---

Of all the gods I had come to know in my time in Ovid, there was only one I had come to actively dislike. Some of the gods had practically become friends, and one in particular–Diana–had become one of my best friends. Others were more standoffish, indulging human company but actively avoiding it. Some of them could be brusque while others were merely distant. My own boss–The Judge–could be like that at times, although I gave him a bye since I understood the heavy weight of responsibility perched on his shoulders.

The one I had come to dislike actively though, had become even more of an anathema to me since the recent attempt on the lives of me and my family. There was no doubt in my mind that Aaron March, the Ovidian incarnation of the Roman God of War, was the being responsible for putting my family in jeopardy.

Since the attempt on our lives, I had stewed in silence as The Judge’s investigation into the recent security breaches wallowed in futility. I had attempted only once to tell The Judge about the individual I was certain was responsible, but he abruptly stopped me, defending his son to the hilt. Worse yet, he refused to tell me why my family had suddenly become a target for the enemies of Ovid. So not only was I forced to fear for my family’s safety, but I had to remain ignorant of what we had done to become targets.

Now though, all of that was about to change, I thought as I pulled into the parking lot at City Hall to begin another day at work. I smiled smugly, knowing that although The Judge still hadn’t confided in me, the truth had been delivered to him, and my family would be safer now that the leak was exposed.

I was thankful the shit hadn’t hit the fan over the weekend. Since it was a weekday, Jerry was at work, the twins were in school, and Ashley was at day care, so I wouldn’t be rushed in my review session with The Judge and could take all day if necessary. Although things had apparently come to a head the morning before, my services in viewing the memories of a transformee had not been called for. Apparently, The Judge had spent the remainder of the day reviewing what had happened. For all I knew, he might have worked all night, since I suspected the gods never really slept. I was sure he took a long, long time to review what had happened, and I was reasonably certain that today would see the fall of a god.

Even more important than bringing down a god, I was anxious for things to get back to normal. Normal... Even after several years, the term ‘normal’ still seemed ironic. It was hard for me to imagine the young pre-law Notre Dame student–male student at that–of just a few short years ago ever considering that life in a small Oklahoma town as a woman, a wife, and a mother to three children could ever be considered normal. Now I couldn’t imagine it being any other way.

Oh, I suppose to be completely honest, I would sometimes wonder what my life had been if I had remained male–and not been slated to die in a tragic car accident with three of my best friends, which would most surely have happened. By now, I’d be in law school, preparing myself to become an attorney, probably practicing back home in the Midwest. I might even have a serious girlfriend by now, ready to settle down with me and have one of those successful but mundane lives most of us secretly covet.

Instead, though, my life had been filled with excitement and mystery, watching the gods of ancient Rome as they wove together a complex plan to save our world.

“Hi, Cindy!”

I had just walked in the door to City Hall, surprised to see Diana waiting there for me. She was smiling–a good sign since I suspected from her conservative suit and professionally conservative dark hair that she was on official business, and even though she was someone I considered a good friend, the idea of a goddess in a bad mood is not something to be desired.

“You’re up early today,” I commented, accepting a demure hug from her and returning it.

“Oh, it’s not really early for me,” she laughed. “I started the day in Europe, so I’ve been up for hours.”

She was walking with me toward my office, but at the last minute, took my arm, guiding me toward a conference room. “The Judge wants to see you right away,” she explained.

“Something urgent?” I asked with some trepidation. After the assaults on Ovid during the past few weeks, emergency meetings and urgent needs for my services were getting to be all too common. Often, they meant danger for me and my family–or in some cases, for everyone in Ovid. While I knew The Judge would be calling for me today, the fact that other gods were apparently involved meant a major event was about to occur.

“Let’s just say The Judge wants everyone to know this at once.”

As she opened the door to the conference room, I could see that The Judge really meant everyone. Oh, some of the minor players weren’t there, but in addition to Diana and The Judge, Betty Vest–the President of Capta College, Dr. Miner–the Superintendent of Ovid Public Schools, Officer Mercer, Eric Vulman, and Vera March were all seated impatiently twitching in their seats. Surprisingly, Aaron March was there as well, looking more uncomfortable than impatient as he slouched down next to his wife. I had expected him to be in the hands of Mr. Haynes, imprisoned in the crypt beneath the town.

I nodded respectfully to the assembled gods, mindful of the fact that they only congregated in this fashion when something very important was to be brought before them. Decorum must be maintained.

I was shown to an empty seat at the head of the table, which was a clue for me that I would soon be deep in a trance, observing the life of yet another of Ovid’s new residents. I looked down the length of the table, thinking about how the gods looked more like a corporate board of directors instead of Olympus’s finest. I guess it was the modern clothing–business suits and the like–and the high-backed directors’ chairs that gave the impression.

There was still a chair open on my right. I suspected it was being kept for yet another deity when to my surprise, Susan Jager walked in. Officer Mercer promptly escorted her to the empty chair.

“What’s going on?” Susan asked in a whisper.

“I don’t know,” I replied in a whisper of my own. And I didn’t, but I could guess. Ovid had been plagued by breaches in security of late, and it seemed as if the enemies of The Judge had enlisted the help of the US government in an effort to bring the gods’ mysterious plan to a halt. The most recent incursions had nearly cost me and my family our lives, as well as Susan’s family.

I had suspected Aaron March was behind the incursions. While he was supposedly on The Judge’s side, I often found myself wondering what the God of War was doing presumably trying to prevent a major war in the Middle East. It seemed to me that a nice bloody war would be right up his alley. But The Judge trusted him. Now I knew how Harry Potter must have felt when Dumbledore insisted upon trusting Snape.

“Ms. Jager,” The Judge began from his seat at the other end of the table, “I have asked you to join us today since the subject will be important to your family as well as Ms. Patton’s family. I’m speaking, of course, of the recent assaults on Ovid, which I think you will soon see should be coming to a halt. The leaks in our security have been forcefully if somewhat belatedly repaired.” He looked meaningfully at the God of War, his trusted son. I wouldn’t have wanted The Judge to look at me like that.

I didn’t think it was possible, but Aaron March seemed to slide even further into his seat.

“Ms. Patton!” The Judge called out.

“Yes, sir?”

“We would like to review the file of Francis J. Malone.”

I wasn’t surprised at the choice. “Right away, sir,” I replied as I dropped off into a familiar trance...

From thirty-five thousand feet, everything looks small.

As far as I was concerned though, everything looked pretty small when I was on the ground as well. That’s what a few billion dollars will do for you. Everything looks small no matter where you are.

According to the GPS running in the corner of my oversized screen, we were somewhere over Idaho, having just reached our cruising altitude after leaving Sea-Tac the instant the lingering morning fog had cleared. The fog had not been expected to last so long into the morning, so flight schedules were thrown into a tizzy. It meant we were an hour off schedule. We wouldn’t reach Miami until nightfall, so for business purposes, we could be delayed a day.

The damned pilot should have insisted we be allowed to take off on time. We had more radar on board than a fucking 767 and he knew it. He should have made sure the tower knew it. Now, we were delayed. I didn’t like to be delayed. I made a mental note to fire that idiot pilot as soon as we got back to Seattle. Maybe, if I could find a better pilot in Miami, I’d fire this one’s ass before we got back to Seattle. Make him fly commercial back home at his own expense. That would teach him.

“A drink, Mr. Malone?”

I looked up from the screen. Mandy was our flight attendant: she had taken care of me before–and I do mean taken care of me. I looked up at the smiling blonde, standing there perched on three-inch heels in a skirt short enough to be illegal in at least five red states. It was the uniform I required of every flight attendant, and Mandy wore it well. “I drink after sex, Mandy,” I reminded her.

She smiled as she set my drink down and began to pull off her blouse.

The couch in my compartment made into a reasonably comfortable bed–mostly for long overnight flights. It was designed for one, but Mandy and I didn’t have much trouble making it work for two.

When we were finished, I flipped off the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign and was rewarded with an almost immediate knock on the cabin door. “Mr. Malone?” Lorenzo’s voice called over the roar of the engines. “Do you want the office staff to wait for us in Miami?”

I opened the door as Mandy finished straightening her outfit. As I was wearing nothing but my boxers, it was obvious to Lorenzo what we had been up to. No biggie, though. Lorenzo had seen this scene repeated on many flights and knew how well he was paid to notice nothing untoward. “Of course I want them to stay,” I growled. “If I fire them tonight, I won’t have to pay them to come in tomorrow.”

“But it will be awfully late, sir...” Lorenzo pointed out meekly.

“I don’t remember asking you about the time,” I growled, eyes narrowed.

“Yes, sir.” Lorenzo nervously smoothed the non-existent hair on the top of his head and hustled back to his seat. Wimpy little bastard–queer as a three dollar bill too, as my father used to say. I didn’t know that for a fact, but how could anybody be that wimpy and not be a queer? I’d fire him too, except the little fairy was so damned efficient.

“Send Taylor in here in about ten minutes,” I went on in a tone of obvious dismissal. The ten minutes would give me a chance to get dressed again–not that I wouldn’t have enjoyed meeting Taylor with nothing on but my boxer shorts. “I’ve got a couple of letters I need to review with her.”

“Yes, sir.”

While I waited for Taylor, I took a moment to check myself out in the mirror and get rid of my bed head. A little water splashed on my face and a bit more to smooth down my dark blond hair and I looked moderately presentable. Of course, given who I was, most women who knew of me would have put up with BO and a three-day growth of beard to have a shot at me.

And a lot of women knew who I was. Franklin J Malone–that was me–had been on the cover of just about every business and news magazine in America–and most of the ones overseas as well. Ten years ago, I had been a college student no one had ever heard of. But now, I was the founder and prime mover of one of the largest software and Internet companies in the world. Five years after the release of my first version of Be-All, I was a billionaire several times over and the man credited with bringing down every other high-tech hotshot from Gates to Jobs.

Is it any wonder I considered myself more infallible than the Pope? And I’ll bet I got a lot more pussy than the Pope, too.

Thinking back on that hubris now, it seems difficult to understand how I could have been so big-headed, but at the time, that was how I felt. After all, I had designed and brought to market a program that took AI to a new level. All a user had to do was install Be-All and every other program he purchased would automatically integrate into a super data base/GUI/operating system/etc. Companies could save so much in integration costs that the ludicrously-high price of Be-All seemed extremely reasonable. And since the incremental cost of a new sale was nothing more than the cost of a blank CD and a few bucks in commissions, most of that ludicrously-high price found its way into my net worth.

Mandy smiled on the way out of my cabin. “I’ll freshen your drink, Mr. Malone.”

“You do that.” I smiled back, but it was probably more like a leer than a smile.

I settled back at my desk, lighting a Cuban and reviewing the latest numbers out of Miami. They were uniformly awful. Sales of Be-All were down thirty per cent, and all because of Metamorph–a knock off of Be-All, designed by a little outfit out of Miami. So far, the company had concentrated on Southern states, but a national launch wasn’t far off. I had depended upon my Miami office to blunt Metamorph’s growth, but they had failed me. Now, they’d pay the price.

Of course, I knew that ISAOA, the little company that had developed Metamorph, was a special case. Unlike Gates, who had tried and failed to develop a product that could compete with Be-All, the leaders of ISAOA had once been associated with me. When they left, they knew almost as much about Be-All as I did. After all, I was the one who taught them. They knew how to compete against our product, and they had applied their knowledge well.

Of course, we had sued them. But there were problems we hadn’t been able to overcome. Software suits can take years to resolve–look at Blackberry. Add to that the fact that the company was offshore in a country less than friendly to US interests, and the fact that much of the money behind ISAOA had come from organized crime, and it spelled Big Problems.

The Miami office had been working with a team of high-priced lawyers to figure a way to blunt Metamorph’s advancing market share with subtle threats of potential intellectual rights issues with the new product while our home office legal staff tried to figure a way to sue ISAOA out of business. It hadn’t worked, though. Now we’d have to start all over in Miami.

There was a knock at my cabin door.

“Come in,” I called out with an odd anticipation in my voice. Why was I always as nervous as a schoolboy when she came into my presence? I suppose in a way I wanted her but knew I couldn’t have her–she had made that perfectly clear. If she had been anyone else, I would have fired her, but not Wanda.

Wanda Taylor walked into my cabin, swivelling a little awkwardly as she did. She looked a little embarrassed to be wearing heels so high and a skirt so short–not to mention a top so tight that it looked as if her breasts were going to burst through it. God, I wanted her right then and there. I know, I know, I had just bedded Mandy, but Mandy was an easy lay. Wanda had rebuffed my every advance, causing me to want her all the more. I knew Wanda hated what I made her wear, but she was paid far too well to afford the luxury of telling me to stick it where the sun don’t shine. She made no secret from the way she carried herself that she hated the dress code I had imposed on all of the women in the company–skirts, heels, the works, and the tighter the better. Even though I couldn’t have her, I enjoyed watching her squirm in her sexy outfit.

She pushed a long blonde lock out of her face. “You wanted to review some letters?” That was Wanda–all business all the time.

I didn’t answer her right away. Instead, I looked her over, up and down, causing her to blush. I made no overt advances, though. I didn’t dare. She was probably just waiting for me to do something stupid so she could sue the pants off me. That wasn’t going to happen, though. I was way too smart for that. Even the dress code was worded in such a way that the women in my company couldn’t find enough to sue me over. A couple had tried, and they had lost.

I had hired Wanda from the smoking ruins of Microsoft. She had been Bill Gates’ personal assistant, so she was valuable when it came to integrating the remaining parts of Microsoft into Malone Enterprises. She didn’t like working for me, but for what I was paying her, she could lump it–just like she could lump the company dress code.

“Yes, I do,” I finally told her. I picked up another report from the edge of my desk. I waved it in front of her nose. “What’s this all about?”

To my annoyance, she didn’t seem at all perturbed. “It’s the satellite coverage test you commissioned,” she said calmly. “Don’t you remember?” There was a condescending tone to her question.

“Of course I remember!” I shot back. “What I want to know is what is R&D doing to overcome the deficiencies?”

“Deficiencies, Mr. Malone?”

“You heard me,” I told her, opening the report. “If Be-All Sat is going to work, we need to make sure we have strong coverage over the entire globe. Look at this report. The test signals indicate several parts of the world where signals aren’t clear. And look at this–there are dead spots with no coverage at all.”

“Just two spots,” she argued. “One is in rural Oklahoma and the other is in Syria a few miles outside Damascus. Those are hardly worth worrying about. They aren’t exactly prime markets for Be-All Sat.”

“I’ll be the judge of that,” I reminded her sternly. “According to the report, our vaunted engineers can’t explain why those dead spots are there. Before we deploy the network, we need to know what is causing these dead spots. Otherwise, we may find other dead spots as we deploy the product.”

“I’ll get our team on it right away,” she said calmly.

“You’d better,” I snapped.

As she left, I was downright furious, but more at her than our engineers. I both hated and admired the way she stood up to me, and I was pissed at myself for being so ambivalent. Part of her problem was that she knew she was practically indispensable. Give her a task and it got done, but her unflappable attitude grated on me.

In effect, she was right. Be-All Sat was scheduled for kickoff in two more weeks, and the fact that it couldn’t be used in two minor parts of the world was not, in itself, all that important. The problem was that no one could figure out why those dead spots existed. Teams had been sent into both area and found nothing that would cause the problem.

Be-All Sat was the next step in the growth of the company. The in-house product had reached its limits, and only a more powerful version in contact with the more sophisticated AI on our internal system could hope to take the product to the next level. In addition, our corporate intelligence told us Metamorph’s satellite delivery was at least two years away. They hadn’t even launched and tested their birds yet. This could be our chance to put them away without depending upon the vagaries of the courtroom. But if those dead spots proved to be random, or mope pervasive than we had imagined, Be-All could crash at any time, any place–and that would be disastrous.

Next on my schedule was to call New York on an acquisition opportunity my agents were working on. I was just about to make the call when the plane lurched suddenly.

Now, I want it understood that I am not as a rule a nervous flyer, but I would challenge anyone not to feel their stomach dropping to the floor when the plane they are riding in shudders and jumps violently. Instead of New York, I called the pilot.

“What the hell is going on up there?”

“We... we aren’t sure, sir,” came the uncomfortable answer.

That didn’t sound good at all. I wasn’t about to leave things at that. “I’m coming up there,” I snapped.

It seemed as if I had to take care of everything, I grumbled silently as I made my way up past the seats where Lorenzo and Wanda were working. Fortunately, I was a pretty good pilot in my own right. I knew just what questions to ask that incompetent pilot of mine. I had made up my mind. Once we were in Miami, my pilot would be looking for work, and his co-pilot with him.

I barged into the cockpit to a scene of chaos. The pilot and co-pilot were engaged in an argument while the pilot was nervously fiddling with the automatic pilot and the co-pilot was twisting the radio dial through multiple frequencies.

“What the fuck is wrong up here?” I yelled over their squabbling. “Can’t you two figure out how to fly the plane?”

“It’s the autopilot, sir!” the pilot told me. From the sound of his voice, the problem was more than just a hiccup in the autopilot.

“What’s the problem?”

“It was engaged and doing fine until a few minutes ago,” the pilot explained. “Then suddenly, it shut itself off. I’m trying to re-engage it... there!”

The plane seemed to reset itself in trim, and the rough ride we had been experiencing smoothed out.

“I still can’t raise anyone on the radio,” the co-pilot called out.

“It’s okay,” the pilot responded. “The autopilot is back on... what’s this?”

“What’s what?” I demanded.

The pilot was obviously puzzled, looking at the LED displays above the autopilot. “This isn’t the course I set in.”

“The turn the fucking thing off and start over,” I demanded.

He did as he was ordered, but nothing changed. “It’s still set on another course,” he said incredulously.

“So what course is it set on?” I asked.

“That’s not our big worry right now,” he told me. “The problem is that the software on this plane is designed to guide the plane portal to portal. We normally don’t use it to actually land the plane. A 737 can be a little touchy to land automatically. But if we can’t turn it off, this plane will land wherever the current setting is taking it.”

“So?”

“So what if that ‘somewhere’ doesn’t have a long enough runway to accommodate the plane?”

I felt my heart jump. “It won’t allow that, will it?” Surely no one would be stupid enough to allow software on board which would cause the plane to land somewhere with too small a runway, would it?

The pilot shook his head. “Normally, no, but according to the documentation, the destination code isn’t valid. We don’t know where we’re going. This all just happened when I was re-setting the system to take us up another two thousand feet to avoid some weather.”

“So this is your fault,” I said. It wasn’t a question.

He shook his head again. “I just don’t know. Now Carson,” he nodded toward his co-pilot, “can’t raise ATC on the radio, so we’re flying blind and deaf.”

“Bill, look at this,” Carson called out to the pilot. He was pointing to the autopilot.

“What is it?”

“The autopilot is turned off.”

I looked at the meaningless LED display. “Are you out of your fucking mind?” I practically yelled. “Of course it’s on. Look at the LED.”

“Yes, sir,” the co-pilot replied, obviously trying to hold his temper under stress. “The display is on but the unit is off.”

Rather than argue, the pilot flipped the switch to the ‘on’ position. The LED display remained unchanged. “What the hell...”

“Look,” I snapped at the pilot, “quit screwing with that. Disconnect it if you have to, but get us safely on the ground.” With that, I stormed out of the cockpit.

Wanda and Lorenzo both looked concerned, but it was Wanda who had the balls to address me. Lorenzo just sat there trembling like a little schoolgirl.

“What’s happening?” she asked.

“Those two aren’t competent to handle a balsa wood glider,” I told her. I suppose I should have been panicked, too, but I was too pissed to be scared. Besides, I was Franklin J. Malone and I was invincible. Maybe I was just being too dense to think about the consequences of the malfunction on board, or maybe I was just too wrapped up in the thought that this was going to delay me from getting to the staff in Miami early enough to fire them. Whatever the reason–or reasons–all I could do was fume.

I had to take my ire out on someone. I spotted Mandy sitting in the back of the cabin. Her face was white with fear. I glared at her. “What the hell are you doing sitting on your ass. Get me a drink, damn it!”

She was so used to following my orders that she jumped to her feet and dutifully slipped behind the bar. The clink of ice in my glass felt somehow calming, as if such a normal activity as fixing me a drink made things seem normal.

It was Lorenzo’s turn now. I turned to face him. He winced, as if I were going to hit him. “Quit acting like a little girl,” I growled at him. “Show some balls. Get Miami on the line for me and tell them we’re delayed, but I want them in the office at seven–no make that six in the morning.”

“Six?”

“You have a hearing problem, Lorenzo?”

“Yes, sir!”

As if to emphasize my point the plane lurched. I hadn’t been expecting it and hadn’t braced for it, so I toppled over, cracking my knee on the side of one of the seats.

“Now what the hell is going on?” I roared.

Back in the cabin, confusion reigned. Although the plane seemed to be making a controlled descent, I knew the minute I opened the cockpit door that the crew had completely lost control of the aircraft. Both the pilot and the co-pilot were frantically flipping switches and turning knobs, but nothing seemed to have any effect.

“Where are we?” I demanded.

“Dropping through twenty-five thousand feet over central Kansas,” the pilot replied without turning toward me. His face was white–it didn’t exactly instil any confidence.

“Can you shut everything down and restart?” I asked more calmly than I felt.

“We’ve tried,” he replied. “Nothing seems to have any effect.”

“Have you issued a distress call?”

“We still don’t have any communications either. Now how about going back to your seat and let us handle this?”

“You haven’t been handling it very well,” I grumbled, but I did what he asked–or at least I went back to the main cabin. To be honest, I was as frightened as anyone else on board, but I hadn’t gotten where I had in the business world by showing any weaknesses. I might be frightened, but no one would know. If we crashed and died, no one would be around to know how terrified I was, but if we survived, I didn’t want some little pansy like Lorenzo blabbing that I had been scared enough to practically piss in my pants.

While Lorenzo looked as if he was about to scream for his mommy, Taylor was matching my stoicism. I begrudgingly and silently gave her credit. She seemed to have more balls than most of the men on board. I was glad, really. Her demeanor forced me to put on the brave act. Without her fortitude, I would have had no one around to compare my own reactions to.

I tried to think of something else–anything else as the plane droned on through unknown skies. As I buckled in, I could see we were entering a bank of clouds at what I estimated to be about fifteen thousand feet. Wherever we were going, we’d be there shortly.

Maybe this was like that last few seconds of your life where you supposedly see your whole life flash before you, I thought. I hoped not. Most of my early life was not all that pleasant and better off forgotten. Rather than remembering the pudgy, shy little boy I had been–orphaned at twelve by a nasty car accident and raised by an uncaring aunt and uncle until I had been old enough to get away to college–it was better to dwell on the me who took to computer programming in college and quickly and ruthlessly developed that skill until the world was nearly mine for the taking.

Strangely enough, neither of my selves rose to mind. Instead, I had something of an epiphany dropping down through the clouds to an unknown fate. I began to realize that if I died, there would be no one to mourn my passing. My aunt and uncle would not care–other than the forlorn hope that they might be able to achieve through my death a portion of my wealth I had purposefully denied them in life. There was no wife or any children to mourn my passing, and as for any of my business associates, my death might produce more opportunities than problems. Sure, the stock in Malone Enterprises would drop in price, but it would recover, so even my stockholders would have no long-term reason to mourn my passing. The only reminder of my existence would probably be an oil painting of me in the boardroom over the caption of ‘Our Founder.’

For a man who had often seen himself as invincible, it was a sobering thought.

As we broke through the clouds, I could see below a common Midwestern landscape–green fields lined up neatly with a monotonous grid of farm roads stretching out nearly to the horizon. I could make out hills in the distance–two nearly-identical groupings of them sheltering a valley in between. No, I realized as I looked at the two clusters of hills, they weren’t ‘nearly identical.’ Instead, they were absolutely identical, as if someone had cloned one set and moved it a few miles away.

As the plane approached the entrance to the valley, it banked sharply, giving me hope that the pilot had regained control of the aircraft. “Do you have control of the plane?” I asked brusquely through the intercom at my seat.

“Negative,” the pilot replied, exposing his military background with that response. “The plane seems to be flying itself, but it’s not doing it right. The engines are idling and none of the ailerons are in play. By all rights, we should be tumbling out of the sky right now.”

I didn’t bother to respond, but if I had, I would have reminded him that it was for the best that we weren’t reacting as he thought we should be.

The cabin had become strangely calm. I think all of us were just thankful that whoever–or whatever–was flying the plane was doing it in a way that seemed best for our survival. Lorenzo was calmer than I had ever seen him before, and Taylor seemed her normal distant self. As for Mandy, she had been whimpering moments before, but now the whimpering had stopped. I swivelled around far enough to note that she too, sat calmly, her hands together as she watched the ground slowly rising in her view.

We were passing over a town. It didn’t look to be very large–no more than ten thousand or so, I estimated. I could only hope that its airport possessed a runway long enough to land on safely. Then I realized I had no real evidence that it was landing at an airport at all. Still, the ride was so smooth and so controlled that I felt there had to be a runway coming up.

The pilot confirmed it. “Folks, buckle up for landing. I don’t know how, but we’re lined up with a runway right now and should be safely on the ground in a couple of minutes.”

Good to his word, I felt the gear drop, and moments later, the wheels touched down on a smooth surface. I was alarmed for a second as I didn’t hear the roar of the engines being reversed to reduce our speed, but for whatever reason, the plane slowed of its own accord, neatly pulling off onto a taxiway and coming to a stop in front of a nearby hangar.

I jumped to my feet the moment we stopped and rushed into the cockpit. “Where the hell are we?” I asked hurriedly as I peered out onto the tarmac.

“We don’t know,” the pilot admitted, perusing a chart. “All we know for certain is we’re somewhere in Eastern Oklahoma. The GPS crapped out right after we crossed the state line. We must be somewhere near Muskogee, but the airport–hell, even the town–don’t show up on the charts.”

“We’re in Ovid, Oklahoma,” the co-pilot called out.

We both looked at him in surprise. “How the hell do you know that?” I demanded.

The co-pilot pointed out beyond the nose of our aircraft. “Because that’s what it says on the side of that police car.”

I did a double take. I had just looked out on the tarmac and seen nothing. Now, there was a police car sitting there, and an officer wearing those stupid mirrored sunglasses was standing beside it, as if he had been waiting for us for hours.

“He wasn’t there a moment ago...” my voice trailed off.

“Well, he’s there now,” the pilot replied drolly as he unstrapped himself and headed back into the cabin–to open the hatch as it turned out.

Everyone else in the main cabin was still belted in place, as if unsure as to if the plane was going to miraculously decide to fly back up into the sky. However, as the pilot opened the hatch, each of them reluctantly released their belts and followed the pilot and me down the stairs that had already been placed in front of the hatch–by whom I had no idea.

The police officer just stood there with his arms folded until the co-pilot–the last man on board–stepped off the plane. Then he moseyed over to stand in front of us, an officious expression on his face.

“Good aftern...” I began, but he cut me off with, “Don’t you know it’s illegal to bring explosives into Ovid?”

“Explosives?” I repeated, confused. “What the hell are you talking about?”

Without a word, he walked over to the plane, opening a baggage hatch (although how he managed it without the proper tools didn’t seem to matter to us at the time). From just within the compartment, he pulled a small but heavy-looking trunk. Opening it (again with no discernable key, we all stared dumfounded as we looked at half a dozen large gray bricks, each with a wire leading to a small electronic device.

“This is an altimeter,” the police officer explained drolly. “It’s set to trigger these explosives at thirty-seven thousand feet...”

I did a little quick math in my head. We had been cruising at thirty-five thousand feet as I remembered. The pilot had mentioned something about getting ready to go up another two thousand feet when he lost control of the plane. If he had succeeded in doing so, we’d probably be nothing but debris scattered from the Rockies to the Nebraska panhandle.

“But how could you know about those explosives?” the pilot asked.

“You apparently have some powerful enemies, Mr. Malone,” the police officer commented. Was I the only one who noticed that he really hadn’t answered the question?

