sweet, feminine voice that was now mine, “would you excuse me for a minute? I need to talk to... Susan.”

“Sure!” he replied brightly. “I’ll just go use the restroom. Then I’ll take you to lunch to celebrate your brilliant victory in court and get you back to work before Cassie gets upset with you.”

He might as well have been speaking in the strange foreign language the Judge had used for all the sense it made to me. Victory? Lunch? Cassie? What was going on?

As he left, Susan Jager looked up at me. The smile was still on her face, but it was a smile of amusement. Her eyes spoke of sympathy for what I was going through.

“What happened?” I asked.

“You’re a girl,” she replied. Well, ask a stupid question...

“I know that, but why?” I asked through gritted teeth. “How? What do I need to do to change back?”

“I don’t know that he’ll be in the restroom long enough to answer all of those questions,” she replied, “but I’ll do my best. The why is because the Judge decided you should be a girl. Don’t feel too bad. My guess is that three quarters of the men who face him end up as girls.”

“There are others he’s done this to?” I wanted to know.

“Look, if you ask more questions, I’m never going to be able to answer your first batch.”

“Okay,” I agreed. “Just tell me how I get changed back.”

“You don’t.”

Now I knew how a bug felt when it hits a windshield. “What do you mean I don’t? I can’t be this. I’m not a girl.”

If I had been expecting sympathy, I would have been very, very disappointed. “You most certainly are a girl,” she said firmly. “And you’ll be one for the rest of your life. Look in your purse.” She nodded at a black leather purse that was resting in the seat I had recently occupied. “That will tell you who you are.”

With shaking hands, I picked up the purse. The feel of the leather on my smaller fingertips somehow made my new existence more real. I had a purse. Only women carry purses. Therefore...

“Here, let me help,” she said, a little more sympathetically as she saw me fumbling through the unfamiliar bag with my lengthened fingernails getting in the way. She pulled a large wallet out of the purse. Opening it, she told me, “Your name is Julie Cameron.”

Come to think of it, I knew that. The Judge had called me Mrs. Cameron and the man who had been Andre had called me Julie.

“You’re twenty-six years old,” she continued. “Judging from the wedding picture in here the man with you is your husband.”

“My what?” I screeched.

“Look, don’t freak out,” she advised with a soft touch of her hand on mine. “Remember, this is forever. You have no choice. Play along until you get used to it.”

That was easy for her to say. She had obviously been female her entire life. I wondered what she would think if she suddenly found herself turned into a man with a curvy blonde for a wife. I was on the verge of telling her that when the former Andre sauntered back into the room.

“You ready to go, Julie?” he called. “If we’re both going to have time for lunch, we need to get going.”

Before I had time to protest, he wrapped his arm around my small waist and gently ushered me to the door. I had only a moment for a backward glance at Susan Jager who was following my dilemma with a hint of a smile.

Play along, she had said. I supposed I had no choice for the moment. Andre was certainly doing a good job of that. He was acting as if there was nothing wrong in the world. I was beginning to feel as if I had been surrounded by madmen, and there was nothing to do about it but play along.

Playing along wasn’t the easiest thing in the world to do. My body had changed so radically that every move I made seemed to bring new, strange sensations. There was the movement of fairly long hair along my shoulders and the back of my neck. Then there was the feel of breasts bobbing up and down. Sure, they were secured in a bra, but that didn’t stop them from moving completely. As for the feel of a skirt and nylons, I nearly blushed from embarrassment. First, I was blushing because it was embarrassing to be wearing something so feminine, but I was also disturbed to find the feel of them against my new skin was actually fairly pleasant.

But the strangest part of those first few minutes was when we reached the hallway and I realized from the clicking sound from my shoes that I was wearing heels! I had noticed them when I was first transformed, but I had forgotten I was standing on them when Andre guided me out of the room. Oh, they weren’t terribly high, I noted as I looked down at them–no more than a couple of inches. I had probably worn some nearly as high while horseback riding since cowboy boots have a noticeable heel. But these heels were different. They were tiny little things, supporting a few straps of dark blue leather which matched the color of my skirt. And I was walking in them as if I had been wearing heels forever.

“How about The Greenhouse?” my ‘husband’ asked. Since I had no idea what The Greenhouse even was, I could only nod my head.

“Great!”

The Greenhouse turned out to be a small town version of the quiche, wine and salad restaurants that are found in all cities. I remembered a number of similar places in Washington, and even Baton Rouge had its share of them. This one was a little different, though, in that it wasn’t at all pretentious. The wait staff seemed genuinely friendly, and patrons greeted each other with a friendly nod. To my surprise, even my escort and I were greeted with a number of calls of “Hi, Jeff. Hi, Julie.”

Jeff. So that was Andre’s name now. I would have to remember that until we were alone. I nodded and smiled, returning a light “Hi” in my new voice. Of course, I had no idea who any of the other patrons were. To my surprise, though, ‘Jeff’ greeted them by name.

“Hi, Charles, Rachel,” he brightly greeted an attractive older couple. When I say older, I mean they were probably about my age–or at least the age I had been. Since according to my driver’s license, I was now all of twenty-six, a couple in their forties was now older to me. It was strange how my mind accepted that idea.

“Hi, Jeff, Julie,” the two of them returned brightly. Then the woman–an attractive blonde who looked ten years younger than I suspected she was–looked more closely at us. She seemed to be detecting something different about us, but her companion was oblivious, chatting amicably with ‘Jeff.’

The hostess had our table ready, so we said our goodbyes to Charles and Rachel and followed her to a corner table.

‘Jeff’ chatted about one thing and then another once we had ordered. In the relative seclusion of the corner, I tried to broach the subject of what we were going to do to get changed back, but he seemed oblivious to any such thoughts. Slowly as we sat there, I began to realize that while I remembered my previous life very clearly, Jeff had no idea that he had ever been anyone else.

I found that to be disturbing for many reasons. First, as much as I detested Andre, I had lost a potential ally in any effort to get changed back. If Andre remembered only being Jeff, there would be no hope in enlisting his help to get changed back. I was also upset at the thought that such power existed. The Judge had effectively destroyed a person, replacing him with another as simply as most people would change socks. And finally, I came to the horrible realization that if Jeff remembered only this life, then I would be expected to be his wife in every way–including sex. There was just no way I could have sex with a man–period.

I did manage to learn a fair amount about our new lives just chatting with Jeff over a chef’s salad. I learned that I was a librarian on a small college campus–someplace called Capta College. I had never heard of it, but I supposed there were a lot of small colleges I had never heard of.

Jeff was the Track and Field coach at Ovid High School where he also taught Political Science and a couple of other civics classes. And he was teaching some summer classes, although it appeared his hours were more flexible than mine. As we talked–with him doing most of the talking–I came more and more to the realization that he remembered nothing but his new life here.

I tried my best to do as Susan had suggested and just play along. I tried as best I could to be the sweet, loving wife. That didn’t mean I simpered and giggled, but when he put his hand on mine at one point in the conversation, I didn’t give in to my first impulse and pull it away. I smiled at his jokes, demurely thanked him for his complements, and generally tried to keep a little on the reserved side, but not to the point of causing him to suspect something was wrong.

Maybe when I figured out how I was going to get my real body back, I’d leave Andre as Jeff. After all, it was a fitting punishment. In a way, Andre was just as dead as he would have been if I hadn’t hesitated. I could quietly get the Judge to change me back and steal away, leaving Jeff confused and alone.

But all that lay in the future. For now, I reminded myself, I had to play the role of Julie Cameron, wife and librarian. I just hoped I wouldn’t have to play mother, too. Did Jeff and Julie have children? Oh God, I hoped not. It would be hard enough to figure out a way to escape without having a little rug rat trailing after me every free minute.

But as our lunch progressed, I began to realize that Ovid might present me with an unexpected assignment as well. As I watched the patrons eating, I could see that several of them–the majority in fact–were nearly transparent. I remembered reading once about a village in the old USSR where agents were trained in a setting resembling a small American town. Maybe that was what Ovid was, only maybe the nearly transparent people were some sort of alien race, bent on infiltrating our world. If so, it was my duty to learn whatever I could about the town and report back to my superiors.

But who would believe me? My name wasn’t Fox Mulder–or I suppose more appropriately now Dana Scully. What was I going to tell them anyway–that I had been arrested for loitering in a town that shouldn’t even be here, turned into a woman, and watched as the man I was assigned to follow was turned into my husband? After telling that story to my superiors, they’d send me someplace that made Baton Rouge look like New York City. No, come to think of it, they wouldn’t. After all, they wouldn’t even recognize me as Baxter Blaine. They’d just drop me off at the nearest loony bin.

Jeff looked at his watch. “Well, I suppose I’d better be getting you back to work.”

I was relieved. I knew I hadn’t exactly been holding up my end of the luncheon conversation, but how could I? I had no idea who I was now beyond my name. I didn’t even know what I looked like.

What did I look like anyway? Was I attractive? I know that was a completely feminine thought, but if I had to be stuck as a woman, I might as well be an attractive one. The wedding picture in my wallet was so small it was hard to tell. Come to think of it, just about everyone I had seen in Ovid was reasonably attractive. It was sort of like when you see a small town portrayed on a TV show. The residents always seem a little more attractive and a little better dressed than you might expect.

“Just a minute,” I told him on a sudden whim. “I want to go to the restroom.” Almost without thinking about it, I grabbed my purse and walked back to the restroom. I fully intended to spend a few private moments familiarizing myself with my new appearance and checking out the contents of my purse.

I was disappointed to find I wasn’t alone in the restroom. In front of the mirror, the older blonde Jeff had called Rachel was applying lipstick to her full lips. She saw me, put the lipstick back in her purse, and smiled. “Hi.”

“Hi,” I returned. Now I’d have to go into a stall to get some privacy. As for seeing myself, I’d have to settle for just a glance in the mirror. Should I do something about my lipstick, too? I knew I was wearing it; I could taste it. What was I supposed to do?

“Don’t mind me,” she said. “Go ahead and take a good look at yourself. Everybody does.”

“Ev... everybody?” I stammered.

“A lot of us used to be somebody else,” she laughed. “The changes all happen so quickly and we’re thrust into our new lives so fast that suddenly we realize we’ve been walking around for hours in our new roles and haven’t even seen what we look like.”

“You mean... I... Andre...?”

She laughed, “Well, I don’t know about this Andre. I assume that’s our new Jeff?”

I nodded stupidly.

“Yes. Most of the real people here used to be someone else–including me. I suppose you’ve noticed the transparent people?”

I nodded again. I was beginning to feel like one of those stupid dolls with the bobbing heads.

“They’re called shades. Nobody knows for sure what they really are. But just treat them like people. They’re as solid as you are and seem to think they’re really people. Maybe they are.”

I was listening to her, but I had also caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. At first, it was if I was looking at the image of another person, but as I realized the young woman in the mirror matched my movement precisely, I began to come to terms with who I had become. She–I–was attractive. Not beautiful, mind you, but attractive. My hair was still brown, but it was a shinier brown with highlights of red and even gold that gave it character. Maybe it was the length that emphasized its variety. My hair was shoulder length with just a bit of a curl to it.

The hair framed a face that was cute. There was no other word for it, really. My skin was fair, dusted with just a hint of freckles showing through the expertly-applied makeup. My eyes were blue as they had been when I was male, but they seemed somewhat deeper and more alluring, framed as they were by long lashes and separated by a small, almost delicate nose.

There were earrings on my ears. I hadn’t noticed the small gold hoops before, thinking it was just my hair brushing against my ears. My navy blue dress was short-sleeved and cut in a way to make the top look almost like a double-breasted jacket. Funny that I should mention double breasted. My dress wasn’t the only thing in the mirror that was. I had two prominent–but not overly large–breasts now.

“You’re very attractive,” Rachel told me.

Yes I was. I even looked just a bit like my old male self. More disturbingly, I looked just a little like my sister as well. The thought nearly brought a tear to my eye.

Rachel misunderstood my look of consternation. She placed her hands gently on my arms and said, “Don’t worry, dear. It isn’t all that bad. I know you’re new here and...”

“How do you know I’m new here?” I demanded, turning to face her. I was slightly shorter than she was, but I had no trouble staring her directly in the face.

She smiled, unruffled. “Well, any of us who remember who we were before would have noticed how uncomfortable you are with yourself. You were squirming about at your table as if your panties were riding up uncomfortably...”

I had to nod. She was absolutely right. The panties felt as if they should have cut right through my crotch, but there was nothing there for them to cut. It’s funny, but I had never been terribly aware of my dick and balls being there as a man, but as a woman, I was acutely aware of their absence.

“And I noticed you didn’t recognize me when you came in. I’ve known Jeff and Julie Cameron ever since I came to Ovid, so there’s that. And the most obvious reason is that neither of you are shades.”

“You mean Julie Cameron was one of those transparent people?”

“And Jeff,” she confirmed. “That’s often the way it is. The shades are placeholders until the Judge transforms someone into that life.”

“But why?” I pressed. She laughed, “That’s the big question. No one seems to know–or if they do, they aren’t telling.” She reached in her purse and pulled out a card and a pen. She deftly wrote something on the back of the card in neat, feminine style and handed it to me. “We need to get back out there or our husbands will think we’ve fallen in. I’ve written my home number there. Call me once you’ve gotten settled in. I’ll do what I can to help you.”

