(TF, TG)

I’m pretty sure you meant it as a joke at first. That’s how I took it, anyway, when I read it. On the message board we both frequented, you posted: “Anyone lives in the Amherst area wants to Venn me into my real self? I’ll Venn you back!”

I can’t remember what I replied. Something funny and light, I’m sure. A few other folks did too. And then we all went onto another thread, another message, another fantasy.

Except your fantasy stuck in my head. Because it was my fantasy too.

A day or so later I made another reply. I remember this one. “You serious? I’m in Northampton.”

An hour later, a private message pinged in my inbox. “Hey Mooning, this is Linman. Hope you don’t mind me contacting you. I wasn’t really serious but … maybe I am? How about you?”

I wrote “pretty much the same” and hit reply.

“Let’s get to know each other,” you replied. So we did. I told you my story - a 32-year-old man, no kids, no wife, no partner. Working from home, editing technical manuals. And … I had a dream.

You told me yours - 29-year-old woman, florist, part-owner of a shop, no kids, no husband, no partner. And … you had the same dream.

Well, not exactly the same dream. How could we? But close enough.

We exchanged messages for a couple of weeks, getting comfortable with each other. We found we had a lot in common - a sense of the ridiculous, a liking for crime fiction, eclectic tastes in music that ran all the way from Baroque to emo, liberal politics.

Then came the photos. You, a shy-looking blonde woman, but with a pleasant smile. The nose stud was a surprise.

I tried to find the best photo of me I could. Me at the computer, my glasses sliding down my nose, hair rather long for someone my age, wearing a Gaslight Anthem T-shirt.

Then came our names: Robert Moon, Lynn Manning.

Then came our real names, our inside names, our fantasy names, the names we longed for.

Rebecca Jane Moon. Linford Manning.

An exchange of addresses. Then, finally, a date.

Friday, 12 February. Meet at an Italian restaurant in Amherst. Just a quick walk to the stores.

To the Venn machines.

*

I’m 15 minutes early for dinner but you’re already there. I see you sitting at the back, a woman alone at a table for two. I smile and wave, and you wave back with a grin. A distinctly nervous grin, but a grin nevertheless.

Our conversation is stilted for the first few minutes. How could it not be? This is the first time we’ve ever talked in person. How a person writes and how they speak can be very different experiences. Plus, both of us are by nature reserved, even shy. It takes until our food arrives and the waiter wanders off for us to warm up, but by the end of the meal we’re laughing together like old friends.

We have to ask, of course.

“When did you know?”

When did I know? “I think I’ve always known,” I said. “It’s like, I know I have a penis, but why can’t anyone else see that I’m a girl?”

“I had three brothers,” you say. “I used to demand to play with their soldiers and trucks and stuff. And I kept getting told, no, you have to play with your dolls.”

“Things have changed,” I said. “I went to a toy shop yesterday to buy a present for my nephew and all the aisles were gender neutral. Barbie next to Darth Vader.”

“So, did you get him the Barbie or the Darth Vader?”

“Eh, I got him Batman,” I confess. “Everyone likes Batman.”

“When did you first consider Venn machines? They’ve been around for a couple of years now.”

“Well, they started off out in the suburbs, did you know that? So it took a while for the news to reach me in liberal ol’ Northampton. We didn’t have a big shopping mall out there. And I guess I thought like everyone else, you know, how weird, kids are turning themselves into goats or plants or balloons. It took a while for the idea of using a Venn machine myself to hit me.”

“Me too. I was reading all this stuff about them on the internet and thinking, oh wow, I could absolutely use them. But then, I didn’t have anyone to use them with. You gotta have two people, that’s why they call them Trust Machines. And I didn’t know anyone in real life I could talk to about … this.”

“Me neither. The message board was the first time I’d ever spoken about it. Even to myself, really.”

“But now …”

But now.

*

We linger over coffee, both of us eager to get to the main business of the night, both of us shrinking from it too. Eventually, there’s nothing to do but pay, tip generously and leave.

Leave for the Venn machines.

When we arrive they’re deserted, as if someone has kindly cleared the area for us. They’re black and green, the booths, clumped together in an open space near the shops. I gaze at them. They seem familiar - we’ve all seen photo booths and the like - and at the same time totally alien.

