I got off the bus and checked my reflection in the glass of the bus stop. It occurred to me, only then, this might be the last time this week I got to look in a mirror and see myself. There was this nervous energy in my stomach as I got out of the car, flinching as a cold wind stung my nose and ears.

—Hey, I told myself, at least I won’t have to deal with that much any more.

Some kind of gallows humor, I guess.

But okay, really, was this that dark? I really liked Ryan. So maybe this could be something… fun. We would see.

Let me catch you up. My name is Amanda, I’m in my mid-twenties. Been in a holding pattern with my life it seems since finishing school. I write a little bit, I’ve had a couple things published, but for money I’m working in a coffee shop downtown.

Six weeks ago, they hired this new guy Ryan. Cute smile, nice looking guy. Studied photography, similar to what I’m doing is now trying to figure out what comes next. We’ve gone out for beers a few times, and the vibe is very much we’d be dating already if we didn’t work together. But we do, so, it’s a slow dance. One that takes a couple steps closer every week, it seems.

So before I tell you what this is all about, a couple other details.

Last Friday Ryan and I were working together. This customer comes in, she’s been there once or twice before. Sleeve tattoo on her left arm, nicely dressed in a well-fitting jeans and a sweater. And no head. Yep, no head at all.

She slid her phone over to me, and typed on the screen it just said “Medium Vanilla Latte.” While Ryan was making it, my curiosity overtook me and I started asking her.

“Okay,” I said. “I don’t mean to be rude or anything but—“

She waved away the question, then held up a finger to say I should wait.

She picked up her phone, and tapped on something, then turned it back to me. On the screen was a little picture of a floating female head, one that … well, certainly looked like it could’ve once fit on this woman. Funky earrings, slightly frizzy hair, chunky plastic glasses.

The head on the screen tried to start talking, but first nothing came out.

She adjusted something else on the phone.

“There we go,” said a voice coming from the phone. “I had myself set on silent, sorry.”

“Oh, um,” I said, now a little embarrassed. “Well, I was just curious how — if you’re getting coffee, how do you drink it without a head?”

“Oh, just a little bit of magic,” she replied.

She set her phone down face up on the counter, then held her hands out towards me palms up. Both of them were empty. She cupped them together for a moment, and then held out a hand to show me.

On the palm of her left hand was now a pair of lips.

“Wow,” I said, “Can I —“

“Please do,” said the voice coming from the phone. The lips smiled, opened slightly, her tongue running over them. I inspected her hand up close before I realized another customer was waiting. And her coffee was ready.

So first there was that. That kind of stayed with me for the next few minutes, before service hit a lull and I asked Ryan about it.

“So that lady with no head—“

“Oh yeah, I’ve seen her in here once before,” he said. “Pretty neat stuff.”

“How does she — where do you think she got that —“

“Oh, I don’t know? Once of the ten magic studios in town maybe?”

“I’ve never really done much magic stuff,” I said.

“Really? Never?”

“Well… no, this one spring break in undergrad my friends and I went to this theme park and they had this ride called the guillotine…”

“And?”

“Um… it was a guillotine?”

“And you went on it?”

“I was a little drunk, which helped, but yeah. It was like, this guillotine comes down and cuts your head off, then you roll down this crazy chute to the bottom. And then my friends collected my head at the bottom. But that wasn’t like her, because I was only a head. I just got carried around for the rest of the day.”

“So really,” said Ryan, “They cut your body off.”

“Yeah, I guess so? Does it matter?”

“When you’re talking about magic, it’s good to be precise,” he said.

“Wait, do you know magic?”

“A little bit yeah. I took a few classes one summer…”

“Show me some!”

Ryan smirked. “I mostly just know party tricks,” he said.

“Like what? Show me!” I pulled on his arm.

“Like this,” he said, and then reached up behind my ear.

“Wait,” I said, drawing away. “Are you going to pull a quarter out of my ear, because I’ve seen that before.”

“No, just hold still,” he said.

Then he just … well, he grabbed my ear right off my head. Held it up for me to see, then blew into it.

“Holy shit,” I said, realizing too late that there were still customers within earshot. My hand went to feel the missing ear on one side.

“Oh hang on,” said Ryan, nodding to a guy who’d just approached the counter. “I’ll get this guy.”

