When we finally hear the doorbell ring, Angie winks at me before bolting to the door. Taking a bigger sip of my drink, I set it down on the coffee table beside me before following her out of the room, turning to the right to reach the doorway that leads to the main entrance. I lean against the frame while she struggles to pull the door open. The chatter outside the apartment quickly replaces the quietness that reigns inside as energetic salutations are exchanged. We're not the only ones who've been drinking already.
Amongst the crowd, I recognise Jeff and Lydia but I want nothing to do with them at the moment. My attention is turned to the few other faces, all unknown to me. I tiptoe and manage to snag a look at my date. She's way at the back of this merry band trying to make sense of all these greetings, her eyes darting around the room. Before long, our eyes meet and I feel myself blush. She perfectly fits Angie's description, and I'm hoping I'm living up to my own. Average in height, with green eyes and dark blond hair almost the color of ash, a perky nose that is just too cute, and this beautiful smile she offers me immediately. We both know why we're at this party, and I'm gonna have to shake myself out of this stupor if I want to make a good first impression.
I shake hands and kiss cheeks as the newcomers pass by, beers, drinks, and cigarettes in hand, and clear the path allowing for her to come forward. I'm doing my best to stay civilised but I just can't stop looking at her. I take a discreet look down her dress when she leans in to kiss Angie and get a glimpse of her black bra. I take a deep breath, straighten myself and smile to her as she turns to face me.
"Hey, you must be Mike?" She asks. "I'm Sydney."
"Yeah, nice to uhh..." My hand stops before I can reach her and hangs in the air between us. She, uhh...
She raises her eyebrows and smiles even wider. "Nice to meet you too. Now come here and get one."
She's the one to close the gap and kisses me once on the cheek, almost touching the corner of my lips, petrifying me even more. She takes off her ballerina shoes, squats and tilts her body to one side causing her messenger bag to fall on the floor. I cringe at the sound of glass hitting the floor.
"Shoot, I hope it's not broken." She flips the flap of her bag open with... with her... with her foot.. Now she rummages through it, balanced on her other leg.. and retrieves a bottle of beer. "Would you mind carrying this over to the couch for me?"
Still wearing the same genuine smile, she hands me the bottle... jammed between her first two toes. The cement in my joints fissures and cracks as I take hold of the glass bottle and allow her leg to get back down to join her twin.
"It's uhh..." I must look like an idiot. I move to the side. "Right this way. Go ahead I'll... I'll have your back."
"Such a gentlemen.."
She physically couldn’t be smiling more. As I walk behind her, I follow the rocking motion of her ass through her dress for a step or two before looking back up at her shoulders. Past the thin straps of her dress, there's no... She's... How does she...
"Don't be the shy one, come sit with me." I snap out of it. She's already on the couch, legs crossed. She saw me staring. I wouldn't want to make her mad.
"Of course, I *cough* *cough* my bad." I laugh nervously. I twist the bottle cap as I walk around the room and sit beside her. "Here." I lift it up to her and hesitate for a moment. She doesn't.
"You're too kind."
Her right foot reaches for the bottle and grabs the neck between her toes. I glance between her legs, almost expecting to see her panties but a pair of black gym short prevents me to do so. She takes a few sips without any effort before setting it on the table in front of us. Then, an awkward silence falls on us. Her smile downgrades to a polite grin and I grab my own glass to drink from it. I can imagine Angie laughing her ass off in the kitchen, probably telling it to the others as we're sitting here side by side. I wouldn't even be surprised if she set up a camera to catch my reaction..
"I'm guessing she didn't tell you?" Sydney smiles once more to break the silence.
"Tell me what?" I feign. She raises her eyebrows again and I sigh. "I'm sorry I'm terrible with meeting new people and well.... I made things awkward already."
She waves a foot around. "No, no, no. Let's not play the blame game already. We can clarify this like adults. Slightly tipsy adults, but adults still."
I swallow my saliva. "Okay. Yeah okay let us."
She clears her throat. " Mike, as you can probably see, my hairdo is way out of fashion."
I stutter. "Yeah, of course, it's .. it's pretty obvious.. sheesh, oof yeah.. umm.."
She giggles at my awkwardness. "I'm joking, silly. Wasn't quite what you were expecting me to say?"
"Not.... exactly."
