by D. L. Savage
And just like that, it was arranged. Over the next few days, Allie booked me a flight and a hotel near to the apartment she shared with Greg, all on her lab’s expense account. All that was left was for me to find some way of wriggling out of work for a whole week without losing my job ...
2
“Steven! Over here!”
I would recognize that voice anywhere. The voice that still sent a charge of excitement through me whenever I heard it, the sensation tripling as I set eyes on her again after so long.
Allie.
She looked more beautiful than ever that Sunday afternoon – her long strawberry blonde hair done in long curls, her makeup flawless as usual, her slim toned body shown off in a flattering white body-con dress. She was as beautiful as any model I’d ever seen, and could totally get work doing that if she chose – she was always getting stopped on the street and given cards for agencies. Often, guys would make the mistake of thinking that just because she was blonde and beautiful, she was also stupid. But Allie was also the smartest person I’d ever met in my life.
“Hey!” I called back, dropping my bags and rushing towards her, both of us hugging tightly, glad to see each other again.
I tried to keep my thoughts pure as I felt her toned body pushing up against mine. And when she pulled away from me again, grinning at me as she tucked a strand of hair behind her left ear, I saw the permanent reminder that she was taken glittering on her wedding finger.
“Wow, Stevie, you look good,” she said, looking me up and down, obviously impressed at the results of my fitness regime.
“Thanks,” I blushed, secretly glad that she’d noticed. “I’ve joined a gym.”
“It shows,” she replied. “So any reason? You finally have a lucky lady you’re making yourself all handsome for?”
“Nah,” I sighed. “I’m still as single as ever. But I have been having a little fun on Tinder.”
“Good for you,” she grinned, totally happy for me, another reminder that to me she was nothing more than a big sister to me; never in a million years would she think about me in a sexual way.
“So how’s Greg?” I asked, wanting to change the subject, as I picked up my bags, and we began to stroll through the Arrivals lounge to the taxi rank outside.
“Ugh!” she laughed. “That man. I mean, I love him and everything, but sometimes he drives me totally insane. Last week? He bought a brand new car. This totally stupid looking drop top in bright red. I’m so embarrassed. It’s like he’s having a midlife crisis, ten years too early ...”
I bit my lip, not wanting to let on just how much I disliked him, for Allie’s sake. But I couldn’t help but enjoy the way she was complaining about him.
“So anyway, are you gonna tell me more about this experiment or what?” I said, as we jumped into the first cab we could, and Allie leant forward to tell the driver the address to my hotel.
Then she turned and leaned in to me a little, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper as she said, “Wait until we get to your room. It’s kinda ... secret.”
I nodded and mimed zipping up my lips, and soon we were just chatting about every day things again, Allie telling me excitedly that she’d booked me into the best hotel she could find, and hoped I’d enjoy myself while I was here.
But as she was talking, my thoughts started straying back to the experiment – wondering what exactly it was that I was letting myself in for, and why the hell it was all so secretive ...
“Holy shit!” I gasped, when I set eyes on my hotel room. It looked like a goddamn palace, by far the nicest hotel room I’d set foot in by a mile.
“So you like it then?” Allie grinned.
“I love it,” I replied, looking around me in awe. It was bigger than my whole freaking studio apartment, with a giant bed, glitzy bathroom with a whirlpool bath and shower pod, and the biggest flat screen TV I’d ever seen.
“Good,” she said. “Order all the room service you want, it’s all on the lab’s account. And take taxis too, we can reimburse you, just make sure to get receipts.”
“Cool,” I said, my head still spinning a little, excited about the luxurious week ahead of me. “So tell me,” I added, “what is it we’re gonna be doing.”
At this, Allie’s expression changed a little, to one of nervous apprehension and she said, “you’d better sit down.”
We both took a seat on the edge of the bed, and I felt my heart starting to drum, hoping again that it wasn’t something that would totally fuck me up somehow.
“So you know how we’ve been best friends for ever?” she began.
I nodded, wondering what that had to do with anything.
“Well, as I said on the phone, this project we’re running is pretty, uh, sensitive and I need someone I can trust to take part in it with me.”
She turned her big brown eyes to the floor in front of her, wringing her hands a little in that way she always did when she had some bad news to tell me.
“It’s this VR thing,” she continued. “I helped develop the software. It’s still at a really early stage and it does have a few bugs we need to iron out but in theory it’s all up and running now. But Steven, this isn’t VR like anything you’ve seen on the internet. This is totally next level, hence all the secrecy. If this works, our lab stands to make billions ...”
“So what exactly do we do?” I asked, still totally puzzled.
“Here’s the weird part,” she said, fixing me with a nervous look. “The technology works by simulating real vision and sensations, then projecting them directly into your neural network. We’d both be taking part in the experiment – me because I volunteered and you because, as my best friend, I needed to choose someone I totally trust. You see, we’d both be ...”
She was still stumbling for the right words.
“We’d be what, Allie?” I said, totally exasperated now.
“Well,” she replied, turning to face me, looking deep into my eyes, “we’d essentially be switching bodies.”
