Switched Ch. 06 - Shaping Up

Welcome to Chapter! This is not an episodic story, so I recommend starting at the beginning. Also, it's more story than sex, so please adjust your expectations accordingly. Finally, you know the drill: everyone doing sex is at least eighteen years old, and any resemblance to persons living, dead, or just taking a nap is coincidental.

Special thanks to icedragonmo3 for excellent beta-reading and proofing. Any mistakes are my own doing.

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Switched

Chapter 06: Shaping Up

Fortune

Bryan

Something terrible had to be coming my way. There was no way anybody was good enough to deserve the life I now had.

Another day with Jessica and Tawney, and I was waiting for fate to balance the scales with some fatal disease or surprise audit. I thanked fortune that hadn't happened yet.

I thought about that term, 'fortune', and I realized I hadn't thanked the usual deity instead. The God I grew up with could not have approved of me having the living situation I now enjoyed.

It would all come crashing down. Surely. I'd made a terrible mistake, suggesting this to Tawney. I was facing an expensive bill for this, one day. Probably soon.

I had to keep reminding myself that Jessica and I would get through this no matter what. Lovers, friends, business associates, I didn't care as long as she was still in my life. Tawney was another matter. I found a surprising amount of unhappiness about the prospect of losing her, too.

This unnameable threesome thing was the risk we took to make Jessica better. I'd risk anything for her; we'd have done the same thing if it had brought us as much pain as it had pleasure.

But the way it worked out was like this: I had two beautiful girlfriends.

Ill-Shorn

Jessica

Our antique, tomato-colored Datsun couldn't have looked more out of place in front of the luxurious Coleman family estate. Bryan and I weren't any better, both dressed in business wear but haunted-looking, uncertain. Woefully ungroomed.

He looked more like a surfer than the scion of a powerful family. I looked like a chica who'd busted out of juvie and robbed a mannequin at a H&M. And then killed it with a broadsword.

Tawney did not accompany us. We figured the existence of the second woman in Bryan's life was information that Mrs. Coleman wouldn't need right this minute.

He got to the top of the marble steps fronting the house's entrance and the door swung open. Inside stood their butler, Ferguson. He was a good-natured, comfortable-looking, middle-aged gentleman who was dressed semi-casually in dark slacks and a white shirt. Right now, he was welcoming Bryan with a big smile and eyes that crinkled with joy.

Bryan turned to introduce me and noticed I wasn't standing next to him. I hadn't been able to climb the three steps to the front door. My feet were stuck there.

Bryan and I had been friends since we were five. I had been in this house a million times. Now, though, there were so many feelings, I couldn't sort them out. It just seemed wrong to go in.

While Ferguson considerately went inside to 'prepare a proper welcome', Bryan came down to stand in front of me. "You okay?" he asked.

"I can't do this, Bryan. I'm sorry. I just... It feels like it invalidates me, you know? Who I used to be."

"Nothing can do that, Pal."

I looked up to him and my eyes did a little crinkling of their own. I said, "I can do this if you're with me."

"Can't be as bad as Jezebel, right?"

I nodded and took his arm. Jezebel had not only nearly killed us several times, but to escape it I'd had to cut off my hair. It used to be so beautiful, and now I looked like the protagonist in a quirky French film, only without the fashion sense.

Damn. I was going to have to learn fashion.

"Can we hire a stylist?" I asked Bryan.

"Of course," he said. We walked up the stairs and I wouldn't say it was easy, but with him by my side, it felt possible.

"Ferguson," he said inside as the butler bustled toward us. "Allow me to reintroduce Chase McKenna."

Ferguson was a professional. His face showed a polite amount of surprise, and then nothing but gracious welcome and affection.

I wanted to melt into the ground. I wanted to Switch minds with the nearest bird and fly away, leaving my human body to peck at the ground and flap its arms uselessly. My face burned.

"Hiya Fergie," I said shyly.

"Good gracious! Master Chase! I must say, you make a fetching young lady."

I felt flattered by his statement instead of humiliated. Damn, he was good! "Thanks, man. You're looking well, yourself."

Ferguson thanked me and intoned, "Senator Coleman regrets that he's traveling on business, but the lady of the house will receive you in the upstairs lounge. Please, take some time to freshen up."

Bryan and I thumped upstairs. I was turning to go back to the car—I'd forgotten my bag—but there was another servant with said bag and a polite smile.

