Friends (Part 2)

Click here for Part 1.

“What do you mean you can’t switch us back to normal? Just cast another spell!” Jason yelled at Erin.

“It’s not that simple. The spell was only supposed to last for a week. It should’ve reversed on its own. Casting another spell on top of it won’t reverse anything.” Erin explained.

“But I don’t want to be stuck in Julia’s body any more! I’m sick of being a woman and wearing dress and putting on makeup!”

Julia, Max, and Franklin were also worried about not being able to swap back, but their fear resulted in silence. Jason was the only one
being loud about it.

“I’ll do some research,” Erin suggested, “But until I can figure this out, you’l all be stuck in the bodies you’re in. It shouldn’t be too bad. You’ve all already lasted a week like this. And I need to warn you that I might not have any way to solve this...”

Friends (Part 1)

Having a friend like Erin sure made life interesting; she actually knew real life magic! She usually used it for small things that didn’t make much difference, but she last night she had gotten drunk with her friends and decided to truly impress them. In a truly epic display of power, she swapped their bodies. Max and Franklin were now in each other’s bodies, and so were Jason and Julia. They had all agreed to stay like this for a week. Jason was a little skeptical, but Erin assured him that the spell worked in a way where he’d maintain all of Julia’s basic abilities. And sure enough when he tried putting makeup on the next morning, he not only did so effortlessly, but it looked absolutely perfect. It was so weird seeing Julia’s face in the mirror and knowing that it would be his for the next week. Being a woman was already an interesting experience, but he didn’t want to stay like this! He was already itching to return to normal.

Later

Anthony had been in a big rush all morning. He was late for work and needed to move fast. After a quickly showering and getting dressed, he bolted down the stairs of his apartment building. But he was forced to take a break when a bright light seemed to blast him out of nowhere, and it felt like the wind got knocked out of him.

He sat on the steps for a few minutes, feeling out of sorts. He lifted his hand to his head to check if he was alright and felt a strange poofy feeling in his fingers. He seemed to have a lot of hair for some reason. And that wasn’t the only change by any means! The tight pants, the bare midriff, the feminine shape...he was in the body of a woman!

What the heck was going on? He knew he was already running late for work, but now that he seemed to be in someone else’s body, it was going to be even later...

Knowledge (Part 7)

Click here for Part 1.
Click here for Part 2.
Click here for Part 3.
Click here for Part 4.
Click here for Part 5.
Click here for Part 6.

It was several more weeks before Elisa called to tell Eugene that should had figured it all out and that she could get them back to normal. Eugene invited her back to the mansion, and wore a gorgeous orange dress as he awaited her. She arrived eager to set up the device and swap back, but he stopped her.

“I may not be a genius anymore, but I’m not an idiot,” He told her, “Your husband is dead. I know you didn’t love him; you just wanted his money. That money is now mine. Exchanging riches for my genius back would seem like a fair trade, but I also know you’re cunning. There’s no guarantee for me that you haven’t figure out that swapping device better than I did. Maybe you figured out exactly why we retained certain aspects of the other. You could swap me back to my own body while transferring my genius with you to your own. You’d be smart, beautiful, and rich, and I’d have nothing. That’s too great a risk for me, so I’m afraid I have no choice but to keep things the way they are. You should have no problem using my intelligence to succeed in life.”

Eugene turned to walk away. Elisa was about to protest, but Eugene turned around with a smirk and raised his voice, “Security, please escort my guest out.”

Knowledge (Part 6)

Click here for Part 1.
Click here for Part 2.
Click here for Part 3.
Click here for Part 4.
Click here for Part 5.

By the time the funeral was scheduled, Eugene still hadn’t heard anything from Elisa, but at this point he really didn’t care either. Weirdly enough, the funeral was actually the first time he had left the mansion for any significant amount of time. He hadn’t realized how much time he had spent checking himself out in mirrors until he went to attend the funeral home and was forced to use his phone to check his appearance instead. He was really taking a lot of pride in his appearance, and his new abilities to make himself look absolutely perfect.

