Breathing

The following story was originally posted at Fictionmania.

Breathing by Dawna Tompson 1999 ddawna-52@yahoo.com

I

I was aware of my breathing before anything else. It was slow and deep, as if I was still in a deep sleep. I stayed perfectly still, listening to the natural rhythm. I wasn't ready to get up yet, but I didn't feel like going back to sleep. I tried to recall the dream I had just had. I had a feeling it was important but couldn't remember anything of it. Still, the feeling wouldn't go away. I tried to keep my mind blank, to think of nothing, so that I might allow the dream image to come back.

I tried to turn over but found that I could not. I was more fully awake now but still could not move, turn, or even open my eyes. I started to panic, adrenaline coursed through my body, my heart beat faster and echoed in my ears. I was wide-awake now but totally paralyzed. Now I desperately focussed on trying to get up. "Why can't I move?" Terror, panic, and confused thinking reigned. Was I in a coma? Did I have a stroke? Had I taken some drug? What had I been dreaming?

From somewhere in my terror I recalled something. An article on sleeping. No it was part of an anatomy class. Odd, but I'm sure that's where I picked it up. I remembered Dr. O'Brien mentioning it in a lecture and then reading more about it later. What was the term for it? Dream researchers had a name for it but I couldn't recall the term. Your body stays asleep but your mind is awake. "Sleep Paralysis Something." I thought. The sleep centers that immobilize your body during sleep continue to work while your awake. It passes in a few minutes.

I tried to suppress the fear, forcing myself to think rationally. I mentally recited the names for the various lobes and structures of the brain that I knew controlled muscle movements. "This is a temporary thing, relax and try to think of the dream." I could still recall none of it. It was long and important, but I couldn't recall a thing. I felt as though I was floating above my bed. I relaxed a bit more. This was a strange experience to say the least. But with an effort I calmed down. Soon I returned to the slow deep breathing I had awoken to. I tried to focus on just my breathing. It came from far away, very soft.

I was lying on my right side, still completely paralyzed. I focused on the rest of my body. Strange, from this point of view it felt different. All I could feel was my breathing, but it sounded strange and foreign to me. My chest rose less. Smaller, shallow breaths, as if I was no longer in the top physical shape I'd been in. I mentally explored my body. Something surely seemed different. But from the inside I could hardly say what. Smaller? How could I judge from this position? Lighter? Perhaps I was in an astral body, only loosely connected to my physical one?

Now I was starting to gain some control. I was not totally paralyzed. I felt better about this situation. I could flutter my eyes and move my fingers. I worked both quietly, trying to expand my range of motion. My fingernails scraped oddly at the sheets as I curled them. I was slowly getting reconnected to the physical world. I was sure I would be fully awake and mobile soon.

There was a rustle next to me and a hand draped across my body. It felt heavy on my side. A nuzzle against my neck and alarm bells went off. I should be alone in my bed! But clearly someone was in bed with me. I tried to open my eyes but could only part them enough to stare at the floor. All I could see was brown carpet, a streak of someone's blonde hair, and part of a pillow. But it was enough to know that I wasn't in my bed.

Now the rustling grew heavier and I felt a warm body next to mine. I forced my eyes open, still full from the sandman. A heavy arm was draped across my ribs, leaving the hand just in view. It was hairy and definitely male.

"I know I'm not actually in bed with a man, this must be a dream." I said to myself. But unmistakably, this was a man's hand and a man's deep breathing at my neck. This was the most realistic dream I'd ever experienced.

"Honey, you feel like fucking around before I go to work?" Said a deep and unfamiliar voice. The hairs on the back of my neck bristled. His hand moved toward my chest. I was awake now and no longer physically paralyzed. But I forced myself to remain motionless, feigning sleep, trying to gain time while I thought this through.

His hand moved upward toward an unfamiliar mass at my chest. My mind was reeling with confusion. What had I done? How did I get here? And who the heck was fondling me? I had control of my body but it didn't feel like mine. It was heavier, no lighter. No, I don't know, just different! He cupped his hands on that mass at my chest again. My breathing didn't feel right. I hadn't spoken, but I knew my voice wouldn't be right either.

I felt him roll over off the other side of the bed. "I'm going take a shit and then we'll screw around." He mumbled. I carefully turned and glanced warily around. It was an unfamiliar setting. I was in a mobile home or trailer crowded with cheap furniture and piles of dirty clothes. Low rent. Cheap. "Dirty white trash." I thought. He stumbled toward a small door near an open closet.

He was bare-ass naked although I'm not sure the effect would have been any better had he been dressed. He was short, overweight, and bowlegged. He had thinning reddish hair, almost down to his shoulders. His body was covered in wiry reddish hair. A mat of fuzz covered his shoulders, back, and legs. He had a jagged scar on his right leg. He favored the leg giving him a pronounced limp. He passed through the door and partly closed it behind him

Without knowing who he was I knew all about him. I could guess at his MMPI score without even giving him the test. I had seen plenty in my practice. I could smell these types after years of seeing his twins. Rough, macho, insecure, and violent. Abused as a child, the class bully. An abuser. Insecure. Hurting inside and projecting that hurt on those near him. Even those who loved him, because hurt was the only kind of love he knew. I could feel what he was without even seeing his face. There was something, almost an aura, that I had learned to identify men like this in my line of work.

These observations took only an instant. It came in a professional flash, sizing him up as if he were a prospective client, meeting him in a therapeutic setting. It was a professional interest that had no place in this dreamscape. Slipping into a practiced line of thought had given me a momentary respite from the terror and confusion. I turned back toward the question of how I gotten here and what role I had to play in this little drama. I had gone to bed in my own bedroom last night. I remember dreaming but I didn't remember moving or waking up during the night. Yet here I was in a strange room sleeping with some stranger.

I closed my eyes again, wishing this scene away. "I'm Bill. Bill Fletcher. Dr. William Fletcher, M.D." This is a dream, a lucid dream which I can change with my own willpower." I said to myself, only half believing it for the moment. Nothing had changed once I opened my eyes again.

This clearly wasn't my bedroom or my house. In fact I had never set foot in a place like this. It was exactly the type of place I imagined many of my patients lived in. How did I get here? Did I take up their energy and create this place of decay and poor living? I slipped into that professional rational thought again, trying to examine this as if it were one of my patient's dreams. What is the significance of dirt and decay? Is this a mental thought form materialized? One that I need to work on?"

I rolled over to take a better look around. The bed smelled of tobacco and whiskey. He closed the door the rest of the way and I quickly sat up in bed. I scanned the room I was in. Dirty clothes, coke cans, trash, newspapers, bedding, and boxes strewn about. The walls were made of cheap wood paneling. Torn window curtains. An electric outlet with enough cords plugged into it to suggest that I was lucky not to have been incinerated during the night. By the feel of it I was sitting on a waterbed. It was a bedroom in a mobile home. Very small, very dirty, and very trashy.

My survey didn't help at all to clear things up on what had happened. I slowly got out of bed, sloshing and rolling over the unfamiliar ledge and onto the floor. I glanced about still trying to shake this sense of unease and disorientation. I felt off balance. My eye caught another figure, a naked woman. It took a moment to realize it wasn't a real woman. It was an image that moved. No wait! I stood perfectly still and so did the figure. I raised my hand to my face and the woman's hand mimicked what I had done. It's a mirror. That must be me! I glanced at my arm. Instead of my firm muscled arm I was staring at a slender arm with soft white skin. I turned the hands inward to reveal long thin fingers and a delicate hand. Turning them back and I saw long dark-red fingernails. I was dumbfounded and even more confused.

Instead of my normal six-foot muscular frame, I viewed a woman's body as if I was in it. She was about 40 or 45 years old. Unkempt bleach blonde hair with black roots, flowed all over my head. Too much black mascara on her large brown eyes. High cheekbones, a flushed complexion. She had a small chin and high arched eyebrows. She wore a very surprised, or even a shocked, look on her face.

I reached upward and an arm followed my movements in the mirror. I quickly surveyed the breasts that sloped before me ending in a wide dark areola centered on thick fleshy nipples. "Who the hell is that?" I wondered.

I stood motionless for a moment trying to think of what to do next. "What's Happening?" said an unfamiliar voice nearby. I gasped. I said it, but it didn't sound like me, much softer and higher pitched.

"Can you just hold on for a minute?" Came the voice in the bathroom. "You know I've got to play with Little Freddie to get him hard."

"Little Freddie?" My rational mind was suppressing what my emotions had already sensed. I rejected the idea outright even while the lump in my throat grew and my stomach tightened. He was going to try to have sex with me! "Shit!" I cried out.

"Shut the fuck up, would ya," growled back a voice from beyond the door. "And put on that slutty black nightie with the garter belts." I'll be ready in just a minute. I was stunned by his use of a flatulent exclamation point for emphasis.

"Fuck me!" Indeed. This wasn't just an expression anymore. He meant it. He was going to fuck me. I had only minutes, maybe seconds. I looked for an escape, wild with fear. I searched rapidly for some clothes, some way out. But time had run out before I could make a move. I could hear the squeal of the toilet paper roll and a grunting behind the door. The door that protected me from a nightmare.

The bathroom door flew open. He was every bit as objectionable from the front as I had imagined him to be when I had only seen his back. A flattened nose, a missing incisor on a cheerless grin. An untrimmed red beard touching the upper part of his too hairy chest. He reminded me a Brother's Grimm character. The troll under the bridge, the leprechaun, a yahoo.

I struggled some more and got an idea. This was a dream. It had to be. I should have taken the clue from the sleep paralysis. I knew that they often preceded lucid dreams. I had never had one before but I knew the general idea. You are totally conscious and as awake as normal, only you know that it's a dream.

They were supposed to be fun and exciting. This wasn't my idea of fun. I wondered what unresolved issues I had hidden from myself that would lead to a lucid dream of this sort. I had sure come up with the makings of a nightmare. I had never encountered, one like this, not even from the dreams of my patients. But it all made sense now and I could at least deal with what I now knew to be a dream. I'd worry about the content, the symbols, and the meaning of this dream later. The negative energies and the complexes that lead to these images could be sorted out once I woke up. For now, I should just sit back and enjoy.

"Enjoy" seemed a bit too optimistic a word for what was happening right now. He was semi-erect and still coming toward me. I unconsciously crossed my arms in front of me, adopting the "stay away from me" body language that I couldn't articulate from my throat. Try as I might to look some other way my eyes kept staring at Little Freddie. I crouched near the bed.

"Oh Baby, let's fuck, you know I'm hot now. I want you bitch woman!"

"Look this is some kind of dream, I want to deal with it on my own terms, please go away," I said in my best authoritative voice. It was the tone I reserved for my most truculent patients. An authoritative tone I had learned in medical school. I used it infrequently now, needing it only occasionally to talk a violent or obsessed patient into co- operating with the staff. It was the tone I thought would work in dealing with the subconscious creation standing in front of me. But it was only the tone I could muster, for the sound that came from my mouth was weak and feminine, not authoritative.

"You bet it is baby, it's a Wet Dream!" He said, opening his arms to embrace me.

I didn't move or uncross my arms. "No, I can't now, besides you're not ready anyway," I knew I had to confront this subconscious creation, perhaps I could change this dream if I could get him to see I was in command.

"You sorry bitch, Fuck You!" With that I spun away with the stinging sensation of blood in my nose and the impact on my face of a clenched fist. I spun wildly and fell to the bed.

In an instant I was up looking around for him, ready to defend myself. But all was calm. I was back my bedroom, awake, with no one around. "Jeez, what a dream! It was so real." I felt my body and grabbed for my manhood. It was there, everything seemed okay. I stood up and nearly fell back over. My head was still spinning. I drifted for a moment, safe, out of the dream, and relieved.

Now I was frightened again. I swept the bedroom searching for my assailant. The large room looked normal in every way. The door was locked and the windows secure. No one could have gotten in here. The king sized bed, the 35 inch TV, my large dresser, the framed paintings, the elegant carpet, the white divan, the fabric wall coverings, the long flowing white drapes across the 30 foot wall of glass that overlooked the bay. All as it should be. Everything just as I had left them last night. The lump in my throat receded and my heart slowed approaching a normal beat.

Each object before me was a dizzying contrast to the nightmare bedroom from a moment ago. Sharp and clean versus trashy. Large and elegant versus small and, well, trashy again. I couldn't go any further with my compare and contrast exercise. This was no college essay. I opened the bathroom door warily, but again, all was quiet. No one was in this room

Something warm and sticky dripped from my face. I glanced at the mirror, secure in my own reflection staring back. The square jaw, the dark eyes, the muscular chest, all in contrast to that small feminine reflection a moment ago. Someone had punched me in the face. My eye was swollen and blood was dripping from my nose.

II

The dream hung with me like a newborn monkey clinging to its mother. I couldn't shake the feelings it had dredged up. The contrast of my outer physical world with this low-life view of my inner space was difficult for me to grasp. What issues did I need to resolve to clear this dream? I had trouble thinking rationally about it. A visceral reaction in my stomach shouted that I didn't want to end up in that nightmare again. I only knew that it was a horrible dream and I needed to rid myself of it.

I cleaned up my face as best as possible. My nose was tender and my cheek swollen. But I could go to work. I searched the rest of the house, but was already certain of the outcome. Everything normal. All 4500 square feet. My new custom built home, my personal design, sat quietly on the cliff face overlooking the ocean. The great room with its vista of the bay, the library, the guest quarters, the formal dining room, and the atrium. All just as I left it last night.

The only disturbance it seemed was in my head. I must have somehow punched myself in the throes of this nightmare. "Is that possible?" I asked aloud. My head was disturbed in more than one sense. I was swelling and hurting. I could see the barest hint of blue forming around my eye. It was dark enough to show in the imperfect reflection of the finish on the stainless steel refrigerator. I dug through my bag and found a bottle of painkillers. I sloshed down a couple of pills with my orange juice.

The phone was ringing now. It was Betty. "Doctor, I'm so glad I reached you, where were you? I called earlier. What should I do about your 9:00 appointment?" she asked.

I'll be there in twenty minutes, who is it, Mrs. Obbrey?"

"Yes, I think I can get her to wait and I'll shuffle the rest of the day's schedule, but you better get here before I go nuts!"

Well, I had to move. Dream or no dream I had patients, or rather clients, to see. In my specialty we always referred to them as "clients" instead of patients. What did she mean about calling earlier? I should have heard the phone if she had rung earlier. At least there should have been a phone appearing in my dream. Wouldn't it? Dream inclusion they called it, when a sound from the physical world enters your dream state. But there had been no phone.

