Two days later I started my first shift. I still hadn’t deactivated the Sensa they’d given me, and had actually had the most fun with my head restored but also detached. And I did take that headless bubble-bath with the collar removed. It was heavenly. Like leaving the whole world behind.

I’d also gone over to show my friend Alyssa, and she had made me collapse the portal with my body for her to carry me around as just a head. She was planning to come by sometime during the shift so I could do something for her.

I was carrying my head under my arm when I walked into BodyWorx. Mary was in the office eating chinese take-out. She’d wrapped a portal around her body, just below her boobs, and had collapsed her entire lower body.

“Hi,” I said, waving.

“Hello Kacie! Looks like you’re getting used to things.”

“Oh, yea, I don’t think… well, except for driving here, that I’ve had a head on my shoulders all weekend.”

“I think you’ll fit in well here then. You’ll be training under Amanda, she’s the assistant manager.”

“Great! I’ll just get rid of my head and get started then.”

“Sounds good, let me know if you need anything.”

I stashed my bag in one of the lockers and then set my head back on my shoulders, made sure the Sensa was set correctly, and then collapsed my head. I couldn’t say why, but not having a head made me feel so … well, confident. I guess part of it was the anonymity it granted. And how people reacted to someone without a head was … well, it was interesting.

I went out onto the floor and found a very tall and thin headless girl behind the sales counter.

“Hello there! You must be Kacie. Mary’s been talking you up, says she found the ‘perfect hire.’”

“Oh um… that’s good I guess! You’re Amanda, right?”

“That’s me!” She pointed to herself with her thumb.

“Cool. So what do you usually do to open?”

“Oh, if there’s any new merchandise, we stock it first, then we tidy up. You know, it’s retail. There’s usually one or two tasks each day, like putting together or taking down a display.”

“Got it.”

“Yep! Oh, so we’ve got some new heads this week. Have you heard of the ‘Spex 360’?”

“I can’t say that I have. Hadn’t paid much attention to this stuff until getting this job.”

“All right, well, I think these are just the coolest things ever.”

Amanda picked up a completely black sphere, about the size of a softball, with a flat edge on one side. She handed it to me. It was somewhat heavy, and had a smooth glass surface,

“This is a head?”

“Yea! But get this. You can see in every direction at once. Wanna try it on?”

“Um… of course!”

I set the Spex on my shoulders and then… well, it was quite a staggering flood of visuals. Not only could I see in a complete circle, but also above and below, in literally every single direction.

It was a very hard experience to describe, compared to ‘normal’ vision, or even the enhanced vision of the Sensa. I also found that I couldn’t talk or hear with the new head. It was almost as if the faculties devoted to such things were being taken up by my new expanded vision.

Finally, I pulled it off again, returning to my ‘normal’ headless state.

“Isn’t that wild?” said Amanda. “It’s so absorbing.”

“It kinda takes everything over, doesn’t it.”

“Yea, don’t know how many we’ll sell, just because it’s not too practical, but as a novelty thing, I think they’re really neat.”

We set about opening the store, with Amanda telling me a few stories about what it was like working there, the other co-workers, and her own life. She’d been there for two years, liked it quite a bit for the atmosphere, and was taking classes part-time. Her boyfriend had actually been the one to introduce her to the store. He liked to come in and use the machine to swap their bodies.

As I learned, the retail portion of the store was only a small bit of what people actually used the store for. The main draw was the KPG-202. For a nominal amount of money, a ‘membership’ could be bought and the member could use the KPG-202 as much as they wanted. People could get a few free trials, or a pay-per-use plan.

“One of the bonuses we get is a free membership. You can even borrow some of the floor models if you talk to Mary, and sometimes we get to keep extra bits they send as promos.”

“Really, that sounds cool. What’s your favorite?”

“Honestly? Hmm… you might judge me.”

“No I won’t! I promise.”

“Well, either way, you might as well get to know what kind of stuff goes on here. My favorite thing is being a cock.”

“You like being a guy?”

“Well, it started out as that. Ryan and I used to come in here and swap our bodies for a day or two. But after I got the job and learned how to use the machine, I started getting more creative. Like, we came in here after hours so I could take off his dick. But then later I thought, what if I was his dick. And so, one day after work, I had him come here and we did it. I didn’t let him change me back for two days.”

“Oh wow. What’s it like?”

“Amazing. You have to try it.”

“I … I guess I might want to.”

“Are you seeing anyone?”

“Not at the moment, no.”

“Well, that’s not a big deal. If you can’t find a dick you want to be, I can find you one.”

I just started giggling.

And so began my first real shift at BodyWorx. Amanda had me help the first couple customers who came in that day. One lady wanted to change her head for another she’d already bought. Another guy wanted some stronger arms. A pair of teenaged girls tried on several pairs of legs, but then left without buying them. Amanda said this was all pretty typical.

