Ovid 6: The Developer free porn video

As usual, this tale is about PG-13, but it is written for adults. Permission, as usual, is granted to any and all to archive. I hope you enjoy it. Ovid VI - The Developer By The Professor It was a perfect Saturday morning in Ovid. The sun was shining with the promise of a warm - but not hot - spring day. The humidity was relatively low for late May, and there was a light breeze from the north which meant I could open up the house and smell the aromas of spring. Jerry was at the store, but he promised me he'd be home by three. My parents were due in by five to take the kids out to the farm for the rest of the weekend. That left Jerry and me free to go out to Winston's for a nice meal and then home to try out the goodies I had bought in the lingerie department at March's the day before. I felt a pleasant tingle between my legs that brought a smile to my face. How could I ever imagined this time a year ago that I, Matt O'Hara - All-American Boy, would become Cindy Patton, the mother of two darling children and a loving wife who couldn't wait to drag her handsome husband into bed for a marathon night of sex. I sighed happily, leaning back in a kitchen chair to take another sip of my favorite coffee. "Mommmm!" I sighed again, this time not so happily. "What is it, Michelle?" I called. Suddenly my six year old daughter came rushing into the kitchen, followed by Belinda Daniels, one of her little friends from school. "Mike just said a naughty word!" Michelle announced. I smiled in spite of myself. When Mike and Michelle had been two of my fraternity brothers along with Jerry, we had all used a number of naughty words. Well, Jerry and I still used a few, but not in front of the children. Of course, of my entire family, I was the only one who realized we had all been changed into the idyllic Patton family. "Mike," I said sternly, not bothering to rise from the kitchen chair. A small boy, the twin of my daughter, reluctantly appeared in the doorway. He looked so cute it was all I could do to keep from getting up and hugging him. "Now what did you say to your sister and her friend?" He mumbled, "I called them dorks." I frowned slightly. "Well, I wouldn't call that a particularly naughty word, but it still isn't very nice." "But they're dorky girls," he replied, a little relieved that "dork" was apparently a milder term than he had imagined. "Girls, yes," I agreed, "but not dorks. Someday, my little lad, you'll be doing everything in your power to impress girls - not annoy them. They won't want to date you if you call them names." "Date!" he repeated. "Yuck!" I had to laugh. "Go on, you guys, time to play." Mike and Michelle bolted for the den, each trying to be the first to take control of the TV, but Belinda stayed behind. "Can I have a drink of water?" she asked politely. Of all Michelle's friends, she always seemed to be the most polite and the most mature. She had been a shade until recently, and as childish as anyone else her age. Now though, she was real and had had several weeks to get used to her new identity. "Of course, dear," I replied, rising to get her a glass of water. When I handed it to her, she thanked me and took a sip. She looked as if she wanted to say something, so I asked, "Is there something you want to talk about, Belinda?" She nodded. "Yes, ma'am. Uh, Mrs. Patton, do you remember who you... I mean, were you ever..." I had heard others stumble over the question as Belinda was now. "Are you trying to ask me if I remember who I used to be?" Her face brightened in relief. "Yes! Oh, yes! You do remember. I thought you did." I thought for a moment, she would actually break into tears, but she managed to hold them back. I reached over and gave her a motherly hug. "So, of course, you remember who you were, too, don't you?" She nodded her pretty head. "Uh-huh." "Let me guess," I said softly. "You weren't a little girl before." "No," she agreed slowly. "I don't like being a little girl either." At that, she did burst into tears. "Belinda!" Michelle yelled from the den. "She'll be out there in a minute, honey," I called to her, grabbing a napkin to wipe her liquid blue eyes. "Th- thank you," she sniffed, practically cradled in my arm. "Now" I said, sitting her down next to me when she had stopped, "why don't you tell me all about it?" Of course, I knew all about it. I had been in the courtroom, doing my job as assistant to the Judge, who was, of course, the god Jupiter. I had watched as Belinda and her two friends, all male at the time, had swaggered into the courtroom, their black leather jackets emblazoned with the patch of the Screaming Eagles, a biker gang out of Houston. Within a few minutes, each of the tough, bewhiskered bikers had been changed into a little girl, the oldest of whom was only ten. The other two girls didn't remember who they had been, which was the more common situation in Ovid. Belinda remembered, though. I knew it was hard for her - probably harder than for most. When I was changed, I had been a college student. Although I had been masculine enough, I wasn't a rough and tumble sort of guy. I had adapted quite well to being female - better than most, I was sure. The same was true for some of my friends, like Susan Jager, a promising young attorney in Ovid. For transformees like Belinda though, things were particularly tough. She had been Screech McCracken, a tough biker who had been notorious for his antics in small towns all over the southwest. The Judge had taken special pleasure in changing Screech into a very pretty and very feminine little girl. Like everyone in Ovid, Belinda began to slowly adapt to her new role, but it had been very hard for her. A prison sentence would have probably been a milder punishment. "I don't want to talk about it," she replied softly. "I just can't. I- Mrs. Patton, I need to know. Were you a boy before?" "Well, that's a very personal question, sweetheart," I answered. I intentionally used the word "sweetheart" to reaffirm her sex and status. I had no intention of making things too easy for her. Screech McCraken had been a nasty customer and was now getting what he so richly deserved. Still, I had found myself liking the little girl he had become. I would have to tread softly. I wanted to help her, but making things easy for her might not be the best help. I was starting to understand the difficult task the gods had given themselves. They strove to make our lives whole, but not necessarily easy. "Okay," she said, accepting that I was not going to tell her about myself. "I understand, I think. It's hard to think straight any more." Yes, it was. One of the great difficulties in changing adults into small children was that they had lost the innocence of childhood. If they were to succeed in becoming whole, it was something they had to regain on their own. Belinda was slowly but surely returning to childhood. I knew that she had reluctantly agreed to play with Michelle that morning, but it was an important step for her in realizing who she had to become. "You'll do fine," I assured her. "The hard part is really already over." "The hard part?" I smiled. "You learned how to cry." She gave me a tiny hint of a smile. "Thank you, Mrs. Patton." "Any time, Belinda," I said, returning her smile. "Now go play with Michelle." "Yes, ma'am." It was almost a little girl who went scurrying off to the den. I returned to my coffee, another crisis solved - partially at least. I had taken just one more sip of the now lukewarm brew when there was a "pop" in the den, followed by the screaming of three small children. In horror, I jumped to my feet. Then the screams turned to laughter. "Xena!" I heard Michelle squeal. An Amazon marched into my room, followed by three adoring children. She did, in fact, look something like Xena. She was tall - at least six feet - and had raven tresses flowing down her well-tanned back. She wore a leather tunic and high leather