He left me there to contemplate my own detached ear. I flicked it, still able to feel it as if it was right next to my head. It was honestly a bit distracting, and it made the conversation from the register a bit murky.

I still wanted to try something. I walked past the register where Ryan was explaining our various pour-overs to this guy, and I dropped my ear off on the counter next to the register — out of sight of the customer, but still where I could hear everything happening.

Then I walked around to the back pretending to have something to do there. But all the while, I listened in on what was going on up front.

This was pretty cool.

“You know,” I heard a whisper right into my ear a moment later, “It’s not a good idea to leave pieces of yourself somewhere unattended. They sometimes get lost.”

I heard a zipper and a drawer close. Everything became muffled.

I rushed out of the back, finding Ryan just grinning at me.

“Where is it?” I said. “Where’d you put it?”

“Oh I don’t know. Maybe you can find it yourself?”

“You’re the worst person ever,” I said, sticking out my tongue.

It ended up taking about a minute, but I eventually discovered my ear in one of the drawers behind the counter. I tried to follow the sounds I could hear, but they were muffled and obscured.

“Okay,” I finally said. “First of all, I do want you to show me more magic. But maybe when we’re done working. Second, because you were a jerk, I want to know if you’ve ever had your head cut off…”

“Oh yeah, lots of times,” said Ryan. “First time was at summer camp. On a dare, me and this girl swapped bodies.”

“Wait, wait, wait, you’ve not only had your head removed ‘lots of times,’ you’ve been a girl?”

Ryan nodded. “Yeah, well.”

“For how long?”

“We stayed switched all week.”

He raised an eyebrow and slow enough for me to notice, looked me up and down in an appraising way. I returned the same glance.

Now I was really intrigued. If I liked Ryan before, this added a whole new layer of mystery to him. And… hm… I’d never tried being a boy. But at that point, right on queue, the manager Josh showed up. We both had to pretend to stay busy until the end of the shift. I didn’t get the chance to ask him for any more details.

Okay. So that’s the first part of how we ended up here. But there’s a second act.

Same day, later on just before closing. Ryan was on his phone doing something.

“Who’re you sexting with,” I teased.

“My sister,” he said, without looking up.

“Your sister!? Gross!”

“Oh I mean —“ he put his hand over his face, then showed me the screen. It was an online scrabble game. “I’m losing to my sister in scrabble. Not good.”

“I could relentlessly tease you about what you just said, but instead — you like scrabble? That’s awesome. I love that game. I will dominate anyone at it.”

“Oh yeah?”

“I’m a lit major!” I said proudly. “Gotta be good for something.”

“Hm… well, all right then…” Ryan said as if he wasn’t impressed in the least.

“You don’t believe me? Wanna try me?”

“Well,” he said, “I’m pretty good at this game too you know…”

“Wanna go?” I said, getting out my phone. “Which app is that?”

“Hm… all right,” he said. “Why don’t we put something on it?”

“What do you and your sister play for?”

“Girl scout cookies.”

“Hm… wow. Oh wait—“ I grinned. “What about — our heads?”

“You want to bet your head on a game of scrabble?” said Ryan. “Some high stakes right there. Let me just reel you in a bit here, because if you try this with real magic people, you will like… lose everything. You make any bet with a part of your body you don’t want to lose permanently, you establish a time limit. The rules of magic are pretty broad like that, and if you’re not careful with your wording…”

“Okay, okay, good idea. I don’t know how it works really. So how about a week then.”

“All right then,” said Ryan. “Winner gets the other’s head for a week.”

We shook on it, then started the game just as we were leaving work. I got on the bus and drew my first hand. All vowels.

My phone buzzed. Ryan had made his first move.

—Oh fuck, I thought to myself.

He’d played “Beknownst” for an opening move of like 100 points.

—Well…

I did my best over the rest of the weekend, and eventually narrowed the gap to only 40 points by Sunday afternoon. Wasn’t enough. I lost. I lost badly.

I got a text from Ryan right away.

Looks like someone’s about to get a few inches shorter

Well, damn it.

That, I think, about gets us caught up to speed here. Walking up to Ryan’s apartment in the cold weather.

I knocked. He came to the door, and grinned at me.

“Okay,” I said. “I’m here. I don’t know why, but here I am so you can cut my head off.”

