Sissy Shopping Nightmare - Part 2 of 4

 

Sissy Shopping Nightmare

By Karen Singer

 

Part 2 of 4

 

Not knowing what else to do, Bruce wandered slowly toward the center of the mall.  Two minutes later, another message came in on his phone  A message with another picture.  He didn’t need the message to tell him what he needed to do.  That much was already obvious.  In fact, it had been obvious from the moment he had started looking for the socks.  The picture that came into his phone was a picture of a pair of shoes.  Black shiny shoes with a rounded toe and two straps that went across.  Shoes that looked like they would be perfect for a little girl, even though he already knew they would have to fit him.  Which meant that even though the shoes looked like they would be for a little girl, the shoes he had to find would actually be adult women’s shoes.  The short message said:  This EXACT pair.  Not something that looks like them.  We’ll know the difference.

 

 

The exact pair.  That didn’t sound good.  He realized immediately that he needed a shoe store.  But wait, didn’t the department stores sell shoes too?  Once again he turned around and headed back into the department store he had just left.

No, no, no!  Why did finding everything have to be so damn difficult?  He had checked each of the four major department stores attached to the mall and hadn’t found what he was looking for.  Oh, he found a lot of shoes that were similar, but not that exact pair.  They always had either a higher heel or the toe was pointed, or they only had one strap instead of two, or they weren’t shiny in the least.  And as a man looking so carefully through all of the women’s shoes, it had been a somewhat embarrassing task…let alone a man carrying a little girl purse in his hands.  So that left him now searching for the shoe stores in the mall that weren’t the big department stores.  No, they couldn’t make this easy for him at all, could they.  He went into two different shoe stores before he finally found the shoes he needed.

Once he found them though, he was faced with a new problem.  They were going to make him wear the stupid things.  The moment he stepped out into the concourse with the shoes in a bag, his phone dinged again and he read the message.  Yup.  No surprise.  Hating himself, hating the people forcing him to do this more than ever, he sat on a bench and removed his shoes.  He stuck the left little girl style shoe onto his foot and buckled it…to the scrutiny of all the people walking by, who also saw what kind of socks he was wearing.  The people who watched him buckling the right shoe onto his foot seemed to be watching even closer.    When he stood up and looked down, he could no longer see the embarrassing frills on his socks anymore, but the white socks stood out in stark contrast to the shiny black of his shoes, seeming to make them more obvious than they already were.

Knowing for certain that he was being watched closely, as per his instructions, his male shoes went into the trash along with the bags and the box from the shoes.  He felt like more of a fool than ever with his little girl purse, and now little girl shoes and socks on his feet.  What would be next?  He was afraid to find out, even though he was sure that whatever they wanted next, it would be something else that looked like it might belong to a little girl.

Stupid.  It was all stupid.  And very, very embarrassing.  Why were they making him do this?  It made no sense at all!

The moment his hands were empty the next message came in.  This one was far different from the previous messages.  Yes, there was a picture.  An embarrassing picture, but this message actually specified what store he needed to go to, and what to do once he got there.  The message read:  Go to Fine Feminine Foundations.  Ask for Claire.  She’ll tell you what to do.  The picture of course, was of a bra.

 

 

He was sure he had passed the store somewhere, but he didn’t remember where.  He walked around until he found a mall directory.  There.  Shit!  It was practically on the other side of the mall.  Turning his steps in that direction, and hating what was in store for him, he hurried as quickly as he could to the specified women’s lingerie store.  Going inside, he noticed a few women in the shop.  He found the cash register and asked for Claire.  The woman he asked seemed to look him over carefully with a rather distasteful look on her face.  “Just a minute,” she finally told him.  A few moments later, a woman approached him.

“So you’re the monster,” she said as she walked up to him and stared him in the face.

“Monster?  What are you talking about?”

“You!”

“What did I do?”

“As if you don’t know.  You…and your damn son.  You both should be hung.”

“What?  What did I do?” he demanded.

“Shit!” she replied.  “Come along.”  She turned and walked away.

“What did I do?  I don’t know!” Bruce argued.  He got no answer from the woman at all.

She led him into a tiny room and had him remove his shirt.  In moments, she was measuring his chest.  No matter how much he tried to get her to tell him anything at all, the woman remained silent.  She left him in the room, then came back a few minutes later and fastened a pink frilly woman’s bra around his chest.  She carefully tightened all the straps.  Bruce noticed that even though the inside of the bra cups were empty, they were still stiff enough to stand out from his chest.  At least they didn’t appear to be large.  In fact, they were surprisingly small.

The woman had him put his shirt on.  Buttoning it up was weird with the breasts now underneath.  In fact, he was lucky he could button it over top of the new breasts he appeared to have.

