Chapter 1

I stared at the words on the computer screen. My current writer's block was delaying the continuing flow of the time travel sci-fi story before me. I needed to decide how David's parents would react to him introducing his new girlfriend as a Lowell mill girl from 1837. Hum, I pondered various parental reactions to this, oh, unique situation? "Ah…" I had a thought … as I typed my mental word vomit appeared on the screen. I stopped and studied the results … no, not that way … back arrow gets a short work out then more new words are added. I studied the current version of my thoughts. 'Word' had berated my spelling ability with its infamous red squiggly underline. 'Oops missed the 'e' … humm … Oh, ahh, move this phase over here, adjust the punctuation', I thought to myself as I cut and paste. After reviewing the completed lines of dialog, I thought a second. 'Would I say something like that if Jimmy or Drew brought home a girl with such a story?' I sat back in my chair and pondered. "Sure, I can see myself saying that…" I smiled to myself at the thought of my reaction to such a crazy situation.

"Jim, I'm tired, I'm going to bed. I can't keep my eyes open reading my book. You ready? Did you take your pills?" It was Suzie's usual question as she leaned over me and waited for a kiss. It was all part of our little reminders to keep each other on track with the small routines of life.

I leaned up and our lips met for the causal kiss. "Yeah, I did …" I responded and smiled at her. I looked back to the screen and glanced at the 'clock' in the corner, almost eleven already. "OK, I'm done with this for now." I mumbled as I started closing down the computer.

After the usual evening bathroom routine, we were on the bed. She was in her old baggy pajamas doing her exercises for her arthritic knee. She already had her wrist braces for her carpal tunnel and the knee brace on. I was beside her doing the stretching exercises for my bad back. We were the typical couple in their sixties fighting the aches and pains of aging. I finished and looked over as she started the up and down of her left leg. 'Three kids, three caesareans,' she didn't look bad at all. I smiled evilly to myself as I reached over and grabbed her butt cheek. She yelped in surprise, but ignored me, continuing the leg raisers.

I slipped my hand between her legs as they separated. "Stop it, you're going make me lose count." She pouted as she pushed my hand away and continued. My hand was back with the next leg raise. She instantly grabbed my hand and instead of pushing it away pulled it in tight to her crotch. She rubbed it hard against herself for a few seconds, while emitting a loud orgasmic moan, then pushed it away again and continued the leg raisers. I smirked as I started massaging her back, knowing that would get the response I really wanted. The leg raisers stopped as she leaned into my hands. I moved them around on her back finding her favorite spots. Soft moans started and soon thoughts of sleep vanished as we became involved in a much more pleasurable mutual exercise. We ended up in our familiar spooning position as we relaxed in the afterglow.

About one, I woke up to a numb right arm and leg twitches from my restless leg syndrome. I lay there mentally balancing the pleasure of snuggling with my wife of thirty-two years and the various body aches … hum; well anyway, I had to pee. I slowly pulled away, kissed her neck, and patted her ass as I moved over and slid out of bed. She responded with a slight moan and slowly adjusted her legs, which I knew meant the arthritic knee was bothering her. I made it into the bathroom where my bladder did its best to push the urine past my enlarged prostate. Back in bed, I tossed and turned trying to find the best position for my back. Three-fifteen, I'm awake again, another trip to the bathroom. Again, I moved around trying to find a reasonably comfortable position on our fancy memory foam mattress. About this time Suzie made one of her trips to the bathroom. I finally drifted off to sleep.

"Bark!"

Oh, shit, it had better be after five or Cowboy is going to be in…

"Bark!"

Crap, I looked over at the alarm clock with the red glowing three inches tall numbers that I could see without my glasses –five twenty. Fine. I'm up and out into the dark kitchen where our fifteen year old semi-senile Chihuahua was prancing around my feet looking for breakfast. With only a nightlight and no glasses, I didn't really see him, but heard his nails on the tile. Fortunately, he was still smart enough to keep out from under my feet as I dropped the allotted amount of food in his bowl. After a detour to the bathroom for a third time, I was back in bed with more tossing and turning, while thinking at least it was Sunday so we could sleep in this morning. I vaguely remembered the crack of dawn as I finally fell asleep, again.

