Julie's Revenge

by Vaughan

----------

For those who have not read the first ten episodes of my
story (where have you been?):

My name is Julie. I am a 5'7" blond, with a good
figure, aged 22. I have just become an assistant the magician
James. James has another assistant, Mary, a 5'7" black girl,
who is a bit older than me. Mary and me have been victim to many
of James' illusions and enjoyed most of them, after the initial
shock of some of the bizarre predicaments.

My new job seemed to be going well. I have been in the job
for two weeks and we finally did our first show with me and Mary
together.

Mary and me are both angry at James, because of the way
treated us during and after the show.

----------

The phone rang. I stirred in my bed and waited from the
answering machine to cut in. After four rings the caller cut off.
The phone rang again, but now I was awake enough to realize
someone wanted me urgently enough to try re-ringing. I stumbled
to the phone grabbed the handset and slumped to the floor.

"Hello," I said blearily.

"Hi, You not up yet?" queried the voice on the other
end.

"Why? Why should I be up? It's the weekend," I
protested.

"Because, if we don't get to the workshop earlier than
James, we won't be able to exact our revenge for the horrid
things he did to us, especially to you." At last I recognized
Mary's voice.

Those words re-kindled my fury from the previous night and
burnt away the mental cobwebs of the earliness of the hour, which
I soon discovered was half past five. "Give me time to dress
and I'll come over and pick you up." I said.

An hour later, we arrived at the warehouse/workshop. I parked
my car out of sight, so as not to tip off James when he turned
up. We entered via the office.

We sat down to consider what to do.

"OK, For a start how to we capture him to do anything to
him? and what do we do to him when we've got him?" I asked,
not expecting Mary to have an answer.

"Capturing him isn't simple, but once we have him, we
humiliate him by doing illusions on him until he begs for
forgiveness. The only thing I can think of to control James would
be a voodoo doll effect." I put on my blankest expression
and then looked quizzical. Mary explained, "Surely you must
have seen the effect. Someone is strapped on a board and loaded
into a narrow cabinet, then a voodoo doll type thing is turned
upside down and the victim ends up inverted and still strapped to
the board in the cabinet, even though its impossible to turn over
in the cabinet. I remember James doing that to me. He then had
the two men had got from the audience take me out of the cabinet
and put me back in the right way up. He closed the door and
ripped the clothes off the voodoo doll and flung the cabinet door
open to expose me totally naked and strapped to the board. I
swore at him so he just wheeled the cabinet off stage and left me
in the wings tied up and naked. He did the rest of the show on
his own and kept leering at me in the open cabinet. That was why
I left him the first time."

"What do you mean 'the first time'? You're not telling me
you've left him more than once?"

"I have left him three times," Mary admitted,
looking a bit sheepish. "I came back the first time, because
I felt I was being unreasonable so I thought I would beg James to
give me a second chance. He welcomed me back. The second time I
came back because I couldn't find another job of any kind. The
third time, as you know, I came back because I got tried of the
terrible working conditions of the fake magic they call
illusion."

I was getting curious. "So, what made you leave the
second and third times?" I asked.

"Well, ... ," Mary began, but did not get any
further, because we heard the shutters of the other entrance
rolling up and the van being driven into the warehouse.

"How will we stop him long enough to do the voodoo doll
stuff?" I asked.

"You'll think of something," answered Mary and
pushed me through the office door.

I strolled toward the sounds of James unloading stuff from the
van. Despite myself I was being stealthy.

As I approached him from behind, he suddenly turned round with
is hands full of kit. I had startled him. Taken aback, James
stammered, "Sorry, I didn't expected to see you today."

I said, "That's OK, I'm not really here," and
stepped aside. As he stooped to put down the stuff he was
carrying, I picked up mallet from the work-bench and tapped him
on the back of the head with it. He turned to me with a puzzled
and slightly offended look on his face and then he crumpled into
a heap on the floor at my feet. I looked at the hammer in my hand
and began to panic. What if I had killed him ...? What if I had
caused permanent brain damage ...? I stood there staring at the
face of the mallet with a couple of James hairs stuck to it.

The next thing I knew, Mary was there hugging me and saying
how well I'd done. She got me to help her put him on a trolley
and wheel him to the practice area. There she plucked a couple of
hairs from James' head and wove them into the hair of a doll she
picked out of her pocket.