As soon as he was dressed, she led him out to the cash register where he again had to reach into his little girl cat purse and pull his wallet out.  Two minutes later, he was back out in the mall concourse, this time with the little girl cat purse in his hand, shiny little girl shoes on his feet with frilly white socks, and now his chest looked like he had breasts under his shirt.

How much more of this stupidity were they going to pile on him?

Just a few seconds out of the store, his phone dinged again.  He’d really like to take the thing and break it.  Instead, he checked the message.  Shit!  Shit!  Shit!  The message said:  Find it and buy one in size 12.  Better hurry.  You’re falling behind.  Would you like a video of us hurting Jimmy to get you moving faster? 

 

The picture was of a white dress with pink flowers on it.  He was sure it was made for a woman, but it still looked like something a little girl might wear.  But his bigger problem was that if he didn’t hurry, they would hurt Jimmy again.  He began to run.  Where should he look first?  There.  A women’s clothing store.

Running with a purse in his hand was strange.  Especially that purse.  Running made more people notice him.  But still, he couldn’t let them hurt his son.  They had already done enough to him.

So…many…women’s clothes!  So many dresses!  There were thousands of them.  How was he supposed to find the right one?  It was impossible!  Purse in hand, he literally ran from store to store, searching desperately, and very much afraid that in his haste he had missed it.  What would he do then?  What would they do to Jimmy?  Hurt him?  Or kill him?  Either…or both.

Desperate, he ran into another of the big department stores, and right into the women’s section.  His eyes fell on a mannequin.  It was wearing the same exact dress.  Finally!  He found a rack of them and easily found one that said size twelve on the label.  He pulled it out and rushed with it to the checkout.

His rushing caught the attention of too many people, but it couldn’t be helped.  The checkout woman said nothing, but she certainly gave him a lot of strange looks as he paid for the dress.  As soon as possible, he was hurrying as fast as he could out to the concourse again.  It had taken him forever to find that dress.  Had they hurt his son again?  He could only pray that they hadn’t.

The phone dinged the moment he left the store, more proof that he was being watched.  He briefly looked around but couldn’t tell who it might be.  There were literally too many people looking at him.

He checked the new message on his phone.  No picture this time, just words:  Take your pretty new dress to the men’s room by the food court and put it on.  DON’T pee in there.  Someone is already there waiting to watch to make sure you don’t.  More when you get out.

Ugh!  He had been afraid they were going to make him wear the stupid thing.  Now he had proof.  The men’s room by the food court.  Where the heck was that again?  He had only passed it at least six times today already.  Was there a men’s room there?  And he couldn’t even pee when he got there because someone would be watching while he was in there?  Did they want to watch him putting the dress on too?  Although if he did put the dress on, whoever it was wouldn’t be able to miss it if they tried since he would have to walk out of there too.

Growing tired from all his rushing around, he hurried toward the food court.  The men’s room was easy to find.  It was also somewhat crowded since it was lunchtime already.  Having to search to find everything had taken him hours.

Really not wanting to do it, he went into one of the stalls.  He leaned back against the wall of the stall for just a moment to breathe a bit.  This was so hard, and it was getting worse.  But Jimmy.  He was doing all of this just for Jimmy.  What had Jimmy done that was so bad?  What had Jimmy done that his son hadn’t told him about?  Whatever it had been, it must have been awfully bad.  His son?  His Jimmy?  He still found it hard to believe.  He also found it hard to believe that he was actually going to put the dress on and wear it, not only out of the stall he was in, but all over the stupid friggin mall!

Before removing his clothes, he glanced down at the toilet.  Yeah, he could pee.  In fact, the more he looked at the toilet the more he felt like he needed to pee.  But the instructions…and someone was out there close enough to hear him if he did.  Sighing and wanting to punch someone from the frustration of it all, he began removing his pants.  His shirt went next.  He pulled the dress from the bag and pulled hard on the tags to break the plastic holding them to the dress.

He unzipped the back of it and stepped into it.  He pulled it up his body.  He realized the dress had two layers.  A thick white inner layer that couldn’t be seen through, and a white gauzy outer layer that was semi-transparent.  The outer layer was decorated with pink roses and green leaves.  The dress had no sleeves at all, just two semi-wide straps that went over his shoulders.  The waist of the thing seemed to come right up underneath the bra he was wearing, although the dress itself completely hid the bra, but not the bumps the bra created.  The waist had a pink and green band that went all the way around and ended in a big bow just off center under his “breasts.”  From just below the waistband, the skirt of the dress flared way out until it ended…far shorter than he thought it should.

