Nothing to Be Afraid of

Jim had never believed in the supernatural. He considered it all a bunch of superstition. When his friends dared him to take a shortcut through the graveyard on Halloween, he thought nothing of it. But after taking just a few steps in, a spirit came after him. She started by transforming his body. She turned it into a female one that matched her own from when she was living. Then she changed his clothes, giving him a high heels and a tight leather outfit. Finally, she tried to take over his mind, but he was actually able to fight the final part without too much effort. After it was all done, he just turned to his friend who were still waiting at the entrance.

“What are you all staring at?” He asked, “I told you there was nothing to be afraid of.”

Not Exactly

Ross looked down. He recognized the sweater, the skirt, and the entire body. How could he not? It was one he had a crush on for so many years. He couldn’t believe it, but he had swapped bodies with Rachel. However, it was Rachel who was even more scared. She wasn’t looking down; she was looking straight forward at a mirror on the wall.

“Rachel?” Ross asked, “Did we just swap bodies?”

“Not exactly,” She replied nervously, “I mean, not completely. We have each other bodies, but we...we still have our own faces.”

“We what?”

Ross looked up to join Rachel in looking straight ahead at the mirror. Sure enough, he did certainly have Rachel’s body, but he also still had his own face!

It's a Wonderful Wife (Part 3)

Click here for Part 1.
Click here for Part 2.

After three days, Jason and Leah were no closer to figuring out how to restore Jason’s body to normal. Leah hadn’t put her phone down for a second, searching at every single moment for a solution.

Jason sighed with a suggestion, “Maybe we just give up for a bit. If we relax for a while, the solution could just come to us.”

“Relax for a bit?” Leah scoffed, “Do you know how weird it is to see my own face every single time I look at you?”

“You don’t think it’s weird for me? I have to adjust to actually BEING you. Being a woman! It’s foreign territory for me! I’m just saying the stress of this isn’t good for either of us. We might just figure it all out better if we let our minds rest for a bit!”

It's a Wonderful Wife (Part 2)

Click here for Part 1.

It was pretty chaotic as Jason and Leah tried to figure everything out. Somehow Jason now had an exact copy of his wife’s body. They called in sick, got dressed, and began to research. Jason sat at the foot of the bed at a laptop while Leah opened a book and began to look on her phone.

“Are you finding anything that could have done this?” Jason asked.

“Nothing but weird fiction-type stuff,” Leah replied, “Do you have any sort of memory about what happened.”

“No, I just...I woke up like this!”

For the rest of the day, the pair kept looking, but found nothing to explain Jason’s odd transformation.

It's a Wonderful Wife (Part 1)

It started off like a normal morning. At about seven, Jason’s alarm went off and he begrudgingly shuffled to the bathroom. Still half asleep, he started on his normal routine until he looked in the mirror. Instead of his own reflection looking back, it was Leah’s, his wife. For a few minutes he poked, prodded, and pulled -- not quite believing what he was seeing. He pinched himself to make sure this wasn’t all just a dream. Had they swapped bodies in the middle of the night somehow?

He rushed out of the bathroom and back to the bed. He heard a light snore and pulled back the covers. His wife was still there with her own body. They hadn’t swapped; he just somehow became a copy of her. He shook Leah awake. She was certainly surprised to see her own face looking back at her. She breathed a sigh of relief as she checked her own body to make sure she was still herself, and then the couple began to talk.

Appropriate Revenge

Carly got a notification on her phone, and she checked it to find that she had a text from Aaron with an image attached. She reluctantly opened it and was instantly horrified. After the two had swapped bodies, she had no idea what he was going to do. However, the fact that the first thing he did when in her body was get her hair cut...and that he sent her a photo of it! Was he trying to goad her? Make her angry? Well, two could play at that game. She just needed to come up with a plan to do something horrible to his body as an appropriate revenge.