Around lunchtime I had one of the more interesting requests. A couple came in and showed me their membership card.

“We’re here to make some modifications,” said the woman.

“Great! So what are we having done today?” I asked.

“Well,” she gave her boyfriend a look. “Mike’s going to lose his arms and legs.”

“Oh really now.” I said. “Mike, you okay with this?”

“It’s her birthday,” he said. “And so… yea.”

“He’s going to be so cute!” said the woman, practically squealing.

We went through the basics, where she wanted the portals placed — leaving just a bit of stumps, but “Not enough to get away, only enough to squirm around. And if she wanted his arms and legs detached, or gone completely (gone).

Finally we were about to wrap up, when a thought came to me.

“What about his head?” I said.

“Oh, no, keep it for now,” she said. “I like to see his expressions.”

“What if you made it detachable?” I said. “You could use one of our Sensa collars, like the one I’ve got. And if you collapse the side with his body, it’ll make him very easy to carry.”

“Oohh… I like that idea,” she said. “I like it a lot.”

Boom. My first sale.

It was nice to see just how happy this lady was, even as strange as the request was. And I think I was beginning to understand just what kind of place this store was, and what it allowed. People kind of dropped their inhibitions coming into a place like BodyWorx and it was fun to be a part of that.

Later in the afternoon, Alyssa stopped by on her promised visit.

“Oh hey there!” she said, giving me a hug. “You look very … what’s the word…”

“Are you trying to think of a head joke?”

“No, why would I be? You don’t have a head. Ha!”

“That’s not very clever,” I said.

“Well, I’m not ahead of the curve like you.”

“You really have the worst jokes in the world.”

“Wait I had another — what was it — something about how my lame jokes make you lose your head.”

“Sounds like a zinger.”

“Anyway! I wanna try this out.”

“Sure! Let’s do that. You want to try on something, or what?”

“I’ll let you guide me. I can’t buy anything because I have no money.”

“Get the hell out of my store! No actually, apparently we only sell the stuff as a bonus. Most of the people just want to use the machine.”

“So what are we waiting for! Take my head off or something!”

I guided Alyssa over to the rack, a bit unsure of what I would do to her. I’d been idly thinking about it, but so far hadn’t decided on any concrete ideas. For lack of anything else to do, I started by collapsing her arms into two portals on her shoulders

“Woah,” she said, as I helped her down. “This is different. But it could be kinda fun.”

“You want to try on some arms?” I asked.

“Yea!”

“I tried these bear arms yesterday. They’re… furry.”

“Hm… Cute, but what about these?”

Alyssa was looking at a pair of very muscular male arms.

“If you want to!”

“I’ve never been strong before! I wanna try it!”

The arms themselves were pretty heavy, and just to get them onto her shoulders took a bit of effort. Once they were attached, Alyssa flexed.

“Feels weird,” she said, rubbing them down.

“You look bizarre,” I told her. “Your arm is almost as thick as your waist.”

“Yea, it’s kinda heavy to wear these. I guess you’d need a torso that’s really jacked up too to support them. Oh, these look cool! Let’s try these!”

Alyssa pointed to a pair of robotic arms, plated in clear plastic. I helped her detach the muscular arms and fixed those in their place.

“Weird. It’s like… I can feel the moving parts inside.”

“I think these are designed for ultra-high reaction time,” I said.

Alyssa waved her new hands in front of her face a bit. “Yea, they feel really quick. Anyway. What else is there?”

“Well, we have these feminine arms, or there’s…”

“Nope! Arms are boring. I’m done with ‘em.”

“Well then,” I said, disconnecting both arms and replacing them on the display.

“Do something else to me,” said Alyssa. “How about something to my head?”

“Hm… all right,” I said.

I led her back to the rack and set a portal shell around her neck. While I was at it, I set more at her waist, legs, and ankles, then energized them all.

“Okay, just hang tight for a second,” I said, collapsing her head. I brought back her arms just so she could explore the empty space on her shoulders, and then went to pick out another head for her.

I thought about the Spex 360 that I’d just tried, but opted for something else. Something I thought Alyssa might appreciate a bit more.

It was actually a head I’d wanted to try out myself at some point. It was an old-style television set which could display someone’s face on the screen.

I set it on Alyssa’s neck and switched it on.

“Wha… I thought I told you I didn’t want any arms,” she said. “But okay. What’s this new head?”

Her voice sounded far away, like it was coming over the airwaves. Her face flickered a bit too, which was a nice touch.

“Ohh… this is neat!” she said, looking at the mirror. She reached up and switched one of the dials, changing the channel to a music video. Then again to an infomercial. Another flip to some classic black and white movie, before she switched it back to her face again.

