You Bet Your Life

When Joseph read they were rebooting the game show “You Bet Your Life,” he didn’t think the title was literal. He was seleced to be a contestant, he was excited. He prepared by studying a vast amount of trivia, but still ended up losing it all. When he was told “it wasn’t over,” he actually got excited. Was there a bonus? Or a second chance?

The host laughed at Joseph’s question. No. Joseph certainly lost, but someone still had to win! The host began to explain that anyone could now win Joseph’s life; all they had to do was claim it. Whatever process that entained seemed to be filmed in another studio, as everyone just seemed to stand around for a while until a producer gave a nod.

Then the host bounced back into action with a grin. “We have a winner! Let’s give a round of applause for Rhonda Blake!” The host then turned to Joseph, “Say goodbye to your life, Joseph!”

In an instant Joseph felt sick, and in the next minute he noticed painted red nails on the tips of his fingers. He didn’t even have time to process exactly what was happening to him as the host explained, “Rhonda has won Joseph’s life in the suburbs with a beautiful house, a wife, two kids, and a good paying job. Don’t worry. Joseph is not leaving empty handed. Now that he’s in Rhonda’s body, he’ll experience her life filled with clinical depression, the rude advances of her co-workers, and a staggering amount of debt. Join us next time on ‘You Bet Your Life,’ where we take the title of this show quite literally.”

Retro Gamer (Part 3)

View Part 1 of Retro Gamer.
View Part 2 of Retro Gamer.
Subscribers at a "A Little Shift" level can view Part 4 early on DeviantArt.

After what felt like several months (if not years) of being stuck inside the game, Alan was feeling resigned to the fact that this was now his life. And yet, one day he couldn’t help but notice he was steadily progressing, getting further and further, and finally seeing parts of the game he had never seen before. Boss fights became more challenging until suddenly he could just feel it was all over. He had done it; he had won.

It ended with a flash of light, and he found himself on the floor in someone’s living room in front of a large screen television. A guy was sitting on the couch holding a controller looking completely dumfounded. Alan was sure he expression was equally confused. But as Alan started to stand up, he felt something was wrong.

He had escaped the video game and returned to the real world, sure. But he hadn’t been returned to his own body. He looked at the delicate hands and cute dress he wore, and he realized he was a real life version of the character in the game he had been. He wanted to say “thank you,” but instead he was in a state of shock. He was an entirely new person, and (it seemed) the pixelated character now inside the game seemed to look a lot like him...

Bullied

Evan wondered how it was possible he still had a bully? He was 18 years old and a senior in high school, and yet every day he still lived in fear of Chuck Watkins. But he put his genius mind to work and thought he found a solution: a device that could swap the traits of any two people. Evan used it to swap bodies with Esther Lee, a nerdy wallflower of a student who no one ever notice.

As it turned out, Chuck liked to bully her just as much as he liked to bully Evan, except that it also came with a side of revolting innuendo.

Realizing he had nowhere to hie, Evan decided to use the trait swapper on Chuck the next day, switching his personality with the nicest teacher in school, Mrs. Torcado. This proved to be an even bigger mistake.

“Hey, Loser,” Mrs. Torcado said as she approached Evan as he sat down for class, “Where’s your stupid homework?”

“It’s right here,” Evan said pulling it out of his bag and putting it in front of him.”

Mrs. Torcado immediately tore it up, “Aw, I don’t see any goddamn homework. I guess you’re gonna have to stay after school. Say what? Maybe meet me behind th dumpster during lunch and we can work something out, eh? Be prepared to bring your goddamn safety scissors, if you catch my drift, you pillow princess!”

Divorced

George’s wife had been a bit of a nag as long as he could remember. Alice was a little annoying, but she had been tolerable for the most part. Besides, for the most part he thought it made him a better husband and even a better man. After all, he should do things like clean up after himself; he just would need a little nudge in the right direction.