boots, both studded with gleaming silver. Of course, I knew at once who it was. "A little early for Halloween, isn't it, Diana? I drawled. "Are you Xena?" Mike asked with awe in his little voice. Diana, as in the goddess Diana, smiled at him. "No, little guy, but I'm sort of like her. I am Di-an, Warrior Princess. Now go play and let me talk to your mom." She made a slight motion with her hand, and all three children wandered out of the room. I was sure she had made them already forget what they had just seen. Facing me, she mad another gesture, and suddenly she was wearing shorts, a T-shirt, and sandals just like me. Well, better than me, actually. I was attractive, but Diana in any of her avatars was absolutely breathtaking. She poured herself a cup of coffee and sat down at the kitchen table with me. "Boy, it's good to get out of my working clothes," she said with a sigh. "Have I just seen the real Diana?" I asked. She frowned. "Oh, that stuff? No, those are just my working clothes. My brother, Apollo, is co-producing a movie. It's some sword and sorcery epic being filmed in Mexico. Lots of T and A in it. It's a little on the cheap and sexy side, so they'll probably release it directly to cable. I took a role in it just to make him happy. I'm getting too old for this sort of work, though." This from a woman who never looked over thirty. "Then why did you do it?" I asked, taking another sip of coffee. "Well," she explained, "it's been a little dull around here lately. Since we had the spies at Vulman a few weeks ago, the Judge seems to be slowing down his case load." Actually, that was true. Spies had slipped in, and until the other gods figured out how it had happened, the recruiting of new Ovid residents had been slowed to a crawl. Most of the recent additions to the population had been new shades, working at Vulman Industries on the new military contract. "I understand he did nail a big fish this month though," she said with a sly grin. "That he did," I agreed. "I suppose you want to see the whole thing." That was part of my job, of course. Recorded deep in my memory were the details of every Ovid case. When a god or goddess wanted to review them, I had to make myself available. Most of the gods chose to forgo the presentation, but Diana was always looking for a good story. "Whenever you're ready," she said with a smile. I took one more sip of coffee and began to fall into a trance. *** I was staring directly into the blue eyes of Martin R. Brubaker. The eyes were usually cold and empty, animated only when excited by the rush of success. Then they took on a cruel gleam which meant the person he had been looking at had been beaten. They were eyes that had shown no emotion when his wife had killed herself, presumably because she had been beaten down by him over the years. Not physically beaten, of course. That would be too crude for the God of Real Estate, as the Wall Street Journal had dubbed him. No, he had beaten her down mentally, his cold eyes mirroring the contempt he felt for her. Now though, those eyes showed something else. I had a difficult time identifying what those eyes were conveying that night, but at last I knew. Martin R. Brubaker, the God of Real Estate, was frightened. He had good reason to be frightened, I realized. He was a passenger in a private jet which was threatening to shake apart somewhere over Oklahoma as storm clouds swirled just outside with strong winds buffeting the plane violently. We were all frightened. We had good reason to be. There was a definite possibility that we would not survive our flight. As much as I wanted to live though, I had to admit to myself that even dying might be worth it just to see the God of Real Estate crap in his pants. It couldn't happen to a nicer guy, I thought sarcastically. I had worked for him for ten years, and in that ten years, I had learned to hate him more than I had ever thought possible. I had watched him treat everyone who had helped him to the top as if they were dirt under his feet. He had belittled and degraded enemies and allies alike, and he had treated me no differently. After all, I was only Martin R. Brubaker, Junior. I looked around at Miss Simon. She was the only other passenger in the plane, and she was as frightened as the rest of us - I could see it in her deep blue eyes. She was my father's secretary. She was an attractive blonde a few years younger than my twenty eight years. She looked both professional and sexy in her tailored navy blue suit with a short slit skirt. I had entertained a number of fantasies about her since my father had hired her only a few months before, but those fantasies were never to be realized. My father had strict rules about relations with the hired help, and Miss Simon was beneath me in status. Besides, my father had already picked out a wife for me. Lucinda Watson was the only daughter of Malcolm Watson the Third, president and principal stockholder of one of the largest insurance companies in the country. His company had a real estate portfolio that was second to none. A merger of our two families through my marriage would mean my father would have an investment partner who would be able to finance many of his new projects. I sighed. At least marrying Lucinda would give me some useful function in the company. In spite of a Harvard MBA, I was reduced to a role not much greater than Miss Simon. What was I saying? She could at least type a letter. That was probably beyond my authority. I was the laughing stock of the company. I knew it, of course. Sure, I had the title of Vice President, but I wasn't vice president of anything. What I was was an errand boy for my father. Ever see Fierce Creatures? I was like Kevin Kline in that movie. I hoped I didn't act as stupid as he did, but I certainly was like him when it came to job authority. "Miss Simon!" he barked over the roar of the jet engines. "I want you to go forward right now and find out what that lunatic in the cockpit thinks he's doing with my airplane." Miss Simon looked frightened, and I couldn't blame her. The plane was being buffeted by heavy winds which made it rise and fall wildly without warning. Flashes of lightning were adding noticeably to the brightly lit cabin of the plane. Standing went beyond stupid. It was downright dangerous. "Father, I'll do it," I offered, starting to unbuckle my seatbelt.. Damn that streak of chivalry, I thought. It had made me stupid, and as Forrest Gump would say, stupid is as stupid does. "If I wanted you to do it, I would have told you to do it!" he snapped. "Stay exactly where you are. Miss Simon can handle it." In a perfect world, I would have looked directly into Miss Simon's deep blue eyes. I would have gained the strength from them I required to defy my father. To his shock and amazement, I would demand to be the one to go to the cockpit. Miss Simon would fall instantly in love with me, and my father would develop a sudden deep respect for me. But it wasn't a perfect world. Sinking back down in my seat, I did as I had been told. I couldn't bring myself to look into Miss Simon's eyes. Dutifully, she unbuckled her belt, grabbing on to the side of her seat to avoid being smashed into the bulkhead. She made her way carefully to the cockpit, her lovely body twisting unnaturally as she clung from seat to seat. I felt her arm brush against my shoulder as she grasped my seat, and I felt deeply ashamed. "That's your biggest problem," my father began to lecture me, ignoring Miss Simon's travails. "You can never be an effective executive until you learn that menial tasks are to be performed by menial employees. Is that what you want to be - a menial?" "No, sir," I muttered just loud enough to be heard over the straining engines. There was no sense in arguing with him. Storm or no storm, he was back in his true form. He seemed to actually gain strength from browbeating me. It had taken his mind off our peril. It was his fault, though. It