The Portrait: Frame II
by Ellie Dauber
This story is a follow-up to “The Portrait”, but I’ve tried to keep it as self-contained (and consistent) as possible. Both stories are part of a series that also includes "Valentine Gift" and "Shakedown", all of which tell of the very magical Uncle Stavros.
*****
Dear Mr. Norman:
Stavros get your letter about the noise. Stavros sorry that nice lady, Miss Gray, not like Stavros’ music, but Miss Gray gone. She married now. Live with husband out in country.
Now that her apartment empty, Stavros play music again. Maybe next tenant have better taste.
Please not to bother me again.
Stavros Stanipopoulis
John Norman looked at the letter one last time before he put it into Stavros’ file. According to the file, this was the fourth time that somebody had complained about Stavros and then moved out of the building.
He sighed. Stavros’ apartment was rent controlled at a figure far below the current market rate for that part of town. If he could get the old coot out, he could triple the rent easily. The trouble was, nothing ever stuck. He’d get a complaint letter and send the first warning letter that the law required. But before anything further happened, the other tenant left. If nothing was substantiated, he couldn’t get rid of the old man.
If he could get the man out, it would be a feather in his cap. Maybe it would even be enough to convince his father to let him take over the business. John was 31 with degrees in both law and business, and his father acted like he was still a high school kid coming in on weekends to help out.
There were enough other businesses that his father owned, even if this real estate firm were the largest. John wished that the old man would play with one or two of those and give the real estate operation to him. Of course, that would only be for a while. John expected to “help” his father relax by slowly but surely take over the entire operation. What the hell, his father was almost 60. It was time he retired and passed the business on to his only son.
‘Yeah,’ John thought. ‘Let me just move in and take over the whole damn thing....Hey, that wasn’t a bad idea. If I moved into that apartment, I could spy on this Stavros. Catch him at something and wait around long enough to throw him out.’
*****
John checked out the empty apartment the next day. ‘Not bad,’ he thought as he drove back to the office. ‘Three big rooms with a small but workable kitchen and a good view of the nearby park from the front room. The bathroom was also small, but it was newly tiled and had one of those big clawfoot bathtubs that you could practically do laps in. It’s almost as nice as my own place near the office. If Stavros’ place next door is as nice, I should be able to get $1500 month easy for it once I get him out.’ It was an easy bet. The two apartments on each floor were mirrors of each other.
*****
He moved in the following Saturday, paying a couple guys from his father’s maintenance crew to do the actual lifting and carrying. The work was done by five. It was a warm, sunny day, and John decided to take a walk around the neighborhood. It seemed like a nice enough place. Could use some work, though. Maybe convert a couple of these buildings into condos. He noticed that one old brownstone was for sale, and he made a note in the pad he always carried to check out the price on Monday.
He was quite hungry by the time he got back near his new apartment. He noticed that there was a pizza place at the corner, Via Rosa, about three houses away. He hadn’t had a chance to shop, so he decided to try it for supper. The place smelled pretty good as he came near the door.
It smelt even better inside. It was obviously a neighborhood hang-out: two booths, a few tables and a bar. There were a lot of pictures on the walls, and John recognized a few of the buildings from his walk. It was early for the Saturday night revelers, just a couple in one booth and a family (husband, wife, and three kids) in another having supper. The two or three men at the bar watched him walk in, then they went back to their own conversation.
John took a seat at one of the tables. The waitress, a motherly looking woman in her fifties, came over and handed him a menu. “You must be new around here. I’m Annie, and I know just about everybody in this neighborhood.”
“Hi, Annie. I’m John. I just moved into 308 Hawthorn.” He decided to be friendly. Maybe he could find out a little about this Stavros character. Maybe even something he could use against the man. “What’s good tonight?”
Annie smiled. “Just about everything on the menu, John. Though, I wouldn’t really want to try the clams, if you know what I mean.”
He handed her the menu back. “How about I just go with a medium pizza, extra cheese and sausage, and a pitcher of Bud.”
“Sounds good. I’ll bring you the pitcher now.” She looked around for a minute. “Say, have you met any of your neighbors yet?”
“No, why?”
Annie pointed to a tall man in his early twenties over at the bar. “That there’s Rich Kelso. He lives on the second floor of your building. Want me get him over here?”
