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It had grown colder in Ovid through the month of December. The remains of an early December snow were still piled by the side of the streets and a gray sky threatened at least another four inches before evening. I had grown up in Pennsylvania and had laughed at snow and ice from the time I was old enough to drive. But I was male then. Being changed into a woman with two small children tends to change one’s perspective about such things as icy roads. I had a lot of errands to run before meeting my husband, Jerry, at Northside Elementary for the twin’s Christmas pageant.

As I headed for my car in the municipal employee’s parking lot, I looked at my watch. If I could change one thing about being a woman, it would be to make larger watches fashionable. What idiot ever convinced women to wear these petite little watches with a face that you needed a microscope to read? I smiled to myself. Other than that and a couple of other things, like periods, I found I was actually enjoying my new womanhood.

Court had gotten out early, so I was able to finish up some paperwork and take the afternoon off. I needed the time. I still had a lot of Christmas shopping to do, and stores in small towns like Ovid don’t stay open late like the malls in bigger cities. Thank god I had a Christmas list from Jerry and the kids. I wouldn’t have had the foggiest idea what to get them. Although they knew me as a constant in their lives in my role as wife and mother, I had known them in their present personas for only a little over two months. Even with the list, though, I wouldn’t have a lot of time. If I hurried, I might have time for a...

“Lunch?”

I turned at the sound of a musical voice, a voice I would recognize no matter what body she wore. “Dina!” I exclaimed, forgetting that she no longer called herself Dina Luna.

Dina had been an attractive Hispanic woman. She had decided to change herself for Susan’s wedding. “Goes better with the dress,” she had said. The woman who stood before me was a tall, well-proportioned redhead with pale Irish skin in a lovely emerald green dress. She wasn’t dressed warmly enough for the day, but when you’re the goddess Diana, I guess warding off the cold isn’t a big problem. She was stunning as always. She flashed her emerald eyes (which, of course matched the dress) at me and said in a light brogue, “What do ya’ say, lass? A bite ’o lunch perhaps? And remember, it tisn’t Dina now, it’s Diana O’Moon.”

I laughed, “What? No Irish last name for ‘Moon’?”

She snorted in disgust, giving up on the brogue as well, “I’m afraid not. The Irish language sounds like someone clearing her throat. The word for moon is something like ‘gealach.’ I don’t even know if I’m pronouncing it right, so let’s just stay with O’Moon.”

“Fine with me,” I smiled. I knew why she had done it. We had both been in Susan Henderson’s wedding, and she had chosen green dresses for the bridesmaids. As Dina, Diane had fretted that the dress didn’t look that good against her dark skin, although she loved the dress. I had seen the wheels turning the whole week before the wedding. Sure enough, when she showed up at the rehearsal, she had picked a new look that went well with green.

“So how about lunch?”

“Diana, I’d love to, but I have so much Christmas shopping to do,” I protested. “I thought I’d just grab a quick sandwich and fight the shopping crowds at March’s.”

“No need,” she said with a teasing grin as she pulled a small sheet of paper out of the air. “Vera is holding a few packages for you at March’s right now. This is the list.”

“You’ve done my shopping for me?” I practically squealed. “Let me see the list.”

She handed me the list. It was virtually identical to the one I had in my purse. “But how did you...?”

“What’s the good of being a goddess if you can’t use a little magic to help your friends? See, now you have time for lunch.”

And that’s how we ended up at the Greenhouse, waiting for our lunches with a glass of wine each. I normally wouldn’t drink at lunch, but since I wasn’t going back to work that day, I figured I might as well. I needed to celebrate the unexpected and successful conclusion of my first Christmas shopping as Cindy Patton.

“Okay,” I said after we had ordered, “you want something, don’t you?”

Diana looked around the room in mock innocence. “Oh, nothing really. I just thought since you had a little time, you could tell me a story.”

Telling a story to one of the gods consisted of falling into a trance for a few seconds in which we would virtually relive the exploits of one of Ovid’s newest residents. Although to someone who casually looked at me, it would appear that I was in a trance for only a few seconds, entire days and weeks would go by for Diana and I.

“Okay,” I relented. After all, she had done all of my shopping for me. It was the least I could do. And besides, it was actually a lot of fun. “Is there something in particular you’d like to hear? We had a college girl from Omaha through the other day who got herself changed into a three-month-old baby boy.”

She scrunched up her face. “Ugh! Not my kind of story. Even if they remember their past lives, all they can think about is where’s mom for the next meal and how long before I’m potty trained? Besides, I hate the taste of the baby food.”

“Well,” I ventured, knowing very well the story she wanted to hear, “there was a state road crew through here a few weeks ago.”

“Right!” she said brightly. “I heard about that. It was just before Susan’s wedding, wasn’t it? Well, come on, girl, tell it!”

“Okay,” I said relaxing for the coming trance. “It seems there was a pothole just outside of Ovid...”

I had a teacher in high school who used to say to me, “Marty, not very many ditches are dug by hand anymore.” That was his was of trying to motivate us to get a good education. Well, I’m here to tell you he was wrong. A lot of ditches are dug by hand. I know it for a fact, because I’ve dug plenty of them. And when I’m not digging ditches, I’m filling potholes or raking concrete or doing any of a number of tiresome, dirty jobs for the Oklahoma Department of Roads.

My teacher was right about one thing, though. He said I couldn’t avoid digging ditches if I didn’t get a good education. I hate it when he’s right.

It isn’t that I wasn’t smart. Hell, I had an IQ that meant I could have been a rocket scientist if I wanted to, but I didn’t. All I wanted was to have fun, and man, did I ever have fun.

I lost my cherry on my fifteenth birthday. She was a junior–a year ahead of me–but jeez, could she fuck. And she was just the first. By the time I dropped out of school in the middle of my junior year, she was just the first out of about twenty.

I started drinking at the same time. Not too much at one time, but you know, just drinking. It wasn’t hard to get booze. All you had to do was hang around some of the older guys, and they’d buy it for you. I didn’t drink much anymore. It was too hard to get up the next day and go to work with a hangover. Besides, drinking was an expensive habit, and expensive I couldn’t afford.

Okay, so if I was so smart, why did I drop out of high school? Was it because I was more interested in sex? No, not really. Sex was extracurricular. I never had to cut class to have sex. Was it the drinking? No, I didn’t drink any more than a lot of my fellow students. Was it because I was stupid? Well, a case could be made for that. To be completely honest, though, I was bored. Bored, bored, bored, bored, bored. I thought I was too smart to be in school. I was wrong. By the time I wised up, I was nineteen and working too hard to keep myself fed to take the time to go back and finish my education. It’s a shame, too. What’s the old line Marlon Brando has in On the Waterfront? “I coulda been a contender; I coulda been somebody.”

My folks didn’t really give a rat’s ass. They had six kids to raise, and I was just number four. My big brother, Billy, he was into drugs. He was really fucked up, and Mom and Dad knew it. He got a lot of attention. The rest of my brothers and sisters were just like me–unmotivated. One of my brothers and one of my sisters finally graduated from high school, but the other two sisters got knocked up and dropped out. Me? Well, I’ve gotten a little education on my own at least. As long as I can remember, I’ve loved to read. I’m probably the only guy digging ditches for the State of Oklahoma Department of Roads who’s read most of Shakespeare’s plays. I knew I had to be the only one that well read who had been digging them for ten years.

I mean, I wasn’t all bad. I didn’t smoke. I just never liked cancer sticks. And I didn’t do drugs. Oh sure, I had tried pot. Bor-ring. Heavier drugs I stayed away from. I didn’t need drugs to be a loser. I could do it just fine without them. The girls had pretty much gone away by now. The ones who used to be interested in me weren’t anymore. I was a loser. And the ones that were interested in me were bigger losers than I was, so I wasn’t interested in them.

Working on a road crew was about as high as I figured I’d ever go in life. I mean, it had its advantages. The pay wasn’t bad, and since the state did a complete background check, I didn’t have to compete with illegal aliens for the job. About the only guys who got into this sort of manual labor were the dropouts and the illegals. Everybody else had too much sense.

At least, I thought to myself as I looked out the truck window at the cold December landscape, it wouldn’t be too rough today. We had gotten a pretty easy assignment. We were going to fill a couple of big potholes out on a stretch of state highway that didn’t get a lot of use. The truck was loaded with cold patch, a tar-like substance that can be applied to a road in winter. It doesn’t hold like the hot tar you see in the summer, but it makes the road a little smoother until a permanent patch can be made.

Our supervisor had gotten a call from some judge who said he had to get his Lincoln realigned after he hit one of those potholes. When a guy like me calls up to complain about a road, nobody gets too excited, but when a judge calls up, a road crew looks like a fire company at a four-alarm fire. We had been dispatched out of our home base in Muskogee, so we were a little out of our normal territory, but as I said, when a judge says jump, we jump. I was surprised there weren’t more than four of us on the crew. Actually, two guys could have handled it, but our supervisor jumps when somebody important tells him to.

Brad Blackstone was driving the truck. He and I had been told to go on out to the site and wait for two other workmen who were being diverted from another job. That was fine with me. Brad and I were pretty good friends. We had worked together and played together for over a year. I guess it was because we were two of a kind. Like me, Brad was pretty bright to be working on a road crew. Unlike me, I got the idea he wasn’t here because of a lack of motivation. There was something in Brad’s past that had driven him from Chicago to Oklahoma, but I didn’t know what it was. He never talked about it, or his family or anything else. The only thing I really knew about him was that like me, he had never graduated from high school. It was as if he didn’t want anybody to know anything about his past. Whatever happened, it must have been serious, I thought. My job for the day would be sentry. Every road crew needed to have somebody standing out on the road in an ugly yellow safety vest with that pole sign that said Slow on one side and Stop on the other. That was the easiest job on the crew. I had drawn that job because I was on light duty since I had pulled a back muscle a couple of days before. I’d probably take crap from the diggers since sentry was easy.

“Who’s digging today?” I asked Brad.

He shrugged as he brought the truck to a stop next to the road. “I don’t know,” he said. “Just as long as it’s not the Asshole Twins.”

“Right,” I agreed. The Asshole Twins weren’t really twins. They weren’t even really related, but they were assholes. Mack was the brains of the pair, although he probably had more cunning than intelligence. He was about my height–six feet–but with a spare tire around the middle. You wouldn’t figure a guy could get pudgy doing what we did for a living, but Mack managed. His partner was Bear. Bear was about as tall as Godzilla, and he was the brawn of the outfit. Whatever Mack said, Bear did. I didn’t even like to think about everything that might entail. Almost for certain it included selling drugs, but I was sure there were plenty of other unsavory activities for them to be involved in as well. I tried to ignore their sidelines. It probably wasn’t safe to get involved.

Brad was busy looking at a map. He would stop every few seconds and look around. “Shit!”

“What’s the problem?” I asked.

“We’re lost. That’s the problem.”

I looked at the map. It was a highly detailed, official department map. “How can we be lost?”

“I don’t know,” Brad said angrily, pounding his fist against the door. “Damn! Now Murray is going to be pissed.” Murray was our supervisor.

“Well, where are we supposed to be?” I asked, more than a little concerned. This job might have been shitty, but I needed it. Crews that wandered around lost didn’t keep their jobs very long.

“Right here,” Brad said, pointing at an intersection between two state highways. “I passed County Road 12 five miles ago. This intersection should have been at least a mile back, but there’s no intersection here. And see that town over there?”

I saw the town he was speaking of. It was a small town, maybe ten or twelve thousand, nestled in a little valley below. “Yeah?”

“Well it ain’t supposed to be there,” he told me with a heavy sigh.

Every truck carried a mobile radio. I picked ours up and said, “Unit thirty-six to base. Come back.”

I released the call button to wait for a reply, but all I got was static.

“Here, give me that,” Brad demanded, pulling the radio out of my hand. “Unit thirty-six to base. Come back.”

I don’t know why he expected it to work for him when it wouldn’t work for me, but he was disappointed. He got the same static in reply that I did.

“Ain’t that a kick in the ass!” he growled, thrusting the radio back into my hand.

Yeah, it was a kick in the ass. What it meant was that we were lost with a full load of tar and sand, and two diggers were going to be someplace else waiting for us without hearing anything about where we were. The final result of the snafu was that Brad and I would probably have to get back to state Maintenance and let Murray chew on our butts for not being where we were supposed to be. Great.

“Hold on,” Brad said, suddenly a little calmer. He was watching a white extended cab pickup truck approaching us from behind. It appeared to be a state vehicle. At least maybe we’d all be lost together. The truck pulled up behind us and two men got out, one tall and one gargantuan.

“Oh shit!” I breathed. “It’s the Asshole Twins.”

“Shit don’t say half of it, brother,” Brad muttered.

We hopped down out of the truck to meet our diggers. They looked to be about as pissed as we were. To make matters worse, they both looked like they had had a busy night of parties before they came to work. Bear’s face was flushed, and Mack’s face was the color of a stop sign.

“So where’s the fucking pothole?” Mack yelled, as if it were our fault that it wasn’t there.

“Don’t know,” was Brad’s terse reply. Brad had taken a dislike to Mack the minute he met him, almost six months before. He had never found any reason to change his first impression. I think if it wasn’t for the ever-present Bear, Brad would have taken Mack out months earlier.

“Well what the fuck are we supposed to do?” Mack asked, exasperated.

“How should I know?” Brad asked, leaning back against the truck.

“Did you radio in?” Mack demanded.

“We couldn’t get through,” I replied, although the question had been addressed to Brad. Mack didn’t like Brad, but me, he hated. It was almost as if he hated anybody who was smarter than he was. That meant he hated an awful lot of people. I think I was pretty close to the top of his list.

Mack looked at me, as if trying to think of a snappy comeback. It took him a while, but he finally said sarcastically, “You mean a smart kid like you can’t figure out how to use the radio?”

Kid. Mack was about thirty, and I was only a couple of years younger. Kid my ass. “Try yours,” I told him. I liked that. It was a challenge, so he had to accept it, but it also sounded like an order. I guess Mack realized it, too, because he took a few seconds to respond. At last, he must have figured that if he got through, he would show me up, because he pushed the Talk button on his radio. I was actually relieved when he was greeted with the same static Brad and I had heard.

“So now what?” Mack asked, his arsenal of ideas exhausted.

Brad looked up at the sky. It was already mid morning, and gray storm clouds were starting to gather. “The forecast said maybe snow this afternoon,” he said. Snow was a problem. In Oklahoma, a few inches could become deadly as the winds swirled the snow into tall drifts leaving glare ice on the road where the snow had been.

“Look,” I suggested. “There’s that town over there. Why don’t we go over there, get a phone and call Murray?”

No one questioned that suggestion. It meant that Murray would have to make the decision. That got all of us off the hook.

“Good idea,” Mack agreed. “I could use a cup of coffee.”

Bear grunted his agreement. Grunting was about all Bear ever did. He was even dumber than Mack, if that was possible.

“Okay,” Brad said, taking charge. “We can go down in your truck, Mack.”

Mack’s truck was a standard state Dodge with an extended cab, so we could all ride together. Mack looked a little uncomfortable, but finally agreed. “Let me move some stuff around,” he said, sauntering off toward the truck. He moved a briefcase out of the back seat and put it in the shotgun seat. He threw the keys to Bear and ordered, “You drive.”

I was thankful the trip was short. Extended cab pickups are okay for short trips, but Brad and I were practically eating our knees in the small back seat. In five minutes, we were driving into the town. A small sign with the picture of what looked like an eagle flying past an oak tree greeted us. ‘Ovid Welcomes You!’ the sign proclaimed. Underneath was a list of the usual civic clubs and their meeting dates: typical small-town stuff.

“Where the fuck is Ovid?” Mack asked, rattling his map.

“Right here, I guess,” Brad said laconically.

I had never heard of Ovid, and as an Oklahoma native, I thought I had heard of every town over five thousand in the state. This one was a new one on me, though. It was a pleasant little town, clean and fairly well kept. Winter is the worst time of the year to form an opinion of a town in Oklahoma. Everything is brown and gray with a dirty look to it. The trees always look like there isn’t any way they’ll leaf out again in the spring. Even the people look like they aren’t alive. The only saving grace in December is the Christmas decorations on the street lamps and buildings. Ovid wouldn’t exactly take any prizes for their displays, but the red and white candy canes and green Christmas trees hanging along light poles on the highway strip made the town look a little better.

“Stop there!” Mack told Bear, pointing to a small cafe which declared itself in neon to be ‘Rusty’s Best Burgers.’

“Burgers?” I questioned.

“So I’m hungry,” Mack growled in challenge. “So I suppose you want to go someplace where you can get an espresso and discuss philosophy?”

“Burgers will do fine,” I agreed reluctantly. At least I could get a cup of coffee.

Mack got out with the briefcase still in his tight grip.

“What have you got in there?” Brad asked suspiciously. Brad and I had talked about the Asshole Twins many times, and we suspected they might actually be selling drugs to the crews. Somebody was, we were told, but Brad and I had always stayed away from drugs. We also told no one about our suspicions regarding the Asshole Twins. It was none of our business.

“My lunch,” Mack muttered.

Brad looked Mack in the eye. “Look, I want to know, are you guys dealing? Because if you are, I don’t want to be here with that shit.”

“Of course not,” Mack sneered.

“Then how about opening the case?”

“No fucking way!”

Brad made a step toward Mack, and I followed, but before Brad could get to the case, Bear stepped in between. “He said no fuckin’ way,” Bear boomed, uttering what I suspected were his first words of the morning. We could see his arm muscles tighten as he doubled his fists.

I don’t know what would have happened next if the police hadn’t interfered. I think Brad would have gone after Bear. That would have left me to take Mack. I think I could have done it, but now, I’ll never know. We were all startled by the sudden short whine of a police siren, and turned as one to see a black and white police cruiser had pulled up directly behind our truck. None of us had even heard the car drive in.

“Shit!” Mack yelled, and turned to run. He never had a chance, though. The cop was a blur of motion, running after him and grabbing his shoulder faster than any of us could blink. Mack turned, as if to hit the officer, then lowered his fist and appeared to be almost in a trance. I wondered why Bear hadn’t run, but then I noticed that he, too, was standing as if in a trance.

“What the hell is going on here?” Brad asked in a voice barely above a whisper. He, at least, seemed normal.

“I don’t know,” I replied in an equally quiet tone.

The cop turned to face Brad and me. He was tall, maybe six three or so, and wore mirrored sunglasses. I wondered why since it was such a cloudy day that it seemed almost dark. In spite of his run to catch Mack, he wasn’t even breathing hard, and not a hair was out of place. It was if he had just strolled over from his car to meet us.

“Into the car, guys,” he ordered.

“Officer,” Brad began, “our truck is a state vehicle and...”

“Don’t worry about the truck,” the cop interrupted. “It’ll be taken care of.”

“But the keys...” Brad protested.

“I said it would be taken care of,” the cop said in a tone that allowed no further argument. With a shrug, Brad headed for the car, and I followed him.

Mack and Bear were already in the car. They were both still in some sort of trance as they sat together in the back seat. They had arranged themselves so I could squeeze in next to them while Brad got in front with the cop.

As we were driving away, I noticed something odd. There was another cop, or at least he looked like a cop, getting into our truck. He was wearing the same grayish blue shirt as the cop who had picked us up and, in fact, looked like his identical twin. The truck started right away and pulled out of the parking lot behind us, but I remembered seeing Bear pocket the keys, so how did he get it started? Bear and Mack looked like they were taking a mental vacation to the Caribbean, so they didn’t notice any of this, but Brad did. He just gave a small shrug that only I saw.

We drove off the highway down another business street. Gas stations and fast food joints gave way to one-story offices and small shops. After only a few blocks, we were in the main business district of Ovid. It consisted of one main business street, called unoriginally ‘Main Street,’ and a few businesses on the intersecting streets, but these trailed off after a block or so. A block or so west of the business district stood a gray granite building with Greek columns in front. The words ‘City Hall’ were carved into the granite above the columns. There was an Oklahoma flag flying next to the US flag in the grassy area in front of the building. It looked like your typical Midwestern municipal building.

The cop hadn’t said a word to us. He hadn’t read us our rights or explained why he had taken us in. I had no doubts, though, about what was in Mack’s briefcase, and I was pretty sure the cop knew, too. But how had he known? And where had he come from? One moment, the four of us were ready to go at each other in the parking lot of some burger joint, and the next minute, there was a cop there ready to haul us in. It had to be some sort of a setup, but I couldn’t figure out what. I looked at Brad in the front seat. He had the same suspicious look I was sure I had.

“Let’s go, guys,” the cop said, motioning us out of the car.

Mack and Bear led the way, almost as if they knew where they were going. Brad and I fell in after them with the cop, holding the briefcase, bringing up the rear. We walked into an area that looked familiar. It wasn’t because I had been there before, but I had been in places like it. It was a police station. But the odd thing is that there was no one there except us. Usually, even in a small town like Ovid, there would be a couple of cops around. One would be on the front desk and another dispatching. I mean, even a town this size had to have a couple of police cars in motion all the time.

It was almost with relief that I saw another cop standing near the last cell in the cell block. He had the same tall, lean look of the other cops I had seen in Ovid. It was almost as if they were all the same guy. Maybe the government had a secret cop factory someplace where they made these guys, I thought with a weird little mental twist. He was waiting for all of us to file into a cell, I realized. Mack and Bear marched dutifully toward the cell, but our escort suddenly put a hand on my and Brad’s shoulders.

“You two come with me,” he ordered. We were ushered into a small room with a conference table and a half dozen cheap conference chairs.

“What do you think is going on here?” I asked Brad after the cop had left, closing the door behind him.

“It’s not a good idea to talk,” Brad told me. “They may be listening.”

“They? They who?” I asked, plopping down in the nearest chair.

“They–the cops. This is an interrogation room.”

I looked around, then laughed, “What are you talking about? This is just a conference room. Look, there’s no one-way glass and the furniture is too nice.”

“Haven’t you ever been in a police station before?” he asked calmly.

I shrugged. “Well, yeah, a couple of times,” I conceded. “I mean, it was just minor stuff, though.”

Brad sat next to me and looked at me with his most serious look. “Okay, Marty, we’ll play it your way. This is serious business. Do you know what was in that briefcase?”

“No,” I replied, “but I can guess.” Like I said, Brad and I had suspected the Asshole Twins of dealing. What was it? Pot? Coke? Something with initials? I didn’t know, and I didn’t want to know.

Brad nodded. “So can I. Now, you’re the cops here in this little tank town and four scruffy guys show up out of nowhere with a briefcase full of illegal shit. What makes you think they’ll believe only two of the guys were dealing?”

