As we walked out of the swap clinic together, I gazed over at the girl by my side. The girl whose body I once knew as "me", and as Kirsten Falk before that. The girl whose mind I once knew as Jack, my boyfriend. The girl who I knew might stay with me as my girlfriend. Or might not. We'd have to wait and see.
"So... how does it feel?" I asked her.
"So far?" she said. "Amazing." She was silent for a moment. "How about you?"
I looked down at my hands. Not the exact same color or shape as any I'd had before, but unmistakably attached to a male body. "It feels pretty good," I said, smiling.
"I hope it stays that way," she said. "I just want that body to go to a better home."
"Don't you worry," I said. "I'll take good care of it."
"As long as it takes good care of you," she said.
---
"So where are we going?" I asked as we walked. We had already exchanged all of our clothes and toiletries that morning, and neither of us had much homework, so we had the rest of the Saturday afternoon to ourselves.
"I don't know," she said, a grin forming on her face. "We can go anywhere, can't we? We can do anything."
"Yeah," I said, not knowing what else to say.
My companion was silent for a few seconds. "You know the park a few blocks west of here?" she said. "We could go there, and just walk around a little."
"In the mood for something chill, huh?" I said. "Fine by me. Lead the way." I held out my hand, and she took it.
"I'd rather not do something that takes all my attention," she said. "Something that makes me forget myself. I haven't wanted to remember myself this much in my life."
I nodded, because I kind of knew the feeling. The details of my new body would take some getting used to - as I was sure they did for every swapper - but just existing in this body still made me feel at peace in a way I hadn't for a whole year.
"Oh, and before I forget..." I said. "What do you want me to call you?"
My companion looked off into the distance. "Lea," she said. "Without an H."
I smiled. "It's pretty," I said. "How did you pick it?"
"I guess I just thought it was pretty too," she said, smiling back.
As we walked in silence toward the park, I noticed that Lea seemed a little nervous. Her eyes would dart briefly toward anyone nearby, like she was checking whether and how they were looking at her. That was another feeling I was familiar with. The first few times I went out in public in what was now Lea's body, I found myself acting the same way. I think that when you're raised as a boy, you're embarrassed to be seen doing anything feminine, and that includes being a girl. I mean, not that strangers could tell that either of us weren't always girls in every sense - but shame isn't always rational. I tried to help Lea feel better by holding her hand nice and tight.
By the time we entered the park, Lea was apparently comfortable enough to detach her hand from mine. The park wasn't empty by any stretch, but there were a lot of trees, so the space felt more enclosed and private than the street. We strolled around the paths for a bit, then found an empty bench, just wide enough for the two of us, and sat down.
As I sat, taking in the scenery of the changing leaves and the occasional person walking by, I found my attention drawn as well to the scenery of my own new body. The broad, flat chest. The narrow hips. The bulge in my crotch area. On some level, this is what I always expected to see when I looked down. It was good to have it all back. And it was kind of hot, too - probably because I used to know this specific male body as my boyfriend's.
After a while, I came to feel like the silence could use breaking with a conversation. Ready to speak up, I turned to Lea... only to see something unusual.
"Lea, are you staring at your boobs?" I found myself asking.
Lea turned her attention upward to me. "I wasn't looking at them specifically," she said, looking embarrassed. "Just my body in general."
"Oh," I said. "I see."
"I mean, don't tell me you haven't looked at your body at all since we swapped," she said.
"You're right," I said. "I have been doing that. There's nothing wrong with it. I'm sorry."
"I'm not just some pervert, checking out a female body because it's 'hot'," Lea said.
My first reaction was to take that a bit too personally. "Neither was I," I said, an edge in my voice.
"Oh. You mean when you were..." Lea said. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that. I know you just didn't understand what would happen to you."
I sighed. "I should have known it wasn't about me. And I never thought you were a pervert. I guess I just meant that people staring at their own bodies looks a little weird from the outside."
"I guess," Lea said. "But we're in a weird situation, aren't we?"
"We are," I said.
We sat in awkward silence for a few seconds. And then I took another shot at my planned conversation starter. "It's funny, isn't it?" I said. "This town has a conveniently located business where you can swap bodies with people, but only, like, three decent restaurants."
"It is a shame," Lea said. "The restaurants thing, I mean. But I'm not surprised there's a swap clinic everywhere you go nowadays. I read an article about this a while ago. Some journalist did the math, and swap clinics must be surprisingly cheap for Soulswift to run. I mean, sure, the machine itself is pretty costly to manufacture, but it doesn't consume much electricity or require much maintenance once it's there. And each clinic only needs three or four employees."