"Then what is it?" She's playing the pronoun game. "Come on, say it."
"It's your uhh, your um... there's no, ummm..."
"Gosh this is harder than I thought it would be.." She rubs her forehead out of desperation and fixes her hair using her foot. "Mike. I was born without arms."
I can feel a single drop of sweat travelling down my back. Her saying it out loud has broken the ice and I mustn't screw up what's coming next.
"Yeah, I kind of noticed. It's hard to miss, if I'm being honest." I chuckle.
"There you go, it wasn't that hard now, was it?" She laughs, too. My eyes briefly dart down to her shoulders before coming up to her face again. I feel myself blushing, like a kid caught stealing from the cookie jar.
"I don't mind you taking a look. After all, it is pretty unusual."
On either side of her neck, her sleeveless dress makes no attempt at hiding her unique anatomy. Her shoulders are strong, although narrower than they probably should've been, but instead of bearing arms they just... don't. She pokes my nose with her right foot, causing me to lose my focus.
A lock of her blond hair rolls over her left shoulder and I take a sip of my beer as our eyes reconnect. She does the same, the strong muscles of her leg guiding her movements as precisely as an arm would've done. She cranes her neck slightly as she drinks from her bottle.
"Sooo," she continues, "what do you do for fun?" She leans back and crosses her legs. "Music? Movies?"
"I play video games a lot, usual stuff for a guy. Girls aren't into it as much as we are."
"Well you're talking at the right one! I am a PC gamer myself!" She straightens her back. "I've played WoW for, like, 10 years, I can defend myself in Halo multiplayer, completed all the Witcher games," she breathes in deeply, "gosh they're just so good." She says under her breath.
I put on an unimpressed face. "The Witcher? Sheesh, talk about an overrated series of games."
"You shut your mouth!!"
To mark her words, she kicks me right in the shins, but that doesn't stop me. I add insult to injury as I keep criticizing her favorite games because she clearly can't stand it. She tries to reach shut me down by sticking her foot in my face but I push it away and nag her once more. She bites down into a cushion and swings it across the room, missing me entirely. Slightly out of breath, she stares back at me from beneath her tousled hair. Her right foot rises slowly and reaches for her forehead, sticking a few locks between her toes and pushing them away from her face. As she does so, my gaze lowers to her shoulder and I notice her sideboob, generously exposed by the absence of her arms. I rack my brain trying to make sense of this, of her, of this situation.
I take another drink and frown. "But how do... you know..." My hands hover in mid-air as if I'm typing on a keyboard.
"Come on Mike I thought we were past this already!" She winks and leans forward, jerking her shoulder towards my own, as if she would want to punch me. "I set my mouse and keyboard on the ground and voilà! I mean, I do rebind some actions so it's easier for me to reach or harder to mess up, but otherwise I have no problem playing what I want."
"Wow, it's really cool that you didn't let your handicap get in the way of your interests."
"Wooooooah okay, let's backup for a sec. Who said I was handicapped again?" She smiles and drinks from her beer.
"Oh, noone, noone.... except this guy."
I lay back and we laugh it off. This date is going ways better than I thought it would go. I was petrified when I first saw her, not because i thought she wasn't attractive, but simply because I couldn't have been expecting something like this at all. Now I'm heating up from the inside, and I think she is too.
"I gotta hand it to you, you know how to talk to a lady." She says sarcastically, playing with her bottle with the toes of her right foot. "You should write a book on how to maintain a casual conversation in a date."
I join my hands together seriously, as if in a business meeting. "For sure, mayhaps. Although, I shall think about it after my current book is finished madam."
"What's it about?" She skilfully raises a single eyebrow.
Smoothly yet quickly, I cover the short distance that separates us and kiss her on the lips. Her eyes, now barely an inch from mine, close and I do the same. I slide my hand up the side of her dress up to her ribs and caress the side of her breast gently with my thumb, not risking going under her clothes. I back up for a moment as we stare each other down before going back in, almost expecting her hand on my chest to incite me to slow down but she doesn't ..... Of course she doesn't. How could I forget. On the second kiss, I can feel her tongue peeking through her lips to tease me. I run my hand up her sides and over her armless shoulder, barren but still mobile in the palm of my hand, feeling her prominent collarbone, and rest it on her neck. A voice in my head is screaming, ordering my hand down her side again, to feel what should've been but isn't, to scrutinise every inch of this absence. But I resist. Out of respect? Or expecting this act of self-control to propel myself into a... More interesting evening? I pull myself away and sit back down beside her, now closer than before.