I shifted uncomfortably. He had a point. Before I could answer, the door opened. It was the cop again, only this time, he was accompanied by an attractive woman. She was about five six or seven with long brown hair and a nice, athletic build which her gray dress accentuated and her matching gray jacket did little to hide. She had a conservative, professional look about her, emphasized by the glasses she wore, the one-inch heels, and the attaché case which she placed on the desk. That chore ended, she extended her hand, first to Brad and then to me. I noticed there was an engagement ring on her other hand. The good ones are always taken.

“I’m Susan Henderson,” she said crisply. “I’ve been appointed as your Public Defender.”

“Have we been charged with anything?” Brad asked innocently.

“Not yet,” she conceded, “but it looks like you will be. Possession of drugs is the most likely charge. Your trial has been set for three this afternoon and that’s bad. The Judge hates afternoon sessions and never schedules them, but the seriousness of the situation demanded it.”

“Wait a minute,” I interrupted. “What trial? I mean, I don’t know that much about the law, but how can this be happening so quickly? It’s not like this was a traffic offense or something.”

She shook her head, looking almost uncomfortable with the way it moved across her ears and the side of her face. “You’re right about that, but there’s a lot you don’t understand yet. Justice is pretty swift in Ovid. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll take all the help I can give you and not ask too many questions.”

She was young, but sounded tough, almost as if she had done this hundreds of times before. I hadn’t had much experience with lawyers, but I was rapidly gaining confidence in her. Brad wasn’t as convinced, though, as he asked, “Don’t we get the chance to get our own lawyer? I mean, no offense, but you look like you just got out of law school.”

She gave a wry smile and replied, “Don’t concern yourself, Mr. Blackstone. You and Mr. Collins here are in good hands. I have all the experience you’ll ever need.”

Somehow, I believed her, but Brad went on, “Look, lady, I don’t want to go down for something I didn’t do.”

She seemed to wince at the term ‘lady,’ but she recovered quickly. “You almost sound as if there was something you did do that we should be concerned about.”

It was as if she had hit Brad between the eyes with a hammer. All the bravado flowed out of him, and he slumped back wordlessly into his chair. Not for the first time, I wondered what there was in Brad’s past that he was trying to hide.

“How about you, Mr. Collins?”

“No misgivings at all, Ms. Henderson,” I said laconically.

She frowned for a minute. “You seem to have a better command of the language than I would have expected. Have you had some college?”

“No, ma’am,” I replied. I wished that I did have some college. Then maybe I wouldn’t be digging ditches. “I just read a lot.”

She nodded. “Good. You and your friend here seem to have a much better demeanor than those two oafs you were with.”

“Are you defending them, too?” I asked.

“No. They will be tried separately. Believe me, that is to your advantage.”

I believed her, but I couldn’t figure out what was going on. Why were we being tried so quickly on such a serious offense? Why weren’t we being tried together? Had the Asshole Twins confessed? That didn’t seem very likely. Had they feigned innocence and tried to shift the blame to us? That seemed very likely. Still, I was happy I wouldn’t be on trial with them: guilt by association and all that.

When Brad and I said nothing, she continued, “Now, let’s get down to the facts. That briefcase is loaded with cocaine.” She paused for a moment before observing, “I notice that neither of you seem very surprised.”

“We’re not,” Brad answered for us.

“You guys want to tell me what happened?” she asked.

We told her the entire story, switching off to verify each other’s statement every now and then. She took a page of notes, stopping occasionally to ask a question. When we had finished, she sat back in her chair. She looked me straight in the eye and said, “Now, give me one good reason why I should believe you.”

“Is that a rhetorical question?” I asked.

Her eyebrows went up. “Rhetorical? My, you are well read, aren’t you? And no, it isn’t rhetorical.”

“But I thought you didn’t have to believe us to defend us,” Brad observed.

She shifted uncomfortably. “I suppose I don’t, but I feel as if I can do a better job for you if I’m convinced of your innocence. Face it, things don’t look good for you. There’s fifty thousand dollars worth of cocaine in that briefcase. For all the court knows, you were getting ready to split it up and distribute it. Your two friends will try to pin it on you. You are trying to pin it on them. Usually, the courts decide everybody was involved. Punishments for drug dealers in Ovid can be very serious.”

“Look, ma’am,” I replied, “Brad and I were just doing our job. We don’t know anything about drugs. We don’t use them and we don’t sell them. You can look in my bank account or see how I live, and you’ll know I don’t make extra money selling drugs. Brad’s the same way. We were just questioning them on the contents of the briefcase when the cop stopped us.”

She was silent for a moment, looking back and forth at Brad and I with her big blue eyes. Damn, I would have given anything to be worthy of a woman like her. She had it all: intelligence, poise, looks, and an education. For at least the thousandth time in my life, I realized what a mess I had made of everything. Here I was, scruffy, uneducated, nearly broke, and now facing jail time for a crime I didn’t commit, all because when I was fifteen, I decided having fun was more important than having goals.

At last, she sighed and said, “Okay, guys, we’ll go with what we’ve got, but it isn’t going to be easy. I’ll be back here at a quarter ’til three. Then, we go to see the Judge.”

We were led to a cell as far away from the Asshole Twins as possible, for which I was grateful. Those bastards had gotten us into more trouble than I could ever imagine. I tried to get some sleep, but I was too worried about the trial. Brad must have been the same way, for I could hear him tossing and turning in the bunk above me. I wondered what was in Brad’s past that our attorney had speculated about. Maybe it was just woman’s intuition, but she sensed something about him. I had never asked Brad, but I couldn’t imagine Brad ever doing anything wrong. He was a real straight arrow.

I finally dozed off. It seemed like only a few minutes, though, before the cop who had picked us up called in, “Okay, you two, on your feet. The Judge is ready to see you now.”

Why was it, I wondered as I pulled myself out of the uncomfortable prison bed, that whenever someone in this town said ‘the judge,’ it sounded more like ‘the Judge’ with a capital ‘J?’

We were led out of the police station through the parking lot to the court wing. A receptionist smiled at us as we walked by. I did a double take at her because she seemed almost transparent. I don’t mean like a ghost in the movies or anything. It was just that if you looked at her long enough, you could somehow tell what was obscured by her body. I thought my eyes must just be tired and playing tricks on me until Brad whispered, “Did you notice anything odd about the receptionist?”

“Yeah,” I whispered back. “What’s going on here anyway?”

“No talking,” the cop said brusquely. He brought us to a halt outside a room with a bronze sign in front declaring it to be Courtroom 1. We waited there silently until I heard the outside door open. I looked around and saw another cop bringing in the Asshole Twins. The other cop left them in our cop’s care, turned and returned to the police area, but I thought as he went that he looked enough like our cop to be his twin. Great, we had twin cops to go with the Asshole Twins.

Mack and Bear were both unnaturally quiet. It was as if they were still in some sort of a trance. I didn’t question it, though. I was just as happy to not have to talk with them. I had thought that we were being tried separately, so I wasn’t happy to see them. Then, an unpleasant thought crossed my mind. What if they were there to testify against Brad and me? Our attorney was probably right. It was going to come down to our word against theirs.

The outside door opened again, only this time, there was the click of high heels. I turned and saw Susan Henderson approaching us with a look of grim determination on her face.

“I thought you said we were going to be tried separately from them,” Brad challenged with a nod toward the Asshole Twins.

“No talking!” the cop yelled.

Our attorney turned to the cop and said, “Officer Mercer, I need to talk to my clients for a moment in private. I’ll be personally responsible for them.”

“All right,” he agreed reluctantly, motioning to an adjacent conference room. “In there. But when the Judge is ready, I have to take them in right away.”

She nodded. “I understand.”

When we were seated and the door to the conference room closed, she began, “First of all, you are going to be tried separately, but you’ll all face the Judge for sentencing at the same time. Your friends have already been tried and found guilty of possession of drugs. I know that sounds confusing, but the court system is a little different here in Ovid.”

The way she said it, it sounded as if she was Alice speaking of Wonderland. I was really starting to get a bad feeling about this. She must have noticed, for she continued, “Look, I had lunch with the Judge’s secretary. She told the Judge about my meeting with the two of you. He always listens to her, so he agreed to meet with me earlier this afternoon. I’ve tried to get you the best deal I could.”

“Like out of here and on our way home?” I ventured.

“If I can, but that may not be possible,” she cautioned.

Terrific. Brad and I were about to be punished for something we didn’t do. The Asshole Twins were probably going to testify against us to get lighter sentences. At least no matter what happened, maybe Murray could get us out of here. Murray! We had forgotten to call him. He’d probably fired us by now. “Look, Ma’am,” I began, “we need to call our boss. He’s probably looking for us right now.”

She thought about it for a moment before replying, “That may not be a good idea.”

“But we’ll be in a lot of trouble!”

She shook her head. “Don’t worry. It will be taken care of. Besides, I think I heard the courtroom door open.”

She rose and opened the door. Although my vantage point wasn’t very good, I saw another cop who looked like our Officer Mercer leading one of the homeliest men I had ever seen out of the courtroom. He was tall with a face that was almost unnaturally elongated. He seemed to be hunched forward, almost as if he found it difficult to walk. He coughed, making a rumbling sound almost like a horse. Then, he was gone, but I thought I heard a cry even more like a horse outside the building, followed by a clopping sound. When our attorney turned back to us, she was quite pale.

“Is there something wrong?” Brad asked.

She shook her head. “No, it’s just that I don’t think the Judge is in a very good mood today. Both of you need to be on your best behavior if we’re going to come out of this okay.”

The courtroom was very professional, almost to the point of being intimidating. At the bench sat a middle-aged man of perhaps fifty or a little more in the black judge’s robe. He looked very scholarly in his gold rimmed glasses, but I could see there was an unhappy scowl on his face. He was shuffling a stack of papers as we were taken to the defense table. The Asshole Twins were seated in the gallery directly behind us.

The only other spectator in the gallery was an attractive young woman. She was blonde and appeared to be in her mid twenties. She was dressed in a stylish brown suit. I wondered why she was in the courtroom. Maybe she was the attorney for the Asshole Twins. No, I thought, she wasn’t sitting with them or even acknowledging their presence. Maybe she was with the local paper, assuming Ovid had one.

The judge looked up and rapped his gavel. “Court is now in session. Next case is the People versus Bradley Blackstone and Martin Collins.” He looked sharply at our attorney. “Does that satisfy your desire for proper court procedure, Ms. Henderson?”

She actually smiled. “It’s a start, Your Honor.”

The judge actually smiled back. I wondered what was going on between those two. It was as if they were both enjoying a joke that we weren’t able to understand.

“All right,” the judge said, motioning for Brad and me to stand. When we had done so, he continued, “Mr. Blackstone and Mr. Collins, the court has already determined that your two associates bear the full responsibility for the possession and attempted sale of drugs. The question remaining before this court is your role in this entire affair.”

“Your Honor,” Ms. Henderson began, “the defense would like to stipulate that Mr. Blackstone and Mr. Collins had no knowledge of the contents of the briefcase and...”

“I’m well aware of that,” the judge interrupted gruffly. Then to us, he asked, “Did either of you have any inkling that these other two men were dealing drugs?”

Brad and I were both silent. Yes, we both knew what they were up to, but it wasn’t our business. We didn’t want to get involved.

“Didn’t want to get involved, eh?” the judge said, almost as if he could read our minds. Come to think of it, I realized, maybe he could.

“We didn’t know for sure,” Brad offered.

“Didn’t know for sure?” the judge repeated loudly. “But you suspected.” It wasn’t a question.

“Well, I guess,” Brad allowed.

“You guess!” the judge sneered, removing his glasses and staring at us. “Of course you guess. Wasn’t that part of the reason you call them ‘The Asshole Twins’?”

“Not really,” I replied truthfully. “We do that because... well, they are assholes.”

There was a sudden giggle which came from the direction of the blonde.

“While I might agree with that,” the judge said, looking sternly in the direction of the blonde, “you know very well that they were involved in illegal activities.”

Again, Brad and I were silent. Our attorney stepped in. “Your Honor, while they may have suspected illegal activities on the part of these other two men, without proof, they were under no obligation to report them.”

“And so, you are asking for...?” the judge said to her.

“Clemency,” she replied.

But the judge shook his head. “I will not grant clemency.”

Clemency? I wondered. Since when was not reporting someone a crime? Was this Nazi Germany or something? I could see the same confusion on Brad’s face.

“I will, however, be lenient,” the judge continued. “Now, I want all of the accused to approach the bench.”

Brad and I did so reluctantly, but Mack and Bear did so as if they were zombies, with a shuffling, mindless cadence. When we were all in place, the judge did something I had never expected–he began to speak in Latin. I didn’t know what he was saying, but I recognized a word or two from my readings. As he spoke, I felt something almost like a chill in the room and felt my skin tingle. I wanted to see how the other guys were reacting, but for some reason, I couldn’t turn my head. It seemed as if the lights were getting dim as well. I nearly panicked, wondering if something was physically wrong with me. Maybe the anxiety of the trial was having an effect on my body.

Then, suddenly, everything was normal again. The Judge, for I somehow realized he did indeed rate the capital ‘J’, rapped his gavel and gruffly muttered, “Court is adjourned!”

Do you remember the scene in the old science fiction movie, Forbidden Planet, where the ship has just dropped out of hyperspace and everyone is stumbling around groggy rubbing their heads? That’s the way we all looked. Brad was rubbing his neck; Mack was looking around as if he had no idea of where he was, and Bear was... well, Bear was Bear. He just looked like he was not sure what planet he was on. Me? I felt kind of light-headed. I wasn’t really myself. If only I had known then exactly how true that was.

“I’ll walk you to your car,” Officer Mercer said, making it sound more like “Go to your car–now!”

We didn’t argue, but Mack at least was back to being his old obnoxious self. “Can you believe it? They let us go!”

“Yeah,” Bear agreed, “but what about the brief...?”

“Quiet, you moron!” Mack ordered. Odd, I thought, but Mack’s voice sounded a little higher.

I looked at Brad. He was still looking as if he was a little dazed. Also, he looked somehow different. I mean, he was still Brad, but he looked a little taller than me, and we were both the same height. Also, his hair looked a little curly instead of straight, and it appeared to be a couple of inches shorter than usual. My hair, on the other hand, felt a little longer. I reminded myself to get a haircut before the weekend, assuming we still had jobs. I looked at my watch. It was a little after four. We still had time to call Murray.

“Let’s find a phone,” I said to no one in particular. “We can still call Murray.”

“Who’s Murray?” Mack asked, his voice higher still. I looked at him. His brown hair seemed somehow lighter.

“Who’s Murray?” I repeated. “I’m talking about the guy who’s going to fire us if we don’t call in.”

Mack laughed a high-pitched laugh, “Oh, Myra, quit joking around.”

Myra? Who was Myra?

“Here you go,” Officer Mercer said, opening the door of a car I had never seen before. It was a Pontiac Grand Prix, dating from the early eighties. My dad had had one similar to it when I was a kid. It was a piece of shit then, and age had not improved this one. Its plum-colored metallic paint had faded badly, and there was a rough, unpainted smear of Bondo over the wheel wells where it appeared to have rusted, probably while Reagan was still President.

“What’s this?” I said to Officer Mercer in a voice that didn’t seem to be my own.

“Get in, Myra.” I felt a strong arm grip me from inside the car and pull me down into the front passenger seat. I turned to see Bear behind the wheel, holding onto my arm, only he wasn’t really bear anymore. Instead of the greasy dark brown hair that had probably helped to give Bear his nickname, his hair was now blonde, and cut extremely close to the scalp. He was actually a little better looking, with clearer, younger features than I remembered. And if anything, he was bigger than before.

Officer Mercer closed my door. I felt almost as if he had awakened me from some weird dream, but if so, I had fallen back asleep into an even weirder one. I looked around into the back seat. Brad had changed still more. He was now a little taller and slimmer with dark, curly hair and deep brown eyes instead of his normal blue ones. He looked almost as if his ancestry was Italian instead of the English I knew it to be. Also, he was younger, looking perhaps sixteen.

But the real changes were happening to Mack. I knew it was Mack because he was still wearing the denim coveralls he had been wearing all day. Only now, they bulged out in odd places, notably at the hips and chest. He still had his normal face, but it looked a little softer and more rounded now. His hair, though–it was long, falling both in front of and behind his shoulders in soft blonde curls. As I watched him, his face began to change, becoming more and more feminine by the moment. Then, I could see traces of lipstick and eye shadow appearing, as if they were being drawn on his face by some invisible artist.

I looked back at Brad, but he was looking at me with wide eyes. Why? What was wrong with me? Then, I felt the changes. I had been so intently watching the other three that I had paid no attention to what was happening to my own body. I felt something tickling the back of my neck, and a sudden weight on my head. Then, there was a small pinching sensation at each of my ear lobes, and I felt an odd weight there, as if something was swinging back and forth at the bottom of my ears. When I blinked my eyes, it was as if there was something dark on my eyelashes, causing them to be thicker. There was a sudden taste, almost a sweet perfumed taste, on my lips. Blonde hair began to cascade down my back and over my shoulders.

But it was the rest of my body that I could actually see. My gray work shirt was now a tightly-knitted white sweater, which did nothing to disguise two mountains growing on my chest. It was almost as if they were heavy balloons heaving up and down as I gasped in surprise. At the end of the sleeves were two delicate, feminine hands with long red nails. My jeans had fused into a single tube of leather, which was shrinking up toward my expanded hips, leaving behind two feminine legs encased in dark nylon. I lifted a foot far enough to see a black pump with a two-inch heel covering a dainty foot. Jesus H. Christ! I screamed inside my mind, this just wasn’t possible! I had been changed into a girl!

“Usual place?” the mountain of a teenager Bear had become said.

No one said a word. Brad and I were too busy staring at each other, and the buxom blonde girl Mack had become was too busy snuggling against Brad to say anything.

“Jack, Damn it! I’m talking to you!” Bear said sharply.

As the only other male in the car, Brad thankfully took his cue. “Yeah, sure the usual place.”

Bear turned the car sharply through a wide metal gate. I could see the name ‘Sooner Park’ in black wrought iron letters at the top of the sign. It had started to snow as we made our way down into a small forest of oak trees. Without warning, Bear wheeled the car into a secluded side road, sliding slightly on the thin coating of new snow. He put the car in park, and wordlessly slipped his meaty paws under my sweater.

“Stop it!” I screamed, surprising him so much that his hands actually retreated.

“Hey, what’s the problem?” a high-pitched voice called from the back seat. I looked around to see Brad frozen in shock and a blonde bimbo unzipping his fly with her face no more than a foot from his crotch.

“Yeah, Myra,” Bear agreed. “What’s the fuckin’ problem?” I was almost relieved to see he was hardly a class act no matter what body he wore. It gave me a sense of stability in a topsy-turvy world.

Bear had given me my cue, though. I was obviously Myra. I had to come up with an answer. Let’s see, what was the most devastating response to this any girl had ever given to me. Think!

“Uh,” I began, “I... I’ve got the cramps.”

Bear looked stricken.

“Yeah,” I went on, getting into the spirit of the thing. “I’m getting my period!”

“But it ain’t time for your period,” Bear protested.

“It’s early!” I insisted.

“Oh, shit!” He slumped into his seat and hit the dash with his fist, rattling the entire car. Then his face brightened, as if the one thought he would be able to manage all month had finally crawled through his thick skull. An evil grin appeared on his face as he turned to me. I wasn’t going to like this. “Then blow me.”

I knew I wasn’t going to like it. Think again! I had to be able to outwit this dunce. Yes! I had it! “You don’t understand,” I wailed, “I don’t have a tampon. I’m going to bleed all over the seat.”

I figured the car had to be his, and piece of shit that it was, it had to be his pride and joy. The thought of menstrual blood all over his cheap seats was enough to offset the need to have his raging hard on sucked. I could see in his eyes that he couldn’t wait to get me home.

“Oh crap!” That was from the girl in the back seat. I looked back at her and saw her, arms folded in disgust. Brad, on the other hand, looked at me with something resembling relief. Although he had said nothing, I knew that Brad and I both knew that this was not the same reality we had been a part of only a few hours before.

Bear dropped me off first. In spite of the fact that I was probably his girl, the need to get me out of the car before I bled all over his precious upholstery outweighed any other strategy he might have had. We had pulled up in front of a white two-story house in a nice, middle-class neighborhood. Since the winter day had already turned dark, I could see through the windows into lighted rooms. The house looked warm and cozy. I didn’t care if there was an axe murderer living there. Anything was better than spending another minute in the car with this newer, younger Bear.

“Wait, I’ll walk you to the door,” the girl in back said as I opened the car door.

I nearly stumbled getting out of the car in my new high heels. At least thank God they weren’t any higher. This was like a nightmare. I could imagine Bear getting out of the car to chase me while I stumbled in unfamiliar shoes.

“Take your books,” Bear said gruffly without even looking at me. I looked at the floorboard beneath my seat and saw a small book bag and a woman’s leather jacket next to it. I grabbed both and started unsteadily toward the house we had pulled up in front of. If I could have managed, I would have run to the door. Anything to get away from Bear.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” the blonde who had been Mack whispered loudly to me as we walked to the door.

“My period,” I said tersely.

“Bullshit!” she said. “Your period is never early. It’s always the same time as mine, and that’s not for another two weeks.”

Oh, goody. There was something to look forward to.

She pulled my arm. “Look, Bull is pissed at you now, and you know what that means.”

I didn’t, but I had a pretty good idea.

“Myra, he’s the best catch in the school. He was already being looked at by college scouts this last year, and he’s only a Junior. He’ll probably be listed as the top football prospect in the nation for center after next season. And he’s crazy about you. Play your cards right and you’ll be the wife of a pro football player. You know what that means, don’t you?”

Sure I did. It meant that a drug-running scumbag like Bear was being rewarded by being turned into a hotshot college football prospect while innocent little old me got to be his would-be blushing bride. The Judge was behind this. Oh, excuse me, Mr. Judge, but I think you got your wires crossed. I’m the good guy; he’s the bad guy.

“Myra, say something!”

Okay, it was time for me to do something to recover this situation before I made a total fool of myself. Thus far, I was only about an eighty percent fool. I tried the old tired smile look. “Hey, I’m sorry... (I had no idea what her name was). I just don’t feel good, okay?”

It worked. She melted a little and put her hand on mine. “Okay. I’ll call you later. I’ll back up your story with Bull. Everything will be fine by morning.”

We smiled at each other. Then, with a little wave, she ran back to the car. She barely got the door slammed before Bear’s, or apparently now Bull’s tires squealed away from the curb. Great. I was a girl with a mountain of a boyfriend who thought he was Mario Andretti.

I got to the door and read the bronze plaque on the door. It said: ‘The Smithwicks.’ So apparently that was my last name in this strange new reality: Smithwick, Myra Smithwick. I sighed. I guess it was better than Hermione Grubbermeister. So I had a full name. That was one problem solved.

