A CHANGE IN TIME

~

BRENDA

Chapter I

by

Karen Anne Summerfield

Writing as

Cynetta Cynthia Cynclaire
© November 1998

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"There she is. Here, Papa! Over here! I've found her!"

My head hurt terribly. Every heartbeat pulsed like a bass drum in my temples. Her soft hand touching my arm startled me fully awake - my whole body jumped at her touch.

"Wake up, Brenda, you are going to be all right. You're safe now." Clearly she seemed to be addressing her words towards me, but...

Brenda? My name is Jason, Jason Evershaw?

Forcing my eyes to focus was an effort. The woman – no, she was a girl - was kneeling beside me, her long tresses tickled my face.

"You're going to be all right, Brenda." Softly, her hand brushed long hairs from my brow. I felt these pull gently at my scalp. Long hair? I've a crew cut. The girl was joined by another, casting a shadow over me.

"Move aside, girl." His large hand clasped her shoulder pulling her back. The man knelt to take her place beside me. His strong features held a look of concern as his grey eyes peered into mine. I was afraid and I did not understand why. I understood nothing. Though the fingers of his large hand were strong, they moved across my arm to my chest like they were conducting an examination of my body, much like Doctor Jackson had done when I had my check-up two weeks previously.

Clearly, something was wrong. His fingers stopped poking and gently kneading my flesh when they reached my torso and over my waist to my hips.

"Your corset is loose, Brenda. You know you are forbidden to tamper with your laces." What the Hell was he talking about? Why were he and the girl calling me Brenda? He skipped over manipulating my lower belly and moved to my thighs.

As I tried to move his hands off me and raise myself up, the girl knelt again on the other side, her hands moving mine back.

"Lie still Brenda, just let Papa make sure you are all right." Though I tried to speak, at first, nothing came out.

Thoughts of speaking were interrupted by what I felt between his hands and my thighs, long straps under a lot of fabric? As they moved down my legs, I felt the hardware on their ends attached to something slippery that sheathed them. Stockings? I was wearing stockings? Below my knees, the fabric between his hands and me ceased, and his hands moved down a pair of boots. Again, I tried to rise.

"Brenda, just lay still for a moment, all right?" the girl said.

This time words did come out of my mouth, but the high-pitched voice that formed them wasn't mine.

"Why... why are you calling me Brenda? My name is...." I felt paralysed, I could not say 'Jason Evershaw', or even form the first letter, 'J'. Shocked by the sound of my voice inside my head, I fell silent, desperately trying to sort things out.

As it was late September, I had gone for a walk in the woods near my home in Northern Minnesota. It would soon be hunting season and I wanted to scout out the deer trails before the weather turned cold. After hiking for a few hours, I'd sat to rest on a large fallen tree covered with moss. Lighting my pipe and inhaling my sweet tobacco, a glint of sunlight seemed to wink at me from the forest debris. It was a piece of polished, silver coloured metal larger than my thumb when I had found the source. After sweeping off the fallen leaves, I'd stared at it a moment before reaching out to pick it up.

The man slapped the side of my thigh with the back of his strong hand, though I should have felt it more, all the fabric cushioned the impact.

"You seem fit, Brenda." He rocked back to stand.

"Help your sister up, Julliette."

I again attempted to get up on my own, placing my hands behind to push up from the ground.’ my right one falling on the hard metal cylinder. As my abdominal muscles contracted, the device about my torso protested that it did not wish me to bend in the middle. The girl, Julliette, pulled me to sit up by my shoulders.

"I'll help you, Brenda." She moved to a crouch, placing her hands about my left arm.

"Wait!" that same sounding, strange voice again. I was shocked by what I saw as my body came up. "Wait, just a bit, please?" The sound of my voice bothered me as much as what I was wearing. What I could see was a long, dark grey skirt of heavy wool. It was bunched above my knees, with a lot of white fabric there too. Several tiers of white ruffles tied with black ribbon gathered below my knees, above the tops of polished, laced up, black boots, boots with high heels! Not only was I wearing women's clothing, there was more.

Bending my head lower into the cloud of white lace beneath my chin, clearly my chest protruded in a normal way, normal for a female! I was completely bewildered as the girl called Julliette continued to pull my arm until I stood beside her. Strange, I had to look up to meet her eyes? I'm six foot, two inches and the heels on my boots easily added another three or more? Though I'd never before worn shoes or boots with heels more than, maybe three quarters of an inch thick I was then and they felt perfectly normal. Bending, Julliette brushed the petticoats and my skirt over them to my ankles, whisking off leaves and twigs as she did so.

