I Was A Stranger
At My Own Wedding
In his motel room, Mark Wayne stood before the full-length mirror on the rear of the bathroom door, carefully combing back the hair he had just slicked with hair cream. It had been a long day and he was, he had to admit, a little beat, but not so beat that he wasn't up for some fun. For Mark fun meant female company, hence his current bout of personal grooming. After several weeks on the road, he was looking forward to getting a little action. Tomorrow he turned in his hire car and flew back to Connecticut, but tonight was his.
Finishing with his hair and turning to the task of knotting his tie, Mark reflected on just how convenient his job was for finding a wide variety of women over a wide variety of usefully separated towns and cities. As the West Coast sales representative for Peyton Machine Tools Inc., he got to make these tours twice a year, tours that threw up many opportunities for his kind of fun - and Mark wasn't one to miss an opportunity.
Satisfied with his tie, Mark turned to his cuff links, smiling at just how well his life was going right now. With the 'police action' in Korea showing no sign of ending anytime soon the demand for machine tools was higher than it had been at any time since the big one, and business was booming. This was a good thing and not only because of Mark's commission. No, the full order book he would be taking back to Arthur Peyton tomorrow should put the old man in a particularly good mood and right now that was important. Pleasing him was Mark's most significant aim in life. Mark was marrying his beautiful daughter Anne this coming Saturday and this should convince old man Peyton once and for all both that his daughter was doing the right thing marrying him and that he should be made a partner in the business. That was certainly the plan, anyway, and Mark had worked assiduously to get to where he was now.
Mark shrugged his suit jacket into place, and began buttoning it. He knew the old man had had his doubts, that despite Mark being his best salesman, he was less than impressed that he had managed to spend the entirety of World War Two in uniform without seeing any action, seeming to somehow regard this as being almost unmanly. Mark's protestations that this wasn't his fault, that he had to serve in whatever capacity the military chose for him, had at least seemed to mollify him somewhat, but Mark knew that he would have preferred his little girl to be marrying a full-fledged war hero.
"No chance of that!", mused Mark aloud, remembering the maneuvering it had taken to ensure he got a non-combat posting. He was glad there were men willing to put their lives on the line for their country but his plans for his future involved acquiring wealth and power, not dying face down in the mud in some godforsaken field in Europe. As far as he was concerned the whole thing had been a sideshow, a distraction from the upward trajectory of his life. Fortunately, Anne Peyton shared none of her father's doubts and had eventually been won over by the good looks and slightly risqué sense of humor that had charmed many women into his bed over the past ten years. Not that he had bedded Anne, of course, oh no. Not only wouldn't she have entertained the idea of premarital sex, but Mark expected any wife of his to still be a virgin on their wedding night. The type of women he could charm into bed were fun to spend a night or two with but women who would do that were not the sort of women you wanted to marry.
Leaving his room, Mark crunched his way across the gravel parking area and over to the roadside bar on the opposite side of the highway. It looked none too special from the outside, but then the type of woman he hoped to find inside was likely to be none too special anyway.
Mark snorted in amusement at how the neon sign outside proudly proclaimed the bar to be 'Jack's Place - 24 Hour Liquor License' as if running a joint like this was proof of something more than small dreams and smaller ambitions. Inside, the bar looked no different than hundreds, maybe thousands of others. It was dark and smoky, sparsely populated by the usual assortment of loners, barflies, and penny-ante pool hustlers eager to play you for little more than the price of a beer. As his eyes adjusted to the gloom, Mark scanned the room looking for likely prospects. Most of the women in the bar seemed to be with men, and none of the unattached ones appealed to him. It was looking as if all that effort in front of the mirror had been wasted. Then he saw her, in the booth where she was sitting, her face suddenly illuminated by the match she struck to light her cigarette. In that second or two, he glimpsed a surprisingly pretty face framed by short, dark waves of fashionably permed hair, and a slim yet shapely figure nicely filling out a tasteful green dress. This sighting was enough for Mark, and he bee-lined straight for the booth.
"Mind if I join you?" he asked.
The woman looked him up and down, appraising him carefully, then took a long drag on her cigarette, and said:
"Sure, why not?"
"Hi, I'm Mark Wayne," said Mark, offering his hand.