"Pickup moves." I answer, downing the rest of my beer in one gulp.
She gestures with a foot, as if to acquiesce, and finishes her own drink before standing up. Fire seems to emanate from her green eyes when she ogles me down. She leans forward, her torso making a 90° with her legs while remaining as steady as a rock in this impossibly balanced pose, and whispers in my ear.
"Kitchen. 5 minutes. I'm still... thirsty." Staying put on my couch, I study her butt as she walks away and skirts around the furniture, turning around to wink at me before disappearing behind the corner of the wall. "Bridget! B time!" She says loudly.
Bridget comes out of a side room and jogs up to the bathroom with Sydney before closing and locking the door behind them. Before long, I'm down in the kitchen, opening two other beers, immediately drinking half of one.
-----------------
I close the door behind us and she throws herself at me. I run my hand through her hair and across her stunning body, grabbing her ass under her dress with my two hands. When she embraces me with a leg, I lift her up and her second leg rises up to join the first. I put my hands on her back to push her against me as I carry her over at the foot of Angie’s bed and set her on her back without breaking my grasp. I reach under her dress and flip it over her head, her legs still tied up around me, her feet in a deadlock on my back. I hold her by the shoulders and push her away to allow us a break from kissing.
"This is going pretty well don’t you think." I say, touching her nose with mine.
"Stand up." she says without skipping a beat.
As quickly as I can straighten myself on my knees, she's already flipped over and up on her own. She bites in the fabric of my shirt and undresses me in one of the sexiest ways I’ve ever experienced. I can’t take my eyes away from her muscular frame, but I mostly stare at the empty spots on her shoulders as she struggles around the angles on my body, taking additional bites of my shirt as she progresses upwards. I raise my arms to help her remove it and she gestures me to stand up. Kneeling, she unbuttons my jeans with her lips before pushing them down with her right foot. As she kneels again, I drop my boxers and she swallows my dick whole. The warmth of her mouth on my dick is everything my body wanted tonight and the heat travels up my body to warm my brain. I put her hair up into an improvised ponytail and get another stunning look at her. Her breasts bounce in their shackles as her head moves back and forth and her entire body is hard at work, a thin film of sweat gradually covering her skin. Suddenly, she stops pumping to tease me with the tip of her tongue, looking up at me. Using my other hand, I gently push her head against my groin and she starts sucking my dick again, only less convincingly. Even while on her knees, I can see her rubbing her thighs together, shrugging her shoulders every few seconds or so, longing for more than just this.
I let go of her hair and caress her neck, feeling her collarbones to the point where they becomes useless and anchor themselves into nothingness. She lets go of my dick and stands up, pressing her breasts against my body on the way up. Without skipping a beat, I kiss her and slip my hand under her panties to return the favor. She's already soaking wet. Rubbing my thumb on what I hope is her clit and pushing two fingers inside her, she quickly become just as out of breath as I am. She's overcome by spasms every time I move my hand up and down, throwing her head back and curling her toes against the hardwood floor, breathing heavily. My other hand, against her back, holds her close to me. I slowly comes down to a stop and I wipe myself on a shirt laying nearby.
I stick my thumbs beneath her panties and drop them to the floor, slide the straps of her bra off her truncated shoulders and let it fall around her feet. I secure her in my arms, both hands on her rump, and throw us on the bed. Her legs are locked against my back, enticing me to come closer and closer until my dick meets her moist lips and I finally enter her body. She moans softly, shrugging her shoulders and tightening her grip on my back, perhaps to repress a louder sound. My hands are on either side of her shoulders, right where her arms would normally sprout and exist and come clawing at my back, and I intensify my rhythm. She rocks her hips along with my movements, anchors her feet to the bed, plays around my thrusts and amplifies them, unable to do much more. She arches her back, plowing her head in the pillow, overwhelmed by a wave of pleasure, and bites down on her lower lip. Her left shoulder is restless. It moves back and forth, incompetent in this body. If she had an arm, I'm sure her hand would grab on to the sheets so hard her knuckles would turn white. She opens her eyes begging for another kiss but I take time to admire her first. Then, I kiss her on the neck, completely exposed by her fanned hair, and kiss my way to her agitated shoulder, exploring her unusual angles before going over to the other one. Her left shoulder is round and smooth, but the right is bonier, pointier, like the skin has been stretched too thin over her bones. It barely reaches her lips when she tries to remove a few hair stuck in her mouth, almost out of reach. I relish her every move. Precise, yet terribly inconvenient, insufficient. Finally, I push myself up and land a thousandth kiss on her lips. A long chill travels down my spine as our tongues intertwine once more, as I thrust myself into her, shamelessly caressing her shoulders just as much as her breasts, maybe even more, enjoying the novelty, the uniqueness, and alien feeling that she offers me.