“Sure, why not.”
Annie nodded and walked over the kitchen, posting John’s order. Then she went to the bar. While she waited for the pitcher of beer, she talked to Kelso. This was working out better than John had hoped. This kid lived on the floor below. He might be a potential ally, saving John a lot of time and effort. He might also be a friend of Stavros, so John decided to be careful in sounding him out for information.
Kelso followed Annie back to the table carrying his own full beer glass. He stuck out his hand and said, “Hi, I’m Rich, Rich Kelso. So you’re the one who moved into Dorine’s apartment.”
Yeah,” said John shaking the offered hand. “I’m John Norman. I just moved in to the third floor at 308 Hawthorn. I hear we’re neighbors there. Tell me about the place.”
Rich pulled out a chair and sat down. Annie put the pitcher on the table with an empty glass beside it and hurried off to get an order. “It’s not a bad place,” Rich began. “Folks in it are fairly friendly. The Monahans, they’ve lived there for almost forty years, have one of the apartments on the first floor. Mrs. Monahan, Mary, thinks she’s mother to the world -- or at least to the building -- but she’s got a good heart, and her beef stew is an absolute wonder. And if you ever have a question on baseball, ask Mr. Monahan, Bill to just about everybody. But make sure that you’ve got at least an hour free for the answer. He says he’s retired, and he can take as long as he wants to answer.”
“Ted Paulson lives in the other apartment on the first floor. He teaches math over at Grant Junior High and plays with computers on the weekend. Ron and Angie Potts have an apartment on two. He sells insurance, but we forgive him. She’s a secretary someplace, or she will be for about four more months. She’s pregnant with their first kid, and they’re both real excited about it. I’ve got the other apartment on two. I’m an engineering student over at City College. Chemical engineering, I don’t fix stereos or cars, so don’t ask. You know who you are. Stavros has the other apartment on your floor. He’s got a long Hungarian name that most people just garble. He’s a weird old bird, but not a bad guy.”
“What’s he do for a living?”
“I don’t know. He looks old enough to be retired with all that white hair of his, but he doesn’t act old. He’s got money from something, though. He likes to hang around the place and play his music all day long, weird gypsy music, too. My Mom’s a music teacher. I grew up with all sorts of music playing all the time, so it doesn’t bother me.”
“But it bothers other people?”
“Well, Dorine -- she had your apartment up to last week -- didn’t like it that much, but she got married and moved out. Come to think of it, a couple of the other folks who had that apartment before her complained, too; Fred Lasky, Sue Ann Traynor, but they each moved out fairly quickly. All for something other than Stavros’ music. I guess folks get used to it after a while.”
Just then Annie brought John’s pizza. It was larger than he had expected, and he invited Rich to join him. John didn’t want to dwell too much on Stavros and risk word of his interest getting back to the man, so he changed the subject. He had gone to City College for two years and still followed the teams, so he asked about the basketball squad. Rich turned out to be an avid fan of college b-ball, and the two men spent a couple hours talking about City’s team and the rest of the League it played in. Before John walked back to his apartment, he had agreed to meet Rich the next morning for a game of handball at a court not far from the apartment.
As he came up the last steps to his apartment, John saw someone already on the floor. “Hello,” he said deciding to be friendly. “Are you my new neighbor?”
The man turned around. “I Stavros. I already here, so you my new neighbor.” He paused to chuckle at his own joke. John looked at him closely. He was average height and dressed in simple work clothes. He had the thick mass of white curls that Rich had mentioned, but the rest of the face was young, unlined. It was impossible to guess his age. His eyebrows were the same bushy white froth, but his eyes -- his eyes were dark brown, almost black, and somehow menacing.
John kept smiling. “I guess you’re right. I’m John. I just moved in today. Would you like to come in for a drink?”
“Thank you, John, but Stavros have long day. Just want to relax; listen to music from Old Country. Maybe… maybe another day, we have drink.” He turned and pulled out his key. Without another word, he went into his apartment. John heard a latch click from inside the door.
John went into his own apartment. He got a beer from the fridge and turned on the TV. He’d arranged for Cable before he moved in, so it was already installed. STARGATE SG-1was just starting on one of the cable movie chnnels, so John sat down to watch.