He reached behind him to zip the thing up.  Just reaching the zipper was difficult.  He had to fight and stretch hard to pull that zipper up as high as it would go.  The dress began to squeeze his entire chest tightly.  Very tightly.  The darn thing was too small.  Why had they specified that it had to be a size twelve?  With one final effort, the zipper was up as far as it would go.  It was on.

His hands went down to his sides, and he realized he could easily grab the bottom hem of the dress with his hands.  It was that short!  Damn!  He hoped the stupid thing would at least cover his underwear.  He pressed in on the skirt.  Yeah.  It looked like it would, but not by much.

Now what?  He realized he had no choice but to leave the safe confines of the stall.  He put his pants and shirt into the bag that had held the dress.  He grabbed his little girl cat purse.  And he opened the stall door.  He did his best not to look at anyone as he walked purposefully out of the bathroom and into the crowded food court.  Yeah.  People were turning to look at him everywhere.  How could they not?

Halfway across the food court, the darn phone dinged again.  He read the message, and wasn’t surprised:  Very pretty, from top to bottom.  I hope you’re enjoying yourself.  Throw your pants and shirt into a trash can.  Make sure to throw them separately along with any bags you’re still carrying.  One of our watchers has been instructed to make sure you put your pants and your shirt into the trash.  You’re wearing a pretty dress now.  What would you need pants and a shirt for?

Bruce really wanted to hit someone…or cry.

 

Sissy Shopping Nightmare - Part 1 of 4

Okay people.  While you’ve been reading Extracted, I’ve been majorly busy writing…writing…and doing more writing.  This one here though is nothing but a quick little interlude I wrote up before we get into a much bigger and far better story. 

Be warned!  I’m now going back to the roots of what this blog was originally about, sissy and humiliating stuff!  Which means that unlike the previous stories, it may not be safe for work at all.  But then I don’t know what your work situation is.  For all I know, some of you may sit in an office with others and invent kinky stories all day, every day (how do I get a job like that?).

 Sorry, but there’s really nothing new in this story at all, so you may or may not be interested in reading it since I’m sure most of you already know how it goes.  Why?  Because this is just the old shopping trip fantasy that everyone has had.  As I said, nothing new here.  It’s just done my way. 

No chapters, just four posts.  Enjoy it or don’t bother.  As I said, you know what happens anyway.  I promise though, the next story is really, really good!  One of my best!

 

 

Sissy Shopping Nightmare

By Karen Singer

 

Part 1 of 4

 

Bruce just kept telling himself that the life of his son was at stake.  Whatever they did to him, whatever they forced him to do, it was all to save the life of his son.  He would kill himself to save his boy.  His Jimmy.

He didn’t know why they were doing this.  He didn’t understand any of it at all.  None of it made any sense to him.  Yet here he was, desperate to keep his son alive.  Desperate was a powerful thing.  And he was desperate.

They had dropped him off here at this mall.  Did people still shop in these places?  He had to guess so since the mall was here, and now so was he.  He had been dropped off exactly at eight thirty in the morning.  They told him most of the stores opened at nine o’clock, and then closed at nine o’clock at night.  They would pick him up right here at nine thirty tonight.  The rest of the time he would have to stay inside the mall and do everything he was told.  Or else!

His mind went back to the last time he had seen Jimmy, just a short while ago.  Jimmy had been tied to a chair on the other side of the room from him, and he had been forced to watch while they beat him mercilessly, as if Jimmy was a full-grown man.  But Jimmy was only twelve.  A boy.  Nowhere near a man yet.  But that hadn’t seemed to matter to them in the least.  Jimmy was tied, and they had still beat his twelve-year-old son almost beyond recognition.

By the time they pulled him away from his son and brought him here to this mall, Jimmy had been bleeding and bruised in a number of places, especially his poor face.  His eyes were so swollen he could barely see.  His lips so bruised he could barely talk.  He suspected that more than a few of Jimmy’s ribs had been broken as well.  Bruce wasn’t sure if there were any teeth at all left in Jimmy’s mouth.  Jimmy had looked beyond miserable.  He had looked like he simply wanted to die.

And to make matters so much worse, he had been tied there and forced to watch Jimmy’s entire beating.  One man with a monster mask covering his entire head had stood over Jimmy in that chair, and punched him again, and again, and again.  And every single punch that man had thrown had been hard and cruel.  Jimmy was only twelve years old.  Twelve!

Who were they?  Who were these cruel people that would do such a thing?  He didn’t know because every last one of them that he had seen had been wearing monster masks that covered their entire head.  It was impossible for him to tell who any of them were.  Certainly nobody he knew, and he doubted that Jimmy knew any of them either, especially since they were all adults.

Through it all, since he was tied to another chair on the other side of the room, he had been able to do nothing but beg them over and over to stop hurting his son.

