So that was it, huh. She wasn’t going to show after all. That didn’t make any sense, given the kiss last night. It really seemed like we had a thing going. I flipped open my cell phone one last time and thought about leaving another message, but that would only be desperate. Maybe she’d call back. But it didn’t seem likely now. I picked up my bag and was about to leave.
“Mike?”
I turned and there was girl with shiny black hair. Pretty face, no makeup. I’d never seen her before.
“Hello,” I said skeptically.
“Sorry, I had to rush to get my card back from the bar last night, and I was trying to track down my phone but I think it’s still in Kelly’s car. And I couldn’t remember if we said two or two thirty, cause we said both. Have you been waiting long?”
“Um…”
“You probably thought I stood you up or something.”
“Who are you?” I squinted at her, but smiled. This wasn’t the same girl at all.
“Oh!” She covered her mouth with her hand. “I forgot! I’m wearing the wrong head.”
I waited a moment. “What?”
“I was a blond last night right?”
“You’re… Julia?”
“Yea!” She grinned. “I am. Still. Just with a different head today.”
I looked at her worriedly. Whoever this was, she needed help. If it was my help she needed, I couldn’t decide.
“Oh.”
“You want me to put on the other head? I’d have to go home and get it.”
“No, I guess this head is fine.” I laughed. Just because, really, what else was there to do?
“Are you sure? I live just across the street.”
“Oh alright. If it’s just across the street, then why not?” Yes. Why not? Because really, how much weirder could this day get?

I had to ask, I guess. She opened the door to her apartment and dropped her bag on the floor.
“You can come in?” she said, smiling. I did, wondering just what kind of girl would meet a stranger at a coffee shop waiting for someone else and bring them into her home right away.
She went into the other room. I stayed in the living room, memorizing my escape route. Lots of art on the wall, including one that caught my attention — a waxwork female leg, standing upright next to a lamp. I swear, from the other side the of the room it looked absolutely real.
Abruptly almost, coming from the other room, Julia swished in beaming.
“Okay!” she said. The same blond cutie I’d been talking to the night before. I breathed a sigh of relief. She took my arm.
“So is she your roommate?” I asked, pointing to where she’d come.
She laughed. Like I’d made a joke. Then looked at me puzzled, and said, “You’re seriously confused aren’t you.”
“What? No. Yes! Yes, I’m pretty confused. Tell me what’s going on.”
“Why don’t I show you?” She turned and went into the room she’d come out of. This time I followed, ignoring the uneasy feeling in my stomach. I could always jump out the window, I thought to myself. It’s only the third floor. I might survive.
She went over to a cabinet next to the dresser by the bed and opened it.
I just stood there. Kind of locked up, trying to understand what I was seeing. In the cabinet she just opened were six or seven human heads. Girl’s heads. Mostly they had their eyes closed, but one of them, the head of the girl who’d just met me outside in the coffee shop, had her eyes open. She winked at me.
I really couldn’t run away. My curiosity overcame my fear — and to realize that she’d actually been straightforward, somehow was relieving.
“How?” I finally managed.
“It just pops off.” She took a hold of her head with both hands and well, she popped it off. Even made the noise.
“No, I mean…” I stopped to accept the head she was handing me. “How are you able to … it’s impossible.”
“Oh right. Well, after college I got this internship for a medical company. They were working on this as a way to replace defective organs through cloning, and I agreed to be one of their test subjects.”
“But how’d you get all those heads?”
“Oh, from some of the other volunteers. We all traded heads with each other so we could mix and match. They’re cloned of course.”
“So which one is you?”
“Any one you want!”
“Okay, which one was you?”
“You mean, my original? That was me just then across the street. But if you’d rather I be a blond, or a redhead, or — I mean, you can take your pick!” She gestured to the cabinet.
I went and set down the beaming blond in my hands and looked at all of the other options. By now the shock was wearing off, and I was earnestly just intrigued.
“How does it work, with your uh… brain and all that.”
“Pop open my head and see.”
I raised an eyebrow.
“Do it!”
I took a grip of the top of her head and um… well, it just popped off. Pretty easily actually.
“There’s nothing in there,” I said.
“Nope! Wanna see my brain?” The headless body motioned to me. I turned to watch her go over to a computer on the desk, and from the clutter pulled out a large jar with several wires leading out from it to the computer. As she held it up to the light I could see inside of it, a brain, presumably hers.
“What if you lose reception?”
“Uh… I fall down catatonic. But I can always come back and get myself later. It’s not like this is my only body or anything.”
I took the black-haired head from the cabinet, the one she’d said was her original one. “Here,” I said, handing it to her.
“Yay. You wanna try one on? You seem pretty curious, all I’m saying.”
“Seriously? I can just … do that?”
“I mean, kinda, yea. There’s a simple procedure, but it only takes a minute.”
“If it’s that easy, sure, why not. What do I do?”
“Here.” She took a box from under the desk. It looked almost like a motorcycle helmet, except with no window to see through. “Put this on your head.”
I did. Then I passed out.

