The door closed and we heard the latch shut. That strange total silence of the room returned. I tried to roll over what Alana had just told me — that we were in an enchanted room physically the size of a shoebox at the center of this crazy house. The gin and tonics from earlier got in the way of my full understanding of how that might be possible, but given that Marie and I still had our bodies swapped, I didn't count myself as one of the skeptics.

"So," said Marie, "Are you up for some experiments?"

She gestured to the contraption that had just 'glassified' Alana.

I looked down at 'my' body.

"I mean, this is your body anyways, so I'm down."

"I like that can-do attitude," she said, and pulled open the front of the box. She gestured for me to enter it, and once again

I found myself inside a box with only my head sticking out the top. This box at least was taller, and I could stand up to my — well actually it was Marie's — full height.

She closed the box and walked around to the back end.

"So there's five numbered settings on this, which do you wan to try first?"

"Three is the one Alana did, right?"

"Yep."

"So let's do number four."

Marie didn't say anything, but I felt a jolt of something through my neck.

"Hey did you do it?"

She still didn't talk, just came around and looked at me from the front of the box.

"What, did something go wrong?"

Opening the front of the box, she just grinned at me. I stepped out carefully, unsure of what I would find. My body felt … stiff. Not sore, but even the most simple movements required a great deal of effort. Looking down it became obvious as to why.
I was made of wood.

"This is rather … unusual," I said, running my hand over my arm very, very slowly. It was all I could do to force my body to move in rather slow, methodical motions.

Marie ran her hands over my shoulders and down my back, then knocked on my stomach making a noise.

"Yea, I've never seen this before. It reminds me of the time she turned me into a marionette."

"She what?"

"Oh, I was a marionette in a puppet show. It was a long time ago. I remember being made of wood, but I couldn't really move by myself."

"It's a lot of effort just to move around," I said, hearing my elbow creak as I moved my hand up to my face. I stroked my chin with my wooden hand, feeling the grainy texture of it against my still-normal cheek.

"Sounds like it. Okay, back in the box, I want to try the next one!"

I slowly got back into position and Marie almost slammed the box shut.

"Which one is next," I asked, but she must have already done it, because just like that she was opening the box again.

I felt less stiff, but somehow much heavier if such a feeling can be imagined. It was patently obvious why this was so. My body was now made of gleaming metal, a polished chrome mirror reflecting everything around me.

"Woah," said Marie, running a hand over mine, leaving visible fingerprints. "You're so shiny!"

"It's even harder to move than before," I said. "My hand just feels so heavy."

"Well, then back in the box!"

The next time around, which took even less time than before, she opened the door and I stepped out feeling much lighter and more flexible.

"Yea, she would do that," giggled Marie.

I looked down. "Am I made of … chocolate?"

"Let's see," said Marie. She took my left hand in hers and folded my fingers so my pinky was sticking up. Then without even asking, she bit off my fingertip.

"Yep," she said. "Delicious. Want some?"

She offered me my own hand.

"You just bit off my finger!" I shouted!

"Yea, because it was a chocolate finger." She grinned. There was chocolate on her teeth.

"You didn't even ask!"

"You should try some," she said, grabbing me around the waist.

"I… I can eat myself?"

"Yea, go ahead. If you don't, I might just eat you myself."

I tried it. I gave my now abridge pinky another bite, leaving just the barest stump of a finger where it had been.

It was indeed some of the best chocolate I've ever had.

"It is good," I said, "But I mean, aren't you worried this might be … permanent or something? I mean, I guess it's ultimately your finger anyway."

"So sure about that, aren't you? It was my finger, sure. But what makes you think you'll be getting your head switched back anyways?"

"Um… I don't know, I just assumed you'd want your body back sooner or later."

"Right, well, I like it better now that it's made of chocolate." She leaned in and took a bite of my shoulder.

"I just… eating doesn't seem like… do you have a plan for how this works out later on?"

"Don't worry, Alana and I used to turn each other into candy all the time."

"Wait, really? You can just turn someone into candy?"

"Yea, she had a machine in here called the candy-o-matic. It might be around if you want to look for it. One time she turned me into a bowl of M&Ms and served me at a party."

"And I guess you lived through that somehow."

