Chapter 1: Another Life to Live

"Pat, Sweetheart... Can you hear me?"

I could hear a woman's voice, and I tried to open my eyes to see who was talking to me. More importantly, what woman in her right mind would be calling me Sweetheart!

"Oh look, she's trying to open her eyes."

SHE??? HER??? WHAT THE FUCK?

"Patti, Honey, wake up," said a man's voice.

PATTY? No way was I going to open my eyes now. This was a bad dream, and I let myself slide back into the void once more.

When next I woke, I was propped up on pillows in a quiet ward, dark except for the faint glow from the nurse's station around the corner. I was wondering what woke me when I heard a kid scream from somewhere beyond the curtain to my left, fading to hysterical sobbing.

What the hell was going on? What is a kid doing in cardiac recovery screaming his fool head off?

I felt... peculiar, somehow lighter, breathed more easily. If this is what bypass surgery can do, I should have had it done five years ago. I moved my strangely light arms, discovering an IV in my left, then reached down to scratch my itchy groin with my right. Instead of the flab I expected, I felt tape and gauze. What the hell? I was here for a bypass! Why had they cut below my stomach? I moved my hand up to carefully trace my fingers across where they told me I'd be wearing my scar, and instead of pain or numbness, my fingers traced the shape of a small BREAST! Not the man-boob that matched my belly, but a real, honest-to-goodness breast, complete with sensitive nipple. I knew it was attached to me from the feeling it produced as it erected under my light touch. This was too weird!

"What did you do to me??!!"

That was the other kid screaming, not me!

I could hear nurses trying to settle the kid down, and as I twisted in bed, I felt a pain in my side. I groaned out loud.

One of the nurses came through the curtain and turned on a light over my bed. "Sweetie, you shouldn't be moving around yet. You just had your appendix out. Do you need something for the pain?"

Huh? My appendix?

"Let's take a look at your dressing. Hopefully you didn't tear your stitches."

As she pulled the blankets off my body, I looked down. I saw two long, narrow feet, straight toes with short, clear toenails. I craned my neck to see more. The feet were attached to two slender, feminine legs, which disappeared under the green surgical gown. They weren't mine. My feet were big, with toes crushed from thirty years of cheap shoes - my legs big and hairy.

"Now, let's see," she said, and as she pulled up the bottom of my hospital gown, I felt the blood drain from my face. I was looking at a flat stomach and a little patch of partially shaved pubic hair. My dick! My dick was gone! I opened my mouth to scream, but all I could do was gasp, and then I heard a little whimper.

The nurse looked at me, seeing my white face. "Are you okay, Sweetie?"

I whimpered again, and she quickly poured a little water into the glass on the bedside unit and then held my head as she held it to my lips. "Here, take little sips, Sweetie, it's okay, it's okay."

As she held the glass to my lips, there was another scream of, "I'm not a boy! I'm a girl! What have you done with my body?"

I gasped and sucked in some water, immediately going into a coughing fit. The spasm ripped at my belly like fire, and my body tried to curl around the pain as the nurse held me, tears running down my cheeks. Eventually the fire died to a fierce throbbing in time to my heartbeat as I regained my breath.

"Are you okay, Sweetie?" she asked.

I nodded mutely, still gasping a little.

"What... what happened?" I managed to get out.

"You've just had your appendix out," she replied.

Has the world gone crazy?

Another nurse popped her head through the curtain. "It's the O'Donnell boy again. I called the doctor, but he doesn't want us to give him anything. He figures it might be a reaction to the morphine."

The O'Donnell BOY???

"Can we move him to isolation?" asked the one beside my bed. "He's disturbing the whole ward."

"I'll check," she replied, disappearing back through the curtain.

Her attention returned to me. "Are you feeling better now, Sweetie?"

"What happened to me?" I asked. My voice! I even sounded like a little girl!

"You were quite a sick girl for a little while, Sweetie. Your appendix burst, and you were rushed in to get it out, but you're going to be okay."