She started out the door, then turned. “And by the way, I’m having a coffee at my house Saturday. Since Charles and Jeff usually play golf then, you should join us. It will give you a chance to meet some of the other women–although I should warn you, many of them are like your Jeff and have no idea they were ever anyone else. And they will all think they already know you. So you need to act the part you’ve been given and you’ll do fine. Just go with the flow.”

She left me there with the card in my hand wondering just how many others there were in Ovid like me and how many were like Andre–or Jeff as I had to think of him now.

Jeff was waiting patiently for me when I got back to the table. If I had taken too long, he didn’t comment. I suppose husbands get themselves in trouble for complaining about how long their wives are in the restroom.

We walked back to the city building where Jeff had parked. Once in the car, Jeff seemed to know just where he was going. I looked around, trying to memorize landmarks and street names so I could get around on my own. It was difficult to do, though, because I found myself watching the people on the streets as well. The majority were shades, it seemed, but there were a fair number of real people as well. Each of them must have met the Judge at one time or another, I thought to myself. Yet none of them appeared alarmed at their existence. I wondered how many of them were like me or Rachel and remembered a previous life. Very few, I suspected, or they would have stormed the courtroom and demanded to have their real lives back. Even the Judge couldn’t have stood his ground against a determined mob, I imagined.

Soon–for it was a small town–we were driving through a college campus. It was an attractive place, not unlike many of the small liberal arts colleges I had seen back East. The buildings were for the most part old and stately if smaller than the ones I was used to. A few students probably taking a light summer load of classes strolled contentedly along the tree-lined walkways. I heard a bell ringing ponderously from a stone clock tower.

“We just made it,” Jeff said proudly, coming to a stop in front of a building larger than most. It was an older building, dating back I would have to guess to the twenties, with columns on either side of the doors and high arched windows along the front of the building. Cut above the columns, the words Homer Memorial Library could be seen. Compared to college libraries I was familiar with, it was fairly small, but this Capta College didn’t look to have a very large student body.

As I hustled to get out of the car, Jeff leaned over, and before I realized what he was doing, he planted a warm kiss on my lips. It’s a good thing he closed his eyes, or he would have noticed that mine were as wide as dinner plates. As quickly as I could recover, I broke off the kiss. When he opened his eyes in disappointment, I managed a weak smile. “Now I’m late.”

He grinned. “I’ll pick you up at five.”

Oh joy, I thought. Something to look forward to. I’d be going home with a man who was now my husband but who used to be my worst enemy–and before that he had been my brother-in-law and my best friend. I had to find a way out of Ovid as quickly as possible.

But that wasn’t going to be easy, I thought grimly. I was stuck as a young woman–a librarian apparently with a husband and no car. Why didn’t the Judge just lock me in jail and throw away the key? Until I could find a way to get my real life back and get out of Ovid, I’d have to take the advice I had been given. Go with the flow, I thought as I slowly walked up the steps to the library, being extra cautious in my heels. Going with the flow was what Rachel had said. And Susan had advised me to act the part I had been given, I recalled as I pushed open the large oak and glass door.

I gasped a little when I stepped in the library. It was rather old fashioned in design, but the workmanship would have put some of the well-known public buildings in Washington to shame. Parquet flooring, polished to a high shine was evident, and the checkout counter looked to be made of hand-shaped mahogany. Marble trim was on the walls, and the paintings hung all about looked as if they should be in the National Gallery. Oh, there were computers on the checkout counter, and modern lighting gave the entire room a warm but efficient look. But take away those features and the room might have been in an important public building at the turn of the last century.

“Oh, there you are, Julie!” a bright, feminine voice called out to me. I turned to see a petite blonde woman, about the age I now was. She was dressed in a knee length shirt dress of a soft yellow which complemented her hair perfectly. She was also one of the prettiest girls I had ever seen. I longed to be male again just so I could ask her on the spot to be my wife. She smiled as me. “Mom was looking for you a few minutes ago. I covered for you and told her you were in the ladies room.”

Okay, I was willing to act the part, go with the flow, and all of that nonsense, but before I played the game, it would have been helpful to know the rules. For example, who was this little slip of a girl and why should I care if her mother was looking for me or not? Before I could think of a way to find out that information, a voice barked out at me, “Oh, there you are, Julie. We have a new shipment in and I need you to catalogue and shelve them this afternoon.”

The woman hadn’t even waited until I turned to face her to give me my marching orders, but there was no doubt that this woman was my boss. She was a little severe in appearance, but not unattractive. She wore a conservative but feminine white blouse and a gray below-the-knee skirt. I estimated her age to be near fifty, but her skin was unwrinkled and her brown hair had only a hint of gray. Of course, it was hard to tell with the hair since it was tied into a tight bun. She wore sensible shoes–black loafers with almost no trace of a heel. In short, she looked strictly business.

“Where’s your nametag?” she asked brusquely. I looked at where her nametag should be and it was there: Minnie Musgrave it read with Librarian written in smaller letters under it.

Before I could think of an answer, the blonde covered for me. “Oh, Mother, you know she was in court this morning. You don’t expect her to wear her nametag in court, do you?”

The older woman grunted in response. “You’d better get going on those books, Julie. There’s quite a few of them.”

With that, she left me standing there. The blonde giggled, then looked around to make sure no one was nearby. She took my hand. “Come on, I’ll help you. You’ll get used to Mother after a while.”

Oh wonderful. That meant this little blonde–Callie Musgrave, her nametag said–knew all about me, too. Did everyone except the man who was supposed to be my husband know I had just been transformed into Julie Cameron?

She led me to a well-lit office where several boxes of books were stacked next to a desk. “Let’s get started,” she said.

“Wait a minute. I suppose you used to be somebody else, too. Is that right?” I asked.

There was that sweet smile again. “Not exactly. But I know you used to be someone else. An FBI agent, wasn’t it? How exciting. I’ve read so much on that organization. It’s a shame about what happened to you, though.”

“Wait a minute. What do you mean by that? And why do you know so much about me?”

“I’ll tell you what,” she offered, using a letter opener to break the tape on the top box. “As soon as we’ve catalogued all these books Mother told you to do, I’ll answer some questions for you.”

“The questions I just asked?”

She looked so demure. “Maybe. Maybe some other questions will pop up. Now, shall we do these books?”

I sighed. “Okay. Here, let me lift this box on the desk.”

She seemed amused by my offer. I put my arms around the box. It was a lot wider than I realized, I thought. Then I remembered that my arms weren’t as long as they had been. Then came the next surprise. I tried to lift the box and it didn’t even budge.

Callie actually giggled. “Heavy, isn’t it?”

“You want to give me a hand?”

“Only a man would try to move the whole box,” she laughed. “We’ll just take a few out at a time. I’m not going to strain myself trying to lift that.”

I straightened up. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”

“You’re funny,” she snickered.

I wasn’t trying to be funny, but I didn’t tell her that. She would probably have rolled on the floor laughing if I had. I gave another sigh and pulled out a couple of the books. So at least now I knew what the expression ‘weak as a girl’ really meant. I didn’t feel weak, and as a girl, I was probably in pretty decent shape. But this body simply was not designed for lifting heavy objects.

With Callie’s help, cataloguing the books was an easy task. The page in each book containing publishing information told us exactly what the classification of each book was. Or at least that was true on the newer books. A couple of the boxes contained very old books–some nearly a hundred years old. Fortunately most of those were put in a separate pile. “Mother goes through those herself,” Callie explained.

Once we had entered them into the system, the computer spit out neat labels to be attached to the spine of each book. We must have catalogued over a hundred books, I realized, and that didn’t include another twenty or so we had set aside for Millie Musgrave.

Looking at Callie, it was hard to believe she was Millie Musgrave’s daughter. I suppose there was some family resemblance when I really thought about it. I’m sure Millie was more attractive when she was younger, but Callie just didn’t seem imposing enough to be her daughter. And where Millie was all business, her daughter chatted as we worked, telling me several valuable facts about Ovid.

As an agent–or I suppose I had to consider myself a former agent by now–I knew that often the best way to get valuable information was to just shut up and listen. As long as the other person wanted to talk, you couldn’t help but learn something. I learned Ovid was a small but prosperous town of a little less than fifteen thousand. It had a thriving local economy, consisting of a solid base in agriculture as well as a small but growing high tech manufacturing firm that held some important government contracts as well as providing parts for the auto industry. That, of course, was Vulman Industries.

Callie spoke of a number of people, but no one I was familiar with. It was obvious to me though that Callie and her mother represented yet another caste in Ovid. There were shades and there were transformees like me and Jeff. I suppose a case could be made that even Jeff and I were of different castes since I remembered my real life and he didn’t. But Callie and her mother were something else. They seemed to know things the rest of us in Ovid didn’t. The Judge and his henchman, Officer Mercer, were certainly of that caste. Maybe Susan Jager was one of them as well; I wasn’t certain. And maybe–just maybe–I could learn enough from Callie to figure a way back to my real life and out of Ovid.

At last I broke in, “Callie, you seem to know about just about everyone here in Ovid. What can you tell me about the Judge?”

She smiled enigmatically. “I suppose I could tell you quite a bit–if I wanted to.”

“So tell me.”

“I don’t want to,” she laughed. “Besides, Father doesn’t like it when I tell too much about him. He says it spoils everything when I do.”

“Father?”

She put her hand in front of her mouth and looked suddenly sheepish. “Oops! I really didn’t mean to tell you that.”

“So it’s Judge Musgrave?” I pressed.

“Oh Julie, you’re so funny!” she chortled. “No, Mother and Father aren’t married. They never have been. Father... well, let’s just say that when he was younger, he was something of a rake. And Mother wasn’t quite as prudish either.”

I tried to imagine the stern, distinguished figure who had looked down at me from the bench as a rake. The image didn’t fit. But Callie looked to be about my age, so presumably he had sired her a number of years ago. Of course I had no idea at the time just how many years ago that really must have been.

“You’re not like your parents,” I blurted out.

She gave me her first frown. “What do you mean?”

“Oh...” I began, stalling to recover, “...I just mean they both seem so serious and businesslike. You seem to be more... fun.”

The laugh was back. “I suppose I am. Mother says I live in a fantasy world. Perhaps I do, but it’s a nice place to live. Besides, what could be a bigger fantasy world than Ovid?”

“Just what is Ovid all about?” I asked. I hoped the question was casual that she would actually answer it.

“It’s about fifteen thousand. I already told you that–remember?” It was said with mock seriousness. She knew exactly what I had meant but was obviously not going to give me a straight answer.

“Are you finished?” A voice asked sternly from behind me. It was Minnie–or Ms. Musgrave as I learned she preferred to be called.

“Just finished,” I told her.

She looked at me sceptically. “I know you’re new here, Julie, in spite of what most of the staff thinks. Are you sure you did it right?”

“I helped her, Mother,” Callie chimed in. “A little inspiration was called for.”

Her mother looked us both over carefully and then nodded. “I suppose it’s all right then,” she said at last. Then she nodded at the books we had not placed in the cart to shelve. “Are these my books?”

“Yes, Mother,” Callie told her.

Her look softened. “Not bad for the first day, Julie.”

She left with that comment. I actually flushed with some pride, for I had a distinct feeling that her praise–faint as it was–would be rare. Callie’s nod of approval as her mother left was verification of my feeling.

Callie left me to shelve the books by myself. I was grateful for the time, for it was the first time I had entirely to myself since I was changed. For the first time, I didn’t have to pretend to be Julie Cameron. Of course not that that did me a lot of good. I wasn’t pretending to be Julie Cameron when I had to get a little ladder to reach the higher shelves–shelves I would have had no trouble reaching in my male body. And I wasn’t pretending to be Julie when I had do brush the longish hair out of my face a couple of times. And I certainly wasn’t pretending when I dropped a book and realized that if I picked it up as I would have as a man, I would be exposing things I didn’t want exposed.

So in short, the time I spent shelving books by myself did nothing to make me feel like my old self again. I was without a doubt a woman–a married woman–and I was going to have to continue to be one until I could get back before the Judge. I had never felt so powerless in my entire life. I had no option but to be who I seemed to be for the moment.

I found out I got off at five, but I wasn’t looking forward to it. Callie had helped me a lot on my first day on the job–and as a woman. As I murmured my goodbyes at the end of the day, I felt as if I was on my way to my own execution. There waiting for me in front of the library was Jeff–my husband. What was expected of me now? Would we go by day care and pick up two squealing children? I didn’t think so. There were no pictures of children in my wallet, and what sort of a mother would I be if I didn’t have pictures of my children? Would I be expected to fix him dinner? I could do that if I had to. As a life-long bachelor, I had developed fairly good cooking skills.

But what about later? After a nice meal and a pleasant evening of watching television, would Jeff suddenly decide to cap off the evening with a little romp in the hay? I shuddered. There was no way I was going to spread these newly-feminized legs for any man–and certainly not for my worst enemy, even if he didn’t remember who he had been.

I was careful to slide into the car seat without exposing myself to several young college boys. They were a bit disappointed, I think. But I had been so worried about what they might see that I wasn’t able to avoid Jeff’s sudden kiss. I hadn’t a gay bone in my body, and other than my father, I had never kissed a man in my life–and certainly not on the lips. It was a strange feeling, but even more oddly, not an unpleasant one. His breath was clean and fresh and his lips firm. Were it not for the slight hint of stubble around his lips, I might have imagined myself back in my old body kissing a woman.

“How was your day?”

“Fine. Yours?”

“Fine.”

