Golden Gloom: WHORE - Finale

It felt so good.

In her filthy little shower room I looked at my reflection - at her reflection.

I had blond hair now and big tits. I cupped them in my slender fingers, closing my eyes, imagining it was a man doing it. I squeezed hard, like a big man would, clumsy and insensitive and gasped a little at the jerk of pain. I had the whore’s gaudy face and sagging neck. I was wearing her horribly revealing clothes. This was me now. It was MY body. MY face.

As I brought my arms up in front of me I marvelled at the differences I could see. The gaudy nail varnish. The exposed cleavage. My arms weren’t fat, but there was no muscle definition. My skin wasn’t firm at all. I could press my fingers into it. It felt so soft and smooth.

“I’m an ‘ore,” I said, grinning at the tawdry slag in the mirror that winked suggestively back at me. “I’m a slag. I’m nothing but a cheap fuckin’ prosie.”

Oh, this was good. It was really bloody good.

My voice had adapted. It wasn’t just the pitch and sound of it that I’d adopted; the physical effects of using her vocal chords. I had inherited her turn of phrase too.

That was the beauty of the Golden Gloom. The physical transformation was only the first step – the first barrier to cross. My mind had been altered too in ways that were ethereal and invisible, ways I couldn’t detect fully yet.

But I felt at ease, here in her flat. I knew my way around. I wasn’t a visitor here in any sense. I really had taken it on.

“I’m a tart,” I said. “I only charge fifteen quid for a shag. Just enough t’keep me in liquor and food. And fags.”

I laughed.

There was a wall now between me and my old persona. Everything about me had changed. It was as though I had temporarily unclipped the string of my destiny and replaced it with hers.

I shuddered, loving the wave of claustrophobia that came when I thought about that. Her destiny – mine.

If I never changed back then it would be me living this life forever, prostituting myself for business men and labourers and lesbians, caught up so tightly in her mind that I wouldn’t have the ability to get out.

But I knew the secret of the Golden Gloom. I knew how to return to my old life.

All I had to do was reverse the process – concentrate on the virtues of my old life over this one. As long as I didn’t lose myself in this new sinister role then I would always be able to go back.

As long as I didn’t lose myself…

*  *  *

In the kitchenette, I unwrapped one of the microwave dinners I’d watched her buy earlier and stuck it in to cook on full power. I tingled to think about how I was living out that fantasy now – that in minutes the image I had seen would be a real picture before my eyes. When it was ready I sat at the table, crossed one leg over the other and forked it into my mouth. I was bloody starved. I flicked the portable TV on the counter on with the remote control and watched a chat show.

What a tawdry fantasy it was - living the solitary life of whore - but I was experiencing it fully in that squalid little flat. It was like a masochistic dream come true.

When I finished it I opened the vodka and filled a large plastic tumbler from the cupboard. Then I plopped down again and carried on watching. There was nothing much on – nothing that would have satisfied me before. There were no current affairs programs or news shows. Not that I seemed to be interested anymore. Entertainment television was all I wanted now. I watched a TV show from start to finish about ordinary people trying to become professional singers. It was great! This whole thing was great! It was awe inspiring to realise how total the change was but I lapped it up, glorying in every minute as I got drunker and drunker, smoking fag after fag.

At about nine o’clock I reached for my cigarettes and found the packet empty. I groaned. I hadn’t planned to go out again. Now I was going to have to. I couldn’t make it through till dawn with no fags. I looked round for the whore’s handbag – for my handbag. It took me a minute of drunken fumbling to get hold of it.

When I opened it and grabbed my purse I got a rough sinking feeling. It was horribly light.

I unzipped the top. There was only thirty pence inside. No more.

I searched the rest of the flat. There was nothing else.

“Fuck a duck.” That put pay to that. There wasn’t even a cash card. Didn’t this whore even have a bank account? Where was the money I had given her? I couldn’t even find that anywhere.

I sat back down and tried to concentrate on what was on but I couldn’t focus. Two channels had news programs. One had a documentary about world war two or some shit and the other channel was nothing but static. On top of that I was desperate for a smoke. It made me fidgety. In the end I snapped the TV off.

I had to have some more cigarettes. I wouldn’t even be able to sleep without one to calm me down.

There was nothing else for it. I had to go out. I had to find some bloke to shag me so I had enough money.

Was this what I really wanted though? Had it really come to this – that I was prepared to prostitute my body to get a packet of cigarettes? Had I taken the whore’s addictions and lack of pride that I could consider doing that?

I thought about it for a minute.

