Ordinary

This is my first story on Literotica. I hope you enjoy it. Please leave comments and praise at the end. I'm sure unhelpful criticism has its place in hell, but I'll read that too. All participants in sexual activities are willing and over 18.

He was an ordinary man. He had no major accomplishments. He had no extraordinary talents. He had no major character flaws. He was an average height, average build, average eye color, hazel, and hair color, brown with red highlights. He was neither a genius, nor was he an idiot. He had survived no major traumas, and had no physical deformities or handicaps to overcome. He didn't count his gender dysphoria, as he had never acted on it.

He was an ordinary man.

He hated it. He longed for extremes, something to mark the passage of time. He needed something that would make his heart beat faster, something to stir him to life and passion. He felt numb. He longed for adventure.

James sat in his car, parked in a lot at a scenic overlook somewhere in the Rocky Mountains. Looking out at the landscape around him, a view that had moved untold numbers of people, inspiring them to compose art and poetry, he felt something stir in his chest. There was something here that he longed for, something that would make him whole.

Looking at his cell phone on the passenger seat next to him, he recalled the last phone call he had with his boss.

"James, you're good at what you do," Mark had said. "You complete your work on time and it is always satisfactory. You've never given me a reason to regret hiring you." He paused.

"But?" James had prompted, knowing he wasn't going to like what Mark had to say.

"But," Mark had said. "You could be so much better. You know our systems better than anyone, and have made some improvements to our processes that no one had thought of before. As good as that is, and it is very good, I want you to take some time. Take some time to figure out what will light your heart on fire. Take some time to figure out who you are, and why you want to be that person."

James' heart stuttered a little. "You're firing me?"

"No no no!" Mark hurried to reassure his best employee. "Not even a little bit! I want you to be better than you already are. If you weren't so competent, I would never even have thought to offer you this. I just see something in you that could be great, and I want to help you find it." Something in that statement felt a little off, but James didn't know what it could be.

"How? How do I do that?"

"I don't know. That is something you will need to figure out on your own. Take as much time as you need, your job will be here for you when you get back, no matter what you find. Just do me a favor?"

"What favor?"

"Check in every now and then, will you? I care about you and your well being. It would put my mind at ease knowing that you're okay."

James drew in a deep breath and held it while he thought. He had some money saved. Living alone had its perks, so he didn't need to worry about that. What harm could it do? He thought. I take a vacation and do a little soul searching? That can't be a bad thing, right? James let his breath out slowly in a quiet sigh. "Alright, Mark. I'll do it. I don't know what I'm going to be looking for, but I'll find it."

"Good. I know you'll find that spark that will set your whole world alive. Good luck, James."

"Thanks, Mark. I'll see you when I get back."

After the phone call ended, James had sat still, staring at nothing, his mind completely blank. He sat there for hours, numb and thinking. He had no one to ask for advice from. He didn't have a significant other and it had been quite a while since he had. He had had relationships with both men and women, but had never really felt a spark, a reason to stay. Although he had had several pleasant experiences, they just weren't enough to make up for a deep lack of passion. He was estranged from his adoptive parents due to their behavior during the divorce. No siblings, no extended family, and no close friends, he was alone unless he was at work.

Finally, seeking to distract himself, he turned on the television. There was a show on about America's National Parks. The episode that had been playing was about Yellowstone and showed the majestic grandeur of the Rocky Mountains.

"It's as good a place as any," he said to no one.

He packed up a few changes of clothes and headed out to his local sporting goods store. There he purchased a hiking pack and some camping gear. He hadn't been camping since he had been a small boy, but he remembered a lot of what was necessary.

James made a quick stop at the grocery store and purchased travel food, high in protein, that wouldn't spoil. He gassed up his old car and turned toward the west. It was going to be a long drive, but he didn't have a reason to linger in town.

Driving till he was tired, he had pulled over and climbed into the back seat to take a nap. Waking up, he relieved himself, and continued driving west. He had gone on that way until he had reached this place. He hadn't had a destination in mind. This was more about the journey, anyway.