But yes, apparently I did have powerful enemies, I admitted to myself, and I was pretty sure as to who they were. Metamorph had been financed by organized crime: we had all known that. What we hadn’t known is how far they would go to eliminate me rather than face the upcoming legal battle they were sure to lose.

And I thought I was ruthless...

“I’m going to have to place you all under arrest,” the officer announced suddenly.

I looked up at him, trying to see if there was a hint of a smile or a twinkle in his eyes hidden by the reflective shades. “You’re joking, aren’t you? If so, it’s not funny.”

“I’m not trying to be funny,” he replied laconically. “It’s illegal to bring explosive devices into the city of Ovid.”

As he spoke, a second police car pulled up beside the first one, and an attractive female officer emerged from the vehicle. She was black (okay already... African-American–happy now?) and wore an outfit identical to the other officer. I couldn’t help but wonder why any woman who looked like her would want to dress like a man. But I had more important questions right now.

“How the hell can you accuse us of bringing explosives into your pissant town? Don’t you realize someone else put them there to kill us?”

The officer remained steadfast. “That’s true, but you did transport them here, knowingly or not.”

“This is a fucking outrage!” I yelled. It didn’t impress the officer, though.

“Sir, one more outburst and I’ll have to add resisting arrest.”

“Fine!” I fumed. “Okay, I get it. This is a small town shakedown. Okay, take me to your judge or whatever. I’ll pay whatever fines it takes to get us out of here. But when I get to Miami, I’m going to stick so many lawyers up your town’s ass it won’t be able to shit for a month.”

Oh yes, I was so diplomatic in those days, wasn’t I?

In my own defense, though–if it could be called a defense–the charges were ludicrous, and I was a man who was rich and powerful enough that I generally got my way. So forgive me if I went a little over the top, but keep in mind it usually got the results I was looking for.

I might as well have said nothing, though. Neither officer changed expressions: it was as if they hadn’t even heard what I was saying. With one final dramatic sigh, I allowed myself to be escorted to the back seat of the police car.

The crew got into the back seat of the woman officer’s car to my disappointment. I climbed into the back seat of the other car, followed by Taylor and Lorenzo. Although the back seat was relatively spacious, I could feel Taylor’s hip up against mine and thought about what a nice hip it was. At least I was able to sidle up against her without fear of a sexual harassment suit, but that was the only good thing to happen all day.

Oops, not true. Screwing Mandy had been fun too, but it was all really downhill after that.

Having nothing better to do, I looked around at the town of Ovid coming up around us as we got away from the airport. I had to admit that as small towns go, it didn’t look too bad. I was born in the city–if you could call Tacoma a city. Compared to nearby Seattle, Tacoma was an economic basket case, and I had grown up until my parents died in one the poorer parts of town–a part of town that looked like it could do with a new coat of paint just to bring it up to the dilapidated level. From what I knew of small Midwestern towns, Ovid should be similarly run down as agricultural jobs dried up and small manufacturers moved their facilities to Third World nations where workers demanded even less than small town folks.

Instead of a dying farm town, Ovid looked unusually prosperous. Nothing was exactly spectacular, but the streets were clean, the buildings in good repair, and the stores well stocked. There were even new buildings–a rare sight in small, isolated towns in the Midwest.

“Look!” Taylor called out, leaning over me.

“Look at what?” I asked, annoyed.

“That woman... oh damn! She just went into that store.”

“So?”

Taylor looked a little chagrined. “Well, she looked... I don’t know... transparent? No, that’s not right. But it was as if I could almost see through her.”

“Yeah, right,” I mumbled, folding my arms and closing my eyes. Taylor seemed to be losing it, and I didn’t want to listen to any of her ramblings. Instead, I wanted to figure out just how much this hick town judge was probably going to soak us for so we could get the hell out of town and off to Miami.

I wondered if this small town cop–what did his nametag say? Oh yeah, this Mercer had any idea who I was. I hoped not. If he or whatever judge we drew had any idea who they were dealing with, they might decide they had hit the mother lode and shake me down big time. And they were bound to find out when we were arraigned. I put a mental price tag of ten grand on the whole affair. That wasn’t much to me, but it was probably more than this cop and his pet judge got for shaking down out-of-town speeders in several months. I’d offer him five grand up front and let him bump me up to ten. No problem.

“You’re right!” Lorenzo said to Taylor. “I see it, too. Look at that woman with that little girl.”

“Yeah, the little girl looks normal, but the mother is nearly transparent. Mr. Malone, look!”

Against my better judgment, I opened my eyes and looked where she was pointing. Come to think of it, the woman did look a little funny, but I figured it was just the power of suggestion. I didn’t really get a good look at her anyhow. I just grunted and leaned back in my seat.

It didn’t take us long to get to our destination. The Ovid City Hall was about what I expected–maybe a little nicer but no biggie. We piled out of the two police cars and followed the officers into a surprisingly well-appointed courtroom. I figured if they trumped up charges on everyone else like they had on us, they probably had plenty of money to make the courtrooms look spiffy.

The woman police officer left us at the door while the Mercer guy ushered us up to the defendant’s table. The only others in the courtroom were an attractive blonde who was sitting by herself in the gallery and a pretty brunette who was waiting for us at the defense table.

The brunette rose as we approached, offering a faint smile. “Hi, I’m Susan Jager, and I’ll be your attorney this afternoon.”

“Look, sister,” I growled, “I don’t need any hick town-appointed attorney. If I needed someone, I’ve got a dozen lawyers on retainer who spend a great deal of their time sitting on their asses figuring out new ways to bill me. Now just tell me how much of a fine this is going to be, I’ll pay it, and you guys can go back to nailing unsuspecting speeders.”

Her smile became more artificial as she shot me a look that said she didn’t like me one little bit. Well, the feeling was mutual. “I recognize you, Mr. Malone, but don’t think you’re going to intimidate the... people who run Ovid. Better men than you have failed to do that.”

“I’m so scared,” I mocked.

It was as if Yoda had suddenly been changed into an attractive brunette. “You will be,” she promised, her eyes narrowing.

I’ve never been one for premonitions, but the way she said it, I almost believed her–not for any logical reason, but just because she looked and sounded as if she had meant it. It wasn’t so much that it was a threat, but rather as if she knew from personal knowledge what was about to happen to us. I found out later that she did, but as I said, that was later–much too late to matter.

“Just what is going on here?” Taylor broke in. It was ironic, I thought, she was a woman and yet the only one in our group with enough guts to try to upstage me. If I could just get her to go to bed with me, she would be my idea of the perfect woman.

The Jager woman’s visage softened. “In a few minutes, The Judge will be out here to try your case. All I can say now is that your sentences will be rather... unique. Your best strategy is to be open and honest, remain respectful, and remember that what is about to happen to you is not so bad. But whatever you say or do, try not to annoy him.”

Well that was cryptic.

“We didn’t even know there were explosives on board,” the pilot broke in. “How could we? We were almost killed by them. We’ve done nothing wrong.”

“I believe you,” our attorney assured him.

“All rise!” the Mercer guy intoned. “Municipal Court of Ovid, Oklahoma, is now in session, The Honorable Judge presiding.”

‘Judge who?’ I wondered.

I expected some hick of a country magistrate to saunter into the courtroom in a rumpled suit with tie askew. What I saw instead, was a judge who looked intelligent and confident enough in his neatly-pressed black robe to make a Supreme Court Justice feel inadequate. He appeared fairly tall–a little over six feet anyway–with medium brown hair and a neatly-trimmed beard, each of which was showing only enough signs of gray to make him look more distinguished. He wore gold-framed glasses which did little to hide piercing blue eyes. As we all rose to our feet, I couldn’t help but wonder what a magistrate like him was doing stuck in a small town.

“Be seated!” he said–no that’s not right. He commanded. Once he was seated, he looked to the police officer who was now acting as bailiff. “What have we here?” The question appeared to be nothing more than a formality, since I suspected he knew exactly who we were.

The Mercer guy handed him a thin folder which he studied for a moment. Then, he addressed the court: “William Rose, Carson Baxter, and Amanda Hollingsworth!”

Our flight crew nervously got to their feet. Funny, I thought to myself, they were my regular crew and yet I hadn’t even remembered their last names.

Our attorney rose with them. “Your Honor...” she began, but The Judge cut her off. “You’ll have time to present your case, Ms. Jager,” he admonished her.

Turning his attention to our flight crew, he said, “You’ve been accused of bringing an explosive device into Ovid. How do you plead?”

“Your Honor,” my pilot suddenly interjected, “how can we be guilty of bringing explosives into your town if we didn’t even know they were on board?”

The Judge leaned forward. “I didn’t ask if you brought them in knowingly,” he replied. “In fact, I know the explosives were placed there by one of the ground crew members at the orders of an organized crime boss who was funding the development of a product which would be in competition with Be-All.”

Exactly what I thought. I rose to my feet, “Your Honor, how could you know this?”

“Sit down, Mr. Malone!” he demanded. Even though I didn’t want to, I fell back into my seat. “Your turn will come soon enough. Ms. Jager, haven’t you warned your clients about the inadvisability of making outbursts in my courtroom?”

“Not exactly, Your Honor,” she replied, although she didn’t seem to be especially chastened by The Judge’s admonishment.

“Then I’ll do it for you,” he said ominously. “Now, Mr. Rose, did you or did you not bring explosives into Ovid?”

“Well, I suppose I did...”

“Good,” The Judge nodded. “Then that’s settled.”

It was a farce, of course–a travesty of justice, almost as if the entire purpose of the trial had nothing to do with the charges. I began to have the uncomfortable feeling that in Ovid, the inmates were running the asylum. If this ridiculous trial was being performed merely to precipitate a shakedown, it was way over the top.

“Now you may present your defense, Ms. Jager,” The Judge said magnanimously.

“I would point out that no one on board the plane knew of the presence of explosives...”

“Noted.”

“...and ask for a dismissal of all charges.”

“Request denied,” The Judge replied perfunctorily.

If I thought what had happened thus far made no sense, what happened next seemed even more incredible. It started when The Judge began muttering something that sounded like Latin. I don’t know if it was really Latin or not, but it sounded like snatches of Latin I had heard from time to time. As he spoke, the courtroom began to feel... funny. It’s hard to describe, but it was as if a TV picture were to go slightly out of phase. The activity was centered on the flight crew.

Even though I watched it happen, it was almost too unbelievable for my mind to accept what my eyes were seeing. The two men in the flight crew seemed to grow shorter, the dark pants and white shirts of their uniforms rippling and changing as I watched. As for Mandy, the flight attendant I had been in bed with only a few hours before, she too became shorter and her skin and hair began to darken. I looked into their eyes as their expressions changed from confusion to outright panic. The two men then looked at each other in alarm as they watched small breasts budding out from their transformed clothing. The pilot’s receding brown hair had become long and blonde, while the co-pilot’s hair turned dark red. Both men were now girls of perhaps sixteen or so, wearing tiny denim shorts and pastel t-shirts. Mandy was of a similar age and attire, but her skin was now a chocolate brown. None of the ‘girls’ still exhibited panicked visages. Each girl now looked giddy with anticipation, and I could hear them giggling as The Judge addressed them.

“So who will be driving you all out to Sunset Beach?” he asked in a friendly tone, as if in the middle of a mundane conversation with the three girls.

“Brad Henry and two of his friends,” the blonde giggled, the other girls joining her in a chorus of giggles.

“Yeah,” the redhead chimed in. “I just had to come by and get some money from mom so that, you know, we could get a pizza or something later.”

“Maybe we won’t have to,” the African-American girl broke in. “Maybe the boys will buy one for us.”

That set off yet another irritating chorus of giggles.

It didn’t take me very long to figure out that the three crewmembers had no idea that they had ever been anything else other than what they were now. It took an even shorter period of time to realize that we were probably next... unless I could figure out something to prevent it.

All thoughts of a paltry bribe of a few thousand dollars fled from my mind. Anyone who could do what this guy could do was looking for the big bucks. It was obvious he knew who we were. The incredible transformation of my crew had been a warning to me that he meant business. I mentally added a couple of zeroes to the amount I would have to pay.

“Now, Mr. Malone,” The Judge said, turning away from the departing schoolgirls and back toward the three of us who remained in jeopardy, “the preliminaries are out of the way and we can move on to more important matters.”

I did my best not to cringe. I expected another Latin chant, followed by my own transformation. Was I to become a young teenaged girl with no memories of having ever been anything else? The thought was as worrisome as speculation about my own death would have been.

“Your Honor!” our attorney interjected. “If you have determined that the flight crew was responsible for transporting the explosives into Ovid...” ‘A real reach there,’ I thought to myself, but I admired her for the effort, “...then how can you also hold these three people to blame as well?”

“She’s right,” Taylor chimed in. “We knew nothing about the explosives. For that matter, neither did the flight crew. Think about it, Your Honor, we would have all died up there. We’re the victims in this case.”

Just to make it more interesting, Lorenzo spoke next, but he was looking at me. “We knew nothing about the explosives. If you have to blame someone, make it Mr. Malone. He’s the one who exposed us to all of this by crossing the mob!”

“I never crossed the mob!” I snarled. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“The mob financed your company from the beginning,” he insisted. “You crossed them when you issued that new stock and diluted their investment. That’s why they set up Metamorph to compete against you!”

He was right, of course, but I wasn’t about to admit it–especially in a courtroom. But I had fooled the mob. I planned to sue Metamorph and I was probably going to win, taking them down along with a shitload of mob money. My only miscalculation had been underestimating how violently they were willing to respond. Publicly though, I had no other option rather than to deny it. “You’re crazy,” I scoffed. “There was no mob money in my company.”

“Oh, but there was,” The Judge broke in. “Would you like the exact numbers, Mr. Malone?” He held a sheet of paper up for me to see. While I couldn’t see what was written on the paper, I had the uncomfortable feeling that he was telling me the truth.

“This is a sham,” I grumbled, sitting down and folding my arms. I was so upset at the revelations that I had momentarily forgotten the awesome power The Judge had demonstrated. In all honesty, I had no idea the mob had invested in my company, presumably with laundered money. Could it be that I had inadvertently triggered the entire chain of events that led to the founding of Metamorph? If so, some of my financial advisers would have some serious explaining to do, assuming I was able to get back to Seattle. To be honest, that was not looking like a very good possibility at the moment.

The Judge turned away from me and looked at Lorenzo with piercing blue eyes. “I hope you don’t think your accusation gets you off the hook, Mr. Lorenzo.” As my associate trembled, The Judge pulled another sheet of paper out of the file. He smiled. “By the way, did you know, Mr. Lorenzo, that nearly everyone thinks you’re gay?”

“You’re not?” I blurted out.

Lorenzo shook his head, looking almost ashamed. I supposed I couldn’t blame him. He acted like such a helpless little wimp that everyone naturally assumed he was gay.

Then, The Judge unveiled the next surprise. “While you, on the other hand, really are gay, aren’t you, Ms. Taylor?”

Taylor glared at him. “Yes, I am. So what?” There was no hesitation in her voice.

I looked at her in shock. Here I had been trying so hard to get her into bed and she was a muff diver? Shit!

“So it seems,” The Judge sighed dramatically, returning to the case, “that in addition to the explosives charges, there are some potentially large criminal charges involving your company at issue, Mr. Malone.”

“That’s not your jurisdiction,” I pointed out without really thinking that someone with the Judge’s strange powers would be intimidated by a little jurisdiction problem. But I had to use the meagre weapons at my disposal. I wasn’t exactly in a position to fight it out with this guy by flinging lightning bolts at him, although I had a funny feeling he could do that to me if he chose to.

“Mr. Malone,” The Judge began, “there are so many charges I could level against you that I scarcely know where to start.”

“Your Honor...” our attorney began again.

“Yes, Ms. Jager,” The Judge broke in with a dismissive wave of his hand. “I’m well aware that I put you in the role of defense counsel to stifle, shall we say, my over-exuberance, but I think you have to admit that Mr. Malone is not worth your sympathy.”

“There may be extenuating circumstances,” she pointed out.

“Wait a minute!” I chimed in. “I’m right here. If you’ve got a problem with what I’ve done, talk to me. All I’ve done is go from being an underprivileged child to one of the wealthiest men in the world by developing something everyone wanted and selling it to them at a reasonable price. What the hell more do you want from me?”

The Judge leaned forward, and I didn’t like the look on his face. I had the sudden disturbing thought that with a look like that, I’d be lucky if all he did was change me into a little giggling teenage girl.

“Mr. Malone,” he began, “I am well aware that your early life was rather hard. I’m also aware that you worked hard, used your incredible programming skills and showed impressive business acumen to get where you are today. Unfortunately, along the way, you lost something in spite of all you gained.”

“And what’s that?” I asked sarcastically.

“Your humanity, Mr. Malone,” The Judge replied quietly.

“Then can we go?” Lorenzo asked nervously. “You’ve got Malone, so you don’t really need us.”

“Your lack of loyalty disturbs me,” The Judge said dangerously, causing Lorenzo to shrink back.

“Loyalty?” Lorenzo repeated, his voice rising nearly an octave. As frightened as he was, he seemed to feel the need to defend himself. “Why should I be loyal to someone who used me as his whipping boy? How would you like to be called a pussy to your face, Your Honor? I was–plenty of times.”

“This is getting us nowhere,” The Judge said to no one in particular. “You, Mr. Lorenzo and you, Ms. Taylor, are accomplices to Mr. Malone–wittingly or not. It’s time for your sentencing so we can get to more pressing matters.”

I gulped. That meant I was a ‘pressing matter,’ didn’t it?

The Latin chanting began again, and I expected to see Lorenzo and Taylor treated in a manner similar to our flight crew. Imagine my surprise when both of them began to grow larger. Lorenzo’s hair got fuller and his face took on a more rugged shape. He grew at least six inches to an imposing height as his muscles became more defined and his suit coat became a short-sleeved blue chambray work shirt while his suit pants became jeans. His receding hairline was disappearing as new, shorter hair spread over his scalp.

Taylor, too, was growing and becoming more masculine as I watched in alarm. Unlike Lorenzo though, her clothing remained more businesslike although nonetheless masculine. Her short skirt had become a pair of tan slacks and her blouse was now a men’s striped dress shirt. A dark neatly-trimmed beard spread over her face and her eyebrows became thicker. She watched with surprise as the front of her slacks tented out a bit, and I realized suddenly that ‘she’ was no longer the proper pronoun to describe his identity.

“I... I still have my memories,” Lorenzo said slowly. “I remember who I was.” He looked down at his large chest and examined his broad hands. “But... who am I now?”

“You are Bill O’Hara,” The Judge told him. “You own O’Hara’s Tire Market out on the highway.”

“But I don’t know anything about tires.” Lorenzo’s uncertain inflections were still there, but the deep voice practically rumbled in the courtroom. Lorenzo had changed from an underdeveloped runt of a man into someone who looked as if he could break boulders with his bare hands.

“You’ll learn,” The Judge returned offhandedly. “Now, you’ll find your service truck in the parking lot. Please move on so that we can deal with the rest of today’s business.”

The big man shook his head. “I’d like to wait around to see what you do with him.” He pointed a meaty finger at me.

“That is none of your affair, Mr. O’Hara,” The Judge told him. The tone of his voice did not seem to brook any argument, but the new Lorenzo was not smart enough to be deterred.

“He treated me like shit for years,” Lorenzo–now O’Hara–argued. “I want to see what you do to him.”

Taylor bravely stepped in front of the larger man. “Look, we’ll find out later, okay? Don’t piss this Judge off or you might find yourself back in diapers.”

“Well put, Mr. Garcia,” The Judge called out with a menacing grin. “Unless Mr. O’Hara leaves right now, he may very well find himself less capable of such inappropriate aggression. Do I make myself clear, Mr. O’Hara?”

“Yeah,” he replied, running a beefy hand through the short red stubble which now covered his head. “I got you.” He managed to glare at me before he left, and I knew unless I was changed into someone at least as large and powerful, he would probably be waiting for me outside where he would want to put his new body–and mine–to the test.

As he stormed out of the courtroom, Taylor turned to face The Judge. “You called me Mr. Garcia. Who am I, and why do Lorenzo and I remember who we were?”

“I’ll answer the second question first,” The Judge replied. “We can’t always predict who will remember and who will not. It seems to have something to do with a personal sense of self, although someone with a presumably strong sense of self may lose his memories while someone with a weak sense of self retains his.

“As to your other question, you are Raymond Garcia, an economics instructor at Capta College.”

“I was an economics major in college.”

The Judge smiled. “I know.”

“But why am I male?” Taylor–now Garcia–wanted to know.

“I find it more appropriate to your sexual needs,” The Judge answered. Apparently the gay lifestyle wasn’t big in Ovid. Did that mean that if I changed into a girl and retained my memories, I’d have to... oh shit! I had to stay male. There was no way in the world I could ever be attracted to a man.

“Now, if you’ll excuse us, Mr. Garcia,” The Judge continued, “I must still deal with Mr. Malone.”

The new man nodded. He shot a glance at me before leaving, but at least it was one more out of sympathy than the menacing glare O’Hara had given me. When he was gone, The Judge looked down at me. “Now, Mr. Malone, it’s your turn.”

“Wait!” I shouted. “Can’t we find a way to compromise? I’m very wealthy, as I’m sure you know. Perhaps we could make a deal...”

The Judge’s eyes narrowed. “A deal, Mr. Malone? From what I know of you, you only offer to make a deal when you’re cornered. Do you consider yourself cornered now?”

I felt my legs turn to jelly, but it had nothing to do with The Judge’s magic. I was on my own now, and there was no one there to carry water for me except my useless attorney. I knew what was coming–not exactly, of course, but I knew in general what was about to happen to me unless I could think of some way to prevent it. Apparently, a bribe wasn’t going to be the answer.

“Your Honor,” my attorney began, “I would like to point out that Mr. Malone is a well-known businessman. His... removal from society could have serious effects on the lives of his employees and their families–not to mention the national economy.”

“Ms. Jager,” The Judge sighed, “the argument has been used before in any number of courts, presuming that one man such as Mr. Malone here is so important that he is above justice. It is a specious argument since his ‘removal’, as you put it, will not even be noticed. True, his company will be gone, and perhaps even the products it has created, but others will take its place, and perhaps those who lead these other companies will have more to do with their time than lording over their employees in the fashion Mr. Malone seems to find necessary.”

“Lording over them?” I broke in with exaggerated indignity. “Your Honor, I employ tens of thousands of people, and while I may not be a ‘touchy-feely’ sort of manager, I treat them well.”

“Do you now?” The Judge said with mock surprise. “I suppose your intention to fire your flight crew and make them pay their own way back home was just tough love. And the way you falsely accused one of your closest associates of being homosexual was just your way of getting him to show some backbone? And what about the women you employ? Certainly your attempts to bed them are just a way of showing them how important they are to the organization, and forcing them to wear clothing that exhibits more than most of them wish to display is simply your way of making them feel good about themselves. Isn’t that right?”

I grimaced. He knew far more about me than I could have ever imagined. Apparently these seemingly magical powers he possessed were not limited to making showy transformations. I had only one card left to play.

“All right, Your Honor,” I conceded, trying to appear humble, “I agree that I’ve done some... questionable things in my life. But I’ve never stooped to trying to blow up my competition. Whoever put those explosives on my plane–and I have a very good idea who it was–should be the ones you punish. I’ll help you find the real guilty parties, how’s that? I’m just an honest businessman trying to earn a living and provide for my employees.”

“It doesn’t wash, Mr. Malone,” The Judge returned, and I could see he was about to go into his little trance and speak the strange words that would change my life far more than I would have imagined possible a few short hours ago.

What would I be? It was odd, but even as my body tensed for whatever would come next, my mind was curiously detached, weighing the possibilities. It was strange, but for me, time seemed to slow down in that moment before The Judge began to speak. I don’t think it really did slow down: I think my mind was just moving at a thousand miles an hour. A quick mind had always been the real secret of my success. Would it be this time?

I realized that whoever The Judge transformed might sometimes remember who they were before. My flight crew had not remembered any previous lives–or at least that was how it appeared. They seemed nothing more than what they appeared to be–three attractive young teenyboppers who probably believed they had always lived in Ovid and most likely were either home with people who believed themselves to be their families or strolling along in a mall (assuming Ovid had one) giggling, trying on clothes, and trolling for boys.

Lorenzo and Taylor, on the other hand, remembered who they had been. That was both good and bad for me. It was good from the standpoint that I had a fairly even chance of remembering who I had been once The Judge had transformed me–and make no mistake about it: I knew I was about to be transformed. The bad side of the equation was that neither had any reason to like or help me, and while Taylor had seemed to not be concerned about me one way or the other, Lorenzo looked to be out for my blood. Wouldn’t he just love it if I came out of the courtroom wearing the body of someone he could lord over. I shuddered more in concern of what he might do to me than what The Judge might do.

As The Judge began to utter the words that would probably define my existence–possibly for the rest of my life–I made the decision that if I could cling to my mental identity, I would try to make everyone believe that I no longer recalled my real life. But could I fool those in the courtroom? As nearly as I could tell, my attorney and the woman back in the gallery were just people like me. They may have even been transformed by The Judge as well to take on whatever roles he had assigned them to. The police officer who was acting as bailiff I suspected was... well, whatever The Judge was, although at that time I had no idea what the masters of Ovid really were. I would have to try to fool them. I suspected from the way they treated those who were transformed that they had no absolute foreknowledge of whether or not their victims retained their memories or not, but rather took their cues from the way the newly transformed reacted.

The changes were beginning. I could feel them coming from every part of my body. I garnered some small relief from the realization that the process was not painful. That is not to say however, that the process was not unpleasant. I felt as if my body had been turned into Jell-O, as it seemed to shake and shimmer while I stood there really unable to move. I could feel something happening between my legs, as my penis and testicles seemed to be drawn into my body. Something was happening on my chest as well, as the lower part of my ribcage seemed to be retracting while the top part was pushing forward. I had watched what had happened to the two men in my flight crew, so I had no doubts about what was happening to me–I was becoming a woman.

I could feel the tickle of hair at the top of my ears–then suddenly the tickle extended to cover my ears completely and I could feel the weight of hair covering my shoulders and running down the back of my neck. I was suddenly allowed a small range of movement, until I could look down and see loose blond curls draped over growing breasts.

My clothing was changing as well. The neckline of my shirt changed into something more revealing and tighter over my chest. The color was a fiery red, and I knew from years of male experience that men’s eyes would be drawn in by its hue and mesmerized by the cleavage it barely covered.

I had been so mesmerized by the expanding breasts that it wasn’t until I felt air moving over my legs that I realized I was no longer wearing trousers. My legs felt bare for a moment, and then oddly confined. I had never experienced the feel of nylon in such a way, but now I realized my legs were smooth and covered in either pantyhose or stockings. The feeling seemed to end somewhere along my thighs, so I must have been given stockings and garters. Great. Now I’d have to be careful to not show a beaver in what felt like a tight skirt ending well above the knee.

I was suddenly thrust upward, balancing on toe and heel. I hadn’t thought about the fact that I might be wearing high heels. How was I going to fake retaining my old memories if I had to try walking in heels?

As for retaining my old memories, I was still me mentally. I had noticed when my flight crew was transformed how their eyes had glazed over early in the process, denoting I was sure a loss of identity. I was relieved to realize that all my old memories were intact. That didn’t mean the magic hadn’t tried to imprint a new identity. I had felt something probing at my mind, trying to find an entry point–something like a computer virus infecting a hard drive, I theorized. But the changes in thought were held at bay, thank God.

I managed to glance at The Judge, hoping that he hadn’t noticed my visual inspection of my body. My arms and legs could suddenly move again, but I disciplined myself to stand still so as not to make him think I was touching my new body to see if it was real or not. To my relief, it seemed to work. The Judge relaxed a bit, leaning back in his chair. I realized he had been looking for some sign which would have clued him that I remembered who I was. That meant for all his power, the preservation of identity might well be random, just as he had said. It was something I filed away for future use. It meant I might be able to fool more than my former employees. I might be able to withhold something from The Judge and his cohorts as well.

