The nurse brought me a couple of pills in a paper cup and a small glass of water. I eyed her up as she turned away. She would have gotten my attention in my earlier life, but now looking at her the way I did, IF this was 1974 and IF I was a girl, would probably get me labeled and locked up as well! I swallowed the Gravol and she went to put the covers back on me.
"Just leave them at my waist please," I asked politely. "I'm hot."
Now that had to be a first for me. I actually said please! But I was rewarded with a smile as she folded the blankets at my waist so I could pull them up without reaching. Then she stuck a thermometer in my mouth.
"Just to make sure you don't have a fever," she said.
Satisfied, she left me after I asked with a very polite please to leave the light on.
I waited until things quieted down. If I remembered correctly, the night shift nurses just hung around at the nursing station filling out reports and making rounds every hour or so.
As I waited for calm to descend on the floor I started to think. Unless I woke up and this turned out to have been a dream, I was back in 1974, but as a girl. According to the nurses, the kid down the hall was Patrick O'Donnell. I assumed, based on what I had heard earlier, I was a girl name Pat or Patty.
I struggled to turn my head and gasped as I saw the name Patricia Johnson written in marker on a piece of tape on the headboard.
I wondered how Patricia felt about being me. Hell, I knew it was just the drugs talking, so I let myself go with the flow. Why fight the trip?
Even though it hurt a bit, I just couldn't resist. I lifted the blankets to examine the plumbing. Damn! I hadn't seen any real ones when I was 14, and now I had one of my very own! A genuine pussy!
I gently touched it, feeling the curly hairs and sliding my fingers down to explore further. In later years I had seen plenty of them but never did quite understand them. Now was the chance to really find out how they worked.
After amusing myself for ten minutes with that, I pulled the blankets up a bit higher, and tugged and pulled on my new breasts. They weren't big at all. I had larger ones as a man. I remembered girls in school having bigger ones, but these were fun to play with anyway. Quite sensitive too - this made me wonder what the big deal was with size. I soon found myself getting tired and drifted off to sleep.
The next morning I woke to find a couple sitting by my bed, regarding me with concern on their faces. Patricia Johnson's parents? They looked old enough to be the parents of a teen-aged girl, but I wasn't going to take the chance I was wrong, so I just mumbled "Good morning."
"Patricia? Sweetheart? How do you feel?" asked the woman, showing her worry.
"Hiya, Patti-Cake," said the man. "The doctor said you're going to be just fine, though you scared your mother half to death!"
Oh, shit! What were their names? Oh! Duh! The universal name of all parents!
"Mom?" I ventured, and I saw her worried look ease a little. "I'm fine, Mom," I said, and then I smiled at the man beside her. "Hi, Daddy," and got a smile in return.
"Mom?"
"Yes, Honey?"
"Mom, what happened to me?" I asked in a small voice, feeling the echo of my early morning panic.
She jumped from her chair and leaned over me, holding my head to her breasts. "Oh Honey, it's all right, you're all right, it's okay now. Sshh, it's okay." Gently, she pushed my hair back and looked down at me. "Your appendix burst, Honey. I found you on the kitchen floor when I got home from work."
I snuggled against her as she stroked my hair, just enjoying the feeling of being held for a few minutes, and then an orderly came in carrying a tray.
"Patricia Johnson?" he asked to verify the tray was for me. "Sorry Miss, but you're restricted to a liquid diet for a few days. But you can have all that you want," he added with a chuckle. He cranked the bed up to a slight incline so I could see the tray, and I felt a stab in my side. He must have seen me wince as he said, "I guess that's as high as you're going to get today young lady."
Young Lady?
It was bad enough finding myself trapped inside a young girl's body, but I had been retrofitted to 1974. While I'm sure the orderly was being polite, those terms were politically incorrect where - when- I had come from.
I looked at the tray. Two containers of milk, two of apple juice, and one that I hoped was coffee but turned out to be a soup broth. Damn but I could sure use a coffee.
"Dad," I said in the sweetest way I knew how, "could you ask if I could have a coffee?"
"Coffee?" my 'mother' said. "You know that you aren't allowed to drink coffee!"
Damn. If something as basic as coffee was off limits, how was I going to get by with the more complicated things in this girl's life? I needed information or a damn good reason for not remembering. I decided I had better try the amnesia stunt.
"I'm sorry, Mom," I said starting to sob. "I don't seem to remember."
"Drink your milk, dear," my 'mother' said soothingly, and then she whispered something into my 'father's' ear. He got up and left as I fumbled with the container of milk.