"Judy Amis," she replied, smiling slightly as she shook his hand. As Mark sat down he got his first proper look at Judy and almost whistled. She was maybe 20 - 21 (about the same age as your fiancée, a small voice that might have been his conscience told him; he ignored it), wore light, tastefully done make-up, and had on a single-string pearl necklace and pearl cluster earrings.
"And what brings you to Jack's Place, Mark Wayne?" she asked.
"Business. I've been on the road for weeks, selling machine tools to defense plants here in Southern California. I'm staying in the motel across over the highway tonight and I thought I'd head over here and unwind with a few drinks and maybe some good company."
"Sounds like a plan," she said, puzzling him by looking more amused than she should be by anything he had said.
"Yeah, well... and what's a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?" It was a cheesy old line, but since they both knew it, it helped loosen things up.
"Argument with my boyfriend. Chad - that's my boyfriend - was hoping for work in those defense plants you've been going around. We drove down from Seattle a few days ago... discovered that being cooped up in a car together for several days, just the two of us, we really got on each other's nerves. Earlier today, we had a blazing row and Chad dumped me here and drove off. I've been sitting here, expecting him to return for me when he cools off and comes back to his senses, but that was this morning and there's been no sign of him since. And he's got all our money"
Seeing how worried she looked as she said this, Mark smiled. This was going to be easy. He bought them both drinks, and over the next couple of hours sweet-talked Judy and charmed her with his easy wit. In the course of their conversation she mentioned she was barren, something Mark was very happy to hear. There had been that girl who had let herself get pregnant a few years back. That could have been embarrassing if word had gotten back to Arthur Peyton. Fortunately, a few harsh words spelling out her situation had got her to back off. Presumably, she had either had the kid or got rid of it in the dingy kitchen of some back street abortionist. As long as he never heard from her again Mark didn't really care, but she did puzzle him. Given the far greater risk they faced he sometimes wondered why girls let themselves be talked into bed by guys like him. But he didn't wonder too hard. And now, here was Judy. Judging that he'd softened her up enough, he was ready to make his move.
"Look, I know we've only just met, and I'm sure this isn't the sort of thing a nice girl like you would normally do, but would you like to spend the night with me? It gets lonely on the road, and I like you, and...."
This was always the moment of truth, the moment when they either expressed outrage at the very suggestion or accepted the offer. Usually they accepted, and he could tell from the cool, appraising look Judy gave him that she was going to accept.
"Why not" she said. "That jerk Chad obviously isn't coming back, I need somewhere to spend the night, and you look like you know how to show a girl a good time."
"Never had any complaints", he grinned getting to his feet.
Because it was both the sort of thing women expected of a man and a cost-free way of racking up a few more brownie points, Mark carried the small suitcase of Judy's that held everything she had with her over to the motel. He was surprised by how little it weighed. This was a woman who traveled light.
"Not bad," said Judy, when he let them in to his room and turned the light on. "I've certainly seen worse."
"Make yourself comfortable," said Mark, heading for the bathroom. Drinking before a seduction was something you had to judge carefully, he thought as he relieved himself, a useful and often necessary tool but one that could impair your performance if you misjudged it.
"Not that I've ever had the slightest problem in that department!" he chuckled to himself, shaking the final few drops loose.
Judy pressed herself against him as soon as he stepped back into the bedroom, her lips hungrily seeking his. He responded in kind, pulling her to him and kissing her long and deep, his hand seeking her breasts and ass before unzipping her dress. They pulled apart briefly, a mess of fumbling hands and arms as they tore off their own and each others clothes before toppling, naked, onto the bed.
The sex was good. It was *really* good. When at last they pulled apart and rolled away from each other, Mark let out a deep sigh of contentment. This was a wonderful life. Sex without commitment or responsibility. It was great being a guy.
With Judy lying against him, cradled in the crook of his arm, both of them basking in that pleasant post-coital afterglow, Mark lit cigarettes for both of them and passed one to her.
"Thanks. So what would that fiancée of yours - Anne, was it - think if she could see us now?"
"Heh. She'd have a fit. She doesn't understand that men and women are different, that men find it hard to commit to only having sex with one woman."
"You going to keep doing this after you two get hitched?"
"Of course", laughed Mark. "As long as she doesn't find out, what she doesn't know won't harm her. She's better off not knowing, I'm better off if she doesn't know, and I'm *really* better off if her father doesn't know."
"I'll bet. What father would put up with a son-in-law who cheated on his little princess?"
