---

I breathed a sigh of relief as I saw the sign welcoming us to Ovid just ahead. It was ironic, I supposed. For here I was, one of the favored who could come and go from Ovid as I pleased, and yet I always looked forward to returning to the small town which had become my home. I know Susan felt the same way. I couldn’t see the look on her face there in the back seat, but we had talked about it before.

Susan and Steven Jager had gone with my husband, Jerry, and me to enjoy a weekend in Oklahoma City sans kids. We had gone to an Oklahoma University football game down in Norman to appease Jerry and Steven, had a nice dinner together, done some shopping, and retired to our respective rooms where we enjoyed the opportunity to make love without the interruption of children.

We had driven back fairly early on Sunday. The clouds were building up as a cold front drifted in, promising freezing drizzle and miserable road conditions by afternoon. Of course, the weather would be a little better in Ovid with no drizzle to worry about. But Jerry wasn’t aware of that since of the four of us, he was the only one who could not remember his previous life. If he had, he would probably be aware that the gods kept things a little more temperate in Ovid than the rest of the state experienced.

I wondered often what Jerry would think if he suddenly regained his memories of being Randy, a fraternity brother of mine. How would he cope knowing he was married to a woman who had once been his best friend–his best male friend no less? And what would he think, seeing his twins and realizing they, too, had been fraternity brothers of his? Then there was Ashley, the daughter we had given life to together. Maybe, I thought with a sigh, it was best that Jerry didn’t remember any other life. The shock of learning what he had become–a husband and a father–might be too much for him.

We pulled up in front of Susan’s house and were all surprised to see a police car at the curb.

“You forget to pay some tickets, Steven?” Jerry joked.

“Surely it’s not a break in,” Steven mumbled to himself. Crime was rare in Ovid for obvious reasons.

Even if I hadn’t seen the officer standing by the car, I would have known it was Officer Mercer. Although people like Jerry didn’t notice, people like Susan, Steven and I were well aware that Officer Mercer was the only patrol officer Ovid had–or needed.

“Something’s wrong,” Susan whispered to me under her breath as we all got out of the car. I was afraid she was right.

“The Judge needs to see you right away,” Officer Mercer informed me without preamble. “You should be there too, Mrs. Jager.”

“You guys go on with him,” Jerry advised, oblivious to the danger the rest of us sensed. “Steven and I can pick up the kids at the sitter’s.”

I just nodded and joined Susan in the back seat of the police car.

“What’s wrong?” I asked Officer Mercer once we were on our way.

“It’s better if he explains it,” he replied. I didn’t ask again. As messenger of the gods, he would have told us only what The Judge wanted us to hear. His actions, however, told me a lot. Never had I been required to drop everything on a Sunday to attend to city business. Something very, very serious had happened.

We were ushered into the chamber normally reserved for city council meetings. The room was arranged with seating and a long desk for the council members at a raised platform with a gallery for about fifty observers facing the council desk. The Judge, in an expensive business suit, had taken the spot normally reserved for the mayor, and seated with him at the council desks were the highest members of the pantheon.

Even the gallery was half-full, the lesser gods and goddesses making up the majority of the spectators with a few trusted humans such as Susan and I making up the rest. Diana, looking unusually demure in a dark blue dress, motioned us to come sit with her.

“What’s happening?” I asked her, my voice nearly lost in the drone of nervous voices around us.

“That’s what we want to know,” she replied cryptically.

Before she could add anything else, a gavel sounded. “I call this meeting to order,” The Judge said authoritatively. Silence was instantaneous and respectful.

“We have a potential crisis on our hands,” he began. “Rather than summarize what has happened, I have asked Mrs. Patton to attend this meeting and show us.”

I gulped. My talent for projecting the stories of Ovid’s residents into the minds of others had never been used on such a large group before. An encouraging nod from The Judge assured me that it would be no problem, though.

“Mrs. Patton, we must move quickly on the information we have just been given. Please access the file for Ashton Wells.”

“Yes, sir.” With a sigh, I concentrated my mind on the subject and began to flow into the familiar trance...

My co-anchor had just finished the typical light-hearted anecdote that ended all of our normal newscasts and Camera One was blinking at me once more. It was a medium shot, I knew, so the viewers would never know my hands were shaking in nervous anticipation. Trooper that I had always been, I gave my best professional smile for the camera and announced, “And that’s the news for this evening. Stay tuned to Newschannel Four for all the latest breaking news, and now it’s time for the Tonight Show with Jay Leno.”

As far as the viewers were concerned, my timing was accurate to a fraction of a second. Most of them would never realize that modern technology allows stations like KFOR-TV to capture a program on an advance feed and start it whenever the producer wants it to air. It was a good thing, too, because my mind that evening was on something more important to me than accurate timing. My agent had called me earlier in the day, just before I had left for the studio.

“They loved it, Ash!” he gushed as soon as I picked up the phone.

“NBC?” I asked, my heart skipping a beat. “They liked the tape?”

“No, Ash,” Henry laughed. “They didn’t just like it–they loved it!”

This was it! It was my big break. For twelve years since leaving the University of Missouri with my journalism degree in hand, I had done everything I could to position myself for this moment. I was about to join the network as a correspondent. They’d probably base me in Dallas at first–or maybe Denver. It didn’t matter to me. I had gone from school to a small TV station in Springfield Missouri to another one in Albuquerque and one in Omaha. My latest move had been two years earlier to Oklahoma City and the top-rated television news department in the city. At least it was top-rated now. I had been brought in to anchor the ten o’clock news, and by all accounts, I had done a great job.

Now the waiting had begun. I wasn’t the only candidate for the NBC job, but Henry thought they were close to making a decision. That was great, because my contract with KFOR-TV was almost up, and if I was going to move on, this would be the perfect time.

Of course, I couldn’t tell anyone at the station. If things fell through with the network, I might have to extend my contract. I didn’t want to extend it too long, though. I just wanted to use the extension as a time period to fleet up to the network or at least to a larger market where I stood a better chance of being noticed by the network brass.

I practically ran back to my desk the second the studio lights dimmed. With any luck at all, my time in purgatory was about to end. I would be able to say goodbye to a city where the frequent tornadoes were the biggest news and move on to a prestigious network job. Who knows? I might even work my way up to a network anchor position. Move over Tom Brokaw, here comes Ashton Wells!

To my mixed relief and trepidation, my phone indicated I had a message from my agent. I couldn’t very well take it at my desk. There were too many people milling around. Since the ten o’clock news is the most important local news time in the Midwest, the newsroom is busy then as well. I ducked into an empty conference room for a little privacy and called Henry.

“Ash,” Henry answered on the third ring. My heart fell when I heard his voice. It was devoid of any enthusiasm.

“I didn’t get it, did I?” I ventured with a sick feeling in my stomach.

“Sorry, Ash,” he replied, confirming my suspicion. “They liked your tape: they really did. They said you were just the type of guy they were looking for, but...”

“But?” I prompted.

“Ash, most of your work has been just what you’re doing right now–anchor assignments. They thought you were weak in the field. They said they wanted someone who had more time as a correspondent.”

“But I was a correspondent in Springfield,” I pointed out.

“Yeah,” he countered, “and that was a few years back. Besides, whatever happens in Springfield–or in Oklahoma City for that matter?”

“Well, there was the Murrah Building...”

“Ash, that was almost ten years ago. That’s old news as far as the network high-ups are concerned. What we need to do is get you out of the Bible Belt and up here in Chicago. I think I can get you an interview with WGN here in the city.”

I thought about it for a moment. WGN was a big station all right. And it was picked up on cable and satellite, so I’d get plenty of national exposure. For that matter, I was originally from the Chicago area, and Henry had his office there. But there was a problem.

“Okay, Henry, but what happens if I get a job at WGN. Wouldn’t I be a junior guy on the roster?”

“Sure. So what’s the problem?”

“I’d get the shit assignments,” I told him. “You know, I’d be covering the dog shows and traffic problems. I wouldn’t be getting the kind of work that would make the networks take notice.”

“But Ash, it’s WGN! So it takes you a little longer to work your way up. You aren’t going to get a network job down there in Injun Country watching the grass grow.”

I remembered back when Henry had lined me up with the Oklahoma City job and how he had called it a “savvy marketplace” and a “hot midsize market.” Now it was the Bible Belt and Injun Country.

“So Ash, you want me to pursue that WGN job?”

“Yeah,” I sighed, resigned to my fate. “Go for it.”

“Great!” Henry said cheerfully. “You’ll see, Ash. Chicago’s a savvy market.”

“Aren’t they all to hear him tell it,” I muttered out loud after he had hung up.

“Bad news?”

I looked up from my seat and saw Brenda Altman, one of our cameramen–or rather women–leaning against the door to the conference room.

“Come to gloat?” I growled. Brenda and I had taken an instant dislike to each other when I first arrived at the station. Of course, she knew I was looking to get a better job. Everyone at the station probably knew. It was the sacred ritual of contract renewal all on-air talent went through, and it was no secret that my contract was coming up for renewal.

“Hell no,” she shrugged. “Believe me, Ash, I like nothing better than to see you move on. I don’t give a damn if you end up replacing Dan Fucking Rather.”

“What have you got against me, Brenda?” I asked. “You’ve had a burr up your ass about me since I came here. What did I ever do to you?”

She swaggered over and took a chair down the table from mine. She could have been an attractive woman in her own way, but she carried herself like a man. I had never heard for certain what her sexual preferences were, but the story around the station was that when she indulged in sex (which she apparently did only rarely), it was with another woman. Not that that bothered me. I didn’t much care which way she swung.

“You know, I’d think a smart guy like you would have figured it out,” she told me. “You came down here a couple of years back and acted like you were God’s gift to the broadcasting industry. Hell, the only thing you had done was anchor the news at some station in Omaha just before you came here–and it was the afternoon news at that.”

I grimaced a little. Her words were hitting the mark. I suspected it was pretty much what the network people had told Henry. Henry had just been nice enough to make it sound more palatable.

Brenda saw she had drawn blood and continued, “You know the real hell of it, Ash? You have one of the finest deliveries I’ve ever seen.”

I perked up a little. “A compliment–from you?”

She gave me another shrug. “Call it that if it makes you feel any better. What I mean is you know how to say the words real well. Hell, you’re better at that than half the guys at any of the networks. You’re one of the best talking heads I’ve ever seen. The problem is that that is the easy part and you don’t seem to recognize it.”

“Easy? What the hell are you talking about? It takes hours to put together a newscast as tight as the ones I do.” I was pissed to the very core. “The reporters in the field spend half their time travelling to and from a story and while they’re on the scene, they ask questions fed to them by someone else.”

“That’s not true!”

I pressed forward, “And all you have to do is point the damned camera wherever they tell you to. It’s up to people like me to make people like you look good by presenting the stories in a way the viewers appreciate!”

I was practically yelling at her by that point. Our voices had become loud enough that Dan Pollack, our producer got into the act. “Is there a problem, kids?”

“No problem,” I growled.

“Yeah, Dan, no problem,” Brenda confirmed, but there was menace in her voice. She saved her last remark for me before turning to leave. “I can tell you this, Ash, I want to be there when you do get out in the field on a big story. Then you can tell me how easy it is.”

I started to call out after her, but Dan grabbed my arm. “Let it go, Ash.”

“What?” I mumbled. “Is she pissed because her girlfriend’s got PMS?”

If Brenda heard that, she didn’t acknowledge it. She had already reached the door and hadn’t looked back.

“She’s not gay,” Dan told me.

“How do you know, Dan? Personal experience?”

“I thought your name was Ash–not Ass,” he chastised me. I backed off when I saw how pissed he was getting. I had already gotten one of my co-workers pissed at me. It wouldn’t do to get my producer pissed off as well. “She’ll tell you if she ever feels like it.”

As he walked away, I wondered what he had meant by that.

Normally, after a busy night I do a little pub-crawling and look for some sweet young lady who thought it would be cool to do it with a news anchor like me. It was my usual pattern, but I was too pissed to enjoy myself that night. I went back to my apartment and poured myself a healthy shot of scotch, gulping it down without bothering with ice or mix.

I’d show them. I’d show all of them what kind of a newsman I could be. When I was finished, I’d have Henry enthusiastically selling me to one of the networks. I’d have the network boys salivating to make me the next big name in network news. And I’d have Brenda Altman’s respect...

Downing my second scotch in record time, I wondered suddenly why I even bothered to worry about impressing Brenda. After all, she was just a camerawoman at a Podunk TV station in the middle of Tornado Alley. Granted, she did the best camera work of anybody on staff, but so what? She wasn’t even that good looking or she’d probably be in front of the camera.

Well actually, she wasn’t bad looking either. She was well-proportioned, about five-five in height. Her face was at best cute with a dusting of freckles and her hair was a sort of nice shade of dark brown even if she did keep it cut a little short and boyish. She probably attracted more dykes that way.

But no, Dan had said she wasn’t a lesbian, and Dan had known her for a long time. Come to think of it, they had both worked together at a station in Little Rock before coming to Oklahoma City. Did that mean...

No, they weren’t a couple. Dan was happily married with a couple of kids. They did get together for lunch sometimes, but it was always in a public place. And Dan was a pretty straight arrow and a likeable guy. I considered him a friend and so did Brenda. I wondered what it was about Brenda and me that made us oil and water.

Well, that wasn’t worth worrying about. I had come up with a plan of action as I got ready for bed. The very next day, I’d be in Wally Moore’s office. I would tell our esteemed news director that I wanted a field assignment and wanted it right now. I wouldn’t take no for an answer. I had to get my ticket punched and punched quickly. Ashton Wells was meant for bigger things!

Wally Moore was a pretty good boss. Now in his forties, he had worked his way up in the world of television news wearing every imaginable hat in the department from office boy to producer to news director. KFOR was the third station in the Southwest where he had been news director, and he had managed to make all three of those stations number one in their markets. But it wasn’t being a successful news director that made him proudest. He told everyone in the department that his proudest moments were as a field reporter–earning him the nickname of Wally the Weporter behind his back. Of course, the fact that he was now a little pudgy and mostly bald had given him an unfortunate resemblance to Elmer Fudd, making the corruption of “reporter” in Fudd-speak even more appropriate.

“What brings you in so early today?” he asked me. I wanted to make sure I had a chance to speak with him before he took off for the weekend, so I had shown up in his office right after he got back from lunch–several hours before my shift began.

“I’ve got a favor to ask,” I told him bluntly, sitting across from his desk.

He looked at me suspiciously. “What favor?”

“Let me handle a field story.”

He shrugged. “Why not? It’s nearly the end of the month. I’ll assign you a couple of features for next month.”

I shook my head. “Wally, I don’t want features. Let somebody else handle the filler stuff. I want hard news–something I can sink my teeth into.”

“Something you can use to impress the networks?” Wally added with a wry smile.

“Uh...”

Wally laughed and leaned back in his chair. “Come on, Ash, everybody in the station knows you want the big time. And a few of us even know you’re having trouble getting it.” When he saw my eyes widen, he explained, “Your agent has already been on the phone to me. And no, he didn’t tell me that–at least not in so many words. But it’s pretty obvious when he starts to turn up the heat on your contract renewal that he thinks he’s not going to be able to move you up this year.”

“All right,” I sighed. That meant WGN had probably turned sour, too. “Yeah, the network gave me a thumbs down.”

“Because you lacked field experience.”

I nodded reluctantly.

“I’ll make you a deal,” Wally said, going into his wheeler-dealer mode. “You extend your contract for two years with a... five percent boost in pay and I’ll get you some field work.”

“I’ll have to talk to Henry,” I warned him. Henry hated it when his talent tried to negotiate on its own. “And I’ll agree to one year with a seven percent boost.”

“Six percent and eighteen months.”

“If Henry agrees,” I allowed. “Now give me a story.”

He looked a little shocked. “You want one right now?”

“Of course I want it right now.”

Henry pulled a thin file that had been resting on a corner of his desk and scanned the contents. “Not much I can give you...”

“Come on, Wally! Don’t shit me.”

“I’m not shitting you,” he replied, somewhat offended. “Look, it’s Friday and it’s October. The legislature isn’t in session, elections are boring this year, and the only story anybody is really interested in is OU’s chances to be National Champion in football this year and it’s even a little early in the season for much on that story.”

“Surely you have something I can work on,” I pleaded. “I’ll even work on it this weekend.”

“Well...” he drawled thoughtfully, “I do have this one. I don’t have anybody who can follow up on it right now.”

I snatched the paper out of his hand and read it greedily. It was just a series of disjointed notes he had handwritten probably while on the phone. “Twelve year old girl, OU Med Center, runaway... Wally, what the hell is this crap?”

“The police called me with this info yesterday,” he explained. “It seems they found a girl about twelve years old stowed away in a truck yesterday. She was babbling something about a plot against her and claiming she was running away from some sort of place that doesn’t exist. They took her over to the mental ward at Deaconess but they only handle adults. They moved her to Children’s at the OU Med Center late yesterday until they could figure out who she is.”

“You call this a story?” I huffed. “Hell Wally, she’s a runaway–probably on drugs. She’s probably really eighteen and running from her pimp. This happens every day. Even the newspapers don’t have space to print it.”

“So?” Wally replied. “Maybe there’s a story there if you can find it. Anyhow, it’s a slow news day, pal. It’s all I’ve got. Take it or leave it.”

I took it.

I wasn’t even sure they’d let me in to see her. After all, she was just a little girl with her head not screwed on straight–probably from drugs. Twelve was a little young, but it wasn’t unheard of. But Wally had assured me that I’d be able to get in to see her. Apparently, the hospital was actually anxious to let her talk to the media as part of her therapy. The little girl had been demanding media access and had refused to tell the doctors who she was or where she came from until she had talked to someone like me.

At least she was getting first-class care, I told myself as I pulled into the parking garage at the OU Med Center. And why not? As the medical branch of the University of Oklahoma, it was one of the best equipped, best staffed hospitals in the state–in the region for that matter. In spite of the mundane nature of the story, I felt pretty pleased with myself. Barging in to interview one of the center’s patients must have made some of those hotshot doctors crap in their pants. The animosity between the media and the medical community is practically legendary.

“Ashton Wells to see...” I looked at the card Wally had given me. Stupid me. She hadn’t given her name, had she? “...the little girl they brought in here from Deaconess,” I managed to recover.

“Our little Jane Doe,” the receptionist for the psychiatric ward noted. She didn’t seem happy to see me. I imagined her bosses would be even less happy. “I’ll take you to Doctor Allen.”

I followed her through a buzzing door which was normally off limits to most visitors. It opened into a long hallway with offices and conference rooms on either side. I had halfway expected to be taken into the patient wing, but apparently they had decided that would be too disruptive.

Dr. Allen met me in one of the conference rooms, introducing himself with a firm handshake. He was young with a healthy tan and a shock of blond hair that could have used a trim. He looked decidedly unlike a doctor in his chinos, tennis shoes, and light green golf shirt. When he correctly interpreted my reaction, he chuckled, “We try not to look like doctors here. It sometimes scares the kids.”

“I understand,” I replied. Reporters often have the same problem. If we dress too formally in business attire, we find that some people don’t like to talk to a suit. In fact, I was dressed much like the doctor.

After we were seated, Dr. Allen began, “I want you to know we don’t normally do anything like this, but our Jane Doe is a most... unusual patient.”

My ears perked up at that. When a doctor in a psychiatric ward calls a patient “unusual” it’s music to a reporter’s ears. “How so?”

Dr. Allen looked a little uncomfortable. “She claims to be a man,” he admitted at last.

I leaned back, disappointed but barely holding back a laugh. “You can’t be serious. She’s–what–a twelve-year-old girl?”

He nodded. “About that age, yes. She won’t even tell us her real age. She claims she’s twenty-six years old.”

“And she was magically changed into a young girl?” I asked derisively.

“Exactly. She claims she was changed into a girl in some town called Ovid. She says it was done magically to keep her from talking about some big defense project there operated by... I think it was called Vulstead or something like that.”

“Vulman?” I suggested. I enjoyed his surprised look. I suppose shrinks like him didn’t have any reason to hear of Vulman Industries.

“You’ve heard of the company?” the doctor asked.

“Yeah. They make car parts and have a few defense contracts. I think they’re headquartered over in Tulsa. Doc, you make this story of hers sound like a cross between sorcery and science fiction.”

“Throw in mythology as well,” he told me. “She claims she got changed into a girl by an old Roman god.”

This was getting to be too much. I rose to my feet. “Well, Doctor, I’m sorry we both had to waste our time on this one. I’d better be getting back to the station.”

Dr. Allen rose, too. “No, please don’t go, Mr. Wells.” He was silent for a moment, and I knew that what he had to say next hurt his professional pride. “Look, I realize this is an imposition. I hope your people told you that there wasn’t really a story here...”

No, damn it, I thought. Wally hadn’t told me that at all. But I should have figured it out all by myself before wasting an evening.

“...but we need your help. This girl is delusional and we need her to tell us the truth so we can find her parents or guardian and get their permission to treat her. If you’d just spend a few minutes with her, you’d really help us, not to mention helping a very disturbed little girl.”

Well when he put it like that... I wasn’t a heartless bastard. I suppose I could chalk it up to performing my civic duty. Of course, when I got back to the station, I’d tell Wally that whatever raise my agent was negotiating would have to be doubled before I’d consider it after the cheap stunt he’d pulled on me.

“All right, Dr. Allen,” I agreed. “Let’s see your patient.”

Jane Doe–or whatever her name was–looked like a typical young girl approaching her teens. She was slumped in a conference chair designed for a much larger adult. She wore a white t-shirt that displayed small but promising buds that would be prominent breasts in a few years. Her jeans had seen better days, but sneaking out of town in the back of a truck was probably hard on a pair of girl’s jeans that had obviously been designed more for style than durability. Her long hair looked as if it had been recently brushed–probably by the staff, and she wore no makeup that I could see. In spite of that, she had a sweet, feminine face surrounded by hair that was so light brown in color it might have been mistaken for dark blonde.

She looked up at me with sad, tired eyes. “Who are you?”

Many people recognized me on sight. I supposed a young girl who probably had to go to bed before the ten o’clock news might not recognize me as readily. “I’m Ashton Wells,” I told her, offering a hand. “I’m with KFOR-TV.”

Her face brightened a little at that but she didn’t take the offered hand. “Are you really with a TV station? You aren’t just lying to get me to tell you who I am, are you?”

I sighed and pulled my media card out of my wallet. She grabbed it and studied intently. “It’s real,” I assured her.

She nodded, handing the card back to me. “I know. It’s a little worn. If it were fake, it would be new.”

Something told me this little girl had been watching too many spy movies. “So what is it you wanted to tell me?”

“Did you bring a recorder?” she asked.

I nodded and pulled a palm-sized unit out of my side pocket. “Right here.”

“Good,” she returned the nod in a disturbingly adult fashion. “Turn it on because you’re going to want to hear this again...”

I rushed back into the station nearly breathless. I had parked in one of the handicapped spots just to save a little time. Not that it mattered: there were half a dozen handicapped spots and only two station employees who used them. I only hoped Brenda was already there. She had been in her car closer to the office than I was when I called her. Even though she was already headed back to the station, she sounded pissed that I wanted to see her right away.

In my own defense, I couldn’t help it. I was so excited that I didn’t care who I pissed off. I was sitting on something big–really big–and I wanted to move on it quickly. When those stuffed shirts at the network heard what I had, they’d be begging me to go to work for them.

I dived into the nearest conference room and set up my recorder. Brenda was nowhere in sight, but our department secretary called her and found she was no more than five minutes behind me. Nervously, I waited for her to show up. It was ironic, I suppose, that the one person who disliked me the most at the station was also the one person I needed to help me break this story.

“What the hell was so damned important that you had to make me rush back here?” she stormed as she slammed the conference room door behind her. “I drove back here so fast I almost got killed. And what’s with taking up a handicapped parking place?”

“It was necessary,” I muttered, checking the recorder.

“Necessary? You don’t look crippled to me, Wells. But if you don’t tell me what this is all about pretty quick, I may see what I can do to cripple you.”

I ignored her bad mood and looked her in the eye. “Did you hear about the little girl they’ve got over at the OU Med Center?”

“What? Oh, you mean the one who stowed away in that truck?” Her eyes widened. “Don’t tell me Wally actually got you to follow up on that.”

“You knew about it?”

“My God, Ash,” she laughed. “I didn’t think you were that anxious to be a reporter. Nobody wanted that story. Hell, it’s probably just some little juvenile runaway who’s probably already back home with her parents by now. Wally sent you out there to get you off his back!”

To her surprise, I smiled. “Well, the joke’s on Wally this time. See what you think after you listen to this.” I didn’t wait for her to reply. I just started the recorder...

REPORTER (ME): So what is it you wanted to tell me... I don’t even know your name.

GIRL: My name is Doug Phillips, but everybody calls me Buster. Don’t ask: I know how that sounds, but you’ve got to listen, man. You’ve got to hear my story. Okay?

Okay.

So here goes. Up until a few days ago, I was a man. Yeah, that’s right–a man. I could have split you in half with one hand. At six four and weighing in at two-fifty, I was one mean motor scooter.

I was part of a club–a motorcycle club. We called ourselves the Screaming Eagles. Cute, huh? We were all from right here in Oklahoma City. Most of us had pretty decent day jobs–you know, construction and the like. It was a good life–work hard during the week and ride hard on the weekends. There were twelve of us who rode together. None of us were married. A couple had old ladies who rode with them, but usually we just found girls wherever we were.

Now don’t get the wrong idea. We didn’t cause any trouble. We’d just ride somewhere new every weekend, find a good biker bar, and drink beer, play pool, and look for women. That was pretty much the story–until last Sunday.

Only ten of us were riding last Sunday, but that was a pretty good turnout. We started early in the morning just after sunrise and were riding east. With fall coming on, it was probably going to be our last long ride and we wanted to make the most of the day. We had no particular place to go: we just rode, swinging off onto some back roads as soon as we started to reach the hill country.

