Story by Liam Slade / Originally Published May 23 2024
Two years ago, my wife and I bought a townhouse in a lovely, mature part of town. We saw the shady oak trees lining the lane and warm brown bricks of the decades-old development and it felt like home – at least, as much like home as anything we could afford. We used our nestegg to give the inside a facelift and planted a little garden in the backyard and made our spot something we could be really proud of.
So began a new phase of our lives. In the mornings, I would drive Christine, who worked as a nurse at a blood testing lab, to work, and continue down the highway to my office job in the city. She would take the bus home at the end of the day, and I would be an hour or more behind thanks to rush hour traffic.
The job itself was mind-numbing and monotonous paper-pushing work with the ever-present promise of “growth” dangled in front of me like a carrot, but as hard as I worked and as much as I applied myself, it never seemed to be my time. I began to feel like I was languishing. The pay was not going up to match the cost of living, but when I tried to find other work, nothing was available.
My dislike of my job began to manifest itself in an intense dislike of my daily commute. I would begin and end my day with the windows of my Hyundai down, blaring angsty and fiery anthems that reminded me of my rebellious youth: Nirvana’s “Serve the Servants,” Rage Against the Machine’s “Bulls on Parade,” Radiohead’s “Just,” or the Clash’s “Complete Control,” for example. These things made me feel like I had some control over my life and let me escape the reality that I was just some white collar, tie-wearing desk jockey.
One day as I was arriving home from work, I was pulling into the townhouse complex when I caught sight of a figure standing on the curb waiting for the bus: a girl with long dyed-green hair pulled back, heavy dark eye make-up and black lipstick. Her body was petite, with appealingly curvy hips and rear end that were revealed by the form-fitting nature of her black jeans. She was also wearing a loose-fitting, dingey band tee that was stretched over her well-supported bosom.
I had seen this girl around the complex. She, I figured, was a college student who rented a house around the corner from my row with some other girls or maybe guys. I had seen them walking in groups here and there and never really thought much of it other than her style surely stuck out here in the burbs.
As I glanced at her, she seemed to take notice of me, her eye seeming to peer into my passing silver Elantra. When I realized we had seemingly made eye contact, I felt an embarrassed flush of guilt – I had been caught looking, and I realized her attention had probably been caught by my music choice, probably glancing into the car to investigate the source: disappointed, I imagined, by the “old guy” (I was in my early 30’s now!) driving the corporate shill-mobile.
I rounded the complex’s entryway into the lane leading up to my house, and I couldn’t help but pay one more glance over my shoulder. She had rotated her body to follow the path of my car. Now she was looking on purpose – and so was I.
I turned my head back forward as I headed toward the driveway of my house. This meant nothing. It was just some girl and some guy who happened to notice each other. It had been so long since I had felt a genuine connection to another human being besides my wife, I supposed, that I was mentally blowing it out of proportion. It was nothing. People look at each other from time to time – not usually in the suburbs, but occasionally they do. It’s normal.
I let the incident slip to the back of my memory for a few days. Life continued at its normal pace. Spring was in the air, and I spent the weekend at the garden center with Christine. We bought some hanging baskets and some annuals to plant. We breaded some chicken cutlets for dinner, and watched a true crime documentary until bedtime. There were still small pleasures; life was normal, and good.
The next week, when I saw the girl again at the bus stop, I was blaring Rancid’s “Ruby Soho.” I guess she remembered me, and thought fondly of me, because she held up a hand in a passive wave of recognition. I was startled by this, but my body reacted by giving a flustered little wave back. I thought I caught a glint of a smile at my awkwardness as I passed, but this time I kept my head forward. It was not okay to look, I was not interested, this meant nothing.
Another few weeks passed and I found myself keeping an eye out for her, and even feeling a little let down when our schedules did not intersect. I had to remind myself that not only was it okay for her not to be there, it was probably for the best. I didn’t need the attention of some random girl on the sidewalk, I had Christine.
We were happy. Maybe too happy. Maybe by showering her with kisses and excitedly asking her about her day, I was overcompensating for the guilty feeling of having entered into this strange dance with the green-haired mystery girl around the corner. It can’t be wrong to dote on your wife, right? She certainly didn’t ask where all the extra affection was coming from, and didn’t suspect it was because my punky new friend had begun to creep into my fantasies.
