by Sophie Pert
“Okay,” Adam said, turning away and shooting back as he walked out the door, “Nick, be sure to mop up the water out here in the hallway.”
We both waited, silent and motionless, until his footsteps faded away.
Then in an instant we were both animated, turning to each other and staring, watching each other move.
It was so weird, you spend your whole life in a body but you never really know what it looks like from the outside. Never really know how others see you and for the first time we had the opportunity.
This was more than once in a lifetime, this was an opportunity that no one ever had!
I don’t know what was going through her head, but I was just happy to see that everything I had ever thought about myself was true.
Damn I was good looking!
I always kept myself in good shape, taking time out everyday to go to the gym and eat right. You could tell that underneath the coveralls I had a nice and toned muscular physique. I had wide shoulders and hard pecs and, if I don’t say so myself, a nice tight ass.
Now there are some things that you can’t fix in a gym. Things that you have to be born with.
Luckily I was born handsome.
I had a square jaw and rugged good looks. I spent more than my fair share of time making sure my hair looked good and the stubble on my jaw was just so. But my best feature, as many girls had told me, was my baby blues. Something about dark hair and baby blue eyes that just drew the ladies in.
I looked good.
Even with that look of confusion on my face.
“So,” she said in my voice, “Okay this is really weird.”
“Yeah,” I replied, cocking my hips and crossing my hands over my chest, “Don’t really know what to say about this.”
“Well I think we can safely say that neither of us was prepared for this,” she said, “And outside of smacking our heads against each other I’m at a bit of a loss as to how to switch back.”
I sighed, smacking our heads together sounded like about the worst way to solve this problem, it sounded like something an idiot would propose, “Something tells me smacking our heads together won’t fix this and I really don’t want another headache.”
“Right,” she said, sullen and silent.
“Look I think we just need to wait this out. As much as I don’t want to say it we don’t really have the time to try to think of a solution here without drawing more suspicion. So at the very least right now we stick with our day as is and just pretend to be each other and then at the end of the day we can see if we can figure this out.”
She seemed to consider it, seemed to think about it for an awful long time. Mulling things over before finally responding with, “Yeah I can see how that might be a good idea.”
“Okay,” I said, “So I have to get to work. I already got an assignment from Adam for this morning so I’m going to go do that. You mop up the floor and then just go about your day as per usual, we’ll meet up after work and then go from there.”
She nodded, slowly responding with, “Okay.”
I turned and left the room, realizing only dimly in the back of my mind that it was a bit weird that I knew I had a job to do. That I knew that Adam had assigned something to me this morning.
Because he hadn’t assigned it to me, he’d assigned it to her. To Jen. And somehow I had remembered that.
There was no reason I should know that, I hadn’t overheard it and she hadn’t mentioned it but I did. I knew that I had a job to do.
And I knew how to do it.
As soon as I hit the shop floor my body moved without me really having to think about it. It was like my body worked on autopilot and I just kind of sat there and watched it happen.
Watched myself approach the car. Watched myself run through the troubleshooting process and figure out what was wrong. Watched myself grab the right tools and get into the right spot and apply the right fix.
This was remarkable, for so many reasons.
I’m going to be honest, perhaps more honest than I normally am. I’m a good mechanic, definitely above average and really quite great at my job. If a job comes up that needs my attention I know where to look to get the information I need in order to finish the job.
But I don’t have everything on hand. I can’t just know what the problem is. I don’t have the manual memorized for every single car that comes in.
Because each model of car is unique, it’s a unique problem. That’s part of the reason I love being a mechanic so much. Each job is its own little unique scenario.
Jen though…
So I have a feeling now, based on everything that has been happening, that there is a certain amount of innate personality and knowledge that stayed with her body when my personality made the jump. That even though it’s me, it’s Nick, in here there is a bit of her in here too. Her knowledge, her understanding and approach to problems.
Kind of like muscle memory, like her body knows how to ride a bike and so I now know how to ride a bike. Except in this case ‘bike’ is actually an extensive understanding of cars and makes and models.
If all that’s correct, Jen was a bit of a genius when it came to fixing cars.
All of that time I would have to spend looking things up, she just knew it. All of the time I would have to spend planning and looking for parts and tools, she just grabbed it. All of the time I would have to spend thinking about the next step while fixing something, she just did it.
Her body worked automatically.
She was a way better mechanic than I had ever thought, and a way better mechanic than Nick ever was.
It was a bit humbling in a way.
All I could do was sit back and watch as her body took over, fixing this car in record time as far as Nick's personal bests were concerned. It was only while she was wiping her hands off on a rag that I even registered the final step and realized that the job was done.
Adam was behind me then, looking to the car and back to me. He didn’t even bother checking out the work like he always did with Nick. He didn’t need to make sure that I had done the job right. He knew that I had so he just nodded approvingly and said, “Good job Jen. I’ll make sure this gets rolled back out to the customer and we’ll see what else we can put you on. Don’t worry about it for now though, you’ve got some time before your next job so you might as well relax.”