"Yeah, well. He may be letting me marry her, but I'm not sure any man is good enough for his little girl. Even Audie Murphy might not be enough of a war hero."
"Perhaps he's right. Tell me about her."
"Anne? Why?"
"Curiosity. Just maybe a little envy. Indulge me. We're like ships that pass in the night. When we go our separate ways tomorrow we'll never see each other again, so why not tell me everything about her, everything you've maybe wanted to say but never have? Think of me as Doctor Freud, but with better legs."
"You're a nut, you know that, but why not? Let's see... Anne is beautiful, cultured, sophisticated, the product of the finest colleges and finishing schools. She works for one of the major newspapers back east writing columns about fashion and society. Of course, as soon as we're married I'll put a stop to that. I won't have a wife of mine working. It's not as if she needs to work, anyway, since her mother left her millions when she died and she'll inherit the business when her father passes on. Or rather, I will. We'll be married by then and what woman knows or cares about machine tools? No, by then she should be giving her full attention to being the full-time mother of my children."
"You had sex with her yet?"
"God, no. I expect her to still be a virgin on our wedding night and she assures me she's never had sex with a man. No, I get to make her a woman then and she, lucky girl, gets the benefit of all my experience."
"Lucky her. Going somewhere?"
Mark had swung his legs over the side of the bed and was getting to his feet.
"Need to take a leak and clean myself off. Back in a minute."
Chatting to Judy was easy, thought Mark as he freshened up. She seemed a lot sharper, a lot more intelligent than the women he usually picked up. When he returned to the bedroom she was sitting cross-legged on the bed, reading a letter. In her other hand she held some sort of necklace, a cheap-looking piece of junk with a kind of angel design on it.
"What you got there?" he asked.
"Hmmm? Oh, while you were in the bathroom I decided to go through my suitcase, figure out just how I'm going to get by with what I've got, and I found an envelope. Chad must've stuffed it in there. This medallion was inside along with the letter. Looks like it was written by Chad's friend Barry. Here, want a look?"
She offered him the medallion and he reached over to take it. The instant he touched it he felt a strange tingle.
"Did you feel that?" he said.
"Yeah. Felt like a small static shock. Guess we must've charged ourselves up a bit with all that writhing around on the bed."
Mark grinned. "So what does the letter say? Anything interesting?"
"Hang on. I'd only just started reading it when you came back in. Let's see... something about being the fabled Medallion of Zulo, whatever that is, and how it has magic powers. Say, are you feeling alright? You look kinda weird."
"Yeah, I just....what the hell?"
To Mark's consternation the hairs on his body, arms, legs and chest was retreating as watched, leaving him as hairless as a child, and that wasn't all. He could feel all sorts of things moving and stretching and contracting within his body, as if rearranging themselves before settling into some new, unknown configuration. And he was shrinking, growing shorter as his waist grew smaller and his well-defined musculature faded into now slender limbs. As his hips broadened and his shoulders narrowed, he looked up from his own body to see that Judy too was going through changes, watching in wonderment as her body grew and filled out, hard muscle and coarse hair emerging from what had been a soft, female form. In that instant it suddenly hit Mark just exactly what was happening to them both and he screamed in horror as breasts started to bud from his chest and a sharp pain spread through his groin. Watching helplessly, he saw his penis, his pride and joy, first shrink to the size of a newborn's, then seem to be absorbed entirely into his body as it slowly morphed into a vagina. The changes gradually slowed and then stopped, but it was some minutes before a totally stunned Mark Wayne looked up from his now female body to look at his companion. As he knew she would be, Judy was now male, a dead ringer for the man he had so recently been. She also seemed to be taking their transformation a lot better than he was.
"Man, this is cool!" she laughed, flexing and unflexing her biceps, then running her hands over her washboard stomach and tight little buttocks.
"COOL!?!" exploded Mark, "This is fucking nightmare! How can I marry Anne looking like this?"
"Oh, I don't know", grinned Judy, "With both of you in your white wedding gowns you'd make a very pretty couple, though you'd have to curb that unladylike language."
"This can't be happening, it just can't." he groaned, gingerly touching his left breast with a slender hand, marveling at how fine-boned it was, and how long his nails were.
"How can we have switched bodies? Things like this just don't happen in real life, they just don't."
Judy was reading the letter again.
