Alt.Univ.
by Marknew
A love story


1

It was eleven in the morning, a perfect early Autumn day. It was busy in the
office, comfortably so, but not so busy that I couldn't take advantage of one
of the perks of being my own boss. "Annie!" I called. Ten seconds later Annie
Olsen walked into my office, pad in hand, her long, straight hair, which was
just on the brown side of blond, getting in her eyes as usual. She brushed it
back with her usual practiced motion and gave me a big smile. She'd come with
me when I'd left my first post-graduation job two years ago and held the
office together. She always saw that everything ran smoothly, even when Dave
Barnes, my financial guru, and I were out of the office.

"I was just on with McGill Contractors. Can you believe they sent just two men
to the site today? I gave them some real hell and they promised to send out
the full team." She held her fist in the air triumphantly. "I'll head down
there after lunch just to make sure they do."

I nodded with approval. She was terrific, pretty too, nearly as tall (and
taller in the heels she loved to wear) as my five feet eleven inches, with an
athletic, graceful walk and a willowy figure. In addition to her efficiency, I
was sure that her looks were one reason that my clients gave our pitches the
consideration they did. They loved to meet at our offices or better yet, would
insist that Annie come to meetings at their offices to "help with the
arrangements." She didn't mind their attention at all, and I was sure I'd lose
her sooner or later to a client, either as an employee or a wife. But for now
she was mine.

Yes, I was the boss and had all of two employees -- Annie and Dave. Dave was a
good man, fifteen years older than I was, experienced in the field, although
by no means a go-getter. Still, he was a valuable part of the team and I was
thinking of asking him to join me as a partner. After all, my real estate
development business was a year ahead of my business plan, with as much work
as I could handle and keep up the quality. I was thinking of expanding, hiring
more people, taking on more projects. Still, that wasn't my only priority in
life. And now I was about to attend to one of those other priorities.

"That's great Annie. Don't forget to remind them that we have the Kollmer
shopping center project coming up and they won't be on that one if they don't
meet their commitments this time. Listen, we'll need to organize a dinner for
the Kollmer people next week. The Chicago VP is coming in to check on the
plans."

"He's the one who likes eating at the Riverside Inn, right?"

"That's him. Make it at eight, and see if Debbie can make it too." She nodded,
noting it in her pad. "Oh, and would you ask Debbie if she can get away early
today? I feel like some tennis, say at the club at 3:30." I looked outside.
"You can take off at three too."

"I can? Thanks! I'll call her right now." She flashed me a smile and left the
office. I watched her go, then leaned back in my chair, thinking about the
weekend.

2

"Game!" I called, watching her shot fall just short of the net. "4-1. Switch
sides." Debbie bit her lip and jogged to the side of the net while I walked
there to meet her. "That was a great return."

She looked up at me, her face flushed, her eyes bright. "I really got around
on your serve that time, Tom. You're getting tired," she teased, touching my
chest and rubbing it lightly with her fingers. My shirt was soaked through,
and she wiped her fingers on my shorts, making a little face.

"Not by a long shot," I said, controlling my breathing and bending down to
kiss her. No way I'd let her know how hard she was making me work, keeping me
running from side to side with her well-placed strokes. "I sure wasn't too
tired to hit that last rocket at your feet." She made a little face, too
competitive to accept that for all her conditioning, quickness and good form,
she couldn't handle the ball when I hit it solidly. I rested my hand below her
neck, feeling the soft warmth of her skin and the light sheen of her
perspiration. She looked up at me, her dark hair clamped together in a comb
she'd bought this summer at the beach, her warm brown eyes resting on mine,
squinting a bit from the bright later afternoon sun. I could not believe how
much I loved her! The fire in her eyes, the freckles on her little nose, the
soft red lips framing a mouth that could equally spew the heat of her love and
of her sharp, sarcastic wit (when she was so inclined). My eyes drifted down
to her chest, to the lovely softball breasts she bound within her sports bra
but that still bounced inconveniently (to my amusement and pleasure) during
her energetic scrambling around the court, and to her toned arms, those
surprising little biceps she worked so hard to build, the round tight curve of
her hip and ass, and those sturdy but smooth legs. She was an absolutely
perfect package, hard and soft in all the right places. She'd been mine for
almost five years now. How had I been so lucky?

She gave me a light punch in the gut. "Get your breath back honey?" she said,
grinning. "Come on! I don't want to give you too much rest."

"Who needs rest?" I boasted.

She laughed. "You will, after I run you ragged the next five games. But don't
worry, I'll let you have your nap before we go out tonight. We have a great
night ahead of us." She ran back to the baseline to serve while I set myself
up halfway between the baseline and the service line.

Five games? I chuckled. That's how many she'd need to win, but I'd close it
out in two. Then a shower, back home for a little time "together" before we
got ready for tonight. And yes, maybe a nap too. It would be our last chance
alone in the house for awhile. Debbie's niece, Chloe, would be staying with us
for two and a half weeks, starting tomorrow, while Debbie's brother, the
famous lawyer Jon Wachsen, and his snobby, amazonic wife Elaine took a
vacation in France. I wasn't looking forward to it. Chloe was a sullen
strong-willed fifteen year old. She was already a strapping 5'10" with an
overdeveloped chest and she was still growing like a weed. Debbie would bear
the brunt of Chloe's emotional storms, particularly because Chloe's size made
it easy for her to try to dominate her Aunt, but because Debbie often worked
late I'd have at least half the responsibility for keeping her current on her
school work and out of trouble. I knew Chloe would do her best to defy me and
make me uncomfortable. With me she'd use a different tactic -- to distract and
discomfit me with skimpy or tight clothing or by carelessly leaving an extra
button or two open -- and I wanted as little time alone with her as I could
manage. It was hard not to think about Chloe's ripe body. I would never act on
those thoughts of course, but I would have to be on my guard. I was relieved
that Debbie wasn't picked to be on the trial team for a case starting in
California later that week.

Debbie was starting her motion for the serve and I blinked away those thoughts
to concentrate on the game. As usual, it was a perfect toss and the crisp
slash of her racquet sent a nice shot to the corner of the box. I moved over
smartly and hit it back hard across the court. She moved over and backhanded
it, but I'd moved up to the net and hit an angled shot she couldn't reach.

She shook her head, annoyed with herself for giving me such an easy volley.
This was usually the way our games went. She was one of the top women players
at our club, but I'd been on the varsity team in college too, and the shots
that set up winners for her against women rarely worked against me. I felt a
bit badly about beating her so consistently, but I'd learned early in our
relationship, even before we'd gotten married, that easing up on her only made
her angry. She hated losing but she hated being patronized even more. And she
never let her emotions from losing to me linger after we left the court. So I
learned not told anything back and to play as hard against her as I could.
Since then she'd never beaten me -- never won more than three games from me in
a set in fact -- and almost invariably a hot game of tennis led to a hot
session in bed. It was a definitely a win-win situation.

I closed out the game, losing just one point when I overhit a return, and then
got ready to serve for the set. I loved serving, and my first point was a hard
flat shot right at her forehand. She hit it back, and I volleyed an approach
shot to her backhand and then smashed it beyond her. The second point was an
ace, a rising bounce she couldn't reach up to hit. She turned and put her
hands on her hips showing her displeasure, then crossed the court for my next
serve. I faulted, and then she hit a good return on my slice. We rallied
several times, each of us near the baseline, my shots moving her deeper than
hers moved me, but she still gamely kept me at bay. Finally she hit a
cross-court shot that was just a bit short and I took advantage and hurried
toward the net, volleying it to her forehand corner. She moved to cover and
tried to lob, but it fell short and I put it away. Forty-love now. I reached
back for another ace and saw her move further back, beyond the baseline. Good!
I eased up, giving it a backspin into the wind. It slipped over the net and
died. She just watched it and screamed in frustration. And then laughed.

She ran up to the net and I joined her, then lifted her over it with my free
arm and swung her around. "You brute! Using your superior male strength to
take advantage of me!" she said, before I silenced her with a long kiss. She
made a show of kicking her legs as I carried her off the court and into the
clubhouse putting her down outside the locker rooms.

"Ten minutes?" I said, knowing it always took her twenty.

"Forty!" she replied, elbowing me, and disappeared through the door.

I went into the locker room, stripped off my sweaty clothes and headed for the
shower. Yes, I was lucky. I was still passionately in love with love with her.
I started thinking about what we'd do when we got home, then looked down to
make sure I wasn't "dressed" inappropriately for the shower room and decided
to think about something else. Our lives, for example. Both of us doing well
with our careers, Debbie, just starting out with the top law firm in our
community, where someday she'd be a partner, and me, heading my own small real
estate development company. We had a nice house, belonged to a good club. My
friends from high school still lived nearby and my college friends were no
more than a few hours away. True, I wished sometimes we'd started our family
already -- Debbie's ambitions for her law career conflicted with that and it
was a subject of frequent, "discussions" between us. Perhaps our marriage
wasn't "perfect," but all in all things could not be better. I couldn't
imagine trading places with anyone in the world.

I got dressed and wandered to the club room, looking out the large picture
window at the golf course, staring at a dark cloud in the distance. Some
crackling thunder while we were making love would be great -- if we could get
the timing right. But this was real life, not a movie. Debbie was ready -- at
last -- called me and we headed home.

As I'd hoped, we started tearing each other's clothes off from the minute we
walked through the door. We kicked off our sneakers first, then I undid the
snaps of my shorts myself, then I lifted her dress over her head, bending down
to kiss her flat stomach and the curve of her hip and waist I loved so much.
Meanwhile, once free of her dress she slowly began pulling down the zipper of
my shorts, taking time to feel my growing dick with her subtle hands. I sighed
and continued with my own mission, freeing her breasts from her bra, enjoying
the way they sprung out when they were released, those soft, succulent white
globes of pleasure. I cupped them and rubbed them in a circular motion the way
she liked it, then lifted her again and carried her up the stairs over my
shoulder to our room. She nibbled on my neck and shoulders, while I would stop
every few feet to lift her higher and let her breasts dangle onto my face,
kissing them gently and taking her nipples into my mouth, to the sound of her
delighted moans and squeals. As we reached our room I backed onto the bed,
letting her fall onto me. It was the one limitation we had -- with her small
size she was never comfortable with me on top -- but her passion made this
position as good as it could be, and I loved to watch her breasts shake as she
moved on top of me. She spread her legs around me and I entered her slowly,
moving in deeper and deeper with each thrust as she pulled on me. She was
ready and her ever louder screams signalled her first orgasm, the first of a
series that ended only after the thunderstorm outside was well underway.
Finally, exhausted, we lay entwined. I happy drifted off into that foggy zone
between the real world and what I called Cumland, the dreamy post-coital realm
of well-being and utter fulfilment, while Debbie nuzzled her head on my chest,
nibbling on me just to make sure I knew she was there.

Finally, after she felt I'd rested enough, she tugged on my shoulders. "YOU
need another shower, Tom, unless you want Gregg and Janice to smell ME all
night!" I smiled and pulled her closer, enjoying her smell and warmth, then
slowly rolled out of bed, carrying her with me into our shower, letting her
turn on the water as we stepped in, still intertwined, and started preparing
for our Friday night out.

3

I'd known Gregg almost my whole life, and Janice had been Debbie's best friend
ever since Debbie had moved to the town where I'd grown up. I had known Janice
too though, longer than Debbie had, and more intimately than Debbie knew.

Janice and I had been an on-and-off item during my last two years in high
school, ever since Janice had arrived as a freshman. Debbie knew that, but I'd
never given her all the details, and I was sure Janice hadn't either.

It was just two weeks into my football season as a high school junior when I
noticed a broad-shouldered girl with reddish brown hair, slightly taller than
average, who stood on the sidelines watching me run patterns. Something about
her intrigued me and I couldn't help but look at her each time I walked back
from another sprint down the field. It was the way she held herself, a certain
animalistic grace, as if standing on the ground she actually was poised a
quarter of an inch above it. Later I realized it was a product of her ballet
training. She'd studied ballet from the age of three but had recently given it
up when she started developing physically. She rebelled against the diet she'd
been given to suppress the growth of her breasts and maintain her dancer's
form. Instead, she switched to sports and was already playing field hockey,
with plans for basketball in the winter and tennis (my second sport) in the
spring. Her body astounded me. I'd never known a girl could be strong -- her
legs were actually stronger than mine, although my upper body strength
naturally was greater. But she was so flexible and quick that I could never
pin her if she didn't let me. But I'm getting ahead of myself. After running
patterns we started scrimmaging, which drew my attention back to the game, and
I lost track of Janice until I emerged from the showers after practice. There
she was, riding around the football field on my bicycle, having somehow picked
my lock. I called to her, and she turned and sped up, riding directly at me,
making me dive out of the way at the last minute. She stopped short ten feet
further on and hopped off the bicycle, balancing it by holding onto the seat.

"You want to ride?"

"Well, yeah. It's my bike. I sort of need it to get home."

"I'm Janice Green. Can you drop me off at my house?" I shrugged. "I won't take
you out of your way."

"Ok. Hop on." I mounted the seat and she sat on the bar just in front of me,
leaning against my arms, which were wrapped around her to steer the bike,
somehow holding herself so straight that she only brushed me lightly. I could
smell her hair and skin and suddenly I wanted a lot more.

