Chapter 1

This sucks, I thought.

A memory had just arrived unbidden, not a recent memory, but rather an old one, a memory from my previous life. I was aggravated because in my previous life I'd been a female named Jane Wilson. My name in this life is Brent Carson. I'm a fifteen-year-old boy. If I'd been a male in my previous life, I could have used that experience to help guide me as a male through this one. How could I relate to fifty-five years as a female?

Memories from my past life started to trickle into my mind about eighteen months ago when the hormones of puberty started to trickle into my then scrawny body. I believed I was going insane, that or someone had slipped a hallucinogenic drug into my root beer, or that my imagination had slipped a cog and wandered into the realm of silliness beyond fantasy. Imagine my surprise when I finally realized that the answer was none of the above. The memories were real. They were also terrifying at first because they were retrieved in reverse order; although retrieved, as a verb, wasn't completely accurate. My neurons and synapses didn't search for and retrieve the memories. They just happened, and because my first memory from my previous life was my violent death at the end of that life, the memory was scary.

As my body changed, more memories from before my birth for this life slowly filled in the gaps in the life I lived as Jane Wilson. I'd just experienced Jane's first memory: taking a bath with her little brother. He had a woody, which made the event memorable. Because I'd gone through her memories from her last to her first, I believed I now knew the major events of her life — my life, too, the life before the one I was now living. Confusing, huh?

As Jane Wilson, I was born in 1932 in New Orleans, Louisiana. As Brent Carson, I was born in 1988 in Phoenix, Arizona. Jane was born during the era known as the Great Depression, and in her youth, she was poor. My family for this life wasn't rich but wasn't close to poor. Jane Wilson had a younger brother. I had an older sister.

Nothing matched.

I begged the question: how could I, a fifteen-year-old male, relate to living fifty-five years as a female?

Interrupting my mental gymnastics, my sister, Grace, strode into my room without knocking. Good thing I wasn't involved in my favorite indoor sport, the one involving a woody, like Jane's little brother.

"Brent, you are a horse's patooty!" she yelled.

"Patooty?"

"Yeah."

"No such word."

"Don't care. Means ass with a capital A." She stood in front of me with her hands on her hips, her stance and expression laced with anger. Dark, gorgeous eyes. Dark brown hair, long, with soft waves framing a pretty face. Her slim body had to be, to my mind, the envy of runway models everywhere. That's my beautiful sister, Grace.

I stifled a snicker. Grace's propensity for melodrama usually had that effect on me. I said, "No doubt you're correct, but an explanation might give me some clues that will let me avoid being a horse's ass under the same circumstances in the future. Has anyone told you that your eyes dance when you're pissed?"

Her anger softened briefly but flared again. She said, "You saw me making out with Ted, and you told your nitwit friend, Billy, who told Gary Simmons, who told... you get the picture. By the time the malicious gossip made the rounds and came back to me, I was doing the nasty with Ted, not just making out. Horse's patooty! That's what you are."

Yes, I'd seen my sister making out with her date last Saturday night, but I hadn't told Billy about the event. I'd known Billy most of my life — this life, that is. He couldn't keep a secret, so even under the pain of torture, I would tell him nothing that demanded confidentiality. I grinned and said, "Not guilty, Grace. Oh, I saw you with Ted but didn't say anything to Billy or anyone else about what I saw. Look elsewhere for the source of the malicious gossip."

"Liar! I traced the..."

Instantly angry, I stood up, took her by the arm and turned her. The door to my room was open, so I guided her into the hall. "I'm not lying, Grace," I said calmly, stepped back into my room and closed and locked my door. I returned to my computer where I'd been surfing the Internet when my sister interrupted my muses about my past life.

Grace's accusation had upset me. I wasn't a liar, except little, white lies, or lies of omission, or lies to protect someone, and she knew this about me. What's more, living fifty-five years as a female before taking on the body of a boy taught me about the pain that gossiping can inflict, so after retrieving Jane's memories, I stopped being a gossip.