Bryan's room was surreal. It was huge, for one thing. I'd lost about eight inches of height becoming a woman, and everything familiar seemed overly large and with different eyes, it was all not quite the right color.

Most of the time, I didn't pay attention to things like that. If a familiar gas station logo was more purple than I remembered, so what? Bryan's eyes looked more bright and blue than they ever had, but that could have been because I'd recently spent so much time gazing into them. But here, in a place I knew so well, everything was simultaneously new and familiar.

Compared to my expectations, his room was cavernous and a little too red. He had these bright, stylish Italian racing posters on the walls that had been a compromise between the pop culture images Young Bryan had wanted and the art his parents preferred. The first time I'd ever been high, I'd sat on the floor and stared at them for what seemed like hours. Now they seemed too bright, like bad knockoffs.

The wood grain in the furniture was deeper, though. Its richness and glossiness set off the creamy carpet perfectly. Everything was so much sharper; In this body I didn't have to wear glasses.

We touched ourselves up as best we could, standing side by side in front of the mirror.

"I'm getting weird deja vu," he said.

"We've done this so many times, but it was always before we went out." I fussed with my hair. It had been cut in one angled stroke while pulled out from the back of my head, so now it was long in front and short in back.

He shook his head in wonder, a faint grin playing across his lips. "You're a lot cuter now."

"Thank you." I linked my hands behind his neck and pressed my body against his. "You really are handsome," I told him.

"Thanks. Wow. Yeah, that means a lot."

"I mean it. You turn me on," I confessed, and shivered violently. I explained, "Everything I do or say is both pleasant and mortifying."

"I don't think you're doing anything embarrassing."

"You look at me and you see a woman. But I feel like I always did, ya know? Except I get to do this." I kissed him slowly and sensuously. When I was done with him, I was warm all over and we found ourselves mysteriously close to his bed.

He wasn't done with me. He picked me up and pushed my dress up to my hips at the same time, then pinned me to the wall. He held me up with his hot hands on my ass, kissing me like he owned me. His erection mashed against my pubic bone and I groaned with pleasure. We had fucked like this, our first time. Now, with my back against his Italian racecar posters, I caressed his body with my arms and legs while I returned the kiss. That old competitive spirit flared; I would not let him kiss better than me!

His tongue fenced masterfully with mine, but we'd been fencing since we were little boys. It was way more fun this way. I met his precision and skill with passion and nerve. I was a wildcat in a dress. Mostly in a dress.

Things were transitioning from 'hot makeout' to 'about to get naked' when we parted. There was no time for that.

"Just you wait, Mister!" I promised him. I was going to once more make a man out of him, and soon.

After judicious reapplication of lipstick and some brush work with my hopeless hair, we went to the upstairs lounge.

Bryan's mother was a slender, commanding woman with a tall construction of elegant red hair and a regal bearing. We always got along well. She was sitting in a chair next to a massive sectional sofa. Her back was to the floor to ceiling glass that made up the western wall of the room, and this late in the afternoon, she was haloed in gold by big, lazy sunbeams.

"Hey, Missus C," I said, suddenly shy.

"Who is this?" she marveled, moving smoothly toward me. Bryan had given her some of the basics via phone, but obviously that hadn't included an updated description of me. Knowing him, he'd observed operational security protocols and left out anything usable by their enemies.

Brian cleared his throat. "Mom, this is Chase, in a new body."

I tried, oh how I tried not to flinch. Or cry. I did a little of both, but I stood straight.

"You told me, Bryan, but witnessing it is something else entirely." With a wondering sigh, she clasped my upper arms. "How can this be?" She sounded so compassionate that I wanted to hug her.

Bryan and I had discussed whether or not to tell her and decided on telling it all. If you can't trust your own mother, you're boned anyway. He said, "Chase is a Variant, Mom. She can Switch bodies with other people. She did it by accident when she was shot. Now she's disowned by her father the senator and the previous occupant won't Switch back. He wants a career in politics and he's found some defense against Chase's ability."

He had to run that past her a few more times until she got it, but once she did, she looked even more compassionate.

I shrugged and said, "I've adapted. I'm okay like this. Happy to be out of the McKenna family drama."

She pulled me into a gorgeously-scented hug. "Oh, you poor thing!"

"Bryan saved my life," I said.

Bryan raised a hand. "She saved mine bigger and cooler."