Next problem. I didn’t have a key. Or at least I didn’t think I did. I checked the pockets of the leather jacket. No key. I was freezing out here and the snow was starting to come down harder. Finally, I rang the doorbell.

I was greeted by a forty-something woman with brown hair just starting to go gray. She was dressed in a conservative white blouse and navy blue skirt and looked as if she had just gotten home from work. She had a kindly look, but it was marred by flashes of concern and bottled-up anger. Also, she was one of the transparent people.

“Myra!” the woman said with honest concern. “Where have you been? It’s been snowing hard for over an hour, and you promised to be home early. And where is your key?”

This was a new experience for me. When I was in high school, I came and went as I pleased. Mom was a waitress and often worked late, and dad’s schedule was always screwed up, too. I’d get home, fix myself something to eat, and then take off to party. Nobody cared. What was this woman doing getting so steamed up? I could take care of myself. Then, remembering my recent experiences in the car, I realized that maybe I couldn’t take care of myself so well after all.

“I’m okay,” I said emphatically, but actually a little warmed by her concern. “I was just out with some friends.”

“You were out with that Bull Brewster, weren’t you?” she asked sternly. Then, without waiting for an answer, she continued, “I wish you wouldn’t spend so much time with him. I really don’t think he’s a very nice boy. Some of the other mothers have told me he doesn’t treat girls very well.”

I could testify to that. So, this woman was supposed to be my mother. No surprise there, I guess. I knew I was being chewed out, but I didn’t seem to mind. For one thing, we agreed that I shouldn’t spend so much time with Bull Brewster. As far as I was concerned, one second with him out of the rest of my life (either life) was one second too many. I didn’t answer her, though. Until I learned more about who I had become, I didn’t want to appear out of character, so I just listened. My ‘mother’ didn’t seem to be looking for answers from me anyway.

“And where is your key?” she demanded.

“Uh... I don’t know,” I replied. I was confident with that answer. I didn’t have the slightest notion where my key was.

“You didn’t leave your purse somewhere, did you?”

Oh shit! I was a girl now, and girls carried purses. I must have left it in Bull’s car, I thought. How would I get it back? There was a sick feeling in my new stomach.

Mother was going through my book bag, and in a moment, she produced a small brown leather purse. “Well, at least your purse is still here. Did you lose your key out of... Oh, no. Here it is,” she said, producing a small ring of keys. “Why didn’t you use it?”

I felt the sick feeling going away. At least I wouldn’t have to get my purse back from Bull. “Well, I guess...”

“Oh, never mind,” she said with a sigh. “Now I need your help in the kitchen. Your father will be home from the plant any minute now. But before you come in to help me, get out of that outfit. You know your father hates it.”

Gee, I thought, he and I were going to see eye to eye on that. I couldn’t wait to get out of this outfit. Thank god girls wore jeans. There had to be a pair in Myra’s room, if I could just find her room.

Finding ‘my’ room proved not too difficult. All I had to do was find the bedroom done in pastels with a closet that looked like the Frederick’s of Hollywood warehouse. Didn’t this Myra own anything that wasn’t sexy and either way too tight or way too short? I managed to find a red and white University of Oklahoma sweatshirt, a pair of jeans, and some tennis shoes with, of all things, pink shoelaces. It looked like the most conservative stuff was in Myra’s wardrobe. Oh well, I sighed to myself, it was better than a leather skirt and high heels.

This was my first chance to get a good look at myself, and I wasn’t pleased with what I saw. I was about medium height. I was very attractive in a cheap sort of way. My hair was too blonde, probably lightened. I wore way too much makeup, especially around my deep blue eyes. My outfit looked as if it had been painted on the large breasts, tiny waist, and flared hips. My legs, as the old saying goes, went all the way down. I looked as if I should be singing that old Julie Brown song, ‘I’m a Blonde.’ I had to tone this look down in a hurry.

I stripped out of my sexpot outfit, finding to my disgust that my underwear consisted of a black lace bra and French-cut panties. Also, I was wearing a garter belt and stockings. I wondered if ‘Mom’ knew about all this hot babe stuff under the skirt. I was sure she probably did, but what could she do? Chastity belts had been out for centuries, and I was sure Myra wasn’t the only high school girl wearing something this provocative. In fact, when I had been in high school, I had known quite a number of them–some of them, ahem, quite well. Was that what kind of a girl I had become? That didn’t sound very promising. I remembered when some of my sisters had started dressing this way. It hadn’t taken them long to end up pregnant.

I certainly had the body for this kind of an outfit, I realized. I was blonde with deep blue eyes and that peaches and cream complexion that other girls would kill for. As for makeup, Myra apparently liked a lot of it. I managed to look at the size of my bra. It was a 36D. Pretty hefty for a–what?–sixteen-year-old. The entire body would be a candidate for a centerfold in a few years. I could see it now. Here she is, Playmate of the Year–Myra Smithwick. Thank you. My turn-ons are sexy guys with tight buns and my turn-offs are girls who go after my guys. When I get out of reform school, I want to be a rocket scientist. It was enough to make me want to throw up.

At least, I thought, the sweatshirt and jeans would tone the look down a little bit. I slipped on the sweatshirt, relieved to see that it was baggy enough to disguise at least a little of the voluptuousness of the breasts. The jeans were another matter, though. I had to tug them over my now-ample hips since my waist was so much smaller. These weren’t the kind of jeans I was used to as a guy. They clung to every part of my lower anatomy like paint. It was better than the skirt, though. I added the sweat socks and tennis shoes, and that made me feel a little more normal than seeing those small, dainty feet with their red toenails.

I looked in the mirror at the final effect. With the makeup, long blonde hair, and large hoop earrings that I had no idea how to remove, no one would mistake me for a man, but at least I didn’t look like the crown princess of the bimbos anymore.

“Myra, I need your help!”

Okay, I thought, time to play the part. I was going to have to be Myra Smithwick–maybe forever. I guessed I would have to play her well until I could figure out what else to do. As I slowly walked down the stairs, I kept thinking how unfair this was. I was an honest guy, yet here I was in the body of a bimbo while Bull was still male. Maybe the Judge had made a mistake. I mean, he changed four people all at once. Maybe Bull was supposed to be the blonde, and like Brad, or rather, Jack, I was supposed to still be male. That would have made a lot more sense.

‘Mother’ was in the kitchen, doing about four things at once. I could smell the aroma of meat cooking, and could see three salad bowls laid out filled with lettuce and tomato wedges. A vegetable–it looked like green beans–was in a bowl, ready to be served, with a dollop of butter melting down over it. My stomach growled. Male or female, I began to realize I had eaten nothing since an early morning breakfast with Brad.

“Here,” she said handing me a bowl of steaming potatoes. “Mash these, and make drinks for everyone. I just talked to your father, and he’ll be here any minute.”

I took the potatoes without question and began to mash them. As a bachelor, I knew my way around a kitchen when I had to, although I would usually settle for an unhealthy portion of a burger and fries either alone or with somebody like Brad, washed down with a couple of beers.

My ersatz mother was bustling so vigorously that I wondered what kind of a man my ‘father’ was. Did he expect this type of service every night? Maybe he was like that guy in the Julia Roberts movie who insisted all the towels be straight. I shuddered at the thought. On top of Bull the Ape Man, that’s all I would need–a domineering father. I had visions of him with Bull, the two of them smoking cigars, while my ‘father’ told him, “That’s right, son. When I turn her over to you, you be sure to keep her in line, you hear?”

The rumble of the automatic garage door brought me out of my waking nightmare. I nearly dropped the potatoes in the process.

“Myra! I think those potatoes have been mashed enough. You haven’t even started to make drinks. Oh, never mind, sit down. I’ll do it.”

The door between the kitchen and the garage opened, and for the first time, I saw my ‘father.’ He appeared to be about the same age as my ‘mother.’ He stood about six feet tall, I guessed, given that I appeared to be about five four. He was relatively trim with just the hint of middle age spread. He was wearing a dark suit and a conservative tie. He had short hair that was mostly gray with a matching mustache. What impressed me most, though, were his eyes. Like mine, they were blue, but although they looked tired from the stress of a long day, they had a warmth that made me regret the terrible things I had imagined. One more thing about him: unlike ‘Mom,’ he was not transparent.

“How are my two girls today?” he asked, giving ‘Mom’ a hug. Then, looking at me, he asked, “What, I don’t get a hug?”

I don’t think I had ever hugged my real father, or for that matter, even my mother after I was about twelve. I hesitated for a moment before reminding myself that until I sorted everything out, I had a role to play. With a forced smile, I stepped over to him and gave him a hug. He hugged back, firmly, but not uncomfortably. For just a moment, I felt something I had not felt in a long time. I felt safe.

“Sit down; dinner’s ready,” Mom said. I suddenly realized I actually thought of her for a moment as my mother. And why not? I wasn’t close to my real parents. I hadn’t seen them in over three years, or even talked to them for that matter. If I had to be stuck in Ovid for a while, I supposed it might as well be with people who seemed to be loving parents. Since I had no visible means of support, being someone’s teenage daughter was probably the best strategy.

I waited until my new parents had seated themselves before taking my place at the table, since I had no idea where Myra normally sat. I wondered if Myra had been one of the transparent people before I was transformed. I imagined that she was.

As we ate, everyone talked about his or her day. Dad was apparently a mid-level executive at something called Vulman Industries. As nearly as I could tell, they made car parts, but I could have been wrong about that. Mom was a receptionist/secretary for a law firm, and she seemed to be happy with her job. She never mentioned the firm she worked for, but talked instead about a couple of cases they were working on. I didn’t pay much attention, though, since I had no idea who the people she was talking about were.

“How about you, honey?” Dad asked, looking at me.

I had been absorbed in my dinner. The pork chops and vegetables were among the best I had ever eaten. Even with a much lighter feminine appetite, I had been concentrating heavily on the delicious dinner. “Me?” I said stupidly after swallowing a bite of meat.

“Who else do I call ‘honey’?” he said with a smile. “By the way, I’m glad to see you’ve decided to dress a little more conservatively. Now, if I could just talk you into lightening up on that makeup...”

I’m sure the old Myra would have groaned, “Oh, Dad!” Not me. I didn’t like wearing this much makeup either. I just nodded and said, “I’ll try.”

For the reaction I got, I think ‘I’m pregnant’ would have been less of a shock to them. What kind of a person was Myra before I came on the scene? I had a hunch she was practically an apprentice streetwalker. Bull seemed to expect me to spread my legs on command, and my parents expected me to always do the opposite of what they wanted. I didn’t know if I was cut out to be a model daughter, but apparently, I was something of an improvement.

Dad finally recovered. “Great. Now, how was school?”

What could I say? I had never been there. I assumed I was a sophomore or junior since Bull was a junior. I couldn’t have been any younger–not with a body like mine, and Bull didn’t seem the type to date older women. I just shrugged. “It was okay.”

This seemed to be a comment more in line with what they expected.

When dinner was finished, I found out it was my responsibility to do the dishes. That didn’t bother me. It was a lot easier work than preparing a meal. My only slipup was forgetting to put on the rubber gloves before sticking my hands in the hot dishwater.

“Myra, don’t do that!” Mom cried in horror. “You’ll ruin your nails.”

I supposed I would, but it had never occurred to me before. My short male nails weren’t affected adversely by the hot water. In fact, it was a way to soak out the dirt and grime that had accumulated during the day. As a man, my hands were callused and rough. Hot water didn’t bother them at all. As a girl, though, the soft skin stung in the hot water, and I realized that if I soaked my nails very long, they would become too soft and lose their shape. Something told me there was going to be a lot to remember if I was successfully to maintain this new identity.

Mom and dad retreated to the den to watch TV. I told them I had studying to do. That evoked another odd stare. Apparently, Myra didn’t study much. Actually, I just wanted to get away for a while so I would not have to continue the masquerade. I opened the book bag to see what books Myra had brought home. To my surprise, there was only a notebook and a romance novel. No wonder my purse had fit in there so easily. I was about to examine the purse when I hear the doorbell ring. A moment later, Mom called up, “Myra, there’s a young man here to see you.”

Oh my god, I thought. It had to be Bull. I didn’t want to see him. I would have to go down and give him another story about my period. With a heavy sigh, I went downstairs to face Bull. Imagine my surprise when I saw it wasn’t Bull at all. Instead, it was Brad–or rather, Jack. In his high school letter jacket of black with a gold ‘O’ on it and the stack of books tucked under his arm, he looked like a Norman Rockwell version of American youth. I grinned when I saw him, and he grinned back. I had been right! He remembered who he had been.

“Let’s go in the living room and talk,” I told him. The living room was the room furthest from the den, so with the TV turned up, my new parents wouldn’t be able to hear what we said.

“I thought we could study together,” he said when we had settled in on the couch. “It’s been a long time since I’ve been in school, so it’s going to take some time to get back into it.”

“You sound as if you’ve decided to be Jack all the way,” I observed, a little disturbed that he was taking all of this so rationally.

He nodded. “I suspect we’re stuck here, so I figured I’d make the most of it. I didn’t get the chance to finish high school, and now I do. I’m fine with this new life. You sound as if you’re not.”

“Not really,” I replied. “It’s all too weird for me. I don’t know if I can face it.”

“Oh, come on, Marty, show some balls. You have to face it.”

“Show some balls?” I repeated loudly. “It’s funny you should say it that way. I seem to have misplaced mine. If I remember my biology correctly, what’s left of them have travelled inside my body and set up shop as a baby factory. Add to that, I have a possessive boyfriend with the IQ of a large fireplug and a physique to match. And the way I was dressed today tells me I can expect Bull and the baby factory to get together any day now. With all of that going on, you’re telling me to face it?”

Jack turned a little red and looked down. I took it as my cue to continue. “To make it even more fun, I don’t have a clue as to how to apply makeup or put on a bra or fix my hair or shave my legs or any of a hundred different things a girl has to know every day. You, on the other hand, just have to figure out how to get to football practice.”

“Okay,” he finally said, “you’re right. I’ve got it a lot easier than you do, but look on the bright side. You’re a sixteen year old again. You can start to live a critical part of your life over again. Maybe this time you’ll do it better. Sure, you have to wear skirts, but you don’t break your back digging ditches.”

“But I’m a girl,” I argued.

“So?”

“You wouldn’t be so glib about it if it were the other way around,” I muttered.

“You’re probably right. But this is the way it is. Now, do you want to study with me for the history test?”

“What history test?”

He sighed, “The one we’re scheduled to have right after lunch tomorrow. Didn’t you look in your book bag?”

I batted my eyes and gave my best Valley Girl imitation. It was frightening how accurate it sounded. “Well, like, you know, Myra’s not really into this study thing.”

“So you don’t have your history book.”

“No, and how do you know about it anyway? And how are you so sure I’m even in your class?”

“Jack is apparently a little better organized than Myra. I found the test notification in my notes, and there was a class roster taped to the front of the notebook. You’re on it.”

A sudden pang of fear struck me. I had had the dream in which you show up for class and don’t have the foggiest idea what you’re supposed to be doing. I think everybody has had that dream. Although, this time, it was for real. I had no idea what class I was supposed to be in or what to do once I got there. Jack saw the fear on my face. “What’s wrong?”

I told him the problem. He thought about it for a moment and suggested, “Maybe there’s a schedule in your room.”

I thought about what I had seen in my new room. It was feminine; that I remembered, but I couldn’t think of... “Wait a minute. There’s a desk in my room. It doesn’t look as if it gets much use, but maybe Myra stuffed a class schedule in there.”

“Let’s go look,” Jack advised.

It took some doing, but we found it. It was stuck in the bottom of a desk drawer with some other school papers.

“It looks like you’re in most of the classes I’m in,” Jack said as he read the schedule over my shoulder. He was so much taller than I now was, that this feat presented no problem. He was right. I was scheduled for American History at the same time he was. In addition, I had English and Government in the morning and Chemistry and Algebra later in the day. I had always been pretty good in subjects such as History and Government, and when it came to English, I had always been a voracious reader (I mean, how many ditch diggers knew what voracious even meant?), so that subject would present no problem. When it came to chemistry, though, I didn’t know a proton from an electron, and math had always been hard for me. If I were completely honest with myself, however, I would have to admit that both of those subjects had bored me, so I hadn’t paid attention when the fundamentals were explained.

“Any problems?” Jack asked.

“Algebra and Chemistry,” I told him.

“Don’t worry,” he replied. “Those are my best subjects. I need help in things like History. I never was very good at memorizing dates and names.”

“That’s because you’re going about it all wrong,” I told him.

“How so?”

“Well,” I began, “History isn’t so much about memorizing dates and names as it is about understanding events. If you understand that England was invaded by Normans who held claim to English land, then 1066 AD and William the Conqueror are just the date and name you hang on the event. You’ll see, it’s easier that way.”

Jack looked at me with newfound admiration. “I didn’t know you were good at this stuff. Why didn’t you go on in school?”

“The truth is,” I explained, “I was bored.”

“Bored?”

“Yeah. My IQ is measured at 165. That puts me way up there.”

“And you flunked out of high school?” he asked incredulously.

I shook my head, startling myself with the feel of the long blonde curls sweeping along my neck. “No, I didn’t flunk out. I probably would have, though, to be honest. I hate to whine about this, but most public schools have lots of programs for slow learners, but they don’t know what to do with the fast ones. They let them get bored and underachieve. There are members of Mensa, the club for people with high IQs, who sweep floors for a living.”

“Or dig ditches,” Jack added.

I flushed. “Yeah, or dig ditches. I went to school in Tulsa, in the inner city. Tulsa isn’t all that big compared to Chicago, but it’s big enough to have poor schools in the inner city. There was never enough money even to teach the basics, let alone handle guys like me. And my parents didn’t care. I was just one more mouth to feed. If I dropped out of school, I’d have to go to work and stop being a burden to them.”

“Sounds rough,” he commented.

“It didn’t seem so at the time,” I said, really thinking about it for the first time in years. “It just seemed... normal. Now, though, I’m not so sure.”

“Well, you’re a lot brighter than I am,” Jack told me.

I shocked myself by putting a comforting hand on his shoulder. “No, Jack, that isn’t so. You’re very bright, too. I know we never talked about it, but I think that’s why we’ve been friends. Let’s face it, we were always the oddballs on the crew. Most of the guys just lived for boobs, beers and burgers.” And now, I was the boobs, I thought darkly. “You must have dropped out for about the same reasons.”

“Well, I wasn’t as bright as you. My IQ is in the 130’s.”

“But that’s pretty high, too. Were you bored, too? Is that why you dropped out?”

Jack shifted uncomfortably, causing me to pull back my hand. “Not really. Look, I’d rather not talk about it if it’s okay with you. And I really need to study for this test. I’ll make you a deal. When we’re done, I’ll help you with the math and science, okay?”

I smiled. “Sure. Let’s do it.”

The evening passed quickly but productively. The History test was going to be on the American Civil War. That had always been one of my favorite periods. I had read Bruce Catton’s and Shelby Foote’s books on the subject, and considered myself something of an expert. I was able to walk Jack through most of the important details, and in about an hour, I pronounced him ready to take the test. Then, we disposed of English and Government. Government was an easy course. Jack understood that it was taught by an assistant coach who would rather be playing basketball. He had heard that from Bull (who was in the class with all the other jocks) and Mikki. It turned out Mikki was the former Mack’s new name.

“She doesn’t remember a thing about her old life,” Jack told me. “She’s just a bimbo looking for a jock to hold onto. Apparently I’m the jock.”

“So what did you two do after Bull dropped me off yesterday?” Why did I want to know that? It was none of my business, but the way she was clinging to him made me... jealous? No, just curious.

“Nothing much,” Jack said simply. “Bull dropped us off together. Mikki wanted me to come back to her house. She just lives a couple of blocks beyond me. I begged off, though. Her parents weren’t home, and it was obvious she wanted some action.”

“And you didn’t?” I asked, now genuinely curious.

He shook his head. “Not that way. Maybe later, when I’ve got things figured out around here, but I smelled a rat. Why was Mikki changed into a bimbo just for me? I know you’re not supposed to look a gift horse in the mouth, but I’ve been suspicious most of my life. Just because I’ve been given a new body doesn’t mean that I won’t still be that way.”

Next, we looked at English. Apparently, we were reading a Shakespearean play in class, so we could catch up on the fly. I had already read just about every play he had ever written, so I was on home turf there.

Before we could tackle Chemistry and Algebra, Mom came in. She looked pleasantly surprised that we were studying so industriously. “I’ve made some hot chocolate,” she announced, “and there are still some of the cookies I baked yesterday. Why don’t you two take a little break?”

We did, but it only took a moment to see Mom’s true motive. She sat with us in the kitchen with her own cup of chocolate. Dad had apparently already gone up to bed, so we were now the evening’s entertainment. It was obvious she wanted to learn more about Jack. She subtly questioned him about his family (she knew them already–Ovid was a small town), how he was doing in school, what his hobbies were, and so on.

Jack was very glib, considering the fact that I was certain he was making up a lot of it as he went along. I had been in his situation when I was in high school (or maybe I should say the first time I was in high school). I knew this was an interview for the position of Myra’s boyfriend. Fat chance of that, I thought. Apparently I already had one of those, and I wanted to get rid of him as quickly as I could.

The third degree–Mom style–out of the way, Jack and I retired to the living room to work on Chemistry and Algebra. With Jack there to explain it, it wasn’t hard to pick up on either subject. I had never paid much attention to either subject the first time around. These subjects were the last ones I had taken before dropping out of school, and my mind really wasn’t on them. Now, though, they seemed to make sense. It was as if I had been wandering around in the dark and someone had turned on the light. Of course! That’s how it works. I hadn’t really understood this or that before.

At last, Mom, came into the living room. “Don’t you think you two should call it a night?” she asked. “It’s late, and you both have to go to school in the morning.”

“What time is it?” I asked as I finished the last assigned algebra problem.

“Nearly midnight.”

“We should call it a night,” Jack said, closing his book. “If you want, we can work on this tomorrow evening.”

“Not tomorrow evening,” Mom told him. “Myra is going with us to the pre-nuptial dinner for my boss.”

Pre-nuptial dinner for her boss? I hadn’t known anything about that. Wait a minute, I thought. She worked for a lawyer, and the lawyer who had defended us was wearing an engagement ring. It had to be. There couldn’t be that many engaged lawyers in Ovid.

“Well, then maybe this weekend,” Jack suggested.

“Sure,” I agreed readily. “I’ll see you to the door.”

It was still snowing out, but not too hard. I looked at the curb and didn’t see a car. “Where’s your car?”

He smiled. “I walked. It’s only about three blocks.”

We just stared at each other, basking in our mutual friendship. It was us against Ovid. I was actually starting to think I could make it with Jack’s help. Finally, Jack said, “G’night,” and turned away with a wave.

“Good night,” I called after him. I was really sorry to see him go.