The air is burning; In the room, between us, under the sheets. I throw them to the side. My sensations become blurry. Heat pulses through my genitals, saliva runs between us, our skins seem to melt into one. I feel us shifting in the bed, gradually, slowly, in-between breaths. Rotating, I feel the sheets against my back and we continue moving in harmony. Somehow, on top, she manages to caress me, even with her mouth still busy with my own. Her breasts brush against my chest and press against my rib cage, making it harder for me to breathe. She straightens herself but keeps on riding me, expertly grinding her hips against my own. She reaches for my face and gently caresses me with her foot. I flinch for a second but immediately let the weirdness of the situation slip through my mind, admitting that it's the only way for her to do so. It slides down, quickly reaching passed my stomach down to my genitals. I have to admit. If that's her foot, she's way more flexible than I initially.......
"Ahhhhhhhh!!" I gasp loudly.
Or did she? I don't even ca..... Ohhhh boy. Ohh ho-holyyy shit. What's th... Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh fuuuck.. How is she.... Jesus fucking Chr.. Mmmmh that's good... With each of her moves, she also..... That's mmmmmmmmore than.. That's amazing.. That's ungggghh.. I'm going to explode if... if she doesn't stop.... Whatever the ahhh... ohhhh my god.. ahhh!.. that she's do-unngggh..!
I reach down to my dick to stop her, only for a moment, just for a second, begging for a moment to breathe.. But I can't seem to. We both moan out loud. My voice is so coarse because of the alcohol, so deep, that it might shake the entire room if I make another sound. She's still... oooaah.. hardddddd at work yet something's already pulsing... through my body.... But I... I have to... make this thing... wait for.... one breath... stop just for a... ouhhhh.. for a bit I won't stand.... I'M gONna BUrsT, I'm goNNA erUPT, my BoDy will TeAR ItsELf in HALF-holy shhhhh.. if actual fuckiiiing... AHHHH!!!
Ouuuuhhhhhhhh!!!! YEss! YEs! YESS!! AHH! AHHH! AHHHH! OHHHH Myyyy goooooOOOOOOOOD................
................. I don't think I've ever felt so good, it's like I'm cumming through every atom of my body at the same time, I can't stop screaming, and moaning, and crying because it feel so amazing. I wanna stick her breasts into my mouth, I want her close to me again but I can't seem to find her, like my hands are made of molten butter, I can't feel anything in my hands, in my fingers, did my whole body go completely numb? I don't even care, I'm lying in my own sweat, unable to move, her body pressed against mine. Muscles are still pulsing across my body, still living the last bits of this insane orgasm. I decide I open my eyes to stare back at her body, at her bouncing breasts, at her satisfied face... But I must've fallen asleep, I must've gone crazy from all this pleasure, because I'm seeing....
Myself? I blink in incomprehension and stare back at her again, shaking my head. At HIM!! That's a man, that's... that really is me! At least, it looks a lot like me... I'm smiling back at myself, except he's sitting on me, and I'm lying on my back in this bed. I point a hand towards him, menacingly.
"Hey what is going on..."
This voice.... That's... Sydney's. I stop mid-sentence in shock. He's smiling wider now. He reaches for a tissue box and cleans himself up. He pushes my legs to the side gently and the pressure against my lips and clit make my thighs shake and almost make me cum again.... I shake my head and play that thought process over again in my brain. And again. And again. Camping my feet on the mattress, I lift my bum in the air and stare at my crotch. Hairless, dickless. I try to stand on my elbows to push myself up but my arms still won't.....