Mary sent me to get a chair and when I returned with it, she
helped me sit the still unconscious James on it and then produced
some straps, which she used to restrain him. We strapped his legs
to the legs of the chair, his thighs to the seat and his torso
was tied with his arms by his side to the back of the chair. He
groaned and a sense of relief flooded through me. Mary went away
and came back with a bowl of water, which she dashed into James'
face. After a few splutters, He was fully alert and struggling
against his bonds.

"I wouldn't struggle too much and I would start
cooperating," Mary told James waving the doll at him.
"We will start with a demonstration," she declared.
"Julie, cover the louse with that sheet!" I picked up
the large cloth that Mary had indicated and with the ease that
comes of practice draped it over the tied and struggling
magician. Mary promptly inverted the doll and suddenly the shape
under the sheet changed. I took this as a cue to remove the cloth
and was astounded to see that while James was still firmly
strapped to the chair, he was in a completely different position.
His arms were tied to the chair legs, his legs strapped over the
back of the chair and his back on the seat. "Are you going
to cooperate?" Mary asked. "Because it would be the
work of moments to poke this pin into dolly," she said,
flourishing a four inch hat-pin.

James grunted acquiescence and Mary told me to unstrap his
arms. While James untangled himself, we went to find some stuff
to do to James. We soon returned with a cabinet each. I had
picked what looked like a standard Zigzag woman cabinet and Mary
had selected a cylinder with curtains. I was a bit surprised to
find James sitting on the chair, seemingly relaxed.

"OK, you've got me. What are you going to do with
me?" he asked.

"We're going to teach you a lesson. You'll regret what
you did to us last night," Mary retorted.

"Who's going to be first?" asked James, seemingly
impatient to get this over.

"I am," stated Mary, bringing forward the cylinder.
She drew curtains into a bunch around the back and opened the
door into the transparent cylinder. She also tossed a plug on a
cable that lead to the apparatus to me and pointed out the
electrical socket in the floor. I plugged the cylinder into the
socket, while Mary loaded James into the cylindrical chamber.
When I returned Mary was holding a switch box. She got me to
close the curtains around the cylinder, then I went over to take
a look at the control box.

The box was about six inches square and two inches deep. It
had three switches and a slider control. The slider was labeled
"speed" and the switches were labeled "Fan 1, "Fan 2" and
"Recirc." in black transfer letters on the die-cast aluminum box.
There was also a small light that had the word "power" next to it.

"Ok, What does this do?" I asked.

"How should I know?" She replied, "It just
looked like the kind of devious illusion he does to us without so
much as a 'by your leave', so I thought I would return the favor."

"You mean you don't know what you're going to do to
him?" I was shocked.

"I know for a fact he's tried stuff out on me before he
was sure what it would do. So payback is fair play," she
said and flicked the switch marked fan 1.

Moments later, a large fan in the base of the cylinder started
up. A second fan in the top of the cylinder whirred into life,
when Mary pushed the second switch. Before, I could stop her she
had flicked the last switch.

"Go and open the curtains, so we can see what's happening
in there," Mary instructed.

"Yes, Mistress Mary," I said, my voice loaded with
sarcasm. I also stuck my tongue out at her.

I drew back the curtain to discover James hugging himself to
keep warm while air rushed upward past him. Other than that he
seemed unworried. When he noticed that the curtain had been
opened he started banging on the wall of the cylinder. He seemed
to be mouthing, "Let me out!"

Mary looked disappointed that nothing had happened to James
and switched off the controls in sequence. When the noise of the
fans had ceased I opened the door and a wind blown, but otherwise
unharmed, James emerged.

"So what happened in there?" I asked, "and more
to the point, what was supposed to happen?"

James paused for a moment and then his face brightened.
"Why don't you have a go?" he asked.

Feeling adventurous, I flipped off my shoes, stepped into the
cylinder and indicated to Mary that I wanted to try this. James
shut the door and stood back. I yelled, "What about the
curtains?"

"They're fine. They're just so that audiences don't
notice that we're using proper magic. They find that kind of
thing disturbing," explained James.

Mary flipped the first fan on. The strong initial gust blew my
skirt up revealing my panties. Only a quick reaction on my part
stopped it being blown away. As the fan reached full speed I was
holding down my skirt at the front and it was blowing up at the
back.

I had to squint to see because I could no longer open my eyes
properly. I saw James lean down and suddenly the air was warmer.
I tried to say "thanks" by my words were taken away by
the gale I stood in.

