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!

Enjoy It!

Sitting in the park and watching the women jog by was one of Ed’s favorite activities. While he usually kept his rude thoughts to himself, every once and a while something would slip out like a catcall or a whistle. Most of the time, the women wouldn’t even give him a look; at worst, they’d shoot him the evil eye.

But after one of his unintentional comments one day, the woman jogging by just stopped. She turned toward him and walked up. She pulled him from his seated position and leaned in. For a moment, Ed thought she was going to kiss him; briefly thinking his rude comment would actually have been a plus. But then she started to exhale a pink smoke straight into his mouth.

“What are you doing?” He said meekly, realizing he wasn’t able to move on his own as he kept inhaling more and more of the smoke.

“I’m having my soul enter your body,” She said by moving his lips and speaking with his voice.

“Then...what happens to me?” He asked with the sound of his voice already cluing him into the answer.

“There isn’t enough room in a single body for two souls. You’re being pushed out to the nearest uninhabited vessel, which just happens to be mine. I hope you enjoy wearing tight yoga pants and exercising for jerks in the park to make crude comments as you run by. I hope you enjoy monthly visitors and lower pay. And I hope you enjoy riding on the train or bus and having men that grab you ‘pretend’ that it’s an accident. Really -- Ed, is it? -- I hope you enjoy being a woman.”

At the Temple

Sanjay had often been warned not to touch the artifacts in the temple. He should’ve listened. Now one of them had transformed him into a woman. It was fortunate that no one seemed to be recognize him with this body. All they saw was a beautiful woman whom they didn’t know.

It gave him the opportunity to explore the temple and find other artifacts, then he’d touch those. However, it seemed none of them were turning him back into his male self.

As the day came closer to an end, he knew that he was going to have to tell someone about what happened. He was, after all, presently a young woman with nowhere to spend the night, no money, and no identity. Maybe someone even had a way for him to return to normal. Still, he wouldn’t mind staying a woman. Everyone had been so much more polite and kind to him looking like this today than he ever remembered as a guy.

Free Meal

The last thing Joan wanted to do was go on a blind date with a guy her friends set her up with. She was quick to come up with a plan that would get her friends off her back, get this guy out of her life, and test a new invention she had been working on at her job. She called up her slacker brother Chester to discuss the plan.

They’d use the device from her work to swap bodies. She’d stay home and work on new inventions; he’d go out as her. He’d get a free meal out of it, and she even offered him $50. She was sure Chester would embarrass her enough at the restaurant with his crude attitude that his guy would never want to speak again.

Except the date ended up going extremely well. The man found Chester’s uncouth manner refreshing, and he enjoyed spending much of the night talking about video games. When the man asked for a second date, Chester didn’t know how to turn him down politely, so he agreed. When the man kissed him, he found himself leaning in and enjoying it.

Chester didn’t know what he was going to tell Joan. He was supposed to screw this up for her. She probably wouldn’t pay him, but at least he got the free meal...

An Argument (Part 1)

Stanley had overheard the couple arguing in the store, and it was what originally had drawn his attention to them. But eventually he found it hard to take his attention off the woman. She was probably around the same age as him and his own wife. There wasn’t anything particularly remarkable about her, yet he couldn’t explain why he couldn’t stop staring.

With a flash of light, the woman’s husband was now yelling in his face. It took only a moment for Stanley to realize he was now inside the body of the woman he had been staring at, and another moment to tell the husband that to shut up and explain he wasn’t this dude’s wife.

After a moment of disbeleif and more shouting from the woman’s husband, others started to talk about swapping bodies as well. He quickly became a lot more receptive to what I had to say. And despite whatever argument he may have been having before, he quickly became concrned about his wife’s safety in whatever body she ended up in.

Meanwhile, I was going to have to explain to my wife that I was now in the body of a woman. Of course, there was no telling what body my wife was in now as well. I might tell her about the arguing couple, but I probably wouldn’t explain how I was briefly mildly obsessed with the woman I ended up swapping with...

