It had been 4 days since my little adventure in
space/time where I’d spent a handful of hours as an 18 year-old Ohioan named
Meghan Cafferty. While I had passed a quiet morning as Meghan, my reality, the
one I had so mysteriously leaped away from, had advanced 8 full days. This was
how, upon my return, I found myself minus several vacation days at work but
plus one in the girlfriend department. Perhaps girlfriend is too strong a word.
Let’s just say ‘it’s complicated’.
Erica, a sixth year Ph.D student at a local
university and I had shared two lengthy phone-calls over the course of my four
days back. I was able to deftly play the ‘so tell me more about what you do’
card to get past the fact that I had no memory of what had happened while I was
away. I was only very slowly getting access to what Erica and Meghan had experienced
together while the latter has been passing as me.
Erica seemed flirty and fun, though a great deal
smarter than me. We hit it off pretty well. I already wondered how I was going
to mess this up. I wouldn’t have to wait long for my life to present me with
just such a chance.
Today, I was busy catching up on budget stuff for
the firm I worked at downtown. It was nearing noon, and I eagerly anticipated
lunch with Erica, our first in-person get together since I’d fallen asleep next
to her the night I ‘got back.’ We’d decided on a quiet little bistro. In
preparation for today I had my shirt pressed and everything. Work was flying by
with minimal hiccups and intrusions. I’d told my assistant, an obsequious young
man named Ian, to deflect and defend as much as possible. Since he loved to
talk, almost everyone who dropped by gave up after a blizzard of verbiage.
My office door was closed and I had about 15 minutes
more work to do before I could pop out when out of nowhere it began to happen. ‘It’
in this case being a transformation I thought had been a one-time deal. The
opening salvo was a quick strike to my groin. By which I mean to say that one
moment my business was all there, the next it was gone. And in its place I
could feel the unmistakable sensation of young Meghan’s most intimate of areas.
It all happened so fast it barely had time to
register when my phone buzzed to life,