3
Soon after our chat, Allie left – she had to get back to Greg, of course. But before she went, she gave me the directions to the lab and told me she’d see there bright and early in the morning.
And once she’d gone, I lay down for a while on the bed, trying to process everything she’d just told me, my head still spinning a little.
We would be swapping bodies for the duration of the session. Sure it was only VR, but Allie made it sound like it would be so real, it’d be crazy.
I still couldn’t quite imagine it, but I’d agreed without hesitation. A part of me always felt like my life was so boring compared to everyone else’s – and it was exciting just to be a part of some secret mysterious research project. On top of that, I would be helping her out, and I found my mind lingering on her grinning face as I’d told her I’d do it, her eyes lighting up in that way I always found so cute.
Who was I trying to kid?
I was still totally and utterly in love with her. And seeing her again had brought it all right back to the surface again, stronger than ever …
The next morning, I woke up in that amazing five-star hotel room, more well rested than I’d been in so long. And what’s more, it was Monday and I didn’t have to go to work! But my good mood quickly evaporated as I remembered there was one last thing I needed to do, before I could head down to check out the no-doubt amazing hotel breakfast and then take a taxi over to the lab to start the experiment.
I reached out for my cellphone and checked the time. Eight ten. I dialed the number for my office, then tapping in the extension for my boss’s office. There was a slim chance he’d already be in by now, but thankfully it went straight to his voicemail.
“Hey, Adam?” I said, putting on a sick, shaky voice, “it’s Steven here. I think I’m coming down with something, maybe flu. I’m not going to make it in today, but hopefully I’ll be feeling better by tomorrow ...”
There. Done. I’d call in again the next morning, sou
nding worse, and hey presto – a week off.
Now, to check out that breakfast ...
“Is this really necessary?” I said, an hour later, as one of the lab assistants strapped my hands and feet to the chair I was sitting in, which was like some dentist’s chair from hell.
On top of that, I had electrodes glued to my temples, and various other pieces of equipment attached to monitor my breathing, pulse, the works.
“I’m afraid so,” Allie said from the chair next to me, as another assistant strapped her into place too. “But don’t worry. It won’t hurt. I hope.”
I tried to force a grin, but if I’m honest, all I felt in that moment was the kind of balled up nervousness you might feel as a rollercoaster starts to climb up its track or an airplane taxis down the runway. What if this thing totally fried my brain? What if I never came back?
I’d had to sign all kinds of papers, both waiving my rights to seek a legal claim if anything did happen to me, and also an NDA, as I was reminded again that this was top secret – they were the only lab in the world working on anything of its kind.
I had to admit, I was impressed too. Allie was obviously very well respected at her job, practically in charge of the lab, and I could tell that this project really was her baby. Again, I felt glad to be helping her out and flattered that she’d asked me. I was just terrified, too.
“Okay, everything ready?” Allie said, to the technician nearest to her.
He nodded, moving over to a nearby bank of computers and tapping something into a touchscreen.
“Don’t worry if you lose vision for a moment, Steven,” Allie said. “That’s to be expected. But it won’t last long, I promise. Are you ready?”
“As I’ll ever be,” I replied.
“Michael, can you give us a count down please?” she said to the lab technician over at the computers.
“Okay, initializing program in five, four ...”
As he began to count down, my heart started to beat harder and harder in my chest and I found myself involuntarily gripping the arms of the chair, bracing myself for whatever the fuck was about to happen next.
“Three, two ...”
I closed my eyes and gritted my teeth, my whole body poised and tense.
“One ...”
FLASH!
It was like my whole brain evaporated for a moment. That’s the only way I can describe it. A sort of fizzing, pure white light that spilled out from inside my own head and sucked everything with it – all sound, all vision, even all sensation from my limbs.
For that brief half-second, it was like I didn’t even exist, except for just my consciousness. And then ...
4
BOOM!
I felt like I’d been dropped back inside my body again, my heart still pounding and my eyes flashing open. Only we weren’t in the lab anymore, but in some kind of plain white landscape that stretched off into infinity in all directions, totally unreal, like something from a computer game. But it must be real, because I could feel the ground beneath my feet.
And then I heard something, something totally crazy – my voice, but coming from behind me, just a few feet away.
“It worked!”
I span around, to face myself, only the me I was looking at was dressed head to toe in simple, plain white clothes.
“What the fuck?” I said, and as I spoke, the voice that came from my mouth was Allie’s.
And that’s when it hit me.
I wasn’t even in my body anymore. I was in hers. The adrenaline hit me in a rush, every nerve inside me suddenly tingling. But it was the fucking weirdest feeling. Because everything felt different. The way I breathed, the way my pulse raced, even the way I gulped and the feel of my tongue in my mouth.
I reached my hands up to my face, studying them, unable to believe what I was seeing. Slim, delicate fingers with perfectly manicured nails. And even my eyesight was better. I could pick out the tiniest details, like the lines of my knuckles and the tiny golden hairs that grew from my skin.