James looked out at the vista and shook himself free of his maudlin thoughts. He pulled the key from the ignition and climbed out of the car. Grabbing his pack out of the back seat, he locked the doors and hid the key on top of the driver's side front wheel.

He shouldered his pack, made his final adjustments, and vaulted lightly over the guard rail and made his way out into the wild lands of the Rocky Mountains.

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James hiked out into the wild mountains, off trail, with no map. An experienced backcountry mountaineer would have said that it was tantamount to suicide. James just did not care about where he was going. Every time he had doubts about which direction to take, he felt a little spark in his chest, a little spot of warmth. He followed it, not knowing what it actually was, not caring what it was.

Walking through the surprisingly open landscape, he let his mind wander wherever it wanted. Without doing it consciously, he opened his heart to the land around him, letting his thoughts be what they would be. He observed the natural world around him without making any judgements or analysis.

He hiked for several days, letting his mind rest while his body worked. As he got further from the world behind him, he felt that little spark grow into a gentle flame. It was a pleasant warmth that didn't burn him. He found himself smiling more and more, finding a peace that he hadn't known he was missing. The only sour note was being constantly reminded of his male body.

He had known he was different from the other boys from a very early age. His mind worked differently, he had different thoughts, interests, and desires. When he entered puberty, the feeling of being different only increased. He had brought it up with a counselor that he went to see when he was a teenager. He was told that it was normal to feel some cognitive dissonance during a body's changes, and that it would pass as he got used to it. James had believed what he was told, but had waited in vain for his increasing dysphoria to fade.

Now, hiking in the mountains, he felt his body react to the exertion the terrain demanded of it. His body was made for this kind of work, and it did it really well. His mind on the other hand kept expecting to see and feel input from a female body. It was a constant source of irritation, like a stone in your shoe that you can never seem to dislodge. Painful without being debilitating. He hated the way his body felt when his male bits moved, the way his pectoral muscles were tight and didn't move, the square way his hips moved, rather than the gentle sway of feminine hips.

James knew he could train himself to walk like a woman, but there would always be something missing, something wrong. He would be putting on an act. He could go the route of transgender women, doing hormone replacement therapy, having gender reassignment surgery, facial feminization, tracheal shave and vocal chord surgery to change his voice to something less deep. But, no matter what he did, he knew that it would always be an act. And that was something that he just couldn't accept in himself.

Of course it was fine for other people. James had no issues with other people pursuing what they believed would make them happy, it just wasn't the right decision for him. No matter how much it hurt.

Four days into his hike, he felt that little spark in his chest as a rosy glow. He felt that he was getting near to something that he was destined to find. Something that he had been missing for his whole life. He couldn't have explained it to anyone, had there been anyone to ask. He couldn't even explain it to himself. He just knew there was something out there waiting for him, calling to him.

Setting up his tent as the sun slipped down behind the mountains, James shivered. Making a small fire in a hollow he dug out of the ground, he cooked his meager meal. As he ate, he listened to the pine forest that he found himself in. It was muted, the dense mat of pine needles seeming to absorb errant noises. The smell of pine resin was thick in his nose. There were the noises of small nocturnal animals beginning their night. The soft sigh of the wind through the trees. There was a dull roar that was so faint it was almost subliminal.

"I bet that's a waterfall," he whispered to himself. "I'll see if I can find it tomorrow." The warmth in his chest let him know this was the right choice. He smiled for the first time in days. "I don't know what you are, but it is fun getting to find out," he told the warm sensation in his chest.

James cleaned up his dishes and doused the small fire, careful to prevent any errant sparks from escaping. There wasn't any kind of fire ban, but you really couldn't be too careful when it came to fire in the wilderness. He climbed into his tent and wrapped himself up in his sleeping bag to ward off the chill night air and drifted off to sleep.

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James policed his campsite one last time, ensuring that he had picked up all of his garbage, and buried his bodily waste. The fire was out and there was no sign of smoke or heat. He shouldered his pack once again and set off to find the waterfall.