Jake Walker was pretty much our leader. He was about my size–or rather, the size I used to be. If it wasn’t for my brown hair and his blonde hair, we would have looked like we were brothers. Cal Brown was riding up with Jake and me. He was the same color as his name–a son of a black father and white mother. We called him Half-Breed when we wanted to make him mad. We tried not to make him mad very often, though. He was even bigger than either Jake or I. I swear you could see the frame of his Harley bend a little when he got on it.

The others rode behind us, not taking the chances the three of us did. They were all good riders: I’ll give them that, but we three were the best.

“Where’re the rest of the guys?” Cal asked suddenly.

I looked back in my mirror. We had just crested a hill maybe a quarter of a mile beyond the pack, but looking back, we seemed to be alone on the road.

“Maybe the wusses turned off,” Jake suggested.

“No place to turn off,” I yelled at him over the roar of our engines. By now, the three of us had cut back on the throttles and were cruising side by side.

“Shit!” Jake yelled, ready to pull off by the side of the road and wait for them. We followed him to the shoulder and let our engines idle.

“So where the fuck are they?” Cal asked after we had waited for nearly five minutes. Jake and I just shrugged.

I pulled my eyes away from the road behind us and looked ahead. There was a valley just beyond us, and spreading out over a good part of it was a town I hadn’t noticed before. “Why don’t we go on into town and get a beer while we wait for them?”

Jake pulled back the sleeve of his black leather jacket and looked at his watch. “Good idea,” he said. “It’s ten now, so the bars should be open.”

“Unless this town’s dry,” Cal muttered, making reference to the hodgepodge of local liquor laws in Oklahoma that had caused us to go dry before.

Jake revved his engine. “Last one to the first bar buys!” Spraying gravel, he spun back onto the highway with Cal and I right behind him.

Cal got the dubious honor of buying the first round. It was no big deal, though. All three of us were working on government construction jobs where prevailing union wages were paid, so each of us had a healthy wad of bills stashed in our coats.

The place we found looked like a biker’s dream. It didn’t have one of those little cutesy names like ‘Dew Drop Inn’ or shit like that. The place was called ‘Randy Andy’s,’ and it looked like just what the doctor ordered.

“Those guys are gonna be missing some serious drinking,” Jake mused. “This place looks like a great place to spend the whole day.”

He wasn’t wrong. Some country-rock number was playing on the jukebox, pool balls were clicking from somewhere inside, and there was the smell of burgers on the grill. It might be Sunday morning, but there were already a few folks who looked like regulars sitting on the stools and in a couple of booths. Still there was something funny about the place. There was something about the way it smelled that didn’t smell like most bars I knew.

I sniffed the air while Jake chuckled, “You smell it, too, huh?”

“Yeah, so do I,” Cal remarked.

“There’s no smoke smell,” I noted. You know how most bars smell of stale smoke and even look a little hazy from the cigarettes? Well Randy Andy’s smelled nothing like that. All you could smell was the food.

“Maybe there’s no smoking in here,” Cal suggested. That wouldn’t bother him or me at all since neither of us smoked.

“There is now,” Jake smiled, pulling out a Marlboro and sticking it in his mouth. Cal and I just shrugged. There wasn’t anybody in this bar big enough to stop Jake from smoking if that’s what he wanted to do.

Jake pulled out a book of matches and casually bent one out without tearing it. Closing the book, he struck the match against the cover. The match flared for a second and sputtered out.

“What the...”

He ripped the spent match and threw it on the ground. He was obviously pissed that his favorite little match trick had failed. This time, he tore a live match from the book and tried to light it. It sputtered like the first one.

“They must be wet,” I told him. He shot me a mean glance and absently stuck the unlit cigarette back in his jacket.

The three of us sauntered over to a table near the pool table. We sized up the two guys who were playing pool. They were both wimps, so I knew that once we had slammed down a couple of beers, we’d be chasing the wimps off and using the table until we found something better to do.

“What’s a guy have to do to get service around here?” Jake yelled as we were still scraping chairs across the floor. He always did that, no matter how fast the service was.

It looked as if there were only two people working that morning–a lanky guy with a sharp nose and thinning hair tended bar. The only waitress was a fine little blonde who looked as if the last thing in the world she wanted to do was wait on our table. She wore a short skirt and a pair of sneakers. I couldn’t help but think she’d look a whole lot better in heels.

“Three Buds here!” Jake ordered before she was half way to the table. She scurried back to the bar where the thin guy was already uncapping them. I just figured she must be new–or maybe a part-timer they were breaking in on a Sunday morning. After all, most people in small towns went to church on Sundays, so the crowd was probably always light.

She plopped the beers down in front of us without a word, obviously anxious to get away as soon as she could. But she was a cute little thing and I just couldn’t resist. I threw an arm around her and pulled her closer. “What’s your name, babe?”

“Sh... Shelly,” she managed. The way she said it made me wonder if it was her real name.

“You live here in town?” I asked conversationally while my friends leered at her boobs.

“I... I do now,” she mumbled. I figured she must have just moved to town.

“You wanna have a cold one with us?” I asked, while Cal added softly, “...or three hot ones?” Jake about fell out of his chair laughing.

“She’s working all day today,” the bartender called out in warning. “She doesn’t have time to sit with the customers.”

I let her go. Not that the bartender scared me: I just knew the routine. We’d make nice as long as nobody really crossed us. We might look like bad dudes, but if we didn’t show up for work the next day, we’d be fired, so cooling our heels in some tank water town jail didn’t seem like a good idea.

Once we’d each downed four or five beers, it was time to play some pool. We ran off the local wimps and set up for a game of cutthroat. Sure, we got a little loud and a little obnoxious, but nothing to justify what happened next. Of course looking back on it, even if we’d been sitting at the table quietly sipping our beers like little old ladies at afternoon tea, the same thing would have happened. Only the excuse would have been different.

The small crowd in the bar got real quiet when the cop walked in. I didn’t know why at the time, but I was about to learn. The cop was tall and slender, not bothering to remove his dark glasses in the dim light of the bar. The nametag he wore identified him as ‘Mercer.’

“Hello, boys,” he said calmly, as if he were addressing choirboys instead of big bikers.

“Officer,” Jake nodded, sipping his beer. We tried to be reasonably polite to cops. As I said, we didn’t want any trouble.

“I’m going to have to ask you boys to come down to the station with me,” this Officer Mercer told us.

Jake frowned. “What for? We haven’t done anything.”

“Well, that’s not quite true,” the cop said lazily. “Those mufflers on your bikes have been boosted.”

“So?” I asked that.

“So that makes them illegal here in Ovid,” he informed us.

Technically, he was right: the pipes weren’t exactly legal. Some bikers did it to increase performance, but the real reason was to make a real badass noise when revving the bikes. It sort of announced our presence, you know? But even though he was right, we hadn’t tinkered with the pipes enough to really break the law–just bend it a little. We’d been stopped by cops before, but they always let us go. Something told me this Mercer guy wasn’t going to be like the other cops. Little did I know then just how unlike other cops he really was.

“Come on, boys.”

We could have argued, but sometimes in small towns, that’s just what the cops wanted you to do. That way, they’d have a good reason to haul you in for a couple of days and lay a big fine on you. Reluctantly, we all rose to our feet.

He had all three of us ride in the back seat behind the typical mesh divider. It wasn’t easy getting three guys our size in that one car seat, and even the cop had sense enough not to get on us about not fastening our seat belts. There was so much meat in that seat that we couldn’t have buckled the belts if our lives depended on it.

“Hey! What about our bikes?” Jake wanted to know.

From my position in the back seat, I could see Officer Mercer in the rear-view mirror. I could swear he actually managed a small smile. “They’ll be taken care of for you, boys.”

The cop shop was in City Hall. No big surprise there. I had been riding in the middle of the seat, so I was relieved the ride had been a short one. I had been sitting up so high I hadn’t even been able to see out the windows.

The only reason I mentioned that is to point out that I hadn’t seen very many people on the streets. After all, it was now early Sunday afternoon, and Randy Andy’s had been practically deserted. Whatever the locals were doing didn’t involve walking around town, so it wasn’t until I alit from the car that I saw my first shade.

Don’t rush me, damn it! I’m getting to what a shade is. Of course, I didn’t know then that that was what the transparent people were called. That’s right: they were transparent–or nearly so. It turns out they’re kind of stand-ins for real people. They look and act human, though. The one I saw first was just a janitor. He was taking a sack of trash over to a nearby dumpster when I saw him. At first, I thought it was just an optical illusion–caused by the sun or something. But then as I looked at the guy a little closer, I could see the building right through him if I concentrated real hard.

“What the hell...” my voice trailed off.

Cal and Jake looked at me as if I was light in the head. I stared back at them but said nothing. They had seen the janitor too, but apparently saw nothing unusual.

“Come on, boys,” Officer Mercer ordered. I promptly put the odd appearance of the janitor in the back of my mind. We all had more important things to worry about.

“Hey, what’s the big idea?” Jake demanded as we were led immediately to three cells in the back of the cop shop.

“Just a precaution boys, until The Judge gets here.”

We were all a little riled, but we stepped into the cells and let him close the door behind us with a resolute clang.

“So when do we see this judge?” Jake wanted to know.

“First thing tomorrow,” Officer Mercer told us, closing the cell door behind us before we could protest.

“Shit!” Cal muttered. “We’re gonna get fired for sure.”

“Maybe not,” I told him from the next cell. As proof, I reached in my pocket and pulled out my cell phone. “I’ll call the super and let him know what happened.”

“Hey, how come they didn’t take that from you?” Jake asked. “Come to think of it, why didn’t they take any of our stuff? They just threw us in here. For all they know, we could have guns or something.”

“I got a knife,” Cal volunteered, reaching in his pocket. He looked puzzled for a moment. “Or I did have a knife. It must have fallen out of my pocket.”

I watched the screen of my phone, expecting it to find a cell pretty quickly, but nothing happened. “Damned town must not have cellular service,” I muttered, throwing the useless phone onto the cot that passed for a bed in the cell.

“I thought everybody had cell coverage,” Cal remarked. “My uncle lives in a little burg over in Missouri that can’t be a third the size of this one and he’s got cell coverage.”

“Shame we didn’t get jailed there,” Jake snorted.

So the long and short of it was that we had nothing we could do but wait.

It was a pretty boring evening. About the only bright spot in our evening was when a cute black policewoman came in with our dinners. The food was good, but the view of the cop–I think her name was Wanda–was even better. Cal tried to make time with her, but she just smiled and left us to our meal.

The next day, all three of us were given the opportunity to shower and shave before getting dressed for our court appearance. We were pretty calm about the whole thing, I guess. We had all gotten a good night’s sleep since there wasn’t anything better to do. We expected to get hauled before the judge, get fined, and hit the road, hopefully making it back to Oklahoma City by noon where we would explain what had happened to our super and hopefully be allowed to keep our jobs. If I had known what was really going to happen, I would have made a break for it no matter what happened. Anything would have been better than what happened.

They appointed a court lawyer to plead our case. Like the cop the night before, she was damned attractive. She introduced herself as Susan Jager.

“You think we’ll get off without a fine?” Jake asked hopefully.

“I don’t think The Judge will fine you,” she said confidently. But of course looking back on it, she knew we weren’t going to get a fine. She must have known exactly what was going to happen to us. Even in Ovid, lawyers just aren’t worth a piss.

We never did get the judge’s name. Officer Mercer, acting as bailiff, just called him “The Judge,” as if that was his name. Of course, it wouldn’t have nattered what he had called himself from the bench. I found out later who he was, though.

So we all stood up and listened to the charges–disturbing the peace, unlawful modifications to our bikes, being public nuisances and so on. I’m surprised he didn’t get us for spitting on the sidewalk, too. I’m sure I did that at least once.

“How do the defendants plead?” The Judge asked our attorney.

“Your Honor, my clients were not aware that the modifications made to their motorcycles constituted...”

“Not being aware of the rules isn’t a valid excuse,” The Judge reminded her. “I take it then that counsel will concur that illegal modifications were in evidence?”

Our attorney flushed. I figured she must be pretty new at the legal stuff since she was so young. “Yes, Your Honor.”

The Judge looked at us. “In that case, the court finds you guilty of illegal modifications to motor vehicles. Sentence will be carried out at once.”

As his gavel banged down, I realized that the whole procedure had been nothing but a scam. I had been in court a couple of time on minor violations, but I had never seen a judge do what this one had done. Technically, we never entered a plea and he never pronounced sentence on us. It didn’t matter, though. What he did to us wouldn’t even be possible in any other courtroom in the world. He muttered something in some foreign language–I don’t know which one–and I began to feel my body changing.

It’s really almost impossible to describe the sensation. It wasn’t painful, but the best way I can think of to describe it is something between an itch and that funny sensation you get when your foot falls asleep.

Oh yes, and I lost total control of my limbs. It felt as if I were being propped up as my body got smaller and smaller. I could at least turn my head and see what was happening to Cal and Jake. They were growing smaller as well and everything about them was slowly changing, like those morphing pictures you see on TV. Their jeans were changing color from dark blue to a lighter green. Their leather jackets had disappeared entirely and the t-shirts under them were becoming crisp white shirts with a band of green matching the skirt travelling from their right shoulders to the left side of their waists.

Jake was becoming darker–his skin becoming brownish and his hair long and black as coal. As for Cal, his skin had lightened until it was a rosy pink. Long blonde hair curled down over his shoulders. I didn’t have to look to realize that my own hair had become longer as well, tickling as it ran down my neck and covered my ears. Since I had always kept my hair fairly short, I was surprised to find I could actually feel the increased weight from it. Cautiously, I managed to take hold of a few strands of it and hold it in front of my eyes. It was still brown, but a little lighter than before and much softer than I had imagined.

Something was happening between my legs. I looked down and saw I was wearing a skirt–a skirt damn it–the exact same color as the ones Jake and Cal now wore. I gasped as I reached under the skirt and found nothing but smooth skin covered in silky panties.

Now I might have just been a plain old construction worker, but I knew what was happening to me–I was becoming a girl. All three of us were becoming girls, and young girls from the looks of things. The green bands had resolved themselves into sashes with colorful little patches on them. My god, we were Girl Scouts, I realized, probably no more than thirteen or so.

“Thank you, Your Honor,” the little girl who had been Jake said suddenly in a high, sweet voice. I looked in astonishment as she stood there with a form in her hand which she was diligently filling in. “Yours is the biggest order yet!” She grinned, her Native-American features evident.

“Yes, thank you, sir,” the girl who had been Cal said with a real Shirley Temple smile.

“Now remember, girls,” The Judge admonished us, “that order needs to be split three ways so each of you gets credit for part of it.”

“Oh we will,” the Jake girl promised him. “Jennie and Chelsea are my best friends.” She looked at the two of us and I knew at once I was now either Jennie or Chelsea. I was a girl... a girl!

Part of me wanted to stop right there in front of The Judge and demand to be returned to my real appearance, but the Cal girl was leading me out by the hand, giggling as she did so. I was too stunned to do anything except follow her. I know there had to be a look of confusion on my face, but why were Cal and Jake handling everything so smoothly? It was as if they had been born girls.

I felt so stupid as I walked out of the courtroom with them. There we were, identically dressed–or nearly so. The Cal girl and I were wearing knee-length green socks while the Jake girl wore green tights, but there was no mistaking any of us for what we appeared to be–three young girls busily selling Girl Scout cookies.

“How did you girls do?”

The other girls (other girls... shit!) stopped giggling and we all turned to see an attractive woman whose features closely resembled the ones Jake now displayed. “Great, Mom! The Judge bought sixty boxes from us. Even after we split the sale up, I’ll bet we’re way ahead of the rest of the girls.”

The woman smiled, brushing a strand of long, black hair out of her face. “That’s great, Joanne.” So that was Jake’s name now. “What are you guys going to do now?”

“Go over to our house and goof around,” Jake–no, it was Joanne now–said.

I must have shuddered. I had visions of what that meant. I had had a little sister and I knew that for girls the age I was now, ‘goofing off’ meant sitting in one girl’s room trying on clothes, sharing makeup tips, and discussing boys. For my two formerly male friends, those activities didn’t seem to be much of a reach, but for me it would be hours spent in a feminine hell.

“Are you all right, Chelsea?” the woman asked me.

So that was my name now. I was Chelsea. I was toast.

“I... I’m fine,” I replied, hearing for the first time my girlish voice. I read somewhere that a person’s voice sounds deeper inside than when heard by others. If that was the case, the sound others heard from me had to be even higher pitched and more feminine than it did to me, and that just didn’t seem possible.

The three of us walked out of the courthouse and I followed the other two to where our bikes were parked. When I say bikes, I don’t mean the powerful hogs we had ridden into Ovid. These were small girl’s three-speed bikes–one pink, one yellow, and one a light blue. I took the yellow one when the other girls got on their bikes. Well, at least I hadn’t drawn the pink one, I thought.

The afternoon was just as bad as I thought it would be–trying on clothes and experimenting with makeup. I had to go along with them or I would have been thought odd. I had a fear at the time that I was supposed to think just like they did only something had gone wrong. I even found out that if I let myself sort of drift mentally, I could fall into a subconscious pattern that had me acting like the girl I had become. That really worried me, for I didn’t want to lose my real self in some girlish delusion.

I found out later that some of The Judge’s victims lose their old memories and some didn’t and everyone had access to that ability to drift on automatic. But at the time, I was afraid that I’d be found out for retaining my old thoughts and be sent back to The Judge to have my memories wiped.

I found out over the next few hours that I was actually twelve years old. My full name was now Chelsea Anne Bridgewater and I was in the seventh grade. My parents both worked–my new father sold cars at a local GM dealership and my new mother was a secretary for the Ovid School Board. I was an only child, so at least I didn’t have to worry about siblings.

Thank God it was still the weekend, because if it was any other time of the week, I’d be in school and have to act like a twelve-year-old girl most of the time. As it was, it turned out I was a latchkey kid and had a fair amount of time to myself during the school week. Without that time, I think I might have fallen into the role of Chelsea a lot faster...

You see... God! I’m embarrassed to talk about this but I guess I have to. It’s like this–whenever I had to act like the twelve-year-old girl I appeared to be, like at school, it started to become more and more natural. I found I was starting to think like a young girl.

It was especially bad when Joanne and Jennie were around, which was too damned often. I think The Judge set things up so that the three of us were almost inseparable. I had to fight with every ounce of mental strength I could muster to keep from falling into the girl role almost as completely as Jake and Cal had. What made it even more embarrassing was that at least they had an excuse. Their memories of their male lives had evaporated, leaving them just the girls they seemed to be. But me? I had my real memories, but try being treated like a pre-teen girl for a few days and see what happens to you.

I suspect that there was something residual in The Judge’s magic, too–something that would make me slowly start adapting to my new role whether I wanted to or not. At least I hope that was the case. I’d hate to think I was becoming more girlish on my own.

That was why I made up my mind that I had to get away from Ovid–before I became Chelsea Anne Bridgewater in mind and spirit as well as in body. Ideally, I would have liked to have been changed back into a man before getting away, but I couldn’t see any way to make that happen. The Judge sure wouldn’t have any reason to change me, and I didn’t know of any other god who could do it.

Didn’t I tell you that? Well, I guess I didn’t want to say anything or you’d really think I was crazy, but that’s who changed me–a real honest-to-goodness Greek god. Or maybe he’s Roman. I never could remember the difference. You see The Judge is Jupiter. Funny, I couldn’t say that when I was in Ovid. I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to say it here either. Whatever magic The Judge has keeps residents in Ovid from talking about it.

Anyhow, I knew I wouldn’t be able to change back before leaving Ovid. I had to just figure out a way out of town. Then once I had convinced someone out of that weird place that I was telling the truth, I figured I could go with them back to Ovid, along with a company or two of Marines, and force The Judge to change me back.

Yeah, I know what you’re thinking–how was I as a twelve-year-old girl going to convince the authorities. Well, put yourself in my shoes for a moment and consider: what other choice did I have? Any other option would have ended up with accepting my life as a girl like some of the others did.

Oh yes, there were others who were like me. I didn’t know it at first, but eventually I met some other kids. Most of them were like Joanne or Jennie–or they were shades. But there were a few like me who remembered who they were. That didn’t do me much good, though. It turns out that only two people can talk about what’s really going on in Ovid. When a third person joins the conversation, all you can do is act like who you’ve been changed into–or say nothing at all.

The reason I mention that is that it was very hard for me to find someone to talk to. Young girls seem to travel in packs, so I had to either act like a twelve-year-old girl and talk about boys and clothes and all of that crap or shut myself in my room and do nothing. Once the school year started, it was even worse. So I tried to adapt: I really did. Some of the other kids who remembered their old lives did get a chance to talk to me every now and then and told me it was really the only thing I could do.

I believed them too, until I got an idea...

Cindy Tolbert, one the girls in my class, and I were at Duggan’s one day. Duggan’s is a supermarket–one of those IGA stores. Anyhow, when we left Duggan’s, I noticed there was a produce truck unloading behind the store. There was an Oklahoma City address on the side of it, and I wondered how delivery trucks could be coming into Ovid unless people like truck drivers knew about the town. Then I noticed something funny. The driver had sort of a glazed expression, as if he didn’t really know where he was. Oh, he was acting normally enough, but it was as if he wasn’t really aware of exactly where he was. I wondered if supply trucks came into town with the drivers sort of hypnotized and left town with them not remembering where they had been. It wouldn’t be too tough for a guy like The Judge to pull that off, I thought.

“What are you staring at?” Cindy asked me.

Vaguely, I recalled that Cindy was talking about some ‘hunky’ guy in our class. Like me, Cindy had been male once upon a time, but unlike me, she was all girl now in mind as well as body, even though she remembered her old life. With her blonde hair, blue eyes, and rapidly developing figure, I had no doubt that in a few years, she’d be real cheerleader material–probably managing to get screwed by the high school quarterback while loving every minute of it. Still, she had been a big help to me advising me how to fit in better.

“Hell-o-o!” she chided me.

“Sorry,” I responded at last. “I was just thinking. How is it that nobody outside of Ovid knows the town is here but delivery trucks still get here?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess the g... g... I mean I guess the people who run Ovid figured out a way to make people forget they were here. Have you been to any football games yet?”

I shook my head.

“Well,” she continued, “it’s really weird. Other high school teams come into town to play us, and when they come, they bring the band, fans, cheerleaders, and the whole enchilada. They always act a little distant, though. I hear when they leave, they forget all about this town.”

So I had been right! Outsiders could enter and leave Ovid if the gods had no interest in them. Only they would forget Ovid even existed once they left. That meant there might be a way to get out of Ovid. Of course, there was the possibility that the gods had some sort of tripwire that would alert them to when one of their transformed residents was trying to leave. Cindy had told me stories about people who were caught trying to leave. The consequences weren’t always slight. But I suspected there would be a way around their traps if I looked hard enough.

I knew whatever I did to get out of Ovid, I’d have to do it fast. Cindy had warned me that there was more to the magic than just the physical transformation. Before long, she said, I’d start to think like a girl. I realized it was already starting to happen. Things that used to interest me–football, bikes, pool, and drinking beer, for example–seemed unimportant. On the other hand, romantic movies, boy bands, and looking nice were starting to intrigue me–just a little that is. I’d find myself thinking of things like that in unguarded moments. Hell, I even caught myself looking with approval at a couple of guys in my classes. Somehow, it didn’t seem so perverted to think about a little innocent social activity with guys.

It’s hard to describe what was starting to happen to me. It was so subtle that I sometime just sort of drifted into absolute girlhood. Getting ready for school would somehow lead to unconsciously applying lipstick and a little blush. Talking with cute boys would start me giggling senselessly. A discussion with other girls about some hot new male actor would find me imagining what it would be like to be in his arms. Then suddenly, I’d just snap out of it–like waking after a bad dream.

The problem was those girlish thoughts were becoming stronger with each passing day. Cindy warned me that by the time my periods started (as hers already had), I’d be a one-hundred percent heterosexual girl ready to chase boys and enjoy it when they chased me.

But on the other hand, it wasn’t going to be that easy to get away. I had come to the conclusion that the best way to get out of Ovid would be in one of the big delivery trucks that dropped off food at the supermarket every day. I knew from past experience that the best ones would be the ones that brought produce in. They were refrigerated, but not so cold that I would freeze to death. But they would be cool enough to counteract the warm Oklahoma sun. The difficulty of getting out of the house and finding the right truck caused me to delay my departure.

I think it was when Brian Evans asked me to the next after-game dance that I finally resolved I had to do something and do it quickly. Brian was a good-looking guy: there was no denying that. Half the girls in my class would have given a tit–small as they were–to have him ask them out. I suppose I should have felt honored, but what I felt was terrified. A boy had actually asked me out! Shit!

Actually, I told him I’d go out with him. Of course I had no intention of doing so, but he wouldn’t know that. He was real but didn’t seem to remember any previous life. That meant he’d have no reason to suspect I was lying to him. I only agreed to go in case The Judge had spies in the school. I wanted everyone to think I had given in to my female body. Hah! I’d never do that. In fact, I wanted to get the hell out of Ovid as quickly as I could, and definitely before I had to go out on a date.

It actually turned out to be easier than I thought it would be. I sneaked out of the house in the middle of the night. I had left my bike hidden by the side of the house, so I wouldn’t have to walk all the way to Duggan’s. I thought as I pedalled how much better it would have been to have a real bike under me–a bike with the name Harley-Davidson on the side.

I couldn’t believe my luck. There was a produce truck unloading as I rode up to the store. I hid my bike in some bushes and sneaked over to the side of the truck. I heard muted conversation coming from the back room of the supermarket. It seemed the driver had unloaded everything for Duggan’s and was having a cup of coffee with the night manager before heading back to Oklahoma City. There was nothing in the back of the truck but a few empty flats. I sneaked in behind them, hoping the driver wouldn’t remember to turn down the air conditioning as he left.