Yes I had.

I was desperate. I was desperate enough to just fucking blow someone off just to get a single smoke.

And after all, wasn’t this what I wanted? Ultimately? Wasn’t this the reason why I became a whore? To fuck some fat hairy bastard because if I didn’t I’d be penniless?

Yes it was.

And I was going to do it. I was going to go out there and find me someone to fuck.

*  *  *

The wardrobe amounted to a curtained recess in the wall – nothing more than that.

There were shoes piled up on the floor. Half of them looked old and scuffed. There didn’t seem to be any sensible shoes at all. I picked out a pair of black stilettos. They were the least scuffed and I wanted to show off my legs as much as I could.

I took out a black leather mini-skirt and a boob tube and put them on. The heels fit like a dream. They raised me right up and I had no trouble walking in them. Why would I? I was used to this. I went out almost every night walking the streets in them.

I strutted up the room and back again. Then I touched up my make-up in the toilet mirror.

I looked like a real tart. I was irresistible. It was a shame I was starting to sag a bit. I remembered the old days when I first started turning tricks. I had the looks then. Oh yes. There wasn’t any man that could resist me.

No. Wait. Was that right?

No it wasn’t. It wasn’t right. I hadn’t always been like this. I was a respectable middle class person. I wasn’t a mangy slag – not normally. This was just temporary.

I put my hands on my cheeks and looked at myself in the mirror. “Stay focused,” I said to myself. “I’m not really an ‘ore. It’s only tempr’y. It’s just the Golden Gloom, readjustin’ me memries. Me name’s really Susie Smith.”

I stared at myself. “NO!”

“That’s ‘er name, not mine. My name’s not Susie Smith. It’s Veronica Simpson. I changed it ta Susie cause Veronica wasn’t sexy enough and I didn’t want me mum or someone findin’ out I was a prossie.”

I shut my eyes. That wasn’t right either.

It was so hard to focus looking at that face in the mirror. How could I concentrate on my real identity if I could see another person’s face staring back at me?

I wasn’t a prostitute. I was an office worker. I focused hard, making myself remember my co-workers – my teenage son. This was working. It was going to be okay.

The need for a cigarette was making it hard. My whole body was buzzing. The liquor wasn’t helping me either. At this rate I was never going to be able to focus my mind enough to change back to my real body in the morning.

I wiped my eyes and turned so I could rest my bum on the edge of the sink.

What I needed was to get a new pack of fags. When I was relaxed I’d be able to concentrate more. That was what I had to do.

This had scared me. I had known it was going to happen but the total immersion was far more frightening than I had expected. It made me realise how dangerous my situation was. I should call this off. I should call this off as soon as I could.

Get the fags then turn back to normal as soon as I could concentrate. That was what I had to do.

But of course to get the fags I had to find someone to fuck me for money. That scared me too. What if I lost myself in the experience? What if I couldn’t find my way back?

But I had to. After I had done it I could buy the cigarettes and get my brain in order. By that time I would have sobered up some.

And, I reminded myself, it was foolish to give this experience up before I had fully experienced it. If I did this – had sex before I went back, at least I could feel that I had DONE it.

But I looked at my new face in the mirror again. I looked at the big tits and the smooth round shoulders. I looked down at the exposed fleshy midriff, long bare legs and high heels.

I didn’t know who I was kidding. My entire being wanted to get out there and fuck some big hairy man.

Nothing else mattered.

*  *  *

The wind was cold on my legs and shoulders and on my chest. My hair whipped up around my face and then down on my back. I crossed my arms.

I hadn’t wanted to wear a coat. The sexier I was, the quicker I could get it done. The more flesh I revealed, the sexier I was. That was how it worked.

Having said that, it gave me a buzzing thrill to be walking the streets of Barton, looking for a man to have sex with. Sitting in the whore’s flat, eating her food, had been one thing – looking at her face in the mirror. This was real though now. I was really a prostitute. More than anything – more than the act itself - this night time wandering was as close as I could get to living the dream.

I passed houses with lights on inside. Families were eating their dinners or watching television. Through open windows I could hear laughter and talk. My former abode had been far more upmarket than these terraced hovels, but even so, the interactions playing out inside were similar to my old life. I sneered at them. I wasn’t one of them anymore. I didn’t give a shit about anything they thought of. I didn’t have to look after anyone but myself. I was free. And I wasn’t one of those fucking prudish housewives frigidly refusing to put out on demand. I wasn’t repressed. Sex was just another way of making money to me. That was all.