But the dynamic changed after the Great Shift. George found himself in Alice’s body, and her nagging went through the roof. Now it wasn’t just little things to improve himself; it was about how he should dress, every bite of food that he ate, and not a single moment of peace.

After a few weeks, George broke. He decided he couldn’t take it anymore and brought home divorce papers. Within another week, he had set himself up in an apartment with the ultimate bachelor pad -- well, bachelorette pad, he guessed, technically.

As he sat down to watch the game with a bowl of Cheetos and a glass of beer, he paused to appreciate the quiet. No one was yelling at him about calories or that he was wearing the wrong jeans. He could just enjoy himself, enjoy the game, and enjoy his new life.

Like a N00b

Brian probably could’ve handled swapping bodies with most women. Maybe his friend, Abby; she was cool. Or his sophomore dormmate’s girlfriend, Frankie. But, no, he had to swap bodies with his lame older sister, Brianna.

She was one of those women really into girly things like fashion and shopping. And she was a helpless klutz who just wanted some guy to marry her and “take care of her” now that she was out of college.

On Brian’s first attempt to ride his skateboard while in her body, he felt like a noob. He wasn’t sure if it was because he was unfamiliar with her body; if it was the fact that her clothes were just conducive to it; or if it was just her klutzy nature coming through. It didn’t matter. He wanted nothing more than to be himself again.

Lightning Crashes (Part 2)

View Part 1 of Lightning Crashes.

Knowing I could find my body again easily enough gave me little comfort. It was just hard to accept that I was no longer in my own body. Sure, I was also a woman -- and that was going to take some getting used to in and of itself -- but being an entirely different person was tough to wrap my head around, regardless of gender.

And I supposed it didn’t help that she was leaving me to learn every aspect of this new body on my own. I didn’t even know what my name was now. It took me quite a while to find an ID and a keycard stuffed into her bra. But I supposed going to her apartment would be a good place to start, or at least change out of this skirt.

As the rain cleared, I checked the address and saw “BMST” as the apartment number -- the fact that she lived in a crappy basement apartment wasn’t a good sign. I found myself hoping that her place hadn’t flooded during the storm.

Download

Getting the app onto Thad’s phone was a challenge. But Winston had done it, and now he just needed to wait until Thad opened the app. Once he did, Winston would get a notification, then the app would begin transferring their brains. Winston would go from being a scrawny, weak nerd to being the muscular, handsome Thad. Of course, Thad would be stuck in Winston’s body as well.

Winston barely slept the next few days waiting for the notification to come through. When it finally did, he hit “Confirm” in an instant, and the transference began.

Winston’s eyes began red and he froze as the contents of his brain began to be transmitted through the phone. His vision blurred and when could finally move again, he was in what he assumed was Thad’s apartment.

“Babe, what are you doing?” He heard a male voice ask.

It took a moment for Winston to realize the voice was talking to him. “Babe?” He finally in a pitch that seemed much too high.

“What are you doing with my phone?” Winston turned around to see Thad standing behind him. Then he looked at the phone or more specifically the hands holding it. They were soft and feminine with well-manicured nails. He wasn’t in Thad’s body; he was in the body of Thad’s girlfriend! She must have seen the strange app and gotten suspicious.

“I was just wondering what this app was,” Winston lied, “I was worried that it was a dating app and that you were cheating on me.”

“I honestly have no idea what that is or how it got on there,” Thad replied before taking the phone back and deleting the app for good.

Literally Whenever We Want

Katie pressed the button on the device several times, worried that the body swapping device no longer seemed to be working. She felt a sense of relief when her body walked around from the other side of the lab.

“Thank goodness, Rowan,” She sighed, “But I thought we were just going to do a quick test and then swap right back. Why did you take your helmet off?”

“Because it worked!” Rowan said with a huge smile, “That’s such a huge accomplishment! We should celebrate!”

“Sure, but maybe we should return to our own bodies before we celebrate?”

“Oh, come on! It could be fun! Let’s go out to dinner like this or something! This is literally a breakthrough and the first time anyone has experienced being in someone else’s body; we should explore it a little longer. When will we get the chance to do this again?”