Poor Jimmy.  He didn’t appear to have any idea in the world why they were beating him like they did.  Both of them were confused about it.  But that hadn’t stopped them one bit.

He had noticed a number of times when the man beating Jimmy had leaned down close to Jimmy’s ear and whispered something to him.  But he had been too far away to hear any of that.  And each time, the man had gone back to punching Jimmy viciously afterwards.

His son needed to be in a hospital now, but instead, they had taken him away from his son and thrown him into the back of a van, and brought him here, telling him very little in the process.

From what little he could make sense of, it appeared they wanted him to play some kind of twisted game.  A game where he would be punished now instead of his son.  According to them, he was being punished for being a bad father.  A bad parent.  Even though for the life of him, Bruce didn’t know what he had ever done that was so wrong.  He had always considered himself to be a good father.  Maybe not perfect, but at least good.  His relationship with Jimmy had always been strong and loving.  Yet these people claimed otherwise.

So here he was, dropped off at the mall.  A place he would have to spend all day inside, when he should be spending all day in a hospital room with his son instead.

According to them, there would be a minimum of five of them in the mall…somewhere…at all times, keeping an eye on him.  He would never know who they were.  They would change people out frequently but there would still always be five.  All so they could always keep a close eye on him.  If he tried to contact any kind of authorities or tell anyone exactly why he would be doing the things he did, Jimmy would die.  If he didn’t do what they asked, Jimmy would die.  If he didn’t do everything he was told perfectly, made any mistakes, Jimmy would be punished mercilessly.  Jimmy had already been punished mercilessly.  He didn’t need anymore.  As far as Bruce knew, his son hadn’t done anything to be punished for.

With little choice, and to save the life of his son, he walked through the mall doors and looked around.  The place wasn’t busy or noisy yet, but it was only eight thirty and the stores were still closed.  Looking around, he didn’t see anyone who might be one of the people who was supposed to watch him, but they said he’d never be able to spot them.

His hand reached into his pocket and pulled out the phone they had given him.  All his tasks, everything they wanted him to do, would be sent to him on that phone…when the stores opened.  Until then, he would have to wait.  There was no way to get a headstart on any of it.  There was no way to do anything but wait and worry about what they wanted him to do, and of course, worry about Jimmy.

Were they still hurting him…now that he had agreed to do whatever they wanted?  Now that he was here, he could only hope they were leaving Jimmy alone.

Why was he here?  Why a mall?  He hadn’t been inside a mall in years.  He wandered slowly, just looking around.  Not many people.  Very few stores were open yet.

Did people still shop in these places?  Evidently they did.

 

--- §§§§§§§§§§ ---

 

“There he is,” Larry said as he looked at the computer monitor showing the inside of the mall.  “The link Steve sent us from the security office is working perfectly.”

“Mm,” Phyllis murmured.  She expected it to work.  She had paid Steve enough to be able to tap into the mall’s entire video system, so everything better work.  She was supposed to have full access to the system, which would give her the ability to see almost the entire mall.

She planned on sitting right here and following every single step that Bruce took, and watching every single little thing he did, all day!  Beyond that, she was paying three other people to take turns inside the mall, who would also watch everything that damn man did.  Every time he didn’t do exactly as he was told, she had no problem with hurting his son.  None.  He deserved it.  His son deserved it, and so did the father.

She’d really like to do nothing more than outright murder that boy for what he had done to her son Jason, but somehow, this idea seemed more fitting.  Bruce was a bad parent.  He obviously hadn’t brought his son up right.  Now he was going to pay for that.  And as for Jimmy…well, she still might kill him before it was all over with.  It’s what he deserved.  Bruce too for that matter.

As she watched Bruce slowly wandering, her mind went to thinking about her own son, Jason.  Bruce’s son had bullied him and traumatized him so badly that she had to pull Jason out of school and he had wound up in psychiatric care.  He was getting better, but he was still being counseled once a week by a psychiatrist.  She had complained bitterly to the school, but as far as she could see, nothing had been done at all.  So now she was taking steps.  She was handling the problem personally.  She would have her revenge for Jason, not just on Jimmy, but also on the real problem, Jimmy’s father, who hadn’t raised Jimmy right in the first place.  Parents had a responsibility!  It was time Bruce learned that fact.

She had made sure that her son, Jason, wasn’t around while they kidnapped and beat the bully who had harmed him so much.  She hadn’t wanted the actual beating to have any kind of adverse affect on her son.  The beating Jimmy had given Jason had been bad enough.  But she would allow Jason to see the effects of the beating she’d had done to Jimmy, and she could also show him the revenge lesson she was about to dish out to Jimmy’s father. 