I looked about. This was the same clearing that I had stopped in for a smoke, I'd no doubt that it was.

"What's that in your hand?" The man's voice demanded, causing me to look at him. For whatever reason, the furrows of his brow seemed angry. "Let me see? Give it here, girl." He sounded angry. Why? Why was he angry with me? I'd no reason not to extend my hand with the object toward him. Taking it in his, his grey eyes raised, in question at me. Was it question or accusation? The silver object was six inches long, and nearly a fourth that in diameter with one end rounded into a hemisphere.

"What is this?" He demanded. The man held it at the square end shaking it accusatively at me. "Where did you get this?"

"I've no idea what it is, Sir." My voice unnerved me. His voice made me feel as if I had done something improper.

"Humph. And just where did you get this?" He wagged it at me again. This man did not appear satisfied that I had answered his questions truthfully when I stated I'd found it there, in the forest.

Turning to Julliette, "Check, please, that your sister's belt is in tact?"

"Yes, Papa." Julliette glanced at the object then at me. Her look also seemed accusatory. Julliette dropped to her knees before me. I was totally without a clue as to what this; any of this was all about. Julliette's hands went up under my skirt and petticoats and quickly, she was standing next to her father.

"Papa," Julliette too looked at me as if I'd done something seriously wrong. "Brenda is unbelted."

The force of the back of his hand sent me to my knees. "Where is it, slut?" Before I could respond, he yanked me upright. Clearly he was very strong, a giant standing a head and a half taller than my six, foot two frame. He hit me again. "Where is your belt?"

"What belt?" Nothing was making sense to me. None of it! "What belt am I supposed to have that I do not?

"Sir, I do not even know you." That was the truth. They acted as if I were his daughter and Julliette was my sister and I hers. I was dressed in ladies clothes that might have been fashionable, that is fashionable if it was eighteen eighty-nine not nineteen ninety-nine. Julliette was also.

He was about to strike me again. Julliette moved between us, being hit by his checked swing instead of me. She rubbed her shoulder through the ecru dress that covered it. I moved my hand to rub my face where I'd been hit. Like all the rest of my body, it felt different, most startling was the absence of my moustache above my swollen lip. When I looked at my finger, there was a spot of my blood, but there was a red mark that clearly was not - lipstick?

Having hit his daughter with a blow intended for me seemed to have radically altered the giant's mood. I met his gaze, no longer an accusatory glare. We stared at each other. "Brenda, I did not will to strike you. Please? Tell me? You seem so different, I'm asking to understand."

I wanted to understand this myself. None of any of what was going on made the least bit of sense to me. I was grateful he no longer seemed angry. The man looked concerned. Until I'd this sorted out, until I could answer my own questions about everything, playing along with the circumstances I found myself in, seemed a proper course of action.

"Sir, I would answer if I knew the answer. Please believe me that I do not. I cannot explain anything for I do not know and that is the truth. I do not know how I got like this." I moved my open hands downwards, over the costume that I had found I was wearing. "Honestly, I can not explain this, Sir?" We stared, motionless for minutes.

He sucked in a deep breath, "Though it is not what my emotions tell me, girl, strange, I feel I should believe what you have said." He reached to take hold of my hand; I let him, returning the squeeze when his squeezed mine. Looking at our hands, I was shocked, again. I'd long fingernails painted the same shade of red as the spot of makeup on my lips and on my finger?

"Let us return home, daughter." Julliette moved to his other side and placed her hand in his too.

"Brenda?" It was weird to be addressed as Brenda. I guessed I must then have looked more like Brenda than Jason. "Brenda, will you tell Papa how you got out of your belt and where you hid it, pretty please, for me?"

I took the time until we were along the path, composing my response before answering. "I hope that you can believe me, please, both of you? I have no memory or knowledge of who I am, whom either of you are and what has transpired in my past. Truly I do not." Those words, in that high, young, girlish voice I now spoke with were not those I'd so carefully composed! My mind wanted to say that I was Jason Evershaw. I wanted to state I was a fifty-year old man employed as the Vice President of Engineering for the largest silica mining company in the world. I couldn't form the words.

We'd gone several hundred yards, it was Julliette who first broke their silence, "Tell us what you can remember then, please, Bren'?"