"I did," I agreed, and that made us laugh.

His mom's eyes swiveled between her son and I, then her eyebrows came up and she gasped, "You're sleeping together!"

Amazed, I asked her, "How did you know that?"

She looked offended. "I'm his mother!"

"I was going to tell you," Bryan assured her.

"Mmm hmm," she replied, then turned to me. "You are stunning, aren't you? We'll have to do something about your hair. Oh, your ears are pierced! Brian, Dear, go get my pewter jewelry box, won't you?"

Ever the obedient son, Bryan left, but not without showing me a terrified face where she couldn't see.

"Now," said Francine Coleman, drawing herself up, "Let's talk."

I nodded, "Yes, Ma'am." It was like facing a firing squad.

"Bryan tells me the two of you have spent the last month in an Exclusion Zone." She made it sound like the dumbest thing imaginable. Which wasn't hard.

"Yes, Ma'am."

"Nasty places, those Exclusion Zones. There are no laws there, Jessica, no protections for decent folk like you and me. Teeming with undesirables, too, from what I hear."

"Yes, Ma'am."

She was not impressed with my robotic replies, judging from the expression on her face. "Tell me, what was the most dangerous thing that happened to the two of you while you were there?"

"Yes Ma—Sorry. The most dangerous? Why do you ask?"

She signaled, and someone swooped in with tea. She sipped hers, regarding me over the rim of the cup, "I want to know how close I came to losing my son."

Bang. The bullet, right to my heart. Bryan was magnificent, whereas I was an un-accomplished nobody. To risk him for me was so wrong.

But I was born Chase McKenna, and finding the flaws in a parent's argument is what I do. "I see," I said, an eerie calm coming over me.

I reached out and grabbed the tea tray as the servant passed by. Everything rattled but didn't fall thanks to the servant's skill. This lady carried shit like this for a living, she didn't just go out like a chump.

I dragged the tray closer, sternly eyeing the servant. I dared her, I fucking dared her. I dared all the bitches who wanted to come at me.

Seeing no resistance, I glanced at Mrs. Coleman, who began to speak. I cut her off before she got started with a sharp lift of my chin and eyes that said, I will cut you.

Returning my attention to the tray, trembling now from the strain the server and I both put on it, I reached for the teapot. The server divined my intention and was much more motivated. She lifted the pot so I shifted to grab the cup and held it up, giving her a grim look so she would know. She would know in her heart that I was perfectly willing to go full scorched Earth on this matter right now, right here.

She filled the cup. I released the tray slowly so she didn't go flying backwards.

I turned to Bryan's mom and took a dainty sip, then said, "You came pretty damn close to losing him. You did. Is that what you wanted to hear? I suppose you'll want to blame me for that?"

She lifted a manicured eyebrow "Why wouldn't I?"

I took another sip. "Because it was his choice. He did what he did because he loves me, and not in that way. Bryan is my best friend, and friends take care of each other. If you won't risk yourself for your friends, then you're broken inside. He is anything but broken, Ma'am. He is brave. Ma'am, your son is noble."

"Risking one's life is only noble when the risk is necessary, though, don't you think?"

Wow, she really went straight to the weak points. What was the point of a Jessica? How could she ever be close to the worth of a Bryan? Or anybody, really? I was a nothing.

But I was alive because of him. I wouldn't let him look bad for doing what he did. Not him.

I set my teacup down and straightened my back. "Mrs. Coleman, your son is the smartest and most capable person I know. If he deems it necessary to take a chance, then as far as I'm concerned, it's necessary."

Her expression softened a bit as she sipped her tea, but I wasn't finished, "And with all due respect, you are not the only person who wants him to survive safe and healthy. I would do anything for him. I'll never have to wonder if I would sacrifice myself for him, because that's exactly what I did!" I was starting to feel all bubbly with tears and pushed them down. "And I'd do it again. In a heartbeat."

"A mother never doubts that she'll lay down her life for her child," she commented.

I nodded affirmative. "Of course. But he's already got a mother. He needs a woman."

She didn't blink or look away, so neither could I. It was going to be tough, explaining to Bryan how I'd blown it with his mother. I tried to hold my chin level and ignore the rogue tear that made its makeup-wrecking way down the side of my face.

Pronouncing final judgement, she said, "Are you sure you don't want to go into politics? You are quite a persuasive speaker." She smiled and handed me a tissue. I realized she was fighting tears, too.