Putting Two Heads Together

“What if we sort of bang our heads together really hard like they do in the movies? Maybe that will switch us back into our own bodies?” Laura suggested.

“Yeah, that’s what they try and it never works.” Aaron replied, “We might as well try electrocuting ourselves or something like that.”

“Do you have any better ideas?”

Aaron paused before responding, “Fine. So let’s just sort of line up and...”

Aaron pushed his now ponytailed head toward Laura, but they missed each other. Then they held their hands together to line up better and finally managed to bang their heads together. Yet despite the attempt, Laura and Aaron were still stuck in each other’s bodies just now they both had headaches.

As she held her head in pain, she looked toward Aaron, “So, should we try electrocution?”

Secrets

Mark could feel the wires and machines attached to his body or, in some cases, replacing entire body parts. He couldn’t remember what had happened to him, but he was sure these machines were keeping him alive -- which meant whatever misfortune had fallen apart him must have been pretty bad. A woman was beside him, whom he had barely noticed as he tried to wrap his head around his now half-mechanical self.

“What’s your deal?” He asked her, “Are you my mechanic or something? Keeping me all tuned up or whatever?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” She replied.

“Try me.”

She took a deep breath before saying, “I’m you.”

“What?” It was the best Mark could respond with.

She continued, “I’m not sure if I’m the original, or if you are, or if we’re both copies. But we’re both technically Mark Cooper. I think they put me in this woman’s body to torture me. I think they put me in your robotic body so they can keep reseting you; I’m pretty sure you have no idea that this is the sixth time we’ve had this conversation. I’m pretty sure they want the secrets in our head. It’s why they killed Lexi and Trevor, but we’re still here.”

“But if they have our brain, or at least a copy of it, why can’t they just extract the information.”

“Because what we know is tied intrinsically to who we are. They can’t pull out a thought at random. They need a living, thinking brain to spill the secrets...”

Not Your Husband

Darcie was shocked seeing her friend in the kitchen wearing one of her dresses. “What are you doing, Susan!?” Darcie asked, “You can’t wear something like that! That’s my husband’s body! If you go out like that, it will humiliate him! We agreed that until he comes back - - ”

“He’s not coming back.” Susan interrupted. “Maybe his plan was to steal my body all along or maybe something happened to him. But we haven’t heard from him for a week. Wherever he had disappeared to with my body, I don’t think we’ll ever see him again. That means I have to get used to being in his body. But just because I’m in a man’s body now doesn’t mean I have to act like a man! So I’m done pretending for you or for him or whoever. I’m going to wear dresses and skirts! I’m going to buy a wig! Maybe I’ll even start going on hormones! I didn’t ask to be stuck in his body; I don’t want to be a man; and I’m not your husband no matter what I might look like!”

Times Square

“Somebody stop her...or...him! They stole my body!” Zach shouted.

It hadn’t taken Zach long to realize his body had been stolen, that he was now in a woman’s body, but it was long enough that his original body had gotten a good distance away. It also didn’t help that he was in Times Square -- which was not only particularly crowded that evening, but few people cared much when a woman started screaming about a body swap. Most people just saw her as just another weirdo in Times Square; no one moved a muscle to help.

Zach tried to run after his original body, but it was no use. His original body simply slipped into the crowd never to be seen again. From there, he had to start figuring out whose body he was in now. He guessed that there had to be something bad about this woman’s life that she would steal someone else’s body to escape it. Whatever that secret was, he was now stuck with it.

Reality Changing Game

“My turn again,” Aileen said as she tried to take the remote back.

“But I haven’t guessed yet! It’s supposed to be a game! I used this reality-changing remote to change something about your body; you had to guess what I changed. Then it was your turn, and I had to guess what you changed about me. I get that I lost a few times, so you were about to go again, but I haven’t guessed this round yet!” David protested.

“Well, your time is up, so it’s my turn again.”

“There’s no rules about time limits!”

“Well, we need to set one, because you’ve taken about 30 minutes on this round. I don’t think you’re going to get it.”