The tingling began to subside at last, and I knew that the process was nearly complete. From what I could tell without obviously staring at myself, I was an adult and fairly young, given my attire. I was still white. I didn’t know at the time how often The Judge went in for racial changes as well as sex changes, but at least I wouldn’t have to worry about any cultural changes. That made things a bit easier. I stood there before The Judge, hoping he would make the first move so I could react to it rather than coming up with something to say or do.

“I’ll look these papers over, Ms. Lamar,” he said at last, holding a sheaf of documents up for me to see. “Thank Mr. March for sending them over.”

I forced a smile. “I’ll be sure to tell him, Your Honor.” It was working! He thought I had lost my memories.

Okay, I was obviously Ms. Lamar, but who the hell was Mr. March? Probably my boss, I reasoned. But that didn’t tell me where I worked. I’d have to duck into the women’s restroom and check my wallet... er, purse and see if I could figure out who I was and where I was supposed to go.

“Was there something else?” The Judge asked.

“Oh!” I had been woolgathering a little too long. “No, sorry Your Honor.” I looked down at the table at the black purse which had miraculously appeared there. Its color matched my skirt, I noted. “Thank you again, Your Honor.”

Hopefully that was obsequious enough. All I did was toady up to The Judge the way most people did to me. I was proud of myself for doing a good job of it, but it was a little on the disgusting side to be such a kiss-ass.

The good thing was that I was concentrating so hard on being the proper little sycophant that I forgot that I was wearing heels until I realized the clicking sound that followed me was coming from my own shoes. I nearly faltered then, but managed to suppress my fears by blanking my mind. To my delight, I realized that when I didn’t think about it, I seemed to move about in heels as if I had always been female.

This was quite a revelation, I realized as I stepped out of the courtroom. Apparently something other than my new shape came with the transformation program. I had apparently been given some basic instincts which would help me to blend in. I wasn’t sure how extensive these instincts were and I wasn’t certain I wanted to test their limits. To do so might cause them to overwrite my real memories and erase my personality. Yeah, I know. I was thinking of all of this as if I were some sort of computer and The Judge’s changes were some sort of application program, but considering my background, that was exactly how I saw things.

Once in the hall, I was not a bit surprised to see the transformed Lorenzo and Taylor waiting for me. I had been right to pretend to have forgotten my memories, as the look on the newly-minted Bill O’Hara’s face confirmed. Taylor–now Garcia–to his credit didn’t look too pleased to be standing there with O’Hara. In fact, he was not exactly standing with him. Instead, he stood across the hall, as if to show he was there reluctantly.

O’Hara’s face spread into a wide, unpleasant grin. “Well lookie, lookie,” he taunted. “Just look what we have here.”

I feigned confusion. “Is there something wrong, Mr. O’Hara?” I asked innocently in my sweet little soprano, pouring on the Okie accent everyone in town seemed to be saddled with.

O’Hara’s grin suddenly faded. “You’re Franklin Malone...” he uttered uncertainly.

“I’m not Francis Malone!” I laughed, intentionally ‘misunderstanding’ the name to make it sound as if I thought he had confused me with another woman. “My name is Lamar, silly,” I told him in a tone approaching bimboish. Of course, I couldn’t give him my first name since I didn’t know what it was. I hoped he would be far enough off-balance to not note that.

While he stood there, trying to think of what to say next, I brushed past him, heading for the ladies’ room. “Nice to see you, Mr. O’Hara,” I called merrily over my shoulder.

Just when I thought I was home free, O’Hara rushed up to the rest room door, blocking my entry. “Wait just a minute!” he said menacingly. Apparently he hadn’t completely bought my ruse. I stepped back, frightened. He was now a large and presumably strong man while I had become smaller and weaker. I had no doubts as to who would win our confrontation if things got physical.

Before things could go that far, the door to the ladies’ room opened, and the attractive policewoman who had helped bring us in stood there waiting for O’Hara to step away from the doorway. “Men’s room is the next door down,” she told him, but the angry expression on her face told me she had heard our confrontation and was well aware of what was going on.

“This is private,” O’Hara growled. It figured. Put a wimp in a big guy’s body and he immediately wants to throw his weight around.

“So is this,” the policewoman replied, tapping at the sign that clearly stated ‘Women.’ Suddenly, her frown disappeared and was replaced by an impish grin. “Of course, if you really want to go in there, we can go see The Judge and he can make it so you can go in there all the time.”

O’Hara’s face became pale as he blurted out, “He wouldn’t!”

The policewoman nodded her head. “He would and he has. Unless you want to be next, I suggest you move along and leave Ms. Lamar alone. Officer Mercer will be out in a moment to take you where you need to be. Until then, I’m going to stay here and keep you company.”

Reluctantly, O’Hara stepped away from the door and went over to stand next to Garcia.

“Thanks,” I whispered to the woman.

“No problem, honey.”

For the first time since I had arrived in Ovid, I felt safe as the rest room door closed behind me, and the real irony of it was that I had to find that safety alone in the ladies’ room.

First things first. I walked over to the mirror to see just who I had become. I gasped when I saw myself for the first time...

I was a knockout.

Given my previous wealth, I had been exposed to plenty of beautiful women. Some had thrown themselves at me, anxious to share in my fortune. Others had been merely curious at what I was really like. Still others were... persuaded to visit my bed or face the consequences of crossing such a powerful man as I. Some of the women were naíve while others were sophisticated. Some were bright while others were downright idiots.

But none were as drop-dead gorgeous as the woman I had become.

Granted, what I was wearing added to the package. My short-sleeved top seemed ready to burst with my large, firm breasts. My makeup was not particularly heavy, but it accentuated my big blue eyes, my sweet, full lips, and my classic cheekbones. I had to look down to see my legs better, bending forward and feeling the weight of my breasts shift as I did so. My legs, wrapped in smoky nylon, would have made a Las Vegas chorus girl envious. Balanced on what had to be three inch heeled pumps, my ankles were downright perfect.

Oh, The Judge had really gotten my number. No wonder O’Hara had stared at me so. He knew what I had become: I was now my very own wet dream.

I had always had a preference for blondes, so The Judge had turned me into one I could never have. I would have to be very careful. My new body could tempt an eighty-year-old Catholic Cardinal into inappropriate sexual behavior. As for the more mundane men around Ovid... maybe I should buy a gun just to keep them at bay.

Okay, so I knew what I looked like. The next step would be to find out just who I was. It wouldn’t do to be pawing through my wallet if someone burst into the rest room. I’d have to have some privacy. I sighed, looking at the stalls. Well, I’d have to get used to sitting on public toilets sometime. And I did need the privacy. As for examining what was between my legs now (or rather what wasn’t there), I’d save that for another time, thank you very much.

I entered the stall and sat down without pulling up my skirt, although it did hike up a considerable distance on its own, exposing the tops of my stockings and the garters holding them in place.

I fumbled with my purse, finally opening it and fishing for a wallet. It appeared as if my purse was typically stuffed with everything imaginable, including I found to my dismay, a couple of tampons. At last, I extracted the wallet, which had somehow managed to be at the very bottom of the purse. Why couldn’t women learn to carry things in their pockets like men did? I thought. Then I realized how wide my butt felt as I sat there in the stall and tried to imagine what women would look like if they carried wallets on their backsides like men did. I giggled at the thought.

Giggled?

Shit.

My fingernails weren’t terribly long, but they were longer than I was used to and I nearly broke a nail un-snapping the wallet. At least my nails were subtly painted an almost clear shade with just a touch of pink. If I had found myself with vivid red talons, I would have probably been just as happy to break them all off.

According to the Oklahoma driver’s license in my wallet, I was now Holly Mae Lamar–a disgustingly cute little name if ever there was one. It sounded like the name a 50s movie studio would assign to a contract starlet. Come to think of it, with my long blond hair and porcelain skin, I could have been a 50s starlet. At least my feminine soprano voice wasn’t breathy like Marilyn Monroe’s. If it were, I would probably have had to kill myself from shame.

Things were bad enough as they were, though. According to the license, I was only five-four with blue eyes and, of course, blond hair. Worse yet–I was only nineteen years old and several months from my twentieth birthday. That meant I wasn’t even old enough to stroll into a bar and drink myself into a stupor like I wanted to do.

The address on the license meant little to me, except for the fact that it had an apartment number. That meant I probably was out on my own rather than living with parents. At least I’d be able to act like myself at home... or would I?

Fearfully, I looked down at my left hand. I was afraid I’d see a wedding ring there since I knew a lot of girls in my high school class who married right after graduation. Given my looks, I’d be a fine prize for some local boy. To my relief, there was no wedding ring on my finger.

The next task was to figure out where I belonged. If I was nineteen, that meant I was out of school–unless there was a college around and I was a coed. As I learned later, there was a college, but I wasn’t a student. I did find an insurance card which listed my employer as the Ovid Chamber of Commerce. I was probably a secretary, I reasoned. There was an address on the card–Cherokee and Main. If this was like most small towns–and at least in appearance it seemed to be–then Main Street was probably the primary business street. I had noticed what appeared to be the business district as we had driven to court. I would have no trouble finding it, I thought confidently.

To my relief, the purse also contained a set of car keys. They were keys to a Saturn, but at least it meant I had a car. I didn’t relish the idea of walking around this strange little town in heels while every guy past the age of puberty zeroed in on my wiggling ass.

When I left the restroom, my two former employees were gone–presumably ushered out by the mysterious Officer Mercer. I let out a sigh of relief. At least I wouldn’t have to contend with them.

The only Saturn in the parking lot was a little white coupe with just enough scratches and dings to make me think Holly had probably gotten it used. So whatever Holly did for a living apparently didn’t pay particularly well. Secretary still seemed the most likely situation.

My mind was racing as I opened the door, and that was probably a good thing. Since I was so preoccupied trying to figure out where I was supposed to be and what I was supposed to be doing, I had let my body go on automatic. As a result, I got into the car in a ladylike fashion, sitting first and swinging my legs around so as not to give any onlookers a free ogle.

I wondered for a moment if I could just retreat into my own mind and let my body do all the work, but I suspected there were some real limits as to how far I could push the automatic responses. Besides, did I really want just to be a passenger in this body? Although it had been altered beyond all recognition, it was still my body, wasn’t it? I couldn’t very well let it go off half-cocked while I just went along for the ride.

At that point in time, I had no long-term strategy other than to keep the fact that I had retained my identity a secret. As long as I could do that, I would be able to fend off any problems with my former employees, and I might also be able to use it to my advantage in dealing with The Judge and any other powers in Ovid. Since The Judge obviously didn’t like me any more than Taylor and Lorenzo did, keeping them unaware that I had retained my identity seemed the best course of action. As I had perceived in my business dealings, getting my opponents to underestimate me was usually the best strategy.

As for long-term goals, what should they be? Obviously, I wanted my old life back. I was one of the wealthiest men in the world–or at least I had been. I had no intention of trading that life in on the life of a nineteen year old bimbette with a nothing job who drove around in a beat-up Saturn. I was certain that The Judge had no intention of changing me back and returning me to my old life. While it wasn’t clear why he had done this to me, I was sure he expected my changes to be permanent. The only way I could get him to change me back was to figure out what his game was and how I could get enough leverage to force him to change me back. So the first of my long-term goals was to figure out just what was going on in Ovid.

As anticipated, I had no trouble finding the Ovid Chamber of Commerce. It was housed in a stand-alone red brick single story building that was generic enough to have been anything from a bank to a professional office. It had been built a block or so from the railroad tracks and at the lower end of the business district. While I had driven past a number of prosperous-looking shoppers along Main Street–some of whom had an odd transparency to them that Taylor had apparently noticed–the pedestrian traffic dropped off by the time I had reached the Chamber offices, since it was on the edge of the retail district. I parked my car in the lot behind the building and braced myself for playing the part of a brainless nineteen-year-old chick.

It was hard to appear nonchalant and scope out the office on my way in, but the open floor plan helped. Essentially, the Ovid Chamber of Commerce offices consisted of a short row of private offices along the window side and a conference room along the office wall. The rest of the floor was an open area where there were only a few desks, several filing cabinets, and the usual collection of office equipment, such as a copier and a fax machine. The only other person in the office was an attractive woman with medium-length brown hair. Judging by the conservative blue business attire she wore, I assumed (correctly, it turned out) that she was the office manager. She appeared to be in her mid-thirties and was seated in the last desk in the row. Only two desks were in front of her, the first desk obviously being the receptionist’s station. I was reasonably sure that desk would be mine.

The woman looked up. “Everything go okay with The Judge?” she asked. Although she didn’t say anything that would indicate she noticed something wrong with me, she did seem to be looking at me closely.

“Yeah, fine,” I replied airily, slipping my purse beneath the receptionist’s desk and sitting down, careful to smooth my short skirt.

“Are you... all right?” the woman asked. The way she asked it gave me the uncomfortable feeling that she suspected something. This could be a problem, I realized. If I couldn’t fool her, how did I expect to fool The Judge and his people for any length of time?

“Sure!” I replied, as perky as I could. “Why shouldn’t I be?”

The woman backed down. “No reason.” She sounded a little disappointed. “I just thought... Oh, never mind.”

I sighed in relief. I felt as if I had just passed an important test.

As the woman went back to work, I pretended to do the same, although in reality, I was scrambling to find out as much as I could about everything in the office. I turned to the computer on my desk and tried to open a Be-All window on screen, but the icon wasn’t there. Strange... How could Windows be loaded without a Be-All connection? Windows and Be-All had been linked since we had bought out Microsoft five years ago.

And what the hell was Windows XP?

I had a bad feeling about all of this. But I’d have to investigate what had happened to the Be-All/Microsoft connection later on. I spotted an icon which had the same Corinthian pillar image that was on the Chamber of Commerce sign outside. Clicking it, I got the Chamber’s web site and settled in to study my new workplace.

Fortunately for me, the staff wasn’t very big, and pictures of everyone were next to their names. The staff consisted of me, the woman who had just spoken to me (Karen Redmond), and a Leon Fobes, who was listed as the Executive Vice President and Chamber Manager. There was, of course, a Board of Directors, with an Aaron March of March’s Department Store listed as the President. At least now, I knew who Mr. March was. That would probably be enough to remember for now, I thought.

As I just scanned the other board members, my blood suddenly ran cold. There, half way down the list was a William O’Hara of O’Hara’s Tire Market.

Oh, crap. That was just what I needed. Even though Ovid appeared to be a fairly small place, I had entertained hopes of being able to avoid O’Hara as much as possible. I had surprised him by pretending to not remember my previous life, but I suspected he wouldn’t let it go at that. If he saw me again, he was sure to test me–just to make sure I didn’t remember my real life. If he could trick me, I was certain he’d try to make my life a living hell. And if he decided I was exactly who I appeared to be, I suspected his need to revenge himself on me would mean he would try to do everything to Holly he wanted to do to his former employer–and more.

The door opened suddenly, catching me by surprise. I was suddenly glad I’d done my homework, for as three men in business suits entered, I recognized the one in the lead as Aaron March. He was tall with the sort of build that made me think he worked out on a regular basis. With his dark hair and matching beard, he looked a little like a younger version of The Judge. I felt a kinship with him immediately. Here was a man who thought like I did, I realized–a decisive, no-nonsense sort of guy who was used to getting whatever he wanted. “Hello, Holly,” he called out, in a confident baritone, piercing me with cold blue eyes. “Everything go all right with The Judge?”

He was testing me: I was certain of it. Careful to stay in character, I smiled and replied, “Just fine, Mr. March.”

He nodded, apparently satisfied that I was nothing more than what I seemed to be. He headed for one of the offices, calling out a greeting to Karen as well. The second man acted almost as if he were Mr. March’s shadow, following him step for step, a PDA in his hand at the ready. He reminded me a little in both appearance and demeanor of Lorenzo.

The other man, followed them, saying nothing and just nodding at me. I recognized him at once from his picture: this was Leon Fobes–my boss. He was smaller than Mr. March–no more than about five-eight. With his balding head and worried appearance, he looked almost enough like the sycophant with the PDA to be his brother. After nodding at me, he scurried after Mr. March.

It was odd, but such a memory made me think for just a moment how silly Mr. Fobes’ toadying looked. The guy with the PDA was no better. Lorenzo must have looked much the same as they did. Lorenzo must have hated being so obsequious. No wonder, I realized suddenly, O’Hara had it in for me so badly. I had made him look foolish when he was Lorenzo. Now, he was out to even the score.

As the door slammed behind the two men, Karen walked up to me. “I wonder what has Mr. March so mad at Leon.”

“I don’t know,” I shrugged, not really realizing he had been mad at all. “Whatever it is, I hope he doesn’t try to kick the dog.”

“What?”

“You know,” I explained. “It’s the old story of the boy who gets chastised by his father, so he takes out his frustrations by kicking the family dog.”

“Good analogy,” Karen remarked. “I didn’t think you were much for analogies.”

Of course not, I chided myself mentally. I’m a dumb little blonde, and here I am making analogies. Watch it, pal, or it won’t take long for her to figure out you still have all your memories. “I had a boyfriend who said that once,” I told her. Maybe she’d just figure that somewhere along the line, Holly had accidentally dated someone with a brain in his head.

“It doesn’t sound like anything Wally would say,” she commented.

Oh-oh. Who was Wally?

“No, it wasn’t Wally,” I ventured.

“When are you going to drop him?” she asked, making me realize Holly had a boyfriend right now. And given the snide tone in Karen’s voice, Wally didn’t sound as if he was a winner. Great. This was just what I needed–a loser boyfriend. I’d have to avoid him if at all possible.

“Wally’s okay,” I replied, figuring that would be the safest answer, but inside, I was figuring out just how fast I could dump this Wally guy.

It didn’t take long for me to figure out that Karen was senior to me. As a result, she seemed to get all of the real work while I got all the filing and typing, as well as answering the phones. We had the office to ourselves the rest of the afternoon, for about ten minutes after they had arrived, Mr. March went charging back out the door with the guy who appeared to be his assistant and my new boss meekly in tow.

I used the time to learn as much as I could about Ovid–which wasn’t much. I had never heard of Ovid before, but then again, there were plenty of small towns I had never heard of, so why should Ovid be any different? Strangely enough, it was different, though. Efforts at finding it on Mapquest proved fruitless. The same was true of a Google search. It was as if the town didn’t really exist.

I don’t know why I was surprised, though. The zany Alice in Wonderland feel of The Judge’s courtroom should have been all I needed to understand that Ovid wasn’t just a mundane little town stuck in the middle of the Bible Belt. I went back to the Chamber of Commerce website, which seemed to be the only one which even mentioned the town. I had a sneaky hunch that the website was restricted to only those of us inside Ovid.

The site gave a little history of the town–most of which I figured was bogus information anyway. It did mention that Vulman Industries had a large facility in town. At least I had heard of them–they did a lot of defense work as I recalled. But nothing on the site gave me any useful information.

“Let’s call it a day,” Karen called out. As I turned to face her, I saw her pulling her purse out of a desk drawer and slipping on her heels. I suddenly realized my own feet hurt since I had been wearing heels all afternoon. I’d have to remember to take them off as she had tomorrow.

Tomorrow. Shit, I suddenly realized this humdrum job was going to be mine for a long, long time unless I could figure a way out of Ovid. It wasn’t a challenging job, and that was the problem. Eight full hours of this job five days a week would turn my brain into pudding within a month.

I followed Karen out the door. “Don’t bother locking it,” she told me. “I just got a call from Leon. He and Mr. March are on their way back here right now. Mr. March will have Leon tied up for hours.”

That was fine with me since I had no idea which of my keys locked the front door.

As if on cue, the two men, plus the assistant, rushed in the door again and headed for Mr. Fobes’ office. Whatever they were working must really have their pantyhose in a twist, I thought. Well, it was none of my affair, so I followed Karen out the back door to the parking lot.

“See you tomorrow,” Karen called cheerily as she headed for a small Buick parked near my Saturn.

I absently repeated her salutation, adding a small wave. I got into my own car somewhat ungracefully and breathed a sigh of relief. I was alone for the moment, and wouldn’t have to pretend to be someone else until tomorrow morning. I couldn’t wait to get to my apartment. I had looked up the address on a foldout map in the Chamber office and knew it to be not far from the town college.

Since I was alone for a few minutes, I considered what had been done to me and what I needed to do about it. The Judge had made me into a sweet little Suzy Secretary type, complete with what I assumed to be an onerous dress code, since Karen had been dressed in a short skirt and heels as well. Okay, so I required it of women in my office, but it wasn’t a big deal. They were women–born and raised–and wearing things like that came naturally to them. As for me, on the other hand...

I had to give a smirk of appreciation. Okay, so The Judge had my number. He planned to put me on the receiving end of some of my own policies. I still didn’t have to like it, and I vowed to find a way out of my unwanted new life. I was already starting to formulate a plan. For some reason, The Judge didn’t want it known that Ovid existed. If I could find a way of threatening him with exposure, I might have enough leverage to get him to change me back into my real self. At least the Chamber of Commerce might be a good base of operations. I could do research in the evenings as well, until I found out enough about Ovid to achieve my goals.

Yes, I had it all roughed out. The Judge bit off more than he could chew when he messed with me. I was plenty confident of that. Of course, I had no way of knowing that in the next hour, everything I had just planned out would be secondary to a more pressing problem.

I knew there was something amiss the moment I opened the apartment door. No, it wasn’t woman’s intuition or anything as hokey as that: a blind man–or woman–would have noticed the blare of the TV. It sounded like play-by-play on one of the pseudo sports ESPN2 was always running.

“That you, babe?” a man’s voice called from the kitchen.

Instinctively I looked down at my left hand again. No, still no wedding ring, but the voice coming from the kitchen meant Holly had a boyfriend. Come to think of it, Karen had mentioned a boyfriend, but I had already forgotten his name. I hoped his presence just meant he had a key to my apartment, but from the distinctively unfeminine clutter in the apartment’s living room, I was willing to bet he was a live-in boyfriend.

Why me? I silently thought. Now there’d be no quiet evening at home to try to come to grips with my transformation. I’d probably have to fight off Holly’s boyfriend, because I had no intention of spreading my legs for him. Now if I could just remember his name...

A man appeared in the kitchen doorway. He wasn’t a very big guy, for which I was grateful. If I had to fight him off, at least I wouldn’t be up against King Kong. He was probably about five-eight–not exactly tall, but I reminded myself that he was still a good four inches taller than I was now. Dressed in a sweaty t-shirt and dusty jeans, he probably wouldn’t have looked like much to any real girl, unless she was into bad imitations of James Dean. All he needed was a pack of cigarettes rolled into the short sleeve of his t-shirt and the image would be complete–although come to think of it, I hadn’t seen anyone in Ovid smoking.

There was one other thing I noticed about him–something that was hard to accept, even in a town like Ovid: he was transparent. Okay, not really transparent, but sort of there and not there at the same moment, if that makes any sense–just like the people I had seen on Main Street.

“What’s for dinner, babe?” he asked, looking at me with steely blue eyes as he leaned against the doorway, nonchalantly twisting the cap off a bottle of Bud.

Stay in character! I reminded myself. That meant I couldn’t act on my first impulse, which was to turn and flee. “I... I haven’t thought about it. I’ve had a tough day.”

Boy, was that ever an understatement!

He snorted, “You’ve had a tough day? Old man Reeves had us out in the hot sun all day cold patching the road out to Vulman Industries. Cripes, that stretch gets a lot of traffic now that their business has picked up. You’d think I could get hired on out there, but Jed says with my driving record, there’s no way I could get on as a driver.”

Oh, was this guy a loser! The Judge must have really had it in for me. I would have bet big money that the prick wanted me to remember who I used to be so he could rub my nose in this life real good. Maybe I had spoiled things for him by pretending to have lost my memories. Not that it mattered, because I was going through exactly the hell he had planned for me, whether he knew I remembered or not.

“I’ll see what’s in the kitchen,” I finally said. I had almost suggested we eat out, but I didn’t want to be seen in public with a lout like this. Besides, I wasn’t the world’s worst cook, although I hadn’t cooked for myself since college. Get his gut stuffed with enough food and beer and maybe he’d sleep the night away on the couch. Otherwise, I hated to think about where he was probably used to sleeping.

He stopped me at the kitchen door, strong fingers tipped with nails black from asphalt digging into the tender skin of my slender arm. “Hey! Don’t I get a kiss?”

If his mouth smelled anything like the rest of him, kissing him would be like kissing a dumpster. Besides, I had no intention of kissing a man. ‘But remember,’ a little voice echoed inside my head, ‘you have to stay in character.’ God, I hated that little voice.

Okay–so I kissed him. I suppose there were worse things a girl could do with her mouth, but I didn’t want to think about them. As expected, his mouth tasted sour with the aroma of recently-drunk beer. To make it worse, his stubble was sharp and unpleasant when my cheek brushed against his. As I tried to pull away with a short, bland kiss, his strong arms drew me closer until my big breasts were pressed up against his chest. I could also feel something hard pressed against my groin, and I had been a man long enough to know exactly what it was. I felt absolutely sick.

Finally, he pushed me back, a look of confusion on his face. “What the hell’s wrong with you? That’s not much of a kiss.”

“I guess I’m just not myself today,” I told him truthfully. “I’d better fix dinner right now in case I’m coming down with something.”

‘There,’ I thought. ‘That should keep his libido under control.’ If he thought I was getting sick, he might leave me alone long enough for me to sort things out a bit. If not... well, there was no way I was going to keep him from jumping me, and as I had already discovered, just because he was a little bit transparent didn’t mean he wasn’t solid.

At least he left me alone in the kitchen–which was good because since I had my own personal chef, I hadn’t had much practice cooking since college. I checked the pantry and found lots of junk food but not much in the way of dinner. The refrigerator proved to be the mother lode, though, with a tub of stew which could be easily heated up. That and a loaf of fresh bread sitting out on the counter would make a decent if simple dinner.

“What do you want to drink?” I called out to him.

“Same as always,” he grunted back. Since there seemed to be an overabundance of beer in the refrigerator, it didn’t take much to figure out what that was.

He sauntered into the kitchen like he owned it–and maybe he did. I had no idea if this apartment was his, mine or ours. “Stew again?” he muttered, opening his beer as he sat down.

The way he wolfed it down, I was surprised I couldn’t see a lump of it in his semi-transparent stomach. There was nothing wrong with his appetite. I barely touched my own dinner. Part of that was probably the fact that women who looked like me didn’t eat a lot and maintain their figures very long, so my body was probably used to it. Part of it, though, was not knowing what to do to get out of this mess.

I had already made my bed when I pretended to have lost my memory. While I was still convinced that the only way I would be able to figure a way out of Ovid depended upon appearing to be harmless and brainwashed, it was going to be a much larger problem with this guy around. He’d figure out that something was wrong with me without any effort. If he hadn’t already had several beers from the smell of him, he would have probably figured it out by now.

But what was I to do? I couldn’t even remember his name. “Want another beer?” I asked him meekly while standing at his side, hoping he’d have so many he’d pass out.

“Nope,” he replied with his mouth still full of masticated bread. “Gotta go to work tomorrow, remember? Besides, I don’t want to be hung over when Billy and Pete and me go camping tomorrow evening.”

Camping! I was saved! I hoped he spent the whole weekend camping. Hell, I hoped he got drunk and fell in a lake and drowned or got eaten by a bear or something. Did they have bears in Oklahoma? I wasn’t sure. But surely there had to be something in the wilds big enough to eat the bastard.

“So how’s about we get the old pig in the blanket tonight to hold us both for a couple of days?” he said suddenly, his hand snaking out before I could react, grabbing me at my new sex.

I pulled back. “Sorry... honey. I told you I wasn’t feeling well, remember?”

He snorted. “Well you can’t be on the rag. That was just a couple of weeks ago.”

So where did a girl as cute as I was come up with a boor like this? “I... I think it’s the flu,” I lied, hoping he didn’t look any higher than my crotch where he might see the fear in my eyes.