Okay, so we got past that part. “You seem tired,” he commented as he drove to wherever we now called home.

“A little,” I agreed. Good, he was giving me the excuse I would need to avoid anything romantic. Yes, I was tired. I just didn’t feel like sex. Now how could I convince him I was tired until I could figure out how to escape Ovid with my old life intact?

“No problem,” he said with a smile as we pulled into the parking lot of a new but fairly small apartment complex. “I’ll cook tonight.”

I left him in the kitchen while I checked out our new digs. The apartment was small and modest with no sign (thank God) of children. In such a small place, I had no problem finding the bedroom we shared. I glanced around, trying to avoid looking at the bed. But I did note that it was a queen size. At least I would be able to have some personal space which a double bed would have limited. I stripped out of my good clothes and got my first good look at my new body. I was svelte but not exactly model thin. My body looked as if it had been well-cared for. Hips, breasts and waist were appropriately feminine, and my legs had the subtle definition of an active lifestyle. I was well tanned, and the tan lines indicated my new body spent a fair amount of time in a two-piece bathing suit. In short, I was the poster child for attractive young professional women of the new century–just the sort who makes an ideal wife and mother. Of course, I had no intention of being either of those. I might already be a wife, but I sure wasn’t going to be an ideal one. And as for being a mother... I could only shudder at the disturbing thought.

I changed into a yellow T-shirt and denim shorts. I would have preferred something more like jeans to the unintentionally sexy shorts, but it had been a warm day and the air conditioning hadn’t cooled the apartment sufficiently for jeans. At least I opted for low-cut socks and sneakers rather than sandals. I thought all the sandals were too feminine and made my legs look too sexy. The last thing I wanted to parade in front of Jeff was a pair of sexy legs.

I had to admit wonderful smells were coming from the kitchen. It took me back to the days when Andre and I roomed together at Georgetown. Andre had always been an excellent cook, the result he once told me of having an uncle who ran a fine restaurant in New York. Of course, like Andre, Jeff had gone a little overboard. Finely seasoned vegetables simmered in a wok with small, thin strips of pre-cooked chicken mixed in with them while rice simmered on the stove. The table was already set, complete with a chilled bottle of white wine resting in a silver bucket.

“Isn’t all this just a little elaborate?” I asked him, amused in spite of myself.

“But it’s the day before our first anniversary,” he explained sending a chill through my body. “What sort of a husband would I be if I didn’t treat you to a fine meal on the eve of the day?”

Anniversary?

Oh... my... God...

“By the way, our reservations at Winston’s are at seven tomorrow,” Jeff went on. “I know you said you had an appointment at the beauty shop right after work. Go ahead and take the car; I can get a ride.”

I wasn’t going to have to pretend to have a headache to avoid sex; I was really getting one. Dear God, I was practically a newlywed! I was apparently the distaff side of a young, struggling couple (as indicated by the small apartment and single car) who would be spending some of my hard-earned money on a trip to a beauty salon to look good for a big night out. I had to get out of this situation–and fast. But what was I to do?

I suppose I could have made a run for the door, taken the car, and driven as fast out of Ovid as I could. It was tempting. But what would I do even if I got away? I’d still be Julie Cameron, whoever she was. I couldn’t very well go to the Bureau and claim to be Baxter Blaine. They’d lock me away at the nearest funny farm. Besides, I wasn’t even sure I could get away. I was in a town that didn’t even appear on the map, transformed by a local magistrate who had powers the nature of which I couldn’t even imagine. Beings with powers like that probably protected the privacy of Ovid somehow. I wouldn’t have been at all surprised if driving out of town wasn’t even possible.

I ate in relative silence, letting Jeff do most of the talking. He actually reminded me a lot of Andre; he was glib and knew how to make his narratives interesting. I found myself listening to his stories in spite of myself and even commenting a few times. Then, it was apparently my turn.

“So how did your day go?”

Married friends of mine had often remarked that one of the most effective ways of communicating they had found was to relate their experiences at work to their spouses. It had come up in conversation at the Bureau because many of them complained the somewhat secretive nature of their work made such communication difficult. But I supposed there was nothing to prevent me from relating my experiences at the college library that day.

I found as I told him about my day that it actually seemed normal. We had gotten in new books, I had catalogued them and shelved them, and I had talked with Callie. It was all mundane but strangely satisfying, as if the tedious work had merit. When I thought about it, it wasn’t as tedious as a stakeout, and as for the merit, young minds would be able to find and use the knowledge I had shelved, so I suppose it did have merit at that.

I offered to clean up the dishes, but Jeff waived me off. “You look tired,” he explained. “Why don’t you take your wine in the living room and relax? You can watch that video you wanted to see. It’s in the VCR.”

I had no idea what he was talking about, but I wasn’t about to argue. The couple of glasses of wine I had enjoyed had mellowed me out. Why not watch something and trundle off to bed? Tomorrow would be soon enough to get out of my predicament, I thought.

The movie was pretty lightweight. It was a Drew Barrymore picture called Never Been Kissed. But as light as it was, it was instructive, too. There she was, a grown woman pretending to be a high school student. I imagined that there were a few just like her here in Ovid–grown women who were now having to pose as high school students.

Jeff joined me on the couch and we watched together. He put an arm around me, but that was it. I felt I had no choice but to snuggle up against him. It would have been a little odd for him if I hadn’t. And I suppose I have to admit that his touch seemed strangely comforting. Here I was, the proverbial stranger in a strange land. I needed someone to give me some support and reassurance that everything was going to be all right. Although I was sure Jeff had no idea why I would have been concerned, his presence helped.

We both were tired when the movie ended, so he didn’t try any funny business. Together we made our way to the bedroom. But if I had felt vulnerable before, being in bed with Jeff made me feel even more so. There I was, lying in bed with nothing but a thin sheet and a thinner set of shortie pajamas between me and Jeff. I had terrible visions of his suddenly getting interested and tearing back the sheet to expose my slim body. What could I do if he did? Oh sure, I could always tell him no, but if he really wanted to force himself on me, I was powerless.

Was this what married women put up with every night? I wondered. As a single male, I had bedded a number of women, but it was by mutual consent. If she said no, nothing happened. On the rare occasions I said no, nothing happened either. But a married woman went to bed with her husband every night. The only question was what would happen once they were there. And if the woman said no, what happened then? I supposed with the right sort of man, nothing happened. But was Jeff the right sort of man? I had no way of knowing, did I?

“Good night,” he said, bending over to kiss me. It was a gentle but loving kiss. I even returned it, grateful that he wasn’t going to force anything further. But as I lay there in the dark, I remembered that the next day was supposed to be my anniversary. I would have no choice then, for what sort of a woman would deny her husband a night of lovemaking on their first anniversary. It was imperative that I find a way back to my old life and out of Ovid as soon as the next day came.

“Coffee’s on!”

Those were the first two words I heard when I woke the next morning. I couldn’t imagine who was in my apartment. Then I turned over in bed, feeling my breasts shifting on my chest and it all came back to me. I was a woman. I was Julie Cameron, woman, librarian, and... wife. Shit.

“I’ve got to go in early,” Jeff told me as he munched on a Pop Tart at the foot of our (our!) bed. “Don is picking me up.”

I nodded, a clump of hair falling in my face as I did so. I’d have to do something about that hair–either cut it or constrain it at night. And who the hell was Don? Shit.

“Car keys are on the kitchen table,” he explained, leaning over to give me an unexpected kiss as he spread Pop Tart crumbs over the top of my breasts. Shit. Shit. Shit.

“Happy anniversary,” he called out so cheerfully that I was very sorry now I hadn’t succeeded in killing him.

With a sigh, I managed to get up out of bed. I hadn’t been looking forward to trying to get ready for the day as a girl. The day before, I had been transformed with makeup and hair in place. Now, I had to take care of that myself, and I had no idea how to do it.

It’s probably fortunate that I was so tired. It allowed me to learn something interesting about my transformed existence that no one had bothered to tell me the day before. It really happened as I was standing in the shower. Still half-asleep, I grabbed a razor and after I had soaped my legs and under my arms, I began to shave them as if I had been doing it my entire life. With a start, I pulled the razor away as I realized what I was doing. It had been so natural–as if it was merely a familiar routine.

I decided to experiment. I closed my eyes as the water droned down on me and went into a relaxed state. As I did, my hand took the razor and gently scraped away the stubble under one arm and then the other. Then came the shampoo and conditioner which I liberally applied to my longish hair. I worked it in with my fingers without a thought, then rinsed thoroughly.

The entire morning routine went that way–wiping after using the john, drying and combing my hair, and even doing my makeup. When I came back to full consciousness, I was fastening the last button on the silky cream-colored blouse I had chosen to go with my tan skirt. I stepped back and looked at myself in the mirror, realizing as I did so that I was much more secure in my heels than I had been the day before.

So Ovid’s magic could make me fit in, I thought. That was both good and bad. Just how far would that magic go to see that I fit in? Was there a possibility that I would become like Jeff, unaware that I had ever had a different life from the one I was now experiencing? If so, the price was far too large to pay. But no, I realized, that wasn’t likely. More than likely the help I had been given was more along the nature of training wheels on a bike. It would go away when I no longer needed it. That is, when I had been fully assimilated. The need to see the Judge before that happened became even more obvious.

But at least it was nice to leave the apartment confident that I looked normal–for a girl, that is. I didn’t feel as if I was some sort of freak. If I wanted to, I could just do what had been suggested to me and let things happen. In no time, I’d be a spunky, happy Julie Cameron. Sorry, but that just wasn’t going to happen. Not if I had anything to say about it.

Fortunately, Ovid was small enough I had no problem retracing my route to the library. The only problem was driving as a woman. Given my smaller stature, it was harder to see well out of the car windows. Even though I was used to a car larger than the small Dodge I was now driving, it seemed somehow bigger than it should be. And to make matters worse, what moron designed the seat belt in cars so that it would cut into a woman’s breasts? The Judge should find that idiot and change him into a big-busted girl just to see how well she could drive wearing her own invention.

Callie was at the checkout desk when I got in. That surprised me. I had already learned that most of the time students were on the desk. She wasn’t busy, and I called out, “Hi, Callie.”

She gave me a funny look. Then, she seemed to understand. She motioned me over. “Hi, you must be Julie.” She held out her hand.

Now it was my turn to be confused. Had Callie’s memory been stolen from her over night? Did that sort of thing happen often in Ovid? She saw my confusion. “Oh, I’m sorry, Julie. I forgot to mention, I’m not Callie. I’m Erin–Callie’s sister.”

This time I took the hand. “You’re twins?”

She gave me an enigmatic smile. “No, not exactly twins...”

Before I could ask what she meant, a student stepped up to the desk to check out some books. I turned and looked at her to get my next shock of the morning. The student looked just like Erin–and Callie.

“See you later, Terry,” Erin called to the student as she gathered up her books and left. She then turned back to me. “Sorry about that. Look, Julie, I know this is all a little confusing...”

“Confusing?” I repeated, looking around to make sure there was no one else to hear. “What could be confusing? I’ve had my sex changed, watched my worst enemy become my husband, seen transparent people running around a town that shouldn’t be here, and now I find out my only new friend in this upside down place is–what–a triplet? Why in heaven’s name should I be confused?”

Erin laughed, “I see your point, but I’ll make it worse for you. I’m not a triplet either. There are nine of us.”

I had thought Callie and her mother might be part of whatever strange forces were behind Ovid, but I had never expected anything like this. “And you all look alike?” I managed to ask.

She nodded. “To some people we look alike. Most don’t really notice. They’d never guess us to be sisters.”

“Erin,” I blurted out, “just what is going on around here?”

She looked at me with sympathy. “Oh you poor thing, I know it’s hard for you. It’s always hard for newcomers. Tell me, have you ever read any poetry?”

It seemed like an odd question to come back with, so I stupidly shook my head.

“I didn’t think so. It’s so sad really that the world has gotten so wrapped up in technology and all that when there is so much else to learn and enjoy. Here.” She pulled a thick volume from under the desk and handed it to me. “Mother is busy over at the president’s office this morning. Why don’t you take this back in the stacks and read it? It might help.”

All I could do is mutter my thanks and head back for the stacks. Although Erin had simply made a suggestion to me, it just seemed like the right thing to do. I looked down at the book as I walked. The author’s name was Ovid...

Like many of my generation, classical literature was something to be avoided. Give me a good Tom Clancy thriller or the like. About as close as I came to classical literature was reading a James Bond novel. Oh sure, I had heard of Ovid. If I really searched my memory, I could remember him being named along with Plutarch and Lucius and a dozen other Roman writers. But I had no idea what men like Ovid had actually written.

Until now.

Without Erin’s help, I don’t know how long it would have taken me to figure out what was going on in Ovid. One might think because I was an FBI agent that my superior powers of reasoning and deduction would have helped me determine the divine influences behind Ovid. Actually, being an agent was probably more of a hindrance than a help. Most agents are determined, dogmatic individuals who can spend months or even years collecting and evaluating evidence. Something like Ovid was so obvious but unbelievable that most agents would have tripped all over the answers without realizing what they were.

As impossible as it seemed, I was in a town run by the gods of Greek and Roman myths. No one seemed to be too concerned about how I was spending my morning, so I had time to explore the library. I had laid down the copy of Ovid’s Metamorphosis and gone into the stacks to find a primer on mythology. I settled on a couple of the easier works–something by Graves and another by Hamilton. They were enlightening. It didn’t take long to recognize the omnipotent power of Jupiter in the Judge, or the prowess of Mercury in Officer Mercer. I couldn’t find any god that had the attributes of Susan Jager. Maybe I had been wrong about her.