Whole Different Level

Rodney listened intently as Jasmine explained some of finer points about being a woman, owing to the fact that the two had swapped bodies. Rodney returned the favor by explaining a few things about being a man. After they had finished, they both spent a few minutes staring. It was weird for them to be looking back at their own bodies, seeing someone else controlling it. It was Rodney who finally broke the silence.

“So,” He muttered, “That’s what i need to know about being a woman. Is there anything I need to know about...being black?”

Rodney was, quite honestly, just as curious about his new race as well as his new gender.

Jasmine smiled back. “Plenty,” She said, “But now we’re talking about our changes on a whole different level...”

One Step at a Time

“One step at a time...one step at a time...” Ronald muttered to himself as he continued to walk. The heels on his feet proved to be quite difficult to walk in, but he didn’t have much choice since the Great Shift swapped him into this body. Fortunately, he checked the purse in his hands and found identification that had an address that wasn’t too far away. Each step was more of a challenge than he would have liked, but if he could just get to this woman’s house, he could just sit down and take this boots off! He’d be happy to escape the chaos out in the streets as well. With everyone swapped into the body of someone else, it was pure madness out here. Of course, Ronald would probably be freaking out himself about his new female body, but he had to put so much focus on just not falling down in these high heels that he hadn’t had too much time to really think about it...

Tolerance

In an effort to foster understanding and tolerance at the university, all incoming freshmen were required to switch places with another student for the first week of classes. With the advancement of body swapping technology, the swap wasn’t just a theoretical endeavor.

After settling into his own dorm, John found himself on the floor of a different room with his head pounding. He couldn’t believe he was a woman -- he was just thankful that her style didn’t seem too girlie. Apparently, swapping with the opposite gender was fairly common. The college felt it was important for the male students to understand the difficulties that incoming female students faced. In fact, since implementing the program a few back, incidents of harassment on campus have dropped by a significant amount...

Back to Work

Mike sighed as he got dressed for work this morning in his overalls. It was slated to be his first day back on the construction site in a little more than three weeks. After the Great Shift, the union had negotiated pretty good with management about an extended period of paid time off and also ensured everyone got to keep their jobs no matter what body they ended up with. Mike was pretty sure he could handle his old job despite his new body, he just wasn’t sure he could handle his co-workers.

When the Shift hit, he instantly went from installing some rivets into a steel beam to sitting behind a computer screen in an office wearing a short skirt. He rushed to the bathroom to see the face of a woman looking back at him. It took him a minute, but he recognized her. She had walked by the site for about a week a few days ago. Everyone on the job hooted and hollered at her, making rude comments or catcalls. She must have found a different route to walk shortly after that, as Mike didn’t remember seeing her for at least a few days. Still, looking out the window, her office was pretty close to where they were all working.

Now that body was his, and he was going to have to face all the guys he worked with. He was prepared for a long day of hearing the same sorts of comments everyone dished out when a pretty woman passed. He was, after all, a pretty woman now, but he really wasn’t sure he was prepared to deal with that...

Questions

John immediately could tell something was off. He looked down to confirm that he now had someone else’s body instead of his own. To top it off, the body that he now had was that of a woman’s! It felt odd, strange, and curious, but the larger question at hand was how it happened. And an even more concerning one was how to reverse it. He wasn’t sure how he ended up in someone else’s body; that would be answered soon enough as he found other people were swapped as well. News reports began airing about something called “The Great Shift.” The exact scientific detail of how often remained vague. And as the days, weeks, and months passed, the prospect of getting back to his own body dimmed. Of course, he adjusted. After about a year, it was hard for him to imagine returning to his own body even if such an opportunity presented itself.

No Reset

Loosely based on this story.

“I still can’t believe we haven’t used that body swapping remote in over three months,” Alex told his two friends, “Especially because when you first swapped us into these bodies, I begged you for days to hit that reset button to get us back to normal.”

“I told you being a woman was fun!” Ryan retorted.