His comfort lasted about five minutes.
It started with a violin low pitched and slow. The musician toyed with a few notes, then a tambourine and clarinet (maybe?) joined in. A moment later, he heard a whole bunch of other instruments and a few voices. The music itself wasn’t bad; some sort of gypsy tune like Rich had said. But it was loud. Very loud. Feel the vibrations in the beer can loud.
John went over and knocked on Stavros’ door. Somehow the old man heard him over the music and came to the door. “Could you turn that down some?” John shouted as soon as the door opened.
“No!” Stavros’ said and started to shut the door.
John got his foot in place blocking the door. “Look,” he said, “I’m not asking you to turn it off; just turn it down a little, so I can listen to my TV.”
“Stavros like music loud. He here first. Go to other room to watch your television.”
“It’s hooked up in the living room.”
“That not Stavros’ fault. Music stay as is.”
“So you’re not willing to compromise at all?”
“Why? This Stavros’ house. Can play music as loud as he want.”
“Not as of Monday, it won’t be. Mr. Stanipopoulis, I’m John Norman. I manage Mid City Reality, the company that owns this property, and I moved in here specifically to check out complaints that we’ve had about you.”
“Who complain?”
“Ms. Gray, for one.”
“Gray? Oh, yah, him. Stavros fix. She gone.”
“That was why I was going to give you the benefit of the doubt. The people who complained all moved away shortly thereafter. But I can see now that you are a problem. Enjoy your music, Mr. Stanipopoulis. I’ll be putting through the eviction paperwork on Monday.”
Stavros’ eyes narrowed. “Only if you still can,” he said and slammed the door behind him.
The music actually did get a little softer as John walked back across the hall and into his own apartment. Damn! He had wanted to be fair, but the music was so loud, and Stavros was totally unwilling to be reasonable. ‘The hell with it,’ he thought. ‘I’ll put the papers through Monday. The old coot’s out by the end of the week. And I can post a major rent increase on his place. Neighborhood like this, it should be easy to rent both places.’
John watched some more TV, turning the set up load enough to hear over the music. Then he went off to bed. It was somewhat quieter in the bedroom, especially with the door shut, and he managed to get to sleep without too much tossing about.
*****
John got up about 8 the next morning, dressed and headed down to meet Rich for the handball match. As he left his apartment, he ran into a small crowd of people heading into Stavros’. They were all older types, a number with the same curly white hair that Stavros had. ‘Cousins’ Club,’ John thought. A woman gave him a rather angry look and said something to Stavros in a language John didn’t recognize.
“Yah,” Stavros answered sourly. “That him.”
John didn’t want to do or say anything that Stavros could use to fight an eviction. “Good morning, Mr. Stanipopoulis. Can we talk later about your music when I come back this afternoon?” He would let Stavros think there was a last chance to apologize, hoping that the old coot wouldn’t. Either way, he still planned to start the eviction proceedings. That would teach him a lesson about who he was dealing with.
“Feh,” Stavros said. “It be settled soon enough.” He motioned with his arm for the others to head into the apartment.
John noticed that Stavros was wearing some kind of weird green bathrobe embroidered with gold and silver symbols. Several other people were wearing clothes in the same color. ‘Native costumes,’ John guessed.
*****
Rich Kelso was waiting in his apartment. “I hear you and Stavros met,” he said by way of a greeting. He grabbed his gloves, and they started down the steps.
“Yeah, but not in the best of circumstances. I think he’s mad at me.”
“Probably is. He’s a stubborn old cuss.”
“Well, he’s got a bunch of friends in to plot with.”
“I know. I heard people outside and opened the door to see if it was you. It’s some kind of group that gets together at his place once in a while. I think it’s some kind of religious thing. I can hear some kind of chanting sometimes. I don’t recognize the language.”
“Hungarian Reformed Druid,” John said, and they both laughed at his joke, though Rick seemed a little embarrassed at doing so.
The handball courts were just ahead, a fenced-in area in a small park about two blocks from their building. John did a quick cost/benefit in his head. If he were building in the neighborhood, would it be better to put something on the site or to leave it alone and let it add to the value of nearby properties as a neighborhood amenity. He decided that he’d probably build on the site and felt a small twinge of guilt about it. But business was business, and if he wanted to take over from his old man, that was the only way to think.