was my father who had given the order to the pilot to fly in spite of the gathering storm. We had been in Branson, Missouri, trying to determine what was required to turn a sleepy little town into a country music center second only to Nashville. If we could determine how to duplicate Branson's success in some underdeveloped community, Martin Brubaker would once again perform another godlike miracle like the ones he had already performed in seven different states on projects too numerous to mention. We were going to check out several potential communities in Oklahoma. My father had already met with the governor and gotten the political backing he needed. Healthy donations to the campaigns of several key legislators had ensured that whatever community we chose to be the next Branson would have millions of dollars poured into it for new roads and community services. The state would bear the expense and my father would garner the profits. That was why he was the God of Real Estate. We had appointments set in several small towns on the edges of the Ozarks, and our schedule was tight. Although our pilot had recommended that we delay our flight, my father wouldn't hear of it. "If you can't fly us there, I'll find myself another pilot - one with the balls to fly me where I need to go," he told the pilot. Our pilot, Rusty Stoker, had flown fighters in the Gulf War. He had balls the size of watermelons, and he wasn't used to be talked to like that. His face red with anger, he had replied coldly, "It's your party." "Yes it is," my father had responded impassively, "and don't you forget it." So here we were, flying into the heart of a Midwestern thunderstorm. Storms over states like Oklahoma produced some of the most intense weather imaginable, from hail and straight line winds to torrential rain to tornadoes with winds so intense they could drive a stalk of wheat right through a wooden telephone pole. I had never been so afraid in my life. Miss Simon disappeared into the cockpit just as the plane shuddered. Through the cabin window, I could see a bright flash followed only a couple of seconds later by the crash of thunder roaring over the sounds of our jet engines. There was again a moment of fright in my father's eyes. As terrified as I was, I took some pleasure in seeing that the great man was actually concerned about his own mortality. That the man who had been instrumental in wrecking so many other lives could be concerned for his own was gratifying. He recovered quickly, though. After all, he still had me to kick around. "Do you have those files on the towns we have to visit?" he asked gruffly. "Yes, sir," I replied, pulling five folders from the pocket in the side of my seat. With my father, I was expected to call him "sir" at all times. I don't remember ever calling him "dad." "Let me see them," he snapped, grabbing them from my hands as the plane shuddered again. What was it like outside, I wondered, staring into the dark night. The clouds were boiling masses of gray and near-black. Rain was swirling through them, I knew. The winds were whipping it back and forth on its long trip to the ground. Only the power of our two jet engines kept us from being tossed on those winds, mixed with the rain through the dark Oklahoma skies. How much longer would we be in the storm? It couldn't go on forever. "This town has promise," he said, holding up a folder. I couldn't see the name on the folder, but it didn't really matter. He wasn't really talking to me anyway. Besides, whichever town he picked would be altered beyond all recognition in a few years anyway. He would go in, making everyone in some little town think they were going to be rich. Greed would get him whatever he wanted out of local city councils, banks, even schools. Everyone would be following him around as if he were Professor Harold Hill in the Music Man. Then eventually, they would all find out that the only person who was going to get rich from the new venture would be Martin R. Brubaker. The cockpit door opened again. Miss. Simon's husky alto called out, "Rusty says we'll - " Whatever she was about to say would be lost forever. There was a bright flash just outside the plane, filling the cabin with white light. There was a loud rumble outside the plane which translated into a violent shaking of the entire aircraft. Suddenly, I felt my stomach twist and turn as the plane dropped precipitously, my seat belt practically cutting through my abdomen. I watched in horror as Miss Simon seemed to fly through the cabin, striking her head on the overhead with a sickening thud. Rusty apparently got control back, for I felt the plane level off and continue normal flight, if it could be said that turbulent shudders constituted normal flight. I unstrapped my seat belt and rushed to Miss Simon's side. She was unconscious but seemed to be breathing normally. "Get back in your seat, you goddamned idiot!" my father commanded. "She's hurt!" I protested. I wanted to help, but I didn't know what to do. "You will be, too, if you don't belt in!" my father warned. "Leave her where she is until we land." It was actually good advice. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew I was in danger. Just because we had survived so far didn't mean we were out of the woods. Still, I couldn't leave her there, sprawled on the cabin floor. Another bout of turbulence like the last one and she might be hurt more - even killed. As I held her gently in my arms, I realized it was the first time I had ever touched her. Her skin was soft and warm as I had imagined it would be, and I found myself wishing that I had never heard of Lucinda Watson. The plane shook once again. I looked out of a cabin window in time to see another flash of lightning. For a moment, I was actually able to see the clouds. They looked like a human face. I could almost see the face of a man, perhaps middle aged, in glasses. Maybe it was the face of God, I thought. Did that mean God was nearsighted? I had to stifle an hysterical giggle at the thought. "If you're going to play the hero, get her up in her seat and strap back in!" my father demanded. I had no illusions about him really caring what might happen to me. No, if I were injured along with Miss Simon, my father would have no one to fetch things for him. He would have to perform menial tasks for himself. Still, it was good advice. Clumsily I managed to lift her limp body back into her chair and belt her in. Her head slumped to one side, and for a terrible moment, I wondered if her neck was broken. I made a quick decision and ran for the cockpit over my father's protests. We needed to get help for Miss Simon at once. Rusty was fighting the controls. I was shocked to see his face was as pale as I suspected my own face was. His hands gripped the wheel so tightly that the knuckles appeared twice their normal size. He turned for a second and yelled, "Get back in your seat, you idiot!" Rusty and I got along great, but he had no more respect for me than any of my father's other employees did. I jumped into the copilot's seat and buckled in. Looking out of the windshield, I could see nothing but a river of rain, sparkling like a Christmas tree in the dim cockpit lights. "We need to land!" I yelled over the noise of the storm. "You're telling me?" he yelled back. "Is there anything I can do?" I asked. "Not unless you can conjure up a landing field," he told me. "This plane was never meant to take this kind of stress. If we don't find someplace to land quickly, we're all toast." "Can I put out a Mayday?" I asked, reaching for the microphone. "Maybe I can get somebody to light up a field." There are a large number of small airports all over the country which have lights, but only turn them on as needed. Rusty shook his head. "Forget it. That last bolt of lightening fried the radio." "I thought that wasn't supposed to happen." "So sue the manufacturer!" he snapped. I looked out the windshield