“Flu?” he repeated, his hand dropping to his side. “Well stay away from me. I don’t need that on a camping trip.”

Oh yeah, he was a real sweetheart, wasn’t he?

Of course he left me to clean up everything. He just pushed back from the table and helped himself to another beer. In a couple of minutes, I heard the TV blaring out some ludicrous reality show. Part of me was pissed that he had left without so much as a by-your-leave, but a bigger part of me was happy he was out of my sight.

As I cleaned up the kitchen, I continued to fume–not so much at the pissant who was apparently my live-in boyfriend, but at The Judge. He had intentionally put me in this role, and I knew he had to be laughing his judicial ass off at my predicament. He had taken one of the most powerful men in the country and reduced me to a wiggly-jiggly little bimbette with probably no more than a high school diploma (if that), a dead end job, and an obnoxious boyfriend who probably would beat me given half a chance. Just to make it even more fun, I got to be eye candy around the office, complete with short skirts, high heels, and plunging necklines.

A little voice in my head suddenly pointed out the irony of my last thought. Come to think of it, I dressed no differently than the way I had required my female employees to dress. I had always told them it was a professional look–youthful, sexy, and so on. Some women had complained–even filing grievances against me–but our legal staff had been good enough to keep us just on the compliance side of all of our sexual harassment suits.

What would happen to me if I complained about the way I was expected to dress? For one thing, I doubted if I’d be able to contact anyone outside of Ovid to tell them of my plight, and inside Ovid, it wasn’t hard to figure out that The Judge ran the show. Also, it would alert everyone that I had my old memories, since what I had seen of Holly so far indicated that she tolerated–or perhaps even enjoyed–wearing revealing clothing. Then if I complained, I’d probably lose my job and be dependent upon the goodwill (ha!) of my nameless boyfriend.

“I’m going to Randy Andy’s,” said boyfriend called out, and a moment later, I heard the door slam. What the hell was Randy Andy’s? From the name, it was probably a strip joint, I imagined. I shuddered as I realized my predicament could have been worse. Instead of a sexy little receptionist, The Judge could have condemned me to writhing around a pole on stage at this Randy Andy’s. As it was, my loser boyfriend would probably come home with a hard-on the size of a baseball bat after watching the strippers.

At least with ‘the boyfriend’ gone, I could do a little intelligence work. I had barely gotten through my first day as Holly as it was. I’d have to learn as much as I could quickly before someone–like the asshole Lorenzo had become–discovered I had all of my old memories. I decided to sift through whatever paperwork I could find in the apartment that might give me clues as to how to act.

I found some bills addressed to a Wally Krajewski. Okay, so my ‘boyfriend’ had a name, although not much of one. From the ‘Past Due’ stamps on some of them, it appeared Wally’s main vocation of slouching and drinking beer was preventing him from handling his personal affairs very well.

Next, I found an edition of the local paper. It looked like the daily paper of many small towns around the country–lots of wire service stories, a smattering of comics, lots of mundane local news, some local sports stories about the football team of Ovid Senior High, and a smaller story on the recent track meet over at Capta College.

I was more interested in the ads, though. Presumably, most of the companies who advertised in the paper would be Chamber members–members I would be expected to know. I picked up a few factoids. Duggan’s IGA seemed to be the big supermarket in town, managed by a Jerry Patton. There was a Farmers’ and Merchants’ Bank, although no personnel were listed. Randy Andy’s had an ad, and to my surprise, it appeared to be just a bar with food service and a few pool tables. Maybe Ovid was too small or too blue-nosed for strip joints. It was just as well. If it had been a strip joint, I would have probably been one of the featured acts.

I wrote out a crib sheet and stuck it in my purse. At least I would know on paper a little more about the town and some of its residents.

It was after I finished the paper that I hit the mother lode. Sitting on the table where I started to throw the paper was a slender volume bound in faux white leather. ‘Ovid High School’ was emblazoned on the cover, and under that ‘Home of the Fighting Eagles’ in smaller letters. I picked up the book and began leafing through it.

It was just as I had suspected. Holly Lamar had been a cheerleader. Also, judging by her activities, she had been one of the very, very popular girls. I remembered the type from my own high school days back in a small town in Washington where I had moved in with my aunt and uncle. Holly had probably been a bubbly, sexy little cheerleader who was hot for the boys while at the same time the boys were hot for her. As for her grades, well there was no mention of her for honor roll or any of the scholastic clubs. That was for nerds like I had been, I thought grimly.

There was a certain amount of irony in all of this. There I was–or rather had been–a nerdy sort of kid who could write computer programs in my sleep but who never had a date in high school. How I had envied the popular kids–the ones who got invited to all the fun parties and did all the fun things. Well, now I was one of those kids, only all grown up. So how had I ended up in a nothing job with a slob for a boyfriend?

The answer was simple, really. I thought back again to my own high school experiences. Contrary to many teen myths, the blond cheerleaders didn’t all go out after high school and marry the equally-blond quarterbacks. No, a strange thing happened to them, usually about their last year of high school. Suddenly, they found the high school boys too ‘immature.’ They would long for someone who could do more than throw a football and make farting sounds with their armpits. Someone a little older, perhaps, with a job so their boyfriends had money to spend on them. Somebody who had his own car–or more likely, a pickup truck. Somebody a little more... experienced, who didn’t go off thirty seconds after he had penetrated her...

Someone like Wally.

I decided to look for Wally’s picture in the yearbook, but I came up dry. Either he had dropped out or he was older than Holly–or both. Come to think of it, if he was going to this Randy Andy’s, he must be old enough to drink beer–at least twenty-one. I had heard him drive away, and my keys were still on the kitchen table where I had left them, so he had a car. He said he worked for the county, so he had a steady job and probably had it when he started dating Holly. Okay, so Wally had everything Holly had been looking for, maybe including...

Don’t go there, I warned myself. No wonder Wally had looked so disappointed. He was obviously used to getting his rocks off right after Holly walked in the door. I had put him off with the flu excuse, but that wouldn’t last forever. What would happen when he decided I was no longer ill? He might not have been the brightest candle on the birthday cake, but even Wally would figure something was wrong if I put him off too long. And there was no way on the planet that I was going to spread my legs for the dork.

Well, I was only nineteen and a year out of high school, so I must have a home to flee to, I reasoned. Maybe I’d have to cry and plead with dear old mom and dad, but they’d take me back in, wouldn’t they?

No, that wasn’t an option, I decided about half an hour later after finding and reading some letters from my family. It turned out that ‘mom and dad’ had sold the family business and moved to the Rio Grande Valley in Texas to enjoy a long and comfortable retirement. Their letter expressed displeasure, and offered me the chance to go live with them, but I knew I’d never be allowed out of Ovid. There was also a brother in Chicago with the same concerns and the same offer, but obviously that wouldn’t work either. So if I was going to get out of this mess, I’d have to do it on my own, without blowing my cover as the sweet little submissive ex-cheerleader.

I looked up at the clock. It was nearly eleven, and I knew I’d have to be at work by eight, since that was the opening time embossed on the Chamber’s front door. Deciding I had done about as much research as possible, I headed off for bed.

I put myself on automatic since I had no idea was Holly did to get ready for bed. As it turned out, it wasn’t much more complicated than getting ready for bed as a man, with the exception of removing my makeup and arranging my long hair in a manageable ponytail. Of course, I had to sit to pee, but that wasn’t as traumatic as I had feared it would be. I even remembered to wipe without prompting from my body.

When I was finished, though, I was standing before the bed without a stitch of clothing on. Just my luck, I groaned to myself. Holly was one of those girl who liked to sleep in the nude. What a nightly thrill that must have been for Wally.

It did, however give me the opportunity to get a good look at myself in the mirror. I had to admit, I was a fox. I could have made the centerfold at Playboy. Unfortunately, I suspected I was supposed to be about as brainless as most of the centerfolds, too. If I had lost my memory, I had no doubt I would have been reduced to the life of an insipid little sex toy. Man, The Judge must have really hated me. Why else would he have given me such full breasts, narrow waist, and inviting little pussy nestled between two of the finest legs I had ever seen?

Well, enough admiring myself, I thought. If I had been myself, I might have been turned on, but looking at this magnificent body was just looking at... me. Maybe that was the worst hell of all. I was forced to occupy a body that would have made a dead man sit up and take notice, but to me, it was just, well, me.

I slid under the covers with a sigh. It had been a long day and I needed sleep badly. Hopefully Wally the Weasel didn’t wake me when he got in.

No such luck.

It was dark when I was awakened by the sensation of someone arranging my body, pulling me up so that my breasts hung down and my ass was in the air. A thousand sensations came back to me all at once. My mind was foggy, but I could tell from the weight of my breasts and the tickle of my ponytail on my shoulder that I was still in the body of a woman. That was a problem to be dealt with later.

The more immediate problem was the sensation of rough hands on my skin and something pressing against my asshole.

Now let me explain one thing. As a man, I had loved sex with a woman in almost any way imaginable–except one. I had never been a fan of anal sex. And if I had abhorred the idea of anal sex as a man, imagine my reactions to being awakened by someone’s stiff penis pushing against my asshole. I practically threw myself off the bed, ignoring the fact that I was still stark naked.

In the silver moonlight, I could see the surprise in Wally’s eyes. “What’s wrong, babe?” He was still on the bed, up on his knees. There was enough light I could see his hard prick still poised for action. It made me shudder.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” I screamed.

“Easy, babe,” he pleaded. “You’ll wake the neighbors.”

“I’ll wake the whole damn town if I have to!” I hissed. “Now what made you think you had the right to... to...” I couldn’t even say it I was so upset.

“But you’ve always liked me to surprise you like that,” he whined. “You always say it’s real sexy.”

Holy shit! Just what kind of a little slut was this Holly anyway? I was pragmatic enough to know that to keep anyone from knowing I still retained my memories, I might have to make love to a man before I could figure out how to get out of this nightmare, but there was no way I was going to play the submissive little girl who took it up the ass and pretended to like it–assuming Holly had always been pretending.

“I told you I didn’t feel well,” I reminded him, avoiding telling him my real reasons for denying him.

“Hey, I’m not gonna catch anything giving it to you there,” he explained.

So that was it. He didn’t give a crap about how I felt, or what I wanted–it was all about him...

I suppose what happened next could be called an epiphany of sorts. Wally was crass and smelled of sweat and beer, but he was no more selfish than I had been, I realized suddenly. Had I ever really asked one of my lovers what they wanted? Of course not. I was the rich and powerful Franklin J. Malone, and when I was ready for sex, that was all that mattered. True, I would never wake a girl up by shoving my penis into an unsuspecting orifice, but that only made me marginally better than the piece of crap who was staring at me from the bed. Like Wally, Franklin J. Malone wouldn’t have cared for a minute about what his lover wanted: it was all about what he wanted.

“What the fuck is wrong with you anyway?” The whine had left his voice to be replaced by anger. I had surprised him with my refusal, but now he had had a few moments to put things into perspective–his perspective that is. Obviously (in his mind), he had done nothing wrong. I was just being unreasonable. After all, what girl in her right mind would balk at the idea of being ass-fucked by a stud like him?

“Leave me alone,” I muttered, heading for the bathroom.

“Wait a minute!” He jumped off the bed, grabbing my arm.

“Ow!” I was going to have a bruise on my upper arm in the morning, I thought, but when I was spun around and looked in his eyes, I realized a bruise might be the least of my problems.

“I’m gonna be camping with the guys all weekend,” he growled, “and I don’t expect to be so horny I have to go whack off in the woods.” He threw me down on the bed and tried to spread my legs, but I fought back with a reserve of strength I could never have imagined this little body could have had.

“Leave me alone!” I screamed, beating on his chest with my dainty little fists.

In retrospect, Wally probably wasn’t any worse than a lot of guys who were used to having it all their way. He roughed me up, but he didn’t strike me, but that might have come later. I didn’t know how strong or violent one of these transparent people could be, but I suspected they were just as strong and had just as large a penchant for violence as any normal person. It was just possible that I had pushed all of the wrong buttons and made him mad enough to kill me.

Although he was now aiming for my slit instead of my ass, I didn’t want to be fucked. At that time, I had no way of knowing I was temporarily immune to pregnancy, and Wally didn’t look like he was interested in using any protection. I could only think of one solution that would ensure my personal safety–as disgusting as that solution was.

“Wait!” I gasped, stopping him momentarily from his efforts to spread my legs.

“What?” he said impatiently.

“How... how about a blowjob?”

I could feel his weight shifting and the pressure on my arms decreasing. “A blowjob?”

Oh surely somebody as slutty as Holly gave him blowjobs all the time, I thought. Still, maybe she liked being screwed so much that blowjobs were reserved as a special treat. “Yeah, how about it?” I asked, trying to stay calm.

“Okay!” he agreed, the anger in his voice replaced with almost childish glee.

I did the best I could, and he seemed to really enjoy it. Well, I suppose having been male for so many years, I had a pretty good idea what a man wanted in a blowjob. From my perspective, though, I couldn’t imagine ever doing it from this side of the sexual fence voluntarily. His member practically gagged me, and rather than let me take it down slowly, he rammed it down my throat, causing me to throw back my head just to take it all in. I had a pretty good idea that was how he would have done me if I had spread my legs for him, too, so I kept reminding myself that this was probably less uncomfortable than the alternative.

Fortunately, it didn’t take him long to go off. I was afraid from the smell of all that beer that he would be a little desensitized, but that wasn’t the case. It was almost a relief for me when he came, since I was having some trouble breathing with him in my mouth.

I tried not to think about the taste as I swallowed. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, but it wasn’t exactly ambrosia either. I made a silent vow to myself that I would never do this again, even if it meant revealing that I had retained my memories.

Fortunately for me, he seemed satisfied, leaving me there on the bed without a word as he went into the bathroom to clean up and get ready for bed. It was just as well. While he was in the bathroom, he couldn’t hear my sobs.

Once he had come back to bed, he turned away from me and was snoring within a couple of minutes. I used the opportunity to go to the bathroom and clean up myself, paying particular attention to gargling. I must have used half a bottle of mouthwash. Then I brushed my teeth three times, just to make sure there was no trace of him left in my mouth. That done, I tiptoed back to bed so as not to wake him. I fell asleep a few minutes later, a curse for The Judge still churning through my mind.

When the alarm went off, Wally was already gone–thank God. I didn’t know if he had left for work or already started his camping trip and I didn’t care. Maybe with any luck, he’d be eaten by a bear. Did they have bears in Oklahoma? I wasn’t sure. Well, maybe something big and hairy would eat him. I could only hope.

As I trundled off to the bathroom, I felt terrible. No, I wasn’t physically sick, but I was ashamed of myself. I hadn’t been a woman for even a full day and yet I had already put a man’s penis into my mouth. It felt so gay. I might have the body of a woman, but in my mind, I was still a man, and men didn’t give blowjobs to men unless they were gay, did they?

At least I hadn’t let him screw me. I couldn’t imagine what that would be like, although I did feel a small twinge from between my legs, as if my body was trying to give me a little hint of how it might feel. I suddenly became concerned that although I had retained my male mind, my body was certainly in no way male and might very much have its own agenda. Okay, maybe I’d try sex sometime, but not with Wally the Weasel.

I went on automatic to get ready for work, and watched something of a passenger as my body efficiently showered, picked out clothing and did makeup. The shower was interesting, and I was nearly tempted to go off automatic and do a little exploring, but I didn’t want to be late. Besides, I didn’t really want to stimulate this body. The twinge I had felt earlier warned me that this body, once turned on, might be a little difficult to turn off again.

I was pleased to see that my makeup was designed more to make me look a bit more mature rather than displaying me as a tart. While I retained my youthful beauty, I at least looked more like I belonged in an office than on a street corner.

For clothing, my body selected a tan suit with a red shell underneath. While the shell showed a little more cleavage than I would have liked and the skirt fell provocatively above my knees, the outfit was at least businesslike. In my former identity, I would have heartily approved of any of my female employees who wore such and outfit. A thin gold necklace, a couple of gold bracelets, and a plain gold ring completed the look. By the time I slipped into a pair of brown leather heels, I looked every bit the young businesswoman–or at least the moderately-slutty young businesswoman.

As I drove to work, I thought to myself that the only way I could avoid sex with Wally would be to move out on him. That I resolved to do. I’d spend Saturday finding a new apartment and Sunday moving my things. I was a little concerned at what his reaction would be when he came home and found me gone, but whatever it was, it would be better than greeting a slob smelling of campfires, beer and raw fish who expected sex the minute he dragged his sorry ass in the door.

The worry must have been written all over my face, for the minute I walked in the office, Karen said, “You look stressed, girl. What happened?”

Obviously, I couldn’t tell Karen exactly what happened, or explain to her why I was suddenly so upset, so I just shrugged and replied, “Wally and I aren’t getting along. I’m thinking about moving out.”

Karen’s face brightened. “Well it’s about time!”

Then she thrust a thick folder into my hand. “You’ll have to tell me all about it later. Right now, we need to get ready for the luncheon.”

“Luncheon?” I blurted out, struggling to keep documents from flying out of the folder.

“The Board of Directors’ luncheon,” she said, looking at me as if I were the village idiot. “It’s the first Friday of the month, remember? We always have the Board luncheon on the first Friday.”

“Oh... yeah,” I remarked, probably sounding like the ditzy blonde I was supposed to be. At least I was in character.

Karen left me to go over the file as if I had handled the luncheon before. I probably had, I realized, since a lot of the notes in the file were in my handwriting. To my relief, it looked like all the arrangements had been made. The luncheon was to be held at someplace called the Greenhouse, and apparently Holly had already called to confirm that all ten board members would attend (which meant my nemesis, Bill O’Hara, would be there), as well as a Mr. Deimler and a guest speaker.

I gulped when I saw the name of the guest speaker. Raymond Garcia was noted as a doctoral candidate in economics and an instructor at Capta College. That was Taylor’s new identity. It was bad enough that Lorenzo–now Bill O’Hara–would be at the luncheon, speaking on Ovid’s economic future. Now I’d have to contend with Taylor as well. This was shaping up to be another shitty day.

Once I had everything ready for the luncheon, I found out I had no other burning issues to contend with. Apparently Karen thought that last minute details for the luncheon would take Holly all morning. My namesake must have been a real ditz, indeed.

I used the remaining time of the morning for my primary task–finding a way out of Ovid. The computers in the office were all linked in a small, crude network. I had reasoned that whoever ran Ovid would have control of key institutions–including the Chamber. Leon Fobes, I reasoned, was a powerful man controlling one of those institutions, but even more powerful was the man he seemed to fear–Aaron March. Mr. March even had an office and a computer in the Chamber building. Even with my lack of experience in this Windows XP system, I was proficient enough with computers to break into the security protocols of Mr. March’s computer in about half an hour. I could have done it sooner, but I had to answer the phone a few times as well.

In my desk drawer, I had found a flash drive. I quickly downloaded the document files from Mr. March’s computer, planning on examining them in detail when I was in private. It was a shame Holly didn’t have a computer at home, but I planned on buying one as soon as possible. Then, I’d study what was on the flash drive and see if the documents contained any clues I could use to get my real life back and get the hell out of Ovid.

Okay, it was a long shot. I realize that now and considered it strongly even then, but what other choice did I have? Anyone who had the power The Judge had could only be convinced to change me back if I had something on him and his operation. Otherwise, I might as well plan on spending the rest of my life in skirts and heels, being the butt of blonde jokes.

Karen drove us to the luncheon, arriving half an hour before the meeting time. I was relieved to see the restaurant already had everything organized–a long table set for fifteen, a podium, and a banner tacked to the back wall which read: ‘Ovid Chamber of Commerce–Committed to the Future’ in big red letters.

Mr. March rushed in, Mr. Fobes and the guy with the PDA right behind him. Since the guy with the PDA looked as if he was staying for lunch, I assumed–correctly as it turned out–that he was the Mr. Deimler listed as a guest at the luncheon.

The Board members started showing up about ten minutes before the luncheon. I recognized a couple of them from their pictures–there was Charles Tilton, the president of the Farmers’ and Merchants’ Bank, and Kenny Hamilton, who ran a local car dealership. Then there was Susan Jager–our so-called attorney. There was one other normal person–a middle-aged man who walked with a limp and seemed to be someone important. I couldn’t remember his name, though. The rest who came in appeared to be some of the transparent people. O’Hara was nowhere in sight, and I had an inkling of hope that he wouldn’t attend. My hopes were dashed when he came striding in, a big smirk on his face when he spotted me.

“Good to see you, Holly,” he said jovially as he boldly slipped his arm around my waist. He was trying to cop a feel as his hand slid up toward the bottom of my breasts.

Tactfully, I danced away from his embrace and forced a thin smile. “Good to see you, too, Mr. O’Hara.”

Fortunately, at about that time, one of the other Board members tapped him on the shoulder and expressed interest in a new set of tires for his delivery truck. I think O’Hara would have preferred to continue to harass me, but business was business, and he allowed himself to be pulled away.

Breathing a sigh of relief, I scurried down to the other end of the table where Karen and I would be seated. We were expected to take good notes and Karen was required to take a couple of pictures for the local paper. Apparently in a small town, this passed for news. I wondered if the editor of the paper had any inkling of how much news there really was in Ovid.

Just before I could sit down, our guest speaker arrived. I recognized him, of course, as I had witnessed his transformation the day before. Of course, I wasn’t supposed to know about that. I had to admit, Taylor carried himself well as a man. He actually looked sophisticated with his neat beard, tanned skin, and gray tweed sport coat with a solid blue tie over a light gray dress shirt. He carried a pile of handouts in one hand.

Spotting me, he began, “Hi, I’m Ray Garcia.” He offered his hand. “I’m supposed to be your guest speaker today.”

I noticed he seemed to be a little embarrassed. Although we hadn’t officially met in our new roles, I had seen him with the newly-minted Bill O’Hara when the former Lorenzo had tried to get me to admit I still had my memory yesterday. I decided to keep him on the hook as I took his large hand in my tiny one. “Oh, aren’t you the man who was with Mr. O’Hara yesterday at City Hall?”

“Uh, yes,” he admitted ruefully. “I don’t know what Bill was going on about though, do you?”

I shrugged, feeling my breasts bounce as I did and smiled. “I haven’t the foggiest. I guess it was some kind of joke, but I just didn’t get it.” Yeah, I sounded like a proper blonde all right.

His eyes caught the motion of my breasts, but he quickly looked me in the eye again, his cheeks turning slightly red. “Yes, that must have been it–a joke. I’m afraid I didn’t get it either.”

I liked his voice. It was one of those pleasant baritones I would have loved to be blessed with when I was a man. “Well, good to meet you.” I smiled again, finally pulling back my hand.

Before he could reply, Mr. March grabbed his arm. “Glad you could make it, Mr. Garcia,” he said as he ushered him to the place of honor at the head of the table next to his own seat.

The luncheon went smoothly. Mr. March reported on the state of the Chamber–membership was up by ten percent since the first of the year and there was plenty of money in the bank. Vulman Industries, whose president turned out to be the fellow with the limp, was still hiring engineers, and it became obvious that Vulman was the crown jewel of Ovid’s economic engine.

I was actually impressed with Taylor’s–or rather Ray Garcia’s–speech. He kept it short and simple, but his remarks on Ovid’s economy were actually interesting. The Judge and his cronies had built up quite a little town, it seemed. Unlike most small farm towns, the presence of a player like Vulman Industries kept the town prosperous. Primarily a producer of automobile parts, Vulman had defense contracts as well, and seemed to be on the verge of an exciting new product. Eric Vulman, the limping president of the company, was as much of a mover and shaker in Ovid as Aaron March, it seemed. I was reasonably certain they were both in cahoots with The Judge, too.

After the meeting, Ray Garcia stayed around for a few minutes. I assumed he was waiting to talk to someone important, but as I busied myself cleaning up all of the Chamber paperwork, he came over to me. “Holly, could I speak to you for a moment?”

“Sure, Mr. Garcia.” I put the papers I had collected on the table and faced him.

“I know you remember,” he said bluntly after checking around to make certain everyone else was out of earshot.

My heart dropped down to the floor. “I... I don’t know what you mean, Mr. Garcia,” I stammered.

“Cut the crap.” His voice was soft but authoritative. “While I was speaking, I was watching you. I’ve been wondering if Lorenzo–I mean O’Hara–was right about you. So I watched you today. Whenever you’re talking with someone, you act like the perfect little bimbo receptionist, but when you don’t think you’re being watched, I can see the intelligence in your eyes. Today, during the luncheon, your eyes were on March and Vulman. You’ve picked them out as big-wigs–and you’re right, too.”

“All right,” I sighed. Even if I didn’t admit it, he was too sure of himself to believe my denials. “Just please don’t tell anyone else–especially O’Hara. He’d love to crap all over me.”

“And with good cause, too,” Garcia pointed out. “But don’t worry. I’ve never liked him either. He used to try to put the moves on me. Can you imagine that little wimp trying to get in my pants?”

I couldn’t help but giggle just a little. “Not anymore I can’t.”

He grinned. “Look, can I buy you a cup of coffee? I’d like to talk with you and understand why you’re pretending to have lost your memories.”

“I can’t now.” Then my face brightened, remembering that my so-called boyfriend was out of town. “You can buy me dinner, though.”

“How would that look?” he returned. “Don’t you have a boyfriend or something? What if your boyfriend found out?”

“He’s out of town for a couple of days. By the time he gets back, he won’t be my ‘boyfriend’ anymore,” I vowed grimly.

“Okay,” he sighed. “Dinner it is.”

I gave him my address and headed back to the office, strangely pleased with the idea of having dinner with him.

I had more time for personal research that afternoon–primarily because it was a repeat of the previous afternoon, with Mr. March holding court in his Chamber office while Mr. Fobes and Mr. Deimler rushed in and out, calling for information or checking something in the files. They looked frightened–I had seen that sort of fear in underlings’ faces before as I had once been able to engender it myself. Something had them very worried, and I decided it would be to my advantage to find out what it was.

“What’s going on in there?” I asked Karen. She was busy sifting through some files herself. In fact, she had been too busy all afternoon to pay much attention to what I was doing, which was good.

“Don’t ask,” she warned me.

As curious as I was, that was fine with me. While they kept Karen busy, I had made significant progress in my own efforts. Since I had already broken into Mr. March’s computer, it was easy for me to mirror what he was bringing up on the screen. Unfortunately, most of it didn’t make sense to me. Why was he bothering to access data on the Middle East? For that matter, how was he bringing up this data? It appeared to be official Defense Department documents.

Then I noticed the date on one of the documents as he left it on his screen. It was dated nearly fifty years in the future! It showed casualty figures from a recent assault on Tripoli. The city had fallen to Western Coalition forces–whoever they were–but at the cost of nearly five thousand lives and a ship listed as a TPS, which I saw expanded later in the document to be a Tactical Platform Ship.

It was like reading science fiction, but given what I had already seen–and experienced–in Ovid, the prospect of being able to gaze a half century into the future didn’t seem all that bizarre.

“What are you working on?” Karen called out.

I must have jumped a foot. She was still at her desk, but I quickly blanked my screen just in case. “Oh, just the data base,” I replied as generically as I could.

“Give me some help here, would you?”

I cut my connection to Mr. March’s machine and went back to help Karen. I had all of these documents on the flash drive, so I’d have to look at them later.

I got home after work to an empty apartment, for which I was truly grateful. For the first time since I had come to Ovid, I was really alone. Of course, what had I done about that? I had set up a dinner with Ray Garcia. That had been stupid of me. Still, it would be good to be able to stop playing the role of the bimbo receptionist for awhile, and Ray hadn’t tried to embarrass me as O’Hara had, Besides, combining Ray’s knowledge with mine might help me to find a way out of Ovid just that much quicker.