Then it hit me.

I'd asked myself a question: how could I, a fifteen-year-old male, relate to living fifty-five years as a female?

I suddenly realized that Jane Wilson's life experiences would let me relate to the female of our species in a way no boy in my time and place could hope to achieve, and with that realization, I'd answered my question.

When my Jane memories arrived, fearing I'd be labeled a nut, I told no one about them. I considered telling my mother, the one adult I almost trusted, but a brief comment to her about them produced a negative response, so I pursed my lips and kept my own counsel thereafter.

My mother was a real estate agent, but she didn't sell houses. She acted as agent for office building landlords and tenants, mostly tenants because she declared landlords a pain in the patooty. Yeah, I'd assimilated Grace's made-up word for ass into my vocabulary, and speaking of asses, my mom's was magnificent, her best feature, and like most clever women, she understood her assets and dressed accordingly. She wore a tight skirt that fell to just below her knees, no hose — her legs were tan, no hose needed — and a white silk blouse. She was thirty-eight years old and looked five years younger than her age. I considered her beautiful, but then I'm biased.

"Nice patooty, Mom," I said as she bent over to retrieve something from a lower kitchen cabinet.

She looked over her shoulder at me and grinned. "Patooty?"

"Yeah, according to Grace, patooty is a synonym for ass."

Her grin widened momentarily, and then she frowned. "I'm your mother, Brent. Don't..."

I laughed. "You also have a nice ass. In my humble opinion, it's a world-class patooty. I appreciate perfection wherever I see it. It's the artist in me. For example, Grace's legs are in a class by themselves. She's my sister, but that doesn't stop me from enjoying the soft curves of her long, shapely legs anymore than I can stop appreciating the alluring shape of your ass."

I'd referenced my artistic ability because Jane Wilson had climbed out of the poverty of her birth using her talent as an artist. I not only had her memories, I had also inherited her artistic aptitude and abilities, a talent I had yet to exploit. That would soon change.

Mom placed a pot on the stove. "What about breasts?"

"Waddaya mean?" I asked.

"Who has world-class breasts?" Her dark eyes danced with mischief.

"That's a tough one. The garments females wear let me judge patooties and legs. I've noticed cleavage..."

She laughed. "No doubt."

"... but I believe breasts must be bare to be properly judged, and I've yet to see a bare pair." A lie, but a boy shouldn't tell his mother everything. I lied to protect her, not me. No, that wasn't true. I lied because the truth didn't matter and the lie fit the conversation.

She let out the air in her lungs with a whoosh. Teasingly, she said, "That's a relief."

"What's a relief?" Grace asked as she walked into the kitchen.

"Brent says he hasn't seen a pair of bare breasts," Mom said and giggled. Yeah, Moms can giggle, and I promptly demonstrated that Moms could make sons blush.

Grace giggled, too. "You haven't seen a pair. How about just one?" she asked.

She mentioned one because I'd seen one of hers one time, and she knew it. We'd never discussed the event.

I let my Jane Wilson personality take over. With her memories, I could be her, was her, but because I'd lived as a boy for thirteen plus years before her memories arrived, I'd already developed my own distinct personality. With her memories, our personalities had merged a little, but for the most part still remained separate.

"I just told Mom that she had a great ass, Grace, and also declared that you have the best legs I've ever seen. Then Mom asked whose breasts I appreciated the most, and I told her I didn't know because, in my opinion, breasts should be viewed without the clutter of bras, bikini tops or blouses to be fairly judged, so I couldn't connect a name with any world-class titties." Hmm, would they cooperate? Maybe. "Which reminds me that my education is lacking regarding breasts, a knowledge gap the two of you could alleviate by showing me your tits."

"Brent!" Mom gasped.

"Pervert!" Grace decried.

I laughed. "I think you both protest too much. Mom, you enjoy my avid gaze when you bend over, and Grace, you've been known to flash more of your legs than necessary as a feast for my hungry eyes, so don't play the innocents with me."