Well, I convinced myself, what was the harm in that? They were my fantasies, my private thoughts. I was allowed them. If Christine was allowed to openly ooh and aah about a hunky action star from a franchise curwe liked, I could occasionally let my mind drift and imagine myself fiddling with the buckle on her studded belt, or slipping my hand under that vintage Iron Maiden tee shirt and seeing what lay beneath.
Then, some fateful May afternoon, I was pulling toward our street when the rain started coming down, first in little sprinkles and then harder. By the time I reached the complex, it as a downpour. And there she was, unsheltered and shivering in the cold.
I had a split second to decide what to do and I decided I had to take action. I pulled the car over to the curb beside her.
“Need a ride?” I called through the downed passenger side window, droplets of rain landing on the inside of the car door.
“Bus will be here soon,” she said, a worried look on her face that indicated she was turning me down only reluctantly.
“Come on,” I insisted, “It’ll be packed with soaking wet people, you don’t need that.”
She took a step back as if to consider. I thought maybe, even after all of our wordless interactions, she was realizing she didn’t know me and I could be dangerous. I felt a little self-conscious about that. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.
“Okay,” she said.
I unlocked the door for her and she slid in, slipping her backpack off her shoulders in a quick motion that involved briefly arching her back so that her chest jutted outwards, and relocating it to her lap. I gave her a moment to buckle up, then executed a three-point turn in a nearby driveway, following the path the bus would have taken – the opposite direction of home.
“Chancey’s on Main,” she said, inadvertently sounding like she was giving directions to a cab driver. She was going to a restaurant that I had heard of but never tried.
“Are you a waitress there?”
“A server, yeah,” she said with a heavy sigh that either conveyed irritation at my language, or perhaps ssimply a breathlessness from hustling to get out of the rain and settle into the dry car.
“I guess you’ve got a change of clothes in your backpack?” I asked. I had noticed she was wearing high-cut jean shorts and fishnets along with her ratty tee.
“Um, yeah,” she said, perhaps embarrassed that I had noted her ensemble. “Sorry I’m getting your seat wet.”
“It’ll dry,” I shrugged.
“You always have good music playing,” she said.
Proudly, I reached for the knob and turned up the volume. Maybe we didn’t need to talk, and that would keep me out of trouble.
“What’s this?” she asked.
“Pixies,” I said, “Gouge Away.”
“Cool, I like it,” she bobbed her head along.
We drove along and I asked what kind of stuff she liked, and she said this kind of stuff – “old rock” like they used to make. I tried not to bristle at the use of the word “old,” but a lot of this stuff was already past its day when I discovered it anyway so I let it go. The true classics never go out of style. She named a few bands that she liked like Green Day and Alexisonfire and I nodded appreciatively. We chatted a little bit more about her life – I was careful not to say too much about myself – and she confirmed that a lot of what I had assumed about her (age, student status, roommates) was true. During a lull in the conversation I watched her from the corner of my eye as she fiddled nervously with a little fake-looking crystal pendant she wore around her neck.
I dropped her at the curb outside her restaurant. She paused a moment with her hand on the door, and I wondered if she was expecting something, or perhaps fighting some kind of instinct, as if the brain patterns of, I don’t know, a date had been inadvertently triggered and her body had maybe wanted to kiss me good night. All she said was “thanks, see ya,” and I watched her hurry into the restaurant, holding an arm over her head as if it could function as an umbrella. It was cute.
Once she was inside, I pulled away from the curb. I took deep, slow breaths and tried to steady my heart rate. Indeed it did feel like I had just dropped a girl off after a date – a feeling I hadn’t had in several years. I tried to stifle that, but that dizzying and alluring cocktail, that excitement of having gotten along with someone, that buzz of being in their presence and having them seem to like you, that anxiousness to see them again… it was intoxicating. It made me feel ten years younger.
As I drove back home, I stayed zoned in on the road and tried to pretend that all of this hadn’t happened. I was a good man, I loved my wife and despite its flaws, the life that we had built together was a good one. A wave of shame and guilt came over me, a glaring alarm that I had either crossed the boundaries of good taste, or was dangerously close to doing so.
I went home and acted like everything was normal. I kissed Christine and asked her about her day and shared cute puppy videos with her on our phones.
I resisted becoming entangled in the web of this girl’s existence, but undeniably she was on my mind. I was prone to checking the curbs and sidewalks near the house in case she was standing by, or perhaps walking. One time when the weather started to get warmer I saw her walking with a girlfriend, wearing loose-fitting pants and a low-cut, midriff-baring top that revealed a lot of her skin, her curves, her cleavage. The image stuck in my head, uninvited.