I debated about what to wear, not really realizing at the time how feminine my thoughts on that issue had already become. It was dinner, so I didn’t want to dress down too much. Ray hadn’t said where we were going, so I didn’t know quite how to dress. I really wanted to get out of the pantyhose and heels, though. In the end, I opted on a more casual skirt–one of the more conservative ones Holly owned. It was a denim skirt that fell just above the knee, and it looked pretty good with bare legs and a pair of sandals with a much lower heel. I selected a white blouse, cut a little like a dress shirt. Since it didn’t hug my breasts quite so closely, it didn’t call attention to them like everything else I had worn.

Ray picked me up right on time. I was relieved to see he was wearing the male equivalent of my outfit–jeans, a blue and white striped shirt that could have been worn as a dress shirt. Of course, I thought enviously, his outfit didn’t leave his legs bare as mine did, nor did it offer easy access like a skirt. Also, he hadn’t had to spend extra time reapplying makeup or changing jewelry to match or fiddling with long hair as I did. I hadn’t realized as a man how much crap a woman had to go through just to get ready for a date.

No, no... wait a minute. This wasn’t a date. Not really. This was just... just... a meeting of two people with a common agenda who were trying to learn more about their captors. Yeah, that’s all it was. It wasn’t a date. No siree, it was positively not a date.

“Hi,” Ray said simply at the door. He was trying to look me in the eye, but I caught his eyes travelling up and down my body. In a strange sort of way, I felt a sudden surge of pride that I had gotten my look right.

“Hi,” I responded, grabbing my purse. Okay, so we were both acting like a couple of teens out on their first date. I couldn’t help it, though. The body I now inhabited was programmed to respond favorably to a handsome male, and Ray was, indeed, handsome, with his Mediterranean skin and his dark hair and piercing dark brown eyes. He was Antonio Banderas compared to Wally, and as he guided me to his car, he proved to have manners to match, even opening the car door for me.

“Nice wheels,” I commented, looking at the little black Audi convertible he had brought. And to think–I got stuck with a shitty little Saturn.

“Thanks,” he smiled, getting in himself. “I was pleasantly surprised when I saw it. Apparently Ray Garcia is your typical swinging bachelor college professor. It’s fun, really.”

“Good for you,” I grumbled enviously. “You ought to see it from my side.”

“I have, remember?” he pointed out. “I spent a lot of years in skirts and heels.”

“And you prefer to be a man,” I guessed. “I suppose you would with your sexual preferences and all.”

“It’s not just that,” he corrected me. “Most gay people are perfectly happy to be the sex they were born with. I didn’t mind being a woman. But it was a little tough sometimes. When I’d stare at a woman and she turned out to be straight, I’d get the death gaze back. Now though, I can look at a woman and she takes it as a compliment. Of course, it’s taking a little time to get used to what’s between my legs.”

Me, too, I thought, but obviously not in the same way.

We pulled up in front of a little Italian joint off the main drag. Tony’s Real Italian Pizzeria, the sign boasted. I suppose it was real enough–the usual checkered tablecloths and candles in Chianti bottles. The lighting was dim and the crowd small, which I figured was why Ray had picked this place. We were led back to a secluded booth in a back corner where we were afforded some privacy. I blushed a little though, when the hostess shot me a sly smile and whispered in my ear, “Nice going, Holly.” Since she was about my new age, she probably thought she was a classmate of mine. Maybe she was.

After we had ordered, Ray leaned forward and asked, “So why haven’t you told anyone that you still have your memories? Is it because of O’Hara?”

“Partially,” I admitted. “That’s certainly the way it started out. Then I decided if I could make everyone think I no longer remembered who I had been, I’d be able to figure out what was going on here and find a way to get my life back.”

“Nice plan,” he commented, “but it won’t work.”

He paused while the drinks were delivered–Cokes for both of us. He had cancelled the wine order after the waiter had asked to see my ID, embarrassing me terribly. I felt like a child going out to dinner with an adult.

He sipped his Coke. “Ah, a fine vintage.”

“Don’t rub it in,” I growled. “Now what did you mean when you said it wouldn’t work?”

“Nobody gets out of Ovid,” he told me bluntly. “Even if you could, your old life is gone.”

“Gone?”

“Sure. I checked a few things out myself. Steven Jager–he’s our attorney’s husband–is an instructor over at Capta just like me. He said once The Judge changes you, the world outside Ovid forgets you ever existed. Haven’t you found out for yourself by contacting someone in your family?”

“I don’t have any family,” I sighed. “My parents died in an accident when I was young. I was raised by an older aunt and uncle. We didn’t exactly get along. I haven’t spoken to them in years.”

“Well even if you did call them, they wouldn’t remember you,” he said. “I looked up Malone Software. It doesn’t exist. But guess what? Microsoft is a giant corporation.”

“So that’s why the computers at work don’t have Be-All,” I muttered. “And that’s why that funny Windows XP is the operating system.”

He smiled. “You’ve got it now. So you see, even if you could get away from Ovid–and from what I hear that’s not an easy task–no one would remember you unless The Judge could somehow agree to set things back the way they were.”

“And that’s not likely to happen, is it?” I asked dully.

He shook his head.

“So why has The Judge done this to us?” I asked, almost moaning as I did. I could feel hot tears in my eyes and feel myself trembling in frustration.

“That I can’t find out,” Ray admitted. “Even when you know who The Judge is, it’s hard to determine his motives. No one seems to know–even Steven Jager. Given that his wife works pretty closely with The Judge, that tells me only His Honor and the others in town like him know for certain what’s going on.”

“You said you know who The Judge is,” I prompted. “Okay, who is he?”

The answer had to wait until a large pepperoni pizza was placed in front of us. I had to admit, the pizza smelled great, but I held off eating until Ray could answer. At last, he told me, “We’re prohibited from talking about that. If I were to try, I’d just start gasping for air. I can give you a hint, though. Go to the Ovid Library tomorrow and look under ‘Myths and Legends’.”

I stared at him blankly, waiting for him to laugh, but apparently he wasn’t joking. “Okay, I will.”

We attacked the pizza and I listened as Ray told me a few other things about Ovid. Some of them I had already determined, but much of the information was new. By the time we had finished off our dinner, I had an even broader picture of Ovid, but nothing I could use to leverage myself back into my old life.

I was beginning to fear that Ray might be right. I might be stuck as Holly Lamar for the rest of my life. It wasn’t a pleasant thought. Holly had no real prospects–she had a dead-end job, a louse for a boyfriend, no advanced education, and looks that would ensure that no one thought of her as anything but a brainless little piece of eye candy. In a few years, she (I) would start to lose those magnificent looks and settle for somebody like Wally who would at least take care of her. The rest of her (my) life would be all downhill, consisting of a mundane existence and a scrapbook full of might-have-beens. It wasn’t much to look forward to.

We sat there in relative privacy sipping additional Cokes as Ray told me about his own experiences, realizing that he was now an economics instructor. To my surprise, he liked it.

“But isn’t it boring?” I asked. “You know–the dismal science and all that? I would think after being out in the real world, teaching economics to a bunch of thick-skulled underclassmen would be pretty dull.”

He shook his head. “No, not really. It’s actually a challenge to keep up with some of them, given that I am sort of rusty at all of the theory. What surprised me was that even some of the shades are very bright. I thought they’d just be placeholders.”

“Shades?”

He nodded over at our waiter, who was one of the semi-transparent people. “Those are shades. They look a little funny, but they’re as solid as you and I.”

“That’s for sure,” I mumbled.

“What?”

“Oh,” I said offhandedly, “my boyfriend is a... what did you call them? He’s a shade.”

“Really!”

I felt myself blush. “Yeah, well, he’s going to be my ex-boyfriend by tomorrow.”

“I understand,” he commiserated. “Not into boys, eh?”

“That’s right.” Or at least I never had been into boys. Strangely enough, I had experienced a couple of unguarded moments when I had found myself looking at boys–or rather men–with a new set of eyes–figuratively as well as literally. And it wasn’t all about physical attributes, either, as it had always been for me with women. I found myself admiring how men carried themselves–their confidence and their awareness.

That wasn’t to say I hadn’t noticed that Taylor had become an attractive young man. I did notice, but I wasn’t drawn to him for his handsome features or his masculine attributes. Instead, I was somewhat fascinated by how quickly he had acclimated to this new life and how confident he acted.

Now don’t get me wrong: I wasn’t falling for a man. I hadn’t been a woman long enough to do that and hoped that I never would. But when our positions had been reversed, I had seen Taylor only as an attractive woman and a potential bed mate. I had to admit that as competent as she had obviously been, I hadn’t been fascinated by her abilities–only by her appearance and a little intrigued by her attitude.

Now that I was the woman, though, I saw her–him–in a much different light. He had become a man I could call a friend. Come to think of it, as a man, there had really been no one in years I could consider a true friend. Yet here I was, in the body of a young woman, confiding in Ray as if we had been close for years.

Ray took me back to my apartment right after dinner. Other than putting his arm around me gently and helping me into the car, he had been strictly hands off–a perfect gentleman, in other words. There was even no demand to come into my apartment or kiss me good night as he walked me to my door.

I had to admit I was relieved. I had been somewhat worried that like Lorenzo, Taylor in her new identity would be looking to extract her pound of flesh from me. After all, Taylor was now the big strong man–a little bigger and probably stronger than I had been as a man–and I was now the little weak woman–considerably more disadvantaged in terms of education and position than Taylor had been. I wouldn’t have blamed her–him–if he had used our dinner as an opportunity to get even with me.

Which begged the question: why had I even agreed to go out to dinner with him? Hell, agreed? I had even suggested it. What had I been thinking? I suppose it was because I had the fear that if I couldn’t be myself with someone, I might actually become the spacey little bimbo I appeared to be. And even though Taylor and I hadn’t always gotten along well, I begrudgingly admired her for her abilities. Her competence had obviously transferred over to her new persona as Ray Garcia, and I found myself strangely drawn to the individual I had known as Taylor.

“Good luck at the library tomorrow,” he told me, just touching my hand.

“Thanks,” I smiled, looking up into his dark eyes as they were reflected in the porch light of the apartment’s outside entry. “Say, where is the library anyway?”

“I’m not sure where the city library is,” he admitted slowly. “Come to think of it, the college library might be a better choice.”

“Maybe you could show me where it is tomorrow?” What in God’s name had made me say that? It was a small college for cripes sake. I could certainly find it myself, couldn’t I? It shouldn’t be that hard to find.

His face brightened. “Sure. I’ll pick you up at about nine and we can have breakfast, too.”

“Oh, I can make us something here,” I said quickly, slogging even deeper into something I probably should have left alone. “I’m not much of a cook.” I shrugged. “At least I wasn’t much of one... before. I could always go on automatic, though.”

“You just make the coffee,” he laughed. “I’ll bring some rolls or donuts. We’ll test your cooking skills another time.”

“Great!” I chirped, jumping up on tiptoe to kiss him on his whiskered cheek.

I... kissed... him... on... the... cheek...

He smiled bashfully. “Well, good night, Holly.”

“Good night, Ray,” I managed demurely, closing the door behind me.

“Damn! Damn! Damn! Damn! Damn!” I stormed around the bedroom in nothing more than a bra and panties. What the hell had come over me? I was acting like something out of a Meg Ryan movie (the early ones at least). Maybe the automatic reactions had kicked in. Maybe that’s what Holly–the shade Holly–would have done, and I was just forced into behaving like her. That had to be what had happened. Surely I would never have thought to kiss him on my own.

It was bad enough that I had embarrassed myself, but I had done more than that. My new body had actually been stimulated by the kiss, and I had begun to feel the stirrings of what had to be horniness, and that was the last thing I wanted to feel right then.

To be completely truthful with myself, I had enjoyed the evening with Ray. Maybe over time, he’d become more traditionally masculine, looking down at women’s breasts instead of taking to their faces, and leaving the toilet seat up. But for now, he was an interesting blend of male strength and feminine sensitivity. I was strangely drawn to him–just as a friend, of course.

Still, I thought as I pulled off my bra and panties, he was a good looking guy. I hadn’t really noticed, but as I lay there in the darkness, I was softly caressing one of my breasts, feeling my nipple tingle. I felt an unexpected warmth between my legs too, and I caught the whiff of something I had only smelled on others before. Holy Mother of God, I was starting to get turned on.

Well, in for a penny, in for a pound and all that. I hesitantly put my fingers in the soft bush between my legs. That strange tingling seemed to spread over a significant part of my body. I pushed one finger–then two–into myself. It didn’t take long for things to build until like water spilling over a dam, I gasped out loud and felt the wonderful... unbelievably wonderful... sensation of my first climax as a woman.

Exhausted, I lay there limply letting the sensation slowly ebb on its own. It had been so enjoyable, lying there alone in the darkness after pleasuring myself.

So why as I reached the crest of the sensation had I suddenly thought of Ray?

It was only my second morning waking up as a girl, and it was only moderately more comfortable than my first morning in this body. At least I hadn’t awakened with the faint taste of someone’s cum in my mouth. I had to block out some time today to get a new apartment, or Wally would be back from his camping trip tomorrow with lust in his eyes. And a blowjob, as disgusting as it had been, would be nothing compared to what he would demand from me next.

I put myself on automatic again, showering, then getting my hair out of a loose ponytail and putting on my makeup. I did take back control this time to tone down the makeup. Maybe Holly was expected to wear more makeup during the week, but on the weekend, I resolved to go for a more natural look. Maybe it wouldn’t make me quite as alluring to the guys, but what did I care?

I still looked pretty good in a yellow tee and jeans. I don’t think this body could have looked bad in anything. It felt good to wear sneakers, too. Two days of wearing heels had given me sore feet and ankles, and I wasn’t sure how I’d be able to make it through an entire week balanced on them.

I was looking forward to my little research excursion with Ray. It’s funny, but I had already accepted him as a man named Ray Garcia and not as a woman named Taylor. It was somehow easier to accept what had been done to him than to reconcile what had happened to me with my sense of self. Maybe the ones who lost their memories were the lucky ones. They at least didn’t have to balance memories of a past life with the realities of a current one.

One of the worst things to balance, for me at least, was my growing attraction to Ray. It wasn’t something I could just push away: it was almost as if my new body was programmed to be attracted to men in general and Ray in particular. Maybe it was. After all, I didn’t just look like a girl–I was a girl. That meant my hormones, brain patterns, and even my chromosomes were as female as any naturally-born girl’s. Ray had at least been predisposed to an attraction to women. If I had been gay before, I might have been equally attracted to men more quickly, but instead, my body was having to teach my mind what it should like.

It’s funny. I had never had a great deal of sympathy for gays before. That isn’t to say I disliked them, but I just didn’t think much about their situation. Like many people, I thought if they tried hard enough, they could overcome their ‘aberration.’ I even made fun of them and laughed at the anti-gay jokes. Now, as a woman, I was coming to understand that there was more to it than conscious choice. I was starting to become attracted to men whether I wanted to or not.

There was a sudden knock at the door, and just for a moment, I had the irrational fear that it was Wally at the door. I then realized it had to be Ray, and my fear evaporated, replaced by an unexplainable excitement.

He stood at the door with a white sack in his hand and a broad smile on his face. “Cinnamon rolls from Duke’s,” he announced proudly, like a hunter who had just returned with a fresh kill.

I could smell them through the sack. They did smell great. “Come in.”

In a few minutes, we were sitting down to fresh coffee and some of the most delicious cinnamon rolls I had ever tasted. I’d have to watch it, though, I reminded myself. With this smaller body, too many cinnamon rolls and I’d be a tubby little thing. It was a distinctly feminine thought, I realized, wanting to stay slim enough to look good. I had been in reasonably decent shape in my male body though, and had always hated the thought of getting fat. That aberration appeared to have gone into hyperdrive with the acquisition of a female body.

“I’m going to try to guide you in your research today,” Ray explained between bites. “Once you’ve discovered exactly who The Judge and his associates are, we can proceed any way you want to.”

“Maybe after the library we could proceed to your office,” I countered, producing the flash drive from my purse.

“What’s that?”

“All of Aaron March’s document files,” I smiled devilishly.

“Why you sneaky little girl,” he said with obvious admiration. “This might turn out to be a worthwhile study after all.”

“You mean you didn’t think so before?” I asked, surprised.

He grinned. “Well... to be honest, I just wanted an excuse to see you again. I hope that doesn’t bother you...”

“Not really,” I admitted. “I think these new bodies are loaded with some sort of social imperative. They don’t force us to act like who we’ve become, but they do nudge us in that direction. I suppose if I’m going to be a girl, I might as well hang out with someone I like.”

We looked into each other’s eyes as the weight of what I had just said sunk in. We were obviously attracted to each other in ways probably neither of us could have fully understood. I think, in retrospect, that part of it was that when I was male, I had been very attracted to Taylor. In spite of her own sexual preferences, she must have been somewhat fascinated, if not attracted, to me. That mutual attraction had somehow been preserved after our transformations, and now, we were free of the baggage of our previous lives that had kept us apart. I don’t know if that’s the way it really was or not, but it seemed to make sense to both of us somehow.

Ray showed me around the library, giving me the nickel tour before stopping in front of a row of books. “Why are we stopping here?” I asked him.

“I thought you might want to start your research here,” he replied with mock innocence.

“‘Mythology and Folklore’? Why would I want to start here?”

He just smiled and sat down at a nearby table to read an economic journal he had brought along.

Without going into all the details, as well as my false starts, within little more than an hour I had begun to understand where The Judge came from. At first, I refused to believe it. After all, to imagine that a group of old Greek or Roman gods had somehow plopped down in the heartland of America and created a town complete with all of its inhabitants was just a little too much. But the pieces fit together nicely: The Judge with his magical powers to reward and punish, the cop–Mercer–who seemed to be wherever he was needed almost instantly, the limping engineer–Eric Vulman–and last but not least, Aaron March. His first name resembled the Greek name of Ares, while his last name was ever so close to the Roman Mars. No wonder he paraded about almost like an army general, his aides trembling in his wake.

And as for his aides, Mr. Fobes must be Phobos, I realized, and Mr. Deimler must be his brother, Deimos. The two aides were associated with fear in the myths, but they seemed more the recipients of fear than the dispensers of it judging by what I had observed. But there was very little written about either of them, so maybe the myths were a little cockeyed.

It may seem strange that I bought into the idea so quickly, but having experienced the power of The Judge first hand, it wasn’t exactly a leap of logic to realize that he was Jupiter–the most powerful of the Roman gods. But why was he wasting his time performing unwanted transformations on unwary travellers? If I could answer that question, I might be well on my way to recovering my rightful life.

“Okay,” I told Ray. “I understand now. The Judge is Ju... Ju...”

“Now you see why I couldn’t just tell you,” he said. “Stop trying to say the word and you’ll get your breath back.”

I nodded and gulped, feeling the air trickling down my throat again. “So we can’t say it?” I asked, not bothering to explain what “it” was.

“That’s right,” he nodded. “At least we can’t say it in that particular context. No one knows exactly why, but it’s probably to prevent us from learning too much about them and how they operate. If we can’t talk about them, we can’t figure them out.”

“Or maybe we can,” I countered, waving the flash drive in my hand.

I could feel my heart beating faster as the files from the flash drive appeared on the screen of the computer in Ray’s office. I was afraid Aaron March would have encrypted the files and that my theft would be worthless. I was good, but cracking document encryption without some very sophisticated software tools would be a lost cause. Or maybe the files would be in Greek or Latin. After all, weren’t those the languages they originally spoke. Or worse yet–maybe they were in Greek and Latin and encrypted as well.

“Well, here goes,” I murmured, calling up the first document. To my relief, it loaded fine, but as for the content...

“It looks like a Chamber newspaper ad,” Ray commented.

“Well, there are a lot of files here, though,” I reminded him hopefully.

It wasn’t until we had painstakingly examined about a third of the files that we found anything interesting.

“It’s a memo to The Judge!” Ray exclaimed.

“Yeah, but it looks as if it’s responding to a memo from The Judge that isn’t included,” I pointed out. Silently, we read the memo:

To: The Judge

From: Aaron March

Subject: Suspected Leaks

Father–At your suggestion, I’ve taken personal charge of the investigation into the security leaks regarding our projects. As you know, Mr. Fobes found nothing to indicate that anyone outside our circle had any access to the Oracle. I can confirm that analysis. However, our opponents obviously have a source, since they have apparent knowledge of impending deaths of our resident candidates. I have checked with our sources at the second site and queried them regarding a heretofore unknown oracle, but I’ve come up empty. I apologize for my failure in this matter.

“Apparently everything isn’t going according to their plan,” Ray commented.

“It looks that way,” I agreed. “What is this ‘Oracle’ he refers to?”

Ray smiled. “You really never read much mythology, did you?”

I shrugged. “It didn’t seem to have much of a practical value.”

Ray ignored my remark and explained, “The Oracle of Delphi was the one most closely associated with the gods, although there were other oracles. March’s memo seems to indicate that there was really only one reliable oracle, though–probably the one at Delphi. Apparently they use the Oracle to determine who is about to die and lure them to Ovid as they did with us.”

So the explosives Officer Mercer discovered on our plane weren’t just planted there as an excuse to condemn us to these new lives. We really would have died if we hadn’t been brought to Ovid. In a way, rather than costing us our lives, The Judge had saved us. Sure, he could have left us as we were after he rescued us, but there was nothing in it for him if he did. I was starting to understand The Judge better and even appreciate his style. We had been left with a Hobson’s choice–die in a fiery explosion or assume new lives at The Judge’s whim.

“Let’s keep going,” Ray urged.

Sometime later, just by reading March’s correspondence, we had pieced together a significant amount of information about the activities of the gods. Apparently, the Oracle had predicted a major crisis in the Middle East, resulting in a nuclear war between the Moslem part of the world and the Western powers. References to the obliteration of nearly every city in the Middle East and not just a few in Europe and America made it clear that there had not been any true winners in the conflict. As the combatants reeled, other ‘neutral’ nations, such as Russia and China, hurried to make their own claims on the remaining oil fields, touching off a second round of nuclear warfare. The end result was a dying planet–something apparently even the gods feared.

“It reads like science fiction,” Ray said quietly.

“Well, it is in the future,” I allowed, “but from the memos, it looks as if it might happen anywhere from five to fifty years out, depending upon additional factors.”

“Yeah,” Ray agreed. “The greater the pressure for more oil, the quicker it happens. But some of the documents say that the gods have perfected an engine that can run efficiently without oil right here in Ovid.”

“Vulman Industries,” I remarked.

“I think you’re right,” was Ray’s thoughtful response. “They’re the biggest company in town, they have access to classified documents through their defense contracts, and they’ve apparently been hiring engineers like crazy. If they’ve developed such an engine, the need for oil will go down overnight.”

“The Oracle has predicted war if oil is scarce, the war will happen very soon. But it looks as if there will be war even if oil isn’t scarce: it just takes longer for it to happen. Why is that?” I asked.

I could suddenly imagine Ray standing before a classroom, for in a heartbeat, he was wearing his economics professor’s guise. “We use oil for many things besides fuelling cars and power plants. It’s used as a lubricant and in the production of many products, such a plastics. Plus even if an engine such as these documents portray came into the marketplace, it would take a few years to replace existing engines. As a result, there would still be a high demand for oil for some time. Prices might fall, but it would be gradual at first.

“In the Middle East, many nations have gone along for decades assuming that they could sell oil in massive quantities forever and never have to join the rest of the world in development of advanced economies. Instead of investing prudently in their nations’ futures, they have squandered the money with yachts, indoor ski slopes, and other useless toys.

“If oil is no longer needed on a large scale, governments will become cash poor and be overthrown when they can no longer provide an easy living for their people. Then religious radical elements may rise in any number of nations to take control. The West will be the enemy as far as these radicals are concerned, and to make a long story short, they will eventually trigger a religious war as devastating as the one which would have developed early over securing the sources of oil.”

He was right, I realized.

“So it’s damned if we do and damned if we don’t,” I sighed. “If we don’t do something to radically drop oil consumption, a war over oil will develop. But if we do find a way to cut oil consumption, we’ll see our trading partners in the Middle East replaced by religious zealots who will start a religious war.”

Ray nodded. “In a nutshell, that’s it.”

I looked at my watch. It was hard to read the tiny face of my women’s watch, so I hadn’t glanced down at it as I often did as a man. To my alarm, I saw it was nearly four o’clock. “Oh shit!” I exclaimed. “I need to find an apartment.”

Ray looked confused. “But you have an apartment.”

“Not really,” I admitted. I had been too embarrassed to explain to Ray my problems with my ‘boyfriend.’ Obviously, he knew I had one, since he had seen enough evidence of that in the stuff Wally had left strewn about the apartment, but he had been too much of a gentleman to ask any embarrassing questions. Reluctantly, I told him the whole story.

Ray shook his head. “Boy, The Judge really did a number on you.”

“Tell me about it,” I sighed. “Now you see why I have to get cracking on finding a new apartment–before he gets back from his camping trip.” I shuddered at the thought of him coming back from his outing, dirty, full of beer, and so horny he would jump me on the living room floor. I cringed at the thought.

Ray looked concerned. “I know his type,” he said, looking almost as if he had read my mind and seen the same disgusting image. “You’re right to get out of there. Holly was probably too weak to get out of a bad relationship. If you’d really lost your memories, you’d probably be the same way. But the way you are now, things could get ugly pretty fast.”

“Will you help me find an apartment?” I asked hopefully.

“Sure, but it’s too late to do anything about it now. Apartments are scarce in Ovid with Vulman hiring so many new people. We can look tomorrow, though.”

“Tomorrow will be too late,” I cried. “What if Wally comes home early? I need to get something before that happens.”

“Well...” Ray began slowly, “you could move in with me.”

“What?”

“Look, don’t get all excited,” he soothed. “I’m just talking about something temporary–until we can find you a new place. I’m just a friend trying to help a friend, okay?”

“But...”

“Let’s go back to your place,” he urged. “We’ll get some stuff packed up for you and get it over to my place. Tomorrow, we go looking for an apartment for you. Then I’ll go with you to gather the rest of your things–to protect you from Wally.”

The more I thought about it, it was the best plan available to me. Saturday night wasn’t a good time to go apartment hunting, and Sunday would be too late. I didn’t think I had anything to fear from Ray. He had already had ample opportunity to jump me if that had been his intention. Besides, he had been a girl recently, and I could tell he really empathized with me. His offer was one a girl might make to her friend to help her escape from a bad situation.

While Ray was still thinking like a girl in some ways, I didn’t have the luxury of thinking like a man any longer. I was just a weak girl, and while a man wouldn’t flee his roommate during the night, a girl might have no choice. Wally wasn’t a big bruiser by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, he was shorter and probably not in as good a shape as Ray, but he was still bigger and stronger than me. I was forced to think like the girl I had become and realize that if Wally found out I was leaving him, he might be pissed enough to become violent. The potential was certainly there.

I nodded. “Okay, let’s get my stuff.”

As Holly, I had woefully little stuff to get, I realized. Nothing in the apartment looked much like what Holly would own, except for toiletries and clothing. I hadn’t been paid yet, so I didn’t know how much Holly made, but either it wasn’t enough to afford the little niceties of life or Wally was taking whatever she made and doling it out. From what I had seen of both my job and of Wally, it was probably a combination of the two. It only took us about half an hour to clean all of my belongings out of the apartment and stuff them haphazardly in my little Saturn.

It was funny, I mused. A couple of days ago, I owned enough things to fill a string of moving vans. I had a beautiful home near Seattle, a beachfront home in Maui, and an apartment in London, all opulently furnished by professional decorators. My closets had been filled with expensive suits and casual clothing, and my garage had been filled with a virtual fleet of expensive cars. Now, all of my belongings–mostly clothing and a few mementos, including pictures of a family I had never actually met–fit comfortably inside my only car, a nondescript Saturn.

I suddenly felt very sorry for myself standing there in the late afternoon shade. Something was welling up inside of me–something I hadn’t felt in years. My chest shuddered and I heaved air with a weak cry as warm tears burst from my eyes. I was a shuddering, pathetic little thing, standing before the pitiful possessions I now had, heaving spasmodically as the tears seemed to be streaming down my face.