Mom looked at Grace. "He's got us pegged, missy."

Grace groaned. "Yep, but he's lying, Mom. He's seen some bare breasts, a lot of them, while surfing on the Internet."

"Grace, if you keep calling me a liar, I might stop calling you a friend," I said, my voice tinged with menace.

"Hah! Are you denying looking at nekkid women on the Internet?"

"Nope. A picture might be the equivalent of a thousand or more words, but it's no substitute for the real thing. I've yet to cast my eyes on a live pair of bare breasts. How about it? Would either or both of you correct my woefully limited sexual education by showing me your tits?"

"Not me," Mom said. "My breasts aren't what they used to be." She chortled self-consciously. "My patooty, either, dammit."

"Well, mine haven't reached their peak," Grace said and giggled. "So to speak." She looked at me. "To fill your knowledge gap, you'll need to pursue your breast quest elsewhere."

"Spoilsports."

My art paraphernalia was sadly limited, and art stuff cost a bundle. I needed canvases, oil and acrylic paints, watercolor paint and paper, a drafting table, brushes, pastels, charcoal, palette knives, even a palette. I could go on and on. I also needed a studio.

Big problems. Except for some occasional sketches I let my mother and sister see, I'd kept my artistic talent mostly hidden. I needed my father's support — and money. A demonstration was warranted.

That evening while Dad was watching the news on the television, I sat across from him and drew his portrait in ink. He noticed my concentration, my glances toward him, my busy hand scratching the linen vellum with a pen, and asked what I was doing. I told him, at which point he stiffened and posed, not what I wanted.

"Relax, Dad. Ignore me. You don't need to sit perfectly still, not for a quick sketch."

"Oh. Okay."

My father was a handsome man with a dark complexion, coal black eyes, a square chin punctured with a deep dimple. I hoped I'd grow to at least his six-two height. He was a corporate executive, a VP for a regional real estate development company, belonged to a gym and exercised religiously, watched his diet, imbibed booze socially but never to excess, and didn't smoke. He golfed on weekends. Sounds like the perfect dad, huh? Not quite. He worked a lot, giving his employer fifty to sixty hours every week, and his weekend trip around the links was usually business related, as well. In other words, he didn't have a whole lot of time for his family.

Didn't matter. I loved him a lot.

I finished the sketch, signed and dated it, and handed it to my father.

He stared at the portrait, looked up at me and then at the sketch again. "This is excellent, Brent. I didn't know you were this talented."

"I need art supplies, Dad," I said. He nodded as he continued to gaze at the drawing. "Art stuff is expensive," I added.

That caught his attention. "How expensive?"

I pulled a folded piece of paper out of my back pocket, unfolded the document and handed it to him. "That's a spreadsheet listing the supplies I need and their cost."

"Holy crap!" he breathed when his eyes dropped to the total.

"Plus I need a place to work," I added.

His eyes zeroed in on mine. "You're serious about this?"

"As a heart attack."

He shook his head, glanced at the portrait and the spreadsheet, and said, "What do you mean by 'a place to work?'"

"Oil paints and solvents smell. Also, I'll be painting some large canvases, five feet by seven feet, some larger. My room won't be adequate."

He shook his head again. "Elaborate."

"A studio, preferably with northern light through clerestory glass. A small, air-conditioned warehouse space would do it. Without telling her much, I queried Mom about rents for the type of facility I'll need, and she says it would cost about eight hundred a month, maybe a little more. That'll come later. Right now, our third garage would work if we put up a partition to make a room out of it, stuck a window air-conditioner through an outside wall, improved the lighting a little, and installed an exhaust vent." I handed him another spreadsheet. "I estimated the garage-to-studio conversion cost."

He gulped when he noted that total. "I'll have to think about this."