“He’s a very nice boy,” Mom said as I closed the door.

“I think so, too,” I agreed. “We’re good friends.”

Mom was thoughtful for a moment before saying, “He’s certainly a lot nicer than that Bull you’ve been dating. I’m glad to hear you talk about someone else. All you usually have to talk about is Bull this and Bull that.”

Boy, I must have been a space case to do that.

“Oh, I almost forgot,” she said suddenly. “That Mikki called up a little while ago. She said you were supposed to call her. I forgot to give you the message.”

Read that as “I didn’t want to give you the message, especially while you were with Jack.”

“I guess you can go one night without talking to her for hours instead of studying.”

“I guess I can.” Actually, I couldn’t think of anything to talk to her about for more than thirty seconds. She might have been significantly different from Mack, but I suspected I wouldn’t like her any better. She was a bimbo from the word go. Actually, I suppose I was, too, at least in the eyes of my new contemporaries. I could see us now, Bimbette and Bimbina, the Bimbo Twins. Yeah, sure.

Mom trundled off to bed, leaving me alone at last. I went back to my room, so tired I could barely keep my eyes open. It had been a long and eventful day, and all I could think about now was going to bed. As I pulled down the covers, I... Wait a minute. I was ready for bed. I was wearing a horribly frilly pastel yellow nightgown. My mouth felt fresh as if my teeth had just been brushed. The growing pressure in my bladder was gone, and a look in the mirror told me that I had washed off all my makeup. The problem was, I hadn’t consciously done any of those things. That meant the same magic that had changed me into Myra was still at play. It must have been like training wheels on a bike, helping you to balance until you could figure out how to do it yourself.

If I thought about it, I could remember everything I had actually done. I could remember going to the bathroom for the first time as a girl. I could remember carefully wiping myself, as if I had done it all my life. I could remember looking at my face in the mirror as I removed my makeup. I could remember all of these things, but I couldn’t remember what I had been thinking about at the time. I would have to be careful in the morning, I realized, or Myra would be back to the bimbo look without any intervention from me. As I drifted off to sleep, I began to think the next day might easily be the longest day of my life.

“Myra, you’re oversleeping!”

At first, I didn’t recognize the voice, but then I realized it was my new Mom. With a groan, I started to wake up, immediately remembering the events of the previous day. It hadn’t been a dream, and I hadn’t expected it to be.

“Did you forget to set your alarm?” she asked as I pulled myself out of bed. The sudden sway of heavy breasts was unnerving.

“I guess so,” I said sleepily. Actually, I hadn’t even thought about it. “What time is it?”

“Six fifteen,” she said. “Your ride will be here in an hour.”

But an hour would be plenty of time, I thought. Then, I remembered that as a girl, I would have to spend a lot more time getting ready. There was long hair to contend with, makeup, accessories, and clothes to select. I wasn’t looking forward to the process.

Still, I managed. I even found a few minutes to wolf down some cereal and drink some juice. I found if I let myself go in the shower, my built-in programs took care of everything. I was more aware of how they worked now, so I was able to exhibit a little self-control. I picked out my own outfit, consisting of a cream-colored sweater and another pair of tight jeans. I stayed with the tennis shoes I had found the night before. I actually got pretty good at attaching earrings and picking the right accessories. The only trouble I had was makeup. My program wanted me to apply it thick and heavy like the day before, but I was able to force myself to apply a little less. It was still more than I wanted, but significantly less than the day before.

I gave myself the once-over in the mirror. I was still one hot babe, and all the light makeup, jeans and tennis shoes in the world couldn’t disguise that. I was ready to face the world. Mom had said my ride would be there at seven fifteen, and I was standing by the door with five minutes to spare. I even remembered to grab my purse.

“Be home right after school,” she told me. “We have to get ready for Susan’s dinner tonight.”

“I will, Mom,” I said cheerily as a horn honked outside. Bull was behind the wheel. Damn! I had hoped he wasn’t going to be my ride, but I wasn’t surprised. To my relief, Mikki and Jack were already in the back seat.

I jumped in the front seat and was suddenly surprised as a big, beefy arm closed around my shoulders and pulled me to face Bull. “Hiya, babe,” he said with a grin, planting a sloppy kiss on my lips before I could stop him. The bastard actually pressed my lips so hard that I thought they were going to be forced back through the spaces between my teeth. It hurt like hell. I pulled away before he could force his tongue into my mouth. Now, I’d have to redo my lipstick, too.

“What’s your problem this morn...?” His voice trailed off as he looked at me. “What did you do to your face?”

I shrugged. “Nothing, really.”

“It looks different. You don’t look as sexy.”

Now, if I had been a girl all my life, I’m sure I would have been hurt by this comment. Considering my circumstances, though, I felt as if it was the first complimentary thing Bull had said to me. I didn’t want to look as sexy. Well, maybe that wasn’t accurate. I just didn’t want to look like Bull’s definition of sexy. Wait a minute, I thought to myself, just whose definition of sexy was I trying to look like?

“And what’s with the pants?” Bull roared. “I thought I told you I didn’t want to see you ever wear pants when you were with me.”

“Look,” I yelled right back at him, “it’s cold out. There’s a foot of snow on the ground and pants are warm.”

“Get out and get changed!” he ordered.

I have to admit, I was frightened. Here I was, a slip of a girl, yelling at a guy more than twice my size and god only knew how much stronger than I was. He could hurt me. He could hurt me very badly and not even work up a sweat. I was confused. No, more than that, I was terrified.

“Look, Bull,” Jack said calmly but forcefully, “we’re all going to be late for school if Myra goes in to change.”

“Yeah, Bull,” Mikki agreed to my relief. Although she was dressed in a fashion Bull would approve of, she seemed to support me. “You know how Mrs. Miner is. She’s just looking for an excuse to have the principal suspend you from sports for awhile. Being late might be the excuse she needs.”

All of this seemed to soak slowly into Bull’s thick skull. At last, he nodded. “Okay, I’ll let you get by this once, but that’s it, you understand?”

I said nothing, but that seemed to please Bull. He didn’t require answers from females. Saying nothing to him probably passed as agreement in his slow mind. We drove wordlessly to school, but I was fuming. I had never felt so helpless in my life.

Ovid High was one of those sprawling, flat school buildings that sprung up from the fifties on. It looked as if Ovid supported its schools, for I doubted if the building was more than ten years old. It was a complex of wings, all built out of tan brick with a minimum of windows so that the students in the classrooms would not be distracted by the weather outside. Dozens of students were milling between the parking lot and the school entrance, in spite of the cold temperatures and gray skies which threatened more snow. Bull parked his car, got out, slammed the door and headed for the building without a word to any of us. He was pissed; I was relieved. I was afraid he would want to lead me into the school his arm around me, just to let everyone know that I was his chick. What a disgusting thought!

Mikki came up and grabbed my arm tightly through the down jacket I was wearing. “Are you trying to piss him off?”

“I’m just trying not to piss me off,” I told her. “What business is it of his what I wear to school?”

“Look,” Jack said, grabbing my other arm, “we can all talk about this later. You and I have a Government class to get to.”

Leaving Mikki behind and confused, Jack guided me into the school.

“You act like you know where you’re going,” I said.

“I think I do,” he replied. “If you just sort of let your mind go, you seem to find or do what you need by instinct.”

Ovid High was a fairly good-sized school. If I had to guess, I would say it probably had about twelve hundred students. Of course, it was also probably the only high school in Ovid. The student body consisted mostly of the transparent people. They seemed to be going about their business as if they were as real as I was. Occasionally, I would catch a glimpse of someone who was solid, but not often. It was an eerie feeling. I could tell Jack was disturbed by it, too.

Jack and I got to our Government class just as the bell was ringing. We took the two remaining seats in the back of the room and tried to look interested as the teacher, a transparent person by the name of ‘Mr. Dewitt’ according to the nameplate on his desk, launched immediately into a lecture on the relation of the Federal government to the state governments. It was dry material, and I had heard it before. Blessed with an excellent memory, I knew I would have little trouble with this class.

I used the lecture to spend a little time looking around the classroom. I counted only four other ‘real’ people in the class. One, unfortunately, was Bull. He was sitting about half way toward the front, slumped back with body language that cried, ‘I’m bored.’ Jack, of course, was one of the real ones. The other two were a boy and a girl who sat a couple of rows forward and to my right. They both looked as if they belonged on the cover of a teen magazine. He had wavy brown hair and looked like a younger Brad Pitt. She was attractive enough to be a model, her auburn hair like something from a hair care commercial with its shine and body. They kept looking at each other with obvious affection. Both were dressed very preppy. The rest of the class was composed of kids who looked like normal high school teens, except for the hint of transparency.

We had a study hall next (no open campus nonsense in a small town like Ovid. If the kids weren’t in class, they were to be in study hall). I used it as an opportunity to re-read Romeo and Juliet, which according to the assignment sheet in my locker was to be the play we were reading this week. Then, I used the rest of the period to do a last-minute review for the History test. The period passed quickly, and I became so absorbed in what I was doing that I didn’t even think about who I had become.

English proved to be my first real challenge. For one thing, I was sure from the way some of the other girls whispered and giggled as I came in that Myra had become something of a joke in certain circles. I wasn’t surprised. Myra may have been a bimbo, but she wasn’t taking bimbo classes. She was taking a full load of courses that college-bound teens took. Also, I noticed the students surrounding me looked a bit brighter on the average than those in the Government class. That class was probably a required one. This class looked a bit more accelerated. They were expected to read fairly advanced material, I noticed from the outline. Shakespeare, Milton, and Chaucer were all on the agenda, and none of them were easy reads. The only two real students who had joined us in English were the two preppies. I wouldn’t have been surprised to find out that their names were Biff and Buffy.

I wondered what had happened to Myra. She seemed to be, at the heart of things, an intelligent girl. Yet here she was, dating an anthropoid ape and dressing like Little Betty Bimbo. What had gone wrong?

The English teacher, Ms. Saunders from the nameplate, was an older woman, perhaps sixty, with a kindly face and a mature but not unattractive figure. Her hair was mostly gray, pulled back into a tight bun. She was dressed in an attractive blue dress of a modest length. And, she was not transparent. I wondered if everyone who was real in Ovid was like me, and if so, who she had been before. She was the oldest real person I had seen thus far. Even given her age, she was reasonably attractive. I suddenly realized that in many ways, Ovid was like a television show’s version of a small town. It was populated by unusually attractive people.

“Today,” Ms. Saunders began, “we have a special guest who will be joining us. Dr. Miner, our Superintendent of Schools will be here shortly. As some of you may know, her Master’s degree is in English literature, and her thesis was on Romeo and Juliet. Ah, here she is now.”

Dr. Miner was a very sophisticated woman in perhaps her early forties. Her hair was light brown and fashionably styled, and she wore an attractive dark green business suit. She was a real person, and maybe a bit more. She was, like the Judge, almost larger than life, and she carried herself with such poise and grace that the entire classroom was enraptured.

“I’m very pleased to be invited to your class today,” she said, her warm smile returned by every student. “Romeo and Juliet is certainly one of my favorite of Shakespeare’s plays. Ms. Saunders has promised me a reading of one of the scenes. Let’s see, Jack Paris, would you read the part of Romeo for us?”

There were snickers from several girls as Jack stood. “Yes, ma’am.” I realized this was the first time I had heard Jack’s last name. I kind of liked it. It sounded... what? Romantic? Please.

“Myra Smithwick?”

“What?” Oops. My mind had been wandering.

“Myra,” Dr. Miner said calmly, “would you read the part of Juliet for us?”

“Oh, yes,” I said, standing. There was more snickering. Only this time, I felt as if the snickering was another way of saying, “The bimbo did it again.”

“All right,” Dr. Miner began. “I would like for the two of you to start with Act II, Scene II.”

Oh my god. It was the balcony scene. I looked at Jack as he began, “He jests at scars that never felt a wound. But soft! What light through yonder window breaks?”

Jack read marvellously well. There was almost a magical cadence to his delivery. His soliloquy was broken only by my words, “Ay me,” before continuing. As he finished, it was my turn. “O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo?” I was amazed at the musical quality of my own voice. We were like two singers singing the perfect duet, back and forth, bringing life to Shakespeare’s prose.

It was as if we were no longer Jack and Myra, but actually Romeo and Juliet, showering each other with promises of undying love. I began to feel something stirring in my breasts and between my legs that I had never felt before. We didn’t even have to look often at the text. It was if we knew it by heart. At last, when Romeo–Jack–finished the scene with, “Hence will I to my ghostly father’s cell, His help to crave and my dear hap to tell,” the room was quiet for several moments. Then, at the urgings of Dr. Miner, the room erupted in applause. Self consciously, Jack and I took our seats, nodding to the applause. But, I noticed we continued to look at each other.

Other students read, only to be rewarded with polite applause. Before we all knew it, the bell sounded, signifying our lunch break. On the way out, Dr. Miner stopped Jack and me. “You two did a terrific job of reading,” she said with a big smile. “I’m very proud of you both. Myra, I hope this means we can begin to expect great things from you again.”

“I hope so,” I said, not sure exactly what she was driving at.

I had forgotten how bad high school cafeteria food could be. Compared to Mom’s cooking, this was slops. But it filled the stomach. Jack and I ate together, neither mentioning our morning reading. Just as we finished lunch, we were joined by the other two real students who had been in our English class. They were both bright and cheerful in a preppy sort of way.

The boy began the conversation. “Hi, Jack, Myra.”

We both mumbled “hi’s” since we were apparently supposed to know who they were.

“Myra,” the girl said, “I need to go to the girl’s room. Will you come with me?”

I know girls have a habit of going to the restroom in packs, but I suspected there was more to it this time. It was not so much a request to keep her company, but more of a command. I was curious, so I just replied, “Sure.” As we walked away, I noticed the boy had begun an intense conversation with Jack.

The girl’s room was deserted except for one transparent redhead who was just finishing her hair. She smiled at us and continued to brush. My companion looked somewhat uncomfortable as she made the motions of primping in the mirror. I emulated her actions until the redhead, with another smile, walked out.

“Okay,” the girl said. “Now, we can talk, but if someone else walks in, we’ll have to just be two girls fixing our faces, okay?”

“Okay,” I agreed, confused but very curious.

The girl put out her slim hand. “First, hi, I’m Samantha Wallace. Just call me Sam. My boyfriend is Danny Mitchell. But in Ovid, you should know that, because we’ve all gone to school together since kindergarten. What you and I remember, though, is very different.”

“You know who I am–was–then?” I asked.

She shook her head. “I know what you were. I know that until yesterday, you were someone else. I don’t know who you were, though, and you probably shouldn’t tell me until you know me a lot better. We tend to keep our original identities private. It helps us to fit in here better.”

“So what can you tell me?” I asked. “And why couldn’t you tell me out there with your boyfriend? Can’t he know any of this?”

“No,” she explained. “He knows everything I’m going to tell you. The problem is there is a little corollary to the spell on all of us. If we remember who we were, we can only talk about the changes in twos. When all four of us were out there together, we couldn’t be having this conversation. Danny is telling Jack roughly what I’m telling you, okay?”

I nodded.

“That’s why we need to talk about something else if somebody walks in on us and...”

The door opened and two girls in black and gold cheerleader outfits walked in. One was blonde like me, but the other was dark, probably Indian. Oklahoma has a large Indian population. They greeted us, but both seemed a little surprised to see Sam and me together. Apparently we ran in different circles. They primped at the mirror, causing Sam and I to do the same. Then Sam said softly to me, “I see you’re trying for a more subdued look with your makeup. Let me give you a hand.”

She opened my purse and pulled out my lipstick. Then, she handed me a tissue and suggested, “You should wipe off your lipstick first and we’ll start over.”

I did as she asked, then faced her as she carefully recovered my lips. I was actually becoming used to the odd taste and the slightly greasy feel. I would have preferred to wear none at all, but I knew that was out of the question. It would be so far out of character as to be suspicious. She finished just as the two cheerleaders left.

“There!” she said proudly. I looked at what she had done. It was a subtle difference, but it looked so much more... natural. I was actually pleased with the result.

“Can you do something with the rest?” I asked. “I mean, the eyes are a bit much still, don’t you think?”

“Yes I do,” she agreed, “but let’s go on with our discussion first. When we get interrupted, I can work on your face.”

“Okay.”

Sam sighed and began a recitation I was sure she had given before. “As nearly as we can tell, Ovid was created about a year and a half ago by the Judge and some... others. Its population was made up almost entirely of the semi-transparent people I’m sure you’ve noticed. Then, slowly but surely, he’s repopulating the town with people like us who had other lives before. Most of the people he changes never remember their old lives, but about one in four or five remembers. We haven’t figured out why some remember and some don’t, or why this was done to us, but it just is.”

“Who is the Judge?” I asked.

She closed her eyes. “That is perhaps the biggest taboo here. We can’t talk about that, even when there are just two of us. You’ll probably figure it out eventually. Most people do, I’m sure.”

The restroom door opened again, and three girls, each giggling about something a teacher had said in some class, fixed their makeup as Sam worked on my eyes. I was beginning to wonder if girls ever actually used the toilets in the girl’s room. All I had seen thus far was a procession of girls in front of the mirror. If I were an architect, I think I would decrease the number of toilets in high school girl’s rooms and double the square footage of mirrors. At last they left. I was actually glad they had come in, for Sam had worked her magic on my eyes. All trace of bimbo was gone from my face.

“Okay,” I asked when they were gone, “is there any way to get back to my real life?”

“I don’t think so,” she replied. “At least, I’m not aware of anyone who has managed it. Once the Judge has decided, that’s who you are.” She hesitated for a moment before asking, “I don’t mean to pry, but was your old life that good? I mean, life here is really pretty pleasant.”

I thought about that. In my real life, I had no close family. I also had no future and a stack of regrets. Every morning, I got up to go to a nowhere job and every evening, I came home (if you could call the dump I lived in ‘home’) filthy with a sore back and calluses on top of calluses. No, my old life wasn’t a very good one, but I was a man. And as a man, I could... What could I do? Well, as a man I could... be a man.

“I suppose you’re right,” I allowed, “but in my real life I was... I mean, I wasn’t...”

“You weren’t a girl?” she prompted.

“Is it that obvious?” I asked, embarrassed.

She shook her head. “No, except for the thing about not knowing some of the finer points of makeup, you’re doing pretty well. When you read the part of Juliet this morning, I practically cried. If you were just playing the part of a girl with no real feelings behind it, they should give you an Academy Award.”

“I’ve just always liked Shakespeare,” I protested. “I could have probably read Romeo as well.”

“You may think that, but I doubt it. Try it at home some time. I think you’ll be surprised. Now, as far as trying to learn to be a girl, I can help you. After you’ve been here for a couple of months, you’ll wonder why being male was ever important to you.”

I couldn’t imagine that, but I had a gut feeling Sam was speaking from experience. It was almost impossible to imagine this model-perfect girl as a man. Every movement, every word, spoke of confident femininity, and when she looked at Danny, it was with the look of a woman gazing at the man she adored. No, I thought, dismissing my suspicion. There was no way Sam could ever have been a man.

We rejoined Jack and Danny, who had obviously had a long talk about Ovid. “Danny has asked us to join them at his house tonight,” Jack mentioned nonchalantly.

“I’ve got a dinner to go to with my parents,” I explained. “It’s a prenuptial dinner, so I don’t know what time it will be over.”

“Neither do I,” Danny said, “but my parents are going to be there, too. Dad is one of the groomsmen, so you can just ride home with them.”

“No bachelor party for the groom?” I asked.

Danny shook his head. “It wouldn’t be very exciting. The groom doesn’t drink and wouldn’t look at any other woman than his bride-to-be. Not that I blame him, because Susan Henderson is a pretty nice looking woman, even with the glasses. Where’s the fun in a bachelor party?”

I smiled a genuine smile. “Okay, sure. I’d like to come over.”

“I’ll meet you at Danny’s,” Jack said.

A sudden black thought crossed my mind. “Wait a minute,” I said. “What about Bull?”

“He’s not invited,” Danny replied darkly.

“That’s not what I meant,” I explained. “I mean, he seems to think he owns me, and I’m a little... well, concerned.”

“Frightened?” Jack clarified.

“Well, yes.”

Jack shifted in his chair to come to his full height. “Look, don’t worry about Bull. First of all, he’s got a wrestling meet tonight. Mikki told me since she’s going to it with some friends. I begged off. Also, if Bull gives you any trouble, well, let’s just say he’d better not.”

I felt suddenly better than I had felt since my transformation. “Okay, let’s do it!”

Jack smiled at me. “Then we had better head for History class. I believe we all have a test to take.”

I had worried about the test, but I shouldn’t have bothered. In a word, it was a breeze. Most of the test was multiple choice. For example:

‘The President of the Confederacy was:
a) Andrew Johnson b) Robert E. Lee c) Jefferson Davis d) None of the Above.’

Please.

I didn’t remember history being that easy when I was in high school as a male. Maybe it was, and maybe I just wasn’t paying attention. I’ll admit, I developed an interest in history after I dropped out of school, but this was so simple, I wondered why I had even bothered to study.

The history teacher, Ms. Samson, seemed bewildered when she saw that I was the first student finished. “Ms. Smithwick,” she admonished me, “if you are finished with your test, perhaps you should spend some time reviewing your answers.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I replied. “I’ve already done that.”

There were snickers around the room. Obviously, my reading of Shakespeare had been a fluke. The bimbo had made random guesses on her history test and was now ready for an exciting day at the mall (assuming Ovid was even big enough to have a mall, which I doubted). The surprise will be on you guys, I thought. I aced that test and I knew it.

Even Jack looked a little surprised. He was still working on the test. I could foresee that I would have to help him with History, in return for his help in Algebra and Chemistry. We would probably be spending a lot of time studying together. I found that an oddly pleasant prospect.

By the end of the school day, I was quite proud of myself. I had acquitted myself well, I thought. Even Chemistry and Algebra didn’t seem too hard. I was amazed how much I learned when I paid attention. Of course, I was really over a decade older than the other students. I was more like the college dropout who did well in school after spending a few years working or in the military. I knew what awaited the uneducated, and I didn’t think this female body would do very well at digging ditches.

“Are you going to the wrestling meet?” Mikki asked me as she caught up with me at my locker.

I tried to look disappointed, but I probably failed. “Can’t. I have to go to that prenuptial dinner with my parents.”

“Oh, that’s right,” Mikki said. She didn’t sound all that disappointed either. I think Mikki was beginning to feel a little uncomfortable around me. “Well, I’m going. I’ll root for Bull for you.”

“You do that.”

I managed to figure out which bus to get on and slid into my seat. It was only a minute or so before Jack slid in next to me. I was a little ashamed of myself, but I felt a momentary shiver of pleasure as he scooted against me on the narrow seat. “Want to drop by for a few minutes?” I asked him.