"According to this we're stuck this way for at least the next twelve hours as that's the minimum time before a body is ready for another transformation. The medallion won't work on us again until then."
"Then this isn't permanent? We can get our old lives back?" said Mark, hopefully, like a drowning man who's just been thrown a lifeline, feverishly scanning the letter for himself.
"Looks that way. So... what do you want to do 'til then, cutie?"
"Wh..what do you mean?"
"I mean that we're in a unique, maybe unprecedented situation. We could be the first people ever to get the opportunity to find out what it feels like from the other side."
" 'It?' You mean....Oh, no. No way." said Mark, pulling the sheets around his naked body and hugging them tight to his breasts.
"Huh. I thought you had more sense of adventure than that, that you'd want to take advantage of an opportunity that's never going to come your way again."
The glare Mark gave Judy made her laugh. He looked adorable when he was angry. Chuckling, she turned to the dresser and poured them each a glass of Mark's bourbon.
"Here," she said, handing him a glass. "You look like you need this."
He snatched the glass from her then she sat down in the room's only armchair, the two of them staring at each other in open curiosity.
"This is so weird!" said Judy. "No one ever gets to see their own body from the outside like this. Could you stand up and turn around?"
"Why?" Mark asked suspiciously.
"Because I've never seen my back 'in the flesh' and I'm curious."
Mark considered this then, reluctantly, did as she asked. Judy came over and ran her hand down his back.
"Hey!"
"Oh, stop making such a fuss! Your virtue is safe with me, and it's not like I've never seen that body naked before. Look, I'll turn around now and you can have a close look at your old body from the outside."
She did, and Mark too couldn't resist running his hand down that strong back. She turned round then, looking down into his eyes, and smiled. Mark felt himself going weak at the knees, and there was a definite moistness in his groin. Horrified, he realized that his new body was getting turned on by the naked man before him, by his own old body. He stumbled backwards, falling on to the bed, suddenly noticing just how tired he felt.
"Too much excitement", he muttered. "I really, really need to sleep."
"Probably a good idea. You need to be good and rested for your flight tomorrow. I figure you'll just have time to make the airport after we switch back. And don't worry - I'll sleep in the armchair tonight."
These were the last words Mark heard as sleep claimed him.
* * * * * * *
Mark usually emerged slowly from a long sleep, reflexively sliding his hands down to his crotch and accepting the morning salute from his tumescent member. Yawning sleepily as he slowly came to, his hands slid downwards almost of their own volition...and encountered an absence. Mark was instantly awake and sat bolt upright in the bed.
It hadn't just been an awful dream. He really was a woman. Head pounding and heart racing, he looked wildly around the room. He was alone.
Judy was gone.
She could just have stepped out for breakfast, but Mark knew with a terrible certainty that she hadn't. A brief search showed she had taken his wallet, all of his clothes, all his company order books and paperwork and, of course, the medallion. A quick glance out the window confirmed his hired Studebaker was gone, too. Turning, Mark spotted a ten dollar bill on the dresser. Under it was a scribbled note:
'Thanks, baby, you were great last night. Got to dash. Only a few days until my wedding.'
Trembling, Mark glanced over at the wall clock. His flight had taken off twenty minutes ago. Judy was already in the air and on her way to her new life, to his life. This couldn't be happening to him, it just couldn't, and why was his head still pounding so? He went to the bathroom for an aspirin. Glancing down, he spotted a torn paper sachet in the waste bin, a few stray grains of some white powder still visible inside. There was a second, unopened sachet beneath it. He retrieved them both, carefully touching those few grains to his tongue, recognizing the same odd taste he'd vaguely noticed in his bourbon last night but been too stressed to fully register.
"She slipped me a mickey." he whispered, wonderingly. This changed everything.
Sitting down on the edge of the bed, his mind raced over the events of the past few hours. It was all clear to him now. There never had been any Barry, nor any Chad for that matter, and she hadn't just discovered the medallion stuffed in her suitcase. No, this was planned. However she'd come by it, she was smart enough to know the medallion was her ticket to easy street. Find some likely mark, winkle out in the course of bar conversation or after-sex pillow talk just how rich he was or was about to become, then steal his life. That's why she was so unfazed by their transformations. She knew what was happening, had planned for it to happen that way.