The rest you know. I had been right. No one stopped us on the way out of town, and by yesterday morning, I was here in Oklahoma City. You should have seen the faces of the driver and the warehouseman when they opened the truck and found me standing there. Of course, they called the police at once. Then they started contacting every town along the driver’s route when I refused to give them my name or tell them where I was from.

I wasn’t worried, though. The driver had no idea he had been in a town called Ovid. And there was no paperwork identifying the town, either. Whatever The Judge’s motives for keeping the town a secret, they would mean the police would have no way of contacting the Ovid authorities to identify me. I was free!

REPORTER (ME): So you got away, but do you have any idea what this Ovid is all about?

GIRL: My God, does that mean you believe my story? No, don’t answer that. I couldn’t stand it if you started laughing now. Okay, I’ll answer your question.

The truth is I have no idea what Ovid is all about. Maybe it’s some sort of Top Secret project. Maybe the gods are working for the government. Maybe it’s just a big joke–you know–maybe the gods have just set up the town to have something to play with. You’re the reporter. If you want to know what’s going on there, go there yourself. All I want is for somebody to find a way to change me back and give me back my old life.

And before you ask, no, no one seems to have heard of a Douglas ‘Buster’ Phillips. For that matter, nobody’s heard of a Jake Walker or a Cal Brown either. I know. I’ve asked. I even managed to get a phone and called my sister. You know what she told me? She said she never had a brother–and if she did have one, I certainly didn’t sound like anybody’s brother.

But if I’m lying, why is it the authorities can’t find my parents? And how is it that I know so much about motorcycles and construction? How can I name people I know but they don’t seem to know me? Tell me the truth: do I sound like a twelve-year-old girl to you?

...I turned off the tape recorder. “Well, what do you think?” I asked. “Does she sound like a twelve-year-old girl?”

“No...” Brenda admitted slowly. Then she frowned. “But you don’t really believe that crap about gods and magic do you?”

“I don’t know what to believe,” I told her honestly. Like Brenda, I found it a little hard to believe the ancient gods of Rome were hunkering down in a little nowhere town changing men into women. “But I do believe there’s a story here.”

“Ash,” she argued, “you’re just determined to find a big story. Take some advice, okay? This isn’t the big story. This is just the ramblings of a delusional little girl who happens to be a good actress.”

“Maybe,” I admitted, “but if she’s acting, there should be a special Oscar for her–best performance in a non-movie role or something like that. Look, Brenda, you need to meet this girl. Then decide for yourself.”

Brenda looked puzzled. “Decide what?”

I smiled. “Decide whether or not you’ll go to Ovid with me.”

“I don’t know how I let you talk me into wasting a perfectly good Saturday night on this,” Brenda muttered as we hustled through the doors of the OU Med Center.

“Think of it as an adventure,” I chuckled. I knew I had piqued her curiosity. Even though Brenda could never have been persuaded to help me as a friend (since no one would make the mistake of calling us “friends”), she was enough of a news junkie to take the chance that there might actually be something to the girl’s story.

I was sure that like me, Brenda was convinced that there were no such things as Roman gods traipsing around the Oklahoma countryside. To even imagine such a thing would have taken an absolutely delusional mind. But I couldn’t help thinking something strange was going on. Twelve year old girls didn’t just fall out of the sky–especially twelve-year-old girls who knew enough about motorcycles to be a member of Hell’s Angels.

In spite of the fact that Brenda and I were hardly friends, I was certain that once she had met our mystery girl, she’d be as intrigued as I was. Then once the curiosity bug had taken a big bite out of her scepticism, we’d be off to find the elusive town of Ovid.

Dr. Allen had left for the day, and the nurse we were referred to seemed to have about as much regard for the media as she did for ants at a picnic. “Chelsea Anne Bridgewater, you say?”

“That’s right,” I confirmed. “We’re here to see her.” To press home my credentials, I added, “Dr. Allen had me speak with her earlier today.”

“Dr. Allen isn’t here.”

“I know that,” I said as patiently as I could. “But I assume Chelsea is still here.”

There was obvious delight in her nasty smile as she told us, “Then your assumption would not be correct.”

That wasn’t the answer I had expected, of course. “Has she been moved to another hospital?” I asked.

“Her parents came to claim her,” the nurse said exultantly. “I know who you are, Mr. Wells. One of the other nurses told me you’d been here earlier. I know how you media people like to turn everything into a circus for your viewers, but this is one time it won’t happen. Imagine! Upsetting that little girl like you did. You should be ashamed of yourself.”

Brenda was rolling her eyes, although whether it was over the nurse’s performance or because I had coaxed her into giving up her Saturday night to accompany me, I couldn’t really say.

Then a thought struck me. There might still be a story here if I proceeded cautiously. “Uh...” I began hesitantly, “...how did they identify their daughter? Did they finally report her missing? What took them so long to report her?” It was a shotgun questioning technique. A single question might have been deflected, but by raising so many questions at once, I managed to put the nurse on the defensive.

“The paperwork is all in order,” she replied, but not as smugly as she had earlier.

“May I see it?”

She eyed me suspiciously. “Those are confidential records. You just want to see them to identify her parents so you can go bother them.”

Actually, that was true, but I wasn’t about to admit it. “Our viewers have already been told the little girl’s story,” I lied smoothly. “Unless we see proof that she was properly returned to her parents, I’m afraid we’ll have to raise those questions on the air. Now let me see, for the record, your name is...?”

She was smart enough to know I could make her look stupid if I raised questions on the air about the legality of the girl’s release from the hospital. “Oh very well,” she finally sighed, grabbing a folder from her desk. “But you are not to bother Mr. And Mrs. March or their daughter.”

“I thought her name was Bridgewater...”

“It’s March,” she corrected me, a little of her smugness returning. “See? It says so right here on the documents they copied for us.”

Brenda gasped but I don’t think the nurse heard her. I barely managed to hold back a gasp of my own, for the paper the nurse showed us–a paper she had just looked at herself–was, in fact, completely blank.

“Do you believe me now?” I asked as we pulled out of the parking lot in the pool car I had checked out from the station.

“I don’t know what to believe,” Brenda admitted. “All I know is that the nurse back there was convinced that she had a valid document. But why weren’t we convinced?”

“I suspect we aren’t part of the equation,” I replied. “The document only had to be convincing for the hospital staff. My guess is that whoever took the girl didn’t want a paper trail, so they made the staff believe the documents were valid.”

“Then you believe this ‘god’ stuff?”

I shook my head. “Not necessarily. My guess is that both the girl and the staff at the hospital have been exposed to some advanced form of hypnosis or drugs. The girl was made to believe she had once been a man...”

“And the staff was made to believe they had a valid release order,” she finished for me. She was smiling, so I guessed she had reached the same conclusion.

“Who do you think is behind this?” I asked. “The government?”

She shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not. It could be a private company, playing around with a new drug.”

“Well, there’s only one way to find out. We have to retrace the girl’s route.”

Brenda turned to face me. “And how do you expect to do that? Oh wait a minute... you still think this town of Ovid is real, don’t you? You plan to stow away on one of those produce trucks and find it.”

I nodded. “Have you got a better plan?”

“Yeah. Leave it alone.”

“I thought you were a newsperson.”

She sighed, “Look, Ash, I know we don’t always get along, but take some advice, okay? If the government is behind this, you’ll never be allowed to write your story, let alone broadcast it on the ten o’clock news. Even if it’s a private drug company, they’ll probably be strong enough to suppress the story. Let me talk to Wally. He likes me. I’ll ask him to give you a real story to work on.”

“This is a real story,” I muttered. Then I added, “And I’m a real reporter–no matter what you think.”

“That’s why you’re doing this?” she asked incredulously. “You’re doing this to impress me?”

“You said you wanted to be there when I tried to get a big story, Brenda,” I reminded her. “Well, this is your chance. You don’t think this is a big story, but what if you’re wrong? What if I can find out what’s going on and bring the story in?”

Brenda was silent the rest of the way back to the studios. I remained silent also. I really wanted her to accompany me to this strange town of Ovid, but I had said all I could think of to convince her. If she decided to do it, it would be to satisfy her own curiosity and her professional responsibilities–not to help me. Whatever had caused her to dislike me from the very moment we met was still hovering between us.

I mentally kicked myself for not asking one of the other members of the camera crew to go along with me. I might still have to do that, I thought, even if it delayed my trip another day. But Brenda had the reputation of being the best the camera department had to offer. She was particularly known for getting great shots without revealing herself to her subjects. If Ovid was even half as dangerous as Chelsea had led me to believe, Brenda’s special talents might be the difference between getting out of Ovid with a story or not getting out at all.

Also, she was right–I did want to impress her. While I had accepted that we would certainly never be romantically involved, or even friends, I did crave her respect. In all the time I had known her, she had treated me as if I had nothing but my looks going for me, as if all of my talent was stuffed into my thick, dark hair and boyish smile. I was a newsman, damn it, no matter what she thought. I wasn’t going to spend the rest of my life anchoring the ten o’clock news in a secondary market. I was going to be someone whose name was on the lips of the most powerful figures in the country. All I needed to take that next step was a story too big to be ignored. I had a hunch–a newsman’s hunch–that Ovid was such a story.

When we pulled into the parking lot at the studio, Brenda sighed, “When do you want to go?”

“Go?”

“To this Ovid place,” she clarified.

I could scarcely believe what I was hearing. “You’ll go with me?”

She nodded. “Just give me some time to get some equipment. Then we’ll go see about transportation.”

I didn’t question her on her motives for agreeing to go. Deep down, I’ve always suspected the blank paper the nurse smugly showed us probably influenced her decision. She had to know what was going on, and she probably couldn’t stand for me to find out without her there to find out, too.

Whatever her motives, she threw herself into the mission with all her heart. We both had Sunday off and used the day to prepare for the mission with all the precision of a military operation. Also, we both called in to the station and took Monday off. I’m sure the fact that we both requested the time off within minutes of each other was going to be enough to set off the office wags, but it couldn’t be helped. Neither of us wanted to tell the real reason for the time off for fear of being scooped on the story.

We each worked from our own apartments, since Brenda seemed nervous about the idea of working out of mine and didn’t offer to let me work out of hers. I was starting to realize that she was very uncomfortable around men, but for what reason, I couldn’t say. Whatever the reason was, I was beginning to realize that while I might be a special target of hers, part of the reason she disliked me was my sex.

Anyhow, she did most of the organizing, leaving the research to me. We wanted to know as much as possible about where we were going, but the task proved to be daunting. Of course, there were no references anywhere relating to an Oklahoma town called Ovid. I really hadn’t expected to find any.

There were, however, several references to Vulman Industries, all indicating that the company was headquartered in Tulsa. A quick check with a friend of mine at a Tulsa TV station confirmed that while the defense contractor had a Tulsa mailing address, it appeared to be nothing more than a mail drop.

Vulman was not a publicly-traded company, which meant that somehow, the company had found a way to finance itself without any outside stockholders. That was rather curious for what seemed to be a substantial defense contractor. I did, however, find a number of indications that the company was looking for talented engineers and scientists. No real address was given in any of the employment opportunities: there were just a phone number and a web address. I pulled up the web address, but there was just a short paragraph describing the company. One sentence did manage to catch my eye though:

“Vulman’s research facility is located in a small but growing community in the Southwest–a great place for raising a family with plenty of recreational and educational opportunities for the whole family.”

Nothing was said about exactly where the town was located, but I suspected the description was for Ovid.

Brenda and I talked back and forth all day. She had managed to snag a van from the station and enough miniaturized equipment to document our trip to Ovid without raising suspicions. “I’ve got the recorders in the van synched to my field gear,” she told me proudly. “Cell coverage is no problem. All our gear is tied to satellite. And once everything is recorded in the van, I can transmit it to the studios while we’re still in Ovid. I’ll be using a mini-cam,” she added.

Ah, the wonders of modern technology!

“That’s great, Brenda,” I remarked. Then I told her how I had managed to get information on a produce delivery that evening from the terminal where Chelsea had been found. I had hacked into the distributor’s system–a handy little talent I had picked up in my college days and still utilized on occasions such as this one. The destination listed on the manifest was, of course, not Ovid. However, I suspected Ovid to be the destination when I saw the customer listed as ‘Duggan’s IGA’ with no city listed. Besides, the main distributor for IGA stores made most of its deliveries out of Tulsa. I suspected the Oklahoma City distributor was being used to make its destination less likely to trace. Very clever those ‘gods.’

Brenda agreed to pick me up later that evening. Then we’d park the van in some unobtrusive spot and hike over to the terminal, hitching a ride for Ovid. That settled, I spent some time packing a backpack complete with food, water and a couple of those space-age thin blankets. It would be very chilly in the produce truck. A shaving kit and some extra tapes for my recorder rounded out my kit. I spent the next few hours waiting anxiously for Brenda and thinking about how all the networks would be kissing my ass when I brought back this story.

Brenda wasn’t going to give Jennifer Garner a run for her money on looks, but I had to admit she did look sort of sexy in something that resembled a conservative version of one of Garner’s outfits. Her hair was hidden under a black knit cap, so the rather severe way she wore it was hidden from view. She wore a black leather jacket (as did I for that matter) and a pair of black leather pants that looked as if she had ridden in them on the seat of a motorcycle. Apparently, there was more to Brenda than what met the eye.

“This had better pan out,” she grumbled as I closed the door behind me. “I just talked to Sam back at the studio. Wally heard I had checked out a van and wanted to know what the hell I needed it for if I was taking a day off.”

Sam was just a weekend producer, but he jumped whenever Wally needed something. “So what did you tell him?”

She grinned mischievously. “I told him Wally would have to talk to you.”

“Thanks a lot.” If we didn’t come back with a ripe story, Wally would chew my ass into next Thursday. Well, it wouldn’t be the first time.

In spite of all the security instituted in the last few years, it’s still pretty easy to sneak into places like truck terminals. As the largest terrorist incident to hit Oklahoma had shown a few years back, you didn’t have to highjack a truck to cause damage–you could just rent one on your credit card. Oh sure, there was a chain link fence and a guard shack, but the gate was left open for the benefit of the trucks which shuffled in and out of the terminal. As for the guard–whatever he was reading seemed a lot more interesting to him than looking around to see two figures in black sneaking low and fast into the yard.

“Which truck is it?” Brenda asked when we had settled into a dark corner of the building only twenty yards or so from the closest truck.

I looked down at my printout. It was hard to read in the faint light spilling over from the loading dock but I managed. I pointed at the second nearest truck which was backed up to the dock. “It’s that one over there. Come on!”

Without waiting for her to respond, I made my way to the back of the truck, pulling myself up from the side of the ramp. Brenda was right behind me and I managed to pull her up before anyone had spotted us. We hurried into the back of the truck and found a hiding spot back behind several palletized cases of lettuce. There was just enough room for the two of us to stretch out on the bed of the truck.

“What if this stuff shifts around?” Brenda asked nervously.

“Not likely,” I told her, nodding in the dim light to the tie-downs which held everything firmly in place.

Then we had to stay quiet as more produce was loaded into the trailer. At last the loading was complete and the doors swung shut leaving us in complete darkness. Brenda switched on a small light as the door clanged shut.

“What’s that for?” I asked her.

She shrugged. “No one can see it from outside. I just feel better with a light on.”

“Afraid of the dark?”

“It isn’t the dark I’m afraid of.”

The truck lurched forward, causing me to lose my balance. I rolled right into Brenda.

“Hey!” She pushed me away at once. In the dim light, I saw something in her eyes. I expected disdain but instead there was something else in her eyes. Could it be fright?

I pushed away from her, feeling something hard in her pocket. “That feels like a...”

“Just stay away from me, okay?” Her voice quaked with panic.

“Look, it was an accident.”

“I know that!” she snapped.

I sighed. “Look, Brenda, we’re going to be working together for a little while. I need to know what it is about me that is causing a problem. I don’t ask that you like me, but what is it about me that has you frightened enough to bring along a gun?”

“A... a gun?”

“Don’t be coy with me. I know a gun when I feel one. You’ve got a gun in your coat pocket. And don’t tell me you brought it along to challenge the gods.”

Her eyes were downcast. “Okay, Ash. I guess I should level with you. I don’t like men.”

“You’re a lesbian?” The question came out without thinking. Dan had told me she wasn’t a lesbian, but what she had just said seemed to contradict that.

“That isn’t what I said,” she told me. “I mean I don’t like men, but that doesn’t mean I do like women sexually.”

“You don’t like men because of a specific man,” I prompted. “A boyfriend?”

“Hardly!” she snorted. “He... he was an anchorman–like you. In fact, he looked a lot like you. It was back in Little Rock...”

I felt suddenly uncomfortable as I watched her tremble at an unpleasant memory. “Look, Brenda, you don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to.”

“I do need to tell you,” she insisted. “You’re right. We need to be able to work together. As much as I hate to admit it, you may have stumbled on a big story here. I don’t know that I buy into the idea of Greek gods any more than you do, but something is going on and whatever it is, it could be dangerous. We need to be able to depend on each other. Besides, you’re nothing like Roger Allen anyway.”

“Who’s Roger Allen?”

“He was the anchorman I mentioned. He was...” Her voice trailed off. I waited in silence for her to compose herself. “He was the man who... who... raped me.”

Brenda was crying softly now, and I felt like a heel. I hadn’t known. Some newsman I was: I hadn’t even suspected. “Brenda, I’m sorry...”

“It’s not your fault,” she sniffled. “I know that. I’ve always known that. It just that you’re so much like him.”

“You think I act like a rapist?”

“Of course not! That isn’t what I mean. It’s just that you have... well, a pretty high opinion of yourself. I guess that goes with your job. Most anchors I’ve known act as if a girl should just fall in bed with them because they’re so wonderful.”

“Maybe so,” I allowed, “but I don’t think there are many of us who would force the issue.”

“I’m afraid I don’t share your high opinion of your profession,” she told me. “I almost didn’t come with you today because I was afraid you’d try something, too.”

Actually, I had fantasized about it a little in the time I had known her. Brenda was a decent-looking woman and I never turned down an opportunity. However, since she had always made it clear to me that she had absolutely no interest, I had shied away. I managed to get plenty of time in the sack with attractive and very willing women. I wasn’t the sort of man who would see Brenda as a challenge that had to be conquered, but from the way she talked she must have met a number of men who did think that way.

“So now that you’ve decided I’m not about to attack you, do you suppose we could be friends?” I asked her.

She looked me in the eye to make sure I wasn’t joking. “I... I think I’d like that.”

“I’m curious, though. If you were concerned that I might molest you, what made you decide to go along?”

“Well, I couldn’t miss out on a big story, could I?”

It was a glib answer, but a look into her eyes convinced me that it wasn’t the whole truth. I decided not to press further, though. Whatever the rest of the truth was, I knew I wouldn’t be able to force it out of her.

We talked for a few more minutes about inconsequential things–our college days, hobbies, where we were from. It was the usual light conversation people indulge in when they first meet at a cocktail party. I suppose that was an apt analogy since in some ways, we were like a couple just meeting for the first time. Just as she had changed her opinion about me, I realized I had begun to change my opinion about her. Instead of a cast-iron bitch with lesbian tendencies, I learned she was really a friendly if vulnerable woman who under other circumstances would have been my friend much sooner. I began to see why Dan and some of the others around the station liked her. I was beginning to like her myself.

We finally decided to shut down the light and try to get a little sleep. Once we reached this strange town of Ovid, there would be no rest for us. Our mission would be to get as much information about the town as we could and get back out before whatever powers ran Ovid discovered our presence. A few hours’ sleep and we’d be ready for anything. At least that’s what we thought.

Of course, we were very, very wrong...

We were awakened when the truck braked to a stop, causing us to roll into each other. We didn’t even have a moment to look embarrassed as the back door of the trailer swung open. We both scrambled into the darkness behind the pallets, hoping the noise from the forklift would be loud enough to cover us.

As soon as the driver and the forklift operator were both busy handling the first pallet, we made our way out of the truck and scrambled away from the loading dock.

In the pre-dawn light, it was difficult to see anything unusual. We appeared to be in the parking lot of a smallish but modern supermarket. The words ‘Duggan’s IGA’ shone in bright red neon as a few sleepy shoppers ambled into the brightly-lit entranceway of the store.

“Well, the girl’s story checks out so far,” Brenda commented, nodding at the neon sign.

“Yeah,” I agreed. Actually, though, I was a little disappointed. Everything looked so mundane. Beyond the supermarket was a divided four-lane road with sparse early morning traffic shuffling past. There were other buildings dotting the roadway–gas stations, fast food outlets, and other retail businesses all just opening to catch the morning customers. There was nothing to suggest that there was anything unusual about this town.

“So where to now?” Brenda asked.

I nodded toward the road. “Most of the traffic is heading that way. My guess is that it’s heading for the main part of town. Let’s find out.”

“Can’t we just call a cab?” she muttered.

“The fewer people who know we’re here the better,” I told her. “Come on: it can’t be far.”

Actually, it wasn’t too far–maybe a little over a mile. The sun was up as we found ourselves on what had to be the main drag.

“Main Street,” Brenda read one of the street signs. “You’d think gods would be more original in their street names.”

“So you were expecting Caesar Avenue or Nero Road?” I asked with a smirk.

She just shrugged. “Well, that sounds better than Main Street.”

I knew what she was thinking because I was thinking the same thing. We had both expected to find Ovid darkly mysterious. Instead, it looked like an updated version of Pleasantville. About the only thing which seemed to make it stand out was the fact that it looked unusually prosperous for a small town far from any big city. I was just starting to think we might have made a big mistake coming to Ovid when I saw something which changed my mind.

Three men got out of a parked car about half a block in front of us. All looked like typical small town businessmen just starting their day, except for one important thing: one of the men appeared to be somewhat transparent. At first, I thought it was a trick of the morning light, or perhaps it was just that I had gotten little rest the night before. Brenda disabused me of that notion, though.

“Do you see that?” she whispered while poking me in the arm. “You can see right through that guy.”

“I see it,” I replied. “Chelsea was right.”

“Chelsea?”

“Yeah. That’s what she called a shade: remember?”

“Oh right. She said they were a stand in. What did she mean by that?” Brenda asked.

“I’m not sure,” I admitted. “But I’ve got a hunch. What if shades exist only until there’s a real person to take their place? That could be why once a person is transformed, everybody remembers that they were always residents of Ovid.”

We watched discretely as the men entered a small café–the kind that serves twice-boiled coffee and greasy eggs but has guys lined up to eat it. With a quick nod to each other, we followed them in.

The place was called Duke’s, and in spite of its appearance, the smells coming out of the kitchen weren’t the odors of week-old grease. The food smelled great. Brenda and I slipped into a booth and each pulled a menu out of the holder, realizing suddenly how long it had been since we had eaten.

The waitress looked like an escapee from Alice, complete with a pastel pink dress and white apron. Like the businessmen we had followed, she was transparent, giving us an opportunity to observe a shade closely. I realized that you couldn’t exactly see through her; instead it was as if you could sense what was directly behind her, sort of like looking at a double exposure.

We talked very little while waiting for our food, taking the time to observe our fellow patrons, both real and shade. If it weren’t for the shades, I would have thought we were in your average small-town café. Men sat at the counter, reading the morning Tulsa World or talking about who would win the World Series. Waitresses hustled back and forth, filling coffee cups and carrying plates of steaming food. No one seemed concerned about being trapped in Ovid as Chelsea was. No one seemed worried that the person next to them was a little on the ghostly side. In fact, the whole scene was made weirder by its lack of concern.

“Here you go!” the waitress announced, placing a succulent cheese omelet in front of me and a slice of cantaloupe and dry wheat toast in front of Brenda. After she had refilled our coffee cups and departed, I dived into the omelet.

“Oh my god!” I sighed. “Brenda, you have to try this.”

She shook her head. “No thanks.”

“But it’s great!”

“Yeah, and there are enough calories in there to put a pound on my hips,” she retorted. “You men don’t know how lucky you are. I have to watch what I eat all the time or I’ll get fat.”

I shook my head. Well, all the more for me.

Brenda leaned on the table so she could not be overheard. “So where do we start? Do we confront our diaphanous friends over there?”

“I think not,” I told her, washing down another delicious bite with one of the best cups of coffee I had ever tasted. “Look around. Half the people in this place are the same way. And no one else seems to see anything strange. I doubt if any of the shades even know what they are.”

“Maybe they’re aliens,” Brenda suggested. “I saw this movie once with that wrestler–Rodney Piper. There were a bunch of aliens walking around but everybody thought they were human.”

It was a thought, I admitted to myself. But deep down, I was convinced some strange hallucinogenic drug was behind Ovid. And I had a pretty good idea where I’d find that drug. “The first thing we need to do is to get into Vulman Industries,” I decided.

“But if it’s a defense industry, how are we going to get in their facility?”

I smiled. “Very simple. We tell the truth–sort of.”

Half an hour later after a short cab ride we were in the lobby of Vulman Industries. A nervous-looking receptionist eyed us from the safety of her desk while Brenda and I perused the photos of zooming Fords and soaring aircraft. We were waiting for a Holly Cache who apparently was in charge of Public Relations for Vulman. Maybe we’d get something useful from her, or maybe we’d just get the bum’s rush. Whatever our reception would be, I was sure I could get something to use in our story.

Of course, we hadn’t told the receptionist who we really were. We had told her we were from the Oklahoma Industrial Directory and were just verifying information about the company. I don’t think she really believed us, but that didn’t really matter.

“Mr. Stafford?” a voice came from behind me. I almost didn’t react to the phony name I’d given the receptionist. I wasn’t used to doing that. Too many people in Oklahoma City would have recognized me, but we were in a region served by Tulsa stations now, so I decided on a fake identity.

I turned, smiling as I extended my hand. “Yes, Ted Stafford, Oklahoma Industrial Directory. And this is my assistant, Miss Henshaw.”

Brenda hid her scowl well. I had introduced her to the receptionist as Hermione Henshaw.