I crossed over and headed down the next road. It was more of a major byway and I was hoping for more traffic. I hadn’t seen a single car yet.

A pair of headlights appeared in the distance. I struck a sultry pose and waited.

They got closer. My nerves started grating. I wished I had a cigarette, but I didn’t.

I made my gritted teeth into a smile.

The car was no more than twenty yards away now.

It slowed down.

I put my hands on my hips.

The car pulled up at the curb and stopped. It was a Mercedes.

The electronic window whirred as it dropped down. The driver leaned toward me. He was young and good looking. It was really my lucky night.

“You looking for a good time?” I said.

“Step closer. I can’t see you properly in the dark.”

I did. As I stepped into the light, my smile broadened. I was looking forward to getting fucked by this man. He looked real good and he was rich. He might leave me a massive tip.

But when he saw my face in the light, the smile faltered on his face. He looked down at my boobs and my pot belly and withdrew quickly. “Sorry,” he said, “I made a mistake.”

He revved the powerful engine and pulled away.

“Fucking cunt!” I shouted after him, shaking my fist.

He wouldn’t look much better if he’d been walking the streets for the past fifteen years like I had.

“Fucking cunt!” I screamed.

The car turned the corner and disappeared. Some woman opened her curtains to look at what was going on. I stuck my fingers up at her then trudged off.

*  *  *

It wasn’t until an hour and a half more had passed that I found someone to shag me and I was bloody freezing.

I was a short way up a side street, leaning against the low wall of a churchyard, rubbing the backs of my arms to keep warm, when I heard the choking grumble of an engine on the main road. Feeling desperate, I dashed as fast as I could in my heels back to the junction. My run was ungainly and careless, all sense of poise forgotten. A middle-aged woman walking her dog tutted at me but I didn’t give a shit. She was a stuck up bitch by the look of her. She didn’t have any fucking clue what it was like for a woman like me.

There was a Transit van chugging down the street toward me. I did my best to look alluring. He slowed down as he got closer. My earlier rejections had taken the shine off my confidence but I forced myself to look ready for a good fucking.

The van stopped. The window ran down with an undulating squeak. It was manually operated. The driver shuffled over onto the nearside seat. “’Ello darlin’.” He was a big fat man with lank receding hair and an unshaven double chin.

I did my best to maintain my pleasant expression, even though he disgusted me. I had to get some money – had to get those fags. “Lookin’ for some company?” I said and winked.

“Yeah. You offering?”

I looked at his bloated stomach and up at his hairy face. Then I nodded. “If you’ve got the cash, yeah.”

“You live round here?”

I pointed. “Just up there.”

“I’ll park up. Hold on.”

He slid back into the driver’s seat and swung the van into a parking position while I stood on the curb, waiting; asking myself if this was really what I wanted. Was I really so desperate for a fag?

Trouble was that I WAS desperate. I’d tried quitting a hundred times and it never took. I’d never had a period of not smoking more than three days since I was twelve years old. It was as much a part of me now as whoring was. I’d never known anything different.

I didn’t know what I was worried about. I’d had men far fatter and hairier than him fuck me before. This was just business as usual. Once I got some cash I’d be able to buy in some nice stuff – maybe enough liquor and fags to keep me going til the end of the week.

I walked over to the van as the bloke got out. He grinned at me. “Which way?”

I put my arm through his. “This way darlin’. Come with me.”

*  *  *

I led him up to my flat and let him go through the door first.

His clothes were unwashed. They stunk of grease and B.O. It turned my nose up, especially now we were indoors. His trousers were straining round his arse, the upper curve of each buttock visible. It was the price I had to pay to do my job though wasn’t it? And I knew I couldn’t get anything else. I’d tried enough times. They didn’t even want me in fast food restaurants and the way I talked, I couldn’t get anything in a shop. No. It was this or nothing.

But wait again. This wasn’t right. I was losing myself! How long had I gone now, believing I really was this whore? How deeply had her memories and thoughts overwritten mine? Did I have time to have sex and get to the shop and back to buy the cigarettes I needed to calm my nerves before the process became permanent? Maybe I should get rid of him – try again to change myself back.

I looked at him. He was taking his sweaty shirt off. He dropped it on the floor at the foot of my mattress. “Hurry up. Me wife’s gonna want to know what’s happened to me if we’re not quick.”

“Er… Would you mind if we didn’t do this after all,” I said timidly.

“Wot did you say?” The pleasant expression dropped off his face.

I suddenly felt very nervous. “Er… I changed my mind. I don’t wanna do this.”