"You're breathing hard. Am I too heavy?" she teased.

"No," I replied manfully.

"Then it's because you like me, isn't it?" she laughed, leaning against me
slightly more. "You can stop by for some hot chocolate, if you want." I didn't
say anything. "Are you always this quiet?"

"No. Hot chocolate would be good," I said, between breaths. We were going
uphill.

She leaned back and kissed me on the cheek. I was so surprised that I swerved
and we would have gone over except that she quickly adjusted her balance and
we righted ourselves. "Sorry. Did I shock you?"

"No. Don't, uh, apologize."

"Here. My house is here." I braked and she got off. I followed her inside. The
house was dark and she spoke as she turned on some lights. "My Mom's working.
My Dad lives in Wisconsin. They're divorced. My brother's in college at
Madison. We have lo-cal and regular."

"Regular."

"That's what I like too. The lo-cal is for Mom." She put a saucepan on the
stove. "That was cool on the bike. I liked riding with you. It was exciting
when we almost fell."

"You have good balance."

"You're pretty strong. I'm not light, you know." I didn't say anything. "Don't
be shy. I'm not embarrassed about it. It's not like it's fat or anything bad.
It's just muscle. I've got a lot of it, for a girl I mean."

Hearing her talk about her body, even in that indirect way, was making me very
turned on. I looked at her more closely and she stood still, quiet, letting me
look at her straight, firm, tomboyish body, interrupted only by what I now
know were B-cup breasts but which to me then looked huge on a high school
freshman. I saw her take a quick breath and realized that for all her cool
bravado she was scared, wondering how she was measuring up. And that
realization did it. I crossed the five feet of empty space between us and put
my hands on her shoulders as she looked up to me. Her voice was unsteady. "You
know, if you kiss me, you might -- I might not be able to stop." I kissed her.

One week after that, neither of us were virgins anymore. (I actually didn't
know whether she'd had sex before then, but I sure hadn't.) For the next six
months my grades nose-dived, I almost got booted off the football team for not
learning the plays, my parents had me tested for drugs, and I learned more
about my body, and the female body, than I'd ever imagined there was to know.
But I recovered my bearings enough to graduate high enough, with my SATs and
tennis, to get into Cornell.

It wasn't all love. Janice and I broke up and got back together half a dozen
times in two years. Each time I vowed not to go back to her, and each time we
reunited more passionately than before. She was like a drug I couldn't stop
taking, and it must have been the same for her. The pattern ended when I went
away to school, while she stayed in town and enrolled at Purchase, but quickly
a new one emerged. We each had our own lives now, different friends, habits
and ambitions, but several times a year we'd find a way to couple up again for
a night or two, secretly. I don't know if she thought about me much. I know I
didn't think about her for months at a time. And then one day one of us would
have an itch that nothing else could satisfy. I'd call her or she'd call me
and within hours excuses were given, tickets were bought, a room was booked
and we were in a bed, wild with passion. And then nothing for months at a
time. This went on for years, like a background hum to every affair I had
during college, and then, when she took on a teaching job and I'd moved to New
York City, during my first full time job and then at business school as well.

It was my last year of business school when I met Debbie, when she was in her
first year of law school. It was immediately a very different relationship
from any I had previously. It started, of all places, in a library. I had
always roomed with a fairly raucous group but that was proving a disadvantage
for me during this particular semester, when I was interning at the city
development board, carrying a full load of classes and volunteering as a
tennis coach at a city school. I was working in the law library, which was on
the edge of campus closest to my apartment, when I noticed Debbie sit down
across from me. I'd seen her before and had liked the way she moved. Although
she was shorter than most girls I was attracted to there was something in her
appearance that intrigued me. Was it the way she seemed to dress well without
looking like one of the fashion horses common at the school? Was it her firm,
athletic walk and her proud posture that made her seem taller than her 5'3",
even without heels? Was it as simple as the way she carried her busty chest --
not displayed through tight sweaters or open-necked blouses, but still
matter-of-factly thrust out, noticeable even through the prim silk
professional-style blouse and jacket combination she wore even to study at the
library. It was clear she'd come from a family with money and style. In any
case, she was a ready distraction for my eyes and that night I'd chosen my
desk in the area where I'd seen her work before. She quickly laid out her
equipment and got underway, busily highlighting her casebook with a four-color
system I have yet to understand, while at the same time taking notes,
answering questions from three of four other law students who approached her
through the evening, and occasionally filling in a few boxes in a nearly
completed New York Times crossword puzzle. I looked up after one particularly
long interruption, when two guys had surrounded her, arguing in a fierce
whisper about a principle of contract law called "consideration." I'd taken my
own business law course the previous semester, and finally leaned over to
Debbie's side of the desk to join her side in the argument. The three of them
listened impatiently to my practical resolution of the question, then went
right back to their Jesuitical jargon-filled hair-splitting for another ten
minutes. Ignored, I returned to work, resolving to try to Science library next
time, which was just a block further away. After they left, Debbie wrote a few
notes, then stared at the ceiling for a few moments and cleared her throat.
She leaned over to me.

"That may have seemed a little rude. We, uh, study law in a different way from
business students. The argument's more important than the answer. We have to
be able to see both sides."

"I see," I replied, a degree or two warmer than cold.

"Your point was right of course, from the business perspective. No one ever
gets out of a contract for lack of consideration anymore. But on the other
hand, contracts invariably recite that consideration has been paid, even when
it hasn't."

"Sounds like a legal fiction. Consideration, that is."

She looked at me intently. "Am I supposed to take that two ways?" she asked.
"I'm trying to apologize."

I smiled. "I was trying to accept."

"Hmmm. Offer and acceptance. Sounds like a deal," she replied. "But to be
sure, it should be supported by consideration."

I got it. "Will a drink do the trick?"

"I'll let you know."

We packed up our books and made our way to Keggels, a student bar that was
normally filled on weekends but was quiet this Tuesday night. I picked up a
beer for me and white wine for her and we settled into a table at the back.

"So, how many first year law students have you tried to pick up, Mr. Business
School?" she said as I settled down.

"I have a perfect record: one for one. Tom Beams," I said, extending my hand.

"Deborah Wachsen," she replied, giving me hers. Her handshake was firm and
friendly. "And which investment bank are you aiming for?"

"TBA"

She looked at me quizzically. "What's that? To be announced?"

"Tom Beams Associates. My goal is to have my own firm in four years -- but not
investment banking, real estate."

She looked surprised. "I thought all B school students wanted to make their
millions advising the next Microsoft."

"Most do. But I want to control my own life. I've worked for a big company
before, and I have no interest sucking up to other people. I know enough about
engineering, marketing and finance to run a good-sized development company,
and I know just the place where I want to do it."

"Oh? Where?"

"Ardsley, or around there."

"Ha! I grew up in Bedford. Why Ardsley?"

"Development is spreading out from NYC, but the skills of the development
companies haven't kept pace. Besides, if I work near my home I'll be able to
spend more time with my family, when I have one."

"You've got a real long term plan then? And you've selected your partners for
your ventures? Or is this a family business?"

"No. My father's a salesman for Pfizer, and most of my family are small
businessmen -- mostly retail."

"A lot of mine are lawyers. Both my parents are, and my brother's a hot shot
corporate lawyer. So is his wife."

"So, you're following in the family tradition."

"I suppose. It's in my blood, and I think I can be a really good lawyer. My
Dad is half-retired. He teaches law at Queens College. He wants me to work
with my brother but I haven't decided yet."

"Is he the Wachsen who advised GE on the Honeywell deal?" She nodded. "I've
heard of that firm. Marshall & Wachsen. You'd be making a lot of money there."

"I know. But I want to be a litigator, and lawyers there spend most of their
time reading discovery documents and filing motions. I want to be a trial
lawyer, running my own cases. My brother thinks I'm crazy, and his wife says
-- well, I won't start going on about her. I think I'd like to try a smaller
firm, maybe not in the city. Everybody tells me if I don't start with one of
the big Wall Street firms I'll never get the chance. But they miss the point.
Once I get used to that kind of environment and pay I'd never be able to leave
it. You get trapped."

"You're right." I liked her. Right away I could see something similar in the
way we looked at things, and also I saw something shining in her eyes. "Do you
want another glass?"

"I'd better not. I still have some more cases to summarize for class
tomorrow." She looked down at the table.

"Oh." I looked at her arm and something about the shape of her forearm made me
ask, "what about this weekend? Do you play tennis?"

She looked up and smiled. "I sure do. Why?"

"I can book us a court for Saturday afternoon, and maybe we can have dinner
afterwards."

"That sounds great. Uh, but I have to warn you. I was first seed on my college
team and I'm pretty competitive."

"Sounds good to me. I was just fifth seed, but I keep my game up pretty well."

"Oh DO you? Well, this will be fun."

I walked her back to her apartment -- a much nicer building than mine and we
parted without a kiss, but she gave me a warm smile before letting the doorman
close the door and I walked home with a light feeling in my feet.

Saturday was a perfect fall day and as we warmed up I could see why she'd been
first seed. Even though she was small, she hit the ball firmly and accurately
and she covered the court quickly. I let her serve first and won the first
three points. She took the next two, and then I hit a solid cross-court shot
for a winner. We switched sides, and she grinned at me, saying "so, you keep
up your game a little?" I just grinned back.

On my serve I let up a little bit on the first two, using placement to test
her strong and weak points but losing the points. Then I uncorked an ace and
hit another hard serve to her backhand to even the score at deuce. I knew then
I could beat her easily, so I eased up again and hit the ball to her forehand.
She frowned and hit it back hard to my backhand. I rallied back, she hit a
slice beyond my reach. I hit another ace to bring it back to deuce, then took
a bit off on a shot to her backhand and won the point on a hard approach shot.
She couldn't handle my hook serve at all, so I was in the lead 2-0.

She seemed a little annoyed now, so I let up a bit on her serve and she won it
Game-15. She motioned me to come up to the net and she grabbed my arm. "Listen
Tom. I know what you're doing, and I don't like it."

"What do you mean?"

"You're letting me win. That is SO condescending and typical."

"Deborah, I ... if you want me to try harder I'll --

"I play to win, and I expect my opponents to do that too. Otherwise it's not a
real game. It's a ... a play! I know you don't know me very well, but you can
probably guess already that I'm not a little helpless female. I work hard and
play hard and I don't let anyone, man or woman, control me. When you play like
that, it's like you're controlling the game, toying with me. I don't mind
losing -- well, I do mind -- but I mind it MUCH more when I win something just
because someone GAVE it to me. It's dishonest."

"Dishonest?"

"It's like ... faking an orgasm."

I didn't really see the connection, but I got the idea. "OK. Message
received."

I settled into my game rhythm now and held my serve Game-15, then took the
next two games to go up 5-1. We were both perspiring now despite the cool air,
but Debbie's eyes had that fire again and I could see she was happier. Well,
that was good. And I had to admit I was having more fun too. I hit my serve
hard and deep and she moved back well, returning a long lob. I slammed it for
my first point. I faulted on my next serve and then Debbie moved in and hit a
neat angled shot to even it. My next serve was right at her, but she stepped
aside and hit a little chip shot I couldn't reach to take the lead. I faulted
again, then hit a soft hook that she hit hard to the baseline. We rallied now,
six, seven, eight shots, until she hit one short and I put it away. Then I hit
a hard first serve to her backhand and the ball glanced off her racquet and
dribbled into the net. I could hear her swear. Serving for the set now I hit a
hard slice to her forehand. She swung but missed the curve and it bounced up
and hit her in the cheek. She groaned and I dropped my racquet and ran to the
other side, cursing myself for hitting the ball so hard. I thought I saw a
tear on her cheek, but she turned away and by the time I'd reached her, she
was just biting her lip.

"I'm sorry I --

She was rubbing her stomach and also rubbing the tear away. She shook her head
and held up her hand to stop me, then opened her eyes. "That ... was a nice
shot Tom," she said, gritting her teeth. "Don't apologize. I'm fine. I hit it
wrong, that's all. Good game. You're very good, you know." She looked me over.
"And you listened to what I said. You took me seriously. I like that."

"But you got hurt."

"So? I got bruised. I'll heal. No big deal. It was a good game, wasn't it?"

I nodded. She'd actually run me around more than many of my usual tennis
partners, and I'd enjoyed the workout and the game. More importantly for me,
I'd enjoyed watching her run around and I liked her spirit.

"So, what time is dinner?" she asked.

"I made the reservation for eight, so we'd have plenty of time to shower here,
change and maybe have a drink."

"I have a better idea. I've changed my mind about what I'm wearing tonight, so
I want to go back to my apartment. You can come shower there too. I bet you'd
like the shower at my place more than at the athletic center."

"Sure, if you don't mind my sweaty body."

She laughed and just picked up her gym bag and I followed her out of the
courts. She was chatting away happily now, telling me all about her family --
her father's Supreme Court arguments, her famous brother and sister in law,
and also her mother's decorating business, which sounded very fancy. Before we
knew it we were in her apartment. "Why don't you go first? I know you'll be
quicker than I will."

"Are you sure? I can wait."

"No you can't. Go ahead."

