Message-ID: <54139asstr$1151712601@assm.asstr.org>
From: "Jack C. Lipton" <cupasoup@pele.cx>
Subject: {ASSM} Fare's Exchange (FM rom)
Lines: 268
Date: Fri, 30 Jun 2006 20:10:01 -0400
Path: assm.asstr.org!not-for-mail
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Newsgroups: alt.sex.stories.moderated,alt.sex.stories
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Author: Jack C Lipton
Title: Fare's Exchange
Part: 
Universe: Otherwhere
Summary: There are always exceptions, aren't there?
Keywords: FM rom
Revision: $Revision: 1.4 $
Archive: /~CupaSoup/
Mailing List: 
FAQ: 
RCS: $Id: faresExchange.x,v 1.4 2006/06/19 02:46:21 jcl Exp $



		      Fare's Exchange

		      by Jack C Lipton

It had been a long morning dealing with the long list of
system builds I had to work my way through.  Fortunately I
had put together some scripts that made the setup process a
lot quicker for me to deal with.  I'm lazy that way.

After kicking off the last in the list, I closed my eyes,
yawned and stretched my arms up to get the kinks out.

When I opened my eyes I was confused.

Oh, my cubicle looked the same.  The stuffed penguins, the
sailboat sculptures, binders, books, certifications and the
big LCD monitor I'd scrounged, all the way I was used to.
That seemed the same.

But my seat must've dropped, so I reached and pushed... and
the seat was all the way up, where I usually set it.  So why
did my viewpoint seem so much lower?

And that's when things turned sideways as I saw my hands--
because they weren't _my_ hands.  I knew who these hands
really belonged to which threw me for a loop.

Yeah, yeah, I know, I must have abused some substances...

But I don't drink.  I don't even like meds that have been
prescribed for me.  Granted. maybe I was having another TIA
but that seemed unlikely.

No, the hands I found attached to me belonged to Hannah, the
one co-worker that I've been infatuated over for the last 5
years.  These slim, brown hands were supposed to belong to
her, not to me.

I stood up and found that I was just as short as Hannah so
it _really_ looked like I was "her".  It didn't help that I
wasn't immediately able to look over the cubicle walls as
easily as I was used to, having to stretch a little bit to
get my eyes high enough.  I looked and found the company
badge hanging from where it usually would, on a lanyard
around my neck, and, yes, it had Hannah's name and photo on
it.

Well, that kind of came with the body, I figured, so I stood
up to look around.  It took me a bit to steady myself given
my sudden shortness and changed point of view.  I still had
no idea of what was going on but figured that I'd need to
look around.

I decided to take a closer look at where I was and found my
certifications all had her name.  Inside the covers of the
books I kept, like the big Perl book, had Hannah's name
where I would have had *mine*.  This was getting far too
involved to be some kind of a joke, so, with an un-lady-like
grunt, I stepped to the entrance of *my* cubicle and looked
at the name plate.

The surprise finding "my" cubicle with Hannah's name on it
was muted given all of the other evidence I'd so far seen.
This was weird.  I was wondering what was going on and
decided, at that moment, to walk over to where I knew Hannah
really sat.

This went _well_ beyond anything approaching a practical
joke, though.  It would pretty much require an omnipotent
actor to pull _this_ one off.

One oddity that struck me as I looked down at myself in this
small feminine body was that it was dressed more-or-less the
way *I* would have dressed rather than the far more elegant
ensembles that Hannah would usually be found wearing.

It was obvious to me that there was something terribly wrong
with the universe.  As I approached the cubicle where
Hannah usually sat I saw _my_ name by the entrance and
quietly looked in and saw... me.  With a telephone headset
on, the way I usually saw Hannah, apparently trapped in yet
another of those interminable conference calls.  I realized
also that there was a big difference:  the body that should
have been mine was holding a pen in his right hand, not his
left, as I would.

Another thing adding to the confusion was how "Hannah's"
cubicle hadn't, to my eye, at least, changed any more than
"mine" had.  If it weren't for the indications that I was,
indeed, wearing Hannah's skin, it would have been far more
comfortable to *try* believing this all was just some kind
of weird practical joke.

A thought _did_ cross my mind that this might be just a very
weird and detailed dream... except for the fact that I never
seemed able to recall my dreams or even _having_ dreamt, so,
this seemed unlikely.

Then things got weirder still.

I looked closely--  _I_ had never dressed that well, usually
preferring to wear polo shirts and slacks, just as the body
I was wearing now was attired.  What I saw in what I
recalled as Hannah's cubicle was a version of "me" with more
of Hannah's kind of fashion sense, albeit in a more masculine
form.  Then the face I was used to weariing turned towards
me as I stood anxiously in the entrance of the cubicle and
"he" saw me.