I arrived at 9:27. I hadn't even taken the time to shower. That was a mistake because the image of that dirty trailer stayed in my mind all day.

A shower might have helped.

The day was busy, as any psychiatrist in a busy practice can attest to. I had a partner, but the workload was heavy. It was worth it though. I was helping people and making a lot of money at it.

Between patients I had to consult with Clint, my partner. I walked into his office. "Jeez Bill, someone take a swipe at you?"

"I ran into my closet door this morning in my rush to get here." I lied. I wasn't sure if he knew it or not. We were pretty close, at least professionally. We'd worked together since we formed the partnership after residency. Clint, of anyone I knew, would be most likely to pick up on a lie. He was awesome at destroying the delusions of some of our patients and he could smell deception from across a room. I guessed that he knew, but he said nothing.

After we finished our discussion I went to the bathroom. My face was puffy and there was a deeper hint of purple under my left eye. Exactly where that red headed man in my dreams had hit me. Odd. I had read about disturbed people who physically manifested their problems onto themselves. Hell, half my business was dealing with people who had projected their anger inward and somehow harmed themselves. But I had never heard of an acute contusion cause directly from a dream. I'd better search the journals and see if what I experienced made any sense.

I worked late that evening in our medical library. It was more of a conference room with most of our journals and medical books lined up along one wall. Still, it provided a comfortable place to sit alone to contemplate my dream. I was doing what we like to call Bibliotherapy. Reading as a therapeutic exercise. I had all the tools I thought I needed to dissect this dream. It's what I did for a living. I knew it would be much harder to analyze my own dream instead of helping someone else though. I even considered consulting with Clint. But I decided against it. I didn't need him thinking that his partner was neurotic. Maybe I would later, but I wanted to try to deal with it on my own for now.

I started with a Jungian approach. Perhaps the dream represented my shadow self. If so, then it was a classic case. Everything I experienced in the dream seemed opposite my own life. I was 35 years old, well educated, professional, and male. She was a mid-40's and occupied a place in the petite bourgeoisie socio-economic strata. I lived alone in a large well-appointed house. She lived with a blue-collar abuser in a trashy trailer. Everything about her was alien. I was everything she was not. So, she must be everything that I was not. Perhaps I needed to look more closely at her life.

I imagined how her life contrasted with mine. The easy years in luxury. A single child's life. Toys, nannies, piano lessons, high school valedictorian, college, fraternity brother, medical school, a partnership, a fine practice, more money than I needed or wanted. It all came easy to me. She, I guessed, had a more difficult upbringing. Abuse? Perhaps. Wants? Needs? Struggling? Most likely. She hardly looked as if she had much of an education. I wondered if she had graduated from high school. Single? If she was I doubted that she was enjoying it. I was. I enjoyed being single. I compensated for the lack of steady sex with the variety that came with being able to pick and choose. The last woman I had in bed had played the viola with the London Philharmonic the week before. Who did she have? The red headed man? How could I have created this total and complete internal world in contrast from my own external one? It was so real and seemingly alive. I was in her body. I felt her arms move when I willed them. I felt the cold chill on her spine when his hand had draped across my ribs. I felt the pain of the smack across the face. Hell, I felt that even now.

But why had it surfaced at this point in my life? My stress level was low. My life was unfolding exactly as it should. I was reaching my professional peak. I had published several major journal articles. I'd worked sporadically on a book. A radio talk show program was in the works. What triggered this? Why did it come about now? And what about the bruise? Jung had dealt with some occult areas in his investigations of the mind. I had his complete works translated before me but could find nothing to explain that.

I searched for a better explanation. A medical condition? There were many syndromes and conditions that could contribute to what I experienced. Disassociative disorder, multiple personality disorder, somatic delusions, or just plain disorientation. Even some forms of narcoplepsy could yield similar symptoms. But none of my speculations seemed to fit. I was familiar with these disorders and I had treated most of them at one time or another. None exactly fit the experience I had.

My other texts and journals were useless. It couldn't have been a dream and it didn't seem like any disorder or physiological condition that I could find. On the other hand, I was well aware of the problem with self-diagnosis: "The patient is never aware of what he isn't aware of." What was it I could not see? Maybe I should go see someone. But who would I trust enough to share this with?

I got home late and finally had my shower and warmed up a frozen dinner in the microwave. The feelings the dream had evoked were still with me at bedtime. I was apprehensive about going to sleep, but it had been a difficult day. I lay exhausted on the bed, unable to sleep. Then the paralysis set in again. I couldn't move.

III

"Get up you lazy bitch. You gonna lay there all day. Sorry sack of shit. If you ever talk to me that way again I'll fuckin knock your teeth out."

I was back in the same dream. Apparently I was picking up where I left off. I got up slowly as he stomped off down the hall. In a minute I heard the door slam and the roar of an engine, perhaps a motorcycle, I couldn't tell. I didn't care. He was gone.

I checked my thinking process. Everything was consistent. I was Dr. Bill Fletcher. I was 35 years old. I was 6 foot tall and 195 pounds. That was me! But that wasn't the body I was in right now. I was in her's again. I didn't even have a name to put to her. It was an uncomfortable feeling. I tried to image how to describe it. Like wearing someone else's dirty underwear. No, that wasn't personal enough. I had her body. I knew this had to be a dream, but I was becoming less convinced. I tried some of LeBerge's lucid dream techniques to see if any of the normal rules of physics were different in this dream. I jumped up. It felt like a strange body, but the laws of gravity were the same. I tried spinning to see if I could change the scene, but I was still in the trailer. I walked through the bedroom door. Nothing changed. It was still morning, and I was still in this woman's body, standing naked in the hallway. If this were a lucid dream I should have more control over it. It couldn't be a dream.

I tried meditation. Perhaps I could alter my surroundings. As I relaxed I became aware of a low smooth humming in my ear. But all that came of it was that I fell asleep. That is, if you can really fall asleep from within a dream. I woke up at 9:30 a.m. according to the bedside clock. It seemed consistent with me sleeping for a couple of hours or so. I was still in the same body.

Since I was here I might as well investigate my surroundings. Perhaps I'd get a clue as to what triggered this dream or whatever it was. I wanted to start with this body. Now in the quite of the trailer with my head calm I could think about the concept objectively. I had dealt with several cases of gender confusion, autogynephila and transsexualism. I knew that some of my clients were excited by the thought of becoming a woman. Some so much so that they tried to con people like me into believing that they were born into the wrong body so they could get the endorsement they needed to get SRS.

So this is what they aspired to be? Perhaps I had found the cure. Being in another's body, especially of the opposite sex, was disorienting, confusing, and plain weird. I didn't think of it as sexually exciting. That seemed to rule out autogynephilia. Could I have a latent case of transsexualism? I doubted that even the most severe form would lead to this sort of delusion.

I looked at her face in the mirror. It was the face of a woman who had seen too much life. When I stared into the mirror I saw my own eyes in the reflection. That at least felt reassuring. It was the only part of me that was recognizable. Crows feet around the eyes and a dry patchiness of her skin suggested a physically abused body. Heavy makeup seemed to make her look older than she might be. Perhaps I was wrong on my guess. Maybe she was younger.

I spotted two brands of cigarette packages on the dresser. His and hers? So she smoked. Drinking? Drugs? Sexual or food obsessions? Relationship problems? I went through the normal initial interview checklist. I couldn't answer any of the questions. I didn't even know which pack of cigarettes was hers. One thing, she needed to get away from the abusive guy she lived with.

I was apparently trapped in a dream or some alternate reality. Perhaps someone else's reality, or perhaps an unusually realistic creation of my own. It didn't have the look or feel of an ordinary dream. For one thing I was fully awake and conscious. Everything remained stable and consistent, not the shifting images of a dreamscape. For another, there didn't seem to be any way to wake up. Apparently I would have to deal with this Procrustean bed until I woke up spontaneously or found a way to regain ordinary reality.

I still had no evidence to prove this was a dream. This had to be some new layer of consciousness lying undiscovered until I had stumbled upon it. Like the New World before Columbus. But even Columbus had an idea of what he was doing. He had set out with a purpose. I had merely stumbled upon this land. Did this land exist waiting to be discovered like a New World, or did I create it, like Lewis Carroll did in " Through the Looking Glass?" I just wished I could find some natives that could guide me through this strange land. Even a Cheshire cat would be preferable to the loneliness and confusion I felt.

I spun into a mental fantasy. I was already thinking of writing a journal article. Perhaps I had discovered a new conscious state. But how would I tell others how to get here? How would I describe this situation? Would anyone believe it? How do I get out so I can get back to being Bill Fletcher and start the article?

I stood up to examine this body critically. I still could not think of it as my own, although it seemed to function as mine in every sense. It was physically strange but it responded as if it were mine. I stood perfectly still with my eyes closed. It still felt different, even without any visual clues. My center of balance was higher. I took a step with my eyes still closed. The mass at my chest swayed and my hips rotated in an unfamiliar movement. It left an odd sensation. My breathing was different. I wondered if she was a heavy smoker. My arms were slender and moved with a grace that I'd never experienced before. It was slightly erotic. No it was highly erotic.

I compared this body to "mine." My own body was muscular and strong. Hers was small, delicate, and much weaker. I was in near perfect shape. I ran three times a week and still lifted weights when I could. She was slightly overweight and flabby. Yet there was a delicateness that I had never experienced before. It was a sense of fragility and vulnerability that went unnoticed in my masculine self. Yet it was so evident in this form. I could only relate the feeling to being a small child in the company of strangers. It engendered a need for comfort, familiarity and human warmth.

Once in an acting class in college we had an exercise to try to "get inside" someone else. I couldn't quite do it. We had to choose someone of the opposite sex. I tried Joan of Arc. I tried my best, but never felt I was more than play-acting. Here I was inside this body and it wasn't hard at all to feel how much different a woman's body is than a man's. It was as if the body itself had a direct effect on my emotions and perceptions of my surroundings. My very senses were altered. "Well of course it is silly." I said to myself. "She has different senses, a different hormone makeup, a different chemical balance point, of course she is going to sense the world differently." Still it surprised me how much the changes in my physical body affected the way I perceived and thought about this new reality. Direct experience, what a teacher!

I had been wrapped up for the past couple of minutes in this mental exercise. I turned my attention to "my" body. I laughed at myself when I said "my body" to myself. It wasn't my body, but I seemed to have full use of it for now. I wanted to see what this body was all about. My curiosity was not driven solely by professional interest. My changed perceptions of my sensory functions had led me to consider the new, erotic, and sensual experiences it might afford me. I was eager explore it.

I explored my body with my hands, stroking the smooth skin and exploring the unfamiliar curves. There were the obvious physiological differences. I had patients with castration complexes before. But this was the real thing. I had no penis. I stared at just a smooth mound. I grabbed where my penis should be and came up with only a handful of pubic hair. Weird. I also had finely shaped breasts. They were not overly large, about right for the body. They sloped downward, with the areola bent slightly back, pointing my nipples slightly above the horizontal. I cupped my hands and slid them over the mass, squeezing them and feeling the heft of the additional weight on my breastbone.

I also had a curved butt. I could place my hands on them and the mass of it stuck out behind me in a strange new way. In my ordinary body I could hold my hands on my hips and slid them down toward my legs while keeping them the exact same distance apart. When I tried the same with this body, my hands moved and spread as they traced the outline of my hips. If she lost 20 pounds, her body would make most any woman proud. Her skin, although not healthy, was still much smoother than mine. Her hairless legs and smooth abdomen aroused me. I laughed as I thought of the hard on I would have if I had a penis. I reached out mechanically to stroke it, but found my hand caressing a smooth triangular patch of hair growing like a meadow on the smooth round mound of the uterine hill. Her hair fell into my eyes as I leaned over to looked at my crotch. I found that erotic too. Perhaps this experience was a figment of my own sexual desires. I chuckled at the thought of the times I had wanted to "get into" a woman before. Well, I really had now. It was different, but exciting just the same.

I next wanted to explore the heart of my femininity. I started in a critical fashion from a professional viewpoint. I gave myself a medical examination. Or rather as much of one as I could, given that I could find nothing but a broken makeup mirror to examine myself with. I had spent one cycle of my residency with an Ob-Gyn, so I knew how to perform a pelvic exam. I had just never performed one from the viewpoint of the patient before.

I started with the vulva. An unfamiliar color of pink reflected in the small mirror. I turned the mirror and pressed. Nicely formed symmetric Ischiocavernasos muscles. I spread the Labium major. Clean and clear fluid. Nice color. No signs of STD. Perfectly formed Labium minus. I moved forward to the clitoris. I slipped back the prepuce and touched the glans. A flood of pleasure surged forward, reminding me of the intimate coupling between the medical examiner and the patient.

I paused before inserting my finger into the vagina.

Broken hymen, to be expected for a woman of this age. Twisting and pressing I felt for a cervix. Nicely formed and symmetrical. The size of the cervix and the exaggerated uterine hump suggested a prior pregnancy. I pulled my fingers out and probed for the pudendal nerve. Another wave of pleasure swept over me.

It was about here that I dropped my professional attitude. The enormity of what I had just done slammed me. I had just given myself a vaginal exam. This was unreal. I slipped another finger into the slit, sliding both in and out several times. This was a fully functional woman's vagina, there was no doubt about that. I tugged again on the prepuce and slid an open hand over the symphysis pubis. I was flooded with a pleasant sensation, similar to my male pleasure centers, but spread over a wider and altogether different location. Maybe I wouldn't be experiencing the penis envy I had expected. The words "Who needs one?" actually started to form in my mind before being cut off by the remaining vestiges of masculine ego. Apparently I had a fully functional woman's body. Still it was an odd sensation. Not unpleasant, quite the opposite. But the unfamiliarity of the sensations and the strangeness of the view in the little mirror unsettled me.

Strange, being without my manhood seemed less frightening than I would have guessed it to be. It seemed right for the body anyway. If I was going to have a woman's body, then I supposed it wouldn't look right to have a penis. But it left me with no lapis to connect with my original maleness. How could I relate to myself without a penis? Does a penis make a man? In a general sense I suppose, but here I stood without one feeling not too much different than if I had that familiar organ swaying between my legs.

I tried looking at her objectively, as a man might in seeing what there was to admire in her. But that didn't feel right. I tried looking at myself in the mirror as if this was my own body. I tried a technique I had used with my patients. I spoke as her into the mirror, what I thought she might say to herself. "If I lost some weight, gave up cigarettes, and started eating right, I could be beautiful again." I spoke the words aloud to myself while looking into my eyes in the mirror. It seemed to work. I was flushed with a confidence. I tried Joan of Arc. "To Conquer Lands in the Name of the Lord Almighty, Creator of all things!" I said aloud. It was so easy to be her. Perhaps this experience wouldn't be so bad. But how do I get out? How did I get in to start with?