She knew for a fact that Jimmy wanted to see Jimmy hurt, and hurt badly for what he had done.  He often talked of nothing else.  By the end of the day today, her son Jason would be able to rest easier knowing that the revenge had been taken, that the lesson had been taught, and that this bully kid would think twice about ever hurting anyone again.

That was the best way she knew of to show her son how much she loved him.  How much she cared about him.

“Coming up on time,” Larry told her.  “Almost nine o’clock.”

“Thanks,” she replied.  She pulled out her cellphone, found the picture she needed, and typed some instructions.  On the computer monitor, she could see many of the stores that weren’t already open, in the process of opening.  She watched the clock.  At exactly nine o’clock she sent the text containing the picture and Bruce’s first instructions.

Now she would see.  Now the revenge against Jimmy’s father would begin.  He had no idea yet what was in store for him today, but he would soon figure it out, and he wouldn’t like it one bit.  She was sure of that.  Just as she was sure that he wouldn’t like having his son murdered right in front of him.  He would have no choice but to consider everything she was about to do to him to be the lesser of two evils.  Bruce would play her game.  And Bruce would suffer almost as badly as his son.  Just in a much different way.

 

--- §§§§§§§§§§ ---

 

The phone they had given him dinged signaling that a text had come in.  He checked it and opened the text message.  There was a picture of…something.  Whatever it was appeared to be shaped like the head of a cat, complete with two ears sticking up from the top, but the entire thing from one side to the other appeared to be a fuzzy rainbow-colored thing.  It took him a moment to realize that it was a picture of a purse or handbag of some sort.  He read the text.  This purse is somewhere in the mall.  Find it and buy it.  I recommend not wasting any time or Jimmy will get hurt.

Buy the purse?  And he’d have to find it too…in the entire huge mall?  Where the heck was he supposed to look?  He had never shopped for purses before.  Uncertain about it, his steps quickened as his eyes scanned the stores around him.  The idea of the major department stores hit him, and he turned his steps in the direction of the nearest one.

Looking through all the women’s purses in the store made him feel embarrassed, but he forced himself to look anyway, albeit as fast as possible.  Not seeing anything close to what he was looking for, he started to leave when a thought struck him.  That picture, it had almost looked more like…  He quickly headed for the girl’s section of the store instead.  The purses available there were much more in line with the one he needed to find, but the one he wanted wasn’t there.  As he hurried out to the mall concourse to find the next place to look, he was convinced that he was looking for a purse for a girl instead of a woman.

He didn’t find the purse until the third department store.  It was indeed in the girl’s section, and now that he had the thing in his hands, he decided it was more like something for a very young girl.  Still, finding and buying it was the task that had been set for him.  He paid for it and carried his bag out to the concourse to wait for his next instruction.  The moment he got out of the store his phone dinged with another text message:  Try to get the tags removed from that purse.  If you can’t, leave them.  Remove everything from your pockets and put them into the purse and carry it.  Throw the bag from the store into the trash can.

Carry the darn thing?  They had to be kidding!  He was going to look like a fool.  He realized something.  Something important.  There was no doubt at all that he was being watched…closely!  Whoever was watching not only knew that he had gotten the right purse, but they knew the moment he got back to the mall concourse.  He looked all around, but didn’t see anyone who might be one of those watchers.

Not liking it, but having no choice, he carefully emptied what few things that were in his pockets and put them into the purse.  He grabbed the small purse handle and began wandering slowly again, waiting for the next message.  What would they want him to do next?

He didn’t have to wait long to find out.  Another text message came in.  When he checked the phone he found another picture.  This time it appeared to be a pair of girl’s frilly ankle socks.  White socks trimmed in pink lace.  The short message read:  Make sure you get them in your size.

 

First the little girl’s purse, now little girl socks?  But if they had to be in his size, that meant he needed to search the women’s departments for them.  But again, which store?  Frustrated already, he hurried back into the store he had just left.  This time, carrying his new little girl purse.

The seemingly simply task they had given him turned out to be frustratingly difficult.  It took him four stores to find the exact socks that the picture showed.  Actually buying the things however meant an exercise in embarrassment as he pulled his wallet from the little girl purse to pay for the socks, then of course he had to put the wallet and receipt for the socks back into the purse when he was done.  He carried the small bag containing the socks out of the store to the mall concourse, fearful of what the next instructions were going to be.

Two steps out of the store, the phone dinged again.  He looked at it and wanted to throw the phone in anger, even though it was exactly what he had suspected:  Put the socks on and throw your old socks into the trash can.

He was starting to get a better idea of what this sick game would entail.  But if it would keep Jimmy from being hurt, he would do anything in the world.  What he’d really like to do though was to commit murder.  The murder of whoever had kidnapped him and Jimmy and then had beat his son mercilessly.