"OK. Thanks." She handed me a towel and some non-perfumed soap and I went into
the bathroom. It was about three times the size of the one I shared with three
friends. The shower itself was nearly as large as my bathroom, and I quickly
settled under the large head, closing my eyes and enjoying the pulsating spray
on my back. Just when I was nearly finished soaping away the sweat and grime I
felt a draft and Debbie was there, her arms around my chest, her breasts
pushing against my back.

"Now you'll have to wash your back all over again!" she laughed. I turned
around, my big grin plain as can be. "I think I showed a lot of restraint,
waiting until you were clean!" she added, her eyes sparkling, her face lifted
to mine. I bent over and we had our first kiss under that pulsating beat of
her shower, my excited member pulsing at its own rhythm against her stomach.
She leaned back, letting me see her firm round breasts, enjoying my obvious
interest.

"You're beautiful," I said, too overwhelmed by this rapid turn of events to
say or do much else, and then I kissed her again and she wrapped her arms
around me more tightly.

"I'm so glad you think so," she whispered in my ear. "You don't find me too
forward?"

"I'm very happy to have found you at all!"

"Why, 'cause I'm small?"

"You're not small," I countered, looking at her breasts, venturing to touch
them. She paused, letting me explore their weighty softness.

"I like that," she said, her voice a little unsteady. "But why don't you make
yourself useful." She handed me the soap. "Just be sure you're VERY thorough."

It was a shower I'll never forget, and although I won't go into all the
detail, I will say that we never made it out to dinner. But it was many months
and a lot of long discussions about commitment, family, honesty and other
issues before Debbie finally agreed that we were a "couple" and several more
before she invited me to dinner at her large Bedford house, with her parents
and her brother and sister in law. That, apparently, meant in her eyes our
relationship was now official even though, as I learned later, it took over a
month of family arguments after the dinner before they all decided I was
acceptable. Two months later, in a quiet ceremony that met with our
requirements but not those of her parents, we were married.

Once Debbie and I became established in my own mind (which was long before
Debbie admitted it) I stopped calling Janice, and twice when she called I
begged off. But then, probably eight months after I'd met Debbie, when I had
graduated and Debbie and I were sharing my apartment most weekends, the urge
to see Janice hit me. Debbie was away and I dialled Janice's number three
times and hung up each time after the first ring, thinking I was insane. Then
while I was staring at the phone Janice rang me, gave me an address and a
time. Ten minutes later I was in my car and in two more hours I was inside
Janice. We hardly left her bedroom that weekend. It was a night and a day of
complete ecstasy until Saturday evening I felt a wave of vertigo in the middle
of yet another oral exploration of Janice's right breast. My tongue stopped
and I got up. She looked at me, puzzled.

"I can't do this."

She laughed. "You're doing just fine, Tom."

I started looking for my shorts. "No. It's ... I can't do this anymore. I've
got to get back."

"But you said Debbie won't be back until tomorrow."

I shook my head. "Janice ... I ... I'm sorry. Really."

She realized I was serious. Her face reddened, and then her eyes watered. I
could see every muscle in her body tense (an image of surprising female
muscular development that stayed with me for a long time) and then relax. She
struggled to control her voice. "You're ... you're making a mis...stake, Tom.
You ... you can't do this ... to us. We have something too!"

"I have to choose, Janice ... and I ... I'm so sorry."

She stared at me, not believing and then slowly stood up, holding herself very
straight. "You won't forget me Tom. I'll make sure of that. And you'll
remember me just like this." Her chest was thrust out, her eyes burning. I
turned and stumbled out of the room and went home. I was very subdued when
Debbie returned the next day, but I never explained to her what had happened.
I felt months of remorse, but gradually the significance of that weekend began
to fade. There were times when I still felt ashamed and guilty about Janice,
but I never said anything to Debbie. What would I say? How would I explain?
There was nothing wrong with our sex life, and I loved Debbie more than I'd
ever loved anyone or anything. I knew in my head and my heart that Janice
wasn't the one for me. I didn't daydream or fantasize about her. There was
little in Janice's life that I wanted, and everything in Debbie's life that I
wanted. Everything and more. And yet, there was a piece of me that belonged to
Janice, and I couldn't do a thing about it.

After Debbie graduated we moved to my home town, to help with the new business
I was starting and ease Debbie's commute to the regional law firm she decided
to join after turning down offers from the big firms in New York City. To my
surprise, Debbie quickly struck up a friendship with Janice and since Janice
had taken up with one of my old friends, Gregg, we became a natural couple.
Debbie knew about my past with Janice -- up to that one last weekend, that is
-- but she preferred dealing with Janice head on rather worrying about running
into her. She even liked the idea that I'd been able to manage the transition
from high school affair to a couple-to-couple relationship. She enjoyed Janice
as a counterpoint to the more sterile professional relationships with the
lawyers she was meeting in her practice and the intense ones within her
family.

To the outside world my marriage seemed perfect, but no one could say the same
about Gregg and Janice. They broke up four times during their engagement, most
spectacularly when a fire at the school where Janice taught English ended her
day early and she walked in on Gregg screwing his secretary. It got so bad for
awhile that neither Debbie nor I could talk to them or talk to each other
about them without taking sides and ending up in a huge row. Then, at a
wedding of another high school friend, Janice and Gregg recoupled in one of
the greatest X-rated wedding candid shots of all time. They got married a few
months later, not without several bust ups and even after they moved to
Rockland County we still heard about their troubles. But even though their
fighting could be embarrassing we saw them at least twice a month either as
part of a foursome or in larger groups. I enjoyed Gregg and his wild humor and
seeing Janice was like scratching a favorite itch. It was fine as long as I
didn't scratch it too much.

Lately Gregg had told me that he and Janice had been having more problems,
which no doubt had something to do with the stacked blond he'd told me about a
month before that. I was sure Debbie knew something about that too because of
the look she'd give me whenever I mentioned Gregg's name. Still, they'd seemed
fine together when we'd seen them last, and both of us were looking forward to
the evening.

4

We were late, as usual, and I sped down the rain-slicked winding roads toward
the small and very popular restaurant where we'd agreed to meet them, just
over the Bear Mountain Bridge. Debbie sat rigidly in her seat, unhappy at my
speed but well aware that we'd have been twenty minutes earlier had she not
changed dresses three times, so she was unusually quiet as a result. I was a
good driver. My night vision was much better than hers and with a surprising
lack of Friday night traffic we made up nearly all the time on the way. I
pulled onto the bridge and Debbie pointed to the lights of the restaurant on
the other bank, just about two hundred yards to the north. I started relaxing,
wondering what Janice would be wearing tonight, and thinking about what if
anything she'd be wearing underneath. I was nearly across the bridge when
suddenly a large pick-up truck crossed over the centerline heading right for
us. I jammed on the brakes but we skidded on the wet surface and the momentum
of the car hurtled us halfway over the low railing. We teetered precariously
above the roaring Hudson River, swollen by the evening's storms.

"GET OUT!!" I cried. "WE'RE GOING TO FALL IN!"

She pushed on the door. "I CAN'T. IT'S STUCK!"

I reached over to help push it open, but the car tilted further down and I had
to lean back onto my side to keep it in balance. "YOU'VE GOT TO COME TO MY
SIDE!"

She tugged on the seat belt, but it was caught next to her in the mangled
door. "YOU HAVE TO GET OUT WHILE YOU CAN, TOM!!" The car teetered.

"I CAN'T LEAVE YOU!"

Debbie was crying. "SAVE YOURSELF!" She pushed frantically at the door. "I'll
get out somehow. Just get out and then you can help me!"

I looked at her, then pushed out of the door and ran around the other side to
open the back door, but as I did the car turned over and knocked me down and
then tumbled into the water. I watched it in horror and then, not even
thinking, dived in to the middle of the river after it. My dive was perfect
but the fall paralyzed me for several seconds. The car was submerged in ten
feet of water. My door was ajar and I pushed it open and swam inside. Debbie
was unconscious, her head bleeding in the water. Fortunately the fall had
dislodged her belt and I was able to unbuckle it and pull her halfway out.
Then I had to go up for more air. I came back down and got her out of the car
the rest of the way and we floated downriver in the rough water until I was
able to drag her to a shallow part. She looked horrible, her face already
discolored from bruises, her neck at a bad angle, her shoulder crushed, her
arm twisted.

"HELP US!!" I screamed again and again into the wind. No one could hear. I
left her at the shore and climbed to the road and tried to wave down a car.
Three went right by me, but the next one stopped and I persuaded the driver to
call for an ambulance and to wait there for it while I went back down to
Debbie. She was still unconscious. I covered her with my jacket and then after
nearly half an hour helped the medics carry her up. We rode to the hospital
together. I must have been hurt more than I'd known, because I fainted in the
ambulance and was out for several hours while the doctors took care of my own
broken bones and internal bleeding.

It was the next morning before I could ask about Debbie. The nurses were
evasive, but finally our family doctor -- Dr. Arnold -- came in.

"Charles. Thank goodness you're here."

"I was here last night, Tom," he said gravely. "Tom. Debbie is in a very bad
state." I looked at him anxiously. "She's in a coma, Tom. I don't think she'll
come out of it."

"No!"

"Her injuries are very bad. Her spine was broken in the fall. Even if she
could wake up, she would never leave her wheelchair. But Tom, she won't wake
up. She was underwater too long." He put his hand on my shoulder. "Tom, I
thought should be straight with you."

I nodded. I couldn't speak. "Can I see her?"

"Later. You should say good-bye, Tom. You --" he paused and put his hand on my
shoulder. "You should give us instructions Tom. You understand what I'm
saying?"

I sat up. "NO. Don't do it! You can't kill Debbie!"

Dr. Arnold nodded. "We'll talk Tom, nothing will be done without your
approval. I'll make sure of it." He sighed. "I'm so sorry, Tom."

"She's not dead yet!"

"Of course she's not. Of course. After Dr. Carlson checks you, you can go see
her. I'll stop by later. Oh, your friends, Gregg and Janice were here almost
all night. That woman," he shook her head, "she must have been back and forth
between your room and the ICU twenty times. They just left a couple of hours
ago. Do you want me to call her for you?" I nodded. He shook my hand and left.

I lay back on my bed, staring at the ceiling and then out the window. Debbie a
vegetable? Debbie a quadriplegic? Debbie dead? Was it my fault? I couldn't
imagine it. A day ago we were still beginning our lives together. And now, it
was over? NO. Charles HAD to be wrong. Debbie had to survive. I'd never stop
fighting. I knew she wouldn't either.

But later when I saw her I wasn't so sure. I could hardly recognize my wife in
the twisted, bruised and flattened wreck I saw, connected to three tubes, a
mask to help her breathe, wired for monitoring and immersed in casts. I spoke
to her, touched her skin where I could find it, but there wasn't even a
flicker. I could barely walk back to my bed, but I shook off the nurses and
friends who wanted to help me. I couldn't stand their touch.

5

I left the hospital three days later. I never called Janice. Bob and Cheryl
took me home and Cheryl filled my freezer with enough to eat for a month. They
stayed with me for awhile and we talked about a number of details. Then Cheryl
asked, "Is she getting any better, Tom?"

"No," I replied dully.

They looked at each other. "What are you going to do, Tom?" Bob asked. I shook
my head. "Have you thought about her? Is she in pain?"

I started crying. "Shit Bob!" Cheryl said, and went up to me and held me. I
sobbed on her shoulder for a few minutes.

"I think I need to be alone," I sniffed.

"Jesus, Tom! We can't leave you like this!" Bob said.

Cheryl was stroking my arm. "We can come over in a minute, call us any time
you need to, Tom. You know that." I nodded. She laid her thin arm on Bob's
beefy chest. "Come on, Bob. Tom hasn't had a minute to himself since the
accident. We can call him in a little while, just to make sure he's ok."

"Are you sure, guy?" Bob said.

"Yeah."

I let them go, then went upstairs. I bent down on the bed, sniffing the
pillow. It still smelled like Debbie. How could I box that smell? Once it
left, I'd never smell it again. I backed out of the room and went back
downstairs, lay down on the couch and went to sleep. I woke up once when
Cheryl called to check in, and then it was 1:00 a.m. before I could open my
eyes again. I called the hospital but there was no change in her condition.
Nothing had changed since the first day. I wandered around the house, ate a
bowl of cereal, turned on the TV, flipped through a hundred channels without
finding anything to hold my attention, went back upstairs but turned around
before I got to the bedroom, then went back to the couch and stayed there
until it was morning.

6

The next few days were all the same. I slept badly, ate badly and spent most
of my time at the hospital. I held Debbie's hand, talked to her, kissed her,
stroked her hair. Nothing I did evoked a response. One pushy social worker
insisted I attend a therapy group for spouses of terminally ill patients, but
I walked out after five minutes and almost hit her when she came up to me
later and started pushing forms at me to give my consent to terminate
treatment. I wasn't dealing with the problem, she insisted, but she backed off
quickly when I started yelling. Still, I knew inside I would have to do
something. I just didn't know yet what.

When I got home that night, there were several messages on my phone. My
mother, my minister, Cheryl, Al Rosenberg -- a college friend -- my boss,
Janice and then Cheryl again. I called them all back and then tried the
television again. Then the phone rang. I let it ring four times and the
machine picked up.

"Tom? It's Larry. I just heard about the accident, and Debbie. Call me. You
can reach me at 1 845 555 7427."