I wanted to tell all, all that came out was, "I went for a walk in the woods. After a bit, I stopped where you found me and, as I sat, I saw the object now in your Papa's pocket, Julliette. The last thing I remember was picking it up until you touched my arm."

The man holding my hand squeezed it a bit tighter. "There is much that I do not understand. Julliette, does any of what Brenda said make sense?"

"Not really, Papa."

He reached in his pocket, letting go of my hand to do so, and touched her with the cylinder. Replacing it, Julliette leaned across to smile at me then straightened. "Papa, what is that?"

"I have no clear idea, but it is the key."

Clearly, I was not in Minnesota. Minnesota has no ocean! When, a half hour later we broke from the forest, we were crossing a meadow. Farther along, I smelled the salt air and could hear the surf breaking. "It seems really strange, I realise this, please tell me where we are?"

The giant holding my hand moved before me, Julliette beside him, both facing me. "Do you know the date, daughter?"

"In answer, under other circumstances I'd say...." I could not say the date! Clearly in my head, I knew it was September twenty third, nineteen ninety-nine. Shaking my head caused the long red hair to swirl about. I'm a blonde! I've short hair! Frustrated, bewildered, very incapable of voicing my true thoughts, I started to cry. Damn this! I have not cried since I cannot remember, but it had been a long time.

I watched them stare at each other before Julliette asked, "Do you know where you are?" Wildly, shaking my head, hair swirling about side to side, all I could state was that I did not.

Our walk resumed, the man squeezed my small hand in his again. "We'll be home soon."

A few steps more, the man added, "Brenda, I do believe you", squeezing my hand, as if to reinforce this. "Truly, do you know not the date or where you are?"

I thought I did, but the coast confused me and I could not vocalise the date with my girlish voice, nor any other. "It is fifteenth March, two thousand five hundred forty-four, Brenda. We are near home, in New Jersey." Julliette moved ahead to open the gate. Five hundred fifty years and fifteen hundred miles! How?

Their house (our house?) was set on a cliff overlooking the sea. There is no cliff that bordered the Atlantic like this in New Jersey! Surrounded by elegant landscaping and trees, this was not the New Jersey shore I'd vacationed at many times before! I was very confused. Nothing, especially me, was normal. Nothing fit! I wondered if I was still on the same planet.

I was led across a drawbridge over a real moat! The moat surrounded the huge house. Yes, a fifteen-foot wide moat! We passed over the bridge and under a high, surrounding wall. The entrance through the high, thick wall had a portcullis above my head. This was more like five hundred years in the past than five hundred in the future.

The courtyard was paved with polished stone, each a yard square. I noted how my heels, as well as Julliette's, sounded as we crossed to the broad, white steps. Loud!

Reaching the level of the ornate doors, both opened before us. I was a bit startled by the very attractive maid, attired in an ultra-abbreviated uniform, who curtseyed beyond them.

"Master, welcome home!" She curtseyed as her heavily made-up eyes danced over both Julliette and me before she lowered them.

The man spoke, "Julliette, escort your sister to her apartment." He was again sounding stern. "Wait with Brenda until summoned."

"Yes, Papa." her soft hand replaced his. Julliette tugged to lead me up the white marble staircase at the end of the entrance hall.

The group of rooms into which I was led were furnished and decorated in black and white; no trace of colour was visible. Passing through the comfortable sitting room, one wall of which seemed crammed with unimaginable electronic devices or appliances, Julliette abruptly halted at the doorway of the connecting room.

Spinning about, her look was clearly puzzled as she focused on me then tugged me by my hand back onto the balcony surrounding the upper floor. Leaning over the railing, she called loudly.

"Papa! Papa!" I saw first a different girl appear and stare upwards; she too was attired as a maid.

"Anne, please inform my father that I need him here, now!" The tone with which she spoke clearly indicated the urgency Julliette wished to convey.

"Most certainly, mum." I watched her hurriedly leave the hall after completing a deep curtsey.

The huge man mounted the stairs, taking two at a time, the first maid and the one addressed as Anne, mincing hurriedly, trying to match his rapid pace. Concern, deep concern was telegraphed in the look he gave Julliette when they faced.

"Papa, go look on the bed in Brenda's room."

I trembled, trying, unsuccessfully to understand just a fraction of what was transpiring and what I had, apparently, become. Minutes later, his look of concern intensified, not diminished, the man stood looking down at me. Very calmly, he spoke in a quiet voice, "I understand none of this. Earlier, I thought you were not telling me all you knew, Daughter." He gave his head a violent shake, as if expecting that might clear his understanding.

