He began to explain what would happen, and I took a seat to hear his slow raspy lecture against a wall full of (rather appropriately), women's dresses.
When she arrived, we would be prepared and the transfer would be done. I would slip into her body, and to aid my immersion in her life, many of her memories would be overwritten mine about her routine and the requisites of her profession. Finally, he would alter out basic personalities' slightly to give us manerisms identical to one another's original forms. When he finally rounded his description to a close I sat back with a smile on my face and imagined the bathing beauty I was soon to become. Of course, I reasoned with a smile, I wouldn't have to worry about finding a girl in future. I'd need look no further than the mirror.
Then suddenly the door opened with a little jingle from the bell up by the ceiling. I turned my head to look from my vantage point, but the door got in the way, and all I could make out was that the new arrival was a woman through the misted glass. Her voice was feminine and a little posh, but I liked it. I was, by this time, totally taken with the idea of a quick sex change. She was dismissing someone who remained outside. They were to remain in the car while she was inside. She told them she would miss them and they seemd confused. At least she believed in this mumbo jumbo transmigration of spirits as well. I didn't feel quite so silly for believing it anymore.
Then she pushed back the door and stepped fully into view.
The first thing I noticed was her build. She was no bathing beauty this woman. She was plump, though not what you'd call fat, just fleshy. Her smooth arms were by no means slim but still held a form that made them pretty despite the extra bulk. Her legs were the same. Though fleshier than I might have hoped, they retained a curve that to me was still alluring. But her shape was only the first differance I had not expected. She was older than I was by at least fifteen years, maybe twenty or twenty five, it was difficult to tell. Her bearing was strong and matronly though very feminine, and suggested an older woman, or at least a woman used to getting her own way. This cut down my apprehension. Perhaps if I became her, this same will would be conveyed to me. Meanwhile, her skin had such a radiant, youthful quality, that her true age was difficult to determine.
She was wearing an expensive looking, fashionably cut (for an older woman) blouse. It was red and had sleeves that stopped half way down to the elbow and seemed to be made from silk by the way it gleamed in the light from outside which still streamed through the doorway, illuminating the shop and making it all the less oppressive, as it had been before. A black, business-like skirt hugged her hips down as far as her knees, just high enough to leave her curvaceous legs, wrapped in faded black stockings, in view from the calves down. Her feet finally, were in heels, the kind that were sort of half way between highs and flats.
Then her face, her skin was so lovely, not a blemish on it, no wrinkles that disturbed the picture, only tiny feathery etchings that marked the other features off. Her neck sagged beneath her chin in one curve that arched down to its base, a feature that often revolted me on most women and all men, but on her just seemed to go. Her nose was straight and ended in a point and added an almost regal air where a button nose might have destroyed the image; and resting lightly on top were a pair of large, round, deep brown spectacles. Another shock, another weakness, played off by her big brown eyes.
Her hair, finally, was a very dark, oaky brown, cut straight. She had a low fringe just above her eyebrows which arched up in a way that could only be described as sophisticated, and at the back it dropped directly down onto her shoulders and stayed there.
In sum, she was a beautiful woman despite her advanced years and even despite her figure. Every feature seemed so perfectly made, and then above that there were the little details enhanced by make-up. The glaze on her long fingernails, the deep red of her lips that had to be artificial, though it was so perfect and so subtle, all the make-up was, that it was difficult to tell if she was really wearing any. She looked like a woman who'd had plastic surgery, but instead of hopelessly reaching back for a prior age and look she couldn't hope to maintain, she had it merely to root herself firmly and elegantly in middle age.
She hadn't seen me at this point which was lucky because I was doubtless oggling her quite rudely which might have profoundly disturbed her. She let the door swing slowly shut behind her by itself. The bell jangled again on queue. She stood reverently in the middle of the floor and looked expectantly at the shopkeeper, who unphased by her attention was busily fiddling with something out of my view behind the desk. I still watched her from my vantage point off to her right, trying to place where I'd seen her before, when she turned her head slowly round until her eyes fell softly onto me. She looked at me severely at first which made me feel guilty for having been watching her with such a probing eye. Her big eyes were aflame behind the glass of her spectacles, the sides of her face warped out of sight by the thick lens.
I had been seduced by the possibility completely by this time, I stared at her dumbfounded, lost in her gaze, wondering what it would be like to see out through those big brown eyes myself. Then after a moment her expression changed, scrunching up for a moment, looking perplexed, then softening. And she smiled. I think I was in love already. Everything about her was bewitching, most of all the familiarity of her face. It was as if I'd known her all my life deep down.
I had never felt about a woman this way before. If the old man had not said it, if this was not what my future held in store by sheer chance, I would not have done. But I wanted her like I'd wanted no other woman in my life. I wanted to kiss her, caress her with my fingertips, I wanted to take her to my bed just to be with her. Everything about her was alluring, from her beauty of form, like an ancient statue, David, or Venus de Milo. But more than this I wanted to stay with her forever. Her personality, overwhelming me though she had yet to address me with her voice, was drawing me in. And even beyond this, I wanted to be her, to carry that body as elegantly and regally as she herself did.
Then she opened her mouth to speak and her almost husky, feminine voice came pouring out, refined and lovely.
"You're perfect," she said to me, still smiling benevolently. Then she turned and glanced back at the old man who remained behind his desk fiddling away. "He's perfect," she said to him. Then she looked back to me.
"Perfect;" and I felt exactly the same way about her.
Now, I'd been sitting all this time which suddenly seemed inappropriate. So rather anxiously now, I stood, coming up right in front of her. I blurted out an introduction when I could think of nothing else to say that seemed suitable.
"I know," she replied, and I remembered the phonecall during which he'd probably told her all the details I'd described to him when I first arrived.
"Well, erm, who.... who are you," I stammered. She smiled again at my shyness. I could see her wondering what it would be like to be me. Had a woman like this, so powerful in her bearing and words really chosen to be someone like me? Had she come in and asked for a young man in a boring job who's a little too repressed for his own good? Or was I the only thing closest to what she'd wanted that had come along in ages? The only man, if that was what she wanted. But I could see it was. Exactly what she wanted.
She was eyeing me with the same bird of prey look I'd gazed at her in minutes before. She was looking me up and down like the old man had when I arrived, making little calculations about my suitability, I was sure.
"My name," she said finally, "is Sarah. Sarah Jorden. Though only for a short while longer." The thought seemed to please her. This was a crazy business really, people swapping lives they presumably hated for someone else's life which they too would surely grow to hate over time. I could see this suddenly as a massive failing of the organisation, and might have left were it not for the presence of this woman before me, standing just close enough to kiss. The thought of doing so became suddenly overpowering. I wanted to reach out and take her in my arms, hold her to my chest. And I realised that was exactly what I was doing; and what is more, she wasn't resisting me.
Our lips met and something passed between us that I'd never felt with any other woman. It was as though our souls were connected, and a light poured up from them to illuminate even the darkest shadows over my spirit. I felt in that moment that I knew her completely, that her pain was mine. I loved her. The kiss was passionate and long and my eyes closed on the moment, and all I could feel now was joy, joy at finally finding someone, however superficially unsuitable who matched what I wanted completely.
Then suddenly, reality snapped back in as she pulled away.
I opened my eyes and blinked to clear them, but I couldn't see properly and there was something on my face. I reached up to feel it and stepped back trying to regain my balance, but as my hands came down on a pair of big round glasses and my vision cleared I put my foot down awkwardly and my ankle twisted as I started to fall backwards. And the last thing I saw as the world tilted was a vision of myself standing bewildered, looking after me with fear in my eyes.
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