I scream. Louder than before, but this time it's not because of the orgasm.
"What did..." I begin as my high pitched voice gushes out of my mouth.
"Shhhhushh." His finger, really mine, on my lips, actually hers, his face close to mine, mine to hers.
I'm whispering now, but the words get stuck in my throat. "How... did... how.."
"Do you plan on leaving this room and blurting what happened to everyone else at this party?" If it isn't a direct warning, it sure sounds like one. I shake my head. "Good, because I don't recommend it."
He sits me up in the bed and I take a quick look at myself. Everything from the tip of her toes to the root of her hair is now mine. Her slender legs, cleanly shaven. Her breasts, feeling heavy hanging off my chest. Her long dark blond hair tickling my back, my chest, and my shoulders..... I shrug and roll them backwards, cracking my back in the process, then bring them forward and stare at them. Total incomprehension. This can't be real. It can't. I've hard arms my whole life, this isn't possible. Moving an arm is easy, instinctive. This is the shoulder, I waggle it to emphasise the point in my head, so if I do that but just a little further there I should be able to....
I'm cold. I shrug, wanting to warm myself, and wonder what I was just thinking about, resting my chin on my shoulder. Do people really have arms? I squint my eyes in disbelief. I don't think it's even possible. I don't... there's no way something could exist beyond there, I mean there's just nothing... I... Hummm... Where would I even...
"Listen closely." He grabs me by the shoulders with his arms right where mine could be. How can they look so normal on him yet feel impossible on me? "Don't take this personally, okay?"
"What do you mean personally? Wait... you did this to me?" I frown and try to back away from him, still surprised at the sound of my voice every time I speak. By chance, he held on to me because I would've fallen on my back like a rag doll.
"Yes. But I too got trapped by someone else! It's just a matter of you passing it down to the next guy."
"Passing it down? What do you mean? This doesn't make any sense!" He gently guides me to the side of the bed and I put my feet on the ground. "I was just.... we were.. and now I'm... How? Am I cursed or something?"
"Yes. But there's a way to get out of it, obviously." He retrieves my clothes and slides my panties back up my legs. "First, you'll have to learn and accept to live in this body for you to be able to transfer it to someone else. I don't know how long it will take, but that depends on each person."
"How long did it take you?" I ask him.
"Seven years."
I gasp, sucking a bunch of hair inside my mouth. As I struggle to spit them out, he kindly does it for me. "Only then will you be able to pass this to the next guy, but he'll have to be entirely at your mercy. For that, you're gonna have to gain total control over him, both mind and body, for it to work. Sex will help you for that. And then, you simply kiss him."
I feel weak, like I just got caught in an obvious prank. I try to defend myself: "I wasn't under your control." I scoff. He straps on my bra before continuing.
"Oh please, you should have seen yourself. You fell head over heels for me in a single evening. You couldn't resist the uniqueness of my anatomy and had to taste it for yourself. As this little experiment proves, you were ready to give me everything for it, even your own body. Here."
He puts on my shorts and adjusts my breasts inside the cups, rubbing off an itch that had been bothering me since he put it on. Gosh it's like he knows this body like the back of its hand.
"Wait wait wait... So, this means that magic is real?" I cringe at myself, thinking at how childish I must be sounding.
"Well yes, but actually no. It has nothing to do with fairy dust and flying dragons, if that's what you mean. It's more of a metaphysical manipulation of... Uhm I'm not sure either actually." He reaches for his chin and scratches his beard.
"Exchanging bodies is pretty magical if you ask me, that's some Freaky Friday bullshit."
He raises his eyebrows, impressed. "A 2003 reference? Niiiice. Although I think in the movie it was some kind of Chinese voodoo of something..."
"IT'S NOT..." I begin, almost yelling, and take a second to breathe, "that's not what's important right now."
"You're right. Right now you should be focusing on using this new body of yours before your next crowd bath, which is coming up pretty soon."
Mike quickly dresses up and comes back to kiss me. His beard feels weird against my skin, and suddenly I understand why some girls prefer their men better clean shaven.
"Let me back it up real quick... So all I gotta do is get laid? Win a guy's trust and fuck him?"
"That and learning to live with yourself, which could take a while. When you do, there's some kind of lock that opens inside your head and you just.... know it happened. You just know you are ready. After the initial seven years, it took me two more years to find you and... Voilà! I'm home free."