"When we missed your presence at our breakfast this morning, both your sister and I checked your rooms, Brenda. Your bed appeared not to have been slept in and the girls denied knowledge of your whereabouts. They also denied tending to you this morning." He paused to take both my hands in his own. Again, I was struck by how small mine were in comparison and the long, red manicure that adorned the tips of my fingers.

"I did not believe that which you told me, that you could not explain this." He seemed so sincere, seemed to attempt to assure that I understood some of what he was telling me. The giant tugged my wrist to follow him. This time there was no pause in the doorway that had drawn Julliette to a halt. I was drawn inside.

This room too was only black and white. Its central feature was a circular bed covered with white fur. "Can you explain that, Brenda?" Arm extended, his finger pointed to the polished steel belt, a chastity belt lined with bright red rubber, which lay centred on the fur. Neatly arranged around it were garments of shiny black latex. Behind us, I think both maids drew a deep breath.

"You will not believe that I can not, Sir."

His deep chuckle and broad smile were not what I expected. "I might have been more disbelieving if you could, Brenda.

"None of this was here when your sister joined me to look for you this morning." He looked over me and at the two maids, as I stared at what lay atop the bed.

"Master, I cleaned 'er room meself, shortly afore ye returned. Master t'was not 'ere then."

"Thank you, Anne. I do believe you."

His gaze darted from Julliette to me, and then back, several times, before landing on me. "Your sister will assure that Anne dresses you properly for dinner, Brenda."

"Come Deeanna, I think I will have a drink as dinner is prepared."

I shrank back, the wall behind stopping any retreat as Anne advanced. I looked past her at Julliette.

She smiled, "I'll pick something pretty.

"Brenda, permit Anne to undress you and assist you with bathing." Whatever was going on, all of this, I could not begin to understand. The thought of being out of those clothes and a nice hot bath was inviting. I was in a strange place, five hundred fifty years in my future and in the body of a girl. There was nowhere, then; I was going to runaway to.

I allowed the tall maid to undress me. I was very curious to see just what sort of a body I now had under all the layers of fabric that covered me. My fitted jacket was slipped from my arms to show the white silk, lace trimmed blouse. As I examined the details of my jabot and ruffled, lace cuffs the maid undid the multitude of closely spaced buttons down my back.

Julliette sat on the bed holding the steel belt on her lap while examining it with her eyes and fingers. "This is not your belt. It's different from the one you were fitted with, Brenda?" Her look seemed to question me to explain that. Of course, I could not explain anything of the circumstances.

I'd thoughts of playing modest and covering the large breasts that protruded from my chest, but that was silly. I'm a fifty-year-old man, at least my mind said that I was still, but I appeared as a teenage girl and to deny that, if I could, would be silly, as no one would believe my words. Anne led me into the bathroom. She pointed to the toilet then knelt to draw a bath in the large sunken tub.

There would be no point in pretending to be modest and to not use, the facility my body suddenly told me I needed to. Without a penis or other external evidence of my male origins, I sat, just like the girl I appeared to be, feeling very strange doing so. I peered down, briefly until I voided and wiped, noting that my new sex was totally hairless.

The hot water felt great as its warmth enveloped me! I just wanted to nap there. Anne would have none of that. Efficiently, she shampooed the thick, waist length; auburn mane of hair that cascaded down my back then washed every inch of my body, starting with my red painted toes.

It is funny, at times, how things just pop into your mind. "Anne, how tall are you?" Her look was questioning. I guess she expected that I should have already known the answer. I did not. I had thought that I might not be amongst a group of giants, as I'd first believed, but that my new body just might be of small stature.

"Aye bae one hundred seventy centimetres, mum." Her heavily made-up dark eyes scanning for the answer as to why I had asked. I calculated her height as five foot seven inches. Allowing for the high heels on our boots, I estimated I had lost at least fourteen inches! I was short by almost anyone's standards.

Towelled off and with a towel closed from under my arms to mid-thigh and another wrapped, turban style, about my head, I followed Anne back into my bedroom. The steel belt remained on my bed along with clothing that Julliette probably expected I be dressed in. All of the rubber that had been there earlier was not in sight.