He carried the bag with the socks to a nearby bench and removed his shoes and socks.  With a number of people noticing what he was doing, he unpackaged the filly girly socks with their fancy turned down ankle trimmed in pink lace, and pulled them onto his feet.  He looked around.  Yeah, everybody was still walking, but so many people had been watching him while he put them on.  He slipped his shoes on and stood up.  Fortunately, his pants covered his new embarrassing socks completely.  They couldn’t cover the little girl’s handbag he had to carry though.

 

Extracted - Chapter 27 – Where’s Ponce de León When You Need Him – Part 2 of 2

 

Extracted

By Karen Singer

 

Chapter 27 – Where’s Ponce de León When You Need Him – Part 2 of 2

 

A dark blue checkered skirt.  A white blouse.  A fake necktie.  Dark blue knee socks.  Comfortable shoes.  And a dark blue blazer with the school logo patch on the pocket.  That’s what Nancy wore as she got out of the car and walked with her mother into the school.  The security guards at the gate checked her and her mother against a list and allowed them through, escorting them directly to the school’s office.

“Nancy!” a woman inside exclaimed the moment she saw them.  She came around from behind the counter and immediately gave Nancy a big hug.  “Oh,” she said.  “I was so sorry to hear you were kidnapped!  So sorry!  I’m glad you’re back now, even though I understand you’re still having a few…issues.”

“Issues?” Nancy said.  “I can’t remember anything.”

“So I understand the woman said.  She stood up and faced Wanda.  “Hi Mrs. Stiller.  How are you?”

“Better than I was,” Wanda admitted.  “Is Mr. Parker in?”

“Yes, he’s expecting you.  Follow me.”

The woman led the way to an office where she opened the door and poked her head in.  “Mrs. Stiller and Nancy are here,” she told whoever was inside.  She held the door open and Wanda led Nancy in.  Nancy saw a bald man sitting behind a desk.

“Ah.  Mrs. Stiller.  Welcome!”  He looked down at Nancy.  “Nancy,” he said kindly.  “Good to see you again too.”  He turned back to talk to Wanda.  “Before I give Nancy here a tour of the place, I’ve asked our school psychologist to sit in on a meeting and let us talk with Nancy here so we can try to get some indication of just where she is.  Would you mind?”

“No,” Wanda told him.  “I was expecting something like this.  May I be there?”

“Of course,” the school principal agreed.  He led the way out of his office to what appeared to be some kind of meeting room.  Nancy was guessing it was for the teachers.  Moments after they got there, another man and a woman joined them.

“Nancy!  The woman said as soon as she walked in.  Good to see you again.”

“Uh…yeah,” Nancy replied.  Did this woman think she recognized her?  That was impossible.

“Do you know me?” the woman asked.

“Sorry,” Nancy replied.  “Not a clue.”

The woman nodded sadly.  “I’m Mrs. Forest.  I was your teacher last year.”

“Sorry,” Nancy told her.  “I don’t remember that.”

“Let’s all have a seat,” Mr. Parker suggested.  When they were seated, he introduced the man who had come in.  “This is Mr. Greenwich, our school psychologist.”

“Mrs. Stiller,” Greenwich said, greeting Wanda.  He looked to Nancy.  “And Nancy.”

Nancy made no reply.

“Mrs. Forest,” Parker said.  “Would you like to ask Nancy here a few questions so we can get some indication as to how much of her memory she’s lost?”

“Yes,” Mrs. Forest replied.  She turned to Nancy.  “Last year, we studied the Chronicles of Narnia,” she said.  “Do you remember that?”

“Narnia?” Nancy said.  “I don’t remember ever studying it, but I think it was about some kids that went into a magic land or something.  And there was a witch and…a lion I think.  Sorry, but it’s a bit vague.”

“That’s fine,” Mrs. Forest said.  “At least you remember that much.  How about your math skills,” she said.

Nancy was subjected to question after question, most of which she was able to answer fairly easily.  Some she couldn’t answer at all.  Eventually though, it was over.

“What do you think/” Parker asked, already guessing the answer.

“What she remembers is…a bit off from what I expected,” Mrs. Forest told him, “but I guess that’s just due to her memory loss in general.  Still, there’s no doubt that enough of it is there that I can’t see any reason why she shouldn’t be allowed into the seventh grade where she belongs.”

Parker turned to Mr. Greenwich who hadn’t said a word though any of it.  “Mr. Greenwich?” Parker asked.

“She seems to be adapting well enough,” Greenwich decided.  “There’s no doubt she’s got a few social things she’s not comfortable with, but she appears to be dealing with them.  I say give it a try, but we might want to watch her closely for a bit just in case.  We’re talking a lot of mental stress here on top of what had to be the worst psychological trauma possible to cause that kind of damage.  Still, as I said, she seems to be coping.  I’m amazed that after what she’s gone though that she would even want to try.”