"Nope, I died. Anyways, back in the box, let's do the last one!"

I got back in and Marie closed the door once more time. I felt another zap go through my body, followed by a very … well it was a relaxing feeling spreading all over my body. She opened the door and I kind of spilled out, just barely keeping my balance. My body felt shaky and loose, and looking down at it, my skin had a very smooth shine to it almost as if…
Marie stuck her hand into me. Yes, I meant into. Her fingers passed right through my arm, leaving some ripples in the surface.

"Cool," she said, pulling up my shirt. She stuck her hand right through my stomach.

"That feels very strange," I said, trying pull her arm out. My hand flowed around her wrist but I couldn't get any purchase against her. My whole body was a liquid of some kind.

"How can I still hold my shape?" I asked.

"Don't know, usually when you liquify someone you do it by melting them. At least that's the only time I've done it."

"You were melted?"

"A couple times, yea. I mean, we could have melted you just now when you were chocolate. Oh, dammit, I could have made fondue!"

"I see I have my fingers back, by the way."

"Yea, it's actually really easy to restore your body as long as we're inside this room. Pretty much nothing we do will be permanent. But anyways, fondue. What do you think? We could plan a fondue dinner! One of us could be chocolate and the other could be cheese."

"I'm surprised you haven't done this already, given everything you've already told me."

"What? I've never been cheese before!"

"Somehow that actually seems unusual."

"Ha-ha." She stuck her hand all the way up into my chest and splashed my face.

"Hey," I wiped off my chin, but it didn't do anything.

"Haha, let's swap our bodies back, I want to try some other things."

"Well, I wondered if we'd ever come back to reality…"

"Oh, we're not there yet, don't worry."

Marie and I went back through the routine with the boxes. After changing me back into a solid form, she vanished my body again, then went in the box and swapped her head back onto her original body. Then she picked me up, and held me at arms length, looking me in the eye.

"You're cuter this way," she said at last, before tucking me under her arm.

"I guess that means you're not giving me back my body?"

"Nope. Ooh! I know. I'll show you the other new machine. Real quick, then I have something else to try."

"Any hints about what this one does?"

"It's kind of like the one we just tried."

She set me down on a dresser next to a mirror. I used my chin to rotate myself a bit until I could see my reflection. There I was, just a head. What a strange night.

In the mirror I saw Marie come back with yet another contraption of boxes. This one was a smaller box, one that seemed just about the size to fit someone's head inside of it. It had two curling wires leading away from it into what seemed to be a controller. The whole thing sat on a platform that would allow someone with a body to stand up with their head in the box.
I guess that part wasn't necessary. Marie removed the box from the platform and set it down next to me.

"All right, so we just stick you in here. And then it's just like the other one! We can pick different options out, and kazaam! Poof! Abracadabra! And so on."

"Any indication what you're going to do to me?"

"Hell, I don't know what most of these buttons do myself. Let's find out!"

She positioned me so I was facing the mirror and set the box down over me. Everything was pretty dark. I heard something click and then the box made an electric fizzle.

"What was that?" I asked as she picked up the box.

"Oh good, it worked. I wasn't sure for a second."

I looked at my reflection, somewhat dumbfounded. My face was the same. So that was something. However my face was the only thing that still remained of me. I was propped up facing the mirror by something, but I couldn't see it.

"I used to love doing this," said Marie. She picked me up between her fingers. I was maybe an inch thick, if I had to guess.

"This is very odd," I offered. "How is it I still have a mouth? I mean, shouldn't it just open to the other side?"

"I wondered that too. Maybe we can ask Alana later. Ooh, I could use you for a mask!"

She held me up in front of her face.

"Can you see through me?"

"Not unless I take out your eyes."

"And lest I temp you to demonstrate, I'm sure that can be done."

"Yea, I have to say I prefer to keep my eyeballs inside my head, so I'll spare you the same experience I had."

"And that was…"

"Alana and I were practicing being spies, so we took out our eyes and would leave them places."

"What, like in a jar?"

"Actually, that was exactly it."

"Wow."

"Yea. Anyway. Next item!"

She set me down again and refitted the box over me. I heard the same click and fizzle. It still sounded like a fuse was blowing out.

