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I awoke from an unplanned nap with a start. In spite of the pleasant sounds of an early summer day–the barking of a dog several yards away, the sounds of the sprinkler watering the yard next door, and the muffled sound of a baseball game on TV coming from inside the house where Jerry was watching a KC Royals game, and the soft buzz of a pesky fly–I had awakened in an agitated state. I had been dreaming as I lay on the comfortable chaise lounge on our shaded patio. It was a very, very bad dream, for I had been dreaming I was a man.

Odd that I should think of being a man as bad, I smiled to myself. But there it was. How differently I now thought, I mused, considering that I had been born male and had always been very happy of it–until The Judge turned me into a woman.

I had been a woman–a wife and a mother, no less–for several years now, ever since The Judge had turned me into Cindy Patton, his assistant. I had not only become accustomed to being a woman, but actually to embrace it as well. I had become used to dressing in skirts and heels and enjoying the looks men gave me. Sure, I could stand to lose a pound or two, but I was blonde and well endowed, and I could have probably passed for no more than thirty, although I was, in fact... well, that’s nobody’s business, really.

The experience of being forced into a new life in Ovid was a familiar one to almost all of us who lived there–or at least those of us who had been transformed by The Judge and were fortunate enough to retain our original memories. We all went through the same trial by fire, learning to deal with who we had become–often having to accept a new age, race, sex, or some combination of all of them. And we all went through the same stages of disbelief, denial, anger, and acceptance until we at last became happy with who we had become.

So you see, awakening from a dream in which I had regained (or perhaps never lost) my original sex was now unsettling and distasteful. I was a woman–now and forever–and I wouldn’t have given up my new life and my wonderful new family for anything.

There was however, one thing which gnawed at me–at many of us in Ovid for that matter. The burning question which many of us yearned to have answered was short and simple: why were we here? No, that wasn’t a metaphysical question: we all wanted to know why this change had been forced upon us.

The gods of ancient Greece and Rome had established Ovid for a purpose: that much seemed clear. However, no one seemed to know what that purpose was–except the gods, of course. There was no doubt we were all a part of that purpose, but what was it? Susan Jager and I undoubtedly knew more of the gods’ purpose than anyone else in town, but when you got right down to it, even we didn’t know very much.

Again, I asked myself, why are we here?

Little did I realize on that warm, early summer day that my burning question was about to be answered.

I had closed my eyes again–not to sleep, but to listen to the summery sounds, aware that soon Ashley would awaken from her nap, the twins would be home after visiting their friends, Jerry would awaken from his well-deserved nap in front of the television, and the house would erupt into the loving chaos that was a family night at the Patton house. I smiled at the thought, disturbing dreams of being saddled once more with a penis scattering from my mind.

“Now all you need is a cold lemonade,” a woman’s voice floated on the warm air.

I turned my head to see Diana, my goddess friend, a frosty glass filled with pink lemonade in her hand. Gratefully, I accepted the glass and sipped. It was the best lemonade I had ever tasted. I was tempted to ask her for the recipe, but something told me that some if not all of the ingredients would be a little hard to come by.

“Fantastic!” I breathed.

Diana sat next to me in a patio chair which had been on the other side of the deck less than a second before. She was smiling as she looked at me, but her eyes spoke of concern.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“You’re needed in The Judge’s chambers,” she informed me gently. “Right away,” she added.

“On a Sunday?” I sat up. “Is there something wrong?” The Judge was good about not interrupting my weekends unless there was an emergency. Given that some of the latest emergencies had meant peril for my family, I was instantly alert, the taste of the lemonade suddenly sour in my mouth.

Diana laid a gentle hand on my bare shoulder. “Don’t worry. It’s nothing like that.” I knew she couldn’t read minds. None of the gods could exactly do that, but she had known me long enough to be able to read my expressions and body language. She paused for a moment. Then she asked, “You know what’s happening tomorrow, don’t you?”

I nodded. Yes, I knew tomorrow was to be a big day in Ovid. Well, not exactly in Ovid, but what was to happen would have a significant effect on our town. Tomorrow in Tulsa, where most outsiders believed Vulman Industries was headquartered, our town’s biggest employer would announce the Freedom Engine. The Freedom Engine was the accomplishment of Vulman’s engineers, created as only it could have been with the seemingly-endless resources of the gods. It was so called because it ran for hundreds of thousands of miles, fuelled by light itself, and the only petroleum products it required were small amounts of oil whose job it was to lubricate the mechanical workings.

The Engine was as revolutionary as the Wright Brothers’ airplane, or the atomic bomb. Overnight, the demand for oil would drop drastically, and the price of petroleum products with it. Oil stocks would suffer catastrophic collapse, and leaders in the Middle East and other oil-producing areas who had had their own way for decades would be ruined.

Just the announcement of the Engine would cause all of that. Then, once the world learned that Vulman planned to license the new device for a fraction of its true value... well, the results according to the Oracle would be immense. Unfortunately, not all of those immense results would be positive.

I knew of course, that the gods had a plan for the chaos that would ensue. Without a plan, the entire Moslem world was in danger of slipping into revolution and catastrophic war. But although I knew more about the actions of the gods than any other human in Ovid, I was still in the dark as to what they would do.

“We need to make certain that things are... on track,” Diana told me as I started for the house to get changed.

“On track?” I asked as she followed me into the house. I looked over at my husband who was asleep on the couch. I knew my younger daughter would still be asleep, too. Diana often spelled them to sleep when The Judge needed to see me on short notice. I didn’t worry about them, though. Somewhere, a godly guard–probably Officer Mercer–would be watching over them to ensure that no harm befell them.

“Yes, on track,” Diana repeated, but she didn’t elaborate. As long as I had been in Ovid, she and I had been good friends, but the secrets of the gods were just that–secrets. There was no way she would tell me what was so important to their project.

When we arrived in The Judge’s chambers, I was not surprised to see several of the more senior gods there as well: the Marches–actually, Mars and Venus–were seated together on the leather couch. Betty Vest stood beside them, looking every inch the college president, but of course, I knew her to be Vesta. In one corner, Eric Vulman sat in a large leather chair, the only physical attribute which might have identified him as Vulcan being the way he held one leg slightly stiffly. Ms. Miner, the Superintendent of Public Schools sat on the arm of his chair, looking as wise as one would expect of the goddess Minerva.

To my surprise, Susan Jager was also in the room, seated in one of the other leather chairs. My best friend and colleague smiled warmly at me, and I smiled back. She looked very content and very happy, for she had just learned the previous week that she was pregnant again, this time with her second child. I was glad to see that Joshua would have a sibling to play with.

And finally, my eyes turned to The Judge. He looked confident and not at all worried as he reclined in his large leather swivel chair situated behind his desk. He wore an expensive dark suit, white shirt, and conservative red tie, which was his usual attire. Silently, he motioned me to the chair just in front of his desk. When I was seated, he said, “Thank you, Cindy, for coming in on such short notice.”

“No problem, Your Honor.” And it wasn’t. I had been asked on any number of occasions to come in at odd hours. I suspected the gods never slept, and no one seemed to know where they lived and played in their off hours, so I was used to the situation.

“Now that we’re all here,” The Judge continued, “we can begin our final check before the Engine is introduced tomorrow. Cindy, I would like for you to review the case of Joan Sheppard.”

“Joan Sheppard?” I echoed. “But she’s been here since last fall.” Almost invariably, I was asked to review the case of a newcomer to Ovid, just to make certain they were fitting in well. Joan’s case had never been reviewed though, and I would be the one to know, since I was the sole repository of their stories. Joan Sheppard had been around long enough that she had blended in well, often coming to my house when Myra Smithwick was babysitting for me.

“When you’ve finished with your review, I believe you’ll understand why this is so important,” The Judge told me. He looked over at Susan and back to me. “For the past few years, you two have performed invaluable services for our community. I realize you must have been curious about our motives, and the time had now come for you to learn of our plans. As you review Ms. Sheppard’s case, the truth of Ovid will unfold for you–as I know you have been curious about for several years. Then, when we are done, I’ll fill in any of the blanks which still exist. Is that satisfactory?”

We both nodded. I was excited, and I could see from Susan’s expression that she was, too. We had speculated from the time we had become friends as to what the true purpose of Ovid was. We knew the Engine was a big part of it, and we knew that a devastating war could be in our future if the gods failed, but everything we had already learned had told us that whether or not the Engine was introduced, the war would still happen, unless...

Unless what?

We hadn’t been able to figure that part out, but apparently the gods had.

In recent months, we had found our own families under siege, but we had reasoned that that was because of our association with The Judge and the other gods. However, recently, we had come to realize that the reason for enemies of the gods targeting us might be more specific.

Were we really about to learn the answers?

“Then let’s begin,” The Judge ordered.

That was all it took to start me into my trance. Slowly, the room began to fade, and I began to lose all sensation. Instead, I could feel myself in a dreamless sleep, in darkness, yet moving as if...

I was awakened at the sound of a ‘thump’ as I experienced a teeth-jarring shudder that nearly threw me out of my seat. It happened so suddenly that I took a few moments to remember exactly where I was. The sensation of movement and the occasional light whizzing by outside the tinted window which amplified the darkness of the night reminded me that we were on my bus, cruising through the middle of an Oklahoma night toward Bartlesville, our next destination.

“What was that?” a groggy voice called out from the row of seats across from the row where I had been trying to stretch out and catch at least a couple of hours of much-needed sleep.

“Pothole,” a voice called back from the front of the bus. As if to emphasize his remark, the bus shuddered again, only this time not as violently. “The road’s full of them. Must be the spring thaws. All that ice on the road in these parts last winter chewed up the asphalt something fierce. I guess they didn’t have the money to fix ’em this summer.”

“Then slow down a little,” Aden Cross called out in his clipped British accent from the row just behind me. “We need to get some rest.”

He was right about that, I thought. If I had realized when we were setting up our tour just how arduous this portion of our schedule would be, I would never have agreed to it. We were required to pack up late at night in Broken Bow, Oklahoma, and travel all the way to Bartlesville overnight to set up for a big Friday revival meeting there. It was bad planning, I’ll admit, but the money we were being offered by a large church in Bartlesville was just too much to pass up. We were offered a guarantee of eighty-five percent of the take, plus lodging for our entire staff. Deals that good didn’t come in every day.

Besides, our TV show–God Sees You–was broadcast locally in Bartlesville, so the audience would be a lot more responsive than most of the smaller towns on our revival tour. That built-in audience, plus the expected turnout from the sponsoring congregation, spelled a big weekend. We were going to be doing meetings both Friday and Saturday, plus I would be taping my TV show for the following week from the sponsoring church on Sunday afternoon.

Most of my staff were excited about the prospects–even if it meant travelling the back roads of Oklahoma on a supposed shortcut north in the middle of the night. The staff had loudly thanked God for the opportunity when it was announced. I, however, had remained silent.

After all, of all of my staff I alone seemed to know something they did not: There was no God.

Don’t be so shocked. Any number of evangelists are hypocrites to one extent or another. Look at all the ones who rise to power in the big mega-churches, preaching damnation for infidelity, homosexuality, drug use, and every imaginable ‘sin’ short of bad breath, only to fall from grace, weeping from the pulpit about how sorry they were when caught cheating on their wives with a gay lover while taking drugs. At least I didn’t do any of those things. I lived a pretty puritanical life when you got right down to it–no drugs, no gay lovers, no expropriation of funds, although I do admit to living fairly well.

But I must admit, I was as hypocritical of any of my wayward counterparts in that one respect: while they mostly believed in God in their own warped ways, I had lost my faith the night my wife and unborn son perished.

Oh, it wasn’t just that incident. Rather, the deaths of my wife and unborn child were merely the straws that broke the proverbial camel’s back. Before that, I had watched helplessly as many of the faithful who followed me died slowly and painfully of a myriad of maladies–including my own parents. By the time I was left alone in the world, my parents, brother, and wife and soon-to-be-born child had all been taken from me. Whose faith wouldn’t be shattered after that?

I nearly left the ministry. Morally, I should have, but what was I to do? It was all I had ever known. I had been the son of a Lutheran minister, stern and dictatorial in managing my mother, my brother and me. I had grown up seeking my father’s approval as had been drilled into me from the moment I could walk and talk. There was no doubt that I, Hans Groenwald III would follow my two namesakes into the pulpit.

That’s right–my grandfather was a Lutheran minister as well. He emigrated from Germany after the Second World War. From him, my father inherited an authoritarian style which fortunately was not passed down to me. No, I vowed I would treat my son with respect and not drive him away as my father had driven my younger brother Henry away. Henry joined the Army as soon as he could and died in Baghdad early in the occupation.

My thoughts of my departed family were interrupted by yet another jolt as the bus shuddered and then stopped. The engine was still running, but we weren’t moving.

“Edgar, what’s wrong now?”

“I don’t know,” Edgar, our driver, called back. “That last hole was pretty good-sized. I think we may have broken an axle.”

That brought groans from nearly all twelve of us on the bus–including me. A broken axle out in the middle of nowhere wasn’t good. We’d be late into Bartlesville for sure, perhaps without enough time to set up properly.

“I thought you knew this shortcut,” Aden grumbled to our driver.

“I thought I did,” Edgar replied, obviously not too happy with himself. “I think they changed the road, though. This one doesn’t look like it’s been maintained for a long time. It doesn’t look like we’ll be going anywhere for a while.” As if to emphasize the point, he shut down the engine.

“Better open a door,” Marlin, our organist, called out from a few seats back. “When you shut down the engine, the air conditioning stopped.”

“No!” Aden called out. “We won’t get any circulation. It’s still hot outside and cool in here.”

No one realized it at the time, but Aden’s perfectly sensible statement would nearly cost all of us our lives.

What we found out later was that the damage hadn’t been caused by spring thawing. Rather, unusually heavy summer rains had played havoc with the road our driver had chosen. Had the road been an important one, emergency repairs might have been arranged, but the road wasn’t used much anymore. Before dozing off, I hadn’t noted more than a handful of cars going the other way. Unbeknownst to our driver, the road had been downgraded to county maintenance, and since it was used only by a few local farmers, it had a very low priority. That was why there were potholes the size of tank traps along its length.

Worse yet, there were several unmarked–or under-marked–hazards along the road, including a railroad crossing exactly where the bus had stopped. While most railroad crossings had gates and/or flashing lights, the one we had stopped on had neither, since the track was only a spur with two trains a day. Of course, I learned all of this much later.

“Do you hear something?” Annabelle Mason’s sweet voice asked in the darkness.

Everyone had been talking at once, blocking any outside noise. I suppose since Annabelle was our female vocalist, she may have had the most acute hearing. The area around the bus was heavily wooded, and the track took a sudden bend about a hundred yards from the crossing, so perhaps we can be excused for not hearing the train or seeing its lights until it was too late.

Someone in the back of the bus screamed, as we all looked to our right to see the approaching lights of what we at once recognized to be a train. It wasn’t moving terribly fast–probably under fifty miles an hour, but it would reach us in a matter of scant seconds. Given its momentum, the bus would be scrap metal in seconds, and as for its passengers...

It’s impossible for me to describe everything that happened in the next few moments. Urgent screams and shouts seemed to come from everywhere. Edgar was trying to get the bus door open, but in the panic-inducing darkness, he must have hit the wrong switch, for the door remained closed. Outside, the wail of the diesel’s horn became louder and shriller, compressed by the Doppler effect until it hurt our ears.

They say a person’s entire life flashes before him at the moment of certain death. I wouldn’t say that to be true, though. The only thing that rushed through my mind was relief. My life had become empty and meaningless, my family dead and my ministry a sham. I didn’t look forward to being reunited with my loved ones in a better world, for I didn’t believe in one. I merely wanted the pain to end but had never had the courage or determination to end it myself. The crushing blow of the train would be my salvation. I simply stared in fascination into the bright lights as they came closer and closer.

Then, something happened...

I didn’t understand what was happening at the time. None of us did. How could we? We were facing certain death, and then the bus lurched at the very moment the train should have hit. The train’s horn dropped in pitch as darkness replaced light behind the bus. We stood in disbelieving silence as the cars of the train rumbled past us in the night.

“The train must have pushed us off the tracks,” Aden theorized softly.

“It must have,” I agreed, equally softly.

“God was looking out for us,” he pronounced. “He has a plan for us.”

“Amen!” Marlin called out.

Annabelle began to sing in her strong soprano: “To God be the glory, great things He has done...”

The others chimed in at the second line: “So loved He the world that He gave us His son...”

I hoped they noticed that I wasn’t singing. I didn’t feel like singing praises to a non-existent deity. Even if He did exist, I had no reason to sing of his praises, for He had deprived me of the escape from this life that I so desperately craved.

My staff’s joy was short-lived, though. As soon as Edgar managed to start the engine back up, he turned on the cabin lights. The singing stopped in mid-stanza as we looked around. When we had all boarded the bus, there had been fifteen of us representing all of the non-technical people in our crew. Now, there were only five of us.

“Where’s everybody else?” Marlin asked, voicing what we had all been thinking.

“They must have gotten out through the emergency door in the rear,” Aden suggested.

Edgar squelched that idea in a hurry. “I’d have a light on the panel indicating the door had been opened,” he told us. “There’s no light, though.”

“But they had to have gotten out somehow,” I pointed out. “People don’t just disappear.”

“Oh my God!” Annabelle murmured. “You don’t suppose they got out through the rear and were hit by the train, do you?”

We all looked at each other in shock. Then Edgar opened the front door of the bus and scrambled out, the rest of us following closely on his heels. I was afraid we would find the bloody remains of our friends scattered along the path between the rear of the bus and the nearby railroad tracks. I tried to suppress the image of my wife’s body among the supposed wreckage of human flesh, as I had seen her in my mind after her own accident. I was afraid our friends would look much as she had looked when the truck hit her broadside, leaving her as a heap of unrecognizable carnage. I had been spared the actual sight of my dead wife immediately after the accident, but I had often imagined the image of her torn body in my mind.

To our surprise, there was no sign of the remains of our friends. The rear emergency door on the bus was undisturbed, and there was no evidence of any foot traffic behind the bus. To both our puzzlement and our relief, there were no mangled bodies to be seen.

We stood silently, the only sound being the chirp of insects and the distant rumble of the departing train. I don’t think any of us had the slightest notion as to what had happened to our friends. How could we? Even if we had known, we wouldn’t have believed it–then.

“I’m calling for help,” Aden finally announced, breaking the silence and whipping out his cell phone. He punched in 911 and waited for a reply. A moment later, he frowned. “No answer. There must not be any cell service here.”

“Just exactly where is here?” Marlin asked, looking around uncomfortably at the gloomy darkness around us.

“That’s Edgar’s department,” I told him.

We all looked at Edgar, who could only shrug. “I’m not sure,” he admitted. “I think we must have missed the right road a while ago. I haven’t seen any road signs for the past thirty minutes, and nothing around here looks familiar.”

“Come look at this!” Annabelle called from the bus. While we had been looking around, she had returned to the bus, probably to avoid the expected carnage from our missing friends.

We piled back on the bus. Annabelle was in the back of the cabin with a puzzled look on her face.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, unable to see anything wrong. All we were staring at was empty bus seats.

“Don’t you see?” she asked plaintively.

“I don’t see anything,” Aden said, looking around.

“That’s just it!” she returned. “There’s nothing here–no evidence that there was ever anyone here. There’s no suitcases, no personal belongings... nothing.”

“Maybe they took everything with them,” Edgar theorized.

“Not likely,” I commented, looking under one of the seats for some evidence of recent habitation. “We only had a few seconds of warning. Even if they managed to open the emergency door and get away, they wouldn’t have had time to gather all of their belongings.”

“Or close the rear door,” Aden added.

“It’s a miracle!” Annabelle declared. “Praise God.” Sorry, I thought, I don’t believe in miracles, but of course I didn’t tell her that. I just murmured “amen” with the others. And while I didn’t believe in miracles, I had to believe the evidence of my own eyes. Ten people had seemingly disappeared–or had they? We were all tired that evening–exhausted really. Had we just imagined that ten more of our number had boarded the bus with the five of us who remained? Mass delusions were possible: that was a proven fact. There was no other answer, really. Ten people and all of their belongings could simply not have vanished from the back of the bus.

But that begged the question: where had the other ten gone? If they had never boarded the bus, where were they? Perhaps Edgar had mistakenly thought they were ensconced in the darkness at the back of the bus when he pulled out of the site of our ministry in Broken Bow. Of course if that was the case, why hadn’t they called us? Surely the cell phones worked in Broken Bow.

Perhaps they had opted to go on the other bus–the one loaded with all of our props and equipment. That bus would be a couple of hours behind us. Maybe there was some miscommunication which made them think they were supposed to take the other bus. That would explain why they hadn’t called us. They were probably sleeping peacefully on the second bus, unaware that we were concerned about them. It had to be that, I reasoned. There was no other reasonable solution.

I told the others as much. Annabelle and Marlin looked rather crestfallen at the suggestion that the answer was less than miraculous. Aden agreed, though. “As much as I would like to witness such a compelling miracle, I have to agree with Hans. Perhaps we should just be happy with the miracle we did indeed witness–our deliverance from an accident with the train. Only God’s intervention could have caused the train to push us away like that.”

“There’s another miracle as well,” Edgar called out from outside the bus door. None of us had realized he had even left. “I just checked the rear axle. I could have sworn it was broken, but it’s just fine. When the train bumped us, it must have somehow shaken everything back into working order.”

“Then we’re not stranded?” I asked hopefully.

Edgar shook his head. “It doesn’t look like it, but as soon as the shops open in Bartlesville tomorrow, I’d better take the bus in. If the axle is bent rather than broken, we’ll get some uneven tire wear and a real bumpy ride.”

In short order, we were moving again, but I doubted if any of us got any sleep. The road was too rough for sleeping: Edgar even had to swerve occasionally to avoid some of the larger ruts. Besides the rough, rocky ride, each of us was undoubtedly thinking about our missing comrades. Sure, we knew it had to be just a mix-up. They had to be on the other bus. There was no other logical explanation.

How were we to know that logic had been stranded by the side of the road the moment we had turned off the main highway?

Eventually, the road smoothed out, and the countryside began to change, even in the darkness. Instead of negotiating tight curves through forested hills, we were back on a smoother road with the trees sufficiently thinned to give us a view of the lights of farms. It was too late (or rather too early in the morning) for the farmers to be up, but we could see security lights passing by our windows. It felt good to be back in civilization.

I took the jump seat behind Edgar. “Any idea where we are?”

“Not the foggiest,” he replied. “We need to get a GPS before our next tour.”

“It looks like there may be a town up ahead,” I told him, pointing at a cluster of lights ahead and to the right perhaps three or four miles away.

“Yeah. Then I can check the map and see where we are,” he said. “Maybe we should cancel tonight’s service in Bartlesville. Everyone is going to be dead on their feet.”

“I wish I could,” I sighed, “but we need Bartlesville if we plan to make any money on this tour.” Attendance had been less than anticipated. There were just too many evangelists in the business, especially with the ones on TV and resident in the large city churches. Our take had been dropping for the past two years. It was only our own TV show that kept us in the black.

“There’s a sign,” Edgar nodded to our right. “‘Welcome to Ovid,’ it says.”

“Where’s Ovid?”

He shrugged. “Don’t know. I thought I knew every town in the state. It must be pretty small.”

But it didn’t look that small. Oh, it wasn’t a city certainly, but it looked to be a town of several thousand people, judging from how spread out the lights ahead were.

“At least the road is getting better,” I noted as the lanes split forming a divided highway. Small roadside businesses were beginning to appear, reflected in the light of sodium vapor streetlights. They were closed, of course, but they looked well-kept enough to indicate that during the day, they did a brisk business. None of them appeared to be national franchises though, so I suspected the town wasn’t quite as big as it looked.

“Looks like they roll up the sidewalks around here,” Edgar commented, running a hand through his dark, thinning hair. “We seem to be the only vehicle on the road.”

The roadside buildings became more clustered, until they were finally continuous. Traffic lights began to sprout up as well, and side streets sported awnings of trees–mostly oaks–that sheltered neat, modest houses reflected in the beam of the streetlights.

“Nice little town,” I said to Edgar. He seemed about to reply when seemingly out of nowhere, a siren wailed and Edgar’s balding head was reflected in alternating red and blue lights.

Edgar looked to his left. I followed his gaze to see a police car at our side. “Where did he come from?” Edgar wanted to know.

“Must have come in from a side street,” Aden mused.

Maybe so, I thought, but wouldn’t we have at least seen his headlights, or maybe the cruiser reflected in a streetlight? I had been looking down the side streets and had seen no sign of any traffic. I supposed it was possible that his lights had been out for some reason, and that he had been further back, out of the light.

Edgar pulled the bus to the curb, and we all felt the vehicle shudder as it had when we had found ourselves stranded at the railroad crossing. He cut the lights, opened the door and began rummaging around to find our registration. As for the police car, it had pulled up in front of us and cut its engine, but left the intimidating lights on.

The figure that emerged from the police car was tall and slim, wearing a dark Stetson and an immaculate uniform consisting of what could have been either a gray or light blue shirt (it was hard to tell in the darkness) and dark trousers. But most surprising was the fact that although it was still night, he was wearing mirror shades with wire rims just like small town police always did in the movies.

He stepped onto the bus with what I thought was a foolish lack of caution. For all he knew, the bus could be loaded with a gang of desperate prison escapees, armed to the teeth and ready to cut him down before he could get both feet inside the door.

“G... good evening, Officer,” Edgar stuttered.

The officer nodded, turning his gaze away from Edgar and toward me. “Your bus has a bent axle,” he informed me laconically.

“We hit a large pothole just a few miles out of town,” I explained, relieved that he was just alerting us to the sorry condition of our axle–or so I thought.

“It’s illegal to drive a seriously-damaged vehicle in Ovid,” he informed us. “I’m going to have to take you in. The Judge will want to see you.”

“Officer,” I began, “we’re in a terrible hurry. We’re due to conduct a prayer meeting in Bartlesville this evening. If you’d just issue us a citation and tell us where we could rent say... a van to get to Bartlesville, you’d be helping us do the work of the Lord.”

“Sorry,” he responded without pausing even an instant to think about it. He didn’t sound sorry, though. Apparently he believed in the letter of the law more than he believed in the Lord. Given my own views on the subject, I supposed I couldn’t blame him.

Another police car pulled in just in front of the officer’s car. In my sleep-deprived mind, I giddily imagined a team of officers bounding out of the car, guns drawn with one screaming, “Drop that Bible and back away slowly!” Instead, no one got out of the car, but its presence was soon explained.

“Reverend Groenwald, if you, Reverend Cross, and Ms. Mason will come with me, your other staff members can ride in the other car.”

He knew our names? Oh, of course. The name of our program, God Sees You was emblazoned on the side of the bus, and the officer probably watched the show and knew who we were, I reasoned. Marlin was not as well-known, since the cameras would only briefly pan on our organist, and of course there was no reason why he would know our driver. But as I was soon to find out, it was very likely that the officer–Officer Mercer we would soon learn–knew more about everyone on the bus than we could have ever imagined.

The three of us sat together in the back seat of the police car for the short drive to see this judge. We were all from small towns, although Aden’s small town was in England, so his experiences may have been different. Annabelle, from her center seat, and I exchanged a knowing glance, though. We were familiar with the expression ‘speed trap.’ Small towns throughout America were often the home offices of such activities. A crooked judge and at least one greedy police officer were all that were required to fleece unwary motorists. We would be presented with trumped up charges and be offered to opportunity to pay a ‘fine’ that would never be entered in the records, but rather would be split between the judge and the police once we were out of town. The locals never minded much–as long as the scam didn’t involve arresting and fleecing them.

I only hoped that the fine was halfway reasonable. Since the officer had recognized us, there was a very good chance that he intended to shake us down more than the average motorist. Our current tour hadn’t been terrifically successful as it was, so a substantial fine would be felt sorely.

To take my mind off the ritual fleecing we were about to endure, I looked out the window at the town of Ovid. It was hard to tell much so late at night–or so early in the morning if you will. The houses we passed were dark, as all the good little Ovidians had to be snug in their beds, unaware (or unconcerned) regarding our plight. From what little I could see in the pale light of the streetlights, the houses were neat and well maintained. I made a mental note to consider Ovid on next year’s tour, since any small town where the houses were well-kept was probably a prosperous small town that would welcome our message with open wallets.

It wasn’t long until we were pulling up in front of an impressive public building. It too, was dark–except for a few lights near the entrance. We were escorted into the building, and to no surprise, the lighted area turned out to be the Police Department. No one was tending the reception desk, and we soon realized that the officer who had arrested us would also be checking us in. Convenient, I thought. He would probably keep us in a holding area while he got his judicial counterpart out of bed for a quick and speedy trial that would see us on our way a number of dollars lighter before the local employees staggered into work–none the wiser that the shake down had even occurred.

Marlin and Edgar looked a little unsettled as the officer retired to an office, presumably to get some paperwork.

“What’s wrong?” I asked Marlin, careful to speak softly so as not to be overheard by the officer.

“The cop who brought us down here...” he began.

“What about him?” I prompted.

“He’s the same one as the one who brought you in,” he finished nervously.

“Maybe he has a twin brother on the force,” Aden suggested.

“Let’s just hope he’s a triplet and that his brother is the judge,” I grumbled, looking at my watch. It was nearly three in the morning. I had a lunch meeting with the senior pastor of our sponsoring church in Bartlesville. At this rate, I wasn’t going to get any sleep before our meeting. I’d be fortunate if I had a chance to shave and change my shirt at this rate. I recalled an old movie where the judge was called in wearing his nightshirt to hold a speedy trial. I sincerely hoped our judge would be equally anxious to shake us loose from our money and shoo us on our way.

The officer finished whatever he had been doing and called to us, “This way.”

Any hope I had of being led immediately to a courtroom was dashed when I saw he was guiding us into a small, brightly-lit cell block. Disheartened, I rushed to the officer’s side. “Look, Officer...”

“Mercer,” he supplied, staring at me through his ever-present mirrored shades, his face expressionless.

“Officer Mercer,” I acknowledged. “We have a prayer meeting in Bartlesville this evening, and really would appreciate it if we could just... pay a fine and be on our way. You see, I’m...”