I stared at the phone. Larry? I hadn't spoken to him in nearly a year. I
hadn't even known where he was living. But just the sound of his voice made me
feel slightly better. I listened to the message again.

Larry had been the first person I'd met at Cornell when we moved in freshman
year and we stayed friends. It was funny, because you'd think we had nothing
in common. I was at Cornell to study engineering and later switched to
business, while he was into religion, philosophy and mathematics. I was into
sports, drinking and girls, while Larry was quiet and a bit shy and rarely
mixed or went to parties. But for some reason I really liked the guy, and at
least twice a year we'd get into long discussions that lasted the night and
sometimes longer.

He brought out a side of me no one else did and maybe I did the same for him.
We'd talk about the strangest things, like the meaning of life and the purpose
of the universe, but also about girls. Some of my friends thought he was
probably gay, but I knew he wasn't. He loved breasts, the bigger and rounder
the better, and despite his shyness when we'd be out together he'd invariably
find a super-buxom girl and end up taking her home. He never had a
relationship that lasted more than a couple of weeks, but somehow the girls
would always stay friends with him, and by senior year you'd walk down the
quad with him and a dozen of the bustiest girls on campus, some beautiful,
some total dogs, would run up to him, hug him, play with his hair and then run
off, happier for it. He'd turn to me, shrug, sigh and smile and then we'd go
on with whatever we were doing.

After college I didn't see him often, but whenever he turned up we'd end up
staying up all night, either in my apartment or roaming around town. I'd show
him my projects, tell him about how I was progressing. He was much more vague
about his life. He didn't have a career. He seemed to be doing exactly the
same thing he'd done as a student. Reading, writing, talking to people,
traveling. He was happy.

He'd never liked Janice. Although he never criticized or judged me, he excused
himself fifteen minutes after he met her and never was around with the two of
us again.

It was very different with Debbie. I'll never forget the night I introduced
him to her. The two of them talked for hours, Debbie shooing me out of the
room after the first twenty minutes. I decided not to disturb them and
eventually went to bed, noticing only that at about 2 am Debbie had joined me
in bed and had wrapped her body around me. It wasn't long after that we
decided to get married. Debbie always thought the world of Larry. She never
objected to anything he did, even when he turned up late at our wedding with a
last minute date whose 44DD breasts ensured that no one (not even the
photographer) saw Debbie's walk down the aisle. Debbie just stopped in
mid-stride, smiled and waved at him, and then continued on to join me.

I stared at the phone and then without even thinking dialled the number.

"Tom?"

"Hi Larry."

"Tom I -- how is she?"

"She's bad, Larry, really bad." I was crying. "I think she's already gone!"

"No, no she's not," he said softly. There was a long pause. "Tom, we need to
get together but it would be better if you came up here. Can you make the
trip?"

I thought a minute. Debbie didn't need me right now. If anything happened the
doctors could reach me quickly. "Yeah. Where are you?"

"I'm renting a small house, south of New Paltz." He gave me the directions and
I agreed to drive up tomorrow. I hung up the phone and to my surprise and
relief I could feel my whole body relaxing. I knew I'd sleep tonight, a real
sleep, for the first time since the accident.

7

It was a crisp Fall Saturday and I took the Thruway up north, admiring the
colors of the trees. Each time I'd see a certain shade of red Debbie loved I'd
start to turn to her in the car to point it out, then I'd turn my eyes back to
the road, looking grimly ahead, past the trees. It was a lot harder than I had
expected. I pushed on, concentrating on the passing exits and then on Larry's
precise directions. I stopped for a coffee and then drove down a small country
road until I reached the round barn Larry had given me as a landmark. His
house was several miles down a dirt road just beyond it, and the rutty drive
was frustrating and slow. But once I turned off the engine and it settled down
the quiet descended on me, just a few birds and the wind stirring the dry
leaves on the trees.

Larry was standing at the door in his usual blue jeans and denim jacket,
holding a mug, his curly brown beard a little longer than the last time I'd
seen him. He walked out toward me and hugged me, then put his arm around me.
"Tom," he said simply and looked into my eyes. I said nothing and then he gave
me a small push and took me around the property.

"It's about 10 acres. I've been here since Spring. The birds like to visit
that apple orchard over there. The apples belong to the owner, but she lets me
pick a few for eating. You probably passed her stand on the way in."

I shrugged. I hadn't noticed.

"You can see the mountains when it's clear, which is most days. It's always
quiet like this." He pointed to a house, barely visible on a hill a couple of
miles away. "There's a lady named Sheila who lives there. Divorced with two
kids. She comes over some nights." He smiled, eyes sparkling. "She's my type,
you know?"

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." He stopped. "Come in, I've got some stuff for lunch."

"I'm not really hungry."

"Come in anyway. We can go for a hike later."

I nodded and walked alongside him. "It's really good to see you Larry."

"Yeah. For me too."

The kitchen was small but bright and perfectly clean. There were a couple of
beaten-up wooden chairs and a beaten-up wooden table to match. Half the
shelves in the open pantry were filled with books, and I guessed that the rest
of the house was too. Only one in ten were in English, perhaps fewer. I looked
them over.

"Where do you keep your Playboys?"

"Upstairs," he replied. "This is upstate, you know. Don't like to offend the
locals ... more than I have to," he smiled. "I don't suppose you've seen Miss
March this year."

I shook my head. That was Larry. Sanskrit, Hebrew, Greek, Chinese and I don't
know what else -- and Playboy. "No, I ... you know, Debbie doesn't ...." I
stopped. He looked at me, waiting for me to go on. "Damn it, Larry. Damn it!"
I started crying, more loudly than I had since the accident. He stood there,
watching me for awhile, then suddenly he was holding me and I was crying into
his shoulder. I don't know how long I went on but finally I was able to stop.
"Larry! She's completely destroyed! Her body ... and she won't wake up. The
doctor said she'll never wake up."

His face was compassion, but he said nothing.

"She's gone, Larry. She's gone. And it was my fault. I killed her. I took my
eyes of the road ... thinking of ... thinking of ...."

"I understand, Tom," he said quietly. He motioned me to sit down at the table.

"There can't be anyone else for me, Tom, ever. I feel like my life is over
too. I just can't live without her."

He looked at me a long time and looked sadder than I'd ever seen him. "I
know."

Somehow it wasn't the answer I'd expected. I thought he'd say something to
buck me up, but Larry never did was what everyone else did. I felt something
slip inside me. I saw myself adrift, alone in a cold and unloving universe.
"What am I going to do?" I went on, suddenly alive to my full despair.

He sighed. "The question is, what am I going to do?"

I was confused. "What do you mean? What --

"I would miss you Tom, more than you know."

"Hey, I mean, I'm not going to kill myself Larry. I was --

"No, no. Of course you wouldn't." He stood up and paced up and down the room,
like he was trying to make a decision.

"Do you remember that night, junior year, when we camped out by the Gorge?"

"Sure," I replied, relieved that he'd changed the topic. I didn't have the
strength to go on talking about my feelings.

"We talked about what we'd do with our lives. You'd just decided to switch
from engineering to business."

"Yeah, and you were telling me about your course on, what was it, oncology?"

"Ontology, the study of being -- what exists and what it is to exist or not
exist." I nodded. It had been way beyond me, what Larry told me that night. "I
told you then that my ambition was to explore being, to understand it in all
its facets. Being and non-being."

"It was a bit too abstract for me then Larry," I said -- an understatement if
there ever was one.

"It's not abstract, Tom. I told you then that philosophy was the most
practical of all the things you could study." He leaned forward. "How can I
explain ... Tom, you know, we live in only the barest fraction of the real
world."

"Yeah, like I've heard we use just 10% of our brains."

He shook his head. "That's not what I mean."

"Or, like, we don't appreciate the beauty around us, just living on
autopilot."

"That's true. But Tom, have you ever thought about infinity?"

"Not for a long time. Not since calculus I guess."

He nodded. "The universe we can see is not infinite. It's very, very large,
and it even expands, but it has its limits. Time is the same way, because it
begins and ends with the universe." I nodded, following him so far. "But God
is infinite."

"I've heard that. I mean, if you believe in God."

Larry ignored that. "And so is his creativity, which means...." He looked at
me.

I thought a minute. "Which would mean God could have created more than the
universe."

Tom smiled. "Exactly. In fact, given the infinity of God, how could his
creation not be infinite in some way? For example, how could he not, from our
perspective, create an infinite number of universes or 'worlds'?" I shrugged.
I'd never given much thought to what God had created. "So," he went on, "if
there were an infinite number of 'worlds', there must be an infinite number of
Toms and Larrys. An infinite number of us with the same characteristics and
lives, and an infinite number of us that are different, in an infinite number
of ways."

I laughed. What a crazy idea. "Sounds very crowded out there."

"Yes, in a way. Just as crowded as the space between 0 and 1, crowded with all
of the numbers between them, which is ...." He looked at me.

"...infinite," I said softly, getting it a little. I looked at him in wonder.
"And an infinite number of Debbies too, to go with the Toms and the Larrys."
Despite myself, I let out a laugh. "So, uh, could you get me one of those
Debbies and bring her here?"

"If I could I would," he said sincerely, "although it would leave another Tom
as bereft as you are. But I can't. They can't exist physically in our 'world',
and we can't exist in theirs."

I was getting into this. "But how do you know they really exist? How do you
know God exists?"

He smiled. "One question at a time." He thought a long time. "I remember I
tried to prove God's existence to you once. It didn't work. We were probably
pretty drunk and of course you weren't convinced, and thinking back on our
discussion I don't think in your shoes I'd be convinced either." I smiled.
That was a pretty big concession for Larry. "But still, I know God exists and
I knew other 'worlds' exist, since I'd been there, and --

"What?!"

"-- met some of the other ...." He pretended to be surprised at my
interjection. "Hey, Tom, well, what did you think? I told you philosophy is a
practical subject. I don't pursue these things because I like to sit in a room
all day and think. I want to experience all the varieties of being."

"But I never thought --

"You never thought I was talking about anything real?" he said, smiling at me.
"You thought, in your hard-headed, practical way, that I was just blowing
smoke, just bullshitting you all these years?"

"Well, I ...." I felt very confused. Either Larry was telling the truth, or he
was crazy. I didn't want him to be crazy, but how could this be real? Was he
serious about traveling to other 'worlds'?

"You know, the girls in some of these other 'worlds' are really something.
Imagine one where the average breast size isn't 34-C, like in the US, but
42-D." He smiled. "An infinite number of variations on our universe, Tom. Can
you imagine? Some so strange you'd think you were living in a dream. Some just
like ours on the surface, but completely different inside. Some in a future
world, some in the past. I could tell you stories ...."

"Is that the purpose of all this?" I indicated the piles of books. "Traveling
around different 'worlds' to meet girls with bigger tits?"

"No, not exactly. Part of it is research, part of it is experience, opening up
my mind to different possibilities, different ways of being. And, uh, part of
it is, you know, vacation. You take vacations too, right?" I nodded. "Look,
Tom, I know you don't believe me. And there's no point trying to prove it to
you. I gave up trying to do that years ago. I have my life project. It doesn't
harm anyone. It means a lot to me, and, happily, it's not illegal. The only
reason I'm telling you now is ... to help you."

"You mean like, it ought to be some kind of consolation to me that Debbie is
still alive in another 'world'?"

"No. I can't see how that would help you."

"Neither do I," I said, relieved that Larry seemed as normal and sensible as
ever. I was afraid for a minute that he would expect me to take comfort in the
existence of mystical other universes.

"Tom, there are 'worlds' where the crash never happened. Some where Debbie
survived." He cleared his throat. "You, uh, you could go there."

I stared at him. Was he serious? "You mean visit there, like you do? Spend
time with her? Then go home?"

"Well, you could do it that way, if you were me. If you studied and meditated
and understood how to travel around the different 'worlds.' But I don't think
you would, uh, devote yourself to it like that. My idea is I'd show you how to
go there -- but there'd be no way for you to come back." He looked down. "I'm
not saying you should do that. I ... I'd miss you Tom. I know we don't see
each other a lot, but I always count on seeing you again. But I thought I
should let you know that it's something you could do to get Debbie back."

"You could send me to a world where we got across that bridge safely, and
everything else was exactly the same?"

"Well, no. You see, I said there is an infinite number of 'worlds'. That world
you describe exists. It must exist. But that doesn't mean I can find it. And
as I said, there are worlds that look like ours but are actually very
different. You would not necessarily want to be in a world just because Debbie
survived the crash there. I mean, what if in that world life was awful and
painful, or aliens were about to invade Earth, or Debbie looked just the same
but was an evil and cruel person? Remember, anything is possible in these
other worlds."

"OK. Well, then what's your plan?"

"Al explained to me what happened -- how Debbie couldn't get free of the seat
belt or open the door and was stuck in the car when it went over, right?" I
nodded. "Now, as you might guess, one series of alternative worlds I've
explored pretty thoroughly are worlds where the girls are, you know, bigger."
I couldn't help but smile. "Yeah, yeah, I know. Not that it solves our
problem. Big tits are fun, but they don't help you open stuck doors."

