Daughter?
No, the ages didn't work out right.
Friend?
No. That wouldn't dig deep enough.
Sister?
Tempting... very tempting. The way August Larsen had gone after Vic after Vic had murdered his brother, family clearly meant a lot to Larsen. But would it be the same for Larsen to be murdered by his sister as it would be for him to see a sibling murdered? Vic wasn't sure the two would have quite the same emotional impact.
Vic frowned at the notebook in his hand. There had to be a perfect way to do in August Larsen, but even though Vic now had a full catalogue of Larsen's life in his head (thanks to the wishing stone), Vic just couldn't settle on that perfect, beautiful plan that he was sure was out there. He considered putting Larsen's murder off for a couple of days, to give himself a chance to clear his head; after all, it had been a hectic day to say the least. And besides, he'd just wished himself up a whole drawer full of kinky lingerie, like the sexy number he was wearing right now. He was eager to have a few hours in front of the mirror.
Stretching, Vic put aside his notebook and turned on Amy's television. The Johnsons weren't exactly rich--though Vic was considering using the stone to change that--but they were at least comfortale enough that Amy's parents could afford to provide her a television for her bedroom, which made them wealthier than Vic's own parents had been. Amy's room was pretty nice, actually... spacious, well-decorated, closet full of clothes, posters of male heartthrobs that Vic didn't recognize adorning the walls, window overlooking the pool in the backyard... it was everything a teenage girl might want. And though it didn't suit Vic's personal tastes, it was still a pretty sweet deal he had inherited from the real Amy. This was the quiet suburban life that he'd dreamed of as a child, that he'd envied as an adult. The life his own fucked-up circumstances had stolen from him.
The news was on television, and it looked like they were still covering the swaps. No surprise there; that was all that had been on TV all day. Right now there was some pregnant bitch on screen, standing on what looked like the steps of City Hall... Vic remembered those steps well, from when he had walked down them five years ago after being sentenced to death. The words "Press Conference" were superimposed on the top of the screen, and at the bottom, Vic saw the name "Jeff Rose". Vic's attention settled on the words the woman was speaking.
"...like to assure the citizens of this good city that the mayor's office is working closely with both the state and federal governments to restore order to our town. And moreover, we have a full team of scientists investigating the cause and nature of the epidemic of body-swapping that has swept over us. Although the scientists are not prepared to release a statement at this time, we are confident that they will be able to halt the swaps and, given enough time, restore all of us to our original bodies."
Vic's pulse skipped. Return to his original body? To prison, to life as a death row inmate? He refused to go back. He couldn't allow that. He wouldn't. And with his wishing stone, he didn't have to...
Vic looked down at his body, at his hairy, lanky body, clad scantily in the sluttiest lingerie he'd ever seen. He raised his eyes, let them fall over the contents of his bedroom. He looked at the pink bedsheets, at the stuffed horses arranged on one of the shelves, at the photographs of Amy and her family, of Amy and her friends. He looked at the closet full of dresses, at the high-heeled shoes he'd taken off half an hour ago. At last his gaze settled on the mirror, on his curvy young reflection, on the sweet little redhead everyone else saw when they looked at him. Could he really live the rest of his life as a girl? As this girl? Could he live his life as a woman, grow old as a woman? Could he put up with the boys, with the clothing, with the catcalls and the discrimination? Could he live with seeing this girl's reflection every time he looked in the mirror? Could he spend every moment of every day of the rest of his life as Amy Johnson?
But there really wasn't any other way, was there? There wasn't any choice at all. This wasn't the life he would have chosen for himself, but being a girl on the outside was infinitely better than being a man in prison. Any life was better than life on death row. And so, with a sigh, he picked up his wishing stone and said, in a gravelly voice that didn't suit the girl he saw mouthing his words in the mirror, "I wish these swaps were permanent and irreversible, and that there was no way, magical or scientific, for people to return to their original bodies."
Vic's eyes jerked away from the stone, as they always did after a wish... and then he turned his eyes back to the mirror and stared a long time at the feminine figure he'd condemned himself to a lifetime of living inside.