“I don’t think I ever want to go back to my own body and life,” Jake interjected.

Ryan smiled, “Good, because I’ve returned the remote.”

“You did what?” Alex asked. He paused before continuing, “I guess I’m okay with that actually. I mean, I guess there’s no way back to our original bodies, but the more I think about, the more I’m fine with that fact. Being a woman is great!”

Sick Day

After coming home from a hard day, Malcolm put his hands on his hips, frustrated at the sight he saw. There was his own body sitting on the couch wearing nothing but underwear, drinking a beer. He sighed.

“Honey, did you call in sick again today?” He asked.

His own body nodded.

“Look, we agreed to go back to work today, to try to pretend to be each other until we can find a way to swap back to our own bodies. I held up my end. I went to your job. I may not have enjoyed being in your body, being a woman in the workplace, but I did it. You need to start doing the same. You can’t keep using up all my sick days.”

Response

Daniel checked his phone again. There were about a dozen calls or texts from Gwen asking and begging about when they could swap their bodies back. The constant messages were the reason he had set the phone to silent mode only a few hours ago; it was really the easiest way to ignore them. But as another one arrived as he was checking, he finally decided she deserved a response.

He began to type over the course of several texts:
“We both signed the agreement when we swapped. It said we would swap back when we both agreed we were ready. I am not ready yet. I will let you know when I am.”

He felt pretty good after sending that, expecting that she would finally leave him alone for a while. However, a mere five minutes later, she was texting him again, hoping to find a way to change his mind to swap back sooner...

Maybe...

“Oh my God,” Eleanor said stunned, “Jack, is that really you?”

“I’ve been trying to tell you for weeks now,” He replied dryly, “But, of course, you didn’t want to listen to a thing coming out of Ashley’s mouth. I understand, but I’m glad you finally know that it’s your husband inside this body.”

“Yeah, but if your in her body, then who’s been in yours for all this time? Who have I been sleeping with?”

“I’m going to guess Ashley’s in my body. She must’ve stolen it.”

“But why? She hates me. She hates us!”

“Maybe that’s why. Maybe she wanted to torture me by sticking me with her body. Maybe she had some sort of plan. Whatever it is, I’m not sure; I can only guess. I do know I want my body back. When you see her, pretend you don’t know about the swap. See what information you can get from her. Help me get my body back...”

Compromise

In the massive worldwide body swapping phenomenon that would come to be called “The Great Shift,” it was fairly common for a husband and wife to swap bodies with each other. In fact, in the small town of Clarksville, such a couple swapping bodies occurred almost universally. The guys now in their wives’ bodies wanted to continue on as normally as they could. On Sunday afternoon, this meant enjoying a football game and drinking some beers. The women, on the other hand, insisted that the husbands keep their former body in good shape -- and that included attending their regularly scheduled yoga class on Sunday afternoon. Fortunately, the couples were able to reach a compromise. The yoga class still went on as planned, but the guys were allowed to drink beer during it, and they set up a TV in the front in order to make sure they wouldn’t miss a moment of the game...

Youthful

As an 80-year-old man, Al didn’t know much about youthful fashion trends, but when the Great Shift stuck him in the body of a 20-year-old woman, he had to learn quickly. He asked his granddaughter for advice and to borrow some clothes. Just about everything she gave him made him feel ridiculous. He looked down at the faux leather outfit she loaned him, and couldn’t help but feel like the skirt was way too short and the whole thing revealed far too much skin. He couldn’t imagine she ever actually wore this thing out! In fact, she didn’t. Much like many women her age, she was quite prone to buying clothes that seemed cool at the time, but she never had any intention of wearing. She saw the Great Shift and her grandfather’s swap as a good way to unload some stuff and clean out her closet. Plus, she saw it as a bit of a charity; he thought of it as a bit of a curse.

Testing... (Part 4)

Click here for Part 1.
Click here for Part 2.
Click here for Part 3.