No matter what else happened, it was going to be a pleasure talking with Holly Cache. She was young, attractive and just dark enough with her coal black hair to confirm an American Indian heritage. If all the Indians had looked like her, the white men wouldn’t have had a chance a couple of centuries ago.

She escorted us to a comfortable conference room, offering us the obligatory coffee along the way. We both declined. I couldn’t speak for Brenda, but I had enjoyed enough excellent coffee that morning to be wired for a week.

“Mr. Vulman will be joining us shortly,” Holly told us once we were seated.

“Mr. Vulman?” Brenda blurted out.

Holly nodded. “Yes. Eric Vulman. He’s our president.”

Oh, this was getting better and better, I thought. The receptionist must have made him think Mike Wallace was in the lobby with the 60 Minutes investigative team. If the prez himself was going to join us, it meant Vulman Industries might well be behind the weird occurrences in Ovid.

We didn’t have to wait long–another sign of a disturbance in the force. Holly left the minute her boss appeared. Eric Vulman was an imposing man, probably on the north side of forty. He was well muscled as if he worked out regularly. His only apparent flaw was a pronounced limp when he walked. Too bad, I thought. Given the rest of his development, he could have participated in the Iron Man competition without the gimpy leg.

“Mr. Stafford!” he greeted me in a strong, confident voice, extending his hand. “I’m Eric Vulman.”

I took his hand, noting his firm handshake. “Ted Stafford.”

“Should I call you Ted?” he asked, still holding my hand. Then his eyes narrowed. “Or would you rather I call you Ash?”

“How did you know?” was all I could manage as he released my hand.

“I didn’t until just now,” he admitted. I thought he meant I had tripped myself up, but he added, “I mean by shaking your hand, I learned everything about you I needed to know.”

You know, sometimes the seeming-impossible explanation is the right one. As a newsman, I had always been taught to look beyond the obvious, and in a world of hidden agendas and secret plots, who could blame me for rejecting the fantastic explanation in favor of the more rational one? No human being had the ability to learn about a person just by shaking his hand. Of course, Eric Vulman might have been teasing me, but a look in those steely eyes of his told me he was guileless. Besides, I remembered enough mythology to recall a crippled god named Vulcan. Could it be that there really were gods?

“I know who you are, too,” I told him with a bit more bravado than my churning stomach would have supported. It was a long shot, for I still wasn’t convinced he was a god, but perhaps that was the story put out for general consumption, so it wouldn’t hurt to play along.

“Do you now?”

I nodded. “And I know what you’re doing here–you and the other gods,” I told him. Of course there was an implied bluff in my statement. I knew from Chelsea’s story what they were doing but not why.

“That won’t do you any good,” he countered, sitting in one of the comfortable conference chairs and motioning for all of us to do the same.

I decided not to ask the obvious: how did he intend to stop me? That smacked too much of bad movie dialog. Instead I asked, “Why all the secrecy? Why are you doing this? And are you really gods?”

He smiled as a parent might smile when a child of his performs a cute trick. “Three questions. That’s an interesting technique. All right. I’ll answer the last one first: yes, I suppose we are gods. Why are we doing it? Well, let’s just say we have good reasons–reasons which could affect the survival of everyone on this planet. As for the secrecy, I can only say for our plan to work, no one in the human realm must know of its very existence.”

He might be an ancient god, but he knew how to be evasive with a reporter, I thought. He had made it sound as if he had answered my questions but had, in fact, given me little or nothing. Maybe somebody from the Athens Daily Blab had interviewed him a couple of thousand years ago. “The public has a right to know what’s going on here.”

He sighed, “Really Mr. Wells, I would have thought you would be able to come up with something more original than that. The public has absolutely no more right to know what we’re doing here than they have a right to know what you had for breakfast at Duke’s this morning.”

“So you’ve been watching us,” I said.

“No.” There was that smile again. “As I told you, I was able to learn quite a bit about you merely by shaking your hand. I know about your past, your present and...”

“My future?”

“Some of it,” he allowed.

“So what about my future?” I asked, genuinely worried he really did know it.

“I know you’ll die soon.”

“Is that a threat?” Brenda asked. Good for her, I thought. I knew from the bulge in her coat pocket that she had a mini-recorder working away in there.

“Not at all,” Vulman said smoothly. “I’m merely stating a fact. You’ve been expected.”

As if on cue, the door opened. A tall, slim man in a police uniform entered the room. His eyes were hidden by mirrored glasses, but I could tell he was staring right at me.

“Officer Mercer, I presume,” I nodded at him.

The police officer was silent, but Eric Vulman chuckled, “I see you were very well briefed by Ms. Bridgewater.”

I probably should have played dumb, I realized. I remembered one of my journalism professors once telling me that it’s best to not let the person you’re interviewing know how much you know. It makes them too cautious. Now both Eric Vulman and this Officer Mercer knew I had talked to Chelsea Bridgewater. Of course, they probably had a pretty good idea that I had interviewed her already, but I had just confirmed it and gotten nothing in return.

“The Judge is expecting you,” Officer Mercer told us. He was so matter-of-fact about it that I wondered for a moment if anyone had ever resisted him. I was tempted to try. While I hadn’t exactly bought into the idea that this Judge could really change people into someone else, I had come to the conclusion that he was a man to be avoided. If I could have gotten everything I needed without seeing him, I would have been happy. Now, though, the best course of action was probably to see him and confront him.

Brenda had other ideas, though. “We haven’t done anything wrong,” she argued.

I almost thought I could sense an eyebrow rising behind those mirrored glasses. “Oh? I was under the impression that you had trespassed on private property and stowed away on a truck engaged in interstate commerce.”

“So turn us over to the Interstate Commerce Commission,” Brenda shot back. I had to admire her attitude. I was starting actually to like her.

“Please come with me,” Officer Mercer said calmly. I began to wonder once again just what he’d do if we refused to go with him.

“No way,” Brenda growled. Well, I was about to find out what he’d do.

Without another word being spoken, Brenda suddenly jerked out of her chair, almost as if she were a puppet on strings. Without a word, she walked toward the door unsteadily, as if she were fighting some unseen force. The look in her eyes was one of pure panic. Neither Eric Vulman nor Officer Mercer acted as if anything was unusual.

Looking back on it, I think it was at that moment that I began to realize that everything Chelsea had told me was probably true. While I had been leaning toward the likelihood that Ovid was suffering under some mass delusion fomented by some secret government or corporate project, I suddenly realized I had been deluded by my own journalistic prejudices.

Like all good journalists, I had come to believe that businesses and governments always had something to hide. If Brenda and I had discovered that Vulman Industries had been developing some hallucinogenic/hypnotic drug in a company town called Ovid, neither of us would have been too surprised. Additionally, had we found the government through the CIA or some black agency had been financing the bizarre test, we would have been even less surprised.

But no drug I could imagine would cause a strong-willed woman like Brenda to obey some unspoken command and follow Officer Mercer against her will. It was suddenly dawning on me that whatever was going on in Ovid had nothing to do with any agency of business or government. Were these apparent men really gods? I wasn’t sure I was willing to go that far just yet, but I was starting to believe there was a distinct possibility that neither of them was human.

“Are you coming, Mr. Wells?” Officer Mercer asked calmly as Brenda shuffled out the door against her will.

I shrugged, trying to look braver than I felt. Without further urging, I stood up and followed Brenda out the door.

“What the hell happened to me?” Brenda asked when we were both secured in the back seat of Officer Mercer’s police car.

“You tell me,” I replied softly as Officer Mercer slid into the driver’s seat.

“I don’t know,” she told me, her voice shaking. “I just couldn’t help myself. It was as if I had no control over my body anymore.”

Her face brightened. “Wait a minute. I still have my gun.” She reached in her pocket and her smile became a frown. “Where did it go? It must have dropped out of my pocket.”

Yeah, like Cal’s knife, I thought to myself, but I didn’t say anything.

What the hell had I gotten us into? I asked myself. Towns that aren’t on the map could be explained–Los Alamos during the Second World War, for example, but that was for defense reasons. There was a war going on. Little girls who thought they had once been burly bikers could easily be the products of drugs, hypnosis, or mental illness. Even transparent people could be a hallucination. But put them all together, stir well, and add a dash of telekinetic control over another person and the situation became much more incredible than I could ever have imagined.

To make matters worse, I was suddenly starting to believe that whatever the beings who controlled Ovid were, they might really have the power to change Brenda and me into other people–residents of Ovid who were as much prisoners as the inmates of any prison.

I wished futilely that I had never gotten caught up with Chelsea Bridgewater. At that moment, I would have given just about anything to be back at KFOR-TV plodding along while mumbling that I deserved a big break. Now Brenda and I were about to come face to face with a power that I couldn’t even have imagined a few days earlier. I found myself wishing I had never gotten Brenda involved in this. She was proving to be a good partner on this self-imposed assignment and now she would be forced to share my fate at the hands of the ominous judge.

So what would this judge do to me? Would he make me into a young girl as he had Chelsea? Or maybe he could change us into things that would make being a young girl seem like a slap on the wrist. I think for the first time in my life, I felt genuine fear. I began to envy Chelsea and her friends. At least when they were taken to court, they had reason to believe they would simply be fined and released. Brenda and I knew what was at stake.

Strangely enough, though, Brenda seemed pretty calm once she got over the shock of being forced into cooperating. By the time we arrived at City Hall and began our walk to the courtroom, she was her usual unperturbed self, looking about as if she were deciding what to take a picture of.

“Aren’t you worried?” I asked her under my breath.

To my surprise, she smiled. “Why should I be? So what if I get a new life? This one hasn’t been all that great.”

That actually shocked me. I had always thought Brenda was angry at me, but after her admission I realized she was actually angry at men (of which I was one at least for the moment) and upset with the curves life had thrown her. I was starting to realize that she had never been able to recover fully from her sexual attack. Instead of seeking help and trying to overcome it, she had tried to cure herself. To her, the solution appeared obvious: be less attractive–both physically and socially–to avoid men.

I actually felt a little like a heel as we walked into the courtroom. True, there was no call for Brenda to act the way she did with me, but I had done everything in my power to confirm her attitude toward me. I had played the big cheese anchorman and hit on her when we first met. I had been an asshole: there were no two ways about it. It was a fine time to realize it. In a few minutes, we might both be other people with no recollection of who we had been before.

There were only two other people in the courtroom when we were ushered in by Officer Mercer. One was a sweet-looking blonde who sat in the gallery, dressed in a sexy but still somehow professional outfit. She made eye contact with me, and it felt for a moment as if she was making deeper contact than that. The other person was an equally attractive brunette who was seated at one of the tables at the front of the courtroom. Her hair professionally upswept and her attractive gray suit had lawyer written all over them. I had covered enough trials to realize she sat at the defendant’s table.

“Hello,” she said, rising and offering a slim hand. “I’m Susan Jager, your attorney.”

I shook her hand. “And are you going to see that we get the same sentence as Chelsea Bridgewater?” I asked more coldly than I had intended.

She dropped her hand in surprise. “You know what goes on here?”

“I know some of it,” I allowed. “What I don’t know is why. Do you?”

She shook her head, looking around to make sure Officer Mercer was far enough away to miss our whispered conversation. “None of us know. No matter what happens, Mr. Wells, don’t ask that question when The Judge is on the bench.”

“Why not?”

“You don’t want to make him angry,” she explained. “If you just keep your mouth shut and act reasonably contrite, I can probably get him to go easy on you.”

“You mean we might be high school cheerleaders instead of young Girl Scouts?”

“You may think it’s funny, Mr. Wells...” Actually, I didn’t think it was funny at all, but the reporter in me demanded the confrontation. “...but you’re facing powers you can’t even imagine. A good number of the dogs and cats running around Ovid started their lives by annoying The Judge. How would you like to be a cocker spaniel for the rest of your life?”

I had to admit to myself that it was sobering advice. It was one thing to be changed into a Girl Scout. It was quite another to find myself a likely customer for flea and tick powder. I nodded, abashed.

“All right then,” she acknowledged. “Now, tell me whatever possessed you to try to get into Ovid.”

“The public has a right to know what’s going on here in Ovid,” I said pontifically. It was a bad mistake. Even Brenda groaned at that old line. When was I going to learn?

Susan Jager was even more critical. “I certainly hope you don’t try to use that as a defense with The Judge, Mr. Wells,” she admonished me. “If you do, you may even end up as something being chased by the dogs and the cats.”

That didn’t sound good at all. “All right. I’ll come clean. I thought this whole Ovid thing was some sort of government plot.” I went on to explain the theories I had shared with Brenda. Susan’s face became less stern, finally breaking out into a smile.

“What’s so entertaining?” I finally asked her.

“I’m just amused at your conclusions,” she told us. “I’ve often wondered what would happen if someone got out to tell our story. We did have a case some time ago of a message that got out in an email, but that got us a visitor for another reason. You really thought you were up against the government and thought you could waltz into town and waltz back out again with no one noticing.”

“Well, we managed for a while,” Brenda pointed out.

“Are you kidding?” Susan laughed. “The g... the people who run Ovid aren’t stupid, you know. Sure, there are holes in their security, but once those holes are discovered, they’re closed quickly. I got a call early this morning to clear my schedule for your trial. The Judge knew the minute you got into town. I think they’ve been watching every service and delivery vehicle coming into Ovid since Chelsea’s incident. Didn’t you realize once they figured out how Chelsea got out of town, they’d make sure no one else got out that way?”

Actually, I hadn’t thought about it. I was certainly thinking about it now, though. How could I have been so stupid? The answer was obvious: I smelled the big story–the one that was going to give me a career in network news. Now, my next television appearance might well be on Animal Planet.

“What happened to Chelsea?” Brenda asked, making me feel even more foolish. I hadn’t bothered to ask that question of a person who was likely to know the answer. Somewhere along the line that morning, I had stopped being a reporter and become just one more poor schmuck trying to figure out how to beat a court sentence.

“She’s okay,” Susan replied, “but she’s now a six year old girl. By the time she’s old enough to try to pull a stunt like she did again, she’ll be reluctant to try it.”

“Why? Was she brainwashed?” I asked, finally remembering to be a reporter.

Susan shook her head. “No, nothing quite like that. It’s just that Ovid has a way of growing on people after a while. Life here becomes normal–even enjoyable for most of us. By the time Chelsea gets back to the age she was first transformed to be, she’ll probably be happy being a girl.”

“That sound like brainwashing to me,” Brenda grumbled.

Susan started to say something but was interrupted as Officer Mercer intoned, “All rise! Municipal Court for the City of Ovid is now in session, the Honorable Judge presiding.”

Chelsea had never bothered to describe this judge, but I still had an odd feeling of déjá  vu as the god, assuming that was what he was, strode into the room. He looked like a typical magistrate, with a slightly graying beard and well-trimmed, mostly brown hair. He wore glasses that looked expensive, with their gold frames and small lenses. His black robe was crisply pressed, and he looked as if he was ready to pose for the group picture of the US Supreme Court. I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I guess it would have been a little out of place for him to enter the courtroom in a toga carrying a lightning bolt.

“What’s our first case, Officer Mercer?” he asked, but the expression on his face told me he already knew all about Brenda and me.

“The People of Ovid versus Ashton Wells and Brenda Altman, Your Honor.”

In a few minutes, Brenda and I would be different people unless I did something to stop him. It was a terrible risk, but we didn’t have any choice. Before our attorney could stop me, I rose to my feet. “Your Honor!”

The Judge (for his regal presence seemed to demand the capital letters) scowled at me. “You have an attorney, Mr. Wells. You would be wise to listen to her and follow proper court procedure.”

I doubted if the American Southwest had seen less proper court procedure since Judge Roy Bean had tried his last case, but I was prudent enough at least not to say so. “Your Honor, I realize we violated the law when we stowed away on that truck...”

“Then there would seem to be nothing left to do but sentence you.”

“...but, Your Honor, we represent the media. If we have intruded on something we shouldn’t have, I apologize, but please consider we were only trying to do our jobs as best we could. We’ve done nothing wrong.”

The Judge actually chuckled at that. “Well, at least you didn’t give me that nonsense about the public having a right to know.”

“Would you at least consider freeing us to do our jobs?” I pressed. “We would be willing to forget about our story here in Ovid if you’d dismiss the charges against us.”

His eyes seemed to bore through me, but I got the feeling he was at least undecided as to what to do with us. “If I let you go,” he began ominously, “you might not like the results.”

My heart sank.

“However,” he went on, “I may be able to reach something of a compromise with you that will allow you to continue your media careers...”

I know: I was a fool–but I couldn’t help it. I actually thought for a moment I had persuaded him. I looked back at our attorney, but the triumphant look on my face faded as I saw her sadly shake her head. The Judge looked at her and asked, “Do you have anything else to say, Ms. Jager?”

She rose to her feet. “Your Honor, it would appear that Mr. Wells has chosen to represent himself...” Brenda tugged on her sleeve and whispered something to her. Her face brightened a little. “However, Ms. Altman has requested that I still represent her. In that capacity, Your Honor, I would like to point out that my client could be considered an innocent dupe, unaware of the seriousness of Mr. Wells’ schemes.”

“Now wait a min...” I started to say, but a gesture from The Judge silenced me–literally. I found I could no longer speak.

“Ms. Jager,” The Judge began, “if ever a pair has come to Ovid knowing full well what the potential consequences might be, it is this one.” He then turned his gaze to alternate between Brenda and me. “You may not have believed everything you heard about us, but you believed enough to know you were meddling in affairs far beyond your reckoning. As a result, the consequences shall not be mitigated and your sentences will be unusually appropriate. You see, I can look inside your very souls and see what it is that you most deeply desire. You, Ms. Altman, want surcease from the shame you feel resulting in your unfortunate sexual assault. That I will grant you but hardly in the way you may have anticipated.”

He turned to me, his face becoming even sterner. “As for you, Mr. Wells, validation as a reporter. While your obvious goal of wishing to be associated with one of the networks is beyond this court’s ability to grant, I can at least see that your desired validation is within reach.”

He settled back into his chair and began to chant in another language. It sounded like Latin, but I wasn’t sure. I certainly knew from Chelsea’s description what was about to happen, though. I braced as best I could for what was about to occur. How many others had ever known as Brenda and I did that they were about to be changed into other people–or worse. Would I remain human? I was sure I would. How could I be validated as a reporter and not be human?

Brenda had no such assurances. I managed to turn my head, although doing so felt as if it were happening in slow motion. I watched as Brenda’s form began to shimmer and lose its shape, almost like one of those computer morphing program images. She was becoming larger, bulkier, and her already-short hair seemed to be pulling back into her head, changing to a sandy brown as it did.

While I watched Brenda change, I began to be aware of changes in my own body as well. The sensation was closest to being tickled, as if hundreds of feathers were gliding over the surface of my skin. Strangely, I felt no fear. Perhaps that was part of the magic. Neither was I terribly confused as most of The Judge’s victims must have been. After all, I knew what was being done to me.

The tickling let up some but remained over my ears and down my neck. My hair had obviously become far longer. It seemed as if The Judge had a one-track mind when it came to changing people’s sex. I was going to miss Little Ash, I thought wistfully. As if in reply, the space between my legs seemed suddenly empty. I looked down in time to see that I was now wearing a white shirt–or blouse to use the terminology of my developing sex. Two bumps were rising from the blouse. Then the bumps became hills and the hills became... Christ Almighty!

I tried to tell myself that my new breasts were not really as big as they seemed. I was probably right, but having never had them before, they seemed absolutely immense, especially from the angle I now viewed them from.

Other changes were happening as well, but the sensations came from so many different parts of my body at once that it seemed impossible to note them all. I began to feel smaller and weaker–unfortunate traits of the sex that had been chosen for me. Then suddenly, I felt a little taller again, but I realized to my dismay that it was due to finding myself perched on what were undoubtedly high heels. It seemed that The Judge was going all out to make my transformation an unpleasant one. If I had known just how unpleasant a change he had in mind for me, I would have probably screamed in my new feminine voice.

Even knowing what had happened to me, I felt disoriented and helpless. I knew in the intellectual part of my mind that I now stood before the court as a woman, but what woman? Who had The Judge decided I was to be? He had told me that my change would be “unusually appropriate.” Just what had he meant by that?

Whatever I looked like, Brenda already knew. She... no–now ‘he’ looked at me with just the faintest trace of a grin. His own change had been drastic. Brenda was now a man several inches taller than I, but just how tall I couldn’t tell since I had obviously lost some of my height. He appeared to be in his twenties with sandy brown hair, neatly trimmed as was his beard. Yes, that’s right: Brenda now had a beard. He touched it tentatively and seemed to find it appropriate. I had never been one to judge another man’s appearance, but I had to admit he appeared a good-looking guy. He was dressed in wash khaki pants and a tasteful sports shirt, looking as if he was ready to play a round of golf with the boys. God, how I envied him!

“Josh, Jennifer,” The Judge began. We turned since it was obvious he was speaking to us. “You both have the story I’ve given you. You should go back to your office and touch up the pictures, Josh. As for you, Jennifer, you have a story to turn in. Good day!”

Before we could speak, he rose from the bench and retired to his chambers, leaving the two of us dumbstruck before the bench.

“What just happened?” Brenda asked in her new baritone. She seemed surprised by it, clearing her–oops, his new voice.

“I... I don’t know,” I replied. I was not relieved to find my new voice. While it sounded all right to me, I knew from years of broadcasting that it would sound differently to others. I was certain it was high and lilting–too high to be a good broadcasting voice.

“These are yours: they should help,” Susan called out, pointing at two bags sitting on the defendant’s table. One was a camera bag which Brenda grabbed at once.

The other was a purse.

With trepidation, I picked up the purse, noticing for the first time that my nails were longer and painted dark red. I wondered if I’d be able to root around in that purse without breaking one of them. Not that I minded breaking a nail. I planned to have them cleaned off and cut short as soon as possible.

“It seems I’m Josh Garfield,” Brenda announced, looking at a business card from the camera case. “I own a photo studio here in town. And apparently I do freelance work for the local newspaper.” He flashed a press pass with an unexpected grin. The bag seemed to brighten his spirits. He was still a photographer. Had we both retained our old professions?

Nervously, I pulled a small, feminine wallet from the depths of the purse. The first thing I pulled out was an official-looking press pass. It identified me as a Jennifer Olson. The name sounded strangely familiar for some reason. Then I saw my driver’s license. “Oh no...” I moaned, looking at the picture.

I bolted for the door, searching quickly for the restroom–the women’s restroom, of course. I knew I was now a woman. I had expected as much the moment I was taken to The Judge’s courtroom. The problem was the woman I had become, as evidenced by my driver’s license. Oh, I knew pictures on licenses were notoriously poor, but I had seen enough in the picture to realize something was drastically wrong.

I didn’t even have time to think about the odd sensations of swaying hips or bobbing breasts. The click of my heels on the tile of the restroom floor didn’t even bother me, nor did I wonder at the time how I could so easily walk in high heels while constrained in a tight skirt. I had only one thing on my mind–I had to see my face.

The reflection in the mirror confirmed my worst suspicions. I was attractive in a country girl sort of way, but it was the wrong sort of attractive. You see I had grown up as a man with ‘The Look.’ To be successful as a television anchor, you had to have ‘The Look.’ It was hard to put your finger on just what that was. It was possible for a handsome man or an attractive woman to look good on the street but lack the appearance required by the camera. While television cameras had improved over the years, they still tended to exaggerate certain features, causing ears to look too big or necks to appear too fat.

While I didn’t look too big or too fat, I no longer had ‘The Look.’

I was a redhead now, with long straight hair the color of flame–hair far too red for the camera to like. I had freckles, and not just a slight dusting on the nose and cheeks. I had freckles in profusion–the sort of freckles that seemed to demand I have my hair in pigtails and be dressed in denim. Did I mention that the camera hates freckles? I would have to wear enough makeup to look like Elizabeth I to hide those ‘cute’ little freckles from the camera.

And that was just the beginning. My nose was too narrow and my eyes a little too close together. Those features wouldn’t have kept me out of a Girls of Oklahoma section in Playboy, but they were enough to make a television camera loathe me. Also, I had significantly large breasts. I could see them through the white knit blouse I wore. A television camera would blow them up until I looked like Dolly Parton’s younger sister. At least my ears didn’t stick out, but that wouldn’t be enough to make me look right on camera.

“Oh no...” I muttered again, noticing the coup de grace for my television career: I had an accent–a big fat Southern accent that you could cut with a knife. I not only looked like a country girl: I sounded like one as well.

I felt tears welling up in my eyes. I had acknowledged the possibility that Chelsea had been telling me the truth about Ovid. I had even realized that there was a chance I might be discovered and dragged before The Judge. I had known that there was a strong possibility I might end up in skirts and heels. I even had imagined that if that happened, I’d be lauded when I broke the story of Ovid like a war correspondent displaying his wounds. But I never dreamed for a moment that I’d be turned into someone who looked and sounded like one of the little cuties on Hee-Haw.

I was doomed.

I was sniffling, feeling very sorry for myself when the restroom door opened. “Jenny? Are you all right?” It was my attorney.

“No, I’m most certainly not all right!” I snapped in my disgusting feminine twang. Perhaps I shouldn’t have been angry at her. She was looking at me with what had to be genuine concern. But in my mind, she was part of the system that had transformed me, and in the absence of The Judge, she was a convenient target.

“You had to realize when you came here to Ovid that this was a possibility,” she pointed out, handing me a tissue.

I used it to dab at my eyes. This was just great. On top of everything else, I was crying. “I knew it was a possibility,” I admitted. “At least I knew it when I realized Chelsea had told me the truth. You said she’s a six-year-old girl now?”

“Yes, she had her age reduced a few years,” Susan confirmed, making it sound like a light sentence. “She’s six years old now and unlikely to try to run away again. The Judge told her if she tried it again, he’d put her in diapers.”

I shuddered. If I screwed up, that might happen to me now too, I realized.

“Look, it could have been worse,” Susan continued. “For you I mean. You’re a girl, but you’re young and attractive...”