I watched as Anne unwound the end of a rope from a cleat mounted on the wall to lower a steel bar with padded circles on its ends. Yes, I knew what it was and its purpose. In fifty years, I had read enough erotic stories to know a lacing bar when I saw one for the first time in my life. As the rope paid out through the five-part hoist, I moved next to it and raised my wrists next to the ends. Anne was going to corset me, whether I wanted to be or not. If I resisted or protested this, if she could not handle the naked, little girl herself, the large man, somewhere in the house, certainly could. He had already hit me twice for not very good reasons and I'd little doubt that if I provoked him, he would not hesitate for a moment to hit me again. I did not possess the strength in my female body to best him in any physical contest.

Though I had been wearing a corset when I awoke in the forest, as Anne laced the heavily boned, long white satin about my torso gave credence to all I'd read about wearing one of these torture appliances. Hanging by my wrists, completely suspended above the carpet allowed me to offer no resistance to Anne, as she shrunk inches out of my middle. Still suspended, the steel was raised between my legs, firmly fitted to cover my female sex and securely locked behind. I wondered who held its key.

While I remained conveniently positioned, Anne sheathed my legs in sheer black stockings, covered these with white silk drawers to below my knees then laced on a pair of white boots. I had no false hopes that I'd be permitted flat footwear. If I had hope that protesting the extremely high heels that were being put on my feet, I would have. The slender heels had to be over six inches high, so much for being short.

No less than ten, voluminous, white petticoats were drawn up my legs and tied above my hips in back, before Anne lowered me to stand and released my wrists. Despite the unaccustomed, extreme arch that my feet were bent to and the discomfort I felt, I was surprised to discover that I could stand and walk well on my toes and heels, if I took short steps.

The gown I was dressed in was deep green, brocaded taffeta, I think. The snug bodice ended to only partially cover my large breasts where my corset had lifted them high on my chest. When Anne faced me after doing up all the tiny, back buttons, she gave me a very nice smile of approval. "Very pretty, mum."

For the first time I saw the new me reflected back from the mirrored vanity when Anne guided me to sit on the stool. Wow! If I was now a girl, there was no doubting I'd a girl's body, whoever had done this to me had made me a very pretty one. Bright green eyes, small, upturned nose, full pouty lips and high cheeks all combined to smile back at me as Anne quickly dried my hair and arranged it into a ponytail on the very top of my head, held to stand straight up in a silver tube before spilling over my bare shoulders then down behind.

My pretty face took on a new definition of pretty when she applied cosmetics to shadow my eyes, strengthen my thick lashes, blush my cheeks and coat my lips a bright shiny scarlet.

********

To complete my ensemble, Anne struggled to work a pair of very tight white gloves over my hands and smooth them up my arms to my shoulders. I moved to the large cheval mirror to see all of me. Never before, in fifty years, had I seen another that I considered as pretty as the girl in the mirror. She smiled back as I smiled to her. If I had to be a girl for the rest of my life, I was thankful that I'd been made to look as I did.

"Thank you, Anne. What am I supposed to do now, please?" Well, I've one thing I was not pleased with, the new voice I had been given. To me, I sounded like a child of six or seven. I wondered just how old I was supposed to be. Though my large bosom spilling from the bodice of my dress contradicted my assessment, I think I looked to be only about thirteen and wearing far too much makeup for a girl that age.

"Ye bae expected ta join Master an' Miss Julliette in yer father's library, mum."

The house is, as I've said, quite large and I had no idea where the library might be or the layout of the rest of the house. "Please escort me to the library then, Anne?"

She gave me a puzzled look then curtseyed her acknowledgement. "Yes, mum."

Descending the slippery, white marble staircase in such high heels was not easy. I slipped and caught hold of Anne's arm to keep from falling. Saying nothing, her face clearly said she did not understand. I just smiled and resumed my descent while holding her arm and placing my boots diagonally on each tread. Safely on the lower level, I released my grip.

"Precede me, please?" Clearly, my behaviour what not that which Anne was accustomed to. I was not accustomed to being tightly corseted and the hard steel between my legs and spreading my cheeks, resisted any effort to breathe or move as I used to.

Despite being in Brenda's petite body, my mind and all my knowledge was Jason's, though each time I had tried to speak as he would, my voice would not permit me to vocalise in that way.

The maid, Anne, led me through the elegantly appointed halls. If this was more than five hundred years in the future, why was I dressed as a girl of the nineteenth century and mincing through a museum of the same era? So far, all that I had seen to give credence to the future theory was the electric lighting and the one wall in my apartment that was packed with electronics.