After about two weeks, Ryan had adjusted quite well to his new body. In fact, when the new remote finally arrived in the mail, he didn’t rush to open it. Instead, he just brought it inside and put it on the kitchen table, then walked outside to go take care of a few errands. He had already decided that he wasn’t going to swap back to his old body...at least not yet. He enjoyed being a beautiful woman, and that sure was something he didn’t want to give up quite yet. It was nice to know that the remote was sitting there waiting for him if he ever changed his mind, but he didn’t see that as very likely at this point. He also figured it might be fun to actually use it with people he trusted. However. he wasn’t going to jump at that any time soon; he knew his current body was quite attractive, and he had trouble thinking of anyone he would actually trust to swap back with him. Still, it was nice to know it was there. Then there was the matter of the other remote he had been forced to send off. He had picked an old friend from college. He wasn’t even sure if had given a current address. And, quite, frankly, he was sure it would be entertaining to see what sort of mess anyone else with a body swapping remote might get into...

Testing... (Part 3)

Click here for Part 1.
Click here for Part 2.

It was a waiting game now. Ryan had gone to the website he found in the magazine and ordered the device. The oddest part of the process was that he was required to input two addresses. One was for delivery to him; the other was for a friend. The latter wasn’t optional. He began wondering if this is how he had gotten his own remote in the first place. Had someone else screwed up like he had? Would he even know if they had? It sure seemed the only one aware of any swaps was the person holding the remote. Given all that, once he got a new remote in the mail, would he even want to give this body up? It was a lot to process and a lot to think about...

Testing... (Part 2)

Click here for Part 1.

Despite his initial sense of dread, Ryan decided not to panic. Instead, he thought about his situation rationally. Fashion magazines always had descriptions about where to buy the products worn by the models. If the purse had a line in the magazine before the swap, the remote would probably have one after it. Sure enough, he was right! With a bit of a proud smirk, he closed the magazine and prepared to go the site mentioned in the magazine to buy another bodyswapping remote. But he quickly had pause. He realized that when he swapped bodies, he inadvertently created a world where bodyswapping remotes were common enough to appear in fashion magazined. He could only guess that this meant just about anyone on the street might own one. Then again, he guessed that was always possible, considering how the remote mysteriously arrived at his door in the first place.

Testing...

When Ryan received the package with the remote inside, he was a little skeptical about the note. It said the remote could swap two people’s bodies. Despite his doubts, he wanted to test it. He thought about asking family or friends, but he felt like they would make fun of him for even believing such a thing. Even if he tried to do it spontaneously, if it failed, he’d have to explain why he was waving a remote around them like some sort of weirdo. He came up with an alternate plan. He bought a fashion magazine and brought it home. He flipped through it before settling on an Asian model wearing a casual white t-shirt and leather leggings. He didn’t know why he picked a woman; maybe he thought a woman would be some sort of challenge for the remote. But he wasn’t also sure the remote could swap people using only a picture -- heck, it still wasn’t sure if it could swap people at all -- but he aimed and sure enough, it worked! He marveled at his body for a while before looking for the remote to swap back. Except it wasn’t in the place he swore he had put it down; there was a purse there instead. He dumped the contents out, but he still couldn’t find it. Then he opened up the magazine again. Where the model had once stood was now his body, and instead of the purse that she once held, there was the body swapping remote! He was stuck!

Smuggled

When dealing with smuggling illegal materials, getting caught was always Hank’s greatest concern. However, that concern was greatly diminished after he came across a body swap gun amongst the material he was smuggling. Now, he and his partner had a process, to always do their deals as someone else. Today he was meeting up with a buyer at a storage facility in the outer burbs. As usual, he arrived early and waited for an owner of a nearby unit to show up. He hesitated when he saw her; he always hated swapping with women, but he was running out of time. He made the swap. As usual, the person he swapped with was more confused about being in a different body than he was; he used that opportunity to knock his own body out. Then he had to wait. Standing there in high heels was a huge pain, and he’d be stuck in them for the next couple hours. The body swap was set to last that long. It was plenty of time to close the deal and make sure everything was secure. In the event this was a set up or the police showed up, it was enough time to see his body taken to the precinct, but he’d automatically swap back to his own body before he had to spend the night in jail. There was no way he could screw this up...