again. "What's that over there?" I asked. "Where? Oh, wait. It looks like an airport." It did, indeed, look like an airport. Through the sheets of rain, we could both see two strips of parallel lights below us in the distance. There were even lines of approach lights. "Damned if it doesn't look like a big airport," Rusty muttered over a now abating storm. "Could we be off course?" I asked. "It might be Tulsa." "You don't get off course with GPS," Rusty explained. "No, we're out in the middle of Nowhere, Oklahoma. Even Muskogee doesn't have a strip that modern, and we're at least fifty miles from there. That airport's five miles at the most." "I don't care if it's Twilight Zone International," I laughed. "Let's just get this plane on the ground." I probably wouldn't have been so anxious if I had known how close to the truth my little joke was. Rusty's landing was flawless. Of course, he was helped by the fact that by the time we landed, the wind and the rain had all but stopped. It was as if the area around the airport had some sort of shield which kept the worst of the storm away. I looked around as we came in, trying to find some landmark that might tell me where we were. There seemed to be the lights of a small town a couple of miles away, but there was no development around the airport. Apparently it wasn't as big as we had thought. I couldn't even see a terminal - just a couple of small, dimly lit metal hangars. There seemed to be a collection of vehicles around one of them, so Rusty taxied over to them. I rushed back into the cabin without waiting for the plane to stop taxiing. Miss Simon was still unconscious. I rushed to her side. "Where are we?" my father demanded to know. "Why have we landed? The storm's over." "We have to get her to a hospital!" I snapped at him with uncharacteristic courage. He snorted. "She'll be alright. It's probably just a bump on the head. We have a schedule to keep." I bit my tongue rather than tell him what I thought he could do with his precious schedule. Instead I brushed the hair out of Miss Simon's face, regretting that I had never gotten to know her better. She was the kind of woman I really wanted to know. I didn't even hear the hatch open. Before I knew, it, two white men and a black woman in medical greens were pushing me away from Miss Simon as they began to check her out. "It's a concussion," one of the men proclaimed. I looked at him through tired eyes. What was wrong with him? It was almost as if I could see through him. Not really, but almost. I chalked it up to exhaustion. "Will she be alright?" I managed to ask. The black woman answered, "She'll be fine. We'll get her to the hospital right away." I looked at the woman. She appeared to be somewhat transparent as well. I knew it had to be exhaustion. What other explanation was there? The woman led us from the plane. Rusty and I were pretty shaky as we made our way down the ladder, but my father had, unfortunately, regained his composure. He was his usual overbearing self. He pushed away a man at the bottom of the ladder who tried to help him down and blustered, "Get this plane back into the air! We're not supposed to be here. For that matter, just what is this place anyway?" "You're in Ovid, sir," came a voice from out of the darkness. Then as he stepped into the light, I could see that the speaker was a police officer. He was tall and slender, with a handsome face and impeccable uniform. He moved with incredible grace as he faced my father. "Ovid, Oklahoma." "Well, I'm not supposed to be in Ovid, Oklahoma," my father growled. "I don't even know where Ovid, Oklahoma is!" "It's right here," the officer said, not intimidated in the slightest. Did I detect a thin smile at the corner of his mouth? "Obviously it's right here," my father conceded, "but I'm not supposed to be. We need to leave at once." "I'm afraid that won't be possible, sir," the officer said, pointing to the tail of our plane. There was a large black scar on the tail, and if I looked closely enough, I could see that at the center of the scar, there was a small hole, maybe six inches in diameter. "You were struck by lightening," the officer continued. "You were very lucky just to get the plane down. It won't be flying again for some time." "But I have a schedule to keep!" my father insisted. "Sir," the officer said politely, "if you'll provide me with a list of your scheduled appointments, we'll make certain that you aren't missed." My father thought about it for a moment. I could see the wheels in his head turning. There was nothing to be done now except cooperate with the Ovid police officer. "All right," he said at last. "My son can give you the names of the people you need to contact. We need to arrange transportation to get to our next destination. Where can I rent a car?" The officer shook his head. "The car dealers all rent cars, but there's nothing open this late." "Then call Tulsa," my father ordered. "They'll send a car from Hertz. My son can give you our authorization number." I was still fumbling through my attache case for our agenda. Now I had to try to find our Hertz number as well? The officer saved me the trouble, though. "It wouldn't do any good," he explained. "There are flash floods between here and Tulsa. You'll just have to wait until morning." My father sighed. He didn't get to be the God of Real Estate by running into brick walls. Like it or not, we were stuck in Ovid for the night. Tomorrow we could get a car and be on our way, but not tonight. I handed the officer a copy of our agenda. The officer smiled. "Now that that's settled, you'll need a place to stay. I'll take you both to the Ovid Inn. They have rooms for you." "Wait," I said looking around for Rusty. "Our pilot will need a room, too." "He's been taken to the hospital for observation," the officer told me. Observation? There had been nothing wrong with him when we landed. Rusty was an ex fighter pilot. He wasn't hurt during the landing, and he was too much of a John Wayne type to complain about nervous exhaustion or the like. "Maybe I'd better go see how they're doing at the hospital," I ventured. The officer shook his head. "The nurse said they would be fine. As soon as you get in your rooms, you can call and find out what their condition is. Now if you'll come with me, I do need to get you to your rooms." We followed him to his police car without further protest. My father was uncharacteristically quiet as we drove into town. Then I realized I had seen the mood before. He was sizing up Ovid. Perhaps this would be the town he was looking for. As we drove into town, the two lane road became four lanes, and we were treated to the usual display of gas stations and fast food restaurants that graces the main highway strip of every small town in America. I noticed no national franchises - no McDonald's or Burger Kings. The most prominent fast food joint on the strip was called Rusty's Burger Barn. In fact, it was the only place still open. I checked my watch. It was only ten thirty. Apparently, the sidewalks rolled up early in Ovid. The Ovid Inn looked like a small town version of Best Western. It was neat and clean, the white stucco front recently repainted. It was an L- shaped building two stories high with all rooms opening to the outside. In front, across the parking lot was the typical motel swimming pool. It was about the size of the hot tub at my father's home. Scattered around the pool was the usual collection of cheap plastic lawn chairs. I doubted if the Ovid Inn had a place in the Mobil Travel Guide. "Here are your keys," the officer said after we had parked. "Your luggage is already in the rooms. Good night." Tired, we both muttered good night and got out of the car. After we had shambled half way to our rooms, I stopped as a thought struck me. "What's wrong?" my father asked. "How did that officer make all these arrangements? I didn't see anyone get our luggage out of the plane. And how did