Parker nodded.  “Very well.”  He turned to Wanda.  “Since she obviously doesn’t recognize us, or I guess the school, maybe we should begin with a tour.”

“I think she was very interested in that,” Wanda agreed.

Mr. Parker himself showed Wanda and Nancy around the school.  From the gym to the science labs, from the art studios to the music room.  From the first-grade classroom up to the seventh-grade room.  He would have continued on, taking them all the way to the high school rooms as well where Emily would have been in class, but as they passed the seventh-grade classroom, the door was open.  Nancy stopped in the hallway just for a quick peek.

“Look!” a girl shouted from inside.  “It’s Nancy!”

In seconds pandemonium broke loose as every girl in the room ran out and surrounded Nancy, all of them led by Chrissy and Diane.

“You’re here!” Chrissy shouted excitedly.  “You decided to come!”

“I just…”

“Come in!” Diane said as she grabbed Nancy and started dragging her.

Nancy looked to her mother and the principal.

Wanda nodded.  “Go.  I’ll pick you up after school.”

Nancy allowed herself to be dragged into the classroom where Miss Sanderson introduced herself as her teacher.  Nancy was given a desk but she didn’t get any books.  It seemed all the kids had tablet computers instead.  Mrs. Sanderson told her she’d get her one before she went home.

And so seventeen year old Stephen Marsh began school again in the seventh grade.  As a girl.

Life was so strange!

 

--- §§§§§§§§§§ ---

 

Ben and Judith both regretted everything they had done.  Everything!  But neither of them caved to the intense questioning they were subjected to.  Questioning that was leveled at them for hours and hours at a time, for days and days on end, until they were both sleep deprived and ready to pass out.  It was pure torture.  But neither of them gave in.  The only information they gave out was that they developed a water system, nothing more.  They did admit that they were part of a group that enjoyed discussing ghosts, but they couldn’t elaborate any more than that about some process to extract someone’s soul with a machine designed to clean up polluted water.

A team of ten physicists and engineers went through every inch of the water system prototype.  They put the entire thing together.  They tested it in every way they could, but they couldn’t see any sign of it being able to capture someone’s soul.  They even had volunteer prisoners brought in who they put into the machine while they turned it on.  But the machine did nothing to them since there was no water flowing through it.  But with a thirty-inch central pipe, that much water flowing through it would drown anyone in seconds.

Two months of research later, they concluded that the water system was indeed a very good, if not a very interesting one since it could collect so many different needed particles, but there was no sign that it could possibly do anything else.  It especially couldn’t pull someone’s soul from their body and capture it.

Holfstrom and his team of engineers were glad to be done with the project.  The information had come from a drunk.  The government should have known better.  Nobody said anything about that, but they all were thinking it.

Judith and Ben were taken from the black site in the middle of the night and unceremoniously dumped on Judith’s front lawn.  Two days later, the water treatment prototype was dropped off on her front lawn in the middle of the night too.

Judith and Ben never bothered to tell anyone that the defective part that made the soul extraction possible was simply buried in the flowerbed behind Judith’s house.

 

--- §§§§§§§§§§ ---

 

Eleven Years Later

 

Nancy smiled and waved at the seemingly thousands of people who packed the large room.  She stood next to her sister, who stood next to her husband, who stood next to Nancy’s mother, who stood next to her father.  Her father held his hand in the air in victory, a gesture that brought cheers from the people packing the room and hopefully from the millions of people who were watching it all on TV.  The numbers had proven it.  Enough votes had been counted now to prove that her father was going to be the next President of the United States.  The entire family was now lined up on stage with him, all smiling and waving to the entire world.

It was a long time before things died down enough that Nancy could leave the stage.  When she did, she found Stephen, looking nothing but fantastic in a dark blue suit that showed off his muscular body.  Stephen, who was Nancy, and she who was Stephen very, very deep inside, had grown up now.  They were both adults.  They were both different people than they once were.  But deep, deep down, they still knew who they had once been.  Not that it mattered anymore.  They had grown up.  They were different people.

Stephen’s wife joined him and congratulated her as well.  She hugged the woman who had married the handsome body that had once belonged to her…and then she had to move on to speak with someone else.  It was all part of the game.  All part of the process.  All part of a machine in which she was not just a part of, but a central figure.  Nancy was one of the driving forces behind her father’s political machine now.  And she knew for a fact that as young as she was, she was already a figure to be reckoned with.