I interjected. "No, the most obvious thing is to find a world where everything
is the same except that Debbie got dressed more quickly, and then we wouldn't
have hit that truck. Or where the guy in the truck got held up at a red light.
Or --

Larry shook his head. "It doesn't work that way. I couldn't know just what
variations to focus on to send you to the right place. But it happens that I
do know how to find worlds where women are stronger. I found that variable
when I was exploring worlds of large-breasted women."

Ignoring the obvious question, I focused on what was important to me. "You
mean, strong enough that she would have been able to push the door open and
free herself?"

"Yes."

I was amazed. It seemed so simple, but of course it couldn't be possible. "So,
you would just teleport me to world number 1754 and I would just resume my
life with, uh, Super-Debbie?"

Larry shook his head. "No. There's no way I could teach you how to move the
way I do, which is to jump directly into a particular world -- at least I
couldn't without spending years and years to train you in a whole different
way of thought and perception, assuming you'd even want to do that. No, what I
have in mind is something different from what I do when I travel. I would
teach you to move through the worlds one step at a time, just the way all of
us in this world move through time, until you got to the right one."

I must have looked completely lost. He went on. "Let me try to explain.
Imagine a graph. There are two dimensional graphs, with an X and Y axis, 3D
graphs with X, Y and Z, right?" I nodded. "Well, imagine all the possible
worlds plotted on a graph with infinite numbers of axes. Imagine links between
all of them extending through the graph, like points in a line. Of course,
it's not a two dimensional line, but one of an infinite number of dimensions.
That's not important here. The point is: you would travel down the line at a
particular moment in history, with all other variables remaining the same, so
that the situation of your life and Debbie's at the point of the accident is
the same as it is here, with the sole exception of the changes resulting from
the changes in the variables that affect Debbie's strength. It would be just
like time passing in our world, although in this case time would stay the same
and the other variable would change. Of course what has occurred before the
point of conjunction and what comes afterwards would be different, because of
that change in the variables. The trick is that in all the infinity of worlds,
at any particular point in time there are an infinite number that coincide
with ours or that are different by just one variable, two variables, a
thousand variables, etc. And in some of these worlds Debbie would have been
just strong enough to escape from the car. You would have to find that world
and once you did, you and she could stay there together. The thing is, I don't
know exactly how far on the line you'd have to go. I've been to a few of the
worlds where Debbie was stronger and made it through the accident just fine."
He shook his head. "I don't think you'd necessarily like all of them, but that
doesn't matter. You'd stop well before you got to those. Do you follow me?"

"I think so." I couldn't help wonder what he'd seen in the other worlds and
why he'd thought I would be unhappy there. Was it the way she looked, with a
bodybuilder's muscles? Or did she act like a different person? "I guess that
Debbie wouldn't always be the same, growing up in a world where women are a
lot stronger than they are here?"

"Yes! I've got you thinking now! The Debbies in those worlds were different,
so were you and so were your relationships. But I have at least a partial
solution to that problem. What I do when I travel is to transfer some essence
of me, call it a soul, into a being in the other world, usually the 'Larry'
who is there. In this case, I would bind your soul and Debbie's together, so
that when you move along that 'line' as I explain to you, you would move your
soul and Debbie's together. Of course, everyone else would be different too,
in whatever way the different variables in the other world affect them. But
you and Debbie would be the same persons there as you are here, with the same
memories, even though your physical characteristics would be different. At
least you'd start out that way. Who knows how the other differences would
affect you two as you live out the rest of your lives there? But the important
thing is you two would be together like before, the same persons, inside, that
you were before, and then you'd go on living from that time in that slightly
different world."

"You have to understand though, Tom, that everyone and everything else in that
world would be different too. Everything there would be affected by the change
in that variable, some more than others. At the moment of transfer, you and
Debbie would be married and would be driving to a dinner on a Friday night.
That fact would be fixed. But as we get farther from those key facts and that
one key moment there will be differences: Debbie will probably be a lawyer,
you'll probably be working in real estate, although I can't guarantee that.
But your car and house might be different, or you might live in a different
town. Or the people you're working with may be different. History would have
been different before and will be different afterwards."

"Incredible." I felt a tingle of hope inside. "Just how strong do you think
she would have to be to have gotten out? Umm, say like Martina Hingis?
Jennifer Capriati? Venus Williams? Buffy?"

Larry laughed. "Who's Buffy?" I explained. He thought a minute and shrugged.
"I don't know. She wouldn't have to be a superhero. You'd just have to move
along that line until you found the place where she was strong enough either
to push the door open or pull out the seat belt."

"But something there doesn't make sense. Does that line move on forever? If it
did, wouldn't there be a Debbie at some point who was millions of times
stronger. But how could such a world be the same as ours, even at that
moment?"

Larry smiled proudly. "Right again. The lines can't go on forever." His brow
furrowed. "This is all very difficult to explain. These are not 'lines' with
any physical reality, Tom. The lines don't exist as such. They're more like
paths through the woods, hacked out once step at a time amid all the infinite
possibilities of paths taken or not taken. And some times those paths take us
into a swamp or to a road that ends at a cliff. The technique I'd give you
would allow you to move through the worlds along a particular series of
changes, but the path doesn't have any real physical existence, no more
existence than the "path" of our life has. And like paths through the woods,
and our lives themselves, there can be sudden changes in the environment that
we don't anticipate. The path you take will be the result of the choices you
make."

"But I'm not making choices. I'd just be moving through worlds. You said it
would be like time passing. But the world is the same one second to the next.
It just gets older."

"Are you sure Tom?"

"But surely the only thing that would change would be that Debbie would be
getting stronger, right?"

Larry sighed. "Well, if I were the programmer, and not just a hacker, I could
guide you that way, and then you'd be right. But even human programmers make
mistakes, and I'm a human trying to hack God's program. My technique is an
imperfect construct, and like all approximations and constructs that we make
with our limited powers this one breaks down after awhile. If you apply the
technique and kept moving further and further, at some point the next jump
will be a major discontinuity in experience. Not mathematically. Perhaps not
in God's eyes. But as we experience it. You and Debbie would have the same
"souls" of course, but the circumstances of your existence could be totally
different. You might not be married, you might not ever have met, you might
even not know how to find each other. You might not even recognize yourself,
or her. You might end up in a world where evolution has occurred in an
entirely different way. In some higher sense it would be the same, but that
sense may be beyond our comprehension."

"But how would I be me then? How would Debbie be Debbie?"

"Well, what ARE you, Tom? What IS your soul? How is it possible in the first
place to transfer your identity from one world to another, from one body to
another? Is there really a soul separate from your body? Separate from the sum
of your experiences?" He laughed. "These are philosophical questions, Tom."

"They make my head spin."

"They sure do." He grinned. "Mine too."

"I guess I understand where this fits in with your studies. But let me ask you
another question. A practical one. What happens to the Tom and Debbie who are
already there?"

Larry laughed. "Another good question! I have no idea. Does their
consciousness disappear? Are they suppressed or submerged while we are there?
Does God spontaneously create yet another world when I travel, as a new
variation? Is what happens when I travel different from what happens in our
world as time passes. Many philosophers, for example, believe that the
universe itself is recreated from moment to moment. It's a question I've
wondered about for years and haven't been able to answer. But I can tell you
about my experience of being in another world. I've visited particular worlds
again and again, as myself, going back as other people, or as entirely
different beings - dogs, cats, bacteria, dolphins -- and I still feel like
myself when I enter the new world and when I return here, even though my
experience in those different bodily forms is very different."

"You've been a cat?"

"The change in physical and perceptual perspective is absolutely amazing, but
very disorienting. But the fact that I was still aware of my own existence
within their bodies has made me wonder whether cats and other animals must
have souls too. I have to confess that I've been a woman too. Having my own
breasts was ... stimulating."

"Stimulating? You've been a woman and all you can say is it was stimulating?"

Larry grinned. "All right. It was ... VERY stimulating." We both laughed at
the reference to one of our favorite Star Trek scenes. Then Larry went on,
"But I always feel best in my own body."

"And what would happen to me here, in this world, once I left?"

Larry didn't answer right away. "Well, you wouldn't be here. You'd be there.
When your soul travels you just disappear while you're gone. That's why you
can't find me for long periods. I always come back. In your case and Debbie's
you'd disappear forever. There would be no way for me to bring you back" He
looked down at the floor again. "I'd miss you Tom. But I know you, and Debbie.
I know how much she means to you. I thought I had to give you this chance,
this choice."

"What about you Larry? Could I visit you there? Would you be the same?"

"Me? Well, it's hard to say, since most of the time I travel I travel as
myself. Once I went to one of these worlds with bigger women, as a woman
myself, I looked for myself. There I was, Larry Jacobs, living in a suburb of
New York, married, happy as could be, working as an actuary, with two kids and
a late model car. An actuary of all things!"

"You were always good at math."

"That's right. But you see, in that world, surrounded by all those women with
large breasts, I suppose I had everything I wanted. There, I'd dabbled in
philosophy in college, but I'd never had the drive to explore. I was a nice
guy, I think, but I was different. I don't know what kind of person I'd be
where you ended up, Tom. I have a feeling that in most worlds I'm not as, uh,
unique as I am here. I don't know, but this Larry may be the only
'traveller.'"

"But couldn't you visit me, I mean, this me, in the new world Debbie and I
would go to?"

"I don't know. I've never gone to a world that had someone else in it from
this world. I've tried to look for myself. I was curious to see what I was
like as a woman, for example. When I tried to return to the same world where
I'd put myself into the body of a woman, and then went there again, as myself,
to see her, I mean, to see the other me, she was the one in the body, not me.
It was as if I'd returned to a new copy of the world I went to, not the one
that was created when I went into the woman's body. I don't know why. Maybe I
didn't know how to find the new world I'd created before, or maybe it
disappeared when I left it, or maybe I just can't be two different beings in
the same world at the same time. I really don't know. I'd try to visit you
Tom, but I don't know if I could ever find you. Am I making sense?"

"A little. Wow."

"So, yeah, I could visit 'a' Tom, but it probably wouldn't be you. Look. Think
about it. You don't have to do anything. You could even wait and decide later,
although the longer you wait the more time would have passed from the critical
moment of transfer -- the time on the bridge -- and the more disorienting the
move would be. But I wanted to give you that option. As bad as things get
here, you DO have an escape -- with Debbie."

"Yeah. I'll think about it." I looked into Larry's eyes, eyes that saw so
much, that saw so far beyond mine. But the weight on my heart was lifted.
Sure, I knew Debbie was in a coma in the hospital. But she was also somewhere
else, somewhere we could go together, and live. I felt almost giddy. "So
Larry, two more questions."

"Shoot."

"You said some of these worlds are like our world, but in the future. Do you,
uh, know what's going to happen to me if I stay here, without Debbie?"

He looked grave and shook his head. "I, uh, can never know if it's really our
future, you know. I haven't found the single future variable, so I never know
if there are other variables that affect the way the world develops. But I've
been to a world where Debbie died in a car crash, on a bridge." He closed his
eyes. "It didn't go well for you, Tom. You remarried Janice a couple of years
later. She was the wrong woman for you. It was ugly. Tom, that might not have
been our future -- the future of this world. There's no way to know."

"So, uh, I'd know enough to avoid marrying Janice. You've warned me now."

"I saw that one too, with the warning I just gave you. I've been to a lot of
worlds Tom. I've seen a lot of unhappiness for you. Not every one, but who
knows what would happen in ours? I surely don't."

"Right. Is that why you've offered me this Tom?" He didn't say anything. I
thought some more. "Is that why you didn't warn me about the crash? Had you
been to other worlds where you'd warned me about that too?" Larry nodded. "So
what are the odds, Larry?"

"There are no odds. You can't compare 40 over infinity to 60 over infinity.
They're both meaningless. Anyway, it doesn't work like that. There are an
infinite number of variations. Who knows whether I saw the right ones? Who
knows about the effect of free will? When you go to these other places, you
will be the actor, not the Tom that lived in the other worlds. There are an
infinite number of happy endings, and an infinite number of sad ones. In the
end, Tom, you make your own life. There's no warning I can give you. All I can
do is let you start again from that one point. What happens will be up to you
and Debbie, and the dance of life. But you'll be able to do that dance
together."

"Right. OK." My head was really spinning now. I put my hand over my eyes. It
was as if reality had just been fractured into a billion pieces, an infinite
number of pieces. Everything that seemed had solid was really in flux.
Everything that had been decided was now uncertain. But then, I didn't have to
live in all those worlds. That's was Larry did. No, I just wanted one. One
with Debbie. And Larry had found a way to get me there, with as few other
changes as there could be. There were two people in this world I knew I could
trust with my life: Larry and Debbie. And now, he would deliver me to her. How
could I say no?

"Are you all right Tom? I hope I did the right thing talking to you about
this."

"Oh yeah, I'm fine. I just have to think about it a little."

"Of course. I'm not going anywhere," he said, grinning at the joke. "You had
another question?"

"Yeah, but it seems so petty after that last one."

"Ask me anyway."

"OK. So, uh, in all these worlds you've been to, with the bigger women, what
were the largest breasts you've played with?"