“Literally whenever we want. We just built a device that can swap people’s bodies. And seriously, Rowan, I want to swap back NOW.”

Much Worse

Sean thought he’d hate settling down in the suburbs with his wife, Heather, but he did see an immediate benefit. Plenty of hot moms seemed to jog around in his neighborhood. He’d often stare out the window or drive extra slow when passing one while driving his car. When Heather noticed this, she was bbviously quite displeased by his wandering eye. He promised to stop, which (in truth) meant that he was just going to try to be more subtle about it.

One day as he was about to pull into his driveway, he noticed probably the hottest woman yet jogging. She wore tight leggings that showed off a clearly pert and firm ass. He turned off his blinker and started following her around the block by driving extra slowly in order to keep that ass in view.

Then came the flash of light. Sean cursed at first, thinking his distraction had caused him to crash his car. But a moment later, things were fine. Or rather, things weren’t fine, but he wasn’t in a car crash wreck at least. In fact, he was on the sidewalk for some reason. Looking down he saw feminine feet in sneakers along with legs encased in tight yoga pants. The flatness of his crotch was unmistakable. It got worse. There was the out of shape stomach, the saggy breasts, the flabby arms, and the wrinkles that were forming. Ugh, if he had to be a woman, couldn’t he at least become one of the countless attractive ones?

The only clear next step was to get back home. He felt exhausted and winded as he ran. And he continued to pass hot women joggers as he ran (though many also complained about having recently swapped bodies), but Sean felt surprisingly very little when he looked at them. And then the rare male jogger passed with perfect abs and tight shorts that showed off what Sean realized was a large package. Sean found himself staring. But more than that, he felt a tingle in his loins; he was getting aroused! As bad as he thought this was, he realized it was actually much worse than what he thought!

A Few More Hours

“Come on, Gideon, it’s time to go to cheerleading practice,” Becky said.

“But I’ve only got a few more hours of work before I finish the calculations! Then I’ll know how we ended up switching bodies! This is important!”

“And cheerleading is important to me! It’ll be over if we wait ‘a few hours.’ Hell, we’ll be late if we wait a few more minutes. And it’s important I’m there, or at least that my body is. Besides, once you finish all this chalkboard stuff, how does that help us swap back to normal?”

“Well, we’d then need to construct some sort of device to apply them, or use them to figure out a naturally occurring phenomenon and be in the right place at the right time.

“All I’m hearing is that you still have a lot of work to do and a lot of work on top of that. So if the next phase gets put off for a bit while you attend my cheerleading practice, it’s not going to be that big a deal. But it is a big deal if my coach sees me skip. So, come on, let’s go.”

“Fine, but you know I’m still ill-prepared to do any of the routines. I may have your body, but I’m pretty sure I don’t have your skills.”

“Doing a bad job is better than not showing up. Trust me, I don’t want to be stuck in your body any longer than I have to be either, but you NEED to do this.”

Changing Room (Part 1)

Sophia was glad she had worn her stretchy workout outfit when she went to the mall today. After all, she hadn’t expected to transform into this gorgeous hunk of a man. She wasn’t sure or why it happened, but she was sure anything else she could’ve worn would have burst at the seams! As it was, both the top and pants were incredibly tight on her new body, but they still covered all the important parts. Her feet no longer fit in her sandles, but she did her best to sort of fake it and drag them along even as her larger feet were coming off the backs of them.

She thought about buying other clothes to change into, but instead she wondered if someone else had transformed into her. There was no guarantee that anyone had -- or that if they had that they would be anywhere in the near vicinity. But she figured she should at least check; a change of clothes could be a secondary concern.

Only Fans

Once he found the Medallion of Zulu, Jonas thought he had the perfect money making scheme. He’d use the medallion to transform himself into a woman once a week, shoot a few OnlyFans videos, and then post them to start raking in the cash.

It didn’t go so well.