“It’s okay, Holly,” Ray said soothingly as he stood behind me. He put his arms around me to comfort me. Looking back on it, maybe I should have been concerned at such an intimate act, but I truly needed him to put his arms around me.

I swung about until I was facing him, his arms now wrapped around my back. I buried my face in his chest, my tears mixed with makeup staining the front of his shirt. He didn’t seem to mind. “I’m here for you, Holly,” he said softly, and that made me feel better.

I felt like such a little fool. In my former life, I had kept a box of tissues around for crying secretaries and even a woman manager or two. I had always been just a little disgusted with their conduct, wondering why they couldn’t just suck it up and take it like men did. Of course I was looking at it from the perspective of a man who had become rich and powerful. I had always been in charge of my life before, and I suppose I just didn’t realize how many people–especially women, it seemed–felt powerless. No, they didn’t just feel powerless: they were powerless.

That made me feel even worse to realize I was one of those women now. Here I was, all my belongings in the car, a low-level admin job, and a boyfriend who would probably want to slap me around once he found out I had walked out on him. And as bad as my job was, I needed it. There was no Malone Software for me to go back to. Even if there were and I could somehow miraculously escape Ovid, who would believe me? While Mr. March’s document file had proven useful for finding out more about what was going on in Ovid, I had found nothing I could take to The Judge to bargain for my restoration and release from Ovid. I was stuck here, at the whim of the gods.

In spite of feeling so sorry for myself, my crying had been reduced to an occasional whimper. It just felt so good to have someone there to hold me. What must Ray think of me? As Taylor, she had been a strong woman. Taylor would never have broken down in my arms. Here I was–a little helpless nothing of a secretary acting so girly it seemed unreal. “I... I’m sorry,” I murmured, still holding onto Ray.

He looked down at me and shook his head. “Nothing to be sorry about. When I was a girl, I broke down a couple of times, too.”

“You?” I blurted out incredulously.

“Sure, all girls do,” he assured me. “I guess it really is the hormones.”

Oh yeah, I had those now, didn’t I? Feminine ones I mean. Plus I had all the other feminine stuff, too–vagina, clitoris, ovaries... Ovaries? Shit! I could get pregnant. That was horrible. And I would have periods. That was horrible, too. Shit!

“Let’s get you home,” he said softly, giving me one last welcome squeeze.

Ray’s apartment was a typical man’s apartment–leather couch, big screen TV, computer, expensive stereo, wine rack–the works. I wondered if he missed the little feminine touches he probably enjoyed as Taylor. If so, he didn’t let on.

“Put your stuff in the bedroom,” he told me. When he saw the expression on my face, he grinned. “Don’t worry. I’ll take the couch. We will have to share a bathroom though: there’s only one.”

He took his own load of my clothing and placed it carefully on the bed. I followed his example. It only took a few trips to get everything.

“I’ll help you get everything hung up and in drawers after dinner,” he said. “Do you want to go out to eat?”

“I don’t know,” I replied. “I’m something of a mess. So are you, for that matter. I’m sorry, but I got some makeup on your shirt.”

He looked down. “So you did. No problem, though. I can whip us up a decent chef’s salad, and there’s a bottle of white wine in the fridge. Sound good?”

I smiled. “Sounds great. I’ll help you make it.”

I hadn’t prepared a meal since I had become wealthy enough to afford a personal chef. I suppose I should be honest and say Ray prepared the meal while I just helped, but it gave me an odd sense of satisfaction I hadn’t felt in some time.

Come to think of it, I really hadn’t prepared much of anything in a long, long time. Once I had developed the basis of what would someday become Be-All, I really hadn’t done anything particularly creative. Oh sure, I had built a business empire that had propelled me to the covers of every major business and news magazine in the world, but much of that building had been the work of my staffs. I had just been the front man. Sure, I owned enough of the stock to guarantee me virtual control of the company, but I hadn’t really been hands-on in some time. At least not until Metamorph came about.

The rise of Metamorph was what had gotten me off my ass. I was so pissed that anyone would dare to challenge me with a competing product that I put my play toys–my sailboat, my polo ponies, and my San Francisco penthouse love nest–aside to prove to everyone, including myself, that I could handle this challenge myself.

Yeah, I had handled it all right. My lawyers told me I was in danger of being charged with restraint of trade, my staff in Miami had lost focus to follow my directions on stopping Metamorph, and Metamorph’s backers in organized crime had nearly blown up me and my staff six miles up in the air.

If I were still in my own body, I would have found a way to rationalize all of these failings away, but in the body of a helpless nineteen-year-old girl, it was somewhat easier to recognize my inadequacies. Because of me, lives had been ruined, opportunities wasted, and in the end, everything I had ever worked for had been lost and forgotten. Be-All had never existed. Of course, since Metamorph had been developed from Be-All, it probably didn’t exist either. That was the one bright spot in all of this, I thought grimly.

Now, here I was on another potential fool’s errand, attempting to get enough information to blackmail a god into changing me back into the man I used to be and allowing me to fuck things up all over again. Maybe I was wasting my time. Maybe I should just settle back, be a good little secretary, screw Wally’s brains out, and be happy with my lot.

“Careful!”

Ray’s warning brought me out of my funk. “What?”

“You almost sliced your finger along with that carrot,” he pointed out as he deftly inserted a corkscrew into a bottle of white table wine.

“Oh!” I looked down to see the knife resting sharp edge down on the chopping board a hair’s distance from the tip of my finger. “I guess I just got lost in thought.”

“So what were you thinking about?”

I sighed, “I was just thinking about how all of this is my fault.”

“That doesn’t sound like the Franklin Malone I knew,” he observed.

“In case you hadn’t noticed, I don’t seem to be Franklin Malone right now.”

“I noticed.” There was something strange about the way he said that, but I let it go.

“I think The Judge changes more than our bodies,” I mused. “Maybe there’s something he does to us that’s buried down deeper–to keep us from going crazy with all of these changes. In my case, maybe it took away some of my self-confidence and forced me to see things differently.”

He poured me a glass of wine and handed it to me. “Maybe it wasn’t the self-confidence he took,” Ray suggested. “Maybe it was more the bravado–the macho instincts you used to have.”

“And I don’t have them now?”

He shook his head. “Not a trace. In fact, I think it’s an improvement. Franklin Malone was an ‘in your face’ sort of guy. It masked a man who was very intelligent and very vulnerable.”

“You thought that about me?” I asked incredulously.

“Not exactly,” he replied, taking a sip of wine. “That’s what I see now–now that all those negative aspects have been stripped away. Before Ovid, I just thought you were a self-centered son of a bitch.”

In spite of myself, I giggled, masking it as best I could by taking a sip of what turned out to be a very nice white wine.

We talked more over dinner, mostly about our previous lives. We had started out trying to discuss the gods, but for some reason, we were unable to discuss them without choking up–apparently more of their magic. So we stuck mostly to our former lives. I told Ray about growing up with my aunt and uncle, while he told me about his (her at the time, of course) childhood back in a suburb of Chicago.

“Do you miss your family?” I asked, intrigued that Taylor had enjoyed a much happier upbringing with her brother and two sisters.

“Sure,” he acknowledged, “but everyone was starting to get a little uptight about my being a lesbian. It was as if they expected me to grow out of it or something. I think we had some real conflicts coming up if I had remained Taylor, so maybe it’s for the best. How about you?”

“My aunt and uncle might as well be dead,” I told her bluntly, reaching for the wine bottle. Empty.

“I’ll open more,” Ray suggested.

I shook my head. “No, I’d better stop. I’m not as big as I was, and I think this wine has gone to my head.” I rose unsteadily, as if to prove a point. “Let’s get cleaned up and then I’m...”

I was going to say I would then go to bed, but I snagged my foot on the chair and stumbled. Ray jumped up quickly and caught me or I would have been sprawled all over the floor.

“I’m okay,” I insisted, but I wasn’t. I was just a little wobbly–definitely too much wine. Coupled with the light dinner we had enjoyed, I was more than a little inebriated.

“I’ll clean up,” Ray volunteered. “You go ahead and get some sleep.”

He had his arm around me to keep me from falling, and to be honest, his arm felt good. Just as when I had been crying and he had comforted me, I felt strangely safe when his arm was around me. In fact, I felt so safe, I felt he deserved a little reward. As we entered the bedroom, I stood on my toes and kissed his cheek.

Ray looked surprised but pleased. “What was that for?”

“For being so nice to me.” I smiled as I looked into his eyes.

“Let’s get you ready for bed,” he said, changing the subject. He looked through the stuff I had thrown in an empty drawer and selected a short but opaque lime-green nightgown. “Can you get this on?”

“I sleep in the nude,” I informed him with a little bit of a wicked grin.

“Oh... well, maybe that was just what Wally expected. Otherwise, why would you even have any nightgowns? Try this on.”

I took in and fumbled with it, trying to figure out what the best way would be to put it on. “You wanna help me?” I slurred.

“I...”

“Come on, you used to be a girl. I haven’t got anything you haven’t got. Or used to got. Or used to have.” I giggled.

“Okay,” he sighed. “Maybe I’d better help you.”

He peeled off my clothes, and I found myself enjoying the experience. I kept rubbing up against him–accidentally of course. In my wine-soaked mind, I thought of what I was doing to him as something of a little practical joke, making him, I’m sure, hard as a rock. The joke was backfiring, though, because I was starting to get turned on myself.

Turned on! How could that be? I was a man, just taking up temporary residence in a woman’s body. No, that wasn’t right. We had decided we were probably stuck as we were, but I was still a man inside my mind. So why was I feeling so... funny, standing there in front of him with all of my clothes in a little heap at my feet?

“Here, get this on.” He propped me up with one hand while his other hand slipped the nightgown over my head. It felt sort of good, really. Once he had it arranged properly, he guided me over to the bed and slipped me under the covers.

“What? No good night kiss?” I mumbled.

Without a reply, he leaned over and kissed me gently on the forehead. “Good night, Holly.”

I smiled as I drifted off to sleep.

The next morning started with a dull headache. I was going to have to remember that this new, smaller body lacked the capacity to drink as much as my old one. I didn’t feel awful, but I didn’t exactly feel good, either. On top of that, the wine had reduced my judgment level to the point at which I had almost started to come on to Ray. Okay, to be completely honest, I had started coming on to Ray.

I slipped on a light lime-green robe that matched my nightgown and peeked out the bedroom door, expecting Ray to be either stirring or still asleep on the couch. Instead, the room was empty. He had left a note pinned to the back of the front door, explaining that he had accidentally left some papers at the office and needed to retrieve them. Checking my watch, I saw that according to the time on the note, he had only left a few minutes earlier. Come to think of it, the closing of the front door was what had awakened me.

I had slept a long, long time. It was already ten thirty. What time had we gone to bed the night before? I wasn’t sure, but it hadn’t been that late. I guess being transformed had taken a lot out of me–that and the wine.

Figuring it would be awhile before Ray got back, I decided to take a shower. Ray had a nice shower–one of those massaging types. It made my body feel good, so naturally, I got a little curious. Once my back had been soothed by the pulsing waters, I turned to face the shower, letting the water cascade down over my breasts. That felt pretty good, too, I admitted to myself.

Now I don’t want it to sound like I was standing there under the water, undulating sexily and moaning as my breasts tingled and my nipples got hard like in some sort of cheap porn film, but it did feel good... I stepped back a little so the pulsing water could get between my legs. Again, the feeling was pleasant, but not exactly mind-blowing.

Frankly, I was interested in exactly what mind-blowing would be like in this body.

Sure, it sounds a little kinky, but I challenge anyone with a normal amount of curiosity who managed to get an unwanted sex change to avoid trying to find out just what it felt like to get off as the opposite sex. The thought was both intriguing and frightening. Fortunately, intrigue finally won out over fear.

Hesitantly, I touched my nipples. They were very, very sensitive, and the sensation was very relaxing. One hand still working on the nipples, alternating between both of them, I tentatively place my other hand between my legs. As a man, I had done this to women hundreds of times, but doing it to myself was something else again. The sensations lacked the intensity of male masturbation, but they were more far-reaching, radiating all through my body.

I closed my eyes as I worked on myself, and unbidden, I suddenly wondered what it would be like to have someone else do this to me. Ray’s image then flashed into my head, and I was unable to avoid the image of me lying on a bed while Ray did this to me. I shuddered, little waves of pleasure rippling through my body. Was that an orgasm? Yes, I realized, it was. And it felt good...

I dressed in a simple while cami top and a pair of denim shorts, putting my hair in a ponytail while on automatic and applying a light coat of makeup. I didn’t bother with shoes as I admired myself in the mirror. Getting off had actually made me feel good in this female body, and although I told myself I would have gladly traded it for my old life, I vowed to make the most of the hand I had been dealt. The girl in the mirror looked younger than nineteen, with her ponytail and girl-next-door makeup. While the cami and the shorts did little to hide some very womanly charms, I thought I looked good. I thought Ray would think I looked good, too.

Ray just seemed to be jumping to the forefront of my thoughts, I realized. I was already thinking of him as if he had always been a man. There was no doubt I was feeling a definite attraction to him. It couldn’t be helped, I realized. This body had been wired to like men, and Ray had always preferred women, even when he was one. Add to that our common bond as unwilling residents of Ovid, then throw in a dash of good old-fashioned pheromones, and the attraction was almost unavoidable.

If I ever got back to my old life, I would probably be sickened by this rationalization, but residing in the body of a young woman with normal sexual urges, it made perfect sense.

I decided to set the mood by making a nice breakfast for Ray. My headache was receding, compliments of a couple of Excedrin, and I was feeling ambitious. While I wasn’t much of a cook, I knew I at least had the ability to make up some scrambled eggs and fry up some bacon. I had already made coffee, so how hard could it be?

The bacon was snapping and popping merrily as the doorbell rang. I naturally assumed it was Ray returning, perhaps having forgotten his key. Who else would it be late on a Sunday morning? I cheerfully threw open the door, forgetting that I was now smaller and female and should never open a door without checking to see who it was.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t Ray.

It was Wally.

He was dressed in clothes so scruffy and dirty that he had to have been in them all weekend. The scruffy, rough clothing and the two-day growth of beard made him look more like a derelict than anything else. Added to that was the fiery look in his eyes and the way he was clenching and unclenching his fists, and I knew I was in big, big trouble.

In that moment in which our eyes met, I tried to think of something I could say to get that terrible scowl off his face. I wouldn’t have been able to do it, though, even if he hadn’t backhanded me, knocking me to the ground. He might have been a shade, but his arm was strong. I just lay there on the ground, looking up at him in shock.

“Bitch!” he screamed.

“Wally, I...”

“Move out on me, will you?”

I scooted back on my ass, fearfully trying to get some distance between me and my assailant. I was afraid when I saw his leg twitch that he was going to kick me. In those heavy work boots he was wearing, a solid hit was bound to result in a broken bone wherever he connected. He didn’t kick me, though. Instead, he leaned over and grabbed the front of my top, ripping it at he pulled me to my feet.

“Nobody walks out on me, you dumb cunt!” His breath was foul with whisky and beer fumes. Apparently he and his cronies had come back into town, drinking all the way.

“Who are you?” an angry voice came from the doorway. It was Ray. Oh my God, if Wally was worked up enough to do this to me, he’d probably kill Ray.

“Get the police!” I managed to call out to Ray, hoping he would turn and get help before Wally pounced on him. My warning earned me an unpleasant rap on the jaw.

I turned away, expecting yet another blow when suddenly, his strong hand released me, causing me to tumble to the ground once more. I didn’t see what happened next, but I heard it. It sounded like crockery being slammed against a wall, and before I knew what was happening, Wally was on the floor next to me, holding his nose as something red and slightly transparent flowed between his fingers.

“You broke my fucking nose!” he screamed in a comically nasal tone.

“That’s because your ‘fucking nose’ was where it didn’t belong,” Ray replied calmly, but with obvious distaste.

Wally got to his feet surprisingly fast. He ignored the blood flowing from his nose and took an ill-timed swing at Ray. Ray blocked it easily and rammed a fist into my assailant’s solar plexus. The wind forced out of him, he crumpled to the ground, this time electing to stay there.

Officer Mercer was now standing in the doorway. I had no idea how he knew to come, but I suspected my screams had been heard by one of Ray’s neighbors and they had called the police. The entire incident had taken less than five minutes, so his promptness would have been unimaginable to anyone who didn’t know him to be Mercury. The God dragged the defeated man to his feet. “Are you two all right?” he asked Ray and me.

Ray turned to me. “Are you okay?”

“I am... now,” I told him, trying to ignore my sore jaw, stinging cheek, and bruised ass. For the first time since my transformation, I was happy my ass was now well padded. I tried to smile for my hero, but it hurt too much to manage it.

“You might want to have that jaw looked at,” Officer Mercer recommended before leading his prisoner off.

Once he had left, closing the door behind him, I rushed to Ray’s open arms, sobbing hard. It seemed to be turning into a habit–me crying and Ray holding me in a comforting embrace.

Ray took me by the hospital to be checked over. Luckily, the damage was limited to a few bruises–nothing I couldn’t fix with makeup, the nurse told me. She shot an evil glance over her shoulder at Ray who was waiting in the next room, watching me through the glass partition.

“You should take him to see The Judge,” she advised me.

“Oh! No, Ray didn’t do this. He stopped the guy who did this.”

“Then that guy should be taken to see The Judge,” she amended.

I wondered if that would do any good. Since Wally was a shade, what could The Judge do to him? As I understood it, shades were just elaborate placeholders, eventually replaced by real people. I did pity the person who got to be Wally, though.

“Say,” I said suddenly to the nurse, “if you know about The Judge, then you remember who you were before?” I didn’t expect to see the nurse anytime soon, so I didn’t worry about letting her know I had my memories, too.

“Sure do,” she grinned. “I’m Sarah Locke, by the way. I used to be an MD. Most of the nurses here were doctors, by the way. I guess this is The Judge’s way of getting even with us, by making us nurses here in Ovid.”

“Getting even?”

“Yeah,” she nodded. “You know–sort of like being reduced from master to slave. At least that’s how some doctors would feel about it. We nurses get ordered around by docs who know less about patient needs than we do. It’s a bit of a shock to end up lower on the totem pole.”

“You seem to have adapted,” I pointed out.

“Well, I didn’t have to put up with the sex change,” she confided. “I was female before, but several of the other nurses here used to be male doctors. Those who remember their past lives usually have a difficult time adapting.”

“I can imagine,” I muttered, knowing exactly how they felt. It wasn’t taking me very long to understand that my previous chauvinistic attitudes were being reflected back at me now. Aaron March and his two lackeys thought of me as someone to bring them coffee and smile prettily. Wally had thought of me as his own personal property. O’Hara was happy to bully a poor, weak little girl. And as for the rest of the men I had seen in Ovid, they seemed to delight in alternating their looks between my legs and my breasts. Ray was the only man in town who had treated me as a human being, and he was a former woman.

“Take these,” Sarah said, ushering me out to the lobby where Ray was waiting patiently for me. “They’re just Advil, but they should help with any pain.”

“You’re all right?” Ray asked as I swallowed the pills and took the glass of water Sarah had drawn for me.

“I’ll be fine,” I told him. “I’ll just be a little sore.”

“I hear you stopped the punk who did this,” Sarah said to Ray. “Good work.”

Ray grinned. “Thanks. It was a pleasure.” Then he put a protective arm around me and led me out to his car.

“Officer Mercer called me on my cell while you were in there,” Ray told me.

“Cell phones work here?” I asked hopefully.

“Only locally,” he replied, crushing my hopes of finding some way to communicate with the outside world. “Anyhow, he told me The Judge had issued a restraining order against Wally. He won’t be bothering you anymore.”

Something told me the restraining order wasn’t like the wimpy ones judges issued outside of Ovid. In all likelihood, violating the restraining order would prove very troublesome to Wally. I breathed an audible sigh of relief.

“I picked something up for you at the office,” Ray went on. “The college has some laptops for checkout. I picked one up so you could continue your examination of the document files at my place.”

“That’s great,” I smiled. “But I saw a computer back at your apartment. And based on what we found yesterday, I don’t know how much good it will do.”

“True,” he acknowledged, “but as I understand it, you want to find some information you can use to trade with The Judge–information for a ticket out of Ovid.”

“That’s the plan.”

“Then you may have other computers to check out. This one is faster than mine and it’s portable. Keep it with you all the time. It will make your search go faster. Also, there’s no Wi-Fi here in Ovid, so nobody can tap into this computer. I’ve got the laptop for a week, so no problems.”

He was right. I could store everything on the drive of the laptop and have all the data whenever I needed it. It was a shame Be-All didn’t exist anymore. It would have helped me merge the data more quickly. Still, Ray’s procurement of the laptop would speed things up and keep me from having to use computers which could be easily hacked.

Back at Ray’s place, we ate a quick breakfast–which Ray fixed–and I was back in business with the laptop on the kitchen table while Ray read the Sunday Tulsa World. My search wasn’t producing the results I had hoped for, though. While the latest documents I examined shed a little more light on the plans of the gods, there was nothing there I could use to negotiate with The Judge for my freedom.

It was midway through the afternoon that I finally discovered something that might be useful. It figured–I had already gone through nearly eighty percent of the files. Still, I was happy finally to discover something. “I found something interesting,” I called out to Ray, who was by now watching a baseball game on his widescreen. He was really getting into this male thing in a big way.

“What’s that?” he asked, leaving the game to look over my shoulder. Maybe he wasn’t completely into the male thing after all. Most men (including the former me) would have just called an irritated “What?” while never missing a pitch.

“March is really worried about security,” I explained, pointing at a scathing memo he had written to Fobes demanding to know how information about Ovid had leaked to the NSA. From the sound of the memo, the breach had been extremely serious.

“NSA, huh?” Ray commented. “That’s heavy stuff. It also means our government isn’t in on whatever is going on here.”

I turned and looked at him seriously. “Did you think they were?”

He shrugged. “It was always a possibility. After all, it’s pretty bizarre to think about all of this going on right here in our country without the government being a part of it. From the looks of the memo, though, the security breach was sealed when this person codenamed ‘Ice Queen’ was removed from power.”

I reread the same passage he was looking at. “Yeah. But it looks like the ‘Ice Queen’ was actually a woman. I don’t remember any woman being in charge of the NSA: do you?”

“No, but if The Judge can erase our lives from the collective memory, maybe this ‘Ice Queen’ was erased, too.”

It was a sobering reminder to realize The Judge had the power to erase us from reality. If he knew what we were up to, he might erase us entirely and not just our identities. While I wasn’t excited about being a woman, I was realistic enough to know it was better than not existing at all. Personally, I for one, did not think I’d be better off dead than being female.

“March directed Fobes to look into it and report back to him through Mr. Deimler when he had finished.” I scanned forward through the document file but could find nothing else that dealt with the security issue–at least from the file name. “Damn!” I exclaimed. “I’d sure like to see Fobes’ reply to that memo.”

“It’s probably on Fobes’ computer,” Ray speculated, causing me to realize I was going to have to raid another computer to get my answers. Ray looked at his watch. “Hey, it’s two o’clock. Did you still want to look at apartments?”

“I suppose I should,” I replied, shutting down the laptop. “I don’t want to impose upon you any more than I have to.”

“Oh, it’s no imposition,” he was quick to tell me.

“What are people going to say when they find out you’ve got a young blonde bimbo living with you?” I pointed out.

Ray just grinned. “They’d probably just say, ‘Lucky dog!’”

Since Ovid was a small town, searching for an apartment didn’t take long as there were few places to search. Unlike cities with their large apartment complexes, an apartment building in Ovid with twelve units was considered large. The growth of Vulman Industries and the fall session at Capta College meant that nearly every apartment was occupied, the few exceptions being out of my price range.

Again, the irony wasn’t lost on me. In my former life, price would not have been a problem, but my meagre earnings at the Chamber were insufficient to rent anything but the most modest apartment–none of those seemed to be available. Maybe part of the reason Holly had moved in with Wally was the state of her finances. It certainly wasn’t for his sparkling personality.

“You can stay with me as long as you want,” Ray soothed me as I seemed on the verge of tears once again. We were just getting back into the car after coming up completely dry at every apartment building in town.

“That couch of yours is going to be pretty uncomfortable after a few days,” I pointed out. I nearly bit my tongue as I realized that what I had said could have been viewed as a come-on. If I were still a man and some pretty girl had said that to me, I would have twisted it into an invitation to join her in bed.

Fortunately, Ray hadn’t been a man all that long. “I don’t mind,” he replied with a boyish smile.

I stared at him for a moment as he started the car. I had seen that look before, but not directed at me. It was that puppy dog look of love guys got when they gazed into the eyes of the women they loved. Did Ray think he was in love with me? He had only been a man for a few days, and yet he thought he was in love with me?

Then I remembered that as Taylor, he had been a lesbian. Falling for a girl would be second nature to him. But what made him think I would reciprocate his love? Until a few days ago, I had been a man with absolutely no interest in other men. Even if I had leaned that way, my experiences as a woman with Wally would have turned me off men in a hurry.

And yet...

I thought about the women I had seen since my transformation. My co-worker Karen, was very attractive, and yet I felt no attraction to her or to any of the women I had met or seen since my transformation. I tried, just as an experiment, to imagine myself in bed with Karen, our breasts rubbing against each other while I penetrated her–I suppose with a strap-on–but the fantasy did nothing for me. That was odd...

Then my mind strayed to the obvious next step. I tried to imagine myself in bed with Ray. I thought about his hands caressing my breasts and felt an odd little sensation in my nipples. Then I tried to imagine falling back onto the sheets, my legs spread while he... while he...

I was getting very moist. I could feel it happening. As a male, I would have felt the blood rushing into my penis, stiffening it and increasing its sensitivity as it pushed against a wall of clothing. The sensation I felt was the same and different all at once. Obviously, there was no hardening to speak of, but the spot where I knew my clitoris lay felt as if it had expanded. The most overwhelming sensation was a warmth and a yielding sensation between my legs, as if my body was preparing for...

“Are you all right?”

“Huh?” My eyes darted to Ray, and I realized the car was stopped.

“You had sort of a glazed look,” Ray explained. “We’re home and yet you looked as if you were a million miles away.”

“Oh... I’m fine,” I lied. “I was just... just thinking.” That said, I rushed out of the car, barely able to contain myself as I waited for Ray to open the door. No, I wasn’t about to jump him, but I needed relief and needed it fast.

“Are you okay in there?” Ray called at the bathroom door.

“I’m fine!” I called back, hoping I hadn’t made too much noise when I came.

“If you need help, I know enough about being a woman that I can answer any questions you have.”

Well, it was a little late for questions. I had rushed into the apartment, grabbed a new set of panties from the drawer, and shot into the bathroom as fast as I could. I had intended to just change out of my damp panties, but the urges I had been feeling would not be contained by just a fresh pair of panties. I had no idea exactly how women pleasured themselves, but I had managed in the shower and I was managing now. To be honest, I seemed to be getting even better at it. Apparently it didn’t take me long to learn. After my body had finished shuddering with pleasure, I was too exhausted to move from the toilet where I had collapsed.

“It’s just...” I began, trying to think of something less embarrassing to tell Ray than that I had just gotten myself off. “It’s just that my bladder seems so much smaller than when I was a man.” I didn’t know if that was true or not, but women complained about that all the time. It sounded like a good excuse anyway. “I’m okay now.”

“Well, call me if you need anything.”

I sighed in relief. He had bought it. Or at least I thought he had. I really couldn’t be certain.

When I had straightened myself up, including freshening my makeup while on automatic, I was ready to face the world again–or at least that small portion of the world that included Ray. I tried to compose myself and act like nothing had happened, but something most certainly had happened. In the last few hours, I had become less horrified about my new existence and more curious. Getting myself off twice since my transformation had opened a new door in my psyche.