Larry grinned more broadly. "I thought you might ask me about that. Remember
that girl I took to your wedding? Well, imagine how she looked in a world
where the average bra size was a 50-F. Those women had to be pretty tall and
strong to carry boobs like that around, but MAN!! I'm telling you, I almost
didn't come back." His eyes were far away and then he grew more serious again.
"But you see, Tom, THIS Larry, in THIS world, wants more from life than big
breasts. So I did come back. I'll always come back." He stood up. "Feel like a
hike? We could use some time outdoors I think."

"I sure could." I called the hospital first, got the word that Debbie was
still stable, and then joined Larry and we walked down the path together.

8

I went straight to the hospital after I drove back from Larry's. Debbie was
still in the Intensive Care Unit, but was getting little attention from the
staff there, who were rushing to attend to a new patient. Her eyes seemed
peaceful, but the illusion couldn't survive my looking at the rest of her face
and body. I knew then what I would do and my heart beat faster at the thought
that I would be seeing her again, rescuing her from this awful end, making up
for the crash that had ended our lives here.

"You look better, Tom." It was Charles, doing his rounds. "You're accepting
it, aren't you? In your own way." I must have nodded slightly. "I'm sorry
about that social worker bothering you. It's a hospital regulation, a
'service' they offer. I knew you'd come to the decision in your own way. Have
you thought about when you'll ask us to do it, Tom?"

I turned my head to him. Larry would come tomorrow if I asked. He would "bind"
our souls and then I could move us at any time. What happened after that
wouldn't matter. We'd both be gone.

"Monday, Charles. I'll go to church tomorrow morning, and then I'll need to
say good bye to her. I want to bring a friend along too. Would you be able to
move Debbie to a private room for the last couple of days? I'll want a little
privacy."

"Sure Tom. Debbie's declining slowly, but in her current state we can keep her
going for a few more days in a regular room. Actually, the staff will be happy
to have another ICU bed. We'll move her first thing tomorrow." He put his hand
on my shoulder. "If there's anything Sally or I can do, Tom, to make this
easier --

"I'll let you know Charles. Thank you."

He shook my hand and then left.

9

It was Sunday evening. Larry had performed his mumbo-jumbo on us earlier in
the afternoon, then he'd described what I needed to do to move our souls to
another world. It was hard to believe that my recitation of a few words could
have the effect he'd described, but then, he had done most of the work
beforehand on the two of us, and he had to keep it simple. It wasn't as if I
could take any instruction sheets with me, from place to place. If I didn't
remember the trick I would be marooned halfway between the friend who was
trying to help me and my goal. But now it was up to me.

I sat in Debbie's room looking at her, my heart beating hard. All I had to do
was say the words and I'd see her again. But my mouth was so dry I couldn't
speak. What held me back? I'd almost cried when I said good-bye to Larry. Even
the service at church had made my eyes wet. I'd known our minister for almost
ten years, and many of those in our congregation for as long as I'd known
anyone. Would they all be different the next time I saw them? Would they even
be there? What about my friends, Gregg, and Bob and Al? My business? My town?
I was starting on a journey with no way back. Larry had made that very clear.

I looked down at the sports section of the Sunday paper. Serena Williams had
just beaten her sister in the finals of another tournament, 6-4, 7-5. That was
the fourth time in a row she'd conquered her older sister. I looked up at
Debbie and thought how annoyed she'd be by the way they so dominated women's
tennis with a type of game she'd never been able to play.

Debbie's eyes twitched and I jumped. Was she coming back? I looked at the
monitors. Nothing had changed and now she lay completely still again. As
before. I called the nurse practitioner, Becky Mills, who was on duty when I
arrived. Becky had always gone out of her way to help me and to do something a
little extra for Debbie. I was glad it was her. I'd known her in high school.
Although we had different social circles we had attended some sports functions
together. She had been a super three-sport athlete but her family didn't have
much money and she'd had to go to work right after high school. I told her
what had just happened and she shook her head. She said it was just Debbie's
involuntary reflexes. Perfectly normal. Perfectly meaningless. She put her
hand on my shoulder sympathetically and went back to her station.

That was it. Larry had given me three formulas to use. I said the words that
would move us the smallest increment. "Mrumbi crah een." I felt nothing and
looked around. There was no change. Debbie still lay there in front of me. I
tried it again, and again there was no visible effect. I got up and walked out
of the room. The hospital was identical. I shook my head and went back inside.
Something seemed different. I looked around the room and then my eyes rested
on the newspaper. "Serena Conquers Sister." It was the same headline. But the
score! 6-4, 7-6 (11-9)! I looked at Debbie more closely. Were her bruises
slightly different? Was the position of her tubes slightly changed? No. I took
a deep breath and repeated the incantation. Again no change. I checked the
newspaper again, wishing I had more than the sports section. The score had
changed again, back to the original result. Had I imagined it? No! A chill ran
down my spine. I took a deep breath and walked outside the room again,
strolling down to the nurse's station. Becky was still there. Her shoulders
seemed slightly broader, and I noticed for the first time a picture of her and
some other women in softball uniforms at her station.

"Mr. Beams, is everything all right?"

She looked the same. "Yes Becky, thank you."

"If you like, I could bring your wife's dinner in to you. We're not supposed
to, but ...." She looked at me sympathetically.

"That's all right. I had some lunch. I'm not too hungry."

"Well, if you need anything, let me know. I'm on duty until 6." She smiled and
went back to her work. I walked back to the room and closed the door. There
could be any number of small changes, but nothing visible to me. I decided to
take a bigger step, the intermediate one. "Mrumbi crah teen." Debbie still lay
there. I repeated it, and suddenly I was in a different room. The wallpaper
was green instead of yellow. Debbie still lay there. But was she asleep or in
a coma? The equipment she was hooked up to looked the same. The lines tracing
across the screen looked the same, but how could I be sure? I stepped outside
the room, but I was in a different wing and I didn't know where the nurse's
station was. Fortunately, a nurse was walking by. It was someone new.

"Mr. Beams, can I help you?"

I didn't recognize her. "No I ... I just wondered if ... could you look at her
for a moment? I thought I noticed a change."

She sighed. "Of course." We went in together. She checked her pulse and the
equipment. "No change yet. But we're still hopeful. Call me if you see
anything different here or here," she said, pointing to two of the indicators.
"I'll come as soon as I can." She went out. I stared at her legs as she walked
away. I'd never met that nurse before, but now I noticed her calf muscles
flexing as she headed down the hall. How much had this world changed from
mine?

I went back inside the room and spotted the sports section again. I stared at
the headline: "Serena Outlasts Capriati." Oh no! I scanned the article. There
was no mention of Venus Williams anywhere in the article. I flipped through
the pages to check the past matches in the draw. There she was, in the "Mixed
Singles," losing in the semi-finals to Hewitt. Then I looked at the picture of
Serena with her arms in the air, fists clenched, her biceps popping. My God!
What biceps they were! They were nearly the size of mine.

I looked at the rest of the sports section. There were a lot of changes --
almost as much coverage of the Women's Soccer League as football! Almost, but
not quite. The baseball playoffs were still the main story, but the Yankees
had several different players in the box score. An A. Almoso, an R. Martinez.
and an R. Mills. I looked at the account of yesterday's game against the A's.
There it was, Alicia Almoso, a third baseman (basewoman?), who had singled in
Bernie Williams to score the winning run. Most of the players seemed the same.
Soriano, Jeter, Williams, Clemens were all there, but also Rebecca Mills, in
left field, and Roberta Martinez who'd pitched the seventh inning. What had I
done!

I went outside the room, noting the room number and found my way down to the
cafeteria. I had to look around. To my relief, women still looked like women.
On average they were still shorter and slighter than men, but just on average,
and not by nearly as much. There was a female security guard in the lobby who
looked as muscular as I was, although she wasn't as tall, and I saw many
couples where the woman was as tall or taller than her husband. I moved
through the line. There were men and women behind the counter serving, two
women at the cash registers. A table of doctors in green scrubs, men and women
equally represented. OK. That could have been true before too. I wasn't sure
what was significant. I thought of calling Larry, but then decided against it.
Who knew if Larry was still the same? I had to get used to this, deal with it
myself. Then I decided to call Charles, to find out about Debbie's condition.
I went to the payphone and rang his number. Surprisingly I reached him right
away. "Charles, it's Tom."

"Tom! How are you doing? How's Debbie?"

"I, uh, I was going to ask you that?"

There was a puzzled silence at the other end. "Tom?"

"I mean, I wasn't sure about the decision I'd made, you know, about tomorrow."

"Look Tom, I'm happy to talk to you about it any time, but shouldn't you talk
to Melissa about it? She's Debbie's doctor and she'll know a lot more about it
than I would. I'm happy to consult with her, but she's very good. Is there
something wrong?"

"Uh, no Tom. I -- you're right. I should just talk to her. I -- do you have
her number."

"Yeah, sure Tom. Hold on. It's 555 3344."

"I'm sorry to bother you Charles."

"No trouble Tom. I know this is a bad time for you. Anything I can do, just
call."

"Thanks." I hung up and dialled 'Melissa.' Dr. Kantor's office answered. It
took awhile, but her service found her. She was at the hospital and she'd meet
me in the lobby in ten minutes. Fortunately she recognized me when she came
in.

She was about 5'8, average height for a woman, it seemed. Her bust was
prominent against her white jacket and she had a nice build. I'd never seen
her before. "Tom. What's the matter? Has she taken a turn for the worse?"

"I don't know. I -- I'm sorry to bother you -- I just wondered if you could
explain to me again what the chances were for --

"We still don't know, Tom. I know this is hard to accept, but there's a chance
that she'll ever wake up. That rock she hit when she was floating downstream
gave her a bad concussion and she was under for awhile before you got her out
of the river. But she's a fighter. If anyone could recover she'd be able to do
it. We should know more in a few days."

"And, when she recovers, will she --

She took my hand. "Don't think that far ahead, Tom. We have to take it one
step at a time. First we have to get her back, conscious again. Then we'll
test for damage. The longer it takes, the greater the probability there was
some damage. But she's a strong, healthy woman. If anyone can come out of the
shock she's been through, it's Debbie. The next few days will be crucial. Just
hang in there." She gave me a light tap on the shoulder and then stood up. I
stood too. She shook my hand. "You should go home Tom. You've been practically
living here since the accident. Get some rest. I'll make sure they call you if
there's any change."

I thanked her and watched her leave. I realized then I wasn't in any pain.
Somehow in this world I hadn't gotten hurt diving in. Or maybe I didn't dive
at all. I had no idea what I'd done. I went back upstairs to take another look
at Debbie. The nurse was changing her bandages, and I looked at her arms,
larger and more muscular than in my world. She was still my Debbie, and still
locked away from me, unconscious. I'd brought us to a world where she'd been
strong enough to get out of the car, but not without falling into the river
where the current had been too hard for her. I stroked her face and then left.

I felt my pockets for my keys. I seemed to have the same car, and fortunately
the hospital parking lot was small enough that I saw the lights flash when I
unlocked the car remotely. My driver's license told me we still lived in the
same house and I went home. There were some changes, but nothing major, and I
poured myself a drink and thought. Should I stop here and see what happened or
keep traveling? Once I left, I'd be in a world that would have changed even
more. But there seemed so little hope for Debbie, even here. How could I make
a decision? I felt completely alone. I poured myself a drink and then got
ready to go to bed but the phone rang. I didn't want to speak with anyone and
let it go several times, then picked it up, realizing it could be the
hospital.

"Hello?"

"Tom, I'm coming over."

"Janice? Wait. You ... I can't see you now."

"No?" I heard her breathing. "You can't shut me out like this!"

"Janice!"

"You think it isn't not hard for me too? I feel so guilty."

"It wasn't your fault. I was the one driving the car."

"You wouldn't have been driving on that bridge if it weren't for me." I could
hear her crying. "You have to let me come. I need to see you." She was
whimpering. "Please," she added in a small voice that still sounded deeper and
richer than I'd expected.

"All right," I said, unsure of what I had just agreed to.

I put on my bathrobe and went downstairs to get another scotch for myself. It
would take her forty-five minutes at least, even at this hour, to drive to my
house, time enough to dress. Instead, not ten minutes after she called, a key
turned in the door. I jumped up, just in time to see Janice enter and close
the door. I knew it was Janice from the tilt of her head, the way she held her
shoulders and the look in her eyes when she saw me. But still it was a shock.

She saw me standing in the living room and dropped her shoulder bag and some
flowers on the floor and ran to me, taking me in her arms and squeezing me,
not with the fierce strength of a emotional woman, but rather the controlled
strength of someone who knows what her muscles can do. She held me firmly and
kissed me passionately. I resisted for a few moments, but although the body
was different, her scent and the feel of her was the same, and I quickly
responded to her, my hands pressing against the firm, unfamiliarly large
muscles of her back and her bare arms, my eyes looking straight across into
hers.

"You poor darling! You must be exhausted. Come on, let's get you right to
bed."

"Janice!" Obviously our relationship was different here. "I'm not sure now's a
good time. I'm feeling ... sort of --

"Tom, there's never any time like the present." She stopped, her hands on my
shoulders and looked into my eyes. "Come on, we'll just see what happens, all
right? It'll be fine. I know this is a horrible time for you. I'm here to make
it better." She tugged on me gently. "You can't do anything for Debbie
tonight, and you need your strength for her tomorrow. We both know that."

"But Janice, my wife is in the hospital, dying for all I know. How can I make
love to you?"