"My appendix?"

My appendix!!?? Girl???

"Yes, but you're going to be okay now. Now, let me check your dressing."

As the nurse checked the dressing on the lower part of my stomach, I looked at her closely. She couldn't have been more than 25, but her uniform was all wrong, and she was wearing one of those silly white starched caps with a black line around it. Toto... we ain't in Kansas anymore, I thought to myself as my head started spinning. I felt that familiar feeling that used to come after too many drinks. I was going to puke.

"Nurse," I whispered, shocked by the feminine voice that came out of my mouth, "Can I get something for my stomach? I feel really nauseated."

"Sure Sweetie. I can get you some Gravol. Do you need anything for the pain?"

"Not if it will do to me what it's doing to that kid down the hall," I said.

She laughed. "The O'Donnell boy? I think it's all an act. The police are waiting to talk to him about some broken school windows. Maybe he figures that acting crazy is going to get him off the hook." With that she turned and left.

I remembered that I hadn't gotten off the hook, as a matter of fact; it had been my attitude in court that got me a juvenile record. I tried hard to remember how long I had been in the hospital back then. I was pretty sure it was six days. I was going to have to try and talk to this kid and make sure he straightened up his act. And then I giggled. I was going to talk to myself back in 1974? Yeah, right! And the moon really is made out of cheese.

I don't know what kind of painkillers they had pumped into me, but this was a trip like no other I had ever been on! I knew I wasn't dreaming - the pain was too real for that, but for a minute there I actually believed that I was a girl gone back in time. Maybe this was the afterlife and I was in hell? Or, like I heard the Catholics believed, I was going to have to watch all my sins unfold before me.

Shit. This was going to be a long show...

The nurse brought me a couple of pills in a paper cup and a small glass of water. I eyed her up as she turned away. She would have gotten my attention in my earlier life, but now looking at her the way I did, IF this was 1974 and IF I was a girl, would probably get me labeled and locked up as well! I swallowed the Gravol and she went to put the covers back on me.

"Just leave them at my waist please," I asked politely. "I'm hot."

Now that had to be a first for me. I actually said please! But I was rewarded with a smile as she folded the blankets at my waist so I could pull them up without reaching. Then she stuck a thermometer in my mouth.

"Just to make sure you don't have a fever," she said.

Satisfied, she left me after I asked with a very polite please to leave the light on.

I waited until things quieted down. If I remembered correctly, the night shift nurses just hung around at the nursing station filling out reports and making rounds every hour or so.

As I waited for calm to descend on the floor I started to think. Unless I woke up and this turned out to have been a dream, I was back in 1974, but as a girl. According to the nurses, the kid down the hall was Patrick O'Donnell. I assumed, based on what I had heard earlier, I was a girl name Pat or Patty.

I struggled to turn my head and gasped as I saw the name Patricia Johnson written in marker on a piece of tape on the headboard.

I wondered how Patricia felt about being me. Hell, I knew it was just the drugs talking, so I let myself go with the flow. Why fight the trip?

Even though it hurt a bit, I just couldn't resist. I lifted the blankets to examine the plumbing. Damn! I hadn't seen any real ones when I was 14, and now I had one of my very own! A genuine pussy!

I gently touched it, feeling the curly hairs and sliding my fingers down to explore further. In later years I had seen plenty of them but never did quite understand them. Now was the chance to really find out how they worked.

After amusing myself for ten minutes with that, I pulled the blankets up a bit higher, and tugged and pulled on my new breasts. They weren't big at all. I had larger ones as a man. I remembered girls in school having bigger ones, but these were fun to play with anyway. Quite sensitive too - this made me wonder what the big deal was with size. I soon found myself getting tired and drifted off to sleep.

The next morning I woke to find a couple sitting by my bed, regarding me with concern on their faces. Patricia Johnson's parents? They looked old enough to be the parents of a teen-aged girl, but I wasn't going to take the chance I was wrong, so I just mumbled "Good morning."