He studied me for a moment. “I thought you had a dinner to go to.”

“I do,” I agreed, “but I’m sure I have time. I wanted to hear what you learned from Danny.” That was partially true. I also just wanted to have Jack around to talk to. We were both strangers in a strange land, and without him, I wasn’t sure I could hold my masquerade together.

“Okay.”

Mom and Dad (it was odd how quickly I had come to think of them more as my mother and father than I did my real ones) hadn’t made it home yet, so Jack and I settled in at the kitchen table, glasses of milk in front of us, looking for all the world like something out of a sixties sitcom on Nickelodeon. I told him what Sam had told me. Then, he told me of his conversation with Danny.

“He told me about the same thing Sam told you,” he replied. “He told me the transparent people are called ‘shades.’ He doesn’t know where they come from. They look like people and act like people. They’re completely solid, too. Then, whenever the Judge decides to transform someone into an Ovid resident, the shade representing them disappears.”

“So there were shades for all of us,” I concluded.

Jack shook his head. “No, not for all of us. There was a shade for you before, and one for Bull. Mikki and I apparently didn’t exist before yesterday. The real people know that, although Danny said that slowly but surely, they’ll develop false memories of knowing us for a long time. The shades accept us as if we had always been here.”

“So even memories are in a constant state of flux,” I said slowly.

“Constant,” Jack agreed. “Get this. Ovid High plays other schools in sports, right?”

“I guess so.”

“But the shades can’t leave town, and if people from outside came to Ovid, they would notice something was wrong with the shades. Danny says that what happens is that all the other schools always play Ovid in Ovid. Their teams and fans come here, enjoy the game, never notice anything wrong, then go home and when they leave, they forget that they were ever here. The out of town papers don’t report the game, and everybody outside Ovid assumes their team had a bye the night they actually played Ovid.”

“Does he know how all this is being done?” I asked. “This would be quite a juggling act even for Q on Star Trek.”

Jack shrugged. “Obviously, it’s magic. Danny knows who the Judge really is, but apparently, he can’t tell us. And apparently, the Judge isn’t alone in this. We have to figure it all out for ourselves.”

I heard a car pull up in front. “It’s Mom,” I said, looking out the window. “You’d better go now. I’ll see you at Danny’s house later.”

“Okay,” he said, grabbing his books. Then, he did something I would never have expected. He gave me a chaste, brotherly kiss on the cheek as he left. I was too surprised to respond. I was even more surprised to realize I enjoyed it.

Mom helped me get ready. I didn’t have the foggiest notion what to wear. It’s a good thing I asked. I assumed since the dinner had to do with the wedding that it would be fairly formal. I was wrong. It was ‘nice casual’ as Mom put it. I ended up back in a skirt and heels, but nothing extreme this time. I wore a black sweater, a red plaid skirt which fit snugly but not too tightly, black tights, and black patent leather slip-ons with just a hint of a heel. I had replaced the hoop earrings with small, subtle studs and finished the outfit off with a gold bracelet and matching necklace. Along with the makeup treatment Sam had helped me with, I had a real ‘girl next door’ look. I kind of liked it.

Mom did, too. She came up and hugged me while dad was getting ready. “Sweetheart,” she said softly, “I’m so glad you’ve decided on a new look. It’s absolutely darling. I think this Jack is a good influence on you.”

“What?”

She looked a little flustered. “I didn’t mean to assume anything. It’s just that I saw Jack leaving this afternoon, and the two of you seemed to get along so well last night.”

“But we’re just friends,” I protested.

“I know you are,” she agreed, still flustered. “But it’s just that Bull seemed so... well, wrong for you, and this Jack is such a nice boy. Is he taking you to the dance?”

What dance? “I don’t know,” I said honestly.

That seemed to slow her down. “Well, I just assumed...”

Dad got her off the hook by calling out, “Where’s my green tie?” She rushed to help him, grateful for the interruption.

What dance? No one had said anything about a dance. I would have to ask Sam later.

The rehearsal went fine. Susan’s fiancé, Steven, was a nice guy, and I had to admit with chagrin, very nice looking. I had never noticed a man’s looks before, but I found I was now starting to notice. I wasn’t exactly interested in them; I just noticed. I knew that would start to happen more and more to me as the female hormones kept pumping through my body. It was a little hard to accept, though. I would have to get used to it sometime.

The bridesmaids, including my mother, seemed to be having a wonderful time. In addition to Mom, the blonde I had seen in the courtroom was a bridesmaid, and the third was an absolutely striking redhead I had never seen before. For all her laughter and friendliness with the other two women, I couldn’t help but think that she had the same bearing and larger-than-life demeanor of the Judge as Dr. Miner. I wondered if they were all some sort of superhumans or... A thought struck me. I began to have an idea about the identity of the powers that were in Ovid. I would have to check later.

“And how are you doing, Myra?” a woman’s voice asked. I turned to see Susan Henderson, the bride. She looked somehow different than she had looked in the courtroom. She seemed more feminine and very much at ease.

“I’m doing okay, I guess, Ms. Henderson,” I answered.

She smiled. “Just call me Susan. I’m not that much older than you are now, and I’m younger than you were a couple of days ago.”

I looked around and saw that we were alone, so it was possible to talk about my transformation. “I guess so,” I agreed.

“Your mother and I have gotten to be pretty good friends in the office. She’s had a lot of trouble with you until the last couple of days. She thinks you’ve made a dramatic change in your life. Of course, she has no idea how dramatic that change really is,” Susan laughed. “In any case, I’m proud of you, Myra. You seem to be adapting well. Certainly better than... well, let’s just say better than some others I know.”

I sighed, “I didn’t figure I had much choice. I got a feeling the Judge doesn’t change people back, does he?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know of anyone he has ever changed back.” Did I detect a note of irony in her voice?

“I know you can’t tell me who the Judge is,” I began.

“That’s right.”

“But can you at least tell me why he did this to me? I mean, Bear was a drug dealer and a bully, but here he is in Ovid, a great athlete with a bright future. And Jack and I were friends. Why did he get to stay male while I got to be a bimbo?”

“I notice you didn’t mention Mikki,” Susan observed.

“No, but at least Mack had to become female. Besides, he doesn’t remember any of his old life.”

“Does this mean you consider becoming a girl punishment?”

I was on shaky ground. Every real person in Ovid, as I understood it, had been someone else before they came to Ovid. I was sure Mikki and I weren’t the only sex changes. If Susan was born female, she might be insulted if I told her I thought becoming female was really a punishment. But wasn’t it? As a guy, I had strength. I could be ready to go anywhere in fifteen minutes. I was master of my own destiny. I was in charge. I lost all of those things when I became female. Here I was, a weak girl. I had only a small fraction of the strength I had enjoyed while male. Getting ready in fifteen minutes? I would be hard pressed just to get my makeup on in fifteen minutes. Was I in charge as a female? Not really. I couldn’t even tell Bull to get lost. I was genuinely frightened of him. I could never remember being truly frightened of another man in my entire life. And I didn’t even want to think about the clothes I had to wear.

On the other hand, I realized it was a potential second chance. I had dropped out of high school my Junior year, yet here I was back in my Junior year again. I was sure I could make something of my life this time around. Wasn’t that more important than having something dangling between my legs? I was beginning to think it was. Yet, I couldn’t overcome the nagging feeling that I could have utilized a second chance just as well in a male body.

“Well, Myra, do you consider it a punishment?”

“I’m not sure,” I replied honestly. “I know I would rather be male.”

She nodded. “I think that’s pretty natural at this stage. To answer your question, though, the Judge seems to have his own criteria for deciding who gets to be male and who gets to be female. All I know is that I argued with him in chambers that you and your friend were both innocent bystanders.”

“Then why didn’t he let us go?”

“That I know and can tell you. To be honest, Myra, did you know Mack and Bear were dealing drugs?”

“We knew somebody was,” I allowed.

“No,” she said, glaring at me. “That isn’t what I asked. Be honest, now, you and Jack–or rather Brad at the time–knew they were dealing drugs.”

“Okay,” I sighed. “So I knew. We both knew. It really wasn’t any of our business.”

“Things as serious as drugs are everybody’s business,” she argued. “The Judge won’t even allow them in Ovid. I have the feeling that he bought my arguments about you two. I think he was lenient with both of you.”

“Maybe,” I replied, “but I still feel like the guy in that old joke who gets sentenced to three hundred years in jail and sighs in relief because it could have been life.”

Susan laughed a musical laugh. “I know, it does seem that way sometimes.”

“Susan,” I asked slowly, “I know it’s frowned upon, but I have to ask. Who were you before you came to Ovid?”

She grinned. “I was a lawyer.”

It wasn’t the answer I was looking for, but it would have to do.

Susan moved on to talk with the rest of the party and tie up the details with Reverend Pickering, a real person who was the minister of First Baptist where the wedding would be held. Then, I rejoined my parents and we drove off for the dinner.

It was a nice dinner, held at a local steak house called Winston’s out on the edge of town. I introduced myself to the two shades who were Danny’s parents, then sat with my parents and enjoyed the meal. I didn’t have to talk much. At sixteen, I was considered little more than a child, and except for polite small talk, I was excluded from most of the conversation. I was also excluded from the wine. It looked good, and I would have loved a glass with my meal, but I realized I was too young. It would have been out of character for me even to ask.

I noticed, though, that when I did respond to the question, my answer was the answer of a sixteen-year-old girl. It wasn’t the magic, I was certain. Instead, I was actually beginning to think like a sixteen-year-old girl. When someone asked me what I wanted to do after school, I answered that I didn’t know. When they asked me how I liked school, I gave the standard “fine” any young girl might give. When someone asked me if I had a boyfriend, I said, “Not really,” but an image of Jack came up in my mind, unbidden.

About eight, the Mitchells collected me and I was off for an evening with Jack and our new friends.

I was afraid I would be seriously overdressed for the evening, and I was. Everyone else was in jeans, although Sam’s were certainly feminine in appearance and did nothing to hide her sensational body. Danny and Jack were in the den when I came in while Sam was in the kitchen fixing soft drinks for everyone. Danny and Jack waved and Sam motioned me into the kitchen. When Danny’s parents headed off to their room, saying something about “letting the kids have some privacy,” Sam said, “Danny and Jack are discussing Ovid in a little more detail. We can join them in a few minutes and watch a movie. Danny and I thought we’d give you a chance to ask any other questions you might have thought about.”

This was an awkward way to discuss matters. Why didn’t the Judge allow us to discuss Ovid together instead of only in pairs? Did he fear a revolt? How could he be afraid of any of us when he had the power to transform us? “One question comes to mind,” I replied. “Why is this being done to us?”

Sam smiled, “Why not?”

“That isn’t an answer,” I said petulantly.

“No,” Sam agreed, “but it’s probably the only answer you’ll get. Everybody asks the question, but nobody seems to ever come up with the answer. Or if they have, they haven’t been able to pass it on to the rest of us. After a little while, most of us just give up on that question and get on with our new lives.”

“That’s probably a lot easier for you than it will be for me,” I pointed out.

“Why?” Sam asked, handing me a Coke. “Because you used to be a guy and I’ve always been a girl?”

“Well, yes.”

“Fooled you!” she laughed. “After you’ve been here for a few weeks, you tend to take on all the characteristics of the person you’ve become. I’ve been here over a year now, but when I got here, I was as male as you were. In fact, I was a football player. Danny and I both played for Northwest Missouri State. Our plane was forced down here and the whole team was transformed into boys and girls of every shape and color. Even the coach was transformed. He’s our History teacher now.”

“Ms. Samson?” I gasped. It was hard to think of her as a football coach.

“That’s right.”

I mulled all of this over. “But why all the sex changes?” I asked.

“I can’t help you there either, but if you think about it, a lot more males travel alone than females, especially on back highways like the ones that run through Ovid. Women take the Interstates and stop and ask for directions. Men like taking back roads and never stop to ask where they are. I guess that makes men more susceptible to finding Ovid. And since the town needs both men and women, a lot more men become women than the other way around.”

“Okay,” I said, sipping my Coke. “I can buy that. But tell me what you can about me. Have we always been friends?”

“We used to be,” Sam replied uncomfortably.

“Look, Sam,” I explained, “I’m not the same Myra you knew before. You understand that. Right now, you know more about my past as Myra than I do. If I’m going to get through this, I need your help. So what’s the deal?”

Sam sighed, “The deal is that you and I go back to elementary school together. If you think about it, we don’t live very far apart, and there are only three elementary schools in Ovid, so it stands to reason that we’ve known each other most of our lives. You were my best friend until last summer.”

“What happened then?”

“Bull happened,” she replied. “You were drawn to him for some reason. He was everything you weren’t. He was big and strong and depended more on his brawn than his brains. Over the summer, you changed from being a real girl next-door type to a... a bimbo. By the time school started, it was if I didn’t even know you. You went from being an A student to one of the ones just getting by. We just didn’t have anything in common anymore.”

“And now?” I prompted.

“I don’t know,” she replied honestly. “You seem more like the Myra I remembered. And now, we have a lot more in common, since neither one of us were even girls before Ovid. What do you think of Bull?”

I told her who Bull and Mikki had been before. When she had digested this, she said, “I can understand why you would be repulsed by both of them, but be careful, Myra. Mikki isn’t Mack and Bull isn’t Bear. They’ve forgotten who they were. They won’t be drug dealers here. In case you didn’t know, there are no drugs in Ovid. They aren’t allowed by the Judge, and Officer Mercer is everywhere.”

“They may not be the same people,” I argued, “but I at least remember who they were.”

“I hope so,” Sam replied. “It’s been my experience that even though they aren’t the same people, good people stay good people and bad people... well, let’s just say they usually don’t make good people. I’m glad you’re wary of Bull. Does that mean you’re going with Jack to the Christmas party?”

“What Christmas party?”

Sam explained, “The school has one every year. It’s not exactly politically correct, I know, mixing church and state and all that, but the rules are different in Ovid. I had expected you to be going with Bull, but maybe you and Jack should go.”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I’ll have to check with Jack.”

“If he is, we can double,” Sam suggested.

“I’d like that,” I admitted. I paused for a moment. There was one more thing I wanted to ask, but how to ask it? I would just have to blurt it out. “Sam?”

“Yes, Myra?”

“When did you, you know, become interested in boys?”

Sam leaned against the counter and looked up at the ceiling in thought. “That’s a tough question. It happened over time. When I first became a girl, I was in too much of a shock to be interested in either sex. Danny and I had been good friends in college. We just started talking, trying to help each other through the changes. The next thing we both knew, we were... well, you know. It just started to seem natural to us.”

“Is that what might happen to Jack and me?”

“It might,” she agreed. “You’ve got all the right equipment now. Since you’re going to be a girl for the rest of your life, it wouldn’t hurt to find the right guy.”

“Sam?”

“Yes, Myra?”

I gave her a quick hug. “Thanks for your help.”

“Any time,” she said, smiling, as she picked up a drink for Danny and headed for the den. I got Jack’s drink and followed.

We ended up watching Beauty and the Beast. It was a compromise. Danny had wanted to watch an action film (he didn’t really care which one) and Jack and I abstained. Sam had her heart set on a romantic comedy. “For about the last year, her taste has gone from action movies to romantic comedies,” Danny said cryptically. It was about as close as he could come to talking about Sam’s change into a girl in a larger group.

I wondered if the same thing would happen to me. I was pretty much a fan of action films as well. I had never been much of a fan of romances. I had to admit, though, that I enjoyed the film. I found myself sympathizing with poor Belle. First, there was the clod in her hometown who was determined to have her. Then there was the Beast. Of course, the Beast turns out to be her true love while the handsome guy from her hometown turns out to be the baddie. The film actually made me think. What was Bull? Was he the baddie from my hometown, or was he the Beast? It would be best to just stay away from him rather than try to find out. I admit, I was frightened of him and what he might do when I tried to stay away, but try I must.

It was all in all an enjoyable evening. Sam and Danny snuggled up together on the floor, leaving the couch to Jack and I. A few minutes into the film, I noticed Jack’s arm draped casually on the couch behind me. At first, it caused me to tense up and lean forward, but as I got into the movie, I began to lean back in a more comfortable position. I don’t know when it actually happened, but by the time Belle had reached the Beast’s castle, Jack’s arm was resting around my shoulders, and by the time the movie ended, I was actually leaning against him and thinking about what a happy ending the film had. Wistfully, I began to wonder if my own life would be as happy.

The movie over, Jack and I said our good nights. Jack had brought his parent’s car, so he offered to drive me home. I happily accepted, and the two of us walked arm in arm out into the chilly Oklahoma night. In the car, I found myself sitting close to Jack.

As we were driving to my house, I asked Jack, “Did Danny tell you anything about a Christmas party at school?”

“No, he didn’t, but Mikki did.”

“Mikki?” I repeated cautiously, moving a little further away from Jack.

He nodded. “I’m taking her to the party.”

“Oh.” The disappointment in my voice was obvious. I didn’t mean for it to be, but there it was.

Jack looked at me, stopping the car in front of my house. “Look, I didn’t ask her. I mean, Jack did, but I wasn’t Jack then. I’d really rather not take her. I’d rather take you.”

Why did my heart suddenly jump. “Oh?” There was no disappointment in my voice that time.

“Yes, but you’re going with Bull anyway.”

But I didn’t want to go with Bull. I wanted to go with... with... well, anybody else. I mean, it would have been better with Jack, or... Oh, hell, I didn’t know what I meant.

To break the silence, Jack suggested, “Look, maybe we can all go together.”

“Maybe,” I said without conviction as I opened the door. Jack moved toward me, then thought better of it and moved back under the wheel. “Good night,” I said softly, feeling my voice catch. I closed the door before I heard his reply.

As soon as I had closed the front door behind me, I began to feel unwelcome tears welling up. With effort, I choked them back down and jumped as I heard my mother’s voice from the living room saying, “Myra, are you all right?”

“What?” I said, startled as she turned up the lights. “Oh, yes, I’m fine,” I managed to lie. “It was just a sad movie.”

“Oh,” she responded, not really believing it, I knew. “I stayed up because your friend Mikki called. She said for you to call her at this number. It was something about Bull being hurt.” There didn’t seem to be much sympathy in my mother’s voice. I knew she didn’t like Bull one bit. “She said to call before eleven.”

“What time is it now?”

“Ten thirty,” she replied.

Bull hurt? Did I care? Maybe my change of sex had given me a more tender heart, but I really didn’t want him hurt. I just wanted him to leave me alone. I called Mikki.

“Oh, Myra, thank god you called,” Mikki said breathlessly. “Bull got hurt in a wrestling match this evening.”

“What happened?” I asked, trying to sound concerned.

“He was pinned funny,” she told me. “It twisted his leg back and stretched the ligaments in his knee.”

Good. At least it wasn’t life threatening.

“He’s going to be fine,” she went on. “They were concerned about how it might affect his football chances when I called you, but the doctor has checked him out and he’s going to be fine. They’re going to keep him over night and put him on crutches for a couple of days. Then, they say with a couple of weeks of therapy, he’ll be fine. Isn’t that good news?”

“Yes, very.”

“He wants to see you,” she said. “Of course, it’s too late tonight. Where were you anyway?”

“At Sam’s,” I replied without elaborating.

“Oh. Well, visiting hours start at nine tomorrow.”

“Okay,” I agreed. “What hospital is he in?”

“What hospital?” she laughed. “What do you think? There’s only one.”

Whoops! “Sure. I’ll be there in the morning.”

As I hung up the phone, I quickly forgot about Bull and began to think about Jack again. What was wrong with me anyway? I wondered as I got ready for bed. Jack had been my best friend, Brad, and he hadn’t changed that much when he became Jack. Why was I mooning over him like some lovesick teenage girl? Oh, shit, I was a teenage girl. Was I lovesick, too?

I suddenly looked down at myself and realized that while I was thinking about Jack, I had managed to get ready for bed again. I was wearing the same yellow nightgown I had worn the night before. I looked at myself carefully in the mirror while wearing the nightgown. I looked like a typical teenage girl. No trace of Marty was there anymore. Why should I fool myself?

I touched a breast and tried to imagine what it would feel like to be wearing something like this nightgown while a boy like Jack touched my breast. I was a little surprised to feel my nipples pushing outward against the soft material. There was a warmth in my groin as well that signalled an empty feeling there. It was almost a yearning. I pulled my hand away from my breast at once. Yes, I was most assuredly a teenage girl.

I felt a tear squeeze from my eye unbidden and trickle down my cheek as I crawled into bed. I was so confused. Why couldn’t I be like some of the others in Ovid who had no idea who they had been before? That would make life so much simpler, I thought, as I drifted off to sleep.

Mom woke me again the next morning. “I’ve got to get over to Susan’s,” she told me as I was still waking up. “The wedding is at two. Tell your father to get there by one thirty. He’s at the office this morning and he’s supposed to go directly to the church. You need to get ready and–oh, how are you going to get there?”

I suddenly realized she had planned to leave me without a car. “Mom, I have to visit Bull this morning. I promised.” Did I really sound that whiney?

She started to say something, then stopped. After thinking for a moment, she commented, “I didn’t think you were seeing Bull anymore.”

“I’m not,” I said. “At least I don’t think I am, but he’s hurt, and I promised Mikki I would visit him.”

“All right. You can take my car. I’ll get a ride with Cindy. But don’t be late! I want you there at one thirty, too.”

“I will be,” I assured her as she gave me a quick peck on the cheek and rushed for the phone, probably to call Cindy, whoever that was. “Oh, Mom, what should I wear?”

“The maroon dress would be nice,” she called up from the kitchen.

Maroon. Hmmm. I looked in the closet and found it with little trouble. It appeared to be velvet with long sleeves. She was right. It would look good on me. Let’s see, dark tan hose and hopefully I had matching shoes. Maybe a gold necklace, and... What the hell was wrong with me? I was acting like this was the important decision of the day. It was as if the thoughts invaded my mind whenever I let my guard down. I sighed. I might as well give into them. At this rate, within a month, I’d be as feminine as if I had been Myra all my life. I just had to have that life in order when that time came.

To see Bull, I slipped on a pink sweat suit and tied my hair in a long ponytail. I didn’t want to look too sexy for him. He’d have to take me as I was if he wanted a visit from me. Finding the hospital was easy. There was a map of Ovid in the phone book, and all I had to do is drive Mom’s little Ford Tempo close enough to the hospital that I could follow the signs.

Bull was on the third floor, which was the top floor. He had a semi-private room, but had no roommate when I got there. He was sitting up, his knee in a brace, watching Saturday morning cartoons. He didn’t look especially threatening, and as I entered the room, I tried to remind myself that he had no idea he had ever been anyone but Bull. He turned and smiled when he saw me.

“Hey, Myra,” he said cheerfully. “I’m glad you came.”