She removed the box again and I had to blink in the light. I stared at my reflection. Well, at least I had a head again. My face however, that had been turned upside down.

"Well, this is different," I said.

"Hehe, it's funny to watch you talk."

"Because my forehead moves up and down?"

"And because your mouth moves the other way."

She picked me up and held me facing her for a second. Then she flipped my head around so my face was the proper orientation. This however made everything flip upside for me.

"Woah I — mmph —"

She kissed me.

"So sorry, I just wanted to try that."

"Not sorry enough."

She kissed me again.

"Now," she said. "Before we get ahead of ourselves — haha — there's a couple more I want to show you."

"Fine, what's next?"

"You'll see!"

Again she replaced the box over my head. I heard the click and fizzle, the indication that something had changed.
When the box was removed this time, I wasn't sure what had happened. I didn't see myself in the mirror. At least not right away.

"So I must be the brain the jar then, huh?"

"Isn't it cool?" She picked up the jar and looked at me. "I love doing this to people, it's so fascinating. I mean think about it — that's you!"

She tapped the glass.

"How can I still see? And hear? And talk?"

"Alana can explain. It's something to do with residual properties of blah, blah, blah."

"This is pretty amazing, even if it's probably the weirdest one yet."

"You know, I'm glad you've been such a sport for this. A lot of guys would have freaked out by now. So you're either crazy enough or not-crazy enough to handle this stuff, and that's definitely a good thing."

"I mean panicking is really not what brains-in-jars do."

"You should have seen me the first time Alana did this to me. I had passed out here one night, so she carried me into this room, vanished my body, changed me into a brain in a jar, then took me back downstairs and left me in the kitchen."

"That must have been jarring."

"I mean it was pretty confusing."

"Jarring."

It took her a moment before she burst out laughing.

"Okay, just for that joke I'll spare you the last one I was going to do."

"Was it really that bad?"

"No, but it would… you know what, I don't think I want to spare you anything." She had a rather impish grin.

"Is that good? I mean, oh no please help! Don't change me into something else!"

"I'm sure you want to stay like this forever then. Okay. That's fine."

"I mean, please change me into something, anything else!"

"That's more like it. Hold still."

She set me back down and recovered me with the box. I heard her giggling before the usual click and fizzle. Then more giggling when she removed the box.

I was expecting something. I'm not sure what that was, but it certainly wasn't what had happened. My head wasn't a head anymore. It wasn't a brain in a jar either.

"Dickhead? Is that the joke here?" I asked. Because, see, I was just a dick.

"Yea, it's funnier when you do it to someone with a body attached."

"At least I look like my own package. It would be awkward if I was someone else's."

"I'm sure that's a relief to you, huh?"

She poked me, giggling as I started to become erect.

"Ahh…" I managed. "I didn't realize I would feel like one too…"

"Hmm, feel like what?"

She gave me a long stroke.

"A …"

"Feel like a dick?"

Another long stroke.

The events of the following five minutes or so I would rather keep private. You're free to imagine the details if you like. All I'll say is that it was the best handjob I'd ever received.

A little bit after that I'd been restored to a regular head again. She immediately scooped me up into her arms and gave me a long kiss.

"I've wanted to do that to you since I first got you in here," she said.

"Well I'm glad we both got what we wanted then."

"Now, I have one more thing to do, then we can go downstairs and see how the party is going?"

"Is that one more thing to give me my body back?"

"Now why would I do a thing like that?"

"You know, that would be totally uncalled for wouldn't it."

"Absolutely. This time the trick is for me to do and you to watch."

"That'd be a nice change."

She too a few minutes to put away the last device and to wheel out two more. One was a set of stocks, positioned about shoulder-height with a couple boxes. A sword hung from a hook on one end. The other was a full cabinet with the words "The Aerizer" painted on.

"So what do these ones do?"

"Oh, just something I want to try out. Seeing magic done to someone else always makes me want to try a bit myself."

"It's contagious like that isn't it."

"Might be. Ooh, I almost forgot, I need these."

She reached into the top drawer of the dresser that I was sitting on and removed two long white gloves. She put them on and pulled them all the way past her elbows.

"I'm interested to see where this goes," I said.

"Yea, me too. I hope this works correctly! If it doesn't it's up to you to go get help." She winked.