“Weird!” she said “But also… I like this. Can you take a picture for me?”

I shot a photo with her iPhone and she posted it to her facebook page.

“Okay,” said Alyssa. “Got any other heads?”

“Well, there’s the toy section.”

“Sounds good. But I wanna be headless again while you look. And get rid of these stupid arms!”

“Uh, sure. Whatever you say.” I removed her TV head, resolving to try it myself sometime soon, and then collapsed the portals on her arms.

While I was putting the TV head back, Amanda came to find me after finishing with the customer she’d been helping — a guy was picking out a pair of boobs for his girlfriend. Or were they? Either way.

“She’s your friend you mentioned?”

“Yea, we’ve been close a long while,” I said. “Since college.”

“Cool. How’s she like it?”

“She’s um… very enthusiastic.”

“What were you going to try next?”

“Don’t know. Was gonna pick out a head for her. Got an idea?”

“Has Mary trained you on the PO-21?”

“No, don’t think so.”

“It stands for Particle Organizer. It’s really cool. You can use it to re-shape a body part, so it’s still ‘her’ just different.”

“Well, then yea! Let’s do it!”

“Okay, we need the portal shell with her head.”

I went over to get that, and saw Alyssa squirm a bit. Hopefully she wasn’t getting bored, though I knew from experience that time seems to pass differently without a head.

I brought the portal shell over and handed it to Amanda. She opened up a metal box labeled PO-21 that was next to the sales counter and set it inside. The box was linked to a computer, where she loaded the software.

Amanda spent a few minutes showing me how to boot up the machine and link it to the portal inside. From there, you could select what kind of body part it was, and how to make any changes to it. Each change came with a virtualized ‘result’ which showed what would happen.

We looked at a few possibilities. Alyssa as a cyclops. Or turning her face upside down. Or giving her a beak.

“There’s so many to choose from,” said Amanda. “And you can go online and download more too.”

“Wow,” I said. “I don’t even know where to start.”

“What about this one,” said Amanda, clicking on one named “pop-top”

“What’s this one do?”

“The top of her head comes off. Useful if you want to keep things in your head.”

“So there’s no brain inside?’

“It keeps that part in the portal,” said Amanda.

“Hm… maybe. Or what about ‘potato head’? Is that like, her facial features can come off?”

“Yea, that’s also a good one.”

“OOOH. This one!”

I pointed to one of the selections and Amanda gave me a thumbs up.

“Okay then,” she said. “So once you’ve picked it out, you go and press run. It’ll take a minute to re-organize and the box will make this noise…”

The box made a ping.

“And she’s ready!”

I opened the box and got out Alyssa’s ‘new head.’ If I’d had a face, I would have been grinning.

“Took you long enough,” she said when I restored her. “Wait why is my voice so squeaky?”

I just started laughing.

“Oh my god, my head!” she said looking at the mirror. “You shrank my head!”

I couldn’t stop.

“It’s like the size of a tennis ball!”

My sides were hurting.

“Okay, yea, this is pretty good. Can you take me off my body? I’ve wanted to try that ever since you showed me.”

I helped get her head off her shoulders, then started laughing again just seeing how small she was in my hands.

“Oh c’mon,” she said.

“You’re so cute this way!” I said. “I think you should always have a tiny head.”

“At least I’ve got one! Ha!”

“You know, you shouldn’t instigate things like this.”

“Yea, well. Hey what time is it?”

“Like… 3:30ish?”

“I gotta go in a few. Please don’t leave me with a tiny head. I’m seeing John later.”

I sighed.

“But please do leave me changed somehow,” she said.

“All right then. Hang on, I’ll get you put back together.”

I collapsed her back down and then went and restored her head back to normal. I was trying to think of something I could do. Well, she didn’t want arms. That seemed pretty clear. So I got to thinking…

A few minutes later, it was all ready. I pressed the button and restored her head.

“Ahh… much better. Regular voice and …. Oh my!”

I’d not only left her armless, but had collapsed a portal between Alyssa’s shoulders and waist. After that, I’d removed the shells leaving her as essentially just a lower half with a head on top.

“I’m like that girl in the music video,” said Alyssa.

“Which one?”

“I don’t remember, some rapper, but everywhere he goes in it, all the girls are halfies like this.”

“Halfies? This already has a name? I thought I was being original.”

“Don’t worry! I love it. And this way John will have to open doors for me.”

“Good. Want to hang out tonight?”

“Yea! I’ll send you a text. Oh wait, no hands. Um… I’ll get in touch with you somehow.”

“If you don’t want any arms, you’ll have to practice with your feet.”

“Yes. I’ll work on it. Well, I’ll see you later! Oh wait, first can you text John to come pick me up? I uh… yea. I can’t do that.”