“Shh, don’t move.”
“I… can’t.”
“I was kidding.”
She took off the helmet thing. I opened my eyes, blinking. My face was really close to Julia’s cleavage. She was holding the back of my head and I felt a small pressure somewhere. I tried to turn a little, but couldn’t.
She sat back then, smiling at me. Over her shoulder, I saw something. Her bed. With a body on it.
“Wait, what are you doing!” I tried to get up. Nothing happened, because she’d cut off my head. And now I was sitting on her desk, next to her … brain.
“You said you wanted to try on one of my heads!”
“Are you gonna take out my brain?”
“I don’t have a jar for it, so no. Unless you want me to take it out. I might have some tupperware or something.” She started getting up.
“No, no, I mean. Just explain what you’re doing.”
“I’m gonna hook up your brain to the computer so you can use one of those other heads over my wireless.”
“So you are gonna mess with my brain?”
“Already did. Almost done actually.” She reached towards me and seemed to touch the top of my head but I didn’t feel it. She brought her hand back into view with a brain in it, several wires poking out.
“Careful!” I said, but she only laughed.
“Relax.” She patted my brain. “It’s weird at first, I know. But you’ll be fine. Just one more thing.” She set my brain back in my skull and I saw her pick up another needle. She shoved it in somewhere. Not that I could feel it.
“Now which head do you want to try on?”
“I don’t know. You pick.”
“You like this one?” She picked up the blond from the night before. The head made a face at me.
“Yea, sure.” I wasn’t dead yet, I reasoned. This couldn’t get that much weirder. Well. Not twice in a row.

I opened my eyes. It felt like I’d just fallen asleep on the bed. I sat up, looking around for a second, but then I spotted Julia in the chair, her legs crossed, grinning at me.
“That was weird.” I said. For maybe another second, I thought, maybe that wasn’t real, maybe it didn’t happen. But then, just behind her arm, I saw my own head, minus scalp with all kinds of circuitry hooked into it.
I turned to face the mirror over the dresser. Looking back, of course, the girl I’d met the night before. It took a few seconds just to get used to it. But that was really it. Really me. Weird.
I got up and went over to look at my head on her desk. I had this vacant look on my face, like I wasn’t really seeing anything.
“It’s hard to use more that one head at a time,” she told me, “takes practice.”
“This is … I don’t even know. It’s weird having a girl’s face.”
“You should get a girl’s body to go with it.”
“Haha. Yea.”
“Seriously. That way nobody would notice. We could go get that cup of coffee.”
“You know, what, I can’t believe I’m going along with this, but what the hell.”
“Really?” her eyes lit up. “I’m so happy. I haven’t had a chance to swap bodies with someone in a while.”
“Wait, we swap?”
“Yea, is that okay? I mean, if you’re gonna go as a girl, can I go as a guy? Then it can still be a date!”
“Uh… why not…” I stammered. It’s been said that I’m too agreeable.
“Okay, hold on.” She turned back to the computer and pressed a key. Everything went dark.

“Wake up!”
“Huh?”
“Wake up!”
I opened my eyes. I still wasn’t really getting used to this. I sat up, staring down at two shapely bosoms. Turning to my left, I saw my old body, headless, apparently lifeless on the bed. I poked it. Nothing.
“Hey!” It was a very familiar voice.
I turned and there was my head, looking at me impatiently.
“Julia?” I asked. Or was it me? Or what was the difference?
“Yep. I need some help though. You gotta put me together.” My eyes darted to my body. Her eyes to her body. Whatever. You know what I mean. I got up unsteadily and went over to the head, examining it.
“I thought I was wired to the computer,” I said.
“Well, I don’t have any guy heads here, so I thought I’d use yours. Trouble was, your brain was still in it, but I fixed that for you.”
“Where’d you put it?”
“Oh, wouldn’t you like to know?”
“I would actually.”
“It’s in that pretty little head of yours.”
“Oh, okay then.” I set my head on my shoulders. Or something. It clicked together.
“Okay then,” said Julia. “Let’s go.”