Mark wondered how many men she had sized up, how many had been found wanting before she had settled on him, and cursed the luck that had ever brought him to this motel. For a while, the sheer enormity of what had been done to him left Mark feeling totally defeated and utterly dejected. But as he sat there, gazing down at his woman's hands, he found a fiery resolve beginning to build within him, a determination to save Anne from this imposter and to wrest his own life back from her. She may or may not have been telling the truth about the limitations of the medallion in that letter she faked, but it stood to reason that what it did it could undo. He would have to follow Judy, stop her marrying Anne and force her to restore them to their own bodies. Sighing, he got to his feet and started going through the things Judy had left behind.
Mark soon discovered why Judy's suitcase had seemed so light. Apart from a change of underwear, a day dress, three pairs of white gloves and a few pairs of nylons it was empty. In her purse were a small make-up bag, a hair brush, a matchbook, two packs of Chesterfields and a handful of loose change, maybe a dollar-fifty in all. That was worrying. With the bill on the dresser it meant Mark had less than twelve dollars to his name. Hoping to find a hidden stash of bills, Mark unzipped the make-up bag and tipped out the contents. These were a lipstick, rouge, a powder compact, and a tiny plastic case which, when opened, proved to contain a cake of mascara and a small applicator brush which look to him like nothing so much as a seriously undersized toothbrush. There was a tinfoil mirror glued to the inside of the hinged lid.
Mark wondered if he should make a long distance collect call to Anne to warn her, then decided against it. Hearing a woman on the other end of the line claiming to be her fiancé, she was almost certain to cut him off before he had a reasonable chance to convince her who he really was. No, only a face-to-face meeting where he could force her to listen to him was going to work. Unfortunately, he had nowhere near enough money to get across the country, and just thinking of the risks to an attractive and virtually penniless young woman in hitching all that way made him feel queasy. Somehow, he would need to get his hands on more money, and fast. While pondering this, Mark examined the other clothing Judy had left behind, the stuff she had been wearing last night. This and the stuff in the suitcase were all the clothing he had.
Sighing, he picked up the bra, first putting it on backwards and fastening it at waist level as he'd seen so many women do, then twisting it round the right way as he maneuvered it up his torso, slid his arms through the straps, and slipped his breasts into the cups, adjusting them for comfort. Next came the panties and garter belt, followed by the nylons, which he carefully rolled up his legs before securing them to belt. The only pairs of shoes Judy had with her were the lain black pumps she had worn with the green dress. Fortunately, the heels were only two inches high and, after slipping them on and walking up and down the room experimentally a few times, Mark decided that he could manage in them. After donning the slip, he briefly considered the flower-patterned day dress in the suitcase, which was certainly more suitable daywear, before donning green dress Judy had worn the previous evening. In his present condition, Mark could only think of one way of getting enough money quick enough, and for that he'd definitely need the green dress. He gulped as he realized just what he was considering doing. The ten-bill and how she'd left it with the note there on the dresser had given him the idea, and though the thought of it made his gorge rise the only way he could see out of this situation was to lure a man back to the motel for sex. The room had to be vacated by noon, but that still gave him a couple of hours.
* * * * * * *
For Floyd Kuttner a couple of stiff ones after a night shift spent watching gauges at the local electric plant was the ideal way to unwind before heading back to the apartment he shared with his mother. There were several bars on his route home and he like to rotate them, to give the benefit of his custom to each in turn. This morning it was the turn of Jack's Place, and as his car pulled onto the lot beside the bar, Floyd smiled the sort of smile you give an old and dear friend.
After Manuel the bartender had served him his first whiskey, Floyd was extremely surprised to see an attractive young women had sidled up to the bar next to him.
"Got a light, handsome?" she asked, in a sultry voice.
"S...sure," replied Floyd, fumbling for his matches.
"Jeez, I'm getting a woody!" he thought as he lit a match, desperately hoping she wouldn't see. As she leaned forward, moving the cigarette between her lips into the flame, Floyd got to look down the front of her dress, which made him gulp. She sure was pretty, he decided, despite her not very well applied make-up.
"Thanks, honey", said the woman, taking a long drag from her cigarette.
"You're welcome." replied Floyd, feeling both uneasy and excited by the appraising look she was giving him. With his pot-belly, balding head, and non-existent dress sense Floyd wasn't used to getting this sort of attention and he had no idea how he should handle it.
"You wanna go back to my room?" she suddenly asked.
"Ummm, er, sure. Yeah that would be... er."
