"Okay," I said to Lori, "this has been a lot of fun, but we've got to go back to work tomorrow and I'll sleep better if I'm in my own body."

"Hmm," she replied.  "I'd rather swap back in the morning.  After we shower, but before we get dressed -- I can dress that body and do its hair and makeup a lot faster if I'm in it."

"That would be fun, but no.  I didn't sleep very well the last couple of nights with these things on my chest."  (Not to mention the other things Lori and I were doing besides sleeping.)  "We can swap again next weekend."

"All right.  I'll go get the orb."

But a couple of minutes later she returned, saying, "Um, Pete... it's not where I left it.  Did you do something with it?"

"No," I said, my heart sinking.  "Let's go look for it."

An hour later, we sat down and stared dully at each other.

"I swear it was at the bottom of my underwear drawer the last time I saw it," she said.

"*My* underwear now, if we can't find it.  Yeah, I remember seeing it this morning when I got dressed.  But it's obviously not there now."

"If neither of us moved it... somebody must have broken in."

"Then they must have known exactly what they were going for.  They didn't touch your jewelry or our laptops...  What if it vanished the same way it appeared?"

"Let's not give up yet."

"All right.  But I'm too tired to search any more tonight."

We didn't have sex again that night, she just held me until we fell asleep.  Next morning, we called in sick to each other's bosses and spent the whole day turning the apartment inside out looking for the orb.  It wasn't anywhere.  We even searched my car, and went back to the restaurant to ask if a lost orb had been turned in.  Not that we expected it to turn up there -- we knew we hadn't taken it with us -- but we wanted to try everything.  We both remembered the door being locked and deadbolted when we got back from lunch, and when we tried the windows, they were still latched, and so stiff and sticky they obviously hadn't been opened in months.  So that ruled out burglary, not that it mattered.  The orb had vanished in the same mysterious way it appeared, and we were stuck in each other's bodies.

"So what do we do now?" I said, as we sat down to lunch.

"You'll have to teach me how to do your job, and all about the people you work with, and I... Um.  I can't teach you my job, so we'll have to come up with a good excuse for you to quit.  I'll have to teach you how to do your own hair and makeup instead of doing it for you like the last couple of days, and you'll need to teach me, um... how to keep this thing under control."  She shifted uncomfortably on her chair, her legs spreading wider.

I smiled.  "Yeah, we'll need to teach each other more about how to handle these bodies.  In a couple of weeks I'll need your help with tampons and stuff.  But I don't see why I should wear makeup just because I'm in your body."

"Well... we don't want people to notice anything weird about us."

"Yeah, I think that's a lost cause.  There's no way we can fool everybody into thinking I'm you and you're me.  And there's no way people aren't going to gossip about me suddenly quitting your job.  But... you love your job, why not keep doing it?"

"But how?  You don't have my qualifications..."

"We can tell people what happened to us.  We've both got enough friends and relatives who know us well that we can prove ourselves by answering questions only we would know the answers to.  Then with enough independent testimony, we can go public with it."

"But... nobody who doesn't know us really well will believe us!  Even we didn't know stuff like that orb existed until it showed up; *I* wouldn't have believed a story like this a week ago."

"Yeah, but going by the principle of mediocrity, we're certainly not the only people this has happened to.  Only none of them told anyone because they thought no one would believe them.  Somebody's got to break that vicious cycle, and why not us?"

"Or they *did* tell a few people and no one believed them, and they either shut up about it or got sent to insane asylums."

"Maybe.  But if we go public with testimony from our friends and relatives, I'm sure the orb's other victims will come out of the woodwork.  Then we can get the authorities to issue us new ID with each other's pictures, and go back to work at our old jobs."

She stared at me for a few seconds, then said: "It might work.  But what if it doesn't?  They might lock us up as crazy."

"If it looks like that's starting to happen, we can say it was all a hoax.  But even if we don't tell anyone we've swapped bodies -- or rather, can't convince anyone -- I don't think we can pretend that nothing has changed.  I can't do your job, and I don't think you'd be happy doing my job long-term.  Once I get another job to support us, you could go back to medical school; it should be a lot easier the second time around.  And another thing...  Are you comfortable in that body?"

Lori shifted in her chair and looked down at herself.  "Well... not as uncomfortable as I might have expected before this happened.  But not as comfortable as in my own body."

I nodded.  "Yeah, I've had a lot of fun in this body, when I've been alone with you... but when we went out dancing Saturday night, and the restaurant Sunday, that wasn't the most fun part of the experience.  Seeing how guys looked at me... even how women looked at me, them thinking I was a women, when I'm not.  Not inside."

Lori looked curiously at me.  "So... are you thinking of coming out as trans?"

"Yeah, probably.  Or maybe gender-fluid or non-binary.  I'll give it a few weeks to see if I get more used to your body, but I have a feeling I'll wind up donating those skirts and dresses to Goodwill.  And I don't know if I want surgery -- I'll do some more research and talk to people -- but I'm pretty sure I'll want hormone therapy.  What about you?"

"I don't know.  This body feels kind of weird, but trans people are discriminated against pretty badly... I don't know if it's worth putting up with that to get a rough approximation of the body I was born with."

"I'll support you whatever you decide."

"So will I."

We cleaned up the supper dishes and then sat on the couch, leaning against one another, not saying anything for a long time.