by Helen Patrice
Katherine threw her book across the room. Robert and Joycey glanced at each other, then downed their own books.
"Is there a problem, Kath?" Joycey asked.
Katherine groaned, drawing her left arm across her eyes. "This book - all these books -" She waved at the considerable collection lining the walls. "They're intolerable. The writers should have been shot."
Robert retrieved Katherine's book. "Jane Austen? What's so bad about her?" He suddenly wished he hadn't asked, and Joycey shot him a dirty look.
Katherine grabbed the book and read: "'It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.' She should be horsewhipped. It makes a woman into a commodity."
"I think she was being ironic," said Joycey. "You know, humorous. Once you get into her books, she's really quite funny."
Katherine snorted. "Quiet constrained daughters, the 'thrill' of the husband-chase, while the men hunt and fish and make a difference in the world. There's nothing funny about down-trodden women!"
"It's social history." Robert wished he could shut his big mouth. "It doesn't mean it's happening now. You and Joycey aren't hunting husbands, are you?"
"Goddess no! One was enough," Katherine snapped. "But it was all a big husband-hunt when I was young and stupid. I met my husband at uni and that was the end of my studies. I mooned around after him, writing love poems and waxing my legs. All because I read these books at school."
"Now I've seen the error of my ways," Joycey deja-vu'd, under her breath.
"Now I've seen the error of my ways," Katherine boomed. "No husband, no ties. I'm back at uni with no distractions." She smiled sweetly at her friends. "Except you two, of course." She threw her arms wide, gesturing to the book-lined walls. "I can do whatever I want now. And what I want is to stop millions of silly young women like Joycey from making my mistakes. You'll have to send me back." She glanced at Robert.
He shook his head. "No. Absolutely not."
"It's for all of us, Robert. All us women. I know you support the cause."
"I also support Save the Whales, but I don't personally - "
Katherine slid onto the chair-arm and wound her arms around him, "Bobby, please. Last time was so easy, and look at the good it did. Virginia Woolf was an inspirational feminist."
Robert tried to shy away from her, but her strong arms held him tight. "Joycey told me what really happened, Kath. You pestered her so much that she felt compelled to demand a room of her own."
Katherine shrugged. "Well, maybe I did have to push her a little. But she did write about it and inspired us all. Surely that was worth it."
Joycey watched Katherine deftly place Robert's physics text on the floor and bump into his lap. She suddenly wished she could weight her dress with rocks and fall into a river.
"Bobby, you will send me back, won't you? You know how much I love you. I'll do anything for you." Katherine slid down Robert's body until her face was level with his crotch.
Joycey gathered up her copy of 'The History of Literature' and hurried from the room. Just in case Katherine managed to get her way, and there wasn't much doubt of that, Joycey thought, she would start researching Jane Austen.
* * *
Joycey gave a sheaf of papers to Katherine. "That's a summary of Jane Austen's books, and some references in case you want to..."
Katherine took the notes gingerly. "What about Austen herself, and her world? What have you found out?"
"There's a book in the college library that-"
"Oh darling, I won't have time to read all that. I've got an essay due in this week on Feminism During War. I haven't even started it. Could you...." She smiled at Joycey.
"I've got my own work, Kath," Joycey said. "I'm not supposed to be doing Jane Austen until next year. Dr Frank's still got us on 'Don Quixote'."
"Oh, old Frankenstein won't mind. He wouldn't know what day it is. It'll only take you a few hours, won't it, love?"
"More like a few days."
"But we don't have days. Robert's garnered the lab during the Physics conference tomorrow. We have to go then."
"'We'? I'm not going, Kath. Not after last time."
Katherine drew Joycey to her. "I want you to be there, love. You know so much more than I do. It's only your finesse, your attention to detail that carries it off."
Joycey stiffened for a moment she felt Katherine's fingers feather along her jaw and over her lips. She hesitated a moment, then took the index finger into her mouth. Katherine smiled and kissed Joycey on the neck. Her other hand cupped Joycey's breast.