He snarled, continuing to undo his jeans. “You’re not fucking backing out now you stupid bitch. I’m paying good money for this.”

“Please.”

He dropped his jeans round his ankles and stepped out of them. “You are a whore ain’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“Wot? Speak up?”

“Yeah. I’m an ‘ore.”

“Then fuckin’ get over here and put out.”

I lifted my hands in front of me. “Please. I don’t want to do this.”

He charged up to me and grabbed my wrist. “You fuckin’ will.”

I cried out as he pulled me forward. I toppled, losing my balance and fell down onto the mattress on my hands and knees.

The man came up behind me. I craned round to look what he was doing, terrified. This wasn’t what I wanted. I didn’t want to be a prostitute anymore. He reached into his pants and pulled his thick cock out. Then he came right up behind me, reached under my skirt and pulled my knickers roughly down around my thighs.

I cried out, suddenly aroused, startling myself. Suddenly I wanted this.

Ooo yeah. I wanted him to fuck me.

No! That wasn’t right! I wasn’t a whore.

He grabbed my buttocks painfully. Yeah. That was how I liked it.

“Do it to me,” I said.

“I’m fuckin’ gonna,” he snarled and shoved his cock into me.

I gasped as he thrust in and out and with each pump I felt myself fall deeper and deeper into this new, unnatural urges.

The Golden Gloom was taking over, wiping out my old memories – wiping out my original desires.

I’d made a mistake. I’d been foolish to think I could control this.

I was losing sight of who I was. I was forgetting that I wasn’t a whore.

Suddenly I knew that this was it. If I didn’t break off now then I never would be able to. I’d be stuck in this squalid little flat for the rest of my sordid life. I’d never get away. I’d be a prostitute forever.

I tried to pull away but the man kept me in place with his massive arms. He slapped my ass hard and I gasped from the pleasure mingled with pain.

All these years and most kinds of sex didn’t do much for me. It was just a job. But being fucked from behind by a big ogre like this still turned me on. It got me so hot. I loved it.

He kneaded my bum with his massive hairy hands. With each thrust he let out a deep animal grunt. With each thrust I cried out in ever increasing pleasure.

“Oh yeah. Do it to me you big man! Yeah!”

“You fuckin’ little whore! You’re nothing but a little whore!”

“Yeah. I like that. Do it to me! Fuck me!”

“You fuckin’ tramp! You fuckin’ whore! You worthless slag!”

He pulled out and span me round, pinning me down, my bare knees pointing up next to his waist. Then he thrust in again.

I couldn’t move. His stinking heavy body had me completely pinned. I couldn’t get away.

It was too late. Too late.

I was never going to get away.

I was never going to be able to return to my old life.

I should never have invoked the Golden Gloom.

There was no way to beat it. No way to escape it.

It had obliterated my old life and trapped me in this gaudy new one.

The man thrust one final time, roaring with pleasure and I screamed.

I was so hot.

I loved it so much. The degradation. The loss of power.

This was what I wanted.

This was who I was.

There was nothing else.

And I loved it.

I did it well and it gave me all the money I needed for vodka and fags.

I was a whore. That was all I was. Nothing but a stupid worthless whore!

Nothing but a whore!

And I always would be.

Golden Gloom: WHORE - Part One

I was almost certain she was a whore and that tantalised me - that I was spying on her without her knowledge. It thrilled me almost as much as fingering the slip of paper in my pocket, knowing about the power the unnatural words on it contained. 

I asked myself, just for a moment, what it would be like to read out those words and summon the power of the Golden Gloom, to let it transform my life into hers.

She was in Asda, wearing a trashy sleeveless top with a deep v-neck. Her slightly rounded midriff was exposed above and below her navel. She wore leggings and a pair of block heeled open toed shoes. She had an unlit cigarette in her mouth. In the fingers of her right hand, as she pushed her trolley, she played with a cheap disposable lighter, turning the wheel over and over, not making enough spark to form a flame.

She was in her early thirties, her body fairly slim but untoned. She didn’t go to the gym. She didn’t go jogging. Her chin was starting to take on a thirties sag.

I walked along behind her, keeping close, already captivated, as she moved through the aisles. She didn’t walk like a model, one foot directly in front of the other, but her movements were feminine. She ran her index finger along items on the shelf, tapping a dark red nail on the items she wanted when she found each one.

I watched as she dropped two microwave dinners into her trolley and then made her way down the toiletries aisle. I nodded to myself when she picked up two six-packs of condoms.

Nothing but a whore.