There were three separate courts in the area. Two were in use, but the third was free. Both of the players in the second court recognized Rich and greeted him warmly. He introduced John, and the four men talked for a few minutes.
Then the others went back to their game, and John and Rich started in the third court. They decided to play best of three; loser buying lunch. Both spent the first game sizing each other up. John played a conservative game, but he had been at it a lot longer than Rich. He managed to win by two points. In the second game, Rich began taking advantage of his youth and speed. He made some reckless shots and lost a couple points for it, but he came back quickly. Rich took the second game by the same two points. They moved into the third game dead even. Rich’s strategy started to pay off. John was tiring a little, since he wasn’t used to such an energetic opponent. He lost the game by six points.
“Looks like lunch is on you, old timer,” Rich said.
“Okay, sonny, but watch out for next time. I think spotted a flaw in your game towards the end.”
“That wasn’t a flaw. That was pity. I knew I had you, so I went easy.”
The argument continued all the way back to the Via Rosa for lunch. John sprang for another pizza and a pitcher of beer. He was beginning to like Rich. The kid reminded him of Mark Pringle, his old college roommate. Mark was out on the West Coast now, teaching history at some college. They still kept in touch, but he and Mark hadn’t been in the same room in about three years.
Rich had the same sort of friendly puppy attitude that Mark did. You couldn’t help but like him, kind of like everybody’s kid brother. He was fairly good looking (so far as John could judge another man’s looks), and probably didn’t do bad with the women either.
“So, what do you think of your new neighborhood,” Rich asked.
“It’s a nice place. I’m sorry I’m not staying.” It was the truth.
“What! You just moved in.”
“Look, Rich. I moved in to check out Stavros. I -- my family -- owns Mid City Realty, the company that owns your building. We’ve gotten some complaints about Stavros, and I moved in to check things out.”
“Damn, you tricked me.”
“About what? All you did was play handball and eat two meals with me. You’re a good joe, and not a bad ball player. Don’t feel that you did anything wrong. You didn’t.”
“Yeah, but it feels like I did. I guess Stavros played right into your hands. I could hear the music booming last night. Come to think of it, I heard your TV going pretty loud, too.”
“Yeah, but only in self-defense.”
“Can’t you take that into account?”
“Look, I gave him a chance. When the music started playing, I went over and asked him to turn it down. He refused. He said that he could play it as loud as he liked, and I should go to the back of the apartment if it bothered me. That’s just the thing that those other tenants complained about.”
“I guess so, but he’s an old guy and set in his way. I don’t know how long he’s lived here. I think Bill Monahan once told me that he was there when they moved in. A guy lives in a place that long, he begins to think like he owns it.”
“He doesn’t. I, well, my family does. I understand, but is it fair to the other tenants? Is it fair to my company? We keep having people move out to get away from him. It costs money to find a new tenant, and we lose more when an apartment is empty.”
“So it comes down to money?”
“It comes down to fair, though money’s a big part of fair.”
Rich didn’t say anything. He finished his slice of pizza, took a swig from his beer, and stood up.
“Where you going,” John asked.
“I don’t feel quite as hungry anymore,” Rich said.
“C’mon. You’re that upset about some cranky old guy with an attitude?”
“I know. It’s silly, but Stavros never did anything to me. I kind of like the guy.”
“Sit down and finish. You’re a good kid, and I’m a rat. I admit it. But it’s just business.”
“I don’t know.” He hesitated and sat back down.
John tried to change the subject. “You play a damn good game of ball. I’ll be moving out in a day or two. When am I going to get a chance to get even for this morning?”
“Let me think about it. I’m not sure I like the way you get even. Give me your card, businessman, and I’ll call if I feel like another game.”
John didn’t try talking anymore. The two men finished lunch and headed back to the building. John tried to start a conversation once or twice without success. It was beginning to annoy him. He liked this kid, but he was damned if he’d cut Stavros a break. The last thing he needed was for his father to catch him doing something that stupid.
When they got to the second floor, Rich said, “Give me your card. I’ll see what happens with Stavros and how I feel about it. If I decide you’re a human being and not a bean counter, I’ll call you about that rematch.”