I slowly woke for the fourth time. Eyes still closed, I thought something was odd. I had clothes? I was sleeping in the nude, so what the hell? Even more than that something else felt odd, physically, but? Then there was a blanket beside the sheet on the bed? The bed itself felt … different … harder? All these things rushed past my consciousness in the first few seconds as my hand moved over the unfamiliar fabric to my crotch as I started to roll over... There was something MISSING! My eyes shot open as my hand franticly grabbed at the material. I sat bolt upright and pushed the sheet and blanket away from myself as long dark blond hair swung by my face. My mind didn't notice the hair, or the easy painless movement, being more focused on the bigger issue. In my frenzied state, I searched inside the strange pink and yellow pajama bottoms. Pubic hair, Ok, check. Not much though? Then nothing— well, not nothing, I actually recognized something rather familiar. Huh? What the f…! I was stunned.

I had lost track of how long I stared at the refection in the mirror. It was, um, a person I couldn't begin to comprehend that stared back at me. A girl? I guessed early teens. The slim body was clothed in yellow girl pajamas with pink hearts. Big blue eyes with a shocked stare looked back at me. They were set in a small oval face with attractive features and a stunned expression framed by long dark blond slightly wavy hair. I went to move my hand and a small hand approached the face in the mirror. I froze. The small hand stopped. I willed my hand to move again and the small fingers moved up and picked at the sleep tangled hair. The blue eyes traveled to a pair of small protrusions in the pajama top. Trembling fingers dropped the strands of hair and tentatively touched the left one through the fabric of the top. I felt the touch. The arm dropped to the side. I continued to stare at a face I didn't recognize, but somehow had oddly familiar features, but... The face of what seemed, as best as I could guess to be a normal young teenage girl. How? Why? I blinked. She was still there.

I slowly pulled the eyes from the mirror and surveyed the room. I could see everything clearly without my glasses, huh? It was immediately familiar. My room, when I was a teenager, back in the sixties. The wallpaper was different, feminine, and same with the various accessories. It was certainly my room from fifty or so years ago. My eyes settled on a calendar on the wall, August 1962. Ok! Ok! Maybe, it's a dream … the most vivid dream of my sixty-four year life. No, I never dream in color, only Suzie did that … oh, Suzie, where is she? I glanced back to the single bed with the pink blanket that I had pushed to one side. Damn … what's going on! Time travel, but how, where's my body? Who's this girl I'm inside of? Why is my old room all girly? 'Idiot, you were just looking at why the damn room is all girly,' I thought to myself. 'Fuck! In the typical stories, the traveler always arrived in their own body, right? That's the rule, right?' Then I thought, 'Stupid fool, whoever said there were rules about time travel, about any sci-fi.' Shit! I banged a small fist on the bureau, and then winced in pain.

"Bert?" A childlike feminine voice called. I froze and gasped, who was that? Who was Bert, her, this body … me now?

"Mom's making pancakes and she said to make sure you're up…." A small, thin girl about ten opened the bedroom door and looked around. In one look, the hair, the eyes, the vaguely similar features that had been somehow familiar to me in the mirror where reflected back and I knew … it was my sister.

"Oh, you're up."

"Linda?" I gasped in a strange feminine voice.

"Yeah, what?" she looked at me quizzically. "Mom said the pancakes will be ready in ten minutes so, hurry up." She paused and looked at me. "You look funny, something wrong with you?"

"Uh, well, umm, nothing, I'll be right down." I managed to get out in the same feminine voice. Linda gave me a funny look, then shrugged, turned and headed back downstairs. Linda? Why? How? 1962? I stood there stunned for a few seconds, my mind going over the same incredible thoughts. Time travel? Parallel universes? But why am I not me? Why am I in this girl body? Damn … time travel really doesn't work, especially this wrong body crap… more likely parallel universe … but how? But then I guess there aren't any rules about whatever this is. I choked on the thought. I lifted a small hand up to my face, turned it around and wiggled the little fingers. Ho…ly shit!

