Chapter V: Some Close Encounters
The next morning, Mulcahy knocked on Houlihan's door at the time appointed for the exchange, carrying an armful of neatly folded clothing and his spare pair of boots. He was wearing his bathrobe as a temporary measure because it looked marginally less ridiculous on the major's petite frame than his fatigues did.
All things considered, he was in good spirits, having slept soundly and woken with a clear and pain-free head. Being a tenant inside Major Houlihan continued to feel peculiar, to say the least, but the queasy sensation of detachment was gone and he preferred to count his blessings where he found them.
When a second knock failed to get a response, Mulcahy was torn. He didn't want to disturb her if she was still asleep, but he'd been hoping to go to breakfast in something more presentable than an ill-fitting robe and combat boots. Hawkeye and Trapper might have been able to carry off that fashion statement -- and they often did -- but Mulcahy doubted that he had the requisite panache.
After a few moments' pondering, he decided to go in and at least leave his bundle of clothing for her. A breach of privacy, to be sure, but somehow it seemed less egregious today than it would have under ordinary circumstances. After all, even if Houlihan happened to be in bed or in a state of undress, it wouldn't be anything he hadn't seen before....
But that unfortunate train of thought ended up riding the rails straight to blush-worthy recollections of last night's shower, leaving him both overheated and exasperated. Could the physical change be affecting his mind in some way? Were female hormones at the root of this sudden preoccupation with carnal desires? Not that he'd been immune from such things before, by any means, but now it appeared that most of his carefully cultivated self-discipline had flown out the window.
Chiding himself under his breath, Mulcahy opened the door and stepped into the tent to find that it was unoccupied -- Houlihan must have already gone to breakfast or was perhaps taking an unchaperoned shower. Not wishing to trespass any longer than necessary, he placed the clothes and boots on a convenient chair and turned to leave.
But as he reached for the door, he was startled half out of his remaining wits by the sound of someone's voice directly behind him.
"Margaret, you're back! Oh, darling, I've missed you! Why were you knocking on your own door?"
Arms encircled his waist and pulled him off balance so that he fell back against the man who could only be Major Frank Burns. Even Mulcahy, who tried to avoid trafficking in camp gossip, was aware of the war's most poorly kept secret -- the ongoing affair between Houlihan and the married surgeon. Burns must have been hiding in the wall-locker, revealing his presence when he thought he recognized "Margaret."
Panic brought with it the adrenaline rush of a fight-or-flight response, but Mulcahy found that he could do neither as a flourish of kisses rained down on the back of his neck and sent intriguing little tremors up and down his spine. "Major," he gasped, "you really shouldn't..."
Burns spun him around so they were face to face, grinning at Mulcahy with a complicated expression of delight, relief, and lust. "Where have you been? I was worried sick, you know. My poor nerves are an absolute wreck!"
"I'll tell you everything, but first you need to know...."
"Oh, the story can wait, my angel. Let me give you a proper welcome home." And with that, Burns tightened the embrace and angled his head for a kiss.
Sweet Mary.... Things had gone miles too far, and for the life of him Mulcahy could not understand why he hadn't tried harder to stop them. What in Heaven's name was the matter with him? He was allowing himself to be kissed, for God's sake. By a man! Worse, a man he didn't even particularly like....
It was at once horrifying and inexplicably erotic. Without conscious volition, his body was responding to the kiss as though it still belonged to Margaret Houlihan. His knees nearly buckled when the tip of Burns's tongue touched his.
He was starting to fear that, if this went on much longer, there was a very real danger of getting to know Frank Burns a lot better than he'd ever wanted to. So, with a supreme effort of will, Mulcahy forced himself to pull away, though he was unable to suppress a regretful sigh as contact was broken.
"Margaret, darling, what is it?" Burns asked, a whine creeping into his tone. "Are you angry with me?"
"There's something I have to tell you. Right now."
"You've found someone else." He looked crestfallen, sounded resigned. But he still hadn't released his hold on Mulcahy.
"No, I haven't...Major Houlihan hasn't found anyone else. It's just that I'm not who you think I am, you see?"
Clearly, Burns didn't see, and confusion was making him petulant. "Any idiot can see who you are, Margaret," he scoffed. "I ought to know!"
"Please, hear me out. We were captured by the North Koreans." Burns's eyes widened at that news, but he stayed quiet. "That's where we've been for the past few days. And I know it sounds impossible, but somehow, while we were in enemy hands, we...that is, our bodies...were exchanged. So on the outside I may look like Major Houlihan, but in here" -- Mulcahy tapped his temple -- "I'm really Father Mulcahy."
A few beats of stunned silence, then, "Margaret, are you bucking for a Section 8? That's the nuttiest thing I've ever heard! Whatever this little game is, I don't like it and I don't understand it."