I should be infuriated against him, but I'm not. I did raise my voice against him but... How am I taking it so lightly? "So what know, do I go out there and pretend I'm you and you pretend I'm me? Because I need a crash course. I don't know where you live, or where to go home..."
He grins and points a finger at my chest. "We switched bodies, but we didn't switch places, which is convenient." He crumples my dress up to the collar and passes my head through it. I stand up to let him arrange it on me. My legs feel like overcooked spaghetti, I can barely support my own weight. "You have my body, so you're Sydney from now on, and I've got Mike's, so I have your appearance, but we're still the same person. I'll walk out of here and walk back to my apartment and none of my friends will notice a thing. Same goes with you."
"Sooo...." I look around the room for something to hang on to. "We just walk out of here and pretend this..." I point my foot to him then back at me before noticing I used it like a hand without even thinking.
"See? It's kicking in already. The spell or magic or whatever is taking over your brain and rewiring it, same goes for me." He stretches his arms back and sighs. "God it feels good."
"Ok, so this never happened..."
I look around again, at the ceiling, looking for a glitch in the matrix, or a camera, or something, whipping my hair in my face in the process. I've never had my hair longer than a few inches, and having it brushing all around my shoulders is seriously bothering me.
Mike, or at least the person now living inside my body, puts his hand in his jeans and seems to relish at the presence of his dick. I wince at the idea of him fondling my balls but realise they aren't anymore, so instead I look down at my new self, staring right down my cleavage. Their weight on my chest feels weirdest, weirder even than my missing arms. They stopped existing in my mind but this is.... completely new. I sit on the bed and bring a foot to my breasts to push them against my skin, testing how they feel. I support myself on the knee of my opposite leg and reach up to my left shoulder to feel the smooth skin where my arm is nonexistent. In my brain, an alarm goes off but instantly gets shut down. Before I can even try thinking about how arms should work, my mind drifts off and my foot slips off my knee.
"This body isn't the best, obviously because I wanted to get rid of it, but girls do have some things going their way that guys don't. I already showed you one of them." He points a finger at my lower belly and I shiver just thinking about it. I press my legs together and they start shaking. "Ready for that crowd bath?"
Mike goes over to the door and just... walks out, leaving me alone in the room. I take a few deep breaths and follow him from a distance. We did fuck on the first date, so I gotta expect people to mention that. But also not caring for my brand new pair of tits. I walk past Lydia, who thinks nothing of me, too busy talking with another girl which name didn't stick in my mind. I head to the living room where I think I left half a beer unattended. As I do, the air flows around my naked legs and under my dress, making for yet another new sensation I'm definitely not used to. No wonder girls are always freezing. Angie is sitting alone on a sofa, texting. Her eyes light up when she feels my rump hit the cushions and she throws her phone to the side.
"Oh my god, Syd! You really went all out tonight, that's my little tiger, rawr! How was it?"
I feign ignorance and scoff. "How was what?"
"Your little game of Bridge, numb nuts." She grabs her drinks and downs what's left of it. "How. Was. It."
I cross my legs and let my eyes wonder around the room. "It was kind of... insane." My eyes get watery and I have a hard time pronouncing the last words. Am I seriously gonna start crying?
"It sure sounded insane. I think the entire apartment complex heard you scream."
"You guys heard us?? This is so embarrassing....."
Not knowing what to do, I fold myself in half and hide my face in-between my thighs to stare at the floor. Angie grabs me by the neck and brings me back up.
"Hey hey hey, it's ok... It's a party. People do stuff, nobody minds." She fixes my tousled hair while I fiddle with the carpet with my toes, not sure what to expect next. "I gotta tell you something, Sydney."
"What?" I answer sheepishly.
She murmurs in my ear. "I didn't tell him about your little...." She reaches on my sides and tickles my shoulders. I try to shrug myself out of it but she presses her hands harder to keep me in place.
"No kidding!" I almost yell. "You shouldn't seen my.... I mean, his face when he walked in. It was weird... for a bit."
"I knowwww right? Wasn't that funny? Anyways, I don't think it deterred him at all from getting to know you, seeing how you two have already fucked."
"No it didn't. I... Sh.. He... was really nice about it. But I don't think we'll keep seeing each other."