John took a business card from his wallet and handed it to Rich. “And if I decide that you’re a human being and not a damn bleeding heart pain in the ass, I’ll take that call.”
Rich took the card and went into his apartment without saying another word. John frowned and headed up to his own apartment. There was a thin crate of some sort leaning against his door. A note taped on the side said, “Mr. Norman: This settle everything.” It was signed “Stavros.”
Curious, John took the crate inside with him and opened it. The crate held a picture of some sort in an elaborate old wooden frame. When he took it out, he could see that it was a picture of him standing in front of the building in a sport shirt and a pair of jeans. It was a damn good picture, almost photographic quality.
John had taken a few art classes in college. He’d thought about minoring in it until he decided to go for the business/law double major. A picture like this took days, maybe weeks, to produce. How the devil had Stavros gotten it done so quickly? There could be money in this. Maybe even enough to let the old man stay. No, on second thought, something that could produce pictures this good and this quickly was worth a lot of money.
Maybe that was what Stavros meant in the note. Was he was willing to trade the secret for the right to stay where he was? John was more than willing to go along. This process could be worth ten, a hundred times more valuable than one lousy apartment. He decided to let Stavros stew a while before he went over. A little time to worry about being thrown out, and Stavros would be more than willing to trade on John’s terms. He left the painting near the door, got a beer, and sat down to watch some TV.
After about an hour, he got up to get another beer. As he walked towards the kitchen, he detoured over to look at the painting. It looked different somehow. Was there a problem? Did the thing fade after a while? If so, Stavros could forget about any deal.
No, the quality seemed to be the same, but the picture had changed. He looked about ten years older, with a few wrinkles on his face and a little gray in his dark brown hair. He looked a little taller, too. When he first looked at the painting, he could see all of one of the windows that his image was standing in front of. Now, his head covered the bottom half of the window.
John stared at the painting for a moment wondering what had happened. Then he suddenly looked at his hands. He was still wearing the lightweight jacket that he’d put on after the game. Only now the jacket sleeve came down to the base of his thumb. He looked down and himself and saw that his pants were pooled at his ankles. They felt a lot looser at his waist than they had when he put them on that morning.
He hurried into the bathroom and looked at himself in the mirror. He was a good six inches smaller than he had been that morning. He looked younger, too; more like a kid still in college than a man in his early thirties. Damn! His hair was longer, too. Now it came down over his ears. This was crazy.
He pulled his belt in a couple of notches and walked back to look at the painting again. Sure enough, John saw that his image in the painting now sported a shorter haircut. Whatever happened in the painting happened in reverse in real life. It was like that story he’d read in college, “The Picture of Dorian Gray.”
“Hell,” John thought. “Dorian Gray, no, Dorine Gray was the name of the last tenant.” Had Stavros done something to her, and that was why she moved out?” John didn’t know, but he decided that he didn’t want to find out. He’d leave the painting outside Stavros’ apartment and get as far away from this building as possible.
But when he tried the door, he discovered that it wouldn’t open. He tried several times, even using his key once. Nothing worked. Neither would the window by the fire escape. Or the phone. He threw a book at the window and watched it bounce off. It made sense in a way. “If the painting shows me outside, then when it starts to work on me, I have to stay inside.”
John got himself another beer. He was still thirsty, and there wasn’t anything stronger in the apartment. He tried to watch the movie, but found that he couldn’t concentrate. He didn’t notice anything changing. May he was done. “No,” he suddenly seemed to know. “I have to check in the painting to see the changes happen.”
John checked the painting again, not sure what he wanted to see. The image now seemed more muscular, with a squarer jaw. He looked at his hands. They were smaller now, and when he felt his arms and legs through his ill-fitting clothes, they seemed thinner. His hair was even shorter in the picture, almost a razor cut. When he moved his head, he could feel hair brushing against the back of his neck, almost down to his shoulders.
When he started walking to look at his face in the bathroom mirror, he stepped out of his sneakers. His feet were smaller just like his hands. The face in the mirror looked different. His jaw was rounder and his cheekbones seemed higher. His nose seemed a little smaller as well. The eyebrows in the painting must have become bushier because his own were trimmed back to narrow arcs.
