Chapter 1

 

What I am about to relate will seem utterly fantastic and indeed, I am still reeling from the experience myself. Unless however, my mind has totally departed, it is as real as anything I have ever undergone and is crystal clear in every detail ...

I had known that our family originated from Germany but Dad had not been all that interested in his forebears and since my grandfather had died shortly after I was born, I had not had the chance to ask him about it.

I knew of course that he had come to South Australia to open a winery and in this he had been quite successful, the Hohenhoff label now gracing just about all wine shops in the country and many overseas as well.

I was the third generation to learn the business and had achieved a science degree in wine-making from Adelaide University.

I was also a keen science fiction buff and was well acquainted with the TV series 'Sliders' where the group of heroes used an invention of one of them to 'slide' between parallel worlds, always trying to get back to their own. Of course I didn't really believe in a fifth dimension in which existed scores, perhaps thousands of identical worlds to ours but it made for a good story - until, that is, it happened to me.

This was different from the TV show, however. In my case, my body was not transported down the 'worm-hole'. It was my mind - my consciousness if you like - that moved into the body of my namesake in Berlin, except that he was Major, the Baron Erich von Hohenhoff - and I was just a visitor in his body. I had no control at all over what he did or said and I don't even think he knew I was there. It didn't even affect my existence back home.

One part of my mind moved into his brain; the other stayed at home and when the other part of my consciousness returned, they just sort of coalesced so that I now had a dual memory of both sets of events.

I didn't like him. Not from the very beginning. I realised as soon as I woke up (or rather he did with me now a silent and powerless observer of everything he did) that he was as arrogant as the Prussian Junker class used to be renowned for. I discovered I understood German fluently and I also had access to his memory, although he obviously didn't have to mine.

I also knew, with a sickening thud, that Germany had won the Great War on this planet, that America had not joined in the conflict and that the German Emperor held sway over the whole of Europe with occupying forces controlling the conquered people every bit as badly as the world had feared.

He got out of bed and strolled over to the window of his Berlin house and, searching his mind, I realised he was not only a baron in his own right but was also a very wealthy landowner with a great estate in the country. He also had a huge portfolio of shares in dozens of industrial, banking, shipping and railway companies. He was an army officer only because it was expected that all Prussian aristocrats serve at least some time in the German army but in any case, it would have been incumbent on him to serve the Emperor for the duration of the war.

That war was just over. Germany was ascendant all over Europe and had installed Reich Governors to administer each former country. They were going to transform them into regions and districts of the Reich.

He stood at the window and looked down at the grey street below us - the way I am ambivalent about 'him' and 'us' may seem confusing but I never for one moment thought of 'my' mind as his. I was just a very unwilling visitor in his brain, please be assured of that!

I say grey for it was raining and looked bitterly cold out there although a pleasant fire was burning in the grate in his room. And then I saw what was going to become commonplace but still sent waves of horror through me every time I saw it over the time I spent on that terrible world. A soldier in full uniform, including greatcoat to keep out the bitter cold, appeared holding a chain in his gloved hand. And then they came into view.

I was utterly shocked. I cannot express my horror at what the soldier was leading, although I could feel satisfaction and definite approval in my namesake's mind.

There were a group of prisoners being led along the street. Not so bad, you say? No, indeed - if they hadn't been stark naked and even more than naked for they were all as bald as badgers and had no other hair anywhere on their bodies that I could see. They were all women. Young and attractive women with utterly beautiful bodies although you couldn't say their faces were beautiful: they were haggard and drawn and I could understand why.

But it was the method of their chaining that had me really aghast. The soldier leading the front girl held the end of the chain in his hand; the other end went to a large iron ring in the left lip of her vulva! As she came further into view, I saw that her thumbs were cuffed behind her back and those cuffs were attached to another chain and this one led to the ringed and so naked vulva of the girl behind her. And behind the first two were another ten girls. A dozen totally nude young women, ringed and chained in the most obscene manner possible, being led through the streets of Berlin in the rain and cold. Vehicles went by and splashed them, making their misery even worse.

You don't believe it? You cannot credit that a civilised nation such as the Kaiser's Germany could ever permit such a thing, even back in 1918? I'm not surprised. I could hardly credit it myself but unless I have gone right out of my mind, it happened, at least on that world - and right before my eyes. Unfortunately, things were going to get much worse over the next months, and I lived through it all.

He returned to his bed and I could feel his mind gloating over the group of women who were (apparently) French and who had been resistance fighters against the early German occupation of their country. It seemed they were now slaves of the Reich and were being taken to the slave dealer for later sale.

Just then there was a knock at the door and, at his command to enter, it opened to reveal a diminutive girl holding a tray with his morning tea, toast and the newspaper. That wasn't unusual, of course. What was, was that she too was naked and while her head still boasted a beautiful head of shining black tresses, the rest of her body was as bare as those girls I had just seen trudging naked through the rain outside. Even her sexual organs were totally nude and I have to admit I felt a pang of lust as I looked up at them (through his eyes) and imagined running my hands over them as well as the rest of her superb body.

I didn't have to imagine long for as soon as she had deposited the tray on his bedside table, she presented her body for inspection, kneeling beside the bed and he did just that, going over her whole body with his slender fingers, feeling, probing, squeezing. He stroked her cheek as she turned her big brown and so doleful eyes on him and then obediently opened her mouth for him to check out her teeth (as if he was inspecting a prize filly he was considering buying). Then his hands roved down her slender neck over her lovely shoulders and on down to her breasts.

These were quite perfect. Smallish, I would say, but perfect half-orbs about grapefruit size but as smooth and creamy as warm marble over which real cream has been poured. The rest of her flesh was just as smooth and blemish-free and he made sure his hands went over it all. He spent a long time on her tiny rear, smoothing the palms as well as his fingers over those curvaceous cheeks and then did the same with her shapely thighs but of course he had been keeping the best until last: he began to delve into her hairless sex.

I don't know how old she was but I suspect if she was eighteen she would have been lucky. Her sexual organs were not at all apparent. Her pubic mound was almost non-existent and the gash at its crown just that - a mere slit, but he probed deep inside it while she moaned in her shame at this so indecent treatment - at which I felt his lust give a great big lurch - he obviously delighted in shaming and humiliating this poor girl.

But at last he slapped her face and dismissed her, at which she scurried away, clearly glad to be free of him.

As he munched the toast and sipped the tea, I felt a wondering enter his mind as he thought about an interview he was to have with his colonel that day. I too wondered what it was about. He rose eventually and the girl returned to bathe and shave him, tasks she did with obvious fear but also with great skill. I knew he would have caned her very hard across those shapely cheeks if she had failed him, even slightly.

But it was when he stood before the mirror and groomed his hair I realised the probable why for my being there in his body. He was an exact replica of me: tall and slim with bright blue eyes and blond hair. I didn't then (and still don't) know how part of my mind came to be in his body but I knew it had something to do with the exactness of our physical beings.

The girl, Henrietta, dressed him carefully and then he went down to breakfast, waited on by a very formal butler and footman, both impeccably dressed. It seemed only his female valet (who was a slave, not a servant) went about stark naked.