"Nor do we, I can assure you."
"But when...." The struggle for comprehension taking place inside Burns's head was playing itself out in easily decipherable form on his mobile face. At last he said quietly, accusingly, "You kiss just like Margaret does."
"Ah, yes...well." The inevitable damning blush made its appearance on schedule. "I must apologize for that. It should never have happened, but unfortunately the major's body seems to have a mind of its own."
Burns let his arms fall to his sides and backed away. The concept appeared to be sinking in at last. "Are you.... Are you telling me that you're really.... That we really.... Oh, ick, that's disgusting!" He shuddered and stamped his foot to emphasize his revulsion. "And you a priest!"
Mulcahy dropped his gaze to stare at the expanse of floor between them. What could he say to that? He was just as appalled as Burns at his behavior, and he had no excuse to offer for it.
The impasse was an uncomfortable one, but it didn't last long before the sound of the door swinging open signaled the arrival of company.
--o00o--
Whatever Houlihan had expected to see when she entered her tent, Frank having a standoff with her stand-in wasn't it, and she had to quash an unwelcome pinprick of jealousy at the sight of them together. How ridiculous -- was she jealous of herself? Of Mulcahy?
The atmosphere in the tent was charged with such tension that Houlihan could almost reach out and grab a handful of it. Obviously, the truth had come out and she had stumbled in on the aftermath. Though in principle she regretted not being the one to tell Frank, in a way she was just as happy not to have been.
"You!" Frank barked, stabbing an index finger in her direction. "Who are you?"
"I'm Margaret," she said calmly. "Now, Frank, I know how hard this must be for you, but you must understand that it's only temporary. I'm sure of it."
She noticed but chose to ignore Mulcahy's questioning glance. In truth, they weren't sure of anything of the sort, but Frank's psyche required careful handling.
"Margaret?" he repeated, searching her eyes as if hoping for a sign that she was really in there somewhere.
"Yes, Frank."
He sank down on her bunk with a whimper and buried his face in trembling hands. Houlihan's heart went out to him, but it was disappointing to see further proof that Frank Burns was never going to be a man she could rely on in a crisis. The contrast between his reaction and Mulcahy's resolute bravery in these difficult circumstances was striking.
She sat beside Frank, intending to comfort him, but when her arm went around his shoulders he was galvanized into action, springing up off the bed. "Don't you touch me!" he wailed. "Don't either of you ever touch me again, you...you freaks!" With a last fearful glare at each of them, he fled the tent.
"Oh, dear," Mulcahy murmured.
"He'll be all right. He's just upset."
"Because of me, I'm afraid."
Houlihan eyed him suspiciously. "Just how did you break it to him?"
He looked away, as if some object off to the side had become suddenly fascinating. "Well, when I came in -- to leave those clothes for you -- Major Burns was already here. Naturally, he mistook me for you, and before I could explain, he greeted me...rather warmly."
"He kissed you." That seemed the most likely scenario, given the well-defined limits of Frank's imagination.
Mulcahy nodded.
"And then you told him?"
"Yes."
There had to be more to the story. Nothing thus far pointed to culpability on Mulcahy's part, so why the guilty conscience? "Was there something else?"
His reply was hesitant, his voice pitched low in a confessional tone. "I find it difficult to speak of this, Major, but perhaps you have a right to hear it."
Based on his demeanor, Houlihan could hazard a few guesses as to where the discussion was heading. She patted the bed on the spot Frank had vacated, a diplomatic invitation for Mulcahy to sit where he wouldn't have to face her directly.
He sat silent for a while, plucking at the well-worn cuff of his bathrobe sleeve, before beginning. "The thing is.... Since I became you, so to speak, I've been having a great deal of trouble controlling my...physical impulses. Last night, in the shower? It was all I could do not to ravish myself...you...well, both of us. And this morning, the major's kiss so overwhelmed me that I almost -- I was ready to...." Unable to bring himself to say the words, he trailed off, but the insinuation was clear enough.
That did explain a few things. No wonder he was so flustered, and no wonder Frank went round the bend when he was made aware of the facts.
In truth, Houlihan understood the problem better than she was letting on, though she didn't think Mulcahy would want to hear the reason why: just before walking in on Frank's meltdown, she had experienced for herself the "shower effect" and had surrendered to its considerable pleasures without a second thought. To her mind, most people would simply regard it as an especially nice way to start one's day, but for a celibate priest to be tempted by a sensation so exotic yet so forbidden -- how much more intense it must have been for him, and how much harder to resist.
"I see," she said carefully. "It must be very upsetting."
A snort of laughter implied that this was the understatement of the decade. "You might say that. I'm starting to think the only way I'll get through this is to strap myself to my bunk and pray for divine intervention."
