Dissociative

“You’re in serious trouble. You know that right, Mr. Paulding,” Officer Diaz said to the woman sitting on the bed in the jail cell.

The woman on the bed remained silent.

Officer Diaz continued, “We know all about the murders, the robbery, and the body swapping. And we have the evidence to prove it.”

Sam Paulding spoke from the woman’s body with a flat tone like the psychopath he was. “Let’s say you do. Did you know body swapping isn’t a crime in this state? The laws haven’t even kept up with body swapping technology. Even if I was that person you think I am, legally it wouldn’t matter; either way I am Marilyn Spitz, an innocent woman. There’s certainly no blood on my hands. There’s no way you can lock me up without putting an innocent woman behind bars.”

Officer Diaz smirked, “Then why are you already here?”

“Awaiting my lawyer.”

“Oh, that’s the good news. He’s already been called. We’re already working out a plea.”

“But you can’t prove anything!”

“It’s true that we can’t prove you committed any crime. But we can prove you’re crazy and a danger to yourself or others. Our psychologist collected enough data, and your lawyer agreed, that you have clear dissociative disorder. And I think you’d agree that you do have a certain detachment from yourself, wouldn’t you?”

At the Arcade

The arcade was crowded on Friday when Preston showed up. With tokens in his sweaty palms, it was difficult to find a machine that was open. He eventually stumbled upon a game called “Body Swap,” which he had never seen before. He wondered if it was a platformer? Or maybe a puzzle game? He shrugged, still not seeing anything else open, and stuck in one of his tokens.

A roulette wheel with various faces appeared and he wondered if this was the game’s character select screen. He pressed one of the buttons and the wheel slowly came to a stop. A young woman’s face appeared with the question “ACCEPT? Y/N!” Preston didn’t see any associated stats or any reason why this character would be a better or worse choice than any others, so he pressed “Y.”

With a sudden flash, it was now his face on the screen with the question “UNDO? Y/N!” He had thought the game had taken his photo, but a quick look at his hands revealed they were much daintier, more feminine, and paler. He looked around at the arcade to notice the layout was different. He was dumdfounded that the game had been quite literal with its title “Body Swap,” and he was now inside the woman’s body he had accepted in whatever location she had been playing at. His hand hovered over the “Y” for a few moments before noting how much less crowded this arcade was; he could actually get some good game time in. There was also just something so tempting about staying in this body that he couldn’t quite place his finger on. And soon his hand moved over to press firmly on “N.”

The Contestant

Henry had taken a sudden fall and suddenly noticed he had a very different body. And further, he seemed to be on a stage surrounded by people. There was a silent hush among the crowd. At first, he thought it might be because he wasn’t the only one who had swapped bodies.

But at it turned out, Henry had switched bodies with a beauty pageant contestant. At the moment he swapped and fell, it was a watershed moment during the swimsuit competition. The contestant he swapped with was leading, but now? Well, how could such an elegant woman be so clumsy? It would clearly cost her the competition.

Henry wasn’t exactly concerned with losing the contest, but he was absolutely panicked about being in a woman’s body. But being the only in such a strange situation? Well, he couldn’t exactly tell anyone about it. They’d think he was crazy. In fact, even hinting at it, and a few other contestants backstage chalked it up to insane fear for potentially losing after falling. He was just going to have to see this through...

Rerun (Part 4)

View Part 1 of Rerun.
View Part 2 of Rerun.
View Part 3 of Rerun.

“And I thought monsters were bad!” Jenn said, “This body is so sweaty! It feels gross! And I know nothing about baseball; what happens when it’s my turn to get up there!?”

“No, this is actually perfect,” Nick replied.

“You’re just saying that because you’re finally in a guy’s body again.”

“I mean, it does feel good not to be a woman! But that’s not what I’m talking about here. This is a live game. This is happening right now. If we went back to our living room and turned off the television, maybe we’d revert back to our original bodies.”

“Yeah, except our couch is 3,000 miles away from whre this game is happening.”

“So we just need to hope for something like a local news broadcast or something. At the right time, we’d have 30 minutes to get back home. On the right station, that’s doable. So long as no one changes the channel.”

“That’s a lot of ifs.”

“Do you really want to keep hopping from show-to-show and body-to-body dealing with possibly getting shot or real life monsters or jock itch?”

“Fine. When that happens. Let’s do it.”

Groceries

Dan had always considered himself a pretty good husband. He worked full time while his wife Tiffany stayed at home. They didn’t have kids yet, but they had been trying. Despite this, he still tried to help out around the house as much as he could.

But their routins got shaken up after they swapped bodies one night. Now Tiffany was the one having to go to work while Dan was taking care of the chores at home. Washing dishes, vacuuming, and cleaning the bathroom were all things he was used to, and he was surprised at how much free time he had after getting through it all. He decided to start planning dinner.

Realizing a few things were needed, he hopped over to the nearby store; but bringing the items back proved to be a challenge. The bag just felt so heavy! He had tried to ignore the differences of his body since the swap (which was not easy when one suddenly becomes a woman), but how much weaker Tiffany’s body was compared to his own was hard to ignore, especially when he was dragging a bag of groceries along the street back to their apartment. It was the first time he was questioning if he could really DO this!