It gave me a thrill to be stalking her like this, for me to know what she was and for her to be unaware that I was watching. I felt so dirty. Illegal dirty – like I was a kidnapper or something worse.

She picked up a family bag of Doritos, then I followed her into the alcohol aisle. She stopped and picked up a ten pound bottle of vodka. Then she glanced at me.

I didn’t instantly look away. I was so surprised.

We held eye contact for almost five seconds.

Then she looked away.

She didn’t know me. All she saw was another anonymous shopper. There was nothing strange about me at all.

Before she looked away I caught a flicker of something in her face.

What was it?

Envy?

Probably.

To look at me she would plainly see that I had more than she would ever possess.

Her handbag was splitting at the seams. Her clothes needed washing. I could see her dismal future in every element of her body and motion.

I let her pull away and then gradually went after her, pulling into the checkout queue just behind her, quickly grabbing some chocolates and a magazine to put in my basket so nobody would notice I hadn’t picked anything up.

The whore was right in front of me.

I stepped close to her, my face only inches away from the shiny artificial fabric of her shoulder straps. I looked at her pale skin, at the loose blond hair gathered on her shoulders and breathed in slowly, smelling her scent. I didn’t recognise the perfume but it was cheap. Beneath it I could sense wisps of body odour, not completely masked.

The checkout lady put the microwave dinners through.

I imagined this whore, sitting alone at her kitchen table, eating them. I imagined being her, seeing her hands in front of me, lifting the food to my mouth.

The checkout beeped as the Doritos and vodka went through.

Later she might be sitting in front of the TV, vegetating, drinking alone and stuffing Doritos into her rude mouth, alternating puffs of her cigarette and swigs of vodka from the bottle. In my mind it was me sitting there, feet out in front of me, ankles crossed, chipped nail polish on my exposed toes, bottle in hand.

Finally, the checkout lady put the condoms through and I let my mind wander onto what the whore would do with them.

It aroused me, standing there, smelling her, picturing being her, having some huge man pin me down and—

She looked at me, her face sneering. Her voice sneered too. “Wot you lookin’ at? You gotta problem?”

I flushed. “Sorry, no. Just daydreaming.”

She turned away, dropping a handful of creased five-pound notes on the conveyor belt.

I watched her walk away then quickly paid for my own items.

In the ground floor car park under the store my teenage son was waiting where I’d left him, slumped in the passenger seat of our BMW, the Times weekend supplement so close to his face he heard me rather than saw me get in. “You took your time.”

“Shut up.”

I started the engine.

My whore was near the edge of the car park, one bag of shopping dangling from each hand. I pulled out and followed from a discrete distance. Still buried in the paper, my son didn’t even notice.

*  *  *

Life at home was dreadfully dull. There was no sex life to speak of, nothing to capture my spirit or imagination. I’d been fantasising about undergoing a transformation for months and now, finally I’d actually spotted a candidate. I couldn’t believe it. It was so odd to have a fantasy - to lie awake thinking about it amid the snores coming from the bed beside me. But to actually see a real whore? To have this opportunity? It was unreal.

I didn’t know what the Golden Gloom really was. Nobody did. What little information I had managed to glean on the internet about it suggested quirky mystical limitations on knowledge and questions better left unasked. Ridiculous obviously. Any kind of magic had to have science at its root if the deepest secrets were known. This was no different. There were no unfathomable powers here. The mystery was an illusion. On the other hand, that didn’t make it any more understandable to me.

The Golden Gloom seemed to be a random force, choosing subjects without logical reason. If there were patterns to be seen, none of the sources I could find revealed them. The only positive link was envy - more often than not the filthy masochistic attraction to something vulgar but enticing.

A man might become the stripper he gapes at night after night, wondering how it would feel to be so tawdry.

A duchess might become the immigrant maid who struggles on hands and knees to clean the filthy tiles under the toilet, whose life is so perfectly simple.

An abused child might become its violent alcoholic father, meting out brutal punishment just as he did as his instincts became its own.

And I might become a trashy illiterate prostitute, selling my cheap body to big hairy men whose social skills can’t get them gratification elsewhere.

The Golden Gloom chose it subjects, latched onto their secret envies and transformed all reality around them, thrusting them into this new life they had lusted after completely, blanketing their own thoughts and feelings with those of their target.

I longed to experience this immersion too. I longed to give up everything that made me who I was and immerse myself in that loose and flagrant life for a while.

I wanted to be that whore.

And I had the means to do it – to summon the power, rather than waiting for its random turning to choose me.

And I could do it now.