Aileen wasn’t sure where David had found this weird remote that could change things about people’s personalities and bodies without them even noticing, but she was loving this game he had asked her to play. He had used the first round to make Aileen bisexual. He thought he was being subtle, but she figured it out almost instantly.

Aileen had played the game a little smarter. The first round she simply made David really, really dumb. This made it impossible for him to reason out any changes to him. Since she won the round, she got to go again. Going for an extreme, she turned him into a woman. She was completely amused that he was still too dumb to figure it out. Getting to go yet again, she made sure he wasn’t just physically a woman, but that he would dress and act like one too! There was no way he was going to figure it out. She only wanted to get control of the remote back for one final change: To convince David to give up this game and retreat to the bedroom.

Not in Trouble

The agents approached the park bench slowly, not wanting to spook their mark.

The bald headed man spoke first with a slow southern accent. “We’re from the FBI, and we’d very much like to speak with you for a minute, Mr. Reingold.”

The woman appeared nervous and seemed ready to dash off; the only thing keeping her there was likely the heels on her feet which she wasn’t used to walking in, let alone running.

“No need to panic; you’re not in trouble,” The other agent said with a refreshingly crisp voice, “We’re fully aware of your experiments and we’ve been following you. In fact, we’re very interested in the technology you’ve created.”

“We don’t mind the fun little routs you’ve gone on in various women’s bodies. Our biggest concern is bad actors,” The bald agent resumed without skipping a beat, “North Korea, Russia, Iran -- if they got a hold of this technology, it’d be bad news for everyone.”

“So we’d like to work with you, Mr. Reingold. We’ll set you up with a proper lab down in Stafford. Officially, you’ll be listed as an adjunct professor, but in reality, you’ll be able to do just about anything you want -- as long as it’s on Uncle Sam’s side, of course.”

“Of course,” The woman (who was actually Herman Reingold) said, realizing there wasn’t much of an actual choice here...

Showing Off

“I’m not sure what it is.” Bradley said while showing off the odd device to his friends, “I just found it outside my door in a box with my name on it. I tried to turn it on, but none of buttons seem to do anything.”

“What about this one?” His friend Victoria said reaching over.

Unbeknownst to any of them, the device needed multiple people around to work. When Bradley was in his dorm room alone earlier, it couldn’t turn on because it had nothing to do. But with a few of his friends around? Well, the device worked its magic and began lighting up and swapping their bodies.

With Bradley and Victoria being the closest, they swapped with each other.

“What the hell did you do?” Bradley said, feeling weird being inside Victoria’s body and speaking with her voice.

“I don’t know!” She replied from Bradley’s body. “Let me try again...”

Happy Hour

The Great Shift caused chaos all over the world, but at least in one midtown office, they were taking it in stride. Most of the staff just headed down to the bar at the first floor of the building, where they bartender said they could just help themselves and drink for free. Granted, none of them knew if the person inside the body of the bartender, but it didn’t matter; the alcohol was soon flowing.

After a few beers, John felt much better about being inside Alice’s body. As he was stumbling around with two beers he had just poured himself, the actual Alice came up to him -- now in the body of Steve’s body from the IT department.

“Oh, my God, thank God I found me,” Alice told him.

“Wha--?” John slurred.

“You need to stop drinking.”

“Naw, naw...is good.”

“I’m surprised you haven’t passed out yet already. My body is not used to alcohol, so let me get you some place safe, okay?”

“Fine...I’m jus’ gonna...” And John then proceeded to trip in Alice’s heels and fall on his face.

Memories

He tossed the Medallion of Zulu down into the ravine and watched until he saw a small splash in the water below. Now he sure Lulu’s body would be his forever! As he turned to walk back down from this ledge and back to the path, his foot slipped. Perhaps he should’ve been more careful, or maybe he should’ve practiced walking in heels more. Either way, he was now tumbling down the very steep cliffs of the ravine.

