Recognize

Harvey often wondered what would happen if he ran into Stephanie. Would she even recognize her own body? Before the Shift, Stephanie wasn’t the type of woman who was stylist or would wear makeup. Then thanks to the world-wide body swapping event, Harvey ended up in her body. He never expected to enjoy acting feminine, but he couldn’t imagine not doing his hair and makeup these days. He was probably an unlikely candidate for someone who would’ve liked to end up with a woman’s body, but it turned out to be the case. Meanwhile, he sure hoped Stephanie was happy being a guy. She may not have worn makeup, but she still seemed comfortable with herself before the Shift...

Hotel

Terrance was on a business trip when he heard loud noises coming from the hallway in his hotel. He investigated to find a very drunk woman stumbling around and struggling to get into her room.

“Hey, Baby,” Terrance suggested, “If you are having trouble, you can always stay in my bed.”

“F*ck you,” The woman slurred, “I know what this looks like. It probably serves me right to get hit on by a creep like you. After all, it was less than fifteen minutes ago I was down in the hotel bar hitting on women myself. I was drunk and said something stupid and so did this woman I was trying to pick up. I guess there was some sort of witch down there or something, who decided it would be funny to have the woman I hit on and I swap bodies. So now I’m a chick and you’re hitting on me. It’s so f*cking funny that I forgot to laugh. But, hey, if you want a laugh, why don’t you try this sort of crap down at the bar. I’m pretty sure that witch is still down there, and she’ll probably do to you the same sort of thing she did to me.”

And after her rant, the woman managed to use the keycard to unlock her door. Terrance was sure she was just crazy. A witch in the hotel bar? It seemed crazy, but part of him was now a little curious to go down and see for himself...

Check Out

It started out as a typical visit to the grocery store for Michael when he spotted a hot woman in one of the aisles. She looked so good in her high heels and leather pants that he spent a little extra time examining a product he was holding in order to catch a few extra glances of her as he looked up from the label. He also found himself following her into the next aisle and pretended to be interested in some of the organic shampoos and whatnot. Ultimately, he knew he was never going to have the confidence to talk to her and was about to move on when something strange happened. He suddenly felt very strange in his own body. It took him just a moment for him to realize the heels on his feet, the tight leather hugging his legs, and the long hair hanging from his head. It seemed both inexplicable and impossible, but he was suddenly the woman he had been checking out moments ago. He wasn’t quite sure what to do. Surely, if people had swapped bodies suddenly, shouldn’t there be some sort of panic? Even if it was just him and the woman, he’d imagine she’d be approaching him in a fury by now -- she surely got the short end of the stick in this swap. So Michael decided to keep on as if this was normal; as if he was this woman. What choice did he really have? He wasn’t sure what she was looking for here or what else she needed to buy, but he figured he’d try his best to manage.

Why

“When we swapped bodies last month ago, I thought it was some sort of cosmic fluke,” Lisa told her husband Ryan, “We both seemed to struggle adapting to being in each other’s bodies. We promised to look for a way back to normal. But now I see this? A $3000 charge on our credit card to something called ‘Body Swap.’”

“I’m sorry,” Ryan confessed.

“I just don’t understand why. Why did you swap our bodies in the first place? Why do pretend to look for a way back when you knew about a way back? Why did you lie to me about so much?”

“I don’t know. I intended to swap back after a day, but I just enjoyed being you so much. I thought you’d never know. I can’t even fully explain why I was curious in the first place or why I felt compelled to pay so much to do it...”

Normal

“Okay, so now that you’re dressed, you just need to turn the treadmill on and run for about 30 minutes or so,” Laura explained.

“Thirty minutes?” A surprised Marvin asked as he turned around to look at his former body, “The last time I ran was probably ten years ago in high school! I have asthma! I’ll get winded!”

Laura sighed, “You know for someone who is supposed to be a nerdy genius, you aren’t exactly bright sometimes. Since I have your body that means I have your asthma. You have my body without any asthma. In fact, I ran every day and was in excellent shape, and I’d really like to keep it that way for when we finally swap back.”