he get these room keys? We were with him all the time." My father shrugged. "I don't know and I'm too tired to find out. I'm sure there's a good explanation for it. Just let it go. We have a long day ahead of us tomorrow." He was right about that, I realized, so I went to my room. It was a pleasant room - nothing fancy - with cable TV and a comfortable bed. As promised, my bag was already in the room. I got ready for bed, relieved to still be alive after our harrowing flight. I could have used a drink, but I was too tired to get dressed again and find a bar. I settled for channel flipping. As I half watched TV, my suspicions rose again. It wasn't just the police officer's actions that had me wondering. I also began to wonder how during an emergency landing at a seemingly closed airport, there was already an ambulance and a police car waiting to meet us. And why had they taken Rusty away? He had seemed fine to me. For that matter, where was Ovid, Oklahoma? I pulled a map out of my case. I had been charged with setting up our travel arrangements, and I had never heard of an Ovid, Oklahoma. It appeared to be a large enough town to have captured our interest, but I didn't remember discussing it or ever seeing it on the map. I checked the map index. No Ovid, Oklahoma was even mentioned. I scoured the map, just in case there was a mistake in the index. Maybe that was why we hadn't considered it. But no - I looked from Muskogee to Tulsa west to Oklahoma City and east to the Arkansas line and found no town called Ovid. But the town obviously existed. We were in it. Towns didn't just crop up over night, I thought as I lay back on the bed. Did they? I must have been more tired than I realized. I had fallen asleep wondering about Ovid, and suddenly, it was morning. Someone was pounding on my door. "Open up, Junior!" my father's voice was yelling. Damn, I hated being called "Junior" I thought as I ambled to the door. My father was framed in the bright morning light. There was a look of utter excitement on his face. "Look at this," he said, thrusting a phone book in my hand. "And why aren't you dressed? We have a busy day today. Get some clothes on." I could have used a shower, but I knew from his voice that he meant I was to get dressed that very minute. I set the phone book down on the nightstand and staggered to my suitcase for some clean underwear. "You didn't even look at the phone book," he noted, sitting in the only comfortable chair in the room. "So what's in the phone book?" I asked, my voice still clogged with sleep. "Just the background sketch of Ovid," he said. "This town is perfect. It has a population of about fifteen thousand, so there's already an infrastructure here. It looks like just a farming town with a little light industry, so it's clean and folksy. There are lakes and hills all over the area. It's perfect for our new Branson." "It would be," I agreed, "except for one small detail." He frowned. "What's that?" "It doesn't seem to exist." "What in hell are you talking about?" "This town - Ovid." I threw him the map. "It's not on the map." He threw the map back at me. "So? Some dipshit cartographer screwed up. Maybe they should get together here in Ovid and sue Rand fucking McNally." I silently cursed myself. My father's usual foul mood had been replaced by childish glee and I had ruined it. I had to open my big mouth and tell him that there wasn't any Santa Claus. Now he would revert to form and be an overbearing bastard all day. "Okay," I agreed, trying to recover. "You have to be right. It has to be an oversight on the part of the mapmakers. Obviously, the town is here." "Of course it is," he agreed, somewhat mollified. "Just let me call the hospital," I said, picking up the receiver and opened the phone book to look up a number. "Then we can discuss the situation at breakfast." "Why are you calling the hospital?" "To check on Rusty and Miss Simon," I told him. It would never have occurred to the self-centered bastard to call himself. "Well, make it quick," he ordered. "We have a lot to talk over." A receptionist answered almost at once. "Ovid Memorial Hospital." "Yes," I said. "I'd like to check on the condition of a Rusty Stoker." "One moment, please." I was treated to thirty seconds of elevator music when she came back on the line. "I'm sorry, sir but I don't show a Rusty Stoker here." Maybe they had treated and released him. He might even be here at the Ovid Inn. "Then how about a Miss Simon?" I asked. "Do you have a first name?" I was suddenly surprised to realize I had no idea what her first name was. Dad required his staff to be Mr. This and Mrs. That. Since he made sure I never got too familiar with her, I had never asked her for her first name. "No, I'm sorry but I don't." No way was I going to ask my father and receive another caustic reply. "Just a moment, please." The elevator music in the background came on again. This time, it sounded like a lethargic version of the old Helen Reddy song, "I Am Woman." "Hurry up!" my father prodded. "Just a minute," I told him. "Sir?" "Yes?" "There is no Miss Simon listed here at the hospital." That just wasn't possible. She had been out cold when they took her off the plane. No doctor in his right mind would have released her in that condition. "Then is there another hospital in Ovid?" "No, sir. We're the only one." "But - " "Have a nice day, sir." The line was dead. "They're not there," I told my father as I hung up the phone. "Not where?" he asked. "At the hospital," I said. "They acted as if they had never heard of them. Yet that's the only hospital in town. What's going on around here?" Never mind," my father said, grabbing my arm and pulling me toward the door. "We have a lot of work to do today. We need to talk to the mayor - get him in on the action for a small percentage - then we need to check into land prices. We can probably even get the local bank to help us and -" "You don't care, do you?" I asked, stopping at the door. "You don't care what happens to Rusty or Miss Simon as long as you have your land deal." My father's enthusiasm took a back seat to his anger. "Listen, you ingrate, they are employees. No matter what happens to them, I can always get a new pilot and a new secretary. I'm trying to tell you that this town is a potential gold mine. We can buy up half the town before they even know what happened, and you're worried about two employees whose combined annual earnings probably couldn't pay to have my suits cleaned." "I'm talking about two human beings," I told him, my voice rising. His eyes narrowed. "Fine, you worry about them and I'll worry about business. I gave you a good education. I thought it would teach you what you need to do to succeed. Apparently it was all too theoretical. You haven't got an entrepreneurial bone in your body. When we get back to New York, you're fired. You can go see what your fancy degrees will get you out in the real world." "That's fine with me!" I snapped. I don't know what we would have said to each other next. I had never stood up to my father so vehemently before. I have to admit though, that I would have probably backed down and ended up begging for his forgiveness. Such was his power over me. We were both glowering at each other, fists clenched, when there was a knock on the door. "Mr. Brubaker?" a familiar voice said pleasantly. I opened the door. The same police officer who had taken us to our rooms the night before was standing there in the morning light. "Good morning, officer," I said pleasantly, wondering if he had come by to bring us news of our pilot and secretary. My father made a different assumption, more in keeping with his character. "Good. I'm glad you're here. I want to see your mayor as soon as possible. I have a proposition for him that I know he will appreciate. Let's go." The officer continued to stand in the doorway. "I'm sorry, sir. I'm not here to escort you to the mayor. The Judge has issued a warrant