I, of course, knew what sex as a man was like, but now that I had crossed a psychological hurdle by climaxing two times as a woman, I couldn’t help but wonder what sex with a man–one man in particular would be like. I had no doubt that Ray would be a sensitive and skilled lover. As a former woman, and a former lesbian, he would know what it took to please a woman. I, as a former man, had never had to please a man before, but I knew what I had liked and that was probably enough to please him.

Wait a minute... what was I thinking? I was still a man inside, and I still had a chance of getting out of Ovid if I could find something to offer The Judge in return for my freedom.

But I had to consider that my chances were slim. I still needed to check out my boss’s computer, but after that, I was pretty much out of ideas. It wasn’t likely a lowly receptionist was going to be privy to anything The Judge didn’t already know, unless it was what color lipstick went with what nail polish. And if I had to live my life as a girl, I had to consider my future. There were a lot of Wallys out there. For all practical purposes, I admitted reluctantly to myself, I had been one of them. How many Rays were out there? Not many, I suspected.

Could I really do that, though–act the part of Ray’s girlfriend? It would certainly solve a lot of problems. I’d have a place to live, more financial security, and other men would leave me alone. It suddenly struck me that this was probably what many women thought about when agreeing to a relationship. Holly had probably thought about it herself before moving in with Wally. Come to think of it, maybe Wally was a decent guy once upon a time, and maybe he changed over time.

But what would change him into such an asshole? I had to let the male side of my brain think about that, and it didn’t take me long to think of an answer. When I was after a woman, I was generally polite and sensitive to her needs. But once I had the woman in my power, it was a different story until finally I took her for granted. I had enjoyed several ‘serious’ relationships with women, but all of them had ended the same way, with her moving out. Not even my money was enough to keep the good ones. As for the gold-diggers, I’d keep them around, but at arm’s length, only seeing them when I needed something from them–almost always that ‘something’ was sex.

Now the shoe was on the other foot, and a dainty little foot it was, too. Maybe it was best to leave things with Ray where they were–just friends. We were both new at the game of love after shifting teams, so there was no sense in complicating our relationship. Just living together until I could find a place would be problem enough.

“You want to go out to eat tonight?” he asked me when I finally rejoined him.

“You don’t have to entertain me,” I told him. “We can just whip up something simple here.”

So that’s what we did. We made tomato soup (fresh out of the can) and grilled cheese sandwiches–about as domestic a combination as I could think of. Then we just puttered around for a while, taking a short walk in the unseasonably warm (so we were told) October twilight. It was dark by the time we started walking back, and I was shivering a little, since I had elected not to take a jacket. Ray didn’t have one either, so he put his arm around me and held me closely as we walked. His warmth felt nice.

Once back at his apartment, things just sort of... happened.

We hadn’t talked much on the walk, limiting our conversation to things like, “Nice evening isn’t it?” and yes and no responses. I think it was because we were both thinking the same things from our new perspectives. I could tell from the way Ray had put his arm around me during the walk that he was falling in love with me. I might not have been a girl very long, but I could tell. His touch was gentle and respectful, but at the same time possessive, as if he wanted to hold me and never let go. Strangely, I didn’t want him to let go, and it wasn’t just for the warmth.

I even rested my arm on his strong shoulder, and as big and manly as that shoulder was, it felt as comfortable as the softest down pillow to me. My body was responding to his touch, even while the male side of my mind argued that it was wrong to even be considering what I had been thinking. I realized, though, that this body needed something it wasn’t getting. More of The Judge’s magic, I imagined. It made sense that he would instil in each of his victims the need to seek sexual release. What I had done in the bathroom was proof of that. But it hadn’t been enough. I needed more...

I needed Ray.

The apartment was dark when we got back, since we had neglected to leave any lights on. Ray leaned toward the light switch as we entered, but impulsively, I pulled him away, back to me. Again, no words were spoken. The language we were now speaking required no vocalization. He turned to me, his arm still around me, and wrapped his other arm around me with both hands resting comfortably on my ass. Gently, he pulled me toward him, and I could feel his manhood pressed against my body with only our clothing in between. I leaned my head back as he dropped his head to meet my lips. The kiss was long and exciting.

When we broke, he looked at me, his eyes twinkling in the light from a nearby streetlight. “Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked gently.

No, I wasn’t sure, but it felt right. If I was doomed to be a woman for the rest of my life–which seemed likely–I needed to find out now what that really meant. If what Ray had heard was correct, I was safe for now–safe from pregnancy and weeks away from menstruation. This was something of a Mulligan as far as physical consequences were concerned. And as for the psychological consequences... well, it seemed hard to imagine that I would meet anyone in Ovid who meant more to me. “I’m sure,” I told him at last. Or at least I was as sure as I could be.

We walked together arm in arm to the bedroom, and there we silently and with trembling hands removed each other’s clothing. We were like teenagers, doing it for the very first time, uncertain in our actions but determined to carry on. As I fell onto the bed, I was already so wet I thought for a moment that I had had an accident. Then I swear I got even damper as Ray lay down beside me, his penis long and hard brushing against my thigh.

We didn’t take long–at least not the first time. The second time took longer, and the third longer yet. What we lacked in experience in our new sexes, we made up for in enthusiasm. As Ray finally wilted and snuggled up beside me, he was obviously as exhausted as I was.

“Is it always that intense?” he asked me.

“Pretty much,” I admitted, coming to grips with the fact that my own orgasms, while not as intense as my male ones, were infinitely more satisfying. I felt almost sorry for Ray, realizing that he would never be able to experience again what I had just enjoyed.

I needn’t have worried, though, because he sighed, “That was incredible.”

I ran my finger though the thick hair on his chest. “You mean it?”

“Of course. You were wonderful, and I’ve never felt like that before–I’ve never felt as if I could... complete a woman like I did just now.”

Complete... that was an interesting way of putting it. “Would you go back to being a woman if you could?” I asked, truly curious at his satisfaction.

“I don’t know,” he said softly. “Maybe. There are things I miss about being a woman, but what I just experienced makes all of those things seem... paltry.” He was silent for a moment–then asked, “How about you? Do you still want to go back to being a man?”

That was a difficult thing to answer. I didn’t miss the experience of being a man quite as much as I expected, but I missed the power and authority that seemed to go with my old sex. “I think so,” I said at last.

“Really?” He was obviously disappointed.

I kissed him gently. “Don’t be so surprised. You were a woman who liked women. Now you’re a man who likes women. I have a lot further to go. What we did here was wonderful, but I think given the choice right now, I’d turn back into a man.”

“You said you think,” he pointed out. “Doesn’t that mean you’re not sure?”

“Ray,” I replied slowly, “I need to try to get my old life back. I need to know I did everything I could to defeat The Judge and make him undo all of this. But if I can’t, or if he won’t, I’ll be happy to stay here–stay with you. Does that make any sense?”

I could see his wan smile in the dark. “So Franklin Malone isn’t gone just yet.”

“Not yet,” I confirmed. But if I couldn’t get the information I needed in time, it was just as matter of when he would disappear rather than if.

He hugged me closely. “Okay, Holly. If that’s what you want, I’ll do my best to help you.”

“Thanks, Ray.” I hugged him back, burying my face in his shoulder so he couldn’t see my tears.

It’s funny how quickly you get used to having someone share your bed. When I awoke the next morning, I reached out with my arm, instantly awake when I realized Ray wasn’t in bed with me. I looked around, remembering suddenly all the times I had sex with a woman and left before she awakened, often never to see her again. I had a sudden pang of alarm that that had happened to me. Then I realized how ridiculous that was. This was Ray’s apartment. He had to be around somewhere.

As if on cue, the bedroom door opened and Ray stood there, already dressed in a tan sport coat over a pastel yellow dress shirt, open at the collar. “Sorry to alarm you,” he said, obviously noticing the look on my face. “I forgot I had a breakfast meeting this morning at seven.”

“What time is it?” I asked, barely able to hide my relief.

“About twenty ’til seven,” he replied. “You want to meet for lunch over at the Greenhouse–about noon?”

“Sure,” I replied, sitting up suddenly. I forgot that I hadn’t bothered to put on any sleepwear after we had finished last night. Oh well, Holly supposedly slept in the nude. So what if the sheet slid down from my breasts? “Where are you going for breakfast?”

Ray was silent for a moment. His mind didn’t seem to be on what I was saying. I guess I could hardly blame him.

“Well?”

“Huh?”

“Where are you having breakfast?”

“Oh! It’s sort of a PR event out at Vulman Industries. Apparently the president of the college is going to be there along with about a dozen faculty members. It’s sort of a town and gown event, apparently.”

“Hmm, Vulman Industries,” I commented. “Be sure and take notes. Vulman seems to be part of this puzzle–a very big part of it.”

He tapped the side of his head. “I keep all my notes right here.”

I laughed and jumped out of bed, not the least bit embarrassed about being completely nude. I threw my arms around him and kissed him hard, letting his beard scratch my face. “Then put that in your notebook.”

He reluctantly let me go. “It’s already there in yellow highlights.”

Once he left, I began the tedious task of getting ready for work. If I ever got my male body back, there would be several things I would miss about being a woman, but getting ready for work wouldn’t be one of them. To save time, I went on automatic, since my makeup skills still weren’t all that slick. Unfortunately, the downside of that was that I ended up with a little heavier makeup than I would have preferred. My guess was that the original shade Holly believed more makeup made her look more mature and sophisticated. Well she was wrong, but I didn’t have the time or the skills to change it right then.

I went off automatic to dress, though. I originally thought about toning down my mode of dress a little bit to soften Holly’s typical bimbo look. No such luck, though, because all of my work outfits were designed to display my body provocatively. Whether that was part of Aaron March’s dress code or Holly’s personal tastes, I wasn’t sure, but again, there was nothing I could do about it on short notice. I settled on a red knit dress that fit well but was almost uncomfortably short. Also, given the neckline, I would have to be careful when I bent over to get in a file drawer or the men in the office would be able to see more cleavage than I wanted them to see. I found a pair of red shoes to go with the dress, and–wonder of wonders–the heels were only two inches high. A gold chain belt and some simple gold accessories–a bracelet, necklace and earrings–and I was ready to face the world.

Karen was already at her desk by the time I got in. She looked attractive and professional in her gray suit. It was cut tight and short to please our bosses too, but it looked less trampy than my outfit. If I ended up stuck in Ovid as Holly for good, I’d have to get Karen to do some shopping with me so I could emulate her dress. She looked up to say hello and gasped suddenly, “What happened to your face?”

“My face?” I thought I had managed to hide the bruise on my cheek Wally had given me, but apparently even on automatic, I hadn’t been able to disguise it completely.

“Did that bastard boyfriend of yours hit you?” she demanded.

“You mean that bastard ex-boyfriend of mine,” I amended. “I moved out.”

Karen’s face brightened. “Good for you, baby! I didn’t think you’d even get up enough courage to do that.”

“Well, I had help,” I admitted coyly.

Karen’s smile became even wider. “Oh? Come on, girl, tell me about it.”

So I did, leaving out my investigation into Aaron March. I made it sound as if Ray had asked me out, not knowing about my boyfriend and I had accepted. According to my story, we just sort of hit it off and Ray managed to talk me into moving out on Wally. Of course, I left out the sex part, but I think Karen may have figured that out anyway.

It wasn’t the only thing she figured out, though.

“Wait a minute,” she broke in as my story came near to an end. “Something doesn’t sound right here.”

“What do you mean?” I asked innocently.

Karen stared at me, drilling into my eyes. “You remember who you were, don’t you?”

“What... what are you talking about?” I stammered.

“Hey, there’s just the two of us here,” she pointed out. “I don’t know why you’re trying to make everyone think you don’t remember your past life, but I’ve worked with the shade Holly for several months. There’s no way in the world that Holly would have had the guts to leave Wally. Holly was scared to death of him. And to not only leave, but to move in with another recent transformee... What were you two–lovers in your previous lives?”

“No!” I protested. Oops. I tried unsuccessfully to recover. “I mean I don’t know what you’re talking about. I just...” She wasn’t buying it. Well, admitting to Ray that I remembered my old life had turned out fine–more than fine, in fact. It looked as if I’d have to let someone else know as well.

“Okay, you got me,” I sighed. Then I went on to explain to her what had originally motivated me to pretend that I had lost my memories.

When I had finished, Karen asked, “Okay, I can understand why you didn’t want Mr. O’Hara to know you remembered. But why keep on pretending now? Surely Ray will protect you from O’Hara. If he could punch Wally out, O’Hara shouldn’t be a problem.”

Well, in for a penny, in for a pound. “I’ve got another reason I don’t want anyone to know,” I told her.

“Oh?”

“Karen, haven’t you ever wanted to get out of Ovid–go back to your real life?”

“Honey, this is my real life now,” she laughed.

“But who were you–before Ovid, I mean?” I pressed.

“That’s considered to be an impolite question,” she informed me, but with a smile. “But I’ll tell you anyway. I used to be work for SBC–you know, they’re AT&T now, but that was what the phone company used to be called here. I was a lineman. I got a little lost looking for a downed line. It’s the usual story, I guess. According to The Judge, I was due to die from a lightning strike while repairing the line, and after one of his little mock trials, I ended up like this.” She motioned proudly with her hands at her attractive body.

“You don’t seem to mind,” I commented dryly.

“Oh, I don’t mind at all–now,” she laughed. “At first though, I was as upset as you are. Unlike you with your asshole boyfriend, I showed up with a husband–a real one, too, although he doesn’t remember who he was. I had a little girl who was a shade, although she’s real now and remembers her past life–her male life–and we’ve since had another little girl together. Imagine what it was like for me. One minute I was a man and the next minute I was a woman with a husband and a daughter–a very horny husband, too, I might add. Unlike you, I couldn’t just kick him out of my place either.”

I shuddered at the thought. If I had shown up in Ovid in this body already married to Wally... well, I didn’t want to think about it.

Karen noticed the stricken look on my face and hastened to add, “Don’t get the wrong idea. Matt–my husband–was nothing like Wally. In fact, he’s a good family man who works for the city and loves his family very much.”

“So you didn’t have that much trouble adapting?” I asked.

“It took a while, but I got used to it–I actually began to like who I had become. After all, I hadn’t left much behind–just a couple of ex-wives and a kid who’s growing up calling some other guy ‘daddy.’ In fact, the way things work here, he probably is biologically the son of my wife’s new husband. That’s the way it seems to work since the old me doesn’t exist anymore.”

“Like when I got changed and Be-All disappeared,” I muttered.

Karen raised an eyebrow. “So that’s who you are–you’re Franklin Malone!”

My mouth dropped open. “You remember me? I mean the real me?”

She shrugged. “That’s the way it works here. Those of us who were changed are aware when something changes in the outside world. I can see, though, why you want to get back to your old life. I remember you and Be-All software, though. You were the biggest name in the industry. Now Bill Gates is the hotshot in the software business.”

“Gates!” I cried out. “Not that little rat.” Hadn’t I effectively crushed him? Of course I had, but all that was gone now. Gates’ stuff wasn’t half as sophisticated as Be-All. I wondered for a moment if The Judge had stock in Gates’ company.

“Let it go, Holly,” Karen advised, emphasizing my new name. “You’ll never get your old life back. No one ever has. Surely you know what you’re up against. You must know who The Judge is.”

I nodded, my blond hair springing as I did. “I know. But I may have found a way. You could help me, and then I could maybe get you your old life back, too.” At her look of alarm, I saw that was the wrong inducement. “Sorry, I forgot you were happy here. But there must be something I could offer you. Money?”

“Holly, it won’t work,” she insisted. “There’s no way for you to get back, but there are plenty of ways for you to get in trouble and be worse off. The Judge can do other things to you, you know–terrible things if the rumors are true.”

“But I may have something The Judge wants,” I countered.

When I had finished telling her what I had discovered on Mr. March’s computer, she frowned. “Holly, you have no idea how dangerous that was. Aaron March is the most unforgiving of all of the g... g... associates of The Judge.” I smiled, knowing she had stumbled over the word “gods.” As I was learning, most of the residents who retained their memories spoke in coded phrases, such as referring to the gods as “associates,” or some equally innocuous term. “If he learned that you had duped him and gotten into his computer, he’d make certain you were punished as only they can punish.”

“Maybe,” I conceded, “but it gave me an idea. If I can discover how their security was breached, I have something The Judge will want, and I can use that to bargain for my real life.”

“A security breach may be accidental, but more than likely, one of The Judge’s associates is working for the other side–whatever the other side is,” she mused. “If that is the case, you could be in great danger if he or she discovers you’re looking for them.”

“So? What can this spy do?” I asked. “Do all of these... associates have the power to transform people?”

“I doubt it,” she admitted. “But that doesn’t mean they don’t have other powers. Look at Officer Mercer, for example. And even if they don’t all have special powers, I suspect they are just as capable of killing you as any human might be–more so, maybe, since they seem to see themselves as superior to humans.”

I had been more afraid of getting caught and changed again than of getting killed. It was a sobering revelation which I hadn’t considered. Although I wasn’t that anxious to remain Holly for the rest of my life, I would gladly accept my new existence in preference to being murdered. “Do you really think any of them could kill me?”

“Why not?” Karen countered. “Go check out some of the stories about them in the library. You’ll see that they had no problem killing humans if it suited their plans. You might even say they ‘kill’ those whose memories are lost. Those of us who lose our memories are really no better than flesh and blood shades.”

I had to admit to myself that she was right. The crew of our plane had left the courtroom completely unaware of their previous lives. For all practical purposes, those crewmembers had died under The Judge’s sentence. I don’t know. Maybe deep down, they remembered who they were. Maybe they were now nothing more than unwilling passengers trapped in the mind of new personalities. There was no way of telling. Either possibility was unnerving, though. Maybe I had been one of the lucky ones. I had a new body of a different sex and a new life, but at least I had remained aware of who I really was.

“Will you help me?” I asked Karen. After her admonitions, I didn’t really expect her to help me, but to my surprise, she quickly agreed.

“All right. I’ll help you.” She didn’t look too happy about it though.

“Just like that? You’ll help me? I thought I’d have to do some serious convincing.”

“Look,” she explained. “Ovid is my home now. Whatever The Judge and his associates are up to, I think they’re out to protect Ovid. Anyone who is opposing them may not have that in mind. There have been a couple of... incidents in Ovid lately that from what I’ve overheard from Mr. March and his crew could have destroyed Ovid and everyone in it. Just don’t get caught, okay? I like my life here now and don’t want anything to change it.”

“Oh, I’ll be very careful,” I promised her. After all, it could easily mean my life, too. Only with Karen, The Judge might cut her some slack. As far as I knew, she had been a good girl since she got to Ovid, so she had a track record. Not only did I not have a track record, but I suspected The Judge would be more than a little pissed if he found out I had only pretended to lose my memories. He would suspect that I had planned something like this from the beginning, and of course, he would be right.

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

“I want to check Mr. Fobes’ hard drive.”

“What!”

“Look,” I explained, “if Mr. March gave him the responsibility of checking on some of the leaks, I want to see what he’s discovered. Since he hasn’t replied to Mr. March’s memos on security–or at least not in writing–I’m assuming he hasn’t found the leak yet. But he probably has some files indicating where he’s already looked. It will give me the jump on finding the leak.”

Karen’s eyes narrowed. “Who do you think you are–the Department of Homeland Security?”

“No,” I admitted, “but you’d be surprised how often something like this happens in the business world. Leaks in private industry can cost millions, and that’s especially true in the software industry. That’s why I ended up in Ovid, actually. We were in a battle to prove that a competitor used our proprietary information to develop a new product. The only problem was that we didn’t count on the competitor turning to violence to stop us. They tried to blow up my plane.”

“Then don’t underestimate those who run Ovid,” she countered. “If they find out what you’re up to, you may just wish you had stayed on that plane!”

But in spite of her protests, she got me into Mr. Fobes’ system. Like many small enterprises, security was lax. It turned out Karen knew his password, although she never would have thought of betraying our boss’s trust like I would have. It took only a few minutes for the data to flow to my flash drive while Karen kept a worried eye on the parking lot.

“Now to see what we have here,” I said gleefully, ready to plug the flash drive into my USB port.

“Not here!” Karen cautioned. “Mr. Fobes will be here any minute.”

Reluctantly, I put the drive into my purse. I’d just have to wait until I got to Ray’s to check it out.

Mr. Fobes was in good spirits when he finally got into the office. It turned out he was at the same breakfast meeting Ray had attended. “Big things are going to be happening soon in Ovid,” he promised us with a smile.

“Can you give us a hint?” I wheedled innocently. Karen just looked at me as if to say, ‘Don’t ask questions,’ but I wasn’t as cowed as she was. I just hoped she didn’t get so nervous about helping me that she spilled the beans to our boss.

If he noticed Karen’s nervousness, he didn’t let on. Instead, his smile just got broader. “I wish I could tell you Holly, but it’s a real secret. Let’s just say that it’s good news for Ovid.”

I just shrugged, as if whatever he had learned wasn’t really all that important for a sweet little girl like me. Besides, I’d find out everything that happened at the meeting from Ray that evening–unless, of course, the gods had held another meeting after the breakfast meeting in which mere mortals like Ray were not included.

I was pretty sure that the meeting at Vulman had at least hinted at the new motor. From what I had read in Aaron March’s files, it was only a matter of selecting the right timing for the unveiling of the invention. I supposed the gods were waiting until the hinted additional parts of their plan were further along. That was probably wise, since once the announcement was made, world markets would be in chaos and the social structure of several Middle-Eastern countries that had put all of their eggs in the oil production basket would be in upheaval. I had been in business long enough to know that markets hate instability. Ironically enough, the new engine could have a devastating short-term influence on the world economy.

After making a few phone calls behind closed doors, Mr. Fobes rushed off, saying something about a working lunch. I looked up at the clock. It was only ten-thirty, so I doubted if lunch was all he was hurrying off for. Maybe he had a girlfriend or something. Morally, I supposed that was okay, since I understood he did not have a wife, but if he had worked for me, I would have probably fired him for wasting company time if he pulled the ‘working lunch’ ploy too often. I had to remind myself, though, that my days of firing people were probably over–unless I could make some headway on the security leak.

I was in good spirits as I left the office that day. Poor Karen looked as if she expected the FBI and the CIA to jump her on the way to her car, so if anyone would have seen us leaving, they would have been struck by the contrast. Fortunately, we had had the office to ourselves all afternoon, so there was no one to notice.

As I had expected, Mr. Fobes never came back from his ‘working lunch.’ I found out from Karen that Aaron March would usually take his two henchmen with him for a round of golf at least twice a week. Somehow it was hard for me to imagine a senior member of the Greco/Roman gods and his two most well-known underlings stomping around on a golf course in a small town in the middle of America. If the situation weren’t so monumental for me and all of the rest of us transformees, the idea would have been comical. I even found myself wondering who they managed to get as a fourth, since I wasn’t versed enough in mythology to have any idea who might associate with them. Maybe they had reorganized and there was now a God of golf who doubled as the club pro.

Ray wasn’t home yet (it’s funny how quickly I was beginning to think of his modest apartment as home), so I fired up his computer, anxiously tapping my foot as I waited for it to come up. The instant it was, I jammed the flash drive into the USB port and began to study the files diligently. Nothing leaped out at me, so I sighed dejectedly and set about reading each individual file. I got so engrossed in my work, I didn’t even bother to change out of my skirt and heels–something I couldn’t wait to do last week. I had made it through only a couple of dozen files out of hundreds when Ray got home.

“More files?” he asked, amused as he set his briefcase down on a living room chair.

“Yeah, from Mr. Fobes’ computer,” I replied, “but there doesn’t seem to be anything obvious.”

He looked over my shoulder, resting his right hand on my arm. In spite of myself, I enjoyed the feeling. I vowed to not respond too much to his touch, or we could very easily find ourselves back in the bedroom again. While my body reminded me how pleasant that could be, my mind pointed out that I had a lot of files to go through.

“I wouldn’t expect anything obvious,” he commented, looking at the screen where a letter to Farmers’ and Merchants’ Bank was displayed, thanking the bank for support during last year’s Christmas promotions.

“What wouldn’t be obvious?” I asked, a little annoyed, since I was already having a hard enough time sifting through the documents.

He thought for a moment. “Well, for one, most chambers of commerce send out a lot of letters to individuals and firms interested in moving to their town. But letters from this chamber might be bogus.”

I turned and looked at him. “Wait a minute–if chambers write letters like that all the time, why would any of those letters on this drive be bogus?”

Ray gave me his best professorial smile and explained, “Because no one is supposed to know where Ovid is–or that it even exists. Who would he be writing those letters to?”

Crap! I hadn’t even thought of that. Thank goodness Ray had talked to me before I had gotten too far into the file. I still had a lot of material to cover, but at least I had a better idea now of what I might be looking for. I could kiss him for that...

No, maybe I shouldn’t. Last night had been... interesting. Okay, last night had been downright enjoyable, but that had just been a... a conquest. Yeah, that’s what it had been. I was just like my old life, but with the sexes reversed. I had taken a break from my primary mission, gotten laid, and now it was back to work. Ray didn’t mean anything to me. Well, I mean, he was a friend and all, and I owed him for taking care of me and fending off Wally, but it was just... a friend helping a friend, right?

I continued to pore over the files as Ray fixed dinner. When he called me to dinner, I was reluctant to leave the computer. I’m afraid I wasn’t very good dinner company for Ray. All I could talk about was what I had already learned from the files.

“Several of the files are letters sent to Syria. Why Syria?” I wondered. “As I recall, they don’t even have much oil. I wouldn’t think there was anything there to be of concern to the g... to Mr. Fobes and his friends.”

“What are the letters about?” Ray asked as he idly pushed an excellent steak salad around his plate.

I shrugged. “Mostly questions about how ‘the project’ is going, but there’s no indication about what this project is. The replies are equally innocuous, simply stating that everything is on track. That tells me nothing.”

“Not necessarily,” Ray reminded me. “Do you remember when we were still in the air, you told me test signals from the satellite were being dampened from two areas?”

“Yeah, so?” I asked, not really remembering at all.

“One of those areas was here–Ovid,” he told me. “The other came from somewhere near Damascus–in Syria.”

“I know where Damascus is,” I grumbled, angry at myself for not remembering. “Do you think there’s another... place like this–another Ovid in Syria?”

It was Ray’s turn to shrug. “Who knows? It’s possible, but I can’t imagine why. I’m sure there’s nothing like Vulman Industries there, so I can’t imagine why it would be necessary to have a second town run by... you know.”

“Unless...” I began, not quite sure where I was going with that thought. Then it came to me. “Unless there’s another task relating to Ovid–in this other town.”

“What other task could that be?” Ray wanted to know. So did I, but I couldn’t guess.

We had finished our dinner by then, neither of us eating much. I promised Ray I’d clean up later, but he did it while I was still absorbed on the computer. There had to be an answer in the memos on Fobes’ drive.

It was after ten when I found the answer.

“Take a look at this,” I called to Ray. He closed the book he was reading and joined me at the computer.

“What am I looking at?” he asked.

I pulled three documents up at once. “This one,” I began, displaying the first one, “is a message from The Judge forwarded by Mr. Fobes to a Mr. Mahdi in Syria. It says the first phase is on schedule and the second phase is about to get underway. Its dated a couple of years ago. Then this next one is from Syria–no name, but it’s probably this Mahdi since it’s dated the next day. It says the project is well underway and will coincide with this phase two on schedule. It’s the third item that’s really interesting. It’s a letter to a family in Virginia who are interested in moving to Ovid. It’s just like you said–how could anyone be querying the Ovid Chamber of Commerce when no one knows Ovid exists. It’s dated a day after the reply from Syria and states that coming to Ovid after the second phase of ‘our new development plan’ would be promising.”

“So you think Fobes is passing on confidential information to someone outside the loop–this ‘family’ in Virginia?”

“Of course!” I exclaimed, surprised Ray hadn’t picked up on it as quickly as I had. As Taylor, he had always been very quick to put together seemingly-unrelated facts. After all Taylor was the one who had alerted me to the original connection between Syria and Oklahoma–something I had instantly dismissed as being unimportant. “Don’t you see? This is it! This is my ticket out of here. Fobes is the breach. Aaron March sent the fox to guard the henhouse. The reason Fobes couldn’t make any progress in the security investigation is that he would be implicating himself–maybe others too, like his brother. Once I tell The Judge I know where his security is breached, he’ll have to bargain with me.”