As I watched Mary touched the second fan switch. Even over the
roar of the first fan I could hear the second fan starting. As
second fan gathered speed the character of the flow changed,
instead of being straight up, the main component the motion
was around, so the wind sucked my clothes outwards. My blouse
billowed and my skirt was trying to stand straight out, it was
all I could do to retain my modesty.

I stood at the centre of a tornado in a tube and only the fact
that my feet were firmly placed prevented me from being sucked
into the maelstrom. I could see more clearly now and watched as
Mary pushed the final switch from off to on. I am not entirely
sure what happened next, but as I watched the outer edge of my
skirt began to dissolve into sparkly dust and whip away into the
vortex. I watched the progress of this disintegration with
horror. I looked out of the cylinder towards Mary and caught
sight in a mirror of what else was happening to me. My shoes and
feet were turning to dust, yet I remained floating in the tube on
not-so-thin air with the erosion gradually progressing up my
legs. My legs as they vanished felt both hot and cold and then
felt as if they were floating in a warm slightly viscous bath,
which is not an unpleasant sensation. By this time the entirety
of my skirt had vanished into the whirlpool of sparkles. The
effect began to happen to my hands and my panties. I made a move
to cover myself but my arms were no longer long enough to be
effective. Rapidly my lower torso, my arms and my blouse
disappeared into the warm oily limbo, while appearing to add to
the circulating sparkling dust. Soon I began to wonder what it
would feel like when my head vanished into the vortex. The next
moment the only part of me remaining whole was my head buoyed on
a cyclone of sparkling confetti.

As I watched through the top edge of the scintillating vortex
that was the rest of my body, Mary touched the slider, pulling it
towards her. The pitch of the screaming fans increased and I felt
my head disappear in to the warm embrace of limbo.

After a while in the pleasant floating limbo, I felt my feet
rematerialize into the fast flowing air inside the tube.
Gradually, the rest of my body and then my head returned to the
real world. The switches were flicked back into their off
positions in sequence and the door to the tube was opened. James
offered his hand to help me step out of the cylinder.

I felt that something was wrong, but it took me a while to put
my finger on what was different. Finally I noticed that all my
clothes were on backwards, which was a bit uncomfortable, with
the back of my blouse collar under my chin, my bra providing no
support and the blouse buttons up the back.

I made my excuses and went off to the office to re-arrange my
clothes. When I returned James and Mary were arguing. I hung back
to see what they were arguing about. Mary was accusing James of
underhandedly avoiding being victim of the illusion she had
chosen and he was saying that he was as surprised as she was that
it had not worked for him. She did not believe him.

To prevent it coming to blows, I stepped forward and said,
"Stop arguing, you two! To make sure that the next trick
works, I'll do it first, then we put James in it before he can
stop it working." Before either of them could object, I
shucked my shoes and blouse, opened the zigzag cabinet and
stepped in.

Both arguers glad of something else to do, help shut the doors
and make sure that all the correct parts were poked through the
correct holes. My bare left foot wriggled through the lowest
hole, my left hand waved from the highest hole, which was level
with my forehead, I smiled through the face hole and I twitched
my right hand through the hole in the middle section. Mary opened
the small door in the middle section and ran the tip of her
finger around on the bared flesh until I giggled. Satisfied, she
shut the door and handed the first blade to James. The blade
seemed to be the full width of the cabinet.

"Top or bottom first?" asked James.

"Bottom, I think," I replied, not entirely sure what
difference it would make.

James lined up the edge of the blade with the lower of the two
slots in the cabinet and pressed in firmly into the cabinet and
through my flesh just above my skirt. The usual tingle of being
cut was subtly different. The second blade was inserted and I
could feel the tingle in my lowest ribs and in my arm just above
my right elbow. I raised my left elbow so that it was not cut.
Mary tapped the edges of the blade that had appeared out of the
back of the cabinet. James gave the middle section a push and it
slid smoothly onto the tray that jutted from the right of the
cabinet.

"Well that seems to work right," I commented.
"Put me back together and we'll do you next James!" I
instructed.

James smiled, "Don't you want to see the extra modification I've
made to this one? You see, this bit pivots like
so." James took my mid-section and turned it round so that
the graphic which had been on the front of the box was now on the
back. Before I could protest, He had shoved the mid-section back
between the top and bottom sections and pulled the blades that
separated them. I am not sure exactly when or how it happened,
but, while throughout the procedure my right hand had remained
visible in the lower hand hole, my arm had changed position, so
that instead of being down my right side, it now lay across my
belly, behind me, meaning that the cut ends of the arm still
lined up. While the pleasant sensations of restoration faded,
Mary opened the cabinet and the look of astonishment on her face
made me rush over to the nearest mirror.