The library to which Anne motioned me to enter was a big leap into the future. The man was seated beside a huge, glass desk behind which was a wall of now dark screens and electronic controls. Julliette, dressed in a slender gown of what appeared to be red latex, stopped her quiet conversation and looked toward me as my heels on the polished floor signalled my arrival. Another maid stood motionless in the background.

"Come in, Brenda. Sit with us and enjoy the beautiful sunset."

Moving toward the seating group, I glanced out the window, which formed one entire wall of the large room. I froze. This was radically wrong! Yes, the sun was indeed setting, just showing its last rays above the ocean, but, if I were indeed in New Jersey...? The sun rises; it does not set over the Atlantic!

Julliette was instantly beside me as the man's deep vice resonated, "What is wrong with you, Daughter? You look as if you have seen a ghost?" Julliette and Anne guided me to sit, my corset and steel protesting that deep, soft upholstery was not the most comfortable of seats.

I could not continue to meet his cold grey eyes and lowered mine when I saw his glare. No one spoke for minutes. The silence, knowing that they required some sort of answers forced me to try to provide them.

"I have no memory of the events here prior to Julliette awakening me in the forest." Though short, I had told the truth. It bothered me that I had nothing better to say.

"You know that I have made it clear that neither of you girls are to go outside the walls without a squad of guards, Brenda. That you did causes me to be upset. It also upsets me greatly that you removed your belt and loosened your corset. I will have an explanation now."

I repeated my same statement, daring to glance at his face to see the reaction. There was none there that I could discern.

"Is that all that you can say? It is not satisfactory."

"I have no explanation, Sir. I have no memory of anything here prior to this afternoon. Sir, until Julliette addressed me as Brenda, if I had been asked, I could not have told you my name."

Julliette patted my gloved hand with hers. "Papa. I believe Brenda is stating the truth. You know that we cannot remove our belts without their keys. For the moment, we cannot explain how it reappeared on her bed when it was not there earlier.

"Oh, I forgot to state that the belt on the bed is not the same belt, it is different, Papa."

"Different? Explain." His tone had softened.

"Her belt, while looking the same, is now of a much thicker steel."

The man's strong, yet soft fingers moved my chin to face him. We stared a moment. Though I was afraid of him, I felt calmer. "I wish to see what your sister has spoken about your belt, Brenda. Please show me?"

It was really weird. My thoughts were that this strange man, even if he were my body's father should not see my covered sex. Weird, was I beginning to think as the female that I appeared to be? As Jason, I'd not have had such a silly thought. Whatever my thoughts, I remembered he could hit me when he chose. I was convinced he would punish me in any way he willed, if I angered him. I stood up and moved to face this man.

"Raise your skirts, Daughter." I tried to bend to obey. The long corset I'd been laced into was not going to permit me to bend. Bending my knees, I crouched to gather the skirt and all the petticoats that filled it. The silk slipped from my grasp. Nervous, afraid I'd anger him if I took too long, I thought that I only needed to find the hem of my inner most petticoat and lift it. As I did, the maid was kneeling to assist.

With my drawers gathered about my booted ankles and holding everything tight to my bosom, I felt his fingers trace the edges of my chastity belt. Shuffling, I turned around when I was told to, feeling his hand spread my cheeks to examine the steel band that separated them. He gave my cheek a light slap, signalling that his inspection was completed.

"Fix your garments, Brenda"

Nothing was said until the maid got me redressed and I again sat. "Julliette is correct. That is not the belt I placed on you, Brenda. The lock too is not mine. It does not even have a hole to insert a key." I know I gasped. No keyhole? How was I ever going to take this contraption off?

He stared as he sipped an amber liquid from the glass beside him. "Angelique, pour Brenda a glass of sherry.

"Julliette?"

"Please? Thank you, Papa."

He waited until the maid had served and I took a sip of the sweet wine before he continued. "Please tell us what you do remember, Brenda."

Though I opened my mouth, attempting to tell all that had happened, my past and going in the woods, I just could not force these words out. It was very frustrating. As I struggled, my tear ducts filled. "I, I can not."

Facing him directly, "Sir, the words are in my head, but I can not speak them though I desperately want to tell you. Even in my head, I can not explain how I come to be here and looking as I do." The tears started to trickle down my cheek.

"Please don't cry, Brenda." He patted my hands atop my large skirt. Julliette pressed a handkerchief into them when he withdrew. "Clearly something which none of us understand has happened to you. I am as confused as you appear to be also, especially regarding your belt.