"Patricia? Sweetheart? How do you feel?" asked the woman, showing her worry.

"Hiya, Patti-Cake," said the man. "The doctor said you're going to be just fine, though you scared your mother half to death!"

Oh, shit! What were their names? Oh! Duh! The universal name of all parents!

"Mom?" I ventured, and I saw her worried look ease a little. "I'm fine, Mom," I said, and then I smiled at the man beside her. "Hi, Daddy," and got a smile in return.

"Mom?"

"Yes, Honey?"

"Mom, what happened to me?" I asked in a small voice, feeling the echo of my early morning panic.

She jumped from her chair and leaned over me, holding my head to her breasts. "Oh Honey, it's all right, you're all right, it's okay now. Sshh, it's okay." Gently, she pushed my hair back and looked down at me. "Your appendix burst, Honey. I found you on the kitchen floor when I got home from work."

I snuggled against her as she stroked my hair, just enjoying the feeling of being held for a few minutes, and then an orderly came in carrying a tray.

"Patricia Johnson?" he asked to verify the tray was for me. "Sorry Miss, but you're restricted to a liquid diet for a few days. But you can have all that you want," he added with a chuckle. He cranked the bed up to a slight incline so I could see the tray, and I felt a stab in my side. He must have seen me wince as he said, "I guess that's as high as you're going to get today young lady."

Young Lady?

It was bad enough finding myself trapped inside a young girl's body, but I had been retrofitted to 1974. While I'm sure the orderly was being polite, those terms were politically incorrect where - when - I had come from.

I looked at the tray. Two containers of milk, two of apple juice, and one that I hoped was coffee but turned out to be a soup broth. Damn but I could sure use a coffee.

"Dad," I said in the sweetest way I knew how, "could you ask if I could have a coffee?"

"Coffee?" my 'mother' said. "You know that you aren't allowed to drink coffee!"

Damn. If something as basic as coffee was off limits, how was I going to get by with the more complicated things in this girl's life? I needed information or a damn good reason for not remembering. I decided I had better try the amnesia stunt.

"I'm sorry, Mom," I said starting to sob. "I don't seem to remember."

"Drink your milk, dear," my 'mother' said soothingly, and then she whispered something into my 'father's' ear. He got up and left as I fumbled with the container of milk.

Ugh. I couldn't remember the last time I drank plain milk, but I figured it was better to drink and keep busy than to give her an opportunity to ask any questions.

She wasn't a bad looking woman, and she did seem to have genuine concern for me. I guessed her age to be around 34. Since she was sitting I couldn't guess at how tall she was, but she looked in good shape. Well groomed and just slightly overweight, and then I remembered that this was 1974, the trend to go ultra slim hadn't become popular yet.

She had light brown hair that she wore down, and it covered her shoulders. That was something I had forgotten to check out last night. I had been so busy checking out my new pussy and boobs that I never even thought to see what color my hair was or how long it was. Hell, I might be as ugly as sin!

Trying to do it casually, I ran my fingers over my scalp and trailed them through my hair. It was long - past my shoulders - and from my peripheral vision it looked dark. It felt greasy though.

By the time I got both containers of milk done and had started on the juice my 'dad' came back in. He didn't pretend not to be concerned. "The doctor will be here in just a few minutes, Ann," he said to my 'mother.'

I checked him out. He was maybe 36 and was tall - I figured six feet easy - and with his dark hair cut in a military-style buzz-cut. Well built too, erect stance. Maybe ex-military. Not the kind of guy I'd want to get into a scrap with.

"Didn't he say anything, Mike?" she asked him.

"He didn't want to say anything until he saw Patti himself - said he might run some tests."

Hmm... Mike and Ann Johnson. I could learn a lot if I just kept my mouth shut and listened. Maybe if I had tried that in my other life...