for your arrest. Now if you will come with me..." My father's face reddened at once. "What are you blabbering about? My proposition is more important than some trumped up charge from some tank town Judge. You'd better give me the name of that Judge so I can have him reprimanded." "What is the charge, officer?" I asked as politely as I could. I had heard stories about how small town justice worked. Often, it was a matter of quietly paying a small fine and moving on. I knew my father's attitude was bound to raise the ante. "Unsafe operation of an aircraft," he replied seriously. My father exploded. "What the hell are you talking about? We weren't operating the aircraft. Our pilot was. Haul him in on your dip shit charges and let us go about our business." I think he would have been furious under any conditions, but our argument had meant that he was starting from a higher level of irritation. We would be lucky if the officer didn't pull his gun and shoot us for resisting arrest the way my father was carrying on. I finally laid my hand on his arm and said softly, "Come on, sir. We can get this taken care of quickly. I'm sure Officer..." "Mercer, sir." "Yes. Officer Mercer will be happy to take us to see the mayor after we've taken care of this in court, won't you, Officer?" Without changing his expression, Officer Mercer replied, "If you still want to see the mayor after the Judge has dealt with you, I will be happy to escort you to see the mayor." "There, you see, sir?" I said calmly. "We don't have to be concerned." "Very well," he huffed at last. "But this had better not take long or my lawyers will be all over your little kangaroo court. Is that clear, Officer?" "Very clear, sir." As we rode to see the Judge, I began to see what my father had meant about Ovid. It was a typical Midwestern community in many ways, but there was a difference, too. Everything looked clean. Not new, necessarily, but clean. There was no trash lying in the gutters, no graffiti on the buildings, and all the lawns were neatly trimmed and sidewalks clean. It was almost a Hollywood version of small town America, showing all of its virtues and none of its faults. Then I was the first thing which disturbed me. As we stopped at a stoplight, I saw what appeared to be a daycare attendant ushering her charges into a nearby playground. As we drove past, I got a good look at the ten or so children she was supervising. All but two of them had that same strange transparent look I had noticed at the airport. There I had chalked it up to fatigue, but I was now operating on a full night's sleep. Even the attendant looked a little transparent. Strangely enough, the two normal children didn't seem to notice anything out of the ordinary. The light changed and we were on our way before I could comment on my observation. When I was a boy, I used to watch old reruns of the Twilight Zone. Ovid was starting to remind me of that show. Why? Because it was too normal. It was like those Heaven on Earth fantasies where someone from the big city finds relief from his troubles in the small, nearly perfect town of his youth. Well, sorry, Ovid, I thought. I was born and raised in the city, and while I might not have enjoyed growing up under my father's thumb, I certainly didn't want to settle down in Ovid. In fact, I wasn't too sure I even wanted my father investing in Ovid. Something wasn't right in this perfect little town, I realized. Officer Mercer pulled into the parking lot of a building that I assumed was what passed for a municipal building in Ovid. It wasn't an unattractive building, but why the city fathers had decided to place Doric columns in front of a fairly modern building was beyond me. There was none of the activity of large city courts in Ovid. I had attended many court hearings, and I had observed dozens of lawyers rushing from room to room, conferencing with clients, and on the phone. There was none of this in Ovid. The halls were deserted. Officer Mercer led us into a fairly impressive courtroom. There was only one person in the spectator's gallery - an attractive blonde who seemed to be watching our ordeal with mild amusement. Another woman, a fairly attractive brunette, was seated at one of the attorney's tables. She appeared to be fresh out of law school. She was stylishly dressed in a beige business suit and was intently reading a document she held over her open brief case. She seemed to be having a little trouble reading it. "Damn contacts," she muttered as we approached. Looking at Officer Mercer, she said, "Tell the Judge that right after this case, I need to go get my glasses. These contacts aren't quite right." "He said that's fine," Officer Mercer said. It sounded like an odd thing to say. How could he say it was fine when he hadn't heard her problem or been in the room to reply to her? The bad feeling I was getting about Ovid was getting worse. Turning to us, the woman said, "I'm Susan Jager. I'm your attorney for today's trial." "No you're not," my father said belligerently. "I'm not about to be represented by some little cheerleader fresh out of some podunk law school. I'd rather represent myself." She nodded at me. "Does that go for you, too?" "It goes for him, too," my father replied. She looked at us with what almost looked like pity. Then with a sigh, she closed her briefcase and said, "Suit yourselves." "All rise," Officer Mercer suddenly intoned. "The city court for the City of Ovid is now in session, the Honorable Judge presiding." A rather distinguished looking man of middle age stepped out of chambers and assumed his post at the bench. I couldn't help but think he looked a little like that face I had seen in the clouds. He looked down at us over the top of gold rimmed glasses and said with a soft accent, "You may be seated. Next case?" "The case of Martin R. Brubaker and Martin R. Brubaker, Junior," the officer said formally. "You are charged with unsafe operation of an airpcraft. Counsel, how do your clients plead?' The young woman rose to her feet. "Your honor, the defendants have refused to accept me as counsel." The Judge looked at my father and me with utter disdain. "Let it be noted that the defendants have declined counsel." "Your Honor!" my father said leaping to his feet. "This is a travesty of justice. My son and -" "Are you an attorney, sir?" the Judge asked in a cultured Southern voice. "No, but - " "Then I will thank you to be silent in my courtroom until you are addressed. Is that clear?" In my entire life, I had never seen my father back down from anyone, but he backed down from this strange magistrate. The Judge's frown was almost a personification of the expression "if looks could kill." The Judge's look at us seemed almost lethal. My father self-consciously sat back down. "Now that we have that matter settled," the Judge said, "let's continue with the trial. How do the two of you plead?" My father rose with as much dignity as he could still muster. "Your Honor, my son and I plead not guilty." The Judge shifted in his seat. "Very well. Officer Mercer?" "Yes, Your Honor?" "Did you see these two men disembark from an airplane which had just been observed operating unsafely over the city of Ovid?" "I did, Your Honor," the officer replied formally. Turning to us, the Judge asked, "Did you disembark from the plane in question?" If it hadn't been such a serious situation, I would have laughed. It was if the Judge was intentionally making a travesty of the trial. Surely he must have realized that the results of the trial would be overturned as soon as my father got to his attorneys. "Of course we did!" my father snapped. "And who owns the aircraft in question?" "I do, Your Honor," my father admitted. "The it seems obvious to me that you are responsible for the unsafe operation of the aircraft," the Judge said. My father was practically sputtering. "But I wasn't flying the airplane. That was my pilot's job. If you want to accuse someone of