"Why are swaps so expensive, then?" I asked. "Is it just because Soulswift has the patent for the swap technology?"
"That's what the journalist thought, too," Lea said. "The patent's going to expire eventually, but until then... we pay an arm and a leg, and Soulswift rakes it all in, I guess."
"Imagine if you had to pay with actual limbs," I said. "Or if people swapped individual body parts instead of entire bodies. Like, if you have a female body, you can buy a dick, but you might have to sell a few fingers."
"Like a transplant, but instant?" Lea said. "And with no immune rejection? It doesn't really make biological sense. But if it was possible, I guess it'd sometimes be more convenient than swapping all your parts at once. Would people be able to buy extra body parts? Like a third arm?"
I would have responded, but before I could, I noticed a familiar face in the corner of my eye. I pointed him out to Lea, then waved and called to him. "Hey, Ollie!"
"Oh, hey!" Oliver said, coming over to us. "Jack! Sarah! What's up?"
"Actually, I'm Will," I said. "And this is Lea. Without an H."
"You two actually went through with it?" Oliver asked.
"Yeah," Lea said. "I mean, we didn't do all that babysitting and dog-walking for nothing."
"Wow," Oliver said. "And this is some kind of couples therapy thing, right?"
Lea and I exchanged a glance. "It's... related to our relationship," Lea said. "But it might be permanent."
Oliver nodded silently, maybe not knowing how to respond. "Listen, I've gotta run to soccer practice," he said. "I was just taking a shortcut on my way there. But I'll catch you later. Let me know how it all goes!"
"We will!" I said, as Oliver turned to leave.
After Oliver disappeared around a bend in the path, Lea spoke up again. "It would've been nice to swap before the school year started, instead of a few weeks in. Would've been better timing for a fresh start like this."
"I know, right?" I said. "Now I'm going to have to re-introduce myself in all of my classes and to all of my friends, just like I did last year. And you'll have to do it all too, for the first time."
"Yeah," Lea said. "Shame we couldn't get the money together faster. When we first made the plan, how long did we think it would take, again? 'A month or two'?"
"Something like that," I said. "A bit on the optimistic side, wasn't it? I blame stingy parents."
"Your parents and mine might have both helped more if I told them the full truth about my gender feelings," Lea said. "I know they probably would've all been accepting. But I never had the guts to do it."
"Don't worry about it," I said. "What's done is done. And it's not like I was perfect at communicating my feelings either." Our story to our families never really went beyond "Sarah wants to be a guy again, and Jack thinks he'd be fine being a girl in her place".
"Thank you," Lea said. "And if the swap works out, we can always give them the missing pieces later, can't we?"
"Yeah," I said.
After that, we returned to silence for a while. I sat with semi-directed thoughts bouncing around in my head, taking comfort in Lea's presence, but not feeling ready to say anything more to her. When I started getting the urge to take out my phone and check my social media, I could tell this outing would be wrapping up soon.
Evidently, Lea felt the same way, because she brought it up before I did. "Do you want to stay here longer?" she asked. "Or should we call it an afternoon?"
"We can call it an afternoon," I said. "But before we go..." I had been going back and forth on whether it was worth it to say this, but when push came to shove, I wanted to. "You know you're not a pervert, right? There's nothing bad about loving the way your own body looks."
"Thank you," Lea said. "And yeah, I know. I guess it's just... an insecurity I haven't quite gotten past yet."
"I'm sure the fascination will go away," I said. "For both of us. Once the novelty of our bodies wears off."
"It might not go away entirely," Lea said. "A lot of people like just feeling sexy. But yeah - I'm sure I won't want to stare at my body in public once I've fully explored it in private."
"Is that what you're going to do when you get home?" I asked. "I mean, I think it's what I'll do. If you don't mind."
"The body's all yours," Lea said, smiling a little. "We can do it together, while we're apart." She stood up.
"Oh, and..." I said, standing up as well. "Can I get a goodbye kiss?"
Lea examined my face for a second. "I don't think I'm at the kissing stage," she said. "It's different with your new body. But..." She wrapped her arms around me. "I don't want you to think I don't appreciate you. And I'm not going to rule out love just yet."
I returned Lea's embrace. "Thank you," I said. "I really appreciate you too. I think these transitions are easier when you're not alone."
"Yeah," Lea said. She separated herself from me. "See you on Monday, Will?"
"See you on Monday, Lea without an H," I said. Lea just rolled her eyes at me. And with that, we parted ways.
(Continued in Part 9.)
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