He awoke in the hospital with several broken bones and a head wound. But his mind was blank; he had no memories of who he was. His body seemed off, but he chalked it up to the injuries. When a doctor told him he had been identified as Lulu Ye, he shrugged; it didn’t seem wrong, but it didn’t seem right. He couldn’t remmeber either way. He decided to accept this as his name, as he had no reason to doubt the doctor. Finally, the doctor showed him an odd medallion that had been found by his body. He recognized this, but he inched away from it, refusing to take it from the doctor’s hands. He knew that was his medallion, but why was he so afraid of it to the point that he didn’t want to touch it? He told the doctor to leave it at his bedside, pushing himself as best to could to the other side of the bed to be as far away as possible to examine it when the doctor left. It sure looked harmless, but if there was one thing he was sure of, despite not remembering anything else, was that the medallion sitting there was bad news.

No One Expects...

The last thing anyone expects when just walking down the sidewalk is for another passerby to steal their body. And yet that’s exactly what happened to Jeffrey one day as the woman passed him. He simply felt woozy for a second and realized he was walking the wrong way. He didn’t turn back until he heard footsteps running away, and that’s when he saw his former body sprinting down the street.

He tried to give chance, but his female body wasn’t exactly as athletic as his original male body. He was out of breath after a block and unable to keep up. He now had to deal with the fact that he was stuck in someone else’s body. Who even was this woman? Why was her life so bad that she would steal his instead? Maybe he could try to convince friens and family who he really was? And how was body swapping even POSSIBLE!?!

False Promise

“Be careful out there, Mai.” James said while putting his hand gently on her chest, “Just follow orders and try to stay alive. I’ll ask around the town today to see what information I can find about how we could have possibly swapped bodies last night, and maybe I can figure out a way to get us back to normal.”

Mai nodded. She knew her accent was a dead giveaway that she wasn’t actually James, and so she was already trying to get in the habit of staying quiet.

But despite how they had both talked about plans to swap back to their own bodies, neither really wanted to. James was tired of fighting and seeing more death each and every day up close. Mai’s life was far from perfect, but her town was relatively isolated from the violence of the war. Mai hated her life of poverty; she even hoped of getting injured while in James’s body so she could go to the U.S. and live a new life in the richest country in the world. Perhaps she could even do so intentionally, no matter how much it hurt. Before they departed, they left each other with a kiss and a promise, yet they each knew it was a promise they didn’t intend to keep.

Airport

It was probably better that Daniel was still on the ground waiting to board when the Great Shift happened; the horror stories of people being midair during the massive body swapping event seemed absolutely terrifying. Yet, he was still in someone else’s body thousands of miles away from his home.

The planes were all grounded, and businesses like hotels and car rentals were obviously having trouble with everyone swapped. That meant Daniel (and many others) were stuck at the airport as things started to get back to normal. People slept on the seats and on the floor. They often kept the luggage of their new body while getting a few personal items like keys and phones from their old ones.

Daniel signed up for a few text alerts, hoping to get some form of transportation home soon enough. There was a part of him that was just trying to get through this day-by-day; the other part of him genuinely curious about getting some privacy with his new body. After all, he was a woman now -- and a particularly attractive one at that -- what guy wouldn’t be a little curious?

Women's Only Beach

For the past few years, Drew had gotten into a lot of online forums and groups and had become a self-proclaimed “men’s rights” activist. He became insufferable on social media, and even most of his friends stopped hanging out with him in real life. While he was still able to get an occasional date, he never got a second one.

When he read about a “women’s only” beach a few hours away, he became furious. He drove out there immediately so he could demand to be there as well while touting his “men’s rights.”

Despite the “women only” signs at the entrance, Drew was surprised that no one tried to stop him as he marched into the beach and into the water; he kept marching as the water approached all the way up to his neck.

A little disappointed he hadn’t created a scene by showing up, he started walking back to shore to demand answers. As he emerged from the water, he noticed the unmistakable change to his body. His swim trunks were gone and replaced with a bikini; in fact, the entirety of whatever male body parts that were under the water were now women’s parts as well.