But as for Erin and Callie and their seven other sisters, I had no doubts as to their identity. They were the Muses. Calliope and Erato I knew as Callie and Erin. The student Erin had called Terry had to be Terpsichore. I wouldn’t have been surprised to meet their six other sisters–Clio, Polyhymnia, Euterpe, Mepomene, Thalia, and Urania–on or around the campus. What better place for Muses to be than a college campus? And then there was Minnie. She was their mother, so she had to be Mnemosyne, the personification of memory. And then there was their father...

Jupiter.

The Judge.

All right, I thought as I put the book aside, I now knew who was behind Ovid but I had no idea why. What possible reason was there for the gods of the ancient world to gather in a small town in Oklahoma? And why did they bother to collect humans? And was there any method to the way they collected humans?

As far as the last question, I had developed a theory. Officer Mercer appeared on the scene just as I had been about to kill Andre. Maybe Andre became fair game when his life would have otherwise ended. But what about me? I hadn’t been about to die. Or had I?

Then it came to me and a queasy feeling settled in my stomach. The warehouse. A gunfight had erupted there right after I left the stakeout. What if I had been there? And who had pulled me out of there? I had a sudden mental picture of Admiral Nepper. Nepper–that was an odd name. Neptune perhaps? Maybe not all of the gods had settled in Ovid.

“So now you know.”

I spun around and saw Erin–no, it was Callie. Erin had been wearing jeans and this girl was in a long brown skirt. I looked back at the small stack of books on the table in front of me. “Yes, I know,” I admitted. “The Judge is really J... J...” I nearly panicked as my throat seemed to lock up.

“Don’t try to say it,” she advised. “It’s forbidden. But I know what you mean to say, and you’re correct. And I assume you know about me and my sisters.”

“Yes, you’re... I don’t even know the word for it. Nontuplets?”

She laughed, “I’m not even sure there is a proper word for it. But we aren’t that anyway. We were conceived over nine consecutive days and born that day. And don’t bother to ask how that’s possible. I probably couldn’t tell you even if I knew. Besides, that’s ancient history.”

“But what’s this all about?” I asked her. “Why Ovid? Why have you done this to me–to us?”

“Oh Julie, I know it’s hard for you,” she said, sitting down beside me. “It’s hard for all of you. Sometimes I think the ones who lose all their old memories are the lucky ones. But I couldn’t tell you why this is happening even if I knew.”

“You... you don’t know?”

“How much do you know about Roman mythology?” she asked.

“Just what I’ve read today,” I told her. “That and a few stories I remember from my childhood.”

“Well, then let me explain how it all works. There’s a definite pecking order among us. Only a handful know all the answers.”

“Gods like Jupiter,” I said. “Hey! I could say it!”

She nodded. “That’s because you were speaking of Jupiter in the mythological sense and not as how he might relate to Ovid. It can be something of a loophole.”

“So what are the rest of the rules?” I asked, not wanting to choke up like I had moments before.

“They’re fairly simple,” she told me. “Don’t try to carry on a conversation like this with more than one person. Don’t try to mention any of our identities out loud. Other than that, just live your life.”

“But I don’t want this life,” I muttered. “I want my real life back. Will Ju... the Judge change me back?”

“He never has changed anyone back,” she replied. Then more ominously, she added, “But he has made further changes upon occasion.”

“I don’t belong here,” I muttered, trying not to think what ‘further’ changes might entail. As much as I disliked being Julie Cameron, I was bright enough to realize there were worse potential fates.

“You don’t think so now, but you’ll fit in before you know it.”

“I’m getting real tired of hearing that!” I snapped. “Everyone says go with the flow and play the part and fit in. Maybe if the Judge had made me a police officer–a male police officer–but not like... like this!”

“So go see the Judge,” Callie advised. “Find out for yourself. I’ll cover for you until you get back.”

She didn’t have to offer a second time. With a muffled thanks, I grabbed my purse and shot out of the room.

It was midmorning and my route took me right through downtown Ovid. I had to admit Ovid was... comfortable. I had grown up in cities and had always thought of small towns as a place for hicks. But Ovid wasn’t like that. It was like a city–just smaller. And safer, I imagined. I was willing to bet no one feared to walk anywhere on the streets of Ovid day or night. And the friendly greetings everyone seemed to give passersby were an indication that there were no strangers in Ovid. Or if there were, they didn’t stay strangers long.

I was stopped at a traffic light when I saw Jeff. It was unexpected so I didn’t have a chance to honk and wave at him, and he didn’t see me. He was just coming out of a little computer shop next to the bank. I had thought he was at the high school, but some errand had apparently taken him downtown. Well, I would ask him about it later.

I began to get butterflies in my stomach as I got out of the car in front of City Hall. It was one thing to try to beard a magistrate–even a magical one–in his own den. It was quite another thing to attempt that with the ruler of the gods. But I had no choice. If I didn’t do this, I would be trapped forever. I was facing my anniversary night as well, so if I was to avoid being a wife in deed as well as name, I would have to do it now.

I was surprised to see the blonde I had noticed in court sitting at a terminal outside the Judge’s office. I wondered for a moment if she was a god as well. She looked up at me with a pleasant smile. “Hi, Julie, how are things going?”

It was such a friendly question I didn’t quite know what to say. I was used to a world where secretaries were guardians at the gate, protecting their bosses with a cold “Yes, can I help you?” coupled with a Medusan stare. “I... I’d like to see the Judge.”

I had expected her to tell me to buzz off, but instead, she continued to smile and said, “Sure. He’ll be with you in just a minute.”

“Uh... how do you know that?”

She laughed and pointed at her computer screen where large letters declared, “TELL JULIE I’LL BE WITH HER IN JUST A MINUTE.”

“The Judge is trying to become more computer literate,” she explained. “We had a little problem a few weeks ago that involved computers, so the Judge decided he needed to understand them better. I get messages like this all the time now. Of course, he doesn’t bother to use a keyboard but I guess everyone learns in their own way. I’m Cindy Patton, by the way.”

She held out a slim hand to me. I shook it and was pleased to note her handshake was as firm as a man’s.

“So how do you like Ovid so far?”

“It’s okay,” I said as noncommittally as I could. “I just...”

When my voice trailed off, Cindy nodded with a knowing smile. “It’s hard to play the role of wife, isn’t it? I know I had trouble with it when I first got here.”

So she wasn’t one of the gods. “It’s almost impossible,” I murmured, thinking as I did that unless I was able to plead with the Judge for the return of my old life, I would be in real trouble about the time Jeff and I got home to celebrate ‘our’ anniversary.

Cindy took my hand in hers. “Look, Julie, don’t worry about it. Just relax and let it happen...”

Go with the flow. Play the part. Try to fit in. Relax and let it happen. Everyone seemed to have exactly the same advice for me. Why didn’t anyone tell me to run like hell and try to get away before I had to spread my legs and... and...

“Oh! He’s ready for you now.”

I tried to smile. “Thanks, Cindy.”

“Any time.”

The Judge’s office was not exactly what I expected. I had figured if there was one place the king of the gods might let down his hair, it was in his private office. Maybe there would be a lightning bolt on the wall and a picture of him and Mars touring the battlefields of the Peloponnesian War or something. Instead, it just looked like the typical office of any small town judge in the country. Comfortable leather chairs were set in front of a large but timeworn desk of dark oak. There were pictures and diplomas on the wall, but they were of a mundane variety. One picture I noticed showed the Judge shaking hands with an individual I recognized as a former US Attorney General.

“Ah, Mrs. Cameron, please sit down,” he said pleasantly, motioning me to one of the leather chairs.

It all seemed so mundane that I had to remind myself that I was in the presence of a god. I primly sat, smoothing my skirt in a gesture so feminine I’m sure it was not lost on the Judge.

He folded his hands and leaned forward, speaking in a soft yet somehow commanding Oklahoma accent. “Now, what can I do for you today, Mrs. Cameron?” It was as if we were old friends–or at least acquaintances. He was treating me as if I had always been a woman. I suppose that was better than a lot of responses. He could have laughed and pointed at my obvious discomfiture at being a woman.

“I... I know who you are,” I began.

He gave me a small but patronizing smile. “Yes?”

“Yes,” I confirmed. I took a deep sigh and dove in. “I don’t know why you do this to people–why you did this to me. But this isn’t who I am. I’m a man and I have a life. I want it back.”

His face turned as serious as mine as he leaned back in his large leather chair. “I’m curious as to why you should want it back. You had no family and no close friends. Your career was in shambles. You had no patron within the Bureau. Your future–even if you had had one–would have been mediocre, shifting from one forgettable assignment to another. You would be alone and underappreciated. Is that what you are asking me to return you to?”

“You said even if I had one,” I commented, avoiding an answer to his question. “It was the stakeout, wasn’t it? I would have died there.”

The smile returned. “I see my faith in you was not misplaced. Yes, if left alone you would have died in that warehouse shootout. It seemed like a terrible waste.”

“And Andre became fair game because I would have shot him.”

He nodded. “Yes, you would have shot him. It was an act you would have regretted almost at once, but you had spent years convincing yourself that it was the right thing to do. So you see, I saved both of your lives in a sense. You should be grateful.”

My temper rose. “Grateful–for this? Look at me! I’m a woman. I don’t know how to be a woman and I don’t want to be one. All right, I’ll concede that my real life was flawed, but I didn’t deserve this. At least make me into a man. Even if you can’t–or won’t–give me my old life back, don’t make me endure life in this... this... body.”

Damn this feminine form! I was being emotional–a side effect of my new sex I was certain. There was moisture gathering in my eyes. That’s all I needed–to break down into tears and show the Judge just how much of a woman I had become against my will.

The Judge leaned forward, staring at me with an intensity I had never seen before. “Mrs. Cameron–Julie–you are a woman, now and forever. You will look like a woman and act like a woman because you are a woman. You will do this because it is my will that you do. You have no choice. Do you understand me?”

I wanted to fight him–I really did. I wanted to yell at him and demand that he change me back. I suppose in the back of my mind I even realized that if I angered him sufficiently, he could do even worse to me than he had done. He had made me an attractive woman with a life many women–and men–might have envied. But that wasn’t the reason I didn’t persist. I stopped where I was because I knew any further argument was futile. I was who I was. I was Julie Cameron and I would remain Julie Cameron for the rest of my life.

“Do you understand?” It was said with undeniable force.

“I understand,” I replied meekly, my eyes a little downcast.

As quickly as it had disappeared, the smile returned. “Then we are in agreement. Thank you for coming by today. Now, if you’ll excuse me...”

I nodded, although he didn’t see it. He had already returned to the papers on his desk. Numbly, I clutched my purse and fled from the office.

“Julie...”

It was the blonde secretary. She called to me the moment I had closed the Judge’s door behind me. I turned to her, hoping my face wasn’t too puffy.

“I know how it went,” she said sympathetically, standing to take my hands in hers. “A lot of people try it. I know I did. I’ve never seen him change anyone back.”

“Why didn’t you tell me that?” I asked softly.

“Would it have stopped you?”

I shook my head, feeling the longish hair swirl about my neck. “No, I suppose not. So now what?”

“Now you live your life,” she told me. “At least give it a try, Julie. You’ll find being a woman has its compensations. And besides, you can’t fight it forever.”

“Come on over to the pink side, eh?”

“If you like pink.” She smiled. I smiled back. Well, at least I had made a new friend.

The rest of the afternoon went by all right, I guess. For the most part, I was left alone. Callie did flag me down once to introduce me to Cleo and Polly, two more of her sisters. Except for clothes, they looked identical to Callie and Erin. Cleo was a history instructor–that figured since I had read Clio was the muse of history. Polly’s forte was mime though which was hardly a usable skill, I thought. I was wrong though, I was sure, but she didn’t mention what she did for a living. Come to think of it, she hadn’t spoken at all, leaving the conversation to her sisters.

“Say don’t you have a beauty appointment over at March’s?” Callie asked as her sisters left.

I had been trying to forget about that. Jeff had mentioned it, but I thought I’d just blow the appointment off. I had no desire to make myself more attractive for him. If I had my way, I’d have an ugly appointment to make myself so awful that he wouldn’t want to touch me.

Callie didn’t wait for an answer. “Come on, get out of here. You don’t want to be late.”

“Yes I do,” I replied. “I don’t want to go at all.”

“Didn’t your little meeting with the Judge convince you that you’re stuck as Julie forever?”

“Yes,” I admitted with a sigh. “It’s just that I’m...”

Frightened.

I didn’t want to say it, but I was frightened. I had never been married, but I knew the ritual of an anniversary date. I’d be all dolled up and Jeff would be at his handsome best. We’d eat a nice meal–probably the finest a small town like Ovid had to offer–and drink some wine. We’d both get a little tipsy and go back to our place where I’d be expected to dress in something lacy and revealing. Then we’d get down to it–once, twice, maybe even three times before falling asleep naked in each other’s arms. Not me. No way, Jose.

“Julie, it isn’t going to get any easier if you put it off.”

“But it’s not real!” I argued. “I’m not really this person. I’m not even really a woman. Maybe if I’d been changed into a single woman–maybe even high school or college age–I might be able to learn to cope as a female over time. I don’t love Jeff–hell, I tried to kill him before we changed into Ken and Barbie. I just can’t do it.”