She took his hand then and led him out into the light. They crossed the highway, walked to the door of her motel room, then she turned to face him.
"You do realize this is strictly business?" she said.
"Business?" replied Floyd, momentarily uncomprehending.
"It'll cost you twenty bucks."
"Oh." Floyd was disappointed by this, but on the other hand twenty bucks to do it with a woman who looked like this was actually pretty good. She certainly didn't look like a twenty dollar hooker.
"OK, twenty bucks it is."
The deal having been made, the woman opened the door and they went into her room.
"Make yourself comfortable, " she said, "and I'll pour us both drinks."
"Sounds good," said Floyd, settling uncertainly on the edge of the bed. While his wasn't a virgin, this would only be the third time he'd ever had sex, and the first with anyone this pretty.
"Drink up," she said, offering him a glass of bourbon and slinging her own straight back. Floyd shrugged, and followed suit, coughing slightly as it seared the back of his throat. He stood up then, moving towards the woman.
"Not so fast, hoss", she said, pushing him away. "You just lie back on that bed and I'll start by getting you warmed up first with a little strip tease."
Floyd didn't need any warming up - he already felt like he was about to burst his jeans - but a strip tease sounded good so he figured 'why not?' Settling back, he smiled dreamily as the woman began to sensuously gyrate before him, slowly unfastening her dress. He was really looking forward to seeing her naked but unfortunately for Floyd it was right about then that he started to feel very, very drowsy. Within minutes he was snoring.
* * * * * * *
At the bus depot, and now attired in the floral-patterned daywear dress, Mark bought a ticket and hurriedly made his way to the soon-to-depart Greyhound bus. According to their schedule of departures and connections, he should make it across country before the wedding, be just in time to stop the ceremony and force Judy to give him back his body. As the bus pulled away he surreptitiously checked in his purse to make sure the money was still there. It had been a stroke of luck when that loser had come into Jack's Place and Mark had seen him peel a bill off that fat bill roll. Luring him back to his room had been pathetically easy, and putting the contents of that second sachet into his drink even more so. As soon as he was out cold, Mark had taken his money and his car keys and headed straight to the bus depot. There had not, alas, been enough money for a plane ticket, but this way would do. All that mattered now was getting to the church in time.
* * * * * * *
Judy had been a man for several days now and had not only grown used to it but started to feel comfortable in that role. This was a good thing, she decided as she entered the church, because in a few minutes time she would become Anne Peyton's husband. She was dressed in a stiff, gray formal suit, complete with tails, as was her best man, Anne's cousin Charles, who was with Judy and who kept nervously patting down his vest to reassure himself that he did indeed still have the rings. Taking her seat at the front of the church, Judy glanced around at the members of the Peyton family and the great and the good of the surrounding county who filled the pews. Conspicuous by the absence were any friends and family of Mark Wayne. It seemed that in his climb towards wealth and standing, he'd made few friends and alienated whatever family he had. Even his best man was a relative of Anne's, taking that role because no one else could be found who would. While this all made Judy's assumption of Mark's life immeasurably easier, it also struck her as desperately sad. What a hollow man he had been. She would gradually change that, reach out to others, forge new friendships, and repair broken relationships where she could. She would make Mark Wayne, make herself, more popular knowing everyone would attribute this welcome change to the mellowing effect of getting married. None of this would help the real Mark Wayne, she knew, but then he was beyond her help now.
The organist struck up 'Here Comes the Bride' and everyone rose to their feet. Judy looked back up the aisle to see her bride entering the church on the arm of her father. Her gown was simple, elegant and expensive, a white lace top with cream satin skirts set off by a single string of flawless pearls. The old man was trying to look his usual gruff self, but love for and pride in his daughter was plain for all to see. From Mark's descriptions Judy had expected him to be an authoritarian ogre, but in the couple of meetings she had had with him over the previous few days she formed a very different opinion of the man. No, she saw a lonely man still hurting from the death of his wife three years earlier, a man fiercely protective of his daughter and of his company who would do whatever was necessary to protect both of them. She liked the man she'd glimpsed beneath that fierce exterior.
Anne and she stood before the minister, and Judy pulled back her veil. Anne was a truly beautiful woman, and Judy couldn't help be moved by that smile and by those eyes, so full of love for her. In that instant any doubts she still had about switching places with Mark Wayne were banished forever. She was floating on air as the ceremony proceeded, knowing she was only seconds away from her plan coming to pass.