“Right....right...” Marvin muttered before turning around to look at the control panel of the exercise machine. He still wasn’t sure how to turn the damn thing on. Sure, he could program millions of lines of complex code and create a seemingly impossible machine to swap two people’s bodies, but turning on something regular people used every day was just beyond him. He knew he was asocial, and he had never meant to trigger a test of his body swapping this early; he certainly never meant to swap bodies with Laura! Yet because of the swap, she was now forcing him to leave his house, go out in public at places like the gym, and act like a normal human being instead of the reclusive hermit he was...

High Stress

It had been a week since Zach first swapped bodies with his sister, Amanda. She was desperately worried how her slacker brother would handle her high stress job, but Zach quickly found a way to adapt. He discovered on the very first day that if he just flirted a little bit with some of the guys in the office, he could get away with doing absolutely so work. It felt a little strange flirting with men at first, but he had to remind himself that he was a woman for the time being. As the days passed, he upped the ante by wearing short leather skirts of shiny red lipstick. It seemed the more he embraced a sexy, feminine, flirty image, the less actual work he had to do.

Amanda would often call to check in. Zach would try to keep things short. “I don’t know what you complain about,” He told her, “Your job isn’t nearly as stressful as you make it out to be, and everyone is extremely friendly.”

Amanda would often push for more details, but Zach always found a way to get her off the phone quickly. He was no longer worried about getting his sister fired; he was worried he was enjoying acting like this feminine stereotype a little too much.

Cure

Dr. Emily Chan couldn’t describe her shock on Monday morning when she saw what seemed to be a new scientist in the lab look up from the microscope. The new woman looked up from her work, and Emily let out an audible gasp as a face that looked identical to her own smiled at her.

“Emily, please allow me to explain,” The woman said, “It’s me. It’s Malcolm, Dr. Malcolm O’Donnell. My advance age was no secret to anyone here, but my aggressive cancer certainly was. After everyone left on Friday, I discovered a breakthrough that could save my life. I found a way to regenerate damaged cells, but I needed a small donor sample in order to act as a catalyst. I searched in all of our samples for a compatible donor. Nothing in our catalog would work. I got desperate and looked around for hairs, nail clippings, skin flake...anything! Eventually I found some and injected myself. I soon discovered that my discovery not only caused damaged cells to regenerate to match the donor -- it rewrote ALL of my cells. By Sunday morning, I had become an exact copy of you on a cellular level. I’m not sure if I can reverse it, but there are no longer any traces of cancer in me and I managed to make myself 40 years younger as well. I should have plenty of time to try to fix this!”

Somewhere Exotic

Junior knew he was practically the poster child for a wealthy young man born into money. He hadn’t worked a day in his life, flashed his cash to get the attention of women, and was generally obnoxious. He was on his yacht just off the coast with a dozen beautiful women when one of them suggested going somewhere exotic. Junior smiled and let her drive the yacht as he flirted with her and often groped her.

Anna felt rather humiliated, but withstood it for hours knowing her revenge was coming soon. Sure enough as the small island appeared on the horizon, it was her time to smile. When they got close enough, the strangest thing happened, everyone on the boat swapped bodies with each other. All of the beautiful women swapped with each other, and Anna luckily swapped into Junior’s body. Junior was shocked to find himself in the body of one of the other women. Anna explained Exchange Island to him, and it’s mysterious body swapping. He demanded to leave. She explained he was no longer the one in control of this situation. Anna’s first order of business would be to call back to shore and transfer money out of Junior’s accounts to each of the women on board -- seeing as how she could voice verify the transfer right now. Then they’d spend some time on Exchange Island where Junior would be stuck in a woman’s body. Anna and all the other woman hoped he’d learn a lesson from it or treat women better afterward. Even if he didn’t, forcing him to be a woman for a while still felt like poetic justice.

Almost Over

Ed still couldn’t believe how easy this week had been, or how stupid this woman’s husband was. He was sure he wasn’t acting like his wife or even all that feminine, but he never suspected that it wasn’t his wife inside this hot little body. Ed figured he shouldn’t be surprised; this woman probably married him for his money, and he probably married her to have a trophy wife with little regard or concern about her actual personality. Ed swapped bodies with her about a week ago to scope out the couple’s home from the inside, dropping emails to a buddy on the outside about the best way to rob the place.