"Here in our home you are safe. Your sister and I will help you to get things clear. Can you tell me what you mean by looking like you do? You look beautifully the same, as you did last evening, Brenda."

As I thought the answer, I knew I would never believe it if I were told that, the girl in the green gown was, in fact, a fifty-year-old guy from Minnesota five hundred fifty years in the past. I tried, but did not struggle to get out the words.

"May I have something to write with please?" If I couldn't speak my mind, perhaps I could write it. He looked at me in a bewildered way. Was my request so bizarre? Perhaps if I restated it," May I have a pen and paper please?"

Not only was my request confusing him, suddenly it was funny too. He laughed and slapped my knee. I heard Julliette giggle and the maid suppressed her own. "Paper? You did say paper, Brenda?" I nodded my affirmation; which caused him to shake his head side to side. "Are you sure that you do not wish a wet clay tablet and stylus?"

"Yes, I'm sure that I do not, Sir." I guessed that in this time, paper had become as obsolete as clay tablets had in mine. I took a chance on guessing where their technology might have advanced. "May I have a message tablet please?" He smiled as he motioned to the maid. A rectangle with keys in a familiar arrangement was before me. It took me longer to figure out how to turn it on than to realise that I could not will my fingers to type the words any easier than I could vocalise them. Turning it off, I placed it on the floor beside me.

"Thank you." I forced a small smile. I had best get used to accepting that I was a girl named Brenda.

The first maid, Deeanna he had called her, entered to announce that the dinner was ready. Accepting his hand when he extended it, I minced to the dining room, trying to prepare for the possibility of some science fiction galley or another specimen from the museum. It was another room from the museum we entered, followed by the three maids. Lit by candles, the wood panelled room was nice. The man tended my chair to sit on his left with Julliette across from me.

The long table could seat two dozen; we were grouped at one end before settings of china, silver and crystal. Though I'd been told I was five hundred fifty years in the future, everything was in keeping with a Victorian restaurant. I wondered what the food might be.

It looked normal when the maids placed the plates of meat, green vegetables and mashed potatoes with gravy before us. It smelled good too. About to reach for my napkin I saw Julliette extend her hands to one side and an Angelique slip white rubber gloves over her white leather ones. I turned to see Anne prepared with a pair for me to put on. Made sense.

I waited until the man had placed his fork in his mouth before beginning, strange; he ate with the Continental custom of using his fork in his left hand, not switching it to his right as Americans do. Not wishing to appear different, I imitated him. My potatoes tasted like potatoes, the greens like spinach and the meat? I'd no idea what it actually was.

Julliette said nothing and I followed that. "How is your meal, Brenda?" he asked.

"Quite delicious, Thank you." Not another word was spoken until all had finished.

As I had no idea when this body had last been nourished, I forced myself to eat all I had been given, much more than my corset wanted to permit.

When he stood and Julliette moved to do so, I did the same, allowing Anne to remove the protective gloves. "Come to the dungeon, Brenda. We'll begin your punishment."

I was being dumb and followed toward a descending staircase. "Why am I going to punished, Sir?"

Not turning to answer as he started down, "Because you broke three rules today. That you appear unable to explain your actions and I do believe that you truly cannot, Brenda, does not excuse you from the punishment you have earned by breaking them. You have been told this before."

I felt my stomach knot as I slowly descended. Apparently, this was not the first time that Brenda had gone down these stairs to have her earned punishment administered. What was it going to be, a spanking? Though I had not been spanked since I was a child, I imagined I could deal with it, even though it would be this strange man hitting my bottom.

Seeing the four, costumed women that stood abreast, waiting for us at the bottom of the stairs told me that a mild spanking was not going to be my entire punishment. They scared the Hell out of me! Matched in size, the women had to be over six feet tall with the muscled bodies of weight lifters. Their only attire was brown leather bikinis, bras and sandals. As hoods of the same leather concealed their faces with openings for just their eyes, nostrils and long black ponytails, it was nearly impossible to tell one from the other. Obviously, this man could. Until I saw that the tattoos on their right shoulders were different, I could not guess how.

"Zella, you may begin." I tried to back as one approached. I was very frightened. I had not known that Anne had accompanied us to the dungeon until her hands gripped my shoulders from behind.