She took my hands. “Promise me you’ll at least keep your appointment. Then after that, you can decide how to handle the evening. Okay?”

Her touch had a calming effect. I don’t think it was magic; it was just support from one person to another. I supposed she was right. What would it hurt to keep my appointment? I knew where March’s was. I had seen the department store when I drove through the business district on my way to see the Judge. Besides, it was easier to go than to explain to Jeff why I didn’t.

March’s Department Store was never going to give Macy’s a run for its money, but it was still the largest retail establishment in the business district. The building was three floors high, and the beauty salon was on the top floor. To get there, I had to walk past row after row of women’s clothing. I tried not to think about the fact that I would have to be buying my clothes in places like this in the future.

“Hi, Julie,” an attractive if slightly over-made-up blonde said as I walked in. Then her eyebrows arched a little. In a quieter tone, she said, “Are you feeling not quite yourself today?”

It would have been an odd question anywhere but Ovid. I could tell from her look that she wasn’t just asking about my health. “I’ve experienced some big changes lately,” I replied equally cryptically.

“Come on back,” she said motioning for me to follow her to the rearmost chair. “Lila,” she called. “Julie’s here. I’m putting her in the last chair.”

“Okay,” a young Hispanic girl called from the front of the salon where she was just ringing up another customer.

“We can talk during your manicure,” the blonde told me as she put a plastic apron over me.

“Manicure?” I asked, but it was too late. I was alone.

I felt as if I was about to be executed and was just awaiting the executioner to pull the lever. I didn’t have the slightest notion what to say or do. I tried going on automatic, but that just seemed to work for unconscious actions. No glib thoughts came into my head from it.

The Hispanic girl–Lila–finally came back. When I seemed hesitant, she asked, “Big night out tonight?”

“Uh... my first anniversary.”

“Oooh!” Lila said, her dark eyes unnaturally wide. “That is a big night. How you want to look?”

Like a truck driver, I felt like saying–a very male truck driver. Instead, I meekly asked, “Can you not change it too much?”

She laughed, “So you want to be conservative, huh?”

Lila was the first shade to touch me, and I was surprised to find that she was as solid as I. She worked smoothly, telling me about her own first anniversary in more graphic detail than I could ever have imagined. She slyly added, “The first anniversary is a good time to make them do things they haven’t done before.” I suppose I was expected to ask her what things she meant but I was afraid I already had a good idea. I wondered, though, did all women talk so openly about their sex lives? When men talked about it, it never involved wives. Oh sure, men might talk about some hot conquest they had picked up in a bar or something, but never about their wives. But the conversations I heard around me were not unlike Lila’s. Women–or at least some women–seemed to talk more freely about their sex lives with their husbands than I would have ever imagined. I was beginning to wonder if maybe men weren’t really the sexually repressed gender.

“There. Now while your hair is soaking, you go see Bobbi Sue up front.”

I realized she was talking about the blonde I had spoken with on the way in. I felt like some sort of mobile radar antenna as I walked to the front, still covered by the plastic apron. My hair was up in curlers soaking in some sort of smelly solution. I knew enough about the process to realize my hair would be loosely curled when the process was over. I hoped it would be easier to take care of than it had been so far. If I had to be stuck as a woman, I might as well hack off most of my hair. I cursed myself for not telling them to do that right then, but somehow it didn’t seem the thing to do just yet.

“Sit down,” the blonde said with a grin. “I’m Bobbie Sue. You all ready to get your nails done?” When she saw how ill at ease I was, she giggled and said quietly, “I figured you remembered who you used to be. Sit down. You musta been a guy, right?”

“Gee, how could you tell?” I said sarcastically. I doubted if any naturally-born woman would look as uncomfortable in a salon as I did.

“Don’t worry, I’ve seen a lot of folks just like you. You shoulda seen that little lawyer, Susan Jager, the first time she was in here.”

“Susan Jager used to be a man?”

“Shh, keep it down,” Bobbie Sue cautioned as she took one of my hands and began to work on it. “It doesn’t do much good to be talkin’ too loud about all this. Nobody else in here remembers who they were–either that or they’re shades.”

“But you remember.”

“Course I do, sugar. Now tell me, what’s the occasion? I haven’t seen the shade that was you in here in a long time.”

“My first anniversary,” I muttered. “Now I suppose you’re going to tell me just to go along with it, right?”

She shrugged, picking up another finger to work on. “That’d be the easiest way. That’s for sure. You might as well get used to it. You aren’t goin’ anywhere else real soon.”

“Were you a man?” I asked, becoming curious in spite of myself. Bobbie Sue seemed a little different somehow. I suspected her down-home pattern of speech was as much an act as it was part of her real character. She seemed to throw herself into the role of the stereotypical manicurist with gusto.

“That’s considered to be a rude question around here,” she grinned. “But yeah, I was a man.”

“So...” I began, choosing my words as carefully as I could, “...what’s it like. I mean, to make... love to...”

“A man?” she finished for me. “Well, you gotta understand as a man I was gay, so I guess it’s about the same except we fit together better now.”

I had to smile at her earthy reply in spite of myself.

“Is Bobbi Sue taking good care of you?” a woman’s voice came from behind me. Even before I turned to see who had spoken, I knew the woman was beautiful. No one with a voice as feminine as hers could have been otherwise.

When I did turn, I saw a woman who had to be the most beautiful creature on the face of the planet. To say that she was a blonde would not do justice to the golden color of her hair. It shone with a brilliance that could have come from spun gold. Her complexion was flawless, and her blue eyes had a depth to them that could have drowned a man. Her figure was perfect for the tailored gray suit that she wore, and the full breasts beneath her white silk blouse were full and perfectly formed. Her legs were perfection itself ending in trim ankles and small, feminine feet encased in two-inch heels. I don’t know if she was wearing hose or not; her skin was so perfect she really wouldn’t have needed them.

I felt something I never expected to feel when looking at a woman, though. I felt envy. My rational mind told me I should be feeling lust but I didn’t. I felt only envy. If I could have looked like this woman... But no, that wasn’t true. I was a man, wasn’t I? I didn’t want to be a woman–any woman. But still, she was incredible...

“Your nails look marvellous,” the woman said with a warm smile. “How are you today, Julie? I haven’t seen you in a while.”

I looked furtively at her nametag: Vera March–as in March’s Department Store I realized. I also realized this was not just another errant traveller transformed into an Ovid resident. This was a representative of the gods, for such perfection doesn’t exist in the normal world. “Thanks... Vera,” I managed, looking down at my nails. I knew Bobbi Sue had just begun to work on them, so there was no way that she would have had time to shape them so perfectly and coat them with a deep dark red polish. Vera March must have finished them herself. Either that or time had simply stood still as I gazed into Vera March’s deep blue eyes.

“We just hired Bobbi Sue away from M’Lady, and she’s doing such a fine job for us,” she added. “Aren’t you, Bobbi Sue?”

Bobbi Sue smiled at the complement, but she, too, knew it was Vera who should get the credit for this job.

“Now, I understand it’s your first anniversary,” Vera said. “Have you decided on a dress to wear?”

“Uh... no.”

“Well, what are you getting Jeff?”

“Uh...” I hadn’t thought of any of that, I realized with a queasy feeling in my stomach. I had been concerned about just one thing: how to keep from having sex with Jeff. Everything else had been just meaningless details. If I was going to play the part, shouldn’t I have a gift for him? As for how I would dress...

“Well, I’ll have to spend some time with you then,” Vera sighed. “Come on, let’s get you ready.”

She gently took my hand, but I said, “Wait! Shouldn’t I finish with my hair and all this first?”

Vera smiled at me. “All what, dear? You look just lovely as you are.”

In stunned silence, I realized I was no longer wearing the plastic apron, and my hair was no longer wet and in rollers. I turned and looked in the mirror. My hair... it was... was...

“Gorgeous,” Vera laughed, and I knew she was really completing my thought. “We do good work, don’t we?”

Bobbi had gone back to work so Vera and I were alone. I looked at her and murmured, “You did this, didn’t you?”

“Of course, dear,” she laughed. “There was simply no time to waste. We have so much to do before you’re ready. And don’t worry about paying. It’s already on your March’s charge account–with a generous tip I’m sure the girls will appreciate.”

I felt like Cinderella standing in awe as her Fairy Godmother transformed her into a beautiful lady fit for the ball. I had very little input in what came next. Vera practically dragged me from rack to rack, holding a dress up to me, either smiling or frowning as she did so. I should have protested. I should have told her that I didn’t want to look beautiful for Jeff or any other man for that matter. But I couldn’t. There was something... indefinable about Vera that required my cooperation, and in spite of myself, I began to throw myself into the effort with a certain amount of élan of my own.

“There!” she said at last.

I suppose there comes a moment in the life of every transformed person in Ovid when they look in the mirror and say, “Oh my God, that’s really me.” It is a sense of identity–a recognition that their bodies, although changed beyond all recognition, are theirs. I had that strange feeling when Vera led me to a mirror. How much of the feeling was natural and how much was the result of Vera’s magic I couldn’t say. I only knew that in a town run by the gods, Vera had to be Venus, the very essence of beauty.

And her magic had made me beautiful as well. Oh, not in the classic sense. As Julie Cameron, I was hardly a classic beauty. But what beauty I had had been brought to the surface. I was wearing a traditional little black dress that showed off my figure to the maximum. My breasts looked full without being obscenely large. My hair, of course, was perfection, and a trip to the makeup counter had transformed my face into a thing of beauty. My lightly tanned skin looked almost pale against the midnight black of the dress. My legs, covered in smoky hose, looked sleek and feminine, and poised as I was on heels that must be nearly three inches high, I looked practically like a model.

“Well, what do you think?” Vera asked in an almost hypnotic voice.

“I... I... I don’t know what to think,” I murmured.

“You’re really quite lovely.”

“Y... Yes.”

“And desirable.”

“Desirable?”

“Oh yes,” she assured me.

Lovely, desirable–these were words being used to describe me. They seemed somehow... right. It was as if I were in a fog–a warm, enveloping fog that soothed and relaxed me, taking all of my fears away.

I don’t really remember leaving March’s, but before I knew it, I was driving up in front of our apartment building. Shaking my head in an unsuccessful attempt to clear it, I noticed as I got ready to get out that there was a small, elegantly wrapped package on the car seat next to me. Picking it up, I read the tag: ‘To Jeff with all my love, Julie.’ It was written in my own handwriting–my new handwriting that is. I didn’t remember picking up a package, and I certainly didn’t remember writing the tag. With a helpless shrug, I gathered up the package and headed for the apartment.

“You look absolutely incredible,” Jeff said, opening the door for me. His eyes tracked up and down my body, stopping at all the spots I would have stopped at if I had been he. I felt strangely both uncomfortable and flattered by his prolonged gaze. I guess I couldn’t blame him. Vera March and her staff had done a fantastic job. My mind still thought enough like a man to know that she had coaxed every gram of beauty out of a merely cute body.

And to be completely honest, Jeff looked pretty good himself. He cleaned up nicely. Standing there in a gray pinstripe suit and stylish tie, he might have been taken for a rising young lawyer or businessman–maybe a banker. To my surprise, I realized I was also noticing what was in the suit as well. Jeff was young, strong and handsome. I could not seem to tear my eyes away from him.

And my mind was so frozen that I couldn’t resist as he bent over and brushed his lips against mine. It felt strangely good. No, better than good–it felt... wonderful. “Maybe I should cancel our dinner reservation,” he suggested softly as he put his arm gently around me.

My body was perfectly willing to do just that, but my mind was still in control–sort of. “No... no, don’t do that?”

“Ravenous little thing, are you?” he laughed. “Okay, let’s go then.”

He stopped as he noticed the package in my hand. “From March’s, eh?” he said with approval. “Why don’t you leave it here and we’ll open our gifts... later.”

There was firm promise in the word ‘later.’ I knew he didn’t just mean after a nice meal. There was no way out of this, I realized. This was a night any normal married couple would have looked forward to and savored. But we weren’t any normal couple, were we?

I knew as Jeff led me to the car that a spell had been placed on me. In a way, I was grateful for it. This night was going to happen whether I wanted it to or not. I might as well have my anxieties take back seat to my desires. Desires? Yes, desires. I might not want to be a woman but I was one. And as a woman, my body spoke to me, demanding that it be satisfied, and no amount of cold male logic was going to be able to deny it forever.

Winston’s was a pleasant little steakhouse on the edge of town. It was on a small wooded hill and actually enjoyed a view of Ovid spread out in the valley below. Inside, warm red carpet and drapes and classical music playing softly gave the place an atmosphere not unlike some of the small neighborhood establishments I remembered from my Georgetown days.

Of course Ovid was not exactly the place for an anonymous rendezvous. Although I had only been in Ovid a few days, I saw several people I knew. The attorney, Susan Jager, was there seated with a very handsome man I assumed was her husband. She didn’t notice me, though. She was too busy looking into her companion’s eyes. I saw several people I recognized as faculty and staff at Capta, including Elizabeth Vest, the president of the college. And Vera March was there as well, seated with a man I presumed to be her husband. He, too, was handsome, but in an almost fierce sort of way. He looked up at me and assessed me as I suspected he would have had I been a succulent steak on the restaurant’s menu. I turned away at once.

