The room was spinning. James felt her body start to crumple, saw the man with her old face try to stop her from falling. Darkness.
She had no idea how much time had passed when she came back to consciousness. Maybe minutes, maybe hours. Someone was pressing a glass to her lips and the almost medicinal fumes of alcohol were tickling her nose. James took an instinctive gulp and felt the welcome burn trickle down her throat. Recognizing the taste, she opened her eyes, "Whiskey?"
"Good isn't it?" The man with her face smiled. "It's my favorite too."
James took a nervous look around. Not-James had moved her to one of the two futons near the center of the room. The candles were still burning, but the music was off. The goth girl, Rikki was seated on the edge of a nearby loveseat, smoking a cigarette, her pale face illuminated by the glow of a laptop. James's eyes flicked from Rikki back to this man who was at once familiar and yet a total stranger, then back again.
"Jill?" James said in a hesitant whisper, "Is that you?"
Not-James followed her glance and smirked, "Don't worry about Rikki. She doesn't know everything, but she knows enough. You can speak freely. Isn't that right, Rikki?"
Rikki dutifully looked up from her laptop, took a drag of her smoke, and briefly composing herself said in a meek little voice, "Yes, master."
"There, you see? Nothing to worry about," Not-James continued to pin Rikki with her eyes until the goth girl visibly shrunk back and averted her own gaze. Only then did Not-James turn back to the woman who once wore the flesh he now thought of as his own.
"It is you?" James cried happily. Surprised by her own outburst James made a guilty face and continued more quietly. She was too overjoyed to fully appreciate the weird undercurrent between her host and gloomy little Rikki, "Oh thank God! I thought I might be like this forever!"
"And you might," Not-James turned his attention to the whiskey bottle on the table, pouring himself a healthy double.
It was said so casually James didn't register what the man had said for a brief second. When she mentally played back his words her stomach began to slowly knot up.
"W-what? But why - - I mean," James made a helpless gesture at his old body as if to ask why Jill would want it. It now occurred to her this man with her stolen flesh had never even outright admitted to being Jill. This could be a complete stranger.
"I've gotten pretty used to my new home, Jill," Not-James sighed and took a long sip of his whiskey, "I'd imagine you have too. Why should we try to fix things now, months later? Maybe it was fate what happened."
"Fate?" James repeated in dull disbelief, "It was an accident, plain and simple. I didn't even know if the medallion really worked. You were out of town and wanted me to watch your place. No one would have been any the wiser, but I fell and hit my head."
"Let's keep the medallion part between you and me, okay, Jill?" Dropping his voice, Not-James made an irritated face and briefly glanced at Rikki, typing away on her laptop.
"My name is NOT, Jill!" James said in a voice gone shrill with anger, "I'm not Jill Dugan! You are!"
"You're right," Not-James said in a pleasant tone as he calmly unfolded a piece of paper, "But not like you think. According to this marriage license you aren't Jill Dugan anymore. You're Jill Crawford."
"You went through my purse?!" Jill said, too outraged to care that she was apparently as possessive over the privacy of her purse as any woman born.
"How is Otis anyway?" Not-James teased, "Was getting you that tattoo his idea?"
"No," James snarled, "It was your buddy Matt."
"Well," Not-James laughed, "You have been busy, haven't you?"
"Please, don't!" James covered her face with her hands, briefly reliving each indignity she had endured in order to get back to San Diego, "Jill - - I am begging you, please, help me get back to normal. I can't stay like this. I can't be you!"
"And you can't be James either," Not-James said with smug satisfaction, "I'm doing that."
"But you don't have to! You have the - -," James stopped herself after a warning look from the ma holding her body hostage, "You can be anyone you want! I just want to be me again. Please, Jill, I'll do anything."
"Call me James," Not-James said in an icy voice.
"James," she managed to force it out after taking a deep breath. It cost her nothing to do this if it got her closer to the medallion and to her true self, "I'm begging you, James. I'll do anything."
"Anything?" Not-James said it playfully, like a studio producer audtioning a young actress for a part. Eyes alive with curiosity began to flit from one part of her body to another, from lips to neck to breasts and belly, then down to hips to thighs and what lay between.
James knew where this was leading. A part of her was sickened. If this actually was Jill what could make her want to fuck her own body? So she had been living as a man and, to judge by Rikki's presence here, fucking women, so what? It was understandable. But to actually force James to yield as the woman in Jill's old body would be little more than a complicated act of auto-stimulation. What was the point other than to humiliate James?
Unfortunately, part of James was also curious. She had been with her share of women before the accident with the medallion. What would it be like to lay where those other girls had and feel her own cock inside her pussy? To feel her own hands caressing the unusual new ornaments of her breasts?
James shook her head, trying to dispel the images, and blamed Jill's libido for the momentary weakness. She had to remember all of this was solely a means to an end. She had to play the game smarter than she had with Matt. Then she had given up the goods with no more than a promise of recompensation. This time she would demand proof, though it was probably a good idea to give him some sugar with his pill.
Play to his, no, her vanity, James thought, her twisted narcisim. Slowly, deliberately drawing it out, James ran a hand through her hair, down the side of her face, cupped one breast, hefting it and letting it fall, fingers tracing the curve of her hip and then the inside of one thigh. When she spoke she made her voice whsipery, quivering with both fear and desire, "Anything. Anything you want."
Not-James reached out to touch the breast James had so recently proferred. James twisted away, briefly exposing the lying promise of her new tattoo, until she was at the other end of the futon. She made her voice hurt, confused, little-girl-lost, "But only if I can trust you. I need to know that you still have it. That it still works."
"Oh, it works," Not-James began to massage hhis crotch and grinned.
"Not that," James deliberately glanced at the tent in his pants and looked away as if frightened, "I know that works. I want to know the other works."
"I won't change you back," Not-James said, a dull thrum of anger beginning to underline the words, "Not until I get what I want. Not until you call me master."
"I know," James said meekly, though she didn't understand why. What had she ever done to Jill to deserve this? Best not to wonder for now. She had him going. Eyes imploring, leaning closer, using her arms to form some distracting, judgement-impairing cleavage, "I just want to see it, James. Please?"
"Fine," Not-James sighed, tearing his eyes away from her flawless breasts, "but then it's time to put up or shut up."