“It was your idea,” he pointed out.

“Yeah, but I thought I would win! Anyway, let’s do this. I think I’m ready. Let’s um… you know what, can I have a drink first?”

“Definitely,” said Ryan.

—

“12 year, huh? You’re fancy!”

“Well,” said Ryan. “Figure if I’m going to take away your head for a week, we can drink the good stuff.”

“Cheers to that,” I said, “And to—“ I made a cutting motion across my throat.

We clinked glasses and drank.

“So how does this work,” I said. “Do you go get a saw or…”

“Well,” said Ryan, laughing, “I can go buy a saw if that’s what you wanted, but I have a simpler way to do it…”

“Um… yeah, I was kidding. Please, no saws or knives or…”

“I gotcha. The other thing you should do is download that app to use for your head when its gone.”

“Oh yeah. I didn’t think of these things.”

“Right, well, some magic requires a bit of prep work…”

“Right, what’s it called?”

“VHeadz I think?”

We searched for the thing, and got it installed on my phone. I tried to call it up, but it just said “Missing Subject.”

“Okay,” said Ryan. “I have the rest of the instructions on my laptop here, let me see…”

“You mean you don’t know this stuff already?”

“I… I can do it, just relax… Okay, we can use the swap kit now…”

Ryan got a band of silvery metal which he clasped around my neck.

“How much of your neck to you want to keep?” he asked.

“I don’t know, what do you suggest?”

“We’ll go about halfway,” he said, adjusting the thing. There was a wire leading from the collar thing around my neck, which Ryan connected to a blue cube.

“This is a swapper,” he told me. “Borrowed it from my neighbor upstairs.”

“Have you ever swapped with her?” I asked.

Ryan’s sideways look told me everything I needed.

“You have, haven’t you!”

“She’s got a nice body,” he said.

“How much have you … been a girl?” I finally blurted out.

Again, a sidelong glance while he seemed to search for the right thing to say.

“Uh… well, I was once in a swapped relationship for like 5 months…”

“A … you became a girl for 5 months???”

“Only swapped for 3 months, I guess. Back in college, we were … experimenting. And we um… well yeah, it was a total body swap, head and everything.”

“Wow, so you’ve like… had a period…”

“Ummm… yeah, why is that what every girl fixates on?”

“I don’t know, just the first thing that came to mind.”

I stopped for a second. Ryan didn’t seem ashamed about this, and if I was honest with myself…

“I think I would try that…” I said. “But wait. I have a bet to fulfill. Let’s… let’s get this head off my shoulders.”

“All right then. Just one other thing.”

Ryan checked something on the computer before he went over to the blue cube and fiddled with a knob on the side.

“Okay,” he said. “You ready for this?”

“I think so.”

“Hold still,” he said. “Very still.”

He pushed something. I felt a jolt shoot through my neck where the collar was. There was something electric about it, and it felt sort of cold and hot at the same time.

Ryan leaned over and with two hands on my face, he lifted up.

Suddenly, everything was gone.

Ryan was gone, the room was gone… I couldn’t see anything, I couldn’t hear anything…

But this was different than just darkness. It was way beyond things being dark or silent. It was just an abyss. I couldn’t see, but beyond that I couldn’t even see blackness. If I tried to form a picture in my mind, just nothing happened. Similar thing for sounds. Not only could I not hear, it wasn’t like I could even imagine a sound or anything.

But I could — and did — feel touch. First I felt Ryan’s hand on my shoulder. Instinctively I grabbed it, with my own hand, holding it tightly. I reached out in front of me, and he took my other hand. His hands were warm, and I could feel every detail about them, where they were rough, where they were smooth. It was as though all the sensory awareness that I’d had for sight, sound, taste, smell — all of those were just as intense and vivid for the sense of touch.

Ryan’s hands guided my own to my neck. I felt the stump of it. It was smooth across, just like the woman at the coffee shop, just a flat layer of skin like the rest of me. My shoulders felt, well, lighter.

Honestly, it was one of the most relaxing feelings I’d ever experienced.

With Ryan’s help, I stood up and we walked over to the couch. I held onto him for both balance and guidance. It was comforting, in a way, that he was there. We sat down on the couch, and I began to run my hands over the fabric of the pillows and blankets. They felt at least a thousand times softer than I’d ever felt anything before. And when I reached out to find Ryan’s hands again, it sent my heart racing all over. Simple human touch had never felt this good before.