“How are you feeling?” I asked tentatively.

He shrugged. “Pretty good. I get to go home tomorrow. The doctor said there’s no real damage. I’ll just have to take it easy for a week or so.”

“I’m glad you’re okay,” I said. Then, I just couldn’t think of anything else to say as I stood by his bed. After all, I really didn’t know him. And what I had seen of him the last couple of days, I hadn’t liked.

At last, he broke the ice. “Listen, Myra, I’m sorry for the way I’ve acted with you. I guess I was just nervous about the meet.”

I didn’t say anything, but he was saying all the right things.

He continued, “I just love you so much.”

Love?

“I won’t do it again, okay?”

I had to answer that. “Okay,” I agreed.

He smiled. “That’s great. Then I’ll pick you up Monday for school, okay?”

There was that ‘okay’ thing again. “Okay.”

“And I’m gonna get you the nicest corsage for the dance Friday. Okay?”

“Okay,” I said, returning his smile, realizing that I had just confirmed our date for the Christmas dance. I didn’t want to go with him. I didn’t want to go with anybody. But what was I to do? Besides, if he was good on his word, he would be a perfect gentleman. And I had to get used to socializing in this body anyhow. “Uh, look, I’ve got to go,” I told him. “I’ve got a wedding to go to.”

“Okay,” he said calmly. “How about a little get well kiss?”

I hesitated for a moment, then bent over and gave him a sisterly kiss on the cheek. It seemed to be all he had expected, for he smiled at me and said, “Have a good time at the wedding.”

I got to the church at exactly the same time as my father, right at one thirty. I was afraid that I was going to be late, but I found I was getting better at dressing as a girl. Sam’s makeup lessons had come in handy, and I found that I had all the accessories I needed for the maroon dress.

“You look great, Myra,” my dad said to me, giving me a hug as I stepped out of the car.

“Thanks, dad,” I replied. I didn’t actually feel great, though. This was the third time I had worn a skirt, but it was the first time I had worn something so formal and at the same time, well, sexy. As we walked to the church, I could feel every male eye turning in my direction. Now I knew how the Iraqi fighters must have felt during the Gulf War with every allied radar in the area zeroing in on them.

This was only the second time I had worn a really high heel. I was happy to see that whatever force had transformed me had given me the balance I needed to maneuver on them, although I did feel a little unstable. At least it had turned out to be a beautiful sunny day with a temperature in the forties, so the ice which might have been on the sidewalks the day before had substantially melted. I still had visions of how embarrassing it would be if I slipped while wearing these heels and landed on my cute little butt.

The service was beautiful. It was a word I would probably not have used in my old male body, but it was beautiful. All of the bridesmaids, my mother included, were gorgeous in their dark green dresses. My mother’s brown hair contrasted well with the blonde and redhead who stood beside her. Danny’s father looked resplendent in his dark tuxedo as did the other groomsmen. Uncomfortably, I found myself looking at the bridesmaids more to see how they did their hair or makeup. The groomsmen, I was beginning to look at as if trying to decide who was the best looking. Actually, the groom beat all of them.

Fortunately, these thoughts were interrupted by the grand music announcing the entry of the bride. Susan was incredible. For once, she had forsaken her glasses, and her long hair had been gently curled, to frame an absolutely perfect face. The look of joy and contentment she exhibited were breathtaking. She wore a long white gown which molded itself perfectly against the curves of her body. Her hand was curved gently around the arm of a proud-looking shade who was apparently her father.

I heard sniffles from some of the women around me. ‘Why do so many women always cry at weddings?’ I wondered, trying to ignore the moisture forming at the corners of my own eyes. I hoped no one noticed the little sniffle I made.

The reception was held in the community room of the church. I hung around with my parents, since I really didn’t know anyone there until I spotted Danny. I made my way over to him and was rewarded with one of his bright smiles. “Sam’s not here?” I asked.

“Nope. I don’t think her folks even know the bride or groom. I notice Jack and his parents aren’t here either.”

“No,” I replied. “I wouldn’t know them if I saw them. I haven’t met them. Jack has always been a very private person, even... well, even before our changes.”

“I know,” Danny observed. “I think there’s something in his past that’s made him this way, and even the transformation wasn’t enough to change that. It’s lucky that if one of you had to become a girl, it was you and not him.”

I flushed at that. Was he accusing me of being effeminate or gay? I wasn’t either, and how could he make that assumption anyway? He hadn’t known me before. He saw the anger in my eyes and quickly said, “Look, Myra, don’t misunderstand me. I didn’t mean what you thought I meant. I’m part of the largest transformation the Judge has ever made. It took him three days to change us all, so we must have exhausted even his powers. I was part of a planeload of macho football players and their coaches on their way to a game. About half of us became girls of all ages, shapes and descriptions. Of the thirty guys who became female, six remembered who they were before. Five of them adjusted pretty well, but the sixth, well, she was a lot like Jack. She was a very private person, and now she’s got a lot of psychological problems. That’s all I meant.”

I wondered who that person was. I didn’t ask, though. I was beginning to understand the etiquette of Ovid. If someone was transformed and lost all memory of their previous life, it was all right to talk about the change, but if someone was still aware of who they had been before, it wasn’t polite. It was a strange convention, but Ovid was a strange town.

Others drifted too close to our conversation, so we were forced to talk about more mundane things. As our respective parents found us, we went with them into the buffet line. I didn’t see Danny after that. My parents accepted an invitation from some friends to go out to the Ovid Country Club for a couple of drinks. Since I had Mom’s car, I told them I would be fine and walked in the house, exhausted, at a little after eight. The phone was ringing as I walked into the kitchen. It was Jack.

“You sound tired,” he observed as I answered the phone.

“I am,” I said truthfully.

He was silent for a moment, before asking, “Look, are you mad at me?”

“I’m not mad,” I answered tersely. But I was. Was it because he was taking Mikki to the dance? Why else would I be mad? It was stupid of me, I knew, but there it was.

“You sound mad.”

“I’m not!”

He sighed. “Okay, let me start over. I know you’re disappointed that I’m taking Mikki to the dance, and...”

“I’m not disappointed,” I lied. I’m surprised my nose didn’t grow.

“Hear me out. I’ve decided to tell her I can’t take her. I’d rather be with you.”

My heart was suddenly beating faster, and I got one of those warm flashes in my crotch. This shouldn’t have been important to me. I was physically a girl, but mentally, I wasn’t, at least not entirely. All right, I realized I had a steady stream of female hormones running through my system. I also knew that men and women were wired differently. Every hour of every day, I was becoming more and more mentally the girl the Judge had made of me physically. I could accept that. What I was having trouble accepting was the obvious growing attachment I had to Jack. Someone once said lovers should be best friends first. Jack, or rather Brad, and I had been best friends. It just seemed so unnatural for this to be happening so quickly.

“Are you still there?” he asked, worried.

“I’m here. Look, Jack, I don’t want you to let Mikki down. It’s not fair to her.” What was I saying?

“But she’s really Mack,” he argued.

I responded, “No she isn’t, at least not in any way that counts. Maybe deep down there’s something of Mack left, but it’s not there where you or I can see it. I saw Bull today. He was very nice to me, and I don’t want to let him down, either. Let’s not make any changes right now. After the dance Friday, we can see how we both feel and go from there.”

“All right,” he agreed reluctantly. Then, after a pause, “Do you want to get together tonight?”

“Jack, I would,” I replied, “but I really am tired. This being a girl is hard work. I’m going to take a bath, put on a warm robe, and read until I fall asleep.”

“Okay,” he said, obviously disappointed. “Say, how about church?”

Church? I didn’t even know he went to church. He didn’t seem the type.

“Well... okay.”

“Great! I’ll see you at nine thirty. Church is at ten. Good night.”

That sly dog. He had already looked up church times. Well, maybe I could use a little religion, too. It was ironic, though, I thought as I started getting ready for bed, Sunday would make the fourth day in a row that I had needed to wear a skirt. I vowed that I was going to wear nothing but jeans on Monday even if I was invited to a White House dinner.

I had surprised myself by not accepting Jack’s invitation to the dance. Obviously, I would have rather gone with him. It was just that Bull seemed to be trying to improve his behavior toward me, and I was concerned at what might happen if I broke our date. Concerned? Yes, and a little frightened, too. I had seen two sides of Bull. I didn’t want to do anything which might bring the bad side back.

Sunday morning, I got up cheerful and well rested. It was another beautiful day, and I was actually looking forward to going out with Jack. It would really be the first time we went out by ourselves. I wasn’t sure where I wanted our relationship to go, but I knew I felt a lot better when we were in each other’s good graces. I dressed quickly in a tan sweater and brown skirt. I did wear hose since the thought of braving a winter day with bare legs was too much to think about, but I also wore a pair of brown flats instead of heels. I was somehow pleased to note how good my legs looked, even in flats.

Mom and Dad were casually reading the paper when I got to the kitchen. From their robes, I realized they had no intention of going to church. That was fine with me. I wanted just to be with Jack. They both seemed pleased that I was going to church, and doubly pleased that I was going with Jack. It turned out that dad knew Jack’s father since they both worked for Vulman Industries. He said he didn’t know him well, though.

Jack picked me up at exactly nine thirty. “Hi,” he said with a shy smile when I slid into the car. I smiled back at him. I might have only been a girl for a few days, but I thought I could tell some definite interest on his part. I hoped it was only friendship, because I wasn’t ready for anything more. Or at least, I didn’t think I was.

We chatted casually on the way to church, never mentioning our situation until we reached the church parking lot. Then, Jack said, “It seems ironic to be going to church here when the go... g...”

“Are you all right?” I asked. It sounded as if he was choking.

“I’m fine,” he gasped. “I just was musing and forgot about the taboo.”

“Which one?” I asked dryly. “There are so many.”

“The one on discussing the origins of our founders,” he replied, breathing normally at last.

I thought about what he had started to say. What was ironic about...? Then it struck me. He had figured out who the town’s founders were. Given his statement, that meant... okay, so they were gods of some sort. That didn’t help me. I had a bigger problem. I had to keep two boys at bay, and I liked one of them as a friend and hadn’t formed a final opinion of the other one. Besides, so what if the Judge was Zeus or Odin or something? Was he going to wave his magic wand and help me with my problems? I didn’t think so.

I hadn’t been in a regular church service since I was a kid. I actually found it was a lot of fun, particularly after I learned that I had a fine soprano singing voice. After church, we found a little coffee shop a couple of blocks from the church and decided to try it. It wasn’t Starbucks, but it was decent.

After a little discussion on the church service, Jack looked up at me over his coffee and said, “You know, I was serious about dumping Mikki and taking you to the dance. Mikki and I don’t have anything in common, and I just can’t get past who she used to be.”

“Jack,” I protested, “we’ve been all through this before. Mikki may have been Mack, but she isn’t him now. It’s the same with Bear now that he’s Bull. They’re different people. They don’t even remember Brad and Marty; they only know Jack and Myra. I think that’s why so many of the people here who do remember who they were don’t want to talk about it. It’s like carrying around someone else’s baggage. You can’t use it, but it weighs you down.”

Jack frowned. “Do you mean to tell me you could honestly have a relationship with Bull or Bear or whoever he thinks he is?”

I shook my head. “No, Jack, I couldn’t. I don’t think I could have a relationship, as you put it, with any guy right now. I mean, three days ago, I was still a guy myself. It still seems a little... queer.”

Jack put his hand over mine. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. Then, he said, “Look, first of all, you aren’t a guy anymore. You don’t look like a guy and I don’t even believe you can think like a guy anymore. I’ve watched you grow more and more like girls I’ve known with every passing hour. You don’t curse much anymore. Your dress and makeup are feminine, even when you’re wearing jeans. The way you walk and talk...”

“All right already!” I interrupted, pulling back my hand and motioning for him to stop.

“Even the way you’re holding your hand and fingers now.”

I dropped my hand and balled it into a small fist.

“Look, Myra, you’re a girl.”

“You think I don’t know that?”

“And I’m a boy.”

“Is this where we start the ‘Me Tarzan, you Jane’ nonsense.”

He slumped in his chair. “I’m making a big mess of this.”

Maybe he was right. The old Marty might have moved in for the kill, but not Myra. I looked at him with compassion. “Jack, I know. This is difficult for both of us. We just need to take it slowly. The dance is coming between our friendship. You need to go with Mikki, and I need to go with Bull. We’ll laugh and we’ll dance, that is, if I can figure out how to dance backward on the slow ones, and then we’ll try to sort everything out later. Maybe by the time all the female hormones kick in on me, I’ll be some little teenybopper mooning over Leonardo DiCaprio.”

We both smiled at my joke. He took me home after that. I don’t think either of us were still sure of what we wanted or how to proceed, but at least we were still friends.

I had forgotten how much time teenage girls spent on the phone. I had decided to use the rest of Sunday to catch up on schoolwork. Since I had been away from school so long, it was going to take some effort to get back up to speed. But the phone seemed to ring constantly. Bull’s call was the shortest. He called to tell me his therapy had gone well and he would be home shortly, so I could plan on a ride to school Monday.

Then Mikki called to give me the same information. She had visited Bull earlier in the day. Then she wanted to talk about everything. I didn’t have a clue about half the things she was talking about. Who was dating who, who was screwing who, who was the hottest new young actor, who was the singer with the biggest bulge in his pants, and so on. I honestly believe it was the most long-winded, boring conversation I have ever endured. I practically needed a bimbo-to-English dictionary.

At last, I got rid of her and settled in to study Chemistry, which I was sure would be my most difficult subject. I had only been studying for about twenty minutes when Sam called. I was going to impatiently cut Sam off, but as we talked for a few minutes, I found I really enjoyed talking with her. She began to fill me in on events at school as Mikki had done, but her information consisted of things I could use. She told me about our teachers, what they were like and which of the real ones remembered who they had been. As it turned out, only Mr. Flannery, the Principal, and Ms. Torrance, the Biology teacher, had any memory of their previous lives, and they didn’t discuss them with Sam. It turned out that only about a hundred or so of the students and teachers at Ovid High were real, and of that, I could expect only a couple of dozen would remember who they had been.

Sam and I talked nearly as long as Mikki and I had talked, but I found I wanted to keep on talking to Sam. I invited her over to study after dinner, and she accepted.

I took a break from studying about an hour before dinner and decided to read until it was time to help Mom with dinner. No one had told me that I would have to help, but I was certain that as a girl, I would be expected to help with dinner. I picked up a paperback book with an action-adventure picture on the cover. I had always liked adventure novels for light reading. A few pages into it, though, I realized it was a romantic adventure, taken from the viewpoint of a young college coed who happened upon a spy ring. The hero of the book was a James Bond Junior type who, of course, was smitten by the coed. It was a book I would have thrown away a few days before, but I found myself engrossed in it, much the way as a young boy, I had devoured superhero comic books.

As expected, I helped Mom with dinner. I was actually learning a few things about cooking that as a bachelor I had never known. It was actually entertaining and creative. Of course, it helped that Mom was a good cook.

Dad cleaned up after dinner, so I was already free when Sam rang the doorbell. She gave me a girlish hug and practically led me upstairs to my room. Before we studied, there was apparently going to be some girl talk. Oh, if our real parents could have seen us now, I thought.

“So I hear you’re going to the dance with Bull,” she said when we were in my room.

“News travels fast.”

She sat down on my bed. “Can you tell me why?”

“I thought you said Bull wasn’t Bear. Why shouldn’t I go with him?”

“Well,” Sam began, “in the first place, he may not be the same. I didn’t know him as Bear, but I do know him as Bull. He’s a pompous ass. He thinks every woman should kneel down before him and unzip his fly. Second, he’s not very smart, and third, Jack is really hot for you.”

I was ready to refute the first reason. Bull had given me his promise that he would behave. As for the second, he was no Einstein–I realized that–but he was smart enough to apologize. Besides, I wasn’t looking for a lifelong commitment from him. I was just honoring a promise Myra made before I arrived to go to the dance with him. After that, well, we’d see. I didn’t think he was going to be the right guy for me. Maybe no guy was. Maybe I’d be a lesbian and ask Sam out. That would be interesting.

The third reason, though, caught me napping. “Why do you think Jack is hot for me?”

Sam sighed, “Oh come now, Myra, I know you’re new at being a girl, but you aren’t blind. Can’t you see the way he looks at you? Don’t you notice the way he tries to be near you and even protect you? Do you think he’s going to give you an engraved invitation to a relationship. Think about when you were male. How did you act around a girl you liked?”

There had to be a time to admit the truth, not just to Sam but to myself. That time had arrived. “I never really liked a girl that way.”

Now it was Sam’s turn to be stunned. “You weren’t gay, were you?”

“Good lord no!” I laughed. “I probably had more pus–that is, sex–than most guys you’ve ever known, but it was just... sex. It wasn’t love; it wasn’t even like... It was ‘getting my rocks off.’ Of course, that’s when I still had rocks.”

“You were an emotional cripple,” she said softly.

“That smacks of pop psychology,” I told her.

“Were you close to your family?”

I shook my head. “No, I wasn’t. We were poor, and my parents came home tired to a house full of kids every night. They didn’t care about us, and we didn’t care about them, or each other for that matter. We pretty much raised ourselves. I haven’t talked to anyone in my family in years.”

“So you weren’t close to the girls you dated either.”

“No,” I admitted. “They were just grist for the old penis mill. They were fun while they lasted. Does that shock you?”

“I don’t think it does,” she said, surprising me now. “Look, Myra, everybody in Ovid is who they are for a reason. I assume you’ve figured out who created Ovid by now.”

“I think so.”

“Well, then you can imagine that the... agency behind Ovid probably doesn’t think quite the same way we do. Humans think in a pretty straightforward way. If a rapist comes to Ovid, a human would turn him into a woman to give him a little of his own medicine. A human might even make sure he was raped so he’d really know how the other half lives. The powers that be might see it differently, though. They’re just as likely to change the rapist into a raped girl’s mother, and let her experience as a parent the anguish their daughter is going through. The concept seems to be justice, but something else as well. Some might call it mercy, but to others, it might just be irony.”

“So what is the reason I’ve joined the Sit-Down-to-Pee Club?” I asked, not sure where she was going.

Sam smiled, “Well, if I had to make a guess, I would say part of the reason is that you needed to be changed into a more emotional being if you were ever going to succeed in life. You’ve never told me what you did in the outside world.”

“I guess not,” I realized. “I was a road maintenance worker for the state. I dug ditches, filled potholes, and fun stuff like that.”

“And in spite of the fact that you are obviously bright, you had a poor education and no personal life to speak of and no future, am I right?”

“That pretty much sums it up,” I admitted, sitting down on the bed beside her.

“Did you ever stop to think that maybe one of the reasons you had the life you did was that you couldn’t ever get close to people? You had no one to be proud of you, or to trust you, or to love you.”

I thought what I did next would surprise Sam. It didn’t, but it did surprise me. I burst into tears. I suddenly felt her arm around my shoulders, holding onto me while my body heaved with sobs. She didn’t try to talk to me; she just held me. I wouldn’t have thought I had so many tears in me. I was embarrassed and hoped that my parents couldn’t hear me. How could I explain it to them? Mom, Dad, I’m crying because I never had a life before when I was a guy, but now as a girl, I have friends, and two boys who want me to be their girl and loving parents. And, oh, by the way, a bunch of ancient gods did this, and Mom isn’t even real.

When the sobs became mere whimpers, I looked at Sam and said, “I’m so embarrassed.”

She smiled and shook her head. “Don’t be, honey. I think you just realized how much the world has changed for you. Things can be a lot better this time around. All you need to do is be a girl.”

Sam helped me fix my makeup. My crying had left it with clownish streaks. Then, we talked for awhile–just girl talk, I guess. Finally, we went downstairs to the kitchen and actually studied. We hugged again at the end of the evening like the old friends we were supposed to be.

As I got ready for bed, I reflected on what I had learned. I had learned that I held my future in my own dainty hands. Actually, for the first time in years, I really had a future. So I had to be a girl to get that future. Sam was managing just fine, and so could I, I realized as sleep claimed me.

On Monday, I made good on my promise to wear jeans no matter what. I was pleased that Bull made no comment on them as well. He was a perfect gentleman as he drove Jack, Mikki and I to school. He was a changed man. Well, he was transformed, of course, but I mean he had changed his attitude. He was polite, joked around, and seemed genuinely concerned about whatever I wanted. I thought he would be my slave if I asked him to.

School went well also. English class gave me the opportunity to show off my knowledge of Shakespeare, and I aced a pop quiz in Algebra. My crowning achievement was the A I got on the History exam. It was the highest grade in the class, according to Ms. Samson, who seemed to be at a loss to understand how Myra Smithwick, a known bimbo, could have possibly known anything about the Civil War that didn’t involve the length of General Grant’s penis.

The day went quickly, and before I knew it, Bull was dropping me off at my house. He gave me a chaste kiss and cheerfully waved. I had to admit, he was changing a lot. Could I be his girl friend? I still didn’t think so, but it had at least risen above an impossible rating to a highly improbable one.

When I got home, my parents were extremely proud of me when I told them about my History grade. After dinner, Mom told me, “Myra, your father and I are so pleased with the way you’ve buckled down in school that we’ve decided to let you have that dress you wanted for the Christmas dance after all.”

I smiled. “Gee, that’s great, Mom!” I told her, even though I didn’t have any idea what dress she was talking about.

“Why don’t you come by the office after school tomorrow. We’ll go over to March’s and get it.”

“Okay,” I agreed. Inwardly, though, I was concerned. My tastes in clothes and the original Myra’s were probably very different. I could imagine that my namesake had chosen a dress that appeared to be spray-painted on. But what the heck. I realized I probably had a closet full of dresses like that. At least, I would have some say in what I bought to wear this time.

Tuesday went by quickly and without incident. Bull continued to be a gentleman. I tried to make conversation with Mikki, but we were rapidly growing apart. She was the poster child for Bimbos of America and I was quickly developing the reputation of a serious student. Sam and I were drifting together more and more. She was starting to introduce me to her friends. Since they were all either shades or girls who couldn’t remember their previous lives, I was becoming more and more immersed in ‘girl talk.’ You know what they say. If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it must be a duck. Substitute ‘girl’ for ‘duck’ and you have the story of my new life.

Jack and I remained friends. We rode to and from school together, but Jack always rode with Mikki, so we didn’t talk much. In class, we would say a few words to each other, but Jack was becoming a little distant. If Sam was right about Jack ‘having the hots for me,’ he was hiding it very well. It was probably just as well, though. After my date with Bull on Friday, I planned to swear off dating until I could decide who I was.