In a soft but firm voice I said, "You should be so proud of him."

She let out a little hiccuping sob and grabbed a tissue for herself. "He was gone for so long, and without a word. We were so worried about him! My boy!" We shared a little worried laugh, the kind that pops up in times like this. I felt a wave of affection for this other woman who loved my man.

She said, "I see now that he was well cared for."

"Always." I blotted my eyes carefully.

She signaled for more tea. "How long have the two of you been intimate?" she asked.

Oh I was gonna die. "A couple of weeks."

She received her beverage, then indicated to the lady with a patiently amused look that I should be served as well.

Then she narrowed her eyes, "Are you officially dating?"

"We're not official anything. This is too unusual."

Her voice dropped as she asked, "I know the answer already, but a mother must ask. Do you love my son? The way a woman does?"

I smiled. Finally an easy question. "I do."

She searched my face, and then she smiled. "Are... were you... a gay man?" she asked with such convincing nonchalance I knew it was fake.

"No. But I've always loved him like a brother. Now that I'm a woman, we discovered this... chemistry. You know?" I blushed hard at that last.

"Believe me, I know about chemistry," she drawled.

"I've got woman hormones and brain structures. It's biology. And Missus C, your son is a hunk!"

She chuckled. "You were always such a passionate child. Come here." Again I was enveloped in one of her amazing hugs.

When she released me she added, "Break his heart and I'll ruin you, of course. Nothing personal."

"He's the heartbreaker, Missus C," I said.

"Open communication, that's the key. And good sex, of course."

"Missus C!" I gasped. On purpose, it was fun.

The servant refilled tea. I was perfectly polite this time, but I didn't blink once and never took my eyes off her. When she was gone, Bryan's mom and I sipped thoughtfully.

Gently she asked, "Dear, is it true that you have no family now? That you have been disowned?" For us rich-born folk, being cut off was our greatest fear.

I swallowed. "It is."

Bryan's mother unhappily considered this. "If it weren't for the potential risks to my husband's career, I'd offer to take you under my protection officially. I still may, but that would take time, if it were even possible."

"I'm not asking for anyone to carry me."

She gave me a knowing grin. "Everyone needs allies, especially you. So I will aid you in secret."

"Thank you." My voice quavered with emotion.

"If you need something, don't hesitate to call on me, understand?"

"Thank you, Missus C." I wanted to hug her so bad.

Conspiratorially, she said, "It will be our secret! And please, call me Francine."

"That sounds wonderful, Mis—Francine." I smiled.

Unable to stand it, I hugged her. No tears. At least, not much.

"There is one thing," I murmured, "I have no identity. No papers."

"I'll make some calls. Leave that with me."

So much for not shedding many tears. I backed up so I could nod my thanks at her. My voice wasn't really working at the moment. She handed me a tissue and waited patiently while I cleaned up my face, then took me by the shoulders.

"Now. My dear," she said, "I will be beside myself if you don't let me do something with your hair! Promise me you'll let me."

"I hardly know anything about this," I confessed, "Hair, clothes, makeup, perfume... I'm a mess!"

"The hair. Promise me!"

"Okay! I promise!"

From behind me, Bryan said, "She's got you now, Chase."

She gave him an exasperated look, "There you are! How could you let her get to this state?" She played with my ill-shorn locks.

Bryan had explained to me that it was best to break the news to his mother in stages. He proceeded to tell the most artfully-edited version of events ever. "Mom, she had the most beautiful head of long hair but she was forced to cut it to free herself."

"Oh, how horrible! What did she use, a hacksaw?"

"Electric hedge trimmers."

*

Halfway

Jessica

We were sleeping it off, too sore for more sex, when I couldn't take it any more.

"Bryan? Are you awake?"

"Huh?" he was not awake and I knew it.

"I told Tawney I love her," I said.

"Yeah. I know," he mumbled.

I clung to him for a long time until finally, in a small voice I asked, "How can I love both of you?"

He kissed the top of my head. "I'm going to ask you an honest question. Are you sure you love me?"

"I'm sure. I let you put your dick in me, for crying out loud."

"I've put my dick in a lot of women who didn't love me."

I chuckled. "Yeah, me too. But this is different."

After a thoughtful silence, he said, "I'm worried that you have Stockholm Syndrome."