I occupied myself for almost a quarter hour, pirouetting, piling my hair upon my head, stretching, posing and examining myself in the mirror.

I was in every sense a woman physically. I felt different inside too. I still thought in the same fashion. I had continuity of thought. I was still Bill Fletcher, even as I appreciated the new body he seemed to be in. But there was a different feeling to my approach in perceiving. It wasn't an obvious difference. It was subtle. Like a lark cooing in a meadow that you cannot hear until your stop, open your ears, and listen to its soft chirp. I still thought the same way, but my feeling self had been altered. I curled my arms around my body and stroked from my thighs to top of my torso, shaking my head and delighting in the feminine form as the soft hair swooshed around my head. God, it felt sensual to be a woman!

It was the fingernails that brought me back. I glanced at the red nails and they seemed to crystallize my awareness, jolting me back into seeing again what an alien landscape this was. The examine was over. I knew more about her body but very little else. A wave of panic swept through my body, ending with a pit in my stomach. I was suddenly aware of my nakedness. I felt vulnerable, cold, and apprehensive. I had to dress. I had to find out about this world.

I found some cotton panties in a drawer, apparently the last clean ones in this house. There was a black motorcycle T-shirt and a pair of jeans on the floor that I took to be her clothes from last night. The jeans fit but the T-shirt had blood on it. I found another almost identical one draped across the dresser and pulled it over my head. I was only marginally aware of how natural it felt to flip my long hair out of the neck of the T-shirt after I had slid it down my torso. I found her bra lying beside the bed, but I couldn't put it on. I wasn't ready for that. I tried to make myself feel as comfortable as I could in this body. But this it was unreal.

The blood reminded me of something. He had smacked me hard. I had physical evidence of that when I woke up, but her body seemed untouched.

I saw no sign of swelling or bruising. I pulled the hair back into a rough ponytail, examining the face and eyes. I could find no evidence of contusions or abrasions. I paused for an extra second to marvel at the change. She must have been beautiful once. I slipped a band I found on the dresser over the handful of hair. That kept it out of my eyes. It felt a little more normal that way.

I was in a mobile home, a filthy one at that. I stood in the bedroom. A waterbed, a dresser and a few scattered items surrounded me. There was room for little else. I was in wretched surroundings. I gave myself a quick tour of the rest of the house. About as I expected. Filthy bathroom, the wall around the sink smeared with grease. The toilet bowl stained. The kitchen was stacked with dishes. The smell of stale cigarette smoke pervaded the house. A trash can full of empty Budweiser cans sat by the door. The refrigerator had precious little food in it. The small living room had what appeared to be the guts of a motorcycle engine strewn about. The pieces lay on the floor and a toolbox, acting as the master of ceremonies at this event, sat squarely on top of the couch.

I looked out the window for a clue. Nothing. I could see just another trailer practically on top of this one. An old Camero was parked outside. It had one red door and the rest of it was painted with gray primer. Lovely! The surroundings reflected perfectly what I pictured this woman's life to be. Trailer trash. Tears welled up in my eyes. Who I was crying for? Me? Or the life of this woman? Perhaps it didn't matter. Our lives were now inextricably woven together, at least for the moment.

I turned on the TV. Kathy and Regis. Everything seemed normal there. I flipped the channels. Again, everything seemed normal. The channels were the same as those set in my TV at home. I turned to the TV guide channel to check the date. It was Wednesday the fifteenth. I had gone to bed on Tuesday night, so the time was pretty consistent. At least since I went to bed last night. Of course, I had jumped from the original dream, woken up, and then returned. All of that didn't help much either. I found the local news. Kitty What's-Her-Name reading the A.M. news. That felt comfortable at least, so I must still be in the same city. Or at least a respectable version of it.

I searched for some other indication of who and where I was. I found her purse on a chair in the kitchen. Opening it eagerly I fumbled for her wallet. Her driver's license showed her as Margaret Burnford. She was 36 years old. And her license had expired last week. Great. At least I had a name. She was younger than she looked too. At least if I could believe this license. The address was a local P.O. box. I searched the rest of her wallet. A single department store card, an expired library card, and pictures of the asshole who had smacked me and another of a young man. Perhaps seventeen. Very handsome. Maybe a graduation picture? Precious little else to go on. The rest of the purse yielded very little either. Car keys, mascara, lipstick, a pocket mirror in better shape than the one I had examined myself with, and some other women's trinkets.

I found a total of $1.32 in change and seven dollars in cash, rolled up in a side pocket of the purse. Hidden, I supposed, from the asshole.

I turned my attention to the rest of the house. In a minute I had a name for the asshole. "Curry Glenwood." I'd never heard of the name Curry before. Apparently, he was in some trouble with the law. I found a court summons, and several letters from a lawyer and a bailbondsman referring to pending assault charges. The careless way the letters had been strewn about suggested he wasn't particularly concerned about them.

I stood looking out the window. The panic swelled again. I could stand this condition for a few minutes, especially if I was occupied, but then when I paused I got a terrible feeling in my stomach. What was going on? Who was Margaret Burnford and why the heck was she living with Curry Glenwood? And what was my role in this?

I stood staring out the window. A beat up white pickup truck was speeding down the dirt road. That gave me an idea. Perhaps that old Camero still runs. I should be able to find out where in the city this place is and find my way back to my house. If it exists in this reality. I'd still be in this body, but at least I'd be on familiar ground. The truck stopped outside.

"Now what?" I wondered. As in any good nightmare events seemed to focus on the dreamer. The truck couldn't just drive by. The perception of a symbol in the dream causes it to focus on the dreamer. It had to stop in front of my house. If I perceived it, then it had to be coming my way. The truck door flew open and a short wiry man dressed in a baseball cap, denim shirt and jeans stomped toward my door.

Bam, then BAM BAM!. Where the fuck are you Curry, you owe me and I'm going to collect! I rushed for the doorlock but could see the knob already turning. The door flew open. "Where's your old man Margie? He hooked up with me last night and he promised to pay me. I told him he better be at my house by 8:00. Were is he?"

He stood in the door, his fist to his red face. The black pistol stuffed in his belt loomed large in his loose pants. The threat of it made it seem larger I guessed. I couldn't take my eyes off of it. I stood dumbfounded, unable to speak. I wondered if the gun would be pointed my way momentarily. Finally I stammered, "What are you talking about?" I sounded convincingly incredulous without even trying to.

"Stupid shit. Where is he?" He sputtered.

"I don't know. He took off this morning and I haven't seen him. Look, what's this about, maybe I can help" I said truthfully. "Why don't you sit down and tell me what bothering you." I had gone too far, I had slipped into Fletcher speak. This was not my office and he wasn't a patient. He wasn't going for it anyway.

"Don't play stupid with me. He's got it here somewhere. He's either got the money or the white lady." He looked around, took a step toward me, then backed off. He turned and wheeled for the bedroom. I should have been incensed at his lack of respect for my privacy. I should have followed him into the bedroom.

I should have tried to throw him out. But that was Bill thinking. Here as Marge I was aware of my tiny physical presence. I stood still. He was armed. He was small but clearly stronger than me. And he was mad. I'd be safer if I stayed put. Better to let him have the run of the house. Besides, it wasn't mine anyway.

I saw him turn toward the closet, then rummage in the bathroom. I heard him lift the lid on the toilet. "Once a con always a con!" He came out holding a bag with a white powder up to his face. He opened it and tasted it. For a moment the anger left him. "Yeesss!" he said in glee. "It doesn't even look like he copped any.

His anger returned, flashing from cool to warm to hot with each step down the hallway. Apparently he'd thought of something else. "You'd better hope he hasn't cut it. Tell that fuckin idiot of yours that if he tries this again I'll kill him. I almost got my balls blown off this morning over this. And you know what? Your fuckin rent is overdue too. I'm telling you, I gave him a break lettin him live here but you better fuckin straighten up. I'll throw your asses out in the dirt you worthless drunken lumps of shit. Bring me the rent by 4:00 or I'll have the sheriff here. Why the hell doesn't he put your ass to work instead of lettin you watch the frikin tube and pour beer down your gut all day? You probably won't be able to stand up in a couple of hours. I'll never understand it. If you were my bitch I'd throw you out, you pissant drunk. I don't even think you're a good piece of ass for him anymore. Just a fuckin fat ass. Fuckin just tell him that Beedy ain't gonna take any shit from him."

He stomped off leaving the door wide open. I grabbed for the door and closed and locked it. Through the window I could see him grab a crowbar from the back of his truck. My heart began to race. He was in a rage. I tried to think of how I would deal with this aggression in the hospital. I couldn't think. His anger was called acute something syndrome. When they come into the hospital like this I always call for the attendants to strap them down. There were no attendants around here.

But the crowbar wasn't meant for me. I could hear him hitting something. I heard the sound of glass breaking and a metal-on-metal thumping.

I walked to the kitchen window. It was the Camero taking the brunt of his anger. He smashed out the headlights and the smacked the windshield before stomping off to the truck. I heard the spinning of tires on the gravel and saw the trail of dust as he sped up the dirt road.

I had been calm while he was here but now I felt weak.

What kind of world was I in? I'm going crazy. This is some kind of hallucination. I dropped my professional calmness. I was angry and afraid. I could feel tears welling up and I was shaking badly. I sat at the kitchen table. How do I deal with this? I began to sob uncontrollably. Not only over the fear I had, the helplessness, the confusion, but my whole situation. What the heck is going on? Am I ill?

I had a measure of stability back in a few minutes. I got my breathing under control and dabbed at my eyes. Mascara blackened my fingertips. I wiped it away with a napkin from the table. Okay. I knew a little more. My "old man" was involved in drugs. I was a drunk. Our rent was overdue and my car was trashed. "I can deal with that can't I?"

I waited a few more minutes to be sure this Beedy character was gone. I unlocked the door and stepped out. The car sat in the drive leaning to one side. The headlights were gone, the side mirror off, the shattered windshield leaving a spider's web across most of the driver's side. All in all, the damage seemed to fit this car perfectly. It was almost as if an artist had decided that headlights and a window did not fit this car. Beedy had sculptured it into the perfect jalopy now. Everything he did to it was in concert with the gray primer, the loose hood, the red passenger side door, the hanging tailpipe. "In another world he could have been paid for doing such work." I thought.

"Margie, are you okay? Called a voice. A young man walked from the trailer across the street. "Is that how Beedy takes care of late rent?" He was trying to be lighthearted, but I could sense concern

"Thanks for asking. Everything is alright." I called back as I walked around to the side. There was a screwdriver stuck in the left front tire. It was still hissing and nearly flat.

He had been watching me examine my car from his front yard. He came over now. He was about thirty and well built. Handsome, I guess. Dark hair, rather long, but not unkempt.

"You've been crying." It was a statement, not a question.

"Yes, what do you think? My voice still high and tight, and barely in control. It was filled with sarcasm that wasn't meant for him. "I'm sorry, I'm a little upset is all."

"It's alright, he's gone now. I'll help you. I think we can get it running again."

I walked to the trunk. I knew what I was about to find. Or rather not find. A good spare. Sure enough. There was some fishing tackle, three empty Budweiser cans, jumper cables with no alligator clips and a rim with no wheel.

"Please, I need to get it driveable." I pleaded. He was the first person to treat me like a human since I came here, wherever I was. I was unaccustomed to the idea of a man changing a tire for me. I wanted to be independent. I wanted to take care of this myself. To be truthful, I didn't want this young man seeing me like this. But I was never in a predicament like this. So helpless, so lacking in resources. I wanted to change my own tire. But to tell the truth, I wasn't sure if she had the strength to do it. I was exhausted. I was caught up in an emotional experience and it was draining me physically.

In ten minutes he had rolled a tire from across the street and changed it. I stood by feeling like a helpless female, but thankful just the same for being spared this problem. Besides. He was a nice guy. "I'm Jimmy" he offered a dirty hand, then pulled it back and wiped it on his jeans before offering again. I held out my hand, automatically adopting the slightly bent wrist a woman presents. He took my fingers in his hand, pressing lightly around them. He had a warm and firm hand. Masculine, I suppose was the word for it. His arm was tanned and hairy. "I wasn't sure that you remembered my name, I introduced myself when we met last week but I know I sometimes forget names of new faces."

"Of course not Jimmy, I didn't forget." I lied. "Can I give you anything for the help?"

"Oh no, of course not Marge. It was my pleasure. I hope Curry will understand. I know how he is. I'm sorry I can't help with the headlights or the windshield, but you should be able to drive it. "Thanks again I called." He turned back and smiled. Nice man.

IV

I had a plan, I had mobility. I had conviction, and a need to know what this new reality was made of. I was certain that I was in my city. I recognized the outline of the mountains. I was on the East Side of them. I just needed to take the Camero and head west toward the sea. I should be able to find my house once I got over the mountains. Once at home maybe I could resolve what was going on. Maybe call Clint and see if someone I knew could verify the reality of my situation. I jumped in and started it up. It sounded as if the muffler had a hole in it. "Fitting." I thought. It just wouldn't be right without it. I pulled out into the gravel and slipped the car in gear. It was a standard. I wasn't used to one. My BMW was automatic and so was the Explorer. In fact I'd never driven a standard before.

I managed to stall it twice before getting to the stop sign at the end of the gravel road. I didn't see anything I recognized. I must be at the outskirts of town. I turned right down a farm road, came to a dead end, and had to turn around.

I got a puzzled look from the old man on the corner as I sped down to the next crossroad. I was going to find out where I was and nothing was going to stop me.

Red Lights. As soon as I turned out on the main road they were behind me. Shit. I pulled off the road. "Can I see your license ma'am?" I reached for my pocket. Shit women don't carry their wallets there. It's in her purse. Where is it? I know. It's got to be on the kitchen table back at the trailer. "Sorry officer, I don't have it with me. I can go get it. I left it on the table at home. It's just back a mile or so down the road." I stammered, sounding very weak and uncertain. Besides, I was remembering that the license had expired last week anyway. This wasn't going to be easy. I thought about telling him who I really was, but figured that wouldn't get me far.

That will be alright ma'am. Will you step out of the car, Margie?"

We'll that was good. He knew me. Perhaps I could persuade him. I'd have to swallow my male pride and pretend to be a flustered lady in distress. That wouldn't be too hard. I was in distress. I wasn't sure if I was a lady or not.