Time to relax? At work? I’d never had that before.
“Really?” I said, a bit unsure, “You don’t have anything else for me?”
He chuckled, “Nope, I mean I figured this would be a whole day fix so I booked you out for that. Should have realized with you that was an overestimation. You’re the queen of getting things done right and getting them done quick.”
I smiled, briefly a bit proud of the compliment before I realized it was about her and not me.
“Hey boss,” I said, “Mind if I ask you a quick question?”
I figured now was as good a time as any to get some additional insight into the way things worked around here.
“Sure,” he said jovially, smiling a bit and I realized I’d never seen a smile on his face before, “What’s up?”
“It’s about Nick,” I said but he cut me off.
“I knew it was something,” he said, his jaw going hard as he shook his head and the smile faded from his face, “I knew something happened in the back room. That idiot did something stupid again.”
“Wait,” I said, a little shocked, “No-”
He cut me off again, “Look I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Nick has more than run out of second chances here. Him and his stupid sense of humor.”
“He didn’t-” I said but he just held up a hand to silence me.
“I know, I know,” he reassured me, “You don’t want to rock the boat and you for some unknown reason think there is a decent person deep deep inside of him. You don’t want me to fire him and I understand but look. Nick has done so much to deserve being let go, you don’t need to w
orry it’s just about you.”
“Um-” he cut me off again.
“Honestly, no one is going to blame you. We’re all sick and tired of his stupid jokes and sexist comments. The only person still pulling for him to work here is you. If we took a poll it would be literally everyone in the office on one side, and you on the other. I guarantee it.”
“I don’t,” I said, struggling to process all of this, “I don’t want him to get fired.”
He sighed, “Well I’ll keep him on, but just as a favor to you. You have to keep up your end as well. Take him under your wing, teach him how to be a better mechanic and if you can turn him around we’ll keep him on. But I have to say expectations are not high on my end.”
“Anyways,” he continued, stepping away from me, “You just keep on doing what you’re doing. I swear you’re the best mechanic in here. Best thing I did was bringing you on staff.”
And with that he was gone and I was left with a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.
It was like I saw everything in a flash, all of the past few months of jokes and pranks running through my mind and all of the reaction of my coworkers. None of them, not a one, was on my side and thinking back over all of those incidents I had no idea how I could be so stupid.
They all hated me, none of them thought like I did.
I felt numb.
Turning I walked out of the shop doors and into the yard. This shop was big and in the back was a yard full of cars in various stages of repair. Whether for parts or for nostalgia we kept all sorts of vehicles out back. More than just cars too, we had bikes and atvs and even RVs.
I didn’t notice any of them, I just made my way through them all to the back corner.
Long ago, back when I first started out here, I’d gotten drunk after work one night and couldn’t make my way home. I’d stumbled into this yard and found my way to this back corner, to this old RV that was sitting in the back here. The door had been unlocked and I stumbled in and passed out.
When I woke the next morning I found the RV wasn’t in half bad shape. I mean it didn’t have any amenities and it wasn’t spotless, but it was clean enough and most importantly it was hidden away. Like a secret that only I knew.
I’d stashed some beer back there and would sneak out on breaks to just hang out in the dark and get some time away from the job. No one around but me.
I climbed in today, my legs feeling like they were disconnected from the rest of me, and cracked open a beer. Leaning against the counter I took a long deep drink and had a hard think about things.
I would never have anticipated any of this. To me, I mean I was just goofing around. I figured everyone else was in on the joke, that they were just holding back because of her.
Truth is I was the butt of the joke. Had been since the day I started here. I was the fool and I was the only one who didn’t realize it.
Today was a weird day in more than one way. I mean sure I’d switched bodies, but it was more than that. It was like being her, even for this short time, had given me a different perspective on things.
I saw everything from a different angle.
Truth is I think I was seeing it from her perspective. She didn’t want NIck to lose his job because she didn’t want anyone to blame her. She didn’t even want him to lose his job because she thought he deserved to keep it.
She didn’t want me to lose my job because she pitied me.
And I totally understood that.
In that moment, thinking about things with a different brain, I saw everything I had done wrong and understood why it was wrong.
I deserved to lose my job. I deserved my lot in life because I had never done anything to deserve another path.
The door to the RV opened and I knew who it was before he even stepped inside, but still I looked and saw my old body step through. He had a look on his face, like he was trying to read me, to tell my mood.
I couldn’t tell what he was thinking either. All my life I’d lived in that body and I had no idea what it was thinking at this moment.
And there was something else, some little voice inside of me that was piping up and saying something that I couldn’t understand. Like it was talking in a language I didn’t speak but it was talking a mile a minute and it was making me react somehow. Making my heart beat faster, making my breath catch in my throat.
I glanced at him and he looked at me in turn and there was something unspoken between us and then in a blink we both pushed it away.