“I know who you are, Reverend Groenwald,” he broke in using that same neutral tone. “The Judge will hear your case first in the morning. That will be at nine.”

“Nine! But I have to be in Bartlesville by noon!”

I almost thought I saw a thin smile on the officer’s face. “I wouldn’t worry about that, Reverend. Now, if you’ll step inside this cell...”

Sighing, I obeyed. At least we were all given individual cells, and the way the doors faced, most of them offered a reasonable degree of privacy. Only Aden and I had cells that faced each other.

“At least we’ll get some sleep,” Aden sighed, sitting down on the small but clean bed. I did the same, surprised to find it was fairly comfortable. “Do you think we’ll have to call off the Bartlesville event?”

“Let’s hope not,” was all I could reply.

I tried to get some sleep, but I was too keyed up from the night’s events. Of primary concern, of course, was Aden’s question. The Bartlesville event was to have been the crowning jewel in an otherwise mediocre tour. Rescheduling was out of the question. Summer was the best time for our events, and summer was all but over. Oh, we’d make do without Bartlesville, but it would be a long winter.

There was another concern keeping me awake, though. I could still see the train bearing down on us, its lights strobing into our crippled bus, its horn blaring a warning which could not be heeded. Since the death of my family, I had always thought I was ready to die. Oh, I had no illusions about meeting them in a non-existent heaven. I merely felt there was nothing to live for.

But when the train missed us, mingled with the disappointment I had felt at not having the misery of my life end, I had felt something akin to relief. My conscious mind told me there was nothing to live for, and I had abided by its dictates since the deaths of my wife and unborn child. But the relief had come from somewhere deep within me–somewhere that a part of me wanted to live. Or at least somewhere that a part of me was afraid to die.

I had believed, once upon a time. People want to believe in a supreme being and a life eternal. Without them, the universe is without meaning and life had little purpose. The work I did as an evangelist was easy work, for people wanted to believe what I said–even if I didn’t believe it myself. But most people don’t just believe for believing’s sake. They believe because there’s a promise of a life beyond this one. It’s quid pro quo really: ‘Hey God, I’ll believe in you and say the right prayers and sing the right hymns and you can assure me a cosy afterlife.’

Yes, I had believed that too, once upon a time, but no more. The upside of that was a sort of spiritual freedom to go my own way. But the downside of it, as I had learned as the train bore down on us, was that someday, without any warning probably, my life would be over and there would be nothing beyond. Eternal rest? Bah! Eternal nothingness awaited me.

Maybe, I rationalized, I was doing good work. I was convincing the rubes that there was something to look forward to after our lives. That would at least make them feel good, and when they died–nothing! But they’d take their dying breath waiting to be carried up to their Lord. Not a bad deal really, and I helped them think that way.

Looking back on my vigil that night, my thoughts were cynical and perhaps a little vain, but how was I to know how my beliefs–or rather lack of beliefs–were about to be shattered?

I did finally manage to doze off, but it was not a restful sleep. I was awakened shortly after the sunlight began to filter into the jail from an overhead skylight. The light was weak and indirect, so I suspected it was shortly after sunrise.

Officer Mercer called out to us, warning us that breakfast would be served in thirty minutes. I heard groans from the other cells.

“Can we get a shower and something to shave with before we go to court today?” I called out.

He turned to face me with what I believed to be a thin smile on his lips, but since his eyes were still covered by the sunglasses, I couldn’t tell if he was amused by something I had said or not. “You won’t need to shave. You’ll be fine as you are.”

“It’s like some third world jail,” Aden grumbled. When I looked at him quizzically, he continued, “If you deny the prisoner any dignity before dragging him into the courtroom, you keep him off balance. He’ll be tired and uncomfortable, and to any spectators, he’ll look more like a shiftless bum than one of them. It makes it easier to intimidate him and easier for everyone else to see him as unlike them.”

“But this isn’t the third world,” I pointed out. “It’s Oklahoma.”

“Same thing,” Annabelle commented, lifting our spirits just a little with her humor. She had once told me that down in Texas, where she was born and raised, they tell Oklahoma jokes.

We each chuckled just a little, and I could hear running water from the small sinks in our cells. I too, did my best to refresh myself. Wiping the water over my stubbled face made me once again wish for a razor. I had never liked facial hair and often wished that I didn’t have to shave my face. Well, as Oscar Wilde once said, be careful what you wish for–you might get it.

I don’t know about other people who have stumbled into Ovid over the years, but I for one, was able to tell the exact moment when things went tilt. I was pretty hungry, so I was listening carefully for any indication that our breakfast had arrived. My nose detected our breakfast first though, as someone was apparently arranging trays on a cart to serve us. I could smell bacon, cinnamon, and fresh coffee, and my stomach began to growl in anticipation.

But the minute I saw the girl who was serving us, I forgot my hunger at once. Now, up until that moment, everything had seemed pretty normal to me. To my mind, we had just gotten scooped up in some small town speed trap, and had been jailed over night to make us more amenable to making a deal just to get released. All that was irritating, but not entirely unheard of in the small towns that dotted the Bible Belt. But this...

The girl who cheerfully slid our breakfast trays through the narrow slot in the door was young and attractive, red hair arranged in a neat ponytail and casually dressed in a denim dress with a short, fairly tight skirt. She smiled as she slid my tray to my awaiting hands. It was all very normal and comfortable, except for one thing...

The girl was transparent.

That’s probably a bit of an overstatement. It wasn’t as if I could see Aden through her, so much as I could see Aden in spite of her being in the way. It’s hard to explain to anyone who hasn’t experienced the phenomenon, but there it was.

The look on Aden’s face was every bit as incredulous as mine. He at least had a moment to recover though, so by the time the girl had delivered his tray to him, he was more curious than shocked. He inspected the girl carefully.

“I thought you were all men of the Lord,” she drawled in the distinctive Oklahoma accent. “Should you be looking at me like that?”

“I... I’m sorry,” Aden stammered. I know he wanted to ask her about her condition, but how do you ask someone why they are semi-transparent? There didn’t seem to be anything to say.

Once she had served all of us and left, Aden and I looked over at each other, our trays balanced on our laps as we picked at the food.

“Did you see that, too?” Aden asked.

“See what?” Myron called out from his cell around the corner.

“The girl,” Aden managed to say.

“Very attractive,” Myron returned.

“Sure is!” Edgar chimed in.

“You men!” Annabelle exclaimed.

“No,” I broke in, since Aden seemed to be unable to say it. “Aden means did you notice you could see right through her?–sort of?”

“Reverend, that’s not a very nice thing for a man of God to say,” Annabelle chastised.

Seeing what she meant, I hurried to say, “No, that isn’t what I mean. Didn’t you notice? She was nearly transparent.”

“Yes!” Aden managed, looking relieved that someone besides he had noticed.

Our clarification was met by silence.

“We... didn’t notice a thing,” Myron replied hesitantly, speaking it seemed for everyone but Aden and me.

The proverbial chill went racing up and down my back, and a glance at Aden told me he was experiencing something very similar. His eyes told me there was no sense in discussing it further until we could talk in private. Otherwise, our friends would just assume that too little sleep had addled our brains.

That opportunity came very soon. We had no sooner finished breakfast before Officer Mercer entered the cell block. By my watch, it was a quarter until nine, and I suspected he was coming to take us to trial.

The walk to the courtroom was short, but Aden and I fell back a little from the others where we were rewarded with a few moments to discuss what we had seen.

“Do you think... it’s the work of the devil?” he asked. I knew Aden believed fervently in our ministry, so it wasn’t much of a reach for him to assume that God and the devil were actively at war in our world. Frankly, I believed even less in the devil than I did in God. Sure, there was good and evil in the world, but mankind didn’t need divine beings to put it there.

“I don’t think there’s evil involved,” I replied in a low tone, matching Aden’s. At least, my response was truthful. That sweet girl who had delivered our meals didn’t look as if she had an evil thought in her head. Besides, none of the others had noticed anything wrong–only Aden and I. It was possible, I had to admit to myself, that the girl’s transparency was merely a trick of the light, or perhaps our exhaustion had led to the illusion.

But if that were so, how had Aden and I both noticed the phenomenon?

I didn’t have much time to think on it, for at that moment, Aden and I followed our friends into the courtroom. I was suddenly too busy taking in my surroundings. The room was far better appointed than I would have thought likely in a small town like Ovid. Fine, expensive green carpet covered the floors, and oak wainscoting graced the walls. The judge’s bench looked imposing, raised above the room in a stately manner. Even the defense and prosecution tables were of well-turned oak, and the chairs provided were plush with cushions of the same green shade as the carpet. The room was practically empty. Although not an attorney, I knew that was not uncommon. Many–if not most–trials have no spectators at all. Ours it appeared, was to have only one. An attractive blonde woman, probably in her mid to late thirties, was seated primly in the back row. From her attire–a conservative gray suit with matching heels–I assumed her to be an attorney herself, probably there to file a motion or something.

The other woman in the room sat at the defendant’s table. She was attractive and probably mid-thirties as well, but with her darker hair drawn up in a professional style and her well-tailored navy blue suit, I had no doubt that she was an attorney.

“Susan Jager,” she announced, holding out a feminine hand for me to shake. “I’ll be your attorney today.”

“Do we really need legal representation?” Aden asked as I shook her hand. “Surely this is a minor offense.”

“Yes,” I agreed. “We’d like to just pay whatever fine the court feels reasonable...”–in other words, whatever the going rate for small town speed traps was–“and be on our way. You see, we’re due in Bartlesville today.”

Ms. Jager seemed to be stifling a smile. “I’m afraid you’re unlikely to get to Bartlesville today,” she informed us.

“But we must!” I insisted. “It’s very important. We need to minister to a large number of Christian worshipers this evening.”

All right. I was shamelessly appealing to her religious instinct, but it came out sounding like Dan Akroyd’s, “We’re on a mission from God.”

“Reverend Groenwald,” she began slowly, “you’d do well to be less insistent when The Judge comes in. He’s been in a rather poor mood lately. Please let me speak for you.”

“Impossible!” I said, somewhat petulantly. “Admittedly, we’re at your mercy here, but a sham trial is unnecessary. Just ask this judge how much the fine is, we’ll pay it without a whimper, and be on our way.”

“All rise!” a voice intoned from one side of the bench. It was Officer Mercer again. Apparently he acted as bailiff–probably so the take would have to be split among fewer people. “Municipal Court of Ovid, Oklahoma, is now in session, The Honorable Judge presiding.”

I realized we would gain nothing now by arguing. With our attorney and my associates, I turned to face what I suspected would be a crotchety old small-town municipal judge with avarice clearly reflected in his expression as he prepared to shake down yet another unsuspecting group of strangers. At least, I thought hopefully, the process would be short and sweet and we’d soon be on our way.

To my surprise, he looked nothing like I would have expected. He was younger than I expected–early middle age and no more, judging by his dark hair and neatly-trimmed beard salted with flecks of gray. He wore glasses, and I recognized the frames as expensive gold rims. In his black robe, he looked more like a distinguished Federal judge rather than a municipal magistrate, and I found myself wondering what such an imposing individual was doing holding court in a town so small that none of us had ever heard of it.

“Be seated,” he intoned in a voice that seemed to command obedience. As one, we all sat, as if we were children under the tutelage of a stern headmaster. It seemed so natural, I didn’t think much of it at the time. Now, of course, I know better.

The Judge (for I now began to think of ‘Judge’ as more than just a title: he was The Judge) looked down at the papers before him. Grunting, he looked up. “Call the defendants.”

Officer Mercer formally called, “The court calls Hans Groenwald and associates before the court.”

Ms. Jager rose promptly. “Your Honor, I represent Mr. Groenwald and his associates.”

“Do you have a plea?”

I sighed. This was all way too formal. Why not just get on with it and fine us? I shifted impatiently while our attorney, without any input from us, entered a “Not Guilty” plea and soon completed all the formalities with The Judge. It all seemed as if it were a set piece–some charade conducted for our benefit to make it seem valid. It was a ritual–yes, a ritual, just like the opening of church services. They, too, were nothing more than a charade when I thought about it. In a way then, I was on familiar ground. I relaxed a little as at last, we were ready to get down to the case.

“Reverend Groenwald!” The Judge said sharply. When I looked up, he motioned for me to stand.

“Yes, Your Honor?” I asked once I was on my feet.

“Do you understand the nature of the charges?”

We had been charged with driving an unsafe vehicle, as well as a couple of other minor traffic violations associated with our crippled vehicle. It was all proper–or appeared to be so. I said the only thing I could think of to get the proceedings moving along smartly. With any luck, we would still make Bartlesville in time for a late lunch with our sponsor. “Yes I do, Your Honor.”

“Do you have anything to say in your defense?”

“Not really, Your Honor,” I sighed. “I would just like to change our plea to guilty and pay our fine. It’s very important that we be in Bartlesville tonight. We are doing the Lord’s work there.”

There, I thought. That should get him moving. In my experience, few people–even judges–chose to interfere in religious activities. I suppose it was all the separation of church and state business. Unfortunately, I had guessed wrong this time.

The Judge frowned. “The Lord’s work?” His tone was derisive. I hadn’t expected that–not for a second.

Well, in for a penny in for a pound. It would be just our luck to draw a man who was possibly the only atheist on the bench in the state of Oklahoma. I didn’t realize at the time that it wasn’t God he was sneering at. “Yes, Your Honor. Perhaps you didn’t realize it, but I am...”

“I know exactly who you are, Reverend Groenwald,” he broke in, his tone bordering on angry. “But why should I be solicitous of a man who hides behind the name of a god he does not believe in?”

I heard loud gasps from my party, and I had to fight down the urge to gasp myself. Nothing, though, could have prevented the icy shiver that sped down my back. The Judge was right, of course, but how could he know? Perhaps he was guessing: perhaps he had seen something in my delivery on my program and surmised that I had lost my faith. I felt I had no chance but to bluff my way out of this situation. It was, of course, the wrong thing to do, but obviously at that point I had no idea who I faced.

“God knows who the faithful are,” I pronounced carefully, hoping that he hadn’t noticed that I had neither confirmed or denied his accusation. I stood stiffly, as if affronted by his remarks. I only hoped my associates would take the red flush on my face to be one of righteous indignation rather than the blush of embarrassment.

“Indeed God does know,” The Judge agreed with evident sarcasm.

“Your Honor,” our attorney interposed, trying vainly to achieve some modicum of control over what appeared to be a rapidly deteriorating situation, “perhaps we should review the facts of the case.”

“I believe I understand what’s happening here,” The Judge snapped, but while his remarks were aimed at our attorney, his gaze was fixed on me.

Just our luck, I thought to myself. Even an atheist would have been better. An atheist might have been more cautious dealing with a religious leader. Instead, we had to draw a Bible-thumping judge with an agenda. If word of his accusations got outside that courtroom, I’d be ruined. The media loves nothing better than to bring down a fundamentalist minister over either sex or money. While I hadn’t exactly misused the funds I had collected in my ministry, I had lived fairly well. To expose my hypocrisy would be the fresh meat the media craved.

“I find the defendants guilty!” The Judge growled, surprising all of us with his abruptness. I was actually a little relieved, though, for although his self-righteousness would probably give him a reason to substantially raise our fine, it meant we could be on our way. “Sentence is to be carried out at once.”

With that, The Judge’s eyes bored into us, and he began to speak in what at first I thought were tongues, but I was familiar enough with the practices of Pentecostals to realize that what he spoke was something else. It sounded a bit like Latin, but not the dull, lifeless language recited by Catholic priests. Instead, the words were rich in texture, invoking exactly what I couldn’t say, but the words were causing my skin to tingle.

I looked around at my associates, and got my first inkling that something terribly wrong was happening. Myron, Edgar, and Annabelle were becoming smaller as I watched. Their eyes were glazed over, as if they had no understanding of what was happening to them.

Aden, on the other hand, was actually becoming larger, but his features were changing. His hair was changing from a sandy brown to a coal black, and his skin was becoming darker. He looked more Mediterranean than English. Also, his clothes were changing–not radically, but I could see his white shirt darkening and becoming a t-shirt, while his khaki slacks were changing into denim.

It was at that moment that I realized I too, must be changing. Mustering as much mental resistance as I could, I tried to keep my body from altering. At first, I thought I was actually succeeding, and perhaps, I reasoned, I did delay the effects somewhat. In retrospect, I think The Judge was intentionally slowing my changes until he could speak more with me.

“Remove them from the courtroom,” The Judge ordered Officer Mercer, but when the policeman started to take my arm, he amended, “No, take the others. I’m not finished with our ‘evangelist’ yet.”

I managed to turn my head enough to watch the strange officer usher a tall, dark young man in a dark red t-shirt and jeans, followed by three children who all appeared to be about ten. One was a boy, who looked on in disgust as two pre-teen girls walked just ahead of him, giggling and looking back at him with girlish interest. None of them paid any attention to me–except for the dark young man, who managed to glance over his shoulder to look back at me for just a moment.

But where were my people? Who were these strangers and where had they come from?

The Judge either anticipated my questions or read my mind, waiting only until the door had closed behind the small procession before explaining, “Those people were your associates.”

“What have you done to them?” I asked, my voice suddenly sounding too high-pitched.

The Judge shrugged. “I’ve given them new lives. Their old ones are no longer appropriate.”

“And what was wrong with their old ones?” I returned, trying in vain to pitch my voice lower. Yes, I knew I was transforming as well, but I was too frightened and too angry to worry about my own changes.

“Left on your own, you would have been hit by a train,” he explained calmly. “The train would have split your bus in two, the back half being pushed away from the tracks with all of its passengers virtually unharmed. The front of the bus, where you and your friends here today would have been was torn apart. There would have been no survivors. We rescued you. Now don’t look so sceptical. You don’t really think your driver was able to perform a miracle and get your damaged bus off the tracks, do you?”

I said nothing, but now that he mentioned it, it seemed unlikely Edgar had been able to move us out of harm’s way. He had seemed as shocked as any of us when the train missed us, assuming that the train had somehow pushed us to safety.

“Your lives belong to Ovid now,” The Judge continued with an ominous tone.

“Someone will come looking for us,” I reminded him. “There were other people on that bus who survived. They’ll tell the authorities. And we were expected in Bartlesville...”

“No one remembers you,” The Judge countered. “As far as the world outside Ovid is concerned, you never existed. The other riders on your bus who would have survived the accident have had their lives altered so that they were never with you on that bus. They never worked with you. In fact, they never even met any of you, for none of you exist in their world.” When I said nothing, he continued, “I have something special in mind for you–something very appropriate.”

I could feel hair trickling down my neck now, and something was rising up on my chest. Although I couldn’t move enough to look down, I realized I was growing breasts. From the weight tugging on my chest, I estimated them to be good-sized. Quick, sharp pains erupted in my earlobes, and I could feel something tugging ever so slightly against them.

I suppose I was too stunned to really think about what was happening to me. Instead, all I could do was note the sensations as they occurred. My sex was being changed as I stood there: there was little doubt of that. In moments, I would be completely female. Strangely, my body reacted to this thought, and to my shame, I became very hard–as hard as I had been in years. That sensation changed as well though, ebbing almost as quickly as it had begun, and I felt... different between my legs.

So what sort of a woman was I becoming? I could tell I was getting shorter, but I didn’t seem to have lost so much stature as to be considered a child again like most of my friends. Then I felt the same type of pain coming from my belly button that I had felt moments before in my earlobes. So my navel was now pierced as well, indicating to me that I was probably going to be a younger woman. Not many matronly women of my acquaintance had pierced navels.

In fact, my stomach seemed bare, exposed to the open air as my shirt crawled up my body and my pants seemed to settle lower. I could feel air on my legs as well, and it didn’t take much thought for me to realize I was now wearing a skirt–a very, very short skirt from the feel of air well up my thighs.

Then the sensations of change happened so quickly, I couldn’t keep up with them. My hair seemed to be growing longer, covering suddenly bared shoulders. Something was pushing against the front of my shirt, if what I was now wearing could be called a shirt. My new breasts were growing uncomfortably larger. A quick look down confirmed that. They were pressing against what I saw to be a red halter-top, and the speed with which they were swelling made me fear that they might burst right through the material. Given the skimpy nature of my top, a significant amount of smooth breast flesh was now exposed, and I had cleavage that would be the envy of many a girl.

Overlaying the physical sensations that were rippling over my body was the sound of my mind screaming that none of this was possible. Yes, I know, some fundamentalists are convinced that there is evil magic–the Devil’s magic–out there in the world, competing for the souls of men. If I had chosen not to believe in a god, though, I had certainly chosen not to believe in a Devil. And I certainly didn’t believe in magic...

So that’s when my mind snapped.

No, I didn’t go into a catatonic state, but suddenly, I felt as if none of what was happening could possibly be real. My faith in the lack of gods, devils and magic was rooted in years of practice. This could not really be happening, regardless of what my senses told me, but since I couldn’t deny what my senses were relaying to my overtaxed brain, I did the one thing I could do to reconcile the contradiction.

I passed out.

I awoke slowly. I was lying on a bed, confirming to my jumbled mind that I had just awakened from the most bizarre dream of my life. It was an unfamiliar room, but for anyone who has spent a significant portion of his or her life travelling, it was not a unique experience. Lying there in what appeared to be the dim light of early evening, I concluded I must be resting in a hotel room in Bartlesville, making up some of the sleep I had lost in our harrowing overnight trip.

I tried to recall getting into Bartlesville and checking into our hotel, but nothing came to me. All I could remember was the strange dream of finding ourselves in Ovid where some incredibly powerful judge had transformed me and my associates. But that was impossible of course.

Of course...

Hesitantly, I raised a hand and touched my chest–and nearly passed out again. Not only did I have the breasts of a woman, I had large breasts–very, very large breasts. Okay, I suppose that’s something of an exaggeration. Later, I discovered my breasts were 36C–ample, but not exactly gargantuan. But for a man to reach down on his chest and find two large mounds of flesh residing where they shouldn’t be was enough to make me think my chest was downright deformed.

I jumped up out of bed–a questionable move considering I hadn’t anticipated the movement of my breasts. Suddenly, it was as if my entire body submitted to gravity in ways I could have never dreamed possible. The weight on my chest flopped downward, caught by my halter-top but shifting uncomfortably nonetheless. Flesh seemed to pool at my hips and butt as well, although not nearly to the same degree. And finally, long, dark hair flew into my face, momentarily obscuring my vision. I pushed the hair from my face, nearly tangling a few strands in what I realized were long fingernails.

“My God!” I cried out, hearing for the first time my fully female voice. It was even higher and softer than when I spoke my last remarks to The Judge. I was used to a commanding baritone, perfectly suitable for my chosen profession. Now, I sounded like a chirpy little teen in one of those family sit-coms.

I spotted a full-length mirror on the back of the door to my room. In it, I could see a terrified girl, perhaps eighteen or so, wearing the red halter-top I had seen in court and a tiny black skirt that barely covered my new sex. She had all the trimmings as well–hoop earrings about an inch in diameter, a small women’s watch on her left wrist, two gold bracelets on her right wrist, and a small gold locket attached around her neck by a thin gold chain. The locket actually drew the eyes down to some very pronounced cleavage peeking over the halter-top.

I approached the mirror, looking more closely at this attractive girl that I had now become. She was... voluptuous–that was the word. Her breasts and hips exuded femininity that her revealing clothing did little to mitigate. She... I... could have graced the centerfold of any men’s magazine.

I looked closer still in the mirror, noting for the first time that I wore makeup–and not just makeup in the sense of a little lipstick, but rather the whole package. My eyes were accented with dark lines and feathered black and reddish eye shadow. My lips were absolutely glossy. My cheeks had been accented. None of this looked particularly sluttish, but I didn’t exactly look like the girl next door either–unless one lived in a rather rough neighborhood.

Who was I? I knew I had been thrust into an unwanted life. The room was decorated in a very personal fashion, and I was sure I was supposed to be the resident. That meant I had been given a fully furnished life, but whose?

Then I spotted a purse lying on a nearby desk. It was nestled among what appeared to be textbooks, but its deep red color stood out among them. Nervously, I picked it up with a narrow, feminine hand. I noted, with more than a little relief, that I wasn’t wearing colored nail polish, although my fingernails were cut and filed in a feminine fashion, and the glisten of the nails meant I was wearing clear polish.

Opening the purse, I removed a brown leather women’s wallet, opening it to see if there was any identification to tell me who I was. As it turned out, there were two IDs on top of the others. Both were Oklahoma driver’s licenses. One showed me to be a girl of nineteen while the other declared me to be twenty-one. The one stating my age as nineteen was in the name of Joan Marie Sheppard. The other one gave my name as Alison MacDonald. The picture on it looked a little like my new face, but not quite.

I knew of course, that the one showing me to be nineteen was correct. The other one was obviously a phony for getting into bars where the legal age was twenty-one. I had never had a phony ID back in college, but I knew guys who did. Most of them were a little on the wild side. Did that mean the girl I had become was on the wild side, too? Probably, I thought to myself.

The purse contained a wealth of information. Under the driver’s licenses was a college ID for a Capta College. It wasn’t a school I had heard of, but apparently it was right there in Ovid. According to the card, I was a sophomore and lived in Athens Hall, apparently one of the campus dorms. At least now I knew where I was. Another card showed me to be a member in good standing of the First Baptist Church of Ovid, although my address was different. Either I had recently moved, or I was a local resident. If that were the case, I wondered why I was living in a dorm?

The rest of the contents of the wallet consisted of the usual items–a Social Security card, a medical insurance card, a couple of credit cards and an ATM card, and about fifteen dollars in cash. However The Judge had done all of this, I had to admit it was impressive. I had apparently been thrust into a new life that was completely furnished–identity, credit cards, and the works.

My thoughts were interrupted by an impatient knock on the door. “Joanie! You didn’t fall asleep in there, did you?” a girl’s voice called out derisively.

I thought about not answering the door at all, but I realized I was going to have to come to terms with what had happened to me eventually. Maybe the girl knocking on my door knew something about what had happened to me. Hesitantly, I opened the door.

The girl in the doorway was dressed in a very similar fashion to my own attire, only the colors differing–her top was white and her miniscule skirt a denim blue. Red hair cascaded down her back and over her shoulders, and her freckles seemed to dance with her grin.

Oh yes, and she was transparent.

“Hey, girl!” she laughed.

“Hey yourself,” I replied, having no idea of course, who or even what she was.

“Are you ready to par-tay?”

“Huh?”

The smile disappeared. “Oh shit, girl! You didn’t forget about our dates with those two Delts, did you? You weren’t that drunk last night.”

“Oh!” I exclaimed, trying to cover my faux pas. “No, no, I didn’t forget.” Instinctively, I slipped into a pair of inch-high heels lying beside my bed.

“Then let’s go,” she urged, tugging my arm. “We’re already fashionably late.” Okay, I need to make one thing clear: I had absolutely no desire to ‘par-tay,’ but I had a sneaky hunch I’d better stay in character. Whatever The Judge had done to me and my friends had thrust us into a new reality where we were accepted by others (including the transparent people) as the persons we now appeared to be. Apparently Joan Sheppard liked to party, and anything I did out of character might be noted by my new friend. I had to play my part or I might find myself thrown into Ovid’s version of the loony bin. I just thought it was better to play along for the moment.

It wasn’t as hard as it sounds. Sure, by most people’s standards, I had been a goody-goody type in my college days, and given that I had attended Oral Roberts University, that was saying something. But that didn’t mean that I wasn’t observant. I had a fair idea how young party girls acted. As long as I acted a little empty-headed and giggled a bit, I should be able to pass.

The act was made even easier by the fact that when I sort of mentally drifted, my new body seemed to operate on its own instincts. That meant I had no trouble walking in heels, or even giving a little extra wiggle to my walk. I certainly wasn’t in Paris Hilton’s league, but at least I didn’t appear out of character.

There were a few things I was worried about, though. First of all, I resolved that no matter how much of a party girl my new identity was, I would not smoke, drink, or take drugs. Two of the three, it turned out, would not be a problem, since smoking and drugs were not available in Ovid. Apparently The Judge ran a clean little town when it came to some of humanity’s baser vices. As for drinking though...

My companion’s little Jetta pulled up in front of a roadside bar called Randy Andy’s. Judging from the cars parked all around sporting Capta College window stickers and the noise of a crowd inside, this Randy Andy’s was apparently a favorite college hangout.

“Come on!” she sang out, jumping out of the car. I followed her example, nearly tripping between sliding out of the car seat in a short, tight skirt and catching my balance on my heeled leather sandals. Apparently my instinctive balance in high heels wasn’t exactly perfect, but what woman’s was? Fortunately, my companion didn’t notice. She was too busy scanning the parking lot.

“They’re here!” she squealed, pointing at a fairly new black Ford pickup truck. “That’s Danny’s truck.”

I dutifully followed her as she walked past two college-aged boys who were heading out to their car. They gave her an appreciative glance as they passed. To my chagrin, I was pretty sure they transferred their gaze to me when I walked past. I had the sudden realization that I was on the menu now.

To my surprise and relief, the bar didn’t smell of tobacco smoke. I had never smoked and had tried drinking in a bar only once in my life, but that experience had taught me that most bars are soaked in the fumes of stale cigarette smoke. The music was strictly country-western, but more cross-over than down-home. As for the crowd, the window stickers had said it all. Rather than a pack of dull-witted losers, most of the patrons looked as if they were strictly middle-class college students letting off a little steam.

My new friend skipped merrily over to a nearby booth, where a young man dressed in a Capta College t-shirt and jeans jumped up and embraced her. It was funny the way her transparent form and his solid one naturally seemed to meet. While a goodly number of the residents of Ovid were somewhat transparent, they were apparently solid to the touch. She reciprocated, throwing her arms around his neck and attacking his lips so fiercely his head seemed to be thrown back a little.

When they broke apart, he turned to me. “Hey, Joanie.”

“Hi... Danny,” I managed, realizing that was who he had to be.

“Hey,” he mumbled a little uncomfortably. “This is Mitch.” He nodded at the transparent guy sitting across from him in the booth. “He’s a fraternity brother of mine. Sherrie told you about him.”

Okay, so my friend’s name was Sherrie. I turned my attention to Mitch, realizing with a sinking feeling that he was my blind date. Great. I had been a girl for just a few hours and already someone had lined me up with a date. I had to get out of that bar and get back to see The Judge. There had to be something I could say to him that would cause him to release me from what was rapidly turning into a living hell.