Who put them here? No one knows. Why? No one knows either. The fact that they simply showed up on this planet - strange objects with unimaginable powers - keeps blowing my mind. And now I’m about to get into one. That fact alone sends shivers down my spine. I’ve gazed at Venn machines plenty of times, turning them over in my mind, but this will be the first time I’ve ever used one.

You send me a nervous glance. “Still want to do it?” you say, giving me a chance to back out, and all I can answer is “do you?”. For a second I think we both seriously consider just going home, pretending this night has never happened. But the goal, the dream, it’s so close now, so we laugh and agree to stick to the plan.

“Allow me,” I say, and I slip five dollars into the payment slot. I didn’t have to use that much - or money at all; the Venn machines accept buttons or rocks or pretty much anything - but somehow to pay less would seem like cheating. You’re ready to press the duration controls. We’ve already agreed - we’ll be changed for a month. An entire month. Enough time to get used to the experience - or to regret it.

The booth’s sides are open. No doors opened that I could see - the openings were just not there, then there. An old rock song my mother likes pops into my head for some reason: “First there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is.”

You surprise me with a quick squeeze of my hand. “Let’s do it, Robert,” you say, and you disappear in one side. And then there is no door again and you’re inside, and I’m breathing hard but I get in too, and there’s no door either, and all I can see …

The interface controls.

We’ve talked, you and I, about how we want to look. This is the hardest bit for me, giving up control over how I’ll appear to a stranger, and I suspect it is for you too. But I begin to flick through the images on the screen, the bubbles, and it’s surprisingly easy. Once I pick a body for you it’s a case of refining all the details, so many details, from your nose to your clothes …

“Pick me something nice and casual,” you say.

“What are you going to do about clothes for the rest of the month?”

“Are you kidding? Shopping is going to be the best part!”

I laugh. I’m almost finished now, and you are too. Our fingers hover over the green button that will apply the changes on screen to … to us.

“Ready? Go!”

And just like that, it’s done.

I’ve read a lot about Venn machines and they all underline that the changes are instantaneous, that one moment you’re a man and the next a pair of shoes, or a dress, or a glockenspiel, or anything. There’s no pain. There’s just before, and then there’s after.

I’m prepared to feel the change, though, ready to detail my body twisting to its new form. But there’s nothing.

A whole lifetime of waiting, and it’s over before I know it.

There’s the opening in the wall now - it seems weird to call it a door - and I stumble out into the night.

I am changed.

I look at my body. You’d teased me, asking if I wanted to look like a big breasted bimbo, but you knew that wasn’t me, just as I knew a muscle man with pecs of steel wasn’t you. We are reserved, as I said. Our wish isn’t to stand out, it’s to fit in.

So I’m a woman, yes. Not a beauty, although certainly pretty as far as I can tell. My body is slim, my breasts small and high. I can feel my hair down around my shoulders. I’m wearing jeans and a singlet top, and a small leather-look jacket. I have a bag slung around my shoulder. I’m a woman, the kind you probably wouldn’t notice walking down the street, or sitting next to you at a cafe.

I am Rebecca, and I am home.

It’s only now I notice the figure on the other side of the Venn machine, doing the same as me, examining himself. He’s not too tall, not too slim, well built in a good way, wearing jeans, a sky blue T-shirt and a blazer.

“Linford?”

You look at me and grin. You open your arms, and I am there.

A tear rolls down my cheek. “Thank you. What you’ve given me …”

“Rebecca, what you’ve done for me …”

No more words. They aren’t needed.

An embrace, a hug, and there’s no passion in it - we are not destined to end as lovers, you and I. No, there is something warmer. Friendship.

We break apart and smile. We don’t stand around long. We have lives to begin.

“Remember!” you say with a wave. “Next month! Same time, same place!”

You’re referring to the Italian restaurant, but I know you mean the Venn machines too.

We’ll talk about the duration then. Three months? Three … years?

It’s not until I sit in the car and something digs into me that I discover the little gift you’ve left. The ruby shines in my belly button.

I wonder how soon you’ll discover what I left for you - the small stud in your left ear. Well, it didn’t seem right to leave it in your nose.

I look in the car mirror at my face, and I feel it’s the face I always should have had.

Next month, same time, same place. Different person.

The real me.