"It will only bae worse if ye fight, mum. Ye know this." Escape would be impossible in any event. Yes, I'm smart enough to know there would be a very high probability of earning more if I resisted their plans for me. When I stopped moving, Anne began to unbutton my gown.

Nothing was said until I was standing in only my corset, stockings, boots, gloves and chastity belt. The man and Julliette had sat on high chairs like those used to observe a pool tournament, watching me. "Since it was hands that removed your belt, Brenda, the use of your hands will be denied to you for the duration of your punishment."

"But I did not do it, Sir. I did not remove my belt!" I protested.

"That you were without it is clear. You cannot deny that as fact. I do not know if you are telling the truth or not, only that we found you to not be wearing your chastity belt." There seemed no point in debating this. He had decided that I was going to punished and how. I did not believe there was anything that I could then say which might dissuade his resolve.

Two of the amazons placed a very heavy belt around my waist and locked it. Had I not been so tightly corseted, it would have taken inches from my middle itself. My arms were pulled painfully back and to opposite sides where rigid cuffs fastened to the belt keeping them that way until released.

"That you went outside the wall without appropriate escort requires your ability to walk be curtailed." The one called Zella waited until he nodded, before signalling her followers. Two held my arms while the third knelt to lock my ankles with steel cuffs held three feet apart by a fixed bar between. I could barely stand in this strained position were it not for the two holding me in their powerful grip.

"Since you did not learn this lesson the first time you were punished for going outside the walls, you will have one month to remember it, Brenda." A month! I was going to be kept in this for a month! I had not learned the worst of this punishment. "Place my daughter in the small cell, Zella."

I was picked up by the two who had held me to stand and carried toward a heavy door. The one called Zella moved ahead to open it, while the third had taken hold of the spreader bar to lift my feet off the stone. The dimly lit corridor was lined with three heavy doors on each side, the cells he had just mentioned. I would wish that I were to spend my sentence in one of them. Instead, I was carried to the opposite end. There was a door like the others, but only four foot square. Zella opened this door.

I was placed inside, head first on the deep straw that half filled the cavity. My feet were lifted to bend my legs and the door closed behind me. At least the amazons had not hurt me. Once the door had closed, I was in total darkness. After I heard the heavy latch bolts secure the outer door, I was in total silence.

Moving to stop the straw from poking into my breasts, I found I was in a stone cubical, only four feet on each side. Though I could hope for an early release, I knew, deep inside, that it would be a false hope. The man, apparently Brenda's father, had impressed me in several ways.

He was strong and quite handsome. To afford the house that we occupied, to staff it with at least three maids and the four who tended his dungeon, he had to have a high degree of financial success in whatever endeavours he pursued.

Beyond these, he appeared to be intelligent, fair and honest, a man of his word. If my sentence was to be one month in this small cell, dressed as I was and fixed in the steel that had been placed, than my sentence was going to be exactly that. To hope for early release for good behaviour would be only false hope.

Many hours later, there was a sound inside my cell door where I had discovered a bowl was mounted. The thin mixture of ground grains and water was what I would learn was all I would be given to eat or drink for the duration. The bowl would fill from outside and not allow the faintest light to penetrate while it did. By the time I needed to empty my bladder or bowels I'd no expectation of being released from my confinement for a 'potty break'. Do it in the small cell then lay in it. There were no options.

With no hope and nothing to do that would ease my situation, I could still think. In the beginning, I thought of my past, my wife, our two children and our grand daughter. I thought of the modest home I'd lived in, in Minnesota, and all I used to do to keep busy and to amuse myself.

Gradually these thoughts faded. No I did not lose my memories of them, I just replaced the thoughts with Brenda's. I would have liked to know much more about myself. It really bothered me not knowing the details, just the tiniest ones, of the girl I had become. I did not even know how old I was. Did I have a last name? Did I have friends? What were Brenda's interests?

What was this world like outside the museum I was in? Was I still on earth, even? The sun had set in the East.

I had no answers, as I had no data to form them. I wondered about that wall of equipment in my apartment, two levels above me. Surely some had to, at least allow communications to enter the house, if not for them to leave it also. In the man's library and in my apartment, there were what looked like computers. In five hundred fifty years, what had the Internet become?

 

END - Chapter One

 

 

 

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© 2001 by Karen Anne Summerfield. All Rights Reserved. These documents (including, without limitation, all articles, text, images, logos, compilation design) may printed for personal use only. No portion of these documents may be stored electronically, distributed electronically, or otherwise made available without express written consent of the copyright holder.