The sight that I saw was bizarre. Down my front was a furrow
from the below my bra to the waistband of my skirt where my lower
spine was. I felt behind me and located my navel in the middle of
my back. I did not really know what to make of this, so I picked
my blouse back up and put it on in the hope that it would sort
itself out.

"Right, I've done it now it's your turn," I said, as
I held the cabinet door and indicated that he should get in.
Unprotesting he entered the cabinet and Mary took great delight
in shutting the door on James. James was soon in position face,
foot and hands in sight.

Mary handed me the first blade, saying "It's mostly your
revenge, so shove that through the bastard."

I raised the edge of the blade to the lower slot and located
it. Having got the steel sheet in place I applied pressure the
minimal wooden handle. The blade slid into the box about an inch
and came up against James' body and stopped. I applied some more
pressure and the blade went in another inch as James was pushed
back in the cabinet. I knew from being at the receiving end that
I was applying at least twice the force that I had become
accustomed to.

"There's something wrong," I said.

"What do you mean?" asked Mary.

"The blade's just not going to go through"

"Give it here!" she demanded, "Let me have a
try!"

I let go of the blade when Mary had hold of it. Mary gave the
blade an strong push and James grunted with the pain of having a
sheet of metal shoved against his belly. Resignedly, Mary removed
the blade and opened the doors to let James out. He was grimacing and
rubbing the line where the blade had been in contact.

Direct as ever, Mary asked, "How come you're immune to
the magic? You weren't before."

"I don't know," he said. We knew he was not telling
the whole truth, because he had that enigmatic smile of his.

"What are we going to do with him to make him properly
sorry for the way he treated us last night?" demanded Mary.

I had an inspiration, "I know what to do," I said.
"You stay here!" I told James, then I turned to Mary
and said, "Let's go and find what we need!"

James looked perplexed but worryingly calm. Mary seemed
curious about what I was thinking, but slightly annoyed that I
was taking the initiative. I strolled into the storage area and
Mary came rushing after me.

"So?" asked Mary, "What are we going to do to
him?"

"You know the big Perspex sawing table? Get that and
strap him to it! I'll go and find the other stuff we need."

Mary ducked down one of the aisles between the seemingly
random heaps of magical paraphernalia. I carried on to James'
construction area where I picked up the stuff I needed, which I
loaded into a bucket and carried back to the practice area. I
dropped the bucket by the mirror and crossed to see how Mary was
doing getting James ready.

James was very securely strapped to the table. it was obvious
that Mary had been a little over zealous in the tightening of the
leg and arm straps and was already positioning the sawing frame.

I told Mary there was no need for sawing frame and to loosen
the restraints a little.

"But he'll escape," she objected.

"If he escapes before I'm ready, you can do what you like
to him with that voodoo doll. I don't think he will be able to
escape until I let him. So, you loosen the straps a bit, then
take his shoes and socks off, while I bring in the stuff I picked
up."

James looked distinctly worried, because neither he nor Mary
knew what I was planning. I watched from the dark by the mirror
as Mary loosened the straps a notch each and, with a delicacy born
of disgust, removed James' shoes and socks. As the last sock came
off I returned with the bucket of bits I had collected. James
craned his neck as much as the strap allowed, in an attempt to
get some clue what I had in mind. When Mary saw what I had in the
pail, she laughed and smiled approval.

I picked a damp wash-cloth and wiped James' feet and then
dried them with a towel. James seemed to be getting more nervous,
because we were being gentle with him. I picked two items from the
bucket and offered Mary a choice of weapon. She chose one and
stood back to allow me the elbow room I would need to wield the
item in my hand.

James' apprehension reached a peak at this point, so he asked,
"What are you going to me?"

I smiled at him. "Wait a moment and you will find
out," I said, then immediately attacked inserted my chosen
implement between the big toe and the next toe on his right foot
and began to stroke it back and forth. James burst into
hysterical laughter as the feather I was holding tickled his bare
toes. I invited Mary to join in with the soft bristled
paint-brush she had selected.

For fully five minutes we tickled James' feet, despite vigorous
and strongly worded protests. Mary then moved up and
started tickling James' ribs while I continued to concentrated on
his feet. Eventually, the protests and the hysterical laughter
weakened.