I was finishing my second container of juice when an older man, obviously a doctor based on his white coat and stethoscope, entered. He was carrying a tray similar to the one my 'breakfast' had been delivered on. I nearly laughed out loud when I saw his pants. I had forgotten all about the seersucker days of the 70s. Loud plaid pants over top of a pair of crepe-soled shoes. They squeaked as he walked. He put the tray aside and asked my 'parents' to give us a few minutes alone.

When they had gone, he took the stethoscope and listened to my heart and lungs for a minute. It felt weird. Here was a guy touching my boobs and probing around my new flat belly. I wasn't sure if I should be upset or not, after all, this was my body now! But I remembered there weren't a lot of female doctors in the early 70s, and I had no idea of how a 14-year-old girl would respond to this.

"Patti?" he finally said picking up my chart, "can you tell me what day it is today?"

Shit! I had been scheduled for my surgery on a Monday, the first of September, but my memory was hollering at me that I had busted my knee on the last day in August and that had been a Sunday.

"Tuesday?" I asked, figuring I had spent at least one night in the hospital.

He made a note on the chart and then asked me what month it was. What the hell? I wasn't going to have to play at amnesia, I wasn't sure myself. I shook my head. "Okay Patti, how about we try for the year?"

Now this one should be simple, I mean, I knew that I had busted my leg in '74. "1974?" I said tentatively. That one must have been right 'cause he nodded his head and made another note on my chart.

"And can you tell me what your birth date is?"

Yeah right. I'd had this body for less than a day and he wanted to know the same stuff I did. I shook my head.

"Can you tell me your middle name?"

Oh this was just... fucking... wonderful! He was asking the wrong person those questions. I nearly suggested that he go down the hall and ask Patrick O'Donnell but thought better of it. I wanted to get out of here eventually, but the prospect of ending up in the psych ward was looking more and more like my destination.

I did the only thing I could think of... I started to cry. And they weren't fake tears either. Last night I thought this was a trip. Waking up as a girl, being young again, and knowing what the future held in store, but now, the novelty had become a practical joke, and I was the butt of it.

"There, there," he said in his most soothing bedside manner. "Let's try this instead."

He pulled the tray that he had brought with him closer and I could clearly smell institutional coffee. He uncovered a plastic cup that had a lid, and beside it I could see a couple of containers of non-dairy creamer and sugar cubes. "I understand you wanted a coffee," he said. "I think that will be okay. What do you take in it?"

Yeah... I could see which way this was heading. I couldn't remember my name or my birthday, but I was supposed to know how I took my coffee. Uh, uh. No way! If I told him, that would make everything look really suspicious. I could have told him that I wanted an espresso or latte, and really freaked him out, but in this case, I figured that ignorance would be the wiser route to take.

"I don't know," I said. "I don't even know why I asked for it." I was really hoping he would buy this. Even though I knew it would taste like crap, I really wanted that coffee.

"Okay," he said as he took the tray away. "Let me call your parents back."

"So," he was explaining to 'mom' and 'dad, ' "I think it's temporary amnesia brought on by the anesthetic and the trauma of the burst appendix. We'll have to keep her a little longer than normal - just for observation - but I think as she heals her memory will come back."

Mike and Ann thanked him and he left. 'Dad' said they were going to move me to the Pediatrics Wing since I didn't seem to have any complications from the surgery, and that he and 'mom' would be back to see me later that night. 'Mom' gave me a kiss and told me that everything was going to be okay, and 'dad' squeezed my leg and asked if there was anything I wanted them to bring when they came back. I desperately wanted to ask for 'my' diary, hoping that Patricia Johnson kept one. A pack of smokes would have suited me fine too, but I realized I was getting a second chance. Why screw it up by starting that bad habit again? I gave them my most loving smile and said, "Thanks, but I don't think I need anything."

After they left, I knew that what I really needed was to find myself, or rather my former body. I needed to know more about who I was now.

Chapter 2 »