First and foremost, attracting subscribers was hard. He barely had any hits. There was also a near constant demand for new content; his plan to use the medallion once a week likely wasn’t going to be enough. The money wasn’t as good as he expected either. People teased more by demanding he wear less.

As a result, Jonas was spending almost all his time transformed into a woman dancing in front of the laptop screen for twenty hours a day wearing little more than a bikini. It was tiresome and exhausting, and he barely scraped by. It was still better than his old day job.

Can't Play Ball for Sh*t (Part 1)

Part 2 is up for A Little Shift supporters on DeviantArt!

The petite Asian woman was a little over five feet tall walking up to Tyler and Leroy, who were both probably more than a foot taller than her. She challenged them to a bet that she could beat them both on the court, two against one, and held up $500. They thought it would be the easiest cash they ever made; they were shocked when the small woman seemingly defied gravity to dunk on them and completely pwn the game.

The men were gracious in defeat, handing over the bet but still very curious. “It’s like that movie ‘White Men Can’t Jump,’” Tyler explained, “Except I think our expectation was like ‘Short Asian Ladies Can’t Play Ball for Sh*t.’ Who the hell are you? How the hell did you do all that?”

“Al, short for Allison,” Allison said, “It used to be Albert, I think.”

“Are you trans or something?” Leroy asked, “That still doesn’t explain it.”

“No, that would be normal!” Allison explained, “But I’m not sure you’ll believe me if I told you.”

“After what we just saw, I think we’ll believe anything.”

“There was this weird blue light in the city yesterday. It changed people by swapping traits...it changed people in ways you couldn’t imagine. Fat people got skinny; skinny people got fat; people swapped genders. The weird part was that no one seemed to notice; no one except for me. It swapped me completely into Allison’s body, and I followed it around watching the chaos it caused. But it eventually noticed me. It somehow sensed how unhappy I was about being in her body; somehow I knew this as well. And so while it didn’t give me my body back, it did give me back my basketball skills while taking something for the original Allison as well. And this light was like magic, so my skills are like what my O.G. body could do, no matter what I look like now.”

“So what were you like before?”

“I have no idea. Once it gifted me my skills back, I couldn’t see it anymore. I couldn’t see other people’s changes anymore either. But I still remember that the changes happened. Essentially, it’s like I’ve always been Allison even though I know I haven’t. Every now and again, a little piece or memory pops in, but it’s usually fleeting. I literally have no way of knowing.”

A Note About DeviantArt

Hello All!

As some of you may have noticed, I have moved my subscription model from Patreon to DeviantArt! I love that many of you have followed me over there! I cannot thank my subscribers enough, as you do help me continue to help me keep this site alive! A few notes about that:

• You WILL see a good number of captions posted to DeviantArt before I post them here. I actually get a lot more traffic over there, so it makes sense.
• You will ALSO see captions EXCLUSIVE to this site! Eventually, I hope to post two per day on this site. One that is new and one that is previously posted to DevantArt. We're not there yet, so consider that a coming soon thing.
• There are also exclusive captions that will ONLY be up at DeviartArt. This is part of my THANK YOU to subscribers.

Love,
Alicia

I Can't Find My Glasses

The flash of light was like a shockwave that briefly knocked out the power, pausing the blaring music playing at the off-campus party. Owen was worried his sight was damaged permanently as everything still seemed to be blurry. He was on the ground with many others. As they stood up, he could feel his body being pushed one way or another. Meanwhile, he was a little too worried about standing up on his own with his vision still out of whack.

But as the screams started, his hands came upon a pair of glasses. Almost by instinct, he wore them. As the world came into focus, he figured out why everyone was screaming. Everyone was int he wrong body. There was no way to figure this out by looking around at everyone else, but instead by looking at himself. He recognized the outfit he wore and the general shape of his now feminine body. He was the body of that nerdy chick in his Friday morning Statistics class! What was she even doing at a party like this? It certainly didn’t seem like her scene! And now as a result of whatever happened, he had to be the one stuck in her geeky body?