“Yeah, but I don’t have ‘The Look’.”

“The what?”

In a trembling voice, I explained what I meant. To my surprise, she actually giggled. “Well, I don’t think you need to worry about that here. Ovid has a radio station but no TV station.”

“I don’t plan on staying here,” I argued, sniffling back another sob.

Susan shook her head. “Odds are good you’ll never leave Ovid, Jenny. You had to realize that, didn’t you?”

“There has to be a way,” I said defiantly. I had no intention of remaining a hick girl in a hick town for the rest of my life–or even for the rest of Jennifer Olson’s life.

“Some people are allowed to leave,” she admitted, “but not very many.”

“And they’re the trusted ones–like you?” I asked bitterly.

Susan had the good taste to blush. “Yes, my husband and I can leave. And yes, The Judge trusts us. But take my word for it: if you try, you can have a good life here in Ovid. That’s more than you would have had if you’d never come here.”

“What do you mean by that?” I asked, sniffling again.

Susan shrugged. “I suppose you wouldn’t know about that since Chelsea probably didn’t know. The only people The Judge changes are those who would have died within a few months anyway.”

“Died?”

She nodded. “Yes, according to The Judge, you and Brenda were slated to die next month in a helicopter accident while working together on a story.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“It doesn’t matter if you believe me or not,” Susan said with just a little irritation. “The Judge showed me the newspaper story before you were brought into court. Oh yes, that’s right. He has ways of seeing the future–or at least some things in the future. You and Brenda died tragically–you were to be married in a couple of months.”

I actually laughed at that. “You can’t be serious. Brenda and I? That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard of. I don’t like her much and she doesn’t like me. What newspaper did he get that story from? The National Enquirer?”

“Well at least you’ll get another chance,” Susan sighed, not bothering to respond to my gibe. “You’re now engaged to Josh Garfield–the man Brenda was transformed into.”

I followed her gaze down to my left hand. Oh my God! I was wearing an engagement ring! “Shit!”

Well, one thing was absolutely certain: there was not about to be a wedding in my future. I shuddered at even the thought of being the blushing bride. And then there was the idea of the wedding night... No Fucking Way!

“Don’t reject the idea of marrying him,” Susan cautioned.

I looked at her, suddenly suspicious that she was one of the gods and reading my mind.

“And no, I’m not a mind reader,” she told me, raising my suspicions even higher. “You’re just wearing your thoughts on your face...”

And what a pretty face it was, I mentally added with no little sarcasm.

“You’ll find The Judge usually gets what he wants,” she went on, “and for some reason, he wants you to marry Josh.”

“Well this is one time he’s going to be disappointed.”

“Be careful, Jenny...”

“Stop calling me that!”

“Do you prefer Jennifer?”

“Are you feeble minded?” I retorted. “I prefer Ash–Ashton Wells. Look, you’re supposed to be my lawyer. Help me out: find out what it would take to get him to change his mind and change me back into a man.”

“I’ve only known him to offer it to one person,” she replied. “And she turned him down in the end.”

“What? Had she been some kind of a transvestite?” I growled. The sudden reddening of her face made me realize she had been speaking of herself. Well that’s just great, Ash. Why don’t you stick your pretty little foot into your sweet little mouth?

“Uh... look, if you could just ask,” I tried to recover.

“I’ll ask,” she said, her composure returning, “but don’t expect him to agree. Your best course of action is to be Jenny Olson, girl reporter for the Ovid Chronicle, just like The Judge wants you to be. If he doesn’t like the way you handle this change, I can guarantee you he won’t change his mind.”

“All right,” I sighed. “I’ll do my best.”

As if I had a choice.

Susan smiled and patted my hand. “Good! I’ll get back to you in a couple of days.”

She left me alone with my thoughts. Something was bothering me–something about my new name...

Oh crap on a sharp stick! Jenny Olson, reporter–Jimmy Olson, reporter. Why that lousy son of a bitch! He wasn’t happy with making me look like a little country girl: he had to give me a name and occupation that would turn my life into a lampoon.

I think if I could have had my meals brought into me, I would have stayed there in the restroom for the remainder of my life, but as much as I hated to do it, it was time for me to face the world. Jenny Olson, cub reporter, was about to make her entrance. Jeepers, Mr. Kent!

I suddenly realized as I started out the door that I had no idea where I was supposed to go or how I was going to get there. I knew I was a reporter, but what did that mean? According to my press pass, I worked for the Ovid Chronicle, just as Susan had told me, but for all I knew, that might be a once-a-week rag where I only worked a couple of days a week.

I fished around in my purse (purse!) looking for something that might help me. There I found some business cards with an address for the paper that meant nothing to me and a set of keys for a Mazda. Oh great. Not only was I now a girl but I would have to drive around in a crappy little Japanese car as well.

Brenda–Josh–had already left the building. I was not unhappy about that. The last thing I needed right now was to watch him chuckling from his new male perspective at my new sex.

“Can I help you?” a feminine voice called out behind me. I turned and saw an attractive young black woman wearing a uniform similar to Officer Mercer’s. I had to say though that she looked a lot better in it. I guess there was still plenty of male left in me at that point. I suspected she was the same officer Chelsea had mentioned. “I’m Wanda Hazleton by the way.” I recognized her now as the police officer I had seen earlier when I was brought into the jail.

“Ash–Jennifer Olson,” I corrected myself. “Yeah, maybe you can help me. Can you tell me where I could find this address?” I showed her my card.

“Ah! I thought you were new here,” she grinned. “You were one of the ones Officer Mercer brought in this morning. Welcome to Ovid.”

I grunted in response. I certainly didn’t feel very welcome. I also noted to myself that she didn’t ask if I had been the man or the woman who had been brought in that morning. She had probably already guessed that I had had my sex changed. It seemed to be the standard modus operandi for The Judge. I wondered for a moment if she, too, had once been a man.

“The Chronicle is a block west of Main Street and about four blocks south of here,” she told me. “And be careful. Newcomers have a tendency to get involved in fender benders until they get used to their new cars and new bodies.”

I could imagine. I suddenly realized I would be driving in heels. “I’ll be careful.”

She smiled at me again, and this time I actually managed to smile back.

I actually didn’t have much trouble driving to the Chronicle. The Mazda turned out to be a little 323 (zoom, zoom and all that crap) which was peppier and easier to drive than I had imagined. And driving in heels wasn’t half as difficult as I thought it might be. My biggest problem was feeling like a midget on the road. My new shorter body and smaller car combined to make me feel more like a squirrel darting down the road than another motorist. It seemed like every vehicle on the road with me was twice my size.

The Chronicle building was something of a pleasant surprise. I had been expecting a storefront operation, but it seemed Ovid’s newspaper was as prosperous as the rest of the town. Raised metallic letters on a tasteful single floor brick-building front said simply ‘The Chronicle.’ With its mirrored glass windows and double aluminum doors framed by professional landscaping, the Chronicle Building would not have been out of place in an office park in Oklahoma City.

Inside, though, was another matter. The interior of the building was rather utilitarian, with a service type reception desk where someone (a transparent someone) was filling out what appeared to be a form for a classified ad. Helping the man was a woman behind the counter wearing an OU sweatshirt and jeans. She was blonde and not unattractive, but was a girl who obviously didn’t take a lot of time doing her hair and makeup. She would have been fired greeting customers at KFOR-TV while looking like that.

“Hi Jenny!” she called out with a sparkling grin.

“Hi...” I replied stupidly realizing that while she knew me, I had no idea who she was. I supposed it was going to be like that a lot in Ovid. Only the transformed residents who remembered their previous lives would cut me any slack. I’d have to listen carefully to pick up names of my co-workers.

It may seem to some people that I was trying awfully hard to fit in, but what choice did I have? Unlike many who came to Ovid by accident, I had come to the town knowing (although not really believing) what might await me. I knew I was now stuck as Jennifer Olson–probably for the rest of my life–and as such, I would have to make a living. Since there probably wasn’t much of a job market for journalists in Ovid, I needed this job.

I wandered slowly past the small maze of cubicles, looking in vain for one with my nameplate on it. After a few more mumbled greetings, I found it–tucked back in the back of the office. From the rumbling of the presses on the other side of the wall behind my cubicle, I guessed that I was really a junior staffer since I had drawn the noisiest cubicle.

I sighed and dropped my purse down on the desk, plopping (most unladylike, I might add) into a typical office chair. Almost reflexively, I kicked off my heels, sighing in pleasure at the sudden realization of how cramped my toes had been and how uncomfortable my ankles were from being bent at an unnatural angle. Wearing heels was going to be a real pain–literally.

I looked around the desk, trying to learn as much as I could from the notes and pictures which had been tacked up in front of my desk. I could see myself–my new self, that is–in some of the shots. There was me with a handsome middle-aged couple who were probably my new parents, another shot with two girls who looked very much like me (probably sisters or cousins, I realized), and pictures of a slightly younger version of me with various young women and men. I assumed those shots to be college friends or maybe old high school chums.

I was particularly disturbed by a shot of me being held closely by a man with sparkling eyes, sandy brown hair, and a neatly-trimmed beard. It was, of course, the man I had witnessed Brenda changing into–Josh Garfield, my fiancé.

Or perhaps I should have said, Josh Garfield–soon to be my ex-fiancé.

No matter what The Judge or any other two-bit deity in Ovid wanted, I had no intention of marrying Josh Garfield or any other man. I wasn’t gay, and yes, I knew that being attracted to a man while in the body of a woman did not make me gay in a technical sense. Still, I wasn’t about to be some asshole’s bride–particularly an asshole who used to be Brenda Altman. Even if she–now he–had been my very best friend in the whole wide world, there was no way I was going to be Mrs. Anybody. Period. The End.

Okay, I could be a woman if I had to be, but I had been too much of a stud in my former life to ever see myself in the role of the passive girl with her legs spread in anticipation of filling her plumbing to the brim with cum. The very thought made me shiver–and not with anticipation. I had already seen enough of Ovid to know that many former men must now be women, and most of them, I supposed, had given in to their feminine sides and allowed themselves to be women in every sense of the word. Well, it wasn’t going to happen to me and that was all there was to it.

“Do you have that story ready yet?” a voice asked from behind me.

“Huh?” I turned to see a dapper man with iron gray hair standing behind me. He wore a neatly-pressed tan sport coat, chocolate slacks, and a stylish tie over a crisp white shirt. “The story on strict enforcement of traffic laws that I sent you over to the courts to get. Josh has already emailed some pictures. Did The Judge give you anything good?”

I was about to admit that I had no idea what I was supposed to write about when I saw the flashing cursor on my computer. I seemed drawn to the screen and the man followed my gaze. ‘STRICTER SENTENCING FOR TRAFFIC OFFENDERS PROMISED’ was the headline. The story went on to quote The Judge who made the usual banal statements expected of a small-town magistrate. But I had to admit the story was well written. The author, of course, was Jennifer Olson.

“Not bad, Jenny,” the man muttered, reading over my shoulder. “Work on the headline, though. Leave off the word ‘promised.’ You need to keep the headlines shorter with more punch if you ever want to move up to a city paper.”

I had always been taught that on the bigger papers, editors liked to write the headlines. I didn’t argue, though. The man seemed to be genuinely interested in my work. I only hoped when I had to write a story myself that I remembered all the things my professors back in J school had taught me. After all, I had been in broadcast news for my entire career. I hadn’t written a newspaper article since college.

“I just wish Dominic could write this well,” he sighed, looking over at a small office not far from mine.

“Thanks,” I managed, not quite sure who he was. Something told me he was my boss, so I wanted to stay on his good side. As I had already determined, I would need a pay check to survive in Ovid, so making the boss happy seemed like a good plan. Besides, for all I knew transformees who couldn’t succeed in their new lives might well be changed into small children where they could be watched more closely–like Chelsea.

But who was this Dominic? Whoever he was, he rated an office, but my new boss didn’t seem to be too happy with him. So why was he on the payroll? I couldn’t imagine that a small town paper could afford employees who weren’t carrying their own weight.

Since I wasn’t quite sure what to do next, I decided to meet this Dominic and find out what he was all about. I strolled into his office. There tapping away amateurishly at a keyboard was a young man not more than twenty-five or so with dark, wavy hair and a serious expression making him look sort of like a young Michael Keaton. He didn’t bother to look up at me, but called out, “What do you need, Jenny?”

Then, he stopped and looked at me more closely. His lackadaisical manner seemed to leave him like a discarded cape. He seemed at once more alert and aware of my presence. A wry smile formed on his lips. “So welcome to Ovid.”

“How did you know?” I demanded, afraid that I had done something out of character already.

“You’re real now and not one of those spooks,” he told me as he leaned back and motioned for me to sit.

“Okay, but how did you know I had all my previous memories?”

His eyebrows rose. “You’re quick to learn about Ovid. I’m impressed. To answer your question, though, I didn’t know. If you hadn’t understood the question, I would just have passed it off as a sarcastic remark. I’m rather famous for them around here, you know.”

I relaxed a little as I sat down. It seemed I just might have a mentor. I hoped he could keep his hands to himself, though. I had been asked to mentor a young lady or two in my male days, but somehow, they always seemed to end up in my bed. I certainly had no intention of becoming one of this Dominic’s conquests.

“So how do you like being a girl?”

“Damn it, how did you know that?” I demanded, jumping to my feet.

“Oh, that’s easy,” he laughed. “Anybody could have told you used to be a man from the way you just sat down.”

Now I was worried. I had taken special care to sit with my legs together so he couldn’t catch a look up my skirt. “Okay,” I sighed. “So what did I do wrong?”

“Women smooth their skirts as they sit down,” he explained, demonstrating in pantomime. “Since you didn’t, yours was hiked up a bit too far. Nice legs, by the way.”

I could feel my face turning red. “In spite of that last comment, I assume you used to be a girl,” I ventured.

Now it was his turn to look surprised. “How did you know?”

“Aside from the fact that a certain judge seems to have a thing for reversing people’s sexes?” I asked coyly.

“Yes, aside from that.”

“Well,” I admitted, “I wasn’t really sure, but the way you showed me how it was done, you looked as if it were a practiced move. Or I suppose you could just be a transvestite...”

“If only it were so,” he said softly. “But you’re right. I was a woman–a girl actually before I came here. My parents had their sexes changed, too. As you say, The Judge seems to delight in doing that to us.”

He spent a few minutes explaining that he and his parents had been on a vacation when they stumbled into Ovid nearly ten years ago. “I was only fifteen at the time,” he said wistfully, “and I was a cute little thing if I do say so myself. The Judge told us if he hadn’t changed us, we would have died in a traffic accident outside Dallas in a couple of days. I suspect he was telling the truth–one of the few things he’s ever straight about.”

“So what happened to your parents?” I asked.

He shrugged. “You’ve met mom, or I guess I should say dad since The Judge switched their sexes, too. He and mom own this rag. Don’t bother talking to them like this, though. They don’t remember who they were.”

That seemed a common enough problem in Ovid. At least I now knew why his father–the man I had spoken with moments earlier–tolerated Dominic’s obvious ineptitude. I just nodded while he went on. “In the scheme of things, I was expected to take over the family business. Since I couldn’t expect to leave Ovid, it seemed I’d have to go along. So here I am–Dominic Michael Woods Junior–heir apparent to the vast publishing empire known as Ovid Newspapers, Inc. Are you impressed?”

I was enjoying him in spite of myself. His sarcastic wit struck a nerve with me. Of course I didn’t notice that he was also good looking. There was no way I was going to fall into the trap of being a normal heterosexual girl. The Judge might be able to turn me into a girl, but he and his whole Olympian army couldn’t get me romantically involved with a guy.

“I might be impressed–assuming Ovid Newspapers is more than just this one paper.”

“Oh it is!” he boasted with mock pride. “We also publish The Weekly Shopper and do programs for the Capta College sports events. We are a large, large newspaper firm.”

I laughed, “Well, you seem to have found a home here in Ovid.”

His face turned suddenly serious. “A home? Not really. No matter what they tell you, Jennifer, this isn’t a paradise: it’s a prison. My parents–now they’re the lucky ones. Their thoughts and personalities were taken from them, ripped away and replaced by mom and pop running a mom and pop newspaper in a town that shouldn’t even be here. And for what?”

That was a question I had been asking myself. Dominic didn’t wait for an answer, though, continuing, “I’ll tell you for what! This is just being done for their amusement. They like to watch us dance like puppets on strings.”

“How is it that you can even say that?” I asked. “I thought there was something in the air that made everybody a good little Ovidian.”

He nodded with approval. “You really are a sharp one, Jenny. Can I call you Jenny? Good. You’re right. With all newcomers, they put a lot of pressure on to make sure everyone conforms to their way of thinking. Those who don’t conform are... dealt with harshly, shall we say? Adults get turned into children and children get turned into babies. The really hard cases find themselves turned into animals or even plants.”

“Yet you are still who you were when you were first changed,” I pointed out.

“That’s because I wouldn’t let anyone else know about how I feel. It’s too dangerous.”

“Then why tell me?”

If Dominic was ruffled by the question (as the reporter in me hoped he would be), he didn’t show it. Instead, he actually grinned. “My, my, you are just full of good questions, aren’t you? Okay, here’s your answer: I’ve got contacts at city hall. What good newspaperman wouldn’t? Anyhow, my contact overheard The Judge’s assistant and that Jager bitch they always give their victims for an attorney. So I know you used to be a hotshot anchorman at an Oklahoma City TV station, although I can tell you right now that no one will remember that other than The Judge and his pals.

“If I read the situation right, you actually came here looking for a story and got caught. This is your punishment, sweetheart. You get to spend the rest of your life in skirts and squatting to pee. I figure you’d jump at any chance to get your balls back. Am I right?”

In spite of myself, the prospect gave me a moment of hope, but then reason took over. “So just how to you plan to do that? I don’t seem to remember a Dominic in the Roman pantheon...”

He smiled. “So you know about that, too? Great. Don’t get any more specific though unless you want to be gasping for air. As for how I plan to do it, I plan to do exactly what you planned to do. I plan to expose the whole story of Ovid.”

“Good plan,” I laughed. “And just why do you need my help?”

He leaned back in his chair and spoke in a conspiratorial tone, “Because they watch me every time I leave this office. They know I’ve been gathering intelligence on them since high school. They go through my office, my apartment, and my computer regularly looking for the evidence, but I’ve always been able to hide it from them. I suspect they’re even able to peek in on my thoughts, but I’ve always been able to shield things from them.”

“How?”

He shrugged. “It’s hard to say. I think it may be due to some... problems I had back before I was changed.” For the first time, he seemed reluctant to tell me, but I think he realized unless he told me everything I’d lose interest in his plan. “I had some mental problems,” he went on carefully. “The doctors diagnosed me as a borderline schizophrenic. I could function all right so long as I took my pills and saw a shrink regularly. Then when The Judge changed me, that was all sort of cured. I say ‘sort of’ because I found out I could mentally shift back and forth between the new me and the old me, if that makes any sense to you.”

“So I’m talking to a psycho,” I surmised with a sigh.

“You’re talking with the only person who might have a way of getting you out of here as a man again,” he corrected me. “In a few minutes, my other persona will have to take over. This is more exhausting than you can realize. I’ll probably have to go home with a very nasty migraine. My other ‘self’ if you will is the side of me usually left in charge, but I’ve been able to trigger this side of my personality when the opportunities present themselves.”

“Opportunities like me?”

“Exactly.” His smile was not a warm one. “That means when you see me, you must always wait for me to tell you when I am in charge. Otherwise, I’ll be compromised.”

“There’s just one detail you haven’t thought out,” I pointed out. “I don’t have this little mental quirk you have. What happens when The Judge decides to peer into my mind and finds out about your plan?”

“I’ve got that covered, too,” he told me, leaning back in his chair in smug satisfaction. “The Judge and his ilk are only interested in interesting people. The best way to avoid their scrutiny is to be as boring as possible.”

“Boring?”

“That’s right. They enjoy watching we poor humans squirm like worms on a fishhook. If we settle into our new lives with no muss or fuss, they move on to livelier targets. All you have to do is act like a good little girl and you’ll have the perfect camouflage–which means, by the way, you have to be interested in guys, like your fiancé.”

“Brenda? I mean Josh?” I sputtered. “But we’re supposed to get... to get...”

“Married?” he finished for me. “Don’t look so surprised. This is a newspaper: remember? Your engagement announcement was in the paper. The wedding is this coming Saturday, by the way.”

“Listen to me,” I said through gritted teeth, “there is no way on Earth I’m going to marry some guy and play happy little housewife for anyone.”

“You may have to,” he insisted. “Listen, Jenny, to my knowledge, no one has ever escaped from Ovid and recovered his old life. If you want to have any chance at all, you’ll have to have help from outside Ovid, and the only way you’ll be able to get that is to help me expose all of these imposters. If that means you have to be a happy little housewife as you put it, then you’d better do it with a smile on your face. Otherwise, we’ll both be stuck here living lives we don’t want for the rest of our days.”

As sickening as it seemed, he might be right, I realized. Chelsea Bridgewater was adequate proof of that. Her freedom from Ovid had been short-lived and her punishment intense. Even if she had managed to stay out of The Judge’s clutches, she would have remained a girl for the rest of her life. Unless I wanted to be equally female for the rest of my days, I would have to expose Ovid and hope that The Judge and his minions weren’t powerful enough to stop the entire US government. Since I had no real plan of my own, I’d have to follow Dominic’s lead.

That didn’t keep me from trying to formulate another plan–one which would not involve the intense young man I had been forced to work with. I kept turning over ideas in my mind as I drove home in my little Mazda. Unfortunately, no good plan came to mind.

I had allowed my mind to go rather blank, depending upon the auto pilot functions Chelsea told me about. Of course, I probably could have found my new home just by driving around the town until I found the street listed on my driver’s license. Ovid wasn’t that big a town after all.

‘Home’ turned out to be an apartment building that looked almost brand new. It wasn’t as large as the newer apartment complexes in Oklahoma City or other large cities, but it was modern in design, with lots of nice landscaping and a small swimming pool nestled between the two three story buildings. The pool had already been drained for the winter, so the courtyard surrounding it was deserted.

My apartment was on the third floor. That was going to be a real bitch since there were no elevators and climbing steps in heels made me feel as if I would tumble backwards any moment. Besides, now that I was a girl, my strength was a fraction of what I enjoyed as a man. How would I ever be able to do something as simple as lift heavy grocery bags up those flights of stairs?

I finally located my apartment. It was recessed a little from the courtyard, which was fine with me. I fumbled around with my keys, trying to determine which one would open my door when the door flew open.

I was shocked to see an attractive blonde standing in the doorway in a pair of tight jeans and a burgundy Capta College sweatshirt, but no more shocked than she appeared to be. “Hi, Jenny,” she greeted me warily. “You’re home early.”

“I am?” I asked stupidly. It had been nearly five when I left the office, and there had only been a couple of us still there. I had been using my time at my desk to find out as much about my new identity as I could and had lost track of the time.

“You... remember who you were, don’t you?” she asked carefully, as if unsure of my answer.

“Yeah,” I sighed. “I guess you do, too.”

She nodded. “Come on in. Let’s get to know each other.”

I was ushered into a neat living room with comfortable but completely feminine touches. I’ve always been astounded at how two girls can live together more orderly than one man. Everything was neat and clean, except for a thick tome lying open on the couch. The girl, who was obviously my roommate, picked up the book and sat on the couch, patting the cushion next to her in an obvious invitation for me to sit next to her.

As I sat on the cushion, I couldn’t help but think of how two men who didn’t know each other would have handled the situation. Both men would remain standing, or at least sitting far apart, until some accommodation had been established. Not so with girls, though. As much as I would have liked to sit next to her in my male body, I felt a little uncomfortable sitting that close to her now that I too, was a woman.

She turned to me and smiled. “I’m Cynthia Lyons–your roommate.” She brushed a strand of long blonde hair behind her ear. “Welcome to Ovid.”

She gave me a quick bio of herself. Apparently she was a year younger than me and a senior at nearby Capta College, majoring in psychology. She didn’t volunteer any facts about her previous life or ask any of me. I was already learning that the transformed citizens of Ovid did not like to discuss their prior lives freely.

“It’s not considered polite,” she explained, confirming my suspicion. “Most people aren’t comfortable talking about their previous lives until they get used to their new ones. Even then, their old lives are just that–old lives. They lack meaning for most people.”

I nodded, understanding that. I certainly had no desire to tell her that until that morning, I had been a man several years older than I was now. I wondered if the women who were changed into men were more reticent about such matters. Most men–including me–viewed becoming female as a demotion according to the popular myths. Would women view their transformations as a promotion? Gee, wouldn’t that make an interesting feature article for the Ovid Chronicle? Of course, there was no way The Judge would ever allow it to be printed.

“I’m sure you have some questions about your new life,” she prompted.

I had had a number of questions answered by Dominic, but I didn’t want her to know anything about that. I also didn’t want her to know that the only thing I wanted out of my new life in Ovid was out of my new life in Ovid. Dominic had cautioned me to act as if I was trying to fit in and so I would. I sat patiently as she described the artificial life of her roommate and best friend. It seemed I had just graduated from Capta myself and had been hired by the Chronicle after a successful editorship of the college paper.

My family was supposedly from out of state and my parents would be attending my wedding, flying in from Atlanta in a couple of days. Where The Judge was going to get a family for me was beyond me, but I was sure he had thought that out.

Then it came time to discuss my love life. “You’ve probably noticed that you’re wearing an engagement ring,” she ventured.

“Yeah,” I sighed. “So everyone tells me. I don’t know about this, Cynthia...”

She smiled brightly. “Well, if you don’t want Josh, can I have him?” Looking at the dumbfounded expression on my face, she laughed, “I was just kidding.” Then more seriously, she added, “You do know you’ll have to go through with it, don’t you?”

“I get the idea I don’t have much of a choice,” I replied, remembering Dominic’s admonition. “I don’t, do I?”