"You always said Jane Austen was pretty," Katherine muttered. "Wouldn't you like to see for yourself? You've always been a sucker for a pretty woman."
Joycey surrendered herself to Katherine's touch, her body thrilling while she remembered their love-making during their last time trip. Their minds had been transported back into the bodies of two people in Virginia Woolf's world. They had visited the writer as house guests. Joycey, in the body of an elderly woman, had been content to listen to Mrs Woolf and burn into her mind what she could about her. Katherine had occupied her days marching around inside the body of a small, mousy woman, making the body do inappropriate things. No house mouse would have ever gone on a ten-mile hike, then returned home to flop spread-eagled on a couch and fan herself with her skirts.
Their love-making had been fierce. Katherine had pushed their unfamiliar bodies to new heights as Joycey had croaked out her orgasm. The sensation was so sharp and bright that she rather hoped her own post-menopausal arousal was as exciting.
* * *
Robert attached the electrodes to Joycey's naked body as she lay on the metal tray-bed in the physics lab. He'd already wired Katherine, and she was doing her best to lie still.
"Hurry up, Bobby. I'm freezing."
"You won't be much warmer in England," Joycey said over Robert's shoulder. "It's winter, isn't it, Robert?"
He nodded. "The fix I have is mid-winter. Jane Austen's visiting friends in Bath. There're plenty of people she hasn't met before, so..."
"Yes, yes, that's all fine," Katherine said. "Now, hurry up. Oh, why aren't these labs heated?"
Robert ignored her and continued applying gel to Joycey's body and attaching electrodes. Joycey glanced again at Katherine, who was idly twiddling one of her cold, erect nipples and staring at the ceiling.
"Is it all set?" she whispered to Robert.
He nodded. "I've picked out a bloke for her and a woman for you. Do you really think she'll be less conspicuous as a man?"
"For the time period, yes. All that stomping around and sitting with her legs apart. She can do that freely as a man."
Robert gently attached a final electrode to Joycey's forehead, then stroked her brow. "Are you sure you want to do this? I could..."
Joycey shook her head. "No, I want to go." Her voice was flat. "I'm curious, and after all, someone has to keep an eye on Kath." She shivered. "How long will we be out this time? Last time I was freezing."
Robert spoke. "Real time, you'll be out around three hours. Back-time, probably five days. There's no way to be sure."
"Get on with it, Bobby," Katherine almost shouted.
Robert retreated behind a row of computers and eyed the two women. Both were pale, but while Katherine merely looked white and goose-fleshed, Joycey had a translucent quality.
One computer was silently flashing a countdown. At the mark of 20, a small charge zapped through the electrodes and put both women in a deep trance. At the mark of zero, both bodies let out a huge sigh, and Robert knew they were gone. Their bodies were still there, functioning and alive, but their minds were waking up in new bodies whose own minds were pushed to the background.
"I love you," Robert whispered. "Come back soon."
Then he sat back and took out his physics text, prepared to wait out the next three hours.
* * *
Katherine and Joycey sat in the university gymnasium's spa. Katherine swilled black coffee while Joycey clutched at a mug of tea. After an hour in the heat, she was still cold.
"It was fabulous," Katherine said, yet again. "Despite your stuff-up, Bobby. Fancy putting Joycey in a man's body. I've never seen anything so stupid. There she was all week, crossing her legs and folding her hands in her lap." She laughed. "Still, it kept us all amused." She slurped her coffee. "Praise the Goddess for hot coffee. All they did was drink tea, damn them!" She suddenly stood up. "I'm going in the sauna. Who's coming?"
Joycey shook her head, and Robert followed suit. "We'll stay here."
Katherine shrugged. "Okay, Bobby, keep my baby-girl from drowning."
Robert watched her stalk away. "So, tell me the real story," he said, quietly.