Of course, in the context of the day, “looking perfect” not only meant looking good, but also looking properly sad. After all, no one knew he felt disgusted by the old man. And no one had any clue he wasn’t actually Elisa at all.

As it turned out, Eugene was pretty good at faking a cry. Or maybe wasn’t. Maybe Elisa had been, and that was just another thing he maintained from her in the swap...

Knowledge (Part 5)

Click here for Part 1.
Click here for Part 2.
Click here for Part 3.
Click here for Part 4.

Nearly a week had passed. Elisa’s husband was scheduled to return home later that day, and Eugene was not looking forward to it. He stayed in bed late filled with dread. When he awoke, he put on a pink bathrobe and noticed a message on the phone. He hoped it was Elisa with the news that they could swap back. Instead it was a lawyer. It seemed Elisa’s husband had a heart attack on his business trip. The doctors tried to revive him but ultimately failed. As he listened, the largest smile came across Eugene’s face. As far as he was concerned, this was the best possible news.

Knowledge (Part 4)

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

Eugene did his best to contain himself around the yoga instructor, and decided to spend the afternoon lounging by the mansion’s pool. He realized how much he was enjoying Elisa’s life. In fact, if he wasn’t grossed out so much by her husband, he really wouldn’t care if they never swapped back. A part of him began to worry. He was sure the disgust he felt at being touched by her husband was something Elisa had felt as well. If she truly hated her own husband, she might never want to switch back, leaving him to be the one in her body married to him. That couldn’t possibly be the case, could it? He tried not to think about it. Elisa’s husband wouldn’t even be back for a week, and maybe this would all be worked out before then...

Knowledge (Part 3)

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

Eugene was a little surprised to hear the doorbell ring. He opened the door to find a fit, attractive man in workout clothes standing there. It was Elisa’s private yoga instructor that she had failed to mention. He changed as quickly as he could and proceeded to follow instructions. Eugene had always thought yoga was stupid, but he was feeling a strange sense of satisfaction doing poses with Elisa’s body. But it wasn’t just the poses that felt good, it also had something to do with staring at the Adonis instructing him. He attributed this to having Elisa’s hormones at first. He tried to remind himself that he loved his wife, but it felt more like a mechanical memory more than a true feeling. He then realized the love for his wife, much like his intelligence, was still with Elisa in his old body. Knowing his interactions with her husband yesterday, he suspected Elisa was probably a golddigger who didn’t really love her husband. Judging from his feelings today, he wondered if Elisa was having an affair with her yoga instructor.

Knowledge (Part 2)

Click here for Part 1.

Ultimately, Eugene realized he needed to give Elisa the time she needed to fix this mess, and he’d just have to cope in the meantime. Dealing with Elisa’s husband was the hardest part. He was a little too affectionate and handsy for Eugene’s liking, but fortunately, he also had some business affairs to take care of in Asia, so he only had to deal with that man for a few hours.

The next morning, Eugene woke up in Elisa’s big, comfy bed. He wasn’t expected to be anywhere, but getting ready felt like the right thing to do. When he started to put makeup on, he instinctively knew the colors that went best on his skin at this time of year. He couldn’t figure out which ones he knew the pick; he just did. It was effortless to apply as well -- as if his body had some innate muscle memory of it all. Having these types of skills was still so strange to him.

Knowledge

Eugene sat on the couch fidgeting with his fingers nervously. “Have you figured it out yet?” He asked looking over to see his former body hunched over a computer.

“I have no idea how you organized any of this,” Elisa retorted, “I’m still amazed by how much I do understand.”

“That’s because when we swapped bodies with my device, there must have been something I missed in the code that didn’t swap my genius along with everything else. You’re going to be the only one who can fix those errors that are stopping us from swapping back.”