Trying to be interested in boys was really the hardest thing for me to manage in my new life. I had all the right equipment to be interested in them, and an endless stream of female hormones were having constant influence on my mind, but intellectually, it seemed all wrong. I could no more think about serious sex with any guy any more than I could have considered it when I was Marty. I knew that would change, though. Already, I could tell who the hunks were. If I let myself go, I found myself sneaking a peek at some guy’s tight butt or his broad chest. A boyish grin from one of them would elicit a coy smile from me. I began to feel odd warm tingles from parts of my body I had otherwise come to accept as part of my new female anatomy. Time would tell.

Tuesday was a bleak, dreary day in Ovid. The sun was absent all day, and it was spitting flakes of snow when Bull dropped me off at Mom’s office. I had no trouble finding it. It was a small office over a bank building. I had expected Mom to be at the front desk, but there was no one there when I looked in. There was someone in the inner office, though, which I assumed to be Susan’s. I was surprised to see Susan at her desk reviewing a document.

“Myra!” she said, looking up with a smile. “Your mother is running an errand for me. She’ll be back in a few minutes. It’s good to see you again.”

“I thought you’d be on your honeymoon,” I said, taking a seat she motioned me to.

“Not for a few more days. We leave for Hawaii a couple of days before Christmas. Steven had to finish out the semester before we could go, and I had to clear my calendar as well. So how is girlhood?”

“Not as bad as I had expected,” I admitted. “In fact, I think I could get to like it. I don’t know about... well, you know.”

“Sex?”

“Yes. It’s a little hard to think about having something inside me.”

“I think you’ll get used to the idea,” Susan said, leaning back in her chair. “You’re just sixteen. I understand a lot of girls have a problem with it when they’re your age.”

“Did you?” I asked.

Susan gave me a wry grin. “Let’s just say I was a little older than sixteen before I had sex with a man.”

“I think I will be, too. I mean, the shade that was Myra messed around. I’m pretty sure of that, but I don’t have time for that this time around. I’m determined to make something of myself. It would be a little hard for me to get a job digging ditches in this body.”

“Yes it would,” she admitted. “Fortunately, you’re really very bright. Have you given any thought to what you want to be after school?”

“Well,” I ventured, “I might want to try law school.”

Susan mulled that one over for a moment. Then, she said, “You know, I think you might be a good lawyer. I’ll tell you what. Check with me next spring. If my practice picks up–and I think it will–I might be able to arrange a part-time summer job for you.”

I beamed, “I’d like that very much.”

“Like what?” my mother called from the outer office.

“I was just telling Myra we might be able to use her in the office over the summer,” Susan explained.

I could see Mom was very proud. As we braved the winter cold on the short walk to March’s Department Store, Mom told me, “Susan is a very good attorney. I really don’t even know why she stays in Ovid. She could be a big city lawyer if she wanted to be. She must have studied a lot of criminal law in school, because she knows it cold, yet there are seldom any criminal cases in Ovid.”

“I’ll bet she knew it cold,” I thought. I wondered if she had been a criminal lawyer before she came to Ovid.

“And the fact that she’s thinking about taking you on for summer work is a credit to you,” she went on. “She doesn’t suffer fools.”

“I think it’s because I talked to her about becoming an attorney,” I explained.

“Is that what you want to do?”

“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “Susan thinks I would be a good attorney. Maybe I’ll go to law school and come back here and be her partner. Then my mother would be my secretary.”

Mom laughed, “That might be fun and it might not.”

I laughed, too.

I’ve seen sporting goods stores that were bigger than March’s Department Store, but it was the biggest and finest retail establishment in Ovid. The store was three stories tall and took up about a quarter of a block, so it was probably ample for a town the size of Ovid. Still, I wondered what these people would think of a Dillard’s like they had in Oklahoma City or Tulsa. Even Muskogee where I had lived had bigger stores. In spite of its small size, the entire second floor was devoted to women’s clothing. How did women ever decide what to buy? There were dresses, tops, skirts, and pants of every possible size, color and description. Thank god I had a full closet of clothes at home, for I don’t think I could ever decide what to buy given the vast array of merchandise. As a man, all I had to do is choose from jeans or about four colors and styles of casual pants. Then for a shirt, it was usually plain, striped or plaid in a few colors. Shoes? Brown, black or tennis shoes. But women could shop all day and never look at the same style of shoes twice. No wonder women had such a reputation of being professional shoppers. With the variety available to them–us now, I suppose–it could take forever to find what you needed.

There was an entire section of what I supposed could be called party dresses. They were all short and revealing. I remembered an old girlfriend of mine telling me that every girl needed a basic black cocktail dress. Here they were, only they weren’t all black.

“Now which one was it you said you wanted?” Mom said.

I gulped. I didn’t have the foggiest idea which dress Myra had wanted. Whichever one it was, I was certain it would have been the one with the shortest hemline that showed off the most cleavage.

“This one would look darling on her,” a musical woman’s voice said from behind us.

I turned to face an unbelievably beautiful woman. She was the kind of woman men would kill just to be in the same room with. Her eyes were the bluest blue I have ever seen, and her hair was a rich gold. Her skin was absolutely flawless, and every inch of her fantastically proportioned body was firm and feminine. She was wearing a very stylish dark blue dress that, although tight, was as perfect for her figure as anything could be. A name tag identified her as Vera March, but again, as with the Judge and a couple of others I had seen in Ovid, she had a presence about her that led me to believe that if the others were gods, so was she.

She held in her flawless hands a red dress. Actually, red didn’t do it justice. It was a dark, rich metallic red that shimmered in the lights. It was short and from the cut, I was sure it would show too much cleavage, but I was somehow drawn to it. She was right. I would look good in it. In fact, I would look fantastic in it. Involuntarily, I touched the fabric. Despite its metallic sheen, it was soft and warm to the touch.

“What do you think?” she asked in a voice that was so soothing and mellow, it bordered on being hypnotic.

“I think it’s scrumptious,” I replied. Now why had I used that word? I don’t think I had ever used that word in my life.

“Why don’t you try it on?” she asked.

I had to try it on. Everything else in the store had disappeared from view, and I could only see the dress. I was drawn to it like a magnet. Without a word, I took it and walked as if in a dream to the nearest dressing room. As I was disrobing, Mom knocked on the door. When I opened it, she handed me a package of pantyhose and a pair of red sandals with a three-inch heel. “Vera said to try these on,” she told me. “She said she was sure they would fit.”

I did as she asked. When I looked in the dressing room mirror, the result was nothing short of fantastic. If I had still been my old male self, I would have done anything to please the girl I saw in the mirror. I pressed my hands along my sides, thrilling to the feel of every feminine curve. In retrospect, I know I was under a very powerful spell, presumably placed on me by Vera March, but at the time, the feelings seemed perfectly natural.

I stepped out of the dressing room, feeling more sensitively than ever before the sway of my hips and the controlled bounce of my breasts. Vera March smiled a very satisfied smile, and my mother appeared stunned by what she saw.

“What do you think of it?” Vera asked my mother.

“I... I don’t know what to think,” she replied honestly. “Don’t you think it’s, well...”

“Perfect?”

“No... yes! Yes, that’s it. Myra, it just looks perfect on you,” Mom said decisively.

I smiled. I thought so, too.

We ended up buying the dress, shoes, and a necklace and earrings to go with it. With Vera’s influence, I was one very happy girl.

The rest of the week became routine. I was beginning to establish myself as one of the top students in my class. My social life suffered, I knew. I studied every night and took advantage of every study hall period. Bull seemed very understanding. He continued to play the gentleman. Wednesday became Thursday, and I aced a Chemistry quiz. Now, I was carrying an A average on every paper and quiz I had done as Myra, with the exception of Algebra. Even there, I had strong B’s.

One minor revelation occurred on Thursday. I was in the school library doing research for a Government paper when I ran across a book on Greek and Roman mythology. I had never been very interested in the subject, but given my experience in Ovid, I scanned the book. I began to realize that the Judge had to be Jupiter, not Zeus, who was apparently the Greek version of Jupiter. Dr. Miner I suspected must be Minerva, and Vera March was a good candidate for Venus. Big deal, I thought. I didn’t figure I would have to worry about them again. The damage, if you wanted to call it that, was already done to me. Then, I remembered the feelings I had experienced while trying on the new dress. Maybe the gods weren’t finished with me yet. I would have to be careful.

Friday went by too quickly. I must have been the only girl in Ovid High who wasn’t counting the minutes until the Christmas dance. I was starting to have severe second thoughts. I suspected the dress I had been maneuvered into buying would be far more revealing than my unspelled mind could handle. I also wondered about Bull. His old aggression seemed to be slowly returning. He had actually leered at me when I got in the car that morning. At least my efforts in school were continuing to pay off, and I immersed myself in my classes to try to get my mind off the dance.

After classes, Bull dropped Jack and Mikki off, then took me home. Parked in front of my house in the dying December afternoon, he put his arm around me with more authority than he had dared all week. He pulled me to him, and before I could stop him, kissed me gently but firmly. It wasn’t as bad as it had been right after my transformation, but it wasn’t that enjoyable, either. I managed to slip gently away without offending him. He gave me a wide grin and said, “I’m looking forward to tonight, babe. I’ll pick you up at seven.”

“Okay,” I managed to reply softly. I just wasn’t looking forward to an evening with Bull.

As I scrambled up to my room, I seriously considered faking an illness for the evening. The thought of wearing the sexy dress I had been spelled into buying and dancing with Bull all evening, meant I was starting to get a little stage fright. I wasn’t ready to do this. It was going to be like a stage performance, so stage fright was probably the right expression for it. And now, ladies and gentleman, Ovid is proud to present Marty Blackstone in the starring role of Myra Smithwick. It was a terrifying thought.

Mom had come home from work a little early and fixed me a quick dinner. Then, she hustled me off to my room. “I need to do something with your hair,” she told me. “Go ahead and get into the lingerie you plan to wear and we’ll get you ready.”

When I was in the dark red bra and panties I had decided matched the dress, Mom began working on my hair. It was so long and full to begin with that I could actually feel its weight as she shifted it around. She was as nimble with hair pins and hairspray as she was with a word processor at work. I got the feeling she was a frustrated stylist. “There!” she said finally.

I looked in my mirror. She had done an incredible job. Most of my hair had been piled up on top of my head, with little wisps of hair running down my neck and around my ears. The effect was very elegant. I would look great when I got my dress on.

Mom helped me get dressed, pulling the dress over my head so as not to disturb her work. She even made a couple of makeup suggestions, although I was getting pretty adept in that department myself. It all came together, the pantyhose, shoes, purse, and jewelry until a girl who would have given Cinderella some real competition stood in front of the mirror.

“Let’s go show your father,” Mom said. Dad had come home while I was still getting dressed. “You look absolutely beautiful. I only wish you weren’t going with Bull.”

So did I, but for some reason, I replied with the answer teenage girls had probably used forever. “Mom, it’s just a dance. I’m not going to marry him.” Indeed, I was not. If I could pull it off, I wouldn’t even be dating him after the dance.

“I know,” she sighed, “but I worry when you’re with him. He seems so... aggressive.”

Didn’t I just know it? Well, at least he had been under control for the last few days.

Dad thought I looked great, too. He pulled out a small flash camera and made me pose. I did my best, although I wasn’t sure I wanted a permanent record of me in that dress. It looked as if my boobs and ass were going to be out there for everyone to see if I just twitched in the wrong direction.

Bull arrived at exactly seven. He had gone all out, in a stylish gray herringbone sport coat and a subdued, tasteful tie. The only problem was that he was so big that even a well-tailored outfit tended to look a little out of place on him. He looked like one of those huge bodyguards you always see in pictures protecting movie stars or other famous people. He had bought me an absolutely lovely corsage, but I could tell he was a little disappointed when my mother grabbed it to pin it to my ample bosom instead of letting him pin it on me. Thanks, Mom.

Bull escorted me to the car. I noticed we were alone. “Aren’t Mikki and Jack going with us?” I asked.

“Not tonight, babe,” Bull said pleasantly. “It’s just you and me.”

Somehow, that was not a comforting thought. Bull had been a perfect gentleman all week, but I was starting to see signs that his conduct was threatening to slip back into the old pattern I had experienced right after my transformation. He was starting to strut around me again and call me ‘babe.’ All I could do, though, was to try to get through the evening. Maybe I would talk him into sitting with Jack and Mikki.

I started thinking about Jack. I hadn’t seen much of him all week. Mikki had monopolized most of his time, so the only time I saw much of him was in the car to and from school. He didn’t have much to say during those times. He honestly didn’t seem very happy, but maybe he was just in a pensive mood. I found myself wishing it were Jack taking me to the dance instead of Bull. Jack was a friend while Bull... well, Bull was a predator and I was the prey.

We left our coats at the temporary coat check in the hall outside the gym. Once I had taken off my coat, I felt positively naked. I looked down at myself and could see the swell of my breasts and the narrow canyon in between them. I was sure every boy in the school would be looking lustfully at them all evening. Of course, they might be looking at my slim legs, covered in smooth nylon, just hoping that I might forget myself bend over or not cross my legs in a ladylike fashion.

Either way, I felt very vulnerable. Maybe that’s why girls seek the company of one strong boy. Maybe they’re just hoping he will keep the other boys away. Was that why I was with Bull? I don’t exactly mean me, but rather the original Myra. It was possible that this buxom girl got so tired of the wolves circling that she agreed to start dating Bull just so she would have someone to keep them away. Then, the solution turned worse than the problem. Bull had become an aggressive, possessive nightmare. Maybe the original Myra was too frightened not to do what he said. Maybe I was, too.

I had a sister who dated a guy like Bull. Come to think of it, that was the sister who had told my real mother that she was just dating the guy, not marrying him. And now I had said the same thing to my new mother. Of course, three months later, the guy my sister had been dating knocked her up. Was that what was going to happen to me? Not if I could help it, of course. The problem was, could I help it?

I didn’t want any part of sex with Bull, or any other guy for that matter. Since I was almost certainly going to be a girl for the rest of my life, I knew I would have to face that some day. Either that or be a lesbian, and frankly, girls didn’t look that good to me in that way anymore. But what if Bull forced the issue? What could I do? He was big and strong. For that matter, he was persuasive, too, and charming when he wanted to be. I used to think girls were real saps to fall for some smooth talker’s lines. Hadn’t that happened to me? How else could I have ended up at a dance with him?

At least, there was a crowd, so Bull would be limited in what he could do. The gym was filled with students, all in their dress-up best. They were all drinking punch, eating, talking in groups, or dancing to the CDs one of the younger teachers was selecting.

I spotted Mikki and Jack and pulled Bull in their direction. Mikki was wearing something even more revealing than I was. It was white and sparkled so you could pick her out in a crowd from a hundred yards away. Jack looked sensational in a navy blue blazer and gray slacks. He looked very preppy, a far cry from his usual drab wardrobe covered by a letter jacket. Again, I had this sudden wish that I could be Jack’s date.

“You look great, Bull!” Mikki squealed. “You look like you’re gonna just bust right out of that coat.” To emphasize the point, she leaned over just enough to let him look down her dress while she squeezed his biceps.

“You look fantastic,” Jack said quietly to me.

I actually blushed and fumbled in reply, “So do you. I mean, you look great.”

We smiled nervously at each other.

The evening progressed innocently enough. With no drugs available in Ovid, the dance looked more like something out of Grease than I would have thought possible. And here I was, Olivia Newton John, right down to my blonde hair and sweet smile. A few of the guys looked as if they were sneaking out for a quick drink, though. Bull managed to join them more than a couple of times. That was all right with me, though. That gave me a little time to recover from Bull’s clumsy dancing and increasingly lewd remarks. There was even one time when Mikki had joined some of her bubble headed friends in the ladies’ room, leaving me alone for a few minutes with Jack, since Bull had slipped outside for another belt of what smelled like bourbon.

“Are you having a good time?” Jack asked me.

“Not really,” I told him with a sigh.

“Me neither,” he said with a sigh even more obvious than mine.

I looked at him. “I thought you and Mikki got along okay.”

“We do,” Jack agreed. “It’s just that she’s not really my type.”

“Who is your type?” I asked coyly. Now what had made me say that?

I felt a hand barely touch my narrow waist. “You are,” he said.

My heart leaped and my stomach dropped at the same time. I didn’t want to be interested in any boy. I had made that very clear to myself. Yet here I was, actually glad that Jack like me. Sam had been right. Was this the way it started? I supposed it was. First, you find a guy who you sort of like, a guy who won’t paw you to death the moment you say something to him other than “get lost.” Then, you learn to talk to him. You find you have a lot in common. Then, you agree to go out with him and find out if you really like the same things. Then... well, then you have some decisions to make–big decisions–the kind of decisions which could affect the rest of your life. Was that going to happen now? It certainly wasn’t going to happen with Bull. We had nothing in common. But Jack was another matter.

Fortunately, before I could reply, Mikki came back and Bull wasn’t far behind her. We all talked together for a few minutes, although Mikki did most of the talking. I held up my end of the conversation, but Bull and Jack mostly grunted or replied in monosyllabic words. Was there a tension developing between Bull and Jack? I hoped not. Although Jack had become a guy who looked to be in good shape, Bull had become a powerhouse. He looked as if he could handle any guy in the room, Jack included, and not even break a sweat.

Eventually, we drifted apart. Bull took me out for a slow dance. I kept trying to dance apart from him a little as he kept trying to crush me against his crotch where he obviously wanted me to be aware of his formidable hard on. When the music stopped, he said, “Come on, I need a little air.”

We walked out of the gym and strolled down the hall. It was too cold to go outside, so we were obviously just going to stay in the school. Suddenly, he reached over to the door to Ms. Samson’s room. I was surprised to see he had a key. “I lifted it off her desk yesterday,” he explained as the door clicked open. Then, without any warning, he pulled me inside the classroom, closing the door behind him.

“At last, we’ve got a little privacy,” he murmured to me as he wrapped a beefy arm around my waist and pulled my lips up to his face. In the faint light coming through the frosted glass in the door, I could see the look, not of a lover, but of a predator.

Desperately, I tried to pull away from him, but my struggles just caused him to hold me tighter. I held my lips grimly together while he probed at them with his tongue.

“Come on, babe,” he pleaded, but there was a menace in his plea. “You know you want me. Quit the hard-to-get routine. It’s getting old.”

“I don’t want you,” I replied, my already high voice almost squeaking in terror. His Mr. Nice Guy act was over. Bull was reverting to true form. He planned to have me whether I wanted him or not. I tried again to push him away, but my feminine strength was no match for him. I doubted if few men could fight him off, either.

“Look,” he said, his voice becoming harder as he pushed me against a wall, “I’ve had about enough of your prick teasing. I was good enough for you before last week. Now for some reason, you seem to think you’re too good for me. Well, listen, bitch, nobody died and made you Queen of England. You’re my girl and you’ll do what I tell you to do.”

Before I could protest, he forced me to my knees. I had a sudden hysterical thought that I hadn’t had time to tug my dress down and stood a good chance of getting a run in my pantyhose. What a complete female I had become. Here I was, in severe danger of being raped, and all I could think of was how my clothes looked.

Now, I was eye level with his crotch. He held my head in place with one hand, and when I experimentally tried to move it to one side, he forced it back straight so I was forced to watch as he unzipped his fly and pulled out his hard penis. As a male, I had seen plenty of dicks in my high school gym, but I had never seen one like this. It was huge and it was menacing. I could even detect a faint odor of musk. I could see every veined line in its considerable length. I had no doubt as to where he intended to put that thing, and I clamped my jaw as tightly as I could.

“Listen, you fucking cunt!” he roared, grabbing me painfully by the arm as his other meaty hand tried to push my cheeks hard enough to force my lips open. “You either open up now and take this like the whore you are, or I’ll break your arm.”

I don’t know if I would have done it or not. I was most certainly frightened enough. I could feel my gums hurting as he applied pressure to them. His penis was only inches from my mouth. Should I take it and then bite it? I wondered. No, I told myself. If I did that, his rage would be even worse. I wouldn’t be able to bite it off, and in his pain and rage, he would probably kill me. Fortunately, I’ll never know what might have happened, because a familiar voice suddenly ordered, “Get away from her, goddamn you!”

The classroom door was suddenly open, and silhouetted in the brilliant hall light was Jack. Even against the light, I could see the rage in his eyes. From down the hall, I could hear Mikki screaming, “What’s happening?” as her heels clicked on the hall floor.

Bull pushed me to the floor, knocking my head against the wall. I groaned, but managed to stay conscious. Now the back of my head, my jaw, and my arm all hurt, and I realized I had twisted my ankle a little when Bull had forced me to the floor.

Bull pushed his penis back into his pants, but didn’t bother to zip up. He glowered at Jack and warned menacingly, “Look, Paris, if you know what’s good for you, you’ll walk away.”

“Out here, Bull,” Jack growled, backing into the hall. “I want you out here.”

“So you can run, you pussy?” Bull didn’t move.

“Are you afraid?” Jack asked slyly. What was he doing? I wondered. Jack was in good shape. Anyone could see that, but he was no match for Bull. Bull had at least fifty pounds on him. Plus, his conditioning for football and wrestling meant he was in terrific shape. Jack was being very brave, but in the mood Bull was in, Jack could end up very dead.

It was the wrong thing to say to him. Bull stripped off his jacket and threw it carelessly on the floor at my feet. His tie followed. With a killing anger in his eyes, he stepped out into the hallway to confront Jack.

To my amazement, Jack was completely calm. He had his fists clenched in a protective posture before his face. I had never seen Jack–or Brad–box, but he appeared to know what he was doing.

Bull wasn’t impressed, though. He actually laughed at his former friend. “What? You think we’re going to box like gentlemen? I’m gonna bust your ass, Paris.”

Several of the attendees at the dance had heard the commotion and were running down the hall to watch. I managed to get shakily to my feet and step out into the hall. I nearly fell, a combination of the ordeal I had just been through and my unfamiliarity with heels that high. As I began to slip to the floor, Sam caught me. “Myra, are you okay?”

“I’ll make it,” I told her with a sob in my voice. “We’ve got to stop them!”

Sam shook her head. “Look at them. I don’t think anyone can stop them.”

She was right. They were both spring-loaded and ready to jump at each other’s throat. There was Jack, fairly slim and agile against Bull, who looked like a mountain ready to collide with him. At last, Bull could wait no longer. He lunged at Jack like a rock launched from a catapult. I expected to see them both fall to the ground, Bull on top, but it didn’t happen. At the last second, Jack neatly sidestepped Bull. I could imagine Bull dropping to the floor, rolling, and getting up to attack again. He wouldn’t miss a second time.

Instead, I watched in wonder as Jack’s leg shot out like lightning as Bull passed, his foot catching him in the side, just below the ribs. Bull howled in pain and dropped to the ground. He was up quickly though. “You’re gonna pay for that!” he yelled. “I’m gonna kick your balls now!”