Jon tugged at the knots a few times. They felt secure. Jon knew how to tie a good knot, but with a man as dangerous as the man who had held the magic shop hostage, he couldn't be too careful. Now the man--still unconscious--was tied tightly to the chair to which Jon had found himself tied a few minutes before. He would be secure there for the moment, but Jon wasn't sure how long they could hold the man here.
Rising to his feet, Jon frowned down at the skirt and halter top he was wearing... the outfit the man in the chair had been wearing a few moments before. He was getting pretty tired of being dressed like a girl. Although he was starting to get used to women's clothing, having been in more female forms than he could count at this point, he didn't particularly enjoy it. He wanted to return to his own body, or at the very least his own gender... but until he could find Amy Johnson, and in turn his wishing stone, Jon supposed he was going to have to put up with the hassles of skirts and brassieres and heels every other jump or so. At least for now Jon was wearing comfortable flip-flops... a blessing after some of the more awful footwear he'd worn that afternoon.
His eyes swept the room, and fell again on the large ornate mirror sitting along one wall, and on the girl whose form Jon was currently borrowing. She was a teenage girl, Jon's age or thereabout. She was, in a word, hot, with pleasant curves and a slender body. Her clothing suited her well, showing a lot of leg and a pleasant amount of cleavage. Her face was pretty and her hair was long and sleek and well-groomed. Hers were not the subtle, wholesome charms of Meagan, the girl he had been that morning. This girl was sexy, period, and Jon felt himself stirring like any teenage boy might as he stared at himself in the mirror. From her clothes, her good looks, her sheer blondeness and pinkness, this girl looked like she would have fit in perfectly with Sarah McMillan and her friends... but she didn't look familiar, so perhaps she had gone to a different school.
Behind his own reflection, Jon could see several other strangers reflected... Karyn, Zoe, Rachel, and the man in the chair, each of whom was in an unfamiliar form. His attention focused in particular on the African-American woman dressed in an unmistakably skimpy outfit and a pair of monster stiletto heels. This woman was Karyn, dressed in clothing that his best friend would never ever voluntarily wear. The woman in the mirror had the body for her clothes; she was attractive and voluptuous, with breasts a little larger even than Karyn's magically conjured breasts. From her body language and the awkward way she was stumbling around in her shoes, though, Jon knew how uncomfortable Karyn was in her outfit, and Jon guessed that Karyn was more than eager for their next jump.
Another of the mirrored figures walked gingerly up behind Jon, a little uncertain. In the mirror, the woman who had approached him appeared to be in her mid-thirties, and she was wearing one of the most conservative outfits Jon had ever seen: she had on an ankle-length skirt and a high-necked blouse, and her hair--brown, with a few streaks of grey beginning to show--was pulled into a tight bun. She looked almost like something out of a Victorian novel. Placing a hand on Jon's bare shoulder, the woman said, in a voice he recognized instantly, "Jon? Is that really you?"
Jon turned and looked at his sister Zoe, who looked nearly as out of place in her clothing as Karyn did in hers, maybe even as Jon did in his. This wasn't the first time Jon had seen Zoe outside her goth clothing, of course; it hadn't been so very many years since Zoe had dressed like any normal Hannah Montana-worshipping preteen. And their mom still made Zoe wear a nice, normal dress when they went to church at Easter and Christmas (despite Zoe's protests that she wasn't a Christian). Still, seeing Zoe with her original sandy hair color, wearing an outfit that was far too conservative for a thirty-something woman, much less a teenager, when he had been so accustomed to her dressing in leather and lace, and in black black black... it was strange.
"Jon?" Zoe asked again.
"Yeah," Jon said. "It's me."
They looked at each other for a moment, taking in each other's improbable outfits, and then Zoe leaned in and gave Jon an awkward hug. That surprised Jon almost as much as Zoe's outfit had; it had been a long time since Zoe had hugged anyone in her family. Putting his arms around her, Jon hugged his sister back.
As she pulled out of the hug, Zoe looked up at Jon with eyes that lacked the cynicism and anger she'd been holding onto for a long time, and Jon realized for the first time how much the day must have affected Zoe. Changed her, perhaps. Humbled her. Biting her lip, Zoe said, "I'm glad you're okay, Jon. I was... I was worried."
"I'm glad you're safe, too, Zo," Jon said.
"Have you seen Mom?" Zoe asked. "I've talked to Mikey, but..."