"I'm on it, don't worry."

Marie positioned the stocks with one of the head-sized boxes atop it. From the bottom of the box, she pulled out a sheet of metal and set it beside it. Next she waved to me, then ducked into the box and closed the front. Reaching to her right she fumbled for a moment before unhooking the sword.

"Wait, are you about to cut off your own head? That sounds very dangerous."

"It's harder than it looks," she said, setting the sword flat to one side. In one quick motion, she pushed it across and through her neck. Then she found the metal sheet and inserted it back into the bottom of the box.

"Again, when the time for applause comes I don't seem to have any hands."

"Shows not over yet!" came the muffled response. She pushed the box containing her head all the way to the side of the platform, showing that it was clearly detached from her body. All in all, it was pretty similar to some of the magic acts you might see on stage. If I wasn't already a detached head who already been changed into a variety of different things that night, I might have even been a bit skeptical.

Anyhow, the next part would have baffled the skeptics, because Marie unclasped the stocks and stepped out headless. She walked back and forth in front of me. I tried to whistle, and she came forward and gave me a pat on the head. I wondered if she could see like that or not.

Next, she began to very casually strip. She removed her shoes and her dress, and teased at her bra. She ended up giving me a quick glimpse, but that ended up being the extent of it.

"What's happening out there?" I heard her head ask.

"You mean you don't know?"

"No, I don't."

"Your body is giving me a peep show."

"Oh, okay. Just checking."

Marie's body then got her slip out of the pile and put it back on. She walked over to the large cabinet labeled as the Aerizer. She opened the doors and climbed inside. A moment later a very bright flash came from inside the machine, the doors both opened and smoke came out.

"Did something happen?" asked Marie's head.

"There's a lot of smoke. Is that bad?"

"No, that's normal. Yay, that means it worked!"

Something moved inside all the smoke. It took a moment for the form to distinguish itself, but there — Marie's … clothes? The slip she'd been wearing, along with the long gloves. They stood there by themselves, as though she were invisible.

"You body is gone!" I said. "Or invisible. I can't tell which."

"Okay, come get me!"

"I can't I don't have feet."

"I wasn't talking to you."

Marie's now-invisible body made its way over to the stocks and removed the box. She yanked out the metal sheet holding the bottom shut, then lifted the box off the platform. There was Marie's smiling head, which she picked up and brought over to the dresser. She set it down next to me.

"Hello," she said.

"Hello there," I smiled.

Marie's body started putting away the cabinet.

"What'd you think," she asked.

"Your performance was very nice. So you really don't have any control over your body?"

"Nope. I'm just like you now. Just a head. See those three boxes by the Decapitator? The yellow on, the one I used, just slices your head off and leaves you detached. The blue one lets you keep control of your body. And the red one makes your head go bye-bye."

"Bye-bye?"

"When you drive the divider in, it catches fire and the sides fall off."

"I guess that qualifies as bye-bye."

Marie's body came back and started putting away the "Decapitator." Which was quite an apt name.

"So what's the deal with your body? Can it see?"

"She can see and hear, but the magic doesn't allow her to speak. Also, you can call her Marie."

"But you're Marie."

"Well, we both are. I'm Marie's head. She's Marie's body. But we're both Marie when you get down to it, whether we're in communication or not."

"And is she invisible now?"

"Not quite. Mind showing him dear?"

Marie came back from putting up the boxes and stood in front of us. She reached over with one hand and pinched the end of her other glove. Then, it was as if she plucked it out of the air. The glove dangled empty from her grip, which she shook to show it's weightlessness. She dropped it to the floor and it crumpled.

Then she picked it up, gave it a shake, and all of a sudden it filled up again. Once again it looked was as if she had an arm inside of it.

"The Aerizer is one of my favorites," said Marie's head. "It turns you into whatever clothing you're wearing. So it's a bit like being invisible, but you can also fold yourself up, or just fall to the floor in a heap. And you'll notice that Marie can float apart a bit too. Care to demonstrate?"

One glove floated to one end and picked up my head, while the other picked up Marie's. We were levitated around one other until the gloves were twisted up, leaving the two of us mouth to mouth in a kiss.

"Now then," said Marie's head once we'd finished. "I think the three of us should return to the party."