I hoped my one college acting class could help me fake that part of it.

"Why officer," I said in my smoothest, most flirtatious voice, "Is that really necessary?" I was surprised at how effective it sounded.

"Get out of the car." He demanded. I opened the door and he pulled me by the arm and twisted me around with my hands behind my back. In a blink I was handcuffed. "I told you last week I didn't want to see you or that asshole Curry around here no more." Said a rough voice in my ear. "Come here."

He dragged me into the back seat of the car. "Let's see, no license, no registration, no headlights, no seatbelt, broken windshield. I don't think that car is safe on a public road. I'd say you were in for some trouble unless you start to co-operate."

He must have seen the quizzical look I gave him. "Come on Margie, you know the drill. Steve told me all about you." We took off in the car barely getting back onto the road before turning onto a dirt road, the entrance nearly hidden by shrubs and a wide arch of trees forming a canopy over the top "I wonder who Steve is?

He stopped 100 yards off the main road, well away from the traffic and completely isolated and alone. He opened the back door and pulled me out of the car and onto my knees in the road. I knew what was coming, but I didn't believe it.

"Co-operate Margie, and I'll forget the tickets."

"You know you can get in serious trouble for this" I said. Hoping he'd come to his senses. He pulled at my hair and twisted my head so that I was looking upward at him "So can you Margie. I could search your car. I'm sure I could find coke or grass in it and you'd be up the river before you could blink an eye."

He said it in such a way as to leave no doubt that he would find something. I supposed that he carried such "evidence" in his car for just these occasions.

I looked to the dirt at my knees. His shiny black shoes and tan pants just at the edge of my vision. I resigned myself to it. I'm dirty white trash. I'm a woman in trouble. And there is an easy way out. Besides, this isn't real is it? I can do what I please in a dream can't I?" I pleaded with myself.

His pants were already unbuckled as I lifted my head.

V

I was still on my knees retching. I had tried to get up twice but each time I had to stoop to vomit again. My clinical mind was telling me that I was going into shock, but the rest of me, the part that had just been violated, the part that the pig of a police officer had mistaken for Margie, was in desperate need. I leaned against a tree, staving off another wave of nausea. I walked vacantly toward the main road, stopping to wipe the vomit and something white and sticky from my face.

I tried to recall the events of the last few minutes. I knew the mechanism of repression. I had seen it in my patients. But it was odd to experience it. It was a complete blackout. The last thing I remember was his belt buckle falling away from his pants. I couldn't remember anything until I was puking in the weeds on the side of the road. My rational mind knew what had happened, but the perception of the event was missing. I mused about the area of the brain responsible for this, but couldn't focus well enough to zero in on it. It didn't matter anyway. I wasn't going to overcome this by clinical objectivity. I was too far gone to think straight or to even experience emotions. I was mentally numb.

I staggered to the end of the row of trees. My cadence steadied. The clip-clop of my strapless sandals as they flipped against the bottoms of my feet provided a metronome to keep time with. I reached the entrance and peered out. I was wary that he might still be around. I reached to steady myself on a tree and noticed the marks from the handcuffs still showing on my wrists. A quarter mile down the road I could see blinking lights. His police cruiser and a wrecker, right about where I had pulled over. In a moment they both flew past me, the black wrecker ahead of a gray streak. It was the red door that provided the certainty. They had impounded my car. I was stuck, with no way to get home. I sat and buried my face in my hands, shaking uncontrollably.

I sat there half-awake for a long time. I vowed then and there that I was not going to live this kind of life. I didn't care how she was born, what her circumstances were, or who I was. I couldn't live like this. I didn't really want to acknowledge to myself what had happened. I had performed fellatio on a police officer. No say it! I managed a whisper: "A blow job." I repeated it to myself again, shaking my head. I had been forcibly violated. It was something I wanted to share with no one. I was ashamed. Ashamed to think that a medical doctor, an educated man, a board certified psychiatrist, could do nothing to change the outcome of the situation. He had his way with me.

I couldn't even muster the courage to tell myself that it could have been worse. I just wanted to get back and clean myself up. I needed to rid myself of him. This life had to change.

There was nothing to do but head back to the trailer. It was probably less than a mile but it took me the better part of an hour. The sandals were useless for walking along the side of a road. I felt each gravel stone on the bottom of my feet. She was not in very good shape. I stumbled and fell twice. I got thirsty. By the time I reached the trailer I was exhausted. But I didn't head straight for the trailer. I looked around. I was afraid that I might be seen by someone, especially by Jimmy. I didn't want him to see me this way. I knew he'd know something was wrong. I didn't want to have to explain anything.

I circled around through the sticker patch in the back of the trailer, pricking myself with a sticker on my wrist, just above my thumb. Thank god I hadn't locked the door. I rushed to the couch and collapsed in a teary-eyed heap, too tired and exhausted to sob. I knew this was an asthenic reaction to the emotional trauma, but putting a name to it didn't change a thing. In a moment I was asleep, free for the moment from this insane world I had stumbled into.

The sun was lower when I woke. It must be late afternoon. I had hoped that I would return to my bedroom at home, amid my familiar surrounding, now that this crazy dream had reached a climax. But I was still trapped. I no longer felt erotic in this body. I was a prisoner of it. It's small delicate shell, no match for a policeman with a gun, or Beedy, or Curry for that matter. I was a defenseless woman trapped in a man's world. My own world had disappeared as speedily as the body that I once had. I was a prisoner, in body, mind, spirit, and physical surroundings.

I wandered aimlessly up and down the hall, wondering what to do and how to cope. Thinking that my training should be of help. My training. My reliance on the medical community. My trust in the establishment. My anchor.

None of it applied. None of it was going to help me. I would have to pioneer my own way out of this. There was going to be no nanny to make it all better, no father figure to buy my way out of trouble, no simple cruising and loafing through this life. This was real and I was going to have to deal with it. I would have to do it on my own, without the family connections, wealth, power and authority graced upon me in my previous life.

As evening settled I began to pull myself together. What happened had happened. I would try to deal with the images when I got back. If I got back. "Sure" I started sarcastically, I'll just tell Clint I was inside a woman's body for a day and that I'm suffering from the emotional effects of a forcible rape." He'll know exactly what to do. Lock me up probably.

I felt it rather than heard it. It was the sound from this morning. In a moment the bike was in the driveway. "Oh boy, it's our little friend Curry." I thought to myself. He walked with and odd swaying motion exacerbated by his limp. He was out of my view for a couple of seconds and then stood standing, framed by the door. "Hmmm, Hi, ugh" and he staggered toward the couch. I rose and got out of his way. He was clearly drunk or high, or both. He sat vacantly on the couch.

I wondered for a second whether he needed medical attention. I checked his pulse; slow and weak. His eyes looked vacant. "Curry! Can you hear me?" I shouted. "Sure, sure honey, I'm ajust a little spssmmmm." He sat quietly for several minutes and then staggered to the refrigerator. I wondered how often he got this way. At least there was no chance that he'd be slapping me around tonight. He pulled out a Bud, popped the top and guzzled half of it before letting the can fall to the floor.

Satisfied that he was not in immediate danger I cleaned up the spilled beer and retreated to the bedroom. I straightened the bed out, found a clean blanket in the back of the closet, made myself a nest and curled up into the bed.

I awoke on my back with a massive weight on top of me. The smell of beer and cigarettes filled my nostrils. Whatever it was, it was forcing my legs apart. In a moment I realized it was Curry. He was on top of me, pinning me to the bed. For as short as he was, he was still heavy and strong. A lot stronger than me. It was obvious what he wanted. I thought about wrestling my way free and then gave up. What did I care? This wasn't my body. Let him have it. I closed my eyes in a useless attempt to block out the physical sensations, hoping I would black out the way I had this morning. The only thing in my favor was that it didn't last long. In two minutes he was finished, rolled over and snoring.

I waited, holding my breath, afraid I would disturb him. Once his breathing was regular I ran for the bathroom. I stripped and jumped into the shower, trying to wash away the filth and dirtiness. I let the spray run into my face, closing my eyes and wishing I were invisible.

VI

Something subtle happened. Maybe it was the water temperature that changed. Something made me open my eyes again. The effect was startling. I was back in my own house. I scanned down my body. It was me! Fletcher! I was whole and alive.

Man! What a realistic dream. I drank in the hot water, let it pour on my face. Drinking in not only the pleasure of the warm water but also the pleasure of my body, my surroundings, and my life back. It was wonderful. I was alive. I'd gained from the experience. I would never forget it. Whatever lessons it held, I would work through them. I would take them into me and make them a part of me. It's just so wonderful to be back. The solidarity of my existence convinced me now that it had all been a dream. I vivid dream. A novel dream, but just a dream. The reality of Marge and Curry and Beedy seemed to wash down the drain with the hot water.

I turned the gold plated handles and slid open the glass door, feeling refreshed and alive. I stepped out of the shower, resplendent in my masculinity, flipping the water off my penis happily. As I reached for the towel I glanced down. On the floor were strange clothes. No they weren't strange. They just didn't belong here. It was Marge's T-shirt and panties. I picked them up and felt them. They were real. This wasn't over yet. Not by a long shot.

I stood dripping wet, puzzled. The phone brought me out of my stupor. I walked to the bedroom and grabbed the phone. "Bill, thank God your OK, where the hell you been man? Where were you all day?" It was Clint, my partner.

"What do you mean? What time is it?" I asked.

"It's 11:30 p.m. We've been trying to get a hold of you all day. Are you okay? Are you going to be in tomorrow? Betty cancelled most of your appointments and I took a couple." Then, in a more concerned voice, "Bill you don't sound okay, is everything alright?"

"Yeah, yeah, Clint, I guess I must have slept right through the entire day. That's pretty unusual I guess." I trailed off. Clint had established that I was okay so there was little else to be said but he knew that I wasn't telling him the whole truth. He said simply, "Do you want to talk about it?"

"Nah, there's nothing to it" I replied as casually as I could, "See you in the morning."

I walked back to the bathroom. I was hoping it was just residue from the dream, or even hallucinations, I knew of several medicines that could help that. But the clothes were still there. I picked up the white panties. They were still wet and stained. I poked a finger into the stain and sniffed. It was Curry's semen. "How on earth?" I trailed off. I'd never heard of any hallucination lasting so long and being so stable. I thought through the signs for schizophrenia. I was well past the age for adolescent onset. I did not have any head injuries. Cancer? A lesion in the Parietal lobe? Maybe. I visualized the little lump of cells I had separated from the folds of the cadaver's brain in my anatomy class years ago. A little gray clump that controlled senses, speech, and thought. "Naw. There'd be other symptoms." This was unlike anything I had ever encountered before. I thought about asking someone, maybe a neighbor, to see if they saw these clothes too. But I knew the answer would be yes. I was back to wondering if I had stepped into the twilight zone. I was actually bringing physical items with me from this other realm. First, the black eye and stinging face, now her clothes.

I picked them up. The panties were stained and wet with Curry's semen. Her shirt still smelled slightly from the afternoon's walk. I found a couple of strands of blonde hair with black roots on the shirt and red pubic hair in the panties. I knew that none of this was mine. I had been apparently missing for 12 or 15 hours, long enough to make my co- workers wonder where I was. I was back, but I had brought back some accoutrements from my dream.

I walked to my bed, still exhausted. I climbed in but my mind was spinning. I couldn't think of sleeping. Worse still I was having trouble getting readjusted to my old body. I felt tall, slender and strong, but it seemed alien after so many hours in a woman's body. I also needed to heal from the emotional rollercoaster I had been on. I wasn't sure I could go to work tomorrow. I needed healing as much as any of my patients. I thought through a mental list of my colleagues. No, there was no one I could trust with this. Not even Clint. Especially not Clint. We were partners. Confiding this could destroy our relationship. Especially if he didn't believe it, and he most certainly wouldn't. I could lose my license. I'd have to cope with it myself.

I had an idea. I climbed out of bed and dug out the yellow pages. I had no idea what the name of the trailer park was or even if it had one. I searched several possibilities, wrote the names down and jumped into the Explorer.

Three hours later I was still driving around town. No place I searched looked like the trailer park I had spent the day in. I had traveled to the other side of the mountains, certain I could locate the approximate place, but the silhouettes of the mountains were not visible in the moonless night. I was tired, jumpy and worn out. I was lost. Not just physically, but mentally as well. I didn't know where I was in any sense of the word. I dared not sleep. I didn't want to end up back there again. I pulled into a 7-11 for a cup of coffee and walked back to the car. I dug out one more address and then was surprised to see a lit cigarette in my hand. I had just taken a large drag on it while sipping a cup of black coffee.

I drank coffee only rarely and always with sugar and cream. Okay black was explainable, but where did the cigarette come from? I found a fresh pack on my seat. I looked at the receipt. A pack of cigarettes and a cup of coffee. I bought them moments ago. Even more odd was the way I was smoking. I had never picked up the habit. I didn't even know how to inhale, yet I was able to take in a deep drag and it seemed to calm my nerves. No coughing. The cigarette even tasted good. I had always hated the smell of smoke and tried to stay away from it. Yet here I was actually enjoying it. I felt better.

I forced myself to keep driving all night, afraid that I would fall asleep and lose my self into that other world again. I headed straight for work, smelling of smoke, red eyed, unshaven, sleepless and exhausted.

Betty was the first person I saw. "Bill!" She exclaimed, then regained her sense of propriety in front of the patients in the waiting room. "Dr. Fletcher, what happened? Then in almost a whisper, "Where were you? It's so unlike you, we were worried sick."

"I'm just a little tired, I was up all night."

I walked to my office looking for a safe place. I didn't want to talk to anyone. I reached for the phone to let Betty know I wanted to cancel my patients again, but didn't make it. My head fell into my arms on the desk and I was fast asleep.

"Hey, get up!" Said a rough voice. I thought at first it was Clint, but I knew in an instant who it was. Curry!

"Man, that was good last night, you gonna fix me lunch?" He asked.

Shit! I was back. What now? I can't live like this. I didn't know what to say to him. I wasn't about to make him lunch; besides there was nothing but beer in the refrigerator. I opened my eyes and brushed the blond hair from my eyes.

"Sleepyhead. Come on, you can sleep all day after your soaps. I need some help." He taunted me.

"I'm coming." I said sleepily. I felt much better than I had a few minutes ago in my office. In fact I felt as if I had slept peacefully all night.

I felt almost comfortable as I wrapped a red robe around my naked body and tied the belt. I was only vaguely aware of the cleavage I was leaving for Curry to stare at with my top wide open. I looked at my watch, then realized I didn't have it on. Just that smooth clear hairless arm of Marge's. I should have been getting used to it by now, but it still struck me oddly.