Lunch

Sam was sitting down to eat lunch when a man approached and sat down at the same table. It was the third time in just as many days that this man had done this.

“Okay, seriously, what gives?” Sam demanded to know, “Two days ago, you bug me when I’m dining at Taco Bell. Yesterday, you gave me grief at Popeye’s. Now I’m sure you’re going to yell at me because I’m eating McDonald’s! Why can’t you just leave me alone?”

The man sighed, “Because before the Great Shift, that was MY body. And I’m worried that you’re going to make me fat.”

Sam sighed. The Great Shift had been some time ago now, and when he couldn’t locate the person who had originally had his current body, he thought he never would. And yet here she was now in front of him at McDonald’s. While his mind swirled with questions of curiosity, his anger about being told what to do with what he had come to feel was now his body won out.

“I’ve been doing just fine for the past year without your help,” Sam shot back, “You know, just about everyone else I knew had the person they swapped into help them adjust, but where were you? Nowhere! And then now, you think you can tell me what’s best for me? How to eat? Do I honestly LOOK like I’ve gained weight since this became my body? Because I haven’t gained a pound. And I’d like to tell you all your old clothes still fit. But I honestly have no clue, because you didn’t show up until just now. So whereas everyone else was borrowing from the person they swapped into, I just had to go off and buy stuff, which wasn’t easy with all the stores closed up. But everything I bought early on -- yeah, it still fits. I feel good about this body -- MY body -- and you just need to butt out of it, and go back to whevever you crawled out of.”

Miss Worldwide (Part 2)

View Part 1 of Miss Worldwide.

After being recognized as being in the body of a celebrity, it wasn’t long before Jason was noticed by an agent who spoke English found him. There was, of course, a lot of money in keeping this woman’s career going, and Jason soon found himself signing a contract worth a lot of money to do so.

And so he soon found himself at modeling at photo shoots, backstage at fashion shows, and even filming commercials and television shows. His agent helped him crossover into the English-speaking market -- obviously due to the fact that Jason spoke it perfectly. This only made him a bigger star back in Asia.

There was a condition to all; however. While it was obvious Jason was swapped into this body as a result of the Great Shift, he couldn’t mention the fact that he was a man. When asked about it in interviews, he simply changed the subject. Every once and a while, he’d drop a story about growing up as a girl just to make it convincing. Still, he knew he was living a lie, and he was always worried the truth would come out.

Charity Gala

Once I found my life stolen by the magic taxi and stuck in the body of that fat slob of a cab driver, I initially panicked. Reading the journal on the end table in the small studio apartment, I knew I would have to eventually steal a body as well. I started making plans. I targeted men around my own age and often looked for clues that they were better off than I had been in my original body.

He wore an expensive suit, but it was the Rolex on the wrist he flagged down the cab with that caught my eye. Except he wasn’t hailing the ride for himself, but it turned out he was an agent and I’d be driving his client to some fancy charity gala.

She sat silently in the back in her long red puffer coat. I could sense she was looking at me with a feeling of disgust. For some reason, it hurt. I mean, I could understand it; but it still hurt. Throughout the ride, I couldn’t take my eyes off her, which only increased the revulsion in her stare.

I had fully intended to drop her off and continue looking for someone that fit my plan. But as my cab pulled up, the cameras started swarming. As she got out, the red coat drifted off her shoulders to reveal it was part of an elaborate gown. But she hadn’t paid, and no matter how much I pushed my foot to the gas, the cab wouldn’t go. Being stiffed for payment wasn’t really mentioned in the journal. Other cars were honking wildly behind me with ushers urging me to move along. I felt pressured, like I had no other option, so I shouted out, “Have a nice day, Ma’am!”

And then it happened. I became her.