She shook her head. “I’m afraid not.” Then more brightly, she added, “But it won’t be so bad, really. I’m going to be your maid of honor, and Josh is a hunk, even if he is a shade.”

“Not any more he isn’t,” I told her. “He came here with me,” I explained, not revealing Brenda’s true sex.

“That’s great!” Cynthia said cheerfully. “Then it won’t be nearly so traumatic for you since you already know each other.”

No, not traumatic at all, I thought to myself, if we can just figure out who gets to do what and with which and to whom.

“Look, I don’t really want to get married so soon,” I protested. Dominic said I would have to get married, but it wouldn’t be natural if I didn’t protest some. “Can’t I at least move back the date or something?”

She shook her head. “That wouldn’t be a good idea. Invitations have been sent, your parents will be here, your dress is here... Oh! Your dress–you have a final fitting tomorrow at nine in the morning. I’ll go with you. I’ll have you know I’m cutting a class to do it.”

She rambled on and on until I almost began to believe it was her wedding that was coming up in just a few days. Did all girls get so excited about weddings? Of course they did, I realized. A wedding was probably the biggest positive event in a woman’s life, with the possible exception of childbirth–if you could call that positive. I was going to be surrounded for the next few days by girls like Cynthia who would live vicariously through my whole wedding experience. The only girl around who wasn’t looking forward to it was yours truly.

Cynthia proved to be a godsend, though. She helped me through my first evening as a woman, explaining things to me as they came up. She found some casual clothes for me to wear–just jeans and a sweatshirt like hers–and I found I really didn’t feel too different from my old male self in unisex attire.

That’s not to say I felt exactly the same. Hair tickled the back of my neck and the earrings I hadn’t bothered to remove from my ears produced a tiny but discernable tug on my lobes. And frankly, it was impossible not to notice the controlled swaying of my new breasts even inside their bra, but most noticeable was the conspicuous absence of anything dangling between my legs.

In a strange way, the lack of anything down south was actually more comfortable. I found I could cross my legs more comfortably, and when I sat down, there wasn’t the feeling of something being squeezed between my legs. Still, I would have probably sold my soul just to have the family jewels back in place.

Cynthia helped me to cope with my new equipment as well. After we had eaten a light dinner consisting of soup and a salad she had made up, she noticed I was looking a little uncomfortable and asked me about it. Well, I was going to have to ask the question soon, so it might as well be now, I thought.

“Uh... Cynthia,” I asked, embarrassed, “just how do I pee?”

“How do you pee?” she echoed, laughing. “How did you pee before?”

I suddenly realized I had never told her that I had been a man, but she seemed to know intuitively that I had been one. I supposed it wouldn’t be that hard for a natural woman to realize I was new to the whole experience. “It’s... uh... kind of hard to explain. I just... went.”

“Well it’s the same for girls,” she said with a grin.

In retrospect, she was really right. It was just a matter of relaxing and letting it flow. My body knew what to do even if my mind didn’t. Still, I was very glad she remained just outside the bathroom door, coaching me all the way.

I think as I sat there wiping myself for the first time, I realized just how calamitous my situation was. Unless Dominic’s plan worked and the Marines came storming in to rescue me, I would soon be married, and that same slitted area between my legs would be the focus of something even messier than peeing. It was so damned small! How could a man’s... how had I, for that matter, ever penetrated such a small opening?

I have since learned that many young girls wonder the same thing, so I suppose my worries were not that far out of line. And as for having a baby come out of there... I could only hope for a quick rescue to save me from ever worrying about that.

I was still recovering from my unsettling experience on the toilet when the doorbell rang. Cynthia jumped up to get the door and grinned. “I’m not expecting anyone, so who could that be?”

She knew as well as I did who it was. I guessed Brenda must have been under some of the same constraints I found myself burdened with–he was expected to play the fiancé in our new existences, and it was no surprise when I heard a male voice say, “Uh... hi. I’m...”

“Hi, Josh,” Cynthia said, saving him the embarrassment. “I’m Cynthia. Jenny’s watching TV, so I’ll leave you two alone in the living room.”

The grin was still plastered on her face when she passed me, heading for her bedroom with the textbook she had been reading in hand. I wanted to tell her I didn’t want to be left alone, but she was out of the room before I could say it.

The man facing me wasn’t the same befuddled fellow changeling I had last seen in The Judge’s courtroom. He was dressed the same, with the addition of a gray herringbone sports coat, but there appeared to be no trace of the woman who I had known as Brenda. For a moment, I had a sudden fear that some individuals might lose their memories hours or even days after being transformed. That would mean I might soon find myself a happy little girl about to be married and settle down to make babies.

Fortunately, Josh’s next statement left no doubt that he remembered his real life. “I never realized how great men had it,” he said suddenly and unexpectedly, a satisfied smile on his face.

“You like being a man?” I asked him from my place on the couch.

“Didn’t you?”

“Well, of course,” I replied defensively. He had me there. “I just never realized...”

“That a woman would like being a man?” Josh shook his head. “You know, when it first happened, I thought it was the end of the world. I felt so big and bulky, and this beard felt really strange. And the first time I tried to cross my legs, I hurt myself so badly I thought I was going to die. But once I got settled in, I began to see its advantages. I mean look at me. The only thing I had to do to get a little dressed up for the evening was throw on this sports coat. I didn’t have to worry about evening makeup or how my hair looked or what outfit went with what shoes.”

“Well good for you,” I tried to growl, but it didn’t sound like much of a growl. “What about me?”

He shrugged. “What about you? You look like you’re fitting in okay. I heard you’re a reporter, so it can’t be too bad.”

“Can’t be too bad?” I exploded. “Are you blind? I’m a fucking woman!”

Josh sat down unperturbed in a nearby chair. “Excuse me for not being more sympathetic, but if you’ll recall, I was one for a number of years and I don’t remember ever being this upset about it.”

“Not even when you were raped?” I shot back, suddenly wishing I had left my big mouth shut.

“No, not even then,” he admitted, not apparently upset by the question. “That’s all ancient history now. And if you’re worried about that, you can forget it. I understand the likelihood of that happening in Ovid is pretty slim.”

“Who told you that?” I asked, curiosity momentarily replacing my anger.

“Tony Ross,” he replied. “He runs the jewelry store right down the street from my studio. By the way, he’s going to be my best man.”

“You... you really want to go through with the wedding?” I asked, stunned. Dominic had told me I would have no choice but to go through with it if our plan was to work, but Josh had no such reason. I couldn’t imagine how a man who had been a woman only hours ago could be so ready to marry a woman. Maybe Dan was wrong. Maybe Brenda had been gay after all.

“It’s probably for the best,” he told me, unnerving me with his calmness.

“The best?” I echoed numbly. Brenda and I had fought like cats and dogs since the moment we met. How could this new man possibly contemplate marrying me? What was she–he–thinking about?

“Sure,” Josh said rather cheerfully. “We’re stuck here for the rest of our lives. Don’t look so shocked: surely you realized that. Whatever lives our identities had before led us to each other. I think we can be of great help to each other in sorting all of this out.”

“But we weren’t exactly lovers in our previous lives,” I argued. “In fact, I always got the idea you couldn’t stand me. And now you want to marry me?”

His face became more serious. “Look, Ash–I mean Jenny. I never hated you. I think I hated myself–what I was.”

“I don’t understand. I thought you said you didn’t hate being a woman.”

“I didn’t. What I hated being was a victim. I told you what happened to me. I think after that, I became disgusted that my own body could attract such an animal and be used by him. I didn’t want to ever be used like that again.”

“Even if it was in a loving situation?”

Josh shook his head. “That wasn’t going to happen. I never wanted a man to get that close to me again. I wouldn’t allow it from any man–even you.”

“Me?”

“I was attracted to you. No, don’t protest. I know you had a reputation with women, but I also know you never used them unwillingly. It was a mutual relationship, as chauvinist as it might have seemed sometimes. But I couldn’t bring myself to allow my attraction to lead me to... to its obvious conclusion.”

I was actually touched by his admission. Of course, it gave me far too much credit. When I was Ash, I liked a variety of women. I had never planned to settle down, so what usually happened was that any woman I bedded would eventually decide I wasn’t going to give her a ring and would move on. That was always fine with me. But I suppose to my credit, I never told any of them that she was the one and only. I always made it clear that the relationship would be strictly for laughs. That didn’t mean they always believed me, but at least I had warned them. Is that was Josh had meant when he called my relationships mutual? Well, I suppose compared to Brenda’s relationship with my counterpart at that other station, I was at least civilized in my behavior.

I also thought back to what Susan Jager had said about what would have happened to Brenda and me had we not sneaked into Ovid. I don’t mean the part about dying: I mean the part about the two of us being engaged. Could that really have happened? If so, it would have meant that I would have gotten over my aversion to marriage and Brenda would have gotten over her distrust of men. Perhaps together we would have seen that accomplished.

Unfortunately, we didn’t have that time now. Instead, we were about to be involved in the closest thing the gods could probably devise to a shotgun wedding. We were about to be married whether we wanted to or not.

Strangely enough, though, Josh seemed to be all for the marriage. I had hoped just a little that he would call it all off so I wouldn’t have to go through with it. That way, the gods would have been entertained by Josh and would take the spotlight off me, leaving me free to help Dominic without having to prepare for an unwanted wedding. No such luck, though.

“I suppose we can give it a try...” I murmured, not really believing it but merely following Dominic’s suggestion.

Josh jumped out of his chair, surprising me as he sat next to me on the couch, slipping his arm around me and pulling me to him. “That’s great, Jenny,” he said, muffling my own potential reply by pressing his lips against mine.

I fought the impulse to sputter and push him away, but only for a moment. That isn’t to say I then did those things. Strangely enough, I found myself suddenly relaxing in his arms–even wrapping my own arms around him. The kiss seemed somehow pleasurable, and his strong arms around my waist made me feel almost as if he would protect me from all the worries of the world. It was a strange but pleasant sensation that shot through my body. It seemed somehow... right.

What the hell was going on? Chelsea had mentioned something about suspecting there was a residual magic attached to the transformation spell, but she hadn’t indicated that it took place so quickly. Surely finding pleasure in kissing a man would take me longer than a few hours. At this rate, I’d be snuggling up next to Josh by tomorrow night while wearing a sexy negligee begging him to screw my brains out.

That simply wasn’t going to happen. “Down, boy,” I murmured, pushing him away with whatever willpower I could muster, which fortunately was just enough.

He looked disappointed, but he had the good graces to be a little embarrassed. “Sorry, I just got carried away for a minute.” He shifted uncomfortably, alerting me to the fact that one part of his new anatomy was still getting carried away. “Sorry,” he said again when he noticed my eyes looking at the tent in his khakis.

I couldn’t help it: I broke out laughing. “Today, my boy, you are a man,” I chortled. It was a relief to be able to laugh. It was the first time since my transformation that I had found something to laugh about.

He stood uncomfortably. “How... what do I do to get rid of it?”

I thought about explaining masturbation techniques to him, but as upset as embarrassed as he was I saw no reason to add to his misery–or pleasure. “Just give it a few minutes,” I told him. “By the time you get to your car, it should start going down–especially if it’s getting chilly out there.”

“Okay,” he agreed. “See you tomorrow?”

“Sure.”

When he was gone, Cynthia came out of her room. “What was all the laughter about?” When I told her, she laughed even harder than I had. “Oh, the poor guy,” she giggled.

I was still chuckling to myself when I decided to try to get some sleep. I stopped chuckling when I stripped off my panties, though. They were damp and smelled of something I had experienced only with my partners when I had been male. Just because I didn’t have anything to get hard any more, I had assumed that the only reaction to our kissing had been from Josh. Not so, I realized.

It wasn’t a conscious reaction, I reminded myself as I dressed in a pair of feminine but practical pajamas. It was just my female body with all its female hormones causing the reaction. But what was going to happen after the wedding when Josh was carrying me to our wedding bed? He was obviously going to be hard as a rock then. Was I going to be tingling between my legs, softening and becoming moist in anticipation of being made a woman? No... I just couldn’t let that happen, I told myself. Just to make sure, I locked my knees together tightly before going to sleep.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t even get away from my new sex in sleep. I saw myself in my dreams lying in a bed, my legs spread apart as Brenda loomed over me, morphing suddenly into Josh. I felt something pleasant between my legs and gaped in a mixture of pleasure and horror as the ‘something’ became larger and harder...

“I can’t do it!” I announced without preamble just after I stormed into Dominic’s office.

His expression turned from one of confusion to a sterner expression as my presence triggered the hidden personality lurking within him. “Can’t do what, Jenny?”

I plopped down (quite unladylike) in one of his chairs. “I can’t marry Brenda–Josh–oh whatever his name is!”

Dominic leaned back in his chair, studying me intensely. “I thought we agreed it would be necessary to go through with the wedding so as not to arouse suspicions.”

“It’s not just the wedding,” I explained. “It’s... it’s what comes after the wedding.”

Realization spread across his face. “Is that all that’s worrying you?” There was relief in his voice.

“Isn’t that enough?” I shot back. “I’m not a girl–at least not in my head. I don’t want any part of sex with a man.”

“And you shouldn’t have to,” he assured me.

“What? What about the honeymoon?”

“Jenny,” he began, “The Judge isn’t about to let you and Josh go traipsing off to some honeymoon resort. You might not come back. Few people in Ovid are so trusted that they’re allowed to leave town for any reason.”

“But wouldn’t people–even the ones who lose their real memories–start noticing that they’re trapped here?” I asked.

“Sure–if they knew. As nearly as I’ve been able to figure out, what happens is that people only think they’re leaving town, but in reality, they’re shunted off to some holding location where lucid dreams convince them that they’ve travelled outside Ovid. That’s the way your honeymoon will be. You’ll remember making love to your new husband, but it won’t really happen. Then, when you get back here, just tell him your period has started. It won’t really start for several weeks, but he won’t know that. By the time your phony period ends, we should be rescued.”

“It seems like a lot of your plan depends upon perfect timing,” I grumbled.

He nodded. “That’s true, but can you think of a better one?”

Unfortunately, I couldn’t.

“Phone call for you, Jenny,” a secretary called from the doorway.

“I’ll have everything ready for you to deliver by tomorrow,” Dominic told me. I nodded and went to answer the phone.

“Where are you?” Cynthia chided me on the phone.

“At the office...”

“You have a fitting at nine,” she reminded me. “It’s ten after now. Get down here, girl!”

So I rushed out of the office yelling over my shoulder that I was late to an appointment. It hadn’t taken me long to figure out that even at a small paper like the Ovid Chronicle, reporters came and went pretty much at will. It was only fair, given that reporters had to attend night and weekend meetings. Besides, one look at a pay stub in my purse had shown me why Jenny Olsen had a roommate–on the wages I made I couldn’t afford a place on my own, even in a small town like Ovid.

Cynthia had given me directions to March’s Department Store although I hardly needed them. One drive down Main Street had been enough to locate March’s. Three stories high, it was the tallest and most impressive business building in Ovid. It was the sort of business that had been replaced by Wal-Mart stores in most smaller towns, but I had already noticed that the well-known chain stores seemed to have no outlets in Ovid. I suppose it would have been hard for corporate execs to understand why sales were coming in from a nonexistent town.

As I made my way up to the top floor of March’s where the bridal department was located, I resolved to be cautious. I had little doubt that like Vulman Industries, March’s was probably controlled by one of the gods since it was an important fixture in the town. My suspicions were confirmed when I saw Cynthia standing next to the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. Vera March would have been called a goddess even by those who had no idea how correct they were. Given her beauty and the first two letters of her first name, I was pretty sure I was about to be fitted by Venus herself.

After the usual greetings and smiles, I tried to steel myself against a mental assault I had every reason to believe was about to be perpetrated on me. Venus was a love goddess, and what better place for a goddess to be than in a location where new women would have to come to shop? Once there, she could subtly influence them into being more like natural women. I wondered how many new women had come in to see Vera March only to leave with their minds far more feminine than when they had entered the store.

“This looks gorgeous on you,” Vera said as she arranged the puffed sleeves of my wedding gown. I had to admit looking in the mirror that I made an attractive bride. I kept reminding myself, though, that I was only going through with this to lull my enemies into a false sense of security. If it weren’t for Dominic’s plan, there would have been no way for me to be modelling a wedding gown.

“Yeah, it looks great,” I replied, not untruthfully, but I hoped my responses would be sufficient to keep the goddess from messing with my mind.

They weren’t.

I found unbidden thoughts coming to the forefront of my mind–actually more feelings than thoughts. My body actually tingled as Vera March said, “Josh is just going to love you in this. You’re a lucky girl. He’s a great guy.”

Yes, Josh is a great guy... a great guy...

No!

“No! I mean yes, Josh is a great guy,” I told her, hoping the mental pressure she was subjecting me would subside. To my relief, it did seem to let up just a little. She seemed satisfied with my response.

“I understand he’s taking you to an island resort for your honeymoon,” Vera said in a soothing tone. The statement conjured up a disturbingly pleasant image in my mind of being ravished by Josh while the sun set majestically over a deep blue ocean. Then I remembered Dominic’s assurances that the entire honeymoon would be nothing but a dream.

“Uh... yeah,” I played along, looking at my image more critically in the three-way mirror. I had to change the subject or I’d be so wet I’d probably have my legs spread on the floor of Josh’s studio before the day was over. “Say, isn’t this hem a little uneven?”

“It looks fine to me,” Cynthia interjected.

Vera March looked a little unhappy to have her concentration interrupted, but she recovered quickly. Fortunately for me, I had accomplished my goal. I was relieved to find that I could fight back in limited ways. I was beginning to suspect that because I had been forewarned about Ovid and the gods, I actually had a chance of deflecting some of their attempts to alter my mind. Forewarned is forearmed as the old saying goes.

Not that it would do me a whole lot of good, I thought to myself as I headed back to work. I was still going to have to marry Josh. At least the honeymoon wouldn’t be for real, and hopefully Dominic’s CD would rally the authorities to locate Ovid and force the gods to return all of us to normal. For all their powers, I strongly suspected the gods would be no match for a battalion of trained Marines.

After the fitting, it was back to work. The rest of the day was actually interesting. I got the chance to be a real live reporter although not the way I had planned it when I asked Wally to assign a story to me. I was able to move around Ovid practically at will, handling my assigned stories with reasonable aplomb. In the course of a few hours, I had attended a Chamber of Commerce luncheon where I heard Vera March’s husband speak. It was hard to think that the Classical God of War was now a businessman in an expensive suit and trendy tie.

By late afternoon, I had interviewed a candidate for an upcoming school board election, a professor at Capta College who had written a new book on the life of Shakespeare, and talked to a class of fourth graders about what they were going to be dressed as on Halloween. And I had even written and turned in all of the stories. All would be edited by either Dominic or his father and would be published in the next day’s edition. Since they were all feature stories, there was no reason for them to be pushed into the afternoon’s edition. Besides, the paper went to bed about noon, so it would have been too late for even an important story. Small town papers still tended to publish in the afternoons, so deadlines were a little more lax than at big city rags.

I giggled to myself as I stripped out of my business attire and put on a pair of jeans and a sweater, thinking about what sort of important stories could ever be in the Chronicle. Let’s see, just what sort of ‘Stop the Presses’ type story would be important enough? How about: GODS EXPOSED IN OVID? Maybe I’d get to write that story in a couple of weeks. I just hoped by the time I wrote it, I could by-line it as Ashton Wells.

“So how was work?” Cynthia called from the living room. I heard a pile of books being dropped on the coffee table indicating she had made it to her afternoon classes at least. I was grateful she had cut her morning classes to be with me at the fitting.

“Okay,” I said, joining her. “It’s not exactly like working for the New York Times, but at least the pay is shitty.”

She chuckled. “So what are you and Josh doing tonight?”

I shrugged. I hadn’t thought about Josh since the morning fitting. “Nothing, I guess.”

“Nothing? Hey, you guys are getting married in five days.”

“All the more reason to not spend time with him now,” I pointed out. “If The Judge and his crowd have their way, I’ll be spending the rest of my life with him.”

“True, but shouldn’t you get to know him better?” she asked.

“I already know Brenda,” I replied noncommittally.

She shook her head. “Jenny, Jenny, you’re acting like you want to avoid Josh.”

“And why shouldn’t I?” I shot back. “I feel like I’m in the middle of some kind of Medieval arranged marriage. If I have to be a girl, shouldn’t I be able to find a guy who wines and dines me before popping the question?”

“Then why are you marrying him?” she asked calmly.

How was I going to answer that? Although we were supposed to be friends, I scarcely knew Cynthia. I certainly didn’t know her well enough to confide in her. Even if I did, I couldn’t very well tell her that the only reason I was going through with this sham of a wedding was to allay suspicion so I would be left alone to help Dominic.

“Why?” she asked again.

“What choice do I have?” I finally responded. “I’m... I’m forced to play the cards I’ve been dealt. I don’t like to think of what The Judge might do to me if I refused to marry Josh.”

Without another word, she walked over to the phone and dialled a number.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

She ignored me and said into the phone, “Josh? Hey, I was just thinking we ought to all do something this evening–you know, maybe go out to Winston’s or something? ... Great! But I haven’t got a date. Do you think... I suppose that would work. Are you sure? ... We’ll be ready in an hour.”

She put down the phone. “Good, that’s all settled.”

“What’s all settled?”

“Our night out,” she grinned. “We’re all going to Winston’s.”

“We?”

She took me by the arm, leading me to my room. “Yes, ‘we.’ I’m going with you and Josh. His best man was with him when I called and he’s going to be my date. Now come on, we need to get you ready...”

“What? More makeup? I already feel like a clown,” I grumbled.

“Yes, but a very sexy clown,” Cynthia laughed.

Cynthia worked on me like an artist at an easel. It was as if I was to be her Mona Lisa. Makeup, hairspray, undies, shoes, and dresses appeared and then disappeared once rejected as she made sure I looked my best.

When she was finished, I looked down at myself. For years I had heard women speak of the ‘little black dress’ but I never expected to be wearing one. Cynthia and I were both wearing one for that matter. I had been in skirts all day, but it was nothing quite like this. I felt as if I was half-naked with my very short hem and my low-cut front. And I knew from staring at myself in the mirror that my face was much more dramatically made up than it had been during the day. I just hoped Josh didn’t laugh when he saw me.

He didn’t.

In fact, his reaction was pretty unexpected coming from a man who had been a woman less than two days ago. Namely, he leered at me. I felt my face flush and was afraid my embarrassment showed all the way down to my exposed legs. “You look incredible,” he murmured, surprising me further by slipping his arms around me and kissing me. Pressed against me, I could feel a very, very hard organ which should have made me very, very nervous.

But for some reason, it didn’t. I made me feel... willing...

What the hell was happening to me? I wondered. Inside this feminine body, I was still a man. I wanted more than anything else in the world to have my manhood returned to me, and yet somehow I couldn’t resist enjoying what was happening to me. I hadn’t expected the behavioral side of Ovid’s magic to be so strong.

“Hey, get a room!” a man’s voice called from the doorway. Pushing back the strange thought that that wouldn’t be a bad idea, I looked over Josh’s shoulder at a very good-looking man dressed as Josh was in a sports coat and turtleneck. He was about Josh’s height with dark, curly hair that made him look like a real ladies’ man.

“Hi, Tony,” Cynthia grinned at her date. The handsome man grinned back. “Hi, Cynthia. You look great.”

“You, too,” she replied, taking his arm. I hadn’t realized that Cynthia knew Tony Ross, but I suppose since Ovid was a small town I shouldn’t have been surprised. It seemed as if everyone knew everyone else in a small town.

As much as I hated to admit it, I had one of the best times that night that I could ever remember. Even being a girl didn’t seem so bad once I got used to men casting furtive glances at Cynthia and me the minute we walked into the dining room. I supposed it was the wine, or maybe it was the steaks–Winston’s served the most succulent steaks I had ever tasted–or maybe it was just that the four of us seemed to get along so well together, but whatever the reason, I really enjoyed myself.

Josh was lots of fun, too. If I concentrated very hard, I could detect Brenda behind Josh’s big blue eyes, but it was the good side of Brenda–her intelligence and her humor. All the bitterness and condemnation that had made us nearly enemies seemed gone, replaced by confidence and conciliation. I think it had something to do with the emotional baggage her sexual assault must have left her with. Now, in a male body, it had become more distant. I supposed that with male equipment between his legs, it was hard to visualize the sexual assault he had experienced when he was Brenda. I wished that I had known her when I was Ash but before she had been assaulted.

By the end of the evening, I had become so comfortable–or perhaps just a little bit tipsy–that I didn’t seem as upset as I might have otherwise been when Tony stopped the car at an unfamiliar house.

“Why are we stopping?” I asked from my comfortable spot in the back seat where I was snuggling up to Josh to stay warm in my thin dress.

“This is Josh’s house,” Tony explained, making it apparent to me that he, like Cynthia, Josh and I, remembered a previous life.

“Oh!” was all I said. The alcohol had dulled my thinking just a bit, but not so much that I didn’t realize what was happening. Since the engine was still running, I knew Tony and Cynthia were parting company with Josh and me. I also knew what was likely to happen in Josh’s house when they did. For some reason, though, it didn’t seem very important.

Josh helped me into the house, although to be honest, he seemed a bit wobbly as well. My muddled mind had decided that I had simply drunk too much for my new, smaller body to handle, but Josh seemed as tipsy as I was.

We collapsed together on his living room couch, giggling to each other. Fortunately, I landed on top of him. I hated to think what it would be like to support his weight in such an awkward position.

“How much did you have to drink?” I asked him in a slurred voice.

“I don’t drink,” he replied, a little offended. Then a cloud passed over his face. “No, that’s not right. Brenda didn’t drink. I guess I do.”

Well that explained why he was so affected by the drinks. Even in a larger male body, he simply wasn’t used to drinking. I wondered just a little if Brenda’s abstinence had anything to do with the sexual attack she had endured.