She shook her head. "Tom Beams! I'm surprised at you!" I stared back at her.
She laughed. "You haven't worried about your performance since the first time
we did it together. You were so shy then, do you remember? It's a good thing I
was so much bigger than you at the time, or we'd never have gotten anywhere!
Remember how you kept running away and I'd catch you and wrestle you down?
Thank goodness girls grow up faster than boys! By the time you developed
muscles too, we both couldn't keep our hands off each other." She nuzzled
against me, licking my neck.

I nodded, realizing for the first time that ALL my personal history would be
different in this world too. My curiosity was aroused, as well as the rest of
me. "I remember," I lied, stalling for time.

"You were so funny. It was the first day of practice. I still don't really
know why you bothered to go out for football if you were just going to sit on
the bench again all year. But I know guys really like being on 'the team'.
Anyway, I was there on the line, blocking, and you were trying to run
patterns, but I knocked you down every time. I thought you were so cute I just
couldn't resist, even though I could see you were getting frustrated,
especially because I was just a freshman. Finally the coach got worried you
were going to get hurt, so she took you out and you had to watch me play. I
knew you were watching me, you know."

"Yeah, I knew."

"And then I knew that you liked me when you were still there after I showered,
fooling around with my bike on the playground. I was really worried you know,
whether I was blowing a big chance by taking so long, but I really wanted to
look good for you. So you could see that under the mud I was also a pretty
girl." She batted her eyes at me. "And you still think so, don't you?" She
squeezed my ass and pulled me closer to her.

"I can't hide it from you, can I?"

"You can't hide anything from me, buster. You never could and never will."

"It was fun playing on the same team, though," I ventured.

She thought a minute. "Well, you didn't play much that year, and during your
senior year I played Varsity. But it was exciting that time you went in and
scored that touchdown at the end of the JV game against Valhalla. We were
creaming them, and coach wanted to take out all the starters and gave the
bench a chance, but I wouldn't come out. I wanted to protect you."

"Nice of you."

"Even now, when you're as big as I am, I still want to protect you. I still
think of the way you looked when we first met. I still have this image of you
as smaller than I am. I always will, you know." She held me. "Are you ready
now?"

There was something going on here that I didn't understand. In my world,
Janice would never have come to my house -- Debbie's house -- with just me
there. She respected or at least accepted my decision. And now here she was --
with Debbie in the hospital, near death, touching me, seducing me, ready to
make love. It felt so wrong. Yet there was no hesitation at all on her part,
and no expectation that I would feel any either.

And then I saw it on the mantle, a picture I hadn't noticed before. The three
of us, Debbie, Janice and me, in a close embrace. But we weren't hugging as
friends. Debbie's mouth was on Janice's breast. Mine was on Debbie's. Janice's
long tongue was next to my erect dick, and I had one hand on Debbie's other
breast and the other hand on Janice's other breast. As you might guess, none
of us were dressed -- other than the bright red socks on Debbie's feet, a
matching bow in her hair and a purple wrist band (which I noticed she was
wearing tonight) on Janice's sizable right upper arm. I was completely naked.

She looked at me staring at the picture, then over to the picture and back at
me. She smiled. "That was such a wonderful day. I'd just sold my first $2
million house and I came right here to celebrate. You guys were so sweet." She
blinked her eyes a few times to keep the tears away. "Debbie HAS to get
better, you know? She just HAS to!!" I nodded. "Come on, Tom. If we're in her
bed it'll almost be like having her there." She picked me up and carried me up
the stairs -- not easily, but confidently -- and then dropped me on the bed,
tearing off her own clothes and getting me started on mine. "You poor dear!"

I was startled at first, and then pushed her off me and rolled away.

"Tom! What is it?" She looked very hurt and her eyes brimmed with tears.

"It doesn't feel ... I just can't!" I said.

"You can, Tom, and you should! I know you want to be with her. You're married
to her. You love her. No one knows that more than I do. But don't you think
this is what she'd want?"

I knew it wasn't, at least not my Debbie. But as I looked at Janice, so
confident she was doing the right thing, I wavered. This was a different
world, I rationalized. Shouldn't I be trying to fit in here? What was I
risking by not responding to her? "Well ...."

"Come here, you big idiot!" she said, smiling, and took me in her strong arms.
Despite my initial reluctance, it didn't take much to get me going with her,
and making love to a muscular Janice was a disorienting, but very arousing mix
of the familiar and the strange. I drifted off to sleep almost immediately
afterwards but woke up several times, startled and confused, and full of
guilt. Each time, Janice, who was always a light sleeper, was right there for
me, holding me, comforting me and easing me back into my dreams, which, with
my lack of sleep this week, were more turbulent than usual. I kept dreaming
about Debbie, a muscular Debbie holding me down, then about Larry, walking
across the sky on invisible wires between the stars, and then Janice, standing
in a mammoth department store-like building, selling houses on the store
floor. Larry was shouting at me from a distance, warning me not to go into the
store and I was shouting back, asking him for the magic words (which I'd
forgotten and was desperately trying to remember) to make things all better,
and then straining to hear his fading voice, trying to read his lips, trying
not to lose the magic words. Then finally I relaxed and fell asleep.

10

The next thing I knew it was a warm autumn afternoon. Debbie and I were at the
club, playing tennis, just like the day of the accident. We were being our
usual competitive selves, but I was playing especially well, dashing all over
the court, nailing the balls deep into the corners and hitting slams she just
couldn't handle. Very quickly I had a five-love lead, and as we switched sides
I couldn't help rubbing it in a little.

"What's the matter Debbie? Did you bring the wrong racquet today?"

She pointed a finger at me. "Don't think you can keep it up a streak like
this, Tom. You know I'm in better shape than you are. You're going to get
tired, and I'll just get stronger. You'll see."

"I don't think so, Debbie. I don't want to sound overconfident, but you know
you've never beaten me."

"Maybe," she said, her hands on her hips. "But I'll never stop trying, and one
day, way or another, I am going to beat you Tom. Maybe this is the day."

"You can beat me all you want, darling," I replied suggestively and bending
down to kiss her, "just not at tennis."

She put her hands around my neck, holding me there. "Very clever Tom. But I
can be clever too. Now, what were those words you were saying before? Mrumbi
crah een?"

I was suddenly in a world where she was slightly bigger and I broke away from
the kiss and looked at her in shock. "WHAT did you say?"

"Mrumbi --

"No! No! Don't say it again! You don't know what you're doing!"

"I don't?" She smiled. "Let's play!" She trotted back to her side of the court
and served with a bit more speed and confidence. Still, I won, Game-30, and
the set. I could see her muttering to herself and my heart pounded. Was she
saying it again? I couldn't see any difference in her, but she could be too
far away. Starting the next set I tossed the ball and hit it into the net,
then double-faulted. I switched sides and tried to calm myself. My first serve
was several feet too long, and although my second serve was in, it was too
soft and she hit it sharply cross-court, far beyond my reach. I took a deep
breath, telling myself that even the "old" Debbie would have hit a winner on
that weak serve. I won the next two points on my first serves, getting us to
deuce and then hit a deep shot to the corner and ran to the net. Debbie made a
pretty good return, forcing me to dive to my backhand, but I chipped one over
the net for the point. This was more like it. With my advantage, I missed my
first serve, but hit a good spin on the second, which she mis-hit. My game! I
trotted to the net for the switch.

"You were looking a little rattled out there, hubby," she said mischievously.

"Debbie, this is serious stuff!"

"I know. I always take my tennis seriously."

"You know what I mean. I guess you heard the words I said after Larry 'bound'
us. I thought you were in a coma." I was puzzled. "But you were STILL in a
coma when I left the hospital last night."

She folded her arms across her chest. I could see that her breasts were
obviously bigger, and the muscles of her forearms more pronounced. "Well,
obviously I'm not anymore. I'm feeling great!"

"Yes, thank goodness. But please be careful, Debbie. I haven't explained to
you how all this happened and what exactly --

"Don't start lecturing me. You know I never like it when you do that."

"But you don't understand!"

"I do understand there are some important things you haven't told me. Isn't
that right?"

Oh God! Did she know I just had sex with Janice? "Yes, Debbie. But --

"Besides, your being stronger than I am makes it almost impossible for me to
beat you, and you know that I hate losing."

"But if you move us to another world we can't go back. Larry said --

She sighed. "I'd love to hear about Larry's theories, Tom, but just not now.
Not while we're playing. Can we have this discussion later, please? We have to
give up the court in half an hour."

"But Debbie!" I called as she jogged away to serve. "You have to promise not
to --

"I'm ready!" she sung out and got set to serve. There was no talking to her
when she got like that. I got back into position. She got set and hit a good
first service, but I batted it back for a solid winner that she couldn't
reach. That felt better. I couldn't help smiling. She hit another serve with a
mean hook. I hustled over and got around on it, sending it back high and deep.
She moved back and we rallied back and forth until she hit one a little bit
short. I came in on it and drove one to her backhand, then hit her return for
a hard cross-court shot and another point. She looked at me, hands on her hips
and called out, "Nice one, honey. Let's see if you'll be able to do it again
-- after this! Mrumbi crah teen!"

"No! Debbie!" I looked at her. She'd just grown three inches and our clothes
and other things were different too. My tennis racquet and my shorts, for
example, and Debbie was no longer wearing a tennis dress, but rather a top and
skirt. She smoothed her top over her larger bust and pulled back her sleeve to
look at her biceps. "Hey Tom! That was a good one. Now I've got some real
muscle!" She flexed it and even from the distance of the service line I could
see the curve of a generous bicep. She licked her lips and set to serve.

"Wait, Debbie, I ...." The ball zipped toward me. I swung instinctively but
the swift ball skidded and came up low and hit the end of my racquet, going
off to the side. I hadn't been ready, but I wasn't going to call it. I
stoically walked to the other side and moved a few steps further back toward
my service line. She tossed it again and hit another hard shot. I got around
on it this time for a return to the middle of the court. We rallied, but she
was hitting much faster and I couldn't hit a good approach shot and finally
hit one into the net.

"Deuce!" she called out. She missed her first serve and then hit one to my
backhand. I returned it cross court and she attacked again, this time coming
in toward the net. I lofted a lob over her head, but she backed up a couple of
steps and slammed it for a winner. "That won't work, honey! I'm taller now,
remember?" I glared at her and got set for her next serve. She got the first
one in again but I returned it smartly, keeping her at the baseline. Again we
rallied, the ball whizzing between us. I tried to move her around but with the
faster pace on her shots I couldn't angle the ball as well. Besides, she was
easily covering the back of the court and her strokes were, if anything, more
solid than mine. Not harder, but she had always been more focused on her form
than I was, and now it was giving her a slight advantage. Finally I saw an
opening and I pushed a shot toward her backhand corner -- and hit it out!
"Game!" she called. "One-one."

I shook my head and took a deep breath. I'd have a serious talk with her ...
later, but now I was determined to show her that however she played this game,
adding muscle or not, she wasn't going to beat me. I buckled down and made
five straight first serves, winning it Game-15. I headed for the net, starting
to talk even before I'd gotten halfway there.

"Debbie, let me tell you something. When you use that phrase --

"What phrase, darling?" she said innocently.

I ignored her. "-- you're changing our whole lives. Everything could be
different for us here -- our friends, our jobs --

"--our marriage," she said, pointedly, stopping next to me and pushing her
larger breasts against me.

"What do you mean by that?"

"What do you think I mean? Will our marriage be different too?"

"I -- I don't know. It depends on us, I guess."

"Only us? No one else."

"No one --" I croaked, "Debbie -- darling...."

I was torn about whether to say anything more and after some hesitation put my
hand on her shoulder and leaned down to kiss her, but as our lips were about
to meet, she said "Mrumbi crah THEEN -- darling!"

I gasped. Suddenly she was a mere inch shorter than I was, but absolutely
bursting with muscle. Her arms were half again as thick as mine, and even that
overall thickness was not enough to contain it; her biceps and forearms pushed
outwards even further with huge round sinews of muscle that seemed to pulse
with power.

"Well, will you look at that!" she said, tensing her biceps and admiring the
massive bulge of muscle that erupted out of her arm. "Debbie strong!" She
patted it gently, then tucked her tennis racquet under her arm, grasped me by
my waist and lifted me eight inches into the air as though my 185 pounds were
a toy. "You don't mind, hun? This way, you're looking down at me, like usual,
ok?" she laughed. "But 'honestly' Tom, I think things'll be a little different
now, dear."

I stared down at her. "Wha-why are you doing this? Do you know what you've
just done?!!" I asked, incredulous at her behavior. "Is this because you WANT
a different kind of marriage?

"Marriage? We can talk about that later. I was talking about tennis!" She let
me drop and held her racquet in her hand again. "I LIKE this racquet. It has a
nice balance! Try it."

She handed it to me and I almost dropped it. It must have weighed five pounds.
"You can't play with this!"

"Uh-uh," she replied, taking it back. "YOU can't! I think it must be a ladies'
racquet." She tossed it in the air and spun it around playfully as she walked
back to her side of the court. I was still standing at the net. "My serve
honey, remember?" she called out.