Eugene hadn’t meant to activate his device; he hadn’t meant to swap bodies with the trophy wife of his biggest investor; he certainly didn’t mean to leave pieces of his intelligence behind thanks to a few bugs in the code. Now his only hope to swap back was if Elisa could figure out how to get the devices to properly activate again before her husband arrived.

A few minutes passed before Elisa sighed, “I need more time.”

“What do you mean? We have to swap back now!”

“You spent YEARS building and writing this. You still have all your memories, but none of the intellectual know-how to apply them. I have your knowledge that will allow me to figure it out, but reviewing all of it to understand it is going to take some work.”

“But your husband will be here any minute!”

“We’ll have to pretend to be each other until I can get this up and running again. It should be easy. I have a lot of your knowledge, but based on what I can see in the output of the devices, you should also have a lot of mine -- fashion sense, muscle memory for makeup, how to accessorize...”

Eugene groaned. Despite knowing she was right, he didn’t want to live her life.

Lose Yourself to Dance

As soon as dance class was over, James came back to the field. He hadn’t even bothered changing clothes. The football team wasn’t outside practicing, which meant Coach was probably humiliating them inside after a someone on the team screwed up the drills. James could only assume it was Alicia in his body that had screwed it up for everyone. He had tried to fill her in as best as he could, but he had to explain in about an hour everything he had learned about football over the course of many years. Plus, it’s not like he did much better in her dance class! If they ever swapped back, her class would probably make fun of her to no end. “If,” He sighed aloud, thinking about what would happen if he was stuck in Alicia’s body forever. Would he start to get better at this whole ballet thing? Would he enjoy it? He shuddered. He had only agreed to go because otherwise Alicia said she’d skip his football practice. But what if was never going to get back to his own body? What good would all this be for? He tried not to think much more about it. He just hoped Coach would bring the team back out on the field and finish up soon enough, so he could figure out the next step with Alicia.

Perfect Storm

There had been a storm outside, one of the worst Jeff had ever seen. He didn’t think much until a bright light and a loud crash struck his house. The power went out. He reached around in the dark only to discover everything had been moved around. He quickly realized he wasn’t in his own house, and -- even weirder -- he didn’t even seem to be in his own body. In the darkness, through touch alone, he realized he was now a woman. He looked for her phone, but the battery seemed to dead. It seemed far too dangerous to venture out, so he just did his best to try and get some sleep.

Forgetting the events of the night before, he woke up once again shocked by his new body. The power was still out but the water seemed to be working, so he did his best to clean up and change clothes. It as weird digging through someone else’s wardrobe -- particularly a woman’s -- but he finally settled on something he felt he wouldn’t be too uncomfortable wearing. As he stepped out on the back porch, he saw the storm had cleared. If he could find her car keys inside, maybe he could venture out? Perhaps he could figure out what was going on, or maybe even figure out how a bolt of lightning seemingly swapped him into someone else’s body.

Slow Down

“Do you have to walk so fast?” Rebecca complained as she asked Thomas to slow down.

“You said this guy might know how to reserve this body swap,” Thomas replied as he turned back with a scornful look, “Quite frankly, I can’t get there fast enough.” He paused before continuing, “I should be the one lagging. You always tell me how hard these heels are to walk in, but I’m powering through the pain with no problem. You should be in just as much of a hurry as I am.”

Rebecca sunk a little bit further back after hearing Thomas respond. She wasn’t sure this guy could even help them, and she hadn’t even explained that it was her fault they had swapped bodies in the first place. Maybe he never needed to know; maybe they could just get through this and laugh about it later...

Behave

“This is going to be a fun week,” Ben said looking down.

“Just try not to stare too much,” Alyssa sighed, “And definitely don’t do anything like touch yourself in public.”

“Oh, come on, you are taking ALL the fun out of this whole body swap thing.”

“Yeah, but you’re just BORROWING remember. I don’t want to get my body back and have everyone start calling me ‘that weird chick’ because of anything you’ve done.”

“I’ll behave; I promise.” Ben said as he slightly crossed his fingers behind his back.