I would see her on the corner at the bus stop and, absent any reason to offer a ride, I would simply offer a quick wave or nod in her direction as acknowledgment that we had spoken once. The further I got from our one brief, albeit meaningful interaction, the less it felt like a violation of my relationship with my wife, and the more it felt like a simple and even refreshing incident of two strangers brought together in a moment of kindness (my giving her a lift in the rain) and commonality (our shared interest in hard rock music.) On the one hand, I felt like I could consider my conscience cleared, but on the other, that couldn’t be true because this still felt like something I couldn’t tell my wife.
A few weeks after that rainy day, I was reminded that we had a dinner date with our friends Miguel and June. Where had they made the reservation, of course, but Chancey’s?
“I’ve been dying to try that place,” she gushed, “We have to get the lobster risotto.”
I suppressed all my squeamishness about potentially sharing a space with the girl who had, occasionally, manifested in my late-night fantasies and had one conversation with in the last few months, and tried to focus on my beautiful wife in her form-fitting black dress as she affixed gem-studded earrings to her lobes.
“What?” she asked with a narrow-eyed smile as she saw me gazing in her direction.
“Nothing,” I said with a smirk, “I just love you.” She came over and gave me a kiss.
When we got into the car and I turned the ignition, the stereo was in the middle of blaring “Teenage Lobotomy” by the Ramones. Upon hearing this, Christine gave an amused half-smile. “Oh you,” she snickered, flipping it to the lite rock station.
I don’t think anyone noticed my eyes darting around the dining room throughout the early part of our dinner. I did see her – the girl from the bus stop, as I knew her – briefly, but she was not the server of our table, to my relief. I was able to focus on the moment, to catch up with old friends, and behave as myself.
When we returned home and settled into bed that night, I checked my phone and saw a notification on Facebook messenger. That form of communication was usually reserved for mid-day chitchat between myself and Christine, or the occasional IT request from my mother. This was from an unknown account named Bailey Ann.
One glance at the profile picture indicated that it was the girl from the bus stop. Her message: “Hope you enjoyed dinner :)”
It was a strong and shocking move. I was irritated at first – this seemed like a clear violation, if she had seen me out with someone she could assume was my spouse – but I couldn’t deny it was flattering and alluring in some way. She was thinking of me. She wanted to communicate with me. Somehow – and I was not, perhaps, as troubled as I should have been – she had found me on Facebook to say so. I set the phone aside without saying anything, leaving her on ‘read.’
A little later, when I was rounding the corner toward the complex as usual, I saw her giving a bigger, more exaggerated wave than usual – she was flagging me down. Flustered, I pulled over and rolled down the window.
“Hey, sorry to do this, but I lost my bus pass. Do you mind? I’m getting a new one tomorrow.”
“Sure,” I said, breathing a heavy sigh of exasperation – I would really rather not have this problem, but here I was. “Hop in.”
I kept my eyes forward as I drove, saying nothing. If she detected any tension in the air, she didn’t express it. Ah, to be young and incapable of reading other people. When we reached the restaurant, she turned to me and said a very meaningful “Thanks again.” I told her, coolly, that it was “no problem,” which was kind of a lie. At no point did we ever address her message to me.
The next time I saw her at the bus stop, I pulled over again. A certain part of my brain – or the rest of my anatomy – was starting to win the tug-of-war.
“Hey,” I called her over, “How much to you make?”
“What?”
“Minimum wage? Tipped minimum?”
“Tips, yeah,” she said, “Why?”
I grumbled under my breath for actually letting the next thought escape my lips, but I had lost all self-restraint at this point. “Bus rides add up, and I know college isn’t cheap. Anytime I see you here, I’ll pull over, okay?”
She didn’t argue at all, and got in the car.
About a block down the road, she said, “I guess it would be too much to ask for a ride home too, right?”
“Yeah, I don’t think so,” I said flatly, keeping my eye on the road. “I’m just… trying to be a good neighbor. It’s not too far out of my way.”
“It’s literally the exact opposite direction,” she said with a giggle.
“But I bet the bus is less direct,” I argued. Who was I trying to convince?
“No, it’s a twenty minute ride,” she said.
“And barely over five, maybe ten in a car,” I said. If I kept talking, maybe I could convince myself this was a benevolent gesture.