I cuddled up against him. He could have my head. What did I need one for anyway.

Then, suddenly, it all changed again.

I could see. And I was looking right at Ryan, who had a look of concentration for a second. Then he looked right at me and smiled.

“There we go,” he said. I could hear him. He sounded a little far away like he was … on the phone.

Oh.

I realized then, that I was looking out of my own phone. My new head for the week.

I reached out and tilted the phone in his hand so that I could see myself.

Holy. Shit. Holyshit holyshit holyshit.

There I was. With no head.

My hands again went to the missing space where it would’ve been. Just the feeling of passing my hands through there was weird.

“It says we have to unlock the paid version if you want to talk,” said Ryan. “But you can still see and hear with the free one.”

I gave a thumbs up. Guess unless I paid I’d be stuck with non-verbal communication for now.

“You can sync it to your email and facebook if you’d like.”

“What does her head like on the screen?” said a voice from the other end of the room.

What the…

I fumbled to grab the phone away from Ryan, and almost dropped it, sending my vision for a wild spin. Pointing it over at the kitchen table, there was my …

What. The. Fuck. Whatthefuck whatthefuck whatthefuck.

My head was smiling at me.

“Oh, it’s just a smily face,” said my head. “That’s cute.”

I hit Ryan on the arm, harder perhaps than I meant to. I gestured furiously for something to write with.

Ryan laughed. “I have a white board in my bedroom hang on a sec.”

He got up, leaving there.

Looking at my head.

Which was looking right back at me.

“You can pick me up if you want to,” said my head.

Now, I felt like I should’ve been freaking out. My own head was talking to me. But somehow, this didn’t seem like … a big deal or something. More than anything I was curious.

“Maybe bring me to the coffee table,” said my head.

—Okay, I thought, Let’s see where this goes.

I got up. My balance was a bit shaky until I held my phone up roughly where my head should have been. Then I went over to my own head, scooped it up, and brought it back to the couch.

Ryan came back with a small whiteboard and marker.

“I bet you have some questions,” he said, sitting down next to me.

With his help, we positioned my head on one end of the coffee table, my phone leaning up against a book facing it, and my body with a whiteboard on the couch, all in a triangle.

—Okay, I wrote. How is my head still talking?

I showed it to Ryan.

“Um—“ he said.

“Can I answer?” said my head from the table.

“Sure,” he said.

“Okay. So, this explanation is going to get weird. First of all, I’m technically not your head anymore. I know, seems like a small difference, since I’ve you know, historically been you head up until now. But once we did the swap, I became Ryan’s head.”

I took a moment to process that.

—So, you’re Ryan??? I wrote

“Sort of. Let’s put it this way. I have Amanda’s brain. But I am Ryan’s head.”

—But I’m Amanda!

“Yes, but you don’t have a head, do you? Basically, here’s how this works. You have a continuous experience of ‘being’ Amanda. And no matter what we do to you magically, pretty much you’ll keep experiencing everything as Amanda. So, let’s say we did something drastic to you like turn you into a shoe. You’d still be ‘Amanda the shoe’ even though there’s nothing left of your original corporeal self.”

—How do you even know this stuff? I didn’t know any of this stuff? You’re my head!

I thought about it for a moment, then added in the word “former” between my and head.

“So, yes,” said um… Ryan’s head on the table. “As Ryan’s other head, I can basically call on all of his memories or knowledge as ‘Ryan.’ But, since I’m not currently part of Ryan, I still keep the same personality, and basically I’m just an extra head until he puts me on. And until he does, I’m just a spare part.”

—You know, I wrote, When I made the bet, I thought I’d end up like you, just a head.

“Well then,” answered Ryan himself this time, “That would’ve been betting our bodies against each other. Which I would’ve still done, though maybe not for a week. That’s a long time to be stuck as only a head.”

—But what about her??? She’s only a head.

I pointed to the head on the table, the I scribbled down something extra.

—I don’t even know how to refer to her or you or whatever.