Another Tattoo

Sergio got of his car feeling happy to be alive. He had gone out to the tattoo parlor to get his fifth tattoo on his girlfriend’s request. She had designed it to compliment a tattoo of her own with some strange ancient symbols in a circle arrangement. It wasn’t identical, but she explained they “went together.” But as he drove home, his body started to morph. He got shorter and had trouble reaching the pedals. He nearly got into an accident, and he was horrified to find he had transformed into a woman. He also had no idea what he was going to tell his girlfriend, or explain who he really was.

It turned out, he didn’t need to tell her anything. She was waiting for him when he got out of the car. She explained that the tattoo she told him to get was actually a magic symbol. Now that it was on his body, she could do anything she wanted to him, including turning him into a woman. Sergio started to protest. He asked why. She looked back at him sternly, explaining that she knew all about how he had cheated on her two months ago. Sergio got quiet; he knew things were going to get a lot worse.

Open (Part 5)

Click here for Part 1.
Click here for Part 2.
Click here for Part 3.
Click here for Part 4.

Months later, Marcus returned to the hospital for one of his sessions with a counselor. He had been previously seeing an old guy named Doctor Holmes, but he was pleasantly surprised to be meeting with a young woman this time. She made a note on her clipboard that Marcus was wearing feminine clothes but he sat in a rather masculine manner with his legs spread.

“I’m wondering if you could talk about your gender today, Marcus. Did Doctor Holmes ever ask about how you felt about that?” The woman

“I would always tell him how amazing this body feels, but I don’t think he ever asked about it specifically. And you can call me Misty.”

“You decided to call yourself Misty?”

“Yeah, this chick’s name was Michelle, but that felt too stuffy.”

“Is there something wrong with stuffy?”

“I mean, if you got it, flaunt it! And I got it! C’mon, you know, right? Wearing some low cut tops and high heels, it just fels sexy! I never felt this good before in my life!”

Open (Part 4)

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

A few more weeks passed, and Marcus was finally ready to be discharged. He signed a large number of non-disclosure agreements and scheduled regular appointments to come back for physical therapy and counseling. There was also one morbid task he needed to attend to. Sitting in the hospital’s morgue, perfectly preserved with chemicals, was his former body. He needed to identify it for the coroner. Seeing his lifeless body there was nothing short of horrifying. He knew he was someone different now; he knew he had a new body, but it still felt like he was gone. In a way, he supposed he was.

Open (Part 3)

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

As the weeks passed, Marcus gained more and more control of his new body. The doctors would now come in and see what he could do, instead of just giving instructions. And they would ask questions, mostly about how he was adjusting. Of course, Marcus couldn’t complain in the slightest. He was happy to be alive, and the body he ended up getting was like hitting the jackpot. He began to ask them when he’d be well enough to stand, or when he’d be well enough to leave the hospital. They didn’t give a firm answer, but they seemed quite pleased with how Marcus was doing.

Open (Part 2)

Click here for Part 1.

Marcus was slowly able to feel his new body -- though things felt weird and parts often felt numb. His doctors gave him instructions on how to best recover, and Marcus was a little surprised one day when he was told to lift his head. He was almost sure he wouldn’t be able to do it, yet was quite amazed when he could. Though when he did so, the first thing he saw was his new body. It was now very clear his brain had been transplanted into the body of a woman. His perspective wasn’t the best, but he was pretty sure that he was smoking hot. He spoke for the first time since the surgery in order to manage a mutter of amazement, “Whoa.” Hearing his new soft voice made him even more curious, but his doctors instructed him to lie back down and take it easy. Marcus was now so intrigued about his new body, but he didn’t yet have the energy to explore.

Open (Part 1)

Marcus was breathing weakly. Was this the afterlife? Or had he survived the operation? His body felt completely numb; he couldn’t move. He couldn’t confirm if the surgery had been a success or not. He only seemed to have involuntary movements like breathing and blinking so far. It made sense. In order to save his life, he had his brain transplanted into an entirely different body. Many neural pathways would be reconstructing themselves. It made sense that essential bodily functions came first. Even things like moving would have to wait. It’d probably be several hours before he could even feel, and maybe a few days before he could move. He began to wonder what his new body was like..