I stumbled out of bed and to the bathroom. I stood carelessly for a moment until warm urine dripping down my leg pointedly reminded me that I had to sit when I relieved myself. "Must be all the coffee I drank last night? No, that isn't right is it? I was in Bill's body then. Oh fuck, I don't know." I mused.

"Hey, I saw Beedy last night, he said he was sorry about your car." Said Curry from behind the door.

"You saw him?" I asked incredulously.

"Yeah man, we did a few lines and everything was cool." Grunting as he reached down to pull on a pair of pants I guessed.

Finished now, I flipped the hair over my shoulders looping a finger around my ear to keep the hair out of my face. I pulled a brush through my hair, tilting my head sideways to give me a little more room to stroke the brush through the entire length. I spread a mop at my forehead and frowned at the roots. The hairbrush landed on top of the dresser. Curry was walking toward the kitchen. He stopped at the side window. "Hey! Whacha do with your car?"

"Cops took it. Impounded it" I said flatly.

"Fuckin Stemper wasn't it? I'm gonna pound his face in one day." He steamed. "I'll see if I can get it back. Beedy knows the guy at the impound lot. Maybe he can pull it out for me."

He said nothing and was out the door in a couple of minutes. I was relieved to see him go.

But here I was again in the trailer with nothing to do and nowhere to go. I looked for a phone and found it. It was disconnected. "Fitting." I thought. Even if it had been working what was I going to do? Call my office? "Hello Betty, this is Bill, I'm trapped in the body of a woman named Marge. Come help me." Hah.

I looked around. The place was a mess and I couldn't stand it anymore. I started in the bedroom and picked up the clothes and the trash. It looked a lot better. A half-hour later, I washed the windows and mirror, pulled gum out of the heating vent, tore down the curtains, and swept the floor. It looked pretty good.

By mid-afternoon, I had pretty much gone through the entire trailer, sweeping, straightening, and cleaning. I even tackled the refrigerator and picked up all the loose Budweiser cans left all over the house. At least it felt a little better. But how was I going to live with this Curry guy? A better question. How was I going to restore my life?

When I was through I took a hot shower. As I undressed I examined my body again. This time not from the clinical viewpoint, but more as a man would a woman. This was the first time I was inside this woman's body that I felt relaxed and comfortable. It really wasn't so bad. She had been quite pretty at one time I supposed. I thought she might still be able to restore her looks, if she started eating right and exercised some. I was impressed by how smooth and supple a woman's skin felt. Even hers, which was not well cared for. It felt sensual to rub my arms against each other and to trace my fingers around my dripping wet breasts. Even in this trapped world there was sensuality. Perhaps I could enjoy some of it while trying to figure out what to do.

The shower felt good. I was clean and so was the house. It renewed my spirits. I felt better. I turned my attention to clothes. So far, I had worn only jeans and T-Shirts, but I really couldn't stand that old black Foreigner T-shirt anymore. I rummaged around and found some descent clothes. Some cotton panties, and a bra. When I had put these on I turned to look at myself in the mirror. She looked almost sexy. That is, I felt and looked pretty sexy. I don't know. Was it her or me? But I, me, Bill Fetcher, felt sexy in this woman's body. Or was it my body? Shit, what confusion.

Up until now I hadn't had a much inclination for sexual thoughts. I had a few moments during my exam that felt pretty wonderful. The rest of the time I'd been busy with other things. But the intimacy of me standing in women's underwear had a curious excitement for me. Partly it was voyeurism. I was looking in the window and seeing a scantily clad woman. What man wouldn't get excited? But I also knew I was this woman, in a sense anyway. And she must have been proud of her body once. It was exciting to see how my own feminine sexuality was unfolding. How different it felt compared to a man's sexuality. I stood and looked at myself from different directions, placing my hair on top of my head like I did the first day, but finding a deep and pleasurable sense of sexual satisfaction instead of the curiosity I first felt. I wondered what she would look like dressed up, ready for a date. I felt a little embarrassed but then reminded myself that no one was here to notice.

I searched the closet for something sensible to wear. On the top shelf I found something metallic and heavy. I pulled it down and found myself staring at a large pistol. I recognized it as a nine-millimeter pistol, but beyond that I knew nothing else about it. It must be Curry's. "I'd rather he didn't have this in the house." I thought. I carefully placed it on the shelf and continued my search of the closet.

I couldn't help sliding the garments along the pole and methodically checking and evaluating each of her garments. Here were several stunning dresses, tops, suits, and blouses. All looked as if they had not been worn in a while. A red silk one, a short black one. I pulled the black one out and held it up to the mirror in front of my body. "Why not?" I asked myself. I pulled the dress over my head and smoothed it down. I felt a mix of embarrassment and excitement.

I wondered when she last wore this. The tightness around my butt suggested that it had been a little while and a few pounds ago. I couldn't quite get the zipper all the way up the back. Still, it was a nice effect. It was a surplice jersey with a v-necked top, cutting low enough to expose my white bra. I tucked the bra back a little into the fabric of the dress bringing out a pleasing and surprising amount of cleavage. The empire waistband stretched rather more than originally intended wrapping my waist tightly in supine soft fabric. I brushed my blond hair with my fingers so that it hung down smoothly over my shoulders. I spotted some pumps in the back of the closet and slipped nicely into them. My petite feet looking small and narrow and oddly contrasting to the size twelve shoes I normally wore. Odd how sexually stimulating this was for me. Instead of a hard on I had a wet sticky sensation in my crotch. I slipped a hand under the dress and massaged the warm patch below the waistline of my panties through the cotton. "She was once a knockout." I thought to myself.

I experimented with makeup. I disliked the heavy mascara she wore, but I tried putting it on much lighter amount, just a hint. Next I tried a little lipstick. I liked it. It made me feel sexier. She looked a lot better to my eye. I smiled widely. I saw her image for the first time smiling back at me through the dresser mirror. "It's a pretty smile. She should use it more often." I thought. Now my breasts felt like they were protruding into my bra and I adjusted it for a better fit. The soft fabric rubbed against my nipples, leaving a brief but startling sensation that seemed to travel toward my wet patch below.

I didn't like the way the dress fit. "I need to lose a few pounds and then I could get into this comfortably", I said half out loud. I zipped the dress back down and let it slip over my bare legs to the ground, stepping out of both the dress and the pumps. I was determined to get her back into shape so I could wear this dress somewhere other than just inside this bedroom. Someplace where men would admire the body I had.

I returned to my work looking for something to wear around the house. I went about this business with a newfound zeal. Serviceable clothes would no longer do. I didn't want to wear clothes that felt comfortable to Bill, I wanted feminine clothes, the kind I knew Marge once wore regularly. I needed clothes that would fit me and show me off as best as I could.

I found a gray crewneck long sleeved top with a row of hook closures on the front. It was tight also, like a bodice. It molded itself to my bosom, showing the outlines of my ample breasts. I fastened only about half of hooks up the front, leaving plenty of room for my cleavage to show through the opening in the blouse. Dressing sexy made me feel sexy, which was about the only entertainment I had. So why not indulge? I liked the way the knitting clung to the outline of my breasts and moved with me as I turned. I slipped out of the wet white cotton panties and into a pair of lacy red French cut silky ones. I found a pair of tight black jeans and poured myself into them. I looked sexy! I felt sexy. I liked the way I looked. The mirror smiled at me again. I looked better that way.

Next I tried combing my hair. When I looked up I realized I had spent nearly an hour trying out this new body. And I hadn't really managed to get my hair fixed the way I wanted it. It was like playing with dolls, only all grown up. This was fun. The best part was that I could indulge in this fun without anyone knowing who was inside, and I could indulge without embarrassment. I suddenly realized that Bill must have enjoyed this immensely. Funny, how much he had missed being a boy.

He must have always wanted to play "dress up" but must have been too embarrassed to do it.

I had knew it was a fairly common fantasy of men, but I didn't remember ever wanting to be a girl. It must have been repressed so deep that it never came up consciously. I dug up a couple of theories on gender confusion and wondered if any of these applied to me. Was that why I was Marge now? Because I had suppressed my anima? I knew the power of repressed fantasies, but I still had no idea what had caused this predicament. I was just glad to be able to experience being a woman.

Well, that might be an overstatement. I mean, so far I hadn't been really tested. Curry was barely conscious the couple of times I saw him. Would he even notice that I wasn't his Marge? Could I pass as her? Hell, could I even pass as a "woman?" I mean I had all the right physical attributes, but I wasn't a woman. If I acted my normal way everyone would know something was wrong. But how does a woman act? I really didn't know. I tried various expressions in the mirror. It was fun but I was embarrassing myself. I tried pursing my lips and looking "sexy." The effect was startling. I did look sexy. But it felt unfamiliar. I tried walking with a sexy swing to my hips but found that my hips swayed pretty much without my help.

About 2:00 I heard a car outside. It was a police cruiser on the gravel road outside. I walked outside onto the porch steps. "Miss Burnford?" he asked politely. He wasn't the same cop as yesterday. "Yes?" I replied.

We've been trying to call you all day." He started.

"I know, the phone is out of order. Is this about my car?"

"Yes ma'am, Officer Stemper located a Chevrolet Camero registered in your name, abandoned on the southbound side of the St. Route 52. He had it impounded. Here is the information on how to get it out. If I were you, I retrieve it as soon as I can. It will cost you $50 a day, and it doesn't look like the car is worth that much."

"Thank you." I replied taking the form from his hand and noting the hair on the exposed part of his arm. I let my gaze move up the blue fabric to his rugged shoulders, then across his clean-shaven neck, and stopped at his square jaw. Unconsciously, I stood a little straighter and thrust out my breasts in his direction.

"Have a nice day." He replied, letting his gaze drop to my chest as he turned.

Well, That was nice I thought. No phone, no car, stuck in a trailer, and stuck in a strange reality. I turned slowly, knowing that he was now examining the tight jeans and curves of my backside. The compliment from that gaze was an unexpected pleasure. I knew now what it was like for a woman to get a sexual look by a man. And I didn't really mind it a bit. I wondered if "real" women did? Nice that someone noticed the effort I put into trying to fix myself up a little. Or at least notice my tits and ass.

I opened the door to the trailer and found myself back in my office, in Bill's body again. Apparently, I could change realities without sleep too. I checked the time on the wall clock. It was 2:10. Just about right. I checked myself carefully. Everything seemed okay. I touched my lips and came away with something red. It was lipstick! Whoa. I better get cleaned up. Apparently, I brought something back from the other reality again. I wiped my face and headed to the bathroom down the hall.

"Bill, where have you been? You took off again!" Called Clint. Then up closer and quieter, "What the hell is with you lately? What's going on? You take off and don't show for a day, then come in here looking like shit in the morning and then you're off again all day. I'm beginning to think you don't give a shit about our practice. How the hell are we going to run a clinic with you acting this way? What the hell have you got on your eyes?"

He stomped off. I couldn't blame him I'd be angry too. In our three years together this was the first time I'd ever seen him drop the veneer of the careful doctor. He was always careful, poised, and calm. I guess I really got under his skin. I rushed to the bathroom to discover that the mascara I had applied was still on my eyes. I looked so bloodshot and tired, that it really didn't matter. I needed a shave. I needed a smoke. And I still had on Marge's gray top. It fit even tighter on my six foot frame than it did on Marge's tiny one.

I rushed back to my office, the phone was ringing. It was Betty. "I cancelled all of your appointments Dr. Fletcher, you might as well go home."

She said it in a snotty way, like I had ruined her day. She could have walked the twenty feet down the hall to tell me in person. "Well, try walking a mile in my shoes honey."

I thought. I took a drag on a smoke, calming my nerves.

I had to get out of the office. On my way out I passed our pharmacy. It's just a little room off the corridor, but we keep some pretty powerful drugs in there. I halted, took out my key and slipped inside. I needed something to calm me. I carefully searched the shelf containing the most powerful psychoactives. "I need these." I reasoned. I opened some Reserpine but then inexplicably closed the lid and slipped the entire container in my pocket. I pocketed a bottle of Thorazine as well then grabbed three or four others and knocked more to the floor before taking off.

I couldn't go home. Maybe my house was some sort of portal into another dimension. It was wicked and this was my punishment. I couldn't go home. No, that couldn't be. The portal must be mobile. I just dropped directly into my office from there. "I don't care. I gotta go somewhere."

I drove around downtown, trying to think straight. I pressed hard on the gas and the brake as I rounded the corners, drifting aimlessly around the fringes of downtown. I felt so muddled since I got back to the office. It was difficult to think clearly. I needed something to calm me, to help me think. I stopped at a bar in downtown. Black painted walls, lighted beer signs, a couple of pool tables, a miniature wooden dance floor, and a jukebox playing Van Morrison completed the picture of the ultimate blue collar bar. It fit my mood perfectly. I ordered a beer from the Willy Nelson lookalike behind the bar and lit up a smoke. I thought about the tranquilizers in my pocket.

Six beers later I jumped in the Explorer and headed for a motel. I couldn't sleep at home tonight. I told myself I shouldn't drive this way, I should stay at a motel. I headed for the Ramada but ended up pulling into the Sands Motel, a little strip of rooms in a rather seedy part of the town.

As soon as I checked in I felt uneasy and uncomfortable. Perhaps I had picked up a depression from one of my clients. Some weird form of counter-transference? I paced the room, dragging deeply from on my newfound vice, Marlborough Lights, the same brand I had discovered in the trailer. I took a couple of the tranquilizers I had lifted from our pharmacy and washed them down with another beer. I tried to think about what was happening but my brain seemed stiff and frozen. I wondered again if perhaps I was showing the initial stages of schizophrenia. I was having hallucinations. I was irritable, unable to sleep. Yes, Perhaps. But that didn't explain the women's clothes I found outside my shower last night.

I walked across the street, unable to think. I found a bar, Sady's Place, and walked in. It was not a place I'd ordinarily go into. It was dark, the walls were black, with beer signs. Actually, it was not much different from the place I'd been in earlier, except that this one was seedier, darker and more forbidding. It fit my mood even better than the first one. I sat at the empty bar and ordered a beer, then two whiskeys straight up.

After an hour or so I went outside to go back to the motel. I stood unsteadily on the corner. I was waiting for the light when an old white Cadillac pulled up. The passenger window rolled down electrically. "Hey buddy! You got the time?" A voice called out from the other side of the car. I leaned to the car window to try to say something but my tongue was thick. He was an older man, perhaps 50 or so, very thin, hair slicked back in a duck- tale from the 1950's, and large tinted Elvis glasses. He wore a black western style shirt with white pearly buttons and webbing around the shoulders. "I was just looking for a little something to do," he offered, "So I thought I'd cruise a little. Care for a smoke?"