Mitch was going to be a problem: I could see that in a heartbeat. It wasn’t just because he was a guy and I was now a girl. That would have been problem enough. No, Mitch looked like trouble. He was handsome–I’ll give him that. That wasn’t my newfound girlhood rising to the challenge. He was one of those guys that even another man can tell is handsome–sort of like Brad Pitt. In fact, he looked a little like Brad Pitt–or at least what Brad Pitt would look like with way too much to drink.

It was obvious he and Danny had been drinking for a while, but while Danny still appeared okay, in spite of the two empty beer bottles in front of him, Mitch was weaving a little when he got up from his seat.

I thought at first he was just being a gentleman. Silly me. He lunged for me, throwing a beefy arm around my waist. “Hey, babe.” The beer fumes would have exploded if he had come near a lit match. He practically shoved me into the booth and sat down beside me, blocking my only potential exit. “Hey! Another round over here,” he called out. “And bring two for the girls.”

A waitress in a revealing blouse and short black skirt appeared at our table. She was another one of the transparent people. “Let’s see some ID’s first,” she demanded, pushing a lock of long, blond hair back over her ear.

I knew to give her the phony ID. She didn’t scrutinize it very carefully, but the picture of Alison looked enough like me to pass in the dim light of the bar. She looked a little closer at Sherrie’s picture, which I suspected was as bogus as mine. At last, though, she nodded and trotted off to get us our beers. I was a little disappointed, though. After all, if she had thrown us out of the bar, I wouldn’t have to put up with Mitch. Besides, I have always hated the taste of beer.

As for putting up with Mitch, it didn’t take me long to realize what a terrible problem a girl has when she’s with a boy she’d rather have never met. When I had been a young man in college, I can remember how nervous and shy I was on most of my dates. I would stiffly put my arm around a girl’s waist, half expecting her to run away screaming. In fact, Melody–my wife–was the first girl I ever dated where the physical contact seemed natural. So if close physical contact had felt uncomfortable to me as a man, imagine how odious it was to me in my strange new body.

Not that Mitch would have noticed. He and Danny were talking sports–Capta’s prospects for the fall football season especially–while he absently draped a strong arm around my shoulders, then slipped it down to my waist. Every now and then he’d shift, and the shifting almost always involved brushing one of my breasts. I’d squirm and try to get away–moving forward against the table, or scooting over toward the wall–but no matter what I did, his arm would find its way back to me.

As I’ve mentioned, I don’t particularly like beer–or at least I hadn’t before my transformation. Maybe it was the result of my changed body, but I had to admit the cold brew actually tasted pretty good. In addition, the alcohol seemed to take the edge off my shattered nerves. I lost count of how many we had. I thought it was only three, but Sherrie later told me I had downed at least five. I suppose I can be forgiven for not remembering, given my confused state of mind.

The combination of my transformation and the beer amplified the sense of unreality regarding what had happened to me. Several gulps of beer later, I began to feel as if I wasn’t really there, and that I was a detached viewer, observing some crass movie where two well-built college guys were sexually mauling two vacuous coeds. It was like the R-rated version of a beer commercial.

What I have from that night amounted more to impressions rather than memories. I recall that Mitch’s touch was suddenly less unpleasant. The sensations then moved to somewhat pleasant, until finally I looked down and noticed his thumb idly rubbing one of my nipples. At the moment, it didn’t feel bad at all. In fact, it felt downright good.

Since I had never been drunk in my entire life, I really didn’t realize what was happening to me. The beer had actually tasted good–natural, even. And one beer didn’t seem to have that much of an effect on me. Even two seemed fine. Or was it three? In any case, the Joan part of me apparently took control after the first couple of beers, while the good reverend in me sort of zoned out.

Then the scene shifted. We were no longer in the bar, and Sherrie and Danny were nowhere to be seen. I was riding in the front seat of a car–no a truck–the wind whipping my long hair about my face. Then Mitch slipped a beer bottle under my nose. Without a thought, I took it and swallowed half of it, expertly sticking half of the bottle’s long neck past my lips and down my throat in what I later realized must have been an incredibly suggestive manner.

Then the scene changed again. Even in my inebriated state, I gasped in shock at where I had suddenly awakened. I was lying in bed–whose bed I wasn’t certain–with my legs spread apart and significant weight pressing down on me, uncomfortably smashing my new breasts. I gasped again in sheer terror as I realized what was happening. My eyes slowly focused on Mitch’s face, rising and falling away from me as something pressed itself inside me.

“Yeah, baby!” Mitch groaned, apparently mistaking my gasps for expressions of pleasure.

I know, given my background to date, that I should say Mitch was “making love” to me, but what he was doing, hammering into me like a pile driver could hardly be called “love.” Let’s be honest–I was being fucked (as unusual as it was for me to think of it in such crass terms) hard. And to make matters worse, I have to admit it wasn’t all that unpleasant, either.

Sure, even in my alcohol-fogged mind, I felt dirty. I felt what I was doing–or perhaps I should say what was being done to me–was wrong, but it felt, well... it felt good. Not great, mind you, but good. Or at least part of it felt good. He was rubbing against my clitoris with each thrust, causing tiny waves of shivering pleasure to radiate through my body, but inside me, I felt as if her was going to piston completely through my body–not a pleasant experience, I can assure you.

“Baby, I’m coming!” he gasped, as if he needed to tell me. A throbbing feeling, followed by a warm, full sensation, gave me the general idea. When he was done, he rolled off me, a bit of discomfort accompanying his rapid exit. There was to be no cuddling as well, it seemed, as he rolled over at once and began to snore softly within what seemed to be seconds.

I drifted off, too, but not with the same apparent satisfaction he had experienced. I wasn’t so drunk that I didn’t know what had just happened to me. I drifted off into an alcohol-induced sleep with tears in my eyes.

When I woke the next morning, I would have given anything to be allowed a few more hours of dreamless sleep. I felt sick: my head was pounding, my stomach was upset, and something felt sticky between my legs. All that was bad enough, but when I felt the hair matted along my cheek, the unnatural weight on my chest, and the lack of any external sensation between my legs, my day in court and its aftermath all came back to me.

My time with Mitch was sort of indistinct, but the snatches of memory I garnered, coupled with the stickiness between my legs, were enough to tell me more than I wanted to know.

How could I have been so stupid?

Never in all my days–my male days, that is–had I ever done anything like that. Sure, I had tried drinking in college, but found the effects of alcohol less than pleasing. By the time I had graduated, I didn’t drink at all–a definite plus for me by the time I attended seminary.

As for sex, well, as I’ve mentioned before, I had been rather shy as a young man. I went to my wedding bed as much a virgin as my bride. Unlike alcohol, I had found sex a pleasant experience, but the idea of casual animal sex such as I had participated in the night before had never even occurred to me. It seemed The Judge had not only changed me into a girl–he had changed me into a beer-guzzling, wanton creature.

Or had he?

Analyzing my state of mind the day of my transformation, I was in what could best be described as severe shock. I hadn’t known what to do or how to do it. I had simply been dropped into another life and tried to follow someone else’s lead in an attempt to be normal. There had been no compulsion to drink myself into oblivion, and the sex that I had apparently participated in had been nothing more than a combination of shock and alcohol.

I would never, ever do anything like that again! I swore to myself.

Groaning, I pulled back the covers and sat up on the side of the bed, realizing for the first time that I had gone to bed naked, leaving a trail of soiled clothing from the door to the bed. Had I been fucked in my own bed? Maybe. I didn’t remember coming back to my room, but I would imagine that in my wasted state of mind, I had no idea where any nightclothes were stored and decided to sleep in the nude. That was another bad habit I vowed to change.

I staggered into the bathroom, took a couple of Excedrin, and plopped down on the toilet. It took a moment to get things flowing, but I managed. I was sure it wasn’t the first time I had urinated, given the beer that I drank the night before, but memories in the ladies room were hazy at best. Unconsciously, I wiped. I think it was then that I realized again that if I let my thoughts drift for a few moments, my body would automatically do what it was supposed to do.

Maybe, I thought to myself, my drinking binge and (shudder) my sexual escapades were the direct result of the same sort of automatic response. That would be both good news and bad news. The good news was that I wasn’t entirely responsible for the previous evening’s bad behavior. The bad news was that if I relaxed my mental control for even a short time, I might do it all over again.

What sort of being would have such power to be able to change me from the nearly middle-aged man I had been into a young coed? Just as I had ceased to believe in a supreme being, I had not believed in magic since I was a small child, and yet magic seemed to be the only answer. Real sex changes only happened on an operating table, and yet I was certain that I had not been experimented upon by a mad surgeon. Even the most skilled doctor could not have caused me to lose the pounds and inches I had lost in becoming Joan. Even if such a technique did exist, it would not explain how I had lost several years.

That just left magic.

But what person could have as much magical power as The Judge had used on me? None that I knew of, unless...

I recalled back in seminary a course I had taken on comparative religions. While Christian tradition lacks any meaningful tales of transformation (and even those few–except for Lot’s wife–involve celestial beings), other mythologies were rife with such tales. Amerind, Hindu, and Greco/Roman myths had any number of shape-changing stories, where unwitting humans were forced into the shape of animals or the opposite sex.

‘Wouldn’t it be ironic,’ I thought, ‘if our own Christian god didn’t exist, but one of the “heathen” faiths proved to be real?’ I couldn’t help it: I giggled at the thought. Yet that was the only explanation I could come up with.

Then another thought struck me. The Judge had no apparent name–only a title. Judge... Judge... No, it didn’t ring any bells. Then there was the police officer–Officer Mercer. That name was easier to deal with. Mercer shared the first four letters with Mercury.

But Mercury as I remembered looked nothing like Officer Mercer. Mercury wore a winged helmet and had wings on the back of his ankles–and he carried a... a... caduceus. Yes, that was what it was called. Officer Mercer on the other hand, wore sunglasses at night, wore a neatly-pressed police uniform, and carried nothing, unless the gun on his hip could be considered.

Still, the similarity in the name couldn’t be coincidental. And as for The Judge–‘Judge’ and ‘Jupiter’ began with at least the first two letters. The Judge certainly was imperious enough to be the alleged King of the Gods.

It seemed strange that I could so easily dismiss the god I had been raised to revere and worship and believe so suddenly in a Roman deity who hadn’t been worshiped in centuries. But of course the god of my father had never changed me into a young coed, either.

My thoughts were interrupted by a quick rap on my door. “Joanie, are you awake yet?” Sherrie’s disturbingly cheerful voice called out.

I didn’t really want her to see me in my dishevelled condition, but I needed to talk to her. Maybe she would know more about what happened to me. She hadn’t acted as if I was anything other than her partying friend the night before, but she was the only person I knew other than... well... Mitch and Danny, and I certainly didn’t want to see either of them right now.

“Just a minute!” I called out, leaping for a closet where I quickly located a white satin robe with pink roses printed all over it. I slipped it on hurriedly, a little disturbed that it was scarcely long enough to cover my bottom, I padded over on bare feet and opened the door.

If Sherrie felt anywhere near as badly as I did, she certainly didn’t show it. She was wearing a white tank top and a short blue denim skirt, all neat and fresh. Her expression was unnaturally cheery, given the drinking we had been doing the night before. “Jeez, girl,” she laughed, “you look like shit.”

“I feel like it too,” I groaned, rubbing my forehead to lessen the pain.

She took my hand, leading me to my closet. “A quick shower and a shopping trip will take care of that.”

“I’m not up to shopping,” I insisted, trying to pull away from her. I was beginning to feel queasy and wanted to sit down on the bed–or lie down if Sherrie would let me.

“What? Joan Sheppard doesn’t want to shop? Where is the real Joan Sheppard and who are you?”

I almost wilted under the question until I realized she was just joking. “I... I don’t feel so good.”

“Aw, let Sherrie take care of you,” she said in mock sympathy.

Although an hour later, I found out she really meant it. She ushered me into the shower, insisting that I wash and condition my hair as well. I had no idea what to do, so I just tried to relax and found this new body could shower and shampoo on automatic. I almost wished it could run completely on automatic and I could just sleep forever in a distant corner of this girlish mind, but apparently the automatic functions didn’t go nearly that far.

When I stumbled out of the shower, I felt much better. The stickiness between my legs was gone, the cobwebs in my brain were at least partially cleared away, and I felt like a new... woman.

And no, I didn’t do anything untoward while in the shower. I just tried to ignore my new anatomy.

Before I knew it, I was dressed in an outfit similar to Sherrie’s. She had picked it out for me while I was in the shower. I quickly dressed in the yellow tank top and white denim miniskirt, frankly anxious to cover my alien body as quickly as possible, even if it had to be in a revealing, sexy outfit that in my previous life I would have railed against.

By the time I had used the automatic function to do my hair and apply makeup, Sherrie had coffee brewed. Well, not exactly brewed–it was instant with water heated on a little hot plate on my desk, but at least the liquid was hot and bitter, and after a couple of cups of the stuff, I felt almost human again.

Almost.

“Let’s get going,” she urged as I belted down the last of the second cup, thankful that my new identity liked coffee almost as much as my old one had. “There’s a sale this weekend at March’s, and if we don’t get there when they open, all the good stuff will be gone.”

I grabbed my purse and followed her. I wasn’t exactly in a mood to go shopping, but I couldn’t sleep in all day either. Shopping was probably the better option. As bad as I felt, I wanted to find out what was going on, and I wasn’t going to learn much sleeping in my dorm room.

Sherrie drove us downtown, and I was happy to see it wasn’t too far from campus. It was certainly within walking distance. As I had suspected, Ovid wasn’t a very big town. Since I didn’t know if I owned a car or not, it was good to know that I would be able to walk wherever I needed to go.

We were nearly into the heart of the business district when I spotted City Hall. “Sherrie!” I yelled out, nearly causing her to swerve into the curb. “Sorry,” I said when I saw her alarmed look. “I forgot something I needed to take care of here.”

Sherrie pulled to the curb and looked at me, frowning. “You didn’t get another ticket, did you? I thought your dad wasn’t going to let you drive anymore after the last one.”

I sighed. This Joan I had become was a real piece of work, it seemed. “No. It’s not a ticket. Look, just let me out and I’ll meet you at...”

“March’s,” she supplied with a grin. “Boy, you must be out of it today. I thought you could handle five beers better than that.”

“Five? I thought it was three...”

“Honey, it was at least five–maybe more.”

That made my head feel even worse. I waved as Sherrie drove off, then made my way over to City Hall. With any luck at all, I’d be able to see The Judge and get him to change me back into a man. I was certain that once I had a chance to explain that I was completely unfit for this life he had thrown me into, he’d find it in his heart to change me back. The longer I stayed in this female body, the less I liked it.

It was very quiet in the building, and I had seen few cars in the parking lot. I realized belatedly that it was Saturday. I only hoped the gods didn’t take weekends off. The only activity came from a lighted office with a Police sign over the doorway. Hoping that the strange Officer Mercer did in fact, take weekends off, I cautiously peered inside.

The only person I saw was an attractive black woman–probably in her thirties–hunched over a computer terminal. She wore a uniform similar to Officer Mercer, and the nameplate on her desk identified her as an Officer Hazleton. She looked up at me and smiled.

“Can I help you?”

“Uh... I’d like to see The Judge,” I managed a little more timidly than I had planned.

“He won’t be back until Tuesday,” she told me. “He’s out of town.”

There was something in the way she said it that made me think “out of town” didn’t just mean over to Oklahoma City for a long weekend.

“The best way to see him is make an appointment with his secretary on Monday,” she continued. “Her name is Cindy Patton. You probably saw her in the courtroom yesterday–attractive blonde lady.”

“So you know who I am...” I surmised.

“Word gets around,” she admitted with a twinkle in her eye. “But take my advice, honey. Don’t bother to see The Judge. He’s not going to change you back, and if you make him angry enough, he could make things a whole lot worse for you.”

I plopped down in the chair in front of her desk. “What could be worse than being a slutty little coed who drinks too much and has sex at the drop of a hat?”

Her visage became a little more serious. “Is that what you think you are?”

“Damned right!” I snapped, then groaned, “Now I’m even cursing. Before yesterday, I wouldn’t have even said ‘damn’.”

“Well, if that’s the worst you can say right now honey, you’re doing better than most people.”

“There are worse things than my language,” I admitted, blushing. I felt like the Paris Hilton of Ovid, and Officer Hazleton seemed well aware of it.

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

We were both silent for a minute, as if neither of us knew what to say next. Then I ventured, “Can I ask you a couple of questions, Officer Hazleton?”

“Call me Wanda,” she said quickly, but more slowly, she added, “There are some things we can’t talk about, though.”

“Can’t or won’t?”

“Can’t,” she affirmed.

“Well, maybe you can at least tell me why The Judge did this to me and my friends,” I began.

She laughed, “You don’t start with the easy questions, do you? Most people start out wanting to who The Judge really is.”

“I’ve already got that figured out,” I replied casually.

“You do?”

“Sure, he’s Jup... Ju... Ju...” I thought my nervous system had suddenly gone tilt. All at once, I had no control over what I was trying to say. The word “Jupiter” formed in my head, but it refused to roll off my tongue.

“Save your energy,” Wanda suggested. “You can’t say it. That’s one of the things none of us can say. But I’m surprised you figured it out so quickly.”

“I was a minister. Most ministers take a course or two in Comparative Religions,” I explained, relieved to have control of my voice again. “They’re easy and sort of fun–particularly the old dead religions that aren’t in competition with Christianity anymore.”

I stopped for a moment, wondering why if the gods of the ancient Mediterranean world did really exist, why mankind had stopped worshiping them. After all, it was much easier for ancient mankind to believe in a god who could transform him into something else than it was to believe in a god who rarely and inconclusively showed himself and limited himself to boring and rare transformations–like turning Lot’s wife into a pillar of salt. Not much star power there, if you asked me.

“I can tell you this much,” Wanda offered. “Just about everybody who isn’t a shade–that’s what we call the transparent people you’ve probably noticed–hereabouts is either one of them or like you and me. And most of them don’t remember they were ever anyone else.”

I remembered how my friends had reacted to their transformations. Apparently, none of them remembered his or her previous lives. But that would mean...

“It’s like murder,” I murmured.

“Certainly the death of personality,” Wanda agreed. “We don’t know for sure, but some of us think there’s some part of the original identity buried in the core of the new personality. But that may just be wishful thinking. I don’t think even the... ones who did this really know for sure either.”

“But why do they do it at all? Oh, I heard what you said–that no one knows for sure–but there must be some theories.”

“There are,” she confirmed. “Most of us believe Ovid was created out of thin air for the purpose of somehow avoiding a worldwide disaster. Why else would The Judge and his sort suddenly come back into play after so many years of being relegated to nothing more than myths?”

“But what sort of disaster?”

Wanda shrugged. “The best guess is some sort of World War Three scenario. Again, honey, no one knows for sure.”

I asked Wanda several more questions, but the answers were no more conclusive than the first ones. In summary, nobody seemed to know what was going on in Ovid. Oh sure, there were theories, but no firm answers. I was left with the impression that nearly everyone who was transformed and retained their original memories fought their new lives for a while before settling down and conforming to the new personality they had acquired.

But did that mean that in a few days or weeks, I would be the happy little slut that Sherrie and the guys thought me to be? Would I be a party girl, on the lookout for cold beer and hot sex? I vowed then and there that that wouldn’t happen to me. It wasn’t just my religious background: it was also the fact that I couldn’t see wasting my life doing things that I didn’t like. I had never liked beer, and while I had to admit, it had tasted good yesterday, I didn’t really need it. And as for sex... well, I was drunk, wasn’t I? I didn’t really remember what I had done, nor did I feel any great need to do it again.

I recognized though, that I wasn’t necessarily safe from The Judge’s mischief. It was very possible that my attraction to beer and men would be amplified by my new body. While I didn’t find any need for either at the moment, my desires could change without warning, as they had last night. I might be forced to adapt to my new role, but I vowed to do my very best to avoid anything that involved excessive drinking and wanton sex.

As I walked down Main Street, I was very thankful that I had fought down the impulse to wear full-fledged heels and had instead opted for sandals with just a small wedge. Otherwise, I don’t think I could have made it to March’s. Ovid’s largest (and presumably only) department store was nearly at the opposite end of the business district from City Hall. Now that was really only about a five-block walk, but it would have been almost impossible for me in heels. How did women walk around all day in heels? Grimly, I realized that was one question I might end up answering for myself.

Ovid’s business district was unusually robust, I noted. Our ministry took us to many small towns which appeared to be the size of Ovid, but none of them looked nearly as prosperous as this mysterious place. Most towns Ovid’s size depended upon agriculture to support the economy, but the small family farm was quickly becoming a thing of the past, reducing the population of hundreds of communities in Oklahoma and the surrounding states. And as roads improved, many small-town residents found it just as easy to drive an hour or two to a larger city to do their shopping, reducing the business districts of many little towns to a patchwork of empty, boarded-up stores and offices where retail shops once prospered.

Not so in Ovid. Every store was occupied, and judging from the newness of the cars parked on the street and the clothing shoppers wore, Ovid was not your typical dying farm town.

The shoppers, by the way, were a combination of real people and the transparent ones Wanda had called shades. No one seemed to notice anything wrong though. I knew that some of the real shoppers had to have retained their memories, but I guessed that after a while, you tended to ignore any differences with the shades. Come to think of it, I had already started thinking of Sherrie as a real person, and as for Mitch... well, he had seemed real enough when it counted.

As I’ve said, the residents of Ovid, shade or not, appeared prosperous. Also, they were very attractive on the whole, almost as if they were the beautiful extras we see in movie street scenes. The women in particular were well-dressed, with skirts and heels well in evidence in spite of the fact that it was a weekend. And the men...

Well, they were well-dressed too, but what had suddenly brought me up short was the way I was beginning to notice the men in a way I had never noticed them before. It was as if my mind was analyzing the men the same way I had noticed women in my former life. As a man, I had often looked with appreciation at a woman, noting her long, silky hair, her smooth, well-toned legs, her large bouncing breasts. But now, I was noticing appropriately similar attributes on men–well-defined muscles, flat stomachs, hair I could imagine running my fingers through...

‘Stop that!’ I warned myself. I might be in the body of a young woman for now, but that didn’t mean I had to start ogling men. Besides, The Judge had given me a hot little body that seemed to be naturally attracted to men. I didn’t want to find myself in the same compromising position (or positions, to put it crassly) that I had found myself in the night before.

So for the remainder of my walk, I vowed to ignore the men who paraded past me. That wasn’t as easy as it might seem, because they certainly weren’t ignoring me. Some even spoke to me–politely for the most part–but I acted as if I hadn’t heard them, much to their disappointment.

I tried to concentrate on my goal, which I could see just ahead: March’s Department Store. It was only three stories tall, but it was, in both height and breadth, the largest building in the business district–typical for small towns years ago, I thought. Yes, typical then, but not now.

Mid-America (and most of the rest of the country, for that matter) had been invaded by Wal-Mart and other similar discount stores, driving the small, local department stores out of business. But in Ovid, March’s seemed to prosper. A block ahead, I could see it was easily the most active store along Main Street, with consumers of all ages hustling out of the store with bright plastic March’s shopping bags dangling from their hands.

I was so intent on watching March’s–and not watching men–that I ran right into one. Maybe it was because I was not accustomed to walking in women’s shoes, or maybe it was because the person I ran into was big and as solid as a rock, but before I knew it, I was sitting in the middle of the sidewalk, my newly-padded butt stinging.

“I’m terribly sorry,” a male voice said with concern. I looked up and saw a large hand reaching down. Gratefully, and with more than a little embarrassment, I reached up to take his hand. I swear it felt as if it was twice the size of mine, but I suspected it wasn’t any larger than my own hand had been before my transformation.

When I was back on my feet, I suddenly realized the man in front of me looked familiar. He was not much older than me, with dark hair and an olive complexion. Where had I seen him before? Wait, the courtroom... I gasped as I recognized him. “Aden?”

I regretted saying it the moment the name escaped my lips. Yes, I was sure he was the person my friend and associate had been turned into, but as I had already learned, the majority of Ovid’s transformees had no recollection of their previous lives. That, I realized sadly, was very possibly my friend’s fate. Still, I felt a moment of hope that my old friend had somehow made it through his own transformation with his memories intact.

“You know me?” he asked. “I mean, you know who I was?”

He remembered! But why didn’t he remember me? Then I recalled that when we last saw each other, his own transformation was far more advanced than mine. He had no way of knowing who I had become. “It’s me, Aden–Hans!”

“Hans?”

I blushed as he looked me over in disbelief. Only a day before, I had been as male as he was. Now, though, there I was, standing in front of him in sandals and a short skirt, my smiling lips coated in lipstick and my usually short hair flowing over my shoulders in waves. I should have been embarrassed, and I suppose I was, just a little. Still, I couldn’t help smiling at seeing my good friend.

“So have you seen any of the others? Myron? Any of them?” I asked.

He nodded sadly. “I saw them all. None of them remembers a thing. Their ‘parents’ were waiting for them outside the courtroom. They all left with them. Not a single one of them looked as if they remembered a thing about their real lives.”

“That’s what I figured,” I sighed sadly.

We were forming something of an obstruction on the street. Then I noticed there was a small coffee shop just across the street from March’s. “Come on,” I said, nodding toward the coffee shop, “We need to compare notes.”

I was relieved to get off my feet, and a hot cup of coffee sounded awfully good. Aden ordered while I sat and rubbed my feet. Although my sandals didn’t have an exceptionally high heel, they were high enough to change the way I walked, and I wasn’t used to it yet. I’d have to stay off higher heels until I could wear relatively low ones without doing damage to my feet and legs.

“Here you go,” Aden said, handing me a steaming cup. He had lost all of his English accent, I noted. That was a shame. His old voice was deep and cultured. I had often marvelled at his speaking voice during our services, and wished for one as good. Not that his new voice wasn’t pleasant, but it had more of a flat Midwestern speech pattern now.

He sat down opposite me, and I couldn’t help noticing how handsome he was. As much as it bothered me to be evaluating men with a feminine eye, I had no choice. What I saw before me was a good-looking guy about my age who stood about six two (thus towering over my new five and a half foot height. His dark, slightly curly hair and olive skin gave him the traditional Latin lover look, and I had to admit, it was pleasing to the eye. ‘Control yourself girl,’ I reminded myself.

Quietly, so as not to be overheard by the others, he told me his story since transformation. His new name was Mark Bisetti, so his new ancestry was Italian. Like me, he was a student at Capta. He was also an athlete, playing halfback on the Capta football team.

“I never even liked American football,” he groused. “Now, I’m expected to play it.”

“How do you manage?” I asked. I had never known Aden to follow American football at all, so I doubted if he even knew the rules. He confirmed that for me.

“It isn’t easy,” he told me, describing his afternoon practice the day before. “I just let my body do whatever it wanted to do,” he continued. “Apparently, it wasn’t enough. The coach was chewing on me all through practice–even made me run laps afterward. I spent the evening studying the playbook. I had no idea the game was so complicated. Thank God there’s no game until next week.”

“You could always quit the team,” I suggested.

He shook his head. “No, apparently I’m on an athletic scholarship, so no football equals no school. I think it’s for the best that I try to stay in school. If I’m going to be stuck here, I might as well make the best of it. I’ll just have to learn the game. I was a pretty good midfielder at home, you know, so I’m sure I can pick this sport up with a little study.”

“It’s certainly a good thing you don’t have a game today,” I pointed out, sipping my coffee.

“That’s for sure,” he nodded. “We play Thursday evening. You’ll have to come to the game and see me.”

I flushed a little, realizing how normal that sounded. Here was the big, masculine football player urging the cute little coed to come watch his athletic prowess–maybe even as the prelude to a date. “I’ll try,” I sort of promised.

“Now tell me your story,” he prompted, his dark brown eyes looking into mine.

I shifted uncomfortably. “There’s not much to tell,” I lied. I wasn’t about to tell him what I had really done the night before. “I just woke up as a girl, met a few people, and went over to City Hall this morning hoping to find The Judge and get him to turn me–us I mean–back into who we were. Unfortunately, he wasn’t in.”

“No chance of that,” Aden–no, Mark told me. “I talked to a couple of guys last night–my teammates, it seems–and they told me it never happens. We’re who we’re going to be for the rest of our lives.”

“You’re sure?” I gasped, hearing my hopes dashed.

“They told me independently,” he remarked. “Apparently three people together can’t discuss any of this. And yes, I believe them. I don’t think they had any reason to lie. In fact, one of the guys said he heard about someone who gave The Judge too hard a time, so The Judge turned him into a little baby–a girl baby, no less.”

What was I going to do? I couldn’t stay this way. I didn’t want to be a girl. Maybe if I had become what Aden had been transformed into, I could have tolerated it. After all, I would have been spared the hypocrisy of my life and been given the opportunity to start my life anew as a young man.

“Why are you downtown?” Mark asked me casually.

I gasped. I had forgotten all about meeting Sherrie. It wasn’t that I wanted to shop with her, but she must have been wondering what had happened to me. “I’m supposed to meet someone,” I said, looking furtively over at March’s. “I forgot all about it.” I jumped to my feet.

Mark rose, too. “Hey, okay. Look, I’m in the athletic dorm–Booker Hall. Give me a call when you get settled in.”

“I will,” I called over my shoulder. “I promise.”

I felt a little better after talking with Mark. It was good to know that he had kept his memories, too. Of course, he had given me some bad news: according to him, there’d be no changing back into our old lives. Maybe he was wrong, though. I wasn’t about to take the word of a couple of jocks when it came to determining my own future. I still wanted to see The Judge and plead my case. Maybe I could at least get him to change me into a man like Mark. That I could tolerate.

I found Sherrie in the women’s department. She was pushing her way through a rack of brightly-colored and very short skirts. She had already pulled a couple of them and put them on top of the rack, presumably to try on. She looked up at me and smiled. “There you are! I wondered what happened to you. I was about ready to send out search parties.”

“I... uh... ran into to somebody... from school. We had a cup of coffee.”

Her eyes brightened. “A male somebody, I presume?”

“Uh... yeah–Mark Bisetti,” I stammered.