unsafe flying, charge him!" "I've already dispensed Judgement on your pilot," the Judge replied to our surprise. "I must say he accepted his fate much more civilly than you are. I must also point out that while he flew the plane, you were the one in charge of it, Mr. Brubaker. No pilot would have made the decision to fly into that storm. Only a fool like you would have put so many lives at risk." "You can't talk to me that way!" my father shouted. Then to my astonishment, the Judge made a sudden motion with his hand and my father stopped speaking. He didn't close his mouth. In fact, his mouth was still open, and he was trying to yell at the Judge, but nothing was coming out. In shock he reached for his throat, trying to determine what had gone wrong. The Judge smiled. "That's more like it, Mr. Brubaker. Don't worry. Your condition isn't permanent. You'll be able to speak in a few minutes, but not in the voice you are expecting to hear. I must say, Mr. Brubaker, I don't like you. Many men have faced my Judgement, and I have dealt with them fairly to the best of my ability. I shall do so with you as well - with pleasure. "I don't need to hear what you were about to say. I know it from your mind. You were about to threaten me by telling me that you know the governor." One look at my father's widening eyes told me that that was exactly what he had been about to tell the Judge. "Well, I know him, too," the Judge went on. "In fact, I play golf with him this afternoon. I would give him your regards, but by tee time, he won't have the slightest idea who you are. "I also know about your little scheme to turn Ovid into the next Branson. Well, let me tell you something, Mr. Brubaker, Ovid is far too valuable to be turned into the tourist trap you propose. You will not have the opportunity to disrupt the lives of the people in our community, or any other community for that matter. Now as to the matter of Judgement." My father lurched around and walked awkwardly to face the Judge at the foot of his bench. Then I felt invisible hands grab me and pull me to his side. It was if I had lost complete control of every part of my body. In moments, both of us were facing the Judge. "Mr. Martin Brubaker, Senior," the Judge intoned, much as I suspected God would do when my father was called to his last judgement, "you have controlled and manipulated people all of your adult life. I think it is time you learned how the other half lives." Then he began to speak in a language I had never heard before - at least not the way he spoke it. It sounded vaguely like Latin, but not the Latin you hear in high schools or from the lips of priests. This Latin was a living language, fluid and robust, and the words seemed to have a power I could feel. I watched my father actually cringe under the force of the words. I don't know what I had been expecting, but it wasn't this. My father had changed from indignant to frightened, and I was beginning to become frightened myself. Then the Judge was silent. In fact, the entire courtroom was silent. My father just stood there with a tired, defeated look on his face. "And now for you, Mr. Martin Brubaker, Junior." I felt my blood suddenly run cold. "You have not had a chance to follow your father's path to selfishness and vanity. There may, in fact, be hope for you. My sentence of you carries with it a chance for happiness and contentment, if you are intelligent enough to find it. Good-bye to you, Mr. Brubaker." With that the Latin chanting began again, but the words were different. I never took Latin, so I had no idea what he was saying, but I began to feel the power of the words much as my father must have felt them. I felt an odd tingling sensation which seemed to come simultaneously from every part of my body. Then as suddenly as it began, the sensation stopped. The sudden silence was finally broken by the sound of a gavel. "Case dismissed. Next case," the Judge said, a note of satisfaction in his voice. Case dismissed? Why was he letting my father and I go with just an odd speech in Latin? That didn't seem likely at all. "Come on, let's go," my father said. Or at least the words came from my father's mouth. There was something odd about the way he said it. His voice had developed a slight twang, not unlike a milder version of the twang that seemed to be endemic to everyone who lived in Oklahoma. My father began to stride from the courtroom, and there was nothing, I realized, that I could do except to follow at his heels like the obedient puppy I had been most of my life. We were silent as we walked from the courtroom, but there was something odd about my father. In addition to the twang in his voice, he seemed a little shorter. His suit didn't fit him quite right. I was so busy trying to figure out what the problem was that I nearly tripped on my own pants leg. I looked down. My pants seemed too long suddenly, and they felt as if they didn't fit properly. "I swear, it gets harder and harder to get your driver's license renewed every time," my father muttered. "What did you say?" I asked. I had a sudden feeling of panic. What my father had said made no sense whatsoever. I was beginning to wonder if the anger he had exhibited in the courtroom had brought on a mild stroke. I had heard of such things happening. "Weren't you listening?" he said. "I was talking about driver's licenses. Why, when I was your age, it didn't take no time at all to get a new one. Now you got to wait in a line that looks like the line in front of St Peter on Judgement Day." My father used a double negative, I realized. I had never heard him do that in my entire life. He was a Harvard graduate in his own right. I didn't think he knew how to be grammatically incorrect. And what was this muttering about a driver's license? As I pondered these issues, I felt a sudden tingle run through my body. It was as if I had suddenly been moved almost imperceptibly from one point in the universe to another. Something was rubbing on my chest. Something else was tickling my neck. It felt almost as if my entire body were suddenly encased in thin spider silk, shifting in the breeze as I walked. My father made his way to an aging Ford F-150 pickup truck, white except for the innumerable rust spots. He opened the door with a key that seemed to suddenly appear in his hand. Unlocking the other door from inside, he called, "Well, what are you waiting for? Your daddy will be expecting us home for dinner. You know how he gets when it ain't on the table on time. Now get in." What was he talking about? Shaken, I did get in - not because I felt I had to, but because I was just too stunned to do anything else. I felt almost as if I was an observer in my own body. My actions seemed to be independent of my thought. My father methodically put the truck in gear without difficulty. I had never seen him drive a manual transmission in my life, yet he handled it effortlessly. I looked at him closely. There was something different about him, but I couldn't quite determine what it was. Then I realized what had happened. He was no longer wearing his suit coat, yet it wasn't on the seat beside him. He had been wearing it when he got in the truck, yet now it was gone. That suit cost more than most people made in a month, yet he didn't seem upset that the jacket was missing. I continued to stare at him, only to realize that whatever was happening was ongoing. His body seemed to lose focus, almost like an image on an aging TV. It blurred around the edges and seemed to be changing as I watched. My father had been balding, but now, he sported a full head of hair, long and pulled back in a bun. It was mostly a dull brown, but here and there were streaks of gray. His sallow, unhealthy pallor had become much pinker, almost rosy, and the wrinkles in his skin seemed to be disappearing. If I hadn't known his actual age, I would have mistaken him for someone in their late thirties - early forties at the most