“What the hell?” He shouted, “What did you do to me?”

“The signs were clear,” A nearby swimmer said flatly, “Only women are allowed.”

Drew was now nervous. “If I leave, will I go back to normal?” He asked.

“No one ever has. The way I see it, you have two choices. You can either leave and live like the freak you currently are, or you can dunk your head under and enjoy a new life as a woman.”

It's a Boy Girl Thing

The Great Shift happened in our senior year of high school, and there were a few crazy swaps with one person swapping with a person from a distant country 3,000 miles away and one or two students swapping with teachers. But for the most part, we all swapped amongst ourselves -- a bunch of 18 year old seniors swapping with other 18 year old seniors. There were a few shakeups in the social heirarchy, for sure, but for me? Eh, I ended up in Jenn’s body; I went from being a dorky white guy to a nerdy asian girl. It was a lateral move for sure.

I didn’t think much of it until prom rolled around. I hadn’t ever even considered that I would want to go, but for some reason I did. Our school used to follow tradition with guys asking the girls out, but after the Great Shift all that was out the window. At least that’s what I was telling myself since no one had asked me yet.

And so about a week after the date was announced, I decided to be bold and ask my best friend, Philip. He hadn’t been swapped at all by the Shift (lucky bastard), and I knew he had a crush of Jenn since freshman year. So one day after school, I went to the comic book shop where he worked and went to buy a graphic novel with a crumbled up $20 I pulled out of my pocket.

“So, Philip, how’s...things?” I asked with the smoothness of a dirt road.

“Alright, I guess.” He said as he handed me my change that I shoved back into my pocket.

“Was wondering if you...wanted to go to the prom...with me?” My awkward pauses would’ve made William Shatner seem eloquent.

“Oh, sorry, I’m already going with Becky.”

“BECKY!?” I screamed not quite realizing why I was angry, “But she’s like 300 pounds! And I’m...THIS! You’ve had a crush on THIS forever!”

“Yeah, but she swapped bodies with another girl, so she’s like a GIRL girl. And you’re...well, you’re more like a BOY girl...because you used to be a guy, ya know?”

It felt so mean and cruel. I wanted to scratch his eyes out. I wanted to keep shouting my head off. Instead I grabbed my graphic novel and cried as I ran out of the store. I hadn’t hated my life back when I was a guy, and I honestly hadn’t minded becoming a girl. But being called a “boy girl” hurt. It felt so dehumanizing, and being called that by my best friend of all people? I just wanted to go home and crawl into a ball and die.

Taking Down a Supe

No one was quite sure where they came from, but superheroes started showing up in our city, everyone praised them at first. But then budgets for things like cops and private security fell into the toilet and guys like me, middle aged men who worked as guards, were often out of work.

It was probably ironic that so many of us that used to uphold the law turned to crime just to pay the bills. Most of us usually hoped a few low level jobs would stay under the superheroes’ radar, but we prepped with some scumbag arms dealer just in case. He gave me a bright orange gun that looked like it belonged at a kid’s party instead of a robbery, but he assured me it could “take down a supe.” I’d have to give him a cut for the next couple years.

My plan was to rob ten convenience stores each week, but only taking $200 from each. Like I said, keep it small and stay off the radar. I had only hit up three by the time I found myself walking down an alleyway and Viper flew in. I don’t know why she called herself that. It’s not like she spat poison or anything. Her powers were just generic things like speed, strength, and flight. And, of course, she had the requisite moment of allowing me to surrender myself. That’s when I took my shot.

I suppose superheroes don’t even bother to dodge because they think they are invulnerable. With her super speed, Viper ran right into my shot while knocking the gun out of my hands. It was a direct hit, and she just seemed to vanish. I saw the gun on the ground and then quite oddly...I saw myself! My body eyed the gun as well and lunged for it. I reacted by doing the same and realized how much faster I was moving, and it only took me a split second to realize why: I had swapped bodies with Viper. With my new super speed, I was easily able to reach the gun first. With my super strength I took down my former body with one punch. And then I flew off with the gun.