“Yeah, he’s on the football team. He’s cute!” she squealed with a wide grin. But then her expression got very serious. “But what’s Carl going to do if he sees you with Mark?”

Since I had no inkling of who this Carl was, I had no idea. So I bluffed. “Don’t worry about Carl.”

“I’m not worried about Carl, honey,” she replied seriously. “I’m worried about you.”

Oh-oh. Carl was starting to sound an awful lot like a boyfriend. That could be bad. No, bad wasn’t the word–disastrous was more like it.

“You weren’t worried about me last night,” I pointed out, pretending to rummage through the skirt rack–although I had no idea of my–Joan’s–size or tastes.

“But that’s because Danny and Mitch are Delts,” she told me, as if that explained everything. When she saw the blank expression on my face, she put her hands on her hips and called, “Hell-o! You know, Delts? Nobody on the football team ever joins the Delts. Why do you think I let Danny line you up with Mitch?”

She shook her head and sighed. “I knew it was a mistake to set you up, but you just had to meet Mitch. I told you before I set things up that it would be a mistake, but no, you just had to have him. You and your ‘I hear he has a big prick.’ I suppose he did, too, huh?”

Sherrie was getting a little too loud for my tastes. I looked around nervously, hoping no one else was within earshot. “Quiet down!” I hissed, in spite of the fact that–to my relief–there was no one within hearing range.

Sherrie dramatically rolled her eyes back. “Like anybody who comes in here wouldn’t know you’ll screw anything with over five inches in his pants.”

“Sherrie!”

This time, I noticed one of the most beautiful women I had ever seen smirking from a couple of racks away where she was straightening up another rack. Great. Now the store clerk knew I was the campus–or maybe even the town–slut.

Sherrie squeezed my hand. “Oh, I’m sorry, Joanie.” Quietly, she added, “But sweetie, you’ve got to get control of yourself. You’re dating Carl now, and he won’t put up with your antics. You’re just lucky he was busy last night.”

“I’ll try,” I sighed, not adding that I wouldn’t be trying just for this Carl guy. I had no desire ever to get in the situation I had found myself in the previous night.

We had a quick lunch at a burger joint–some local place called Rusty’s Burger Barn out on the highway. Mostly, I stayed quiet, picking at my lunch while Sherrie enthusiastically described every minute of the shopping trip before I had arrived. She was so excited I felt as if I was listening to a big sports fan discussing an important football game. Every skirt, dress and shoe she had touched was part of another big play. “And if you had been earlier, you would have gotten a free makeover just like me. See? Vera March herself did it.”

I had been so involved thinking about my own situation that I hadn’t noticed that Sherrie did look a little different now. Oh, she was attractive before, but now, her face seemed nearly flawless–too flawless. Maybe it was just makeup, and maybe the effect would wear off, but Sherrie seemed to be the recipient of more of the magic of the gods.

Let’s see... I thought, if this Vera March was a god–or rather goddess, who could she be? I couldn’t think of any goddess name Vera, but there was a Vesta. Although the beauty treatment didn’t fit Vesta. Then I realized that March might be Mars. That would make Vera March the presumed wife of Mars, or Venus.

What was going on? Why would ancient gods and goddesses be content posing as small town magistrates, policemen, and businesspeople? It didn’t make any sense at all. Of course, the gods had been known (in myths at least) to be a bit capricious, pranking humans for their own sport. Yet I sensed there was something else going on in Ovid–something much larger in scope than simple pranks.

After lunch and a second run at shopping, Sherrie dropped me off at my room about four thirty. She had asked me to go out with her. She was going to see Danny again and was sure Mitch would be available, and since Carl was out of town all weekend... but I begged off. There were other things I needed to do, and there was no time like the present to get started on them. If I was to have any influence on The Judge, I reasoned, I needed to know just what was going on in Ovid. Then, I might be able to come up with some reason for him to change me back that would fit in with the gods’ plans.

Before I could start though, I saw the phone in my room was blinking. I was to discover later that I had a cell phone, but it was on the dresser and I had missed it earlier. On automatic, I punched in the PIN. The single message was a further complication:

“Joan,” a man’s voice began. He sounded very uncomfortable. “This is your father. I wanted to tell you that I expect you in church tomorrow morning. Come to the eleven o’clock service and we’ll have dinner afterwards. I don’t want you blowing me off like you did last week. If you can’t get up early on at least one Sunday morning for church, maybe you should consider asking someone else for this semester’s tuition. Do I make myself clear?

“I’ll see you at church.” As the message ended, I had a momentary flashback to my previous life. The voice claiming to be my father sounded very much like my real father. While I had respected my father, I can’t say that I truly loved him. Like his father, he was an unwavering fundamentalist preacher, convinced that every word of the Bible was literally true. He would brook no argument when it came to the Word of God, and he was convinced that his own interpretation was entirely correct.

In all honesty, I had bought into it for a while–all the way through seminary, in fact. I began to wonder if my ‘new’ father was very much like my real one. And the way he spoke on the phone and the phrases he used made me suspect that he was somehow associated with the church–a lay leader at best and a preacher at worst. Either way, there could be problems. I just couldn’t buy into all of that fundamentalist crap again. I wouldn’t buy into it, no matter what the consequences. I seriously considered blowing off the message entirely.

Then common sense stepped in. Things might not be as bad as I thought. It was becoming obvious to me that the girl I had become was not exactly a model citizen. Perhaps this new father had some reason to be annoyed. Maybe I (or at least the person I now appeared to be) owed it to him to at least hear him out.

But if he started spouting fundamentalist dogma to me, all bets would be off.

Pushing all of that to the back of my mind, I realized I was getting hungry. I hadn’t eaten much that morning–just a power bar I had found in my purse and the coffee I had had with Mark and a burger I had only picked at with Sherrie. Strangely, I hadn’t gotten terribly hungry–probably due to my smaller size–but I needed to eat something and soon. I found a dorm meal pass in my purse, so I wouldn’t have to wander off campus.

To my surprise and delight, the dining room in the dorm offered very appetizing fare–an achievement that ranked up there with my transformation as a fantastic occurrence. I remembered my own undergraduate dining experiences, and often thought that prisoners in Third World jails probably ate as well.

In spite of the delectable smells from the serving line, my reduced appetite kept me from going too crazy. I settled for a small salad, some baked chicken, and some veggies. Well, I did manage to take a brownie as well. I had never been much of a chocolate fan before, but somehow I seemed to crave it now.

I was barely finished with my salad when a couple of well-dressed guys sat down at my table without waiting for an invitation. One was transparent. The other one was solid: he sat across from me slouched down at the table so he could get a better view of my breasts. “Hey Joanie babe, remember me?” he said with a Cheshire grin.

“Sorry,” I said, rather rudely. However, he did look a little familiar at that...

“I’m Chad,” he told me, as if it should mean something. When he saw it didn’t, he continued, nonplussed, “Mitch introduced us last night at Randy Andy’s.”

With a surge of embarrassment, I did remember–sort of. Mitch had introduced me to some guys, but I was already well oiled. Apparently, this Chad had been one of them. I looked at both of them. They were leering at me in a most unpleasant way.

“Mitch said you liked to party...” Chad went on.

Oh great, I thought, my reputation precedes me.

“Darrel here,” he gave a nod to his buddy, “has a place off campus. I thought maybe the three of us could–you know–party tonight.”

“I’m busy,” I said brusquely, attacking the chicken with my knife and fork, all the while pretending it was this ass’s heart–if he had one.

Chad stiffened. “Look, babe, you don’t need to act like you’re too good for us. We know your rep. Now whattaya say?”

“She said ‘no’,” a voice said from behind me. The voice was feminine, but the tone was threatening. I turned to see a very attractive blonde with her arms folded over impressive breasts. She wore a white sleeveless knit top and a blue denim skirt, standard attire for a pretty, leggy blonde such as she, but this I realized, was not some chirpy little bimbo. No, this girl’s expression spoke of intelligence and determination. Her face carried authority far beyond her years. She was as solid as I, and I suspected that she remembered who she had been in her previous life, judging from the maturity of her gaze.

“Hey, who are you?” Chad challenged.

“She’s an RA, Chad,” the other one warned. The wary look in his eyes told me that Resident Advisors at Capta must wield a lot more power than they did where I went to school.

“Okay...” Chad said, sliding out of the chair as nonchalantly as he could. “Catch ya later, babe.”

Chad and his buddy scurried away as quickly as possible under the grimly smiling visage of my savior. Then, she turned to me. “May I join you?”

“Please. And thanks.”

She smiled again, only this time it was a warm, friendly smile. “No problem. I’m glad to help. I remember how it was when I first got here.” She stuck out her hand. “I’m Myra Smithwick, by the way.”

I took her hand. She shook hands like a man, I thought. Oh, I don’t mean she squeezed my hand until it hurt, but her handshake was firm–like a man’s.

“Uh... Joan... Joan Sheppard.”

The smile became a grin. “I know. It’s tough to get used to a new name, isn’t it?”

So I was right. “Yeah, it is.” I looked around. Saturday night was obviously a slow night for eating at the dorm. No one was seated anywhere near us. “So you knew–or rather, know Joan?”

Her expression became one of sympathy. “Joan... you... have quite a reputation on campus.”

“I can imagine.”

“Finish up,” she urged. “We’ll go back to my room and talk.”

While I finished, Myra explained that she was indeed, an RA. If not for her job, she would have lived in a sorority house, but being an RA paid for a significant chunk of her college costs. The only reason she was on campus that particular night was that the RA’s took turns being available weekends, and this was hers. I considered myself very fortunate, because as Myra gave me a little of her history. As I had suspected just from her handshake, she had once been as male as I had been, so I could certainly see some parallels to my own situation.

What a difference a day made, I thought as we walked to her room. The night before, dazed and confused, I had gotten drunk gotten... well, I think ‘laid’ is the common term among college students. And if I was going to be one, I supposed I have to start talking like one. Anyhow, a day later, I had made two new friends in Mark and Myra–friends that I suspected I would be much better off hanging out with than Sherrie or Mitch.

Myra’s room surprised me. She might have been male once, but there was nothing in her room to indicate that. Every item in the room suggested feminine tastes. Of course, so did my room, but Joan’s tastes were not as refined as Myra’s. I had also considering making my own room a bit more masculine–or at least neutral–so I was a little surprised that Myra hadn’t done the same. I supposed like her, I’d get used to life in skirts and surround myself with feminine things. That seemed to be the pattern in Ovid from what little I had seen. I can’t say I was excited at the prospect of becoming more feminine, but I was starting to become more resigned to my eventual fate.

Once we were seated in the two reasonably comfortable chairs the room offered, she began. “I like to help a newcomer whenever I can. It seems to make the transition easier if you know some of what’s going on. I know you have a million questions. Some of them I can answer–sort of–but some of them I can’t, like who did this to us.”

“I know who did this,” I told her. “I figured it out pretty quickly. The Judge is Jup... Jup...” I silently cursed myself. I had had the same trouble with Wanda Hazleton earlier. When was I going to learn that I couldn’t say The Judge’s real name in that context?

“Don’t bother trying to say it,” she warned me as I tried to get control of my own voice. “You can’t say his name–at least not in that context. But you’re right. You figured it out quicker than most.”

“I have a fair knowledge of ancient religions and myths,” I replied as I had to Wanda, happy to have control of my voice again.

“Okay,” she continued. “As for the why of all of this, your guess is as good as mine. No one knows for sure.”

“But there must be some theories,” I ventured.

“Lots of them!” she laughed. “Some people even think this is some sort of hell.”

I shifted uncomfortably. “You don’t think that, do you?”

“No!” she laughed. “But I suppose for some people, a new life in Ovid is a little on the hellish side.”

I leaned forward. “But what do you think is going on?” I pressed.

She considered my question for a moment. At last, she said, “I think the... leaders of Ovid are hiding something–something they don’t want anyone to know about until the time is right.”

“But what?”

She thought about it for a moment before answering.

“Well, out at Vulman Industries, I’ve heard they’re about to unveil an engine that will run cars and planes without oil products–or at least with very little oil.”

That was a shock. It wasn’t something I would have expected to come out of a small town like Ovid–assuming she was right, of course. “Are you sure?”

She nodded. “Pretty sure. The rumors say it’s going through final tests now. Within a year or two, it will be formally announced to the world. As I say, though, that’s just rumor.”

That was remarkable if true. Such an invention would upset the economic balance of the world overnight. Western economies, dependent upon oil, would soar on the wings of cheap energy. But other parts of the world–the Middle East, Venezuela, even Russia–would flounder as their largest export became devalued before they could react. Even if it were true, it didn’t seem to explain why the gods had populated Ovid with transformed victims. I told Myra as much.

“You’re right, of course,” she conceded. “The engine could have been developed without Ovid, although probably not as secretly. Almost everyone I know thinks there must be another reason as well, but we haven’t been able to figure it out.”

Our conversation turned away from the mysteries of Ovid to more practical matters. I was relieved to find out that I would not be fertile for two or three months, so I didn’t have to worry about getting pregnant after Friday’s sexual escapade. Myra promised to help me when I began to have menstrual periods, so I wouldn’t have to figure everything out for myself.

She told me in detail about her previous life, and how she had come to accept life in Ovid and accept being a woman. That made me feel a little better, knowing that eventually, I’d be able to reconcile my male mind with my female body. That didn’t mean I was looking forward to being all girly, but having a male mind in a female body was getting to be a real pain. I was suddenly sympathetic with transsexuals–something I had never expected before Ovid.

She also told me the rules, such as no talking about the nature of Ovid in groups of three or more. Apparently, The Judge and his pals didn’t want people comparing notes in large numbers. She also told me that while she had already explained her background to me, many in Ovid didn’t want to talk about their previous lives. But since she had told me about her former life, I felt compelled to do the same for her.

“You were a minister?” she chuckled. “Well, that works out well.”

“What do you mean?”

She blinked. “You really don’t know, do you?”

“Know what?”

“Well, you were a minister before, and now you’re the daughter of a minister–Reverend Blakely Sheppard to be exact. He’s minister–associate minister under Reverend Pickering, actually–at the First Baptist Church of Ovid.”

I groaned. It was my worst-case scenario. I had been hoping my father was only a deacon or something. No wonder the voice of my ‘father’ had been so terse on the phone. I was the daughter of a minister and the campus slut, all rolled up into one very screwed-up package. I remembered growing up under my father’s roof, and how difficult it had been to live as his son–and as his son, I had at least tried to please him, even going into the ministry myself. Now though, everything was turned upside down. I was a minister’s daughter instead of his son, and apparently a wayward, wilful daughter at that.

After I had explained this to Myra, she thought for a moment, then responded, “It may not be all that bad. Just make him happy–go to church, say the right things to him, and he’ll probably leave you alone–and continue to fund your education. I would advise giving up the slut role, though. It usually leads to a bad end in Ovid.”

“No problem there,” I muttered. And it wouldn’t be. I never wanted to be in the position I had found myself in the previous evening again. Then I added, “The problem might be the religious part. It was hard enough to fake belief in God before, but...”

“Fake belief?” Myra asked, as if she hadn’t heard me the first time. “You were a minister and you didn’t believe in God?”

“A long story for another day,” I demurred. “Let’s just say I have my reasons for losing faith.”

She nodded. “Fine. But I’ll leave you with one thought on religion. The g... that is, The Judge and his... ilk all attend church.”

“So?”

“So given who they are,” she explained, “doesn’t it seem a little funny that they find a need to go to church?”

I hadn’t thought of that, but she had a point. What were mythological gods doing attending church services? Was it just a cover to look normal–to look human? That was possible, but it was also possible that there was another reason: maybe they knew something we didn’t know. It was a disquieting thought for me.

Fortunately, the conversation turned to more mundane topics, and after awhile, both of us grew tired and said goodnight. I was very impressed with Myra and found myself thinking of her as an appropriate role model. From what she had told me, she had been given an identity in Ovid not much better than mine, and yet she had turned things around to become a successful student well on her way to a fulfilling career. She had high hopes of going on to law school, and it sounded as if her grades would get her there without any trouble.

Was that what I was supposed to do–turn Joan’s life around? As I climbed into bed, I realized it was either that or be a small-town party girl destined to have her life come down around her ears. I’d do it, I resolved, but that wasn’t all I would do. I was angry at The Judge for putting me in such a position to begin with, and I vowed as sleep claimed me that not only would I find a way to turn Joan’s life around–on my own terms, that is–but I’d find out just why The Judge and the other gods had done this in the first place.

From the trouble I had waking up for church on Sunday morning, I suspected Joan was not, by her nature, an early riser. Allowing my body to automatically go through the morning routine of peeing, showering, and making myself presentable, I seemed to get a little more rest. It was almost like dreaming, albeit a bad dream. Going off automatic, I found that my makeup was a bit heavier than I would have liked I for church, but I decided to live with it, since I wasn’t sure how good a job I could do on my own just yet.

I decided to select my outfit for church on my own, since I was afraid ‘native mode’ would have me in something more appropriate for Randy Andy’s. It wasn’t easy, though. Joan apparently hadn’t thought to include an outfit appropriate for church in her wardrobe. All the skirts seemed tight and short, and the blouses were all revealing, displaying a significant acreage on my chest. I finally found a dress pushed to the back of the closet which was almost acceptable. It was a little short and form-fitting, hugging my new curves with a tan, silky material. At least it wasn’t bright red with a plunging neckline.

I tried to remember how my wife had gotten ready for church, choosing the proper accessories and jewelry. The dress called for heels, but I thought I’d try to get away with flats. Then I found that my wardrobe included only heels or shoes way too casual for the outfit. With a sigh, I settled on a pair of brown-heeled sandals. They were ‘only’ two-inch heels. I say only because although I had worn heels my first night in Ovid, I had worn nothing that high or narrow. The problem was that all the other shoes that went with my dress were at least two and a half or three inches high. Even on automatic, I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to handle anything quite that high. Also, I had consulted the town map in the back of the phone book and knew I had about a six-block walk–not a problem in sensible shoes. In higher heels, however...

I contemplated walking in tennis shoes while carrying my heels. I had just about decided to do that when there was a knock at my door. “Who is it?” I asked tentatively. I wasn’t expecting anyone, and whoever it was might mean problems.

“It’s Mark,” a voice called back, to my immediate relief. “I wanted to see if you were going to church this morning.”

How like Aden, I thought. I’m sure there was no question in his mind that I would want to go to church that morning, just as he did. While I had lost my faith, his had always been strong. I had always done my best to hide my true beliefs from him. How could he know that, left to my own devices, I would have used my transformation as an excuse never to set foot in a church again?

I opened the door for him. He was dressed casually but neatly. That was a departure from his usual well-tailored suits, but I could understand how his current attire was more in line with his current identity–just like my dress, I reasoned. “Yeah, I’m going. With your last name, though, are you...?”

“Catholic?” he laughed. “I suppose so. I haven’t really checked to see. I thought I’d go to First Baptist though. I’m sure it will be more familiar. How about you?”

“The same,” I replied. “Just let me gather up a few things...”

I finished my outfit, transferring everything to a matching purse, adding a necklace and a bracelet, and picking up my tennis shoes.

“Are you planning on working out during the service?” he asked with a grin.

“No, I just can’t walk that far in heels.”

He shrugged, “That’s okay. I’ve got a car.”

‘Lucky stiff,’ I thought. Not only did he stay male, but he had a car as well! I guessed The Judge just had it in for me.

As we drove to church in his ageing Toyota, I explained to him I would be meeting with my new father after the service. He nodded, understanding. “From what I’ve heard of your reputation, that could be an uncomfortable meeting.”

“How right you are,” I sighed, wishing once again that my dress didn’t reveal quite so much of me.

The church was impressive–in a small town sort of way. The congregation was equally impressive, I suppose. First, the sanctuary was, while not full, far more well-attended than I would have expected on a warm late summer morning. And the congregation brought back the idea of ‘Sunday best,’ since all the men wore ties (most wearing suit or sport coats as well) and all of the women were dressed in skirts and heels. Were it not for the current clothing styles, I could have easily assumed Ovid was in some sort of time warp where the sixties never died.

As I would have expected, the people in the congregation consisted of both shades and normal people. I wondered if the shades had souls, or if they were merely placeholders until someone like me wandered into Ovid. Come to think of it, I hadn’t thought there was such a thing as the soul in a long, long time. I supposed when one was subjected to magic performed on them, it did bring the existence of a soul into question. After all, if there was magic in the world, why not souls?

Mark sat next to me at the service. It was as if he were on a busman’s holiday as he nudged me every now and then during the service to point something out that struck his ministerial mind. On the whole though, he seemed to be favorably impressed.

In truth, the service itself was actually enjoyable. The minister, Reverend Pickering, was a powerful speaker, and his message was very New Testament–more about God’s love than God’s wrath. It was more like something I would have expected from one of the more liberal denominations, but it seemed to meet the approval of the congregation.

As an Associate Pastor, my ‘father’s’ role was more limited–reading from the Bible and leading the congregation in prayers, but I was almost as impressed with his style as I was with Reverend Pickering. Unfortunately, I suspected the reverse wasn’t true. I caught him focusing in on me with what looked to be obvious disapproval. I supposed it was to be expected. My dress was too revealing, and I was sitting with just about the only male in the sanctuary who wasn’t wearing a tie. I suspected it was going to be a long day based upon his frowns cast in my direction.

“Well. I guess I’d better let you meet with your ‘father’,” Mark told me as soon as the service ended. I could sense that he wasn’t exactly anxious to meet ‘dad’ just then. I couldn’t exactly blame him: I wasn’t very anxious to meet him either.

“I suppose so,” I sighed, watching enviously as he drifted away into the crowd, leaving me alone in the narthex to suffer the disapproving stares of several of the parishioners. There was no sense in putting off the inevitable, I realized as I made my way over to my new father while the last of the morning’s crowd filed out.

“You look like a trollop,” he said under his breath, without any other preamble.

“Yes, nice to see you, too,” I muttered. This was not starting out well at all.

“If your mother were alive, she’d be scandalized by that outfit.”

Wonderful–worse yet. Dear ‘daddy’ was a single parent–judgmental, conservative, and abrupt. Come to think of it, though, he was very much like my real father had been, and I had managed to get along with him. I reminded myself that I didn’t want to annoy him too much. If he did as he threatened and cut off my school funds, I would be in worse shape than I was now. It wasn’t that I exactly wanted to be a college student, but college was a relatively safe place to hang out until I could either convince The Judge to give me back my old life, which was extremely unlikely, or until I adjusted to this new one.

“It’s the most conservative outfit in my closet,” I informed him evenly. “Since you don’t approve, I’d be happy to get something a little less... revealing,” I ventured.

He blinked for just a moment, the stony look on his face softening just a little. “Do you mean that?”

“Sure.” I wasn’t just saying it to please him. I wasn’t too happy wearing a dress that exposed far more skin than it covered. Not only was it too revealing, but in the efficient air conditioning of the church, I was downright chilly.

“What happened to ‘I’ll dress any way I want to’?”

I shrugged. I realized I was acting a little out of character, but under the circumstances, that seemed the best approach. “I don’t know. Maybe that isn’t quite as important to me as I thought.”

“Or maybe you’re just starting to grow up at last,” he countered, but his tone was less grating. In fact, it was almost pleasant. “Give me just a minute and we’ll go to lunch.”

It was then as I was waiting for him that I spotted The Judge. He was escorting a woman who I recognized from a picture in the lobby of the dorm–the president of Capta College. The two of them were talking with a younger couple. The man looked very much like a younger version of The Judge, and the woman with him was the most beautiful woman I think I have ever seen. Come to think of it, she was the woman I had seen at March’s.

I assumed that the president of the college was one of the gods, although I had no idea which one. What was her name? I tried to visualize the picture I had seen of her. Her name was Elizabeth... Elizabeth... Vest. Suddenly, I realized that the goddess Vesta I had speculated about earlier was alive and well and president of Capta College.

As for the younger couple, a woman that beautiful certainly had to be Venus, and as I recalled my myths, she was married to Mars. Mars and Venus–the Marches, it would seem.

This was my opportunity to talk to The Judge, I thought suddenly. What an unexpected opportunity! I did my best to catch up with them, but just as I started after them, they turned and headed out of the church. By the time I got to the door and looked out, they were nowhere to be seen. They couldn’t have walked away that quickly I realized, but then I considered that gods probably didn’t need to actually walk from place to place.

I thought back about what Myra had said to me. Come to think of it, it had been a good question, if only rhetorical: what were Roman gods doing in a Baptist church in the first place? That prompted an obvious question in my mind–a question more troubling than curious: if they went to church, what did they know about the Christian faith that I didn’t know? Oh, I supposed they could be just attending church to fit in to the community, but as reclusive as The Judge appeared to normally be, his public attendance at church seemed a little out of character. Besides, did he really need to impress anyone by going to church?

“Are you ready to go?” my new father asked, breaking me out of my speculations.

“Oh! Sure.” Small talk was limited as we drove in his car–a black Ford sedan in keeping with expectations for his profession. There wasn’t time for much talk. The restaurant he had chose was a little place called The Greenhouse. It was close to City Hall, so we were right downtown.

The hostess greeted us by name and showed us to a booth near the rear of the dining room, which was quickly filling up with the after-church crowd. Several people spoke to my new father–or at least waved at him as we walked past. He smiled and spoke back, giving me the impression that maybe he wasn’t really as dour as my real father had been. The people he spoke to seemed genuinely to like him. I reminded myself that this was indeed, a small town, like the one where I had really grown up. Traditionally, everyone seemed to know everyone else. I suspected that everyone also knew everyone else’s business as well.

After we had ordered, my new father leaned forward, his hands folded on the table in front of him, and began to get down to business. “Joanie, I’ve been hearing some very disturbing things about you.” At least his tone was one of concern, rather than accusation.

“Oh?” What more was there for me to say? I had already determined that my new identity was a ‘bad girl’–sex, drinking, and who knew what else. I had even experienced some of myself, but I had a hunch this man who thought he was my father didn’t even know about my escapade Friday night. He seemed to be referring to a long pattern of behavior that I could neither deny nor defend since I hadn’t really been there.

“If Elizabeth–your mother–were still here, maybe she could have talked some sense into you,” he went on, ignoring my interjection. “She loved you very much. Maybe she would have understood you and been able to reason with you.

“Now I know I can’t keep you from your grandmother’s money. She left it to you to make sure you’d be able to get a good start in life–a good education. But the way you’re starting out in college, I’d say it’s a sure thing you’re going to flunk out. If that happens, I want you to know I’ll notify the trustees and see that you don’t get any more of your grandmother’s inheritance until you’re thirty, in accordance with her will.”

So that was the situation. In spite of his telephone threat to cut off my tuition, apparently I had an inheritance. I could use the inheritance for college but nothing else until I was thirty. If I was permanently stuck in Ovid, that would be all right–if it wasn’t too late to keep Joan from flunking out of school. I had been a decent student in college–not a genius, certainly, but decent. I could pull her–me–out of the tailspin, so long as the previous Joan hadn’t dug too deep a hole. It was early in the semester, so I suspected I had a good chance of turning things around. Of all the options available to me in this new life, going to college seemed to be the best for the moment. I would have to try to get Joan’s life back on a positive course and keep her in school.

I tried to look as contrite as possible as I replied, “I know I’ve made some mistakes, and I’m sorry. I promise you I’ll try harder–really I will.”

He looked sceptical–not that I could blame him. “To what do you attribute this epiphany? This wouldn’t have anything to do with that boy you were sitting with today, would it?”

“Boy? Oh, you mean Mark,” I stammered. “No, Mark is just a friend.”

“He looks foreign,” he pressed.

“No... no,” I assured him. “He’s American. His name is Mark Bisetti.”

“Oh–Italian. Catholic?”

Aden had been as Baptist as I was, but I realized there was a good chance that Mark was Catholic–or at least supposed to be Catholic. “I’m not sure,” I hedged, sensing my new father’s disapproval. Apparently he was one of those born-again types who disliked Catholics. I had known a number of them–including my real father. It didn’t matter much to me, though. I just considered Catholics as deluded as any other people who believed in a god.

“Well, you’d better not get interested in a Catholic,” he warned. “They always expect you to convert.” Then, unlike my real father, he sighed and added, “But I suppose it wouldn’t be the end of the world if you did convert.”

“I told you, he’s just a friend,” I reminded him.

He looked as if he was about to say something and then thought better of it. I guessed that he was going to make some comment about the quality and nature of my ‘friends.’ Fortunately, for both of us, he left the remark unsaid. If he had said it, I think I would have stormed out of the restaurant no matter what the consequences.

We ate pretty much in silence, the gap between us nearly as wide as it had begun when we first met. I couldn’t say that I entirely blamed him. The person I had become had obviously been the source of deep disappointment and anguish for him. He wasn’t perfect: in fact he was badly flawed with his prejudices and uncompromising attitudes, but I suspected Joan had helped to make him that way. To be fair, I was beginning to realize he wasn’t a bad person.

I had an opportunity I realized, to become the daughter he had always expected to have. After all, as the son of a similar man, I had managed to please my father by walking the straight and narrow to follow in his footsteps. However, I wasn’t willing to go quite that far as I had as a man. For one thing, I was certainly not going to become a minister. My lack of faith aside, there were few women Baptist ministers, some branches of the faith banning them entirely. But I would try to be a good student and keep myself out of trouble. I would be doing that more for me than for him, but it would still probably make him a little happier with me.

Strangely enough, I found myself wanting to please him. Compared to my real father, he wasn’t such a bad guy.

After lunch, he dropped me off back at my dorm with one last warning. “Remember what I said,” he cautioned as I got out of the car with a curt but not unfriendly good-bye. “If you flunk out, you’re completely on your own.”

“I won’t flunk out,” I assured him. His only reply was a curt nod as he drove away.

Mentally exhausted, I shuffled back to the dorm, hoping to get a little privacy where I could study and try to get Joan’s academic career back on track.

Unfortunately, it was not to be.

Carl ‘Colossus’ Rhodes, as I soon found his full name and nickname to be, was a junior and the starting center for the Capta College football team. To my chagrin, he was also my boyfriend–or at least so he and everyone else on campus thought. My first meeting with him was just outside my dorm room. He was leaning against the wall next to my door, his arms folded, bunching up his letterman’s jacket. The jacket looked far too warm for the heat of late summer, but as I was soon to learn, Carl made a point of being seen with his possessions.

