Fancied a bit of a change from the usual body horror 😊

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The human brain in its infancy is highly malleable. A lifetime of language learning alters it, the structures of the grey matter forming around the words and grammar on a macro-scale that even a neural reader-writer can’t alter. The nuances of pitch in a tonal language like Mandarin can lead to developments of the auditory cortex that simply aren’t there in Latin-derived language speakers.

It’s one of the reasons language is so unpredictable when it comes to mind swaps. The vocabulary is carried across, naturally, encoded in the trillions of rearranged synapses that make up a personality, but the overall wetware of the brain and its blood vessels remain unchanged and, on some level, still wants to think in the language it developed in. Meanwhile, the tongue is just doing its own thing, following muscle memory. People performing cross-cultural bodyswaps are often unsettled to find themselves stuck with their body's accent and other vocal ticks.

It also means if you were to write the mind of, for example, a Frenchman into the brain of an English speaker, while they wouldn’t automatically learn English, it does make learning the language far easier. All those new words fall neatly into place into the pre-existing grooves and whorls of the grey matter as if they’d always been there, since, of course, they had. When swapped back, a person retains what they’ve learned. You can learn a language in a fraction of the time from within the brain of a native speaker.

It is midday in London when one of my students, Siu Ling, gets in contact. She explains she's stressed about an important ESOL exam tomorrow and wants to use my tongue to cram for it, offering to pay extra for a ‘lesson’ at short notice. Well, there goes my afternoon. I quickly wrap up any errands I had to do that day and inform my long-suffering wife that she’ll be sharing the evening meal and Netflix on the couch with a Chinese woman. She rolls her eyes. I lay out a number of textbooks I estimate to match Siu Ling’s proficiency level, and then slip the exchange device over my head.

It is 10 in the evening in Hong Kong when I open Siu Ling’s eyes. I unbuckle myself from the matching devices, and look around the small but pretty apartment, admiring the feminine touches and the view out over the harbor. As I make the first movement of my unfamiliar limbs, I find that I’m dressed in a short, silk gown and discern by the way it slides smoothly across my skin that she isn't wearing anything underneath.Following a pleasant floral steam to the bathroom, I discover Siu has been sweet enough to run me a hot bath, flower petals floating on the surface. There's even chocolates and a glass of sparkling wine on the side.

Bless her. I blush as I strip my student’s body but assure myself that she wouldn’t have dressed so if she didn't intend to treat me, a ‘thank you’ for the last-minute appointment. Her tight muscles -left behind anxiety for the exam ahead- soon melt away in the hot water. As nice as the offer of the wine in, I reluctantly decline it, knowing my student will need a clear head in the morning once she has it back.

Already I’m yawning. Typically, my student has given me her body on the verge of sleep, like returning a rental car with only fumes in the tank. After all, why waste time sleeping in your body if you can pay someone else to do it for you? As the water cools to tepid, I slip out of the bath and towel down her young body. I’ve grown accustomed to Siu’s body and apartment over the multiple lessons we've had together, and locate the drawer with her pajamas first time, then curl up with a blanket and a book. My eyelids grow heavy. Everything is so warm and soft -especially me- and the book soon tumbles from my sleeping fingers.

So that's my job. 90% of it consists of sleeping in the bodies of Chinese college girls. Although if anyone back home asks, it's always seems more respectable just to say 'teacher'.