I had possessed the incantation necessary to summon the Golden Gloom for three weeks now. Day after day I had looked around for a person I might want to try becoming. None had grown to obsess me. In the last week though, I had started to fantasise all the time about leaving behind my respectable persona, just for a night, and becoming a whore. Just for a night, but how fantastic would that experience be? It would be more powerful than anything I’d ever experienced before – a profound departure from the dullness of my luxurious normal life.

It was the most absorbing thing I’d ever considered.

*  *  *

And now here she was, the woman I was going to become.

I watched her go into her house and then pulled up outside.

It was a tall decaying building on the edge of the Barton area of town, vegetation eating into the plasterwork façade, just one of hundreds like it all over the district, aching to give in to time and collapse. The whole suburb was settling into obscene degradation, both the building and the carnal, lower class inhabitants. In an otherwise beautiful town, famous for its lovely golden beaches, Barton was a bruise of alcoholism, drug abuse and unemployment. It was the home of the oily factory workforce and their slutty checkout-operator wives. I normally stayed well clear of it. It was oddly horrifying to consider becoming one of its inhabitants, even temporarily.

“Wait here,” I said, “I’ll be right back.”

My son grunted as I got out and walked up the steps to the front door. I don’t think he’d once looked me in the eye all day.

The whore had left the front door open. The hallway was obviously shared. Every door I saw had a number on it. It was as squalid and dirty on the inside as it had been on the exterior. The dust was like a thin black liquid, spreading like inverted roots into the grain of the white panelling and the banisters. I kept my arms close to my body.

She was nowhere to be seen but I heard footsteps on the stair and followed her up two flights. I rounded the corner onto the second floor in time to see a door close. That was it.

My head became light. My stomach gurgled, making me suddenly nauseous.

This was the moment.

I reached into the pocket of my jeans and took out the rectangular scrap of paper with the incantation on. Just five words, each one cut into difficult to pronounce fleshy sounds by multiple apostrophes. I hadn’t dared read more than a single word before now and even that had had queer effects on the pressure and heat of the room I was in.

It was impossible to tell if the twisting constriction in my belly was fear or excitement. I knew how powerful the forces I was about to invoke were. If one word of the spell could have such a potent effect, what would be the result of all five?

Just read it out and then put myself in a position where my lust for becoming this one could guide the enchantment – that was all I had to do now. Just read it out.

In my shaking outstretched hand, the already jumbled letters blurred. I had to concentrate to keep it still.

To become that whore for a night. To experience everything that she did. To possess that slutty body as though it were my own. To do the things that she did as though I were really her.

That was why I was doing this. That was why I had to focus.

I steadied the paper with my other hand then started to read.

As the first word came out of my mouth I grimaced, terrified of some terrible blow, but it didn’t come. I paused.

Then I felt the flush of heat build up on my face like a summer breeze and the build up of pressure in my ears and at the top of my throat. I swallowed, trying to clear the close sensation then swallowed again.

I read the second and third words quickly, flecks of spittle jumping from my lips as I struggled to get my tongue round the odd syllables.

A shudder passed through the house. It was visible – a physical wave travelling through the walls and bare floorboards. The wood creaked, straining. What dust there was that wasn’t moist rose into the air.

The forth word was brief. It came easily to my lips. I waited for some kind of effect on my surroundings but there was none.

I looked at the last word on the paper in front of me. Only that one more and then I wouldn’t be able to go back on myself. I couldn’t even be sure if the effect of the Golden Gloom, once manifested, would focus itself on this location or on me. The words on the paper that I had already read were starting to glow a bright yellow. Narrow tendrils of smoke rose from the paper close to my fingers.

If I stopped now, what would happen?

I was scared.

I wanted to go on but… This was too much.

I read the final word – the fifth word.

The letters of it flashed yellow and then white. Then the paper caught on fire.

I cried out, letting go but the burning paper didn’t drop. It rose up in front of me to eye level, turning.

Turning.

Burning.

Then it was gone.

The house became silent and still.

It was done.

There was no reversing it now.

The Golden Gloom was coming.

It was already here.

*  *  *

I stared at the back of my fist, poised close to the flaking white wood of the door.

Each thing I did took me closer to becoming her – to being sucked into that body and life. Each step was a step I couldn’t take back.

My brain was shaking, telling me over and over to walk back out to my car but my body ignored it, consumed by the arousal that was building between my legs and spreading down my thighs.

I knocked.

A woman’s voice swore on the other side of the door and then grumbled. Footsteps came closer.

It crossed my mind suddenly that she might think I was a customer. I didn’t have that much money on me but that made me chuckle. She looked cheap. In all likelihood I had more than enough.