I was also soon to learn that he considered me one of those possessions.

“So where were you?” he growled, his brow furrowed causing the short blond hair on his head to slip forward. I couldn’t help but notice there seemed to be little or no neck beneath that head.

Although I didn’t know him on sight, enough people had warned me about Carl that I was pretty sure who he was. While he thought of me as his girlfriend, I was pretty sure I wanted nothing to do with this lummox. However, I also knew that I couldn’t come right out and say that. Through the years, I had known several men like Carl–possessive, threatening, and quick to violence. Fortunately, I had always been a man before. Most men like Carl were only a threat to their women–or any man who showed the slightest interest in their women. I would have to be careful, since I was one of those women now.

“I was having lunch with my father,” I told him, trying to keep my voice steady and show no fear. In truth, I was frightened half to death. Even as a man, I would not have had much of a chance to hold off someone like Carl if he were really angry. But at least as a man, I could have sown seeds of doubt–perhaps I was stronger and a better fighter than I appeared to be. Men like Carl never took unnecessary risks proving their manhood.

But now I was a young woman–his woman, or so he thought. As a young woman, he could snap me like a twig.

“Your father?” He frowned again. “You and your father don’t get along.”

Oh-oh. He suspected something. Did he think I had been cheating on him? Unfortunately, he was right, but I couldn’t exactly explain to him that I was new to this body and managed in my disorientation to get drunk and have sex with another man. Carl was a shade, so there was no chance of him understanding such an excuse. At least I hadn’t been lying about my new father. I could confidently defend myself.

“He called me up yesterday,” I told him truthfully. “The message is still on my phone if you want to hear it.” I hoped he didn’t. What if there was a new message from Mitch? Or what if Sherrie had called me to warn me about Carl? He already suspected something. A message from anyone but my father would probably not help my case.

“He really called you?” At least a little of the disbelief had left his voice, but not all. I only hoped his suspicions were typical male-centered paranoia and not the result of someone blabbing to him about my Friday night at Randy Andy’s.

“Yeah. He was afraid I was flunking out. I told him I wouldn’t. So I’ve really got to study...”

I tried to squeeze past him, opening the door, but he caught my arm. Although I don’t think he was really trying to hurt me, I suspected I’d have a bruise there tomorrow.

“Wait a minute. Aren’t you going to welcome me back like you always do?”

Oh lord! What was he talking about? I had no doubt Joan and Carl were sexually active–with each other, I mean. I needed to fit in–to make everyone believe I was really Joan, but I wasn’t going that far. Friday had been an accident, and I certainly had no desire to repeat it–especially stone-cold sober.

I had already been worrying about what might happen. I wasn’t ready to get pregnant. Myra had said I had a grace period of two or three months before I could get pregnant, but I was still concerned. There was no written warranty regarding that. What if The Judge had made an exception in my case, and had made me fertile from the start? Just to be sure, I had located Joan’s birth control pills. I had popped one that morning, but how did I know Joan did so as regularly as required? I didn’t want to chance it, although to be honest, I didn’t want to have sex even if I were completely sure I wouldn’t get pregnant. Even if I had wanted sex, I was sure I didn’t want it with Carl.

“Well?” he pressed, his eyes drifting toward my bed.

“Please... Carl,” I begged “I really have to study...”

He pushed me into the room, and I could see from the lust in his eyes that no amount of begging was going to help. I grimaced, realizing that I was about to be raped. Oh, Carl wouldn’t consider it rape. As far as he knew, I was just his compliant little girlfriend, ready to take him on whenever he felt like it. Was Joan really this much of a pushover? I thought. He didn’t even seem very upset. Maybe this denial was some sort of sick rape fantasy Joan and Carl played with each other.

In seconds, I’d be on the bed. There seemed to be no escape, but then...

“Am I interrupting anything?” a girl’s voice called out. The tone indicated she knew very well that she was and just didn’t care. I practically cried out in happiness as I saw Myra standing in the open doorway. Thank god Carl hadn’t thought to lock the door.

“Uh...” was Carl’s less-than-intelligent reply as his hand quickly jumped away from his zipper.

“You do know the rules, don’t you, Mr. Rhodes?” Myra asked sweetly. “The rules about leaving the door to a girl’s room open when you’re visiting her?” she clarified.

“Carl was just leaving,” I piped up. “Weren’t you, Carl?”

Carl shot me a killing look, but as I had expected drawing from memories of my own college days, he recognized that it wouldn’t be a good idea to disobey an RA. The nasty look evaporating from his face, he lowered his eyes and rushed out of the room, avoiding Myra’s stare.

“Thank you very much!” I sighed as soon as he was gone and Myra had closed the door. I plopped down on the bed, sitting with my head in my hands. “He was going to... to...”

“I get the idea,” Myra smiled grimly. She sat down beside me and put a comforting arm around my shoulders. “It seems The Judge has given you a particularly nasty challenge–or challenges,” she mused.

“Challenge?”

“I have a theory,” she told me. “You see, I had an asshole boyfriend when I got here, too. It seems as if everyone who comes here ends up with some particular personal problem to solve. That’s why I–and a lot of others–believe The Judge sets these situations up to test us. It’s as if he and his pals want to see how strong we are before we really fit into the community.”

“Then he must want me to be especially strong,” I groaned. “He gave me a demanding, religious father, a psycho boyfriend, and a reputation as a campus slut all to overcome. I don’t even like boys.”

“That part will take care of itself,” Myra laughed.

“What? Liking boys? I don’t think so.”

“It’s true,” she insisted. “Before you know it, you’ll be attracted to boys. There don’t seem to be any gays in Ovid.”

“So The Judge is homophobic?”

She shook her head. “I don’t think so. After all, remember his background. I think it’s just part of their effort to make Ovid ‘normal’ in a fifties sort of way.”

“Return to family values,” I suggested. When she looked at me a little oddly, I explained, “Do you remember the old TV shoes like they show on Nick at Night? That’s what a lot of my religious brethren would have us return to–no drugs, no open homosexuality, since to them, it’s a disease, everybody dressing better...”

She nodded. “I see what you mean. That pretty much describes Ovid. Change the clothes and the cars and it’s 1960 out there.”

“But why?” I asked. “The sixties were a simpler time, sure, but there were problems then as well.”

“Problems like Carl?”

I had gotten so wrapped up in speculating about the nature of Ovid that I nearly forgot about Carl. “What am I going to do about him?”

“Just remember he can’t get too out of hand,” Myra advised. “The Judge won’t put up with anything too violent. My guess is that if Carl tried to harm you, Officer Mercer would miraculously show up just in time to stop him.”

“Even if I dumped Carl?”

“Absolutely.”

That was the first good news I had heard today, I thought. But if Myra was right, I might still end up with a boyfriend. That was certainly not good news. While I had to admit, I was starting to notice boys’ looks a little, that didn’t mean I was ready to start dating them–or worse. I supposed I would just have to let my urges take their course, just as long as those urges didn’t leave me with my legs spread.

After Myra left, I settled in to study. Fortunately, while I had been a reasonably good student in college, I had had to work at it though. As a result, it didn’t take me long to get back into the swing of things. Fortunately, Joan was a freshman, so her–my–coursework was still pretty general. Had I been changed into, say, a senior taking advanced biology classes or some other subject I knew little about, I would have had a real problem. It was also early in the semester, so I would have time to attend most of the lectures and pick up what I needed to take the tests.

The only subject I had a little trouble following was chemistry. It had been a long time since I had cracked a science book of any sort, and I had a rough time understanding a fair amount of the material. With any luck, I would have a decent lab partner who could explain the details to me.

I was pretty tired after an evening of studying. I only took one small break to eat dinner: then it was back to the books until bedtime. I also reviewed a copy of my class schedule and studied a campus map, so I figured I was all set for Monday morning.

When I got up the next morning, I actually felt pretty good. The initial surprise of waking up with breasts moving around or long hair in my face seemed almost normal to me. It was amazing how quickly one could adapt to a new body, but I supposed there was some magic help involved as well. I still hadn’t mastered the arts of makeup or clothing selection though, so I went on automatic to get ready for classes. I almost stopped myself though, when I saw the outfit my body had picked.

Looking in the mirror, I contemplated changing clothes. The tiny denim skirt and the revealing green knit top seemed almost too much for me. Whatever happened to girls wearing jeans and sweatshirts to class as they had when I was younger? But when I walked to my first class, I saw that a number of girls were dressed just about like me. Oh, there were jeans and sweatshirts too, but there were a lot more skirts than I expected.

A number of students greeted me along the way. Of course, I didn’t really know any of them, but I was supposed to. I’d just return their cheery greetings with a quick “hi” and a sparkling smile and rush on, as if I was running late. It didn’t take me long to figure out that as a reasonably pretty girl, that was enough for most people.

To my delight, Mark was in my first period chemistry class. He sat next to me and we talked but couldn’t say much since others were in earshot.

I leaned over to him. “Are you any good at chemistry?” I asked softly.

“I always had high marks in chemistry,” he replied proudly as the class settled in for the lecture.

Bingo! I was definitely going to need help in chemistry, and I had been wondering how I was going to get someone to help me. Of course, I hadn’t known anyone else in the class, so asking someone to help me was problematic at best.

“Can you help me with it?”

He grinned. “Sure.” And we made arrangements to meet that evening after dinner to study together. I was relieved. Since Mark knew who I was, he wouldn’t try to put the moves on me as one of the other male students in the class might have done. And since my class was heavily male, I would have undoubtedly ended up with a male tutor.

The bad news of the day was that Carl was in my English class. He came in and slouched down next to my seat. “We need to talk at lunch,” he informed me in an ominous tone. It wasn’t a request, either. It was obvious from the way he delivered the message that he fully expected me to obey. I shuddered, just thinking of what the relationship between Carl and my previously shade self must have been.

I had hoped to see The Judge at lunchtime. I didn’t have another class until two, so I would have been able to walk to City Hall and back, but not if I was stuck with Carl. I had to beg off, no matter what the consequences.

“I can’t,” I told him. “I have to... go to court.”

It was just a little lie, but the look in his eyes was cautious. “You... have to see The Judge?”

Was he the only magistrate in town? I asked myself. Then I realized yes, he probably was. Going to court in Ovid didn’t just mean losing a few points off your driver’s license. It could be a literally life-altering experience. “Uh... yes.”

The frown on Carl’s face was unsettling. While Carl was not a shade, I had thought that he was probably one of those people who had been transformed but not remembered his previous life. It was possible, though, that I was wrong. The mere mention of The Judge had had an effect on him: there was a little fear in that frown. Or maybe he didn’t remember, but maybe everyone in Ovid had learned that whatever the reason, The Judge was not an individual to cross.

“What for?” he finally worked up the courage to ask.

“Mr. Rhodes?” the instructor called from the front of the classroom. “If you would kindly save your personal matters until later, I’m sure the class would appreciate it.”

“Uh... sorry.” He slumped back down into his seat, and I no longer felt his hot breath at my ear.

Well, that took care of Carl for that day. I’d make it a plan to rush out of class immediately, not even looking back toward him as I left. He most certainly would have no desire to tag along as I saw The Judge: that much was very clear. But I knew I wouldn’t be able to avoid him forever. Maybe if I could get The Judge to see reason and let me and my people out of Ovid, I wouldn’t have to worry about Carl anymore. Unfortunately, I already knew that would be a long shot. Still, I had to try.

To my chagrin, I learned that women’s shoes aren’t always made for walking. I had had the foresight to wear flats that morning, figuring I would need to do some walking, but by the time I reached City Hall, my feet were hurting. I just hoped I got to sit long enough to rest them before I had to walk back.

The attractive blonde woman I had seen in the courtroom was sitting at a computer terminal outside The Judge’s office. She looked up as I approached and asked, “Can I help you?”

“Uh... I’d like to see The Judge.”

She smiled, as if she wasn’t surprised. I supposed a lot of The Judge’s victims asked to see him as soon as possible after their transformations. I was afraid it meant she was used to screening out disgruntled new residents, and I braced myself for a curt dismissal. To my surprise, though, she replied, “Let me see if he’s available.”

She rose and opened the door to The Judge’s chambers and said something I couldn’t quite hear. When she was finished, she turned back to me and smiled again. “The Judge will see you now.”

My heart jumped. As much as I wanted to see him, I had expected to be turned away. Now what would I say? I had rehearsed my arguments while walking over, but I also didn’t want to anger The Judge. What he had done to me was bad enough, but if I said the wrong things to him, I suspected he was capable of doing far worse things to me.

While he was still an imposing figure, The Judge looked somewhat less intimidating sitting behind his large oak desk wearing a business suit instead of his robes. Maybe I just thought so because his countenance was less stern: there was even a small smile on his lips. “Well, Ms. Sheppard, please sit down. How are you fitting in to your new life?”

“All right, I guess,” I admitted, taking the offer of a seat, careful to keep my short skirt in place. I could see him nod in approval of my feminine action.

“It does take some time,” he admitted. “Some adapt better than others, it would seem.”

“Can I ask why you made me like this?” I asked, motioning to my own body.

“I think the reasons will be apparent to you before long,” he replied cryptically.

Sensing he would say no more on that, I asked him, “Is there anything I can say or do that will convince you to change me and my people back?”

I wasn’t surprised when he shook his head. “For most of your people, it would make no difference. Only you and your associate Aden, retained your original memories. I’m afraid all of your other friends would not remember their previous lives, even if I were to change them back.”

I was afraid of that. “Then you effectively killed them.”

“Not really,” he countered, leaning forward with his hands folded. “You see, they were already effectively dead. The train...”

“I know. You said the train would have hit us. Still, this way, we’ll be missed. You could use your magic to restore us to our old lives and make it as if the train had never touched us–or at least you could do that with Aden and me. What you’ve done instead is almost like murder.”

“Personality death?” he asked, amused.

“Well, yes. I suppose that’s what it is. Why save us just to take our lives away?”

“I really don’t owe you an explanation, but I think I’ll give you one. It might ease your mind and help you to fit in better here. By agreement, I can only populate Ovid with those whose own lives are due to be lost, and even then, only if their very existence can be erased without any lasting damage to the future. There are a few exceptions–engineers and scientists who work at Vulman who have no idea of the true nature of Ovid, but those are rare. As for those individuals, they are given substitute memories if they leave Ovid.”

“Wait a minute,” I broke in. “You’re saying our lives were meaningless, so you’ve erased them entirely? Do you mean no one even knows we existed?”

“That’s correct. But there are positive aspects to that as well. Your wife, for example...”

“What about my wife?”

“She’s still alive in the new reality that occurred after you ceased to exist,” he explained cheerfully. “She married someone else, of course. They have three lovely children. I thought, Ms. Sheppard, that you’d be happy with that news, but it seems to have saddened you.”

“Not really,” I murmured, but in fact, he was right. I cursed myself for my selfishness. If I were still in my old life and someone had offered me a way to bring my wife back, I would have taken it at once. Now, though, to find out that the price for her reanimation was my own death–no not death–rather my removal from existence, I was torn. Did The Judge really have such power–the power to restructure reality? It seemed a power well beyond anything I had read in myths and legends.

“So why build Ovid in the first place?” I asked on an impulse. “Why change reality at all? Surely you’re not doing this just for amusement... are you?”

The Judge smiled. “Thank you for that observation. I’m afraid many of our residents do think we are doing this strictly for our own amusement. As you’ve correctly deduced, there is another reason for Ovid to exist, but one which must remain secret for now.”

“So in summary, we’re all stuck here and we can’t know why,” I sighed.

“Exactly! I knew you were quick.”

I realized he was poking fun at my expense. I had practically hobbled myself walking to City Hall to attempt to reason with him, but he had told me nothing and had apparently found the entire incident amusing. I vowed to myself that I would get the best of him yet, no matter what the risk. I would continue to change my–or rather Joan’s–life for the better, so he’d get no more laughs out of my predicament. But also, I’d find out what he was up to. I didn’t like secrets, especially when they affected my life and the lives of those around me.

“And now, Ms. Sheppard, if there are no further questions, I do have some work to do.”

“Deciding whose lives to erase tomorrow?” I asked caustically.

Instead of becoming angry, he favored me with another smile. “Exactly. I knew you’d understand. Please give my regards to your father when you see him.”

And without another word, he returned his attention to a thin pile of papers on his desk. With a disgusted sigh, I rose to leave his office.

I was so angry as I left The Judge’s office that I didn’t even notice the pain in my feet. Oh, The Judge and I had parted pleasantly enough–on the surface. After, I sighed and got up, he had wished me well and I had politely thanked him for his time, but under the surface I was seething from his patronizing manner. In the end, I vowed to myself that I would make him sorry he ever condemned me to this new life. Somehow, there had to be a way.

I was able to lose myself in classes, and after classes, I threw myself into my homework at the campus library. At least I had gotten a little satisfaction out of the afternoon, as my professors and fellow students seemed almost taken aback at the fact that the campus slut had done her homework and done it well. The library was much the same, with several students quietly surprised to see me diligently working on my assignments.

I toiled away until my stomach told me it was time for dinner. As I left the library, I realized I had been at my studies longer than I had realized. The sun was very low in the sky, and there were just a few cars in the faculty parking lots. I was actually a little concerned about being out on campus so late all by myself. I had quickly come to realize that attractive girls walking alone could land themselves in unwanted situations very easily. I was a little relieved when I reached my dorm.

“You might want to wait before going to dinner,” a voice called out to me in the lobby. I turned to see it was Mark.

“Why?”

Mark got out of the chair where he had been sitting and said more quietly, “Carl just went into the dining room. He’s been asking everyone he sees if they’ve seen you.”

“Crap!” I muttered, realizing it was a word I never would have used before. Apparently, a little bit of Joan was rubbing off on my speech patterns as well. But who could blame me? What did I have to do to get rid of that muscle-bound idiot? At least he hadn’t thought to look for me at the library. I had a hunch the old Joan barely knew where it was. I looked at my watch. “If he just went in, he’ll be there until the dinner line is closed.”

“We were going to get together later to go over chemistry. Why not go off campus for dinner? We could always go grab a pizza,” Mark suggested. “Now that I’m of Italian descent, I seem to have become something of a connoisseur of them. Then we can study afterwards.”

“You’re on!”

Mark took me to Tony’s Real Italian Pizzeria, a little eatery off Main Street. I didn’t have any idea how good the food was, but the atmosphere was certainly right–checkered tablecloths and candles in Chianti bottles all over the dining room. Recorded Italian melodies were piped through the overhead speakers. The lighting was dim and the crowd small, but I supposed Sunday nights weren’t as busy as the rest of the weekend. We were led back to a secluded booth in a back corner where we were afforded some privacy. The nearest occupied table was some distance away, so when the waiter wasn’t present, we’d be able to talk freely.

I let Mark do the ordering. Since he seemed to embrace his new Italian heritage, I figured he’d be the expert on Italian food. Plus, as he had admitted to me on the way over, he had eaten at Tony’s the night before. “I always liked Italian food, but now I can’t get enough of it,” he admitted. “It’s like the compulsion came with this body.”

It’s a good thing he had his eyes on the menu, because if he’d been looking at me, he would have noticed an alarmed expression on my face. Was it possible that in addition to the unconscious, automatic behavior our bodies experienced, that there were actual compulsions we had to endure as well? If compulsions came with our new bodies, I had a bad feeling what mine might be. Compulsive sex and drinking were the last things I needed.

“What would you like on your pizza?” he asked me.

“Anything is fine,” I mumbled, too worried about potential compulsive behavior to worry about anything as mundane as what toppings went on our pizza. In fact, my appetite was now shot.

After Mark ordered for us, he asked, “So how did things go with your new father?”

“Not too bad,” I replied cautiously, calming down inside at last. Then I told him what my new father and I had discussed at lunch and what I planned to do to stay in school.

“So that’s why you wanted help in chemistry,” he surmised as the waiter dropped off our drinks.

I took a sip of the Coke. “Yeah, I never was very good at chemistry. It was my weakest subject in college.”

“It was my strongest,” he countered, surprising me. When he noted my surprised expression, he explained, “Yeah, I was a science geek in school. I almost majored in it, but it interfered with my religious beliefs. Too many scientists believe in evolution.”

I nodded. I knew what he meant. Given the fundamental nature of our religion, we tended towards creationism. I say “we” because in my former existence, I would have espoused creationism because it was expected of me. Actually, I had come to the personal conclusion that the evolutionists were probably right. It’s hard to be a creationist when you don’t believe in a god.

“The funny thing is, I seem to be a chemistry major now,” he chuckled.

“Are you going to change your major then?” I asked.

He shook his head, looking away from my eyes. “I don’t think so. I’m sorry if this offends you, but Ovid has sort of shaken my beliefs a little more than I might have expected.”

This was an admission I would have never expected from Mark. “Shaken them how?”

He leaned forward so he could speak more privately. “Until Ovid, I never imagined that the... that creatures like The Judge were real. Our religion says they aren’t, but here they are. I hate to admit it, but maybe there are other things that are wrong, too–things like evolution.”

His eyes pleaded with me for affirmation. I didn’t want to crush his faith completely. Although I no longer believed, it was not a philosophy that I was interested in publicly recommending. Instead, I answered carefully, “Ovid certainly puts a new spin on some of our cherished beliefs.”

A thin smile appeared. “Exactly! So you see, I’ve decided maybe I should be a bit more open to some scientific theories. Don’t get me wrong: I still believe in God, but maybe some of the scientific theories aren’t as much in conflict as we always thought. Maybe there’s a place for evolution in God’s plan.”

“Maybe,” I conceded, anxious to change the topic. “Have you wondered what The Judge and his pals are up to?”

“Sure,” Mark said. “I’ve talked to several people about it. No one really knows the whole story. All I’ve been able to pick up so far is that this Vulman Industries here in town has developed some sort of efficient motor that might reduce our dependence on oil. That appears to be part of the plan. Maybe this is sort of like Alamogordo.”

“Alamogordo?”

“Yeah, you know–where the atomic bomb was produced. The whole town was a big secret in World War II. All of the scientists and engineers working there had phony Albuquerque addresses for their mail. No one even knew the town was there, except higher-ups in the government and, of course, the people who worked there.”

Our discussion was delayed by the delivery of our pizza. It smelled wonderful, and when I tasted the first bite, I smiled at Mark in approval. My appetite had returned in spite of my concerns about compulsions.

“Uh-oh,” Mark murmured, looking up suddenly when we were about halfway through dinner. I looked around to see what he was referring to and nearly peed in my pants (a real potential problem for a girl, I was starting to realize). What we saw were three hulking young men each wearing a letter jacket from Capta. At first, I thought one of them was Carl, but was relieved to see it wasn’t. I mentioned that to Mark.

“It might just as well be Carl,” Mark said grimly as the three were seated in a booth out of our sight. But there was no doubt that they had seen us together. “As soon as they see Carl, they’ll tell him I was with you. He’s not going to be very happy since you’re his girlfriend.”

“I’m nobody’s girlfriend,” I growled, causing Mark to shift uncomfortably.

“That’s not what he thinks,” he reminded me.

He was right. I had a sudden vision of Carl confronting the two of us, then punching Mark out and then turning on me to... to... Half a dozen potential fates Carl might inflict on me came into my mind, and none of them were pleasant. Sure, The Judge and the other gods would come to my rescue: I don’t think they’d tolerate any mayhem in their town. But Carl might not know that, and I hated to think of what he might do to me before they stopped him. I was, I admitted to myself, absolutely terrified of Carl. “What are we going to do?” I asked, fighting down a tremble in my voice.

“Well, I don’t think he’ll buy the ‘just friends’ excuse,” Mark said wryly. Then his eyes widened a little. “But since he won’t buy that excuse,” he reasoned, “let’s give him something he will buy.”

“Like what?”

“Like you’ve decided to be my girlfriend.”

I gasped, “Are you crazy? He’ll mop the campus with both of us.”

“Trust me,” he urged. “Finished?” He nodded at my half-eaten slice of pizza. Chalk it up to a smaller girl’s stomach, or maybe just to fear of being mauled by a jealous ‘boyfriend,’ but once again, I was suddenly no longer hungry. “Then come with me,” he urged.

After Mark had left cash for our meal, he helped me out of my seat and suddenly grasped my small hand in his larger one. “What are you doing?” I asked, nearly in panic as he guided me over to the booth where the jocks were sitting. My legs were actually trembling. In the short skirt that I was wearing, I hoped nobody notice them.

Mark didn’t answer, and when I looked up in his eyes, for some reason, the trembling went away. He just looked so confident, and there was even a small smile on his lips.

The three guys looked up from their beers as we approached. All three of them looked as if they had just seen a UFO, mouths open and eyes wide. If Mark had thought to shock them, he seemed to have succeeded admirably.

“Hey, guys,” Mark called out nonchalantly.

“Hey, Mark,” the three mumbled in response, almost as if they had been caught themselves. They had stopped eating, drinking, talking, and for all I knew, maybe even breathing.

Mark’s hand released mine, but it suddenly snaked around my waist. Before I knew it, he was pulling me closer to him. In the strangest way, I felt better–safer, if you will. He chatted with the guys for a couple of minutes. I wasn’t really listening to what he was saying, but whatever it was, his tone was normal, as if there was absolutely nothing wrong. He was rewarded with nervous replies, but he seemed to ignore the tension. I almost felt sorry for the three jocks. I think in the back of their minds, they were concerned that Carl would see them as complicit in Mark’s usurpation of his girl.

“Well, see you guys tomorrow,” Mark said cheerily. Then, turning to me, he favored me with an attentive smile and asked, “You ready to go, babe?”

I mutely nodded my head. Not only was I ready to go: I was ready to run as fast as I could out of town–out of the state, if possible.

“Then let’s go.” Before he pulled his arm away from my waist, he brought me even closer, shocking me by planting a very hot kiss on my lips. I could feel the slight stubble on his face as he pushed forward, sticking his tongue in my mouth. I was kissing a man! Yuck!

Okay, sure, I had already had sex with a man, but I scarcely remembered the experience since I was both dazed by my transformation and as drunk as I could possibly be and still stay semi-conscious. But Mark’s kiss... I was as alert as I had ever been and completely disgusted by the experience. What was he thinking anyway?

When he broke our embrace, I caught an embarrassed glance at the three guys in the booth. Then, I realized what Mark was doing. He wanted those guys to think that not only was he now my boyfriend, but that we enjoyed a very... intimate relationship. Was he suicidal? Carl wouldn’t just hurt him: he would kill him. No, Carl would kill both of us!

“You’re insane!” I practically screamed at Mark when we were back in his car.

“It’s the only thing we could do,” he insisted as he pulled out of the parking spot.

“And what are we going to do when Carl finds out?” I pressed angrily. “From the way you were mauling me in there, they’ll think we just left to go scr... uh... make... uh...”

“Make love?” Mark asked casually.

I didn’t exactly answered. I think I made sort of a gurgling sound.

“Joan, don’t worry. Carl won’t hurt you,” Mark told me. Then he amended, “At least he won’t hurt you if you’re with me. I don’t think The Judge would stand for it.”

“I hate to disabuse you of that notion,” I shot back, “but Carl could do a lot of damage before any of The Judge’s people showed up to stop it–assuming he even wanted to stop it. I don’t think I’m exactly on the Judge’s Christmas gift list. What makes you think I’m protected?”

“Just a hunch,” Mark admitted, not making me feel any better. “I don’t think he put you into this situation just to have you knocked around by a jealous boyfriend. Besides, I’m not going to let him hurt you. To do so, he’d have to go through me.”

“Are you crazy?” I asked. “You may be Mark the football jock now, but inside, you’re Aden the man of God. Carl will break every bone in your body.”

“We’ll see,” Mark said confidently.

And see we did.

The next morning, I got ready for classes very reluctantly. I thought about not going at all, but I knew it wouldn’t do any good. If I didn’t show up on campus, Carl would just storm back to my room. At least on campus there would be witnesses to anything he did. Back in my room, he could murder me and no one else would know. In spite of what Mark seemed to think, I was pretty sure Carl’s rage would not be something The Judge would abate in time to save either of us.

I dressed as un-sexily as possible, hoping I wouldn’t look good enough for Carl to want. Unfortunately, this new body of mine wouldn’t have been un-sexy no matter what I did. I opted for jeans and a Capta sweatshirt, but my breasts still teased under the sweatshirt and the jeans were so tight that they appeared to be painted on. I wore no makeup, but to my chagrin, I had a face that didn’t need a lot of makeup. Okay, I wasn’t exactly stunning when I was ready for classes, but I would still turn many heads.

I peered in both directions outside my dorm room door, half-expecting Carl and his cohort to be waiting for me. To my relief, the hall was empty. But as I stepped outside my door, I heard a voice call, “Ready to go?”

It was Mark, but I nearly jumped out of my skin anyway. “What are you doing here?”

“Walking you to class,” he explained calmly.

According to my class schedule, I had Western Civ that morning. Was Mark in my class? If so, how did he know my schedule? “You’re in my class?”

He shrugged. “I doubt it. I’m cutting classes today. Just think of me as your bodyguard.”

My eyes narrowed. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were looking for Carl.”

“Might as well get this over with,” he said calmly.

As we walked together, I began to realize that while Aden had been transformed into Mark, Mark was not exactly Aden. The differences were subtle, but they were there. Mark was more confident and more commanding than Aden had been. Oh, I don’t mean Aden was a retiring follower: he wasn’t that at all. But Aden would never have done what Mark was doing now.

That change made me start wondering–had I changed, too? Obviously, my change in sex was more drastic than what had happened to Aden. Although Mark was presumably stronger and more of a jock than Aden, he was still a man. He could act essentially the same way. I, on the other hand, had to play the part of a girl. The question was how much of my behavior was acting out a part and how much of it was a new me?

This would be my third full day being a girl, I realized, and although it was still strange, it was becoming less strange every hour. Unconsciously, I walked and talked like a girl now–even when I wasn’t on automatic. I was beginning to see myself through others’ eyes, and I was beginning to act accordingly. Of course, that didn’t mean I was ready to start dating men, but the idea didn’t seem quite as repugnant as it would have been even the day before.