She bounced the ball a few times as I trudged slowly back thinking there was
no way she'd be able to play. She'd never be able to control her new strength
or to use a racquet that heavy. She tossed the ball up and then whipped around
the racquet. The ball hit the corner of the box and sped by me in a blur and
slammed against a soft wall behind us before my muscles even twitched. How did
she do that? And then I realized that her body in this "world" must be
accustomed to playing with this racquet.

"Did you see it, honey? It looked in to me, but it's your call, right?" she
called out. I grunted a yes and she moved over to the "ad" side while I
back-pedaled to give myself a better chance. Seeing me, she shook her head and
I though I saw her grinning. She blasted another one, but this one landed in
the service box closer to the net and bounced high above my head. Even if I
had gotten my racquet around I never could have reached it. "You have get in
closer, Tom, so you can attack them before they rise! Just a little helpful
advice. Or maybe you'll just have to jump." I walked back and steeled myself
to move quicker. I started swinging even before she hit the next serve, and
incredibly managed to get my racquet on it and hit it onto her side, although
not with much pace. She set herself and then fired a shot no more than five
feet to my right, but so fast that it sailed by me before I could reach it.
She closed out the game with another ace. "Two-all!"

Of course, who knew in this world what the score really was? She was
continuing the game we'd started before, but for all I knew, in this world we
had just come out for a little exercise. There was no way I could compete with
her here! Then I shook my head. Wasn't this the same as our original world,
where Debbie had never really had a chance against me, but still never stopped
trying. Shouldn't I be the same way? I wasn't sure. We were different people.
But was I any less competitive than she? No! Well, now I had a new goal -- to
hold my serve and keep the game tied until we got booted off the court. I
concentrated again on keeping my streak. The effort of lifting the heavier
racquet for the serve confused my mind, but my body knew to rock backwards to
help move the racquet around. Somehow I got my first serve in again, but
Debbie easily hit it back. I returned it hard to her backhand, using my body
weight to push the racquet more than usual, and she ripped one even harder
down the line and beyond my reach. Love-15. I hit another first serve in but
she hit it back twice as hard. I didn't even try for it. The next two points
were even worse. As she hit the second one, she cried out, "Love - Game on
hubby's serve!" as she hit the ball, without even waiting to see my return.
She was already running up to the net while I was still staring at the ball
flying by me.

"Give up darling, or do you want to keep trying?" I grunted. "You know, you
were right. It IS just like I've always heard you say! A good strong player
beats a good weaker player, any day!" She flexed her biceps and looked down at
them, admiringly, pumping them repeatedly. "Aren't they beautiful! They're
what I always wanted too!"

"This isn't just a game, Debbie! Don't you realize you're changing our lives?"
I shouted as I approached her.

She didn't answer but kept pumping. "Do you think they can get any bigger?"
She strained her arm, making the veins pop out and creating a new peak. "Whew,
that's hard work! But there's an easier way."

"Debbie!"

"Mrumbi crah een. Mrumbi crah een," she said in a singsong, teasing voice,
looking down at her muscles. We were eye to eye now, but I was facing a woman
who was a mass of explosive muscle. She tensed her pectorals and pushed out
her chest, bumping me backwards. Her racquet had grown too, and the strings
looked different, shiny. Mine suddenly felt even heavier in my hand and I had
to drop the head to the ground. She spun hers again, showing off her superior
strength, and bounced one of the tennis balls she was holding and grinned.
"Hey, different balls too! Catch, honey." She tossed one at me, but I grabbed
for it too quickly and missed. Instead, it bounced against my chest painfully
and fell to the ground, making a plonk as it bounced.

"What the fuck!" I cried. I picked up the ball and it was heavier than a
baseball and nearly as hard. "We can't use these!"

"Come on, honey, this is how they play here. Let's see how it works!!" she
chirped and ran back to serve. I went back to my side of the court and
immediately noticed it was about ten feet longer and a bit wider. I waited
nervously, noticing that I was now the only male on the court and that a
number of the other players were pointing at me and laughing. She threw the
ball up and slashed her racquet at it. Again, moving by instinct, I got the
racquet on the ball and managed to push it over the net, but the force of the
contact jarred my arm and pushed me backwards. "Good shot honey!" she called
out patronizingly as she glided toward the lob and easily put it away for the
point. Her next serve was easier and I cut my swing shorter and punched the
ball over the net. She returned it to me gently, placing it to my forehand,
where I added some pace and attacked it cross-court, but she slid over and
returned it neatly to my forehand at exactly the same place. I grunted and hit
it deeper, taking advantage of the longer court, but the heavier racquet and
ball moved more slowly than I wanted and she moved backwards and hit it back,
again right to my forehand. Why, she was doing that on purpose, making it easy
for me. I grit my teeth and hit it harder, cross-court again to her backhand,
but she covered the distance easily and fired it back to my forehand, just a
tad harder. The added speed knocked off my timing and my next shot fell short.
She moved in, waited for it patiently and then hit it back to my forehand,
again with slightly more speed, showing me how completely she was in control
of the game. I hit it at her feet, and she stepped out of the way and angled
her shot so that I had to run to catch up to it, just getting my racquet
underneath enough to loft it over the net. My short, high return set her up
perfectly for a smash, which she hit by me without even a grunt. "30-love!"
she cried out. "Nice rally, honey!" she added brightly. Her first serve was
out and I moved in slightly to attack the second serve and got around on it
well, hitting it deep to her backhand. I ran to the net to continue the
attack, but the heavy ball moved a lot more sluggishly than I had anticipated
and she easily set herself for it and rapped it back twice as quickly,
knocking the racquet out of my hand when I tried to volley it. "Oh honey! Are
you alright?" she asked, running up to the net.

"I'm fine!" I replied angrily.

"Okay. But maybe you shouldn't try to play at the net. These are big, heavy
balls and I hit them pretty fast. I don't want you to get hurt. I'll try to go
easier on you."

"Don't you dare!" I replied angrily.

She looked at one of the women watching us from another court and shrugged.
The woman laughed and waved and Debbie trotted back to the service line. She
tossed the ball high and hit it hard with a grunt, and the ball tore through
the air and flew by me for an ace. "That's game!" She tossed the balls to me
with an easy motion. "Your serve dear."

She was ahead four games to two now. I had to hold my serve, but it seemed
hopeless. I experimented with the balls, tossing them in the air to serve but
it felt wrong to me, and the weight of the balls made it impossible to place
them accurately.

I heard laughter behind me, and two hulking teenage girls were pointing at me,
saying, "Look at him! He's trying to serve like a woman!"

"What's the matter with you? You're just going to hurt yourself."

"You shouldn't even be on these courts, you know. You should be on the boys'
courts, using the boys' balls."

I turned around and frowned. They giggled and then one of them made a motion
like she was tossing the ball to her side and then hitting it underhanded.
"You know, like you were doing it before."

"That's the way boys should do it. You think you can throw like a woman?"

"Maybe he tries to pee like a woman too!"

They tittered and held their hands in front of their crotches to imitate a man
peeing and then skipped away.

I grit my teeth and tossed the ball to serve -- the proper way -- but missed
the ball completely.

"Take another, Tom. First one in, okay?" Debbie said indulgently. I tried
twice more, ignoring the hoots of laughter from the growing crowd of women
watching. Finally, to their applause, I gave in and hit it into the box
underhanded. Debbie hit it back to me gently and I ran in to return it but hit
it into the net. "Nice try!" Debbie called out sympathetically. "It almost
went over!"

"You don't have to say that!" I said angrily.

Debbie tossed her head, offended. "Don't get mad just because you're not
playing well."

"I was playing great, until you changed things."

"Hmmph. As if you have no responsibility."

"You're the one changing things all the time."

"I wouldn't have had to if you hadn't messed things up."

"But everything was fine before."

"For you." She tossed a ball in the air impatiently. "We're running out of
time. Do you want to play or just chit-chat?"

"Play!" I said angrily.

"All right then!" she said, determinedly.

I stomped back to the service line and hit the ball at her, underhanded of
course. She whipped her racquet around and sent the heavy ball flying faster
than a Randy Johnson fastball down the line for a winner. She hit it out on
the next point, but the following two were winners too. I couldn't even get my
racquet on her returns of my own serve!

"That's five-two. One more game and I win!" she said coldly as we approached
the net for the cross-over. "Any last words?"

"No. I just ... just can't believe you've done this -- just to beat me in
tennis."

"You WOULD see it that way. You don't get it, do you?"

"Debbie! This doesn't sound like you at all. You're not like this."

"You made me this way. You don't understand even that?!"

"I was trying to SAVE you. Everything I did was to save you."

"Everything?" She crossed her muscular arms in front of her chest and stepped
closer to me. She was scaring me now.

"Debbie!" I said. But I was almost begging her now to see reason.

"NOW you're talking. Maybe you're beginning to understand."

"I don't understand. Explain it to me. Please, let's talk about it."

"You want to talk about it. I'll tell you. Mrumbi crah een. Mrumbi crah teen.
Mrumbi crah theen." she chanted.

I covered my ears. "No, please!! No more!"

"Mrumbi crah een. Mrumbi crah teen. Mrumbi crah theen. Mrumbi crah een. Mrumbi
crah teen. Mrumbi crah theen."

With each repetition the world changed around me. Each repetition was like a
crash of cymbals, then a crack of thunder, and then the groan of an
earthquake. Her breaths felt like gale-force winds and her laughter was the
roar of a thousand Debbies. And then it stopped. I was standing on the side of
the tennis court. Two enormous women over twenty feet tall were using a type
of racquet to hit a large grey object, twice the size of a beachball back and
forth with tremendous speed and force over a thick stone wall, waist-high to
the women, but several feet taller than I was. The sound of racquet striking
ball was deafening, and the ground shook when they ran to catch up with it.
Finally one of the giantesses won a point, and ran over to me and picked me up
with one arm. It was Debbie. "How're you doing Tom?" she roared. You haven't
lost yet, have you? Want to play?" She held out the ball to me. It was half my
size! She tilted her hand and it rolled against me, crushing me against her
chest with its weight.

"Help Debbie!! Help!"

Her opponent laughed. "Debbie! You're going to break it. Stop clowning around
and finish the game!"

"It thinks it's a tennis player." she called out to her opponent.

"Debbie! Come on! Put it down."

"I can't breathe!" I rasped.

She bent over me. "The only escape is the magic phrase. Say it and you'll be
free."

"No!"

She tossed the ball in the air a hundred feet and held me at arms length,
right where it would fall. "Catch it, Tom or say it!"

I watched the ball reach its apogee and then it started plummeting toward me,
faster and faster. "Mrumbi crah een!" I said. "Mrumbi crah een." My eyes were
burning from the sun as it got closer and closer.

And I woke up, in a panic. But strangely not sweating, nor with my heart
pounding as it would usually do after a nightmare. The sun was in my eyes,
Janice was at the window, having just opened the shade, and looking back at me
with a pensive smile. She was showered and dressed but hadn't put on her
make-up yet.

"Sorry babe. I'd love to let you go on, but I was sure you'd have something
you had to do, either at work or at the hospital. Do you want me to let you go
back to sleep?"

I shook my head. "No, no. You were right to get me up. What a night!"

"Really? When I came in you were sleeping calmly, but then suddenly you
started tossing, kicking at the blankets and then talking in your sleep. I've
never seen you so distraught. At least you slept most of the night. I hope it
helped having me here." She came over, sat on the bed next to me and stroked
my face. "You're glad I came over, right?" I nodded. "I thought it was the
right thing. Come on, let's get you out of bed and into the shower." She
pulled off the covers and tugged on my arm gently and I stood up, then frowned
as I looked at her. "What's wrong, babe?" she asked.

"Nothing, I --" She couldn't be taller than me. She must be wearing shoes. I
looked down, but no, she was wearing only her stockings.

"What's the matter?" she said, more concerned.

"I must really be losing it."

"Tom! What is it?"

"You're going to think I'm crazy, but I had this idea we were the same
height."

She laughed, relieved. "You're still in dreamland Tom. I've always been taller
than you, not by nearly as much when we first met, but you never caught up."
She laughed and squeezed my arm, playfully. "Just like in the biceps
department. I'm still an inch bigger. I know you could probably pass me if you
spent as much time in the weight room as you do playing tennis, but you don't.
Anyway, tennis is your game and Debbie's. Mine is football!" She bent down, as
if she was at the scrimmage line ready to take me out on the hike, but then
instead lifted me up and held me, kissing me, and then carried me into the
bathroom to the shower. "I've got an early appointment myself to show a house,
and Debbie needs you, so you better get going!"

She set me down, slapped my rump and waved good-bye as I got into the shower
and started my day. Once she'd left I beat my fist against the shower wall.
I'd obviously talked in my sleep, saying the words Larry had given me. How far
I'd moved I couldn't know for sure, but I guessed it was at least two jumps.
And Debbie had a chance for recovery in that other world. How would it be
here? Would I have to be careful, even in my dreams, for the rest of my life?
How would I ever manage it? Somehow I had to relax -- I didn't want to start
taking pills to knock myself out each night. Of course, perhaps it was just
guilt that gave me such a night. I'd have to stay away from Janice somehow.

But after my shower, I saw that in this world, Janice had slept in another
room. So, perhaps here I had never slept with her. Certainly that provocative
picture was no longer in our living room. So had I really cheated on Debbie? I
knew that in my heart I had, but in this world it had never happened.