The machine would continue to operate for as long as her father was president, then, gradually, most of it would die away.  Not completely though.  Parts of it would remain forever.  Nancy though, was already eyeing that distant future.  As soon as her father’s presidency was over, she had every intention of running for her father’s old seat in the House.  And who knew, maybe eventually run for president as well.  She already had the contacts.  She already was a known figure.  She was young and had already built a name for herself.  She already knew she had everything it took.

“Nance!”

She turned and found her friends Chrissy and Diane coming towards her.  Both of them looked great in their designer dresses.  Her own life now seemed to revolve around designer dresses and designer everything.  It was part of what was expected of her now.  Part of the game that had to be played, and over time she had come to love the ins and outs of it.  She hugged her two best friends and accepted their congratulations as well.

“Hi babe!”

She turned and saw Clint, her latest lover.  Since high school had ended, she had gone through a long string of them.  Clint was simply the latest.  She liked him a lot, but she knew she didn’t love him.  Besides, she was too busy with politics to really get involved.  She just needed…affection once in a while.  She hugged him and gave him a quick kiss that was probably photographed and would grace websites around the world.  Clint would have his fifteen minutes of fame.  She didn’t care.  She had been photographed with a number of different men.  Most of whom now lived in relative obscurity again.

Her father was the president…or soon would be.  Her mother was going to be first lady.  Her sister was married and two months pregnant.  And she was a major force in her father’s political machine.

Her mind though couldn’t help but think about Stephen.  Over the years, the two of them had become close, but never lovers.  Never!  They both refused to go that far and make love to themselves.  They were too important to each other.  Steve was married now anyway and had become a lawyer.  Instead of working in the District Attorney’s office like he once thought he would, he now worked as a corporate lawyer instead.  Nancy approved of that move.  So far, Steve seemed to like it, and she was guessing he was good at it.

Life had moved on, and so had she.

And she was determined to be one of the movers and shakers who moved life for everyone on the planet.

 

--- §§§§§§§§§§ ---

 

Michael Stiller walked into the oval office for the first time as President of the United States.  There were a lot of things on his new desk that he had to take care of immediately, so it wasn’t until the next day, day two of his administration, that he was able to send for Mr. Curmett, one of the countries National Security Advisors from several presidents before him.

With Curmett finally in front of him, Mike Stiller said, “I want to see it.”

“Sir?” Curmett asked.

“I want to see all of it.  Everything you have on the memory transfer thing that happened with my daughter.  And I mean everything!  Including whatever black op I’m sure you cooked up to take out me and my family.”

“But sir…”

“Get it Curmett.  Bring it to me as soon as possible.  Every last scrap of paper.”

It wasn’t until the next day that Curmett was able to deliver the required materials.  President Stiller dug out the black ops plan first that would murder his entire family and the entire Marsh family.  He noticed that it would even include FBI Agent Rosenberg and that Philadelphia detective Nolan.  After reading it thoroughly, with Curmett watching, he ripped the papers in half.  “This is now cancelled!  You’re lucky I don’t cancel you.  Get out!  I’ll find someone else to take over whatever you’ve been doing about this, which I have no doubt is a lot of nothing.”

 

--- §§§§§§§§§§ ---

 

Judith’s head was spinning so badly it was crazy.  She couldn’t stand it.  She opened her eyes and the room spinning around as well made everything worse.  As much as she hated the spinning, she also didn’t mind it.  Through everything spinning, she could see that she was in her own room.  Her own room in her own house.  She had made it.  She had survived.

As far as anyone knew, she was now Angela Lomax, twenty-two year old private nurse and the nurse Judith had hired to live with her and take care of her for the last year and a half.  In that time, Judith had gotten to know practically everything there as to know about Angela.  Things she was going to need to know…for a while.  Just until her real body died, which was the reason she had done what she did.

Poor Angela never knew her food had been drugged to knock her out.  She never knew what fate Judith had planned for her since they first met.  And now, Judith was Angela.  Judith was now only twenty-two years old instead of eighty.  Judith was now as healthy as a woman could get instead of wracked with cancer.  Judith was…reborn.

As soon as her real body got around to dying, she, now Angela, would inherit absolutely everything that had belonged to Judith as a reward for taking such good care of her for the last eighteen months.  And at her side would be Benjamin, soon to be reborn as well, this time as twenty-five year old Ronnie, the handyman and gardener Ben had hired to take care of his home.

Ben had helped her with the memory transfer machine, and she would soon help him.  And together, they would live for many, many more years together.  Possibly, forever.

As soon as Ben became Ron, they would remove the defective part from the machine in the basement and once again bury it where only the two of them knew about it.

When Ponce de León had searched Florida for the fountain of youth, he had searched in the wrong place.  He had looked for it in Florida.  The fountain of youth wasn’t in Florida, it was right here in Philadelphia.  And only she and Ben knew about it.

 

The End