Take Mark’s kiss, for example. He had surprised me when he kissed me, and I found it... well, disgusting–at the time. In retrospect, though, I realized after he left me last evening that it hadn’t really been so bad after all. And snuggling up against his body had been almost... natural, if not entirely pleasant. What would I be like in a few days or a few weeks? Would I be mentally Joan Sheppard as well as physically?

For that matter, although I thought I was both unready and unwilling to start dating men, what would others call my dinner with Mark the previous evening? I had considered it just a meeting between two friends to discuss their respective predicaments, but wasn’t it, in some ways at least, a date?

I tried to put my musings in the back of my mind and concentrate on class. No, Mark wasn’t in my class, but he hung around outside in the hall. A couple of jocks were in my class, but they scrupulously avoided any direct contact with me, even avoiding eye contact when I glanced in their direction. Something was definitely coming down, I thought uncomfortably to myself. The other jocks didn’t want to even admit they knew me for fear of risking Carl’s wrath.

In spite of the tension, I managed to lose myself in the professor’s lecture. Professor Lowry was a very good lecturer, and I was certain that even the jocks would manage to settle in and listen to her–or at least watch her. She looked more like a movie star than a college history professor, and the way she moved around the front of the room as she spoke had to have the attention of every male in the room. When she would pause for a moment to flick a long, blonde lock behind her ear, the guys would almost audibly sigh. I wondered who she had been before Ovid. Probably a crusty old male college professor. She knew her subject so well that she must have been a history professor before. And since The Judge seemed to enjoy changing people’s sex, I assumed she must have been a man. I wondered if she even remembered her previous life.

I found the lecture particularly interesting, since it dealt with the history of the Middle East. It took me back to my own college days, where I often lost myself in the documented history of the time when Jesus walked the Earth.

Although I had no belief in God anymore, I certainly believed there had been a Jesus. As for his being the son of God, well... that was another matter. In any case, he was an impressive historical figure who had more influence on the later world than all of the so-called important men of his time.

“Professor Lowry,” one of the girls at the front of the room asked as the lecturer paused.

“Yes, Michelle?”

“You said the peoples of the ancient Middle East were tribal. Aren’t they still tribal? Isn’t that part of the problem today?”

“It certainly is,” she agreed. “If it wasn’t for oil revenues, their tribalism in many parts of the Middle East would preclude any modern statehood in the region. If their oil were to run out–or no longer be of any use–their economies would collapse and millions would probably die–all because their tribal instincts would keep them from working together.”

“Is that what’s going to happen when Vulman’s new motor is introduced?” one of the boys asked.

She smiled. “I know there have been rumors about an engine being developed at Vulman that requires little or no oil, but no one is saying anything certain.”

Many in the class smiled at that remark–including the professor. It seemed the new engine was a secret outside of Ovid, but common knowledge within the community. To use Mark’s Alamogordo example, I suppose most of the people there had a pretty good idea what was being developed there too.

“Hypothetically, though,” the professor went on, “you’re right. If such an engine existed, economies throughout the Middle East would collapse. The end result would be catastrophic for the region.”

She seemed prepared to talk more, but the bell rang suddenly, bringing me back to the realization that Carl just might be waiting for me outside the classroom door.

Although he wasn’t waiting for me, Mark was, so the waiting for Carl’s reaction continued. At least we didn’t have to wait too long for the inevitable confrontation. I had an hour break after the first class, and Mark escorted me to the Student Union for a cup of coffee. Apparently Joan often went for coffee after that class and all her friends knew it, because Carl was waiting for me just outside the Student Union.

When I had been a man, I was never much of a fighter. I had no brothers, so I never grew up learning to defend myself against a sibling. In high school and college, I avoided fighting. I was always too small to be considered a jock but too big to be thought of as a wimp, so as long as I watched out for myself, I managed to avoid fighting almost entirely.

Now, though, as a girl, I suppose I was a good target for a bully, and there was no doubt that Carl was exactly that. In his mind, I belonged to him, and the look he gave Mark and me left no doubt that he intended to reclaim his property and make sure I never walked out on him again.

“Bisetti, you and me–we’ve got a problem,” he growled.

“Leave it alone, Carl,” Mark warned. “She doesn’t want you.”

“Maybe she should speak for herself,” Carl suggested, with an intimidating look at me. The bastard actually thought I’d get scared and agree with him. Okay, I was scared–really, really scared–but I wasn’t about to let him intimidate me.

“Carl, Mark’s right,” I managed to say, trying to keep the fear out of my voice. I was actually starting to tremble, and I think if I hadn’t felt Mark’s hand lightly touching my back in support, I might have made a run for it. Not that I would have gotten very far.

“Well, I don’t see it that way,” Carl said with chilling calm. He turned to Mark. “What makes you think you’re man enough to take her from me?”

“Carl, we’re teammates,” Mark reminded him with equal calm.

“Not for long,” Carl returned, taking a step forward. “When I get finished with you, you won’t be in any condition to play football. In fact, you’re going to find walking to be a problem, little man.”

A small crowd had gathered around us, sensing there was going to be a fight very soon. They weren’t likely to be disappointed, I thought. It was then that I noticed a newcomer to the proceedings, standing back away from the gathering throng where he wouldn’t be noticed by either Mark or Carl. It was Officer Mercer, impassively watching. I half-expected him to stop the fight before it even started, but to my dismay, he seemed content to watch. I suppose if the events had gotten life-threatening, he might have stepped in, but what happened next happened so quickly, it wasn’t necessary.

There’s no doubt that Carl threw the first punch. No one was surprised about that. Given that he was larger than Mark and had a longer reach, the fight should have been over with just that one devastating punch. It didn’t happen like that though, and that did surprise the crowd.

Mark ducked to one side, allowing the punch to sail on past. Carl had been so confident that he hadn’t bothered to defend himself. He was wide open and completely defenseless when Mark’s own punch came from underneath, literally lifting Carl off the ground as it connected with his jaw. Carl went down like a dead tree in a windstorm, his head thankfully connecting with the earth of a flowerbed rather than the concrete sidewalk: otherwise, he might have been more seriously injured. As it was, he wasn’t going to be getting up all that soon.

“Come on,” Mark told me, taking my hand and pulling me away from the scene as a couple of Carl’s friends kneeled down to revive him. “How did you do that?” I asked as Mark carried our coffees to our table.

“I boxed in college,” he explained. “I was quite good, actually. I had offers to go professional, but then I found God. It’s funny, but in this body, I have even more strength than I did back in college. If I had known how powerful I really was now, I would have let up on Carl a little.” He looked a little sheepish. “I’m not sure, but I think I broke his jaw.”

With Carl out of the picture for the time at least, I was free to re-invent myself and get my college career on track. I would also be able to pursue my other goal–that of finding out exactly what was going on in Ovid. With Mark pretending to be my boyfriend, I could fend off any guys who came sniffing around. I was free!

But as we sat there drinking our coffee, I realized I didn’t really want to be completely free of Mark. As Aden, he and I had been professional associates, and I suppose we had become casual friends as well, although I never got to know him terribly well. As Mark though, it seemed as if he were an entirely different person, as I probably was as well. I felt... an attraction to him.

No, no, I don’t mean like that. Sure, I was becoming more of a girl with every passing day, and there was no doubt that Mark was a good catch for any girl–any girl except me, that was. Sexually, I was doing my best to suppress any new impulses. My unfortunate experience my first night as a girl convinced me that no matter how girly I became, boys would not be on the menu.

But that being said, I did like Mark as a friend. I found I wanted to spend more time with him if I could. Sure, he would be tutoring me in chemistry, but I wanted his help and support on my other goal as well–finding out what Ovid was all about.

“Mark,” I began slowly, “I’ve been thinking about your Alamogordo comment last night...”

“Alamogordo? Oh, right,” he replied. “I remember.”

“Are you curious, then, about exactly what’s going on in Ovid?”

He shrugged. “Yeah, sure.” I couldn’t get over how different he was acting. With each passing day, he was becoming more and more like the good-natured jock he had been changed into. But of course, I knew I was acting more like a girl, too, so he was probably as intrigued with my behavior as I was with his. “A couple of guys on the team have been here a long time. They’ve talked to me about it a little.”

“Would they talk to me about it?” I asked, almost disgusted with myself for sounding so natural as I wheedled him into cooperating by sounding like a woman in distress.

“I suppose,” he allowed. “You know the rules, though. Only two people can talk about the... situation here in Ovid at any given time.”

“No, I didn’t know that,” I mused. “I wonder why.”

“According to Dave Madison–he’s one of the guys I’m talking about–there was practically an uprising a few years ago when he was in high school. He was a college football player who lost a few years but grew up to become one again.”

“So not much of a change for him, eh?”

“Mostly age,” Mark agreed. “But I guess he was a black guy when he played for Northwest Missouri State. He’s white now, though. Meet me for lunch and I’ll introduce you.”

The Judge really seemed to have quite a sense of humor. Before he had come to Ovid, Dave Madison was a big beefy lineman for the Northwest Missouri State Bearcats. Now, he was a slender white guy with a shock of straw-blond hair and at five-ten, not exactly a stereotypical football player–unless he was a kicker. And that’s exactly what he was.

“Pleased to meet you,” he said, shaking my hand gently, although with his thick, farm boy Oklahoma twang courtesy of his transformation, it came out more “pleezed ta meetcha.”

“I’ll let you two talk,” Mark announced, picking up his empty cafeteria tray and adding, “I’ll see you tonight for our tutoring session, Joan.”

When he was gone, Dave said, “He’s a good guy, your friend Mark. He’s a lot better than the shade he replaced. The old Mark hung around with guys like Carl too much.”

“So Carl’s not that popular with the team?” I asked, surprised. I had assumed that Mark would be on the outs now that he had confronted the starting center. Not so, it would seem.

“Nah,” Dave grinned. “I don’t know if The Judge made him that way or if he’s just one nasty bastard. Even when he was a shade, he was that way. I always hoped somebody decent would get changed into him–somebody like your pal who became Mark. No such luck, though. Of course, the poor schmuck probably didn’t have much of a choice. People who lose their memories usually turn out pretty much like the shades they replaced. I never could see what Joan–the shade Joan I mean–saw in the bastard.”

I shifted uncomfortably. Given Carl’s size and the previous Joan’s sexual tastes, I had a pretty good idea what she saw in him. Carl might be a bastard, but if his equipment was proportional to his body size, the shade Joan must have loved to be bedded by him.

“So Mark tells me you want to learn more about Ovid–sorta figure out what all’s going on here.”

I nodded. “That’s about right.”

Dave certainly had a charming grin. He favored me with it once again. “Well, a lot of smart folks have come to Ovid, and they’ve been trying to figure that out for a lot of years.”

“But no luck, huh?” I was obviously disappointed. I had hoped Mark’s friend would be able to explain to me everything that was going on in Ovid, but apparently that was too much to hope for.

“Well, maybe some luck,” he hedged, sensing my disappointment. “I can probably give you some information you would take a few weeks getting for yourself. As for whether or not it will help you get all or even some of the answers, that’s up to you.”

It turned out that Dave wasn’t exactly the curious type on the surface, but he had lived in Ovid long enough that he had learned plenty of facts about the strange community. He told me in more detail the story of the engine Vulman Industries had developed–one that only used oil products as a lubricant, yet produced enough energy to fuel a vehicle for practically nothing.

Then he went on to tell me about Ovid’s unusual computer network which seemed to allow The Judge and the other gods to see the future. Apparently, once upon a time it had been housed in a Radio Shack franchise until the security there got compromised.

“So that’s how they know who’s supposed to die,” I commented. “They’ve got a computer tied into their magic so they can tell when somebody passing close by is about to die.”

Dave nodded. “Yeah. Then they save all those people and make ’em live here in Ovid. Some of us–the lucky ones, I suppose–remember who they were, but most don’t. Nobody seems to know why, but it appears that anybody who can see the shades as transparent people has a better chance of remembering their previous life than those who can’t. There’s even a rumor that The Judge can influence who remembers and who doesn’t, but nobody’s real sure about that.”

“And apparently, they can change reality, so the people we were never seem to have existed,” I prompted.

“That pretty much the way it is,” he agreed. “I know I tried once to get hold of my parents–my original parents, that is. It’s hard to call out of Ovid without permission, but it can be done. Anyhow, my real parents had never heard of me. Can you imagine that? It was as if I had never been born.”

Dave seemed a little wistful about that, but I found myself actually grateful that I had never existed outside Ovid. It was an odd feeling, and one I hadn’t really anticipated, but the more I thought about it, my past life had been nothing to brag about. I had lost my family and blindly continued along a hypocritical path preordained by my father and grandfather. Now, all of that was gone. My wife was alive once more, her untimely death wiped out along with my existence. My unborn child had apparently been born with someone else as the father. And I had never existed to make my livelihood shouting the praises of a god I had not believed in for years. For all her faults, Joan was at least cleansed from those burdens. It gave me an odd sense of freedom.

“There’s another thing that some folks claim to have seen on that computer network,” Dave added. “Apparently, there’s a big war coming.”

“A war?” It seemed there was always a war coming somewhere. But Dave had said a “big” war. “You mean... a nuclear war?”

He nodded grimly. “Yeah. It starts somewhere in the Middle East. The rumor is that it takes down most of the world, and The Judge and his folks haven’t been able to figure out a way to stop it. Some people think that’s what Ovid is all about–you know, a haven from the war, so that there are some people left to rebuild.”

“Is that what you think, too?”

He shrugged. “It’s possible, I guess, but I think there’s more to it than that. If that was their plan, why not just wait until the war is about to start and block off some little isolated town as a place to start over? It doesn’t make sense to create an entirely new town out of nowhere.”

I silently agreed with him. The gods wouldn’t build an entirely new town unless they felt there was no other way to accomplish their plans–whatever those plans might be.

“So, Dave, is there some sort of underground movement here in Ovid? Is that why you know all of this?”

He managed a slight smile. “I wouldn’t call it an underground–we’re just a bunch of curious people. We can’t exactly have meetings in the college auditorium about this, though, so we just pass information back and forth as we hear it. Besides, I’ve told you just about all I know, and when you think about it, that’s not much. We’ve all been trying to figure out the real purpose of Ovid ever since we got here, but it’s not exactly something you can do by researching it in the library.”

As much as I hated to admit it, he was probably right. I had learned about as much as I was probably going to learn from others like me. To learn more, I would either have to get the information from one of the gods–a most unlikely proposition–or figure out how to get into their mysterious computer network. Either way, it wasn’t something I could do until an opportunity presented itself. In the meantime, I’d have to live my new life as best I could and be on the lookout for any opportunity.

Dave and I parted with an agreement to get in touch if either of us heard anything new. I suppose that made me an active member in what passed for an underground in Ovid. Now, it was time to turn my efforts to living my new life as best I could.

The next phase of my life began that night when Mark and I met for my chemistry tutoring session. We had decided to meet in the library, and on the way over to meet him, I realized that my ‘breakup’ with Carl had produced a whole new set of problems. To be more precise, nearly every guy on campus must have feared Carl and what he might do to them if Carl caught them putting the moves on me. While Mark had beaten Carl in a testosterone-driven battle for my hand, Mark lacked the fearsome reputation Carl had built. Besides, Mark hadn’t exactly taken me as his prize after the fight. So as I was soon to find out, some of the more daring (or if you will, stupid) guys saw me as being fair game.

“Hey, Joanie!”

I started in alarm. It was dusk, and the large shade trees that formed a canopy over the sidewalk I had taken to reach the library had made things darker and a little foreboding. I relaxed just a little as I realized the guy calling my name was only Mitch. He had called out to me just a short distance behind, and I hadn’t heard him coming. Before I realized what was happening and could protest, he was walking next to me, an unwelcome arm slipped around my waist.

“Hi, Mitch,” I replied noncommittally, trying unsuccessfully to shake off his arm. Thankfully, I had worn a very tight pair of jeans, so his effort to slip his hand into the top of my pants failed clumsily. “Sorry to run, but I’m on my way to the library,” I added, hoping he would get the message.

“Yeah, me too,” he grinned, obviously not taking the hint. “Hey, I heard you and the big guy broke up.”

I just sort of grunted in response. I didn’t want to say anything to him he might take as encouragement. I had already made one big mistake with Mitch–a mistake that I wouldn’t repeat–and I thought the best response was no response at all. Unfortunately, Mitch didn’t see things that way.

“That means you’re all free then,” he deduced. “So how about you and me, let’s...”

“Let’s not,” I broke in, pulling his arm away with disgust. Obviously, he wasn’t getting the message, so it was time to spell things out to him. “Mitch, I don’t want to do anything with you except say good-bye.”

“Hey, don’t be that way, babe. You know you liked it the other night.”

I wished right then that I were more of a physical person, for I would have liked to have slammed a fist into his bragging mouth, shattering teeth all the way. As it was, I realized all I might do is make him mad enough to decide to hurt me. And to think, I realized, this was what girls went through all the time. We weren’t big enough and strong enough to send the message home to guys like Mitch, and so we had to be careful or we might find ourselves in deep trouble.

Then it came to me–the solution to my problem. “Uh, Mitch, remember Mark, the guy who took out Carl a little while ago?”

I could see from the look on his face that he had heard all about it. I was pretty sure nearly everyone on campus knew about Mark flattening Carl. I could also see from the worried look on his face that he wasn’t so dumb after all–he had figured out what the fight had been all about.

“That’s right,” I confirmed for him. “I’m going out with Mark now. And Mitch,” I added solicitously as I gently touched his arm, “I’m afraid Mark can get sort of... you know–jealous? And unlike, Carl, he’s... well, kind of quick to take action, if you know what I mean.”

“Uh... yeah.” Again, his expression told me all I needed to know. He even looked around furtively to make sure no one saw my hand on his arm. “Hey, uh... Joanie, I just remembered... I left a book I needed back in the dorm. I’ll see you later...” Although his tone told me he had no intention of seeing me later. As if to punctuate that, he rushed away so quickly anyone spotting us would think I had the plague.

At least now I knew what I needed to do to keep the boys from hanging around.

“You want me to do what?” Mark asked. “You want me to be your boyfriend?”

We were studying in a private study room, so no one could hear us. I had proposed a ‘dating’ arrangement to him as we settled down to study.

“Not really my boyfriend,” I clarified. “I’m not interested in... that. It’s just that if everybody thinks I’m available, I’ll be lucky to get across campus without a handful of lewd propositions.” I didn’t think it necessary to add that Joan’s reputation would ensure that the vast majority of the propositions would be extremely lewd. “Look, you don’t have to really take me places on dates or anything–just walk with me on campus, have lunch with me–that sort of thing. People will get the message.”

I was having a difficult time understanding why he seemed so reluctant to do this for me. It wouldn’t hurt his reputation to be seen with a cute girl. Still, he seemed wary. Then I was struck with a disturbing thought. “Uh... Mark, when you were Aden, I thought you liked girls. The Judge didn’t do anything to you to change that, did he?”

“Of course not!” He turned red in embarrassment. It was kind of cute to watch a big, strong guy like him turn so red.

“Then you’ll do it?” I pressed.

“I suppose,” he agreed, but still more reluctantly than I would have thought.

What was his problem anyway?

So for the next few weeks, everything settled into a manageable pattern. My professors begrudgingly acknowledged that I had suddenly changed from a ditzy little slut to a serious student. My rising exam grades underscored the change. Of course, a couple of them didn’t seem all that incredulous. Professor Lowry seemed to take my scholastic epiphany in stride, and although she never said anything to me, I was pretty sure that she was one of the transformed who remembered a previous life, so it was probably no surprise to her that someone like me could turn things around so quickly.

I didn’t really learn anything new about Ovid, or the plans of the gods. That disappointed me a little, since I had learned so much in the first few days. But apparently that’s the way things worked in Ovid, as Dave told me. Everybody who kept their memories learned what I had learned in the first few days, but the hidden motives of the gods seemed unknowable. I guess that was why just about everyone settled into their new lives, since they weren’t going to learn anything that might change them.

Besides, even if I had wanted to learn more, I didn’t exactly have time. The previous Joan had dug a pretty deep hole for herself in just a short time, and getting her grade point back to acceptable took a lot of time. At least my new father had gotten off my back. A few examples of my tests and papers with mostly A’s were enough to mollify him. Now, the only thing he rode me about was to make sure I attended church regularly. It was a pain, but I managed.

Not just my grades were changing, either. I had a new set of friends. I found myself hanging out more and more with Myra and some of her sorority sisters. People like Sherrie who lived to party, quickly became bored with the new me. Oh, they’d still ask me to go to Randy Andy’s with them on the weekends, but they were no longer surprised when I politely declined. Of course, Mark was a part of that as well. I’m sure they thought he and I were shacked up all weekend long, and I did nothing to disabuse them of that notion.

Oh yes, Mark...

Playing a couple was turning out to be harder for both of us than I think either of us would have imagined. What I had not counted on was the fact that although in my mind, I was still male, my body was very determined to be female. This was punctuated just before Thanksgiving break when I experienced (or rather, suffered) my first period. I suppose as periods go, it wasn’t any worse than what the average woman experiences, but for me, it was an unpleasant experience.

“You should go on the pill now,” Myra advised after she had shown me how to insert a tampon.

“I... I don’t plan on having sex,” I stammered as I lowered my skirt.

“Still, it will help regulate your cycle and lessen the discomfort of your periods,” she informed me. Then, she favored me with a mischievous grin. “And besides, if you change your mind about having sex, it’s good for a little peace of mind.”

I had gotten past my initial embarrassment when women talked about sex in front of me. I had been a little surprised to find out that most women could be almost as earthy as their male counterparts when the subject came up. The major difference was that a girl who was a virgin seemed to be more respected for it than a boy would have been by his peers. Of course, I got none of that sort of respect, since everyone on campus must have known that I was hardly a virgin, but at least I seemed to get some respect for becoming more discrete.

I had never told Myra–or anyone else for that matter–but I knew in spite of my denials, I would eventually need sex. Sure, I was hardly able to pass myself off as a virgin, and even since I had taken over Joan’s life, I had experienced sex with a guy (although I had been too drunk to remember a lot of the experience). The problem was purely and simply, that my hormones were calling out to me.

If it had been just a matter of seeing guys in class or on TV and speculating idly as to what it would be like to have sex with them, I might have been able to keep a lid on my growing desires. Unfortunately, to keep guys off my trail, Mark was still posing as my boyfriend, and that required us to be in close physical proximity.

I wasn’t completely oblivious: I knew Mark, too, was feeling the sexual pressure. Like me, he had been given back his youth, with all the sexual need that entailed. There I was, a very attractive girl holding his hand, walking sidled up against him, and even sharing a gentle public kiss every now and then, all designed to make others think we were an item. He wouldn’t have been normal if all these things hadn’t affected him, and more than once, I noticed in passing that the crotch of his pants was tented out quite a bit.

What had shocked me though, was that on those occasions, I found my own body betraying me as well. Sure, there was nothing to tent out in my pants, but I did find my own crotch becoming warm and damp, and my nipples seemed to tingle, pushing out against the material of my bra. I was most certainly becoming attracted to boys in general and Mark in particular.

Then came Thanksgiving.

Daddy (yes, I had started calling my new father that; it’s funny how in Ovid, one seems to fall into a predetermined role) had ‘reminded’ me of a long-standing tradition to make Thanksgiving dinner together and share it with as many people as we could fit around our dining table. That turned out to be about ten more people, and each of us could invite five.

Of course, I invited Mark and Myra–and Myra’s mother–but that was all I could think of to ask. Oh sure, I had made other friends at Capta, and I had even become acquainted with a few older friends from high school, but the older friends didn’t really seem to fit into my new life, and my newer ones were, well, newer. We hadn’t developed that close personal relationship that comes with shared ideals and experiences.

Daddy seemed a little conflicted when I told him I was only inviting three. “What’s wrong?” I asked him as we sat together for after-church dinner a couple of weeks before Thanksgiving.

“Well,” he said slowly, “I suppose I should be happy. You haven’t invited some of the...”

“Losers?” I supplied, knowing that the Joan of the past had invited a few friends who walked on the wild side.

“Well, yes,” he admitted, a little surprised that I saw some of them that way, too. “I’m just concerned about this Mark. You and he seem to be awfully close...”

“We’re just friends,” I assured him, trying to make it sound inconsequential. The moment I said it though, I wasn’t sure if I was trying to convince him or convince myself. Every new day seemed to bring us closer together, but by a mutual if unsaid agreement, neither of us ever mentioned it. In retrospect, I think both of us were afraid that anything admitted on the subject of our relationship could drive the other away.

“I notice he comes to church with you,” Daddy pointed out. “But he’s still a Catholic...”

I fought back an impulse to remind him that this wasn’t the sixteenth century, but I knew it would damage the tenuous father-daughter bond we had been carefully forging for several weeks. Although he wasn’t exactly a fire and brimstone preacher, like many of our denomination, he had concerns about the motives of seemingly-casual Catholics. It was easy for him to conjure up a story of Mark being a ‘lapsed’ Catholic, even to the point of agreeing to join our church, but then later having an epiphany and fleeing back to the Catholic church while insisting that his children be raised Catholic. Yes, I know, to many people it wouldn’t matter, but to a Baptist minister–even a fairly liberal one–it was a potential problem.

Of course he had no way of knowing that Mark had never been Catholic: that was all part of his current life’s background, not his real one. I doubted if Mark would have known enough about the practice of the Catholic faith to fool any competent priest for a heartbeat.

“Daddy,” I said in as measured a tone as I could manage, “please don’t worry about Mark, okay?”

After a moment’s silence, he nodded his head.

Mark accepted the Thanksgiving invitation with pleasure, and after she checked with her mother, so did Myra. I had never met Myra’s mother, but I knew she worked for Susan Jager. Maybe I’d be able to glean a little information about what was going on in Ovid, I thought. Of course, if I had known who my father was inviting...

“The Judge?”

“He’s done a lot for our church,” my father explained, a little miffed that I would question anyone on his list. We were eating Sunday dinner at The Greenhouse again, going over preparations for the following Thursday–Thanksgiving.

“I’m not opposed to it,” I hastened to explain. “I was just surprised.”

No, I certainly wasn’t opposed to it at all. Any opportunity to get a face-to-face meeting with The Judge was worth taking. He was tight-lipped one-on-one, but in a social group, perhaps something significant might be gleaned from him. It beat waiting on the infrequent titbits Dave passed on to me.

The rest of my father’s list consisted of people I didn’t really know–with one exception. “Professor Lowry? Does she go to our church, too?”

“Oh, yes,” he told me. “She goes to the early service. That’s probably why you haven’t seen her. She says, by the way, that you’ve made a remarkable improvement in her class.”

That was good to know. I enjoyed her class, but she wasn’t an easy grader.

“I didn’t know she was married,” I commented, seeing a Mr. Lowry on the list. “She doesn’t even wear a wedding ring.”

“Oh yes,” he replied. “Tom–her husband–is in charge of Information Systems at Ovid Memorial Hospital.”

So it would be an interesting group at Thanksgiving dinner, I thought. I was certain Professor Lowry remembered a previous life, as did Mark and Myra. Myra had already told me that her mother remembered nothing of a previous life. So of the twelve of us enjoying the holiday together, at least five of us–including The Judge–knew there was something not exactly normal about Ovid. When the big day arrived, I was beside myself with excitement.

“Just settle down,” Mark whispered to me when we were alone in the dining room. “Odds are we won’t learn anything new today. There’ll be too many people around. Besides, it’s a holiday, remember?”

We were busy setting the table while the other early guests–Myra and her mother–were helping my father in the kitchen.

“I wish Daddy wasn’t so insistent that we not have wine today,” I fretted. “A little wine might loosen The Judge’s tongue.”

“It probably wouldn’t have any effect at all,” Mark countered. “Besides, as I recall, you never used to drink, either.”

“I still don’t,” I replied. After all, that first night at Randy Andy’s really shouldn’t have counted. I was, well, confused then. I hadn’t had anything to drink since. I wasn’t just being prudish about abstaining from alcohol: I was honestly concerned that this new body of mine lacked any resistance to drink, and imbibing might throw me into slut mode again. That I simply wasn’t going to allow to happen.

The doorbell rang, and I leaped a foot in the air, calling, “I’ll get it!” as I ran to the door.

I had been hoping to see The Judge just for a moment by myself, and my hopes had been realized.

“Happy Thanksgiving, Joan,” The Judge said, smiling. He looked as he always did–conservative suit (this one a blue pinstripe that had to have cost a grand at least) and all. He wore no topcoat: Ovid was having a mild fall, which I had been told was pretty normal–probably due to The Judge’s influence. “I hear you’re doing very well these days.”

“I’m doing my best,” I told him honestly. Then, softly so as to not be heard by anyone except The Judge, I added, “I just wish I knew why you did this to me.”

“Because I’m doing my best, too,” he replied cryptically.

Before I could respond, my father walked in and greeted The Judge. My time alone with him had been too short. I realized that it would probably be my only opportunity that day to talk to him alone, and I had not had time to learn anything from him. I did at least remind myself that I could probably not have pried anything important out of him anyway. If I was to learn why Ovid existed, it would not come from The Judge. But who would it come from?

Professor Lowry and her husband were next to arrive. “Call me Denise today,” she told me after I had formally addressed her. “We’re not in class now.”

She was a good at dinner table conversation as she was at lecturing a class. Her husband, a rather handsome shade, stayed in the background while his wife cheerfully orchestrated the table conversation without seeming to monopolize the discussion. Even The Judge was drawn into a particularly interesting topic.

As dinner had ended, we had been discussing the nature of God. It was the usual discussion–a loving, forgiving deity versus a jealous avenging entity. In other words, it was New Testament God versus Old Testament God. I had been in similar discussions almost from the time I had learned to talk. My father had been an Old Testament preacher, so that was the argument I was most familiar with. To my surprise, my new father leaned more toward the New Testament.

Denise did a masterful job of making the discussion flow without rancour, and regardless of which side one of the diners fell on in the argument, the tone had stayed calm and respectful. In a short time, nearly all of us had been heard from. The two exceptions were The Judge and me. I waited nervously for Denise to turn the conversation in my direction. Oh sure, I could say all the right things, as I had for years, but somehow, lying about my beliefs seemed a little more disingenuous than usual.