Joycey shuddered. "Well, you know most of it. I ended up in Mr Morgan's body, and Katherine was Mrs Morgan. I had no idea how to go to the toilet. It was half a day before I even tried. I ended up wetting my shoes." Her voice caught. "As for Kath... the Morgans will have to leave Bath."
Robert rubbed her arm soothingly. "Go on."
"You know Kath. No sooner had she cornered Jane than she started on feminist theory. Jane just sat there, nodding politely and smiling. Three hours. When Kath wound down, Jane said 'If we don't have husbands, we have no identity'. She meant in polite society, but Kath thought she meant..well, everything. She got really mad. Every time she saw Jane, she'd started haranguing her. I watched Jane. She'd be polite, then sneak away and grin to herself. When Kath saw her do it, she said to me 'I'll show her what being a woman's all about. Buggery to men!' She found out where Jane was staying and crept in there on our last night." Joycey blushed. "She tried masturbating Jane in her sleep. Jane woke up and screamed the house down, after she hit Kath with the water jug. Jane was most definitely hetero. Kath swore and told her she was condemning millions of women to servitude. She said that the future would hate her."
Robert groaned. "I knew it. I knew she'd blab. She can't keep her bloody mouth shut, not that it ever seems to make any difference. Nothing changes. It's all a Kath-wank." He shook his head. "Never again. I'm not sending her back, no matter what. God, I could kill her."
Joycey nodded. "There was a moment when we went back. I woke up before she did and I realised for the first time that I was physically stronger than she was. I could've just.." She formed her hands into a circle and shook them. She sighed. "Who am I kidding?"
"Darlings, come into the sauna!" Katherine bellowed. She stood in the doorway. "It's lovely and warm, and you know what saunas do to me." Katherine stroked her pubic hair.
Joycey and Robert glanced at each other, then slowly rose from the water and followed Katherine into the steam. Katherine put an arm around both of them and drew them down to kneel before her. She spread her legs. "You first, Bobby. Joycey, why don't you....yeah, that's it, love. Just a bit harder, yeah, yeah....Oh, good girl."
* * *
Katherine lay on the tray-bed, nude and cold. "Oh for Goddess' sake, Bobby, get a move on. Joycey, are you sure you won't come with me?"
Joycey nodded. "I'm fine, Kath. You go sort him out."
Katherine snorted. "Bloody Fleming! James-fucking-Bond and his blonde bimbos. I'll show him. I'll-"
"Are you ready, Kath?" Robert asked.
She took a deep breath. "You bet."
Robert watched the countdown. 20...trance...10...time projection...5..4..3..2..1...mind travel. Katherine's body relaxed. Minutes later, a computer began flashing a warning. Robert hurried to type in some commands.
"Connection lost," the computer blinked at them.
"She's gone," Joycey said flatly.
Robert nodded and chewed on his bottom lip.
They laughed.
"Her autonomic system will keep functioning for another two hours," he said. "Enough time for us to put her somewhere."
"Where?"
"Bed?"
"No thanks. I'm not sharing a house with Kath the zombie. What about in her car?"
Robert grinned. "What about the sauna? It's Ladies' Day at the gym."
"Perfect!"
They approached Katherine's body and started removing the electrodes. As they peeled off the last ones, Robert frowned.
"What's so special about the body we sent her to? How can you be so sure she's dead?"
"That's what happens when you're a physics grad, not literature. You don't know the old poem:
'Lizzie Borden took an axe,
And gave her mother forty whacks.
When she saw what she had done,
She gave her father forty-one.'
"Oh, but why insist on Mrs Borden?"
"Forty's enough, Robert. No need to go overboard."
Robert smiled at Joyce. "After we get rid of Kath, then what?"
"A celebration." Joyce produced a book and tapped it. Robert caught sight of the title. 'Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning: Their Love and Lives'. Poking out of her well-worn study bag was Shakespeare's 'Antony and Cleopatra'. Joyce smiled at the time machine, then at Robert. "Let's go play."