The hostess showed us to a small table away from the crowd. I was happy to be at least somewhat secluded. It wasn’t that I planned to do anything terribly intimate, but Vera March’s husband had not been the only male in the place to let his gaze linger on my body.

I really don’t remember much from dinner. Oh, Jeff and I talked, had fabulous steaks, and shared a bottle of wine that could have graced the tables of many Washington restaurants, but it was all surreal to me. The wine, the rich food, and the suspected spell Vera March must have placed on me all combined to make the meal almost like something out of a dream. Notice I said a dream and not a nightmare. I have to admit, it was a pleasant experience.

All through the meal, I kept ‘noticing’ Jeff. It was if I hadn’t really looked at him before. Now, his every move was the subject of my rapt attention. When he smiled, my heart would become warm. When his hand would touch mine, I would feel a thrill go through my body. I’m sure my male mind was still there, but it was hidden well as I fell under Jeff’s spell.

Jeff held me tight as we left the restaurant, and through the fog of the wine and the spell, I realized the moment of truth was about to arrive. I didn’t have to be a woman all my life to know what was coming next, and whatever rational male thoughts that still inhabited my mind were trying to find some plausible way to stop the inevitable. But my body liked being held and snuggled closely against Jeff as we walked back to the car. I continued to nestle against him in the car and again on the way into the apartment.

There were no words between us there in the dark of our living room. No words were necessary, nor would they have changed what was about to happen for better or worse. I had decided to give in to the needs of my body. The male side of my mind decided it must be the same attribute of the mind that allows a condemned prisoner to remain calm as he is prepared for execution. But execution could never have felt as good as I was feeling.

I don’t even know for sure when we moved from the living room to the bedroom, but we did, never taking our hands off each other. I felt the dress Vera had selected for me slide smoothly down my legs as I stripped Jeff out of his tie and shirt. The feel of his rugged chest against my smooth one felt delicious, and I longed to have my bra removed and feel the hair of that chest against my straining nipples. Fortunately, I didn’t have to wait long.

Why did I ever dread this? I wondered as we fell into the bed together, naked. What was there to dread? Had I been afraid to have my body entered? Had I been fearful that my lack of strength would make me an unwilling participant in my psychological–if not physical–deflowering? Whatever the reason, fear fled from me the moment we embraced there on the bed in that dark room.

I don’t know how much of my need was the result of the Judge’s original spell and how much was the result of whatever Vera March had done to me, but wherever it came from, it just felt... right to be there lying in Jeff’s arms. I felt the new crevasse between my legs moisten, and I could detect its feminine aroma. It was begging to be touched... to be aroused still further.

I didn’t have long to wait. Jeff’s hand moved between my legs, stroking my aroused clitoris. It was almost like having a hard penis again. No, that’s not right; it felt very different, for as he stroked me there, the waves of pleasure I felt coursed through my entire body, just centering on my new clitoris. I had never felt anything like it in my entire life.

Without thinking, I spread my legs and mumbled something to Jeff. He rightly took it as a signal that I wanted him inside me. I gave a little gasp of surprise as something large and firm began to gently slip into me...

And we never did get our gifts opened that night.

I awoke the next morning to the smell of freshly brewed coffee. I was alone in bed, and to my dismay completely naked. I had slept in the buff. Maybe it was the smell of the coffee, and maybe it was the smell of the fresh morning air, but my head seemed clearer than it had been in some time. I had no doubts about what I had done the night before. I had given myself to Jeff. Strangely, I also had no regrets. I still felt odd inside a woman’s body, but I felt somehow... satisfied, and being satisfied overcame the oddity.

I stretched, wincing a little as the sheet slid along my nipples, made hard by the morning breeze. I was still thinking about getting up when Jeff’s face appeared at the bedroom door. “Breakfast in five minutes.”

“But I’m not dressed!” I protested.

He shrugged. “Then come down as you are.”

I had to smile at that. “I think that might not be a good idea. Breakfast might get cold.”

“Then if you must, slip on a robe,” he sighed in mock disappointment. Or maybe he really was disappointed. Something told me he wouldn’t be disappointed long.

I slipped on a silky robe that was short and thin, but its white material at least covered the bare essentials. A day before, I would have been afraid to appear before him in so little. I would have been afraid he would jump me on the spot. Now, as hungry as I was, I rather hoped he would.

I was a little ashamed at myself for fearing sex with Jeff. I suppose many real girls felt the same way before their first experience, so maybe I could be forgiven. I had found sex as a woman to be a fantastic experience, completely different than it had been as a man. Or maybe it wasn’t so different, I thought as Jeff put a steaming plate in front of me. Maybe it was just more satisfying.

“Eat it before it gets cold,” he urged, turning back to dish up his own meal. I looked down at my plate. Breakfast looked heavenly. There was Canadian bacon grilled to perfection, fluffy scrambled eggs with salmon, cream cheese, and scallions folded in, and diced potatoes in butter and dill. It was a breakfast fit for a king–or queen now, I supposed. In spite of my smaller stomach and reduced appetite, I dove into the plate with gusto, washing it down with fresh orange juice and some of that eye-opening coffee.

“What do you think?” he asked as he sat down with his own plate.

“Marvellous!” I said in a most unladylike fashion, my mouth still full. And it was. Apparently some things transferred over when Andre became Jeff. Andre had always been a wonderful cook. In college, he was known for conjuring up incredible meals while most of us would content ourselves with something from a box. To be invited to eat with Andre had always been a treat. No more than Barbara liked to cook, I often thought it had something to do with her decision to marry him.

But this wasn’t Andre I had to remind myself. This was Jeff. This was my... my husband. This was my lover.

“Something wrong?”

I looked up and saw him gazing at me with concern. “What? Oh... no. I was just daydreaming.”

He jumped up. “Well, while you’re in such a mellow mood, I didn’t get much of a chance to give this to you last night.” With a flourish, he handed me a nicely wrapped package. Once more I noticed the distinctive paper of March’s Department Store.

“Oh!” I said suddenly. “I have one for you, too.” Thanks to Vera March, I could have added. I rose quickly and gathered my own package from the living room where I had left it the previous evening. Jeff smiled as I handed it to him. “Uh... happy anniversary,” I managed.

We looked at each other nervously, as if uncertain as to what to do with the gifts we held. I suppose it wasn’t all that unnatural. This was supposed to be just our first anniversary. At last with self-conscious smiles, we began unwrapping together. Jeff was quicker, ripping the colorful paper to shreds while I was more careful, making certain that the bow wasn’t damaged. I suppose we unwrapped our gifts in ways that were representative of our sexes. Maybe I was even more of a woman than I thought I was. Somehow, that didn’t bother me as much as it should have.

“Hey, this is great!” Jeff said, admiring the new watch the package contained. “I guess you took note when I talked about how much trouble I was having with my watch.”

I gave him a small smile as an answer. Of course, until he opened it, I had had absolutely no idea what the package contained. Apparently, Vera March knew he needed a new watch. How much did these gods know about us anyway? I shuddered to think.

My box contained a pair of earrings–small diamonds in a gold setting. As a man, I had never paid much attention to jewelry, but I knew enough to know there were few women in the country who wouldn’t be pleased with such a gift. “They’re lovely,” I managed, choosing the descriptive word carefully. I knew it was a word a woman would use. And to be honest, I did consider them lovely. There was no doubt I was changing and changing rapidly into the woman I appeared to be.

“Vera March helped me pick them,” he explained. “She said you’d like them.”

“Very much,” I replied. “I thought maybe you were buying me a computer.”

“Oh, why did you think that?”

“I saw you coming out of a computer store downtown earlier yesterday–Del’s Computers.”

Was I wrong, or did his face cloud for just a moment? If so, he was back to normal in a heartbeat. “I was just snooping around over my lunch hour. You know, just seeing what was new. One of the other teachers and I went downtown for lunch and I had some extra time to kill.”

“Oh. Well I’m glad you didn’t get me a computer.” I leaned over and kissed him. Then he kissed back, and the next thing I knew, we were back in the bedroom. There was no wine or subtle spell to help me this time, but I managed without them.

The rest of the weekend went far better than I would have imagined it going only a day or two before. Like most young married couples, we managed to entertain ourselves modestly. Household chores were followed by another round in the bedroom. A modest dinner at a place called Rusty’s Burger Barn followed by a movie led to another tryst in the bedroom. And to be honest, every time we ended up in the bedroom, I enjoyed myself just that much more. It was hard for me to imagine that only a couple of days before, I dreaded the prospect of making love. It was such a natural thing for this new body of mine to do. If I had to be stuck in Ovid, at least I had found something positive about the experience.

Sunday was in some ways a repeat of Saturday. A long, leisurely breakfast, some more housework, a quick shopping trip to buy groceries, and an evening snuggling in front of the television were the extent of our activities. We only made it to the bedroom once that day, but it was a good trip and I was well satisfied.

I tried to think back about how I had spent my weekends in my old life. Notice I said my old life and not my real life. This new life had become the real one for me in a surprisingly short amount of time. Anyhow, my leisure time in my old life seemed to be a dry existence. I could recall sleeping late, watching a lot of sports on television, working out, and eating alone. Alone–that was the operative word. I began to realize that in my old life, I had never had anyone to share my experiences with. Dating was infrequent and shallow, and my friends were casual at best. There had never been anyone like Jeff since college.

And in college there had been Andre. How strange that my best friend from so many years ago had become my best friend again–and more. But he wasn’t really the same person, I reminded myself. Jeff had none of Andre’s memories, and although I would sometimes see little things about him that reminded me of Andre, I was sure they were just typical things about all men. When I was a man, I had probably had them myself.

So this is where I should add, and they lived happily ever after, but life isn’t always a fairy tale–even in a magical town like Ovid. I had thought after that glorious weekend that it was time to forget the man I had been and forget that Andre had ever existed. But it wasn’t to be.

I suppose what I experienced over the next few days has happened to countless women all over the world. Like those women, I reconciled myself to a life of marriage and perhaps even eventual motherhood. Jeff seemed to be everything a young woman would want in a husband: loving, considerate, handsome, and very skilled in pleasing a woman. In short, day-by-day and even hour-by-hour I found myself becoming more satisfied with the hand I had been dealt by the Judge.

And why shouldn’t I be? Although some might find it strange that I adapted so quickly and so completely, it would be no surprise to them if they knew me well. Since my sister’s death, I had been alone–completely alone. I think it’s fair to say that I could have been alone in a crowd. Oh sure, I knew a lot of people, but they fell into one of four categories: associates at the Bureau, suspects, witnesses and victims. As Julie, I was starting to realize that Baxter Blaine had no personal life worth mentioning. In my new life, I had come to realize why Inspector Javert in Les Miserables flings himself off the bridge. My life had been as empty and meaningless as his, and like Inspector Javert, I had discovered that the nemesis I had sought for so long and so hard was not the villain I thought him to be–or at least not now. I wonder what Javert would have made of his life if there had been someone like the Judge to transform him into a young woman.

Julie Cameron seemed to have the life that I had lacked. She–I–was attractive, personable, affectionate, and more satisfied with life than Baxter Blaine ever could be. And to top it all off, I had Jeff.

But Jeff was not who I thought he was–at least not exactly. There was not a single thing that told me that, though. Instead, it was a collection of little things. For example, as the new week progressed, I would call Jeff at school, just to see if he wanted to have lunch or to see how his day was going. On a couple of occasions, he wasn’t there to take the call. In and of itself, that wasn’t all that suspicious, but I had called at times that I understood he was supposed to be there.

Add to that his long runs. He started getting up extra early in the morning to take a five-mile run. Since it was summer, the mornings were bright and warm, and his reasoning was very good. He was, after all, the track coach, and staying in shape was important to his job. So again, his behavior was not suspicious, but when other things were considered...

Such as the phone calls. They were quick and consisted of just a few short replies on Jeff’s part. When I would ask him who had called, he always had a ready and reasonable answer, but something wasn’t quite right about the calls.

As I said, by themselves none of Jeff’s activities would have been suspicious. And while all of these things happened, he remained loving and attentive. We never had a harsh word and the lovemaking was absolutely perfect. But by the middle of the week, I had grown suspicious.

I had found that Ovid was a nice place, but it wasn’t perfect. It was designed to be natural but not perfect. It was rife with the same problems and blemishes of every town in spite of its prosperity. There were minor car wrecks and drunk driving charges. The newspaper carried obituaries. Dusty pickup trucks loaded with rough working men frequented Randy Andy’s, a bar on the main highway. In short, the town was normal–with the apparent exception of drugs and crime, for there appeared to be no drugs or crime to speak of in the entire town.

And in normal towns, normal people have normal problems. People get into financial trouble. They have problems with their jobs. They have difficulty relating to their children (or their parents). And they have marital problems. Spouses cheat on each other.

Was that what was happening to me? Was Jeff–by all rights the perfect husband–cheating on me? The time when I couldn’t reach him–was he with another woman? Another woman. How quickly my mindset had changed so that I now thought of myself as a woman. What other possible reason could there be, especially when I considered the phone calls and maybe even the long runs?

“What’s wrong?”

I looked up at the sound of Jeff’s voice. I had been so lost in thought, I hadn’t heard him come home. It was Wednesday afternoon, and I had gotten a ride home with Callie and yet another of her sisters, Terry. I had expected to find Jeff already home since a call to the school had indicated that he had left an hour before me. But when I got home, there was no sign of him.

I had tried to deny to myself that there was anything wrong, but Jeff’s mysterious disappearances were becoming too frequent. “Where were you?” I asked, sniffing a bit.