There was some sort of gala tonight that Ed would attending with this woman’s husband. It was going to be the perfect opportunity to clean the home out. Ed would leave the door open, his buddy would pull a van up a little later, the big ticket items would go first. Ed would return home and comfort a devastated husband. But the best part of was by this time tomorrow, he’d go out to pretend to replace a missing item, but instead meet up with his buddy to swap back to his own body. He wouldn’t have to be a woman anymore, and they could start selling stuff to get rich! He bit on his nails with excitement just thinking about it. He also told himself next time they pulled this body swapping scam, he’d make his buddy do the body swapping!

Juanita (Part 3)

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

Juanita decided to change out of his leather work overalls and into something more comfortable. He looked through his closet and everything felt exciting and new while also seeming old and familiar. He was starting to get used to the contradictions in his head as just a matter of fact as he selected a black dress that he both had fond memories of while also eager to see what he’d look like if he tried it on.

After changing he sat down on the couch and watched some television, flipping constantly between a baseball game and a soap opera -- never quite able to decide which to settle on. It was all perfectly normal, perfectly fine for him. Of course, it might be less fine when Rita’s husband finally got home, and he discovered a woman in his house who only somewhat looked like his wife.

Juanita (Part 2)

Click here for Part 1.

Juanita examined his body in a mirror. He tried to get a good look at his back side. He was still so fascinated that he was a woman now, even as part of felt like this shouldn’t be strange because he always had been a woman. Soon Juanita began to wonder what his husband would say when he arrived home to find his wife now had much more exotic features, darker skin, and black hair. And then Juanita thought of her wife back in the city as well; what was he going to tell her now that she was a woman! And, God, he didn’t want to go back to that small, one bedroom apartment -- even if it did feel like home. “Maybe my wife can live with me and my husband in this house,” Juanita thought as his mind kept bouncing back and forth between memories of Juan and those of Rita. Juan’s memories may have been slightly more dominant, but Rita’s comfortable lifestyle meant holding onto her recollections were very convenient.

Juanita

Juan had a bad feeling that morning as he drove his van out of the city to his contractor work in the suburbs. He couldn’t quite place his finger on why; it just felt like something bad was going to happen. The job itself started off relatively routine. A blond woman named Rita wearing a bikini top and leather pants greeted him and showed him where the problem was. She soon jetted off to the backyard to lounge about by the pool as Juan got to work. The first thing he needed to do was tear open a wall in order to replace an old duct. He was about to bust it open when he felt strange -- almost as if he was in two places at the same time. Then everything snapped back into place and Juan felt very strange.

He still had all his memories of being Juan -- immigrating to this country as a child, starting his contractor business, but he could also sense memories of being Rita as well -- marrying a rich investment banker and buying this house. His body seemed to be a mix of his and Rita’s as well. He had her curves and her femininity, but he was still Hispanic. His still had his overalls on, but they were now made of the leather of Rita’s pants. He looked at the wall where he was supposed to replace the duct, and while he knew exactly what needed to be done, he certainly didn’t feel like getting his manicured hands dirty! He was still trying to wrap his head around all the ways he was still Juan and all the ways he was now Rita, and he was slowly resigning to himself that he was truly a mix of the two now -- Juanita!

Creative

Majoring in music immediately exposed Jason to all sorts of outgoing people. In fact, despite his shy nature, he met Amy his first week of college. Amy was eccentric, creative, and very prolific. She always seemed to have some sort of crazy project going on, and nothing she did ever surprised Jason.

Midway through their senior year, she approached him with excitement in her voice. She had borrowed an odd invention from someone she knew in the engineering school. It held limitless potential by allowing two people to transmit brainwaves to each other. It could literally double the ideas in people’s heads and make both twice as prolific. She showed it to Jason because he was the most creative person she knew. He was flattered and quickly agreed.