"Why is that?" Angie asks.
I wedge my bottle of beer between my first two toes and slowly bring it to my mouth to drink before setting it on another table to my right. While I'm being extra careful, it feels like my body already knows its way around the movements. I extend my foot to grab a decorative plastic toothpick from Angie's glass and stick it between my lips. My thighs feel stronger than before, more precise. I set my foot back down.
"We have too much in common."
Angie blinks incomprehensibly. "What kind of stupid argument is that?"
"It's... complicated"
Silence falls between us. Angie picks her phone again and hops on Instagram, taking a few selfies of us but my mind is in another place. My beer tastes like spit and I very much sobered up since I landed in my new body. I walk up to where Sydney left her bag earlier, pass it over my head and set it on my shoulder in one swift leg extension, perfectly balanced on my left leg. I can't believe I just did the split while standing up without any effort.
"Angie, I should be going." She sighs looking disappointed. "Thanks for the invitation and for the date... But there's a lot going on in my mind, I think I'll go sleep on it."
She stands up and hugs me. "That's too bad. Here, let me." She forages through my bag to find my bus pass and slides it between my bra and my dress. I nod silently. "Will you go and say goodbye to Mike?"
"No I'll just... Go." In the bag, I can feel my phone vibrate. I'll check it when I'm on the bus. "Say hi to everyone for me, will you?"
"Don't think about tonight too much." She kisses me on the cheek and slaps my butt. "Take care."
She opens the door for me and I emerge on the pavement of a quiet residential area. I look around, a bit confused, before remembering what Sydney..... what Mike said to me. I'm still the same person.. Alright then. I start walking left towards Harrison and take the second street to the right, sneak between two apartment complexes down a flight of stairs and take a left again on White Fields. There should be a stop for the 26th bus towards the Pine Terminus in a few hundred meters. At this hour, there's hardly anybody in the streets, even on this big boulevard, but I still walk past a few people uneventfully. A girl around my age, an older man, a couple in their forties, all mind their own businesses, staring down at their shoes or their phones.
My messenger bag periodically hits my back as I progress on the sidewalk. As I think about securing it with my hand, I trip on the cracked cement and almost faceplant on the sidewalk. I'm gonna take the hint and stop trying to use my arms. My mind keep drifting off every time I try to.
Now one street away for the bus stop, I see a group of teenagers hanging around the opened door of a fast food restaurant. I wish I had put on a coat. It's a lot cooler than earlier this evening and I could've..... kept my shoulders hidden. I guess that's what Mike was talking about when he said I had to learn to live with myself. Right now, I'd rather hide my body away to avoid the attention, the comments, and the giggles i'll be getting. I feel ashamed of the way I look. Should I? It's like I was born this way, it's not like it was my fault or anyone's. And what an easy target have I become, especially at this time of the night. Someone could literally walk up to me, take my bag and I couldn't do much about it. I quicken my pace. As I come closer to the group, the chatter dies down and people quickly exchange looks and pokes with their neighbours. It's as if I can feel them staring at me. When I'm caught up with them, they've gone completely silent. I can't seem to remember how to walk. These ballerina shoes are uncomfortable. They hurt my feet and seem like they're going to slip off at any moment's notice. I hear a low whistle, someone getting punched, and a few murmurs. I grind my teeth and keep walking.
Just as I walk up to the shelter, the bus arrives and I step on. Leaning forward, I press my breast against the sensor, mentally thank Angie for the trick, and sit right behind the driver's seat. I bite on the leather strap of my bag and pull it onto my lap where I can reach into it. I retrieve my phone, set it flat on my left thigh and scroll through it with my right foot. Lots of it is Instagram spam. Other parties where some of my friends are, some cat gifs, gaming-related memes.. Angie's selfies of us. I look bored, my smile isn't convincing. You can tell there's a lot going on in my head. Most pics frame only our faces, but some reveal my missing arms, my sleeveless dress exposing my shoulders, and part of my sides and breasts. I sigh and put it back in my bag when we pull close to my stop. I ring the bell and stand up, losing my balance as the driver hits the brakes, heavily thumping against a woman who did not see me coming. Already muttering insults and swear words, she turns around only to notice poor me fighting for uprightness and catches me by the waist. Taken aback, she falls silent, hesitant. I thank her and leave swiftly.