I sat on a roof some time later looking at the strange orange gun some time later. I hadn’t expected it to work in quite the way it did, but the dealer was right, it did allow me to “take down a supe.” Viper was in my body probably rotting away in the local jail. I could certainly continue her crime fighting career, engage in the same sort of public good I did before. But then again, with the powers I had now, super villainy could be a much more profitable option...

Vaccinated

“Honestly, it feels a little silly. I just got the Transformation Virus two weeks ago,” Jorge said as the pharmacist jabbed his arm with the vaccine.

“Well, you know what they say,” She replied, “It’ll prevent you from getting it a second time.”

“Would that be a bad thing? Maybe I could end up being a guy again, you know? Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to roll the dice.”

“Or you could end up 60 years old. Or 70. Or 80. Rolling the dice can be risky. And from where I’m seeing, the body you transformed into is young and healthy and quite attractive.”

“I know. I know. There’s a reason I’m getting this vaccine! But still, a guy can dream of going back to normal too!”

Hyperbole

My girlfriend often talked about how she had an addiction to buying shoes. I had always thought she was speaking in hyperbole. I didn’t even think about it after the accident that caused us to swap bodies. We were both just trying to do our best to act like who we appeared to be. For instance, it didn’t take her long to figure out that I had lied to her about quitting smoking -- she just had regular cravings and found my secret hiding spot. She also told me that if I dared to smoke a single cigarette while in her body, she’d kill me. I had already lied to her about quitting, so I was probably already on thin ice when I made the promise I wouldn’t. But still, I imagined it would be easier in her body since it just didn’t crave nicotine like mine did.

As we settled in to being swapped, things became routine. I headed to a Walmart because we needed a few groceries and my girlfriend told me I was going to need tampons. That was when I saw them. The shoes. They weren’t even great shoes; they were (after all) Walmart shoes. I didn’t care. I wanted to buy a pair -- at least one. They’d be the first pair I bought while in her body. I felt excited; I felt thrilled. I felt like I now truly understood my girlfriend like never before. She wasn’t speaking in hyperbole.

I texted her a selfie with the message, “I think I finally understand.”

She responded with a simple “ :) ”.

The Jackalope (Part 1)

When Trey invited Angela on a weekend skitrip, she was hoping for an excuse to wear some of her cute ski outfits and cuddle by the fireplace. She was annoyed to find out they were actually going with another couple -- Trey’s friends Cody and Heather -- and that all of them were interested in actually skiing. So while they went off and did their jockish exercise stuff, Angela stayed behind in the cabin they had rented. With no signal on the remote mountain for her phone, she was bored. How could Trey abandon her for his friends? Heather was hardly a woman she could relate to; she was the type more interested in the environment and social issues than what Angela thought was important like fashion and celebrities. Cody was especially annoying, often egging Trey on with his extreme machismo. She thought about breaking up with him when he got back. But swiping through old photos of them together and looking at his sexy muscles and chisled good-looking face, she decided it could wait.

After a few hours, she was just staring out the window, waiting for Trey to return when she saw a strange rabbit with antlers (she had no idea it was called a Jackalope). She put on one of her ski outfits to go outside and get a better look. It was so cute and surprisingly well behaved. It approached Angela as she bent down, and it allowed her to pet it. She was so facinated by this little creature, but it was so cold outside. It seemed docile enough, so she picked it up and brought it inside.

With her new little pet, the time passed much quicker. She was almost caught offguard when the front door opened. But as they entered, the Jackalope’s eyes glowed red, and both couples found themselves frozen in place. The small animal proceeded to sniff around to each one of them and waved its antlers in the air, causing the aura swirl and drift from person to person before all four of them collapsed to the floor while the Jackalope hopped out the door.

Once released from the spell and able to move again, the four friends were horrified to find they had all swapped bodies. Angela was absolutely disgusted to be in Cody’s body, and Cody was no happier to be in Angela’s!