John closed his eyes and shuddered. At first, he’d thought that the painting was just making him younger somehow. But the face in the mirror wasn’t the way he’d looked at, say, 19. It was the way his cousin, Anna, had looked at that age. He was being changed into a girl.
John ran back and tried the door again, but it wouldn’t open. He didn’t have any tools for cutting through it. After all, who kept an ax in their apartment? He put his sneakers back on, tying them as tight as possible. But when he kicked the window several times, all he got was a sore foot.
He picked up the painting and threw it at the window. If it didn’t break the glass, maybe the painting itself would be damaged, and the spell broken. Nothing was broken. The painting bounced off the window as it they were both made of rubber and landed on the floor at his feet.
The phone rang.
John ran over and grabbed it. Whoever it was could bring help. He’d even talk to somebody asking for money.
“Stavros hear you trying to get away,” came the voice over the phone. “You not get out. You just change so you not bother Stavros again.”
“Stavros, please stop this,” John said. “We can work something out, if you’ll just change me back.”
“Stavros talk to you when changes done. Not before.” Then the line went dead.
John listened to the dial tone for a bit, then slowly hung up the phone. He was trapped and being changed into a female by some crazy old man. It couldn’t be happening, but it was. He felt himself beginning to cry. ‘Just like a girl,’ he thought. Then the alcohol and the fear and the fatigue of the morning’s games all caught up with him at once, and he nodded his head and dozed off.
*****
It was after six when John woke up. He shook the last of the sleep from his body. Was it a dream? No. He could feel his long hair brushing against the back of his neck. His arms were much thinner, and his bare feet stuck out of a pair of pants that had to be rolled up several times, so he wouldn’t steep on the cuffs when he walked.
With a feeling of resignation, he walked over to the painting. The rule seemed to be that he had to see the change there first before he could notice it on his own body. It was still on the floor near the window. He seemed to have gotten even muscular. The material of the shirt looked stretched against his broad chest, and his pants seemed a size to small around his legs.
Something was pushing against his real shirt. While he’d slept, two breasts had formed on his chest. They looked small, not more than a B-cup, but the women in his family never were very big on top. They had great legs and butts, though, and he suspected that he now did as well. He didn’t have the guts to drop his slacks and look, but his waist seemed much narrower than before. His slacks would have fallen off as he walked, except that the tightened belt couldn’t get past his wide hips.
He stuck a hand down and felt his butt. It was nice and round, soft but firm. He remembered that line from some story he’d read about how the Lord made women’s asses the way He did because sometimes they leave us, and this way it was nice to watch them go. But why did it have to be his butt?
As long as he was feeling around, he felt for his “equipment”. Everything was still there, but it was a lot smaller. He penis felt like it was only a couple of inches long, and his balls were the size of marbles. His scrotal sack and shrunk down to accommodate the things and seemed to be more attached to his groin, rather than just hang down. Everything seemed just as sensitive to the touch as ever, but when he rubbed his finger along the scrotal sack, he began to get a tingling feeling in his chest as well. John realized that it was his now feminine nipples reacting to the stimulation
Frustrated with his situation, he decided to try to take his mind off what was happening to him by fixing some supper. It was a good thing that he’d had some food delivered to the apartment from the local market, since he couldn’t call for take-out. He pulled a TV dinner from the freezer and nuked it in the microwave. It was ready in about ten minutes, and John took the dinner and another beer and sat down to watch SIXTY MINUTES, one of his favorite shows.
Only tonight it wasn’t. The damn spell must be working on his mind, too. He found that he wasn’t as interested in the story on a major Midwest polluter as he normally would have been. As a rule, he tended to side with the polluter who was just trying to make a buck or get rid of some excess red tape. Now he felt himself getting mad at the guy. But even so, he wasn’t getting as caught up in the report as he would have in the past.
The next story, a feature about a Renoir exhibit in Chicago fascinated him, though. Sure he liked art, but never this much. Was his mind turning feminine? No, lots of women he knew weren’t that much into art. It had to be more specific, but he couldn’t figure out just what.
He finished the TV dinner while he watched. It normally took more than a dinner to fill him up; he usually had bread on the side and sometimes a second desert. Tonight, though, he was stuffed. In fact, he left some of the meat and didn’t quite finish the cobbler. He took the container out to the garbage can in the kitchen during the closing credits and went over to look at the painting again.