I looked down at the pajamas and thought about getting dressed. Linda was still in her pajamas and I knew I would need more than ten minutes to figure out what to wear. More importantly, I could feel a full bladder. I made it downstairs to the bathroom. The house was just as my hazy memories remembered it, same layout with the same furniture, rugs, wallpapers, and so on. In the bathroom, I hesitated, and then quickly remembered to sit. Damn, now I knew why women needed toilet paper when they pee … jeez. Where the hell were the washcloths and towels? Then I remembered; they're out in the cabinet in the hall. I was quickly out, and then back in the bathroom. I washed the stranger's face that looked back at me, brushed the small teeth that showed when I grimaced thinking about this situation and stared at the mass of sleep tangled hair in the mirror. I ran the small thin fingers through it a few times and finally gave up. I gritted the teeth and left the bathroom for the kitchen apprehensively anticipating who I would find there.

I stood frozen at the kitchen entrance, trying to maintain my composure. My mother, who had died more than twenty years ago, was making pancakes. My father, gone for more than a dozen years, had finished his eggs and bacon. Now, he was reading the paper with a cigarette burning in the ashtray next to him. Linda, a grandmother of two boys, older than she was here, was pouring more syrup on her pancakes. Tears welled up in my eyes as I quickly crossed the room and hugged my mother. I wasn't sure if it was just my emotions at seeing Mom again or some combination with the teen girl hormones. I choked out "Mom" as I hugged her for the first time I could in almost a quarter of a century.

"Oh, Honey, are you OK?" Mom half turned from the fry pan to look at me. She looked surprised and concerned at my tear filled eyes. "What's wrong?"

"Oh, I'm … I don't know … I … I love you…" I choked out, then let go and rubbed my eyes.

"Well, I love you too honey, pancakes are ready, and here are two. How many more do you want?" she asked.

"Two are fine." I said, not really knowing how hungry I was or how stable my stomach was at this point. I took the plate with the two pancakes and went and sat down at my 'usual' place at the table. I looked between my two parents thinking how young they were. My memory was of them older, as grandparents, with the typical infirmities of age, like I am now, or was?

My father looked up at me from the paper and smiled quizzically. "Bert, honey, you OK?"

"Yeah, sure, just teen hormones kicking in, I guess." I responded lightly and received a shocked raised eye browed expression from Dad. Why did he call me Bert, like Linda did? Oh, jeez, she, me, is the first girl in the family since my father's Aunt Bertha, and so, they named her Bertha. Crap! Linda looked up and over at him.

"What are hormones?" she asked

Dad glared at me. Oh, shit. I thought, and then mumbled. "Umm, sorry." I looked down at my plate as Dad responded to Linda that it wasn't anything important, just things teenagers get sometimes. Fortunately, Linda shrugged and returned to her pancakes.

I absentmindedly reached for the Vermont Maid syrup, as my mind raced along trying to decide what to say or when to say anything to my parents. I sure could use a cup of coffee, probably a stiff drink would be better, yeah, a shot of Jameson, probably the whole figgin' bottle, but I knew that wasn't going to happen.

"Bert, honey, do you want milk or orange juice?" Mom asked.

"Could I have a cup of coffee?" I responded.

Suddenly, both sets of parental eyes were focused on me. "Since when do you drink coffee?" Dad asked.

I knew saying, for the past forty something years, was not the right answer. "Um, I'd like to try it?" I asked tentatively. My parents looked at each other for a moment.

Mom got a cup. "Do you want milk and sugar in it?"

"No thanks, black is fine." I responded, gaining me more arched eyebrows from the both of them.

She half filled the cup and handed it to me. I now had three sets of eyes watching as I took a sip, damn, I'd forgotten how strong my mother's coffee was, certainly not Dunkin Donuts. I took another, and then went back to the pancakes, thinking how do I play this? I had no memories for this girl body. I had only my sixty years of guy memories. They were going to know something was wrong pretty quick. Linda finished and went in the living room to watch TV. I got up, cleared all the plates from the table and rinsed them in the sink. 'Shit!' I thought as I stopped scrapping the leftovers into the sink, 'no garbage disposal. Damn!' I fished the few pieces of pancake out of the sink drain as my mind continued racing to develop some coherent … thought … plan to break the 'news'.

"Is it OK if I have another cup of coffee? Do you guys want a refill?" I asked. Again, my parents exchanged looks.

"Sure, I'd like a refill." Dad responded. I grabbed the old coffee pot from the stove and filled his cup, then looked at Mom.

"No, honey I'm fine." She smiled at me.

I filled my cup, put the pot back, sat down at the table, took a sip and looked up to see them both looking at me.

"Um, there's something important I have to tell you." I nervously began.