It was eerie, but Jack didn’t say a word. He just continued to dance gracefully in front of Bull, his fists still in a defensive posture. Bull charged again, but this time, he adjusted his course at the last second, heading directly for Jack. But before he could reach him, the foot jumped out again, higher than I would have thought possible catching Bull in the chin. As Bull was rocked back by the kick, Jack struck him in the gut with four quick blows from his fists. Then, as Bull reeled unsteadily, Jack spun completely around, his leg extended, aimed directly for Bull’s chest. At the last instant, his foot seemed to veer slightly, catching Bull high on the shoulder instead of dead center on the chest. It was too much for Bull. He dropped with a thud to the floor, completely spent.

The silence that had accompanied the bout ended with a roar of appreciation. Jack had done what no one in the school had imagined was even possible. He had laid Bull out. Other boys were slapping him on the back and shaking his hand. Sam held me as I cried gently, more from relief than fear. The other girls were clustering around me to see if I was all right. They also cast sidelong glances at Bull sprawled on the floor. The fact that his fly was still unzipped, and that his penis was actually visible was not lost on any of them.

One person rushed to Bull’s side. It was Mikki, a look of concern on her face. She cuddled him gently in her arms, while looking up with hatred at Jack. “You bastard!” she screamed. “What have you done to him?”

It became apparent to me then. I hadn’t noticed it before. If I had been a girl all my life, I probably would have noticed, but I wasn’t, so I didn’t. Mikki had been in love with Bull all the time. That was why she had cultivated the bimbo look. She did it to please him. I doubted if the Jack who had been in place before we arrived really liked bimbos any more than my Jack did. She was waiting for her moment. Well, sister, I thought to myself, the moment has arrived. He’s all yours.

Suddenly, the crowd parted. It was Dr. Miner. Oh, great, Jack and I were actually getting our lives together, and now, we were all going to be thrown out of school. Well, I wouldn’t. I mean, I hadn’t done anything wrong. But what if she thought I had enticed him? With my everything-out-front dress, he could claim I had led him on. That was just what the bastard would do, I thought. And even if I got off the hook, Jack was in trouble. He had given Bull the beating of his life, and Bull had never laid a hand on him. Of course, it could have been worse. If that last kick of Jack’s had hit Bull squarely in the chest, it might have caved in his entire rib cage, crushing the heart. Bull had come only inches from death.

“All right,” Dr. Miner said calmly. “The dance is still in the gym. Go there now for your entertainment.”

The crowd reluctantly began to shuffle back to the dance. At last, there was just Jack with Danny standing next to him, Sam and me, with Sam still holding me gently, and Bull, who wasn’t going anywhere for awhile, while Mikki stroked his forehead lovingly. Dr. Miner looked at the remaining group. She was an intelligent woman, I could tell. It took her only a few moments to decide what had happened. My disheveled condition and Bull’s open fly told the story.

“Mikki,” she said at last, “help Bull to his feet and get him out of here. When his head clears, tell him I want to see him at ten o’clock tomorrow in my office, is that clear?”

“But,” Mikki protested, “tomorrow is Saturday, and there’s no school.”

There was a glow in Dr. Miner’s eyes as she said forcefully, “Ten o’clock in my office! Now, is that clear?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Mikki said weakly, helping Bull struggle to his feet and leading him away.

Before Bull was led out of our circle, he stopped and looked at Jack. The hatred was still in his eyes, but behind it there was... fear? He mumbled to Jack, “This... isn’t... over.”

Jack just quietly dismissed this bravado when he replied, “Yes, it is.” The downcast look from Bull told me Jack was right.

“I hear this was a very interesting display of kick boxing,” she said to Jack.

“He tried to rape Myra,” Jack replied.

“Yes,” Dr. Miner said drolly. “I can see that. You did well, Jack. You controlled yourself this time.”

Jack’s expression changed for the first time. There was alarm in his eyes. “You know?”

“Of course I know,” she replied with a grim smile. “I know all about you. Don’t worry, though, that’s all in the past. Brad Blackstone never existed, did he?”

“I suppose not,” Jack allowed.

She turned to Sam and me. “Sam, take Myra to the girl’s room and get her cleaned up. Jack, you’d better take her home. Danny, stay with Jack until Myra’s ready.” These weren’t requests; they were orders. I had a pretty good idea who was giving the orders, too. ‘Miner’ formed the first five letters of ‘Minerva.’ There seemed little doubt that our superintendent was the Goddess of Wisdom. Without another word, she walked gracefully down the hallway and back to the dance.

Sam got me cleaned up in no time. We collected our coats and said our goodbyes to Sam and Danny. Sam got me to agree to call her in the morning to make sure everything was okay. She was so sweet and feminine that it was almost impossible to imagine her as a guy. If it hadn’t happened to me, I never would have believed it. Danny shook hands with Jack and got him to promise to call, too. It was easy to see that Jack and Danny were becoming good friends as well.

Jack and I walked to the car in silence. As we got in, Jack asked quietly, “Do you want to get a cup of coffee before I take you home?”

“I don’t know,” I replied. I was still too shell-shocked from Bull’s attack to know what I wanted.

“It might make you feel better.”

Yes, it might, I realized. If I went home right now, my parents would still be up. They would take one look at me and wonder what was wrong. There was no telling what they might do about it. I didn’t want them doing something stupid like confronting Bull or his parents. I suddenly realized, I didn’t even know Bull’s parents. In any case, a cup of coffee sounded good. “Okay.”

Jack wisely avoided Rusty’s. It was a late-night hangout for the high school, and I didn’t want to be seen by my classmates. We picked a little donut shop just off Main Street. It was called Dunker’s. If it had been in a city, I would have avoided it, especially in my new body, since it looked like the sort of place derelicts would choose to get warm and maybe sleep off a bender, but Ovid was too small for that. Instead of derelicts, the only customer appeared to be two men who looked as if they had just finished a late shift, maybe even at dad’s company, Vulman Industries. They were chatting about football as we walked in, making friendly bets on the upcoming bowl games. Instead of a pimply-faced teen behind the counter, there was a heavy-set middle-aged shade who looked a lot like Mel in the old Alice TV series.

We took a booth toward the back of the shop, and Jack got us two coffees and a couple of donuts. “Any cream?” I asked him with a sniffle.

“Since when do you use cream?”

“Since I got this peaches and cream complexion,” I said. “I don’t seem to be able to drink it straight anymore.”

He got me one of those little plastic containers of cream and a stirrer. I dumped it in the coffee, followed by a packet of sugar. Jack watched in fascination as I stirred them in the strong coffee.

“You really have changed,” he remarked.

I actually found myself smiling. “When I take a shower, I notice a lot more than the way I drink coffee has changed.”

“For the better or worse?”

I sighed, sipping the coffee while I thought of an answer. It tasted good, and I felt a little calmer. “Better, I think. I mean, at first, it was hard. I had been male all my life. Then, suddenly, to find that I had breasts and... and... all the rest, was a little disconcerting. Now, though, it’s starting to feel more natural. I think I can see why people like Sam have adapted so well. When you spend every day being seen as a girl, you start acting like one. I guess it’s like speaking a foreign language. If all you hear day in and day out is, say, French, before long, you’ll start speaking French or you’ll go crazy. Then, after awhile, it starts to sound normal. You never forget English, but you start to speak and maybe even act French.”

“Yeah, but what about guys?” he asked.

“What about them?”

“Well, you weren’t interested in Bull, so I just wondered...”

“You just wondered if that applied only to Bull or to all guys,” I finished for him.

He nodded, biting into a donut.

“There’s not an easy answer for that,” I told him. “I guess as a guy, I was a little like Bull. Don’t get me wrong. I never forced myself on a girl, but I made love to a lot of them. Sadly, I never loved any of them, and I don’t think they loved me. They were all more like the girl Bull wanted me to be.

“Your perception changes, though. Now, I look at girls, and I see friends or rivals, but they don’t do anything for me. I tend to notice what they’re wearing, or how they do their hair or makeup, but I don’t look at their breasts or legs like I used to. As far as guys are concerned, I’m starting to notice.” I blushed. “I’m starting to notice more every day.”

Jack grinned at my embarrassment. “What do you notice?”

“Well,” I started fumbling for words, “I’ve started noticing how they walk, and how they act more than how they look. I tend to notice an average guy who’s confident more than a really good-looking guy who isn’t. Unless the guy is really good looking, then it doesn’t matter if he’s a little shy...” My voice trailed off. I found I was getting lost in Jack’s eyes. Did he know that last statement was about him?

“I’ve got some questions for you, too,” I told him, once I was able to break the spell for a moment. “Where did you learn to fight like that?”

Jack sat back, reflecting for a moment. “I suppose it won’t hurt to tell you now. You realize even when you were Marty, you didn’t really know anything about me. I mean, we chummed around, drank a few beers and laughed a few laughs, but you didn’t really know me.”

“I knew you were from Chicago,” I pointed out, taking a dainty bite out of my donut.

Jack shook his head. “No, I just told you I was from Chicago. I’ve been there, even worked there for a few months, but I’m actually from Baltimore.”

“Why lie about that?” I asked. I was starting to realize I didn’t know Brad at all. I had just spent a few days with Jack, and already I knew him better than in the months I had spent with Brad.

“Because I killed a man,” he blurted.

“Killed?”

“Look, Myra,” he said leaning forward, “you saw what I could do with Bull tonight. I could have killed him. I almost did. But back in Baltimore, there was nothing holding me back.”

“So how did it happen?” I asked softly, placing my hand on his.

“I was raised by my sister,” he told me. “My parents were children of the late sixties and early seventies. They got married young and had two kids, me and my older sister, Rita. Then dad died when I was about eight of a drug overdose. Mom did the best she could, but she had a drug habit of her own and not many skills. She worked the streets to make ends meet. By the time I was eleven, she died, too.

“Rita was seventeen by then. She made sure the social workers didn’t find out about me and raised me herself. She saw what drugs did to our parents, so she stayed away from them and kept me away as well. She got little jobs–you know, waitressing and stuff like that. It wasn’t much, but she kept a roof over our heads.”

Jack had actually sounded happy for a moment, but now, his voice took on a more somber tone. “She had bad luck with men, though. Most of the guys she dated were just wastrels, but then, when I was sixteen, she picked up with a guy who was a lot like Bull. He’d treat her like dirt. Then, when she looked like she was going to drop him, he’d be so nice to her it made me want to puke. After he was sure he had her where he wanted her, he started physical force. It was little things at first, like Bull did to you. He’d pull her into the car, or grab her hard enough to leave a bruise.”

He sipped more of the coffee, and I saw a dark look form on his face. “Then, one day after school, I came home and found out he had beaten her senseless. She was barely breathing. I tried to get to the phone and call an ambulance, but he stopped me. He told me, ‘the stupid bitch will be okay. Just leave her alone’.”

“But she wasn’t okay, was she?” I prompted softly.

“No, she was dying,” he replied. “Oh, she didn’t die right away. That took months in a coma. Nothing could have saved her, but I didn’t know that then. I had been taking kick-boxing lessons for three years, and I was getting pretty good. I delivered papers to get enough money for the lessons. It was the one thing I really enjoyed doing. I went after her boyfriend when he tried to stop me from calling for help. He was big and strong like Bull, but like Bull, he was slow and not very smart. I let up on Bull at the last minute tonight or I would have caved in his chest. That’s what I did to Rita’s boyfriend. The coroner said two ribs actually broke off and lodged in his heart. He died in seconds.”

“But it was self defense, wasn’t it?” I asked.

Jack shook his head. “Maybe for somebody else it would have been, but I ran up against a hotshot young Assistant DA who was looking to make a name for himself. I cooperated at first, until I realized they were trying to build a murder case against me. You see, the law believes that if you have training in a martial art like I did, it’s the same as using a weapon. We were poor, too poor to get a fair chance in court. They had built up a case against me. I was the son of a hooker, and they would say my sister was probably a hooker, too. We had probably tried to roll her john, only she got hurt and he got killed.”

“But nobody would believe that!” I protested.

“Maybe not,” he agreed, “but show me a Public Defender who wouldn’t have settled for manslaughter and walked away thinking he had done a great job. In the meantime, I would have done ten or fifteen years. It would have taken a good attorney to get me off completely, and I couldn’t afford one.”

“So you ran,” I concluded.

“I ran,” he agreed, drinking the rest of his coffee. “So now, you know who I am.”

“I do,” I smiled. “And I like who you are.”

We found as we drove home that it was as if it had been Jack and I out on a normal date that night. We talked about Sam and Danny, and what good friends they had become. We talked about school which we both seemed to be enjoying. We carefully avoided anything to do with Bull, Mikki, or our transformation. We were just two teenagers at the end of a pleasant evening.

Jack walked me to my door, for which I was grateful. It had melted earlier in the day, then frozen again, and my heels weren’t made for walking on ice. At the front door, he waited as I got out my key and opened the door.

“Hey, look,” he said as I was getting reading to go in, “do you think we could maybe, you know, go to a movie tomorrow night?”

He was asking me out on a date! I felt an odd tingling sensation all over. “Sure,” I replied quickly. “I’d like that.”

He grinned. “Great. Six o’clock okay? We could maybe get something to eat first.”

“Sure,” I smiled.

“Great,” he said again, stumbling away from the door.

It was an impulse, I knew, but I had to do it. “Jack!”

He stepped back up on the front stair. “What?”

I didn’t say anything. I just put both arms around him and pulled him down to me. Then, I gave him a kiss–not a little sisterly kiss, but the deepest one I could manage. I could even feel a hardness in his crotch, but for the first time, I didn’t mind. Eventually, we both had to breathe. I released him and started inside. Then, at the last second before I closed the door, I gave him my most feminine smile and said, “Thanks, Jack. I had a wonderful evening.”

As the door closed on his bright smile, I realized it was true. I really had had a wonderful evening.

“So what happened then?” I heard Diana ask, snapping me out of my trance.

“I don’t pick where the stories end,” I told her. “It’s like working for a movie director. He gets to pick the ending. I just show the film and sell the popcorn.”

“I know that, silly,” she laughed, “but what have you heard? That was just last Saturday. Are Myra and Jack an item now?”

“Yes, I’d like to know, too,” another voice said from behind me.

I turned. “Susan!” I exclaimed. “I didn’t see you come in.” Of course, I had spent the last thirty seconds ago in a trance.

“I just got here,” she said, sitting down beside me. “I dropped off some papers for the Judge and left them on your desk. They said you had left early, so I took a chance that you came by here first.”

“You know me too well,” I replied, only half joking. Since her transformation, Susan and I had become the good friends that everyone believed we were. They thought we had gone to school together. Little did they know we had only met a few weeks before.

“Anyway,” she continued, “I heard you talking about Myra and Jack. May I join you?”

“Certainly,” Diana answered. “Try the house Chardonnay. It’s really great.”

“Thanks,” she said as a waiter came up to the table, “but I think I’ll stick with Diet Coke.”

Susan never drank alcohol. It would help her maintain that beautiful trim body she had been given. In her gray suit, she looked like a lawyer who had just stepped out of a TV show. Ovid had been very good to her. “So when do you start your honeymoon?” I asked.

“Tomorrow,” Susan said triumphantly. “That’s why I dropped those papers off today. In less than twenty-four hours, Steven and I will be on our way to Hawaii. Then, it’ll be Christmas on Maui.”

Lots of people take second honeymoons, I mused, but since Susan and Steven had been man and wife when Susan was a man, they were the only couple I knew who were taking their second one with their sexes reversed. Hmm, I’d have to talk Jerry into a second honeymoon some time since we had never really had a first one.

The waiter brought Susan her Diet Coke, and we huddled over the table like three sorority girls discussing their last dates.

“I don’t really know that much,” I began. “Jack lives just a block down from our house, and I’ve seen him walking hand-in-hand with Myra a couple of times. If they’re not in love, it’s a pretty good imitation.”

“I’ve seen the same thing,” Susan confirmed. “They came by the office to see Dori on Monday. I’ve never seen her look happier. She and her husband both like Jack. And the way Jack and Myra look at each other, I’d say they’re an item.”

“You might be interested in Mikki and Bull,” Diana said coyly.

“What about them?” I asked. I guess when you’re a goddess, you have access to information we mere mortals don’t have.

“They’re an item,” Diana told us. “In fact, the kids all call them the Velcro Twins since they never seem to be apart.”

“I guess it’s better than the Asshole Twins,” I commented dryly.

“True,” Diana and Susan said together.

I took another sip of my wine. “Still, I hate to see a big prick like Bull make out. He gets a cute girl in Mikki, and a chance at a great college and professional football career. And Mikki does okay as a result, too.”

“Don’t be too sure,” Diana cautioned.

We both looked at her, puzzled. She ignored us and took another sip of her wine, finishing the glass and signalling the waiter for another round. I really didn’t want another, but what the hell. I had to know what she was getting at. The waiter took our lunch orders and went back for our second round of wine. Susan, of course, stayed with Diet Coke.

“Okay,” I demanded when the waiter dropped off our glasses, “spill it.”

“Don’t you think our waiter has a cute little tush?” Diana smiled, ignoring my demand.

“Don’t worry,” Susan said, “I think I may know what she’s hinting at. That’s why I got called in on the case.”

Diana just smiled and listened.

“You see, Cindy,” Susan went on, “Marty and Brad weren’t even supposed to be here. You’ve heard the old expression ‘Man plans and the gods laugh?’ Sometimes, it’s the other way around. The Judge called the highway department knowing that Mack and Bear were in the area. Their supervisor dispatched them at once, as the Judge had planned. But the supervisor didn’t trust either one of them to get the job done right, so he sent two more men, Marty and Brad, as insurance.

“When Officer Mercer picked all of them up, the Judge found that Brad and Marty had been picked up in his trap, too. He determined that although both of them had a pretty good idea that Mack and Bear were pushing drugs, they had said nothing to anyone. This angered the Judge, because he hates drugs more than anything, except maybe child molesters. So Brad and Marty weren’t guilty of selling or using drugs, but they had stood by while it went on.”

“So this was one of the gray areas the Judge said he might use you on,” I surmised.

Susan nodded. “Exactly. Mack was supposed to become Myra, and Bear would be Bull. They would end up with each other, presumably unhappily ever after. Am I right about that, Diana?”

“Right on the mark,” Diana confirmed, raising her glass in mock salute.

“Okay,” I broke in. “So why did the Judge change things so Marty would become Myra?”

“Because,” Susan continued, “I asked him to. That was why the Judge and I had a long pre-trial conference. I asked the Judge to give Marty and Brad the opportunity to redeem themselves from both their pasts and doing nothing about the drug dealing. He determined that the best way to handle that would be to shuffle the deck a little bit.”

“Shuffle the deck?” I asked.

“Yes. Bear became Bull, as planned, and I think the Judge has something more in mind for him. But Marty became Myra instead of Mack. This allowed Myra a chance to escape Bull’s influence and be her own person. Mikki never could have done that, even if she was given the opportunity to remember who she had been. If Myra had used the same tactics she used as Marty, she would have been a dropout who couldn’t bring herself to fight Bull’s behavior any more than Marty fought Bear’s. The Judge created Mikki at the last minute, shade family and all, just to place her where she would have been as Myra if our new Myra redeemed herself.”

“Then Jack was a last-minute creation, too,” I guessed.

“Exactly,” Susan agreed. “The Judge found out about Brad’s brush with the law. Jack, or Brad, was right, by the way. In my old life, I handled murder cases. The system often runs over the poor since they can’t afford an adequate defense. At the very least, Brad would have spent time in prison for manslaughter, and that would only be if the Public Defender was a good one. It was a low profile case, so the odds of getting a good one were slim and none. In any case, Jack needed to come to grips with what he had done and win this time without displaying lethal force.”

“What would the Judge have done if Jack had killed Bull?” I asked.

Susan shrugged. “I’m not sure. It never came up.”

“I can answer that,” Diana said.

“Hey, wait a minute,” I interrupted. “I thought two humans couldn’t discuss the nature of any of the gods here in Ovid.”

“They can’t normally,” she explained, “but when one of us allows it, it can be done. If I were to leave right now, you and Susan wouldn’t be able to discuss it directly. It’s for our convenience, not yours.”

“So what would have happened?” Susan prompted.

Diana leaned forward again. “It would have gone very bad for Jack. Murder isn’t allowed here in Ovid. The event would have been eliminated from everyone’s mind, and a shade would have come in to play the part of Bull. There might have even been some tears in the fabric of Ovid, causing some of our changees to assume new roles. Jack would most certainly no longer be human.”

I shuddered at the thought. On the surface, Ovid was an idyllic place, but just as Disneyland was honeycombed with concrete tunnels and the real devices that made the fantasy work, there was a honeycomb of rules and magic which made Ovid work, and some of that honeycomb was not pleasant. I knew that some of the oak trees in Sooner Park had once been human.

“Okay,” Susan said, “but, Diana, set our minds at ease. What’s going to happen to Bull?”

“Well, only one event is cast in stone,” she explained. “Most of the other factors are variable. Mikki will probably get knocked up by Bull, but it won’t be a happy union. Mikki will probably end up at Randy Andy’s waiting tables and fending off pinches on the ass. She’ll be unhappy, and she’ll make sure Bull knows it.”

“But I thought Bull was going to be a college football star and an NFL prospect,” I pointed out.

“He probably would be,” Diana agreed, “but in the third game next fall, the opposing defense will push the offensive tackles and guards out of the way allowing a linebacker to charge straight through knock Bull on his big butt. That’s the event cast in stone. It will cause a bad exchange between the center and quarterback, resulting in a game-losing fumble. Bull’s substantial weight will come down on that knee he just injured in wrestling. As a result, the knee will be too weak for college ball and certainly too weak for pro ball. Bull doesn’t have the smarts to get into college, so he’ll be stuck here in Ovid for the rest of his life.”

“Doing what?” I asked.

Diana shrugged. “That will be up to him. It’s too much trouble to try to pull all the strings. Who knows? Maybe he’ll end up digging ditches for the City of Ovid.”

We all had a little chuckle at Bull’s expense. It couldn’t happen to a nicer guy. Ovid had given some of us a new chance, even if it had changed our sexes, but for some, like Bull, there would be no second chance. Only now, instead of being content with the nowhere life he had as Bear, he would always wonder what might have been if his knee had stayed healthy. The same would be true for Mikki. It was a fitting fate.

“Well,” Susan said seriously as she took another sip of Diet Coke, “I had no idea the Judge could be so manipulative. I’m certainly glad he didn’t have a chance to manipulate me.”

Diana and I looked at each other, momentarily stunned. Susan had most certainly been manipulated by the Judge into coming to Ovid and accepting her new role as a woman. Then, we looked at Susan, who was using the glass of Diet Coke to hide a coy smile. She knew! When...?

Diana began to laugh. It was infectious, and I began to laugh, too.

But it was Susan who was laughing the loudest of all.

The End