He looked at me with what appeared to be genuine concern. “I hit a bucket of balls out at the country club,” he explained. We weren’t members, but as a coach, I knew he had golfing privileges at the club. Small town country clubs have always been liberal about golf course usage since they often have the only course. It was a logical explanation. I just wasn’t sure I believed him.

“I was worried about you,” I muttered. “I called the school and they said you’d left an hour before I got home.”

He gave me a disarming smile. “Well, you shouldn’t have worried. What did you think was wrong?”

What was I supposed to do–tell him I suspected him of cheating on me? I couldn’t bring myself to do that. What would he think if I was wrong? Or worse yet, what would he say if I was right? How could I have possibly gotten myself in such a situation? A week earlier, I would have blanched at the prospect of being a woman and having sex with a man. Now, here I was, a woman in body and rapidly becoming one in thought as well. Not only did I not cringe at the prospect of making love to a man, but I actually looked forward to it. Even thinking about the possibility that Jeff was cheating on me, I wanted him to take me into the bedroom right then and prove to me that it was me who he loved best.

“I... I didn’t know if anything was wrong,” I hedged. “I just...” I couldn’t finish because I couldn’t think of anything to say that would make sense.

Jeff put an arm around me. “Look, you’re upset. You need to get out of the house. You haven’t started anything for dinner yet, have you?”

“No...”

“Then let’s get something at Duggan’s and take it over to Sooner Park. We’ll have ourselves a real picnic.”

It was a romantic idea, I realized. How could I possibly think such a great guy could be cheating on me? Surely the Judge wouldn’t have done that to me–he wouldn’t change me into the wife of a philanderer, would he? It had to be my imagination running away with me. Maybe it was the new hormones racing through my body. Maybe women are just more suspicious, and now that I was one I was, too. I managed a little smile. “Okay, let me get out of this skirt.”

“You look great in that skirt.”

I blushed. “Thank you, but I need to change.”

“Then I will, too,” he laughed.

I was as shy as a schoolgirl, changing in the bathroom while Jeff changed in the bedroom. I was afraid if we stripped down in front of each other, we’d never make it to Sooner Park, and I needed to get out. I needed to be out in the warm, fresh evening air, strolling about after dinner as I held onto Jeff’s hand.

Late afternoons in Oklahoma are very warm, so I dressed in a white tank top and denim shorts. I don’t think as Julie that I owned a pair of loose-fitting shorts. The ones I put on were very short and very tight, but I decided to stay with them. I chose tan sandals with just a hint of a heel. I thought I looked very pert and sexy.

Pert? Sexy? Why was I dressing that way? Okay, so I had come to terms with being a woman, but wasn’t this just a casual outing? Why was I taking so much time with my hair and makeup? I was acting like a sixteen-year-old girl going out on her first date with the high school quarterback.

But I needn’t have questioned myself, for I knew the answer. I was afraid of losing Jeff.

My spirits picked up a little when he gave me an approving stare and offered, “Maybe we should just have our picnic right here.”

It was tempting. In shorts and a polo shirt, Jeff looked very handsome. But I needed some exercise besides rolling around on the bed. I needed to walk, smell the fresh air, and clear my mind.

To say that I had a good time that day would have been an understatement. The body I had been given was young and athletic, and Jeff and I had a good time just walking through the park. While neither of us had said it, our real objective had been to find a secluded spot where we could enjoy our modest picnic and not worry about prying eyes.

We found just the spot we were looking for. The backside of Sooner Park ends in a rustic wood fence. Beyond the fence is a gully guarded by scrub trees, and beyond that is a meandering street with a few houses, nearly inaccessible because of the gully. It was the perfect spot to be alone. We spread out a cloth for the food and a blanket for ourselves–even the magic of Ovid didn’t seem to be defense against the chiggers that lived in the grass.

As we ate, my mood brightened, but Jeff became more pensive. His meal of cold chicken and hard-boiled eggs finished, he was staring out across the darkening park, a bottle of cold lemonade in his hand.

“A penny for your thoughts,” I said, sliding closer to him and taking his arm.

“Oh... I was just thinking...” he said softly.

“About...?”

He shrugged. “About the funny little twists and turns life has,” he said cryptically. Then he looked at me. “Julie, are you happy here... with me?”

I sighed, “I can’t think of anyplace else I rather be.” It sounded convincing because it was true. My life before Ovid had been meaningless. I had spent the last few years of my life plotting revenge over my sister’s death. And what had I accomplished? I had no family and I had damaged my career beyond repair. Now, I had Jeff. And Jeff could be just the beginning...

He took my hand and looked into my eyes. “Do you really mean that?”

For an answer, I kissed him. It was a long meaningful kiss. One thing led to another after that. I was grateful that there was no one else nearby and that it was dark by the time I cried out in ecstasy.

I think if it hadn’t happened, I would have made Jeff perform again the minute we walked in the door of our apartment. But it did happen–the phone rang. “I’ll get it,” Jeff volunteered as I headed off for the bedroom.

But Jeff was a little late. I actually picked up the phone a moment before he did, but before I could speak, I heard Jeff say, “Hello?”

I was about to hang up when I heard a familiar voice–a woman’s voice–angrily say, “Where were you?”

“Oh, we just went out for a little picnic,” Jeff said in a conversational tone, obviously to allay any suspicions I might have if I hear him on the phone. Of course, he had no idea that I was on the phone, too.

“You were supposed to see me.”

I nearly gasped at her words. Oh my God, I had been right. Jeff was having an affair, and with... Callie? No, I couldn’t be sure about that. All of Callie’s sisters looked and sounded the same–at least to me. Were they like the shades, though, in that those of us who retained our memories could see through whatever disguise they used to appear different to the others?

“That just wasn’t possible. How about tomorrow?” Jeff asked.

“Yes. The usual time. Does she still think you’re going for morning runs?”

“That’s right.”

“Then come by in the morning.”

“Fine.”

I was in the bathroom when he got off the phone and made it to the bedroom. I had rushed in there for two reasons–I didn’t want him to know I had been on the phone and I didn’t want him to see me crying. I heard him rummaging around the room for a minute and then going back into the living room. That gave me a chance to hurriedly get ready for bed. By the time he came back into the room, I was in bed with the lights out.

“Julie?”

“Yes?” I replied, trying to make it sound as if he had just awakened me.

“I love you.”

“I love you, too.” I hoped it sounded like a groggy sleep-filled reply, and that he couldn’t hear the quaver in my voice.

I have always been able to wake up quickly and whenever I need to. I suppose it’s a function of my Bureau days when long, boring stretches quickly turned into potentially life-threatening moments. Before I had surrendered to sleep, I had worked out a plan. I had silently gotten out of bed when I heard Jeff’s soft snoring. Then I had quickly assembled a sweat suit, socks and running shoes, depositing them under the bed. I fully intended to follow Jeff on his run and confront the woman who was trying to steal my husband. Oh, I’d wait until Jeff had left her, because I wanted her all to myself.

While Jeff was showering the next morning, I quickly dressed, hiding my nightgown under the bed and covering myself up so it would look like I was still asleep. I normally didn’t get up until Jeff had come back from his morning run.

I waited, feigning sleep, until I heard the front door gently close. I jumped up and went to the front window, noting the direction of Jeff’s run. Then I slipped out of the house, following at a discreet distance. Old skills of tailing suspects came back to me as if I were still an agent in the field. It wasn’t hard to follow him. I had been a little afraid that Jeff would be able to outdistance me with my now-shorter legs and weaker body. But my female body was actually in pretty good shape, and Jeff’s pace was not as fast as I had feared.

I did have to leave him a wider lead than I would have liked. The problem is that there is no way to run silently, and with almost no traffic and even fewer pedestrians about, every noise and every motion would be noticeable if Jeff looked the right way. I didn’t have to follow him far. I had the cover of a large fir tree as I watched him run up the walk to a house only three blocks from our own. How convenient, I thought grimly. His girlfriend lived close enough that it really didn’t take much effort for him to see her.

I gasped when the door opened. At first, I thought it was Callie. Then I remembered there was only a one in nine chance that it was my co-worker and friend. It could have been any of the Muses. Well, I’d find out which one soon. To my relief, they didn’t kiss at the door, but she quickly dragged him in by the arm, looking both ways to make certain they weren’t seen. Well tough luck, honey, I thought with satisfaction. You’ve been made.

But which of the Muses was it? I wondered. I had liked all of the ones I had met, and I hoped it was none of them. I wouldn’t know who it was until I confronted her.

If I had been smart, I would have kept my distance. Any normal person might have done just that. But I was wrapped up in the chase. It was almost like being back at the Bureau. There, I would have had listening devices to aid me, but here I had only stealth to depend upon. Morbid curiosity got the best of me. I sneaked up to the house to see what was going on.

In the movies, I would have sneaked up and peered in the window. That works okay at night, but in daylight, it is much easier to see out than in, and I didn’t want to be spotted. Instead, I made my way around to the rear of the house. The house itself was modest and perhaps thirty years old. There was a patio in back, and as I had hoped, it was open to let in the cool morning air before air conditioning was necessary to shut out the heat of an Oklahoma summer. The patio door screen was unlocked, and I gently slid it back just enough to allow me to enter.

To my relief, there were no sounds of passion coming from the bedrooms of the modest ranch-style house. Instead, what sounded like an argument was going on loudly in the living room.

“You were supposed to be getting a job at Vulman Industries,” the voice of the Muse practically yelled. “It was all set. My sister would have made sure you met Eric Vulman and would have vouched for you.”

“Your sister isn’t a part of this,” Jeff yelled back. “That would be letting one more person know what we were doing–a person who might not agree with your plans, I might add. Besides, Vulman Industries isn’t important.”

“But the fuel pump...”

“The pump isn’t important,” Jeff broke in. “Is that what you think–that it’s about the fuel pump?”

“But that’s what is giving them the power,” the Muse argued.

“Power, no,” Jeff argued. “Money, yes. Don’t you see? The pump is just another piece of the puzzle, but it isn’t the answer. I need to explain this to your superior.”

“My superior talks to no one but me,” the Muse insisted.

“Then why did you bother to insert me into this madhouse?” Jeff growled. “There were other agents you could have used.”

I was almost lightheaded with shock as I heard Jeff speak. I had been prepared to find him in the arms of another woman. I had rehearsed in my mind all the things I would say to his lover–and later to him. But I had never suspected for a moment what I was hearing now: Jeff remembered being Andre!

What had I gotten myself into? I had been so concerned about other things–first adapting to my new life and then rescuing my new life from the clutches of an unidentified paramour. I had never for a second suspected that Andre’s personality and memories were unchanged.

It had been easy for him, I thought grimly. While I had to negotiate everything from makeup and women’s fashions to sitting on the toilet to pee, Andre had had to do very little to fit in as Jeff. In some ways, now that I thought about it, Jeff was very much like the Andre I remembered from those halcyon days when he had been married to Barbara. For him, this had been acting out his younger life. Hell, I even looked a little like Barbara. Tears of frustration welled up as I realized how badly I had been used.

But who was he working for? It was time for me to put away my jealous wife persona and even try to suppress my rage over how Andre had tricked me. But my God, how he must have laughed as he bedded me, knowing that he was making love to the brother of his wife. No, there was no time for anger about that. It would have to come later. But it was so hard to hold it back. New hormones and alien logic coursed through my body and mind. I had to remember Baxter Blaine, FBI Agent. I had to remember what he would do and how he would think.

I tried to focus on the conversation. Jeff–or Andre–and the Muse continued to argue. I was almost proud of him for holding his ground. He was arguing with what had to be considered a minor goddess, and yet he remained firm. I was beginning to understand some of the qualities that had made the Greek such a valued agent. He had the rare talent of keeping his masters in line.

“Enough!” another voice–a woman’s voice–interjected with authority. In the silence that ensued, I had to hold back a gasp. I recognized the new voice as well. And to make matters worse, her voice was coming from behind me. I felt a hand on my shoulder, gripping it tightly. “Shall we go in the living room and join the others?” Minnie Musgrave asked sweetly.

“Julie!” Jeff gasped as I was led into the living room. I had no choice. From the grip on my shoulder, I knew that Minnie Musgrave was stronger and quicker than I was. She was after all, a goddess. No, I realized, that wasn’t quite right. There had been another word to describe Mnemosyne in the text I had read–Titan. I vaguely seemed to recall that the gods we knew from Greek and Roman myths were descendants of the Titans. Somehow, that designation sounded almost as bad as a goddess.

Jeff rushed over to me and grabbed my hand. “Julie, what are you doing here? Are you all right?”

“I’m not Julie,” I growled at him. “And you’re not Jeff.”

His face fell. “So you know...”

Minnie laughed, “So you couldn’t even keep your hidden identity from this little thing. Some master spy you turned out to be–to be discovered by such a confused little girl.”

I felt my face redden at her insult.

“I had more important things to do,” Jeff countered calmly. “I was brought here to uncover in a few days what you weren’t able to uncover in years.”

It was Minnie’s turn to redden, only hers was at least in part suppressed anger. She quickly decided to change the subject. “You wanted to see me. So here I am. Now, tell me what we need to know. What is our sanctimonious so-called King of the Gods planning?”

To my surprise, Jeff smiled. “I’m afraid I don’t have a clue. And to be honest, I wouldn’t tell you if I did.”