Houlihan was at a loss as to how to reassure him, but at the same time she felt a nagging sense of responsibility. It was, after all, her body that was giving him fits. "I'm sorry," she offered, laying a hand on his shoulder. "Maybe it'll get easier...."
She withdrew at once when Mulcahy flinched, not wanting to compound his distress, but then he turned to her with a question out of left field. "Major, did you feel that?"
"What?"
"When you touched me."
"I don't...."
"Here." He took her hand and placed it back on his shoulder. "Anything?"
"I feel what used to be my shoulder...." Houlihan stopped, her eyes widening. She did feel something, and the longer she maintained contact, the stronger it grew. It was electric and prickly, like a bolt of lightning had just struck the ground a few yards away. Not painful, but enough to snap each tiny nerve ending in her arm to full alert status. "What is that?"
"I don't know, but it's happened at least once before. At the North Korean camp."
She retraced the events of the previous day, still fresh in her memory, but couldn't recall the specific instance.
"There was an embrace...," he prompted.
Ah, that she remembered, even if the tingly part hadn't registered on a conscious level. But it certainly had her attention now -- if this phenomenon occurred whenever she and Mulcahy were in physical contact, there was a good chance it was related to the process that had switched them, and in that case it warranted further investigation. Houlihan rose from the bed and held out her arms. "Father, are you up for an unscientific test of an unproven theory?"
For a minute she thought he would refuse her less-than-subtle request, but then he squared his shoulders and stood up.
As she pressed Mulcahy against her chest, the prickling sharpened and intensified, zinging across every synapse and raising goose bumps from scalp to soles. An exhilarating, cascading swath of goose bumps that only encouraged her to cleave more tightly to the source. Better than caffeine -- hell, better than an amphetamine rush -- the sensation made her feel more awake and alert than she had in months. It seemed impossible that she could have failed to notice something like this before, but there it was.
The other thing she noticed, more distantly, was that Mulcahy was trembling. Whether from the pricklies or something else she couldn't tell, so she drew back to check on him.
His face had gone chalk pale and bore the rigidly determined expression of someone who's been ordered to hold back an avalanche with a butterfly net. While she watched, surprised and concerned, a tear trailed down his cheek.
"Father?" Reaching up reflexively to brush the tear away, Houlihan almost swooned when the fleeting contact of hand to bare skin shot a current of raw euphoria straight through her. To judge by his reaction, Mulcahy felt it, too; he had to lean heavily against her to keep his balance, hands twisted in the olive-drab fabric of her jacket.
Good God almighty, she marveled, staring into the anguished blue eyes that were her own yet very much another's, if a little touch like that can bring us to the brink of orgasm, what would it feel like to....
Hold on, wait one damn minute. What was she thinking? Whichever way that notion was sliced, it was breathtakingly perverse.
Yet an extended moment of uncertainty was stretching out between them, neither party making a move to interrupt it, and Houlihan couldn't shake the impression that their innocent hug in the name of research had turned into something altogether different.
Just when she was starting to warm up to the idea of spending the rest of the day -- or maybe the next several days -- in a clinch with the chaplain, he released his hold on her and lurched backward, snapping their tenuous bond. The sudden loss of contact left her feeling almost as though part of herself had been torn away.
"I -- I have to go," he whispered. "I'm sorry."
Fitting actions to words, Mulcahy bolted for the door and flung it open, only to be brought up short by the unexpected presence of the company clerk.
O'Reilly jumped clear when the door swung outward, his fist still raised in the pre-knock position. "Ah!" he yelped, guiltily wide-eyed. "Sorry, ma'am...uh, I mean Father...I think. I swear I didn't hear anything, honest!"
Houlihan moved in to loom over Mulcahy's shoulder. Corporal O'Reilly was renowned for having the keenest hearing in camp, a talent accompanied by an irritating penchant for eavesdropping. "Good thing there was nothing to hear, then. Right, Corporal?" she remarked, shooting him the most threatening scowl she could manage using Mulcahy's gentle face. No doubt it would have looked far more intimidating on her own face, but it got the message across.
"Yes, sir...ma'am, sir. Right." He fidgeted nervously with his ever-present clipboard before continuing. "Um, Colonel Blake wants you guys checked out by Captains Pierce and McIntyre in post-op, and then he wants to see you in his office ASAP."
"Surprised he's up before noon," muttered Houlihan, disregarding O'Reilly's frown. The clerk was a loyal defender of Henry Blake, flaws and all, but he also knew when to keep his mouth shut around cranky officers.
"Thank you, Radar," said Mulcahy, back in possession of at least some of his composure. "Please tell the colonel we'll be there shortly."