I quickly walked back over to the taxi, apologizing to the ushers. She didn’t have a wallet in this outfit, but she had been holding a phone. I scanned the QR code on the cab’s window and selected the option to pay with the largest tip possible. She was now the one inside the cab driver’s body, and instead of disgust in her eyes, there was fear and terror. But there was nothing either of us could do at this point as she drove off. Meanwhile, I made my way into the gala where the agent’s assistant met me, who apologized to me for not getting there in time to pay the cab driver. I brushed it off as he took my phone and lead me through a whirlwind of photos and red carpet interviews. I had to fake my way through it; I was never a pop culture guy; I had no idea who this celebrity even was!

Sisterly

Despite everything that happened in the past few years, Michael found it hard to do anything but smile as his ex-girlfriend Hai exchanged her vows with the man she was now marrying. If things had gone according to plan, he’d be the groom at this ceremony; but fate had other ideas.

Michael and Hai had been engaged; they had a venue and scheduled a date. They were discussing it all with Hai’s family on the day no one would forget; the day of the Great Shift. Hai was one of the lucky few who didn’t swap. She was confused as heck when she discovered her mom and dad were in each other’s bodies, but the worst moment was discovering Michael had swapped into the body of her younger sister, Ling.

Both Michael and Hai knew immediately that continuing a romantic relationshionship would be a nonstarter. If Michael had been any other woman, it would’ve been possible to be lesbians or something. But with Michael in Ling’s body, they were now literally blood relatives. It just felt wrong.

And yet they both knew they still loved each other. They remained close, and that love turned into a sisterly love. Even Hai’s parents treated Michael like another daughter (which was probably made easier for them considering he was in their daughter’s body). Eventually, Hai moved on to other relationships and met Lou. And she soon had a favor to ask of Michael; would he consider being a bridesmaid for her?

Michael did feel a fleeting sense of what he had lost, but it was diminished by the pure unbridled happiness he felt for Hai. He did have one condition for agreeing: no heels!

And so as he sat in the front row with the biggest smile of joy on his face, he began to consider his own life. Ling had just started to pursue a medical degree at the time of the Shift, which he was permitted to continue. He had recently started his residency, and looking forward to his career as a doctor. But a love life? He hadn’t even thought about it. He wasn’t even sure if he was still into women or if he should go after men. For now, he was just happy in the moment for his big sister.

Rerun (Part 2)

View Part 1 of Rerun.

Jenn seemed quite content to run through the events of the episode as she remembered them, and Nick couldn’t believe he was going along with it. Since the events of the episode took place over a couple of days, there was a lot of time that was basically off-script where Jenn and Nick could discuss what was happening. Jenn kept trying to stay in character, but Nick urged her to get serious. They did need to find a way out of the television, but neither had any idea how they got stuck inside it in the first place, let alone how to get out.

However, before they could even get through the episode, there was a flash. Nick swore he saw was looked like static. And suddenly the scene was very different. They were in a mansion, and Nick could feel he was still a woman, but the hair on his head and weight on his chest were both much heavier than before.

“What the hell?” Jenn screamed now inside the body of a man several decades older, “Who the hell is this?”

Nick recognized the man and took note of the outfit he was wearing. “I think someone must have changed the channel,” He guessed, “And we better hope they change it again.”

“Yeah, this character sucks. He’s old and gross.”

“No, that’s not why, Jenn. I know this show, and I know what episode it is by my outfit. If we don’t find a way out of this, you’re going to get shot. And you’re going to die.”

Icing (Part 1)

Part 2 will be available next month on the blog, but you can get it now by subscribing on DeviantArt (at "A Little Shift" level).

One moment Sebastian was in the chemistry lab and the next he was at the university’s ice rink with his ass falling down. Well, technically, the odd thing wasn’t HIS ass. In fact, nothing about this body was “HIS;” nothing about this body was even a “HE.” Sebastian was now inside the body of a woman from the school’s speed skating team. For starters, he felt a lot stronger. He could breathe better too; this body certainly didn’t have asthma like his did.

But none of this made any sense; people just don’t swap bodies. But he was a man of science, there had to be an explanation for it! The first thing he learned was that ice skating his difficult; he ripped off the skate and slowly started to walk across the slippery ice. As he did so, despite it still making no sense, he soon discovered he wasn’t the only person in the wrong body that had swapped bodies at the school.