"If anyone knows of any reason why these two should not be forever joined together in holy matrimony, let him speak now or forever hold his peace." intoned the minister.
No one had seen a breathless Mark enter the church a few minutes earlier and slip silently into a pew at the back. Seizing this moment, the last moment in the ceremony he could seize, he leapt to his feet and in clear ringing tones called out:
"I do! Anne can't marry that man!"
Consternation and uproar followed. Two of the ushers grabbed Mark, while Arthur Peyton made to rush up the aisle, face like thunder, until Judy stopped him.
"I'll deal with this", she said, heading up the aisle.
"I'm coming with you", said Anne, leaving the assembled guests in muttering disarray.
The ushers manhandled Mark into a small ante-room then left, leaving him alone with Anne and Judy. For a moment Mark and Judy just stared at each other, Mark idly noting that she had was wearing the green dress.
"Anne", said Mark, grabbing her arms. "That isn't Mark Wayne, I am. She used magic to switch our bodies."
Anne stared at him coldly.
"I know." she said.
"Wh...what?" Her words hit Mark like a hammer.
"She knows who you really are" said Judy, looking at him with an odd mixture of smugness and pity.
"How... why? I don't understand."
"Judy and I have known each other since we met in our early teens at boarding school," said Anne, still looking at him balefully. "We quickly became friends, and more than friends, which is not as unusual at boarding schools for the children of the wealthy as you'd think."
"The nights are long, and you get lonely" said Judy. "Then there are all those teenage hormones."
"She was my first and dearest love," said Anne looking lovingly at Judy, "and I'd never been happier. Unfortunately, her father was funding their family's lifestyle through tax fraud and embezzling money from his employers. They found out, he went to jail, his family lost everything, and Judy was forced to leave the school. We'd been together less than two years. I was devastated."
"So was I." said Judy. "With Mom and me having to keep moving to keep one step ahead of the creditors, it was impossible to keep in contact with Anne and we lost touch. It was five years later, after my mother died, before we met again, by which point she was engaged to you."
"I loved you, Mark, or at least I thought I did. But when I saw Judy again all those old feelings came flooding back and I realized that what I felt for her was stronger. I didn't know what to do. Much as I wanted to be with her, I'm ashamed to say that I told her we couldn't be together. I wanted children and respectability, and I could only get those by going ahead and marrying you."
"I understood, I truly did," said Judy, giving Anne a reassuring hug. "Given the social pariahs unmarried couples are can you imagine the scandal if two women had set up home together and tried to remain part of the society set in this county? Maybe one day unwed and same-sex couples will be able to live together openly, but here and now, in mid-twentieth century America, they just can't. Fortunately, I had the answer to all our problems. I had the Medallion of Zulo. I was happy being a woman, but I loved Anne more than anything and the medallion gave me a way to be with her."
"I didn't believe her when she first told me of its powers, " said Anne. "It was just too fantastic. Even after she demonstrated how it worked by temporarily switching our bodies. I still wasn't sure about her plan to switch with you. I was engaged to you, I did love you, and it didn't seem fair to do that to you. Judy was convinced you were cheating on me, that you'd continue to do so even after we were married. She said she knew your type and could get proof. I told her that if she did, that if you were the rat she thought you were, then she should switch places with you and I'd be hers."
"I don't know what she told you, but she was lying!" said Mark, desperately.
"Don't lie to me!!" shouted Anne, furiously. "You've lied to me too many times already."
"I think it's time to make the call," Judy said, quietly. Anne looked at Mark coldly, then nodded and slipped out of the room.
"How did you get her to believe you?" asked Mark
"I didn't have to get her to believe anything. You condemned yourself with your own words."
Judy took a small spool of wire from her pocket and tossed it to Mark.
"There was a wire recorder under the bed. I turned it on when you were in the bathroom and it recorded our lovemaking and all that incriminating pillow-talk afterwards. I'm sure you're now bitterly regretting all the things you said."
Mark's shoulders slumped in defeat. He could hardly believe it. He'd been beaten by a woman.
"How did you set me up?" he asked, quietly. Beaten or not, he had to know.