Minnie and the Muse looked confused at first, and when they at last realized what Jeff’s statement foretold, their confusion turned to shocked awareness.

“That’s right,” the voice of the Judge floated out of the very air. “He doesn’t know. But I’d say he accomplished his mission quite well in spite of that, wouldn’t you?”

The living room was suddenly very crowded. From out of nowhere, Officer Mercer was suddenly there, as if he had appeared in less than an instant. I could feel a sudden gust of wind as the air he displaced moved about the room. His gun was still holstered, but his right arm was extended, palm up, and aimed at the Muse and Minnie as if it were a weapon. I was pretty sure that in some way that defied understanding, that was exactly what it was.

The air in front of the fireplace began to shimmer and take on the outline of a man. In a matter of moments, the Judge stood before us. He still had a commanding presence even without his judicial robe. He was wearing a suit that I suspected cost about what I made a week as an FBI Agent. His hands were clasped behind his back, and just for a moment, I realized how much he looked like Admiral Nepper that day I had met him.

Minnie and her Muse daughter both frowned and drew closer together, almost as if they feared what the Judge might do to them. Apparently even the minor deities weren’t immune to the strange justice meted out in Ovid.

“You’ve done an excellent job, my boy,” the Judge commended Jeff, patting him on the back. “You are everything I was told you would be. I can see that my brother was correct in choosing you for this role. Congratulations.”

“Thank you, sir,” Jeff said with a self-conscious glance at me.

Now I was really confused. I was beginning to realize I was the only person in the room who didn’t know what was going on. I must have looked completely mystified, for the Judge looked at me and said, “Don’t worry, Julie. I’ll explain this to you shortly.”

“What should I do with these two?” Officer Mercer asked.

“I think our librarian should join the rest of her kind, don’t you?”

Officer Mercer nodded in agreement. “And what about Merry?”

“Take her to my office,” the Judge commanded. “As my daughter, she is my personal responsibility. I’ll see to it shortly.”

“You think you’ve won, don’t you?” Minnie sneered.

“My dear,” the Judge sighed, “it would be unwise of you to presume upon our previous relationship with false bravado. Winning and losing are concepts for beings less developed than ourselves. All I have done is solve a very small problem that threatened a much larger objective.” He motioned them away with a wave of his hand. Officer Mercer led the fuming woman out of the house to an awaiting police car which I was sure hadn’t been there moments before.

It was my turn now. “You bastard,” I growled at Jeff. “You knew who you had been all along.”

Jeff actually cowered a little. “But you knew who you were, too,” he pointed out.

“Yes, but I thought you were... I mean I didn’t realize you knew you had been someone else before. You had to know that I knew who I had been.”

“I’m afraid you’ll have to delay this charming little domestic quarrel until I have left,” the Judge interjected. “Julie, I want to take a moment to explain to you that what Jeff did he did on my direct orders. I made certain he would come to the attention of our... opponents. We made sure you and Andre would both be at the rendezvous point before the local contact. In fact, the local contact nearly decided not to contact Andre after his transformation, but fortunately she decided to take the risk. Andre was most cooperative and followed my orders to the letter. That included keeping his identity a secret from you. I’m sure you realize that that means he had no choice in the matter.”

That did put a little different light on the matter. Defying the Judge was not a wise idea, as I was certain both Merry the Muse and Minnie the Muse’s mother were about to find out. “All right,” I agreed, calming down–just a little. “Then please tell me what was going on here.”

The Judge sat down on the arm of a couch and began, “Not long ago, we put down a... disturbance started by our Titan friends and their associates. Are you familiar with the Titans?”

“Vaguely,” I replied.

“They roamed the earth and the heavens before my brothers and sisters established a more benign order,” the Judge explained. “They thrive on chaos and declare it to be the natural order of things. When we put down their latest attempt to interfere in our plans, there were a few loose ends...”

“Loose ends?” I asked.

He nodded. “That’s right. There were agents of the Titans still in place but unknown to us. One of them appeared to be getting closer than we wished to the purpose of Ovid. That purpose is our most closely-guarded secret. We knew information was leaking out, but not how. Then we became aware that there were sleepers among us. They had been planted here from the beginning, posing as loyal supporters of our cause.

“As much damage as they caused, they were in need of help. They had gotten as far as they could without exposing themselves. They were somewhat limited in their talents, not used to modern methods of espionage. They decided the best course of action would be to bring in a professional unknown to any of us to help with their cause. They chose your nemesis–Andre–for their mission.”

“But Andre–Jeff–was working for you as an agent provocateur,” I surmised.

The Judge smiled. “Very good. Yes, that is the term. He was to show sympathy for their cause and lead them to believe that he had uncovered our actual plan here in Ovid. He needed to be convincing, and he most certainly achieved that, don’t you think?”

Jeff gave me a weak smile which I returned with a pitiless frown. “Yes,” I begrudgingly admitted. “He did achieve that.”

I turned back to the Judge. “You don’t have any power over us unless we’re about to die, do you?”

The Judge didn’t answer, but continued to smile at me.

“So you–or specifically, another one of you,” I said, thinking of the Admiral, “enticed me to kill Andre for you.”

“Our Titan friends were too clumsy,” the Judge admitted. “We were afraid they would bungle the job. They were informed through their own agents in your FBI that you had been set loose on Andre. You were a logical choice. Your own life would have ended at that warehouse in Baton Rouge, and your hatred of Andre would spur you to do what we needed done.”

I was fuming. I hated being used. “But you knew Minnie was one of the Titans. Why go through all of this just to confirm the obvious?”

“That is the key word–confirm,” the Judge explained. “Not all Titans are bad, and not all of us are good–assuming you accept that we are not evil to begin with. Of course we suspected her, but we had no proof. She had been very careful not to be directly involved in any of the activities. But Jeff’s supposed revelations on our plans were just too tempting for her. When she showed herself here today, that was all the proof we needed.

“Now, if you will excuse me, I have a wayward daughter to discipline. I encourage the two of you to work out your problems.”

His form began to waver and become as transparent as that of the shades. “Wait!” I called out. “I’m curious. Which of the Muses betrayed you here today?”

Only a voice remained of the Judge, but I could hear in it amusement. “Isn’t that obvious, my dear?” he said. “Who else could it be but Mepomene?”

Of course. Merry was Mepomene–the Muse of Tragedy.

“Uh... Julie...”

I turned back to face Jeff, my arms carefully folded over my breasts. “What?”

“I want to explain some things to you,” he said softly. “I know you feel I’ve betrayed you...”

“That seems to be the story of our lives, doesn’t it, Andre?”

He shook his head. “I’m not Andre. And you’re not Baxter. You’ve changed–don’t deny it. Ovid does that to people. We aren’t who we used to be.”

“But I still remember who we were,” I pointed out with a note of sadness. “In some ways, I wish we didn’t. Maybe the lucky ones in Ovid are the ones who are permitted to forget.”

“I don’t think so,” Jeff countered. “Sit down and we can talk about this.”

He motioned for me to sit next to him on the couch, but I chose a chair instead. There was no way I was going to sit close enough for him to touch me. I didn’t want him to touch me ever again.

“I need to tell you why I agreed to do all of this,” he began.

“The answer is obvious,” I snapped. “It was the money. That’s all you’ve cared about since Barbara’s death, isn’t it?”

“No, Julie...”

“Don’t call me that.”

“All right. But it wasn’t the money. Did you know I had over five million dollars in investments when I was asked to take this assignment? To come here to Ovid, I had to give it up–all of it!”

I didn’t know what to say, so I remained quiet.

“I was approached by the Judge’s enemies first. They offered me two million for this job alone. Before I could give them an answer, I was contacted by Admiral Nepper. His agents knew what I had been offered, so he made me a better offer.”

“Better than two million?” I asked. “But I thought you said you didn’t do this for the money.”

“I didn’t,” he confirmed. “Admiral Nepper didn’t offer me money. He offered me Barbara.”

“What? But Barbara’s dead,” I protested. “Surely not even the Judge can bring someone back to life?”

“Not exactly,” he agreed. “But the magic of Ovid changes reality. You and I–and all the other real people in Ovid–we never existed in any other form when reality gets changed. So all the things we did in our lives just never happened. You and I never met at Georgetown. I never met Barbara, and so...”

“She never died,” I said quietly. My God. My sister was alive! Well, she wasn’t my sister, I supposed, but that didn’t matter. I was never going to see her again in this world anyhow. Just knowing that she was alive...

“But if you never met Barbara...”

“Then she isn’t my wife,” he finished for me. “She’s married. The Judge at least allowed me to know what became of her life. She went to Georgetown and went into law. While practicing in New York, she met an investment banker her age. They’re married now and have been for almost as long as we would have been if she had lived.” Jeff managed a wistful smile. “They have two children–a boy and a girl. I’ve seen their pictures. They’re a very attractive and a very happy family.”

“You did this... all of this... for Barbara?” I asked slowly. There was a quaver in my voice. I think until that moment, I had never realized how much Andre missed Barbara. I cursed myself. For all of those wasted years, I thought Andre was a careless lout who had caused the death of my sister. It was only now that I realized I had not been the only one to die inside when Barbara was killed.

“But why all the years as an agent for hire?” I asked. “Why didn’t you explain?”

“Don’t you think I tried?” Jeff asked in frustration. “Think about Norman Allison in the Bureau. He’s built his career on the mangled bodies of other agents like you. We had men like him in the CIA, too. Someone had to take the fall for the botched assignment that got Barbara killed. My career was over the minute I threatened to take them down.”

“But Allison was the FBI liaison on that assignment.”

“Of course he was,” Jeff agreed. “That’s why he helped to destroy your career. If you were allowed to pursue me, you might find out the truth. They prospered, Jul... They prospered while we died a little each day.”

I was silent. Had I really wasted my life so needlessly? My hatred for Andre was misplaced. I should have hated others and pitied Andre. How men like Norman Allison must have laughed at me–running around the country in pursuit of the man I had the most in common with. I felt tears in my eyes, but were they tears of frustration or just tears of joy that in spite of all my bungling, Barbara was still alive.

“You look a little like her, you know.”

My head jerked up at Jeff. “Who?”

He smiled. “Barbara. You have her eyes and her coloring. There were actually times over the last few days that I nearly called you by her name. You two always were a lot alike.”

“I suppose we were,” I said quietly.

“Julie...”

I didn’t stop him for calling me by that name this time.

“...I love you.”

The words reverberated inside my head. My mind tasted them, savoring them like a delicious morsel that had never been experienced before.

“I...” I began. I tripped on the word. I. Who was I? I was... I was... “I... love you...”

And I knew in the instant that the words left my mouth that it was true. Our lives were intertwined, but not as they had been in the past. As I dived for the couch to bury myself in Jeff’s waiting arms, I knew that Andre and Baxter were just convenient terms for two old enemies who had never really existed. Jeff and Julie were the proper names for lovers.

“So the Others haven’t given up yet,” Susan concluded as my trance faded away.

Diana shook her head. “No, and I doubt if they ever will. They’re actually as powerful as we are in their own way. And they have potential allies as well. Imagine what would happen, for example, if your government learned of our existence.”

I leaned over to look Diana in the face. “Look, Di, we might all be able to help more if we knew what was going on. Why can’t you trust us? Let us know what we can do to help.”

“Be yourselves,” she replied cryptically.

“Be ourselves?” I asked. I felt as if I was in an old Babylon Five episode trying to make sense of the pronouncements of the Vorlons. “What do you mean by that?”

Diana was silent for a moment before answering. At last she said, “It’s up to the Judge to tell you whatever he will. There are even things the rest of us don’t know. But I can tell you this. He has determined that something terrible is just over the horizon and he has a plan to prevent it from happening. The Others want to prevent him from doing that. It isn’t that they’re evil or anything. Rather, they just think events should be allowed to unfold without interference from us. Or maybe I should say most of them aren’t evil.”

“What terrible thing is coming?” Susan asked hesitantly, as if she wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer.

“I can’t say,” Diana replied. “In fact, I don’t really know. But don’t worry. There’s plenty of time to prevent it. We just have to make sure the Others don’t derail our plans.”

With that she got to her feet. “And now, on a lighter note, I have a little treat for you.”

As if on cue, two girls I recognized as a couple of the Muses appeared at the patio door. I wasn’t sure which ones they were, but I knew neither was Merry. The Judge had been mum about his punishment of Merry, but I was certain she wouldn’t be standing at my patio door with the broad smile both of these girls had.

“We’ve decided to give you two a break,” Diana announced. “We’re going to take your kids with us and give you two the afternoon off.”

“But I have school shopping to do,” I protested.

“We’ll handle it,” Diana assured me as the Muses rousted the kids for an excursion. “Besides, the kids like going out with Aunt Diana, don’t you?”

“Yeah!” the twins cheered as they entered the room. No matter what guise Diana chose, the twins always seemed to recognize her and saw nothing strange about her. I think Diana liked it that way.

In moment, they had all left together, taking the babies as well leaving Susan and me alone.

“So what are we going to do?” Susan asked.

Without any hesitation, I told her, “Well, for starters, change out of that outfit. You can borrow a top and some shorts from me. You’re a little smaller than me up top, but I think I can find something that works. While you change, I’ll get the beer and some pretzels.”

“You mean...?” she began with a happy smile.

I grinned. “Yeah. The Oklahoma game’s on TV. If you hurry, I think we can make the kickoff. Who says just because we’re girls we can’t enjoy football?”

The End