I liked to think later that I had instinctively just rested my head on his, and that our lips accidentally touched, but in final retrospect, I think I was just giving in to the impulses of my new body. Whatever the reason, I kissed him then and there. It wasn’t as unpleasant a sensation as I had suspected it would be. Sure, I had kissed him once before at my apartment, but that had been... different–more casual somehow. The idea of kissing a man so passionately was abhorrent to my sober mind, but the alcohol seemed to make it more palatable. Still, it was odd to kiss another person and not feel the slickness of lipstick or the soft smoothness of a woman’s cheek. Josh’s skin felt rougher than mine but not unpleasantly so. And as for the beard... well, it tickled.

In retrospect, I can remember many times when as a man, I would find myself with a woman in my arms who simply melted there, waiting for me to make the next move. Nothing needed to be said as our bodies knew what to do. The same was true that evening with Josh on the couch, although our roles had been obviously reversed. I felt strangely safe in his strong arms, and I could feel myself responding to the hardness I felt growing in his trousers. My own crotch seemed to be getting warmer and moist until...

Oh god, no! This was leading to something that my unconscious mind, dulled by alcohol, wanted desperately. But even the alcohol wasn’t enough to make my conscious mind go along.

I pushed back from him, wobbling unsteadily on my heels. “Josh... no.”

He looked up at me, confused. “I thought...” His voice trailed off. It wasn’t too hard to figure out what he had been about to say.

“Yes, I did,” I agreed, “but I can’t–not yet.”

He pushed himself up uncomfortably. “At least now I know why men become so insistent about sex,” he sighed, looking down at the tent in his pants.

“Look, I know we... we’ll...” I stammered. “I mean, after the wedding, we’ll have to... get used to our new roles, but I don’t want to... to...”

He rose unsteadily and gently brushed a tear from my cheek. “Don’t worry. I understand,” he said softly. “After what I... what Brenda went through, I suppose I wouldn’t be much of a man if I didn’t understand.”

“You’re... you’re all right with it?”

He nodded. “Of course. Come on: I’ll take you home.”

“That might not be a good idea,” I told him. “Did you see the way Tony and Cynthia were looking at each other? I wouldn’t want to... interrupt them.”

Josh looked around. “Well, I suppose you can stay here. Apparently Jenny and Josh stayed together often from the amount of women’s clothing in my bedroom.” He grinned. “Either that or Josh is a cross dresser.”

I grinned back at him. “Okay, I’ll sleep on the couch.”

He shook his head. “Nope. I’ll sleep out here. Do you mind if I get ready for bed first?”

A little while later, Josh returned in a fresh pair of pajamas. I had always preferred sleeping in my skivvies when I was a man, so I smiled at how proper he looked in them. The tent had gone away, and the length of time he had spent in the shower convinced me that he had probably figured out the male way to eliminate a hard on when a girl wasn’t available... or willing.

I was still smiling about that as I took my own shower, but I soon learned I had nothing to hold over him. My own body betrayed me as I thought back to what had nearly happened on the couch. I felt moist again, and felt a strange sensation between my legs and in my nipples. Using my hand, I soaped up my body, tarrying unconsciously at those points until... until...

It wasn’t the explosion I remembered when I was male: instead, it built up more slowly, each moment becoming more and more pleasurable until a short gasp escaped from my mouth. I stopped at once, frightened by my own response, but my body began to demand more. I gently stroked myself again while my other hand gently squeezed a nipple. I sank to the floor of the shower, unexpectedly wetting my hair as the waves of pleasure ebbed and flowed through my entire body.

I sat there letting the water course over me, basking in the warm afterglow of what I recognized must have been my very first female orgasm–and my second as well. At last I found the strength to get to my feet, allowing my automatic responses to wash my hair and finish my shower.

As I brushed my drying hair, I looked at myself carefully in the mirror. I had seen myself several times since my conversion, but never had I noticed how sexy I could look. While I still was certain I lacked ‘The Look’ I would need for a career in television news, I could not deny that I radiated a certain earthy beauty. I looked as if I were a fine Irish country lass, fresh as morning and lovely as only the Irish could be. My new last name wasn’t Irish, but maybe I got my looks from my mother’s side. The photos I had of my new mother showed her to have the same coloring I did.

In bed at last, I thought to myself that if Dominic’s plan failed and I was forced to remain a woman, at least I would be an attractive one. I had been considered handsome as a man, and while I don’t think I had been obsessed with my looks, I could paraphrase Gertrude Stein substituting ‘good-looking’ and ‘homely’ for ‘rich’ and ‘poor’: Given the choice between good-looking and homely, good-looking is better.

With that thought, I drifted off to sleep.

Wednesday proved to be a very busy day. Dominic promised me he would have the CD ready for me by the end of the day. “But first, I have a couple of assignments for you,” he told me.

I hoped they didn’t take long. Cynthia had informed me that the college sorority we both were members of was having a shower for me that evening. She was going to show me the pictures of each of the girls in the Capta College yearbook so I would know each of the attendees. That, coupled with my assignments for the day, wouldn’t leave me much time to look at the disk myself. Of course, I was going to copy it even though Dominic had warned me not to, but I had held back on doing any research about Ovid until I saw what was on the disk, and I was very, very curious. After all, curiosity is one of the attributes that makes a good reporter, right?

The first assignment didn’t take too long. It involved interviewing a real estate broker who was building a two-floor office building across from City Hall. It was the first new office building in Ovid in quite a while and was thus big news–front-page stuff. I tried to remain serious as I interviewed the broker, but it was difficult. He was so proud of his new building, and yet even in a market like Oklahoma City, news of its construction would have barely rated a paragraph in the back of the business section. I suppose it did denote healthy growth for the town, so maybe by local standards it was big stuff.

My next assignment was even more small-town. I had to attend a first grade class to report on a project the kids had done about protecting the environment. As I sat at one of their diminutive desks which even in my smaller body was too tiny, each of the students trooped individually to the front of the room to recite a couple of quick sentences for my benefit. Thankfully, their teacher had given me a script, so I didn’t have to take notes.

I was just about to glaze over completely when the teacher called out, “All right, Chelsea, it’s your turn.”

I jerked up to see a young girl with hair somewhere between light brown and dark blonde march up to the front of the classroom. She had been considerably older when I last saw her, but there was no mistaking her for anyone except Chelsea Bridgewater.

“Trees are important to our envir... environment,” she stammered in the way of all young children as she rocked back and forth on her little pink tennis shoes. I wasn’t listening to her words, though. I was watching her imagining her as the older girl who had started me on this strange journey. For anyone not a victim of The Judge’s transformative power, it would have been impossible for them to believe the diminutive girl had ever been a twelve-year-old Girl Scout, let alone a six foot plus male biker.

The class broke for lunch, and I asked the teacher if it would be all right if I interviewed a couple of the students as they ate. I suppose it was one advantage to being a woman: I couldn’t imagine a teacher ever giving a man permission to be one on one with her young charges. When she gave me permission, I quickly zoned in on Chelsea. She was eating lunch by herself–an odd situation for a pretty young girl. I could see from the way she stared at the other girls that she was just too embarrassed to become one of them.

“Can I talk to you?” I asked, sitting across from her.

“I guess,” she murmured, wary of me. Of course there was no way she could know that I was the reporter–the male reporter–who had interviewed her a couple of weeks earlier.

“I know who you are... who you were, Chelsea,” I stated bluntly.

Fear entered her eyes. “How... who are you?”

“A friend,” I told her. “Don’t worry–I’m not one of them.” There was no need to explain exactly who ‘them’ was. “I know what they did to you. I know this latest transformation was a punishment. I just wanted you to know...”

Know what? That I was about to risk everything to get a message out of town that just might change everything? No, I couldn’t tell her that.

Before I could say anything else, she broke in angrily with her high-pitched lisp, “Look, I don’t know who you are or what you want but just leave me alone! The Judge told me if I got out of line again, he’d turn me into a little baby. This is bad enough, but at least I don’t wake up in my own poop.”

“But...”

“Go now!” she demanded just above a whisper so as not to attract undue attention. “Whoever you are, don’t do anything to get us all in trouble. We’re all stuck here... for the rest of our lives. Don’t do anything to make our lives any worse.”

I could only nod and leave. I was somewhat shaken when I got back to my car. I hadn’t expected such a hostile response from her. I had only meant to somehow tell her that help was on the way. How many others were there like her in Ovid? How many hated their lives so completely? Dominic and Chelsea were two of a kind, while Josh, Cynthia, Tony and many others I had met in Ovid seemed quite content with their new lives.

Of course, maybe Chelsea would eventually conform to being a little girl. Maybe she’d even be happy about it someday. She had only been a first grader for a short time–probably just a day or so longer than I had been Jennifer Olson. I hoped for her sake that she could eventually reconcile herself to her new life. Of course, unless Dominic and I were successful, I’d better save some of that hope for myself as well.

I had known, of course, from Susan that Chelsea was now a six-year-old girl, but seeing her as she now was had struck a chord with me, making me realize that what I was about to do for Dominic held significant risks. Who could say? In a few days, I might be joining Chelsea in her first grade class. Or maybe I’d experience something else–something worse. Chelsea had just tried to get away from Ovid: I was trying to bring the entire crazy town down.

I had at least recovered my composure by the time Cynthia and I had to go to the shower. I guess going back to the office first and writing a couple of stories had helped me forget what I might be facing, but even more important was the fact that I now had Dominic’s disk.

“Be very careful with it,” he cautioned me. “I’ve set up an assignment for you before dawn tomorrow to interview a trucker and a representative from Duggan’s IGA. All you need to do is make sure that CD is in the cab of the truck when he leaves Ovid.”

“How will he know what’s on it?” I asked, slipping the disk into my purse.

“I’ve recorded an audio introduction,” he explained. “When he tries to play it, he’ll hear a message asking him to turn the disk over to your contact at KFOR-TV. I checked and your old boss, Wally Moore is still there.”

I had given Dominic Wally’s name earlier in the hope that in spite of the fact that I was no longer the anchorman at the station, whoever my counterpart there now was would have been strong enough to keep our numbers up and keep Wally there. Thankfully, he was. Of course, Wally wouldn’t remember me, so the CD would reach him anonymously via the driver.

“What will cause the driver to play it?” I asked.

Dominic chuckled, “You didn’t look at the cover of the CD, did you?”

I pulled it back out of my purse. The picture on the cover showed a bearded man in a black hat smiling and the title ‘Waylon Jennings–Greatest Hits’ on it.

“What if he doesn’t like country music?” I asked, putting it back in my purse.

Dominic grinned. “Have you ever known a trucker who didn’t like country music?”

He had a point there.

Of course I made a copy of the CD in spite of Dominic’s insistence that I not do so. I was, after all, a reporter as well as a prisoner of Ovid. As much as I wanted to be rescued with the possibility of a return to my old life, I also wanted to know how much Dominic had been able to learn of Ovid and its purpose. Since I knew Dominic would check my desk after I left, I had both copies in my purse. One I would give to the trucker, of course, but I had taken most of the next day off, supposedly to meet my ersatz parents, but also to give me a chance to review the CD on Cynthia’s computer.

I was going to be busy between now and Saturday. According to Cynthia, my ‘parents’ would be flying in from Atlanta, and on Friday, a rehearsal dinner and bachelorette party were on tap. It was ironic that a person like me who had avoided the trap of matrimony for so many years was about to fall victim to a traditional wedding–and as the bride, no less!

“Now don’t be nervous,” Cynthia ordered me as we walked up to the imposing brightly-lit sorority house. “I’ll make sure to greet everyone by name so you’ll know who’s who.”

“Is the entire sorority going to be there?” I asked nervously, wondering how I would ever be able to remember the names of fifty or sixty girls.

“Most of them,” she admitted. “You were a very popular girl in the sorority last year. Everyone wanted to attend.”

As Cynthia ushered me in, a chorus of girlish squeals and laughs greeted me. I was grabbed, hugged, kissed and otherwise touched to such an extent that I had a momentary fantasy of being in my old body and enjoying the attention of such a bevy of beauties. Fortunately, I didn’t have to remember any names. Girls were spreading my attention in so many directions at once that there wasn’t time to call them by name.

I was ushered to a seat of honor on a large couch near a cosy fireplace. Piled all around were gifts in a variety of silver, gold and pastel wrappings. Cynthia plopped down next to me while on my other side, an absolutely scrumptious blue-eyed blonde took her place. The blonde whispered in my ear, “Hi, Jenny. Welcome to Ovid. I’m Myra Smithwick.”

That actually made me relax a little. I was now buffered on both sides by girls who knew I had not always been Jennifer Olson. As I looked around the room more carefully, I noticed several other girls giving me an encouraging look, as if they, too, knew I had been transformed. While they were in the minority–the shades and unaware transformees making up the bulk of the audience–it made me feel good to realize that I was not alone.

Oddly, though, I would have traded places with many of them. At least as an unattached coed, I might have an easier time helping Dominic to get us out of Ovid. As the bride-to-be, my time was very circumscribed. Even compared to others stuck in Ovid, I considered myself less fortunate. Most of these girls could dump a boyfriend they had been saddled with after their transformations. It would have been much more difficult for me to break off an engagement without causing trouble with The Judge.

“I get to hand out the gifts!” Myra called out, handing me the first one before anyone could protest.

“Who’s that one from?” someone called out.

“Me!” a pretty blonde called out.

“And me,” a great-looking brunette standing next to her called out.

I glanced at the tag–‘From Laurel and April’ the card read. “Thanks, guys,” I said, not having the slightest idea which of the girls was Laurel and which was April.

I wouldn’t have been so effusive in my thanks if I had known what was in the gift box. Inside the white and pink striped box folded in pink paper was a royal blue teddie so skimpy that whatever price they had paid for it would have been way too much if they had paid by the yard.

A chorus of girlish squeals and giggling greeted me as I reluctantly took it from the box and put it on public display. “Just what kind of a shower is this?” I whispered to Cynthia.

The look on her face was absolutely devilish. “Oh? Did I forget to tell you? It’s a lingerie shower.”

Somehow, I made it through the evening. Some of the gifts were like the teddie Laurel and April had given me, but a number of the gifts were considerably cruder. In spite of a long and pleasant relationship with many sexy women, I had never realized that when it came to sex, girls can have a sense of humor that would embarrass a longshoreman.

“Did you like your gifts?” Cynthia asked slyly as she drove us home.

“Where did those guys find some of that stuff?” I marvelled. Over the course of the evening, my face turned red more times than a traffic light. It seemed as if every box contained something lewd and/or crude. I was beginning to feel as if my male sex life–which I had thought was quite robust–had left more than a few holes in my carnal education.

“Think about it,” Cynthia laughed. “In the bedroom, who dresses up in frilly little nothings while balancing on high heels and wearing sexy stockings? It certainly isn’t the guy. Girls are lucky if their partner is wearing clean shorts.”

“Okay, but what about that other stuff?”

“Girls just want to have fun,” she grinned.

Yeah. With what I had been given that evening, a girl could have more fun than going to Disneyland.

The shower had left me a little keyed up, so I didn’t get nearly as much sleep as I needed. The alarm went off at four thirty and I somehow managed to get out of bed and make myself presentable. It was still a little chilly out, so I opted for a sweater, dark skirt and boots. I hoped the nylons would cut the cold down. By all rights, I should have worn pants, but a little vamping might be required to get access to the truck cab. The plan was that I would slip the CD into other stuff which was bound to be strewn across the truck seats. Then no one would ever know who had delivered the disk in the first place.

It was still dark when I got to the loading dock of Duggan’s IGA. I felt a pang of regret when I saw the truck sitting there. If I had just been half as smart as I thought I was, I would never have stowed away on a similar rig and today I would probably be sleeping with some news groupie back in OKC. If... if... if...

There was no sense in crying about it now. I was doing everything I could to get the hell out of Ovid. I only hoped our plan worked and that there would be a way for me to get my old life back again.

As I got out of my car, a nice-looking guy in a white shirt and tie came over to meet me. He had a big boyish grin on his face and the soft Oklahoma twang that was pretty much the standard accent in Ovid. “Hi! You must be Jenny Olson,” he said.

“Yeah,” I replied, shaking his hand.

“Jerry Patton,” he introduced himself. “I’m the store manager.”

“Do you always get up this early?” I asked him.

He grinned again. “No, ma’am. But since you’re going to write a story that involves us, I thought it would be a good idea to be here to greet you.”

Unfortunately, Jerry Patton was more interested in getting me to write a story about his store than he was in introducing me to the truck driver. As he showed me around the store, I kept looking over my shoulder to make sure the driver was still offloading the produce he had brought in. At last, I was able to get the manager to introduce me to the driver.

“Hoss Jones,” he drawled, taking my small hand in his large rough one. With his battered cowboy hat and rumpled clothes, he looked as if he ate and slept in his truck all the time. Maybe he did. At least he looked like someone who liked country music a lot more than he liked opera.

He showed me around his rig, explaining everything about it in far more detail than he would have if I had still been male. I guess he just figured that a little lady like me just wouldn’t understand all those complicated mechanical things like tires and trailer hitches and gear shifts. At least it was no problem to get a look at the cab. Unfortunately, he followed me in so he could point out every switch and gauge (and sit real, real close to me, too).

While he was pointing out something to the left of the steering wheel, I was able to slip the CD into a pile of real country discs piled on the floor of the passenger seat. The die was cast. Dominic’s plan would either work or it wouldn’t. I realized not for the first time that if it didn’t work, I could be stuck in Ovid as a woman for the rest of my life.

“It’s done,” I told Dominic when I got back to the office.

“What’s done?” he asked. I realized at once that I was seeing the other side of Dominic’s personality. Come to think of it, he had explained to me that switching back and forth gave him terrific headaches, so he probably stayed in his more benign mode most of the time.

“Uh... the trucking story. I’ve written it up,” I recovered.

“Oh... good.”

I suppressed a shiver as I left his office. Between my assignments and my upcoming wedding, I hadn’t had much of a chance to see Dominic in his ‘native’ persona. No wonder his father seemed to have little confidence in him. All the initiative and intelligence seemed to be resident in his other personality.

Back at my desk, I tidied up a few things so I could take the rest of the day off. My confidence was somewhat shaken. Maybe I hadn’t been too far off when I made the wisecrack about working with a psycho. What if someone outside Ovid got the disk and managed to call Dominic? The person I had just seen would never corroborate what was on the disk–he would be too timid to do so. I was even beginning to wonder if Dominic’s fear of being watched wasn’t a paranoid delusion.

Speaking of paranoia, I was wondering just what The Judge would do to me if this whole plan fell apart and I was left holding the bag. What he would do to me would probably make Chelsea’s punishment seem like a real picnic.

Besides, I was beginning to think, was life as a young woman in Ovid really so unbearable? It was amazing how quickly I had gotten used to such male nightmares as wearing makeup, dressing in skirts, and peeing while sitting down.

And if what Susan had been right about Brenda and I getting married? It seemed unlikely, but the more I thought about it, I had always been strangely attracted to her when I was Ash. For that matter, despite her barbs at me, she seemed to be somehow intrigued with me. What if Ovid hadn’t happened and she and I had gone out on another story–a big, successful story? What if we celebrated together and decided we made a pretty good team? What if I leaned over and kissed her? What if...?

Brenda.

The Ice Queen.

Why had I taken her with me to do the Ovid story? Was it because she was a great camerawoman? Sure, she was that, but what if I really asked her along just to show her I was... worthy of her?

The more I thought about it, the more I realized I had actually had fun with Josh the other night. I hadn’t been worried about the fact that he was a man, because deep down inside, I saw Brenda. Were we really meant to be together? If so, had I destroyed the chance of making that happen?

The phone trilled, bringing me out of my reverie. “Ash... uh... Jenny Olson,” I answered, forcing myself out of my daze.

“Hi, Jenny,” a cheery voice said. “It’s mom. We’re here.”

This was a moment I had been dreading. Undoubtedly, my ‘parents’ were going to be two shades since neither resided in Ovid. They were, I suspected, created in whatever manner shades were created simply to act as my parents for the wedding. Then, they’d disappear and I would see them only when they were necessary to maintain the illusion of normalcy.

As I drove to meet them at my apartment, I tried to steel myself to act like a normal girl about to get married. I had no idea what the powers of the shades were. Perhaps they were somehow in communication with The Judge. If so, I’d have to be a typical daughter around them. I wished to myself that I had had the time to review the copy of Dominic’s disk that was still in my purse. Unfortunately, I hadn’t been alone long enough to do so, and now that dear old mom and dad were in town, finding time alone would be even harder.

Cynthia had already met my parents since she was between classes. She had even gotten them coffee and was entertaining them in the living room when I walked in.

“Sweetheart!” my ‘mom’ called out, rushing over to give me a tearful hug. ‘Dad’ was next with the hugs and a quick, “Hi, princess.” Princess! My god, I thought that name went out with Father Knows Best. Still, I smiled and returned the hug.

My parents were a surprise. First of all, they weren’t shades, so where had they come from? Was there a network of people around the country who knew of Ovid and believed it to be a normal community? Did they really think I was their daughter? I finally found out what was going on after Cynthia left for her next class.

“Surprised that we’re real?” Dad asked bluntly with a smug smile on his face.

“Actually, yes,” I replied, nonplussed.

“It’s simple really,” Mom said, smoothing back a strand of red hair that made her look like an older version of me.

“Yes,” Dad chimed in, putting an arm around Mom. “We’re... like The Judge.”

“Only not as important, dear,” Mom chided him. “Let’s not have Jennifer thinking we’re all that powerful.”

“I suppose you’re right, dear.”

My mouth was open in shock. “You mean you’re g... g...”

Mom came over to me and gently shut my mouth. “Now don’t try to say it, dear. You know The Judge doesn’t like for people to say things like that out loud. But yes, in a very minor sort of way that’s exactly who we are.”

“We work for The Judge’s wife,” Dad explained, taking another sip of coffee. “She has a special interest in marriage, and since she doesn’t live here, she decided that you should at least have some support from her. Rather than use shades, she decided that we should be Robert and Nancy Olson.”

“At least until the wedding is over,” Mom clarified.

“Then shades will be good enough,” Dad added.

These gods would also be more effective chaperones than shades, I realized. It seemed as if the gods were taking no chances. Josh and I were to be married no matter what. The problem now was that I probably wouldn’t have time to see what was on the disk before the wedding. I only hoped the original would find its way into the right hands.

The next days were a whirlwind of activity. Having never been married–and certainly having never been a bride–I had no idea of the work required to put a wedding together. Josh was supportive and just a little wistful at times. I think as much as he enjoyed his new male body, some little part of him realized he would never have the chance to experience what I was experiencing.

Of course, if I could have, I would have gladly let him experience it for me. I seemed to be constantly surrounded by giggling girls, cloying parents, and a host of others such as the minister who was to marry us and the vendors who would be supplying flowers and refreshments on the big day.

Maybe it was all for the best. I would have been a nervous wreck if I had had too much time to dwell on the fact that I was a woman who was about to be married. Staying busy was probably best for me.

And in spite of my earlier concerns, I did at least manage to get a look at the disk, although it was late Friday night after Cynthia and some of my other friends had taken me out for a rather tame bachelorette party at Randy Andy’s. Thank god there were no male strippers. When we had gotten home, Cynthia had trooped off to bed, having left her laptop in the kitchen. It was the perfect opportunity to see what Dominic had been able to find.

To be honest, I was a little disappointed. For someone who had spent so many years in Ovid, there was really very little on the disk that I hadn’t already figured out for myself. As I had suspected, most of the town leaders were gods, and some of them were very important ones as I remember them from mythology stories. Perhaps of most interest to the government was that Eric Vulman was really the god Vulcan. I wondered what some of the security gurus in Washington would make of that.

To be fair to Dominic, it appeared that only one side of his split personality bothered to research the gods, and that side was far less often in control. Still, I couldn’t help but be disappointed that he had discovered very little about the origins of Ovid (other than the fact that it had been established only a few years ago and not early in the twentieth century as the local history books proclaimed), and he had discovered almost nothing on why it was established.

Who, what, why, when, where–those were the key questions all of us learned back in journalism school. Well, why not run through them?

Who? The gods. That was an easy one.

What? They established a town out of nowhere.

Where? Another easy one, or was it? Presumably, we were in Oklahoma, but if we were, why couldn’t everyone find it? But okay, for the sake of argument, ‘where’ was Oklahoma.

When? Sometime in the last few years. Although that wasn’t very accurate, it meant something had caused them to create the town.

The something was the why, and the why was the unanswered question. Presumably, the gods had been wandering the planet for thousands of years. Why would they suddenly decide to establish a community in the heart of a country that had never revered them? If they were going to build a town, why not build it in Italy or Greece?

The answer had to be that the United States offered them something those other places did not. But what?

Whatever the reason, I was too tired and my mind was too fogged with alcohol to think it through. I removed the disk and placed it back in my purse. Answers would have to wait for another day. Groggily, I dragged myself off to bed.

It was Saturday, I realized when I woke up. It was the day I was to be married–as a woman–to a man. Oh my God, what had I let myself in for? Maybe it wasn’t too late to call it off, I reasoned. After all, the disk was already out of Ovid. Maybe it was already in Wally’s hands. Maybe the National Guard or the Marines or Star Fleet or somebody was already on the way to rescue all of us.

Or maybe not.

Either way, unless a miracle happened, I was due to be married in just a few hours. Then it would be off to an imaginary honeymoon. At least all of that would be a dream since there was no way Josh and I would be trusted enough to let us actually leave town. But then, it would be back to Ovid and setting up house together–unless we were rescued.

Cynthia barged into my room. “Come on girl, get up! You have a hair appointment in half an hour. Then we have to get you dressed and get your makeup on.”

“It can’t take all that long,” I groaned, my head falling back onto the pillow.

“There you go thinking like a man again,” she grumbled, dragging me into a sitting position. “Now get up. I have to get ready too, you know.”