"I flew out to California a few weeks back with copies of your motel receipts and the like from earlier trips. It took some digging and asking around but I eventually found the girl you knocked up, who gave me all the detail I could've wished for. You have a beautiful baby son, by the way, not that you ever gave a damn. Anne agrees with me that we should get regular payments to her through a third party to make sure they can always get by. You may not have lived up to your responsibilities but I intend to. Anyway, having proven to myself that you were the rat I thought you were, I hung around and followed you on your next sales trip. I had a copy of your itinerary and worked out where you were likely to stay every night. Unfortunately, I guessed wrong at first and ended up planting the wire recorder in the wrong place several times. Finally, I got it right. I told the owner of that motel I was working for a wife who wanted to find out whether or not her husband was cheating on her. I slipped him forty bucks to let me plant the recorder in the room and make sure that was the one he gave you when you got there."
"Do you still have the medallion?"
"No. I slipped it in my pocket when I left the motel, but it was gone when my plane landed this end. Either it fell out of my pocket on the airplane or I had my pocket picked somewhere along the way. Guess we'll never know. Now we have to decide what to do with you."
"What do you mean, 'do'?", said Mark looking worried.
"Do you remember Floyd Kuttner?" said Judy, looking at him now every bit as coldly as Anne had.
"Who?"
"Oh, of course, you wouldn't have bothered to find out the name of the poor sap you rolled. What was the plan, Mark? Were you just going to storm across the country and force me to switch us back, doing whatever it took to get here and leaving me to go on with my reputation ruined, branded as a hooker who rolls her Johns? A woman's reputation is everything to her, Mark, but then you always had such contempt for women I guess ruining one more was no big deal, eh? Well, it's yours now and it's one you're going to have to live with."
"How... how did you find out about Kuttner?"
"Did you think he wouldn't report your theft to the cops? He was hopping mad about the hooker who rolled him and stole his Buick. He gave them a good description, and since I'd given the motel owner my card they soon had a name to go with that description. You left the car at the bus depot, so it wasn't a major piece of police work to discover that a woman answering your description had booked all the way through to this county. The California cops wired the details to the local police and that's where I got them. I worked out a deal with the cops. You either go for it or you go to jail."
"What sort of deal?"
"Anne has just phoned for a cab. When it gets here it will take you to a certain establishment on the outskirts of town. The woman who runs the place knows you're coming and she'll train you in all the skills you'll need to earn a living. After all, you're hardly going to get very far trying to sell machine tools looking like that are you, even if anyone would hire you? The place is a brothel. Since you've already managed to get branded a hooker it seems only right you actually become one. You always wanted to bed as many members of the opposite sex as you could, well now you can. And you'll get paid for doing it."
"I... I can't. It's not the same... it..."
"No, it isn't the same. A man who sleeps around is usually admired but a women who does gets branded a whore, whether she is or not. But that's the way of the world. You've seen it from one side, now you get to see it from the other. Get in that cab and you get training and a safe environment in which to work, providing a useful service and helping to relieve the stress suffered by many of this county's high flyers. Refuse and you get a criminal record and become unemployable. It's a safe bet you'll end up hooking then anyway, only this time on the streets and in a much more unpredictable environment. The choice is yours."
Mark stood there, numbed by the thought of what lay ahead for him. After a minute or so there was a knock on the door and one of the ushers came in.
"There's a cab here," he said. "Miss Peyton said to tell you."
"Well?" said Judy, glaring at Mark.
"OK" he said, in a small voice.
"Get this tramp into the cab," Judy told the usher, "and make sure she stays in it."
When Mark had gone Judy stared at the door. She had won but, strangely, didn't feel as triumphant as she had expected to. Mark could have had it all, but he didn't deserve it and so threw it all away. For him, marriage to Anne had been a passport to wealth and position, where for her it was a way to be with the person she loved most in all the world. Mark had made his bed and now he'd get to lie in it, opening his legs for money. She would never see him again, she knew, but others would. It was an open secret that many of the men sitting in the pews on the other side of the door were regulars at the brothel and since most had got only a brief glimpse of the woman who had tried to disrupt the wedding none would recognize the establishment's new girl. Among the first to sample her delights was sure to be old man Peyton who, after all, was only in his mid-fifties and had had to find other ways of tending his needs after his wife had died. It looked like Mark was finally going to please the old man after all.
Squaring her shoulders, Judy opened the door to rejoin her bride and their guests and begin what would be a long and happy marriage.
The End
© 2002 by BobH