Only once they used the device, something seemed to go horribly wrong. After activation, Jason couldn’t seem to find Amy anywhere. It took a few minutes for him to figure out that the reason why was because he was now the one in her body. Amy, along with his own body, just seemed to disappear. This was worrisome, but then he sat down at the piano. Not only was he completely at a loss for ideas on new compositions, he couldn’t even think of how to form chords properly or how to play any songs he’d ever written or ever learned! Instead of enhancing his musical ability, that odd device had instead sucked him dry and left him stuck in Amy’s body...and seemed to make Amy and his own body zap out of existence!

Awoken

Fred didn’t remember dying. For him it had simply been like falling asleep, and death was like a sleep without dreams. It was peaceful until a woman set up some candles in his old house in an attempt to communicate with the dead. Her seance was like being awoken early on a Saturday morning after a late Friday night, and Fred was not in the mood to be awoken. He focused on her in the dark to seek his revenge. He decided to possess her body, become her for a bit, and make her do a series of humiliating things. Unfortunately, after doing these things, Fred wouldn’t be able to figure out how to de-possess the woman. He’d be stuck as her for quite some time before he finally figured it out.

Retirement

Frank had been working at the university’s library for nearly fifty years. He was looking into retirement before the Great Shift happened and swapped him into the body of a student. Now he was barely twenty years old and a woman! He had gotten used to being seen as an elder authoritative figure, but few people saw him as such in his new, youthful body. He had started to look forward to retirement even more now; however, it wasn’t long before he encountered a hitch. It seemed a certain clause in his employment contract meant he wouldn’t qualify for retirement benefits due to the fact that his new body was simply too young to qualify. He couldn’t believe he’d have to end up working nearly a hundred years before he’d be eligible again. He sighed as he reshelved another book, pondering his choices.

Being Eve

Derek never really saw eye-to-eye with his sister, Eve. Derek was a punk guy living in a small apartment in the city, attending indie rock, metal, or underground hip-hop concerts each night while working odd jobs during the day, and he saw Eve’s life of living in the burns with a normal day job as simply a bore. Sure, he loved his sister, but he was also sure that he’d never understand her. That is, until one day he woke up in her body.

When it happened, he was in a panic. He called up his own number. She answered the phone angry at Derek -- not because of the body swap, but because she was now the one dealing with his hangover. Fortunately, she always tried to be the level-headed one and gave him instructions on getting ready and what to wear. She also reminded him to smile at work or people might think something was up.

He hated it all at first. He hated wearing her boring clothes and going to her boring job. He really hated having to put on a smile when interacting with her co-workers. The first day, he thought about getting a nose piercing or a tattoo, but he knew Eve would kill him. The days dragged at first, but at the end of the week, he was actually starting to enjoy the challenge of her job; the clothes no longer seemed so bad; and the smile was actually authentic. Derek was a little worried that he might be getting too used to being Eve. Part of him wanted to swap back now before he got too comfortable; the other part of him was hoping he’d be stuck like this for good.

Just Great...

“Well, this is just great,” groaned Lance, “I signed up for this experiment at my college to make some extra cash, and it ended up being this thing where you swapped bodies with someone for a week. I ended up switching with some chick. As if that wasn’t bad enough, they explained that some things like particular skills or muscle memory might not transfer to the new body. It didn’t seem like a big deal until I got behind the wheel of my car. I guess this chick didn’t know how to drive, because everything felt so off. It was like I was behind the wheel for the first time all over again. Technically, I knew how everything worked, but I had to think about it; I wasn’t just on autopilot. It was all pretty frustrating, and I’m honestly not sure how I’m going to survive this week...”

Unique Version of Hell

“This has got to be some sort of unique version of hell,” Zach thought to himself shortly after the Great Shift, “I’ve always loved women with a nice ass. Heck, it’s always been the first thing I’ve tried to check out on a chick. Now that I swapped bodies with one, I’m pretty sure I got a nice one, but do you realize how hard it is to check out your own ass? I mean, it’s nearly impossible to get a good look at it! I can’t begin to describe how crazy this is making me!”

Training (Part 2)

Click here for Part 1.