When the door opened, the whore gaped, her round painted mouth hanging open, her hair and top forming a frame around the oval of pale flesh her face, neck and bosom made. She recognised me straight away.

“Wot the fuck is this?”

“Er, excuse me,” I said, blurting, wishing I’d planned what I was going to say. “I’m sorry to bother you. Can I come in?”

“Who are you? Wot do you want? You followin’ me? I saw you in Asda.”

“I’m really sorry about this. It must look terrible. Here,” I took out a couple of twenties, “I just want to talk.” She eyed the money. I handed it to her. “Just talk.”

She looked me up and down, took the money and shrugged. “What the fuck.” She walked back inside and I followed her in.

It was an attic room with no carpet and no shade on the overhead lamp. What amounted to a kitchen was arranged in a cavity at one end of the room: off-white fridge and cooker with rusty hinges. There was a bare wooden table and a mattress on the floor under the window. What would it be like to live here?

I couldn’t wait to find out.

“It’s very nice.”

“Don’t be sarky. What the fuck d’ya want?” She looked at me suspiciously, arms folded, ankles crossed, bum on the edge of the table.

All I had to do was keep this going until the power had the chance to take effect. I felt terrified for a moment. My fantasies had got me in trouble before but I was fired up. This was very rash and stupid of me - I knew, but my life was so boring - I needed a release of some kind.

“I want to sit and look at you. Nothing more.”

“Wot?”

“Just look at you. Is the money I gave you enough or do you want more?”

Her eyes flicked to the side then back at me, deliberating. “Just look at me.” She shrugged. “Wot you gave me’ll do for now.”

I took a chair and sat opposite her. She looked uncomfortable, not used to this kind of procedure but didn’t object enough to lose the money I’d given her.

There was no trace of the darkening room my research had told me had accompanied the effects of this strange force yet, but I knew I had to dwell on what I found attractive about being here. That would somehow invoke it.

I looked at her, at her large, slightly saggy breasts, at the sallow sides of her face. She wore too much eye make-up. She didn’t care that her clothes were gaudy and far too revealing. How good would it feel to be able to strut around like that without caring?

The only light in the room came from the curtainless window. It grew a shade dimmer as though a cloud had passed over the sun.

She frowned glancing toward it.

As her neck twisted I looked at the smooth contour of her face, following the moulding of her skin over what lay beneath. I looked at her sleeveless top, at the exposed upper bulge of her breasts, her round shiny shoulders. Her entire attitude drooped listlessly. Carelessly. Her hands rested palm up, fingers curled on her thighs. I could see her scarlet nail varnish, the nails irregular.

So different from me. So different from who I was.

The room darkened again.

“Looks like rain,” she said.

The room was so squalid. My home was perfectly neat, perfectly clean. To not care about that. To leave dirty pots in the sink. To ignore the black spots of damp spreading up the walls.

The room took on a dim golden sunset glow. The air became heavy, thick, difficult to see through beyond the blur. Strange black shadows crept around the edges of the whore’s face and arms.

A jet of panic and arousal fed into my system. It was really happening! It was really true!

I lifted my own hands in front of me. My sleeves were rippling like sand in an earthquake. The blackness was spreading in both directions from my elbows.

As it passed it left my arms bare and pale. It crept into my hands and fingers, narrowing them. My nails shifted into facsimiles of hers.

It was happening! But I was terrified! It was too much!

I didn’t want to be this whore. I wanted to be myself. I didn’t want to live in this garret room amid the filth and the cockroaches.

The black rippling subsided. The room brightened. I pushed up from my chair, trying to clear my mind of any image of being her.

I didn’t want it anymore. I didn’t want to get sucked in.

The light in the room returned to normal, leaving me on my feet, hand on my chest, panting.

Panting.

It was my hand I was looking at. Not hers. Mine.

Thank God.

“Wot the fuck’s goin’ on with you?” sneered the whore. “Why don’t ya relax?”

I felt totally detached. My body had instantly formed a sweat. I could feel the droplets on my forehead.

This was too much. I didn’t like it. I didn’t want to be her. I didn’t want to be a prostitute. Why would I? I wouldn’t.

I pressed my hands to my forehead.

Was it possible that I was being influenced somehow? Maybe I’d misinterpreted the power of the Golden Gloom all along. Maybe all the sources I had read had.

What if it didn’t respond to unnatural desires to assume new lives? What if it inspired those sinister feelings in the first place?

I sat down.