He wasn't in a hurry as he hiked along. He just sort of meandered in the general direction of what he thought sounded like a waterfall. He had always loved waterfalls. They were similar in their power and presence as thunderstorms and waves crashing on the beach. They held a magic that was soothing and powerful. It stirred up deep emotions and calmed fear and worry. It was a magic that belonged to Mother Earth, and no one had a hope of wresting it away from her.

The day went like the others before had. The mountain scenery sliding by slowly under his feet, he held his mind as still as he could, his heart leading the way toward whatever destiny was awaiting him. As he progressed, the sound of the waterfall grew louder until it was the only sound he could hear. He barely noticed, however, as the warmth in his chest grew to a high heat that set his heart to beating. The thunder of his heart competed with the roar of the water that fell from untold heights. It was no match for the power of the waterfall of course, but it surely competed.

Slowly the waterfall came into view. It flowed over a cliff and down into a tiny box canyon. It crashed into a small pool that didn't seem to have any outlet. It must drain underground, he reasoned. Best to not go swimming, he thought.

There were several trees and bushes decorating the little canyon. Flowers bloomed between them, which seemed odd to him. He had thought that it was too cold for flowers to really thrive. He shrugged. He was not a botanist afterall. He stared down into the canyon for a time, his mind wandering, his thoughts drifting in and out of his awareness. At some point he sat down, unaware of his actions.

The sun moved overhead as the day wore on. It was approaching noon when he glimpsed something glinting near the edge of the waterfall pool. He focused on it trying to see what had caused the glint. It was just too far away. He looked around the edges of the canyon, looking for a way down. There, off to his right was a path that looked like it had been carved into the stone. He didn't pause to think about how that seemed odd, he just stood, dusted off the seat of his pants and started down the path and into the little canyon.

The trail was treacherous with loose gravel and unpredictable angles. He revised his earlier thought that it had been carved. No, this was more like a track made by a mountain goat. He carefully made his way down to the floor of the canyon, his senses dulled by the constant pounding of the water. It wasn't a large waterfall, but it sure did make a lot of noise, he thought.

At the bottom of the trail, he found the ground to be soft and grassy. The little wildflowers were a pleasant contrast to the greens and browns. He smiled again, feeling something tight in his chest melt under the constant warmth of that spark that had grown into a fire in his heart. James slipped past the bushes and around the trees, making his way over to the waterfall pool, to the source of the out-of-place glint he had seen from above.

James moved out from behind the last tree and saw the source of the reflected sunlight. There was an outcropping of stone breaching the ground at the water's edge. He looked up at the rim of the canyon, looking for the spot he had been seated before. He oriented himself and moved around the outcropping, looking for whatever reflective surface had prompted him to make this trek down into the tiny canyon.

His heart started to hammer as he grew closer to the stone. Beating hard. Was it anticipation, or fear? He didn't know. He slid one foot closer, edging forward like he was sneaking up on the outcropping of lifeless stone. His limbs started to shake with the excessive amount of adrenaline that was pumping through his body. At the stone face, he reached out a hand and gently laid it on the rough surface. It was warm under his touch.

He edged further around the side of the outcropping, keeping his hand on the stone for balance, and for grounding, reminding him that this was real. He moved around a small spur and found a mirrored surface set into the stone.

He stopped, one hand on the outcropping, the other on his chest, just under his throat. What was this, he wondered. It wasn't polished stone. It looked more like a fine glass mirror, flawless but set irregularly into the side of the outcropping. It reflected the waterfall and the cliff face perfectly, like it was more video than reflection. He moved out in front of the mirror, watching the reflection of the canyon around him move to his new perspective.

He turned to face himself.

He gasped and stumbled back, tripping and falling to his backside. His reflection did the same thing. But the reflection that stared back at him was not the face he had known his whole life. He looked down at himself and saw that he was unchanged. He was still a fit man in rugged, dirty outdoor clothes. He looked back up at his reflection.