Wiped Out on the Slopes

Shaun was skiing down the slopes when he suddenly lost his balance and began toppling down into the snow. It didn’t make sense. He was a pro; he hadn’t fallen down in over a decade. But as he began to recover and try to get back on his feet, he realized exactly why he lost his balance -- he had swapped into a very unfamilar body, and that body was a woman’s body!

It was difficult to stand; his balance was still off. Being a woman just had weight in all sorts of different places than he was used to. But he couldn’t just stay wiped out in the snow. Whereas moments ago, he was effortless cruising down the slopes, and now he was struggling to walk without falling down again.

Beautiful

When the Great Shift happened, Robert found himself in a beautiful woman’s body surrounded by many other beautiful women. It seemed that just about everyone else was in the wrong body as well. And yet no one seemed upset about it.

After about an hour, Robert started asking why.

“Look at all of us! Look in the mirror!” Another woman said to him, “What in the world is there to be upset about?”

And so Robert sat down and looked. She (or maybe he?) was right. He was probably better looking than any woman he had ever seen in real life. This had to be some sort of modeling gig, right? Maybe she was famous. He imagined this was going to be a pretty good life, or at least a fun one for a time?

Apology After Apology

Jimmy sat and listened as the scientists apologized and tried to explain the error. The teleportation experiment had gone horribly wrong; data was lost, and they were lucky to restore 80% of Jimmy’s memories.

Jimmy shrugged as slouched down at he sat. He couldn’t remember signing up for this experiment, and it was impossible for him to miss memories that he wasn’t able to remember. Another scientist apologized for the changes to Jimmy’s body.

Jimmy shrugged again. If there was something amiss with this body, he couldn’t figure it out. Of course, he was having trouble thinking what his body SHOULD be like, so no matter what his body was like now shouldn’t be a big deal, right?

The commotion and panic continued to surround Jimmy for several hours, but he kept a cool head. He had no reason not to. Sure, his Y chromosome was lost and replaced with a duplicate X; yes, that turned him into a woman. But without the memories of having once been a man, he didn’t see what everyone was so worked up about.

Roommates

“You need to get up off the couch, stop watching Netflix, and go outside at some point,” Phillip told his roommate.

“Why?” Theo replied.

“Because it’s been months since the Great Shift, and you need to get on with your life.”

“Easy for you to say! You ended up in the body of a super hottie! But, ugh, look at me! It’s hard enough being a woman now, but I wish I was at least mildly attractive!”

“Hardly! I mean, I get the body I swapped into was super skinny, but your body is perfectly fine! Attractive even! Like, if I was still a guy, I totally would hook up with you.”

“I feel like that’s just a variation on something attractive girls say to their dumpy friends.”

“Well, you’ll never find out if what I’m saying is true by just sitting there, so, come on, let’s go out!”

You'll Never Get Away with This!

“Goddammit, Jen! Could you put that thing away?” A frustrated Harrison said looking back at his own body, “Playing with that weird body swapping gun is what caused us to switch bodies in the first place, and then it broke! Now you said the store you bought it from was somewhere around here?”

“I lied.”

“What? Why would you?”

“Because I’m not Jen at all,” Harrison’s original body said, “My name is Lawrence. I used this body swap gun on your precious girlfriend, and then I used it on you. I put the safety lock on and pretended it was broken. Then I lured you here on the premise of ‘fixing’ it so I can use the other function on this thing.”

“What the hell did you do to Jen?”

“Technically, she’s in my body rotting away in a jail somewhere; though she doesn’t really think of herself as ‘Jen’ anymore. But if it makes you feel better, she‘ll basically exist again soon enough; that’s the fantastic other feature you’re about to know first hand. Once I zap you, you’ll forget who you really were, and you’ll only think of yourself as Jen with her personality and memories. For all intents and purposes, you’ll be her completely -- well, almost completely. You won’t have any memories of the body swapper, of course. And just because you will act like her and think like her, you’ll find that you’ll have a strange gap of knowledge and skills. You probably won’t remember how to do things she does just sort of automatically at this point, something like putting on makeup or picking out just the right outfit. And considering she was you’re girlfriend, I’m guessing you’re straight? You absolutely still will be. Looks like Jenny’s gonna be a lezzy.”