To my surprise, it was The Judge she turned to. He was directly across the table from Denise and me. “Tell me, Your Honor,” she asked smoothly, “what do you think on this subject?”

He looked unruffled, as if he had been expecting the question. “I suppose that would depend upon whether or not you believe there is a God at all.”

There were quiet gasps from around the table. Mark, sitting on the other side of me, nearly choked on his water. From the corner of my eye, I could see my father’s eyes narrow in surprise and disapproval.

“So do you think there is a God?” Denise innocently asked.

“No,” The Judge replied, then added, “I don’t have to think about it. I know there is a God.”

“Then what is he like–to you I mean?” Denise prompted.

The Judge smiled. “He–if you must call him ‘he’ is unlike anything most people could ever imagine.”

In the silence that followed, Denise pressed, “Oh come now, Your Honor. You can’t leave it at that. Tell us about your image of God. We’re all friends here.”

The way she said that last sentence assured me that she knew very well who The Judge really was. As nearly as I had been able to tell, none of the guests, other than the ones I had already identified, knew who The Judge was or anything of the nature of Ovid. The unwitting guests listened casually for The Judge’s reply, but Myra, Mark and I fixed our gaze on The Judge while Denise simply managed to smile harmlessly.

The Judge measured his audience. I think in that moment, he realized he had already said more than he meant to. It was good to know that even deities could screw up. Still, he seemed to be debating with himself as to how much to tell us. To my surprise, he smiled. He had apparently made his decision.

“Do you really want to know?” he asked. There was a warning note to his voice, as if to tell us that there would be a price to be paid for this knowledge. I shifted uncomfortably. Something told me he was not asking if we really wanted to know his opinion. Instead, he was asking if we really wanted to know if there was a god.

Denise didn’t budge an inch. “Please, tell us.”

A chill went up my spine as The Judge spoke. His tone was reverent, but confident. “Do you really think the human mind can encompass a deity so great? That’s why humans have so many different religions–all seeking to understand a mystery too great for them to comprehend. In the process, mistakes are made.” Was it my imagination, or did he suddenly look into my eyes on purpose? “These mistakes can lean mankind to some rather poor conclusions.”

I looked around. Most of the guests, including my father and Myra’s mother, looked puzzled, but the rest of us knew he was telling us something mind-boggling: the gods of ancient man recognized a god above them! Could it be true? The gods of Greece and Rome–and perhaps the other gods as well–seemed to have powers far beyond human abilities. Could they also sense something beyond themselves? A Supreme Being? A true God?

The Judge continued, sweeping us up in his narrative, speaking of something so far beyond the narrow view most humans have of a god that he might have been speaking of something entirely different. The God of Moses, the God reaching out to man in the works of Michelangelo, the God our world religions had sought so hard to make us believe in were puny compared to The Judge’s God.

In all honesty, I don’t remember exactly what he said. He saw to that. Besides, it was as if he had been trying to describe quantum physics to Neanderthals. But while I might not remember exactly what he said, I knew what he meant:

There was a God.

I could no longer deny it. No, I didn’t fall to the floor shouting halleluiah: none of us did. But in that few moments, we all believed in a way in which we had never believed before. Even my new father looked as if the scales had been removed from his eyes. While we could not remember exactly what The Judge had told us, we could remember enough, and we still knew it to be true–all of it.

There was a God.

“And now, I propose a toast!” The Judge called out suddenly, breaking the spell. As each of us looked down, we could see gleaming crystal goblets filled with sparkling liquid in front of each of the guests.

“Don’t worry, my friends,” The Judge assured us. “It isn’t wine: it’s only water–water from a very special river which flows... well, let’s say it flows far from here.”

Mechanically each of us reached for our glasses and raised them.

The Judge looked at Denise with a mischievous smile. “Did you really think I would let you remember what I have said?”

Water from a special river... one that flows far away... Lethe, no doubt! One of the rivers of Hades, whose waters brought forgetfulness. He intended to take the knowledge away from us and each of us knew we would be unable to resist. There was only one thing to do. I knew his exact words would be lost: the true nature of an all-knowing God would be lost to us. I had to hold onto one thought. If I could hold on to just a single thought, perhaps I could weave together the rest of it over time.

“To a new world!” The Judge declared, raising his own glass, but I knew what he drank would not affect him. I looked at the other, who sought unsuccessfully to keep the crystal glasses from their lips. Denise looked the most disturbed, but all of us sensed we were about to lose something very special. As each of us involuntarily raised our glasses to our lips, I thought:

There is a God. There is a God. There is a God...

The water tasted... wonderful, but as it filled my mouth, it also filled my mind, washing away with it the salient points of The Judge’s explanation.

There is a God. There is a God. There is a God!

I looked around. Everyone looked a little confused. Our hands were all posed near our faces, and yet they were empty and without apparent purpose.

“I’m afraid I must be going,” The Judge said suddenly, breaking the mood. He rose to his feet. “Thank you, Reverend Sheppard–and Joan–for a marvellous meal. It was truly fit for the gods.”

My father smiled, pleased at the compliment. “Are you sure you can’t stay?”

“No, I’m afraid not. But a Happy Thanksgiving to all of you.”

And with that he left. The confusion died away, to be replaced with trivial but convivial conversation. None of us recalled The Judge’s revelations. I was left only with the odd thought that my belief in God had somehow been restored. Slowly, over the next few weeks, my memories returned, fuelled by my curious epiphany. But sadly, The Judge’s words are probably lost to me forever.

A new phase of my life began that night when Mark escorted me back to my dorm room. From my narrative, it will probably seem as if what happened was very sudden, but it was anything but sudden.

When my life had been turned upside down back in September, the lies I had been living in my male life were compounded by an entirely new set of lies. I was not really Joan Sheppard, but neither had I really been the man of God my followers believed me to be. Both lives were lies.

When I was changed, I had become a girl perfectly fashioned for her new life as a little college slut. I was attractive, with a past, a horny, possessive boyfriend, and a set of ne’er-do-well friends. Add to that, in spite of my new father’s threats, I learned that my mother had been from a well-to-do family, and I had been left a significant amount of money that was earmarked for my education. And for icing on the cake, I had a single room–the result of a probably-fictional roommate who had opted not to come to Capta at the last minute. In short, there I was, a perfect little tramp with all the fixings.

Yet I had overcome all of these things–mostly with Mark’s help. The rat of a boyfriend was gone, I had new friends, my single room was now used more for studying than anything else, and the rift with my new father had been mostly repaired. My grades were not just better: they were excellent. My mode of dress had become more conservative.

Oh, I still dressed in a feminine fashion, make no mistake about that, but I looked more like a typical coed rather than a hooker. My makeup was more subdued, and I often wore jeans. Even my dress for Thanksgiving had been less provocative, a turtleneck instead of the low-cut numbers still hanging in my closet.

However, there was one thing my transformation had foisted upon me that I couldn’t quite shake: I was as horny as a hoot owl.

It’s odd, but reconciling the horny feelings with my new sex had created a faulty circuit. As a male, I had been celibate since the untimely death of my wife. No, it wasn’t out of religious conviction or anything like that. Rather, it was as if all the interest I ever had in women had been bundled into my wife, and they had somehow died in the accident along with her and our unborn child. If The Judge had transformed me into another male as he had Aden, and I had suddenly been magically endowed with strong male sex urges, I have no doubt I would have acted upon them long before now.

But I had been changed into a young woman instead, and while imbued with strong sexual urges which had culminated in my unfortunate sexual activity the very night of my transformation, waking the next day with memories of my actions had shocked me into a long period of abstinence. I had made vows to myself no less binding than those young nuns make.

However, the urges were still there.

I began to play with myself in the shower. That wasn’t always easy. After all, I did live in a dorm, and while I had a private room, I shared a bathroom with the other girls on my floor. That meant other girls used the shower as well. I probably wasn’t the only girl to indulge in a little self-stimulation, but given the reputation that still followed me on campus, the last thing I wanted was for other girls to be whispering that I was absolutely insatiable and couldn’t get enough guys to satisfy me. Cries of self-pleasure emanating from the girls’ shower would have impelled just such talk.

So through a combination of physical needs and the female hormones which had to be soaking my brain, my sexual attraction changed from a passive one for women to a more active one for men. It wasn’t a sudden change, but every day that went by caused me to become more and more aware that I was attracted to men–one man in particular.

I didn’t really think of Mark as my former associate Aden, anymore. Again, I’m not sure when all of that changed, but I had begun to see Mark as someone different from the intense man of God I had known. He was strong and handsome, so no one seemed surprised that I was going with him. But he was also caring and sensitive, and while he didn’t speak much of it, given that his back story was apparently that of a lapsed Catholic, I could tell that his faith in God was as strong as ever. Since my own faith had been rekindled, being with him was spiritually like a freezing man–or woman, rather–sitting next to a warm fire.

In short, I found myself in love with Mark.

The problem was that I wasn’t sure how Mark would accept me as a real woman. That was certainly what I had become. The weeks encased in female flesh had created a new me–one that thought and acted like a woman. Oh yes, I still had a burning need to find out why all of this had been done, but I now had other needs as well.

That brings me back to that Thanksgiving night, when Mark escorted me back to my room.

The drive from my father’s house wasn’t far–just a few blocks, really. Both of us were quiet as we drove through the cool late fall evening. I think it was a result of the drink The Judge had given us. While affecting our short-term memories, it seemed to have calmed us as well, putting us in an almost dreamlike state.

The dorm was as quiet as I could ever imagine. Many of the students were probably still celebrating Thanksgiving with family or friends, and there would be no classes the next day. Some of the students had probably even left town to go home. Dave had told me that most of them didn’t really leave town. Instead, they were kept somewhere–probably in a state of suspended animation–awakening upon their ‘return’ to Ovid with memories of trips they never really took. I wasn’t sure if this was an acknowledged fact or just a supposition, but it made sense, given that we all knew there was no leaving Ovid without The Judge’s permission.

Mark opened my door for me, checking around to make sure the room was secure. I felt a warm glow of affection for him, realizing that he was doing it to keep me safe. That’s what he had been doing for me ever since the confrontation with Carl–keeping me safe.

Impulsively, I leaned up against him, stretching on my toes to raise my lips high enough to kiss him. It wasn’t much of a kiss, really. In fact, it was almost sisterly, but Mark got a funny look on his face, and before I knew it, his arms were around me and he was kissing me. There was nothing brotherly about his kiss.

I didn’t realize exactly how much sexual tension I had growing inside my body. Maybe a young woman who had grown up with a body like mine might have seen all the signs and not have been so surprised, but I was unfamiliar with what was happening to me. The shocking fact was that the moment he kissed me, my body reacted greedily, wanting still more. This held more promise than self-stimulation in the shower. I pressed closer to him, my tongue reflexively entering his mouth, and my breasts tingling insistently as they pressed against his chest.

I think we both knew that very moment that there was no stopping what was about to happen. Neither of us even tried. His hands were under my turtleneck, pulling it up over my breasts while I fumbled inexpertly at opening his pants. We must have made quite a pair: there was nothing soft and smooth in our actions. Instead, we pulled each other’s clothing away as quickly as we could and literally fell into my bed.

There were no last-minute regrets running through my mind. I had been female for several weeks now, and whatever male part of my mind remained, consisted of painful memories of a failed life. Instead, my mind was filled with anticipation, wondering what it would be like to make love as a woman. No, I didn’t count the time right after my transformation. That certainly wasn’t love.

Whether Mark was a truly talented lover or whether I was just so intensely needy, I couldn’t say, but I was more than ready for him when he entered me. He actually took his time to build up my anticipation, so when I felt him inside me, I nearly exploded. It didn’t take either of us long to climax, but I sighed in satisfaction when I realized that while his was over, mine seemed to just go on and on.

The second time around, we slowed the pace, and the third time was positively languid. But it was the fourth time when we woke up in the morning in each other’s arms that was positively best of all.

“I love you,” I breathed to him as we lay there together, letting the morning slip away. It was surprising how easily I had said it, but I was glad that I did.

“I love you too,” he practically whispered with a smile as he pulled my naked body closer to his.

It was wonderful to cuddle in bed together. I hadn’t had the opportunity to do that since before Rachel died...

Rachel...

It was funny, but I suddenly realized I hadn’t thought of her by name in a long, long time. When I mentally thought of her, I just thought ‘my wife.’ And our unborn son was to have been called Jacob. Rachel and Jacob. I could think of them by name now. It no longer hurt so much that I couldn’t bear to think of their names.

Oh, it still hurt. It would always hurt, but if The Judge was telling me the truth–and from what I understood from others, he had–then Rachel was alive again. And Jacob... well, he wouldn’t be Jacob exactly, but maybe he had had a chance at life after all, with a new father and a mother who had never known me. I smiled to myself as I realized how much of a miracle I was witnessing.

But miracles are the province of God: isn’t that what I had always been taught? This miracle–or more accurately, this series of miracles–had been the work of a mythological deity with an agenda I still knew practically nothing about. And yet, for all his power, he honestly seemed to believe in a higher entity...

All right, my faith had been seriously weakened after Rachel’s death. I had lost my ability to act on faith alone. But Ovid had shown me something more than faith. The gods didn’t seem to trust in faith: they had something else to kindle their beliefs. What if the gods were simply a higher race of beings who, unknown to humans, shared the planet with them? We mere humans would have seen their powers such as transmutation as evidence of their godly power. But what if those powers had allowed them to sense–perhaps even communicate with–a higher being–a true God of gods–a being beyond full human comprehension, but within the understanding of creatures like The Judge?

As the afterglow of sex ebbed, I lay there in Mark’s arms thinking less about sex and more about the gods. In the past few weeks, I had learned practically nothing new–until dinner with The Judge, of course. I needed to learn more though, such as what were the gods planning? I didn’t like being an unwitting pawn in their game. I had to know more.

“Mark,” I asked softly, “have you heard anything from Dave lately?”

He shrugged and rolled over, getting out of bed. It gave me a chance to admire his well-toned body and almost made me forget my question. “Not really,” he said. “I guess new information comes in slowly.”

“I suppose you’re right,” I agreed, getting up myself. “I guess we got spoiled at first, because so much of what he knew was brand new to us. Now, we know what everybody else knows.”

“Maybe that’s all we need to know,” Mark ventured as he got dressed. I’m sure he wanted a shower, but it wouldn’t look good for him to have one there on the girls’ floor.

“What do you mean?” I had slipped on a robe. I’d shower later.

“Well...” Mark began, “after what The Judge told us yesterday, I’m willing to give things a rest.”

“A rest?”

He wilted when he saw the shocked look in my eyes, but then he explained, “Look, Joan, this life isn’t bad–not really. I mean, I wouldn’t have chosen it for myself, but I’ve been given the opportunity to live my life over.”

“You sound like you weren’t happy with your previous life,” I pointed out.

He shook his head. “No, my previous life was fine, but to be honest with you, while I had the faith for the ministry, I lacked the desire to serve. That’s why I hooked up with you. It wasn’t like having a regular congregation: it was more like... well, show business I guess. What’s so funny?”

I grinned. “It’s just that it’s so ironic,” I told him. “You had the faith, but not the ambition while I had the ambition but not the faith. I guess that’s why we made such a good team. Each of us had just what the other one needed.”

He looked puzzled. “You lost your faith? I never knew... never even suspected.”

“Don’t worry,” I reassured him. “I think I got it back. In fact, my faith is probably stronger than ever now. This time, it’s really my faith and not the faith of my father or grandfather being forcibly grafted onto me.”

“So, will you go into the ministry again?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “Maybe, or maybe not.” I was hedging. Actually, I might have recovered my faith, but I wasn’t sure that I’d go back into the ministry. To do that, I would have to have a clearer sign that I was being called. Right now, it was just enough to realize that when I said thank God, I wasn’t being a hypocrite. “How about you?”

“No way!” he snorted. “My grades are good...”

“Actually, they’re great,” I amended for him. “All A’s as nearly as I can tell.”

“Well, yes,” he admitted. “In fact, they’re good enough to get me into medical school. You see, Joan, I got into the ministry because I wanted to help people. I think this time around, I can help them more as a doctor than I ever could as a minister.”

Then he sat back down next to me on the bed and sighed. “The only problem is that I’m not sure how I can go to medical school. Capta doesn’t have a med school, and what if The Judge and his kind won’t let me leave Ovid to go someplace that has one?”

I stretched up, oblivious to my naked body, and gently rubbed his back. “I wouldn’t worry about it. Myra wants to be a lawyer, and there’s no law school here. She seems pretty sure she’ll be allowed to leave Ovid to attend one though.”

“Yeah,” Mark muttered, “but she tows the line around here. Is that what has to happen–I have to be a good little toady to be allowed to go?”

“Is that any different from anything else in life?” I pointed out. “If you’re not a ‘good little toady’ as you so eloquently put it, you don’t get to do a lot of things in life–go to a military academy, get promotions in business, go to seminary...”

“I suppose you’re right,” he sighed. “I just wish I had more control over what was going on.”

“Me, too,” I agreed, realizing once more that until I knew what the gods were up to, I too, would never feel entirely in control.

We parted reluctantly, but given that we would spend most of the rest of the weekend together (and a good portion of that time would probably be spent in bed–at least if I had anything to say about it), it was scarcely a hardship.

I had planned to hole up in my room for the weekend and study. While I had brought my grades up considerably, the previous Joan had dug a very deep hole for me, so I was still a little behind the power curve. My father wanted me to come home for the long weekend, but I had declined. When I told him my plans to study, he could scarcely argue, but I could see that he was disappointed.

To be honest, I was concerned that the decent relationship we had forged over the last few weeks would be all for naught if we had to live under the same roof, but given his disappointment, I did agree to come ‘home’ Saturday and stay until Sunday evening. That seemed to be an appropriate compromise. Although I was falling more and more into my role as a young woman, I could only take being daddy’s little girl for so long.

The long weekend actually went by very fast. I made good on my word and studied all of Friday. Then that evening, Mark and I got together and after a quick dinner and a movie, we retired to my room and continued where we had left off the previous evening.

I was happy to note that our satisfaction with each other’s sexual prowess a few days earlier hadn’t just been a fluke. The sex was downright wonderful, and unlike my rough introduction to sex immediately after my transformation, what Mark and I were enjoying was more than animalistic behavior–it was love.

My father picked me up late the next morning and we settled in for the rest of the weekend. Mark ended up going to a football party Saturday night. It seemed the players blew off steam celebrating the end of a good football season, so I was stuck at home.

Since my father was busy preparing for Sunday services, I was pretty much at loose ends. I used the time to go through old family albums and documents, to familiarize myself with the family I had been thrust into. In the process, I ran across my ‘parents’’ wedding pictures. Elizabeth Cameron Sheppard had been a beautiful woman it turned out, and I found a strange pang of loss that I couldn’t explain. She had supposedly died when I was quite young, and almost as if I had always been Joan, I found myself wishing that I had gotten to know her.

My new father, the Reverend Blakely Z. Sheppard had been a handsome young man as well. He wasn’t bad looking for a middle-aged man now, but the years had taken something of a toll on him. I would imagine raising a wilful daughter almost by himself had had something to do with that. I wondered what the ‘Z’ stood for, but I couldn’t find it spelled out anywhere.

Sunday services took on a new meaning for me. After the encounter with The Judge on Thanksgiving, I seemed to feel the presence of God during services like I never had before. Even in the days of my youth, before I had lost the faith my family had thrust upon me, I had never felt the presence of God so strongly. Who would have thought that I would recover my faith under the auspices of a bunch of mythological gods?

In short, the weekend was probably one of the most meaningful times of my life–new or old. I had reconciled nearly all of the conflicts in my new life. I had come to terms with my new sex, my relationship with my father had been strengthened, I had gotten caught up in all of my schoolwork, Mark had become the new love of my life, and I had regained my faith in God. By all rights, my story should have ended there, but it didn’t.

Not by a long shot. The first inklings of trouble came on Monday. After lunch with Mark, I was heading to my next class when Dave came up beside me. His expression was very serious, and for the first time in several days, I felt nervous. “I have something important to tell you,” he murmured to me.

“What?”

He shook his head. “Not now. I think I’m being watched. Meet me in the basement stacks at five.”

I had been on campus long enough to know that the basement stacks in the library were nearly always deserted. They were the repository for old, musty books that weren’t important enough to be on the regular shelves but couldn’t in all good conscience be thrown away. I had thought about going through them sometime to see if they shed any light on Ovid’s existence, but nearly everyone I talked to said that it would be a lost cause. Over time, every book in the basement stacks had been reviewed and produced nothing. The air was said to be so cloying that even lovers seeking a private place to meet shunned the basement stacks.

So why had Dave chosen them for our meeting?

Dave hadn’t been specific about our meeting place, so I stayed as close to the elevator as I could. Frankly, the place gave me the creeps. While Ovid had a virtually nonexistent crime rate, I was still a defenseless girl standing around in an isolated spot. I didn’t want to challenge Ovid’s low crime statistics by being stupid. One funny sound and I’d either be on the elevator or racing up the steps to safety.

The elevator was coming in my direction. Although there was no little light and a dinging bell to announce its arrival, I could hear the car coming to a rest. The door opened slowly, and I was expecting to see Dave. But instead, it was someone I had never expected.

“Professor Lowry?”

I started to ask her what she was doing there, but the smug look on her face told me that it was she I was to meet with and not Dave. “Surprised?” she asked, stepping from the elevator, her heels clicking on the concrete floor.

“Yeah,” I admitted. “So you’re part of Dave’s network?”

She smiled. “No, he’s part of mine.”

“Then why did you ask me to meet you here?” I asked. “Wouldn’t your office have been more convenient?”

She shook her head. “More convenient, yes, but far more dangerous. You’d be surprised how widespread The Judge’s network of spies really is. I’ve been very careful to keep all evidence of my group secret for ten years now. Our work is too important to risk detection.”

“I thought you just traded information back and forth.”

She smiled. “That’s what people like Dave and your boyfriend think. People like Dave are useful since they collect titbits of information, but only a very few of us know what’s really going on.”

“And are you going to tell me what’s going on?” I asked, a little miffed that she had toyed with all of us for so long.

To my surprise, she laughed, “Yes, Joan, I think I will. But first, I need something from you. I need you to tell me what you remember of The Judge’s little tirade at your house.”

I shrugged. “Nothing much, although I’ll admit I’ve been trying to remember. That drink he gave us must have taken away our memories.”

“For the most part it did,” she agreed. “But I already knew some of it already, so the drug had virtually no effect on me.”

“So why did you ask me about what I remembered?” I wanted to know. Was she just toying with me again?

“Because if you remembered, it would make what I have to say a little easier,” she replied, absently brushing some of the dusty air away from her tan skirt. “First, I want to tell you who I am–or rather, who I was. My name will mean nothing to you, but once upon a time, I was one of the most renowned scholars of Religious History in the world, holding a chair at Yale, no less. I was the author of a number of books–some of which were even best-sellers. I consulted with religious leaders and heads of state. I was even the subject of a cover story in Time.”

“Who were you?” I asked her, thinking I must have known of her, but her reply quashed that idea.

“My name would mean nothing to you,” was her disgusted reply. “No one outside of Ovid has heard of me for these past ten years, ever since I ‘died’ in an auto accident after a visit to Oral Roberts University in Tulsa. Like nearly everyone else here in Ovid, my real past was erased. Can you imagine? There I was, one of the top scholars on the planet one minute, and the next, an unknown history professor in a third-rate college no one has ever heard of–and I was a woman to boot! Can you imagine what it’s like to have to make love to a man who isn’t even really a man?” She shuddered at the thought of her shade husband.

By now, she was practically shouting, and I could tell from the look in her eyes that she was as furious about her transformation now as she had been a decade ago when it first happened. But what a skilled performer she was, to have lived in Ovid so long without the gods knowing how her hatred had festered. Surely if they had suspected, they would have taken some action, since it seemed to be important to them that everyone settled willingly into their new lives–just as Mark and I had. Perhaps they had dismissed her as being only superficially important to their cause–not worth observing in detail.

As if realizing her error, she calmed down at once, and continued, “But there’s nothing I can do about all of that now. What I can do–and must do for the sake of humanity–is stop The Judge and his minions from carrying out their plans. You, Joan, can help me do that.”

“It would be helpful if I knew what plan you’re talking about,” I reminded her. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to help her stop The Judge or not. Sure, I wanted to know what The Judge was up to, but not if it meant risking a life I had come to appreciate.

“You were a minister,” she said suddenly. “You know the power of God, and you know that in a contest of world religions, the strong faiths survive and the weak ones perish.”

She seemed to be waiting for my response, so I nodded. In general, she was correct. Satisfied, she continued, “Now that the world has become such a small place, there’s only room for one religion–one God. The Moslems know this. That’s why they war upon the West and Christianity. Europe has lost its way–it’s faithless and will soon be taken over by Moslems. If there is to be only one religion, it must be ours–the Christian religion.”

It was an old story, I mused to myself, and not a very pretty one. While my faith in the existence of a God had been restored, that didn’t mean I was willing to follow in the path of my father and grandfather in determining that there was only one absolute path to Him. Professor Lowry would have found more common ground with them than with me, but I remained silent. I wanted to know where she was going with all of this.

But apparently, I was expected to participate. “Do you realize what’s happening here in Ovid?” she asked me.

“Regarding what?”

She sighed dramatically. “I’m talking about The Judge’s plan. Do you have any idea what’s going on here?”

“No, no one does,” I replied, becoming even more concerned from her increasing agitation that she was a few sheets short of a ream. This was a side of her I had never witnessed before–one I had never imagined. It was obvious she had come to Ovid with preconceived notions of God and religion. Apparently, during her stay here, she had honed her beliefs to the point that she was convinced that her way was the only way. Sadly, I had seen such zealotry among some of my colleagues before. It never boded well.

“The Judge has enemies,” she told me. “No, don’t ask who they are. We have no idea, since their actions are quickly hushed up. But we’ve stayed under the radar, so to speak, so we’ve been able to piece together most of it. The Judge and his cohorts plan to introduce a new religion–one to replace Christianity!”

“That’s absurd,” I blurted out. “They go to church–all of them from what I’ve heard. Some of his... associates aren’t Baptists, but they go to other churches. If they weren’t Christians, why would they do that?”

Her grin was practically feral. “Are you sure? If they’re all Christian, what are they doing with another Ovid in the Middle East?”

“I haven’t heard of that.”

“Few have,” she said slyly. “They’re not happy to undermine our own religion. They want to take down the Moslems, too. For all we know, they may be after all of the other major religions as well. Wouldn’t it be funny if somewhere in Israel, there’s a kibbutz run by them?”

I was now convinced she was crazy. But in spite of that, I was curious. Why had she called me in–just to have an audience for her ranting? It didn’t seem likely. She was planning something, and the way she was acting, I was pretty sure I didn’t want any part of it.

Still, I was curious, so I had to ask, “So how are they doing all of this?”

“By producing the Antichrist!” she shot back.

I couldn’t help but give her a sceptical look. “And I suppose in the Middle East, they’re producing an Anti-Muhammad, and maybe an Anti-Buddha in India...”

“I can prove it,” she countered, very sure of herself. “Then you’ll see.”

“But why are you telling all of this to me?” I finally asked, frightened of what the answer might be, but I had to know just the same.

“I know who you were,” she explained. “Oh, don’t look so surprised. I know the world outside Ovid has forgotten you, but here, we remember. You’d be amazed the things we remember from timelines these bastards have disrupted. You were a man of God–a champion of Christianity, and now we need your help.”

“We? You mean your group?”

“Not the group you’re thinking of,” she retorted. “Too many of them are just curious. They wouldn’t take action no matter what. But there are a few of us–just a few, mind you–who want to end this charade and destroy the challenge to our faith. We’ve been watching you for a long time, and we think you should be one of us.”

I was getting a little tired of this. “So do I have to pass an initiation or something?”

“Or something,” she said with a malevolent grin. “The time is nearly upon us to act. We know what needs to be done.”

I didn’t know what she had in mind, but it couldn’t be good. I had heard the rumors of what The Judge had done to those transformees who opposed him. A good number of them were rumored to be storing acorns for the winter over in Sooner Park. I had no desire to be a featured player on Animal Planet.

“What if I choose not to join you?” I ventured.

“Then nothing will happen,” she explained calmly. “Oh, you’ll be watched, of course. If we see you trying to tell The Judge or one of his kind about us, we’ll try our best to stop you. As you’ve probably assumed, killing anyone here is difficult, but not impossible.”

Was that true? I had assumed that any attempt at a crime like murder would bring about immediate reaction from the gods. But then I remembered: according to most myths, the Greek or Roman gods were powerful, but not all-knowing. Maybe it was a bluff and maybe not.

One thing I was pretty certain of though, was that she wasn’t bluffing when she indicated that she had a plan to end The Judge’s power over Ovid. There was something important that she knew that she just wasn’t telling me. As much as my common sense was trying to tell me to run away as fast as I could, I really did want to know what was happening in Ovid. Although I knew it was dangerous to proceed, I felt much like Neo in The Matrix. If I didn’t go down the rabbit hole, I’d forever wonder what I had missed. I told myself that no matter what I agreed to, I’d find a way to pull out if I had to.

“What do you want me to do?” I asked.

Professor Lowry relaxed noticeably. “I thought you’d agree. With your help, the Antichrist will fail. In fact, he’ll never be born.”

Uh-oh. “You plan to kill his mother?”

“And his father,” she admitted triumphantly. “They’re both young children now. It won’t be difficult.”

Oh my God! “Children?”

“We know because others have tried to kill them...”

‘And apparently failed,’ I thought to myself.

“All we have to do is wait for the right moment. No one suspects us. There are only four of us–five with you. No one suspects a thing. All you need to do is wait for our call.”

As I left the meeting, I was in a terrible quandary. Part of me wanted to rush off to warn The Judge. I wanted no part of Professor Lowry’s mad scheme to kill two innocent children. Besides, fanatics had been yammering about an Antichrist for centuries, and while I was now willing to believe in God, I was having a hard time imagining devils and demons prancing about to raise the antithesis of Christ.

On the other hand, a case could be built for it. The old gods had been supplanted by the Christian religion. Once Christ had been accepted in the Roman world, the worship of Jupiter all but disappeared. Could it be that the Roman gods had devised a plan to get even? But if so, what did the town of Ovid have to do with it?