The head on the table answered. “‘Her’ is probably fine for me. But here’s the thing. I don’t have a full ‘self.’ Like I have no ego, or identity, or personhood or whatever you want to call it like you do. So it’s not like I’d get bored if you just left me somewhere. I’m just an extra head. I have a brain, and I have a mouth, and thanks to a bit of extra magic I can talk and stuff. But when Ryan puts me on, I basically just become his new head.”

“I can show you,” said Ryan. “If you’ll help me swap my heads.”

—Oh hell yeah, I wrote. Then I underlined it. Then I circled it.

“Great, let’s do it,” he said. He picked up… well, his other head and went back over to the swapper on the kitchen table. He showed me how to set up the swapper, how to check and make sure we were placing the collar at the same point on his neck (had to count the vertebrae), and then finally how to activate the machine.

“When you do this,” said Ryan. “I’ll basically be in the same state as when I first removed your head. So until you re-connect my other head, I’ll be unable to see or hear.”

I gave two thumbs up.

“And just to let you know,” said my former head on the table, “You won’t be able to steal me back, since I’m set to be his head for a week.”

—I would never, I wrote on the whiteboard.

“Sure, just remember, I’ve got your brain,” she said, giving me a wink. “I know you pretty darn well.”

Well, I thought, I guess we could scrap that idea. Anyways.

“Okay,” said Ryan. “Let’s try this.”

I went to the swapper and pushed the button like he told me to. I heard a faint fizzle as the machine engaged.

“Okay,” said Ryan. “I felt it, just … lift up.”

And I took off his head. Just like that. As soon as I pulled it up, his body seemed to go slack for a second. His head also seemed to ‘reboot’ taking a moment to blink before looking up at me.

I put his two heads next to each other and backed away, taking in the whole scene. Ryan’s headless body in the chair, now stretching his hands over his own missing head. His two ‘extra’ heads, mine and his, next to one another.

Damn this was weird. And wonderful. And…

I snapped a picture. With my own phone head. Just like that, barely had to think about it.

Then I picked up his “new” head. I was about to lower it down onto his shoulders, wondering what would he be like with my head…

“Wait a second,” said my old head. “Stop.”

I stopped.

“Take me over to the couch and get the whiteboard.”

“What’s going on?” said Ryan’s um… original head.

“Don’t worry about it,” she said. “This is a good idea.

“Okay…” he said.

I brought her over to the couch, along with the whiteboard.

“Now,” said my former head, “I just wanted to … like I’m in this weird state, where I remember being ‘your’ head, and now I’m Ryan’s head… so I know, because I have your brain, that you really like him… like, like him. And since I’m now his head, I can also tell you that is definitely a mutual thing so… maybe…”

—I should go for it, I wrote. Right now.

I circled and underlined the now.

“Yeah, exactly,” she said. “Just one other thing. Can you put me, and my other head somewhere we can watch?”

“There’s a really good view of the bed from the dresser,” said Ryan’s original head.

Wow. I just dropped the whiteboard. I picked up my old head, and put it under my arm with my phone in my hand for guidance. Over at the table, Ryan was … well, looking a little bit confused. I gave him a gentle pat on his neck, just relishing how helpless he was right now. Funny that I was the one who didn’t actually own a head at the moment, which he technically had two.

I positioned both heads right on the dresser where they asked to be set, then returned to the kitchen. Ryan had stood up and was fumbling around on the table. I snuck up from behind and grabbed him around his waist.

He responded right away, arching his back and moving into my hands. He turned around and we wrapped each other up in a hug.

Then I turned off my phone. Everything went away. It was just the two of us there, bodies intertwined, warm against each other.

I took his hands in mine, guided them down to my ass, then up to my tits. Showed him exactly what I wanted. He didn’t need much encouragement.

The details of what follows I’d like to keep private. Suffice to say, for every time I’ve done something like this before, this was even better. Maybe it would have been amazing to see, to hear. I do wonder what the two heads on the dresser saw. Did they talk? Comment? Cheer us on?

But it would be hard to describe, except to just say, in that state, with no head, and no sight, and no sound… everything was so much more than it would be otherwise. Every bit of feeling was magnified to eclipse our entire array of senses. I couldn’t even tell you how long we went on for. We were just there, so incredibly in the moment, so amazingly physical and sensual.

And when it was all finally finished, I was starting to wonder if I’d even wanted to have a head ever again.

—