That sounded good to me. I started to reach across and he opened the door. I found myself getting in and accepting a smoke and a light. "I'm Shady," he offered his hand, "Least that's what my friends call me. And yours?"

"Bill" I said, "Bill Fl." But he cut me off. "No last names please." He speed off and quickly turned on a side street and then again into a darker one-way street. "You're not a cop are you?"

"A cop?" I asked, but apparently that was good enough.

"You'd like a little grass before we start?"

"Sure," I heard myself reply without asking the obvious question of starting what? I hadn't smoked since college and then only once or twice. I did inhale though, but not like I did now. I felt alive and calmer than I'd been all day. Ready for anything. I needed some way to rest my mind and the grass helped a lot. It seemed to counter out the effects of the alcohol and tranquilizers.

In a minute we were both pretty buzzed. I turned to stare out the window, taking in the garbage cans and an abandoned red Toyota, a broken street lamp and the old brownstone walk-ups. I turned when I heard Shady rustle something. He had dropped his pants and shorts and had slid halfway across the seat. "Forty bucks, that's all I got Bill, I swear!"

He had made a mistake and I hadn't even noticed it. Boy I must be blitzed. I realized what had happened. I had forgotten about Marge's tight fitting blouse. I still had it on. He must have mistaken me for a male prostitute. " Listen Shady, maybe we made a mistake here tonight."

"Okay, fifty, I'm hard boy feel this", He pulled my hand toward his dick. My fingers brushed against it. I had never felt another man's cock before. It felt strangely attractive. I left my hand were it was. He reached around my head and gently but firmly began to pull my head toward his penis.

I'd never had a homosexual experience in my life. Not even the thought of such an encounter. I know that sounds unbelievable. Very few men live their lives without at least an occasional homosexual urge. But it was true, I was a straight arrow. But now suddenly his rod seemed so compelling. I tried to avert my eyes but could not. "Oh baby this dick is coming at you hard." Cried Shady. Indeed it was. I could see his head, swollen and red in the dim light, I leaned closer, curling my hands around the pulsating flesh. "Maybe I could use this as therapy for the black out. You know. Reliving it in a way that I wouldn't repress. It might be good for me." I reasoned. It didn't matter. I didn't need a reason. I wet my lips and slid down closer to his hard rod.

In a moment I had my mouth around his cock. It filled my mouth. It pressed against my lips, my tongue and seemed to expand my cheeks. It felt wonderful. I wanted more. I shoved it down as far as I could go until I met the gag reflex. My moist lips slid on his hard dick. I curled my tongue on the tip of his penis. I reached for his balls and gently stroked them.

He was so ready that it didn't take long. I felt a spasm along his shaft and tried to pull away but got a mouthful of his cum. I spit without thinking. "It's alright Bill, I'm not paying you to eat it, but you have to wipe it off the seats. These are real leather you know." Said Shady in a gentle voice.

I lifted my head, ashamed of what had just happened. I hastily pulled away, backing out of the car.

"Hey, man, Stick around a second, I haven't even paid you." But I didn't hear him. I was in a stupor. Now what? Why did I do that? What was happening to my perfect life? I'm falling apart.

I stumbled forward, thinking I could get back to my motel. "Sheeeet, Man Wat we got heyar?" Said a male voice. I turned and was looking into the chest of a black man, at least four inches taller than me and outweighing me by 100 pounds. "It look like a girly white boy out of his El-EE-ment. I knowd what youd be doing faggy boy. You didn't pay the man first, but now you gonna pay."

I didn't know what he was talking about, I was scared beyond thinking. I turned to run but he grabbed me. "Hey white boy, you better give me what you got or you be sucking my dick too."

I froze, then reached for my wallet. "Here, take everything." I stammered, then turned and ran for the street. He stood still, sifting through my wallet.

"Don't be wor-kin my hood wi-out paying the man. . . white boy!" He called. "Hey you lookin cute in dat pretty blouse. Hmmm, mebee you'd bett'r come back he-air, you makin me hot!"

I didn't even turn around.

I found my way back to the motel, but I didn't go in. I dug out the car keys and took off, headed for the safety of my home. Whatever awaited me there, it was better than here.

Somehow I made it home. I don't know how, but I did. I reached for the garage door opener and my hand slipped off the wheel. WHAM. I crashed into the edge of the garage, crumpling the door. Not content, I backed up and pulled forward, catching the door on the bumper and driving it into the side of the BMW. I pulled back and hit the post on the garage and part of the ceiling fell on the Explorer. That was enough driving for one night.

I forced my way into the laundry room, catching a basket of clothes on the hooks on my blouse and dumping it on the floor. Then into the kitchen where I tripped over a chair. So far I was batting one hundred percent. I completed the hat trick by dumping the light next to the couch onto the floor and breaking the bulb and shade. Far enough for tonight. I collapsed on the couch.

On the table beside me was a carved figure. It was an inconsequential wooden figure of a fisherman with a pipe in hand. My grandmother had given it to me for some reason or another. She had probably bought it in a souvenir shop on one of her travels. It had no intrinsic value. It had meaning only because she had given it to me. I reached for it, pulling it in and curling my fingers around the rough wood and paint. It was the only original thing I could hold onto from my life. Everything else was crumbling. I passed out, my hand still clutching the figure.

VII

The sun streaming in through the window woke me. My neck was sore from the couch, but I didn't have a hangover, just a small buzzing in my ear. I opened my eyes and I was on the couch in the living room of the trailer. "Whew, I'm safe." I thought impulsively, and almost immediately wondered why I had thought that. "So, I'm back here again. At least things seem normal."

I lifted my body off the couch. I felt lithe and graceful after last night's performance. I brushed my hair back over the top of my head, noting how graceful this simple movement seemed. I was in Marge's body and actually a bit grateful for it. I was sure that Bill would be having a katzenjammer about now. Man! Beer, booze, tranquilizers, a mugging, and a blow-job. He had quite a night. I was glad I wasn't inside his head right now.

I thought about the changeover. It seemed to be getting easier, at least on this end. It was still a jolt changing bodies, but the paralysis I first felt had disappeared. It seemed as though it was getting physically easier to make the move. I walked down the hall to the bedroom. Curry was still asleep on the bed. I wondered what our relationship was like. Sex? Obviously. Probably drugs and alcohol, but was I supposed to get him up for work? I wondered where he worked and to what extent he supported me. Who paid the rent? How did we get into this relationship? All very good questions, no good answers yet.

I had a few other questions to ponder as I tried to relieve myself. I stood at the toilet reaching down for a non-existent penis and then turned and dropped to the toilet seat. "What happens to Bill while I'm in Marge's body?" I wondered. It seems as if it's a one- for-one trade. Every moment I'm in Marge's body is a moment I'm away from Bill. Time seemed more or less continuous, although space seemed warped. "Where is Marge all this time? It's pretty frustrating to be so mixed up." I mused, half out loud. How can I get a handle on what's going on?"

Curry was up now harumphing and needing to go to the bathroom. "Kinda early for you ain't it?" He queried. It was 6:30. I wonder what time I normally get up?

In a half-hour he was gone and I was alone again to ponder my condition. I felt restless and wanted to explore a little. I searched the closet and found a serviceable pair of running shoes that didn't look much used and some biker shorts. I set out for my normal jog as if I was in Bill's body. Running was different. For one thing, Marge was out of shape compared to Bill's body. For another my hips flew about in strange directions and my breasts bounced horribly. I needed a sports bra if I was going to continue this. I was certain that a couple of weeks of training and I'd be doing okay, "probably lose those extra twenty pounds I'm carrying."

Within an hour I had found a Laundromat and a small grocery store. Apparently, this trailer park was at the edge of the city. I was certain I could find my way back to my house, but I was uncertain if that was the right thing to do. It was too far to walk and the police had taken the only mode of transportation we had. Curry apparently hadn't gotten my Camero back yet.

I returned to the trailer, searched the house again and found $50.00 in one of Curry's pants pockets. I returned to the grocery store and tossed food into the basket, mostly salad fixings. I was certain that this body needed a better diet. I picked up one other item.

At home I broke open the box. Lady Clarol. I didn't have any idea where the real Marge was, but as long as I was going to be occupying her body, I was going to maintain it as best as I could. And I couldn't stand the blonde hair and black roots. By late morning I was a brunette. "I look pretty good. No more roots." I thought, as I posed in the mirror, free of the heavy makeup and the phony hair color, my cheeks flushed and nicely colored either from the running or the respite from the alcohol and cigarettes.

The rest of the afternoon I busied myself with cleaning up the place. It was a still a mess. I told myself I was looking for some answers, but it really bothered me what a pig's pen this place was. After straightening and cleaning up I took a couple of loads to the laundry down the street. By 5:00, things were looking pretty good and I was satisfied. As Bill I had never really done anything of the sort. I had grown up rich. I had a nanny and my parents had a maid off and on. Our house was always spotless. There was always food on the table. I had everything I ever wanted. I only had to ask. Sometimes I didn't even have to do that. Now I had a maid and a gardener take care of all the details of my seaside house. I did take care of the cabin, but that was only for a couple of weeks each year. I couldn't remember the last time I did a load of laundry. I know I never thought of washing a load of laundry was a great accomplishment before.

I had cruised through school and college and even medical school. There were difficult times, but they were isolated. Nothing like the life Marge had. There was never a doubt that I would become a doctor. Women too had come and gone easily in my life. I reflected on what a contrast it was to be someone like Marge. She must have had a difficult life.

I looked at my small handiwork. Her clothes were clean, the house clean, she had a nutritious lunch, no smoking, no drinking, no drugs. I had done right by her. I had done right by myself. It was a challenge. Perhaps, if I were to stay here it would be the greatest challenge of my life. "But it might just be worth it." I thought, perhaps not even fully registering the sentiment.

I had supper on the table when Curry got home. I assumed that he was paying the rent. Besides, I got a charge out of preparing my famous salmon loaf. It was the only thing I knew how to cook. Curry was drunk as usual. "What the hell, woman?" He exclaimed. "Looks like you actually got off your fat ass and did some work for a change. What the hell youd doodyer hair?"

So much for appreciation. "You don't need to talk to me like that Curry, I don't care for it." Somehow I managed to say this with just the right tone. Not offensive, not challenging, just a statement of fact. He looked at me quizzically. I knew what he'd try and he did. "Okay bitch, get me a beer."

"I don't want to be called that anymore and you can get your own beer after we've had supper." Again I said it as plainly as I could. I wasn't sure I could pull it off, but I did. He accepted it with a mutter. I liked to think that my years of training had outclassed him, but it may have been that Marge was just better at judging people than Dr. Bill was.

That night we sat together in the bed. He skipped the after dinner beer and drank no more than evening. He was nearly sober. For the first time Curry and I talked and carried on a conversation of sorts. He eventually got around to complimenting me on my new hair color. I learned very little and had to be careful of my own position. In the end I pieced together a little part of the puzzle. We'd been together for about eleven months. I had lost my job, I guessed because of drinking or drugs, but I couldn't be certain. He had offered to let me move in. I never found out what job I had. I really wanted to know what she could do to support herself.

This conversation had changed my view of him. I saw him as a human for the first time and tried to treat him that way. I knew he had a story to tell. And when and if he ever got that story out, and he could move beyond it to forgiveness, that he could be human again. I wondered if I was the man, or rather the woman, who might be able to help him.

We dodged the question of sex that night, thank god for that. I still found the idea of sex with him disturbing. I hadn't had any normal male urges while I was Marge. I wondered if my sexual orientation had changed. But then again I hadn't noticed any women since I got here, so it was difficult to tell. The few hints and thoughts that had crossed my mind had been different and unfamiliar. I knew I perceived men differently than I ever had before. After all, they were larger and stronger than I was. It's just that the presence of a handsome man, Jimmy or that cop, affected me differently than before. I no longer just absorbed their presence. Now I seemed to really notice how they looked. Just the same, I didn't relish the thought of sex with a man. Not with Curry anyway.

There was last night with Shady though. He wasn't what I'd call an attractive catch. If I'd been in Marge's body I doubt that I would have turned my head for him. Was that part of the spillover between our lives too? Had Bill actually enjoyed the feeling of a penis sliding in my mouth or was it Marge? Enjoying that was something I wouldn't have ever guessed I would feel. But I had to admit it was a thrill. "Apparently, we all have the capacity for loving both sexes." I mused, trying to assuage Bill's guilt for the homosexual adventure. From my perspective now it didn't seem all that bad. Only a little harmless fun with Shady. "I wonder how he got that name anyway?"

Curry apparently had some good qualities, just a terribly troubled background and I didn't wish him ill. I wondered if Marge was going to return. Was she in Bill's body? Apparently not. He seemed to be totally missing when I was here. What a messed up twisted space-time warp I had fallen into. I wondered what I'd be doing right now if I had remained in Bill's body. He wasn't taking to these changes very well it seemed. I rubbed my legs together and felt a warm tug in my crotch. I tried to piece together the images I'd seen as Marge. Curry's hairy back, Jimmy's good looks, the police officer's hands, Stemper's polished boots, Little Freddie. It was a string of strange perceptions.

Apparently Marge came equipped with female urges. Or I had inadvertently aroused them with my musings. I tried to suppress them for the time being but I admit that once Curry was asleep I reached down between us and pulled lightly at his dick until it was hard. I Gently stroked it with the smooth fingers of one hand while the other dipped below the waistband of my panties. "I don't have one of my own anymore to tug on." It was such a lame excuse that I was glad I didn't have to tell it to anyone but myself.

As I fell asleep I had a sensation of returning to Bill's bedroom. It faded in and out but left me with apprehension. When I faded in I found I was in emotional and physical pain. He seemed confused and terror stricken. As I faded back to Marge I sensed that buzzing in my ear again. With practice I could control the fade back and forth by changing the pitch in my ear. Louder and higher frequency and I was Bill, lower and softer, Marge. I fell asleep with a low soft hum in my ear.

I awoke in my male body in my old bedroom. I struggled to get up and felt big, unsteady, and massive. I got up to examine myself and felt acutely the difference in the center of gravity between a woman and a man. I felt larger, coarser, and rougher than I did as Marge. I felt strangely uncomfortable in my own body.