The whore was looking at me, perplexed. She took a chair and set it down right in front of me and sat so that her legs overlapped mine, one knee to the outside of my left leg, the other knee between my thighs, close to my groin. She put her hand on my knee. “Relax. It’s alright. You need t’relax. Here, let me help ya.”

She moved her hand further up my leg then stroked down again.

I felt better immediately. It was calming, no matter how strange and absurd it might have seemed if I’d been given time to think. My pulse slowed but the sweat didn’t dry. I was on edge but that disassociation opened a window to the arousal that started to spread out again from my crotch. I shuddered and sighed.

It did feel good. It felt really good.

She licked her lips and her hand moved up to her breast. “Ya like t’watch me don’t ya? You was watchin’ me in Asda.”

I nodded.

“You wanna see me better don’t ya? You wanna see me play with meself.” She touched her breast through her top and moaned. “Oh yeah, that’s good.”

My arousal was building. Her hand stroked closer and closer to my groin. I couldn’t take my eyes off the pale skin on the back of her hand and of her fingers as she kneaded her tit.

I was getting more and more turned on, losing myself in this experience that I hadn’t planned on.

Then from the back of my mind, like settling damp, the thought closed round my mind. It seeped in and wrapped its tendrils around my conscious mind so subtly that I barely felt it.

I wondered how it would feel to be playing with her tits as though they were mine - moaning in melodramatic sordid pleasure.

I watched her fingers, kneading, at her tongue, moistening her open lips, at her half-closed eyes, make-up overdone and garish.

I tried to push this impulse to the side - tried to disown it. I knew that the Golden Gloom was influencing my thoughts. But I couldn’t stop it rising – taking over. I didn’t want this desire to go away. I wanted her so bad. I wanted to be her – to do these repulsive things that she was doing – to live the life that she was living. Just for one night.

I couldn’t help myself.

The room darkened but I didn’t care.

Her hand moved from my leg to her crotch. She rubbed at her clitoris through the fabric of her leggings then she plunged her hand under her waistband and let out another moan. Mirroring her movement I thrust my own hand down into the front of my jeans. My other hand went to my chest and in my mind’s eye I had her plump breasts in my fingers, I was feeling the same arousal that she was.

The room became darker still. The golden half-light rose, covering everything. I closed my eyes and moaned.

I didn’t care if it did it to me. I wanted it to. I wanted to be this slag – this whore. I wanted the Golden Gloom to take away everything that was mine and give me everything that was hers – her slutty body and clothes, her cramped and dirty flat and most of all, her occupation. I wanted to sell myself for money. I wanted to let go to every lustful impulse I had and expose myself to the control of every man with enough money to pay.

Through my closed lids I saw the blackness close over my face.

I was getting close to the edge. My orgasm was going to crest.

My moans were building, louder and louder and so were the whore’s. Louder and louder. Louder and louder.

Then in a quiet explosion, her cries vanished and mine took over. I screamed as I came, over and over and my scream was her scream. It was a whore’s scream.

I opened my eyes, the orgasm still coursing through me. I could hardly breathe.

I was her. I was the whore. Her tit was in my hand. It was my tit. My hand was down the front of her leggings. They were my leggings. My legs. My body.

I’d become her.

I was gasping.

The orgasm was shifting in waves.

I felt so totally completely alive.

And then as completely as it consumed me, the feelings passed.

And I realised I was alone.

The chair opposite me was empty.

The door to the flat snapped closed. I looked toward the noise, startled.

The room was empty.

I was completely alone.

I got up and started to run to the window and stumbled immediately, almost falling. I was suddenly wearing blocky open toed heels. My entire centre of balance was thrown off. I looked down at the chipped red nail polish, the bare toes, the bare ankles. I could barely see them beyond these huge breasts.

But I put those things out of my mind. I staggered to the window, lurching in the unorthodox shoes and grabbed the window sill to avoid falling.

Outside I saw my car – the car I’d followed the whore home in. Through the front windscreen I could see a blur of white – my son’s newspaper.

Then I heard the front door of the house slam and gaped down at the figure that emerged and walked out to my car.

The figure didn’t rush or stagger and it didn’t turn back or look up at where I watched, but I knew it was me.

The figure got into the car and I watched it pull away. I watched it until it was out of sight and it was only really then that it hit me – that I was left here in this squalid little room by myself. I was left here because I didn’t belong in that car with a teenage son and a nice big house on the seafront. I belonged here amid the grime and damp. I belonged in this cramped little prostitute’s den.

Because I was a prostitute now.

I had become the whore that lived here.