“Wow, you need glasses Steven!” Allie called, but with my voice.
I looked up at her – well, at me – and it was so odd to see myself from outside like that, to truly see me the way others did. I have to say, I was actually pleasantly surprised. I really did look okay, fit and trim and healthy, my work at the gym beginning to pay off.
Then I looked down at myself again, my eyes immediately latching onto the two large bumps that grew from my front. Breasts. Allie’s breasts.
My pulse began to race even faster as the full extent of what was happening began to dawn on me.
Holy shit. I was inside Allie’s body – a body I’d longed to touch, to caress, to explore, ever since I’d been a horny teenager. And there they were. Allie’s tits. All I’d have to do was reach up and cup them with her hands, and I’d finally touch what I’d been dreaming about for so long. But instead, with a pang of embarrassment, I brought my eyes away again, not wanting her to notice that I’d been checking out her body out in that way.
But even as I was doing it, I felt something else happening, a whole new sensation. Because the thought of touching Allie’s breasts had got me horny, and now I could feel something right there between my legs, a throbbing, pulsing ache, growing stronger the more I focused on it. And beneath the simple white shirt I was wearing, I could feel my nipples – Allie’s nipples – growing hard and tight as the ache grew even stronger, the more I thought about it.
It was like a fucking feedback loop; the more I focused on the sensations and the fact that this was how Allie felt whenever she got turned on, the more the feelings grew inside me, until I could even start to feel my breath beginning to deepen and the hairs standing up on my arms, my nipples so fucking hard now it was almost painful.
“Hey, let’s take a walk!” Allie said, inside my body, obviously totally oblivious to just how hot and bothered I was getting, just wanting to explore the experiment and test out its parameters, the way any scientist would.
And as I moved to join her, it felt both natural and totally alien at the same time, my limbs moving awkwardly at first before I got the full hang of walking in her body, lumbering towards her in the way I normally moved, trying to ignore the warm gooey dampness that I could now feel between my legs – an after effect from the hornyness, I guessed.
Allie laughed, watching me. “It’s so weird, seeing my body move like that,” she explained, herself stepping around easily inside my body, and her movements made me look so girly and feminine I couldn’t help but laugh too, as I pushed the last of the horny thoughts from my mind and joined Allie on our stroll through this strange white landscape.
“So where exactly are we?” I said as we strolled along, feeling my long hair dancing around my shoulders as I walked, and the soft bounce of my breasts, an odd but not unpleasant feeling – like there were two small weights attached to my pecs.
“Nowhere,” Allie replied. “This is just a simulation, remember? This whole place is just something we knocked up in the lab. It goes on forever. There are more interesting places we could go, but for the first session, I wanted us to just focus solely on the body swap itself. No distractions.”
“Yeah, no distractions,” I mumbled, as I already felt my mind straying again, lingering on the subtle sensations of Allie’s body as I moved in it, the way I could just about sense my pussy lips gliding together as I walked, still slick and wet, and the way my breasts bounced, my nipples still kinda hard and tingling.
And then a new thought occurred to me.
Allie’s butt!
In truth, I’d lusted after her perfect, pert ass even more than her breasts, and all I had to do was let my arms drop to my sides and ...
As Allie continued to talk, filling me in on the way the simulation was working and what it was actually doing to our brains right now, our bodies still strapped to the chairs back there in the lab, I again felt my focus drifting as I surreptitiously slipped my hands behind myself, letting my fingers ge
ntly run over the smooth curves of my perfect ass – the ass I’d dreamed about touching for as long as I could remember.
I gave it a good long squeeze, trying my hardest to memorize the feeling of it in my palms, the place between my legs once again throbbing hard, the more turned on I got, my brand new pussy growing even wetter still until I had to quickly pull my hands away, not wanting to give away what I was doing.
But a quick glance down at my breasts made my heart race, because my nipples were totally pointing out through the white cotton of my shirt now; if Allie saw, she’d just know I was turned on. There was no cold air that I could blame it on; the strange landscape we were in seemed to have no temperature at all. And it was her body after all. She knew how it worked better than anyone.
So again I tried to push all horny thoughts from my mind, hoping to god she didn’t notice.
“So how, uh, long are we staying in here for,” I blurted out, just saying the first thing that came into my head.
“We only set this session for ten minutes,” she explained. “We didn’t know what effect it would have on the brain afterwards, so we didn’t want it to go on too long, just in case there were any side effects – nausea, headaches, disorientation, that kind of thing. Actually,” she said, looking down at the place on her wrist where her watch used to be, “it’s probably about ...”
FLASH.
All of a sudden, my mind was once again sucked up into that dazzling bright white nothingness, like I was just a floating speck of light inside an infinite chasm of light, before ...
BOOM.
The sensation was as if I fell back into the chair, my eyes flashing open and my mouth gasping at the air, my wrists and ankles straining at the straps for a few moments, my body thrashing involuntarily, before I came fully to my senses.
I looked over at Allie’s chair, where she too was blinking open her eyes, a big excited grin on her face.