Well, I had told Dominic I’d go through with it, I told myself. And Josh... I had to admit I was growing to like him. At the rehearsal and the following dinner, he was attentive and a gentleman. He seemed to be enjoying his role, and I had to admit I seemed less uncomfortable when he was around. It was strange how I was still having trouble seeing myself as a woman and yet had no trouble seeing him as a man.

With a sigh, I got up and began to get ready for the big day. Here comes the bride, guys, ready or not.

“There!” my new mother said triumphantly as she made a last minute correction to my lipstick. It was all I could do in spite of my nervousness to keep from chuckling. She had been clucking about like a mother hen as my bridesmaids helped me into the dress. I found I actually liked her, in spite of the fact that she was technically the enemy. She and my new father had remained in the background, advancing only when needed, such as meeting Josh’s shade parents or hosting the pre-nuptial dinner. Now, there was a huge smile on her face as she admired her work. The expression was mirrored by each of my bridesmaids.

I turned to the three-way mirror to see for myself, and I had to admit that although I lacked ‘The Look’ for television, I made a very attractive bride. My red hair was styled in a sophisticated upsweep and my makeup had left just enough of my abundant freckles to look alluring.

“You make a beautiful bride,” my new father said, taking my arm. He led me out into the foyer of the church, away from the doors so I couldn’t see the guests just yet.

I didn’t answer his compliment. Frankly, I wasn’t sure how I could. To deny that I looked beautiful would have been a useless lie. Oh, I suppose I wasn’t exactly beautiful in the traditional sort of way, but I was still a damned good-looking bride. Of course, someone once commented that all brides are beautiful. I suppose there’s some truth in that. What woman doesn’t look her absolute best on her wedding day?

The other reason I didn’t respond was that I was in something very much akin to shock. A short week ago, I had been a man and yet here I was now in a wedding dress about to become a bride. The unreality of Ovid was being replaced in my mind with the terrible realization that this was really happening to me. I was on my ‘father’s’ arm about to be given away as a bride, as if I were some sort of commodity. Maybe I should have refused Dominic’s advice, taken my chances of drawing the gods’ notice and told Josh I had no interest in participating in a sham wedding. I had no desire to be a wife, period.

I watched in stony silence as each of my bridesmaids entered on the arm of one of Josh’s groomsmen. Then Cynthia, my maid of honor, flashed a particularly encouraging smile before taking her turn down the aisle. They were all smiling, none of them having any inkling of the fact that the lovely bride they saw felt more like a prisoner about to be marched to the scaffold. Then, the music changed to the traditional Wedding March and my heart crashed straight through my stomach and onto the floor. It took incredible concentration on my part to keep from wetting myself with my barely-familiar new plumbing.

My father sensed my problem and pulled me a little closer on his arm, covering my hand with his free one. “Don’t worry,” he assured me. “You’re doing fine.”

All eyes were turned on me as I was slowly escorted up the aisle. The rustle of silk and satin along the white carpet sounded almost as loud as the music to be. My legs felt weak and I surprised myself by somehow walking steadily in heels which were still a little new to me. I tried to smile and must have succeeded, because the guests were smiling back.

Perhaps a part of the audience had come to gloat, for I could see all of the individuals who had been in the courtroom with me the day of my transformation. There was my attorney, holding hands with a handsome man, the blonde who had not spoken in the courtroom, surprising me by being on the arm of the Duggan’s manager who had showed me around, Officer Mercer, still in uniform and still wearing his sunglasses, Vera March and her formidable husband and...The Judge.

Even The Judge was standing with a woman–an attractive, almost regal woman. Although Dominic had not mentioned her, I had no doubt that it was The Judge’s wife, Juno. Although she stood by his side, the two kept a slight distance between them, as if they were there in a strictly ceremonial role. As I remembered my mythology, they were often on the outs with each other. I presumed this was one of those times.

Then my eyes focused on Josh, standing tall and proud with Tony at his side. If Josh was nervous, he didn’t show it. I was continually amazed at how readily he had adopted his new sex, but I suppose given Brenda’s unfortunate sexual assault, being male was a relief.

I all but tuned out the minister’s message. I really didn’t need to hear it: it was the standard Methodist ceremony, and having been raised in the Methodist Church, I had heard it recited a dozen times at least. I dutifully uttered, “I do,” at the appropriate point and mechanically stuck out my hand to receive the wedding band. Josh’s hand was trembling slightly as he put on the ring. Maybe he was a little nervous after all. Good, I thought. At least I wasn’t the only one who was about to panic.

“You may kiss the bride,” the minister said. I didn’t resist (I was too numb) as Josh swept me into his arms and kissed me. It wasn’t the first time he had kissed me, and I couldn’t help but notice that once again, it seemed oddly right. Maybe it was the corset of the dress, but I felt almost breathless for a moment.

“May I now present to you Mr. And Mrs. Joshua Garfield,” the minister happily intoned.

Mrs.... Joshua... Garfield.

Well at least I wasn’t Jenny Olson anymore. No one could chuckle about that now.

None of the gods let on that they were anything but normal wedding guests as they passed through the receiving line at the reception. Of course, most of them probably didn’t know I was aware of their true identities, and I did my best to act normal–or at least normal for what was expected of a new bride. Even Officer Mercer and The Judge acted as if everything was normal, both of them merely congratulating Josh and complimenting me on my beauty. The Judge’s companion was a bit more open, though.

“I know you probably don’t think so right now,” she said insightfully, “but you will come to love your new role.”

I was a little alarmed, nearly pulling my hand away from hers. Did she know something–perhaps from my touch as Eric Vulman had? “I’ll try,” I assured her with a nervous smile.

She must not have used her powers to read what was in my mind, for she smiled back. “I know you will, dear. Best of luck on the honeymoon.”

Yeah, the honeymoon. At least it wouldn’t be real. Josh had told me only that we would be on a beach, but I knew the beach would only be there in our dreams.

At last, it was time for us to leave for our honeymoon. I was dressed in a winter white suit as Josh ushered me to his car in a shower of rice. Soon we were on the road, but he wasn’t heading to the edge of town as I had expected.

“Where are you going?” I asked nervously. Maybe he had decided to get a little before we left town. Now what would I do?

“It’s a surprise,” he told me. “Now before you say anything, it’s going to be a surprise for me as well. Tony and Cynthia have something planned.”

“Tony and Cynthia?”

“Yeah. They’re g... I mean they’re like The Judge.” He looked at me sitting there with my mouth wide open. “You mean you didn’t know? I thought you’d figure that out in no time. Tony told me.”

Some reporter I was. One of the gods had been under my own roof and I hadn’t even known it! I had gotten lazy. I had depended upon Dominic to do all my legwork for me. I had just assumed that Cynthia, like me, had been transformed into an Ovid resident.

And yet Tony had even told Josh. Had Josh been so cooperative about the whole wedding thing that Tony had decided to level with him? Probably, I thought.

“Who... who are they?” I asked stupidly.

Josh just smiled. “You know we can’t talk about that–at least not directly. Indirectly, though, is another matter. For example, did you know that the Romans and Greeks had dozens of minor deities relating to love and marriage? No? Many of them were very obscure. Take Eros, for example. Did you know he had a brother named Anteros?”

Anteros... Anteros... Anthony Ross!

“And Juno was the chief goddess of marriage. One of her assistants was called Cinxia...”

Cynthia, of course.

I thought back on our double date a few nights ago. No wonder Tony and Cynthia looked as if they knew each other. They had probably been close since before Julius Caesar was a pup. How many other transformees had they brought unsuspectingly to the altar?

“But if you knew they were influencing us...”

“Why did I let it happen?” Josh finished for me.

I nodded.

“Jenny, I loved Ash,” he admitted. Nothing could have shocked me more. “I know what you’re thinking. I was surprised when I discovered it, and I didn’t really discover it until we came to Ovid. I gave you–Ash–a hard time. I know I did, but it was just self-defense. When a woman has been... hurt like I was, it’s hard to get close to another man–and it’s especially hard when another man reminds her of the one who hurt her. You were an anchor, just like the... other man. Then we came to Ovid. With our changes, the slate was wiped clean. I could be attracted to you–not the surface ‘you’ but the real you–your soul.”

Unbidden, a tear was forming first in one eye and then the other. I tried to imagine if things had been different–if we hadn’t been transformed and if Brenda had slowly found herself in my arms. What would have happened? According to Susan, we would have fallen in love. Perhaps we would have, I had to admit.

“Here we are.”

“My apartment?” I asked.

“That’s where I was told to go,” he replied.

Tony and Cynthia were waiting for us when we walked in, which was odd since they had still been at the reception when we left. But of course, what were little problems of time and space for gods?

Cynthia gave me a warm smile. “I see by the look on your face that you know who I am.”

“I thought you were my friend,” I growled–well, as close to growling as I could manage.

“Jenny, I am your friend,” she replied, grasping my arms. “Once The Judge decided who you were to be, you had no choice but to marry Josh. I was just here to make it more palatable for you, just as Tony was doing with Josh.”

I looked at Josh, but my new husband didn’t seem to be too disturbed with the fact that he had been manipulated by a minor god. “You messed with my mind...”

She shook her head. “No I didn’t. Tony didn’t either. That wouldn’t be right. Marriage is too sacred to us to make a mockery of it by manipulating your minds. All we did was act as your guides and try to make the whole process pleasant. You would have married in the outside world if you had lived long enough. So what if your sexes have been changed? You were still meant for each other. We just helped you both to realize it.”

I didn’t argue with her because I knew she was right. She hadn’t altered my mind: I had made the decision to marry Josh based on criteria I couldn’t tell her about. All I had initially wanted to do was to throw any suspicion off me. It seems I had done that better than I could have imagined–I had fooled two of the gods.

And yes, I was aware that I was growing attracted to Josh. That didn’t mean I wanted to spread my legs for him, but I was coming to genuinely like him. At least the honeymoon would be an illusion–or so I thought then. I was about to learn differently.

“Josh, Jenny, you two have been wonderful to work with,” Tony announced. “It was gratifying to see genuine love develop between the two of you...”

Could all the gods be fooled that easily? I wondered. Maybe they wanted it to be true.

“...so as a special wedding gift from us, we have a big surprise for you.”

Oh-oh.

“As you may have heard,” Cynthia began, “we can’t let many of our residents–particularly our new residents–leave Ovid for security reasons. However, we persuaded The Judge that there could be a way to allow you two to enjoy a real honeymoon without a breach of security.”

Oh no...

“Through this door,” Tony told us, motioning to the pantry door of my apartment, “is a gateway to a secluded spot where the two of you can begin your married life. It is real and not a dream. It will be like a private resort. All you need to do is ask for something and it will be provided.”

“Except for a TV or anything to read,” Cynthia added with a grin. “We didn’t want you to be distracted.”

Without waiting for our reply, Tony opened the door. Instead of shelves loaded with cans and jars, bright, warm sunlight poured through the opening. Beyond lay a beach with sand nearly as white as sugar. Beyond the beach, in a scene framed by gently swaying palm trees, gentle waves slapped along the edge of the sand, disappearing into a bright blue expanse of ocean beyond.

I wanted to protest, but I could think of nothing to prevent us from walking through that door. If I did, I would be under suspicion, and my complicity in the plot to expose Ovid could be revealed. I felt Josh’s hand surrounding my own smaller hand and knew that he was ready to lead me through that door. If I did, I would have to... have to...

I would have to make love to him.

The dry, heated air of my apartment gave way to moist, warm air tempered by a mild breeze as I forced myself to step through the doorway still clutching Josh’s hand. The smell of floral perfume mixed with the salt from the ocean to form a combination that was both relaxing and sensual. I looked behind, hoping I could break away from Josh’s grip and bolt back through the door, but there was no door–only a pink stucco wall.

“It’s incredible!” Josh breathed.

It was that, but to me it was also frightening. Perhaps the information I had been given regarding the dream trips from Ovid had been completely wrong, or perhaps the gods had found another way to isolate us without resorting to mental trickery. In any case, we were really standing on a grassy surface that became a sandy beach only a few yards away. Surrounding us were scores of palm trees and bushes and vines sporting flowers in every color imaginable. The only structure I could see was the one behind us, which was actually a spacious bungalow covered in the same pink stucco as the wall.

“What are we supposed to do now?” I asked in wonder.

“Maybe this,” Josh replied, suddenly putting his arms around me and pulling my body to his. Before I knew what was happening, our lips met. I wanted to pull away, but couldn’t bring my body to obey my thoughts. The kiss was pleasant–no, it was more than pleasant. I could feel my feminine body pressing closer to his larger one as the warmth in my breasts and crotch began. Come to think of it, I really didn’t want to pull away at all.

Not only could I not resist as Josh led me into the bungalow’s well-appointed bedroom, but I found I didn’t really want to resist as he gently removed my suit. I was helping him remove his own clothing with such urgency that I almost felt as if I was no longer in control of my hands. At first, I thought the autopilot I had experienced earlier had taken over, but as I willed my hands to rub the wiry hair on Josh’s chest, I realized I was in control of my limbs.

Perhaps it was because as a man, I had learned to let my body go with the flow when sex was offered to me, but whatever the reason, not only did I not resist but found myself an active participant in my own seduction. My nipples brushed against the hair on his chest as we found our way to the bed. I was now so wet between my legs that I thought I must be leaving a liquid trail across the woven carpet.

Feeling the crisp, cool sheets at my back, I instinctively tried to spread my legs, but Josh silently pushed them back together. Although I could see he was ready, his penis already swollen to what had to be an uncomfortable size, he began to gently work on me.

I began to moan as he touched me all over, concentrating on regions of my new body that I had no idea could be so sensitive. “You didn’t think I’d start without taking care of you first, did you?” he breathed in my ear. My only response was another moan.

How strange the gap between the sexes really was, I thought dreamily as I lay there wriggling under his expert hands. For a male, the urgency of the need was quick and punctuated, but for a woman, it was a long, drawn-out ritual where the body became more and more aroused with each gentle stroke until... until...

“Oh God!” I moaned. I had never felt anything like this before in my life. It was as if my senses had been pushed over a cliff. My body quivered and literally shook as I instinctively spread my legs apart. This time, Josh did not refuse.

I had not expected it to feel nearly so good as it did when he slowly entered me, letting my body become accustomed to his intrusion. I felt him moving back and forth, in and out establishing a rhythm that my own body sought to match until I fell over the cliff for a second time. Only this time, my moan was accompanied by one from Josh as I felt something warm inside me. We had climaxed together the very first time we tried. Maybe we really were meant for each other, I thought as I let my body and mind drift into a sea of bliss...

It was the beginning of the best week of my life. There was nothing to do but lounge around together, sleeping late and making love throughout the languid tropical days. Food appeared at convenient intervals as we would find a table in the bungalow suddenly festooned with a white linen tablecloth and silver service. The food was delicious and the wines sublime, served by silent, white-coated waiters who never spoke but instead took care of our every wish, acknowledging us with a smile, a nod, or even the twinkle of an eye.

On the beach, we lounged in comfortable beach chairs reminiscent of those at five-star resorts. Our private staff anticipated our every need with tropical drinks and romantic music which seemed to come from all around us.

As for clothing, we had been provided with plenty–although everything in our closets teetered between sexy and downright obscene. That included Josh’s clothing as well. For him, clothing was brief and revealing. One look at him and it was easy to tell when he was interested. But as for my clothes...

I had been provided with beachwear that covered almost nothing, and even what was covered was accentuated rather than hidden. There were thong bikinis, tight shorts, heeled sandals, and for more formal occasions such as sunset dinners tiny dresses cut low in front and shorter than short all in bright colors. Then for bedtime, I began to think the gods had knocked over a Victoria’s Secret given the variety and quantity.

Strangely enough, I found the clothing enticing. I must have changed outfits half a dozen times during the day. It wasn’t that I found the clothing particularly comfortable or practical, but I found I enjoyed watching Josh’s reaction to each new outfit.

With nothing to read or watch and no place else to go, we still managed to entertain each other, with each new attempt more stimulating than the last. I lost track of the days, but it is sufficient to say it didn’t take me long at all to grow to love my new body in ways I could never have dreamed of back in Ovid.

I suppose I shouldn’t have been completely surprised by my mental metamorphosis but I was–until I realized it wasn’t all that great a change at all. As Ash, I had enjoyed sex. The company of women had always been one of my greatest pleasures. Watching them glide in their sexy outfits and enjoying their touches and their sexual techniques had been wonderful. Now, my viewpoint had been altered, but the pleasures of watching a girl in sexy clothing turning on a defenseless man were still enjoyable. So what if I had become the girl? And as for the techniques, who better to have as a partner than a person who know exactly what it takes to turn you on?

“Where do you suppose we are?” Josh asked from his shaded beach chair, interrupting my thoughts.

I had been soaking in the ambiance with my eyes closed, listening to the crash of the waves as the tide came in. I opened my eyes, squinting into the late afternoon sun. “The Pacific, I imagine.”

“Why not the Atlantic?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve always thought the Pacific was bluer. Look how blue that water is.”

“Hmm.” He reached for my hand, which I was now quick to offer.

“Do you regret all this?” he asked softly.

“Regret?” I realized suddenly I had not thought of my previous male existence for days now except in the most abstract of terms. “No, not really. How can I regret it? I have you.” And I found I really meant it.

He squeezed my hand. “I was worried about you back in Ovid. You seemed... reluctant about all of this.”

I thought back on how reluctant I had been. If it hadn’t been for Dominic’s insistence...

Dominic!

My mind returned to thoughts of the CD I had helped him smuggle out of Ovid. How much time had passed–a couple of days? A week? I had managed to lose myself in the newly discovered pleasure of my womanhood and completely blocked from my mind my plotting with Dominic. Had the driver discovered the CD and turned it over to Wally? If he had, rescue might be at hand. But somehow, rescue no longer seemed important. In fact, rescue might mean an end to the joy I had discovered in Josh’s arms. I had done something I had come to regret, and it could cost me everything I had gained.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, a worried look on his face. “You seem tense.”

“Nothing’s wrong,” I lied.

He didn’t press me, either there or later in the evening after we made love, but he couldn’t help but notice the sadness that had appeared in my eyes. Maybe he thought I was pining once again for my previous life. He couldn’t have known that I no longer cared about my big story or my career or whether or not I had ‘The Look.’ Whatever look I had now was fine with him, and that was all that mattered. In the heat of the moment after my transformation, I had rashly become a part of a plan I now regretted. I only hoped it wasn’t too late to do something about it.

The door appeared in the wall the next morning after breakfast.

“Well,” Josh sighed, “I guess the honeymoon is officially over.”

It was almost time to go back to Ovid, and when we did, I would have a decision to make. I could do nothing and hope the driver would have simply ignored the CD or thrown it away. Or I could assume he would discover it and force me to take action to stop him somehow. I tried to push that decision to the back of my mind. There was still a little time left for us and I wasn’t ready to let all of this go. “It’s not quite over yet,” I told him, gently taking his hand and leading him back into the bedroom.

We made love one more time, and I did everything I could think of to make it an event to remember. After all, there was a good possibility that once we returned to Ovid, my actions would catch up with me and I would never be in Josh’s arms again.

Cynthia was all smiles as we walked back through the door. “You look great!” she greeted me. “Who says redheads don’t tan well?” She gave me a sisterly hug which nearly brought me to tears.

“Are you all right?” she asked me as Tony patted Josh on the back.

“Yeah,” I managed to lie. “I’m just a little tired is all.”

That brought a smile to her face. “They say sex is good physical activity.”

Cynthia was a friend, I realized, and had been my friend since my first day in Ovid. Yet I had betrayed her. Yes, she was a goddess–or at least one of their helpers–but so what? What was wrong with deities who stressed love and affection? She and the others had saved our lives, I realized belatedly. I had allowed myself to be swayed by a mentally disturbed man into betraying them.

I had no idea why The Judge and his friends had done what they had done to all of us. Even after reading Dominic’s story, I was no closer to the secret of Ovid’s existence than I had been back in Oklahoma City when Chelsea had first told me of the strange place. But I had begun to suspect that there was something good–something pure about Ovid, and I might very well have ruined all of that as surely as Eve had ruined man’s dwelling place in the Garden of Eden.

But maybe–just maybe–it wasn’t too late.

“Cynthia...” I began tentatively, “I need to see The Judge and I need to see him right now.”

Everyone in the room was silent as we all became aware of the council room once more. I looked around to see what the reactions were but found most of the faces impassive. Susan to my left seemed the most agitated, and I couldn’t help but feel it was because she was steeling herself for one of the toughest defenses she would ever have to make before The Judge. Diana on my right smoothed back her long blonde hair with one hand and patted me on my right wrist while giving me an encouraging if sad smile.

“Your Honor...” I began, taking advantage of the silence, “what happened to the CD?”

“It was discovered by the driver,” he told me, “and passed on as its creator had hoped. The information regarding Ovid is now making its way through official channels.”

“We should take steps to eliminate those who have come in contact with the CD,” Vera March’s husband suggested coldly. I felt my stomach lurch at the thought of what would be innocent deaths.

“You know we can’t do that,” The Judge admonished him. “Things are too delicately balanced as it is. Action so soon could be disastrous for us all. You know that. Besides, it isn’t our way.”

The disguised God of War straightened his silk tie. “Inaction would be costly, though.”

“I agree,” The Judge allowed. “Action will be taken and taken soon. That is not the purpose of this meeting.”

“Then just what is the purpose of this meeting, father?” Eric Vulman asked respectfully from his position at the far end of the council desk.

If The Judge was perturbed by the question, he didn’t show it. “The purpose is to make everyone in the room aware that difficult times may lie ahead. We all knew when we began this endeavor that our secrecy could be compromised. Until this issue is resolved, we must minimize our contacts with the outside world.”

I had a feeling that no one would be entering or leaving Ovid for a while.

“What will happen to the criminals?” someone a couple of rows behind me asked. I wasn’t able to see who it was.

“Dominic Woods has been dealt with,” The Judge replied. “He has been placed in stasis until such time as I have determined the extent of his knowledge about us. As for Jennifer Garfield, her trial will begin shortly. The courtroom will be closed to all but regular court personnel.”

I realized that ‘regular court personnel’ would consist of The Judge, Susan, Officer Mercer and I. As the meeting was adjourned, I followed Susan into the courtroom.

“Your Honor, I’d like a chance to meet with my client,” Susan ventured as The Judge seated himself at the bench.

“I’m sure you would,” he said blandly, “but I already have a fitting punishment in mind for Mrs. Garfield. I don’t think there’s anything you can do to change my mind.”

Jennifer Garfield had certainly made a mess of things. I couldn’t imagine what punishment The Judge had in mind. I felt sorry for her, though. Classical literature spoke of the Wrath of the Gods as the ultimate challenge for mankind, and I was about to witness it.

“Bring in the defendant,” The Judge ordered.

Jennifer Garfield looked nothing like the woman whose experiences I had just relived. She had not been mistreated, but her shoulders were slumped and hers eyes were red and her face was swollen from crying. Officer Mercer placed her before the bench as The Judge stared silently at her for what seemed to be an hour, although by my watch, less than a minute had passed.

“We have reviewed the story you told us,” The Judge said at last. “Facts seem to corroborate your recounting of events.”

Jennifer remained standing, eyes downcast. She said nothing, but I thought I heard a soft whimper.

“What you have done may have serious consequences for Ovid and for the human race,” he went on.

“I realize that now, Your Honor,” she said in a meek, shaky voice.

“However, your testimony regarding Mr. Woods and your assistance in admitting your guilt in this whole affair must be taken into consideration. Do you have anything to say before I pass judgment?”

“No, Your Honor, except I... I’m sorry.”

The room was still until finally The Judge spoke: “Your apology makes it apparent to me that you have learned that a life here can be pleasant and even desirable, but you have to learn that we expect our citizens to act responsibly as well. Since your actions have threatened the future, you will be made to look the future directly in the face.

“The future of all communities lies in their children. Henceforth, all knowledge of you as a reporter will be lost. You will be a worker in a day care center where you will see the future every day. And to make the experience even more personal, the protection I have given to all women new to Ovid will be denied to you. While other new women are safe from pregnancies for a period of three months in Ovid, you will find that you are already pregnant, a result of your honeymoon. You will soon have your own child to worry about, and the safety of your child shall be tied to the safety of Ovid as it is with all children.”

The Judge was silent once more, as if waiting for Jennifer to speak.

“Is... is that all, Your Honor?” she asked at last.

“You were expecting something else?” The Judge asked, not unkindly.

“I... I was expecting a punishment,” she explained. “What you’ve done to me... well, it has become obvious to me that I let my desire for success get in the way of what was really important. I don’t want to be a reporter anymore if being one means the downfall of my personal happiness. As for the pregnancy, I... I think Josh will be happy about that, and I think I can learn to be a good parent... a good mother.”

“Then this court has no further business with you. Good day, Mrs. Garfield.”

She turned to face us, and I could see a small smile of relief on her face. Her shoulders were no longer slumped and her pace quickened as the doors to the courtroom opened revealing a bearded man waiting anxiously. His own expression brightened as he saw her, and she ran with new energy to his waiting arms as the doors to the courtroom closed behind them.

“Thank you, Your Honor,” Susan said, rising.

“There’s nothing to thank me for,” The Judge replied gruffly. “Now, I’ll have Officer Mercer take the two of you home. As you probably suspect, tomorrow will be a busy day.”

Just when I thought I had begun to understand The Judge, he would do something that would make me see another facet of his personality. I had expected him to be much harsher with Jennifer, but I couldn’t argue with the appropriateness of his sentence. Jennifer would be tied to Ovid much as Susan and I were–by family. She would probably still experience periods of doubt and even disillusionment, but in the end, her husband and children would be the center of her world, and by extension, she would come to love being in Ovid and being the woman she had become.

We followed Officer Mercer from the courtroom, trading looks of concern. The Judge had in effect told us our homes and community were in danger. It was too soon to tell what the result of Dominic Woods’ plot would be, but for Susan and me, and all of those like us, it was obvious that a new danger threatened us. Tomorrow would just be the start of our defense. There would be a lot of work to be done.

The End