In Flight Surprise

Marcy generally hated it when guys hit on her. It was nothing short of obnoxious. From the moment she sat down on, she could tel the guy next to her was trouble. He made passes at her; he whispered a few rude comments. Normally, this would be one of those annoying moment, but this time she had a trick up her sleeve...or rather down her skirt.

She decided to lead him on a little. By the middle of the flight, he was practically begging to meet him in the bathroom. She agreed, and that’s where she shared her little secret.

Her husband had worked on a device that allowed two people to swap bodies parts, and she had borrowed the part between his legs. When she revealed this to the man from the plane in the bathroom, he was in shock. He wondered how had been hitting on a guy this whole time? But he looked so much like a woman? Did this make him gay? He exited the bathroom, and sulked back to his seat. Marcy smiled as she sat back down next to him, knowing his wasn’t going to say a word for the rest of the flight.

Coping

Coping with the Great Shift was hard for many. Across the globe reactions ranged from excitement to depression. Jeffrey was shocked when he realized he was in the body of an Asian woman. He tried shaving his head to feel more masculine, but it didn’t help. In response, he began to cry, which didn’t help his emotional state. He believed that men didn’t cry, only women. And it only further solidified that feeling of being unable to accept his new body...

Law Degree (Part 2)

Click here for Part 1.

After Justin graduated law school, he went looking for a job. It proved difficult for him to get a job at any firm. Being fresh out of school, he lacked much experience, but almost everyone didn’t want to bring him on a junior lawyer. They figured he wouldn’t be able to keep up with the demands since he looked so old. The only offer he eventually got was to be a secretary, which felt humiliating yet he accepted it anyway. He thought about going off on to practice on his own, but he’d need to build up some savings first, which was hard as a secretary. Every day at work was just depressing. Heck, every day since he first got this body had just been worse and worse...

Law Degree

“Just look at me,” Justin said while pointing to his face, “I have the body of a 40 year old woman thanks to that accident. By the time I finish getting my law degree, I’ll probably be going through menopause or something. Who’s going to hire me when I’m already over the hill?”

“Relax, honey,” His mom said, “Your brain was transferred into that body to save your life. The doctors gave you all the paperwork to prove who you really are, and that you’re actually 23 years old.”

“Sometimes I wish you had let me die instead.”

“Please don’t talk like that, Justin. It’s horrible. Everyone is glad you survived that terrible accident.”

Justin grumbled as he took another sip of coffee...

Lay Off

Mike was hopeful when he first saw his girlfriend Kayla approaching. She had the usual sway to her step, but then she sat down with a slouch and spread her legs wide.

“That’s still you, Nick, isn’t it?” Mike asked.

“Of course it’s still me,” Nick retorted from Kayla’s body, “Kayla and I couldn’t figure out how to swap back.”

“But the way you walked up here -- ”

“Is only because she forced me to wear her heels!” Mike interrupted before taking a sip of an iced mocha, “It’s hard to walk any other way wearing these damned things, unless I want to fall flat on my face.

”Maybe you could take up some more of her habits, like not sitting like a guy? Or laying off the sugary drinks? You’re gong to make my girlfriend fat.”

“Oh, lay off, dude, you’re worse than she is! It’s my body until we can swap back, and I’ll do what I want with it. You may be my best friend, but I’m not going to sit here and be lectured by you! Kayla’s given me enough demands, and we have an agreement on the limits of what I can and can’t do. So stop injecting yourself into it!”