There didn’t seem to be any change. No, he looked again. The pants were tighter than before. There was a noticeable bulge at the crotch. John’s hand shot down into his pants. He knew what he’d find. Or not find. Yes, they were gone. In the midst of a thatch of soft curls, his fingers found a moist slit surrounded by two sensitive folds of skin. A finger slipped in. He found his lost penis, now converted into the nub of a clitoris. He pulled his hand out in horror.
There was a knock on the door.
“It’s stuck,” he called. Maybe whoever this was could force it open, and he -- John still thought of himself that way, despite the evidence -- could escape.
“Not to me is not,” came the voice. Stavros! The door opened, and the man came in.
“Change me back,” John shouted.
“No!” Stavros looked John up and down as if inspecting his handiwork.
“Can’t we make some sort of deal? I’ll sign a lifetime lease. You can live here forever.”
“Stavros already got that. He live here till Stavros want to leave. Not before.”
“Money. I’m rich. How much to get my old body back.”
“Stavros not need your money. Your old body gone anyway.”
“What?”
“The body you got now is the body you was born with. At least that what everybody else think.”
“Impossible.”
“Ha!” He walked over to the table and picked up the phone. “Phone works now. Call somebody, anybody you want. They tell you that you was always girl. You was born girl.” He looked John straight in the eye and his voice lowered menacingly. “And you gonna die a girl.”
“No! Change me back. I can’t live like this.”
“You got no choice, but don’t worry. You gonna like it.”
“What?”
“You see. Here.” Stavros tossed John a book, The Impressionists as a Rebellion. It seemed familiar to John, though he’d never heard of it before. “Sit and read,” Stavros said. “Everything work itself out.”
John felt compelled to sit in the chair. He opened the book, seemingly at random, and began reading. Somehow he seemed to know what points the author had been making. He felt dizzy, and the room slowly faded away.
*****
“Hey, Joan, you going to be reading the rest of the night?”
John -- no, Joan – Norman looked up from her book. Rich Kelso was standing near the hallway to the bedroom dressed in a T-shirt and a pair of gym shorts. The apartment looked different. She looked out the window and could tell from the view that she was now on the second floor. She looked at her wristwatch, a slender woman’s watch. It was almost 11.
“I’m sorry, Hon,” she found herself saying. “Radburn’s about due for one of her infamous pop quizzes, and this is one Art History major who doesn’t intend to get caught by surprise. Especially not by the head of her department.” She blinked her eyes for a moment as the spell re-wrote her memories to match her new existence.
“Yeah, but so late? What’ll happen if you miss a couple questions?”
“First, my grade point average will drop.”
“So, you’re not on a scholarship or anything.”
Then, my Dad finds out about it. We both know that the only thing that annoys him as much as our living together is my being an Art History major. He’ll start ranting about my switching to Business or even $ gag! $ Pre-Law. Hell, If I was a boy, there wouldn’t even be a question. I’d have had to be a Business major.”
Rich walked over and slowly ran a finger along the nape of her neck. “Gee,” he said, “It’s a good thing that you’re not a boy.”
“Stop that! I’ve got studying to do.”
Rich kept stroking. His hand moved down towards Joan’s breast.
Joan stood up and grabbed Rich’s head in her hands. She pulled him towards her and kissed him. Hard! He opened his mouth in surprise and felt her tongue dart in rubbing against his own. Damn, she was a good kisser.
Joan broke the kiss and pushed him away. She smiled and sat down at the table. “That’ll hold you for a while. Unless, of course, you can’t wait and decide to hold your own.” She giggled at the joke and the effect that she knew she was having on him. “You give me an hour more at the books, and I’ll… I’ll give you an hour at me.”
Rich grinned. “Best offer I’ve had all day. I’ll be back for you in --” He looked at his watch. “Fifty-nine minutes and thirty eight seconds.” He turned and headed for the bedroom.”
“Well, tick, tick, tick,” Joan said before she returned to her studying.
*****
Stavros put away the scrying bowl. He just wanted to be left alone; to enjoy his life in peace. He wasn’t vindictive, but he hated to be disturbed. This one would be happier in his, no, her, new life, and Rich had deserved a reward for defending him.
The End