I glanced at the coffee table. A chill ran up my spine. There was Curry's black 9mm pistol. I know it had to have been his. It was exactly like the one I saw in the closet the other day. I slid the clip out and saw that it was loaded. I liked the heft of the gun. I cocked it expertly, wondering how I suddenly seemed to know how to work this tool of violence. It felt strong and manly. Perhaps I needed it to make up for the homosexual experience the other night. Perhaps I just liked the feel of the gun and the power that came with it. It was a new experience, but I liked it.

I tried to slip into normality, but things didn't go well. My perfectly appointed living room was a mess from my drunken stupor the other night. Both of my cars and my garage were messed up. I peeled a piece of broken trim from the BMW and backed it out of the garage, pushing the door aside with the rear bumper. The door collapsed on the roof of leaving a deep scratch along its length and taking off the hood ornament. I sped down the street, my startled neighbor standing on his front porch in his bathrobe, looking on.

I stopped at the Quick-E-Mart for my smokes and coffee, but found when I returned to the car I had a small bottle of whiskey in a bag. No sense making waste of it, so I poured a cupful into my coffee cup. I used it to wash down a couple more of the pills I had in my pocket.

I had a confrontation again with Clint. "Why don't you call Dave." He suggested. Dave had been a mentor to both of us and was the best psychiatrist I had ever met. We both respected him greatly. But I couldn't. I was in this alone. I didn't want Clint or Dave or anyone in on this. "Stop fucking with my life." I screamed.

He and Betty had rescheduled most of my patients again. I didn't give a shit. I sat in my office pretending to work but felt like shit. I had to get out. I went out for lunch and skipped going back. The hell with it. I drove aimlessly, eventually finding myself near the edge of downtown, in a area filled with pawn shops, jewelry stores, bars, and sex shops. I felt better here than at work. I walked the streets, stopping occasionally to ask people on the street for money. Funny, how it felt better to do that, rather than spend what I had, which wasn't much considering that I had given my wallet to that black guy the other day. I no longer had a credit card or even identification. I like the freedom from the entanglements. "Just me and the street." I mused.

On a side street I pulled the gun from the waistband of my pants. I lifted the gun, it's heft again transmitting its mysterious power to me. I wanted someone to feel that. My power needed to be directed toward someone. I wanted them to acknowledge what I had. Touching the gun transmitted a charge, like a shot of adrenaline, into my body.

I turned down an alley and found a wino sleeping on a heating grate. I laughed out loud at the effect of pulling the gun had on him. He was scared shitless. He cowered and whimpered as he loped off, turning and running faster than his old legs had ever carried him. I felt better than I had since I came back to Bill.

I spent the rest of day wandering around the sidewalks, occasionally poking into the sex shops along Euclid Ave. Toward evening I was hungry but had no money. The little I had managed to beg throughout the day I had spent on cigarettes. I knew what I could do. The thought of it thrilled me beyond any normal reasoning. I rushed into a 7-11 and pulled the gun. "Empty the drawer!" I commanded. He did and I rushed out with barely twenty-two dollars. But it wasn't the money. It was the thrill of being in control of that man's life. Seeing the fear on his face. He responded directly to my commands. Weak and submissive, in fear of his life. I was in control! He feared me.

I walked back to where my car had been but I discovered I had parked in a tow away zone. The car was gone. So what? I walked back to wino's alley and found the heating grate empty. He was nowhere around. The grate was warm and the night was chilly. It was time to sleep this off. Tomorrow would be a better day.

VIII

I woke up relived to find myself in the trailer. Clear headed and well rested. I didn't want to think about what I had been up to last night. I was actually thankful that Curry lay beside me in bed and I was back in familiar surroundings. I just couldn't understand why Bill was falling apart so. I was doing so well as Marge. But how do I get him back on track? But there was nothing I could do about it right now.

I fixed Curry breakfast and packed him a lunch. By 7:10 he was off to work at his job at the local auto parts store. I had the place to myself. I dressed in some shorts and tennis shoes and went out for a long jog. Marge's body was beginning to respond to my campaign to get it into shape. In fact it surprised me at how quickly her body seemed to change. Her frame was so small compared to my masculine self that it was easy to just glide along. I ran nearly 2 miles and felt great. My waist seemed thinner to me, but it couldn't have changed significantly in the short time I had been dieting.

I continued with my project to fix up the trailer and started digging around through closets and under the bed. I was trying to clean up but also looking for anything that might help me fill in the holes in my present life. Under the bed I found a large flat box. I had a feeling that it might be important. When I opened the box I knew I had what I needed. She had kept most of her personal items here. A scrapbook, picture albums, school attendance records, loose photo's, a birth certificate, social security card, and a bankbook showing $285.23 cents in it. I was ecstatic. I even found some old letters.

I poured over the items for the rest of the day, trying to memorize her Social Security number, flipping through her high school annual, reading old love letters. I poured through the stuff. My maiden name was Krepacki. She had graduated 18 years ago from high school. She must have been pregnant at the time. Her wedding pictures were dated only two months later and showed a younger version of her with the unmistakable bulge poking through her white dress. There was a groom, Henry, but he didn't mean much to me. He was marginally handsome and long since gone. The divorce papers showed it had only lasted a couple of years.

There were pictures of a little boy growing up. A son, my son, I guess, or at least I better start think about him that way if he ever showed up. But most wonderful of all was what I found in a leather case. It was a diploma from a nursing school. She must have struggled to put herself through school. Was she also taking care of the boy too? Was she struggling with an alcohol problem at the time also? I searched some more and found his birth certificate. Henry Jr. "So that was the picture of the young man I found in my wallet." I thought."

So, she was a LPN. I wouldn't have any trouble passing as a LPN with my medical background. In fact I might find it a little stressing to hide my more extensive medical training. Still it matched perfectly. I could find a job. I had a certificate and a social security card. I could help pay the bills and take some of the pressure off Curry. I could actually take some control over my life. My mind spun at the possibilities.

That night I spoke again to Curry. I was interested in him and how I, or rather Marge, came to know him. We talked for several hours. He sat with a beer and I with a cold glass of water. I started to see Curry much differently, and I might say, he began to see me differently as well. I confided that I wanted to go back to work. He even suggested that I try the nursing home he once worked at. He was the product of a difficult life, abuse, abandonment, little education, and a life of hard knocks. It was the same life I guessed Marge had lead. It must have started as an attraction borne on the spirits of booze, sex and drugs. But tonight, with Curry only sipping a couple of beers I could see into his heart. He was like a lot of people, frightened, lonely, and trying to cope with a difficult situation.

Still, talking to Curry was not like a session in my office. For one, I had to be careful not to be his psychiatrist. I was his girlfriend, just a little more interested in him that I had been. He was guarded, but I knew how to work his issues. I had seen and helped a lot of Currys in my practice. I wondered if it would be easier to help him by living each day with him instead of seeing him once or twice a week like most patients. It had to help.

By the end of the night I felt I had started to make a friend. Curry could be kind. I think he wanted to be. He just trusted no one. I had made some small steps toward getting him to trust me, but I felt tonight was going to be a test. Toward the end of the evening he said, "You know Marge, it's almost as if I'd never known you before." He said it with a smile. It was the first really warm message he had ever spoken to me.

As we climbed into bed he came close to me and wrapped his arms around me. I was still revolted by his looks, but I knew this would be an important juncture in our relationship. He kissed me and I did everything in my power to act receptive and loving toward him. I wrapped my arms around him and held him close. He caressed my shoulders and slipped his large hand under my nightgown, caressing my bare breasts. I returned the caress, trying my best to act responsive.

Then he kissed me again, cupping my breasts warmly, and wrapped his fingers around my nipple. He gently pulled and twisted. I gasped at the pleasure it brought. I had explored them myself, but the effect seemed much different when someone else performed it. It was easier to pretend to respond to his advances. I slipped my tongue into his mouth and played it back and forth, hardly mindful of the subtle change in my attitude.

I was confused at this juncture because I didn't want to stop. I told myself this was for him, to help him. But I was actually starting to enjoy it. "It's the first human touch you've had in a while, that's all" I cautioned myself. I know he needed to trust me if I was going to continue to be close to him. Suddenly I realized that I needed to get close to him, not just as a curious professional interest, but more deeply. I was melting into his arms. Curling up and feeling the excitement of the anticipation of sex. I knew, but did not want to admit, that this was just as much for me as it was for him.

I rolled on top of him, finding myself wet with excitement and aroused in spite of myself. I reached for his rod and stroked it gently until it was hard. Now I wanted to feel it, to stroke it, to capture the feeling of it deep inside of me. I wanted to have sex with him! I lost myself to the pleasure of the moment, I could no longer think or act upon reason. There were only his arms to fold into and his massive hairy chest to rub my breasts against. He held back momentarily, but I spread my legs wide and slithered onto his tool, lifting my body in a rhythm to his stroking. His low moan filled my ears with delight and brought me near to a crescendo of pleasure. I forced my pelvis downward toward his hips, driving his hardened flesh deep into me. I felt full. I pressed harder, rubbing my vulva on his balls and pressing my pubis against the base of his dick. He responded with yet deeper thrusts, lifting me up on his arched back touching the head of his dick against my cervix. Waves of pulsing tingles, small electric currents running the length of my vagina spread like a pool of water up into my abdomen and breasts. I moaned with delight and lost myself in a glorious female fulfillment as his pulsating cock spilled its load deep into my womanhood.

I opened my eyes embarrassed by what had just come over me. There was no look of surprise on Curry's face, only deep satisfaction. I was drained, emotionally and physically. The sensory input to my brain had overloaded. I began to lose sense of the external. I could feel only the echo of the pleasure I just experienced ricocheting off the walls of my brain. Never in my life had I dreamed of having sex with a man, and yet this was a powerful and moving experience. It wasn't just the physical, but the emotional response that surprised me. I realized that as Bill I had never experienced sex like that before. He was mechanical. In control, rational. Even in the act of sex. I was alive, responsive, spontaneous and totally consumed; mind, body and soul, by this primal act. I like the way it felt.

We both rolled over in a pile. In minutes Curry was asleep. I sat awake, reliving those moments again before turning to the question of Bill. What I was going to do with this split life? For the first time I thought about what it would be like to stay in Marge's body. To stay in this difficult and complicated world, far from anything I had ever experienced as a man. I had it too easy as Bill. Being a woman, to be Marge, with her background and situation, would not be easy. But her life seemed to have meaning. It was far from the peaceful, easy, coddled but meaningless existence as Bill.

"Bill" I wondered, half out loud. He had it easy, but now it almost seemed as if his life was as difficult as Marge's was before. It's as if they have exchanged energy fields. Perhaps that is what happened. With the field came Bill's awareness. But where was Marge's energy? Perhaps it was so small that her spark of awareness had extinguished. It sounded too occult and strange to speak of energy fields. I was a doctor. I knew that human beings didn't function that way. Did they? As I drifted toward sleep I could feel his image. Only now it seemed somehow foreign, almost alien. He was in trouble, but I cared less about his life right now than making the most of Marge's. I set the tone in my ear to the higher pitch and relaxed a bit more. I could feel his massive body, in repose, in the same position as my own here in bed with Curry.

I opened my eyes and found myself as Bill. I was in a dark room, not my house. I could barely make out a dim light from the bare window in the room. I looked out and saw a cityscape. I must be in a very bad part of town. The part that Bill seemed most comfortable with now. As my eyes adjusted, I could see that I was in a flophouse of sorts. A bed, a TV and a cheap dresser, all in poor shape. The room was covered in trash. Beer bottles, bedding, dirty clothes, papers. A McDonald's cup sat precariously atop the TV, a syringe resting across the top of the empty cup.

I felt dirty and foul. I hated being this way. What had happened to my life? Why had I fallen so far so fast? I slipped on my shoes, picked up my gun, and headed out the door. I wanted to see if I could find my old self. I needed to restore what Bill had once had.

Outside the air was brisk. I had only a thin jacket and I was hungry. I wasn't sure who was in control here. Was it me from long ago, Bill? Was it Marge? Or was it the new and primordial Bill? I wandered the darkened streets alone. I turned to look into shop windows, my own reflection looked back in the darkened glass. Dark is what I've become. I cannot even see the part of me that was once Bill. I was looking at a stranger. I took the gun and smashed at the image, shattering the glass with the butt of the pistol.

I continued alone, down the middle of the street. I heard a car behind me, and saw the reflection of the spinning red lights off the windows of the building in front of me. "Stop and hold your hands over your head!" Spoke the mechanical voice of a loudspeaker. Without thinking I ran, turned right and shot down an alleyway. The police car gunned its engine and made a screeching turn into the alley. I hauled myself over a fence in time to see two officers with guns drawn headed on foot. I ran hard, not knowing why or what they wanted me for. I just had to get away. "Police Officers! Stop right there!" Called the shorter cop.

Instinctively I pulled the gun and aimed for the taller one. I squeezed off a round in his direction, hitting a lamppost. The bullet ricocheted into the windshield of a parked car. They quickened their pace. I ran hard, but the body I once took such good care of had deteriorated badly. I was out of breath. A stabbing pain in my side doubled me after only a couple of minutes of running. I coughed and spit up green mucus. My lungs screemed for me to stop.

I could see two other cruisers in the distance, coming toward me. Then I heard the sound of a helicopter above me. I turned again and found myself on the approaches to the West Branch Bridge. I slithered onto the cables climbing rapidly, reaching for the curving arc and then stumbling toward the tower. Now the helicopter had its light on me. Its white glare turned the steel cables into a pool of metallic glare surrounded by darkness. The vertical support cables glowed like an Dali painting, transforming the them into surreal jail bars. I turned and aimed at the bright globe in the sky squeezing off three more rounds. "Drop the gun or we'll shoot" commanded another metallic voice.

I was trapped. It was the end of Bill's life as he knew it. Maybe it didn't matter. His life had started to end the day Marge showed up. He was either going to die here by the hand of the police for a reason I couldn't fathom, or he was going to jail. But Dr. William Fletcher's life was over, one way or the other. God, how had I screwed up so badly? How had I lost everything I once held dear?

I tossed the gun outward and it landed with a thud on the deck of the road below me. I could see two dark clad figures with long guns climbing the opposite cable. I could hear the muffled sounds of police radios and shouts below me. It would be only minutes before the SWAT team would be in position to take a shot at me.

I thought about smoking and reached in my pocket. My fingers closed around a familiar object. I pulled the fisherman out of my pocket. "How did that get here?" I wondered. I was glad that I had it. I took it in my hands, pulling the carved figure toward my face. It was the only thing remaining from Bill's old life. The fisherman. An old man made wise by years at sea. Bearded. Pipe in hand. Gazing at the darkened sea. He would know what to do. I'd just have to listen to him.