“Hey,” she said, her voice gruff and heavy.
“Hey,” I said, taking another long pull from my beer.
She crossed the RV to the place where the beer was stored grabbing and opening one for herself and taking a long swig.
We stood there side by side in awkward silence, both of us trying hard to avoid looking at the other person but neither of us succeeding.
I kept glancing sideways at my old body, noticing new things about it. About the way my biceps bulged under the sleeves of the coveralls. The way I noticed them hug my slim hips.
And I saw her glancing at me as well. Checking out my thighs, my breasts. At the visible presence of my body beneath the loose cloth of the coveralls.
I felt this body react to being watched, to being stared at by this man. I felt my nipples harden beneath my clothes. Felt my thighs unconsciously clench together.
I took a deep gulp.
“So,” I said, drawing the syllable out, “I know what you did for me.”
I heard her clear her throat beside me, “Um, what was that?”
“You went to bat for me,” I explained, staring pointedly at the floor in front of us, “You’re the reason I still have a job here.”
There was a heavy silence between us.
“Thanks,” I said, quickly then lapsing back into silence.
After a beat I looked up at him, saw him staring openly at me, looking into my face and trying to read me.
“Truth is,” I said, “I’ve been really terrible to you and been a huge asshole. I’m sorry and you don’t deserve any of that and if you’d teach me how to be a better mechanic, and a better- well I’d appreciate any help you can give.”
I blinked a couple times, then blushed lightly at his stare.
“I don’t-” I struggled for the words, “I don’t even know why you put up with me. Why you didn’t let Adam just can me on the spot-”
“I think you’re handsome,” she blurted out next to me, then her eyes went wide and she clamped her mouth shut.
“What?” I asked, a bit shocked.
“I never meant to say that out loud,” she mumbled, “But this body just lowers my inhibitions. Look I’m not an idiot, I know you’re a jerk and I know that you’re not good for me and I know that I shouldn’t be attracted to you. But I can’t help it. I can’t help but think you’re hot and I know that you do too because I can feel how this body feels about you.
“First day here,” she went on, her words coming out in a tumble, “I was full and ready to ignore you until your incompetence got you fired but then I went home that night and I couldn’t get you out of my head. I just kept thinking about you and it wasn’t until I masturbated thinking of you fucking me that I even got any rest.
“So when Adam came to me asking me if you should be fired I knew I couldn’t because it would drive me mad not to fuck you. I don’t know what it is but there is something about you that I just can’t let go of and I managed to hold out and pretend it wasn’t happening while I was at work and during the day but the truth is I want you bad. So fucking bad.
“It wasn’t until today- Fuck! There is something about your body. Something about your personality that just drives me to be blunt and blurt all of this out. You make me want to…”
He trailed off and then spun and pinned me to the countertop. His arms were on either side of me and his body had me held there. Between hard wood and an even harder body.
I knew now everything that was running through her head this
whole time. Knew exactly what she had been feeling since she started here. Knew it because I felt it too.
When she kissed me I felt my heart leap into my throat. Felt it pounding out a rhythm inside of me and strumming me like a guitar string. My whole body vibrated with excitement.
His body pressed into mine with insistence, his tongue pushing into my mouth and dancing lightly across my own.
I felt a shiver run up my spine at the feeling of being held there by him, felt this body unconsciously react to being possessed by him and felt a thrill of excitement deep inside of me.
I knew then and there that there was no stopping this. That both of us wanted to take this as far as it could go. That we both needed this release oh so badly.
I felt his hands jump to my hips, grabbing there and holding me through the fabric. His grip was iron hard, digging into my body and making me gasp into his mouth in response. I felt manhandled by him, felt him impose his will on me and I felt myself melt into it. My arms flew up and wrapped around his neck and I pulled him into me, pulling his mouth against mine and deepening our kisses and our embrace.
Then my hands slid down, down to either side of his neck and feeling the tightly wound muscle there. I felt the strength of his body beneath my delicate fingers and when my hands slid down to knead at the flesh of his chest I felt my sex pulse with desire.
My fingers tugged at the zipper of his coveralls, pulling it down quickly and exposing his chest and abs in a V of open material.
I knew what he was wearing underneath this clothing. I knew he only wore a tank top and boxer briefs. I knew exactly what to expect.
But that didn’t mean the sight of it didn’t thrill me.
Our kisses broke and I stared at the opening, seeing the tight tank top clinging to his muscular upper body. I reached a hand out and gently pressed against his manly form, breaking my sight of his torso to look up at his face and bite my lip.
The look in his eyes was nakedly hungry, the feel of his hands on my body possessive. He slid his hands up my sides, brushing lightly over my breasts and making me squirm under his touch as he too slid my zipper open.
He didn’t stop there though, his hands roughly tugged the coveralls over my shoulders and down my arms. He pulled until the fabric was around my waist, until my upper body was exposed to him.