“You’ll never get away with this!”

“You won’t even remember what I’m trying to get away with...”

The Fog (Part 2)

View Part 1 of The Fog.

We only calmed down once the clerk banged on our door to tell us we were disturbing the other guests. We tried to be a little quieter after that. We each prodded our own bodies for a while out of sheer curiosity, and then we reached out for each other. I felt an exciting energy as I touched Mack’s body, and he did the same as we both pulled back instantly. Then we decided to get some sleep and deal with the car in the morning.

As I laid there, sleep wasn’t coming. There was too much on my mind. After a long time, I finally said aloud, “I may be a girl now, but I think I still LIKE girls. I’m a lesbian.”

The room was silent for what felt like an eternity before Mack finally spoke, “Me too.”

I suppose I took a long time when thinking of what to say next as well. Finally, I blurted out, “Should we do lesbian stuff together?”

“Maybe if we’re stuck like this?” Mack replied, “It’ll be awkward if we do that tonight, and we find ourselves back to normal tomorrow.”

“If we find ourselves back to normal tomorrow, I have a feeling we’ll have a very suspicious hotel clerk asking questions about two missing girls.”

“Exactly. We’ll have enough problems. No need to add more to think about...”

Therapy

Part 2 is up on my DeviantArt page, exclusively for subscribers.

“What exactly is this supposed to accomplish?” A very confused Kevin asked from inside the body of his therapist, Dr. Helen Lee.

“When you first started these sessions, I explained my methods were unconventional.” Dr. Lee explained, “You agreed to these methods; I have your signed waiver. Over the past few weeks, it is clear you have a huge problem with women to the point of rather extreme misogyny. Spending a week on the other side of the gender fence is bound to do you some good. My schedule is cleared, so you need not worry about that.”

“I’m not. I mean...how do I put this...why YOU? I’m guessing you could’ve swapped me with one of your patients or something. But instead I’m in your old and unattractive body...uh, no offense.”

“Look, Kevin, maybe the first lesson you need to learn about is how women view themselves. Perhaps what you feel about yourself right now isn’t uncommon. Explore these feelings. I hope you explore the full range of emotions you may feel over the next week.”

“No. We need to swap back. You can’t be serious about leaving us like this for an entire week!”

At the Party

A sudden hush came over the party all at once before it turned to murmurs. Everyone was talking about the fact that they had all seemed to have swapped bodies with one another. Vincent could tell that this was obvious based on his new body. It wasn’t just the sensations of suddenly becoming a woman; it was the fact that he was sure many of his new body parts were artificial. He could feel the lips that he was sure puffed up with collagen. His nails were clearly acrylic. A good amount of this body was likely silicon and botox as well.

And it didn’t take long for the owner’s original body to find him. She was now stuck in the body of a stout, balding man. Vincent was taken aback by how tall he must be looking down on the woman inside the unknown man’s body. She demanded they swap back, but Vincent -- nor anyone else -- had any idea how this even happened. And not only that, even if they could swap again, he would demand they find his body as well. After all, despite not wanting to be a woman, he wanted to be in the body she was in at the current juncture even less! Though he once again emphasized that swapping again didn’t seem very possible. They were all stuck like this!

Shaken to the Core

Steven looked down at his hands and began to shake in fear. Why were his nailed painted? Why were his hands so delicate and feminine? What was going on? The horror of the Great Shift was sinking in as his eyes followed up his arms to see the sleeves of a soft dress. Long hair cascaded over his chest in the v-neck of the dress. He could taste the lipstick on his lips and feel the earrings dangling from his ears. He was in the body of some woman!