A warm calmness came over me. My thinking was clear now. More clear than it had been since this entire episode started. I knew exactly what do and it left me with a sure and complete feeling. The fisherman had showed me the way.

I sat for a moment breathing deeply, relaxing on the wires far above the river and the flashing police lights below. I stood up, holding onto the edge of the brick tower with one hand. I let the sound in my ear change to the now familiar smooth even low hum. Leaning a bit farther, I let go my center of gravity move out beyond the cable. I still held the figure in my right hand, the other clung to the brick tower. I opened the fingers on my left hand and pulled it away from the tower while closing my right hand more tightly around the figure.

IX

I fell into a pitch-dark blackness. Everything dropped away. I felt nothing. I was stripped of my body, only a small point of consciousness stayed with me. It was like a small prick of light. Now getting even smaller and brighter. A light in the darkness. Was this light Bill's or Marge's? It mattered not. I was alive and falling. Falling away from Bill and toward Marge. I knew where I had to wake up. The decision was easy. I had to go back permanently to being Marge. It was where I now knew I belonged.

Bill's life had been too easy, to simple, to much money, to much pleasure. No challenges. No meaning. It had all been too relaxed. I knew now why I had been thrust into her body and her life. I needed the challenge. And I had risen to it well. Even as Bill's life crumbled, I had started to build a life for Marge. It would still be a challenge, still a difficult life. There was much to do. Much I wanted to make of her life. I just had to reach her body now so I could continue. I preferred it this way. I enjoyed being Marge, enjoyed her body, and her sensual feelings. I only wanted to reach that softness that would wrap around me. That feeling of femininity that I now recognized that I needed. I was more alive in her body than I ever had been as Bill. I could see that so clearly now.

The blackness closed in around me. I was in a tube, racing at an incredible speed forward, the light now racing ahead of me, wider and brighter. I was approaching it now, a bright white light at the end of the tube of blackness. I steadied myself for the jolt I knew would signal my arrival.

Then all went black for a moment. I felt myself overshoot and rattle back and forth, as if I was on the end of a whipsaw. The oscillation slowed and then stopped. I could hear my breathing again. Very deep and labored, a gasp almost. The only sound I could hear was my lungs filling slowly with air. They seemed to gurgle. It was a struggle. This was not the shallow, light breathing of Marge's body. My hearing came up slowly, as if an audio technician had slowly turned up the volume knob. "Beep. Beep. Beep." It was the familiar sound of a hospital electroencephalograph. The antiseptic smell of freshly laundered sheets and antiseptic now forced its way through my nostrils.

I started to groan.

"Mr. Olsen, can you hear me?" Then to someone else, "Oh come quickly, I think Mr. Olsen is starting to come around." Said a familiar voice. It sounded like Marge's voice only higher pitched. I tried to force my eyes open, but only managed a crack. A bright light slipped under the lids and I quickly closed them again.

I tried again and discovered I was looking at a mirror. I was back in Marge's body. Or was I? My face moved but I didn't. No, I was apart from her. I was in bed as she looked down at me. Where was I now?

I struggled, trying to lift my head but could not. I forced my eyes open more. "There, there! Mr. Olsen." Then turning: "Dr. Stemper! Please come quickly!" Then back to me again, "Can you hear me alright? You've been in a coma.

I glanced down. I was in a hospital room, lying prone in a bed. Marge's body was there, looking at me. "I'm right here Mr. Olsen, I've been at your side all along." She crooned. She was dressed in grape colored hospital scrubs and looked radiant. Her brunette curls falling nicely over the purple shoulders of her crisp top. She looked thinner from this viewpoint. And younger I thought. She turned and I could see her backside. I realized I had never seen her from this angle, only the front and sides that I could see in a mirror. She was beautiful. But my vision was only a small tunnel, and she stepped outside of my field of view. I tried to turn my head but ended up seeing only a circular patch of the ceiling.

I was once again totally confused. I should have landed in her body, at her trailer, alone or with Curry. Where the heck was I? I glanced at my hands. Instead of her slender thin hands I saw a wrinkled arm, puffy with ancient flesh nearly as white as the sheet. Brown age spots dotted the arm, large puffy fingers, fingernails old and yellow. The hand shook with a tremor when I lifted it. It hurt to hold it up, even for a second.

"There! There! Rest easy", my voice said to me again. You're very weak. She stepped back into the tunnel and I was looking at myself again. Then Officer Stemper entered the tunnel. The fucking asshole who had handcuffed and forced himself on me.

"Let's see what we have here." He went away as the bright light from his ophthalmoscope covered my eyes. It reminded me of the helicopter spotlight I saw a moment ago. "Mmmm. Dilation looks good. Reflexes?" I felt a sharp thump on my knee and an involuntary jerk. "Are you awake Mr. Olsen?" He laughed out loud at my expression of disgust. " He must be remembering the stomach tube." He said to Marge, then to turned to me: "We had to tie your hands to get it down your throat. I tried to be as gentle as possible but we finally had to sedate you. I didn't think you'd remember that. I'm very sorry."

Was I dead? Did I kill myself? Why am I lying here and why does my arm work so poorly? I tried to say something. "Varge? Mill? What happ." But I couldn't continue. Something was in my throat. My mouth didn't work right.

"Don't try to talk Mr. Olsen, you still have a stomach tube, it will irritate your throat. Besides, your weak."

I glanced over and saw a worried looking Betty. She seemed much older. She was talking to the asshole. I could barely make out a few words. "Back again. Mmm, he's drifted out of the mmm bbrr and I don't know how much longer we can mmff." Was about all I could catch.

"Your wife is here Mr. Olsen, do you want to talk to her?" Asked Marge in a strained voice. Betty stepped forward. "John, can you hear me?" You've been asleep for almost two weeks now. Do you know who I am?" I shook my head. I didn't even know who I was. She was my secretary as far as I knew but I was guessing that wasn't correct anymore.

Marge, the asshole, and Betty left the room. I could hear them in the hall but could not make out any words. The tone of the voices seemed concerned and I guessed he was giving the prognosis for his patient. I could hear Betty sobbing lightly. Marge came back in with red eyes and pulled the white curtain around my bed. "We are going to move you back to your room tomorrow." She whispered in my ear.

I motioned for her to come closer.

"Merge!" I could only mumble, my mouth was dry and numb. "Vhat Happnd?"

"You've had another attack. You've been asleep for a couple of weeks, but Bill and I have been by your side, one of us, every single day.

"Vill Flesher? Whershhe?" Frustrated at the sounds that came out of my throat.

"I'm sorry John. He left just yesterday. He was so sorry too. He stayed with you as long as he could but he had to get to the school today. You know how anxious he was to jump into medical school. He's been so excited about it I think he really hasn't been mentally here for a couple of weeks now. He would have left sooner if it hadn't been for you. He was hoping so much that you'd wake up before he had to go. Bill has been so good to you He's been such a good friend to both of us really. I'm glad for him. The two of us have been with you almost continuously since you slipped away."

She stopped for a moment and then added, "I think he'll make a wonderful psychiatrist, don't you?" She turned to reach for something then held up a package wrapped in tissue. "He left you a little present though. I'll give it to you later."

I nodded. "What about Mr. Friar? Do you want to see him again? We are going to take you back up to your room tomorrow and you can see him."

"Cwint?" I asked.

"Yes, Clint Friar. He's your roommate."

God I must have made a terrible mistake. I wasn't Marge, I wasn't Bill, now I was someone called Mr. Olsen. Maybe I'm being punished. Is this what hell is? Did I really commit suicide? I couldn't have. Bill was dead long before he made the leap off the bridge. Boy had I ever fucked up.

VIII

The next day she wheeled me up to my room. I was already in a deep depression. I missed Marge's body. The one I had worked poorly. At least she was around me almost every minute. I was grateful for that. I was upset when she rolled my chair past the bathroom mirror as we entered "my" room. I had only glance and my vision was still poor, but I could see I was an old man, dressed in a hospital gown and slumped in a wheelchair. I could see only a fringe of white hair around my scalp and a glimpse of an old and wrinkled face. An old crumpled body slumped in the chair, wrapped in a hospital gown.

I recognized the man sitting on a bed next to the empty one Marge stopped at. I had met him only once or twice before. It was Clint's elderly father, Clint Sr. "Mr. Friar was very upset when we took you away." Then to Clint: "Weren't you Mr. Friar?" He only harumphed and mumbled something at her.

"Let's get Shady in here to get that tube out." Said Marge. "He's already adjusted it for you once." I think we better leave the IV in for a while. I glanced at the tube that entered my left arm just above my wrist. Incredibly someone had put the IV needle into my arm at exactly the point where I had pricked it on the thorn bush outside the trailer.

"Hey buddy, howya doing?" Asked Shady. He was wearing a different cowboy shirt, otherwise he looked the same. I waited until he was through. So that was it huh? This entire thing was a hallucination? Am I to believe that? I don't believe that. What happened to me was real. I was Bill and then I was Marge. What about Bill? Why do I have all his memories intact? I still remember the shirt I wore to my first day at kindergarten class. And what's this about Bill just starting med school. I've been a doctor for let's see, eight, ten years now. No! This is the hallucination! I'm trapped in another space warp.

"Here are your glasses John, Beedy fixed them in his shop downstairs after your lenses fell out. He just had to tighten the screws a little." Said Marge. She placed them gently on my head. "The one lens has a crack, but I think they will be okay."

They helped a lot. She looked even more radiant and beautiful.

With the tube out I was able to talk a little better. "Merge? I begged. "I vas somewhere else, in a diverent place, a defferent body."

"Yes dear I know. It's partly the medicine we're giving you and partly your brain, it's getting old. It's so sad to see you like this. We've been such good friends since you came here three years ago, I feel like I'm a part of you. I don't know what I'm going to do when you are gone. Dr. Stemper doesn't think you will be able to take another round of treatment, he's already ordered it stopped." Then more brightly, as if to cover this gloomy subject she asked, "Did you know that your grandson Jimmy stopped by? He was sorry you weren't awake. He was so afraid that you wouldn't recognize him after so many years. He stayed a while and even helped us to change your sheets after you soiled yourself."

"I vould have known him." I replied.

"Oh, I almost forgot. I have the present from Bill, would you like me to open it?" Asked Marge cheerily. I nodded again.

She pulled a small box off the shelf and carefully unwrapped the silver paper. "Look, it's a figure of an old man." She held it up for me to see, but I already knew what it was. I knew the figure of the wise old fisherman. I had already felt it many times before.

"Thank you." I gasped. I held the figure tightly. "Marge?" I struggled to make it come out clearer. "Did you ever have blond hair? Were you heavier? Where did you live?"

"Yes, John how did you know? That was several years ago, before I started to work here. I was heavier and I had bleach blond hair. I was real trailer trash."

"No!" I stammered. "You had a hard life."

Then in a more hushed tone. "No, I was a big mess. Booze you know? And drugs. Coke, grass, speed, everything. I was so bad I started to have times where I was losing my memory. Once I blacked out for two weeks. I don't remember a thing about it. Then I woke up one morning and found I had a different life. I literally changed overnight. My hair was back to normal and I'd lost 20 pounds. I was clean and sober. People who knew me before thought that I was strong, but I don't. I just woke up different is all. I don't know how it happened. Since then, no more booze, drugs or blackouts. I've never even been tempted. I started to eat right and I got a job again. It was the turning point of my life. I woke up to a new life that day. I wish I could thank whoever saved me."

The she looked at me quizzically. " But you couldn't have known about that. I've never told anyone here about it. Who told you about that?"

"Were you pregnant when you first got married? Do you have a son? Henry?" I asked.

She dropped her jaw. "Yes but, but, How did? John, I've been searching for him for years. I lost him during the dark part of my life. I don't know where he went." The last part she had trouble finishing, for I could see her jaw was quivering. Her eyes filled with tears for a moment. "How could you know?"

She was startled. I suspected that she wanted to say more but she regained her composure quickly as Curry limped in.

"There's my wife, with her favorite patient. I dropped by on my way home from work to see how you're doing. You ready to go home?" Asked Curry.

"No, honey, I think I'm going to spend the night with Mr. Olsen again." Replied Marge. Her tone suggested that there was more to the message that I didn't understand.

"How's our patient doing?" Said Curry, turning toward me.

"You look better." I said. And he did. He must have had that missing tooth replaced, his hair was shorter and his beard was trimmed closely to his face. He almost looked handsome. No I take it back. He did look handsome. He snuggled next to Marge in a familiar way. "Good enough for her?" he laughed.

"You know, Mr. Olsen. Curry is the one who found you the day you passed out. He came in looking for me and found you slumped in the bathroom instead. He and Freddy carried you to the bed and then started smacking you around." She was looking at Curry with a twinkle in her eye.

"I was just trying to get him to snap out of it." He responded defensively. "Besides, it was just a couple of taps on the cheek."

Curry left and Marge closed the blinds in the room, darkening it so that I could rest. I closed my eyes and dozed fitfully. The memory of that first moment of paralysis returned. The dream I was having just before I woke as Marge came back to me now. I could remember it clearly. In it I was a young man, dropping out of school, joining the army, in a war. Then I saw myself coming home to get married. The name Olsen popped into my head. I worked at a foundry, then a steel mill. I had a clapboard house with a wide front porch. There were good times and some bad, but overall life had been good. I had a daughter. I watched her grow. I gave her away at the altar. She had a son, Jimmy. He was grown now. After the mills closed I worked as a security guard. I could see myself at my retirement, my friends gathered around. Then I felt my legs collapse under me, my head spinning, my wife screaming for help. Betty took care of me as long as she could. Then I saw myself in a nursing home. It was a simple life. Yes, I could remember the entire dream now. Funny, how could I have forgotten it? It seemed so clear.

I woke with a start. I heard her familiar voice in the dark. Marge cooing at me, touching my cheek with her hand. Her softness felt wonderful against my wrinkled cheeks, a softness I wanted to remember for eternity. I reached out and she read my mind, gently placing the figurine in my hand. My connection to Bill.

I struggled for a breath and let it out. A deep last gasp. It was time to go. I slipped slowly down in the chair. The humming now swept the noise of this place aside. She came close. I could see the tears on her face, small sobs of air sucking into her quivering mouth. Her face touching mine as she held me close. "Goodbye." She whispered, now holding my head in her arms, closing me to her breast as I slid downward. It was so nice to be loved by her. I felt the fisherman slip out of my hands as the humming came on stronger, a low- pitched soft humming. And then blackness.