When she stepped out, she looked at me and smiled. “Thanks Daniel.” It felt so strange to hear my name come out of her mouth – she must have known it since she had found me on Facebook, but I had never told her directly. That felt intimate in a way that was uncomfortable – not all bad, but not all right either.
The next time I gave her a lift, she went to the rear door instead of the passenger side. I momentarily felt some relief: The part of my brain that still knew this was wrong would rather be her anonymous driver than share a front seat with her.
But there was a reason for this, as I sensed her body shuffling around. “I’m so late, oh my God,” she said, self-conscious embarrassment coloring her voice, “They booked me early today and I had no idea. Don’t look.” I was suddenly aware that she was disrobing in my backseat and had stripped down to, at least for a moment, her bra and panties.
“Can’t… can’t you wait until we get there to do that?!” I sputtered.
“That won’t save time,” she sniped, writhing as she pulled on her pants, “And I can’t do this in a parked car, anyone could walk by and see. Just keep driving! And don’t look! At least until you get to a red light.” She must have thought she was really funny.
I was fuming. This was a huge test of my resolve. I was dimly aware that she was now buttoning her white top and tying back her hair properly, that the red alert of near-nudity had passed. When we arrived at the restaurant, I turned back to ensure she was fully dressed.
“You missed it,” she said teasingly. I gritted my teeth. “See you later, Dan.”
I drove home with my head feeling like it was completely on fire. What was I doing?
Things were not perfect at home. Sure, that’s not unusual for an established, married couple, but now every little frustration nagged at me that much more. I couldn’t stand fighting with my wife about dishes in the sink or laundry or late payment on the electric bill or how we were going to spend our weekend, not when in the back of my mind, I had the opportunity to pursue something more inviting. To get a fresh start.
I cursed myself for that kind of thinking – it was so unappreciative of Christine, such a cruel way to forget the many happy years we had spent together and the life we were still planning to build, but I was coming to realize I was smitten. I had not yet reached the point of no return, though. I had done things that I didn’t want my wife to know about, sure – things married men shouldn’t do with young single women, but nothing irreversibly over the line. I could salvage this, and if needed, I could cut Bailey out of my life entirely.
That is, I could – if I wanted to.
Just when I needed to strengthen my resolve the most, Christine went on a three-day work retreat. Now I was alone in the house for an entire weekend, and somewhere not far away at all was an attractive young person who had been mostly naked in my car once already.
For the first day, I saw nothing of her and heard nothing. Then Saturday was passing and all I did was stay in and watch videos on my phone. I was hunkered down and safe. I ordered dinner from a nearby bar.
Then at 9:00, after I had had a call with Christine, the phone buzzed with a notification.
BAILEY: SOS
BAILEY: I’m on a date and I don’t feel good about this guy. I need a pickup. Can you help?
I swallowed hard. Any other weekend of my life, I absolutely could not, but I was free right now, and she sounded like she needed my help.
DANIEL: Sure, where you at?
She gave me the name of the bar she was at. I told her I would text when I was outside. I pulled up ten minutes later, and she came running out almost immediately, diving into the passenger’s seat.
“What happened?” I asked, curious how things could be so bad that she needed such an immediate extraction.
“He was just such a creep,” she said, flustered, swatting stray hair away from her face breathlessly. “I really felt like I was in danger. Sometimes you can just tell, you know?”
“Yeah, I guess I’ve heard of that,” I murmured.
“I really appreciate this,” she said, adding in an almost solemn tone of voice, “I would do anything for you.”
I glanced over at her, just as quick as I could take my eyes off the road. She was looking at me with her big brown eyes and pouty lips.
Something seized me. I pulled over to a side-street.
“How much anything?” I asked.
“Anything-anything,” she said.
I stuck out my chin. This was my final resistance, and it was failing. I felt my heart swell up, my blood start to flow. I looked over at her in the evening light, leaned forward and pressed my lips to hers.
She responded by kissing me back. Our lips smacked together like a couple of teenagers on their first makeout date. She ran her hands through my short hair and down my neck, one hand cradling me, the other caressing my shoulder. When was the last time Christine and I had kissed like this? She took my hand and placed it on her thigh, up near her lap, intimately. She wrung my fingers with her little ones.
When we took a moment’s breath, she asked, “My place?”
There was no saying no.