Immediate Service

For most people, it happened shortly after the plane landed on Exchange Island. In fact, Anthony could clearly observe just about everyone on his plane reacting to the their new bodies. However, Anthony was still, well, Anthony. He went to the hotel and a woman with a red dress greeted him just inside the door. She told him bags would be taken to his room and to let her know if he needed anything.

He wasn’t going to say anything, but he felt the need to. The whole point of Exchange Island was to swap bodies with someone, and he hadn’t done that!

The woman told him not to worry. She’d check on it right away. She searched Anthony’s name on the iPad she held and informed him that his plane had an odd number of people on it. These things did happen from time to time and that he shouldn’t worry. He’d be swapping with another person any moment now.

Anthony was about to press for more when he realized the iPad now in his hand and the red dress he now wore. The woman now in his body asked, “I hope this is to your liking. We do aim to please our guests with immediate service.” Anthony just smiled before he handed the iPad to his former body.

Nerdy

“I did some research,” George sighed as he looked up from his book, “Body swapping may seem implausible, but with the proper conditions of frequencies transmitted over a positive electrical charge, elements of the psyche could very easily transmit from one body to another, which must be what has happened to us.”

Marie rolled her eyes. She had no idea what George was saying; she just hated the fact that him saying it may her body look like a nerd. The fact that he had refused to wear her contact lenses didn’t exactly help either.

George could see a certain confusion in Marie’s reaction, so he tried to simplify. “I guess what I’m saying is that I think if we can recreate the conditions that swapped our bodies in the first place, we can swap back!”

The Transplant

“Please stop pouting, Tim,” Harold explained calmly to his son, “You knew this day would come eventually. After that terrible car accident, the only way the doctors could save your life was to put your brain into your mom’s body. We all knew it would be hard for you to adapt, but you knew you’d eventually have to start acting like her, and that includes going to her job.”

“I know,” Tim sulked, “But I also don’t forget who was driving, Dad! I still blame you for being stuck like this, and I still blame you for losing mom! I also blame those stupid doctors for doing this to me! I still don’t get why I can’t just tell everyone who I really am!”

“We all signed confidentiality agreements. The doctors procedure that saved your life was experimental and likely illegal. If you tell everyone, then who knows what kind of trouble everyone will get in; including us! I know it’s hard, but I’m thankful my son is alive. And I hope you are too...”

Differences

After a blinding flash of light, Brian could feel that something was wrong with his body, but he didn’t realize exactly how long until he looked down. He had become a woman! He didn’t realize at the time that he had actually swapped bodies with one due to a phenomenon that would come to be known as the Great Shift. The oddest part was that despite the changes, it didn’t feel all that weird. He knew his chest and butt jetted out further than before. He knew his hair was longer than he had ever worn it, but it all still felt reasonably normal. He almost expected to be falling over with this different body, unable to keep the most basic of balance, but he still stood there without any problem. He wasn’t sure if it was muscle memory or if even the most drastic differences between humans weren’t that different after all...

No Guarantee

Wendy couldn’t explain why she was looking at her own face. That is, until she looked down to see the body of her own daughter. She turned her head back to look her own face right in the eye.

“Abigail? Is that you?” She asked.

“Why are you calling me Abigail, Abigail?” Wendy’s original body said before quickly adding, “Wait, what’s wrong with my voice?” After another pause, she finally added, “I’m in the body...of...my... own...wife...”