A girl looked back at him. She was shorter than he was, with long red hair and very pale skin. Her face was pixieish, delicate and round, but with a sharp nose and chin. She wasn't a supermodel, but she was quite beautiful. James stood to his feet while he studied her. She did the same thing. She wore the same rugged, dirty outdoor clothes that he did, all the way down to the stain he had gotten on his knees from a fall he had taken two days ago. The way she filled out the clothes was quite different, however. She was athletic, from what he could tell, but also curvy. She didn't have the hourglass figure that so many people idolized. Her hips were wider than her chest, and although her waist was hidden by the baggy clothes it was apparently quite slim.

James approached the strange mirror, the woman behind the reflection did the same. When he moved, she moved, just as a real reflection would do. He met her eyes after a moment. They were his eyes, he noticed with shock. Her eyes were the same greenish hazel that his were. Not just the same color, but actually the same.

He tilted his head, looking at her quizzically. She tilted her head the same way. "Who are you?" he asked her softly, his tenor voice mingling oddly with her alto one.

"I am James," he said.

"I am Jamie," she said at the same moment.

"Jamie?"

"James?"

"This is weird," they said together.

James sat down in the tall grass in front of the mirror, Jamie mirrored him. She seemed to have more grace than him, even though their motions had been identical. They sat studying each other for a long moment.

"Are you me?" they asked each other. It seemed to be a logical conclusion to James. He looked Jamie over. She fit the image of who he had always felt like. Small, beautiful, graceful. It was hard to hear her voice through the weird blending, but even her voice sounded correct. Like his had always been meant to sound.

James sighed and looked down at his hands, folded in his lap. "I wish we could switch places," he whispered.

"We can," she whispered back.

James' head snapped up to look at her. Their eyes met, questing, searching each other for some clue as to how to proceed. "What did you say?" they asked each other. James/Jamie narrowed their eyes at the other. They quirked an eyebrow together and both looked down at their laps again.

"I said, I wish we could trade places," James whispered.

"I know," she whispered back. "I said, we can."

James shook his head. "How?"

"We touch."

James looked back up at Jamie. Her eyes met his, each movement mirrored perfectly. "We touch?" they said together. "We touch," they said together.

James lowered his head back down. "I need a minute to think," he whispered.

"Go," she whispered back. "I'll be here when you get back."

James stood and walked away from the strange mirror, and his very female reflection. She was everything he had always thought he should be. He had the opportunity to become her, as crazy as it sounded. He thought about the expression in her eyes. In his eyes. He knew in his core that she was right, they could switch places, each becoming the other. But, what would that mean? What were the ramifications of such a change? This had to be some kind of magic, right? So how far does the change go? Do they just switch bodies, or do they switch identities as well?

He shook his head. There was probably no way to tell until after it was done. If he switched places with this female version of himself, would he still have a job? A home? Would the government need to be involved? What about his drivers license? So many other questions flew in and out of his mind that he couldn't even name them.

Pacing around the area around the strange mirror, he contemplated what the repercussions might be. He needed to be prepared to find a new job, in case Mark didn't recognize him. He would need new clothes. He would need to understand the social differences, the implications of the difference between men and women. He knew that things were much better for women in the current era, but that didn't mean they were perfect. She would be a target, and object to be desired, obtained, and used. But, maybe, she would find someone who loved her, held her heart, cherished her and cared for her. She could have children.

James stopped his pacing. When had he started thinking about himself as 'she'? He smiled and laughed. Apparently, he had made his decision. No. She had made her decision.

James walked back to the mirror, his steps confident and sure. When he rounded the corner of the outcropping, Jamie moved in time with him. He smiled at her, and she smiled back. "I have made my decision," they said to each other. "I wish to trade places with you." Their mingling voices reminded James that they couldn't speak directly to each other. He looked down at his feet. "I want to trade," he whispered. "But I don't want to force you into this. If you do not want to be a man, I will understand."