I stopped Mary and said to James, "We seem to have
discovered your Achilles heel, so let's talk about treating us
with the respect we deserve."

"Yes, anything," whispered an exhausted and contrite
James.

"Umm... so let's establish some ground rules. Let's see,
Umm... No nudity without permission; No use or destruction of our
personal property without permission, even if you intend to
restore it to its former state; prompt and complete restoration
after magic, unless we ask for time to experience what has
happened; some explanation of what you intend to do to us before
it happens, so we can refuse, if it sounds like something that we
don't want to try, and I'm sure we will refuse if the explanation
is too cryptic."

We both looked expectantly at James. Mary had her paint-brush
poised. James said, "That all sounds as if you don't trust
me."

"After last night, why should we?" Mary commented,
"If you want our trust again, you are going to have to earn
it."

"I agree, to your rules," he said in as sincere a
manner as I have ever heard. "While you've got me, are you
sure you don't a pay rise too?" he asked.

I looked at Mary, because she looks after the finances, and
she shook her head.

I wondered why Mary did not want a pay rise, but said to
James, "Not at the moment, but we know how to get one.
Perhaps, some sort of clothing allowance might be in order, so if
for any reason you ruin our clothes, we have some of our own to
replace them." I turned to Mary and asked, "Anything
else?"

"The only extra thing I can think of is; we get choice of
audience participants," Mary suggested.

"I agree. We ought to be able to select who we work with
during shows."

"That's alright by me," said James, "You're
more likely to get the better people to come up than I am,
anyway." James asked, "Any chance that you are going to
release me soon?"

"Not yet," I replied, "There is just one more
thing I want to ask you." He nodded. "Well, you said
that you didn't know why the magic didn't work on you, but your
smile was a give-away, you have a very good idea what is
happening, so tell us."

"Well, it's the voodoo doll," he said.

"What about it?" asked Mary, picking it out of her
pocket.

"The point of the voodoo doll is that what happens to the
doll happens to the victim, but nothing was happening to the doll
so nothing happened to me," he explained.

Mary and I exchanged looks. It was so obvious when it was
explained.

"We are going to lunch now, we don't want you here when
we get back, but tidy up before you go!" Mary instructed.

We left. As we left by the office door, I asked Mary, "Do
you really think he will be gone when we get back?"

"Of course. He'll already be out of the shackles and
deactivating the doll, which I left with him," Mary replied
confidently.

We walked to my car and drove to a nearby restaurant.

While we were waiting for the meals we had ordered, I asked
Mary what had caused her to leave James the other two times.

"You know about the first time. The second time was like
that except he went further and invited some pervert from the
audience to check that I had really been sawn in half and did not
intervene when the horrid man started undressing me. I would have
quit on the spot if I had not been strapped down."

"The last time was, I suppose, the most frustrating. It
was mid-morning and James had strapped me to a board and made
cuts half-way up my upper arm, mid-thigh and across my neck, he
then took my body away and my head, arms and legs strapped to
that board for hours. While he was away, I feel my body being
undressed, massaged with oil and covered in goop. When he brought
it back he had forgotten to put the clothes back on so, when I
was restored all I was wearing was my socks and shoes. He didn't
have non-magical clothes then so I went home wearing nothing
under my coat and being a very short coat I got some very
peculiar looks."

"So what had he been doing with your body, while he had
it?" I asked.

"When I called him, to tell him that I wasn't coming
back, he said that he had used it to have a made to measure latex
bodysuit made, so that he could make two people in a single body
illusion. I didn't believe him, until he showed me. You ought to
try it."

"Well, we could try it this afternoon, if we are going
back," I suggested.

After a delicious lunch, we returned to find James gone and
everything tidy.

Mary lead me to a wardrobe trunk and fished out a latex one
piece bodysuit, which when held by the shoulders fell into the
shape of Mary's torso.

We walked to the practice area because Mary said I would need
to be able to see what was happening to believe it.

Once in the mirrored arena, Mary stripped off completely. She
undid the zip down back of the garment and started to struggle
into it. With some help from me, she was finally zipped into
body. The body was sculptured in such a way that, except for the
covering being latex, it looked as if Mary was still naked.

"Now that I'm in this, It's your turn to get naked. So
get them clothes off," instructed Mary.

"What if James is still about?" I asked.

"He isn't, so get undressed."