As the days and weeks began to pass, Jack felt pretty strange about being in another student’s body, the body of a young Japanese woman named Ai. He spent many hours wondering what lesson his coach was trying to teach. He had said something about having a better team by just picking random people, but the first few games had been horrible with others inside the bodies of the football players.

Then it started to dawn on him. Maybe his coach wanted to show that they were all too dependent on the strength of their bodies and not utilizing their learned skills. He thought about the rest of the team and not one of them swapped into what he would call an athletic body. Jack had assumed from the moment he swapped with Ai that it would get crushed if he even tried to step on the field, but maybe it wouldn’t? Maybe he could just as good in her body as he would in his own. He decided he’d get back to the field and insist coach let him try.

Training

Jack was pretty excited to be starting his college football career, but he had to admit the coach for his university was pretty intense. The training before the school year started was nothing short of grueling. But once the other students arrived, things got weird. The Coach yelled at Jack and the other players, telling them they were worthless, not worth their scholarships, and he might as well pluck random students from the quad to take their place. In the next instant, Jack felt woozy and passed out. When he awoke, he was in the body of another student. He was probably more than half his former weight, over a foot shorter, Asian, and female! He nervously walked down some stairs and made his way back to the field. A few of the other players also in new bodies were there. A few of the senior members on the team told Jack this sort of thing was normal for the coach. He always tried to do something outlandish to teach them about about working hard or being a team. Part of the challenge was trying to figure out the lesson. Jack tried to process the information, but he was justifiably a little to freaked out right now!

Curious

“Well, this sucks,” Jorge complained, “We were supposed to be spending the night at the big game, but our wives figured out our plan to sneak out without them. They cast some sort of strange magic spell to steal our bodies, and now they left us here alone while they went out to the game.”

“It’s not so bad when you think about it,” Lyle mused.

“How does this not completely suck?”

“Haven’t you ever been curious what they feel? I mean, we’re each in the body of the other’s wife. It wouldn’t even really be cheating, would it? If we went upstairs, I’d technically be in bed with my wife and you’d technically be in bed with yours. Don’t you want to try? Aren’t you the least bit curious?”

In the Weeds

Jason wasn’t oblivious to the change he had undergone nor the source of the change. Moments ago, he observed a beam of light shoot out from the ground that transformed into a woman. He bent down to see a small device sitting in the weeds. Considering the thing had just gone off at random and modified his gender, he was a little wary of picking it up. He figured there was a pretty good chance of the strange item being set of again and turning him into someone or something else. Still, he figured his best hope of getting back to normal was taking this thing home and trying to understand how it worked. He considered himself pretty knowledgeable and this device was likely beyond anything he could comprehend, but he still had to try!

Border Security

With increased security at the border, many potential immigrants turned to rather ingenious methods of getting across. One such technique involved modifying body swapping technology. While your typical body swapper required the two people to be swapped to be in close proximity, a few alterations would allow the swap to take place between two people a hundred miles away. Of course, this made it hard to target any specific person, but this often didn’t matter for those desperate to cross the border. Jose certainly didn’t mind the body he ended up swapping with, and he was pretty sure being in the body of a suburban blond woman would reduce his chances of being discovered by INS or the local authorities. Plus, he was pretty sure he was going to really enjoy living her comfortable life.

Meet Up (Part 3)

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

Both Colin and Kevin were glad that they weren’t the only one to have swapped with a woman. Kevin breathed the first sigh of relief out loud, admitting to Kevin that he actually hesitated inside, afraid of what Colin might say. And Colin confessed that he thought about hiding amongst the crowd on the beach, but he was still amazed by how long Kevin waited inside. Kevin explained he also spent forever trying to find a more modest swimsuit, and taking women’s clothing off and on proved to be quite the challenge for him. They were soon both laughing and knew this was going to be a great vacation.

Meet Up (Part 2)

Click here for Part 1.

Colin stood in the water for what seemed like an hour. He was really considering going back to shore and hiding amongst the masses as he was pretty sure Kevin was going to make fun of the fact that Colin would be spending his time on Exchange Island as a woman. But he also wondered what was taking Kevin so long. That’s when he saw another figure enter the water, approaching him. Strangely enough, it was another woman...