Super Important and Stuff

It seemed like a fascinating experiment. Joel had retired as a psychology professor ten years ago, but still read up on things going on at the local university. The latest experiment involved people swapping minds, and the school was looking for volunteers. Joel signed up, figuring as a nearly eighty year old man, he’d significantly mix up the participant pool, which would likely be mostly college students. They implanted a chip in Joel, and he was told it would be triggered at a later date. Once he swapped, he’d remember who he really was, but he would retain most of the personality and vital skills of the person he swapped with. Joel had so many questions, but he was told to save them for later.

It was a few days before the swap initiated, and suddenly Joel found himself in the middle of the football field during a game. His first thoughts were of the scientific impact of what just happened, but these thoughts soon faded. They just stopped seeming interesting to him as he instead decided to focus on how big he could smile for the crowd. He remembered participating in the experiment for its scientific value, but suddenly the extra cash he was going to get for it seemed much more important. Of course, he couldn’t focus on that right now, could he? He had to nail this cheer routine! It was, like, super important to him and stuff!

This Day Was Coming

“I’m sure you knew this day was coming,” Yan said aiming a gun at the head that used to belong to him, “I don’t know how you swapped our bodies two years ago, but whatever you did, now’s the time to reverse it and get us back to normal.”

“I would if I could,” Susan sighed, “The reason I ran -- the reason I left you behind in my body -- was because I lost the medallion. I didn’t change us back to normal because I COULDN’T change us back to normal. I just couldn’t bear to tell you. You deserved to still have hope.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“It doesn’t matter. Shoot me if it will make you feel better. Either way, there is still no way back to our own bodies.”

Fair Trade

“So this is how the other half lives?” Ralph chuckled as he entered the top floor apartment.

He had never been a rich man, always scraping by and usually renting out cheap basement apartments. But because of the Great Shift, he found himself swapped into the body of some fancy woman in leather pants. He looked at the license in her purse and headed straight back to her place. Hitting the highest button on the elevator felt good, and it felt even better to open up that door and see an ornately decorated interior. He wouldn’t have ever picked being a woman, but trading his manhood in for this extravagance felt like a mostly fair trade.

Chroeography

Jackson walked out onto the stage nervously as the spotlight shone brightly on him. He could feel the heat of it on his bare shoulders. It was effortless to stand on the tips of his toes thanks to swapping bodies with Angela. He had her body’s athleticism, so this sort of thing was no problem. Before she went on stage, she told him that he should be able to do the entire routine on muscle memory. To just listen to the music start and her body would know what to do. However, the music started and Jackson was frozen. In hindsight, it seemed insane. Just because he swapped bodies with Angela and he could pull off all of her moves didn’t mean he’d be able to do a complicated choreography routine on instinct. He was sure this would be ruining her career. He had begged her to call in sick or fake an injury after the swap, but she was so sure this would work.

Charter Flight

Jack had been flying private charter planes for a decade now. He was most recently hired to fly a rich playboy from New York to DC. The spoiled brat boarded with several scantily clad models hanging off his arms. Jack hid his annoyance and kept a professional attitude. About halfway through the flight a strange flash appeared on the horizon. Jack suddenly found himself in the passenger area with no explanation. He didn’t care why, he just rushed to the cockpit in order to take control of the plane. He then proceeded to make an emergency landing at the nearest airstrip.

With his heart pounding and adrenaline racing, he didn’t even notice what had happened to him as a result of the flash. He had swapped bodies with one of the models. As he stepped off the plane in her skimpy outfit, the discomfort of his new body was hitting him all at once along with the sheer confusion of how this could have even happened.

One More Day

“One more day? Are you serious? Our bodies have been swapped for three days already, and we only agreed to swapped for one to begin with, but you keep asking for ‘one more day.’ I don’t want to be you for any longer, Sharon, I just don’t. We need to swap back now.” Levi said with a scowl.

“Okay, Levi, confession time. I let Jenny borrow the Medallion of Zulu, and she hasn’t given it back yet. As soon as she does, I can swap us back to normal, okay? I promise.”

“Let’s just go find Jenny then.”

“Well, that’s the problem. I don’t know where she is. I don’t even know WHO she is right now...”