Accepting her word, I removed my clothes until I was as naked
as she looked. I noticed that my midriff was still back-to-front.

"Now what? There isn't another one, is there?" I
asked.

"No, you're going to wear this one," she stated.

"How? You're wearing it," I pointed out.

"Just unzip the back and get in."

"But, that's impossible."

"Just try, it's a unique experience."

She turned her back to me and I reached for the zip. I pulled
the zip down, expecting to see Mary's back, but the inside of the
body suit seemed empty. I reached in and touched the inside. It
felt warm much like Mary's skin. Further examination revealed
that Mary was completely hollow.

"So, I just get in like you were a full body-suit?"
I asked.

"Yes!" she said, exasperated, "Get in, there's
a draught through me."

With extra care I sat her down and put my legs in inside her
thighs. I wiggled my toes and saw her skin push slightly out of
shape. Then, to my surprise, Mary reached forward and manipulated
her legs until my feet were inside her feet and my calves in
hers. Her knees and thighs were like wrinkled stockings about my
knees. I wriggled my toes and saw her toes react as if they were
mine.

"You're still unsure about this, aren't you, Julie?"
observed Mary. I nodded. "Well, don't be! It's not like
James is making you do it."

With this encouragement, I continued to struggle my way into
Mary's skin. Eventually only my head was outside hers.

"How do I get into your head? I can't put my head up your
neck"

"You'll find there's a seam up the back of my neck and
head. Open it and then close my head around yours."

The seam seemed to be held together by something like Velcro
and put on Mary's face. Once I had finished resealing the seam
and doing up the zip, I stood up and looked in the mirrors. It
was amazing to look out of Mary's eyes and see her latex-clad
body completely under my control. The feeling was completely
different from when I had used her body, because I knew my
body was inside.

After several minutes the novelty wore off, so I zipped and
extracted myself from Mary and re-zipped the body-suit. Mary was
soon also out of the body-suit and handing it to me to have a go.
After a short period of indecisiveness, I was soon donning the
latex one-piece. It fit surprisingly well although it did push my
breasts into an unaccustomed shape.

Having zipped myself in, Mary un-zipped me and started to get
in with me or more accurately inside me. The sensation was like
putting on my most sensuous clothes and being dressed by someone
else at the same time. As Mary's limbs entered mine I lost
control of them, but I could still feel what was happening. Once
Mary was entirely inside me and zipped in, it was amazing to
watch my body moving like hers. I had previously noticed that
when I had possession of Mary's body, I moved like her, but when I
had been in her body I moved like me.

Soon Mary got bored of wearing my skin, so she started to
undress. As Mary get out of my skin, she pulled my limbs
inside-out before I got control of them.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"I thought you might like to find out what it is like to
be turned inside-out."

Not being in a position to resist and not feeling anything
unpleasant so far, I acquiesced. The unusual feeling generated by
having my inside-out legs and arms sticking out of the zippered
slit in my back were totally exotic. The Mary turned my torso
inside out, so my head seemed to be on backwards and my breasts
were sensitive pits in my chest. At this point I took over,
turning my head into the correct orientation relative to the rest
of my body. To my surprise, I still had a full head of hair on my
inside-out head. Mary reached into my back and started to remove
the body-suit, first from my legs and hips and then my arms and
shoulders. As the rubber broke contact with my chest, my breasts
sprang into their proper shape. Soon the rubber body lay on the
floor inside-out and Mary had joined the seam up my back
together. The sensual pleasure of getting to this point climaxed
as the slit in my back was closed.

A brief self-examination confirmed that I had survived and all
my bits were in the correct places. In fact, even my midriff was
the right way round. I suddenly thought that I had been switched
left to right.

"Chuck me my clothes, would you, Mary?" I asked.

She smiled and threw my clothes at me. To my relief, my right
hand instantly reached out to gather them from the air. I was
still right-handed and relieved by it.

I caught a glimpse of the clock and realized that it was
mid-afternoon. "I know we could have some more fun, but I've
got things I need to do today. So I'm going to have to go. Do you
want a lift home?"

Mary looked disappointed. "Yes, a lift would be
great."

When I got home there were two messages on my answering
machine. The first was from my mother worried that I had not
called her for a week. The second was an incoherent burble from
some man who didn't quite get round to inviting me for a meal,
but forgot to leave a name or number. I dutifully called my
mother and wondered who my mystery admirer was.

----------

To be continued ....