I drove us back to my townhouse complex. I asked her which unit was hers, then let her off at the curb. I parked the car in my driveway, then made like I was going for a little walk around the block to get to her place. I tried to pace myself as I walked up the path to her door. I had a flash of sanity, asking myself, “What am I about to do?” as I raised my hand to knock on her door, but before I could do that, or catch myself and turn away, the door opened. She had been watching.
She beamed a wide smile at me. When was the last time anyone had looked at me that way? With those lovestruck googly eyes? Sure it was all wrong, but why did it feel so right?
On our way upstairs, we passed the common room. Her female housemate was watching TV in the dark with her boyfriend. I crept up the stairs behind her on soft steps, as if I could and should avoid detection.
Her room was a cluttered mess. There were posters on the wall and underwear discarded on the floor and it smelt of dinge and a little bit of stale cannabis. It all underscored the undeniable fact that I did not belong here.
“Sorry about the mess,” she blushed.
“It’s okay,” I said.
I sat on the edge of the bed. She knelt, angled her head up at me, and we pressed our lips together again, our hands touching. Suddenly everything did feel fine again. My urges, my temptations, my desires were all overwhelming my shame and guilt and sense of decency. There was no Christine. I wasn’t even sure there was a Dan. There was only two soon-to-be-lovers in this dirty bedroom.
She laid me back on the bed with my legs hanging off the edge, pressing herself into me, straddling me, moving her hips in a grinding motion. Things were becoming heated as we experienced each other more and more. She began to unbuckle my jeans and fondle what she found within. My body responded enthusiastically for her touch, in a way that it hadn’t with Christine in a while – new sensations will do that to you.
In a swift motion, she removed her top, then pressed her torso into mine to get my assistance unfastening her bra. I obliged fiddling only briefly with the hooks. She raised her body back upright, her bra falling down the front of her body, straps slipping loosely down her arms. I gazed up at the soft, sweet flesh of her bare breasts in their natural state, seeming to defy gravity as they bounced lightly with every swivel of her hips. That little green crystal was dangling on its silvery chain between them, swaying this way and that.
My breathing became heavy as she began to peel away our lower layers. This was reaching a point of no return. I was already in a lot of trouble. I could stop any time and walk away, but I was completely under her spell. She was clearly enthralled, and so was I – what man would ever be strong enough to break it off now?
“Are you ready?” she asked me in a whisper.
“Yeah,” I confirmed, someone else’s voice seeming to issue from my body – someone bold and callous and maybe even cruel.
She changed positions so that she was lying on the bed beside me. She pressed up her hips and slipped her jeans and underwear down in a swift motion. I did a similar move with far less grace, then rolled over to her direction.
She had a condom ready, just out of its wrapping. “Let me,” she offered, then slid it onto me in a quick motion that only increased my excitement. She gave a silent nod and widened her legs to let me in. What I found there was a warm welcome.
I began to move up and down. Time began to slow, or speed up, I’m not entirely sure. I thought I saw a glint of light emitting from the crystal she wore, but I didn’t know where to look or if I should even look at all. Then I thought I heard a humming in my ear, just a low, soft tone like an air conditioner or a computer or something, and then…
I think I finished. I’m not sure. The next thing I knew, I was waking up, and I was looking at someone else.
It was me.
I was still lying in the bed, but this other person was sitting up already, facing away from me.
“Wow, Dan,” he said flatly. “That was… just okay.”
“What’s happening?” I said meekly. The tone of my voice was high with a soft timbre. Was it just fear and confusion making me speak this way, or…? I ignored my confusion to ask, “Who are you?”
He turned back toward me and paid me an evil smile out of the side of his mouth. “I’m you,” he said. “And you’re me. Go ahead and look, I don’t mind.”
I tilted my head down and, to my shock and alarm, there were a pair of soft, milky white breasts curving up from under my collarbone. I rolled onto my side and felt them slouch with their weight to one side. A long tangle of hair brushed the back of my neck and upper back.
The crystal was affixed around his neck. I clutched the covers upward in some weird mix of modesty and fear.
“That’s cute,” he snickered, “I’ve seen it all, but whatever, it’s yours now.”
“What’s going on?” I felt my voice break. A rush of blood filled my cheeks, my head throbbed. My lip trembled.
“This is what guys like you get,” he said firmly. “You have everything, and you just throw it away, for what? Some girl you don’t even know? I mean don’t get me wrong, it’s a cute body, I liked it a lot. But was it worth it Dan? Was it worth losing everything?”