I had thought I was shocked, but I had an advantage.  Having
one of the most mass-produced faces in the world, I was used
to seeing people who looked like me.  Not so for Hannah,
apparently.  I saw "my" face look like he had seen a ghost.

There was some clumsiness in that body as he lunged for the
phone to hit the mute button and I could see that whoever
was driving my body wasn't used to the size of it.  It also
seemed that "he" wasn't comfortable with anything else that
"he" was seeing, like the hands.  He sat there staring at
those extremities for a moment before looking back to me.

Those gray eyes looked into mine.  "Jack?" I heard my voice
quietly ask, with Hannah's accent.  And, yeah, the voice
didn't sound much like what I always hoped it would sound
like.

I nodded.  I quietly assked "Hannah?" and got a nod back.

"This is weird" we both said, in stereo.

Then he stood up.

I felt both a little thrill of excitement run through my new
body as I looked up at a man almost a foot taller than I was
now.  He looked down at me, still looking surprised, then
looking around the cubicle farm and...

That smile was almost frightening as he looked down at me
and said "I could get to like this."

Next thing I knew my hand was in his and I was being led to
the main corridor and then down to find an unoccupied mini
conference room.

We were lucky, finding one almost instantly, and we sat down
opposite each other with the door closed behind us.

"All right, what the fuck is going on, here?" He asked.

I shrugged.  "This is impossible, you know.  I found myself
in my cube but everything I saw there inplies that whoever
you are *here* does _my_ job.  And it looks like whoever I
usually am in this here-and-now does your job.  Like I said,
this is impossible."

He nodded and then smiled.  "I can't believe I heard myself
talk like that.  I also can't believe what my... ummmm...
voice has sounded like to you.  I feel it run right through
me, making a tingly feeling."

I nodded her head.  "I can imagine.  It usually took some
concentration to *not* get an erection.  I have always loved
the sound of your voice, along with everything else about
you."

The man sitting across from me wearing my rightful face
blushed and got a feminine look on his features, looking
coy.

I have no idea what kind of expression I had on her face but
hoped it didn't look like a smirk.

At the same time I could tell, just squirming in the seat,
that the body I was wearing was more than just a little bit
turned on.

Hannah, wearing my face, then asked "Kiss me?"

If there was one thing I was afraid of, it was kissing.  I
was an _awful_ kisser, my ex-wife not having liked to do so,
along with a lot of other things that seemed to drive her
discomfort.  Despite my fears of being inadequate, I got up
from the chair, walked around the small table, and did what
I've fantasized Hannah doing, by sitting in "his" lap,
closing my eyes, and offering my lips.

Education can be very sudden.  I learned how to kiss from
her as my toes seemed to curl and a line from my crotch
through my nipples got electrocuted.  Hannah was a good, no,
a *great* kisser.

I kept my eyes closed, feeling the bliss of having our arms
intertwined.

It was strange when I opened my eyes and took stock of all
of the sensations I had.  I was me again, I had Hannah's
bony little butt on my lap and our arms were still tangled
up around each other... in the opposite orientation, so it
felt the same both ways to me.

We pulled back and looked in each other's eyes.  And, once
our eyes came back from expressing shock, she pulled my face
back to hers and we kissed again.

Somehow, through this impossible event, my fear of showing
my weakness had been broken, like the ice between us.

Somewhere, in another universe, Hannah and I were together
like we here were, and, I don't know about them, but I was
not willing to let her go any time soon.

    ----------------------------------------------------    

I'd like to say there was a happy ending to this, but, no,
there wasn't.  There were happy _times_, though.

Hannah and I had a year of bliss, though, which neither of
us would have experienced had we not made this breakthrough
from our fears.  We spent a lot of time together even with
our differences in personality.  We knew marriage wouldn't
have worked out well but we spent a lot of quality time
together.

We did occasionally have "blips" into whatever alternate
universe our stunt doubles lived in, and I got to feel what
it was like to be a woman, just as Hannah got to experience
sex as a man.  None of these jumps lasted more than an hour
or so and occasionally I found myself doing the same work
there that I did "here".

But we had a year of blissful contentment.  I never wanted
our time to end.

Life, however, is both transitory and far too temporary.  We
were away from each other, with me on a business trip, when
she died in her sleep of heart failure.

There are times when I wish I could have died in the
here-and-now instead but, then, *she* would have been alone.
As I learned that her counterpart was alone in that
alternate world, for that alternate Hannah and I still had
exchanges now and again, and, with the realization that "I"
was dead, there, I also got to feel a child growing in my
small body.

So, perhaps, somehow, our chance to experience happiness and
contentment may have been engineered.  I don't know.  But we
still leave love notes for each other when we cross ways.
It is an odd kind of haunting.

In some ways, I can't touch her the same way, but it helps
to know that she is still alive...

Somewhen.

-- 
Pursuant to the Berne Convention, this work is copyright with all rights
reserved by its author unless explicitly indicated.
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