"Mom's safe," Jon said. "She jumped into, um... into a stripper, actually. But she's okay. She was worried about us, too."
Zoe looked Jon over a moment longer... then a sly slime crept onto her face. "Look at you, sis. Should we start calling you Jenny now?" She laughed, and Jon knew the old Zoe wasn't all gone. Her laughter trailed off as Jon frowned at her. "Sorry, Jon... couldn't resist. But seriously... it's so weird picturing you in those clothes. It's been weird when I've been a boy today... but it must be even weirder for you, huh?"
"Well, look at you," Jon said, waving a hand at Zoe's outfit. "I never in a million years thought I'd see you dressed like this." Zoe looked down at her clothing and blushed. "You do look good with your original hair color, though. You should keep it undyed... if we ever manage to get back to our bodies, that is..."
Zoe's expression shifted suddenly from embarassment to a surprised frown. "Wait... you can see my hair? How the hell can you see what I look like?"
Before Jon could respond, he heard another voice behind him shout, "Jon-girl!" He turned and saw Karyn behind him. Jon looked at her in surprise... then his eyes drifted down to her substantial cleavage. Karyn blushed and folded her arms over her chest. "Jon," she said, "shouldn't we have jumped by now?"
Jon frowned. "How long has it been?"
"I don't know," Karyn said. "Long enough. Trust me, my feet are telling me that we'v'e been in these bodies a long time." She scowled down at her shoes, then looked back up a Jon. "We should have jumped by now, Jon."
"Rachel," Jon said, turning in the direction of Zoe's friend, who was currently worrying over a stack of partially-burned books arrayed on the back table. "Karyn and I should have jumped out of here by now, but we haven't. Do you know why we're still here? Could it have anything to do with the spell you cast? The one that bumped us into each other's bodies?"
Rachel looked up from her books and studied Jon and Karyn for a moment. "No, my spell shouldn't have kept you from jumping. It simply scrambled the latent magic binding our physical and metaphysical auras together, which caused us all to switch at random. It shouldn't have kept you two from jumping again. But..." She walked up to Jon, and looked at him and Karyn very closely. "When you two first jumped in, there was a kind of... static in your auras. A certain restless energy. Zoe had it too, when she ran into the store this afternoon, before I bound her to myself. Eventually the restlessness in her aura settled down... and it appears to have settled down in you two, as well. It was there when you jumped in; it was there after we all switched; it was there up until a few minutes ago. But it's gone now."
"What does that mean?" Karyn asked.
"Something has changed," Rachel said. "And if I'm correct, I think it means that the two of you have stopped jumping from body to body."
Jon's eyes widened. "So that means..."
"Get used to those bodies, kids," Rachel said. "You're going to keep them until we can restore everyone to their proper selves."
Jon and Karyn looked at each other in surprise, and then, as one, they turned to face the mirror. Jon stared at their new reflections. Two sexy, scantily-clad young women, one in her teens and one in her twenties. These were not the bodies either of them would have chosen. Jon didn't want to be a girl. It was too weird, too disorienting, too awkward, too embarassing. And Karyn... surely she wouldn't mind being a woman, unless her discoveries about herself that day ran far deeper than Jon realized. But Karyn liked flying under the radar, liked being able to hide her sexuality. She had hated the breasts she had wished up for herself. And he imagined that she would be even more wary of male attention now that she had come to terms with her sexuality. But the body she was in now... it positively screamed sex.
And yet, these were the bodies they were stuck with. And Jon in particular didn't have much right to complain. People all over town had switched bodies, and some people surely had it worse than he did... and it was all his fault. Life as a woman was the least that karma could do to him.
Suddenly he chuckled wryly. He had begun the day as a blonde girl in a skirt and a pink top. Then he had spent several hours hopping randomly across town, from life to life to life, from gender to gender, from situation to situation, only to end up as... a blonde firl in a skirt and a pink top. Kind of a lateral move, wasn't it? As much as the situation sucked, he couldn't help but see the irony in it.
With a weary sigh, Jon turned from the mirror. Enough moping. For the first time in several hours, he had some control over his situation. He could act without worrying about when he was going to jump off to the next life. That gave him a freedom he hadn't had all day.
It was time to get to work.