I know my roommates aren't gonna be home and that's fine by me. I'd rather have the apartment to myself for a bit, at least for tonight. After walking south two blocks, I walk up the steps to my door and type the code on the digital screen with my nose. I swing the door open and walk in, go up a flight of stairs to my door. I lower my head and set my bag on the ground, reaching in for my keys and unlock the door, all without losing my balance. I kick my bag inside, shut the door behind me and sigh. I turn on the lights in my room and notice not much has changed. The furniture is the same, so are the books and most things lying around. At my desk, though, my keyboard and mouse are set on a low shelf, only a few inches off the ground. As for my wardrobe, it is.... Unrecognisable. I should've expected that. Welcome home, Sydney.
I take a deep breath and look down at myself, my ears still ringing from the loud music back at the party. Where to begin? I can't go to sleep wearing a dress! But I'll have to figure out how to take it off first. I bite my lip and try to pull the bottom of the dress up and over my head using my feet, without much success. The angle of my leg isn't good enough. I bend forward until my forehead rests against my chins, hoping it will simply fall off my body, but it doesn't. It's too tight against my skin. Then, I notice four hooks screwed on the wall. If I stand up, they're levelled with different parts of my body : one at the shoulders, one at the hips, and two somewhere in-between. What if... They have to be.
I press my belly against one of the middle ones and slowly squat down. My goal is to hook the fabric of my dress onto it and.... It's working! I managed to slide it up my torso, ever so slightly, and soon enough I'll be able to take it off. I writhe my body from side to side, moving it up inch by inch, alternatively facing the wall and the rest of the room, grinding against the cold metallic hooks, until the dress comes to a stop beneath my breasts. Exhaling as much as I physically can, I squirm once more and press my chest harder against the wall to make it pass over my chest. When it finally does and is only hanging around my neck, I switch to using the highest hook and throw it over my head. The fresh air makes me shiver. The gym shorts go down pretty much the same way, although I need several tries to avoid taking off my panties at the same time. I'm not sure I'm ready to put these back on myself yet.
I find an oversized t-shirt that I assume will become my new favourite pajamas and throw it on the bed. I balance myself on my butt and pick it up with both feet, trying to make a sense of its shapeless mass. When I finally do, I roll the fabric up to the collar and place it on top of my head, go back to the wall hooks, and pull it down around my neck. Before fixing it around my body, I reach up to my shoulders and remove my bra simply by sliding the straps off my shoulders like I did earlier, and pull it down on the floor with the help of the hooks. I step out of it as it falls to the ground.
In the bathroom, I stare at my new body. At these empty shoulders I relished so much this evening. At these breasts, hanging off my chest, and at how flat my panties fit against my crotch. All of this is yours to keep, now. I shimmy until my shirt fixes itself around me and the empty sleeves come flapping at my sides. It doesn't take a genius to take a guess at my general anatomy, even when hidden beneath this shirt.
Back in my room, I swing the covers open and lay down on my back, taking a few seconds to myself to breathe, sliding my legs between the sheets. Using only my abs, I sit back up and fold myself in half to bite down on the sheets and bring them back over me up to my neck. I roll around a couple times, my movements unhindered by my lack of arms. Looking through the window, at the big oak tree in the backyard of the neighbouring apartment complex, I can lay on my right side comfortably. I breathe in and out, appreciating how naturally I can rest without having to bend my arm beneath my pillow, letting it stick out of the sheets strait ahead, compressing the veins in my shoulders and cutting away my blood flow, or even... I sigh, there's no use rehashing this now. Mainly because I don't think I could get more comfortable. I can feel my bony shoulder pressing against my chin and move it slightly to remind me of its presence. I roll the other way to lay on my other shoulder and find I'm just as comfortable. Again, nothing in the way of a good night's sleep. The way the sheets wrapped around me after moving around so much is soothing to me, like I'm inside a coccoon. I let myself yawn, stretching my entire body in the process, shrugging my new shoulders as high as I think I can, and let my muscles relax.
Everything is going to be fine. Tomorrow is a new day, I'll just have to wait and see what it can throw at me. Maybe this is all just a dream and I'll wake up just as usual, one hand inside my boxers, and help myself to a quickie before eating breakfast. But I'm not sure I would really want that... I'll just have to sort it out.. tomorrow....