Sonia grimaced to herself as she finally neared her house after the long walk from the Gibson home, severely missing the use of her Lamborghini. Unfortunately, while Jon did have his license, he didn't have a car on of his own, which meant Sonia was stuck walking or relying on rides from Jon's mom to get places. She could have gotten a ride after school with Jon in her old body, but that would have likely raised suspicion with Karyn, so she'd been forced to walk back first to the Gibsons before heading over to meet with her swap partner.
Her swap partner that seemed to be really enjoying his role as the new Sonia, if his performance in class was anything to go on. He'd surprised her on day one with how much effort he'd put into his impersonation, and that continued today, with the apparent Ms. Esposito easily leading the class through their physicality exercises, including demonstrating for some of the new girls how to properly walk in a feminine manner, sashaying his hips like he'd had them all his life. On the one hand she was proud of her student for putting the work in, but on the other it was irksome to be reduced to the student in a class she was supposed to teach.
What Sonia didn't know was that prior to Jon's wish a few days prior, she hadn't been the Swap Class teacher as the whole program only retroactively sprung into existence following the wish. So, while she had memories of being the teacher for several years and being totally on board with the class and its mission, those thoughts occasionally conflicted with her base personality, ie, natural jealousy at seeing someone else usurp her position. It wasn't a major cognitive dissonance, but it did fuel her low-key annoyance at seeing Jon fall so happily into her old life.
Sonia had the odd feeling of ringing her own doorbell and waited a moment before Jon opened it, smiling as he said, "Welcome Jon, me casa es su casa."
Sonia chuckled at the quip as she stepped inside, "I see your Spanish is progressing."
Jon laughed as he closed the door behind her. "Well, I have your nerual pathways to thank, but it is coming along nicely. I felt a lot more confident teaching my older students today, that's for sure. How were your classes?"
"Oh, fine," Sonia deflected a bit. In truth her classes were a mixture of boring and irritating; a lot of the course work was stuff she already knew, and it was a bit infuriating to have her colleagues treat her like a kid, but she'd soldiered on. Still, she thought it was a good example of why the Swap Class swaps were usually between fellow students. "Now, I think you had some questions?"
Across the country, at the prestigious Swap Institute, Dr. Stacy Morgan was reviewing the reports of this year's Swap Class initialization. The Institute was responsible for the technology that made the class possible and in her role as Senior Swap Class Administrator, Dr. Morgan ultimately had oversight on all of the classes going on across the country. Their was something of a symbiotic relationship between the Swap Class Program and the Institute, as the Institute provided technology and funding, while the various Swap Classes around the country provided a large pool of data for the Institute to study.
At only 27, the pretty brunette Dr. Morgan might seem young to be in charge of such a large program, but it had been the last wish of her departed mentor Dr. Gustavson that she succeed him, and all of her colleagues could admit she took to running the department like she'd been doing it for years. Stacy tucked a long strand of hair behind her ear as she read through the reports; she didn't personally review every single swap made in the over 100 classes throughout the country, but she did have her assistants flag whenever something interesting happened and apparently it had in Lakeview.
It seemed the local teacher, a Mrs. Esposito-Kildare, had made a miscalculation on the numbers and needed to sub in as a partner for one of her students. That in of itself was unusual but had certainly happened before, it was the protocol after all. What made it interesting was that according to her personnel file, Sonia had filed for tentative parental leave for the following semester, hoping to get pregnant in the next couple of months. That wasn't a problem in of itself, except for the fact that the Swap machines weren't cleared to be used on pregnant women.
Stacy's lips curled into a smile. She could of course alert the teacher to this fact and either ask her to delay her pregnancy or have the pair swap back early, but she elected to keep quiet until later. Dr. Morgan often butted heads with the ethics board at the Institute regarding the rules of Swap Class, and this little error would give her the chance to collect data on a longer swap and the effects of hormones on an exchanged mind. Yes, she'd just have to 'forget' about this little wrinkle for the moment.
Blissfully unaware of the machinations going on at the Institute, Jon was winding down her study session with Sonia, as it was growing dark and the apparent Jon would be needing to head home. It had been a whirlwind session, starting with a thorough house tour to make sure Jon knew where everything was and wouldn't be caught out of sorts once Bella returned. Then there had been a crash course on cooking, covering the basics and giving Jon the homework of reading through Sonia's cookbooks; the Esposito-Kildares didn't always have homecooked meals, but Sonia liked cooking for her wife and vise versa and it would be out of character for Jon to suddenly start insisting on going out more than usual.
Jon had been glad for her muscle memory there, as she was pretty sure it was the only reason she didn't end the lesson covered in flour. They'd made fajitas, and Jon had needed to suppress a giggle at Sonia desperately going for the milk when the former teacher discovered the dish was too spicy for her new tastebuds. Jon on the otherhand found it delicious.
After that had been a rather awkward but frank discussion of Sonia's love life, everything from preferred positions to how to wear a strap-on. Neither of them had been very comfortable during that talk, but Jon knew it was going to be necessary for her to fully become Sonia in bed, and was glad for the information. Sonia had also asked Jon a bit about her crush on Karyn, which Jon had expanded on as much as she could. It was both weird to talk about her nebulous sort of pining she did for her best friend, and startling to realize how distant that crush now seemed.
A very brief time had been spent talking about clothes and so on, since Jon had picked things up pretty quickly on that end. It was mostly just pointing out things that had special significance, like the dress Sonia wore on her first date with Bella, or the earrings she'd gotten for their last anniversary. They'd also spent a little time on makeup, since Jon had largely been relying on internet tutorials, talking her through Sonia's specific products.
After that it had largely been like a cram session for any class Jon had had in the past, except instead of memorizing flashcards about the scientific method, she was trying to commit details of Sonia's life to memory. The main focus was on details of her relationship with Bella, key dates like their anniversary, birthdays, etc, pet names, important figures in their lives and on and on. Jon felt like she was assimilating it very quickly, in some ways it felt more like remembering than learning, but there was so much information that she had to focus intently not to be overwhelmed. They'd also gone over Sonia's relationship with her sister and a few key things from childhood, but it didn't get as much focus as her marital bond. While Sonia had obviously known her sister much longer, she didn't live with her, and Jon would only need to bluff through one lunch in the near future.
It was a lot of information, and Jon was very grateful Sonia had written a lot of it down in a new notebook for her to study over the next couple of days. That said, while it was going to be a lot of work, she was actually relishing it. Being Sonia had been just as fun the second day as the first, and she found herself excited for the challenge of making her impersonation as flawless as it could be.
