One of the benefits of having lived so many lives, in so many bodies, is that you have a good idea, in most circumstances, of who’s got the most privilege. That’s why my current host is a late millennial healthy white man – I like having assumed trust, a lower chance of being assaulted or falsely arrested, and being able to fade into the background whenever I want.

That isn’t to say that I have all the advantages. Take right now, for example. The same physical qualities that make me part of the “default” majority in the workplace or on the street make me just another face in the crowd in the club, and finding someone to hook up with requires that you have something… special going on.

Thankfully, I’ve been around enough to learn other tricks. I just need to get close enough for a touch.

Most tactile body hoppers are basic – they touch, they make a switch, and they walk away, leaving a confused and disoriented former host behind. That’s because they’re inexperienced, unimaginative, and boring, and that’s why they get caught. I’ve learned that the same touch that lets me jump into someone can also, as long as I maintain contact, give me a small degree of access – enough to influence a thought or share a feeling. I can’t make anyone do anything without their consent – that would require leaving my current host – but enough people will follow a train of thought once I put it on the tracks that I can get what I want.

Tonight, I’m looking at a cute blonde, 25 years old or so, who’s wearing a dark blue dress. I don’t think she has potential as a future host, and I don’t think I’m staying in this body long enough to want a relationship, but she looks like we could have fun together for a night, or for a few nights if we both play our card right.

I wait until she leaves the dance floor to get a drink. I take advantage of her dress’s low back to brush up against her and get a sense of basics – name, interests, whether or not she’d be open to going home with someone. I don’t get her name, which is odd, but everything about what she’s looking for tonight is coming up in my favor.

I touch her on the shoulder and channel a small amount of influence. I introduce myself; she does the same. I have to break contact briefly to shake her hand, but I think I’ve got her moving in the right direction even without it.

We spend an hour or so dancing, and she asks if I’d like to leave with her. I, of course, would. Her place is within walking distance. We walk together, holding hands. I don’t give her any kind of push; I don’t like pushing too hard, and I don’t think I really need it.

Things get hot and heavy as soon as we walk in the door, and as we undress and start foreplay, I start mentally preparing myself for what will be the most difficult part of my evening.

You see, the real hell about preferring the social power and practical invisibility of manhood is that I don’t actually like having sex as a man. I much prefer sex as a woman, especially in the hands of a man who knows what he’s doing. But if I initiate a body hop, my current host could flee. So I need to use one of the skills I’ve practiced – keep physical contact (not very difficult during sex), and while I physically slide in, also mentally slide in to feel what she’s feeling and experience what she’s experiencing without taking any control. I’ll effectively be stretching myself across both bodies, controlling him and feeling her, which I can only maintain for a short time but just long enough.

I position myself as a bottom – this is easier if I don’t have to worry about balance or motor control – and she eagers positions herself on top of me. I start to work myself into her, physically and mentally, and start to feel her. Sexual hunger, combined with pleasure. Confusion? Maybe I’m going into her head a little too far? Anger? That one’s new. What’s going on?

She shoves me, hard, and we break contact. I’m suddenly forced completely back into my host, and it stuns me a little. She grabs her sheets and covers as much of her body as she can, glaring at me. “No vacancies, asshole. This body is mine, and I plan to keep it.”

Oh fuck, I just tried to hijack another hopper.

I hold up my hands in surrender. “Sorry, I didn’t know.”

She keeps glaring at me. “You didn’t know? You couldn’t feel me when you tried to jump?”

I shake my head. “No, not really. I can’t feel another hopper if I’m only going in halfway.”

She gives me a confused look. “Halfway?”

“Halfway – feeling without controlling or possessing.” I take a step forward. “I can show you how it works…”

She takes a step back. “No, I don’t think so; you can stay where you are.”

I put my hands up again. “No worries.” I take a seat on a chair and try to make conversation. “How long have you been in that body?”

She sticks her chin out defiantly. “Over a year, so you’ve got no chance of forcing me out.”

I shake my head. “I have no intention of forcing you out; I like who I am right now. How long have you been hopping?”

She considers me briefly before answering. “Since 2001. My own body died in 9/11. You?”

Oh, she’s a baby. “My original body died during the Bubonic Plague.”

Her jaw drops. “I’ve never met someone as old as you.”

“There aren’t many who are as old as me. They get caught and die trapped in their hosts, or die of old age or accidents.”

She tilts her head as she considers this. “Why would they choose to die of old age when they can just jump into someone young?”

“Ask yourself that question again in two hundred years. We’re not emotionally built for long existences.”

“But you’re still around.”

“What can I say, I like new experiences.”

“Experiences like having a woman’s orgasm while in a man’s body?”