“What do you mean?” I asked. My head was spinning. None of what he – she? They?? – was saying was adding up for me.
“God, you’re dull,” he sneered. “This is your punishment, you idiot. You did things no man should ever be allowed to do. I gave you every chance to turn back and appreciate the life you had, but you refused. And now you’ve lost it.” He pulled my boxers and jeans on – which was just as well, I was tired of looking at his, or my, crotch from this angle. He began to don my shirt.
“But… but…” I whimpered. My heartrate was increasing, my body shaking. This wasn’t possible, and yet here it all was! I peeked under the covers again to confirm… yes, I was 100% female down there.
“Better get used to it,” she remarked. “Oh, Danny, sweetie, poor you,” she said in mocking sympathetic tones, “If only you’d known… well you shouldn’t need the threat of punishment to do what’s right. I hope this lesson will serve you well in your new life.”
I pulled my knees up to my chest and buried my face in them. “Why? Why? Oh God, on, no…!”
“Save your tears,” he said, moving to the door. “Or don’t. Enjoy the rest of your life as Bailey. And when you see me around the complex, don’t even look at me. I don’t know you.”
With that, he closed the door and left me in this dusty, cluttered bedroom of a strange 22-year-old girl whose life I would apparently be inheriting. I sat in the bed feeling helpless as I listened to his footsteps creeping down the stairs. Then the door opened and shut with considerable force.
I went to the window of Bailey’s room – my room now, I supposed – and looked down at the front of the house. I was still naked, my breasts were out, but I didn’t think about whether anyone could see. I watched my old body amble up the street, not even turning back to see if I was watching. He was ready to move on with my life. I wiped a droplet away from my cheek and turned away from the window.
I took a deep breath in, and out, noticing the way my breasts rose and fell just at the periphery of my view. I raised my hands to cradle them softly. Closed my eyes and took another breath.
“Ha.”
I couldn’t hold it in any longer. I had been suppressing this smirk ever since I realized what had happened, but now that I was alone I could let it out. I snorted another “Ha,” which quickly grew into a throaty, triumphant laugh, a boob-jiggling “Hahaha…!” and then a full-body chuckle that practically had me convulsing. I fell to my knees, clutching my sides with one arm while I pounded on the floor with my other fist.
“Bahahahahahahaha!” I wheezed. I had held it in as long as I could in case Bailey changed her mind, but I couldn’t suppress it anymore. “Oh my God! Oh my God!” I gasped, my face wearing a grin ear to ear.
I sat myself up against the side of the bed and pulled my new long hair back as I gave in to a further round of chuckles. “I can’t believe it… I can’t believe it…!” I practically whooped, cupping my hand over my mouth to keep anyone from hearing. My face was starting to hurt.
She really thought she got me. She really thought she was punishing me. What an idiot! All she gave me was freedom – freedom to live a whole new life, to be free of all the stresses and frustrations of the one I was living. Oh, I had regrets. I would miss Christine, but she was probably better off without her disengaged, miserable husband. If Bailey – or whoever, or whatever she was – wanted to live Dan’s life, she could be my guest. She could go into the office every day, grinding it out at a thankless, directionless role for too little pay. She could sort it all out. It wasn’t my problem anymore, she had seen to that.
And what would be so bad about being Bailey? She was young, she was cute, she had potential. What was the worst that could happen, I make all the same choices and end up on the other side of the equation ten years from now? Everyone wanted a fresh start and she had handed me one on a silver platter. So I didn’t have a dick anymore – that thing had gotten me into trouble, and at my age, I was practically done with it. I’m mature enough to know that what’s in your pants isn’t the end-all and be-all of your life, and getting to experience something different sounded like an exciting prospect (and hey, if I really dislike it, all that can be corrected in time anyway.) The important thing was, I could still be anything I wanted to be, which was not really true for Dan. When I was her age I would have hated this deal, but today, it was a relief. Within three seconds of realizing she had stolen my body and life I was ready to shower her with confetti. That girl did me the favor of a lifetime – or two.
I stood up and posed for myself in the mirror, testing how my face looked with different expressions: pouty lips, furrowed eyebrows; a subtle smile and then a bigger one; I mimed kiss at my reflection, mwah,then started to fuss with my hair. It would take a little bit of getting used to – those curves, this soft skin, those parts, and ofcourse what I was missing – but things were looking up.
The End.
Copyright 2024 Liam Slade, all rights reserved. Not to be reproduced without explicit permission from the author
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