instead of the fifty-five I knew him to be. As we drove along the Ovid streets, even his clothing was beginning to change. His white dress shirt had already turned to a faded denim blue and seemed to be cascading over his body like a waterfall until it had formed a long, shapeless garment which I realized in shock to be a dress. The sleeves had shortened, revealing slender, nearly hairless arms. I caught my breath as I watched two shapes begin to rise from his chest. My father - if the person seated next to me could even be called my father - stared at me as we came to a stop at a traffic light. "What's wrong, honey?" The voice was a full octave higher than my father's voice. Equally as odd was that there was genuine concern in his - her? - voice. "Nothing..." I managed to say, uncertain as to what I should say. Was I supposed to tell my father that he was swiftly becoming what appeared to be a woman? What would he think of that? Or worse yet, would he think anything of it at all? Then I realized I had been so mesmerized watching my father's transformation that I had paid no attention to what was happening to my own form. My voice, I suddenly realized, had also changed pitch, becoming higher like my father's. Also, there was a little of the twang I had noticed in the voices of Oklahoma natives. I looked down, not entirely surprised to see that I no longer wore a suit. The top button of my now plaid short sleeved shirt popped open of its own accord, and I was greeted with the sight of two substantial mounds of my own. My arms were smooth and hairless, my hands small and delicate. I was wearing jeans as well, but they fit oddly, contracting at the waist while pooling around my hips. I felt a sudden length of hair down the back of my neck and seemed to know instinctively that it had arranged itself into a long ponytail. There was no question as to what I was becoming. The only question was how. Even in my stupor, I realized that this was the sentence the Judge had spoken of. I was to be a girl, as was my father. But what possible force of law or nature could do what had been done to us? I wasn't a religious individual, but to my knowledge, even God Himself had never doled out justice of this sort. "You look a little faint, Donna Mae," she - for I knew it was now she - said to me. "Just a little hot," I managed to respond, trying to be as nonchalant about the changes as possible. It was apparent to me that whatever had happened to my father had affected his mind as well as his body. She seemed to notice nothing out of the ordinary, as if she had been whoever she now was all of her life. Would that also happen to me? My transformation seemed to be a few minutes behind my father's. Perhaps I would slowly lose the knowledge of who I had been, suddenly believing myself to have always been this Donna Mae she thought I was. I shuddered at the thought. I wanted to be me. I wanted to remember who I had been and become that person again. To be changed in body was bad enough. To be changed in body and mind was like a death sentence. She laughed. "Honey, it ain't hot yet. It ain't even June yet. This is as nice a day as you'll ever see." Actually I was hot. The truck lacked air conditioning, and the air blowing in from the partially opened windows was warm and humid, a harbinger of an Oklahoma summer yet to come. I suspected though, that my profuse perspiring was due more to the shock of what was happening to me than to the heat. "Soon as we get home," she continued, "I want you to go out and get me a dozen fresh eggs. I'm gonna devil 'em for your daddy. You know how he likes 'em. Make sure you just have a couple and leave most of 'em for him." "There's a supermarket," I said spying a place called Duggan's IGA. "What do we want with a supermarket?" she asked, puzzled. "Eggs," I reminded her. "Since when do we need a supermarket for eggs?" she asked. "Something wrong with the chickens?" What chickens? We drove right on past the market, off past the edge of town. There was nothing but cropland ahead, as far as the eye could see. She seemed to know where she was going. I let her drive and tried to concentrate on what had happened to me. Looking into the side mirror, I saw the face of a young woman, perhaps sixteen or so. She had nondescript brown hair and eyes to match. Her skin was lightly tanned with a few freckles on her cheeks and nose. She was not unattractive, but the apparent absence of any makeup gave her a girlish rather than a womanly look. I looked down at my hands. I was relieved to find that my nails were cut short and manish. After about two miles or so, we pulled into a graveled driveway. There was a mailbox attached to a post, and she drove as close to it as she could. "Well, aren't you going to get the mail?" "Huh?" I responded. She sighed. "I swear, girl, you are addled. Now get that mail or you'll have to run back out here on foot to get it." I climbed out of the truck, feeling for the first time the odd shift of weight in my body. I seemed to be projecting outward both in the front and the rear, and the ponytail running down my back flopped up gently from side to side. I was shorter, too, I realized than I had been when I got in the truck. The mailbox had the name Potter printed in neat white letters on the side. I reached in the box and pulled out several letters and advertising circulars, dutifully taking them back to the truck. On top of the stack, now resting in my lap, was an advertisement inviting Donna Mae Potter to check out careers in today's Army. So that's who I was. I had become a Donna Mae Potter. Sitting next to me, presumably, was a Mrs. Potter - my mother. What was going on? "So the Army wants you," she commented, slipping the truck back into gear. "I don't know what they'd want with girls. It just don't seem right." It didn't seem right - that was for certain, and I didn't mean the fact that the Army wanted girls. "A girl like you needs to settle down and have a family now that your school is over." School was over? That made me more like eighteen. It had to be the absence of makeup that made me look so much younger. That was fine with me, though. I had no interest in wearing makeup. I didn't care if I looked like I was ten years old. No way would I wear makeup. Not now - not ever. As for the settling down and having a family life, it sounded very ominous. I didn't know what I was going to do, but I certainly didn't plan on having a family. I planned on finding out why I had been changed into a girl and what I could do about changing back. In the meantime, a little voice told me I should act the part I had been given until I could determine what could be done to return me and my father to our normal states. I hoped I could pull it off. I didn't have the slightest notion how to be a teenage girl. Not far from the road was an aging farmhouse. It was neat and had a fresh coat of white paint on its clapboard siding, but it was old, showing obvious signs of wear. It was nestled in a grove of trees which had obviously been planted many years ago to shield the house from the hot Oklahoma sun. Not far away was a barn with a tractor and several items of farm equipment whose functions I could only guess at parked haphazardly. As we approached the house, I could see a man in overalls stand up next to the tractor. He had apparently been working on the machine, for he was wiping his oily hands on a white towel which was becoming blacker by the minute. He was tall, perhaps six three, although with my reduced height, I might have overestimated that. He was lean with a dark skin tanned from continual exposure to the sun. A shock of dark hair, thinning at the front, blew in the light spring breeze. But his most striking feature was that he was transparent. Again, by transparent, I mean that if I tried very hard, I could almost see through him, just like the children on the playground and the people at the airport. "'Bout time you got back