I shrug. “Honestly, I’d prefer a woman’s orgasm while in a woman’s body, but I prefer the rest of a man’s life, so I have to take what I can get.”

She starts to relax. I can see that she wants to believe me, but she isn’t sure if she trusts me. “Can you show me?”

We get dressed and go to the kitchen. I grab an ice pack and begin teaching. “I want you to hold onto my shoulder and start a hop, but go slowly. Try to think of it as a crawl instead of a leap. Stop when you start feeling the cold.”

Her first try is too aggressive – I can feel her bounce off me and back into her own host. I encourage her to try again, more gently. This time, I can feel her presence, but she’s doing better at not forcing herself in. She gasps and breaks contact. “I felt that! Like it was my own hand!”

I nod. “Yep.” I pull out a steak knife. “The next step is to move while feeling.”

She takes a step back and furrows her brow. “What do you mean?”

I hand her the knife, handle-first. “I want you to do the same thing, touch my shoulder and move in to feel, but as you do it, touch me with the tip of the knife. Stop when you start to feel the point.”

She’s wary, but she starts to do what I ask. She closes her eyes and puts one hand on my shoulder. She moves her other hand, holding the knife, closer to me as she starts to push her influence over my host. I stop her before she takes control, allowing her to keep moving the knife with her host’s hand. She presses the tip of the knife, gently at first, into my chest. I start to feel the point, and I can tell she does as well, because her hand jerks. This is bad; it causes the knife to go deeper into my chest. We both yell in pain, and I grab the knife to pull it out. She reacts as well, but by pushing further into my host.

I feel her starting to gain access to motor functions, and I fight back hard to shove her out. She panics and tries to pull the knife out, but she’s controlling the wrong arm and instead pulls the knife further into my host’s body. I start to push into her body to regain control of the situation, but while I’m doing this, she manages to pull the knife out – and then we both lose control and she stabs me in the stomach. Blood is flowing freely, and she breaks contact.

She’s screwed this up too badly, and I’m running out of options. I’m not going to die because some child didn’t know which limbs were hers. I grab her and start to push all the way into her host, drawing her into mine. She screams with both our mouths and resists me. She wasn’t wrong at the start of our encounter – she’s firmly entrenched in her body – but she’s still young and hasn’t had the benefit of fighting this fight many times. I continue forcing her into my old, dying host. It’s slow work; I need to fight for each tissue of this brain individually. I cut off motor functions first to stop her from breaking contact, then start working on the parietal lobe to stop her screaming. As I continue, I can feel her getting more desperate. She knows she’s fighting for her existence, and she knows she’s outmatched and outmaneuvered.

I feel a shock of pain on my arm, and it takes a second for me to register that it’s her arm that’s in pain because she’s used his body to grab the knife out and cut it. That’s a bad move on her part – if she was able to do that without me feeling or knowing, it should mean she’s mostly moved hosts. I test my theory by telling her body, hopefully now my body, to push as hard as possible to break contact. It works, and we’re both hit by the brief disorientation that comes with changing hosts. I recover more quickly – my opponent’s only done this a handful of times, compared to my hundreds. I grab the first thing I can get ahold of – a shoe – and press it into his wound. He howls in pain and drops his knife. I keep pressure going, blocking out his screams, until he finally stops screaming and loses consciousness.

I take some deep breaths. This wasn’t what I wanted. I start working on some tears. I grab her phone and call the police. Sobbing, I tell them the story of the man I met at the club and inviting him back to my place for some intimacy. I tell them about how he took advantage of me to try to kill me using my own kitchen knives, and how I was able to fight back and fatally stab him.

While waiting for the police, I find a bathrobe and put it on. I think about my old host’s assets; most of them are liquid and in a numbered account in case of emergency hops like this one. I did have a few sentimental effects at his house, but I’ll probably have to leave them now. Even if they auction his assets, buying the property of a man I killed is going to lead to too many questions.

The police arrive. They buy my story, arrange to move the body, and offer what comfort they can. I summon some more tears and thank them for their help. I briefly consider hopping into one to make sure this goes away, but I can’t risk leaving my host in a bloody apartment and no idea how it got that way – or possibly even how she got here; I can’t know if her current living situation is one she put herself in or one the other hopper created.

After the police leave, I get in the shower to wash off the gore of my failed sexual encounter. I dry off and look at the time. The night’s still fairly young. I quickly do my hair and makeup, making sure to use different styling than she had on earlier tonight, and check out my closet. I find a cute green clubbing dress. I should probably stay away from that club tonight, but there are others. Plenty of opportunities to flirt with and find a man who I can bring home. No, as I look around my apartment, I realize I’ll need him to take me home.

Maybe I’ll keep him.

Maybe I’ll just keep his body.