Which meant he'd discuss it with my mother. I smiled and tried not to look as excited as I felt inside. If he'd said no, that would've been the end of it. Mom would support me and would pressure Dad to do the same. To make sure I was as serious about art as I claimed, he wouldn't cough up the total amount, which would be fine with me. Staging the purchases would work. I'd start with acrylics.

Jane Wilson was renowned for her landscape paintings. Her artistic talent and her memories were mine. I could paint landscapes without any training. What's more, I knew the direction she wanted to take her talent when an accident took her life. She'd planned to switch from the macro to the micro with her work, and that's where I started. The blank canvas on the easel in front of me was five by seven feet.

Daunting? Not at all. I knew the results I wanted. I could see the finished canvas in my mind. The micro-landscape was a hole in a red rock partially filled with rainwater. Sunlight and flickering shadows affected the composition and colors. The finished canvas would have the look of a non-objective painting. The colors would shimmer, fade and change, iridescent in places, and hard-edged in other areas of the canvas. The palette was extensive, reflecting the crystalline microcosm of nature.

I worked all day, ignoring the call to dinner, painting into the night until my muscles cramped. The house was dark when I ventured inside. I needed a drink of water, and I was hungry. I grabbed another bottle of water from the pantry and a jar of mixed nuts, and returned to my makeshift studio.

The short break relaxed the cramped muscles, and the water and nuts, along with a trip to the john, mollified my bodily needs. I started to paint again, finishing the canvas just before dawn. I removed it from the easel, turned it face in against a wall, cleaned up my mess, and walked to the patio to watch the sun come up. The sunrise was magnificent, and my eyes settled on a tiny portion of the glorious daily event at the horizon. I studied that micro-landscape, that tiny bit of nature that would become my next painting, and marveled at the beauty around me.

I stripped and dove into the swimming pool and swam twenty laps. As I pulled myself up and out of the water, Mom stepped from the house.

"Morning, Mom," I said.

"You're naked!"

"Sorry about that."

She watched me as I walked toward her and continued to look at me as I moved by her to go into the house.

She laughed. "Nice patooty, Brent."

Looking over my shoulder, I grinned. "Thanks."

"Considering the shrinkage factor after swimming, that swinging dick isn't bad either."

I laughed. "Like Grace's breasts, my swinging dick hasn't reached its peak. So to speak."

That cracked her up. "Dry off before you go inside." She tossed me a towel and returned inside, which pleased me. I would've been embarrassed if she'd watched me wipe the pool water from my naked body.

When I realized I was a female in my previous life, I worried about the sexual preference I'd assume when puberty finished doing its thing to my body and mind. Jane was bisexual with a preference for men. Imagine my relief when I determined I was 100% heterosexual. Sexy women turned me on. Pretty boys and handsome men did nothing for my libido.

Whew! Dodged that bullet.

Another bullet plagued me, though. From the extensive sexual experience I gleaned during my previous life — Jane was a tad promiscuous — I knew a lot about sex, much more than my teenaged friends, be they girls or boys. Nothing wrong with that, you say. Hah! With their silliness and inexperience, girls my age didn't excite me, not like a more mature woman. By a mature woman I mean one in her late teens or early twenties, college-age girls, if you will. Like me, they knew the score. Are you starting to understand my problem? Yep, women that age took one look at me and saw a boy, not a man. Plus, I was too young to get a driver's license, so my mobility was limited. Argh.

I wasn't above using my experience to seduce fifteen- and sixteen-year-old girls, but the one time I succeeded turned into a disaster. The silly girl fell in love with me, mostly my tongue, I think. She sure did enjoy being eaten, but reciprocity wasn't in her nature. She believed going down on me was, if not immoral, at least distasteful. The one time she tried, she gagged a lot and refused to even consider swallowing my semen. Like I said: silly.

I dodged that bullet when her father was transferred to Washington, D.C., and she moved a few thousand miles away from me. I made a personal promise to take cover from those kinds of bullets in the future by avoiding any sexual shenanigans with silly, inexperienced youngsters my age.