Meet Up (Part 1)

After a few visits to Exchange Island, Colin realized that it isn’t always easy to find the people you travel with if you don’t share a room -- you just don’t recognize them considering the whole body swapping aspect of the resort -- so it helps to have a meeting place. Before landing, Colin told Kevin that after checking in, they should change into their swimsuits and meet in the water, roughly just off shore from the snack bar. Colin was a little surprised on his latest visit to be in the body of a woman. On all his previous trips, he had never been a woman. He was also a little uncomfortable that the woman’s only swimsuits were bikinis; he was sure Kevin was going to laugh when they met. Still, he made his way to the beach ready to meet his friend.

Is It a Choice?

Last year, Steven signed up for an experiment at his college that ended up transferring his brain into another student’s body. He was only supposed to be in her body for a few hours, but when it was time to swap back something went wrong. He was apparently going to be stuck in Angelica’s body until the researchers found a way to fix this. At first, Steven was devastated. He didn’t want to be Angelica; he didn’t want to be a woman. But days turned into weeks and weeks turned into months. Eventually, he just got used to it. In fact, he was surprised when the researchers showed up at his dorm room a year later explaining they could finally swap the pair back. Steven just laughed and asked if he had to return to his own body. He had gotten so used to being Angelica over the past twelve months that he simply preferred to stay this way now.

Not Ours Anymore

“So they have no idea that they’re now in our bodies?” Albert asked Norman.

“Nope.” Norman replied.

“But how can they not notice? They now have our balding, fat, middle aged bodies!”

“It’s all part of the magic. They won’t realize we swapped for twelve hours.”

“But what if they try to squeeze into a miniskirt or something?”

“Heh. They can try, but they certainly won’t fit. They just won’t realize why until it’s much too late. At that point, we will have gone safely far, far away with their bodies.”

“It’s just weird to think that our bodies will be prancing about town for a while acting like a bunch of college aged women. It’s going to get ugly if they try to hit on some guys.”

“They’ll be fine. And we don’t have to worry about our old bodies. They aren’t ours anymore.”

Big Gamble

Ed was thankful that his luck was finally starting to turn around again. After gambling away all his money, he begged for a way to earn it back. A woman offered him a deal. If he would switch bodies with her, she would give him a million dollars. Thinking body swapping was fiction, Ed quickly agreed; however, he was shocked when he found himself becoming the middle aged Asian woman. It got worse when he lost much of the million dollars. But he was finally starting hitting an upswing. He was still far from what he needed to buy his own body back, but he was sure he was going to get there. Of course, once he did get enough, he’d be truly surprised by the woman refusing to swap back with him, leaving him stuck in her body...

Investor

As Jason returned back home after his overseas business trip meeting with foreign investors, he had mixed thoughts about how it went. He was the technical lead on the prototype for the company’s device that could swap bodies, and the device did just that. On the other hand, it may have done it a little too well, swapping more people in the room than just the two intended targets. For instance, Jason himself ended up swapping with the college aged daughter of one of the investors, who was tagging along with her father for some reason.

They would’ve swapped back immediately, but the device was too fried. Jason was sent back home on the next flight in order to start repairs. There were lots of murmurs about the investors puling out, but Jason realized they’d probably be hesitant to do that right away. Besides the fact that they proved their prototype actually worked, Jason also realized he now had the ultimate leverage as long as he was in the body of the daughter of their biggest Asian investor.

New Year

Ever since he first started attending the most amazing New Year’s Eve party a decade ago, Charles always looked forward to waking up on New Year’s Day. The way the party went was that everyone would attend wearing masks. Drinks would flow and people would have such a good time. Then the countdown to midnight would happen at which time everyone would pass out. They’d all wake up the next morning in the body of another guest. They’d spend the year in that body until the party the next year, when they’d get another different body. As the sun shone in his room this morning, Charles looked out. He noticed the body that would be his for the year. He was a gorgeous young woman, easily the best of the ten bodies he has had so far. In fact, he was wondering if last night would be his last New Year’s Eve party ever...