“Or he could just threaten to turn you into a cocker spaniel,” Ray pointed out. “You may have some information he needs–or not–but even if you do, he holds most of the cards in this game.”

I grinned. “You never played poker, did you?” I asked, continuing his analogy to cards.

“Bridge was more my game.”

“Well, bridge is a game of finessing, but this doesn’t call for that,” I told him. “I played a lot of poker in my younger days, and poker is a game of bluffing. All I have to do is convince The Judge he’d be better off dealing with me than fighting me. If I give him the information willingly, I can tell him how to handle it–maybe even staying on for a while to spy on the spy, as it were.”

“This is crazy,” he muttered. “Trying to play The Judge is like trying to juggle an atomic bomb with a hair trigger.”

“I think you overestimate him,” I said earnestly, my old ego resurfacing to help me through Ray’s protests. “If he’s so damned smart, why doesn’t everyone worsh... wor... I mean bow down to him?”

“See?” he crowed. “You can’t even say ‘worship’ when you’re speaking of him. He may or may not be smart, but he’s certainly powerful.”

I was getting very angry now. “What’s your problem, Ray? I thought you were on my side in all of this.”

“I am on your side,” he returned, “but not like this. Look, what’s wrong with staying here in Ovid? Last night was... well, it was wonderful. I never knew how wonderful it could be to be a man. Holly, I don’t want you to change back. I want you to stay here with me.”

There. He had said it. I should have seen it coming, but I was so intent on finding a way out of Ovid that I hadn’t realized what was happening. Even after we had made love, I hadn’t seen it. After all, when I was a man, sex was just another form of recreation–not a commitment. Ray might be a man now, but I suddenly realized he still thought like a woman, and women were all about commitment.

Strangely, I was drawn to him as well, although I came short of thinking of it as commitment. It was more an alliance of convenience that had developed over the last couple of days into a valid friendship. I thought of Ray as my friend. Even after we had enjoyed sex together, he was still a friend, albeit a very, very good friend. I was still a man deep down inside.

I did actually understand where he was coming from, though. When Ray had been a woman, he had been attracted to other women. For him, this transformation wasn’t such a terrible leap. In some ways, given his new sex and his professional job, he had been ‘promoted’ by The Judge. So why shouldn’t he want to settle down into his new manhood, be a respected college professor, find a sweet young thing to cook his meals and satisfy his sexual needs? In a few years, he could have it all–the nice house, supportive wife, loving children, everything.

As for me, I had been robbed of the empire I had built and been turned into an underachieving, underpaid little near-bimbo whose best prospects lay in finding the right man to take care of her. Sure, sex as a woman was good–damned good–but was it worth giving up everything I had ever had? I didn’t think so.

“I’ve got to change back,” I told him softly. The expression on his face when I told him was almost more than I could take. I could have told him I was dying and only had a month to live and he wouldn’t have looked any worse. Seeing him that way, I felt terrible. I had come to have feelings for him–feelings stronger than I had felt in... well, in a long, long time. Then I had an idea.

“Look, Ray, why don’t we get The Judge to change you back, too?” I suggested. “Then we could leave Ovid together–we could be together.”

He shook his head. “No, it wouldn’t work. Don’t you understand? I love being who I am. I love being male, being a college professor. And...”

Oh shit. Here it comes...

“...and I love you.”

Those words should have had no impact on me. Franklin J Malone wouldn’t have understood them: he might have even laughed at them. But Holly Lamar felt them like a knife plunging into her chest. She hadn’t wanted to hear them. She would have run from the room if she had seen them coming so quickly. She wasn’t really surprised, though. And since she was me...

My eyes were stinging. I could feel unbidden tears forming. I didn’t want him to see me like this. With a sudden cry, I jumped up from my chair, but before I could flee, Ray grabbed me and pulled me into his arms. His face bent down to mine, and as his lips touched mine, my mouth opened reflexively to allow his tongue inside.

I didn’t try to stop him. I couldn’t think of anything to say. No, I hadn’t changed my mind about retrieving my old life, but I wanted this as much as he did. I felt my body tingle, remembering last night together. My body was begging for release, and no matter how strong my resolve was to try to get my old body back, I couldn’t deny my new one this one last moment.

We undressed each other quickly, silently. The last of our clothing hadn’t hit the floor before we were on the bed, caressing each other as our breathing became more ragged. While I had taken his penis inside me before, I had never really handled it until now. It was so big and firm, it excited my body even more than the previous evening. Of course, the night before, I hadn’t really known what to expect. Now I did, and I wanted it... wanted it very badly.

When at last I had guided him inside me, my stricken male mind sent out one last alarm, reminding me that no matter how good–how right–this felt, I needed to return to my real life as soon as I could. But when the orgasm struck me at last, what was real and what wasn’t seemed to take on entirely different meanings.

We were both too conflicted to go for a second round. I think Ray realized I still planned to go through with my attempt to get my old life back. We had both spent ourselves in a last bout of passion, and any further sexual activity would be a reaffirmation of our relationship–a doomed one if I were successful. Still, we fell asleep, naked, in each other’s arms.

The next morning, I got up first, slipping out of Ray’s embrace. I spent a moment looking down at him as he peacefully slept, thinking of how delectable he looked. My female body was predisposed to want him, and want him I did. But if The Judge agreed to change me back, by the end of the day, Ray would just be another guy–just like me. His male body would hold no attraction for me–none at all.

Be strong, I told myself. Remember, you were never meant to be a girl. Deep down, you’re still a man, even if you don’t look like one. You have to go through with this. It’s who you really are.

I tried to ignore my body as I took a shower. Fortunately, I was one of those girls who didn’t have to shave every day, so a quick soap and rinse took care of my needs for the morning. Of course, I couldn’t ignore my face as I applied my makeup. It was a pretty face, I had to admit. It took only a minimum of makeup to make it look good. I tried to avoid admiring it too much, though. With any luck, it wouldn’t be mine in a few hours.

Dressed in a dark blue suit over a white shell, I thought I looked sufficiently professional for an appearance before The Judge. I wanted him to take my proposal seriously, so I had dressed the part. The skirt, of course, was almost obscenely short, but that couldn’t be helped.

“Good luck,” Ray called from the bedroom door as I was grabbing a quick glass of orange juice before rushing out. I had been hoping to avoid him that morning. I had never been good at goodbyes, and this one seemed particularly painful. But he was already dressed, too, in a striped green shirt and a pair of khaki Dockers–his standard attire for teaching a class.

“Thanks, Ray,” I said seriously. “Thanks for everything.” I went over to him and kissed him somewhat chastely. “Thanks for being a friend.”

“I’ll always be your friend,” he vowed, “even if...” His voice trailed off, as if he was unable to say it.

I squeezed his arm and tried to smile. “Yes, Ray, even if.” Then I turned and headed out the door before I could start crying.

I called The Judge’s office from Ray’s apartment and set up a meeting with him at ten that morning. If Mr. Fobes questioned it, I’d just say I had a dentist’s appointment and hope that Karen would back me up on it.

Karen’s car wasn’t in the parking lot when I got to the office. That was strange. She was always there ahead of me. Of course, I had only been working with her a few days, I realized. Maybe she came in later on Tuesday. I didn’t think much about it.

Mr. Fobes was the only other person in the office when I got to my desk. While I had decided he was a somewhat comical character, reminding me of Lorenzo at least in demeanor as he sycophantically followed Aaron March around like an obedient little puppy dog, there was something different about him that morning. As I stuffed my purse into a bottom drawer, I realized he was watching me from the doorway to his office. He was quiet, and out of the corner of my eye, he seemed almost to be studying me.

The hairs on the back of my neck were sticking out a little, and I felt a small but noticeable shiver up and down my spine. It was a feeling I hadn’t felt very often in my life. It was fear.

“Ms. Lamar.” He said it softly, thoughtfully, and the feeling of fear seemed to get a little worse. What was I afraid of? I had covered my tracks well (I thought): there was no reason for concern, was there? But the fear was still there.

“Where’s Karen this morning?” I asked, trying to sound nonchalant.

“She had to leave.”

I waited for him to elaborate, but when he said nothing else, I pressed, “Did she have a problem?”

Mr. Fobes was standing in front of my desk now. He wasn’t a particularly large man, but he was somehow imposing. “It wasn’t exactly a problem. She has a terrible fear of snakes, did you know that?”

“I don’t know very many people who do like them,” I replied nervously, trying to avoid his eyes by sifting through the paperwork on my desk.

“That’s true, but she fears them–fears them very much it seems.”

He was toying with me, and I felt myself perspiring now. He knew! I didn’t know how, but somehow, he knew I had learned of his duplicity.

“Do you know what my name means–my real name I mean?”

“I... I can’t say it,” I reminded him, looking down. “It’s not permitted.”

“Oh, but I hereby give you permission to say it in front of me right now,” he said expansively. Then he looked down at me and scowled. “Tell me what my name means.”

I sighed. “You are Phobos, the God of... the God of Fear.”

He smiled. It wasn’t a pleasant smile. “That’s right. My name means fear in ancient Greek. From that root comes your term ‘phobia.’ What are you afraid of, Ms. Lamar?”

“I... I don’t know.”

“Oh surely you must have some idea,” he pressed. “Like Karen, snakes perhaps?”

I’m not particularly afraid of snakes and never have been, but the sudden, silent presence of a large gray snake with piercing red eyes slithering across my desk was enough to make me jump back, my breasts bouncing comically as I did.

“Or perhaps it’s spiders you don’t like...”

I didn’t know tarantulas grew as large as the furry monster that scuttled over the edge of my desk. Even as the snake disappeared from view, slithering over the edge of the desk, the spider was joined by two more, each as large as the first.

“I had a pet spider as a boy,” I told him, trying to remain calm and bracing for what would come next. Even then, I wasn’t really prepared as my chair seemed to zoom upward, shooting past a roof which seemed to peel away to let me climb until I must have been several miles above the town of Ovid.

“Heights are another fear of many people...” His voice seemed to be coming from everywhere, carried by the stiff, cold breeze that caused my hyper-extended chair to sway back and forth in the breeze.

“What do you want?” I cried out, clutching the sides of my chair.

“Answers,” was his reply.

Once again, I was at my desk. I looked up and saw the ceiling was still in place. It had been an illusion–all of it–but it seemed so real...

“You’ve been getting files from my computer.” It was a statement: not a question. “I want whatever file copies you have and I want them now.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Of course you do,” he insisted, taking a step toward me, “and I think I do know what you’re really frightened of.”

“Hello, Holly.”

The voice came from behind me, and it sent a chill up my spine. I turned and looked up into the intense stare from Bill O’Hara. As he looked down at me, Mr. Fobes said pleasantly, “I couldn’t help but notice at the Greenhouse the other day that you didn’t care much for Mr. O’Hara’s attentions.”

Unconsciously, I wheeled my chair back until it bumped into my desk, trying to get as far as I could from my nemesis.

“Yes, I figured out your main reason for trying to make us think you no longer had your memories,” Mr. Fobes went on. “When I found out that Mr. O’Hara had been one of your employees, the reason became obvious.”

O’Hara just grinned.

“It’s a shame we never met in the outside world,” Mr. Fobes said. “It seems you were very good at instilling fear in others just as I am. Of course, you were limited in your abilities, being human and all. I don’t have that limitation.”

O’Hara reached down and literally ripped the front of my blouse away, exposing my bra. I couldn’t help it: I screamed. I knew I was no match for my former employee, and there was no doubt from his vile expression what he intended to do to me.

This was a hundred times worse than Wally’s intimidation. Wally had no idea that I really disliked him, and he had just been trying to get what he had come to think of as rightfully his. Bill O’Hara knew who I was and he knew what he was doing.

“Please... no!” I begged.

“That’s enough, Fobes!” a voice called from the back door.

Fobes and I looked up at the same time into the mirrored sunglasses of Officer Mercer. Fobes muttered an expletive in a language I didn’t recognize and wheeled for the front door. He needn’t have bothered. In what seemed like no time at all, Officer Mercer had grabbed him and thrown him to the floor with a heavy thud.

O’Hara didn’t flee though. He just stood there, holding onto the remnants of my blouse. And then, suddenly as Fobes kissed the floor, O’Hara was gone. I looked down at myself and saw that my blouse was intact. O’Hara had just been another of Fobes’ illusions. I stood up almost reflexively and laughed, but the laugh quickly became a choked cry.

“It’s okay, Holly,” a familiar voice said, and comforting arm was suddenly around my shoulders.

“Ray!” I cried happily. I turned my head and looked up, relieved to see him looking down at me. “Where did you come from?”

He got a little red in the face. “I decided to follow you,” he admitted. “I thought maybe I’d go see The Judge with you–sort of as moral support.”

There was something he wasn’t telling me, though, and I was pretty sure what it was. “You also thought that maybe you’d take one more shot at convincing me to not ask The Judge to change me back, didn’t you?”

He nodded. “Yes, but it’s still your decision, Holly.”

Yes, it was, and as Ray drove me over to City Hall, I had only a few blocks to think about it. I twisted the little flash drive around in my fingers, noticing as I did the pink polish on my fingernails. It was as if staring at my hand, I could see clearly the choices before me. In that tiny drive was information I hoped was important enough to get me placed back in my old life. With any luck, I’d be my old self within the hour.

But I could also see who and what I had become as I looked at the slender feminine fingers that held the drive–nails pink-tipped and shaped so perfectly. I looked further, up my slim wrist, surrounded by a delicate gold bracelet. Then I looked on at my nearly-hairless arm with its delicate dusting of fine hairs, so pale against my skin that they scarcely showed.

I looked down at my breasts. My outfit displayed them well, pushing them slightly together and creating an enticing little canyon between their milky domes. For the last few days, men had blatantly stared at them–initially to my chagrin, but lately to my satisfaction.

There were plusses and minuses to being a girl, I realized. On the minus side, I would have periods to look forward to–hardly an enticement. Of course, not having a period could be even worse, since it would mean I was pregnant. I didn’t exactly consider myself to be mommy material. Then there was the time spent getting ready–all of the brushing and trimming and painting and coordinating and shaving and God only knew whatever else. Then once I was dressed and ready to face the world, there were the hours I had already spent at work–not being taken seriously and nearly ignored by Aaron March and his cronies. And when some of the men didn’t ignore me–such as O’Hara–I found myself wishing they would. That all added up to a lot of minuses.

But there had been a plus side, too, I admitted to myself. If The Judge refused to change me back, I could live with my new sex. As for the periods, well, women seemed to hold up under them reasonably well. I didn’t have to get pregnant either. That was a choice for women now–not an imperative. As for the preparation time, at least there was a payoff–the looks I got were ego-enhancing to say the least. As for not being taken seriously or even ignored, maybe that was the way Holly had positioned herself through her wardrobe, her makeup, and her choice of jobs and men.

The biggest plus, though, had to be Ray. He had saved me twice already–three times if I included his helping me escape the rut The Judge had put me in to become my own man–or woman, rather. And I had to admit, sex as a woman was pretty damn good. I hadn’t thought it would be. The thought of a man ramming himself inside my body should have been enough to run chills of horror up my spine, but it had turned out to be immensely satisfying.

As we pulled up in front of City Hall, I realized the real difference was that as a man, I had power and wealth. The only problem was that I had to admit to myself that I had used both poorly. I had used power to intimidate others, just as O’Hara and Mr. Fobes had each tried to do to me. It hadn’t been a very pleasant experience, and one that had caused me not to respect either man but rather to hate them.

As for wealth, what had it really gotten me? If I were entirely honest with myself, I had to admit that I had become bored by my wealth and wary that others around me befriended me on because of what my wealth might do for them. To be honest, I had no idea how much I had been worth. Sure, I always ranked high in Forbes Magazine’s annual poll, but I don’t think anyone except my accountants knew how much I was really worth. However much it was, had it bought me any measure of happiness? Not really, I supposed.

Ray took my hand as we walked together to The Judge’s chambers. We were met by a woman who I took to be The Judge’s secretary, since her desk was in front of his office. She rose when we entered, and I realized suddenly that I had seen her before, sitting in the courtroom the day I had been transformed. “Hello, Ms. Lamar,” she said in a friendly tone. I wondered how she knew my name, but of course, she had been there when I was given it. “I’m Cindy Patton. The Judge will see you now.”

We both started to go in, but the blonde secretary’s smile disappeared. “I’m afraid The Judge only wants to see you, Ms. Lamar. Mr. Garcia will have to wait out here.”

“But...” Ray began, but I quieted him with a pat on his arm. “I’ll be all right,” I assured him.

He looked forlorn. “But I... I may never see you again.”

I hadn’t thought of that. If I got what I was after, it would be Franklin Malone who walked back out of The Judge’s chambers. “I know,” I replied softly. “But I have to do this, Ray.”

He nodded sadly and turned away as I walked through the chamber door to an unknown future.

“Ms. Lamar.” The Judge rose in courtly fashion as I entered, causing me to be aware once more of just how feminine I must appear. I took his proffered hand and winced in preparation for the hard handshake men inadvertently gave women. My hand was so small that in my limited experience as a woman, I had had it crushed several times already by an unwitting man. The Judge’s handshake was gentle, though–not weak: just gentle.

When I had been seated in a large leather chair in front of his desk, he sat back and folded his hands. “Now, what exactly can I do for you today, Ms. Lamar?”

“I... I have some information you may need,” I began nervously as I fiddled with the straps of my purse.

“So I understand.” When he saw the surprise on my face, he smiled and explained, “Officer Mercer has already told me what happened at your office this morning.”

“Well,” I continued, realizing that my information had been compromised. The Judge already knew that Mr. Fobes had been up to something, so my bargaining power was severely cut. “I can provide you with evidence,” I offered. “I have his computer files...”

“So do I,” The Judge pointed out. He was obviously amused and toying with me.

“Look,” I sighed, “I did your legwork. I found someone in your organization who was spying for the enemy.” It struck me that I really had no idea who the enemy was, but it was obvious that there was an enemy. “Don’t I deserve some consideration?”

The Judge leaned forward. “Perhaps you do. You did discover a security breach that had eluded Mr. March for some time. I rather think he was too close to the problem to see who the guilty party was. Exactly what would you like, Ms. Lamar?”

This was it. This was the moment–the payoff. All I had to do was ask him to change me back. The worst that could happen was that he would say no. “Could you change me back to my old self?” I asked more timidly than I had intended.

“I could,” he admitted, “but is that what you really want?”

“Why wouldn’t I want it?” I asked. “As a man, I had everything–money, power...”

“Money and power. Good. But is that everything?”

“Well, I guess not,” I had to agree. “But it’s a lot.”

“What about Ray?” he asked.

“I’m sorry... What?” He knew about Ray? Well, of course. He had to know. After all, he must have known Ray was waiting for me outside. For that matter, he was a god–the principal God in the Greco/Roman pantheon. Perhaps he could see how our relationship had developed through some mystical power.

“Do you want me to change Ray back to Taylor?” he asked.

I looked down. “He doesn’t want to change back. He’s happy being a man.”

“Not surprising,” The Judge returned. “After all, who wouldn’t prefer to be a man? If you’ve read our myths, you know that being turned into a woman was considered a punishment.”

“Is that why you did this to me?” I asked. “As a punishment?”

“In a manner of speaking,” he replied. “We need humans to fill the roles of citizens in Ovid for the day when... well, let’s just say there will be a day when we need our population to be completely human. It pleases me when I can find a role for our new residents that teaches them something about being better people. Often, the change of sex is required to get them to shed their old lives more quickly.”

“And I needed to be taught something,” I finished for him.

He nodded, smiling. “Yes. You needed to be taught that money and power weren’t everything.”

“Have I learned that?”

“I’m not sure,” he replied. “I think the old you would have insisted I turn Ray back into Taylor just because it suited you. You might even rationalize that given time, he would be happier that way. The new you admitted that Ray was perfectly happy to remain as he is.”

“But you can change me back?”

“I’ve already answered that question. Of course I can change you back. Some changes would have to be made of course, so you could survive the plane crash that was about to take your life, but it could be done.”

There was silence between us. At last, I asked, “So what happens next?”

“You have to tell me what you want.”

“Huh?”

“You asked if I could change you back. The real question is will I change you back,” he clarified. “You seem to be reluctant to ask it that way.”

That’s true, I realized. Why hadn’t I thought of that? All I had to do was ask him–really ask him–to change me back. But I hadn’t said it yet. It was as if something was keeping me from saying it.

This time, it was The Judge’s turn to break the silence. “Do you love him?”

“Huh?” I had been saying that a lot lately.

“Ray–do you love him?”

Suddenly, it was my turn to answer a question. I wanted to say no, but somehow, I couldn’t bring myself to say it. There was only one other answer, wasn’t there?

“Yes.”

I didn’t see the tears coming, but come they did as I burst forth with a stream of water, heaving gently as I realized that I really did love Ray. And what I was doing to him right now must be killing him. How did the old saying go? ‘If you love someone, set her free.’ Ray had done that for me. How did the rest of it go? ‘If she comes back, she’s yours. If she doesn’t, she never was.’

Which was I?

Ray was waiting for me when the door to The Judge’s chambers opened. He looked up, resigned to seeing a man standing there–a man he had once reluctantly worked for. I could see the sorrow in his eyes, the resignation that caused his whole body to slump. Then, his eyes widened, as if trying to comprehend what he was seeing. His shoulders straightened, just a little at first.

“My God!” he exclaimed, his eyes wide now with excitement muted by just a small helping of confusion, but he was on his feet now, rushing straight for me. “Holly?”

“Sort of,” I replied coyly, taking his trembling hands in my smaller ones. “I guess you could say I’m an older but wiser Holly now.”

“I don’t understand...”

“Let’s get a cup of coffee and I’ll explain.”

I led him down the hall to the small canteen nestled in a back corner of City Hall. It consisted of just four tables–all deserted now–and a row of vending machines. Once we had gotten our coffee and sat down, Ray remarked, “Something about you is different, but I can’t quite figure out what.”

I smiled indulgently. “Spoken like a true man. Are you going to be one of those guys who never notices when a girl changes her hairstyle or makeup?”

“Your hair is different,” he said slowly. “It’s a little shorter... and a little darker, but still blond. And your makeup is... just a little more subtle. And the way you’re dressed...”

“What’s wrong with the way I’m dressed?” I asked in mock anger, motioning to the pink cotton sweater and tight jeans I now wore. “I’m dressed pretty well for a college student, don’t you think?”

“You’re a college student?” His mouth was open now.

“Okay,” I laughed, “I’ll tell you the whole story. The Judge offered me a deal. In return for my services, he ‘adjusted’ Holly’s life just a little. Instead of being a little bimbette, Holly was an A student who earned a scholarship to attend Capta. Don’t look so worried, Ray. I’m not an Economics major, so I’m not one of your students. Also, I’m just a little older now–a junior, in fact–and my parents never moved away. I live with them now while I’m going to school. So I guess I got my Coach life upgraded to First Class.”

“But you’re still a girl.”

“I’m so glad you noticed.”

“Then... The Judge wouldn’t change you back?”

I smiled at Ray, squeezing his hand across the table. “He said he would, but somehow, this seemed a little more... right.”

Understanding flashed across his face. “You decided to remain a girl?”

I nodded.

“My girl?”

I nodded again.

“So,” he asked tentatively, “where do we go from here?”

I didn’t answer him, but it didn’t take him long to figure it out for himself.

When I opened my eyes once more, I noticed none of the gods were looking at me. All were looking at Aaron March, who was trying very hard to be inconspicuous–and failing.

“I’ve told you for centuries your two toadies couldn’t be trusted,” Eric Vulman broke the silence. There were murmurs of agreement from the other gods.

Aaron March made a sudden attempt at defending his cohorts by posing indignantly and pointing out, “Up until now, neither Phobos nor Deimos has given me any reason not to trust them. Their work has been exemplary.”

Eric Vulman just snorted at that. I smiled to myself. I had read enough mythology to know that there was little love lost between the two of them. It was interesting, though, that apparently Deimos was involved in the security breach as well. Not even Holly had known that for sure. It meant that with two of them feeding information to the other side, it was likely much if not all of the gods’ plan had been compromised. No wonder Eric Vulman had taken this moment to twist a barb into his old adversary. The God of War had probably never been so vulnerable before.

“I might question,” Eric Vulman continued to attack, “our brother’s own motives in this matter. After all, he does represent the side of war in our lore...”

Aaron March turned as red as the planet named for him. “I would remind my half-brother that I have supported my father in this entire plan. No one wishes to see total annihilation of all intelligent life on this planet. I would remind him that such a devastating war would mean our own end as well.”

It was Vulman’s turn to get red now. March had delivered to him the ultimate insult, by calling into question his parentage. Again, according to some of the myths, Vulcan was a love child of Juno’s to get even with Jupiter for his dalliances. It was said that this was the reason Vulcan lacked the striking good looks of Jupiter’s other offspring. From Vulcan’s reaction, it was possible that there was some truth to the matter.

“Gentlemen!” The Judge broke in with a voice that demanded as much attention among the gods as the one he used in the courtroom. “We have no time for such quarrels. Our two offenders have already been tried and are currently in the care of Mr. Haynes.”

I shuddered involuntarily. Mr. Haynes was Hades, God of the Underworld–or in this case, keeper of the prison which held the enemies of Ovid in some sort of other-worldly suspension. I had never liked either of the guilty beings, but I felt a certain sympathy for them nonetheless.

“As for the plan, it continues on schedule, both here and in the Middle East. We will announce our new engine within the next two years as scheduled. As for the second and third phases, we will be ready to introduce them at the right time now that the security breach has been healed.

“The purpose of this meeting was not for recriminations. It was to assure all interested parties that appropriate action had been taken and that no further investigation of this matter is required at this time.

“Is that understood?”

There was no rumble of thunder with his final question, but there might as well have been. Each of the gods nodded slowly, stood, bowed to The Judge and silently made their exits–even Vulman and March followed protocol without question.

That left Susan and I alone with The Judge. It was by design, I knew, and The Judge was just waiting for the question on both Susan’s and my mind. Susan voiced it for us. “Can you tell us exactly why we are ‘interested parties’?”

“I don’t want to tell you everything just yet,” he began, disappointing both Susan and me, “but it’s obvious that you need to know more than you have either been told or figured out on your own. You have both deduced that the introduction of our new motor will revolutionize the world economy as we now know it?”

I nodded. “We had figured that much. But the war...”

“The war would happen if nothing was done to eliminate the growing need for oil,” The Judge explained. “The war will also occur if our motor is introduced–in fact, it will happen sooner as Moslem nations which have not integrated themselves into the global economy fall and are replaced by radical regimes–just as Mr. Garcia explained to Holly.”

“I think we pretty much figured that out, too,” Susan offered.

The Judge nodded. “You are both highly intelligent individuals. I would have expected nothing less of you. What you may not know is that your families and families like yours in another location will play an essential part in stopping that war before it can begin.”

“I don’t understand,” I said.

“I’d rather you didn’t know all of the plan just yet,” The Judge told us. “It will become clear to you soon. Until then, I ask that you trust us and be confident that we know what must be done. Be assured that your safety and the safety of your families is of utmost importance to all of us–and to the world.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me...”

He left the room before we could think of anything else to say. He had left us in suspense once more, telling us little more than he had already told us. In fact, he had only confirmed what we had already believed.

“Have you figured it out yet?” Susan asked me.

“I’m not sure,” I told her. “I think maybe I have, but I don’t want to say until I know for sure.”

“Not even to me?” Susan looked hurt that I wouldn’t confide in her. After all, she was my best friend and had been since she had first come to Ovid.

Reluctantly, I shook my head. “I’m sorry, Susan. I’m still not sure of everything yet. But I will be soon. And when I do, you’ll be the first to know.”

The End