“Luke?” Wendy then asked, realizing she may now be in her daughter Abigail’s body, but it appeared it was her husband Luke who was now in her body. She could only guess that Abigail was now in Luke’s body, but there was certainly no guarantee of that at this point.

Invention by Accident

Peter knew he was a bit of an eccentric. In fact, he often described his process as “invention by accident.” He often didn’t know what he was making until after he finished making it; or he’d plan for one thing and end up with something else. This seemed to be the case when the tested his latest invention on his pets, resulting in his cat barking and his dog meowing. This gave him some theories about what his latest creation did, but he still needed an additional test. He volunteered himself and his unknowing neighbor Chloe. He was surprised after using the device that he didn’t swap voices with Chloe -- he swapped bodies! He was expecting to just do a quick test and swap back their voices before she even noticed. Now, as he sat there in her house, he realized he would have to go back next door to explain everything to her. She was actually quite calm about it until they tried to swap back and discovered swapping two humans was more complicated than the two pets -- which meant the device had overheated. Peter told Chloe not to worry. He removed the glasses from his old body and put them on his new body. He told her not to worry -- though both thought it odd to hear Peter’s voice come out of Chloe’s body; he would just duplicate his work. He didn’t tell Chloe that nothing he ever made ended up working quite as he intended.

Don’t Get into Trouble

“Don’t get into trouble” was what Eric’s brother Allen had said each day this week before leaving for work. Eric easily complied, spending his days on the couch, mostly playing video games. Even though the warning didn’t seem necessary, Eric understood Allen’s worry. It was a very long seven days since a inexplicable cosmic occurrence had swapped Eric into the body of Allen’s wife, and Allen was just looking out for both her body. It wasn’t a bad deal for Eric, being able to just goof off around the house all day, which generally meant a lot of gaming. But today, he had a slightly different feeling. The games began to feel...boring. By noon, he thought it might not be a bad idea to go out and buy a new one. It would actually be the first time he stepped out of the house in this body. Going to the mall didn’t seem very eventful. It wasn’t until he got home that he noticed anything weird. Instead of buying a new game like he intended, he had bought all sort of clothes, shoes, bras, panties, and so forth. The receipts totaled over a thousand dollars. The weirdest thing was that he had basically been on autopilot at the stores. He wasn’t sure if Allen would consider this “trouble” or not, but Eric was sure his brother wouldn’t be happy, regardless...

Tip

Max supposed it was some sort of poetic justice. Every time he went out to eat, he rarely left more than a 12% tip. He knew it was cheap, but he just couldn’t bring himself to leave a cent more. He was about to pay the bill on a meal when the Great Shift hit and his body was swapped with a waitress.

In the weeks that followed, people’s real identities were being sorted out. As a result, Max didn’t have access to his finances or any other part of his life. In the interim, he still needed cash. As a result, he had to pick up the job of the body he had, which meant for the time being, he was a waitress.

He wasn’t particularly good at it, and his tips soon reflected that. In fact, even on his good days, his best tables would rarely give him more than 15%. It all seemed fitting, he supposed. He just couldn’t wait for this to all be sorted out, and for him to no longer have to sort tables.

Relax (Part 2)

Click here for Part 1.

Beth didn’t sleep well that night. She was worried that she would never be able to swap back to her own body. She was even more worried about what Derek was doing with it. She insisted on seeing him the next day; when she saw him, she was shocked as he waved hello and stuck out his tongue. She wasn’t amused.

“What are you wearing?” She demanded to know.

“It’s not much different from what I normally wear,” Derek explained, “Just a bit more feminine, I suppose.”

“But you aren’t YOU right now. You can dress like you. You’re me, and you need to dress like me. What about all those instructions I gave you yesterday?’

”I followed the lose guidelines. I even put on makeup and did your hair!”

“I know. It’s not ALL bad. But what if one of my friends saw my body looking like a punk...”

Derek interrupted before she could finish her thought, “They’d wonder how you got so cool so quickly.”