"You may be right, Winnie. But it may not be the right gown for doctors and lawyers. I had better start easy, with the high neckline. Help me, please."

While they were getting Joan into a nightgown she asked, "Winnie? How did you happen to burst in on me?"

"What? Why, the displays of course. Both your heart rate and respiration were way up. Exercise. So I rushed in to check—and sure enough, my bad girl had managed to get out of bed. Oh, how you frightened me, dear!"

"Winnie, there's a hole in that story I could throw a dog through."

The nurse stiffened. "What do you mean—Joan?"

"My heart rate and respiration must have climbed a good ten minutes before you came in."

"Oh, dear! You won't tell on me? You promised."

"I did and so did you. Winnie with the sweet mouth, from now on neither of us is ever going to tell Dr. Garcia a durn thing unless we think he needs to know it. You and I, dear. Solid. Now tell me what happened."

"Uh... oh, this is silly. Whoever is on watch at the remotes isn't supposed to take his eyes off the displays even a moment. But you were doing so nicely... and Mrs. Sloan was taking a nap—which she needed, poor dear—and Dr. Garcia had gone to check on Mr. Salomon and he takes a grim view of being sent for unless the patient needs him... and the washroom is just down the hall from the displays—"

"I get it. We had the same urge at the same time. Right?"

Winnie blushed again. "I deserve to be fired. I know better than to take any chance with a patient. Patients do the damnedest things."

"You aren't ever going to be fired, you're going to be here long after Dr. Garcia leaves. If you'll stay. How do I look?"

"Simply lovely. I wouldn't have guessed it but I do think this gown does more for you than that Cretan number." (What did I tell you, Boss?) "But I'm going to put more lipstick on you. It's all gone."

"Now how in the world did that happen?"

Winnie giggled. "Don't ask me. But guess maybe I'll put on some myself before Doctor sees us. Joan? Is it all right for me to call you ‘Miss Joan' when Dr. Garcia is around? He's terribly strict."

"Tell him to go soak his head. Sho', sho', honey, if it makes you feel easier. But I'm ‘Joan' when he's not around. You're my coach. You're going to make a lady out of me." (That's my job, Boss. And a tough one, I can see.) (So you need help with it. Don't joggle my elbow; Winnie is our secret weapon.) (Okay. But this weapon night explode.) (Look, infant, I learned to cope with women long before your grandmother was born.)

"I'll be glad to help, any way I can... Joan dear."

"Then you can start by convincing dear Doctor that I'm well enough for a tub bath. I stink. Ladies ought not to stink."

"Why, you had a bed bath' not two hours ago!"

"I need more than a bed bath and you know it. Sell him the idea that you can help me into and- out of the tub and keep me from falling. If you have trouble with him, fetch him in and I'll throw a tantrum. If he gives us grief, I'll make him scrub my back." Joan grinned. "So get lipstick on us; then go find him."

(Joan Boss honey, see what I mean about the high neckline job? See what it does for us?) (I know that I feel somewhat more covered up. But only somewhat. Eunice, those breast panels are wicked.) (Oh, full, they're not even transparent, just translucent. But that's why this nightgown is so much sexier than the Cretan one. Men always mistake bare skin for sexiness. A typical male mistake~) (Maybe so, but I have never in my long life complained about bare skin.) (I won't argue, Joan, but I'm going to pick out our clothes. Until you start thinking like a woman. But I had a specific reason for picking the gown which is—superficially—more modest. So that we will have it on when Jake comes in.)

(Eunice, Jake has probably gone home. He's had a rough time.)

(So he has and what do you think I'm talking about? He's still in the house; he would not leave without saying good­bye.)

(Oh, nonsense, Jake and I aren't that formal.)

(Boss, Jake is a gentleman to his fingertips. He might feel free to duck out without formality in dealing with his old friend Johann Smith—but not with a lady. ‘Johann' is one thing, ‘Joan Eunice' is another matter.)

(But he knows I'm Johann.)

(So? Then why did he kiss our hand? Joan, I'm going to have to watch you every second; you don't know anything about men.)

(I spent almost a century being one.)

(Irrelevant. Hush up; he maybe here any time, I've got to tell this bang. Joan, the last few months before I was killed I was Jake's mistress.)

(How was the old goat?)

(Is that all you have to say?)

(Eunice, you think I know nothing about men. Possibly true, in one sense. But I can teach you about men—from the inside—the way you can teach me about men from the outside. Jake is tough. Yet I saw him collapse twice in grief over you. Understandable that your death would upset him some. Understandable that it was a strain on him to help out in the masquerade of not letting me know that I had inherited your lovely body. Nevertheless you were just a girl he had known through business, one who helped him with my affairs. Not one he knew intimately. Yet this tough old lawyer collapsed twice. Over you. So he must have known you far better than anyone guessed. How? And where? Only one answer. In bed.)

(Not always in bed, you dirty old man with a girl's name. In bed, certainly. But lots of other places, too. In his car. Is your car. Several times in this house—)

(Be damned! Then all my servants know it, too.)

(I doubt if they suspect. We used your study to work—and did work—and Cunningham didn't let us be disturbed any more than he would have disturbed you and me. You asked a rude question, you'll get a blunt answer. The old goat was good. And quite daring in grabbing every chance. We hardly missed a day up to the time I was killed.)

(A couple of j.d.'s, you two. Well, ‘My hat's off to the Duke.')

(Jealous, Boss?)

(No, envious. I wouldn't have been up to it the first day] laid eyes on you. Impossible. And now still more impossible. Just envious. The old goat.)

(Not impossible, Joan.)

(Eh?)

(I was shocked when I saw Jake. My death must have hurt him terribly. I know it did, he loved me. But we can pull him out of it, Joan, you and I—only this time we won't use your study.)

(What? Why, that's incest!)

(Don't be ridiculous, dear. I was no relation to Jake and I don't think you are, either.)

(I mean it would feel like incest. Jake? Jake? Eunice, when I admitted that J supposed that I would— eventually—be ‘actively female,' I didn't have Jake in mind.)

(I did.)

(Then get it out of your mind! Forget it. Dr. Hedrick if you want to—at least I'll try to cooperate—after I get used to being female. Your former husband, Joe, I owe that to yo-u—)

(Not Joe.)

(Why not? You spoke highly of him in that respect, and I always thought you thought well of him in other respects. Not urging you—hell, I can't think about sex other than abstractly about any man; rm not yet reoriented. But I had already decided to go along with your need for Joe.)

(Boss, I can't. Not with Joe. Because he was my husband. To him, I'd be a zombie. A walking corpse. I doubt if he would touch us... and if he did, I'd be terribly tempted to tell him. Tell him I'm still here. Can't. I know it.)

(And 1 can't make it with Jake. It's the same with Jake, too, you know. A walking corpse.)

(Not quite the same. Surely, he knows we're a patchwork, your brain Sand my body. But he loved us both. He's loved you much longer than he's loved me. While Joe doesn't even know you.)