Either way, there was no way I was going to take part in the murder of two innocent children. I’d have to learn who they were and somehow get word to The Judge.

“Where have you been?” Mark called out to me as I approached the dorm.

“Meeting with one of my professors,” I replied casually. Strictly speaking, that was true. Besides, I didn’t want to get Mark mixed up in this mess.

“You want to study for awhile and then go out for a pizza?”

“Sure,” I replied. The fact of the matter was that I didn’t want to study at all. My mind was churning with possible scenarios, and my studies were the last thing I wanted to think about. What I really wanted was to forget all of this, haul Mark back to my room, and make love to him for hours.

But instead, we studied–or at least Mark studied. After a couple of hours, we were at Tony’s sharing a pizza.

“Something troubling you?” Mark asked, apparently tired of my distracted silence.

“Huh?”

“You’ve been acting... funny. Did I do something that bothered you?”

“Oh, no. I’m sorry, Mark,” I said quickly, resting my hand on his. “I just was thinking about something–it isn’t important.”

I think he knew I was lying, but he didn’t say anything more about it. I wanted to tell him what had happened, but I didn’t want to drag him into what could be a very dangerous situation. The less Mark knew about this the better.

I had noticed that we were being shadowed. Obviously, Professor Lowry wanted me on her side. She was a zealot, and so in her mind, the fact that I had been a prominent evangelist meant that I should be on her side. In fact, my support would essentially be confirmation of her beliefs and planned actions. But she really didn’t trust me–not yet at least. As a result, she would have me watched. The tough-looking guy who had been following us at a discrete distance–and who even now was sitting at a table not too far from us, trying to appear disinterested in our discussion–was obviously there to make certain I didn’t try to warn The Judge.

There was an urgency to the situation: I was certain of it. I didn’t think Professor Lowry would tell me what she had unless she planned to take action very soon–perhaps within the next day. Or maybe she had started to regret taking me into her confidence at all. I hadn’t enthusiastically backed her plan, so maybe the tough guy was there to deal with me once Mark had dropped me off. No matter what, I knew that I didn’t dare let anyone else know what I knew. It would endanger both my life and theirs.

When we got back to my room, I was so upset that I was in no mood to make love. To his credit, Mark sensed that and didn’t insist. “Do you want me to go?” he asked.

“No,” I sighed. “I don’t want to be alone. Could you please just... hold me?”

And that was how we spent the night together.

After a fitful night with little sleep, I had come up with something of a plan. I knew Myra’s mother worked for Susan Jager, and our former attorney in turn was a good friend of Cindy Patton, The Judge’s assistant. If I could somehow get word to Myra, maybe she could get word back through that chain to The Judge. Of course, I had no idea who the endangered children were, but I was certain that even if Professor Lowry was way off base, he would be able to figure out who the targets were.

“Let’s take a shower and go get some breakfast,” Mark suggested, squeezing me gently as we lay together in bed.

“Okay,” I agreed. “But I have to check on something with Myra first.” I picked up the dorm phone and dialled Myra’s extension quickly before Mark could say anything. I’d see if she was in and arrange a quick meeting before any potential watchers saw me.

But there was no answer. Then I remembered. She was at her mother’s house. I used my phone to call her there, but her mother told me she was out. “She’s going to be babysitting all day,” she informed me.

“Where can I reach her?” I asked. “It’s important.”

Sure, I could have told Myra’s mother directly, but the poor woman had no idea what was really going on in Ovid. There was no sense in alarming her, and besides, I needed to talk to someone who would understand the importance of my warning, and that person was Myra. She would be able to call Susan or Cindy directly–something I couldn’t do with Mark around, or I’d involve him.

“She’s going to be at the Pattons’ house today,” she replied, and gave me the number. “She’s babysitting for the Pattons and the Jagers.”

This was a stroke of luck, I realized. Since Myra was already at the Pattons’ house, she would be able to tell Cindy Patton as soon as she got home. All I needed to do was pull her aside for a few minutes, so I didn’t involve Mark in what was happening, and leave the rest to her. As soon as she had talked to Cindy Patton, I was sure The Judge would be in the loop before much longer.

Maybe I was worrying too much, I second-guessed myself. Surely Professor Lowry did really mean to kill innocent children, did she? I dismissed that thought quickly, though. I had looked into her eyes and seen her determination. She was honestly convinced that the Antichrist was to be created in Ovid, and nothing would stop her.

“Let’s forget the showers,” I told Mark, a note of urgency in my voice. “I really need to see Myra right now.”

Mark was obviously puzzled, but he said nothing. In response, he slipped on his jeans and pulled out his car keys. “Can you tell me what’s going on?” he asked.

“Thanks, Mark,” I told him sincerely as I hugged him. “I’ll explain later.” As I said, I really didn’t want to involve Mark. I was already in danger if I betrayed Professor Lowry’s confidence–as I sincerely planned to do. There was no sense in putting Mark in danger, too. The less he knew, the better.

The Pattons lived in one of the newer parts of Ovid in a nice but not particularly expensive house. Given Cindy Patton’s job, I had expected something a little more upscale, but I supposed that would be out of character. I wondered where The Judge lived. No one seemed to know, but given the Pattons’ house, I imagined it would be a little more expensive but not exactly the digs on Mount Olympus.

Myra’s car was in front of the house, but I didn’t see any signs of activity around the place. I gently rapped on the door, in case some of her wards were taking a nap.

“Joan!” she exclaimed happily as she came to the door. “What brings you over here?”

I looked back at Mark, who had walked me to the door. “I’m fine now,” I told him. “I’ll call you later, okay?”

I expected him to nod and go back to his car, but instead and without warning, he grabbed me by the arm and shoved me inside, nearly knocking Myra over. I heard a girl scream and thought she was upset about Mark, but I realized it was coming from the family room where a TV was blaring away. The children were reacting to whatever was on the screen and had no idea what was happening in the front of the house. Maybe that was for the best.

When Mark had shut the door behind him, he stared at Myra and me threateningly. I had never seen him act like this before. I’m sure we both had looks of shock and fear on our faces. I knew Myra did, from a glance at her, and I was certainly shocked and suddenly concerned. Mark had been a gentle, considerate lover, but he was big enough and strong enough to be threatening if he wanted to be.

And for some reason, he wanted to be.

“Mark, what’s this all about?” I asked, unable to keep a tremble out of my voice. I was confused and frightened, but worse yet, I felt betrayed.

“I’m sorry, Joan,” he told me. “I’ll explain. But I need both of you to cooperate. Please sit on the couch and don’t disturb the children.”

“I’m not sitting anywhere!” Myra huffed, started to slip past Mark, but before she could, he grabbed her by the arm and swung her down on the couch.

“Sit!” he commanded both of us.

Mark was quick enough and strong enough that I was pretty sure both Myra and I together wouldn’t be a match for him. Reluctantly, we both sat.

Mark took a quick look out the front window. “This shouldn’t take long,” he promised us. “Professor Lowry should be here shortly.”

“Professor Lowry?” I blurted out. “What does that wing nut have to do with...”

My voice trailed off. She had told me of two children who, according to her warped reasoning, were due to be the parents of the Antichrist. If memory served me correctly, Cindy Patton had a little girl who might fit the bill. “Oh my God, Mark, do you have any idea what that woman is up to?”

“She wants to get the answers to Ovid,” Mark replied. “Joan, she’s after the same things we’re after. She wants to know why this was done to us.”

“She wants nothing of the sort!” I retorted. “She thinks she already has the answers. She thinks Ovid is to be the birthplace of the Antichrist–and unless I miss my guess, she thinks Cindy Patton’s daughter is due to be one of his parents.”

“That’s impossible!” Mark said, but I noticed a sudden stricken look on Myra’s face.

“What’s wrong?” I asked her.

Myra tried to hide her alarm, but it was plastered all over her face. “Nothing’s wrong,” she lied.

We were interrupted by the slamming of car doors. Then, without knocking, Professor Lowry, flanked by two beefy guys–one of whom had been shadowing Mark and me earlier–burst in the room. “Make sure they’re both here,” she ordered, and one of the guys poked his head in the den.

“Both here,” he confirmed. “They’re all busy watching TV. They don’t suspect a thing. Do you want me to do them here?”

“Do them?” Now it was Mark’s turn to look stricken.

“Of course,” Professor Lowry told him. “They’re the future parents of the Antichrist. They can’t be allowed to live.”

They? So that was what Myra was hiding. Both of the children were here. And since her mother had told me she was babysitting Susan Jager’s son as well as the Patton kids, that meant he was to be the future father of the little Patton girl’s child.

Mark shook his head. “I never agreed to any of this. You told me you just wanted to find out what was planned and stop it.”

“I am stopping it,” she shot back. “How else would I stop it if I didn’t kill the would-be parents? You’re weak. That’s why I didn’t tell you. You helped us by watching your girlfriend for us. I never should have told her about all of this, but I thought she’d be stronger, given who she was before. Obviously, you’re both fair-weather Christians. I’m sorry now that I ever confided in either of you.”

“You’ll never get away with this!” Myra taunted them. “You’ve got no place to run to.”

Professor Lowry’s smile was triumphant. “Is that what you think–that we plan to run away? You little bitch, we want to stand before your precious Judge and brag about what we are about to do. When we’re finished here, we will have done everything we could to save our faith from these twisted... things.”

Then she turned to her henchmen. “Go get the children–now!”

The two men were headed for the den when Mark jumped one of them. It was a doomed attempt from the very start. While Mark was big and in very good shape, the two men were bigger–and meaner. Myra and I made an attempt to go after the other guy, but Professor Lowry surprised me by tripping me. As I looked up, one of the men backhanded Myra, sending her sprawling across the room. From the sound her jaw made when the back of his hand hit it, I was pretty sure she had a broken jaw.

Mark was quickly overwhelmed. The two men worked him over as we helplessly watched. Strangely, even then the children were not disturbed. It was as if they were oblivious to what was happening just a few feet away.

They got to their feet, leaving Mark bruised and battered on the floor. They headed once more for the den...

But they never made it. They had been rushing, as if to scoop up the two small children (we learned later that the older Patton siblings were at friends’ houses) before they could cry out or run away. As they reached the edge of the den, they were thrown back, as if several times their forward momentum had been turned against them. Both men literally flew across the room, crashing through the drywall of the opposite wall and splitting the wooden two-by-fours that formed the frame.

“Wha...?” Professor Lowry began, taking a few tentative steps toward the den.

“Don’t try it,” a familiar voice called out from the doorway.

“Officer Mercer!” I called out. “Stop her. She’s trying to hurt the kids.”

“She won’t be hurting anyone today,” he promised us. “No harm can approach the children.”

They were somehow shielded, I realized. Professor Lowry had told me that others had tried to kill the children. However, what she hadn’t realized was that those attempts had made the gods wary. I later learned that anyone planning to injure either of the children would be unable to approach them, or cause any harm to befall them.

Professor Lowry must have realized this in that moment: she tried to run past Officer Mercer, but her objective was no longer the den. Her previous objective was now forgotten, and in her panic, she could only think to get away as she tried to avoid the god and make it to the door. Officer Mercer’s arm shot out faster than anything I’d ever seen. His hand clamped onto her arm so quickly, it nearly pulled her off her feet. She was screaming out, but I couldn’t make out her words. Whether she was trying to say something forbidden or just incoherent from her unexpected failure, I couldn’t say.

A couple of men entered while Officer Mercer took her to his car. I hadn’t seen them before. They weren’t dressed as deputies, but they had obviously come at Officer Mercer’s request. Wordlessly, they each picked up the two stunned bruisers and carried them out over their shoulders, as if they weighed only a few pounds each. Whoever the men were, they must have been gods themselves.

But the parade through the front door wasn’t over yet. The next person to enter was quite unexpected.

“Your Honor,” Myra called out from the floor as The Judge strolled in.

The Judge surveyed the room. “I see some repairs are in order,” he mused. Then, leaning down to Myra and cupping her swelling jaw, he said, “Let’s start here.” He waved his hand in front of Myra’s face.

As we watched, the swelling went down, and in moments, Myra’s jaw was back to normal.

“What about Mark?” I asked him, nodding to his broken form, barely conscious across the room.

The Judge looked at Mark impassively. “He was with your attackers, wasn’t he?”

“At first, yes,” I admitted. “But he never had anything to do with the plan to harm the children.”

The Judge considered this. Then he looked at Myra. “Is this true?”

Myra nodded. “Mark tried to stop them from hurting the children. I suppose if he hadn’t sacrificed himself, they might have harmed them before Officer Mercer arrived.”

I had to smile at that. Myra would have never had any trouble entering the den, so she wouldn’t have realized that there was a shield in place.

The Judge looked somewhat pleased at her answer. I supposed there were enough people for him to mete out punishment to without adding Mark to the list. He waved his hand once more, and Mark’s entire body rippled for a few moments, then relaxed. He was still unconscious, but I could tell he was resting peacefully now, uninjured and unmarked.

“What’s going to happen to Professor Lowry and her men?” I asked, more out of curiosity than concern. After all, she and her henchmen had been ready to murder two small children based on a theory I could scarcely believe.

The Judge’s response surprised me. “What do you think should be done to them, Joan?”

“I... I’m not sure,” I had to admit. “The only thing I can say is they should never be able to harm children again.” Once more, the vision of squirrels in Sooner Park came unbidden into my mind. I had certainly had no indication that The Judge could read my mind, and I hoped that was the case.

“Those who are transformed into infants normally lose their adult memories,” The Judge told me. “Do you think that would suffice as punishment for them?”

It would be a long time before any of them could harm children if they were reduced to infancy, I reasoned. Of course, if only their adult memories were lost, their basic personalities might remain, and they might grow up with the same poisoned minds. However, in the right family, Professor Lowry could grow up with a religious foundation that was more geared to a loving god rather than a vengeful one. The alternative could always be life as squirrels.

Finally, I nodded in agreement. “That sounds like an equitable solution.”

The Judge smiled. “Then that’s what will happen to them.” He was silent for a moment before adding, “Joan, can I see you outside for a few minutes?”

“Uh... sure,” I agreed, heading for the front door.

“No,” he stopped me. “Let’s go out in back. There will be less of a chance for interruptions there.”

I wasn’t sure why he thought that, but I walked with him into the backyard. Then I saw why we wouldn’t be interrupted. One moment, we were standing in the Pattons’ backyard, brown and lifeless in the throes of the approaching winter. Then the next moment, the yard faded from view, and an iris opened up into a rolling meadow, with fields of brilliant flowers of every imaginable color. There was no sign of the house–or any other structure for that matter.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” The Judge said calmly.

“Where are we?” I asked as the most beautiful bird I had ever seen flew by, resplendent with blue and green feathers and red wingtips. Its song was so soothing I felt almost like reaching out for it so as not to lose the sweet sounds it made.

“The most common name for this place is the Elysian Fields,” he replied, making a gesture with his hands. The beautiful bird turned in a sweeping arc and came to rest perched on his outstretched arm. “The ancient Greeks and the Roman after them thought that this was a form of afterlife–reserved for nobles, heroes and gods, of course. For the common man... well, it was a rather structured society, I suppose. The common man had no place here, I’m afraid.”

“That’s mythology,” I argued. “Some even say it was the model for Heaven.”

He smiled, dropping his arm to allow the bird to continue its flight. “Yes, that’s very true–or at least the afterlife part is mythology. Actually, it’s an alternate world, slightly removed from our own world. We can visit here for short periods of time–mostly to refresh ourselves or to have private conversations, such as the one we’re having now. I suppose it was after such a conversation with one of your kind that the afterlife assumption began. In truth, no one from our world can stay here long. The world somehow ejects us after a few short hours. We’re not certain why, but there it is.”

“And what was so important that you needed to talk to me privately?” I wanted to know.

He was silent for a minute. Then, at last, he began, “I understand Professor Lowry told you that the two children whose lives you just saved were intended to be the parents of the Antichrist. Did you believe her?”

“Not exactly,” I hedged.

“Not exactly?” Did I detect a wariness in his voice?

“What I meant,” I explained, “was where there’s smoke, there’s often fire. Professor Lowry may have been overzealous and paranoid in her reasoning, but her background in religious studies would mean that she is perfectly capable of gathering all the right facts, even if she reached the wrong conclusion.”

“You mean the conclusion regarding the Antichrist.”

“Of course.”

The Judge looked out over the lovely landscape, momentarily lost in thought. At last, he spoke, although it seemed to me that he was speaking as much to himself as to me. “If she reached the conclusion that an Antichrist was in the offing, others may as well. In fact, they may have already reached that conclusion with her help. That could be very dangerous to our plans.”

“It might help if I knew what the plan was,” I prodded as calmly as I could. For the first time since I had been dropped into Ovid, I felt as if The Judge was ready to tell me the truth about his motives.

“Joan,” he began, “have you ever wondered why your people ceased to worship us as gods? After all, in the Western world, we were the dominant deities.”

“Maybe because you aren’t really gods, are you?” I ventured.

He shook his head. “No, we are not. We are merely another race–a more talented race, of course, but certainly not gods. But I must tell you, being recognized as gods is quite a positive experience. Imagine if people from your time were to visit ancient Athens or Rome. Your superior technology would cause the people then to see you as deities as well.”

“And you had that technology,” I supplied, but he shook his head.

“No, of the three races who could be called manlike, only yours is technological. The Neanderthals simply lacked the proper cognitive abilities, and our own race was blessed–or perhaps cursed–with endless life and a penchant for powers others viewed as magical. When you have the power to conjure up anything you wish, it becomes unnecessary to ‘invent’ things.

“We developed a symbiotic relationship with your race. You looked just like us–in fact, we could even breed with your kind, although our powers were usually lost upon our offspring–and your primitive struggles at civilizing yourselves caught our fancy. We were content to play gods to your ancestors, even helping them at times.”

“And simply meddling with them at others,” I observed. Under his stern look, I clarified, “You really did meddle, you know, if some of the myths are right. You took sides in wars, played tricks on humans...”

The look softened as he nodded his head. “Mistakes were made: I’ll concede that. But, of course, we also helped–farming, a written language, even fire were all gifts from us. Of course, the fire thing wasn’t handled too well... However, we did, as you said, meddle, producing organized wars, dictatorships, and slavery–all unintentionally, I should add.

“But then two things happened that made us rethink our actions. The first was when the humans in the Greek and Roman world began to fashion more technological devices. War became more efficient–more deadly–and your societies became more complex. We began to realize that your technological nature was not only alien to us, but abhorrent and dangerous as well.

“Even of greater importance, though, was our realization that there was something beyond us–a god, if you will. We had no need of higher beings, for we were immortal with no afterlife to attract us. Still, in our minds, we began to feel the presence of something far more powerful and infinitely wiser than we could have ever imagined.”

As I listened to him tell this, I realized, not for the first time, what a fool I had been. In my youth, I had been a fool to believe in a small, capricious, and vengeful deity, but once I had forsaken that god, I had not been able to imagine any other. Yet here was the ‘King of the Gods’ telling me that there was something beyond–something my tiny human mind had not been able to grasp before now.

“What did... God say to you?” I finally asked.

After a pause, The Judge replied, “He asked for our help.”

It was certainly not the answer I had been expecting.

The Judge went on to tell me about how each of the Roman gods had heard (or maybe ‘felt’ was more accurate) from God a desire to get humans set on a course which would bring mankind into harmony with each other and their planet. At times, what he told me smacked almost of the Gaia beliefs–appropriate, I suppose, since Gaia was the earth goddess in Greek myths. But it wasn’t just Gaia: all the Christian concepts were there as well, along with a few things borrowed from some of the other world religions–particularly the Moslem faith.

When The Judge had completed his interpretation of God’s will, I asked, “So what did he want you to do–to help I mean?”

“He wanted us to prepare the way for his son,” The Judge stated simply. “We were to create a town–Nazareth by name–and make it the sort of place the Savior could flourish in...”

Create a town? It hit me like a flash–a concept so incredible I could barely conceive of it. They had created Nazareth, and now... “He... he’s coming again, isn’t he? Christ is coming again.”

The Judge shook his head. “No, not Christ. Christ’s work on this world is done. As nearly as we can tell, he’s moved on–to other worlds, or at least to other realities. We can’t be sure which. But we’ve heard God’s call again–or at least some of us think we have.”

“Professor Lowry was right about one thing. The children–they’re to be the parents not of the Antichrist but of a new Messiah,” I reasoned. “But you sound as if there is some dissention in your ranks this time.”

The Judge nodded. “There is. You see, as it turns out, we need a new Messiah as much as humans do...”

The Judge explained that a large faction of the ancient deities really felt as if mankind had strayed from the proper path and had been straying for centuries. Then came the Holocaust and the atomic bomb. The first had merely substantiated the gods’ belief that man had strayed so far from the proper path that he had become capable of unimaginable cruelty. The second had proven man’s ability to efficiently and effectively eliminate large masses of people almost effortlessly–and in the process, unknowingly, mankind had found a way to kill otherwise immortal beings.

“It began in Hiroshima,” he explained. “Several of our kind were there–we’re really quite widespread you know, representing dozens of ancient religions. And we all sense each other.”

“Like you sense God?” I asked.

“In a similar fashion,” he admitted. “In any case, we lost contact with our people in Hiroshima. It turned out that they were as vulnerable to the power of the atomic bomb as your people are. So you see,” The Judge concluded, “not only is mankind threatening suicide with nuclear weapons, but genocide of our race as well. This, we could never permit.

“For a time, it appeared you were learning. The disuse of nuclear weapons for decades, steps toward genuine disarmament, and the rise of the global economy were all positive signs. We began to breathe a little easier.

“Then imagine our shock when the Oracle told us of impending doom. Just as the world seemed to be settling down, the Oracle told us that as populations increased and resources–especially oil–became scarce, war, fuelled in part by religious differences, would break out on a cataclysmic scale. With the proliferation of nuclear weapons, the eventual result would be the complete annihilation of both of our races.”

“So that’s why you fostered the creation of the new engine,” I added. “You thought if we weren’t dependent upon foreign oil to fuel the global economy, the threat of annihilation would go away.”

He nodded sadly. “That’s right. We thought the engine would be the answer. We took a page from your own history and created a town which would serve as the birthplace for an engine no longer dependent upon oil. But the Oracle surprised us by predicting that the possibility of war not only would not decrease, but would in fact, increase as moderate Arab states collapsed as oil revenues fell. We were at our wits’ end when we once more sensed the presence of God in our minds.

“It told us that when Christianity had failed to live up to its full potential, it had tried again to establish the right faith–this time without our help.”

“The Moslem faith,” I supplied.

“Exactly. However, the deity we revere is, as you might have guessed, not terribly worldly and tends to be idealistic. I suppose that is the nature of a true God. So corrections had to be made, both in Christianity and the Moslem faith, or religious war was virtually inevitable.”

It came to me suddenly. Maybe it was my religious training, but I knew at once what the ultimate purpose of Ovid was. “They won’t be the parents of the Antichrist,” I said slowly. “It’s not the Second Coming. They’re to be the parents of the second son of God.”

The Judge smiled slightly. “Not son–daughter.”

“No,” I shook my head. “That won’t work. Maybe Christians would accept a woman Messiah, but the Moslems would never do so.”

“They won’t have to,” he assured me. “Right now, in a remote corner of Syria, a young Moslem man is nearly ready to start his service to his god. He is being protected by some of our... friends–the gods of ancient Mesopotamia. He will preach a path of reconciliation and tolerance that will slowly take hold. Then, according to the Oracle, the son of the new Prophet and the daughter who is the new Messiah will meet. As they become a couple, so will the two most aggressive religions of the world united as well.”

“But that won’t work!” I blurted out. I regretted my words almost at once, for what I had said was the same thing others trained as I had been would say. In spite of my denial of God, I realized I had fallen back upon my religious education and had fallen victim to the underlying dogma. Mullahs and ministers alike would tend to reject the new religious thought, just as their counterparts had done before them. But like their counterparts throughout history, they could easily fall before the onslaught of new popular religious thought. Faith of the peoples of the world would trump the tired teachings of a vested clergy every time.

“You see it now, don’t you?” The Judge said softly. I could only nod, so he continued, “And do you see why I told you all of this?”

Yes, I could see that, too. The Judge hadn’t just told me to make me understand that Professor Lowry had been so wrong. He had not agreed to spare Mark just because The Judge was being a nice guy. He had done all of this because he needed me, and he knew I would need Mark by my side if I were to fulfil my own part in all of this.

I knew now that my restored faith would lead me back into the ministry, with Mark as my husband. Together, we would begin to prepare the people, first of Ovid and later of the world, for what was to come. It was the role I was destined to fulfil, for after all, I was Joan–the Baptist.

As was usually the case, I awoke from my trance almost immediately. I was rewarded with a satisfied look from most of the gods, but the look on The Judge’s face was absolutely triumphant. Susan, on the other hand, looked much as I probably did–and she appeared to be virtually in shock.

Who could blame us? We had both just learned that our children were to be the parents of a new Messiah–the founder of a new religion that would overturn everything we had previously believed.

I had been raised in my former life as a good Catholic, and while I had been relegated to the Baptist faith with my transformation, in the back of my mind I was still substantially Catholic. I always stuttered when we recited the Lord’s Prayer in church, often forgetting the last part that most Protestant denominations added on. I had to fight the urge to cross myself or kneel at the appropriate moments during the service. And I had never quite gotten used to a church without the Stations of the Cross prominently displayed about the sides of the sanctuary.

So the Catholic in me rebelled at the very thought. My daughter was to become the new Virgin Mary... Hail Ashley, full of grace...?

I could see Susan was equally disturbed. We had never really discussed religion before. She and her husband attended the same church as we did, but maybe she had always been a Baptist, or at least a Protestant. Besides, while her son seemed destined to be the new Joseph, that was hardly the same as being the Virgin Mother.

Come to think of it, hadn’t The Judge said something to Joan about our children being the ‘parents’ of the new daughter of God? Not exactly, I suppose. Joan had used the term ‘parents,’ but The Judge had not contradicted her. Maybe it was better that way, I thought. A number of people I had known in both lives considered themselves good Christians but had difficulty accepting the virgin birth.

Come to think of it, the Moslems didn’t accept the virgin birth either. If our granddaughter was to be accepted universally, was a virgin birth really required?

“Cindy,” The Judge asked, “have you any more recent information on Ms. Sheppard?”

I looked a little confused, I’m sure. I had never been asked that before. “No, Your Honor. I’m sorry, I don’t. Should I have?” Normally, my ability to delve into the stories of other transformees ended once they had reconciled themselves to their new lives.

“No,” The Judge replied, adding, “at least not if they haven’t changed their minds.”

I smiled, relieved. “I’m pretty sure Joan hasn’t changed her mind. Myra told me she and Mark planned to get married in August. Joan’s father will be presiding.”

The Judge nodded. “Yes,” he agreed. “It would seem that she and Mark were made for each other after all.”

Was that a small smile on his lips? I couldn’t be certain.

“Please leave us,” The Judge called out to the other gods. “I need to speak privately to our human guests.”

All of them filed out wordlessly, except for Diana, who clasped both Susan and I by the hand and smiled. “We’ll have time to talk about this later. But for now, be glad.”

“Be of good cheer?” Susan asked ironically.

Diana’s smile widened, as if the irony were of no matter. “Yes, be of good cheer. You’ll see: it will be wonderful for all of us–human and Olympian.”

When Diana had shown herself out, The Judge looked at Susan and me. “You were not to know about the plan for your progeny, but we had to be sure of Joan.”

“Yes,” Susan agreed more calmly than I would have expected. “Joan–like her predecessor, John, will be very key to the acceptance of the new Messiah. I’ve seen the Reverend Groenwald in action, and he was a very powerful speaker.”

I gave Susan a surprised glace. “You actually watched that televangelism crap?” I guess that was the Catholic in me coming out again.

“Much of it was crap,” Susan agreed. “But there was something about Reverend Groenwald that made you believe–even if he didn’t. Now, as Joan, she has her faith back. If she is as persuasive now as she was as a man, this plan could work.”

The Judge nodded. “Precisely so.”

“And if it doesn’t?” I countered, still sceptical.

“If it doesn’t,” The Judge explained seriously, “then the Oracle believes we are all doomed–my people and yours alike. You must understand, Cindy, that no one is more zealous in a conflict than a believer in divine absolutes. The Shiites and the Sunnis have killed each other for centuries over what most of us see as minor differences. Protestants and Catholics did much the same thing before they finally settled down. That was tolerable when swords and knives were in fashion, but it is unacceptable in a nuclear age when soon, even small, poor nations may have access to fission–or even fusion weapons.”

“But a Messiah...” I protested weakly.

“A Messiah is the only answer,” The Judge affirmed.

By the time, Susan and I left The Judge’s office, I had reconciled myself to being the grandmother of the founder of a new religious belief. But I wasn’t happy with it.

Susan and I spoke little on the way to our cars, but just before we parted, she asked, “Cindy, are you okay?”

“No,” I admitted with a sigh. “But I will be.”

Susan impulsively hugged me, and I hugged back, choked with emotion at having such a wonderful friend. As we broke, Susan smiled at me, but I could see her eyes were a little misty, too. “Let’s have lunch tomorrow. The Greenhouse at noon?”

I smiled back. “I’d like that.” We’d just meet there–unless a sudden call from The Judge brought us together sooner in the courtroom to introduce us to yet another new resident in the world’s most unusual town.

By the time I got home, my near-tears had gone away. Jerry was still asleep on the couch, completely unaware that I had been gone. Even the deep-throated growl of a car engine–Officer’s Mercer’s police cruiser, I realized–failed to wake Jerry. I realized that Officer Mercer must have been watching out for my family while I was gone. That made me feel a lot safer.

Then, I walked into Ashley’s room. The little darling was sleeping peacefully, her blanket kicked away and her thumb securely in her tiny mouth. Her hair was matted down, and I realized that it was getting long enough now to start styling it to make her look more like a little girl and less like a baby. Had Mary once looked like this is far-off Israel two thousand plus years ago? Probably. After all, she too, had been human.

“Dear God,” I murmured softly, “I don’t know if you can hear us or not. But please, God, bless and protect my family, and Susan’s family as well. Let this plan work, for everyone’s sake.”

Then, I added one more item. “And dear God, please bless The Judge and all of his... people.”

The End